Maniacs

by Lee Wise

  “I’m not sure.” I said.

  “Oh.” Megan said. “Come on Sarah. Let’s go play!” They ran off.

  “That went well!” I said to John and we both laughed.

  We heard gunshots. Everyone got out their guns. “Quick kids to the house.” Mrs. Ford demanded.

  “That was just us!” Angela said from the walkie-talkie.

  “False alarm! Kids, you can play outside. Please just stay in front of the house!” Mrs. Ford said. There were more gunshots.

  “Did you catch an animal already?” John asked over the walkie-talkie.

  “More than one. We’re on our way back.” Angela said. Soon they returned with a deer, two squirrels and a rabbit. “That was too easy! Ryan and I can take care of the rest.” Robert walked off after handing a squirrel to Ryan. “John, I think you should talk to Robert.” John nodded and followed Robert.

  Mrs. Ford came over to me. “I already asked Jill, but I want to check with you also. The kids want to paint so they might get a little messy and then we were going to make some butter.”

  “Really? That’s awesome. They’ll love that.” I replied.

  “Okay, we’ll be inside for the night then. I figured that I should get them in before dusk.” Mrs. Ford said.

  “Thank you!” I said. She smiled and brought the kids in with Naomi.

  “All right!” Luis announced. “Can we have a quick meeting?” Everyone came over except for those at the end of the driveway, Mrs. Ford, Naomi and the kids. “We need to talk about…” Molly suddenly ran past us and started barking at the woods. We took out our guns. We didn’t see anything in the woods. “Ben, John, cover me.” They went to the area where Molly was barking. I noticed that she was wagging her tail.

  “Hello!” Ben said.

  The guys came out holding a little girls hand. She was dirty and she was missing a shoe.

  “Alyssa?” Angela said.

  “Angela!” The little girl ran and hugged Angela.

  “Oh wow! Where’s your sister, brother and parents?” Angela asked.

  “Daddy went crazy and mommy told me to run here. Daddy killed mama and Monica. Mama said run, so I did. I heard guns in the woods and I saw you.”

  “Alyssa lives at that log cabin two houses down.” Angela said. “Where’s your brother?”

  “Mama told me to run.” Alyssa said. “I think he’s still hiding.”

  “Is he alive?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know. Daddy started to follow me but he heard a bunch of people saying weird stuff and he said it back and followed them instead of me.”

  “Alyssa, you stay here with this lady okay. Her name is Aleisha.”

  “Your name is just like mine!” Alyssa said to me.

  “That’s right. I’m going to your house okay? Do you know where your brother hid?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Where?”

  “In the trashcan in the kitchen. I thought that was gross. When daddy killed Monica, he jumped right into it to hide.”

  “Let’s go!” Luis said. “Angela, John, Ben! The rest of you get inside. If that group is out, we need to get all our guns and ammunition ready.”

  They left. While the others got ready, I brought Alyssa upstairs. Mrs. Ford gave her a big hug and introduced her to the other kids. I looked at my watch. It was 5:30. It would be getting dark in a couple hours and we all knew that night was the worst time to deal with maniacs. Unfortunately, this time it would be worse because we knew the leader and one of the maniacs.

  About a half hour later, the others returned with a little boy and supplies from the next-door neighbors house. “This is Jake.” Angela said. She was holding him and he was hugging her extra tight. I could tell the poor boy was traumatized. Finally, he said “I can’t find Alyssa.”

  “She’s here sweet boy.” Angela said.

  He looked at her like he wasn’t sure if he should believe her. Jill went upstairs and got Alyssa and brought her down. Jake hugged his sister. “I didn’t know if you came here or over to Brianna’s house!”

  “Brianna’s family is at their house?” Angela asked.

  “Yes. They just got back. They said that they were visiting family in Ver… Ver…”

  “Vermont?” Jill asked.

  “Yes. Vermont. So they had to come all the way back. There is a lot of people at that house too. They said we could stay with them, but daddy said we were fine…” Jake said.

  “In the morning we can go talk to them and see if they want to join forces.” Ben said.

  “I doubt it.” Angela said. “They’re kind of self-sufficient over there!”

  “Well,” Luis said. “We’ll at least talk to them.”

  “We are going to make butter in a little bit!” Alyssa told Jake. “You want to come paint?”

  Jake looked at Angela. “Okay.” He followed his sister upstairs.

  “He’ll be okay.” Allison said.

  “We have probably another hour of light outside give or take a half hour, let’s finish up discussing tonight. Aleisha, Cathy do you mind making a snack that will hold us all over until the morning?”

  “You can make something with the squirrel meat.” Angela said.

  “I…I don’t really have a recipe for that.” I said.

  “How about I help?” Allison asked. “I know some recipes.”

  “If Allison can help Cathy, can I borrow Aleisha?” Liz asked. “I want to talk to her about my lab.”

  “Sure.” I said. Liz and I went into the den to talk.

  “Thanks!” I said to Liz. “I wasn’t really excited about making a recipe with squirrels!”

  Liz laughed. “I’ve never eaten squirrel before. This should be interesting. Did you hear that?”

  I listened carefully and then I heard a scratching sound that led to the closet in the den. “Should I open it?”

  “Do you have a gun?” She asked.

  “No I don’t. I left it in the kitchen. I’m going to get John.” We both left the room and went back into the living room where the meeting had been moved.

  “We got kicked out of the kitchen!” John said to us. “The kids are making butter, they already gave up on painting. Cathy and Allison are making squirrel stew!”

  “We heard a noise in the closet!” I said. Everyone was quiet.

  “What? In the den?” Luis asked.

  “Yes. It was a scratching sound in the closet.” Liz said.

  Luis and John went in the room. I peeked in. John quickly opened the closet and Luis got his gun ready. A cat came running out. Luis jumped in the air. We all started laughing.

  “Poor kitty!” Liz said from behind me. She had also been peeking in.

  “Poor kitty!” Luis smirked. “He almost gave me a heart attack!”

  Liz picked up the cat and patted it. The cat squirmed and Liz put him down.

  “Your shirt.” I said. There was blood on her shirt. “Is he hurt?”

  “He didn’t seem hurt.” We followed the cat out.

  “Your cat has blood on him.” Luis told Angela.

  Angela picked the cat up. “Are you hurt Princess?”

  “Strange name for a boy!” John joked with Luis.

  “The blood is on her feet. She must have stepped in some.” Angela said.

  “Blood from the closet?” Luis said.

  “We need a flashlight. The tunnel is dark.” Angela remarked.

  “Tunnel?” I asked.

  “The closet has a trapdoor which leads to a tunnel. The tunnel goes to the shed outside.” Angela responded.

  “What? How come we didn’t know that?” Ben asked.

  “I thought I told a few people.”

  “I must not have been one of those few people, because that would definitely be something that I would remember!” Ben replied.

  “Okay, so we should check out this tunnel then.” Luis said.

  “And on that note, I think Liz and I will check on the progress of the butter!” I announced. Liz nodded and we
both left the room. Angela went to get some flashlights while others went into the den to peek into the closet.

  I got into the kitchen when we heard screaming from the den. “Get upstairs kids. Hurry!” I shouted. There was gunfire in the other room.

  Cathy, Liz, Allison and I made sure that the kids, Christian, Naomi and Mrs. Ford were upstairs and then we got ready to leave the kitchen. I glanced out of the window before I was about to leave and I gasped. Standing outside and just staring at the house was Jenny, Brandon and five others.

  Cathy looked in the direction that I was staring and yelled Jenny’s name. Jenny didn’t react at all. Everyone started coming out of the living room.

  “The den’s closed. Luckily there was only one in the tunnel…” Ben began. He looked outside to see what we were staring at. “How many of them are out there?”

  “I saw seven of them, including Jenny and Brandon.” I answered.

  “There’s probably a lot more. Are all the kids upstairs?” Luis asked.

  “Yes.” Allison and I answered.

  “Maybe I can talk to her.” Cathy remarked while walking towards the door.

  “No.” Robert held her back. “Babe, remember that’s not her. There’s a lot of them out there. It’s too dangerous.”

  “That’s our daughter.” Cathy cried.

  Robert sighed. “We’ll get her back. Just not right now.”

  Jenny and her whole gang turned around and left. “What the hell was that all about?” Luis grumbled.

  “They killed one of ours. Maybe that’s what they wanted.” Ben said.

  “Wait, what?” Allison asked.

  “Gary was looking in and we didn’t see one in the corner. It pulled him through the trap door and out into the tunnel.” Ben said.

  “We don’t know if he’s dead.” Jill mumbled.

  “What? You just closed the door and left him?” Allison cried.

  “We couldn’t do anything. It could have been a trap.” Luis said.

  “They’re going down the driveway now.” Cathy said.

  “We should check the tunnel.” Ben said.

  “Can’t it wait until morning? It’s not safe out there.” Chase said.

  “He’s our friend.” Angela said.

  “We can’t just leave him out there. He may be alive.” Maya agreed.

  “We’ll do it safer than we were before.” Ben said.

  Ben, Robert, Luis, Maya, Angela and Mike went back into the den. We heard shouting, so guns were drawn. “Quickly, get him in here!” Ben commanded.

  They carried Gary into the living room. “He’s still alive, but in bad shape.” Maya said. Jeremy

  and Rose hurried over.

  “Let’s seal the trapdoor really well for the night!” Ben said.

  “I’m going to bring the butter stuff up to the kids if you want to help.” Allison said to me. I

  agreed. It would get them calmed down again. “And then, back to squirrel stew!”

  “I’ll help with the butter part!” I said.

  Liz and I went upstairs. There was really nothing that either of us could do downstairs and to tell you the truth, I wanted to escape the situation and let the others take care of it. I felt guilty, but I couldn’t do what the others could. I guess I could if I had to, but there were plenty of people downstairs that could do better. I think that John liked the idea of me not being a fighter just in case something happened to him, there would still be someone around for the kids.

  Cathy walked into the room with tears running down her face. I went to hug her. “We’ll get her back Cathy.”

  Cathy wiped away her tears. “I just want to talk to her to see if she remembers me.”

  “She attacked Robert.” Liz said. “Until we can cure her, she’s dangerous to all of us, including you. Maybe once we’ve caught her and she’s in a cell, you can talk to her.”

  Cathy nodded and looked towards Sarah and Megan. “What are you making?”

  “Mrs. Ford is teaching us how to make butter. She said that we have the ingredients to make homemade bread also!” Sarah said.

  “It’s definitely going to be a lot better than all the vegetables we’ve been eating!” Megan said. “Blech!” She made a face.

  Cathy laughed. “That sounds good to me.”

  CHAPTER 17

  John came into the room. “Aleisha, Liz?” He motioned for us to come out of the room. Cathy walked over to the girls and they got Cathy to do some butter churning. I was happy that she was distracted. She needed a little escape from thinking about Jenny and what was going on downstairs. Liz and I followed John out of the room.

  “Does this look familiar?” John asked holding up a cross necklace with a blue stone in the center.

  “That’s Cathy’s necklace.” I said. “Where did you find it?”

  “It was on the ground where Jenny was just standing.” John answered. “Was Jenny wearing it? Do you remember?”

  “No, Cathy always wears that necklace. She said it went missing when Jenny pinned her against the wall.”

  “Hmm, so Jenny took it?” John pondered.

  “And why did she leave it behind?” Liz asked. “This is new behavior. Was she leaving it for her mom, or did she drop it by mistake?”

  “Well, this is your expertise. You can study that I suppose.” John said. “There’s a chance that Jenny is still in there.”

  “That’s what we’ll have to find out.” Liz said. “First, we’ll need you guys to catch her!”

  “That’s going to be quite difficult with all the protection she has around her.” I said. John nodded.

  “Well, you guys can go back to making butter.” John said. “I’m going to join the others looking outside and in the tunnel and shed.”

  “Be careful!” I cautioned him.

  “Always.” John kissed me.

  “How’s Gary?” Liz asked.

  John sighed. “He’s okay. A little banged up, but nothing life threatening.”

  “I wonder why they didn’t kill him.” I pondered.

  John shrugged. “Well, I have to get back to work. Keep an eye on Cathy, okay?”

  “We will and you keep an eye on Robert.” I said.

  John saluted me and went back downstairs. Liz and I went back in to check on the kids.

  Alyssa was sitting on Cathy’s lap. “I miss my mommy.” She said.

  Cathy nodded. “I know honey. We’re all going to get through this. I promise.”

  I walked over and joined them while Liz went to see her brother. The kids were chattering away which surprised me with all that had been happening.

  A couple minutes later, John came back into the room. “Liz, Cathy, Aleisha.”

  “Missed me already?” I joked.

  He had a serious expression on his face. “We need you downstairs.”

  We went downstairs and then followed John into the living room. A ragtag group of people I didn’t recognize were in there. Angela followed us into the room. She had come from the bathroom.

  Angela stopped in the doorway. “Steve, Brianna!”

  “Angela!” The man sighed. “Sorry to barge in here. We had nowhere to go. They…they attacked us. They came out of nowhere…”

  “They killed my mama!” Brianna was crying.

  “Our house is gone.” Steve sighed slouching on the couch and putting his hands over his eyes. “It's...Everything’s gone.”

  “A goth looking teenage boy was standing outside laughing while it was all happening. He looked like a school shooter. He was the only one shouting and making unintelligible words.” A man said while pacing. “I thought coming to Maine and hiding in the woods that we would be safe.” He sighed. “I don’t think there’s anywhere that’s safe anymore!”

  “Was there a blond girl in pink in the group and a guy in a military uniform?” Liz asked.

  “No.” The man replied.

  “So this wasn’t her group.” Liz said.

  “Which means there is a more dangerous one
out there.” Cathy said.

  “Well she did push Robert down the stairs and try to hang Alex.” Angela said.

  The new group looked at us confused. An older lady hugged the man who was pacing. “We saw an army truck drive by yesterday and we saw it in the driveway. What’s going on?”

  “Ma’am, I’m Captain Jones. We are actually setting up here to see if we can do something about the maniacs, hopefully find a cure.”

  “Oh my God!” She clapped her hands together. “Do you think that you can?”

  “We’ll see what we can do.” Liz replied. “I’m Liz.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Leah. Steve is my son and Brianna’s my granddaughter. They live next door…lived next door I guess. This…” She said putting her arm around the man she had been hugging, “This is my other son Mason and that beautiful young lady over there is Anne.”

  Anne blushed and smiled. “Well, I don’t know about beautiful, but…”

  “You’re welcome to stay here…” Angela began.

  “Someone has to check on the Monroes.” Steve said. “They have three children and…”

  “Alyssa and Jake are upstairs.” Angela said. “The rest of the family didn’t…well didn’t make it.”

  Brianna started crying again. “I miss mama!”

  “Brianna, have you ever made butter before?” Cathy asked.

  “Butter?” Brianna responded.

  “Yes. All the kids are making butter upstairs. Would you like to see?” Cathy asked.

  “Okay.” She started to go with Cathy.

  “Wait!” Steve said. “I want to make sure that it’s safe up there.”

  “Of course” Angela said. “Leah, if you would like to go upstairs also, I’m sure you would get along well with Mrs. Ford and Naomi.”

  “Send the old lady upstairs?” Leah asked.

  “Oh no! I didn’t mean any offense. I’m sorry, I…” Angela blushed.

  Leah laughed. “Actually, I would love to go upstairs and get a break from this!” Leah, Steve, Brianna and Cathy went upstairs.

  “So, what happens now?” Mason asked. Mason seemed to be in his early 20s as did his wife Anne.

  “Well, as soon as morning comes, we’ll be able to do much more. For now, we defend our place.” Luis said.

  Mason nodded his head. “Sounds like a solid plan to me.”