“All right, let’s go.” Misha headed back up the stairs.
Dean followed him. “Onwards! To adventure!”
The boys climbed up the stairs and headed for the front door. Neither of them bothered to put on shoes, even though Dean was wearing socks. Misha had noticed that Dean always wore socks. Always. He wore them around the house even on the hottest days. He wore them while he slept. Hell, he even wore them when he went swimming. Misha often wondered if he wore them when he took showers. He was pretty sure he did and that the only time he took them off was to put on another pair. You could easily tell when he put on a new pair too, because they were all riotous colours and patterns. Misha often wondered about this peculiar habit but never asked. Dean was currently wearing bright red socks with Santa faces on them.
They went outside, crossed the very small stone patio, and stood on the lawn. Misha stretched while they looked up and down the street.
“So how are we supposed to the tell if the other houses have power or not?” Misha asked.
“We can go ask one of them.” Dean started walking to their neighbour’s house.
“Wait.” Misha grabbed his shoulder. “I think it’s better we ask our other neighbour, don’t you?”
Dean looked confused for a moment, but then realization dawned upon him. “Oh, right. Yeah, the other side is better.”
Living in a house full of college boys meant that all of them had to be ready for a party at anytime. There was no telling when one of them would decide that a party was a good idea, and the next thing you knew the house was full of people. They didn’t even live that close to the college so the neighbourhood wasn’t used to swarms of college kids showing up. Especially their right-side neighbour. He hated them all. He called in noise complaints all the time, and if anything happened to his yard, they were to blame. Even when someone else’s dog from the neighbourhood pooped on his lawn, it was their fault. The boys weren’t even that loud with their parties. Sure, some of them got a little out of hand, but none of the other neighbours seemed to mind. After awhile, the police had even stopped coming to the door and would just cruise by to see if the complaint was valid or not. Most of the time it wasn’t. Still, this resulted in them trying to avoid confrontation with the man who lived next door whenever possible.
Misha and Dean walked over to the house on the left. They stepped onto the porch, and Dean pressed the button for the doorbell.
“Dean?” Misha raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Dean pressed the bell again.
“If the power’s out, the bell won’t work,” Misha pointed out.
“Oh. Well then, we know the power is out.” Dean turned to walk away.
Misha stopped him. “They could also just have a busted door bell.” He opened the screen door and knocked on the solid door behind it. He peered through the clear parts of a glass design that adorned the centre of the thick wooden door.
“I think I see someone,” Misha told Dean.
Dean squished in next to him and looked through another clear section. “Yup. Here they come.”
The boys waited at the door for the owner to answer it. Whoever it was, they were slow moving.
“Have you ever seen the owner of this house?” Misha wondered.
“No. You?”
“No.”
“Maybe they’re old,” Dean threw out an idea as to why he or she was taking so long.
Misha shrugged.
The person, a male, finally made it to the door. His head was hanging but he didn’t look old. His hand lifted up, as if to grab the knob, but instead, slapped into the glass right in front of Dean’s face. Both Dean and Misha jumped back, Misha hitting the screen door. Dean looked at him, then grinned, trying to hold back a laugh. The door wasn’t opened.
“I’m sorry to bother you, sir!” Misha called through the large door. “We were just wondering if your power was out?”
The hand slid down the glass, then rose up and slapped it again.
“I don’t think he likes us,” Dean commented.
“I think something’s wrong.” Misha stepped up to the door and placed his face near the glass again. “Sir, are you okay?”
The man lifted his other hand and slapped it on the glass. This one left a large bloody print.
“Oh God.” Misha stepped away from the door again. “Dean, I think he’s hurt.” Misha reached for the doorknob. He hoped the door was unlocked so that he could help the man inside.
Dean pulled him away from the door. “Whoa, hold on there.”
“Dean, we should help him.” Misha reached for the knob again.
Dean stopped him once more. “What if he’s not hurt?”
“What do you mean? His hand is covered in blood!”
“What if it’s not his blood?” Dean was being serious, a rare occurrence. He actually looked frightened
“You think he hurt someone else?” Misha looked back at the glass. The man was still slapping his hands slowly against it, smearing blood all over.
Dean grabbed Misha’s arm and began pulling him back off the porch. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Dude, either way, 911 would need to be called.” Dean stopped once they were on the grass. “We can’t do much he couldn’t have done himself if he was bleeding, and if it’s not his blood, we risk getting shanked.”
“911 was busy,” Misha pointed out.
“Exactly, we can’t do squat. Let’s just go back to our place and wait for the power to come back on.”
“What if the power is just out at our place because of some crappy fuses? We’re going to wait until Aiden gets back? What’s today? The sixth? He won’t be back for another twenty days.”
Dean pointed up the street, past Misha. “I don’t think we’re the only ones with our power out.”
Misha turned and looked. Up the street, a power pole was leaning over onto someone’s house. A delivery truck was smashed into the base.
“How did I not see that when we first came outside?” Misha wondered. It was probably a combination of the beer, some bushes and trees doing a good job of hiding most of the damage, and the sheer unexpectedness of it.
“Now can we go back inside our own place?” Dean started back across, not bothering to wait for an answer.
Misha looked at the truck a moment longer then followed Dean. This was turning out to be a very strange day. First the neighbours’ house out back, then their left side neighbour, and now the truck. What else was going to happen today?
“Misha, did you leave the door open?” Dean had stopped before stepping onto the porch.
“You came out behind me,” Misha told him. “Why?” He looked past Dean and saw that their door was standing wide open.
“I’m pretty damn sure I closed it,” Dean said. “Like, 90% sure.”
“You think someone broke in?”
“Well I know I didn’t lock it, so I don’t think there was much breaking involved.”
The boys stood there, just looking at the open door.
“So, what do you think we should do?” Misha eventually asked.
“I guess we should go in and see if anyone is in there.” Dean walked up to the door.
Misha had a bad feeling about this. He felt guilty about doing nothing about the neighbours or even checking out the truck, but it also felt right to him, not doing anything. Now something had happened to them, and they were going to do something. It felt wrong. Not just in a moral way either.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Misha finally said. Maybe it would have made a difference if they weren’t already passing through the doorframe.
Dean completely ignored him. He went to a small closet near the front door and opened it. The boys of the untrustworthy house kept sports gear inside it. It was literally filled to capacity with hockey bags, as all of them played the national sport in the winter. It was, by far, the worst smelling closet any of them had ever come across but the door actual
ly made a pretty good barrier for it. Also, no one was ever near the front door unless they were coming in or going out, or using the toilet in the half bath next to it. The half bath was mostly used at parties, so no one really noticed the smell then either, or if they did, they thought it was something else. Dean ignored all the hockey equipment and reached into the tiny nook that held other sports items. A football, a basketball, a baseball, two baseball gloves, and, most importantly, a baseball bat. Dean pulled out the metal bat and held it out in front of him.
Misha grabbed his hockey stick. If he had to hit someone with it, it was likely to break and he’d just end up having to get a new one, but it was better than being completely unarmed.
“Check upstairs.” Dean pointed his bat at the steps, and then moved down the short hall toward the kitchen and living room.
Misha listened, and headed up the creaky steps. The house was optimised to have the most number of bedrooms possible. This meant that everything was tight and narrow. It also meant that there weren’t many places for Misha to look for a possible intruder. Upstairs, the only rooms he could get into were his own, and the bathroom. These were checked quickly and easily. He tested the doorknobs of his two housemates’ rooms to be sure. They were still locked tight. He headed back downstairs to find Dean. He hoped that when he found Dean, he didn’t hit him with his hockey stick. He was pretty jumpy. When he passed the half bath next to the sports closet, he couldn’t recall if he saw Dean check inside while he was heading up the stairs. He decided to be thorough and check for himself. He grabbed the handle.
* * *
An unearthly screech erupted from the basement causing Misha to jump nearly out of his skin. A shout followed right after it. It sounded like Dean. Misha ran down the hall to the top of the basement stairs. There was a lot of noise coming up from the basement, a lot of crashing and banging. Misha ran down the steps, forgetting about the bathroom, holding tightly to the railing with one hand and his hockey stick with the other. Now would not be the time to fall. He was going too fast when he reached the ninety degree bend at the bottom and slammed a shoulder into the wall while trying to round it. He stumbled off the stairs but managed to keep his feet. The ruckus was coming from Dean’s room. Misha ran past the other two rooms and the laundry nook. He burst through Dean’s half open door.
A woman in a sundress was on the other side of the door. When Misha ran through, the door hit her in the back, knocking her off her feet. She landed with a thump at Dean’s feet. Dean was covered in blood; so was his bat. When the woman hit the ground in front of him, he cried out and raised the now-dented baseball bat above his head. He swung it down, and it hit the woman with a thunk. He lifted it up and swung again. And again. And again. He turned the woman’s head into a bloody pulp. Misha watched from the doorway in a dazed, wide-eyed horror. Dean swung until he collapsed.
Misha finally snapped out of it and crossed the room quickly to Dean, trying to avoid looking at the woman’s body. There was no way she was alive after that. Dean lay on the ground, cradling one of his arms.
“Dean!” Misha dropped to the floor next to him. He put his hockey stick down and helped Dean sit up. “Dean, what happened? What did you do?”
“Fuck off, Jovovich,” Dean mumbled and tried to roll away. “Don’t touch me.”
Misha had already felt his skin though. “Dean, you’re burning up.”
“Go away.” Dean curled up against the edge of his bed.
“Dean, tell me what happened.” Misha moved around to be in front of him again. He grabbed his arm and when Dean tried to pull away again, he got a good look at it. “Jesus Christ.”
Dean’s inner arm looked like raw meat. Misha hadn’t noticed it earlier because of the violence Dean was laying down on the woman.
“Dean,” Misha tried again to get his attention, “tell me what happened.”
“She bit me,” Dean moaned. He continued to try to get away from Misha. “She bit me so many times. She fucking chewed on me. I tried to fight her off but she just kept coming back. Even after I heard her ribs snap, she just kept coming after me. I took care of her though.”
“Your skin is hot, you’re running a fever.” Misha pulled Dean’s blankets off his bed and started to wrap them around his arm. Misha noticed that Dean had other wounds, but none as bad as his arm.
“I’m on fire!” Dean screamed. He threw his head back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling. His eyes and mouth hung wide. His gums were bleeding. Also, his eyes had a slightly milky look to them. His pupils were wider than Misha had ever seen and many veins were visible all throughout the whites. Dean started to sing Run To The Hills by Iron Maiden but the words had a drunken slur to them. He didn’t get very far into the song before he trailed off. Dean’s skin was going very pale. Paler than Misha’s. The skin around his eyes had taken on a purple tint. He stopped struggling against Misha’s attempt to assist him. Then he started seizing.
“Shit!” Misha slid Dean to the floor, trying to keep his head stable. He had no idea what to do if someone seizured, but he figured a flat surface was better than sitting up, and keeping the neck as stable as he could seemed like a good idea. Dean’s body jumped about like a fish out of water. Eventually though it stopped. Misha quickly searched Dean’s pockets until he found his cell phone. He flipped it opened and called 911, but it was busy like before.
Misha stood up and paced, not knowing what to do. His friend was probably dying, and an unknown woman was already dead. He kept trying to call 911 but he never got anything different than a busy signal. He decided to call someone else, anyone else. Maybe Cassidy would know what to do. Misha found her number in Dean’s phone and called. He got a busy signal. He called Juliann, another one of their housemates, but that number gave a busy signal also. He tried three other numbers in Dean’s phone, including the sports store Dean worked at part time. Each time he got just a busy signal.
“Fuck!” Misha threw the cell at the wall. What was he supposed to do? What could he do?
Dean moaned on the floor.
“Dean? Dean, you okay?” Misha knelt down beside him.
Dean stirred and rolled his head. Misha placed a hand on his chest and shook him slightly. Dean weakly grabbed Misha’s wrist. As he turned his head toward Misha, his mouth hung open. He tried to put Misha’s hand in his mouth.
“Dean!” Misha pulled his hand away. Dean’s teeth snapped hard on empty air. He reached for Misha again but Misha scrambled out of reach. “Come on man, that’s not funny.”
Misha bumped into his hockey stick. He grabbed it, then stood. Dean started to get to his own feet slowly.
“What’s wrong with you?” Misha asked.
Dean got to his feet but was slouched far over, basically bent in half. His fingers brushed his baseball bat. Then they wrapped around it and Dean stood taller, now holding the bat.
“Dean?”
Dean swung the bat at Misha. Misha lifted up the hockey stick on instinct. The bat struck it in the middle smashing it in two. This left Misha holding a pair of slightly pointed wooden stakes. Dean swung the bat again, driving Misha away. Misha slid in the blood on the floor, the strange woman’s blood. He fell over, one of the broken ends of the hockey stick sticking up in his hand. Dean fell upon him, teeth snapping. The stick held him back for only a moment. Dean pressed down hard, driving the broken end into his own chest, between his ribs, and into his heart. Yet, he continued to bite at Misha.
Misha was terrified for his life. He had never been so scared before. His best friend was trying to rip out his throat with his teeth. His best friend had stabbed himself in the heart trying to do this, but was somehow still alive. Misha brought up the other end of the broken stick. He squeezed his eyes shut and stabbed out with the broken end. He felt a little resistance, then heard a squelch followed by a crack. The stick slid forward a bit, and Misha felt something hot and wet drip onto his hand and the side of his face. A much larger and heavier weight followed. Misha knew that was Dean’s
body.
He shoved Dean off him and scrambled to his feet. He fled from the bedroom blindly, eyes still closed. He didn’t want to see what had happened. He stumbled about the basement and somehow ended up in the bathroom. He found the shower and turned it on. He huddled under the water scrubbing blindly at his face and hands. If he opened his eyes to find any blood on him, he was going to freak out. He was already freaking out. There must be blood on his shirt. Blood didn’t wash out of clothes as easily as it did skin, even black clothes. With his eyes still closed he peeled off his shirt and threw it somewhere in the bathroom. It landed with a wet plop and reminded him of the sound he heard back in Dean’s room. Only that was more of a squish than a plop.
Misha’s thoughts whirled and reeled. Dean was dead, but not dead. He was the living dead. He was indestructible. He was coming for Misha. He was right outside the shower. He was leaning down…
* * *
Misha’s eyes flew open, fully expecting Dean to be looming over him. Nothing was there but the dark bathroom. The only light came from a tiny frosted window that was perpetually stuck in the shade between houses. It let in just enough light to see and navigate by. Misha finally got to his feet, his legs shaking. He turned off the water and listened carefully. There wasn’t a sound except for the water dripping off his body. He stepped out of the shower and then out into the hall, leaving a trail of puddles behind him. Misha was torn between going upstairs and checking out Dean’s room. He’d flip out if Dean was dead, but the thought of him not being dead and wandering around made him panic more. He headed for the bedroom.
He went carefully, taking each step in a slow and calculated manner. He listened intently, expecting to hear something, perhaps the chorus of Run To The Hills. He didn’t hear anything. He made it to Dean’s room and stood near the wall, just outside the doorway. Every fibre of his being was terrified about looking in. He kept expecting that at any moment, Dean would walk out. His muscles were tense in case he needed to flee. He peered around the corner.
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