by Flacco, Jack
“What are you thinkin’?” Ranger asked.
“I’m thinking we should go back, apologize, and try to get as far away from the chewers as we can. Matty’ll probably stay mad at you for a while, but once you save her life a few more dozen times, she’ll forgive you.”
“You think too much, kid.” Ranger shook his finger at him. “First, Matty’s quick temper will drive me away from her for good. Second, if she does treat me like the father you say I am, then I don’t have any hope for reconciliation. She didn’t get along with her father.”
“She looked after her father.”
“She doesn’t have to look after me.”
“Ranger, you nearly got us all killed during the Worship Square incident.”
“We’re alive, aren’t we?”
“For now.”
Ranger rose and took his soda with him. He walked across the room, sat on one of the stools with his back to the kitchen and studied the cottage. He thought about what Randy said and realized the kid was right. He considered Matty as his daughter, not a real biological daughter, but an adopted daughter. Even if no one had ever said the words, he understood how Randy could think it. After draining the soda, he placed the can on the counter and stretched his legs.
A few minutes later, Randy stood on his feet. He had his fill of soda, and it gave him the urge to search for a bathroom. Seeing how the former owners had surrounded themselves with luxury items, such as the big screen TV, Randy had the impression he would find a bathroom in the residence. He wouldn’t expect he had to do his deed in an outhouse, not so close to civilization. The door on the right of the entrance to the cottage remained unopened. He thought if anything, the bathroom would be behind the door. Without thinking, he slipped between the furniture and strolled across the threshold to the door.
“Hey.” Ranger said from across the room.
Randy turned and stared.
“Forgettin’ somethin’?” he threw him the gun the kid had left on the counter.
“Thanks, but I should be fine.” Randy said, after he’d caught the weapon not wanting to admit he’d forgotten it. He continued on his way, turning the knob to the adjacent room while Ranger watched.
The door slowly creaked open. Randy didn’t like the idea of falling into something he could have avoided, so he let his gun lead the way. When he stepped into the room, he raised his brows in surprise. He expected a bathroom, but instead a large bed rested in the center complimented with one lamp and on a stand on each side, and a small chair in the far corner. A window to the right overlooked the porch where he could see their truck on the road. A door to the left stood undisturbed. Randy went left and soon enough had placed his ear on the surface of the door. A chill caught his back, sending shivers running the length of his spine. He shook it off and listened. He heard the rhythm of a water drop every two to three seconds, but nothing else. Pressing his weight on the entry, he eased it open with his gun at the ready. He peeked around it and examined the small bathroom until his attention drew to the sight inside the bathtub. He covered his nose and mouth with his hand, and made a quick exit to the bedroom. Not wanting to lose the contents of his stomach, he bent and supported himself with his hands on his knees. He needed help. “Ranger?”
Without a moment of hesitation, Ranger appeared in the bedroom as if he had waited all this time on the kitchen stool for trouble to emerge. Almost as a matter of routine, he crept from the bedroom entry to Randy and placed his hand on the teen’s shoulder, not knowing what he might find in the tub. With his sidearm fully in view, he sneaked inside the bathroom where the stench hit him first, then the sight. The body of a man, late fifties, sat in a full tub of water. Ranger didn’t need a doctorate to understand what had happened. A blood trail on the floor that originated from the body’s wrists caused his demise.
Ranger turned his back to the body, and eased from the bathroom with nothing more than a pat on Randy’s back. He left the room to give the kid the privacy he needed to finish his task.
Randy straightened to full height with the intention of closing the door behind him. It looked as if he would have needed to use the backyard to relieve himself. With that on his mind, he pulled on the handle to close the door, but it wouldn’t move. He tried again, this time tugging it harder, yet it remained stuck. No way would he sleep in a cottage knowing a dead body lay in the tub with its veins cut open.
For some unknown reason, he glanced at the bottom of the door and noticed something had hooked its edge. It looked familiar, though, he couldn’t place its form. But a second or two later, Randy figured it out and turned white as cotton. His eyes burst open and his breath caught.
The door slammed against the tub, and the body dragged itself from the water in an attempt to claw its way to Randy’s legs.
Had Randy thought it through, he would have chosen a different way to solve the problem. A quieter way. Instead, his brain kicked into habit and he unleashed a shot into the leg dragger’s skull, splattering green goo against the white ceramic floor, tub and sink. If it wasn’t dead when it had first attempted suicide, a hole to the head confirmed it.
The gun was still smoldering when Ranger bounded into the bathroom with his shotgun ready to blast anything that moved. When he saw the mess he snickered, then asked, “What happened?”
“It was one of them.” Randy said, as matter of fact.
Ranger patted him on the back. “Good job. You’ve managed to cover everything in green except the mirror.”
Randy didn’t find that funny. “Great, now I’m stuck going outside to relieve myself.”
“You shouldn’t have drunk all that soda.”
“It was one can.”
“You have a small bladder.”
Randy shook his leg ignoring Ranger’s last comment. “I’ve got green slime all over my leg.”
Ranger pulled a towel from the rack and passed it to the kid. “Here, make sure you don’t get any of that in the truck.”
As Randy cleaned his leg, he asked. “How was he even alive after slicing his wrists?”
“Let’s get one thing clear. It wasn’t a he. It was an it. And he could have been in the middle of killin’ himself when one of those flyin’ things changed him into an it.”
A rap in the other room interrupted their scintillating conversation. It shook them into staring at each other and silently asking themselves the same question, “What was that?” Slowly they stepped as one unit into the bedroom and peeked into the other room, focusing on the sliding glass doors in the back.
“Damn.” Ranger said, spotting the interruption. One of the undead smacked the glass with its head. It must have heard the gunshot and made its way to the source. “We have to leave.”
Chapter 4
Inside the center of the Moore’s Wholesale ventilation system, while he lay on his stomach, Charlie raised and turned his head behind, then forward. The growls surrounded him from both directions, and he had no other choice than to believe he would die alone in the darkness. He thought a miracle couldn’t save him, but if he had an inkling of what he could do on his own he’d carry forward. Fear had gripped him and held him back from wanting to move. Nothing could prevent him from grinding his fingers on the surface of the shaft as he held on to the hope of escaping intact with his life.
Carson had died first, taken by the Things chasing him. Charlie shook his head not wanting to remember the butchering. Then the thought of the Things taking Amber seized him. She had disappeared ahead of him screaming for her life. He couldn’t forget that.
Charlie lay there in the shaft with his head buried in his arm not knowing what to do. If he crawled backward, he’d die, taken by the Things. If he crawled forward, he’d die, too. What choice did he have?
The deep growls stopped. It took a few seconds before Charlie realized what silence sounded like again. He lifted his head, and he stayed quiet. What was he supposed to do? Why the silence? Had they gone? No, he would have heard them scamper away like the rest of
those Things that had chased after him and his friends. Something else had their attention. Something ominous. What could it have been?
The shot ripped through the silence, then an agonizing gurgle floated through the vents and over Charlie’s head. Next, he heard a large thump, as if one of the Things crashed to the floor. Charlie’s lower lip quivered, he didn’t know what to make of it. Had someone come to save him? Who knew he needed help? Another shot tore through the hush, prompting another painful grunt to push into the vent. Then, another rumbling thump hit his ears. He couldn’t stop shaking. The sweat from his palms left imprints on the bottom of the shaft as he lifted his hand to wipe the water from his forehead.
“You can come out now, you’re safe.” The voice said.
Charlie’s lids peeled from his eyes. Safe? No one’s safe.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you.” The voice drifted into the shaft. “I saw you running into the building and thought you might need some help.”
His breath turned shallow with hearing the sound of another human voice. Are there others? Charlie didn’t know, but his hands dragged him forward to the light ahead. The shaft made popping noises when his knees left one spot for another. At the edge of the vent, he pulled himself to the opening until his head slowly emerged. He couldn’t believe his eyes at what he saw lying on the floor. Without wasting any time, his head disappeared into the vent, and soon his feet emerged. They slid as lanky stilts until he dropped from the opening of the shaft to the floor in a crouch. A quick scan of the storage room yielded the images of one of the beasts lying in a pool of yellow puss while another one blocked the door with a bullet through its cortex.
A slim hand appeared in front of Charlie’s face offering him help. When he tilted his head to greet the one who saved him, he absorbed her smile. She had fiery red hair done in a ponytail. Her emerald eyes were bright and welcoming, but the slight shadows under them betrayed her age. He thought of her as no older than fifteen years old. Tight blue jeans fit snug around her and she wore a dark t-shirt under a thin leather jacket.
As Charlie reached for her hand, a little boy barged in just outside the doorway to the storage room. Eight years old, sandy hair, big brown eyes and a knapsack on his back, he stood gazing at the dead creatures. He shook his head and smiled, then said, “You shot two of them this time. I can’t believe you did this. You’re awesome!”
“That’s my brother, Jon.” She said, helping Charlie to his feet. “My name is Matty.”
Charlie didn’t say anything, but he kept his eyes fixed on her. The loss of his companions, the shock of seeing a girl sporting a silver Colt .45 had caused him to lose any means of communicating anything significant by way of intelligence.
“How did you do it?” Jon asked.
Once Charlie stood on his own two feet, Matty turned to Jon and answered, pointing at the beast in the center of the room, “This one jumped from the wall. One shot is all it took. The one next to you came in a few seconds later. It didn’t have a chance.”
Charlie rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and dropped into a ball, shaking.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jon asked, stepping over the dead creature by the door.
“I don’t know.” Matty bent to one knee and placed her hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “I think he’s in shock. Are you okay?”
The demise of his friends, Carson and Amber, had finally caught up with him. When he uncovered his eyes, he had one thing on his mind, the creature lying on the floor that had killed his friends. Was it really dead? He shook not believing it.
It had a triangular cortex with sharp protruding mandibles. Four eyes, two on each side of its cortex. Its fur appeared as dark green almost black under the flickering fluorescent light of the room. It possessed four legs. Fine hairs almost like durable spikes covered the bottom of the soles of its paws.
As Jon made his way to Matty, he couldn’t help notice how a trail of blood led from the vent, down the wall, across the floor and through the door. He asked the obvious question, “Whose blood is it?”
Charlie raised his head to the little boy and spoke his first words, “My sister’s.”
Matty studied the trail pattern leading out the door.
“What is it?” Jon asked.
“There doesn’t seem to be much blood.”
“Maybe the dog dragged the body to its nest.”
“Jon!” Matty said, the back of her neck turning red. “Be more respectful.”
“How else am I supposed to say it? The trail’s right there.”
Matty covered her eyes with her hand hoping Charlie didn’t take offense to Jon’s statement. Soon after she heard a slight creak coming from the corridor, the embarrassment disappeared. She pulled her gun from her belt buckle, cocked it, pointed it at the door, and said, “Get behind me, Jon.”
“Don’t tell me you’re getting that feeling again.”
She didn’t waste time. With her left hand, Matty grabbed Jon by the scruff of the neck and threw him behind her without much effort.
“Okay, okay. I got the message.”
No one said another word. They stared at the doorway with the body of the dead creature leaking its yellow juices all over the floor. Jon knew better than to argue whenever Matty got that feeling. How could he? She had yet to fail. Then again, she did attract trouble pulling the trigger on the two creatures earlier. But, no one knew for certain what Matty expected to emerge from that doorway. Whatever it was, it didn’t stop her from inhaling and exhaling quietly, and squinting in suspicion while the boys traded glances. She stood as a statue with her gun pointed straight. Her determination dictated that she would not let anything get by. Nothing.
A booming roar from the hall broke the silence. Charlie shot to his feet and cowered behind Matty. Another roar shook the walls, forcing Matty to blink a few times to relieve her dry eyes. She clasped her gun in both hands not wanting to miss her shot, just in case anything should jump from the doorway and into the storage room. In the meantime, Charlie trembled, almost to the point where his weak knees could have caused him to collapse. Although Jon’s seen this before, he didn’t fear anything. He knew what Matty could do and he didn’t doubt her abilities. As long they stayed behind her, nothing could touch them.
When the rumbling stopped, another sound drifted from the hall. This time, the trio could hear a slow drag. Matty and Jon knew what it meant. The eaters found them and wanted to feast on them. Dead people brought back to life would soon make an appearance, and Matty would soon have the floor covered in more than human and creature blood.
They didn’t have to wait long for the grand entrance of the undead. A hand grasped the creature’s fur at the foot of the doorway and towed itself forward. Matty thought that one of the draggers had made its way to their location. If so, it wouldn’t have rested until it’d clamped its rotten paws on its next victim, the kids. No way would Matty allow that to happen, not if she could help it. Keeping her gun pointed at the hand, she waited until the corpse showed its ugly face before she would blast it. The hand clenched another mass of fur to tug some more. Charlie’s trembling stopped as he squinted to make sure what he saw was true. The hand unclenched, waved, smacked the fur one more time and held on until the dragger showed its face.
Matty aimed her barrel at the head, while Jon leaned in for a closer look.
Charlie’s face broke with surprise. “Wait!”
* * *
Within the Oak Ridges cottage, Ranger and Randy scrambled from the bedroom to the living area with their guns drawn. Before Ranger could stop him, Randy swung the front door open and froze to the sight of three eaters standing on the porch, ready to pounce. Behind them, a mob of the undead surrounded the truck. Others dragged their body parts on the walkway to the entrance.
Not waiting to find out how it would end, Ranger and Randy slammed the door shut.
“We have to get to the truck.” Ranger said.
“I’m not arguing.”
“Good, ‘cause I ain’t in no mood to argue.” He said, holstering his shotgun and sprinting to the sitting area. “C’mon, give me a hand, will ya?”
Randy grabbed the other end of the couch and hauled it with Ranger to the front door. The way the door shook, they needed more than a couch to hold the horde at bay. Dashing to the middle of the room, they passed each other pieces of furniture to jam against the entrance. One piece after another, the furniture exchanged hands. Randy dragged, Ranger piled. Chairs, lamps, coffee table, stools from the kitchen made it to the pile.
The front door rattled and shook under the weight of the zombies beating it senseless, attempting to get in. So far, the eaters left the two windows on either side of the door untouched. For how long? One of those evil monsters could use its puny head to break one of the windows and climb inside.
“Keep pressin’ your back against the pile of furniture.” Ranger said.
“Any ideas?”
“I’m thinkin’, I’m thinkin’.” Ranger scanned the empty room for anything useful to aid in their escape. They had thrown everything on the pile except for the big screen TV.
One thing they’d forgotten, though, they forgot about the zombie pounding its head on the sliding glass doors going out to the back deck. Its head crashed through the glass, shattering it into pieces on the expensive wooden floor. At the same time, the two windows abutting the front door came next as the arms of the other undead smashed through it, grasping at air.
“If we don’t do something soon,” Randy snatched Ranger by the shirt. “We might as well pass them the salt shakers because there’s no way we’ll get out of this alive.”
No sooner had Randy said the words, Ranger’s smirk returned. For Ranger to smirk, he must have had an idea that would change the course of events. He’d allowed himself the pleasure of a smirk every now and then. This was one of those times.
Randy recognized it and let him go. “Tell me you have an idea.”
“I have an idea. You’re not gonna like it.”
