Shriekers | Episode 1 | The Scarecrow Man

by Jay, Jess

  Whatever their reason, they were traveling to the Pasture, and like all those who went before them, they succumbed to the green. What Thea didn’t understand was how they got infected when they had supplies like processed food. They should have known about the green and how to detect it. It seemed strange that two people from an advanced community would be so careless, especially with a child to take care of, but thinking about that brought up feelings she didn’t want to deal with.

  It didn’t matter. Louis and Annabelle were dead. No, worse—they were both unfortunate enough to turn into shriekers and might pose a threat later.

  Thea looked down at the girl. Her small face was serious and focused, trying hard to be brave. Thea wondered if she realized what happened to her parents. Part of Thea hoped she didn’t—the knowledge too much for a child to bear. Another part hoped she did, not wanting to have to explain that her parents were gone even though their bodies still moved.

  As they reached the plaza, Thea realized she wouldn’t have to.

  The girl looked over at the parking lot and stopped, gripping Thea’s hand even tighter. Her father hadn’t moved, still frozen in place, reaching out for Thea. For a second it looked like the girl was going to run to him, but she stopped herself, lip quivering and eyes darting around, looking for something—or someone—else. She looked up at Thea as if wanting to say something, but the words didn’t come. Thea shook her head, not knowing what the girl wanted, and the girl clenched her jaw, her eyes filling with tears.

  As she watched the girl’s disappointment and frustration, Thea had a horrible thought: what if the girl was looking for her mother? That couldn’t be. The girl had seen her mother and what happened to her, but it had been dark, and her mother had been sitting outside the room. What if the girl hadn’t seen her mother change or hadn’t realized her mother was dead?

  Thea couldn’t deal with that at the moment.

  Luckily, the girl realized they couldn’t stay there and when Thea started walking again, one hand leading her bike and the other leading the child, she didn’t resist.

  * * *

  The sun started setting before the two of them reached the yellow car. Thea stopped and parked her bike, trying to think of what to do and what to say. Unsure of herself, she knelt in front of the child. The girl looked at her intently and Thea froze.

  She knew she failed horribly when communicating with the girl before, but that was to be expected. She hadn’t talked to anyone but Tom for three years. He never had any expectations and never looked to her for guidance. The girl was depending on her. She needed to be strong; she needed to have it together.

  “Listen,” Thea said, unsure where to go from there but powering through. “There’s something really scary up ahead–” The girl’s eyes widened, and Thea chastised herself, “–but it’s going to be okay. It’s just… from here we’re going to have to be really careful. Do you understand?”

  The girl nodded. Good, she wasn’t scared senseless.

  Thea smiled and continued, “I’m going to need both of my hands.”

  The child hesitated before nodding again, letting go of Thea’s hand. Thea nodded back, feeling like she should do something else to reassure the girl but unsure what that should be. In the middle of patting her on the head, she realized she was treating the girl like a dog and stood up, covering her embarrassment with work. She had never seen a dog, or any animal for that matter, but had read about them, and while some people had treated their pets like children, it wasn’t acceptable to treat children like pets.

  Without looking at the girl again, she took out her flashlight and flicked it on before attaching it to the handlebars of her bike with duct tape she ripped off its seat. When she finished, she realized she needed the shotgun attached to the handlebars, undid the flashlight, unfastened the shotgun, then reattached the flashlight, trying her best to look as if she meant to do that. She didn’t need the girl thinking she was incapable. She needed to instill faith. Determined to appear like she knew what she was doing, she examined the shotgun the way her uncle had taught her, making sure the safety was off before racking it.

  Though she had used her handgun on two newly formed shriekers, she wasn’t confident she could hit anything that moved. Worse, she wasn’t sure a handgun would do anything to a shrieker as old as the witch. She reasoned the shotgun was her best chance. A close-range shot was likely to knock a shrieker back and, if she was lucky, daze it for a second. What she would do in that second, she didn’t know, but having a second was better than not having a second.

  Thea swallowed and looked back at the girl, her tiny hands gripping the straps of her backpack so hard they were whiter than normal. Thea nodded and started down the Highway again, hoping she didn’t look as scared as she felt. One hand guiding her bike while the other gripped her shotgun, she forced one foot in front of the other, trusting the child to follow.

  The girl hesitated for a moment but rushed after her, coming so close she stepped on the back of Thea’s boot. Thea winced but said nothing—it was better the girl be too close than too far, though she had to resist the urge to get irritated when the girl continued to do so.

  The sun vanished, leaving only the stars, the moon, and Thea’s flashlight to illuminate the way. Thea felt her stomach chill and tried not to jump at every sound. When they came to the yellow car with smashed in windows, she relaxed a little—the shrieker was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean they were safe. The creature could have walked miles or just a few feet; there was no way of knowing.

  A few minutes from home, when she thought they were in the clear, she heard rustling in the overgrown fields to her right. It was close—closer than it should have been for the first time she heard it. She stopped and put her arm out to halt the child behind her. Another rustle spread through the tall grass, disturbing the stalks in a straight line to the Highway. The witch-like creature leapt from the crops, its figure dark as it crouched on the moonlit pavement.

  Neither girl moved, both rooted in place, the child’s small fingers digging into Thea’s arm and bruising her through the fabric.

  Shriekers hunted by sound since their eyes were gone and their noses were useless. Uncle Jeremy thought they could sense vibrations in the air through follicles on their vines. Aunt Emily had laughed, saying that was how hearing worked. If Thea and the girl didn’t move and the shrieker didn’t hear them, it would move on like it had a couple nights before.

  But it didn’t move on.

  Thea watched as the shadow turned slowly and deliberately, trying to ferret out its prey, tendrils of vine reaching out into the darkness from the holes in its body. It was trying to sense them. It had heard them walk up the road and knew they were there. It was only a matter of time before it realized where they were exactly. She had to be proactive.

  Thea flung the bike to the side with a clatter and a crash. Shotgun in hand, she strode forward and pulled the trigger. The shot threw both Thea and the creature back, but Thea kept to her feet while the creature was taken by surprise and fell.

  Not wasting the second she gained, Thea picked up the child and ran toward her house. With any luck, the shotgun blast did enough damage to disorient the creature, causing it to lose them.

  Its cry into the night sky told her she wasn’t going to be that lucky.

  * * *

  Thea reached the door to the basement and fumbled with her keys. Her lungs, arms, and legs were on fire. She tried to regulate her breathing and tried to focus, but her vision stung as sweat dripped into her eyes.

  She opened one lock, but her fingers were shaking. Her entire body was shaking. She heard the creature behind them but wouldn’t look.

  Two locks opened. It was close, its shriek piercing her heart, its steps thudding up behind her.

  The third lock unlatched and Thea yanked the door open, shoving the child inside before slamming it shut behind them. The shrieker collided with steel the moment she pulled the first bar across the door. The sound fi
lled the tiny room as a faint light flickered to life. Thea felt as if her heart was going to explode. Gasping for breath and fighting panic, she locked the other two bolts, her hands jelly with every pound.

  For a moment she stood, watching the door and expecting it to burst open, but it held. They made it. They were safe. She took a deep breath and let it out, trying to calm her heart but her heart wouldn’t listen. It was too much. Too much had happened. She didn’t know how to deal. Her mouth opened to let out a sob when the sound came from behind her instead.

  The girl was crying. Thea didn’t have the luxury of collapsing. She wasn’t alone anymore; she had to keep going; she had to hold it together.

  Steeling herself, she told the girl what they needed to do before entering the shelter. The girl had a hard time listening at first, flinching every time the creature collided with the outside door, but Thea kept her voice steady and eventually the girl understood. The methodic thuds of the creature attempting to get into the salt room and the two full course meals inside added an urgency to the girls’ actions as they stripped down to their underclothes.

  There was no time to brush themselves off or make sure they were clean. Thea grabbed the shotgun and typed the code into the keypad next to the inner door. It slid open and clean, conditioned air chilled Thea, evaporating sweat off her skin. She hesitated, the blackness of the room beyond just as scary as the monster outside the door.

  You’re going to regret it.

  She forced herself into action, walking into the thick darkness and aiming for where the kitchen counter should be. She felt as if she was wading through inky water, her eyes open but unseeing as the entrance slid shut behind her. With a gasp, she found the cool tiles of the counter and used it to guide her to the lamp. As if drowning, she touched it on and breathed in the light. She focused on the air returning to her lungs, then turned to find the girl right behind her and fell backwards into the counter, her heart forgetting how to beat. The girl looked like a ghost in the darkness, all color gone from her, but she had followed Thea inside. She had followed Thea into the darkness, into potential danger.

  With what was left of her composure, Thea took the girl’s hand and led her into the centermost part of the cellar—the bathroom. She knew the door would hold as it was designed to withstand worse than one shrieker, but she needed to feel even safer.

  Inside the bathroom, she set the solar light on the sink and the shotgun by the door. She grabbed two large towels from the cabinet and climbed into the tub, the girl crawling into her lap the moment she sat, her small body shivering. The air conditioning was usually a blessing, but that night it was too cold. Unfortunately, she couldn’t change the temperature. She had tried to once, but the thermostat in her aunt and uncle’s room didn’t work anymore. Fortunately, it was a smart system that sensed the temperature outside and was able to compensate for it, but the computer didn’t factor in sweaty flights from nightmare creatures.

  Wrapped in their own towels and huddled together for warmth, they listened to the almost rhythmic banging of the witch-like shrieker as it rushed the door over and over. The tempo was slow and sporadic. Whenever a thud didn’t land when Thea expected it, she listened with her breath held, hoping the shrieker had gotten bored and run off, but then there was another bang, another release of breath, and another slump back into the tub.

  Hours passed and exhaustion took over. It was as Thea almost fell asleep that she heard the other shrieker. It was farther up the road toward Town and sounded newer. Its cry was fuller, as if it’s vocal cords hadn’t completely withered. It sounded like the shriek she heard in the Food Store.

  The child sat up, gripping Thea’s shirt, a new fear on her face. They both knew who it was—her father, Louis. It had to be. The silence that followed unsettled her more than the pounding. Things were about to get much worse.

  Shriekers tended to be very territorial, especially in their advanced states. At least that’s what her uncle told her. She had never seen two shriekers interact before, but she had no reason to doubt him. His grasp on the science behind the green was better than hers. Still, she hoped he was wrong. She needed him to be wrong about this.

  Silence closed in on her as she strained to hear what was happening outside. No one moved, not even the child. Louis shrieked again, this time much closer, and the witch outside the entryway responded with an angry wail before taking off, its hasty footsteps charging up the stairs and off in the direction of its new adversary.

  Part of Thea was curious, wanting to leave the safety of the cellar and see what was happening, but another larger part of her wanted to stay in the bathroom forever. When the witch was focused on the entrance, it was unnerving but benign. Even if it kept harassing them all night, the sun would put it into a trance. When it woke up again, it might forget why it was there and move on. Thea and the girl would be trapped inside as it slept, but with everything that happened, that wouldn’t be a problem.

  The two shriekers fighting could destroy something important—something Thea needed to live—and there was nothing Thea could do to stop them. Any scenario where she left the basement ended with her death.

  Bangs and crashes drifted in through the cement walls and ceiling, moving as the two clashed with each other across her property. Thea pictured them as they continued, trying to place where they were, but it was hard to follow as the noises were intermittent and faint. She willed the creatures to move on, toward the field or toward the Town.

  Her body seized when she placed their skirmish near the greenhouse. Her ears began to ring as she strained to hear them and make sense of what was happening.

  A large crash sent everything into sharp focus.

  Thea untangled herself from the child, rushing out of the bathroom and to the door. She wasn’t thinking. If she was thinking, she would tell herself that leaving still meant death but that didn’t matter anymore.

  As she rushed out into the salt entryway and began undoing the locks, her mind was filled with the hours she spent with her aunt as she taught her everything she knew about gardening: how to make compost, how to make good dirt, when to harvest and when to plant… Some of the lessons stuck and some of them didn’t, but the memories didn’t fade.

  At the top of the stairs she saw the greenhouse, standing but damaged, a large hole smashed through one of the wooden sides. Faintly, through the gaping maw, she could see the creatures tangling with each other in the moonlight. Carelessly, brazenly, they trampled her crops, knocked over pots, destroyed everything her aunt had built, everything Thea tried desperately to maintain. She stood frozen, unarmed, everything in her screaming that she needed to do something, but nothing telling her what to do. They were ruining everything.

  Something snapped inside her, and she rushed down the steps back into the shelter, passing the girl standing in the doorway. In the bathroom, she grabbed the shotgun but was stopped from leaving the basement when the girl grabbed her leg. Thea looked down at her and whatever was on her face caused the girl to shrink back. Thea gestured for her to stay, not able to deal with her at the moment, and banged up the steps again. As she strode through the grass toward the greenhouse, she cocked the shotgun, anger in her muscles and her jaw set.

  She faltered when the greenhouse began to buckle and froze completely when the ceiling crashed to the ground, scattering into a million pieces. In that moment Thea’s mind shattered into as many fragments. She watched the greenhouse collapse in on itself, almost dropping her shotgun as her hands forgot they held a weapon. Almost fell to her knees as her legs forgot how to stand.

  That was it. It was over. Everything was over.

  One side of the barn still stood but the rest had crashed on the dueling shriekers, engulfing them and leaving only the witch’s feet visible. Thea tried to jump start her brain, knowing that every second she wasted the situation was getting worse, but she had no idea what to do.

  Movement inside the ruins caught her attention. First a hand, followed by a head… Limb
by limb, a shrieker rose from the rubble, pieces of wood and glass falling from it as it stood. It was Louis. Logic clicked back in her brain, but self-preservation had to war with anger for control.

  She knew she wouldn’t be able to do anything that night; she wouldn’t be able to salvage any food or take care of the shrieker still buried in the rubble. She knew she wouldn’t be able to do anything to Louis but make it angry. That didn’t stop her from wanting to march over to the barn and unload all the bullets she had into the abomination. That didn’t stop her from wanting to set the whole thing ablaze and listen to the shriekers cry out as they burned. They destroyed her life so they deserved to suffer, but those dark thoughts scared her more than the monsters before her and she shut them away.

  Somehow, she made it back into the shelter, closing the door behind her and locking it, her hands accurate despite all the tension she felt. Somehow, she made it back into the bathroom, the girl following behind, sniffling, hesitating. Tired, Thea sat down in the bathtub and motioned for the girl to join her. As if she had been waiting for Thea to give her permission, the girl rushed over and crawled into her lap.

  In the darkness, Thea inhaled the smell of earth and sweat and tried to fall asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  In the sunlight the damage to the greenhouse was devastating.

  Her feet heavy, the shotgun clutched in her hands, Thea walked over to the wreck of wood and glass, soaking in the damage and trying to process what it meant. One side of the barn remained standing, but the other side—the side that guaranteed she would survive winter—had collapsed in on itself. Glass covered everything. The green grew in concentrated patches, infiltrating the building she worked so hard to keep it out of.