by Steve Wands
“Monster,” he whispered, pointing his little finger at the thing.
Keith shuffled his position and lost his footing. He slipped off the branch and clung by one arm, dangling from the tree. He kicked his feet searching for another branch and found nothing. His hand slid off the branch and he fell to the ground. Kayla screamed. Henry, the dead man from next-door, staggered ever closer.
…to be continued in Stay Dead: Kings of the Castle Part 3!
Keith fought to suck air back into his lungs; the fall from the tree literally knocked the wind out of him. He only slightly twisted his ankle, grunting, he stood up. He could hear Kayla screaming something but he couldn’t make it out. His head was spinning and his eyes locked onto Henry, who was almost to the tree. Keith took off in a sprint and headed for the front door of his home. Connor hung out the window with a shocked expression.
“What are you doing down there?” Connor asked his brother.
“Fell. Get the door! Hurry,” Keith yelled up to him.
“There’s more,” Kayla screamed.
Connor ran down the stairs to the front door. He tried desperately to move the couch that he and his brother only days ago moved there. He pushed and pushed and managed to barely budge the couch an inch. Keith banged furiously at the door.
“C’mon! Open the door,” he yelled.
Connor pushed again and again. Another inch and another step closer Henry was. Keith continued to smash his small fist into the door. Connor gave up on the couch and ran to the window a few feet away. He climbed up the small bookshelf and unlocked it. He put all his strength into pulling the window up and he nearly fell back as a result.
“Keith! Over here,” Connor called out to him.
Henry stood between the boy and the window. Keith ran straight at him and dodged his slow lumbering hands as they swooped down for him. By the time Henry turned around Connor was pulling his brother’s arm inside the window as Keith kicked his feet up and eventually in. Henry’s dead fingers clawed at the window as Connor locked it. The two boys ran back to the safety of their headquarter. Munk-Munk remained vigilant in his duty of guarding the stairway.
They looked out the window and waived at Kayla. She waived back and looked as relieved as a scared little girl could. Down below on the neatly mowed lawn gathered a small contingency of the local neighborhood dead. Their moans filled the evening air.
“You have to be really quiet and they’ll go away,” Kayla yelled.
“We know that already,” replied Connor.
“When they go away I’ll shine my flashlight at your window,” said Keith.
Kayla nodded. She sat below the window staring at the door her mother still scraped at. She wept silently and pulled her knees into her chest. Keith and Connor sat under their makeshift tent silently thumb-wrestling. The creatures gathered around the home scratching and clawing at the siding, the windows, and the doors. They carried on till early morning when the chirping of birds broke their focus. Dead eyes looked into the sky as the birds created a cacophony. They littered the trees and rooftops and a select few adorned the electrical wires. The dead things stumbled in different directions, each trying to find a noisemaker to take apart.
The kids had all fallen asleep hours ago and the chirping birds served to stir them to wake. Kayla refused to fall back to sleep but the boys had no trouble shaking off the early morning intrusion and returning to their dreams. Kayla sat by the window staring out waiting for one of them to wake. She rummaged through the bag Keith was so kind to get to her and grabbed a cereal bar. She nibbled at it slowly, trying not to make any noise. Her mother had wandered off in search of noisier prey.
Now awake, the boys wiped the crust from their eyes and stumbled to the window. They didn’t see any creatures around but when they turned to Kayla’s window she was smiling and waving at them. The boys waved back.
…to be continued in Stay Dead: Kings of the Castle Part 4!
After making sure there were no monsters in sight Keith climbed back up to the roof. He crawled over to the edge closest to Kayla’s window and lay on his stomach. The tree branches didn’t allow them to make eye contact but they could vaguely see one another through the leaves. Keith searched for his rope and found most of it dangling from the tree, the end Kayla taped still hung from her window—so much for making things easier.
“Do you need something to eat, Kayla?” Keith asked.
“Not yet, I still have some. Not much. I want to get out of here,” she said.
“I know, but how can you?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, “maybe if my mom ever leaves, I can just run outside.”
“Yeah—hey, me and Connor can try to make her come outside,” he said excitedly.
“Alright, it sounds dangerous though,” Kayla said.
“Yup. You ready to run?” Keith asked.
“What? Not right now! Let me put some clothes in my school bag first, and then…”
“Okay, geeeeez, I was just kidding anyway,” Keith said, “yell when you’re ready, I’m going back inside.”
Once back inside Keith explained the plan to Connor. He was more than happy to take part in it. They went downstairs and pushed the couch just enough to open the door and fit through it.
Kayla quietly stepped toward her closet and pulled from it her backpack. She put a number of clothes, and a few keepsakes inside and zipped it up. She put her sneakers on and tied them tight. She sniffed at her underarms and frowned. She’d been trapped inside her bedroom for days. She smelled the worst she could ever remember smelling. She’d had to use her garbage pale as a toilet, emptying it out the window when she felt secure enough to do so and after her shame of the act dissolved. She was nervous about joining the boys—she hoped that she could shower once there and have them not notice her odor. Regardless, she couldn’t stay in her room any longer. Her mother had managed to scrape a large weak-spot on the other side of the door, her fingers surely splinter ridden, and it was only a matter of time before she bore a hole. She pushed the thoughts from her mind and went to the window.
“I’m ready,” she yelled.
Keith and Connor ran to the window and leaned out. Their faces carried excited grins.
“All right! When you hear me yell ‘run’ then you run,” Keith said.
“Okay,” Kayla replied.
The two boys ran down the stairs. Keith grabbed a baseball bat from the foyer closet.
“You stay here and make sure none of those things get in here and when you see us running back open the door,” Keith instructed Connor.
“Uh-huh,” Connor replied.
Keith crept out the front door and ran toward the tree. He looked up at Kayla who was hanging out the window watching him intensely. Keith continued to the backyard of Kayla’s home. He made his way up the back deck and toward the door. All of the excitement Keith had been feeling turned to dread and fear. He was approaching eleven years of age and his youthful carefree existence had never really known fear. Kids are born free, fear is something they learn, and Keith was only beginning to learn. He opened the door anyway and at the other end of the hall he could see Kayla’s mother. She looked grey and her hands were covered in her own dried blood. She stood facing the wall as if lost in thought. Keith banged the baseball bat on the door. She turned to face the noise as Keith banged again. Her swollen feet stepped in his direction. He banged again and she continued to creep forward. Keith stood his ground, shaking in fear. He looked around the yard to see if any other monsters had heard him—nothing. Kayla’s mother was now closer to Keith than she was to her previous position and he felt this was as good a time as any to tell Kayla to run, so he did.
“Kayla! Run to the front door,” he yelled up to her.
She didn’t respond but he heard her running down the stairs. Keith banged the doorframe again as the dead mother was nearly at the door. Keith backed up and was now standing at the far end of the deck. Kayla was now running outside the home toward Keith’s. On
ce Keith saw her doing so, he ran off the deck and toward her. He caught up to her and they both stopped in their tracks. Approaching them were several dead creatures, many of their faces familiar. Behind them crept Kayla’s mother.
…to be continued in Stay Dead: Kings of the Castle Part 5!
Keith grabbed Kayla by the arm and ran to the back of his house, they didn’t exactly have a back door but Keith’s home had a set of steel doors that led into the basement. Connor ran downstairs to the basement. Keith opened the steel door and he and Kayla climbed in and closed it. They sat on cement stairs in a small dark nook between the steel doors and the door that Connor now unlocked. Dead hands grasped and clawed at the steel doors.
They slowly crept upstairs being sure not to make any more noise than what was necessary. Keith led the way as his chest still-pounded with adrenaline. Connor looked a little scared and Kayla had the expression of abject terror. Before too long they were huddled by their bedroom window and peeking out. There were dozens upon dozens of the dead things surrounding the home. It was more than they had ever seen. They saw a kid in the group, a friend of Keith’s from school. The entire side of his body was mangled. His innards hung slightly out of his stomach. They gasped and moved away from the window.
Hours passed and the creatures outside still tried to claw there way inside the house. The sun hung overhead and Connor wondered where the birds had gone. He wondered if they would come back to distract the monsters once again, leaving the monsters to forget he, his brother and Kayla were inside.
Outside, far from view from the children, was a man in an old dark blue van peering through the lens of his binoculars. He licked his chapped lips and hoped the kids would look out the window again. He loved kids, always did. He loved them something fierce and enjoyed watching them every chance he could. He used to sit at the playground, reading his paper and watching the kids play. The playgrounds are empty now, but the burning itch deep inside the man’s gut needs to be scratched anyway. Now, he wonders if he can do more than watch.
…to be continued in Stay Dead: Kings of the Castle Part 6!
Nightfall came quickly for the kids but the creatures could care less. They continued to pull and pry at the siding, to scrape at the doors, and claw at the windows. Keith, Connor, and Kayla sat cross-legged in the center of their room with the window open. They hoped by being quite that maybe the things would forget, or find something else to chase after, as they often did. There were too many this time, it was as if they kept each other going.
The man in the van had given up on watching and crawled to the back of the van where he would be out of eyesight. He snuggled up on a bench seat and wrapped himself in a child’s blanket. The blanket had little farm animals arranged in an obnoxious pattern. He closed his eyes and hoped he could catch a few winks before introducing himself to the kids.
Connor’s eyebrow moved up in curios arc. He had an idea. “Firecrackers,” he mumbled.
“What,” Keith asked his younger brother.
“Firecrackers,” he repeated.
“Oh, man! Why didn’t I think of that,” Keith said.
“Think of what,” Kayla asked sheepishly.
“We can distract them with firecrackers,” Keith said excitedly.
“Mom took them away from me… she hid them in her closet,” Keith frowned.
They hunched over and snuck over to Keith and Connor’s parent’s bedroom. They didn’t often venture into their room. The family pictures made them sad and often pulled tears from their eyes. The room smelled of perfume, clean linens, and looked just as it did before the monsters came. Keith opened the closet door and his father’s work shirts hung across the distance from wall to wall. Aside from different colors they might as well have been the same shirt. Connor pulled a step stool from the back of the closet and Keith used it to reach the top shelf where his mother had hid the firecrackers she took from him a few months ago. He had completely forgotten he had ever had them. His small hand felt around the dusty shelf and could feel only boxes. So, he pulled them down and handed them one by one to Kayla and Connor. Then Keith stepped off the stool and they all began rummaging through the boxes. They came across old photographs and keepsakes, a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, lingerie, and adult magazines. They opened the last box and found a treasure trove of all the things their parents had taken away from the over the years; a pocket knife, whoopee cushion, throwing stars, plenty of other juvenile trinkets and of course the firecrackers. Connor jumped and grabbed them. Keith grabbed the lighter and throwing stars. Kayla grabbed the pocketknife. They all hurried back to their room and tiptoed toward the window.
Keith lit the first pack of firecrackers and launched it out the window. It landed on the front lawn a few feet past the persistent creatures. It crackled and popped. The noise caused many of the dead things to turn toward the noise. Keith lit another pack and was able to throw it a foot or two further. The same noise and the same result; most of the creatures were now away from the house. The rear of the house still had a number of them biting and scraping at the walls. Keith, now in the bathroom, threw the last package of firecrackers out the window, which faced the back yard. It worked. All the creatures Keith could see were now moving away from the house in search of a noise they would never be able to find. The three of them high-fived each other and then headed downstairs to the kitchen. Keith grabbed three giant bowls and spoons. Connor pulled a variety of cereal boxes from the pantry and put them on the table. He then grabbed a bottle of soda. The milk was long-gone so, the three of them ate cereal and soda till they felt as if they would pop.
…to be continued in Stay Dead: Kings of the Castle Part 7!
The children continued to sit at the kitchen table long after they filled their bellies. The cereal boxes had mazes and trivia questions on the back and they each took part in the activities. Keith had never given the back of the box more than a passing glance. The television had always been his source of entertainment, but the television wasn’t fun anymore. All the good channels went off the air and all that remained were news reports and emergency broadcasts—grown up stuff and grown up stuff wasn’t fun—so, the backs of cereal boxes would have to do for now.
The man in the van was startled when he heard the firecrackers going off earlier. He waited several minutes before looking out the window to see what was happening outside, and when he did, he noticed the creatures moving away from the house and spreading out. Perfect timing, he thought, and continued to stay away from the window till the things moved out of sight.
Kayla discreetly sniffed at herself. She looked embarrassed and stood up from the table.
“Can I use your shower,” she asked.
“Yeah, why,” Keith replied.
“I haven’t…been able to…” she squeaked out.
“Oh, ok, it’s right upstairs,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said as she ran upstairs.
Connor looked at his brother, “girls are weird,” he told him. “I hate showering,” he continued.
“Yeah, girls are weird all right,” Keith agreed.
The two of them went upstairs into their bedroom once again. They could hear the shower running and what sounded like singing, but they couldn’t make out any words; more evidence of girls being weird. Keith rummaged through his sock draw and pulled out a small blue bottle of cologne. Their father got it for him last year at Christmas. It was the really cheap kind that all kids get when they first start asking for cologne as presents. It smelled like rubbing alcohol and wilted flowers, and after Keith put it on he thought he smelled like a man.
The driver side door of the van creaked open slowly. The man put his foot firmly on the ground and stepped out quietly. He slowly and carefully closed the door behind him. He walked toward the house. His face was red and his palms sweaty. He had plans to do much more than watch tonight.
Kayla found some cotton swabs and cleaned her ears as she stepped out of the bathroom. She exuded a youthful confidence i
n her appearance after her much needed shower. She was about to ask Keith if he had an extra toothbrush when she heard a noise from outside the front door. She neared the top of the steps and could see the doorknob twisting violently. She ran into the boys’ bedroom muttering something the boys’ couldn’t understand and practically leapt out the window. She could see a man trying to get in the front door. Keith and Connor also hung out the window in disbelief, relieved it wasn’t another monster.
“Hey,” Keith called down to him. “What are you doing,” he continued.
“Uh, can you help me? Those things are going to eat me if you don’t let me in,” the man said.
“Okay, hang on,” Keith said.
Keith left his spot at the window to run downstairs. Kayla and Connor looked at the man curiously. They had never seen him before. He smiled at them as Keith opened the door.
…to be continued in Stay Dead: Kings of the Castle Part 8!
The man’s smile only widened as he stepped inside the house. Connor and Kayla looked at him from the top of the stairs. The man looked at them. He nodded and smiled. Keith closed the door behind him and the man helped to push the couch back in front of the door.
“Thanks, big fellow,” the creepy man said.
“No problem, wouldn’t want the space-slug heads to eat you,” Keith said.
“Space-slug heads?” The man laughed.
“Yeah, they’re nasty,” Keith told him.
“Well, they aren’t space-slugs. Hell’s full to the brim, and God don’t want the rest of us,” the man said.
Connor and Kayla were now at the bottom of the steps. They may not of liked the man, but he had something to say and seemed to know more about what was going on outside than they did. They listened.
“What do you mean,” Kayla asked.
“In the bible it says something about the dead rising from their graves so God can judge the living and the dead. The way it looks out there now, I’d say he took all the good people to heaven and left us sinners here to do whatever we want,” the man smiled.