by Angie Morel
“Move back to where we were, slowly,” Rolo whispered as he bent down in slow motion, grabbing Todd’s shirt and dragging him, inch by blood smeared inch, until they were behind the shelves again, hidden from view. Todd stirred, groaning as he came to. Rolo quickly straddled him, and then held his head sideways against the floor with his left hand while his right fist punched him hard, directly on the temple. Todd didn’t stir again. Rolo moved slightly off of him, sitting with his butt on the floor and his legs bridged over his body, keeping one of his legs low and tight over his neck. Todd wouldn’t be able to twitch without Rolo knowing it.
While on the floor, sitting in the dark, we were silent as our eyes explored the murky shapes of the fountain pop and coffee machines that lined the back wall. Finally, the shuffling outside lessened and then disappeared altogether. Snick went to investigate, coming back with the good news that it was clear.
That’s when the power went out.
Since Rolo turned off the overhead fluorescents earlier, the only lights inside the store were the ones glowing in the refrigerators. Those, along with the vague illumination from the parking lot and street lights through the front window, had been enough for us to see without too much difficulty. Now it was pitch black. Mary’s hand found mine as we listened to the dying hum of the refrigerators and other appliances. It was amazing how quiet it got when all the machines stopped running. They produced a steady background noise that wasn’t even noticeable until it was gone.
“Oh great,” D said, the dismay in his voice loud and clear in the absolute silence.
A pen light suddenly clicked on. The light from it rotated around until it lit up Snick’s smiling face. “I knew this would come in handy one day.”
“Oh Dude, you’re awesome!” The obvious relief in D’s voice had me wondering if he was afraid of the dark.
“It’s a key chain pen light that I kept my robotics lab key on. I got in the habit of always having it in my pocket.” Snick removed the light from his face and lit up the area around Todd.
We observed him with detachment.
“We gotta find somethin’ to tie him up with,” Rolo said.
He wouldn’t be moving around anytime soon judging from the job Rolo did on him, I thought with satisfaction. Blood still leaked from his mashed up nose and from his left eye. Rolo had split the skin beneath it a good inch.
“I’ll look around since I have the light,” Snick said, getting to his feet. He was back rather quickly and had—much to my surprise—two flashlights and batteries which he deposited on the floor near us. He took off again to search for ties of some sort.
After I got one flashlight working, through a combination of dumb luck and touch and feel, I handed it to D and made quick work of the other. The second one was a piece of cake since D had his light shining on my hands so I could actually see what I was doing.
It wasn’t long before Snick came back with a tube of zip ties, which he passed along to Rolo. Removing his legs from Todd, he made quick work of securing his wrists behind his back before moving down to zip-tie his ankles together. After he finished, he stood, and we looked around at each other. And then we stared at the unconscious form on the floor.
I cleared my throat. “So, what should we do with him?”
“We should smash his fuckin’ head in is what we…” he paused after noticing that Mary was looking at him, shaking her head vigorously back and forth. “What?”
“No. He won’t hurt us anymore. Can we put him in there?” Mary asked as she pointed at the Employees Only door that was barely visible outside their circle of light. D was nodding his head in agreement. After the day—heck, the past few days—they had, I couldn’t blame them. Violence overload.
I shrugged at Rolo.
He sighed heavily before looking at Mary. “Yeah, we could do that.”
And we did. And since Todd was still out in the morning we went a step further and cut his zip ties before leaving. I guess it was the right thing to do. Rolo didn’t look so sure.
It went like that for a handful of weeks; a little progress, then holding up for a while. Little froggie jumps until we made it to the interstate, and then out of the city and into the rural areas. We decided against trying for a car. Back in town, after departing the convenience store, we watched a boy drag a dead body out of a car, get in and drive not even a block before getting jammed up in wrecked cars. The sound of the engine brought a few of the bangers his way. His little getaway attempt ended up costing him his life.
Hoofing it would cost time, but we thought once we got out to where the roads were more open perhaps we’d reconsider the car thing. Along the way we met up with a few bangers that we weren’t able to hide from in time. Rolo and I worked together killing them—me with my trusty bat and him finishing them off with the knife. Snick was happy to take on the role of protecting D and Mary when we were busy fighting.
Not once did we come across any surviving adults, let alone people of authority.
Chapter 8
Jerking awake, my hands flew up and scratched at my hair. After one big-eyed second, I let my hands drop, rubbing my face.
Christ.
There were times when I hated sleeping. A small percentage of my dreams were confusing and strange, making no sense at all (mindless couch digging fell into that category). The bulk of them were terror-filled and bloody, with a specific chain of events occurring. This nightmare didn’t follow along with the normal theme. For that to happen, I’d have to be small and helpless and running from predatory animals. Those were fun.
Sometimes I’d wake when they took me down—sometimes I wouldn’t. And for some reason, male lions were the popular choice. They, most of all, would revel in ripping and tearing into my stomach and groin, the blood from my mortal wounds painting their faces and manes like the devils artwork. The intense pain and fear from those nightmares left me feeling like I had a heavy coat on, weighing down my entire psyche for a time after I woke. Eventually I’d shrug it off, but the feeling of dying would linger a bit longer, like my body had to catch up and remember that it was okay, that it was alive.
While my normal nightmares were full of fear and pain and dying, they were vague in the details. More of a mass of feelings, with jerky, surreal frame shots of the surroundings and the animal’s hungry faces.
This nightmare wasn’t like that. It was vivid and drenched in detail.
I’d been standing on a bluff overlooking a wide brown river. The water was moving fast, swirling and pulling at the logs and sticks that were floating on its foamy, murky surface. Spanning the river was a forest green suspension bridge that had parallel runs and two sets of towers rising up to poke at the sky. I started to walk towards the bridge, an unexplainable urge pushing me to get to the base of it. Something large and white was rotating on the edge of my vision, but I ignored it. The bridge was the key, at least for now.
The air was warm, the sun shining. A gentle breeze lifted my hair. Although nothing ominous was evident, the entire scene felt off, like something or someone was toying with me.
A flock of birds suddenly appeared and flew through the cables of the bridge like confetti in the wind, white and flashing. Caught off guard, I stopped walking as the striking image captured my full attention. A blink later, the sky changed from light to dark, the wind picked up, and the white birds turned into crows, thousands of them, cawing and fighting for space beneath the gray, jagged sky. It happened so fast that I could only stand there, staring in confusion. My confusion mounted as they gathered and began to move with the synchronized precision of a school of fish. Then the mass divided, half circling around to fill the sky behind me. My eyes followed their movement.
And that’s when I noticed the line of bangers making their way towards me.
They were bangers—but they weren’t. The mindless rage I’d witnessed before was gone, replaced with a creepy sort of intellect. This group was aware, and very aware of me standing here in this place. Just as they starte
d to lope towards me, my eyes caught on something. They had what appeared to be a metal mesh burned into the skin of their necks, chests, and arms. And I noticed something else—the whites of their eyes were silver.
Having no time to wonder what the hell they were and where they came from, I began running towards the bridge. Salvation was there, either near it or on the other side, or…something—I just knew it. My legs were running full out, yet the bangers were right behind me, fingernails scratching at my back. The crows began to converge, swooping down on me, a flapping mass of blackness, pecking, tangling their dirty feet in my hair—
And that’s when I woke up.
Supposedly dreams are messages from your subconscious, sent to tell you—or warn you—of something. If that was true, I had no clue what message mine were trying to convey. My best guess would be the fear I have of things being out of my control. That feeling probably simmers on a back burner in my brain every day, and takes over at night when it doesn’t have to battle my conscious mind for space and validity.
Whatever it was, I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago.
Shaking it off, I sat up straight in the chair, stretching. Looking down at the makeshift bed in the living room, I had to smile; they looked like a row of cannoli all stuffed inside their sleeping bags with their stocking caps sticking out the ends. Well, at least Mary, D, and Snick did. Rolo was asleep on the couch with his arms crossed on his stomach and his head slightly angled to the side with a stern look on his face, like he wasn’t happy about the need to sleep and only reluctantly gave in.
My smile faltered. Shit, I’d fallen asleep during my watch duty.
That wasn’t good. Standing, I silently made my way to the back door, unlocked it quietly, and then stepped out onto the large back porch of the farmhouse, the first real one we’d stayed at, with acreage and everything. Then I made my way down the four steps and walked a bit in the faint light until I reached the dewy grass, looking around.
We found the place late yesterday afternoon and by some miracle, it had no dead bodies in it for us to clear. The owners must’ve been out tending the fields or something when they died. Beyond exhausted from all the walking we’d been doing, we secured the house in silence. Then we ransacked the pantry, cleared a spot on the floor, and fell asleep just as darkness crawled over the horizon and extinguished the last glow of daylight from the sky.
Rolo took first watch. He never fell asleep.
Pulling my coat tighter, I crossed my arms against the chill, scanning the surrounding land. I’ve never been on a farm before. Hell, I’ve never been out of the ten block radius around my neighborhood until a few weeks ago. I didn’t count the other low-income areas in which we lived, places I couldn’t recall anyway, before finally settling on the worst area in town when I was five.
The Gary Gossmeyer Community Rehabilitation Housing Complex, otherwise known as the GG Pity Projects, was the place to go if you wanted the ability to never get evicted for non-payment of rent—well, the small portion tenants were supposed to pay after their vouchers had been applied. There was a special program set up to fund that. But no one was fooled. It was the city’s way of containing all the worst animals.
How different it was here in the countryside. Peaceful. Beautiful. I could only imagine how wonderful it would’ve been to grow up in a place like this. Have all the family over for Sunday dinners, everyone talking and laughing, pitching in to help with pickin’ the peas, shuckin’ the corn, baking homemade pies…or whatever farm people did.
A noise filled the air, startling me.
After the initial jolt of surprise I grinned. So that’s what a crowing rooster sounded like in person. He Cock-A-Doodle-Doo’ed again and then fell silent.
My head swiveled to the east, taking in the purple and pink smudges that tinted the horizon like watercolors. The soft hues were seeping into the darkness, illuminating the morning mist which overlay the ground like a cool, wispy blanket. The low spots were filled with a dense gray, mysterious and eerie. It was the perfect scene for prehistoric creatures to appear, rising up out of the fog.
Beyond the mist I saw a red barn on the rise of a hill, about a hundred yards away. There might be something useful in there. No time like the present to check it out, I thought. That way we wouldn’t have to waste time checking it out before we left. Taking off in a jog to get my blood pumping, my feet followed the gravel drive that led to the barn.
The air was crisp and wet and I could feel the moisture coat my sinuses every time I took a breath. Winter wasn’t far off and we needed to travel south quickly to avoid the real threat of freezing to death in the bitter cold that was to come.
Reaching the barn, I slowed to a walk and then stopped in front of the double doors. The blood red color with white trim reminded me of the play barn at Mary’s daycare that had doors that said “MOO” when you opened them. One door was ajar and I peered around it trying to see into the gloomy interior.
Though it was getting brighter outside by the minute, it wasn’t light enough yet to penetrate the darkness deep inside. I opened the door all the way with a loud CREAK, and then opened the other door with the same results. Pausing for a moment, to make sure nothing moved inside, I took a couple of tentative steps to the mouth of the barn. I could see enough to make out an area that was some type of workshop with tools lying about. There was an axe lying on a bench, and built-in shelving around a tall work table that had crap piled on top of it. Some of the stuff in there could be useful.
I stepped inside.
Chapter 9
There must be hay somewhere in the barn because floating around were dust motes that glinted like yellow jewels in the semi-darkness. Cocking my head, I listened hard. It was quiet, but for some reason there was a flashing light in my head telling me that somewhere buried in the silence was sound, movement. And of course I didn’t bring a weapon, I left it at the house…stupid, stupid, stupid.
I started to slowly back out when a banger staggered towards me from the outside, and then another. What the hell? They had to have been right around the corner of the barn when I opened the doors for them to have suddenly appeared like that. I made a split second decision to run for the tools instead of trying to dodge them and run back to the house. For one thing, I didn’t want to lead the bangers to the others.
Dashing across the barn, I grabbed the only object I’d been able to clearly make out during my first initial inventory. The axe. Grasping the handle, I spun around and then pin-wheeled the axe along my side, bringing it up from behind and downward in an arc just as the first one reached me. The axe cleaved dead center on his forehead, perfectly timed when he was leaning forward to make a grab.
A disgustingly wet cracking sound occurred with the penetration. The farmer must’ve been diligent on honing his tools because by the time it came to a stop, the wedge of the axe head had split him down between his eyebrows. I tried yanking the axe out as his arms fell and his legs crumpled but it was stuck. SHIT!
Having no choice, I let go of the handle as he crashed to the floor and then I ducked, barely missing the arm that was punched at me by the second one. I stumbled and looked around frantically for another weapon. A rusty metal spike was on the barn floor about five feet away. I made a dive for it. The banger had lost his balance when his swing missed and his momentum carried him right over to where I was scrambling to pick up the spike. As my hand fisted it, he fell on top of me and my breath whooshed out. Moving his arms in a disjointed fashion, he crawled up my body until he was straddling me, and then punched me in the head. As my head jerked sideways I saw another banger enter the barn. What the fuck! How many were there?
“Asha, look out!” A voice said from the doorway. It was Mary.
Time stopped for one horror-filled second.
“Mary RUN!” I screamed.
My warning came too late as the third banger switched direction and had Mary before she could move. He’d made a lucky swipe and managed to grab her hair. A
t roughly six-foot-six, three-hundred pounds, he was able to lift her by the hair one-handed with little effort. Mary shrieked as she dangled, hands flying up to her head where the pain was located. Her feet kicked air, unable to connect with anything. The banger gave her a vicious shake before taking her to the ground, just inside the barn door.
Rage and an overwhelming panic scraped down the inside of my body, causing my nerve ending to feel like they were on fire. Time sped up, seemed fragmented. The only coherent thought zinging through my head was Save Mary, Save Mary, Save Mary.
The banger on top of me was circling my throat with his dirty, rough hands. Visions of what almost happened to Rolo rode in on the tide of adrenaline rushing through me. Frantically, I tried bucking him off. He rode me, his large body barely moving as his hands wrapped and squeezed. Suddenly remembering the spike in my hand, I tightened my hold and swung my fist up, feeling the pointed end of the spike sink into his neck.
The fingers that had been gripping me a moment ago were now trying to work the spike free. Taking the heel of my hand, I punched up as hard as I could, directly on the head of the spike between his busy hands, driving it all the way in. I continued with my bucking as he pulled the spike out, not realizing his error. The banger sat frozen for a moment, then slowly started tipping over as blood spurted hotly on my face from the fatal wound now free to rush out from the opening he provided. I shoved him all the way off and rolled to my knees, coughing as I rushed to my feet, ready to get to the entrance of the barn where the banger had taken Mary down.
As I stood, Mary sailed across the barn and hit the far wall head first. My breath caught. This couldn’t be happening. And then the banger that threw my sister started towards the spot where she landed.