“Tell?” Karen asked.
“All right, screamed at him for waking me up, but he fucking went for me.”
Shan raised her arms and lunged for Karen.
Karen batted away the half-hearted attack.“Yourdad went for you?”
“It was that drunken windmill thing.” Shan flailed her arms in circles, mimicking the attack. “I dodged that real easy. The fucker was still hopped-up like he was on bath salts or something. I bolted back to my room and slammed the door shut, but he just kept banging on it. I thought he was going to batter the thing down so I snuck out the window.”
“And here you are,” Karen said.
“Yeah. Here I am.”
“So what do you want to do until your dad cools off?”
Shan looked around the well-kept back garden and its boring suburban ornateness. “Don’t know.”
“Pop up to Nate’s—hang out in his garage?” Karen asked.
Shan thought about it for a moment before grunting out, “Suppose.”
“Will he be up this early?”
Shan took a swig of the orange juice and washed down the last of her sandwich. “Don't know,” she said, “but he’s bound to have some smokes.”
Chapter 2
Departed
Screams reverberated inside the car.
Liz was in the driver’s seat, turning the keys in the ignition while leaning over, almost lying on the passenger’s seat.
A pair of arms stretched through the half-open window, clawing at her summer dress with blood-stained hands.
Snaking her hand past the attacker’s snatching fingers, she found the button for the window. She flicked it. The motor whined and the window started to go down.
“No, no, no!” Liz spluttered.
A cold, wet hand clamped round her arm just below the elbow.
She stifled the urge to pull back and nudged the button in the other direction. The window stopped rolling down.
The two children screamed in the back seat, a shrill siren that rasped at Liz’s concentration, but she knew she couldn’t tell them to be quiet.
A fist caught her hair and pulled. Her whole head jolted towards the window and the ravenous attacker who was squeezing his own head through the gap.
Liz yanked herself back and a flash of pain stung her as a chunk of hair was ripped free.
The attacker stumbled backward, thrown off-kilter by the extrication of the clump of hair. But it didn’t go far—it maintained its grip around Liz’s arm.
Liz’s fingers found the window control again and flicked it forward. The window started to glide up.
The hand holding her arm drifted upwards, winched away by the ascending window. Liz pulled against the attacker’s grip, but her arm remained in its grasp. She tugged her arm down again and again.
Lubricated by the blood, Liz finally managed to jolt her arm free.
Blindly, she groped for the key in the ignition. Her hand swiped the house key that dangled from the key chain and she followed it up.
The window motor stopped cranking, the force of the resistance against it greater than the torque it could muster.
Slimy, gore-covered arms thrashed through the gap. As they waved around, splatters of blood were flung into the car.
Still hunkered down low, trying to duck under the clutches of the mad man outside, Liz turned the key. The car sounded like it, too, was screaming out a resistant plea, begging her to stop.
“Shit!” Liz cursed, realizing what was wrong.
The engine was already on. Harrison hadn’t turned it off when he stopped the car.
Liz stomped her foot down, threw the car into gear and the car flew forward. The arms in the window disappeared and she was forced deep into the passenger seat.
Something moved at the side of her vision. She turned to see a shaving of sloughed skin stuck to the window. The left-behind skin was about two inches square. As she watched, the skin lost purchase on the glass and flopped off and onto her lap.
Liz screamed. The car hit a bump, jolting the family inside, then came the squeal of metal. The steering wheel bucked in Liz’s hands. She pulled herself upright and took her foot off the accelerator. The car was already off the road and careening towards the shop fronts. It smacked into a row of street furniture and a fountain of debris went cascading high into the air.
All the time, the three occupants screamed.
A figure lurched at the car as it hurtled past. The man’s face was an indistinct blur other than the glisten of wet blood.
Liz hauled herself upright and with a bump she steered the car back onto the road. She shouted over her shoulder, “You kids okay?!”
“Grant’s bleeding,” Melissa said.
“He bit me,” Grant whimpered.
“How bad is it?” Liz asked.
“Bad,” Melissa replied.
Liz turned to the sat nav. A thick, green arrow charted her progress down the unknown street. She looked franticly out the windows to try to catch a glimpse of a familiar landmark.
“Where are we?” she hissed.
She popped the sat nav from its holder. Without looking, she passed it to the back seat, offering it in her open palm.
“Melissa, do you know how to work this?”
“I do, mum,” Grant said.
“Can you find a hospital?” Liz asked, feeling the device being taken from her palm.
“What’s the address?” Grant asked.
“I don’t know. Can’t you just type in hospital?”
Liz was driving less aggressively now, slowing down at junctions while trying to spot a street name she recognized.
From one of the streets a flash of red and blue caught her eye.
“There’s a police car!” she exclaimed.
Rather than taking the time to reverse, she whipped the car around in as tight a circle as she could manage, bumping the wheels up onto the sidewalk. The car crunched off the kerb with a rasping bounce and the tinkle of something metal breaking loose.
Melissa leaned forward to look through the gap between the front seats.
“I don’t see any policemen,” she said.
Liz scanned the scene. The patrol car sat at an angle across the road. The two front doors were splayed open, but there was someone inside.
She brought her car to a halt a few metres behind the police car. She could see the silhouette of someone bobbing around in the back seat.
Liz opened the car door and stepped out. She looked around tentatively. She felt more like a thief trying to avoid the law than a victim searching for help.
She walked towards the abandoned vehicle.
An invisible thread tugged at her. The further she walked from her car the more often she had to look over her shoulder.
Melissa looked like she was making a move for the door. Liz held out her flat palm to her and shook her head.
A hiss of static caused Liz to snap back round. A garbled voice blared out over the police radio and the man in the back bolted forward, trying to burst through to the driver’s seat. The ferocity of the attempt stopped Liz in her tracks. The whole car shuddered as the prisoner hurled himself with raw optimism at the mesh screen. Again and again he threw himself at the screen with utter disregard for the physical damage it must be causing.
A gunshot scorched the morning air. Liz instantly hunkered down beside the police car, not knowing where the shot had come from.
She squatted there, her head pulled as deep into her shoulders as her bones would allow. The police car still rocked and shuddered at her back.
She looked over at her children. They were both still transfixed by their mothers skulking, and other than being terrified they looked to be in no immediate danger.
Liz listened for another shot, but as the seconds accumulated there was nothing other than the squeaks of the police car’s suspension and the thuds of flesh on glass from behind her.
Something struck her as being out of kilter. Slowly she turned.
The m
ovement and the blood caught her by surprise. She reeled back at the sight and lost her balance. On her haunches as she was, she placed her palm flat onto the rough tarmac to stop herself from teetering over.
The person in the car was now pounding their head at the door window. With every successive impact a little more blood and grime was deposited there. A mass of dark, greasy hair obscured the person’s face; Liz couldn’t be sure of their gender.
Over and over they slammed their head full force into the window. By the odd position Liz surmised they must have their hands cuffed behind their back. Whatever drug this person was on—or should be on—Liz was grateful they were handcuffed and imprisoned in the back of the police car.
She picked herself up and was about to start back to her own vehicle when she remembered why she had stopped here in the first place. She looked around the street for a clue as to the whereabouts of the police officers who had surely abandoned the car. The street, although flanked by tall, four-storey buildings, was mainly residential apartments close to the centre of town. The noise of a distant car engine drew Liz’s gaze back down the street to an open door to one of the blocks of flats. From here the inside of the entrance looked dark and gloomy. Liz called out, “Hello?”
Upon hearing her voice, the psychopath in the police car ramped up its attacks on the glass.
“Hello?” Liz called again.
There was movement.
From the open door came a policeman.
“God no!” Liz gasped, clamping her hand over her mouth.
Bereft his hat and his hair mussed up, the policeman lumbered towards Liz, his arms outstretched. His stride was hampered by the gash carved down one leg. His face was pale, his jaw slack, his eyes rolled back in his skull.
“Officer,” Liz said in a firm voice.
The policeman made no response.
“Officer, are you okay?”
The man limped his way towards her, a growling moan issuing from his slack lips. It was all too plain to Liz that the man was far from okay. She turned and started back to her own car.
As she moved, the police officer changed tack to stay on his intercept course.
Liz looked over her shoulder. There was no way he would catch up with her, but she ran back to the car anyway. She yanked the door open and dropped into the seat.
The children in the back threw a cacophony of questions at her.
“Shut up! Shut up!” Liz cried. “I need to concentrate.”
Shocked by their mother’s outburst the two children went silent.
The police officer was still limping his way towards them, although his laboured pace hadn’t increased.
She slipped the keys back in the ignition and started the engine.
The police officer pawed at the air as the car sped away.
For a few drawn-out seconds there was a strange silence in the car, the only noise the over-revving engine.
Grant found the courage to speak first.
“Ma, my hand hurts,” he said.
“Oh shi… Sorry, honey,” Liz said.
She pulled the car over in an empty street.
“I’m so sorry.” Liz scrambled in the seat to turn round so she could take a look at her son’s injury. In her most compassionate tone, she said, “Let me see, honey.”
Supported by his good hand, Grant showed his mother his wound. Just below the pinkie on the very edge of his palm was a perforated crescent of red. It was unmistakably a bite mark.
“Okay, honey,” Liz said, taking a deep breath. She swept a blood-stained hand through her hair. “Okay, I’m going to put a bandage on it from the first aid kit.”
Grant’s bottom lip trembled.
“There's a hospital not far from here, I’m sure. I'll take you there and the doctors can make it all better. Okay?”
Liz nodded to elicit her son’s agreement.
Grant looked like he was about to burst into tears, but he gave his mother a nod back.
“Ma, I’m scared,” Melissa said.
Liz put a hand to her mouth and snatched a breath. She wanted to reassure her children, tell them everything would be okay. But she couldn’t summon the lie.
She bit her bottom lip before saying, “I’ll take care of you, my babies. I’ll take care of you.”
***
“Nate!” Shan screeched.
“Face it: he’s not in,” Karen said.
Shan was still red-faced from bellowing. “Where the fuck would he be at this time of the morning? More likely he’s still passed out from blow and drinking tops with his dick-weed crew.”
“I don't know. One of them would have been woken up by now. I just don’t think he’s in,” Karen said defensively.
“The fucker’s gone and hooked up with Brodie! That’s where he is—still at her place, the dirty whore.”
“What? Brodie’s not like that. Anyway, she’s seeing Mark,” Karen said.
“Mark’s a dick.” Shan looked down at the phone in Karen's hand. “Call him again.”
“I’ve tried four times. The signal’s dead.”
“Just phone him,” Shan demanded.
“I’m not wasting all my credit on calling your boyfriend. You phone him.”
Shan pulled a face and replied, “Very funny.”
Karen looked down at the phone’s screen. The signal symbol had a diagonal slash through its bars. She slipped the phone back into her pocket and followed her friend.
“Look, why hasn’t Nate’s Gran answered the door?” Karen asked, trying to deflect Shan.
Shan snorted, “I don't know. She’s half deaf or out at that day-care thing.”
“This early?”
“What you looking at, you fucking old pedo!” Shan suddenly blurted.
Karen turned to see an elderly man in a housecoat and slippers shuffling his way down the street.
“He looks lost,” Karen said, watching the plaintive figure.
“I’m going round the back.” Shan turned and marched off.
Karen watched for a moment as the old man struggled onwards. He was moving at a painfully slow speed towards them, his head cocked at a slight angle, his mouth hanging open.
“Creepy,” Karen said.
She turned and followed her friend.
“What you doing?” she asked, catching up with Shan.
Shan was on her haunches by some flower-filled planters at the back door. She tipped one back and swept her hand under the earthenware pot.
“Sorted.” She placed the pot back down and stood up, holding a stubby brass key aloft. She explained, “Nate said he had a spare key back here in case his Gran locked herself in.”
“Should we? I mean, isn’t this breaking and entering?”
“No one’s breaking anything,” Shan said, slipping the key into the lock. “Besides, we have permission.”
“No we don’t,” Karen protested.
“If Nate didn’t want me to use the key he would never have told me about it, now would he?”
Shan pushed the door open.
Karen looked around to check if anyone was watching, then scurried in behind Shan.
Even though the summer sun was beaming down and the day was starting to warm up, the house felt dank and gloomy. There was a smell to Nate’s Gran’s house, an old, musty smell mixed with cigarette smoke and festering urine.
Shan padded silently through the kitchen. Unwashed dishes were piled up next to the sink, mainly coffee mugs and spoons.
Slowly she pulled the door open. It creaked on its hinges and Shan slowed her pulling to reduce the noise.
“If,” Karen began in an overly loud voice, “we’re allowed to be here, why are we sneaking about?”
Shan glared at her. “Fine,” she said. “You’ll have woken the dead with your racket anyway.”
She threw the door open and waltzed into the hallway.
Karen closed the kitchen door and stood for a moment, surveying the scene. There were no signs of recent activity. She walked over t
o the refrigerator and looked about for a note. There were some postcards and tacky magnetic ornaments brought back from various holiday destinations. On the wall was a calendar. There was a date circled with “Grans Dr appt 10.30am” written over it, but that was a full week away.
“Nate?” Karen heard Shan call out from elsewhere in the house.
“Maybe his Gran took a turn.” Karen suggested as she left the kitchen.
Shan was standing in the hallway looking up the stairs.
“Nate?” Shan called, holding a half empty packet of cigarettes.
When there was no response, she turned and walked into the living room.
“Where’d you get those?” Karen asked, looking at the cigarettes.
Shan nodded to the arm of a chair that had a lighter and an ashtray perched on it.
“Those are his Gran’s,” Karen protested.
Shan popped the carton open and plucked out one of the slender white sticks. “No one’s complaining,” she said as she popped the cigarette into her mouth. She held the pack out. “I take it you don’t want one then?”
Karen did, but she didn’t want to steal them from an old lady, so she shook her head.
“Suit yourself,” Shan said. She thrust the packet into the back pocket of her jeans and picked up the lighter. With a click and a puff the cigarette was lit and glowing brightly. “Ahh. That’s better.” She blew out the lungful of smoke. “Now let’s see about a coffee.”
She turned and brushed past Karen on her way to the kitchen. Like a lost puppy, Karen followed her back into the hallway. Something about the empty house made her uncomfortable. She stopped in the hall and looked up the dark stairs. The house was deathly quiet, the only sounds coming from Shan busying herself in the kitchen.
Karen looked out of the opaque glass of the front door, then she spotted it: a brown envelope with a curl of sticky tape lay by the skirting board near the front door. She bent down and picked it up tugging away a light strip of fluff from the carpet as she did.
“Shan, look at this,” Karen said, walking into the kitchen. “It must have been taped to the front door and slipped off.”
Shan snatched the used envelope from her hands. “Taken Gran to hospital. I’ll call when I know more.”
Demise of the Living Page 3