by W. A. R.
He hadn’t anticipated what happened next, however, and that was the tin wall he leaned against, hiding in the dark from Brian’s scouring eyes, coming down. It crushed him, pinning him to the ground beneath. He winced at the pain that the impact held. The heavy pressure of weight moved over him, over the tin. Their shuffling feet screeched against the metal and he knew what had happened. They had broken it down, not that it took much, it was a very old building after all. Upon realizing this, he attempted to remain quiet, even though the weight of their bodies pressing down on him made it almost impossible to breath.
“Come on!” he had heard Shelly shout at Brian and he breathed an unsteady breath of relief after hearing the car crank up and leave. The weight over him eased, and the noises stopped eventually. They were following the car, or any other sound, he knew. His mind raced, and he sent up a prayer that they would make it back safely, and then another prayer that they would forgive him once they realized what he had done.
He waited there until morning, when he saw the sun peeking down at him through rusted holes in the tin wall, before shimmying out. He listened for any tell-tale moans or screams before ensuring his knife was in his pocket and pulling himself out. He glanced around him at the pink and orange sky, and the very few Biters that were moseying about. They hadn’t noticed him and he took advantage of it, stretching his tight muscles. His body was stiff and it hurt, and his heart? It was weighed down heavily in his chest. He knew he had to start making tracks if he wanted to reach Anton, Louisiana on foot by nightfall, much less without the monsters taking notice of him. He pulled his knife from his pocket, sighing in realization that it was the only weapon that he had. It would have to do. He turned and stepped through the open door of the tin building, the morning air crisp and cool against his skin. He forced his legs to move past what was left of Charlotte’s body. Her flesh was mostly gone, her right leg and left arm gone, ripped from the rest of her body. Blood coated her and the ground around her and her stomach and chest were ripped open, revealing nothing but bone. Her head twitched and turned to him, her disfigured mouth moving. Her eyes were yellow and lifeless…hungry. He grimaced. Sure, he was saddened at seeing her that way, troubled at the fact that she was gone, but…and he felt heartless for thinking this…she didn’t die in vain. Her death allowed for Brian and Shelly to make it out alive.
He shook his head, staring at the monster she had become and he thought back to the little girl from the night before. Brian had killed her by ramming his knife into her skull. After glancing around him for a moment, he knelt down beside her, her hand attempting to reach out to him. He readied his knife and sighed. He needed to take her out, he couldn’t stand seeing her as the monster she was.
“I tried Charlotte. I’m sorry.” He told her softly before driving his knife into the hard barrier of her skull. She quit moving and easily he stood, the sounds of screams reaching his ears from the other side of town. He glanced to the left, where there was a thicket of trees alongside the road he could probably hide out in and travel through until it reached the Stateline Road. From there, he could try to divert attention from those monsters as much as possible. He thought of his parents, and he had a sinking feeling that they had not made it. Still, however, he had to try.
The sun had beat down on him, and the back of his neck was hot to the touch. He knew there were blisters on his skin and he was grateful for the darkening sky. He was on the outskirts of Anton and the emotions that roared within his mind were overwhelming. There was fear and trepidation at the prospect of finding his parents like Charlotte. There was disgust at the amount of blood coating his hands, blood from the monsters he had had to kill. His hands still trembled from the brutal actions he had to take. People that he had done work for in his job, people that were once friends…he had to kill them all. And finally there was the anger that was beginning to build within him at what he had done to Brian. He hoped they were alright. If they weren’t, he would blame himself for the rest of his life, however long or short that was.
He glanced up in the twilight and saw his parents’ house coming into view. He stopped mid-step and stared at it; there was a privacy fence around it, but he was standing on a rise in the land and he could see inside to the house itself. There was no movement in the yard and oddly enough that saddened him. He had hoped to see their faces, see them wondering out in their yard, in the garden like they always were…well, before last night. He shuddered just thinking about the night before. He had abandoned Brian and Amber and he wasn’t sure if he could go back without the people he had come to search for, the people he had left them for. If they were changed into heartless, disease ridden monsters like the rest of the world, he knew that Brian would be better off thinking him dead. He would rather have been dead at that point. Sighing, he began down the hill, bypassing groups of monsters that wondered aimlessly around. He jumped from behind one building to the next, his heart pounding in anticipation.
Before long he was at the fence gate, which was left wide open. He swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat. He could see the front door to the house open as well. He lowered his head. He knew this would happen; he wasn’t even sure why he tried. He knew why he did…it was his family; and although he knew that Brian would have understood, he would have made Rick wait until it slowed down. He would have waited until it was safer, and Rick understood that. He had almost been bitten, killed at least a handful of times on his way there and he had the scars to prove it. Again, as he thought before, he couldn’t have put Brian through that, or even risked it. Swallowing back any reservations he had he stepped forward, his focus on the wide open door of the house before him. He wasn’t sure how to feel right then, if he could admit that to himself. There were voices screaming inside of his head and every single one of them overlapped the others, making them coherent. He paused in his movement, turning back to close the gate, to ensure that no more of those monsters snuck up on him. After he completed this task, he turned back to the perpetual torment that awaited him. His hands shook and his legs felt weak. His face was tight and sore from the sun, and sweat and blood matted his hair. He was a wreck, both physically and emotionally and he couldn’t shake it. It wasn’t in him to change it. The more he held on to it, the more it lead him to do whatever it was he was going to have to do.
He climbed up the concrete stairs and squeezed silently past the open front door, keeping the sound of his boot clad feet banging on the hardwood floor as low as possible. He scanned the open kitchen and living room that lay before him, and there were obvious signs of a struggle. Blood smeared the marble countertop of the island and couch cushions were lying precariously on the floor. There was a trail of blood on the floor leading towards the other part of the house, towards the office and the bedrooms. He gulped, bile rising in his throat, the acid of it burning. He winced against the pain, his heart hammering in his chest and he stepped forward, his heavy feet shuffling against the sandy wood of the floor. He neared the entryway to the other part of the house, and without another moment’s hesitation he was shoved back, the small of his back slamming hard into the sharp corner of the island. The knife he held in his hand clattered to the floor and he yelled out in pain and surprise before he felt hands shoving him back once more, gripping at his stiff clothing. He crumbled to his knees, instinctively reaching up and gripping the forearms of the person or thing assaulting him. He dragged his eyes up, and he damn near heaved at the sight before him. It wasn’t a person…it was a thing; it was a monster. It was a monster of his mother. He had almost not recognized her, considering half of her face was missing, stringy tendrils of flesh hanging from where her cheek should have been. Her teeth lashed out at him, her lips missing and her eyes wild with the lifeless hunger he had seen in Charlotte’s eyes. Her mouth neared him and he quickly brought his leg up to stave her off, shoving with his left hand against her as he fell back, his head slamming against the floor. He shut his eyes against the pain, again, both physical and emotional before he s
napped his eyes open and began reaching frantically with his right hand for the knife that had skittered across the floor. His fingers splayed out, just inches from the weapon when he heard the ominous shuffling of more feet. All too suddenly, another creature fell on them, stumbling over his left foot that he had kicked out to regain balance.
Again, he was horrified at what he saw. His father’s face, or what was left of it, filled his vision. Almost the entire top half of his head was gone, only splotches of hair and skin were left. His eyes bulged from their sockets and like Rick’s mother before him, he also lunged at Rick, mouth wide. What he guessed may have been blood with a mixture of saliva stretched from the corner of his mouth, landing on Rick’s shirt and Rick instantly brought back his other hand to stop him. The pain was becoming too much to bear and replacing it was an unexplainable anger he had never encountered. He yelled, anger and pain excruciating as he shoved them both back with everything he had. His muscles were tense, and as soon as they flew from him, he scrambled to his knees and hurried his way to the knife. Quickly, he turned back around to see them easing their way to him. He stood on unsure feet and gripped the handle of the knife before driving it down into his mother’s skull. She fell with a loud thud and his knife slipped from his grasp, blood coating his hand. The creature that was once his father slammed into him, pressing him back into the counter and Rick struggled, searching around him for something, anything. His free hand scoured the counter before his fingers brushed something hard. He quickly gripped it and slung his arm around, driving the blunt object against the creature’s head. The monster stumbled back and Rick brought the object around again, slamming it against his hard skull again. This time the monster fell, and Rick heard the crack of his skull. He didn’t stop, however. He stood over the monster, gripping the object with both hands and he swung down again and again. Over and over he did this until there was nothing but a pile of mush and blood where the creature’s head should have been.
Once he reached this point, he stopped, his chest hurting and his breathing heavy and quick. He glanced at his hands, seeing blood and brain covering his hands and the object within their confines. A blender. He had just killed this monster with the base of a blender. Quickly he dropped it and his eyes scanned the area around him. There were no more to be seen, or heard at that moment, so he decided to take a moment to reign in his emotions. He didn’t want to ask himself what had come over him. And instead of dwelling on it, he turned, his body worn and tired, and he began searching the rest of the house.
A few days later he sat on the porch, a jar of warm moonshine in his hand, staring with narrowed eyes at the three crosses that were across the yard against the wooden fence. He had yet to leave the confines of what had once been his parents’ home, and he was okay with that. In fact, he had decided to stay for a significant amount of time. He couldn’t go back to Brian and Amber. He knew that. If he went back to them, things would never be the same, not that they ever would again. He had betrayed them and for what? To almost die at the hands of his once parents? No, it wasn’t good enough.
He took another drink of his moonshine, savoring the taste. His father had made it in the shed in the backyard and Rick was grateful for that. There was plenty of food and drink to last him a long while. His eyes again narrowed at the three crosses: one for Charlotte, one for his mom, and one for his dad. He had buried the latter two, and only placed a cross in place for Charlotte. And as he sat there, feeling the buzz from the liquor he held, he knew he was growing to resent them, resent himself. The hateful bitterness that was steadily growing in the pit of his stomach served only to infuriate him. He risked his life and the lives of other members of his family for people that had not survived, had not even survived one fucking night. How fucking weak were they? He questioned. How fucking weak was he? And he dwelled on the answer to that question for many months as he lived daily life as best as he could walking by those crosses every day, sitting and staring at them every night.
By the time he had finally left what had been his homestead, his mind was an irrational mess. He talked to himself, and to the graves of his family, more often than he should. He carried arguments and conversations with himself, and not only in his mind but aloud. He would venture out occasionally and drag a monster back, tying it up to the chair across from him at the dining table, where he would sit and eat, staring at it and prompting discussions, where the only response he ever received were hungry, desperate moans. He had tried to offer the creatures food he had prepared, but it was never good enough. His anger had grown with these encounters, subconsciously hoping that one day he would stumble across a changed Brian; a different Amber. He knew that the day that happened, he would accept his fate and end the miserable existence he led. He would wave at these creatures on his bouts around town, only killing whenever he needed to. This time was different however. He wasn’t coming back. He had decided to go to find Brian and Amber. He didn’t plan on making his presence known, but he had to know if they had made it, he had to know if they were alive. Dammit, he had to know if he had done it all for nothing, if the decision he had made to not tell Brian, to abandon them, had been the right one. After he had this knowledge, he would either end his life or move on from the hell he had perpetually created.
He had hotwired a car, hopefully what he thought was a quiet one, and he had loaded all of his gear. The wind whistled against his ear from the lowered window and he watched as the trees passed him by. He had gone a back route, knowing the towns had been ravaged by the monsters, the abominations he had pretended were his friends. The sun was barely breaking through the clouds when he went on his way, and the early morning chill was upon him. He found it soothing. He refused to listen to the radio, noticing CDs littered across the opposite seat. He knew if he did it would only serve to aid in his madness, the disease that was slowly eating him alive. His eyes were intent on the road before him, and the apprehension that was simply before a small tingling was now an outright nervous tremble. Their old house place was directly through the woods from where he was. He knew there was another side road that led a good part into the woods before coming to a dead end; a little road where he could go for a bit before trying it on foot. Before long he spotted the road on a curve and he turned, pressing on the accelerator. The side road was more or less smaller than the original road, and significantly had more curves. It didn’t matter to him, however; he had been down that road with Brian so many times that he had lost count. He knew the turns, the trees, and the distance by heart.
He glanced up at the sky, seeing the sky becoming more orange over the trees with the start of the rising sun. The ground was coated with dew and it shined against the reflection of the incoming light. He smiled. Little things like that, things that nature had to offer, brought him a sense of peace. He tried to find that peace on occasion, most of the time finding it lost in the abyss that was life. He turned back to the road before him as he rounded a curve, pressing harder on the accelerator. What he saw around the curve made his heart jump into his throat and in just an instant, fear collided with rationality. What had he been thinking?
He drug his eyes open, squinting against the bright sunlight that refracted through the shattered windshield. The momentary pleasure of waking up was soon disturbed as he felt overwhelming pain consume him. He glanced frantically around himself, trying to determine where he was, what had happened. The car was upside down and the driver’s side door was pressed firmly against a tree. He scanned the area around the car, seeing torn pieces of metal and plastic from the car littering the ground. The road was almost a hundred yards away, not that it mattered because it ended only about another hundred yards up before turning into woods. The pain was excruciating and he tried desperately not to think about it, to postpone addressing it until he could figure out what exactly had happened. It was all a blur. He had rounded the curve and…what had he….a sudden screeching caught his ears and he grimaced mid-thought. It was piercing and it made his skin crawl. He ti
lted his head painfully, attempting to determine where the sound came from but he could see nothing through the bloody haze and the broken glass. Panic began setting in. He was completely alone, injured, and trapped. He needed to get out of there. He finally had to see the onset of his wounds.
Glancing down at himself he saw himself covered in inch wide gashes, cut from the glass he assumed was the driver’s side window, which was no longer there. Blood coated his body and it was difficult to determine the extent of the damage. He attempted to reach out and touch one of his wounds and he almost cried out in pain. His eyes flashed to where his hand was locked in the confines of the bent steering wheel, two of his fingers caught between the plastic of the steering wheel and the metal of the ignition. He winced, attempting to pry his fingers from their entrapment but he couldn’t move them. He then saw the shiny white bone sticking out from one of them and he knew immediately that they were broken. He closed his eyes shut tightly against the pain he was sure was going to come. He knew what he would have to do, and the pain was going to be horrible. He took two steady breaths before holding it in and jerking his hand back with all he had. He bit his lip so hard that blood coated his teeth as he kept from crying out. His fingers pulled free of their confines and he allowed a few tears to fall from his eyes. He refused to look at them; he wouldn’t. He knew that if he did he would grow angry and afraid and he couldn’t do that. He was already on the brink of insanity. One look, one misconstrued part of himself, and he would be pushed over the edge. He turned to see the passenger window shattered but still intact. He could probably kick it out. He undid his seatbelt, falling painfully onto his shoulder and he grimaced, pulling himself up with his one good hand. His adrenaline was up and he couldn’t breathe steady. He shook the dizziness from his head and turned his back to the tree. The sudden pain radiating up his leg and to his spine surprised him and he growled in pain and frustration. His leg was bent at an odd angle and he knew then that it was broken as well. He forced himself to straighten it out through the bloody haze of pain and then he sat there, waiting.