by S L Mason
“Start putting stuff in the truck. I’ll get the keys.” I swallowed the excess saliva that found its way into my mouth.
“Are you sure? I could do it. You don’t have to do it. I could rip the pocket right off his pants.”
I shook my head. I pictured Arty ripping the pocket open and causing the body to flop. I took a deep breath and swallowed. I walked over to the dead guy lying in the yard. The grass squished as I stepped on it. A giant puddle of blood had saturated all the grass around him. Now it was getting all over my brand-new shoes. I guess it had to happen sometime with all the dead people around. My shoes were bound to get blood on them eventually.
He looked like he’d been a nice man, clean-cut, and well-dressed. I didn’t know what killed him, but it was clearly on the backside of his body. His lifeless eyes stared up at me, and he hadn’t been touched by the birds or the dogs yet. He must’ve died last night.
My eyes darted away. I didn’t want to look at him anymore. I reached into his right-hand pocket since most people are right-handed. There wasn’t a key, but it was one of those fobs you set inside the car and it turns on. I pulled it out, pushing the button to unlock the doors.
“Great! Let’s get out of here!” Arty was already in the driver’s seat. An automatic—I didn’t need to drive. I let out a relieved sigh as my nerves were totally shot. I didn’t want to drive. I was scared if I pushed the gas pedal, it’d be to the floor nonstop until I didn’t see another human, dead or alive, forever.
The truck roared to life as we headed out of the community in the other direction. I ran the Navigator on MapQuest.
“Still going to Athens?” Arty asked.
“If we can make it there without someone shredding our tires or trying to kill us, that’s the plan.” I looked down at my shoes, I’d got a little bit of blood on the tip of my boot. I opened the glove box, and there was a packet of baby wipes. I pulled one out to rub off the blood, but it didn’t work. It was stained, but at least now it was brown instead of red. I tossed the baby wipe out the window.
“You did really good driving back there,” Arty said. “I would’ve stopped, and we’d probably both be dead.”
I nodded my head and stared at the road. It eventually entranced me, and I leaned my head over to sleep.
When I woke up, it was close to twilight. The truck was idling, and Arty stood on the side of the road, taking a whiz. He whipped his head this way and that. I guess he was trying to keep an eye out while peeing. I saw him redo his drawers and then jump back in the truck.
As he was about to touch the steering wheel, I shrieked. “You don’t touch that! Wait a minute, I’ll get you a baby wipe.”
He stared at me sheepishly, holding his hands up as if he was a doctor getting ready to go into the operating room. I handed him a baby wipe. The last thing in the world I wanted was man pee on the steering wheel! What if I have to drive?
“Thanks. I didn’t get pee on my hands.” He flipped them over so I could see both sides.
“I know, but still the idea that there might be a little drop of urine on your hand and then you touch steering wheel—disgusting. Now please, wipe the door handle, inside and out.”
“Well, they say germs are what kills you first. So let’s stay safe for Sarah.”
I punched him in the shoulder. “Where are we?”
“We’re about fifteen miles outside of Athens. Sorry, I just couldn’t hold it anymore. I had to pee. Anyway, you were sleeping, and there was nobody here. I haven’t seen another house, or soul, for probably an hour.”
“That’s good. Maybe we can just pull up to the first house we see and move in.”
“I was thinking about that. I think whatever house we go to, we need to make sure there are dead bodies in the front yard.” I sat there and stared straight ahead. I had been feeling hungry until he said that.
“Any particular reason why you want to live like a necrophiliac?” I shrugged my shoulders in a grimace. “I don’t want to.” His hand was on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.
“As long as there is a dead body in the front yard, the Fae will think they’ve already cleared the house. But if we bury them or move the bodies, they’ll come looking again because they’ll know somebody has been there. I don’t want to live around a corpse either. I don’t want to smell it, and I don’t want anything to do with it, but we have to be smart.”
He was right, as disgusting as it sounded and as much as I knew it was going to be awful. As long as everything looked untouched, whatever building we’d in we’d be safe, in theory.
Athens resembled a village after it had been struck down by a barbarian hoard. Human logs were all over the roads. The only street spared was Main Street. All the professional offices were closed by the time the Fae landed. The residents had gone home, and they were probably getting ready to go to bed like everyone else.
We crawled to the edge of town and then circled back around the outside. Arty spotted a cottage on the outskirts with one person in front—dead.
“That looks like a good one; quiet and off to the side.” He averted his eyes from the human log, but it was all I could think about.
Everything about the town was quiet, tumbleweed perfect.
“Let me jump out, Arty. I’ll go check it out and make sure it’s safe. You drive around the block. If my gun goes off, obviously it’s not safe and don’t come back.” I didn’t feel brave, but I didn’t want Arty to get hurt. Stopping the truck, even for us to trade places, could be catastrophic. It was a smart move, and we needed to be smart.
“Are you out of your mind? I’m not leaving you here. I promised your dad. He said to take care of you.” Arty’s bicep flexed as his hands gripped the steering wheel.
“Really? What are you like two seconds older than me? I know you told my dad you’d look out for me, but we need to work as a team and treat each other as equals. Otherwise, you’re gonna get overworked, overtired, and we’re both dead. For that, we need teamwork and strategy. Your part is to drive the truck around the block. If you don’t hear a gunshot by the time you come back around, it means it’s okay.” I left out the part where we were fucked. No need to freak him out.
Before Arty could argue, I opened the door and practically jumped out of a moving truck.
Luckily, I landed on one foot but pitched forward. I managed to get my other foot underneath me, slowing my momentum. It wasn’t very smart to jump out of a moving truck. Maybe I should’ve waited for Arty to slow down. If there was anybody hiding on this street, I was pretty sure they knew I was here. I didn’t see any need to run around hiding and pretending.
I pulled my gun from my holster and flipped the safety off.
I approached the cottage from the side as if somebody could miss me. I was no ninja. I walked up, bold as brass. The front door was open, but the screen door was closed. The inside was relatively clean, and it didn’t have any funny smells. The human log out front was a woman, and I guessed she lived alone. I didn’t see any signs of a cat, a dog, or a man. The house consisted of two bedrooms and food in the fridge.
A fine place to hole up for now. The sun was going down, and we didn’t have enough time to look for anything else. I stepped out the back door, whipping my head left and right. I had to be sure there was nobody around.
The rumble from the diesel engine cut off suddenly as Arty parked the truck down the road. He brought our supplies inside. I stared at him through the back screen door.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to put all our eggs in one basket? Maybe we should leave some stuff in the truck just in case we need to make a getaway? That way we’re not totally screwed leave the camping stuff there.”
He shrugged a shoulder.
“Yeah, I didn’t really think about that. I’ll take the camping stuff back. Good idea. What about all the weapons?” He gripped the AR-15 by the barrel tip.
Arty knew how to shoot a gun, but he didn’t have a lot of respect for one. I made a mental checklist
to get a medkit. Especially something with superglue—lots of superglue. I was certain Arty was going to accidentally shoot his foot off.
“I don’t want to leave weapons in the vehicle. We can replace camping gear easily enough, but ammo and guns you can’t anywhere. They are probably all guarded by a posse.”
He nodded his head and dropped the big black duffel bag and my backpack. He double-timed the camping gear back to the truck. I heard the beep as he locked it up.
Arty pulled the screen door open and took four purposeful steps into the living room. He clipped the fob on my belt loop. I holstered my gun. The butterflies in my belly pulled me to hold on to it. But if it was in your hands and you jump, you’re more likely to shoot someone on accident.
“I’m not leaving without you, and you’re not leaving without me,” Arty said. “It’s just better you have the truck keys. This way I can’t lose them, and I know you won’t drive off without me.” His eyebrows were squished together in seriousness, and his jaw set.
I smiled. “What makes you so sure that I won’t drive off without you? You piss me off bad enough, I might leave your dumb ass here.” We both burst out laughing. He knew I wouldn’t drive off without him.
Who wants to face the Fairy apocalypse alone?
I slept most of the afternoon away in the truck so I wasn’t tired. After the sun went down, it was ten o’clock when I heard something outside.
Arty grabbed his gun, and we both crouched down. We crept to a closet by the back stairs to the basement. I suppose we could’ve gone down, but if a fairy decided to search the house, I was sure the basement was the first place they’d look.
Truthfully, hiding in a closet doesn’t give you a lot of safety either. Whoever it was that was running around, they didn’t stay long. They took off, and everything quieted down. The rest of the evening was a lot of us jumping at strange noises from the house.
In the morning when the sun came up, I unfolded myself from the closet, as did Arty. I took the stairs, two by two, and flopped down on the closest bed to sleep. Arty was sleeping for a couple of hours when I woke up and it was closer to noon.
We made breakfast and turned on the television. Apparently, the Fae had struck all over the planet.
One of the commentators said, “If the Fae invaders keep this up, the extinction of the human race is a very real possibility.”
The local news revealed a list of missing people, all kids mostly between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, and the list had grown longer. It didn’t cover just the suburbs. Some of these kids were missing from the city.
“Wealthy real estate developer Richard Dubois and his wife are desperate for any information on their daughter, Britney Dubois. There’s a million dollar reward for help in locating her. Last known whereabouts were Heathrow Airport in London.”
It was strange. I wondered how many kids were taken that nobody was looking for. The pictures scrolled across the screen like an unending parade of Miss Teen America contestants.
“The kids aren’t missing,” a woman said on the television. “I watched them, the Fairies, Fae, whatever they’re called, put them on one of those round craft things and disappear.” The woman was wide-eyed and disheveled. She had scratches and bruises on her arms and face.
“There you have it, folks. An eyewitness account of a Fairy abduction.”
A few moments later, someone released an actual video. It was grainy like it’d been shot through a window screen in the dark. I watched with a dry mouth as the tall willowy creatures led some kids onto their platform. One of the creatures turned toward the camera and in the full light of streetlights, I got a clear vision of him. Large glowing blue eyes like sapphires, and white hair with pointed ears sticking up between his thick hair. His hair hung down on either side of his shoulders. Even with the blur of the camera, you could see how beautiful he was. With high cheekbones and full lips, he brandished a sword in one hand, and he held a girl’s arm in the other. He’d been singing, and she wasn’t struggling against him. She stood there limp like a rag doll. Her eyes were glazed over wide, and she’d do whatever he wanted.
The Fae carried on with that singsong fairytale music I heard, “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With bluebells, and cockle shells, and skeletons all in a row.” The tone was flat and lost on me.
I didn’t understand the connection between the creepy nursery rhymes and the Fae. They didn’t even sing them right.
“That wasn’t Mary, Mary, quite contrary. I don’t know what nursery rhyme that was.” It made me so angry that I stamped my foot and got up and left the room
“It’s okay if they can’t quote nursery rhymes.” Arty splayed his hands out and shrugged his shoulders.
“Really? Do you really think that’s what the problem is?” I shook my head while tapping my foot on the floor. I took a couple of deep breaths to try to remove the heat from my chest.
“No, I know that’s not the problem, but it’s just some creepy Fae. They can sing misquoted nursery rhymes. You don’t need to get angry about it?” He patted the couch seat next to him.
“I’m not angry about them misquoting nursery rhymes. It’s just creepy. What’s more, he’s not misquoting. What if we’ve been misquoting?” I gasped my own revelation. Why would I say that?
Arty didn’t reply. I splashed a bunch of water from the kitchen sink on my face.
“No way. I need to get out of this building. I’m sick of being stuck here all night. There’s nobody in this town, and we haven’t heard anything more than a squeak since we arrived. I want to go walk around. I’ll be safe. I have my gun. If I have a problem, I’ll call you.” I took my phone out and shook it. Arty lowered his eyes and looked away. He didn’t like the idea of me getting out of the house.
I wasn’t trying to get away from him. It wasn’t about him. I knew my parents were probably dead, and his parents were dead. Everybody we’d ever known was probably dead. And we were sitting there, hiding in a closet, night after night, and hoping that some Fae wouldn’t kill us.
I freaked out when I thought about the nursery rhymes. That level of creepy didn’t work for me.
I slugged on my pack, rubbing my left foot against my right for the bulk of my ankle holster. I reached inside my coat for the 380. I held it in my right hand, released the clip, double checked my bullet count, and slammed it home. I chambered one round. The weight of it in my holster under my arm comforted me. The feel of it in my hand kept the helplessness at bay.
Three blocks away was Main Street. The lack of bodies on the street lulled me. This old town was cute. The sidewalks were clean, and every tree had a little fence around the base. The streetlights resembled carriage lights from the heyday of the electric bulb. The traffic light in the middle of the street length flashed red for the four-way stop. The town felt like a magic bubble of normalcy. That all came to an end at the corner of Main and Juniper. The sickly, rotten smell of meat left out too long wafted from the doors of the corner diner. The patrons were all dead. Some of them had never even got up from their table. There were three in a row across the bar. I pulled my sleeve down over my hand, and I put it up over my nose and mouth. With streaming tears, I reached over and pulled the door shut.
The rest of the street held stores. I began humming my own little ditty, one I made up years ago. I helps me calm down and take my mind off my problems.
I crossed the street and picked one. I went inside and found they had a little bit of everything. A little junk, a little grocery, and a little hardware. It got my mind thinking, what was in the rest of the stores?
CHAPTER 7
It amazed me how many of the stores around were left open. People were gone, and everything was wide open. The only things locked were the offices. I did see a pharmacy, but the windows were smashed in. The druggies would’ve pilfered the dispensary for Oxycodone, Fentanyl, and Xanax; things like that. Picking my way through the store, I stepped between the glass shards on the dusty epoxied flo
or. A tumbled pile of red plastic shopping baskets lay on the floor along with real estate magazines and weekly shoppers flyers. I grabbed a basket and began picking items off the shelves. I stopped at the First Aid aisle and picked up a kit, along with a bottle of iodine and rubbing alcohol. The cotton balls lay across the floor alongside rolls of gaze.
A fire ax lay on the floor in front of the pharmacy counter. They’d used it to hack out the cabinets. The wind whistled around the cavernous store. Closing my eyes, I waited for god knows what. All I was met with was the darkened silence. I crawled through the opening. The druggies had strewn the bottles on the floor. Stepping over boxes and broken shards, I picked my way down every aisle. I grabbed bottles with the words ending in ‘cillin’. The painkillers were gone. I was sure I could’ve taken more, but what about the next guy?
I guess running away from Arty was a dumb idea. I took a couple of deep breaths and headed back to the cottage. Arty was still inside, watching the television, but really watching the windows and watching for me. “Are you better, Sarah?” His wide eyes stared at me through his glasses. He nervously pushed them back on his nose.
“I guess. I mean sometimes you just need a couple of minutes alone to get your head straight, right?”
Arty nodded his head with his eyes wide. He’d never been much into privacy. As a child, he didn’t have a problem barging into my house. Maybe it wasn’t just me, and he was like that with everybody else? I never paid attention to how Arty treated other people. He was my best friend. I didn’t need to know more than that.
“I’m filthy, and I’ve been wearing the same clothes for three days,” I announced. “I’m going upstairs to take a shower and change into something else.”
He nodded and then went back to watching television. I knew that most guys, with the world going to hell in a handbasket, would’ve tried to make a move or something, but not Arty. I was surprised. Everybody could be headed for death, and most guys didn’t want to die a virgin. Arty was definitely a virgin, and so was I. I wanted to wait. I didn’t want to be one of those girls everybody at school slept with. I didn’t want to be one of the girls who fall in love and never dates anybody else. I’d rather spend my whole life on the sidelines waiting rather than rushing myself. Arty was either a gentleman or oblivious, I wasn’t sure which.