Palimpsest (Book 2): Of One Skein

by Post, P. J.

  I put a finger to my lips, hoping he’ll shut up. The last thing we need is letting these crazies know we’re out here. But he doesn’t take my suggestion.

  “They’re in the hallway; the door won’t last much longer.”

  Is it too late now?

  Do I have to?

  “How do we help?” Jem asks.

  Fuck it.

  “How many?” I shout back.

  “Two, my wife and daughter.”

  I’m back to not knowing what to do with Jem to keep her safe. I don’t want her coming with me, but I’m not tough enough to let her out of my sight.

  I kneel down, take her .22 and check the action.

  “To help, we have to go in,” I say, and hand her pistol back.

  She nods.

  “Do you know what’s going to happen?”

  She shakes her head.

  Her eyes are big and round, but I can tell she’s trying to hide her fear.

  “Stay behind me, not to close, so I have room to jump around if I need to, and if anything happens to me, don’t try to help, just…”

  “Run?” she asks.

  I squeeze her shoulder. “Yeah, run as fast as you can, and when you get away, don’t trust anyone.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “No, I mean…” Jesus, what’s the right thing to do here?

  “You promised you wouldn’t leave me.” Her fear is turning to tears.

  “What are you waiting on?” the man shouts down at us. He’s shrieking now, completely irrational.

  I place one hand on Jem’s cheek to calm her worries. “Don’t shoot me, okay?” I wink at her.

  She smiles, her face transformed and then she giggles nervously. “I won’t, promise.”

  Shit, hearing other people’s promises isn’t any more encouraging than when I do it.

  I don’t know what to do with Pixie; I just hope she stays out from underfoot.

  “How do you know they’re insane?” I shout as we walk up to the house. The element of surprise is pretty much fucked at this point, besides, it doesn’t sound like Crayton or Cart People, considering the fact that we’re not dead yet — I don’t know what this is; maybe it’s a goddamn domestic dispute?

  “They tried to kill us, they were biting at us; can you believe it, biting? They’re acting like zombies, you know, like the movies.”

  “Your wife and daughter?” I ask.

  “Yes, yes, both of them, fucking nuts!”

  I’m close enough now to see the panic in his eyes. The other guy is shorter, looks like his son, and he’s just as freaked out.

  “What happened?” I ask. I’m in no hurry to rush inside without knowing what’s going on.

  “I don’t know, they just came in and attacked us. Please, for God’s sake…”

  Fine.

  A soccer mom and her daughter, how bad can it be?

  Shit.

  Don’t over think it — it’s just like the movies.

  We creep around the hedges next to the porch and up the front steps. They creak with every step just like the ones down at the store, echoing across the clearing.

  I look through the picture window next to the front door.

  A living room waits on the other side, full of heavy, expensive looking furniture and lots of white painted trim. The stone fireplace takes up most of the left wall. A fancy patterned couch sits across from the window and a heavy, carved wooden staircase heads upstairs behind that. The doorway on the other side of the stair must lead to the kitchen.

  I make a mental note that if we run that way the kitchen door is a locked slider with a screen, so that’s going to take more time to get open.

  I walk to the right side of the door, but those windows have the curtains pulled.

  The house is big, but I don’t think it has more than one staircase, shit, I hope it doesn’t.

  Blood is splattered across the front door and drips from the handle.

  “Are you ready?” I ask Jem.

  She pulls herself up to her full height and raises her chin. “I got your six.”

  “Where did you hear that? You know what, never mind.”

  She shrugs and grins.

  Way too many bunches of television.

  The door’s unlocked.

  I peek through the picture window again, but no one has come down the stairs.

  Why are these people my problem again?

  I hear Sam in my head: save the ones you can.

  I glance one last time to Jem and she nods with confidence, in spite of her saucer eyes.

  The door opens silently.

  I wipe the blood off on my jeans as we step inside. Thankfully, the sunshine follows us.

  A blood trail leads across the wooden living room floor, stops next to the couch, pooling in the nearest cushion and then continues, puddling here and there into the kitchen and up the stairs.

  There’s buckets of blood.

  Once inside, I hear grunting, and I’m guessing the scraping sounds are fingernails digging into the wood upstairs, and then bangs and crashes join the din…Mom and Sis throwing themselves at the bedroom door?

  The stair goes halfway up and then turns back to the right. The bedroom door should be close to the top of the stairs.

  Probably.

  Maybe.

  I point to the foot of the stair and then at Jem and mouth stay here.

  She nods and I lean against the rail, walking around the blood as I test the first step. It’s solid and quiet. I have no doubt that the last step will squeak and pop like a motherfucker.

  I move up the stairs sideways, step by step, splitting my attention between Jem and whatever is waiting upstairs.

  The horror becomes real when I get to the landing.

  Mom is wearing jeans and a ripped and bloody sweatshirt, her hair is a mess of tangles and leafy mats.

  Her daughter looks to be a teenager — was a teenager. She’s tall, like her mom. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, a sticky mess of blood and muck. She’s wearing jeans too, and a maroon jersey shirt with Treadwell embroidered in white across the shoulders.

  I have to move to the far side of the landing to get a clear shot around the balcony railing, but I can’t see Jem from here. And she’s being dutiful, she’s not moving — she’s just watching me intently, her .22 at the ready.

  I watch the steps, making sure I don’t trip over anything, slip or fuck up and alert them.

  They’re still working over the door, lucky for her husband and kid this is an expensive house with solid doors. If they were hiding in my room back in New York, they’d already be ripped to pieces.

  I take one step up the next flight, trying to ignore the family photos nailed to the hallway above me, a Yellowstone vacation or some shit, one of the softball daughter’s batter-up moments and other school events.

  Cute family.

  Very photogenic.

  I take aim at the back of Mom’s head.

  For some reason, she turns.

  Her face is fine, tan even, she looks like she should be okay, except for her eyes — they’re all fucked up, black on black on black.

  The shot goes off like a cannon in the house.

  Pixie howls.

  Mom’s brains paint the wall behind her even as she falls back against it, slumping to the floor under a caricature print of her and her daughter as pirates, probably a souvenir, sketched by one of those sidewalk hustlers from Times Square or some shit.

  I swing my aim to softball-girl before Mom even hits the ground, and get two shots off, but I’m too late.

  These fuckers are fast.

  Sis leaps over the balcony.

  Time slows down as I watch her fall.

  Her eyes match her mom’s, button black, but her face is ripped from eye to chin. The ravaged flesh quivers, pulsating like it’s breathing as she chomps at the air. The bleeding’s stopped, which makes it worse. Her face looks like cube steak.

  I get a third shot off just before
she hits me.

  I try to spin her as she crashes into me, her knee catches me in the stomach, her teeth…she drives me into the wall, my backpack gouging into my shoulders, and then I’m on my ass. I shove against her, trying to redirect her inertia, but she’s incredibly strong.

  It’s all I can do to hang on to my .45.

  She comes to a stop on her knees in front of me, and for a moment we’re face to face, like we’re dating, and inside the blackness of her eyes is something even darker — something not dead, but not quite alive either.

  She scrambles to her feet, but slips again as I plant one boot into her knee.

  It snaps.

  Her leg buckles.

  Her other foot finds the next step down from the landing as she falls backward, and then stands straight up, shrieking and clawing for me before tipping over like some bad slapstick movie.

  She slams her head into the steps and bump-slides her way into the living room right in front of Jem.

  Shit.

  We’re both crawling to our feet, but she’s faster despite her bad leg.

  Jem jumps over the couch into the living room.

  Sis follows her, crawling up the back of the couch and falling over it. I can tell by the way she moves her shoulders that she’s forgotten all about me — Jem’s the new Daily Special.

  By the time I finally get up, Treadwell is in front of Jem, looming over her, and I’m afraid my shot will go right through and hit Jem.

  I scream as I leap down the last two steps, trying to get the thing’s attention, but she’s not having it.

  I land in a puddle of blood, bounce off the wood floor, and end up flat on my ass before I even know what’s happened.

  Fuck!

  I’m behind the couch and can’t see what’s going on.

  Jem’s .22 goes off three times, and I hear Pixie barking and growling much louder than before.

  I get back to my feet just in time to see Treadwell slinging Pixie across the room. She hits the couch, and then tumbles over toward the chimney and disappears, but she never stops growling, never stops barking. Jem disappears behind the teenage ghoul with nothing to protect her, nothing to keep those teeth away…and then they both go down, slamming against the wood floor under the picture window.

  Jem shrieks.

  I hear bloodcurdling screams from upstairs at the same time.

  “Head! Shoot her in the head!” I shout.

  Jem fires again and again, but Treadwell doesn’t slow down as she leans in closer to Jem’s face, and then Pixie is back, her teeth sinking deep into the thing’s neck.

  The force of Pixie’s attack gives Jem enough time to crawl out from under her and roll away from the deadly claws.

  The screams continue from upstairs, more terrified shrieks.

  Jem looks to the ceiling as she scrambles to the front door.

  The daughter leans back onto her heels, and does the same. The curiosity almost makes her look human as she begins to stand up.

  I raise my .45 and squeeze a shot off.

  Blood sprays across the picture window as Sis’s head rocks back, and then she falls over sideways onto the coffee table, her head shattering the glass as her life finally drains away onto the last issues of Seventeen and Bucolic Life.

  Pixie leaps to the side of the couch, mustering up her fiercest growl yet. Her face is covered in blood again.

  I’m worried about her getting infected, but maybe she’s immune. I fucking hope she is.

  And then there’s a banging from upstairs, pounding on the door, more screaming followed by a body falling and slamming into the stairs, crunching and popping so loudly that it can only be bones snapping.

  It’s the dad dressed in plaid pajamas and a brown fuzzy bathrobe. He slides down the steps, eyes wide and staring up at the ceiling.

  He’s screaming in agony, but there’s no sound, only wheezing.

  I look up in time to see the other Treadwell kid bounce off the back wall of the landing. He spins and stares at me.

  He’s turned.

  His eyes are black on black — button eyes, just like his sister.

  He’s dressed similar to his dad, in pajamas and a Carol’s Cookies t-shirt. He seems confused by me and Jem, his head jerks back and forth between us like a hawk searching the forest floor.

  That’s all the time I need.

  I put two in his face.

  He slides down the wall in a heap.

  Is that it?

  Is that all of them?

  The adrenaline is racing through my veins — I’m shaking.

  My ears are ringing, and I feel like I’m wearing ear muffs, but I haven’t broken anything and apart from some scratches and the bruises that I know are coming, I’m okay…I think.

  Sis’s teeth got awful close, but I don’t think she broke the skin.

  I pull back my coat and sweatshirt.

  Fuck me.

  She did. A shallow bite mark is clear on my shoulder.

  I jump over the couch.

  “Were you bit?” I ask Jem frantically.

  She shrugs, she’s beyond terrified.

  I force myself to calm the fuck down so I don’t scare her more. We check her out, as my panic slowly begins to spin out of control.

  But she’s fine.

  I’m not sure if Pixie’s magic goes this far, but I guess I’m going to find the fuck out.

  We walk back to the stairs, both of us panting.

  My shoulder hurts like a motherfucker, but it feels different than normal cuts and bruises. Dad’s squirming around, but only from the waist up — not a good sign.

  “Stay still, you’re all messed up, man. What happened?”

  The guy is a soft, middle-aged banker or business dude. He’s holding his arm. It’s bleeding the most.

  “Let me see,” I say.

  He pulls his sleeve up. Unlike Jem, his forearm is all fucked up, blood pooling like maple syrup over pancakes. I can see the tooth impressions, but much deeper than mine.

  So is that it?

  Does it spread like a virus, like in the movies?

  That’s more or less how Pixie saved me and Jem, well, without the biting anyway.

  “Mister, hey, focus!”

  He stares up at me, only vaguely aware of what’s going on — he’s slipping into shock, or dying, I can’t tell which.

  “Your son, did he get bitten?” I ask.

  He nods slowly; although I’m not positive he even heard the question.

  I kick his foot hard enough to make him cry out, but he doesn’t, he doesn’t even blink.

  I kneel down next to him.

  I’m pretty sure his back is broken. He’s as good as dead; we can’t stay and take care of him. Besides he’s probably got internal injuries.

  And…he’s been bitten.

  If that’s how it spreads, he’s twice dead and counting.

  That makes two of us.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  He moans and rocks his shoulders, still clutching at his arm as Jem joins me. She avoids the blood and sits down on the steps below the landing, studying him.

  “Sandy…” he cries out, delirious.

  These were regular folks, isolated, hiding out in their little corner of the apocalypse, and I have no idea how they got — infected?

  I’m not sure if they really are zombies, like in the movies, or if it’s a virus like rabies, if they’re dead or alive, or maybe it’s something like what Pixie has, but regardless if it’s crazy or monster or supernatural curse, they’re deadly and fucking scary as hell.

  I need to find out how to keep Jem safe, Jesus, from me.

  How much time do I have?

  As I look around the bloody aftermath of our attempted rescue, I’m questioning my decision to go after Casey again. I should have stayed with Sam and Emily.

  This was a clusterfuck.

  I’m terrified for them now, and it’s killing me not to be there to look after them.

  But if I wasn’t here,
what would have become of Jem?

  She’d almost certainly be dead.

  I’m never going to see them again

  Cam better keep his fucking word.

  “Are you okay?” I ask Jem for the tenth time as I rub my shoulder.

  “Are you?” she asks.

  “No, not really.”

  She looks at her shoes for a minute and then back up. “Me either.”

  She seems even older.

  I look over to the living room to see Pixie crouching on the back of the sofa, more like a cat than a puppy, watching everything closely, especially me.

  I run the situation over in my mind and wonder again where the motorcycle Cart Guy is. Did he visit this happy-ass family today?

  What did he do to them?

  But he wasn’t dead, Cam missed, he’s…I don’t really know what he is, what they are — are they like the fat fuck that Jem capped last night or that thing that flopped around on the highway, refusing to die?

  I keep staring at the man of the house, and then it hits me what’s wrong with this picture and I laugh.

  Jem looks at me like I’ve gone insane.

  “Dad, your hair’s wet, what’s up with that?”

  I look up the stairs, do they have running water?

  Late to the party again.

  I walk over to the front door, scan the clearing, and then close and lock it, before closing the blinds and curtains.

  I don’t know how long the change takes, but he should turn before me, hopefully, that will give me enough time…until then, I’ll act normal for Jem — this is going to be so, so fucking hard for her.

  “Pixie, time to get you cleaned up. How about it Jem, want to take a couple of minutes and get the mud out of your hair, maybe borrow some clean clothes?”

  She nods without enthusiasm.

  She must sense something’s still not right.

  “Pops, is anyone else here? Hey!” I shout at him. I wonder if Jem can hear the tremor in my voice.

  He looks up at me, bewildered.

  “I said, is anyone else here, in the house?”

  He shakes his head.

  “What are they?” Jem asks, pointing at the black eyed girl sprawled across the coffee table.

  She might as well be pointing at me. “I don’t know, not really. We need to find out, though.”

  “What bit him?” she asks, fixating on Dad’s wounded arm.

  I sigh.

  Truth.

  “His kid, he did it. You know like, at school, when kids get colds and you can catch it from them, you know, you get sick too?”