A deep breath and a few steps later, Charlie was at the front door. The sun was already hanging low in the sky. Not only had he slept for two days, he had slept through most of this one. The doorbell brought no answer. He opened the screen door and tried the doorknob. It opened. Once inside, the house seemed unnaturally empty. The living room was in disarray. Furniture had been overturned; potted plants were smashed against walls. “Serena!” There was no reply. “David?” He was hoping David would answer, but nothing. He drew his .38 revolver from its holster. He was standing near the front door at one end of the living room and he could see all the way through to the kitchen. The door that led to the backyard from the kitchen was hanging open on one hinge and the jamb was splintered and broken as though it had been kicked in. A quick sweep of the house found nothing. He prayed that by some miracle he would find them playing in the backyard, but that was also a fruitless search. He walked through the kitchen one more time and heard a creak from the basement door. He stopped in his tracks.
The basement door was open just an inch or two. He couldn’t see anyone waiting behind it, but it was odd that it would be open at all. Serena had been adamant about it staying closed ever since David had fallen down the stairs at two years old.
Charlie went to the door and nudged it open with his foot while keeping the gun trained on the opening. The stairs were vacant. When he tried to flip on the light that lit the staircase, nothing happened. Of course, the light would be burnt out. He thought. Lucky me.
He crept down the stairs into the gloomy half-light of the basement. Something had been stuffed into each of the window wells so very little light seeped into the basement. He noticed the smell before he saw any movement. A noxious mix of feces and blood invaded his nostrils. He was reaching up to plug his nose with one hand when someone tackled him from the side, sending his gun spiraling into the darkness.
Charlie stumbled to his left a few feet and slammed into a heavy workbench littered with tools. His ribs took the brunt of the collision as the edge of the bench drove up into his side and forced an involuntary cry of pain from his lips.
His attacker’s arms tightened around Charlie’s torso while he used elbow strikes to fend off the assailant, his left arm frantically passing from tool to tool on the workbench, looking for something useful. Few of the elbows connected, but they were enough to keep his attacker busy until he found the hammer. His left arm swung around in a mighty arc, loosing some of its effectiveness as it glanced off the top of the attacker’s skull, but still enough to cause them to lose their grip and stagger back a few feet. Charlie took the opening and placed a powerful front kick to the person’s midsection. The force of the blow thrust them back, into the bare cinder block wall. The attacker emitted a bloodcurdling scream and rushed at Charlie. He dove out of the way while swinging the claw end of the hammer blindly in the direction of the figure coming at him. He felt the hammer connect with a wet thud and tear itself from his grip as it embedded itself deep in flesh.
Charlie fell to the ground and his hand bumped something cold and hard in the dark. His gun. He lifted it just in time to see the slightly darker shadow of his assailant; probably a man, judging by the size, and with the handle of the deeply sunken hammer sticking comically from the side of his head. The dark figure raised his arms and staggered towards Charlie again. Charlie pulled off three quick rounds, aimed at the man’s chest and the attacker fell to the ground.
Charlie got to his feet, breathing heavily and rubbing at his aching side. He felt around in the air for the string to the hanging light that he knew hovered over Al’s workbench. He fumbled to grasp the string in the darkness for a moment then gave it a hefty jerk that clicked the light on overhead.
To his horror, the face of his attacker was all too familiar. It was Al. The claw end of the hammer was stuck deep in his temple and his shirt was darkening with blood from the bullet holes in his chest.
“No! Al!” Charlie cried out. He dropped to Al’s side and scooped his head up into his lap. “Hold on, Buddy. We’ll get you some help!” Charlie groped around in his pocket for his phone. When he was able to dig it out, it slipped from his blood covered hands and clattered to the floor.
From the other side of the basement, he heard another sound. Something he had never heard before. It was half growl, half hiss. He looked up to see another figure standing in the darkness. Even in shadow, she was sultry. Her curvy hips, ample chest, and silken hair were accentuated by the darkness. But her hands hung at her sides like sharpened meat hooks, eager to dig into the nearest meat.
It was Serena. Charlie knew it in his heart, though his mind fought to believe otherwise. She charged him. He raised his gun with cold, calculated accuracy and emptied the remaining chambers into her chest. She fell in the darkness. But behind her stood another figure. A figure of much smaller stature. A child. David.
“No, David.” Charlie said as David began to walk towards him. “Not you, too.” David moved closer. “No!” Charlie screamed and David sprang from the darkness.
His little hands grabbed at Charlie’s throat, but Charlie caught him in mid air, the force of David’s momentum still enough to knock Charlie over onto his back. David’s mouth, now visible in the light, clamped down on air over and over again as he tried to bite at Charlie. His little fingers were ironclad and digging into Charlie’s shoulders. They felt like they would soon break the skin and worm their way deep into his flesh.
Charlie shifted his legs and rolled over on top of David. The little man was still clawing at him furiously and gnashing his teeth; growling with some awful gurgling noise. “David, stop! It’s Uncle Charlie!” He screamed. Tears began to run from Charlie’s eyes at an uncontrollable rate. “David, please!” He gripped the little boy’s throat and began to squeeze. David clawed and squealed; animal sounds, nothing human at all. David’s irises burned a fiery red with something between hate and hunger. For an instant, he saw a flash of Raffi’s face superimposed over David’s and his heart broke anew for all he had been given and all that had been taken away. “Why! God, why!” He screamed as his hand tightened. David continued to thrash and claw at his arms, though weakening. Charlie moved his other hand to the child’s throat and squeezed. He knew in his heart that this confrontation would only end with one of them dead. Eventually, David’s struggle began to ebb and his little arms fell to the ground. Charlie held his grip for a long time, to make sure the deed was finished.
When he finally peeled his fingers back from the boy’s throat, there were deep channels where his fingers had been. “Who’s the bigger monster now?” He asked himself, God, anyone that would listen.
Then something irreparable shattered inside him. He pulled David to his chest and held his limp body. “Damn you.” He said again and again as he rocked back and forth, caressing David’s limp body. And this time, the words were directed at God; the same God who had failed him over and over again. He held the boy and cried until well after nightfall.
When he was finally able to quell the storm inside for a few moments, he lay the boy back down on the cold cement floor. He scanned the room, looking at each cold, dead body. They were everything to him. This small family that had taken him in and welcomed him as one of their own. Now, slaughtered by his own hand. The pain was too much. He opened the cylinder of his pistol and emptied out the spent cartridges. They tumbled to the floor with the familiar metallic clink that echoed through his pain-ravaged mind. He dug into his jacket pocket for more bullets and reloaded the weapon.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered to the dead bodies of his friends. He cocked the pistol and put the barrel of the gun in his mouth. He tried to squeeze the trigger but his hand was shaking. The tears came again, blurring his vision. He lowered the gun and screamed up to the heavens. “Please! You’ve taken everything! Let me have this! Let me do this, you bastard!” He put the gun in his mouth again. This time he placed both hands on the handle, two thumbs, pressing steadily down on the trigger. Tears dripped from t
he tip of his nose as his hands began to shake again. Finally, he set the gun down and curled over, laying his forehead on David’s unmoving chest and wept in great heaving sobs.
After what seemed like an eternity, he sat up and tucked his gun back into his waistband. He didn’t know how he was going to explain the scene, but he knew he had to report it. They would probably lock him up and throw away the key no matter what he told them. And at that moment, he felt the lockup was much less than he deserved. He picked up his phone and dialed 911. The lines must have been bogged down pretty badly, because his call went to the queue. He heard a calm female voice tell him, Your call is important. Please do not hang up. A police dispatcher will answer momentarily. Please remain on the line.
He hung up and called the police station’s front desk. “MPD.” A voice on the other end of the line said.
“Hey, this is Charlie Cutter. I need to report a crime.”
“Cutter? Where the hell are you? Listen, we got a full-scale riot brewing here. We’ve got violent mobs moving through the city and people calling every minute to report more. We can’t keep up. Three guys didn’t come in for work and we need all the help we can get. Can you get here fast?”
Charlie looked down at his friends. He supposed he could, at least, help out his other friends at the department. It wouldn’t change what he had done to the Vasquez family, but maybe he’d get lucky and some crazy mob would do what he didn’t have the courage to do a moment ago. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a bit.”
The man on the other end of the line breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. What did you need to report?”
Charlie paused. “Nothing. It can wait.”
“Alright, get here quick!” The man snapped and hung up the phone.
“What the fuck is going on?” Charlie sighed to himself. Al and Serena, even David had the same crazy look in their eyes that the girl from the house fire had had. And they were so strong. He never would have believed a seven-year-old could have put up such a struggle if he hadn’t experienced it first-hand.
Charlie left the basement, feeling even more guilty for walking out on the bodies downstairs. But he didn’t want to taint the crime scene by moving them. He would tell his story and there would be an investigation. Eventually he would go to prison and find out what it felt like to see the world from behind the bars. He went to his car, mind numb with the agony of loss.
He started the car and felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He looked at the display. There was a picture of Maggie on the front, tinted red as it shone through the smear of blood on the phone’s touchpad. He had taken the picture of her while they were eating dinner on their first date. He had tagged the picture to her phone number so it would show when she called. He answered it. “Maggie?”
“Charlie?” Her voice sounded as if she had been crying. “Oh, thank God it’s you. I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve been trying to get in touch with the police all day, but I can’t seem to get through.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Someone broke into the office last night and killed all the animals.” She sounded like she was close to tears. “I’ve been trying to call their owners but I haven’t been able to get a hold of many of them. And the thing is, they didn’t just kill the animals. They tortured the poor things. They look like they have been partially eaten. Like a pack of wolves got in or something.”
“Oh God. So, Tank, is he..?”
“No. He’s fine. I actually… I’m not supposed to do this, but I brought him upstairs with me last night, especially after the trouble with Terrence. But we heard the animals screaming and I was afraid to go down and look. In the morning, oh God…”
“Okay, okay. Are you there now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.” The police department would have to wait. He was suddenly, painfully aware of what he still had left to lose. His mind was filled with a myriad of thoughts while he drove to the vet’s office. He thought of the intruders in his apartment, his best friend and his family, murdered by his own hand. What next? He thought.
When he arrived at the vet’s office, Maggie was waiting anxiously in the front window. She flagged him down with a quick wave of her hand. She unlocked the door to let him in and gave a suspicious scan of the outside as he entered. He heard the quick latch of the lock on the door as she closed it. Her dark skin, so flawless the last time he had seen her, had taken on a grayish, sickly look. “Are you alright?” He asked. She surprised him by throwing her entire body into his and wrapping her arms around him. He put his arms around her hesitantly as she sobbed heavily into his shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to call you, but I’ve been so scared all day and I couldn’t get in touch with anyone.” She stopped for a moment and backed away from him, wiping her eyes. When she looked up at him, her eyes widened. “Jesus, Charlie! What happened to you?”
He didn’t know it, but his face was covered with Al’s blood and streaked where his tears had partially washed it clean. He looked down at his hands and chest, the blood there now dried to a near black hue. “It’s… It’s a long story.” He noticed Tank for the first time. He was lying behind the front counter and stared up at Charlie with huge hazel eyes that seemed to burrow through him and threatened to spill out all his secrets right there on the floor. As though the dog were thinking, I know what you did, Charlie Cutter. Yes, I do. And you will burn for it. Oh, yes. You. Will. Burn. Then Tank stood and began to bark. At first, Charlie thought the dog was barking at him, but then there was a loud rattle of glass and aluminum as someone shook the door of the office behind him. When they looked outside to see what it was, a man stood outside the doors. He motioned with his hands. He wanted them to open the doors.
“I’m sorry, we’re closed.” Maggie said through the door. The man acted as if he didn’t hear. He grabbed the door handles and shook them harder, more violently. “I’m sorry! You’re going to have to come back at a later time!” She yelled at him. The man simply smiled and smashed his head into the glass hard. The glass cracked in a small spider web where he had hit his head. The doctor let out a squeak of surprise. “Oh my God! He’s going to kill himself!” She screamed. The man slammed his head against the glass again and again. Each time he hit the glass, the cracks grew a little longer and more numerous. Finally, his head plunged through the glass like a bloodied gopher. He smiled at them and released a guttural roar. Blood spurted from his mouth and the wound on his forehead.
Charlie drew his weapon with lightning speed and accuracy and heard two quick pops as the bullets ripped into the man’s head. His body went limp and he hung there with the weight of his body supported by the glass. “Oh my God! You killed him!” Maggie looked at Charlie as if he was crazy.
“I can’t explain right now, but I think we’re in serious trouble if we stay here. We need to get someplace safer.” He lowered his weapon and turned to face her. She just stared at the dead man hanging from glass in the door. He grabbed her by the arm and the contact seemed to snap her out of whatever thought she was trapped in. “Maggie. We need to get upstairs. It’ll be safer.”
To accentuate his statement, another man and woman outside the office ran into view and pulled the dead man’s head out of the glass. They let his body fall to the ground and began to tear into his flesh with teeth and nails like frenzied sharks. Maggie screamed but seemed hypnotized by the carnage outside the door. He shook her. “Come on!” He dragged her towards the elevator that led to her apartment upstairs.
A metal tray clattered to the floor in the backroom. “They must be getting in from somewhere back there!” Charlie yelled as a young man came screaming around the corner with teeth bared. Tank sprinted towards him, but Charlie had already let off three more rounds, lucky because two of his shots missed completely, the third put out the man’s right eye and he dropped like a rag doll. “Go! Go!” Charlie was shooing her forward. They ran to the elevator. He covered her while she got the gates open and they stepped
inside. He had just lowered the first gate when another woman ran into the gate with a smash that didn’t seem to faze her at all. She growled and snarled and reached for them through the gate. Charlie put one round between her eyes and she fell. They closed the inside gate and the elevator began to rise. They were nearly out of sight of the first floor when a mob of the things slammed into the outside gate again. Thankfully, the things were too late.
The sound of clawing and thrashing faded as the elevator reached the upper level apartment safely and jerked to a stop. The room was dark and quiet. The only noise they could hear were muffled cries from the office below them and the occasional crash of something being spilled or broken.
“Is there any other way into the apartment?” Charlie stared through the grating of the elevator into the blackness beyond.
“There’s a fire escape outside the windows on the other side of the room and a fire door that leads to a stairwell down the hallway to the left. There’s a light switch right outside the elevator here.” Maggie was keying off of Charlie’s cautiousness and whispering so he could still listen to the sounds in the apartment. Tank let out a low growl that vibrated through the floor of the elevator.
Charlie motioned towards Tank with a nod of his head. “Keep him in here with you. If something happens, you’ll need him.”
“What do you mean, ‘if something happens’? You’re not going out there, are you? Are you nuts?”
“What, you want to spend the whole night in this elevator? Sooner or later, we need to get out of here. What if they find a way to get this thing down or get into the elevator shaft?”
He saw Maggie shiver a little, presumably at the thought of the things getting into the elevator with them trapped inside. She paused a moment and then nodded. “Okay.” She said but didn’t seem totally convinced.
Charlie handed his gun to Maggie. She stared at him incredulously. “But you’ll need it.”
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