I slide to the wall beside the door and lean up against it, letting my arms relax at my side. My brain is on overload, trying to figure out this situation. Without yelling at me or anything, he just came after me—like he’d been waiting for me to come into the backyard. And he looks so sick. I’ve never seen anyone alive, who looked so…dead.
I notice the window near the bed that leads to the backyard. Making my way over, I pull back the curtain and see Mom and Sammy on the back steps. They are trying to get into the house, but neither of them have their hands anywhere near the door knob. Clawing and biting at the door, their faces are encrusted with the oily mess that Sammy was playing with on the ground. As my eyes drift downward at their clothes, the oily sludge is
all over them and changes color from a dark, tarlike hue to a reddish one.
Oh god…it’s blood!
My eyes move to the pool of gunk Sammy had been rubbing his hands in. As the emerging sun over the neighbor’s roof reflects on the sidewalk, the fluid has a red tint to it. It is blood.
What’s wrong with all of them? Why do they have blood all over their faces and clothes?
“What the hell is going on?” I say aloud.
Thundering knocks and punts coming from outside the bedroom door fill my heart with fear. I flinch so hard, I feel my knees weaken. The frightful sounds rock the door back and forth with such force that it looks as if the door is made of liquid. I can hear the cheap wood giving way with each powerful whack to it. My dad’s hands and head bust through the hollow-cored door.
I sidestep away from the window, falling over the bed. Dad charges through the half broken door toward me with fury and a speed like I’ve never seen. I spring from the bed and fire the first shot. The bullet takes flight from the barrel and strikes him in the left shoulder. He barely reacts, only a slight jolt in the shoulder area, then he stumbles over the bed.
His mouth hangs open, caked in his darkened blood. A black tongue and decayed-looking teeth fill his mouth. His skin is paler than usual and black veins web his face and arms. The whites of his eyes are filled with black nothingness. I do not know this creature standing before me, wearing my dad's body.
I move around the foot of the bed trying to get a good target on his chest but he’s moving too fast. My dad charges toward me, and in that moment, I find my shot. With a steady breath, I aim and pull the trigger. The bullet smashes into the left side of his chest, but it has little effect on this monster. He tackles me to the ground. His teeth look and stink as if they are rotting chicken as he repeatedly snaps his gnarly mouth near my face. I try to push him off me, and that’s when he sinks his nasty teeth into my wrist, right down to the bone.
DISCOVERY
The searing pain from the bite on my wrist, caused by my dad’s disgusting teeth, is far worse than any other pain he has inflicted upon me over the years. What’s worse—is that his mouth still is latched onto my wrist like a leech to flesh. He holds my wrist in his mouth, digging his repulsive teeth deeper into my skin and tissue.
“Get off!” I scream, extending my free hand for the gun that I dropped when he tackled me.
Dad is straddling my torso, snarling as blood drools from his lips onto my shirt. The gun is just out of my reach. Stretching my arm as far as I can, my fingertips stroke the cold, metal tip of the revolver. He yanks his head back, and I can feel my flesh on my wrist beginning to tear. I clutch the barrel of the gun and whack the handle at his face. Smacking at his nose and eyes as hard as I can, I feel like my life is at stake. He finally releases his bite, seeming slightly distracted by the blows to his face.
I seize the opportunity to buck him off me and scramble to my feet. Racing into my room, with him following right behind, I run inside and around my bed. I knock down my radio, laundry pile and art supplies in his path, and then rush back toward the door. His legs get tangled in the radio chord and he is tripped up by about five soda cans and other crap all over my floor. He tumbles hard to the ground. Sprinting out of the room, I shut the door and back away from it. I hold my breath and listen, but he’s not trying get out. Muffled noises resonate from within my room, but it doesn’t sound like Dad is anywhere near the door.
I look down at my injured wrist. It burns with a painful fiery sensation like I’ve never felt before. I feel like he bit my wrist and poured hot lava into my bloodstream. The stinging pain throbs at the site of the injury, and climbs up my arm, past my elbow.
I tiptoe back into my parents’ room and look out the water-stained window again. Mom and Sammy are still gnawing at the door like vengeful puppies left in the yard alone. I don’t understand why they don’t grab the doorknob and open it. It’s like they forgot how to open the door. Their skin is pale with black veins all over, like Dad’s. And why do they all have black-colored eyes?
While I try to grasp what could be wrong with them all, I can’t believe that Dad took two bullets and didn’t even feel it. Finally, after all this time, I drew up the courage to put a bullet—make that two—into the king of mean and it didn’t even slow him down. I can hear Dad starting to growl and pound on the walls in my room. I should be as quiet as I can. Don’t want to catch his attention again.
While looking out the window, I notice something on Sammy’s neck. Right in the front of his throat, is a gash. A gaping hole in his neck, as if a chunk of his neck is gone. It’s hard to see it clearly amidst the blood coated on his throat. I scan my mom, but her neck is intact, and so are her arms. I notice her left slipper is doused in blood, while the right one is only dirty. I watch as she shuffles near the door. Bending down, she brings her face near the doorknob and her nightgown lifts just enough for me to see, what looks like, a bite mark on her ankle.
It hits me in the face like a backhand from Dad. They all have some gross sickness. Mom and Sammy both have bites. I don’t know if Dad has one, but he bit me. He has slapped me, thrown stuff at me, and whipped me with the belt, but he’s never tried to bite me before. And normally, he’s yelling at me, teaching me, what I did wrong—when he’s kicking the crap out of me. But this time, when he came after me, he didn’t say a word. It has to be a sickness that has changed them into blood-thirsty monsters.
The sickness is what’s wrong with them. And now, I’m pretty sure, I’m going to get sick too. Looking down at my wrist, I can’t help but cry. This whole situation sucks—big time. And even though my family isn’t exactly the Brady’s, they’re still my family. What am I supposed to do now?
STONE-HEARTED
With heat drifting from every pore on my skin, I feel as though fire is coursing through my veins. The venom is making its way from the wound into my bloodstream, saturating the muscle and flooding my arteries, as though it’s a snakebite. Looking at the nasty wound, it’s a bite, but not from a snake. I wish. The bite on my outer wrist has been made by something much more sinister than a snake—by someone who was supposed take care of me, my dear, ole-dad. Even so, it has been a long time since I’ve been Daddy’s little girl.
Having deep grooves in the exposed tissue, the teeth marks are set deep beneath the surface of my skin. The flesh surrounding the gash is tomato red, feeling hot to the touch. The broken skin appears as if it is charring before my eyes.
I pull back the drapes in the living room window to peek out at the front yard. The chaotic scene of people scrambling in yards and in the street is disappointing, but not surprising. After discovering that my entire family had the sickness, I’d only hoped that it wasn’t part of a bigger problem.
The pounding is becoming nearly unbearable. After fiendishly fighting off my dad, I had managed to lock him in my bedroom. He was quiet at first, but I think he can hear me walking on this old, creaky, wood flooring.
Thrashing and pounding on the walls, he growls and bays as though he is calling for help in his new tongue.
I head into the laundry room, off the kitchen and snatch a dirty rag off the top of the laundry basket, near the dryer. I wrap it around my wrist securing it with the
tightest knot I can tie—using my good hand and teeth. The grime on the dirty rag is no bother to me at this point. A sickness much more powerful than whatever bacteria or filth is on the rag—is already ravaging my body. Pulling a folded, black hoodie from atop the dryer, I slide it over my head, concealing the wounded wrist beneath, and then I head back into the living room.
I tap the disintegrating floor planks with my foot until I find the one that sounds hollow. Moving the rusty coffee table and lifting the board, I kneel down and pull out my dad’s shotgun and its coiled strap. One of three guns, he has, not-so-well hidden in the house. And there’s no way I’m going back down the hall for the revolver. I load the weapon. Standing up, I steal one last glance back toward my bedroom, eyeing the name placard hanging from the door--Monte. Sammy got a hold of it a few years back and scribbled it black with permanent marker. I had tossed it out, but then fished it from the trash bin and repainted it. Now, nothing is left for me in this house. I take one last look around, before walking out the front door.
Pausing momentarily on my front porch, the view out here is like a riot scene from the news. About twenty people with the sickness are in the road, on neighboring lawns and chasing after speeding cars.
I don’t recognize most of these people from the neighborhood, but Emma Sampson, Mr. Hilt, even the paperboy, Javier—all have the sickness. The sick ones all have the same posturing, pale skin and dark veins. Some are shuffling along slowly, while others bolt after their victims. They’re monsters like my dad, chasing down men, ladies and little kids and attacking them like starving beasts.
Emma has caught up with Manuel Rodriguez—a boy she’s had a crush on for the last six months—and has tackled him to the ground. He’s fighting her back, kicking and socking her with the bottom of his fist. She seems as though she feels no pain and whips her head down at his arm. Manuel is wailing in pain as Emma rips a mouthful of his flesh with her teeth. She is soon joined by some unfamiliar faces, all making a meal out of poor Manuel.
Mr. Hilt is in his sixties and has lived in this neighborhood since before I was born. He and two others crouch over a little boy, no older than Sammy. They are attacking the kid, burying their faces in his chest and stomach like raging animals. The kid is screaming and smacking Mr. Hilt in the head. They are eating him alive.
And Javier, still has his newspaper bag on his shoulders, while chasing down an old man. As he catches up to the white-haired man, newspapers are bouncing out of the front and back of his bag, before he and the senior take a tumble to the ground.
I wick a tear from my cheek and look away. It’s unbelievable that my street has gone to crap so fast, that all these people could have the sickness. I don’t understand what happened to make all these people sick. What kind of sickness could be making these people kill each other and then…eat each other? The gory scenes are too gruesome for me to let them sink in. I feel as though I need to be stone-hearted right now.
Stone-hearted, is how I make myself feel when Dad’s is on a rampage. I just shut down every bit of emotion, make myself feel nothing, like my heart is made of stone. I won’t let myself feel sadness or pain—I tell myself that I just have to survive. And that is what I need to do right now. I can’t do anything here—for any of these people—without having all of the sick ones coming after me. Right now, I have to survive. I have to be stone-hearted.
“I’m outta here,” I say out loud to nobody.
MS. ANDREWS
I sneak off my porch to the side walkway of the house. Clipping the strap on the shotgun, I sling it over my shoulder. My bitten wrist stings so bad that I want to scream out in pain, but I don’t want to risk the sick ones noticing my presence. The air is hot and thin outside. So much for Fall. Technically, the start of autumn is two weeks away, but it doesn’t feel like this heat will be leaving anytime soon. I can hear my dad still pounding on the walls in my room. He sounds like a trapped animal, grunting and growling.
I yank my little brother’s dirt bike from its resting spot, against the house. A rebel teardrop skids down my cheek, as I hop on. Flicking on the start button, I thrust my foot down on the kick start pedal. It whines but doesn’t start. I try again, thinking to myself, that Dad was supposed to fix this stupid bike for Sammy, like ages ago. Three more tries and still no life in the bike, although my middle-aged neighbor has now taken notice of me.
Ms. Andrews, as I know her, is a thick, stubby woman, who loves to bake goodies and give them away to the neighbors—and obviously keep a few for herself. But today, Ms. Andrews has no goodies in hand and no intention of giving anything away except for her disgusting sickness. Nearly everyone I’ve seen in the last half hour is sick with whatever’s going around. As Ms. Andrews topples over the white picket fence—separating our yards, her face looks like all the others I’ve seen so far. The whites of her eyes are as black as her tongue. Her once creamy looking complexion is pale and dry, with her black veins road-mapping her vile skin. I pull the shotgun off my shoulder and aim it at the woman. With no fear of the gun, Ms. Andrews staggers forward.
My panicked breathing becomes shallow as I pump the gun. My sixteen year old hands tremble as the woman approaches, shambling toward me. I drop the dirt bike and step away from it. With all that I have, I try to muster the courage to pull the trigger. Knowing that Ms. Andrews is no longer the sweet lady next door, and knowing that I will be killed by this woman if I don’t pull the trigger, I simply can’t bring myself to do it.
This is different, not like with Dad. I daydreamt for years about ridding myself of him. But Ms. Andrews has always been kind to my brother and me. Even with her sickness, I just can’t hurt this lady.
Stepping backward as Ms. Andrews shuffles forward, my heel hits a lip on the walkway. I try to catch myself, but it’s too late. My body tenses up as I fall, my elbow hitting the ground first. Then my tailbone slams onto the hard concrete, followed by my head and an echoing gunshot.
I grope myself, anxiously feeling for any wounds. A tiny wave of relief washes over me, as I feel none, but it soon gives way to the pain in my head. My skull feels like it cracked open from that fall. I lift my head, rubbing the spot that hit the pavement. I don’t feel any blood or tears on my scalp.
My eyes drift to Ms. Andrews. Her body is flat on the ground, motionless. I look down at the shotgun and then once more to Ms. Andrews. The thought of her biting me to death wasn’t enough to get me to pull the trigger, but the thought of falling three feet was?
I half expect my neighbor to get back up, as I slowly rise to my feet. Swinging the shogun over my shoulder, I let my eyes wander toward Ms. Andrews’ head. The shot hit her in the face, and now, she is nearly unrecognizable. Her head is a mound of blood, exposed flesh and bone. My stomach rolls, as guilt burns up my throat. Turning away, I puke on the ground beside her. I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my hoodie, while my nose and throat burn in agony.
My bitten wrist—and the whole arm, actually—feels like it’s on fire. I killed a sweet, old lady. My family, friends and neighbors have turned into cannibals. I don’t know if I should lie down and give up or try to go somewhere. But where? Of all the ones with the sickness I’ve seen so far—none of them have said a word. There must be something wrong with their brains. That would explain why Mom and Sammy couldn’t get into the house from the back door, and why Dad was so easily trapped in my room. Easily, I look down at my wrist, not that easily.
It doesn’t matter where I go. I have to survive. To survive, I have to leave. I can figure out where to go later. Anywhere but this house. I’ve spent too much time being unhappy at this house and I’d rather saw off my own arm with a butter knife, than to spend my last moments on earth here.
Picking up the dirt bike again, I thrust my foot on the petal, using it as an outlet for my frustration and panic. It doesn’t start. Grumbles and roars echo through the side yard from the sickened ones nearby. I know it’s because of the sound, the sound of the gunfire. That shot was probably heard for block
s.
While I know that it won’t be long before I become one of them, I’m not ready to give up. This sickness is going to take me kicking and screaming. I won’t make it easy.
I thrust my foot once more on the dirt bike with rebellious force. It whines to life at last. Opening the throttle, I whiz past Ms. Andrew’s lifeless corpse and around the side of the house. I spot a group, of nearly fifteen on my front lawn, as quickly as they see me. I swerve out, around the gathering crowd. The eerie sound of fingernails scraping the bike’s rear fender sends a rush up my spine, as I narrowly escape the group's clutches. It’s a few seconds, before I look back. Now, the group is a fair distance behind me. But that doesn’t stop them from sprinting and shuffling after my exhaust fumes.
SAFE HOME
As I make my way through the next few blocks, I realize that the sickness is not exclusive to my street. On the next block, the Taco Shell Taqueria and three nearby houses are flaming infernos. Abandoned and wrecked cars and trucks are all around me for the next two blocks. Bodies pepper the pavement, some staying still, while others are stirring back to consciousness. There is so much blood on nearly everything. It looks as if blood has rained from the sky.
Riding through the neighborhood, the dirt bike putters along. I pass a road that has a little less activity. There are only a few of the sick people roaming about. To my surprise, the next block up has even fewer people. I feel lightly dusted with relief, but still have my guard up.
I’m still in the crappy part of town, but I can’t have it all. I cross the next intersection and see a man, two streets down. He’s chugging a forty from the Quick Time Liquor store.
My dad drinks those all the time, and it’s the only liquor store for seven blocks. That chunky guy guzzling the forty didn’t go that far to get his morning drink on. With the exception of the beer, he looks a little like my Mom’s half-brother, Uncle Victor. I hope he is as kind as my uncle, but I’ve never met anyone kind who drank beer so early in the morning. Approaching the man, I slow down. He is not the ideal person to talk to, but at least he isn’t like all the cannibals I’ve seen so far.
Darlings of Decay Page 76