My terror doesn’t go away.
Gerald sees me, forces a smile and waves. “Lost my breath out there!” he says, and chuckles shallowly. “Just...going to rest.”
I nod my head and then jump as the last cabinet door falls to the floor behind me with a loud clatter. “I got it!” I shout and quickly pick up the cabinet door. I squeeze a little more epoxy around the edges and hold it in place until the glue actually dries.
“Well, it worked; the wood feels pretty secure.” I pull the glass door closed and sit down on the couch. “At least as a deterrent.”
Gerald, nods, still gasping for air.
“Are you alright?” I ask him. Gerald nods and waves his hand at me.
“Fine. I’ll be fine.” he says, and coughs. He looks up at me and smiles. “We did it. The...the house should be much safer...you can stay here, Angela. I want you to stay here.” Gerald smiles again, and then coughs. He tries to clear his throat but it comes out as a choke.
I can’t stay here. There is no way that I can tolerate this place after...
“Thanks, Gerald.” I say. I start to tear up. “We’ll have fun. You have to show me some of the other jars downstairs.”
Gerald nods weakly and then coughs into his hands. There is a deep, violent aspect to his hacking, and when Gerald finally quiets down it sounds like he is sucking down breath through a straw.
“I have to- I’ll be right back.” wheezes Gerald.
“Sure, okay. Get some water!” I smile broadly at him.
Gerald pushes himself up off the couch and leaves the room. I listen to him wheezing and climbing the stairs.
I sit on the couch for a long time. I don’t hear anything else from the bedroom at the top of the stairs after the door closes. I check the clock on the mantel. Twelve twenty-three. Big morning.
After about half an hour, the door to Gerald’s room shudders and I begin to cry.
CHAPTER 16
After a horrible time in purgatory, I hear a loud crash and the door at the top of the stairs hits the railing with a clatter.
I stand up and walk over to the aluminum bat on the carpet. I pick it up and I walk down the hallway. As I pass the bathroom door, the stench of decay trickles its way down the steps, making me cough. I hear a choking sound and then I see a foot fall onto the first step, too far forward.
The second step is as wide as the first and then a large body rolls down the stairs, thudding and bumping its way to the bottom step. Several posts from the banister crack and splinter out into the hallway. When the body lands at the foot of the stairs with a low thud and everything else is silent, I can hear telltale choking and clicking.
I walk to the entrance of the kitchen and can see Gerald lying at the bottom of the stairs. He is slowly rolling from left to right, reaching out in random directions with savage, twitching fingers, each digit independently clawing the air.
His right leg is propped on the bottom stair, and I can see his calf is unnaturally twisted at a right angle below the knee.
With a quick roll toward the hallway, Gerald looks up and finds me. He starts pawing at the floor and rolls onto his stomach. He pulls himself toward the hallway and kicks erratically.
His left leg can’t seem to find purchase and his right calf keeps sliding sideways from under the weight of his body so that he is repeatedly landing on his mangled knee.
Gerald wriggles along the kitchen floor. As he moves forward, he chokes and his neck twitches to the left as he snaps his teeth. He isn’t biting at anything that I can see and snaps blindly to his left while keeping his eyes trained on mine.
“I’m so sorry, Gerald,” I whimper as my voice breaks. “I’m so sorry.”
As Gerald snakes his way around the stairs into the hallway on his three limbs, I am reminded of the awkward attack of the dog, also lame in one leg.
I walk slowly backwards, apologizing over and over as Gerald continues to fall flat on his face, unable to stand and repeatedly losing balance as he crawls and reaches out to me.
Gerald is bleeding from his nose and mouth as he writhes into the hallway. I briefly imagine an agonizing crawl down the hallway and refuse to let Gerald live out this horror.
“He died from the fall.” I say, and swing the bat. I apologize to Gerald and swing the bat again and again until he stops moving.
I’m the only person left alive in this house, that I had never given a second thought to until yesterday.
Gerald looks through me down the hallway. I push down his eyelids, but they pop back open and I recoil, scrambling for the aluminum bat. After Gerald doesn’t move for another minute, I make several more attempts to close his eyes, but they refuse to stay shut and after a while I start crying quietly again, watching Gerald.
His eyes are blue. I hadn’t noticed until this moment.
This is fair. I can match his gaze.
After a minute, I start coughing, and look down at my shoulder. The dark bruise has sprawled far enough up my shoulder and onto my neck that I can’t see where it ends anymore.
Thump.
I jump in surprise and look over my shoulder to see one of the monsters staring at me and walking into the glass door. I forgot to close the curtains. I jump to my feet and run into the living room, swiping at the curtains and covering the glass back up.
Thump.
My head swims. I look around the living room, then at the mangled body that used to belong to Gerald. This isn’t-none of this. I feel very unbalanced and cough loudly as I struggle to keep my footing in the middle of the room. Gerald stares at me from the hallway.
Thump.
I feel like vomiting. I drop the bat and run toward the bathroom, but am unable to control myself and throw up a little through my hand as my shoulder collides with the frame of the bathroom door and erupts in agony. I push my way inside, slam the door behind me and collapse next to the toilet as I continue to vomit. Everything leaves my body, and my throat seizes and burns.
I gasp for air as my vision blurs and begins to fade. I can see only a small point of clarity at the end of a long black-and-nothing tunnel. I lean back under the window against tiny, dried rivulets of blood. The bathroom is so far away.
I raise my hands over my head, trying to suck in more air. My throat burns and I cough again. My stomach cramps with such force and pain that I collapse sideways, lying in my own sick.
My body is shaking uncontrollably, and I am left staring down a long, dark tunnel at the corner of a porcelain shower basin. It’s so far away. I hear the crunch of glass from the living room. I can’t feel much of anything.
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Afterlife (Book 1): Home Again Page 8