I pivoted, pressed my hand against my chest and sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor. I clamped my right hand across my mouth and hunched over to keep my body from shuddering; nausea churned the pit of my stomach and stung the back of my throat.
“No, no.” Jay pleaded, lips trembling. “No, no oh dear God no Linda not her he–”
The panic-stricken tone to his voice coiled around my spine, rooted me to the floor and prickled my skin. His gaze never wavered from the front lawn as streaks of sunlight underscored the big red splotches flaring across his cheeks; his lips trembled.
I glanced up at him and, opening my mouth to mutter the first incoherent word from my lips, when something flashed in the corner of my left eye. I cocked my head around, scooted across the kitchen floor and peered through the triple-paned patio doors. I gazed across the driveway passed Uncle Jay’s Chevy and Mom’s Honda, at the rear of a two-story white clapboard house next door.
It had a wheelchair ramp that led up to the back door and a strand of white clothesline strung between two oak trees rooted diagonally along the far right side of the yard. I scanned the house and caught it on the third try. A flickering orb of bright orange light whipped across the second story window on the far-left corner, snatching at the shadows filling the house.
“Look, Uncle Jay.” I gasped, rising to my feet. “Who lives there?”
“A young couple.” He stammered. “Why does it matter?”
When he joined me by the window, he perched his left hand on my right shoulder. He cupped his hands around his eyes, pressed his face to the glass and scanned the property as if he were looking for Waldo.
“We need to help them. That little boy could be hurt.”
“No, we don’t. What we need to do is keep our asses inside of this house until The National Guard comes.”
“Those people could be hurt.” I pleaded. “They could use some medical attention or maybe some food.”
“And if they need it.” He pointed toward the floor. “They’ll call for it, but for right now I think we need to stay in here until we get all of the information we need.”
“It looks like they’re trying to signal for help.”
“I know you want to help them,” He said, bracing my shoulders. “and that’s very brave of you, but we just can’t risk it. What we are we going to do if we go out there and the next current comes through?”
I cursed under my breath, slapped his hands away and spun toward the patio doors. I wasn’t mad at Uncle Jay because he wouldn’t help, but I was angry at the fact that everyone who I still cared about were dead. My world was shattered and yet here I was about to help a group of complete strangers with or without his help.
Before I could wrap my hand around the knob, the pleasing scent of Stetson hit me square in the face. Uncle Jay wrenched his hand around my wrist, clutched the back of my shirt with the other and flung me back like a rag doll. I spun around on drunken wobbly legs and grasped the edge of the stove to keep myself from hitting the edge of the countertop.
Jay flipped the lock into place, leaned against the door and laced his arms across his chest. His mouth shrunk into a tight angry grin.
“We’re not leaving this house.” He declared. “In the past ten minutes I’ve lost my wife and my little sister. I’m not going to lose you, too.”
Something shattered from inside the house. We froze and perked our ears to hear where it might’ve came from. Two seconds later, a loud squawking sound burst across the house, but we didn’t know exactly where.
“It’s in the goddamn basement.” Jay said through tightly clenched teeth.
We made a mad dash across the house, our feet pounding quick but softly across the floor, matching the rhythm of our heartbeats. We ran across Uncle Jay’s office (which once served as a carport after the house was built) ignored the stacks of paper cluttering his desktop and ran toward a flat wooden door on the far right corner of the room. Jay grasped the curved metal handle jutting up from the wooden door, his sweaty panic-stricken face scrunched together, and yanked it with all his might.
When he flung the door open, my skin prickled. I stepped back, my hands curled into tiny white-knuckled fists, and peered down a flight of solid stone steps. Shafts of sunlight spread abnormal shadows across the rough concrete floor and grasped at the scarred brick walls; the diverse smells of mildew and paint wafted upward, spun around my head and made me wince.
I glanced down for a second to see what might’ve caused the noise. A dead bird, maybe a sparrow or a robin, was lying spread eagled in the center of the floor next to Uncle Jay’s work table. Its beady black eyes glistened like wet stones; its fat brown-feathery head was twisted too far to one side; two jagged shards of glass were strewn across the floor beside of it, glinting amongst a second bed of broken glass.
Before I could investigate any more, Uncle Jay screamed, “Fuck, fuck.”
He leaped back from the open door just as the wind sighed through the treetops and whistled through the crack in the window. He cradled his left hand in his right fist, sat down hard enough to jostle his teeth and scowled in pain. His face and eyes flaring from a mix of panic and shock, he pressed his fists tightly against his chest and bit down on his bottom lip.
“Shut the door, Mattie.” He said through trembling lips. “Shut the goddamn door.”
I stretched myself across the open doorway to avoid the gust of wind spewing through the broken window, pressed my fingertips against the edge of the door and pulled it toward me. The door’s rusted metal hinges shrieked as it struck the floor like a judge’s gavel before an unjust sentence. I took a few deep breaths to calm the fire in my nerves and, my chest rising and falling, hurried over to Uncle Jay.
“Don’t touch it, honey.” He sighed, waving me off. “I don’t even want you to see it.”
He rolled over, pressing his injured arm against his chest and used his other hand to hoist himself up. I inched over, braced his hips in both hands and walked him back into the living room. He stretched out onto the couch, tore the brown and orange braided afghan from the back and wrapped it around his hand so I wouldn’t see it; through the blanket’s honey-cob pattern I saw tiny gray dots spread across the back of his palm like a case of tombstone freckles, but I knew that if I said anything he would be angry.
I sat down beside of him and held his good hand while we both cried. Outside, the wind died down; the treetops bowed. We wiped our tears away and tried to gather our thoughts–whatever the hell they might be.
A gauzy gray cloud floated across the sun, drenching the house in a soft somber glow that edged the living room curtains. He cried himself to sleep five minutes later and although I wanted to wake him I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I got hungry instead.
I thought about bundling myself up in a ton of jackets and ski gear and see if I could go outside to get the food that Uncle Jay had cooked earlier, but I didn’t want him to wake up and lose his shit when he couldn’t find me. Instead, I took advantage of the fact that we still had electricity and made a pan of macaroni and cheese. I locked the doors then the curtains and drew the blinds shut when I saw that Dad’s right leg had come off at the knee; his head disappeared two seconds later.
I turned on the television in time to see more reports coming in about everyone’s limbs falling off and chuckled at their timing. All across America, everyone was losing something and soon Uncle Jay would lose his hand if not his mind by the end of the week.
It’s true what they say.
There’s no news like bad news.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the people who have published my stories over the years and have given me the opportunity to do what I intend to do for years to come: entertain the world.
I also want to give an extra ounce of thanks to my girlfriend and all of my surrounding family who have given me all of the time and their patience for me to complete this project.
Thank you, everyone.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Brian J. Smith has been featured in numerous anthologies, e-zines and magazines in both the mystery and horror genres. His books Dark Avenues, The Tuckers, and Three O’Clock are still available on Amazon for Kindle. He completed his first short story collaboration with author Lenore Sagaskie. He lives in southeastern Ohio and eats more than enough spicy food that no human being should ever consume, already has too many books and buys more, doesn’t drink enough coffee to suite his palate and cheers on The Ohio State Buckeyes.
For a look into Brian’s bibliography, you can find his Amazon author page at: amazon.com/author/brianjsmith. He can be found on Facebook under Brian J. Smith.
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