Chapter 54
Screams shred the celebration with many sets of razor-sharp talons. Windows flash, white bright, accompanying each shot that cracks like a drum inside the walls of the third floor. J.D.’s words roll back through my mind as I listen to the soundtrack of horror from above. The men are already running into the high school, preparing clips and loading chambers without a second thought of what may be occurring above us. Lawless slips from my arms, sliding down them until we can no longer hold to the other with his exit. I should have listened to the wind. I might have heard Truth’s plotting if I had.
“This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” Aimes stands beside me as we watch the men in our lives once again run into danger.
The screams seem worse now being alone in the dark with them radiating all around us with an illusion of their source. We both know pure terror is waiting for us inside, but our protectors, and our family, are in there also. Damned if we do….
The first body lays twisted, and distorted, in the hallway we enter. I cover Aimes’ mouth to stifle her screams, still unsure of what to expect deeper in. Unseeing eyes stare at us as we tiptoe past the body, but even in death, he seems to watch us.
I expect his body to twitch towards us at any moment with how his eyes seem to follow us. The blood is already thick and discoloring around his fallen form. The broken neck gives the body a more visually disturbing allure than normal as his head rests at the wrong angle. I know this image is now stored with so many other sources of nightmares for me.
The heavy metal doors are propped open by something we cannot yet see. Everything inside me clues me in to the fact it won’t be something I want to see and yet I creep closer anyway. “Sometimes I give myself very good advice, but I seldom follow it,” said Alice when in Wonderland. There is nothing to wonder about in this land and I seldom follow any advice.
Legs are stuck between one of the doors keeping it open. A fragile ankle is twisted the wrong way in broken stilettos. Her toes point with rebellion in the opposite direction of her other leg. The heavy door has slammed against her legs, lacerating them. Her blood mingles around her in separate thick, cooling pools with her twisted legs blocking their joining.
Aimes shudders, hiding behind me. The many constant screams only adding to the climate of the room. I push against the other door and feel it rub against something before opening. The sharp metal edge of the door’s bottom has serrated the flesh on the woman’s face. Blood oozes, but does not flow, from where the flesh once sat. It gives her face an evil mask of dark crimson as it coats her, slipping into her once pretty features. The cause of her death still protrudes from her blood-soaked chest. It is J.D.’s hunting knife.
Shouting now melds with the screams from above and it fills us with a false energy to run up the steps. There are more bodies waiting to shock us with their tortured deaths as we climb. I pull on Aimes, keeping her close to me, as we avoid deep pools of dripping crimson as it slides down the stairs and the outspread limbs of the dead waiting to trip us. We focus our eyes on the space above the steps, praying to save our minds from what lies all around.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes you can’t help but see. When have I ever been one not to look?
We rush through the final set of doors, hoping to leave one nightmare behind us, but we have only stepped into a much more horrific version of it. Bodies lay dropped like used dolls around the common area. The walls are bathed in the brutality of their murders, dripping with the evidence of it. So many sightless eyes stare in random directions and they all seem to find their way to the double doors behind us as if positioned to do so. It is as if
J.D. wanted whoever enters this hall to be seen by the dead and judged for not being here to save them.
The mammoth evergreen now wears a cloak that Red Riding Hood would envy. Like the decorations it has been waiting for, its branches are heavy with the gore shimmering in the moonlight. It's now alight with red-rimmed remnants of those who once sat around it and it sparkles more than any tinsel, we could have applied to it with their death coating it.
It even has a topper now, as in some strange act of karma, a real doll has been thrown into the branches. It rests there with a smiling face and its arms spread wide for the one who used to own it to save it. It too wears the red baptismal of their deaths. I know the owner of this doll. My mouth grows dry as I remember the little girl dancing it across this same floor with Simon watching her.
We step over the many dead residents as their faces match with memories and their damning eyes stare coldly at us while we try to make our way to the shouting. Aimes is whimpering from the sights around us as her panic flutters in her chest. She slips on a pool of thick substance, falling into it as it applies a thick covering to her body. I pull her to my shoulder as she vocally releases the buildup of her terror when seeing the cold film on her body. Her scream is ear shattering just as Ashley’s had been.
I pull her with me as I walk backwards through the hall. I keep her head down, sparing her the chest full of new materials to feed our nightmares. I don’t let her see the red smears from the falling bodies that are resting against the walls. I hide the handprints on the floor as a few tried to drag their bleeding bodies to safety. Most of all, I save her from the children who are now mingling with the other dead.
The many broken, porcelain dolls who lay limp and shattered around us. Red flowers bloom underneath their bodies with petals that reach long and wide. Their winter pajamas once in soft shades of childhood innocence are now turning dark shades of corruption with what has been done to them.
I recognize one of them and even as I had expected to find her here, my stomach clenches with her death. Sweet, laughing Kira stares up at the ceiling from her deathbed. J.D. did not shoot her. No, that would have been too easy for such a perfect victim for his rage. Her head lies unevenly with the damage from her crushed skull supporting it incorrectly. Dark fragments and long streaks of thick substances have been splattered around her broken head from the viciousness of the assault.
Her fingers are disjointed and bent at strange angles from her desperate attempts to fight against the large man for her life. The long tee shirt is crumpled, raised upon her legs she had used to kick at him, exposing too much of such an innocent. She never stood a chance and yet she fought. Everything about her utterly still form says she fought against her death. It makes it so much more tragic than the rest.
I spare Aimes from this even as I absorb it all. The blood running together in thick dark rivers between the grout of the tiles, the bodies spread wide across the spaces who seem to watch us as we creep past and the heavy scent of the slaughter is waiting with sharp teeth to tear into my sanity when I sleep, but I do my best to spare my best friend from it all. The way I failed to do it for others who had counted on me to do just this same exact thing for them.
A door opens to our left, startling us both. A man waves us over through the small crack the opening provides for him. His eyes are wide with the horrors he has witnessed tonight.
“They got him cornered down there. You’ll be safe in here,” he says, and his voice is barely a whisper with his fears.
“Go,” I tell Aimes as I push her to the door. “Don’t open this door until one of us comes for you.”
My words bring her to a level of awareness she has tried from which to hide. Her face is no longer fear-filled. It is sadness she wears now, furrowing her soft features.
“I can’t just sit by,” I tell her as an apology for leaving her here. “I know. You always were the strong one.”
She hugs me as the screams start again. This time I know the voice who holds it. J.D. has found Shelia.
Chapter 55
Lawless, Chapel and Rhett stand with pointed guns at J.D. He is holding his own long handgun to Shelia’s temple. His black vest shines under the moon’s light with the many layers of his victims dripping from it. His handshakes with confusion and fear at the sight of Lawless standing in front of him. The gun in
his hand trembles against Shelia, unsettling her more with its vibration.
Ross leans against the wall, bent over from a wound to his stomach staining his clothing. Richard is pressing his hands against it to slow the blood flow with a frozen face of wrath. Dolph stands, blocking his friend with his body. His eyes dart from J.D. to the men who are trying to defuse the situation, as Simon kneels before them, keeping his eyes level with Shelia.
“They had to pay. You understand, don’t you, boy? They had to pay for what they did to you.” J.D.’s voice is high-pitched with his pleading. “I couldn’t just let it slide. Not for you. Not for my boy.” Lawless remains mute as he watches J.D. His mask, like those around him, is firmly in place, giving no hints to his thoughts or emotions. Their fingers are resting firmly on their cold, metal triggers defiantly showing the only clues to their mindset. No matter which road J.D. takes us down now, someone is going to die.
Marxx sidesteps, blocking me from any crossfire which may occur. He places his hand on my arm, begging me to remain silent. It won’t be me who fixes this tonight. Another nightmare is about to be made for someone, if not for all of us.
“I raised you like you were my own. All those times it was unsafe for you, it was my house you came to. I taught you how to shoot that thing. I taught you how to ride. I taught you how to be a man. I raised you. You were mine and they took you from me. They took my boy. My boy who was worth more than all of their lives combined. My boy,” J.D. shouts to us and it echoes down the long hall.
J.D. continues to talk to the Lawless from his past. He’s either unaware or doesn’t understand Lawless is here with us now. He is pleading with his ghost of Lawless to understand and forgive him for his actions. Our once powerful leader is now crushed from the weight of this world. He is shattered with the loss of the only child he was ever able to claim as his. His son, the man he thought he watched die for him, Lawless.
“I am going to make them pay. I will make this place pour red for you, for my boy. You’ll rest at peace then. Won’t you? You’ll rest knowing I made them pay for you. Don’t stare at me like that, son. I’ll make them pay. You’ll see. I’ll make them pay,” J.D. pleads for Lawless to comfort him.
J.D. is motionless with just his hand trembling as he stares at us. Those once cold eyes are streaming with his loss. The lips, which once spoke threats like compliments, shake as words break before forming on them. I feel myself move to him as Marxx snaps me back to his chest. I plead with J.D. with my eyes to stop this, to see who is before him. My heart is breaking the way he broke so many in his life.
J.D. looks to the ghost he believes is here to torment him. He says, “She’s a good girl. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. She deserves so much more than we could ever give her, son. But I can give you this. I can give you peace like I never could her.”
J.D.’s eyes leave Lawless and it is the signal that ignites the room. The gunfire is ear splitting with its reverberation in such a small space. J.D.’s body jerks with each round that lands, the resulting blowout sprays the space red behind him.
Shelia’s body falls forward, limp and devoid of the life J.D. has stolen from her. I hear my screams tear through my body with the same burning fire as the bullets tearing through J.D. and I fall in time with him as our legs give out from under us with Simon echoing my misery.
J.D. watches me as we fall, the gun slipping from his hand, he now reaches for me in his death. Only Marxx’ weight keeps me from crawling to him as he pins me with his body to the cold tiles of the floor. Tiles that are as cold and unfeeling as the faces of the men who have stolen the only father to ever hold me.
J.D. stares at me as he fights for his breath. Red bubbles form at his mouth in a soft foam. The color matches the life spilling from him, soaking the tiles with his final judgment for the crimes he has committed. His crimes have colored the hall with the same shade of red as his blood now covers the floor.
Lawless walks to the dying man he once thought of as the father he never had. A father who supported him when his father had hurt him. A father who had taught him how to stand up for him- self when his father had beat him down. Their bond was ironclad with the many private moments they had built between them. Their eyes lock one final time as they exchange the knowledge of what is about to happen.
“My boy. So proud of my boy,” J.D. tells him, as Lawless puts the final bullet into J.D.’s head.
All of this time, we had been fighting to keep this place safe from the monsters outside wishing to harm us. We believed they lurked with glazed eyes waiting for us in the dark around every corner. Now as I hear Truth laughing again, I realize, the monster was with us all along.
It is not the Risen who have destroyed this safe haven, but J.D. The guilt and betrayal flow through me. It turns my body into a pain-racked casing of torment, and even as I hate him for what he has done, I weep for the man I have come to love and depend on. “Do you know what today is?” The soft whispering sound of
Aimes’ voice draws the attention of everyone. “It’s Christmas.”
She falls like a marionette with its strings cut, exposing a red flower blooming on her chest.
“No, no, no, no!” Rhett screams, with each inch that she falls.
He runs to her, pulling her limp body to him, rocking her in his arms as her eyes close against the world.
J.D. fired twice when he was shot. The first shot found its target, hitting Shelia, as his goal was set. His second shot went unknown with his death and found another target just as precious. Now that target lies in Rhett’s arms as he screams his frustration into her blonde hair with the full force of his lungs. In a sick joke, the Fates gave us back Lawless, but want now to take our pixie. Chapel is screaming for help, as he presses against Aimes’ wound with Rhett still rocking her.
The world slows for me as the sun rises on this Christmas morning. There are no sleepy-eyed children creeping from warm beds to see if Santa has come. No cookies and milk to be inspected for its consumption. There are no brightly wrapped packages for them to open, just the red, red blood of so many spilled. There is no naughty or nice list, just the list of the living and the dead. A list causing the voices from the halls to lift up, not in songs of the season, but in screams of their misery.
Dawn does not wait today any more than it has any other morning since the first day the dawn watched it all start. It comes with the same blinding cruelty, disguised under soft pastel shades marking another day we must live through. It always comes; forcing us to accept another morning is here with no degree of tragedy to spare us from the bright beams of the sun.
This is our dawning. This is our new world, and this is the lesson it teaches us each day. A world filled with monsters walking and waiting for us in dual forms. With every strike of the second hand, Death dances with Truth in a courtship of suffering only they can inspire.
They are reminding us of their power over us, as another dies under the hands of one who refuses to accept it. Even as those hands fight to keep the life-giving blood inside, it spills out from the body that once contained it. Its red refusal is a final sacrifice to the many demons that now rule the earth where God and his angels once stood watch. Our nightmares now walk among us and we are all wide-awake.
Epilogue
A gate rattles against its metal clasp with fingers searching to understand the cause of the barrier blocking its entrance to the music it hears floating in the air. Translucent eyes follow the length of the metal wiring looking for a clue to its operation. Its fingers slide along the diamond shapes looking for a gap, or a break in its pattern, to reach through.
The gate gives its secrets away under the examination, unable to keep them hidden forever and the hand slides between the two metal poles finding a new pattern. It feels along the two poles with its mind racing to put the puzzle together. This piece rocks against pressure applied to it, sliding along the other metal pole and a faint memory comes forward.
Before long, the eyes find the logic, w
hich has been escaping it. Pulling upon this new piece lifts it up, freeing it from where it was held. The barrier still does not move for it and it voices sounds of frustration over the failure as it tries again to solve the puzzle.
The barrier does shift now, whereas before it was a constant force blocking it. The eyes watch as different focal points of pressure affect the movement of the barrier. Gripping the metal tightly, it pulls it sideways instead of pressing upon it and is rewarded with the sound of movement.
Growing more confident with the newly discovered logic, it walks down the length of the barrier, pulling the metal shapes with it, watching with grinning satisfaction as the barrier moves with moans of its betrayal. The music that drew it here is no longer blocked. The barrier is removed, and it smiles with the victory, as screaming pitches of a melody lure it into a newly discovered area.
It is not alone. Others join it just like it. Others who have followed with the same curiosity as to what they are hearing. Others who are hungry and have run out of prey to feed them. The new area fills with their many forms, as they creep silently into the darkness before them with one shared purpose, death.
About the Author
Marie F Crow weaves her stories around the human element of the horror verses the ‘monsters’ themselves. She believes that the real horror of life does not come from the expected, but from the unexpected responses of the human nature and what depths of trauma a person must survive in certain situations. She began writing The Risen series when feeling that the popular genre was slipping too deep into the realm of pure ‘slasher’ and forgetting what the horror of zombies can mean for a story.
Dawning (The Risen Series Book 1) Page 39