by S. L. Naeole
“It’s okay; it’s okay,” I comforted.
“That’s gonna be me. That’s gonna be me next. Oh God, that looks like it hurt.”
I approached her, blocking her view of the body with my own. “That doesn’t have to be you. You don’t have to die.”
“There is no choice left for me.” She said this so quietly, I probably wouldn’t have heard it if she hadn’t thought it at the same time. The despair in every word weighed them down like sludge. She sighed.
And then she was on me again.
This time, her hands were less hesitant, her body moving with more assuredness. She was pressing down on my throat, squeezing, twisting. I grabbed at her wrists, struggling with her strength and my sudden lack of it. She pinned my down my legs, the slime that oozed from her skin acting like a glue that sealed me in place.
Her body was shaking, adrenaline pumping through her as she realized she was close to completing what she’d set out to do. But adrenaline was coursing through my veins, too. It was pulsing, a hard beat that was louder than any thought she had of victory and hope. She wanted me to die.
But she didn’t want that as much as I wanted to live.
I roared, a genuine, guttural, animalistic sound, and tore my legs up off the floor, my jeans remaining behind. I raised my hand into a fist and punched the side of her head. Even without being able to see it, I knew that I’d hit her ear. She screamed, and grabbed her head with her hands, freeing my neck.
I brought my head up and smashed it into hers. It did nothing but hit soft flesh. I took my other hand and brought it beneath her jaw, my fingers finding her narrow neck and squeezing. She began to cough, and I allowed my other hand to join its twin as I continued to squeeze.
A strange, sickening feeling came over me as my fingers dug into the slimy, giving skin of Patricia’s changed body. It was like walking through a sticky rain, every drop that fell spreading out like webbing and drawing in every inhibition, every ounce of hesitation so that all that was left was the desire to finish what I’d started.
My strength suddenly renewed, I pushed up with just my shoulders and rolled until she was on her back. I could see the underside of her jaw, the same, gill-like panels that lined the bottom of a mushroom cap. I continued to squeeze, and I watched as those gills expanded and collapsed weakly.
Each compression of my hands brought on a euphoric high and an almost immediate low of guilt and shame. Patricia’s dark brown skin was turning gray, the white spots that marked her limbs fading slightly.
Her disk-shaped head lowered, covering my hands, hiding the act of strangulation, and leaving me with the sight of her eyes, eyes that even in their blankness showed gratitude. But beyond that, in the glossiness of those eyes I saw myself.
I saw two selves, actually.
There was me, wanting to die, wanting to be free of every ounce of pain, every prick of loneliness, every tear drop filled with hatred of myself and everyone who’d ever made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. I’d tasted life, I’d grasped love in my hands only to have it leave me for something better, something that was worth more than I ever could imagine.
But that me had struggled to survive despite the possibility of never knowing happiness again. That me had wanted to live because even in the deepest and darkest moments, where my fears became reality and the lies became truths, there was still hope. There was still promise. There was still a life that was meant for me, no matter how bleak.
And then I saw the me that Patricia saw: I was the killer. I was the destroyer of lives and futures. I was the cruel and mocking person who inflicted nothing but pain with lies and those very same truths that could destroy a lifetime of belief. Everything that was good was gone, or it was too deeply buried beneath the blackness of what I was to be seen.
I held between my fingers the path to the end or to the beginning. I could be cruel or I could be kind. I could make it end now, or I could extend the suffering until the very last moment. This was the power of being what I was.
“Death isn’t always the end, Grace.”
“You don’t have it in you to kill me, Grace.”
“Don’t turn away from Death, Grace.”
“Grace.”
“Sam.”
“Grace.”
“Robert.”
“Grace.”
“Mom…”
I let go.
I threw my hands back and scrambled off of the girl, continuing to move backwards until I met resistance from a wall. I watched as she coughed, her hands coming up to her throat to rub away the pain and the tightness that I had caused. She sat up and turned her head to look at me, confusion pouring out of her like the ooze that puddle on the floor beneath her.
“Why?” she asked in a scratchy voice.
“I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t be her.”
“Who?”
“I can’t be my mom; I can’t do what she did. I don’t care how much you want to die, or what you do to me. You can’t make me kill you; you don’t deserve to die.”
“It’s not up to you to decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die,” she shouted.
“Yes it is,” I shouted back. And then I straightened, realizing that by not killing her, I had proven that. I’d done exactly what had been planned. It didn’t matter what the outcome was—all that mattered was that I make the choice. “Oh my God.”
I moved away from her and ran into the kitchen. Robert was twisting the head of a final assailant, the snapping and cracking of bones and skin only emphasized by the pounding that took place above him. He looked up at me and relief took over the hard edge that had enveloped him.
“Grace,” he breathed, his eyes giving me a once over before he pulled me into his arms. “You can’t let them live. They won’t stop trying to kill you. They don’t know how. They have no hope left but in your death.”
“I can’t kill her, Robert. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
He pulled away and looked down at me. “She tried to kill you!”
“She tried to save herself! There’s a difference!”
“There is no difference!”
“If there isn’t then I deserve to die just as much as she does.”
“For what?”
“For Sam,” I answered.
“For Sam? What are you talking about? That’s not the same thing.”
“Yes it is. It’s exactly the same thing, only now I’m in Sam’s place. She’s me, trying to survive, and I’m him, fulfilling someone’s plan.”
Robert yanked me towards and then pushed me behind him as Patricia appeared in the kitchen doorway. “I can kill you in an instant,” he warned.
“Then do it,” she dared. “I’m not afraid of dying. I don’t have anything to live for.”
“You have everything to live for,” I argued, stepping around Robert and looking at her for the girl she was, seeing the human beneath the monster.
A sprinkle of dust fell from the ceiling as she opened her mouth to respond. We all looked up, but only Robert and I moved away quickly enough to miss the ceiling collapsing, falling onto a stunned and too slow Patricia. A cloud of dust filled the kitchen, covering everything in a layer of pulverized drywall.
Stacy was poised on all fours, her jaw unnaturally long, as though it had been stretched out, while her teeth were bared, white and shining. She was snarling, hissing like a cat, her eyes focused on a man who was crouched in front of her. He was naked, and all I could see was his back.
“Stacy! It’s not-”
“It’s not human anymore, Grace,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound like hers.
As if to prove her right, the man turned and I froze. Everything about him was normal; right. He would have been attractive to anyone looking in. That is until they realized that his face was upside-down.
“Don’t you like my frown turned upside down?” he sneered at me before Stacy pounced, her jaw now long enough to encircle his throat completely. In a singular moment
that exemplified everything that was necessary and wrong, Stacy bit off the man’s head.
I’d seen her eat before. I’d seen her fight for her life. But this was the first time that I’d seen her kill. Everything before that was nothing compared to this. She was quick, efficient, and she didn’t hesitate before or after she was done. This was what she was—a killer. And I never felt more thankful that she was my friend.
“Lark’s finishing off another one up in the spare bedroom,” Stacy said before realizing where she was. “Damn. You guys alright?”
“We’re fine now,” Robert said with no hint of distaste at what had just happened. He looked…grateful. “How many total?”
Stacy looked at the corpse that lay at her feet. “With this one: four for me. Lark’s last one will make ten. You?”
“Three for me, one for Grace.”
“You took one out?” she asked, surprised.
“Actually…I think you did,” I said remorsefully.
“I did? How?”
“By dropping,” Robert answered flatly. “We need to go. This is only a small sample of what’s out there and we’re lucky it was contained to the house and no one was hurt.”
Stacy looked at me and then at Robert, and I saw what she’d seen, and knew that Robert was wrong.
I ran past her, ignoring Robert’s call for me, and took the stairs two at a time. The floor in the master bedroom was what had collapsed into the kitchen, and the remains of bodies littered the hall leading up the spare room in the back. Graham’s bedroom door was closed.
I reached for the knob, my hand shaking, my lip quivering as I felt the death that hung just behind the door. My fingers covered the aged brass and I turned the knob, pushing the door gently, holding my breath as I stepped in, my heart already feeling like it had fallen through the floor.
There was blood everywhere. Instantly my mind flashed back to the room in Stacy’s mind. Only this time it was real. Feathers sat atop the skin that had formed on the drying, bloody pools, and I sniffed, biting back a soft cry.
Feet poked out from behind the bed, a missing shoe revealing a blood-stained sock that covered obviously broken toes.
“Graham?” I whispered, stepping in carefully, avoiding the blood and trying not to see the carnage that had caused it.
“He’s gone, Grace,” his voice answered weakly. “I didn’t get here fast enough. I couldn’t save him.”
Graham was leaning over the body of his father, the battered and bruised Richard lying lifelessly in his son’s arms. Graham looked pale and lost. It was the first time I’d ever seen him so vulnerable, like a little boy who’d just lost his hero.
“I didn’t even get to tell him goodbye, or that I loved him, even if he was a drunk. I didn’t get to tell him anything.”
“He already knew how you felt,” I said to him softly. “He knew you loved him no matter what.”
“No he didn’t,” Graham argued. “He thought I was ashamed of him, that I hated him.”
I bent down and put my hands beneath his chin, pulling his head up to look at me. “He was angry, he was drunk, but he never believed that you were ashamed of him or hated him.”
“How do you know that?”
I blinked. “Because he came here to see you. Your dad wouldn’t have bothered if he knew you didn’t care; you know that.”
“Grace…”
I looked up to see Robert, Stacy, and Lark standing in the doorway.
“We have to go. The school is being swarmed by dozens of the turned. There’s still staff on campus.”
“We can’t leave him like this,” I argued.
“I’ll stay here with him,” Stacy spoke up. “We’ll meet you at the retreat.”
“I can’t let you stay here with him,” Lark argued. “He’s my husband.”
Stacy pushed forward and knelt beside Graham. “I can’t fight as long as you can—not like this, not until I feed—but I can stay and protect Graham in case anymore of those things come here. You need to get to the school and stop those things from hurting anyone else.”
“I’m not leaving him here!” Lark protested.
“Go, Lark,” Graham told her, his voice cracking. “The police are probably already on their way. I have to be here when they get here to let them know that Dad didn’t do this. I can’t let them think that he’s just a drunk nobody.”
“The police can suck it,” Stacy snapped. “I’m gonna try and clear out the bodies and move them to the basement. Robert, Grace—go. We’ll meet you at the retreat.”
“Go, Grace,” Graham agreed, although his voice was unbearably hardened. “You can’t help me here. None of you can. You need to go. Just…just go.”
Robert didn’t wait for me to argue again. He grabbed me and then we were gone, out of the house and in the sky, the ground, the death, the end of Graham’s family behind us.
“This is going to change him,” I said coldly.
“This is going to change all of us,” Robert replied knowingly.
I turned my head to see Lark floating behind us, her face stoic but her eyes glossing over, letting tears fall that she had been unable to shed back at the house. She knew, too, that the changes were coming. The trouble was that none of us knew what those changes were.
BIRD SONG
The chaos that we’d feared had already begun. There were police cars parked haphazardly in the lot; officers crouched behind their vehicles with their guns pointed at indescribable creatures who mocked their threats.
Screams—horrific, terrifying screams that I heard in my thoughts and in my nightmares were as loud as if they were being sounded directly in my ears. I winced at the pain that caused them, the fear that provoked them, and I struggled against Robert as we landed behind the school.
Almost immediately I ran, heading towards the doors that looked like they’d been pried open by dozens of crowbars. The hallway just beyond those doors echoed with cries for help, for mercy…for death. Robert moved automatically, brushing past me and heading towards the sounds.
I followed tentatively, unable to move as quickly and decidedly as he could. Lark was directly behind me and her thoughts were my instruction, and I followed them precisely.
Don’t speak. Don’t call out for anyone. The turned cannot hear your thoughts so use that to your advantage. There are others here—you know what I mean—they will be hiding in the dark, in the shadows where it’s safe, and attack you when your back is turned. Stay in the light, stay where there’s always a window and a door near you. Don’t fall into the shadows.
The door to the bathroom where I’d had my first encounter with Erica almost a year ago was open. I looked at Lark and she nodded before heading inside. She returned quickly, her face pale. “I can’t do anything for anyone in there. Let’s move on.”
I watched her walk away, her shoulders stiffening as she skulked towards another door. I was about to ask her what she heard when she jumped, her hands and her feet clinging to the ceiling as the door blew open and a bloodied, snarling beast rushed out.
It skidded to a stop and turned its grotesque head towards me. Its face was covered with eyes, dozens of them that blinked at different times, making for an even more disturbing image. “You!” it growled.
It built up to a charge, but it never got to let itself loose. Lark dropped down onto it and without any ceremony, tore its head from its body.
I turned away, disgusted. “Does it have to be like this?”
“When your abilities finally kick in, you can kill them however you want. Right now, I don’t have the time or the patience to be nice or neat about it,” Lark said stiffly.
“Where’d Robert go?” I asked, my eyes darting down the hallway and finding it empty.
She was quiet, her eyes seeing nothing and yet seeing everything. “He’s doing what he’s got to do.”
“What he’s…” I looked away, my heart sinking. I knew what he was doing. The damage done here was too great to undo, and I had been naïve e
nough to believe that we could have prevented all of it.
“Grace, now’s not the time to start feeling sorry for yourself; come on. We have to find the rest of them. There are at least a dozen more here; I can hear them, smell them.”
Lark methodically began to open doors and charge into classrooms and offices. Screams and cries almost immediately followed. Sometimes a teacher would appear, sometimes two. It was so close to the beginning of school that everyone was in their classrooms preparing for the new year. Each time a familiar face would appear, dazed, in shock, or completely terrified, I’d speak as calmly as I could to them and then send them out the way we’d come in.
It was the safest route I knew because Lark had removed all of the threats already. I could hear their thoughts, feel their relief when they spotted the outside. But the moment they left the school, I lost them; I couldn’t hear them, sense them. If they’d made it to safety of if I’d sent them straight to hell was unknown to me. I only knew they were gone.
Halfway down the hall, the screams were fading. Lark burst into a classroom, disappearing for no more than a second before flying backwards into a wall of lockers, crumpling them as though they were nothing but paper. I ducked, covering my head with my arms when a winged monster flew into her, its fists large and closed taking alternating blows to her head.
The lights in the hallway stuttered out and I saw the orange glow that surrounded it. I realized that this wasn’t a monster at all. This was another angel.
“Hey!” I shouted as I lowered my arms.
With a grunt, it turned its head towards me, revealing large eyes the color of sea glass; foggy and pale green in color. It smiled, showing no teeth, the corners of its mouth lifting up to the crease in its eyes. Grace…
“Aaah!” I shrieked at the voice in my head, the way it burned, stabbed, and throbbed—it was everything that was pain. I began to back away, as though distance would help relieve the suffering.
Wait.
I felt my knees begin to buckle but I fought against falling. That was all I could give, though. I wasn’t strong enough to keep moving. Two words, two single words had immobilized me. This wasn’t good, especially if it was stronger than Lark.