by Megan Duncan
Chapter 5
Heading back to bed from the bathroom, I thought I heard a scratching sound, but figured it was the last of the embers popping and disregarded it.
I crawled back into bed next to Taya, and finally fell into a deep sleep until I felt skinny fingers clenching my arm in a death grip, shaking me very hard.
“Abby. Abby, wake up!”
I rolled over sleepily not wanting to be rudely removed from the sleep I just finally started to enjoy, then my eyes popped open. “Taya?”
“Abby, you gotta wake up!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, as I grabbed a match to light a candle. The room was lit up faintly in an orange glow and I saw Taya’s terrified face. She looked a tiny bit relieved when I finally started to wake up even though I wasn’t very happy about it.
“Something is outside,” she pointed toward the window, her skinny arm shaking.
“It’s probably just the wind Taya, a big storm was…” I froze when I heard it, and snatched my knife that was resting on the night stand. Taya scrambled to my side, making small squeaking whimpers.
The sounds were getting more incessant, seemingly coming from every direction. It sounded like dozens of rodents digging into the walls.
I held my knife out in front of me, waiting for some invisible attacker as we slowly backed our way out of the room. My bare legs were covered in goose bumps as the fear rippled across my skin.
“What is it, Abby?” She sounded as if having me awake would solve the problem and I would instantly know what to do. It was nice that she thought so highly of me, but I was as terrified as she was, I just wouldn’t show it. If I did, our chances of making it out alive from whatever was about to happen would be very slim.
“I don’t know. We need to go wake the guys.” As I said it, a loud crash shattered the bedroom window and Taya screamed. I leaped forward and quickly pulled the door shut, slamming it hard. The pictures on the nearby walls rattled and then fell to the floor.
I felt Taya clinging onto my shirt with a death grip, and decided to shove her into the bathroom knowing there was no window in there. I hoped she would be safe, but at the moment it was my only way of protecting her.
“Get in there, and lock the door!” I shouted as I slammed the door behind her. I made my way quickly down the rest of the hallway as the sounds of Taya crying slowly faded away.
More windows were shattering throughout the cabin and I could hear Carter and Max yelling in the living room. I could also hear what sounded like hundreds of little feet scurrying across a wooden floor. My instinct to protect my brother and Max overcame my fear, and I bolted into the living room.
“Carter! Max!” I yelled, as I locked my eyes on a terrifying sight.
Small little demons about the size of a three year old child were attacking Carter and Max. They were dark, scaly looking creatures with long sharp nails and a large wide mouth holding dozens of pointy teeth. They reminded me of the gremlins I had seen in a movie once, and it brought back all the childhood fears I had of the nasty things.
I was frozen in shock for a moment, but when I heard Max call my name I sprang into action.
One little demon was attacking Carter’s leg. It took a swipe and made three long gashes through his jeans and across his calf. He screamed out in pain and I lunged, chopping its boney arm off as it raised its scaly green limb to attack again.
It turned toward me and growled loudly, its mouth opening wider than any normal jaw bone would allow. I felt bile rise from my stomach as I watched, expecting the little demon’s head to snap in half. Swallowing back the foul taste in my mouth, I swung my knife at it again and it jumped out of the way. The gremlin-like demon hissed at me, and grabbed its severed arm before taking off out a window.
As I watched the one armed demon leap out the window in a single bound another one of them jumped on my back and started biting my shoulder. Pain screamed through me as dozens of tiny razor sharp teeth broke my flesh. I tried to grab it, but another one came running toward me, trying to slice up my legs with its claws. I kicked it in the face, and sent it flying across the room. The sight of it slamming into a bookshelf brought a satisfied smile to my face.
I could see the guys struggling, each fighting two or three little demons crawling all over them, biting and scratching. I wanted to help them, but I was fighting my own pint sized demons. Every time I got rid of one, another would take its place.
I felt warm blood dripping down my shirt, but I couldn’t get the demon off my back. I struggled, flinging from side to side, hitting with my fists, but nothing worked. A thought flashed in my mind to try and stab it, but I quickly discarded that idea. They moved too quickly and it would almost be a worse fate, being killed by accidently stabbing myself than by a demon, I thought. As I swirled around I saw something on a wall and got an idea. I ran for it and at the last second I twisted and landed heavily into a pair of antlers. My head smacked firmly between the large boney protrusions, but the demon on my shoulder wasn’t so lucky. I’d never been a fan of hunting, but now I could say I’d never been more grateful to see a moose’s head preserved on a wall.
It let out a loud shriek as blood dribbled out of its mouth, then let go. It went limp and hung off the wall, and I watched its dark blood drip to the floor.
Not wanting to waste any time, I turned to see Max fling one off his back and pull out his gun. I knew they had wanted to use the guns as a last resort; the bullets were hard to come by, and with so many targets, it would be easy to accidently harm one of us. He shot two in quick succession, and their heads exploded on impact sending green gore flying.
“Abby!” Max ran to me, quickly shooting at a demon that tried to get me from behind. I was so focused on watching Max that I hadn’t noticed it behind me.
“There are so many of them Max!” I looked around and it seemed that their numbers were growing rapidly as they came crawling in through the windows like roaches.
“Where’s Taya?”
“I locked her in the bathroom,” I said, as I stabbed a demon through the top of its head as it grabbed at my leg. I was expecting to hit bone, but my knife easily penetrated its scaly flesh. I pulled out the knife and almost had to fling the sticky head of the demon off the end of it.
More demons were running throughout the cabin, attacking us and causing chaos by breaking things or throwing objects across the room. Carter, Max and I were slowly being backed into a corner of the cabin as their numbers grew.
“There are so damn many of the little fuckers!”
“Abby, where is your gun?”
I cursed myself for leaving it in the bedroom. I wanted to grab it, but it was leaning against the wall right under a window.
Max sliced with his knife in a large sweeping motion, causing a gooey green line to form across the row of demons in front of us. They growled louder and a few dove at us. I kicked wildly, like I was practicing for the soccer team, and took off limbs and ears with my knife when I could. Carter was holding a knife in one hand and an arrow in another. Stabbing and slicing at the same time, but there were just too many of them. Several of them were fighting with missing limbs, or even trying to hit us with their severed parts, throwing the scaly, stinking pieces of demon at us.
Suddenly a deafening blast rattled the room, and I saw the look of shock on their ugly little faces.
I looked to my left and there was Taya, carrying my shotgun.
She cocked it again and shot at the back of the group again and the demons quickly started running for the windows, desperately trying to escape. The confidence they had felt by backing us into a corner had immediately dissipated.
We started to fight back harder, and I yelled for Taya to grab us ammo. She ran for the bag in the kitchen and swung at a demon with the butt of the gun sending it flying onto the kitchen counter. The sight of her running around with a shotgun and an oversized t-shirt with her skinny legs poking out the bottom would normally have been hilarious, but at this particu
lar moment she was nothing short of an angel to me.
“Max!” Taya yelled as she tossed a magazine at him.
He caught it, quickly loaded his gun, and took out demons with every shot.
I turned and helped Carter fight off a particularly fat little demon. Its round stomach protruded so far, it was odd how it kept itself upright. We quickly overpowered it and watched as it retreated with an arrow sticking out the back of its head.
Taya shot at the last few as they tried climbing out the window, their bodies falling back into the cabin like rocks.
We all stood there in shock for a moment and I quickly fell to the floor as the adrenaline in my body ran out.
“Abby!” Carter and Max ran to me. Both their faces were riddled with scratches, and green spots of demon blood mixed with streaks of red.
“She’s losing a lot of blood. Max, go get the first aid kit!” I heard Carter barking orders. I turned my head to see Max, but instead I saw Taya.
Her once terrified eyes had turned defiant, and I smiled at her.
“You did it, Taya. You saved us.”
“Yeah, good job, Taya,” Carter added. She smiled up at him as tears started to stream down her face.
Max quickly came back with the kit and they got to work on my shoulder. I knew the demon had bitten it, but I didn’t think it could have been that bad. The looks on their faces, however, said otherwise.
“Put pressure on it, Max, while I get the alcohol.”
“You ready, Abby?” I nodded gritting my teeth, not sure what I was getting ready for but knew it would be painful. I felt someone hold my hand, and I squeezed it as Carter poured alcohol onto the wound. I tried holding it back, but a blood curdling scream exploded out of my lungs as the alcohol sizzled, and bubbled in the open wounds.
“Okay. Okay. Worst part is over.”
I looked over to Taya. It was her hand I was holding, and I was grateful for her comfort. She had suddenly become so strong, and brave.
“Carter, we need to get out of here,” I said trying to stand up, but he pushed me back down. I didn’t want to just lay there. What if the shotgun only scared them off for a short while, and they would be crawling back in through the windows at any moment?
“Taya, you keep pressure on this. Max and I are going to pack up the Bronco and we’re going. Don’t let her sit up,” Carter ordered.
Taya nodded and I saw the guys dashing about the cabin, jumping over or kicking out of the way, any demon bodies they walked past.
“You did good,” I told Taya again, and she looked at me, a small smile forming on her quivering lips.
“I didn’t know if I could do it, but I had to. I wasn’t able to help my mom…” tears started to trickle down her cheeks with more urgency, “I was afraid of what might happen, that I would be left in that bathroom alone.”
“You were brave, Taya. I don’t know if we would have made it without you.”
I squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. We sat in silence then, while the guys finished loading up the Bronco.
“Okay, Abs. Time to go,” Max said, as he lifted me up and headed for the door.
I looked back over his shoulder as we walked out and tried to count the number of demons that lay lifeless on the cabin floor. I got to seventeen before he was walking down the steps, and squeezed my eyes shut not wanting to see their ugly bodies any longer.
Carter had backed the Bronco right up to the cabin and we all quickly got in before he went speeding out of the camp.
The sky was starting to turn a pretty orange. It was morning. Max laid my head onto his lap as I fell into a deep sleep. After a night like that I would have expected to have a nightmare, but I had the most pleasant dream. Max and I were at my favorite amusement park, Silverwood. Carter, and Taya were there too and we were all heading to get in line for Tremors. It was a classic wood coaster and one of the scariest rides I had ever been on, but being at that amusement park were some of my happiest memories of my childhood.
When I woke up, panic instantly coursed through me. I was in the Bronco alone, and we were stopped on the side of the road. Just as I felt my heart begin to pound, I saw a familiar face and my fear melted away.
“Hey, sleepy head,” Max said.
I saw him leaning against a guard rail, eating a can of pork and beans. “You hungry?” he asked, offering me the can.
“No thanks,” I said as I crawled out of the Bronco. Pork and beans looked to be one of Max’s favorite post demon apocalypse meals, but I just couldn’t stomach the stuff.
Plus, my whole body was sore, especially my shoulder and I just wasn’t in the mood for food even though I could feel my stomach rumbling.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Just outside of Utah. How are you feeling?” Max walked over to inspect my bandages. “Looks like these need changing.”
I closed my eyes as Max peeled away the bandage. I always thought it was easier to bear when I wasn’t looking.
“Well, it’s looking better. I think I did a pretty good job, what do you think?”
I hesitated for a moment and then looked down at my shoulder and saw my wound. I had to admit he did do a good job. It looked clean and he had a row of butterfly bandages to hold it together nicely. It wasn’t as scary looking as I had expected it to be.
“Looks good. Thanks, Max.”
He smiled and started to smear antibiotic on it before adding fresh gauze. I watched him as he worked. His brow furrowed as he concentrated, taking extra care to cause me the least amount of pain as possible.
When he was done he looked up and caught me staring at him. “Geez, Abs. You really scared the hell out of me, and everyone, for that matter,” he said letting out a breath.
“Sorry,” I looked away and pulled the sleeve of my shirt back on.
“No, no. Don’t look away. Don’t ever look away.”
He grabbed my face and suddenly kissed me, hard. His warms lips sent shivers down my spine as my mind whirled with shock, confusion and then pleasure. We explored each other as he held me close to his body and I felt myself give in to him.
“Oh my gosh! I’m sorry.” Max and I both turned just in time to see the back of Taya retreating behind the Bronco.
I felt my face flush as we released each other, but Max lingered for a moment brushing stray strands of hair out of my face.
“Has she woken up yet? Hey, what’s going on?” Carter’s eyes danced back and forth between us.
“He was just checking my shoulder, Carter.” I knew how protective my brother was of me, and I didn’t want to give him any reason to get worked up. We had enough problems as it is, and Carter has quite a temper when given cause and my kissing his best friend was enough cause, I was sure of it.
“Oh okay, you’re looking better, Abby. You get something to eat? Max get her something to eat.” As Max, walked to the trunk while rolling his eyes, Carter grabbed me in a bear hug, but quickly released when he felt me flinch in pain. “Sorry, Abby. You scared the hell out of me back there, you know that?”
“Well, I didn’t mean to, Carter,” I sighed. It’s not like I had meant to get bitten so badly by that demon, but I knew Carter wasn’t really trying to chastise me, he was just really worried.
“I can’t lose you, Abby.” He put his hand on my good shoulder and I saw the fear in his eyes. I knew my brother loved me, but it was nice to see such sincerity from him.
“I’m okay, now. That was just a close call.” I tried to reassure him.
“Well, I don’t know how many close calls I can take.”
“Me neither,” Max added, as he handed me a can of pineapples and a bottled water.
I took a seat against the guard rail and ate, while everyone else decided what we should do next. Taya and Carter seemed to be getting along nicely and I was starting to think she might have a crush on him.
“I think we should stay on I15 as planned. It is the most direct route,” Carter said.
“I agree with
Carter,” Taya added a little too eagerly. Carter’s chest seemed to puff up a little at having someone agree with him, and I was sure he had no idea of Taya’s feelings.
“That will take us right through Salt Lake City. That’s a highly populated area. You don’t think we should try to avoid it? Maybe there is another way around, how about this?” Max pointed to a place on the map.
“No, that won’t work, it’s almost too isolated.” Carter explained. “If something were to go wrong, we would have nowhere to go. Besides I think it has been proven that it doesn’t matter if the area is populated or not.”
“He has a point,” I added trying not to let my gaze linger on Max for too long. He was just so hot I couldn’t help myself. “So… Are we ready to go?”
“We need gas,” Taya announced while holding up a long hose for display.
“Not it!” I called out quickly before downing the rest of my water.
“Don’t worry, Carter lost the bet already so he has to do it,” Taya said, with a smile. She tossed him the hose without warning and Carter juggled it in his hands before catching it.
“Oh, really?” I looked over to Carter with my eyebrows raised, and he just waived me off.
“Now are we ready to go?” he asked.
Taya saw my questioning look and answered it, “There is a street a few blocks down that has quite a few cars. We’re going to head there and see what we can find. Do you want to stay here?” She asked, letting the question hang in there and flashing her eyes in Max’s direction.
“Oh.” My cheeks started to blush, realizing she was trying to give Max and me an opportunity to be alone. “No, I need to stretch my legs a bit. It’s not far, I’ll go with you.”
“Then it’s settled.” Carter grabbed our empty gas can, tossed it to Max and closed up the Bronco as we started to head down the street.
It was early afternoon and the sun was starting to warm things up. I felt naked without my shotgun, but I needed to let my shoulder heal and carrying that heavy gun wasn’t going to help any. Before we left, Max had offered to carry it when he saw me glance at it longingly. I declined when I saw he was already carrying a backpack of water bottles and the gas cans. Carter, of course, carried nothing but his book and the knife strapped to his leg, which I was fairly sure he had forgotten about.
“So… Why do you think this all happened?” Taya asked completely out of the blue, directing the question toward Carter.
“Huh? You asking me?” She nodded at him. “Well there are lots of theories really. Some people believe God is punishing us, some believe they are aliens taking over our planet, some...”
“What do you believe?” Taya interrupted.
“Honestly, I am not concerned about the how or why. I just want them gone.”
We all nodded silently at that. Trying to understand why this was happening, or how, was just too much to fathom. All our minds could really think about was survival. Even if we did figure out why this was all happening, what could four small-town teenagers really do about it? Any scenario had ominous outcomes for us.
We had to try four different cars before we found one with any gas left.
“Damn! That was a lot worse than I thought it would be.” Carter wiped his face with his sleeve after vomiting. He had nearly puked all over Taya’s sneakers, but she jumped out the way with a squeal.
“That house is really creeping me out,” Max said, as he screwed the top onto one of the gas cans.
“Which one? That blue one?” Carter questioned, pointing to a small one story house.
“Yeah, I could have sworn I saw someone peeking through the blinds,” Max said.
“What?” Taya’s mouth fell open in shock, and she ducked behind Carter. He looked at her a bit confused, and turned back toward the house. I thought her reaction was a little dramatic, but she was young and had been through so much.
“Should we go check it out?” Max asked.
“Don’t look at me. I don’t want anything to do with this.” I put my hands up in the air like I was surrendering, and took a step back. I saw Max smirk at me as he set the gas cans by my feet.
“Okay, then, you ladies stay here. We will go check it out.” Max tried to sound gallant, but I could tell he was half sincere and half trying to be a smartass.
“Here we go,” Taya said under her breath while she flopped into the empty driver’s seat of a nearby car. I watched her as she bit at her nails and wished I had brought my radio; it had been a while since I tried to hear if the transmission was playing and I was desperate to try.
~