Taoree: Taoree Trilogy #1

by Michele Notaro

  Cal came with me upstairs, and when nothing turned up weapon-wise—we did find three backpacks—in the first two bedrooms, I headed for the third. I held my hand up to my friend so he wouldn’t follow me, then held my breath and walked in. I avoided looking at the woman and went straight for the dresser, pulling open the drawers and digging around. When that produced nothing, I searched the nightstands, then the closets without any luck.

  I walked out into the hallway empty-handed, feeling a little annoyed that I put myself through that without any results, then headed back downstairs. The living room was only filled with folded blankets, but I found Colt and Nolan sitting at the table in the kitchen, going through the food bag. I nodded to them as I headed for the basement door and unlocked it.

  When Cal went to follow me, I put my hand up again. He furrowed his brows like he didn’t understand, but after a second he must’ve realized why I didn’t want him to follow me because he grimaced and stepped back.

  I went down the stairs slowly, trying to keep my eyes up on the ceiling so I could avoid looking at the disfigured bodies. There was a line of shelves on the far wall, so I circled around the bodies that were in the middle of the room and started shuffling through the shelves with my back to them.

  At first I didn’t find anything, but then I found an open metal box. When I looked inside, there was an imprint of a gun shape, but no gun. I looked around on the shelves for another couple of minutes, searching for it. When I found extra bullets, but still couldn’t find the actual gun, I frowned—figuring I knew where it could be.

  I took a deep breath and turned to the father and son that were eternally locked and twisted together. I took a step closer, but didn’t see the gun. I walked around the bodies, keeping my eyes on the disturbing visual, and when I reached the other side, I found the gun… in the dead man’s hand. I stepped closer and noticed the man’s fingers were tightly wrapped around it, like he had just shot the gun before he died.

  I knelt down and noticed the little boy’s dead eyes on me, so I slowly reached my hand toward the gun, but stopped right before I touched it. You can do this. Just reach out and pull the gun away. My silent pep talk didn’t do anything for me, but still I wrapped my hand around the barrel of the gun and pulled it. Only, it didn’t come loose. The man’s entire arm moved with it.

  I let go and snapped my hand back. Oh god, I’m going to have to touch him. I placed my hand back on the barrel and hesitated with my other hand just above the man’s. One. Two. Three. I touched the cold hand and started to pull.

  I shuddered at the sound of his bones moving. His thumb and index finger were locked around the grip and trigger. I panicked for a second, thinking the trigger was about to be pulled, and I let go. I took another deep breath, which I knew was a mistake when I smelled the air and gagged, then I went right back in. I grabbed the barrel with one hand and looped the fingers of my other around the man’s index finger, dislodging it from the gun. Then I slipped it free of his grip.

  I jumped to my feet, walked to the corner of the room and threw up what little was left in my stomach. Then, without looking back, I ran up the steps with the gun in one hand and the extra bullets in the other.

  At the top of the stairs, I slammed the door shut and locked it before dropping the gun and bullets onto the kitchen table where everyone was sitting and walking away into the bathroom, where I scrubbed my hands and rinsed my mouth out with some mouthwash I’d found, then went into the living room. I paced back and forth, wiping the death from my hands onto my pants and getting my shaking under control.

  When I finally turned around, I noticed Colt leaning against the doorway watching me with his ever-present hat on his head. He pushed off the doorway and slowly made his way over. When he was close enough, he reached out and cupped my cheeks, then brought my head in for a slow kiss. His touch calmed me in a way that nothing else could and soon I was feeling a little more normal.

  He pulled away to look me in the eyes and whispered, “Are you okay?”

  “I am now,” I replied.

  He smiled at me and pecked my lips. “You think you can eat something now?”

  The way he asked that led me to believe that he knew exactly what I had to do to get that gun. I thought I had stopped him before he saw the bodies yesterday, but he was right behind me on the stairs so I may not have caught him in time.

  “Uh… yeah,” I said. I pushed all thoughts of death and dead fingers out of my mind, knowing that I needed to eat to keep up my strength. Especially since none of us had slept and were all completely exhausted.

  After we ate and reorganized and packed the bags—we now had four backpacks, instead of one and a duffle—we laid the map on the table to try to figure out how to get back home. We found a piece of mail in the house with the address on it, so it was easier to find exactly where we were on the map, or at least what street.

  We had over roughly three hundred seventy-five miles to go to get home. We were still in New York, but getting closer to Pennsylvania. We’d have to go all the way through Pennsylvania and Maryland and halfway through Virginia before we made it home.

  The map we had was a newer one, so the Taoree camps were well-marked. We’d have to add a few extra miles here and there to steer clear of the camps, but we at least had a plan in place. We argued a little about whether or not to take a car, but in the end we decided it was a bad idea, at least for the moment. We figured we could rethink the idea later. There were so many cars and bodies in the middle of the roads that it would be hard to maneuver around them, though we might change our minds if we found an open road. It would literally take us longer to drive around everything, and none of us wanted to have to move dead bodies out of the way, either. If I had to keep getting out of the car, it would just piss me off, so for now, we were walking. Plus, it would be a lot easier to hear and see incoming Taoree if we walked. We’d never hear them over the sound of an engine. We could also hide from them this way… you couldn’t really hide a moving vehicle once it was spotted.

  We were going to be walking for a very long time, but we all agreed that we needed to get to our families and make sure they were all safe. I was really worried about my younger siblings. I knew my parents would be freaking out, too, but with Wes and Mina being younger, I was scared for them.

  Once we each had a backpack—each was packed with a blanket, food, and supplies now, so we wouldn’t lose all of one thing if a pack got lost or something—we headed to the back door to listen for any signs of other people. When none came, I led the way outside.

  We made our way to the front yard and started crossing all the lawns. We had decided that it wasn’t safe to stay out in the open, so we’d walk as close to the houses as we could. If it weren’t for the backyard fences, we could’ve walked back there, but this was probably just as well. We would at least have a little cover, and if we heard anything suspicious, we could easily duck between the houses. At least that tactic would work in neighborhoods. Once we passed farmland or whatever, we’d just have to figure it out as we went.

  Chapter Six

  We walked for half the day without running into anyone. Well, there were plenty of dead bodies strewn throughout yards, hanging out of cars, and just about every other place you could think of. My tolerance of the dead had grown quite exponentially since the finger incident that morning.

  Around midday, I stopped walking when I saw a little movement across the street in a large field up ahead. When I pointed it out, the guys and I walked cautiously closer. If it was someone that needed our help, we couldn’t simply walk away.

  I stopped short when I figured out what I was seeing.

  “Is she eating him?” Nolan whispered from somewhere close by.

  “It… it looks like it,” Cal mumbled. There was a woman crouched down on top of a dead man and she was, well, she was eating his guts.

  “Oh god. I’m gonna be sick… again,” Nolan said.

  The Feral snapped her head up in our direction
and suddenly sprinted toward us with blood dripping out of her mouth. She started getting faster, running at full speed, so I took the gun out of my waistband and held it out.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot,” I called to her. Even though I knew it wouldn’t make a difference, I had to at least try. She was still—sort of—a human being.

  She kept running, so I aimed for her chest and pulled the trigger. I missed the first shot—it had been a while since our dads had taken us shooting—but I re-aimed and took the shot, this time hitting her in the chest. But she didn’t stop, she just stumbled back from the force, then took off running again.

  I shot her in the chest three more times, but nothing was bringing her down. When she was less than ten feet away I yelled, “We might wanna run now.”

  I took a step back, but Cal came out of nowhere, stepping in front of me and swinging the metal bat with two hands at the Feral’s head. He knocked her down, but she was still twitching, so he swung the bat again, crushing her skull into the ground with a sickening thunk. He hit her head twice more, making that same thunk sound each time.

  Cal turned to me with blood splatters on his hands, arms, and face, and said, “Next time, aim for the head. Haven’t you ever seen a zombie movie?”

  Then he walked away a few steps, bent over and vomited. I guess we were all entitled to a little vomit when the situation warranted. I chose not to look at Colt or Nolan’s faces in case they were feeling as sick as I was.

  When Cal was done being sick, I walked over and handed him a water bottle, which he took gratefully as I said, “But they’re not zombies.”

  “I know that. But whatever those alien assholes are doing to people, obviously makes them harder to kill.” He shrugged, then examined his bat. He wrinkled his nose. “I’m gonna wipe this off in the grass.”

  I nodded at his back when he walked away, but called to him, “Thanks for saving me.”

  He waved me off. “No prob.”

  Colt walked over to me, looking a little green around the gills and said, “I think we need more bats.”

  All I could do was nod and grimace as we watched his brother trying to wipe the gore off his weapon. When he finished, he swung the bat up to rest on his shoulder, then walked past us without a word. He probably needed some time to deal with the fact that he’d just killed a person.

  Colt and I followed him, but I turned to make sure Nolan was okay. I nodded at him to join us, so he came up on the other side of me, the three of us following behind Cal.

  After a while, Nolan asked, “Why do you think it was eating that guy?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that, but Colt said, “I guess the Ferals are getting hungry. Or maybe the Taoree ordered them to do it or something. Who knows?”

  “Let’s just not think about it,” I suggested.

  No one objected to that. There was enough horror to distract us everywhere we looked, anyway.

  A minute later, I felt Colt place his hat on my head, and when I looked at him questioningly, he said, “You’re getting sunburned.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I reached up to place it back on his head, “but now you’ll get burned too, so take it back.”

  “No can do, my friend,” he said, pushing the proffered hat away from himself. “You may as well as wear it, Jeremy, because I’ll just put it in my bag if you give it back.”

  I rolled my eyes, but conceded by putting it back on and mumbling, “You’re fucking stubborn.”

  He just winked at me.

  A couple of hours later, we were in a very crowded, city-like area where there were masses of dead bodies. It seemed like the people here didn’t have much warning to get away before the Ferals and aliens started massacring them. There was a ton of blood, body parts… and so many dead eyes.

  When we saw movement up ahead this time, we ducked between two office buildings and started down another street. When we walked another block, I had never been so happy to see a store in my life. There was a sporting goods store three blocks ahead. The guys must’ve seen it too because we all crossed the street and headed in that direction at the same time. We snuck past another Feral that was definitely eating an arm. I wanted to look away, but I had to keep an eye on it to make sure it didn’t attack us. Luckily, it didn’t hear us since it was too busy chewing.

  The place had already been looted, if the crap out on the street was any indication, but at least that meant the doors were open and we could get in without breaking the glass and drawing attention to ourselves.

  I went right for the baseball section and pulled out three bats, two of which I handed to Colt and Nolan. Then I followed Colt to the hunting section. There weren’t any guns left behind the counter—probably the first thing stolen—but there were a handful of knives that we divvied up between us; now we each had two knives, including the kitchen ones from the house we squatted at.

  I found some black cargo pants that had a bunch of pockets, new underwear, and some long-sleeved shirts. All our clothes had been left in the car when we escaped. There were boots that I traded in place of my tennis shoes, then I slid the hunting knife with its sheath into my pocket and the kitchen knife into my left boot. I couldn’t find a coat in my size, so I just put my sweatshirt back on.

  When I was done, I saw the other guys had also changed into similar ensembles, but Colt had found a jacket he slipped on top of a new long-sleeved shirt. When he turned around, I was glad to see that the black cargo pants he changed into still showed off his tight ass.

  Nolan found a heavy-duty dark brown coat to wear, but Cal was back in his sweatshirt. We’d have to stop at another store to find the two of us something warmer. We all found some gloves, scarves, and beanies to wear and shoved them in our packs. We also each grabbed a pair of sunglasses.

  Most of the camping food was already missing, but we found a few bags of some freeze-dried stuff that probably tasted like shit. We were lucky to find a fire starter, some lighters, and some camping cookware that would fit in our backpacks. I made sure we had some bottles that we could refill with water once it was boiled. We lucked out with that fire starter, not that I knew how to use it, but I was hoping one of the other guys knew how.

  We found some huge camping backpacks that we traded for the smaller ones we had. It was good to be able to fit some extra clothes and warmer sleeping bags in them. We even found these camp pillows that we could stuff into a little carrier thing and throw them in our bags, too.

  Once we searched the entire store and overstuffed our packs, we headed back outside and made our way up the street. When Cal saw another clothing store, I followed him in, hoping they had a coat that would fit me, since mine had been left in the car yesterday.

  The place was a complete wreck, with clothes thrown all over the floor and racks knocked over on their side. Cal found the men’s coat area and we started riffling through the mess for something to wear.

  After almost giving up, I finally found an awesome black leather jacket hidden under a shelving unit that had been knocked over. When I freed it and tried it on, I was happy to find it fit, was warm, and I could still move around in it.

  I caught Colt checking me out, which made me smile and kiss his lips before helping Cal look. We found him a leather jacket as well, but his had a bunch of silver chains hanging off of it. Not something he would normally wear, but he shrugged it on, looked in the mirror, then turned and walked out of the store.

  We followed after him, but I ran into his back when he came to a sudden stop. I looked over his shoulder, searching for the next threat, but didn’t see anything—or anyone—around, but then I heard it. The humming. The same damn humming from the alien ships when they first arrived over two years ago. It was a sound I could never forget… the deep humming that you felt in your chest more than heard.

  I pulled Cal back into the store and to the side where we could look out a window. All four of us crowded around and squatted, so no one would be able to see us. We heard loud footsteps coming in our direction,
then we heard the voices of what could only be Taoree.

  Of course, we couldn’t understand anything they said in their strange snarling language, but we could tell they were headed our way. When they finally came into view, I held my breath. There were two of them. One bent down, scooped a dead body out of a car across the street and lifted it above his head. I had no clue what the fuck he was doing, but soon, the alien ship was hovering right over top of the alien, and the human body started floating up into it and disappeared. I couldn’t tell if something had been hooked onto the body first or if they had somehow figured out how to make anything float.

  The other Taoree walked into one of the shops across the street and came out carrying four bodies, which were also sucked up into the hovering ship. That alien walked into the next store on that side of the street while the first one started heading to our side. Luckily, it looked like he was going to the store next door. As soon as he disappeared from sight, I tugged on Cal and Colt’s sleeves and nudged Nolan. We started walking, hunched over as far as possible so the aliens wouldn’t see us if they came back out of the other stores.

  I headed to the back of the store, assuming—and praying—that there was a back door somewhere. When I crossed into the employee-only area, I was able to stand up straight since there were no windows back there. It only took a second to find the door, but the damn thing had a lever lock that required a freaking key. I reached on top of the door sill to see if it was there, but no such luck.

  I hissed, “Find the key.”

  We scattered, everyone pulling open drawers and bins as quietly as possible. I walked over to a desk in the corner to rifle through it. I knew we were running out of time. I was debating pulling out the gun and shooting the handle, but that would only make them come after us quicker.

  There was a long, skinny drawer in the desk that was also locked, but I was determined to get it open since we hadn’t found the door key yet. After what felt like the longest minute of my life, of pulling and tugging with everything I was, I got the stupid thing open. There were some papers and pens inside, but when I reached farther back and moved my hand around, I felt a little piece of metal. I yanked it out and breathed a sigh of relief as I held it out to everyone. “Found it,” I whispered.