“Mrrrr …” More.
He let his head flop onto Sam’s and he started biting into the old man’s face. His teeth tore away the flesh from the cheeks despite Sam’s open mouth screaming in pain. If anything, the old man’s screams made it easier because it stretched the skin and made a larger surface area for him to bite in to.
Roy slurped the slab of chewy skin into his mouth, relishing the sweet flavour of the blood upon it. These two combined made him go into a frenzy. He grabbed Sam’s head, torqued it to the side, inadvertently snapping the old man’s neck.
Roy ripped into his throat and tore out his trachea, crunching down on it like corn on the cob. Every mouthful made him want more and he ripped away Sam’s clothes and dug into his abdomen like a dog burying a bone. Intestines boiled over the rim of the bloody cavity like noodles and sauce over a pot. Roy gorged on them, their slick texture sliding down his throat like squid.
With each mouthful, he wanted more. He dipped his hand into the old man’s body and pulled out the liver and bit down on it like a pizza.
Growling, he chomped it down and knew that once the flesh from this man was gone, he wanted more. But where?
He’d find something. He had to.
When he was finished, Roy got up, let chunks of meat and strings of bloody skin roll off his mouth and chin and down his body. Eyes fixed forward, he stumbled to the door and left. While outside, something pulled him to the right. He didn’t know where he was going, but heading this way seemed the right thing to do. The partly-covered tracks in the snow said someone else had been this way before.
He walked on.
* * *
“Roy?” Elena called from the front door. “Roy, we’re home!” She looked down at Stephanie, their daughter. “Why don’t you take your boots off and find Daddy?”
“Okay.”
For a six-year-old, Steph was already adept at putting on and taking off her ski pants and parka. Still needed help with the wrap-around-the-head scarf though.
Before Steph left the foyer, she asked, “Should I tell him about Grandma and Grandpa coming over, too?”
Elena smiled. “Let it be a surprise.”
Steph grinned, mimed zipping her lips shut, locking them, and throwing away the key. Elena gave her a wink. The little girl ran off into the house.
Elena hoisted the two duffel bags from their trip over her shoulders and climbed the stairs to the master bedroom so they’d be ready for unpacking later. As much as she wanted to see her husband right away and plant a big, wet kiss on that face of his, it was more important to her that their daughter spent a few minutes alone with him first because she had been so excited to see him. It was all she talked about on their trip home.
Elena dropped the bags on the bed then made her way back down the stairs. When almost at the bottom, a high-pitched shriek shook her to the core.
“Steph!” she screamed then jumped down the last step and headed for the kitchen. “Where are you?”
The girl screamed again.
Downstairs!
Elena ran down the stairs to the family room. Her foot caught on a step about halfway down and folded under her. She was on her butt instantly and slid down the stairs. She hit the bottom in a heap.
The screaming turned to a wet gurgle.
Then nothing.
The family room was empty. Just the sofa, the loveseat and the big, microfiber chair that she and her husband fought to sit on all the time. The flat screen TV was there, turned off.
There was no Steph.
The laundry room!
Foot hurting something fierce, she forced herself up and limped to where the small room ran off the TV area, just beside the bar. The light was off, the door slightly open.
Call the cops. Call the cops. Call the cops, she told herself. Steph! She had to know her daughter was okay.
She slowly neared the door and debated saying hello. Stay quiet. Just see what’s there first.
Elena crept up to the small opening and listened.
A soft sound came from the dark room: wet and slurpy.
She pushed on the door; it opened with a whiny creak.
The slurping stopped and a pair of drooping, white eyes gazed up at her from the dark.
“Roy!” she said and flicked the light on. “Roy?”
Her husband sat on the floor, their daughter in his lap, chunks of Steph’s face dangling from his lips. Blood dribbled off his chin, the droplets splashing against the open flesh of what was once Stephanie’s cheekbone. Their daughter gazed up at the ceiling, eyes open, never blinking.
Screaming, Elena turned and ran. Grab her! Get Steph out of there! But her legs refused to turn her around. She tumbled over a few steps later, her bad foot giving out from under her.
“No, no, no …”
Roy appeared in the doorway then hobbled toward her, dragging Stephanie’s limp body by the foot behind him. Her husband’s skin was blue, and bruised in nasty blotches all over his face and neck. He still had on his jacket and boots. His hands were blue as well, with dark sores on his fingers. Blood coated his face, chunks of moist flesh dotting his cheeks and forehead, as if he had stuffed his face into a bag of hamburger like a dog did to a snowbank.
Elena crawled along the ground, trying desperately to get her legs underneath her.
When she finally managed to get up and get most of her weight on her good leg, Roy grabbed her from behind. She swung around and backhanded him, but not before he tried to snap the hand off with his mouth. Fortunately, he didn’t.
Breaking loose, Elena quickly limped to the stairs and, tears in her eyes, began the brave ascent to higher ground.
As she hobbled up the stairs, the thump-slap of Roy’s footfalls pulsed behind her.
“Come on,” she said through gritted teeth, “move it!” A few more stairs and … she was at the top. She desperately wanted to catch her breath but a thwoomp-bump behind her caused her to glance over her shoulder. Roy had fallen face first on the stairs, his blue-gray hands with black fingernails clawing at the steps as he tried to regain his footing.
The front door. She had to get to the front door. Elena ran as fast as she could through the house. Her heart leapt in her chest when the front door came into view. Elated, she ran even harder for it, hand already reaching out for the knob. She quickly snapped it back when another blue-gray man appeared in front of her, his eyes dull, green mucus oozing from between his lips. The portly old-timer reached for her. She slapped his hand away and did a one-eighty, heading back down the hallway in the hopes of making it to the patio door off the kitchen.
The old man behind her groaned, his clumsy footfalls thumping the wooden floor in heavy wumps as he followed suit.
Roy reached for her with both hands the moment he got to the top of the stairs. Elena hugged herself as she twisted by, narrowly avoiding him. She entered the kitchen, slipped on the linoleum, and hit the ground face first. A dull, echoey spike of pain blasted through her nose and into her forehead and cheekbones. Tears suddenly springing from her eyes sent the kitchen into a blurry mosaic of brown rectangular shapes dotted with silver.
Low moans droned somewhere behind her.
Elena pushed herself onto her feet, her head immediately swooning as she stood. She stumbled back a step … and into a pair of waiting blue-gray hands behind her.
Screeching, she tugged herself away, but not before a burst of wet warmth gushed onto her shoulder, soaking into her shirt. The pain came after, and there was no feeling in her right arm from shoulder to fingertips.
“Stop! STOP! STOOOOOPPPPPPP!” she shrieked as she made her way to the patio door. With each footfall, pain shot through her arm, the swinging motion only adding to the agony.
At the sliding patio door, she found the handle with her other hand and pulled. The door opened about a foot. Elena went to open it some more, but Roy slammed up against the glass right in front of her, his weight against the door making it impossible to open any further.
; “Get away! Getawaygetawaygetaway …” she screamed and instinctively lashed out at him with her left hand. Roy caught it and yanked her fingers to his mouth, ripping them free from her palms. Blood spurted out of the stumps like geysers; throbbing pain shot up her arm and seemed to punch her in the face.
Dizzy, Elena swung herself sideways through the foot-wide opening in the door, doing everything she could to get herself outside and her hand from Roy’s mouth. The creature held on, his grip solid, fighting her every effort. She pulled and pulled and … her arm dislocated in its socket. Pain shook her upper body and she fell out of the house and onto the patio.
Crawling along the deck, wriggling her hips and legs to move forward, eyes still blurry from tears, panic accelerating her heart with every moment – her first thought was how the deep snow didn’t feel that cold at all. If anything, it felt as if it wasn’t there.
White snow.
A series of sharp pricks hit the rear of her calves. A second later, red rained around her, dying the snow just in front of her a rich crimson.
Off in the corner of the yard was an old evergreen, one that she and Roy had planted there back when they first moved in. She loved its colour. Always had. Its green matched the red on the snow.
Something heavy landed on top of her. Then something else.
She thought she heard Roy whisper something. Then again, it could have been her imagination.
“Merry Christmas,” she thought she heard him say. “Glad you’re home for the Holidays.”
But it wasn’t Roy’s voice or the old fellow’s.
A little girl’s head landed in front of her; Steph’s wide eyes wrapped loosely around her skull was all that remained of their princess.
Elena couldn’t feel her legs anymore. She still didn’t feel the snow.
The evergreen looked on.
A bruised hand knocked some snow over her eyes.
Everything was blue-grey.
THE END
ROMAN HOLIDAY
By
David Dunwoody
“… Again, President Ford is expected to address the nation in a matter of moments. Authorities in a number of major cities have already confirmed earlier speculation that the erratic and violent behaviour of the affected is only an early symptom–”
Eric reached for the radio dial. He’d already heard all this, and he knew the President wouldn’t have anything new to say. Martial law had already taken hold, with or without his blessing. What Eric really needed to know was the conditions ahead, in Napa, but every frequency seemed to be simulating this network patter.
The world darkened. Glancing up, Eric saw the sky had turned dull gray. He drove a 1970 Cadillac Convertible. It was a boat, and difficult to handle on these narrow and winding country roads. As such, he was making slower progress than he’d intended, and it didn’t look like he was going to beat the bad weather. He hoped Liv was sitting tight. The winemaker probably had her on a short leash; that was good, in this case. As he rumbled onto a paved road and saw the entrance of the winery up ahead – a gate set in fortress-like stone walls – for the first time, he was genuinely glad for Liv’s situation. He saw the winemaker’s home in the distance, a sprawling villa atop a hill, and knew she was safer here than she would have been in the city. And he would be, too. That was why she’d called him, why she had probably begged and pleaded with the winemaker to allow Eric’s intrusion.
“It’s nice here,” she’d said. “Just think of it like going on holiday. Like we used to.”
The sky rumbled. Eric slowed to a stop before the gate. A young man with a rifle slung over his shoulder appeared on the other side. Putting the convertible in park, Eric sat up and shouted his name. “I’m Olivia’s friend!”
The man began to unlock the gate, then stood erect, staring past Eric. Eric looked back and saw two of them, ambling down the road towards his car. They were both men, dressed in blood-spattered t-shirts and jeans, and their movements were slow and jerky as they advanced on the vehicle. One’s neck was bent at an unnatural angle, clearly broken, forcing his eyes skyward; he was hunched over so that he could see Eric. A thin stream of blood and spittle ran from his lips. He almost looked like he was smiling.
Eric had only seen a few of them since leaving the city, lurching along the shoulder of the PCH. This was the last stage of it, whatever it was. Eric glanced back at the gate. The man with the rifle watched impassively. Eric began, “Aren’t you going to–”
The man raised the rifle abruptly. The gun was pointing at Eric – he threw out his hands with a scream–
The round tore past his ear and into the head of the broken-necked man. Eric dropped below the windshield and heard the rifle’s crack a second time. It was answered by a peal of thunder. When Eric sat up, both of the men in the road behind him lay dead.
Dead again.
He lifted a hand in thanks to the man at the gate. “Good shooting,” he breathed. “Good shooting.”
Something lunged out of the trees at his left. An old man seized Eric’s arm. There was no life in his eyes. His mouth opened, revealing a modest collection of brown teeth, and he clamped them down on Eric’s driving glove.
Eric howled and shoved the man back, breaking his grip. He fell across the passenger seat and scrabbled across the floor for his .38. The old man pulled open the driver’s door and clawed at Eric’s thigh. “Maaaaaa.”
Eric’s fingers snagged the butt of the gun, and he fought to get a hold of it while pushing at the old man’s head with his own. “Help!” Eric screamed. The old man’s jagged nails dug into his leg. He kicked hard and the man stumbled back into the open door. Eric sat up and shot him through the cheek.
The old man cocked his head, sputtered, then dropped to the ground.
Eric leapt from the convertible and ran at the gate. “Why didn’t you shoot?” he yelled at the young man.
“I thought he got you,” the man said, and shrugged.
Eric ripped off his gloves and showed his hands to the man. “He didn’t get me! All right?” He lowered his shaking hands and cast a glance over his shoulder. “Open the gate. Please. Let me in. I’m the professor, Olivia’s friend.”
The man complied. “Salvatore.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Eric stuffed his pistol in the waist of his slacks and turned to go back to the car. The man caught his elbow. “I’m going to drive in,” Eric explained.
Salvatore shook his head. “Leave it.”
“Fine.” Eric trudged through the gate. Salvatore shut it quietly.
“They hear the car, that’s why they come. Better we walk.”
“Good point. Okay.” Eric shoved his hands into the pockets of his sport coat, and as they walked up the road toward the villa, cutting through the middle of the vineyard, it began to drizzle.
“Anyone else here?” Eric asked. He eyed the rows of grapevines as he spoke, thinking of the old man’s shadow bursting from the woods. He’d scarcely seen his attacker’s face before his hand was in the bastard’s mouth. “Besides Liv, of course, and the master of the house.”
“No.” Salvatore picked at his coat. “Anselmo is my cousin. So I stay. The others, he send away.”
The villa’s porch was shrouded by olive trees. Eric took shelter from the increasing rain while Salvatore unlocked the entrance. They passed through a small courtyard with a disused fountain – a stone handmaiden looking heavenward, hands clasped – and entered the house proper.
Salvatore took Eric’s coat and left him alone in the front hall. Eric shook the water from his hair. He felt more than a little awkward here, in the home of Olivia’s new lover with a revolver in his pants. His heart was still pounding. I shot a man out there. Jesus, he would have never thought he had that in him. Of course, the man was already dead, but … Nothing to be proud of, he told himself. She wouldn’t be impressed.
Would she?
No, no. He was hardly St. George. She’d called him here because she knew he would have died in the city
. Simple as that.
He heard an unfamiliar voice from within the house and tensed. He’d hoped to see Liv first. The winemaker, however, wouldn’t allow that. Eric knew enough about him to know he was always in control. They’d actually crossed paths a few times before, at university functions – the winemaker, the wealthy benefactor, wearing his plastic smile and a young woman on his right arm. A different girl every time, with a different look. Whatever was in fashion. Though Eric and Liv had been over long before she took up with the winemaker, Eric had still tried to talk her out of it – but he was hardly an impartial observer, was he?
“Anselmo Guglielmetti,” the man boomed as he strode into the hall. He caught Eric’s hand in a vice grip. “Sal tells me your trip was eventful.”
Eric had hoped the man would look older and more haggard than he had at those functions. He didn’t. Eric knew Anselmo was in his fifties, at least five years his senior, but he didn’t look it, not even close. They had the same salt-and-pepper hair – more salt than pepper on both accounts – but Anselmo’s hair was thick and his flesh was pink and that smile of his made Eric feel like an underclassman in an ill-fitting suit.
He hadn’t yet spoken a word. “Olivia’s in her room,” Anselmo said. “She’ll be with us shortly. It’s been a hectic morning, as you can imagine. You look as if you could use a drink.”
Eric followed Anselmo into the kitchen. Gesturing to a small table set in a winnowed alcove, Anselmo ducked behind the counter. Eric took a seat. He adjusted the .38, then took it out and set it on the table. “Have anything stronger than wine?” he asked.
Anselmo laughed. “I took you for a Scotch man the moment I saw you.” He filled two tumblers, dropped in a couple of cubes, and brought the drinks to the table. Sitting across from Eric, he moved aside a vase of pink lilies – Liv’s favourite. “I finally turned the TV off,” he said.
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