Ethan was surprised to find Cade standing at the end of the hall, near the head of the stairs. The Israeli woman wore Anna’s clothes and stood with her arms crossed over her chest and a worried look on her face. She looked as if she were hugging herself as she stared warily at her surroundings. Ethan could just make out one of his spare Glocks dangling from one of her hands.
“What the fuck are you doing over here?” Cade hissed as Ethan approached.
“I came over to check things out,” Ethan said defensively. He didn’t bother to keep his voice down as he set the duffel bag at her feet; there really was no need. He held out the rifle case with a quick roll of his eyes. “And I got your bag and your rifle,” he added. “You’re welcome.”
Cade looked down at the bag, and her gaze softened. “Thanks,” she said. She reached out and took the black case from him, and then she picked the bag up slowly. She draped the strap over her shoulder and looked past Ethan, down the dark hallway toward the guest bedroom. Ethan frowned and reached out to touch her shoulder.
“Hey, do you need to…?” Ethan trailed off. The rest of the question hung in the air between them. He didn’t need to finish it; they both knew what he’d been about to say.
Cade hesitated, and then she nodded slightly and took a step toward Josie’s room. Ethan watched as she stopped in the doorway and turned her head. Her blue eyes looked into the darkness.
“Where is she?” Cade asked. The question caught Ethan by surprise, and he strode over to her, his eyebrows raised as he spoke.
“She’s right there,” Ethan replied. He moved around Cade and gestured into the room. “What the fuck,” he whispered as he saw the interior of the room for himself. Josie’s bed was inexplicably empty. Where the small body of the four year old once lay was just a dark stain on the sheets. There was an additional splotch on the floor near the doorway, one that Ethan didn’t remember seeing there before, though he couldn’t be sure.
“Where is she, Ethan?” Cade asked. Her voice rose in volume, and her accent became thicker in her agitation as she took a step back from the doorway.
“I don’t know, Cade! She was just right there!” Ethan said. He reached out to catch Cade as she moved backwards. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and pull her away, out of the house and back to the safety of his own home.
Ethan tugged Cade away from the door and a few steps closer to the head of the stairs. As they came within feet of the top stairs, a soft creak of the floorboards behind him was the only warning Ethan had that something was amiss. He sucked in a breath as he let go of Cade and turned on his heel. A figure ran toward them in the dim hallway, its arms outstretched. Ethan let out a shocked cry and twisted away, pulling Cade with him; his back thudded against the hallway wall, and Cade slammed into the sheetrock beside him. A framed photo fell to the floor with a crack, and Ethan fumbled for his gun.
It took Ethan a moment to register that the darkened figure was a man and that the front of the man’s body was stained with a large quantity of blood. It took Ethan an additional instant to realize that his green eyes were taking in the sight of Cade’s boyfriend, Andrew.
Cade’s breath rasped in her throat as she stood frozen beside Ethan, her palms flattened to the wall behind her, fingernails digging into the paint. Ethan took a step from the wall and positioned himself between Cade and Andrew, blocking Andrew’s view of the woman in an instinctive need to protect Cade.
“Andrew?” Ethan croaked out as he focused on the younger man’s face. Andrew’s dark eyes were devoid of any recognition. They locked like lasers onto Ethan’s face. Something in the man’s gaze gave Ethan the distinct feeling of prey in the sights of a hunter. He swallowed hard as he tried to steady himself.
“Andrew, are you okay?” Ethan tried, regardless of the look the man gave him. “You’re hurt. Let me go get you some help.”
Andrew didn’t respond to Ethan’s suggestion. Instead, he took a slow step closer to him. Ethan gripped his gun tighter and began to ease it out of the holster at his hip. His stomach churned with nervousness as he pulled the gun free. He inched along the wall, away from Andrew, and nudged Cade toward the stairs.
“Andrew, I think it’s probably a good idea if you stop right there,” Ethan said. He took a deep breath and lifted the gun. He pointed it in Andrew’s direction, even as he took another step to put more distance between himself and the dangerous man.
Andrew didn’t seem to process Ethan’s request. The look on his face suggested that he was studying a particularly nice-looking piece of meat. Ethan swallowed again and motioned with his gun. “Sit down on the floor,” he ordered. “You’re hurt. You shouldn’t be up walking around.” You shouldn’t be breathing, Ethan thought as he took another step back. Cade pressed hard against his back, her hand gripping his shirt. Andrew watched Ethan’s actions and slowly tilted his head to the side. He took a shuffling, deliberate step toward them.
“Oh God, Ethan,” Cade whispered. Ethan fought the urge to turn, fought the urge to take his eyes off of Andrew as the man advanced on them at the odd, creeping pace he’d adopted. “Behind him,” Cade warned, her voice still hushed.
Ethan reluctantly shifted his gaze away from Andrew and to a spot just past the man, to an area at the level of his waist. A small pigtailed figure shuffled toward them, a bloodied stuffed gray elephant clutched in one hand. Ethan swore his heart stopped beating for the barest second.
“Josie?” Ethan breathed. Cade took in a sharp breath and dodged around Ethan to go toward the little girl. Ethan lunged forward and hooked his arm around Cade’s waist. He dragged her back against him, gripping her tightly to him. “Cade! No!” he barked out. He hauled her toward the stairs. “Get back! Something isn’t right!” His instincts screamed at him, hammered in his head and in his chest as he watched the little girl. The way she moved, the open wounds she shouldn’t have survived, the horrible similarity between hers and Andrew’s jerking, lurching walks; whatever was wrong with Andrew was wrong with Josie too.
“Ethan! Help her!” Cade shrieked. She fought against his grip and clawed at his arm. Ethan winced as pain shot through his skin, and he swung her around and away from Josie, setting her on the top step.
“Cade! Get down the stairs! Now!” Ethan ordered. His voice was hard and cold and stern, and he glared at her with as much anger as he could muster.
Cade opened her mouth to argue. The distant, familiar whir of tornado sirens interrupted anything she’d been about to say. Both of them froze in place, and Cade’s blue eyes skipped over the side of the banister and focused on the large plate-glass windows at the front of the house.
Ethan turned back to Andrew and Josie. Neither had stopped in their advances on them. Their paces had quickened, though, and Ethan instinctively backed away from them. “Cade, down the stairs,” he warned again as he pointed his gun at Andrew. “Stop,” Ethan warned the man. “Stop right there or I’ll shoot.”
The man didn’t stop.
Ethan swallowed and flexed his finger on the trigger. He debated shooting the man. The tornado sirens blasting outside echoed in his head, making it increasingly difficult to think.
“Ethan, just shoot him,” Cade urged. “Just shoot, please!”
Ethan shook his head and took another step back. “Get down the stairs,” he repeated. He grabbed Cade’s duffel bag from her shoulder. “Go, now.” He nudged her again, and they both stumbled down the stairs, leaving Andrew and Josie on the second floor. Ethan didn’t know if Josie and Andrew could make it down the stairs, but he wasn’t going to stick around long enough to find out.
Once on the ground floor, Ethan went to the front window and looked out. He couldn’t see much, but he could just make out the sound of gunfire from somewhere down the street, accompanied by screams. Even as he watched, a man ran down the street, chased by two other men, both as befouled with blood as Andrew and Josie were. Ethan swallowed hard and took a hesitant step back from the window.
“What is it?” Cad
e pressed. “Can you see anything?”
Ethan looked back at Cade. She stood beside him in a protective stance, the Glock she’d lifted from his house pointed up the staircase at her boyfriend. Her former boyfriend, Ethan mentally corrected. He had his doubts as to whether the man was even still alive anymore, though an explanation as to why a dead man would be attempting to stumble his way down the stairs wasn’t exactly forthcoming.
“I think we need to get into the basement,” Ethan said. He grabbed Cade’s arm and tugged gently, hooking his fingers around her elbow. “As soon as we can.”
Cade took a few steps back in the direction Ethan guided her. Her eyebrows rose at the uncertainty in his voice. “What is it? What did you see?”
“Just go!” Ethan snapped. He pushed her toward the kitchen’s entryway. “Do what I said! Get in the basement! I’ll catch up with you in a minute!”
Cade took a step away from Ethan and looked at him, wide-eyed. In all the time Ethan had known her, he’d never raised his voice at her like that. Ethan couldn’t imagine what Cade was thinking as she nodded and moved toward the kitchen.
Ethan didn’t wait for Cade to disappear into the basement before he lifted his gun. He aimed it up the stairway, directly at Andrew’s head. “Sorry, man,” he said softly before he depressed the trigger.
The man at the top of the stairs staggered backwards at the bullet’s impact. He fell back as the top of his head exploded onto the wall behind him in a shower of blood and gore. The blood oozed slowly over the paint, already partially congealed as it sprayed the wall.
Ethan shifted the aim of his gun as a small figure appeared at the top of the stairs and stumbled over Andrew’s fallen body. He swallowed hard, but he couldn’t bring himself to squeeze the trigger again. He shook his head and turned on his heel, fleeing to the kitchen.
Cade waited for Ethan near the basement door, despite Ethan’s orders for her to get into the basement. Ethan made a face at her and pushed her firmly toward the basement door. “I told you to get downstairs,” he said. He reached around her to the doorknob.
“What did you see?” Cade snapped back. She looked up at him and met his eyes. In that instant, Ethan knew that Cade knew what he’d just done. She caught his hand as it moved past her and gripped it tightly. He hesitated before he squeezed her hand in return.
“I’ll tell you when we get in the basement,” Ethan said. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat; it felt like a vice was slowly closing around it, strangling his words. He turned the doorknob and pushed the basement door open.
As a cool draft wafted up from the dark stairwell and blew strands of hair back from Cade’s face, the sound of glass breaking behind them drew their attention away from the dark rectangle in front of them. Ethan turned on his heel and shielded Cade with his body as the glass patio door slammed open and the glass shattered.
“Oh God,” Ethan gasped as a pale-skinned, shirtless older man lurched into the kitchen through the broken door. His face and torso were covered in blood—whose blood, Ethan couldn’t know—and a large wound in his bicep oozed wetly. Ethan pushed Cade gently backwards to the basement steps as he tried to move away from the man. “Get down there! Now!”
Cade stumbled down a few steps, but she turned to look back as Ethan joined her. He tried to close the door, but the pale man reached for them, his hand in the gap between the door and doorframe. His hand stretched, his mouth open in an angry, hungry snarl. Ethan had never seen such animalistic hatred in a human being’s eyes. Ethan braced his shoulder against the door and pushed with all his strength against the heavy man. Despite his attempts to shove the door shut, he could feel it give a couple of inches.
“Cade! Help!” Ethan yelped.
Cade darted to Ethan’s side in an instant. She lifted her gun and pointed it into the gap. The sound of the gunshot right next to Ethan’s head deafened him. He stumbled forward as the pressure against the door gave way. It closed with a loud slam and blanketed them in darkness. Ethan’s hand fumbled, seemingly of its own free will, for the door’s lock. He slid the bolt home with another gasp and sagged against the door. He struggled to catch the breath adrenaline had snatched away.
Footsteps thudded out above them, staggering and running through the kitchen and living room. Ethan found Cade’s hand, and he wrapped his arm around her as they guided each other down the stairs to the dark room below.
Chapter 5
Hours slid by with barely a word between Ethan and Cade. Cade had spent most of the time huddled on a mothball-scented blanket underneath the basement stairs, keeping a wary eye on the door above. Ethan, for his part, had done everything he could think of to keep himself busy, primarily to keep his mind off the night’s horrific events. He had scrounged up a flashlight from a toolbox in the basement, and with the aid of the single light source, Ethan had begun to dig through boxes and crates in search of potential weapons. Something told him they were going to need anything they could find.
“Are we really going to get out of here?” Cade asked, her voice hollow with exhaustion.
“Out of Memphis?” Ethan asked. He pulled a hammer free from its tool kit and studied it before he set it down on the floor beside the box. “Yeah, we are. I just need to decide which way.”
Cade took two slow, deep breaths and looked out between two wooden steps. She stared across the dark basement to watch Ethan as he dug through the detritus of her time living in the house. Ethan shone his light toward her hiding place; her icy blue eyes were vacant as she stared in his direction. She gave a sudden decisive nod. “So what exactly are we going to do?” she asked. Her voice was oddly calm, and Ethan raised an eyebrow at how collected she suddenly sounded. “Are we just going to get out of here, pick up Anna, and take off?”
“That’s the idea,” Ethan confirmed. He took a hatchet out of a box and studied the edge of its blade, testing its sharpness. He set the weapon down on top of the toolbox with a metallic clang and joined Cade under the stairs. He settled down beside her and got as comfortable as the thin blanket on the concrete floor would allow.
“How bad do you think all this is?”
Cade’s eyes had shifted to the darkness in front of her, but she looked back at him as he spoke, raising an eyebrow. “I think you would know better than me, Eth,” she said softly. “You’re the one who was listening to the police scanner.”
“I know. I just … it’s so unbelievable, you know?” Ethan tried to explain. “I mean, how does something like this happen here? In Memphis? In America?”
Cade shook her head and looked down at her lap. Ethan followed her gaze and realized that she held her cell phone in her hand, punching buttons on its display with a slow, careful hand. “What makes you think America is immune to horrible things?” she asked once she looked up from the phone. “What makes America so special that she shouldn’t have to deal with tragedy?”
Ethan blew out a breath of frustration and shook his head. “It’s not that. I don’t think we’re special, at least not when it comes to bad things. I just figured there’d have been more warning is all. More talk of something happening here, maybe some lead-up to the riots. We don’t know anything about them! Are they political? Social? Economic? What’s going on? There hasn’t been anything resembling real unrest in Memphis, and now suddenly we’re just … completely immersed in it.”
Cade pressed her lips together, looking uncertain. “I don’t know. I hadn’t heard anything either. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” She paused and squinted at the display of the cell phone in her hand before she asked, “So what’s the plan? Where are we going to go?”
“I’m thinking Gadsden.”
“Gadsden?” Cade repeated, her tone uncertain. “Gadsden, Alabama?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.” Ethan wrapped an arm around Cade’s shoulders and gave her a gentle, affectionate squeeze. He rested his cheek against the top of her head as she relaxed against him, and it occurred to him that Cade was shell-shocked. Sh
e hadn’t been acting like the woman he’d known for seven years, the woman who had been so confident and assured, never letting anything bother her. He thought perhaps she was traumatized by what she’d seen that day. “My mother lives in Gadsden now, remember? I figure we can stay with her for a day or two. I tried calling her to let her know we’re coming, but I think the phone lines are still down.”
“I’m not sure your mom will appreciate three visitors showing up at her door without any notice,” Cade said. She disentangled herself from Ethan’s grip and stood. She stretched almost languidly, rolled her shoulders, and moved to the one unblocked window in the basement. She stood up on her toes to look out the window, fingers clinging to the edge of the windowsill for balance as she tried to check the street outside.
Ethan started to get up to follow Cade to the window, but something made him pause beside the stairs to watch her for a moment. He gripped the step beside him as his green eyes scanned the woman’s figure. Her dark hair hung loosely to her shoulders and shaded her olive-skinned face, and her blue eyes still shone with tears she would likely never shed. Cade had never been someone who wore her emotions on her sleeve, and before tonight, Ethan had never seen her show anything but cheerfulness. For the moment he watched her, Ethan thought that Cade was suddenly the perfect picture of sadness and melancholy, like her heart was slowly breaking. He swallowed hard as he considered everything Cade had been through that night, everything they both had been through. It was nothing short of traumatic. He’d never dealt with anything like it, and he had no idea what to do for Cade to help her cope with it either.
“I think Mom will be fine with it,” Ethan finally replied. He kept his voice low, his hand still gripping the wooden stair. “You know she likes you, and Anna and I haven’t been down to see her since before Halloween. Considering all the shit going on right now, I seriously doubt she’ll mind.”
The Becoming Page 5