by Matt James
I shrug. “You were busy and I… I needed some time to think.”
He pats my shoulder and lets me through. “Me too, son.” He sighs. “Me too.”
I grin. That’s why he really went on his patrol of the cabin. He needed to clear his mind and be alone for a few.
More howls erupt somewhere off in the distance. They don’t sound close, but the sound gets my father and me moving. We empty the entire Yukon in the next three trips and lock it and the front door. With all our possessions safely indoors, I will catalog our inventory properly a little later so I can go check on Jill.
I come up behind her, and frown when I don’t instinctively scare her. Instead, I announce my arrival with a cough and place a gentle hand on her good shoulder. Then, I lean in and give her a long kiss on the lips. We both sigh in unison, making us both laugh softly.
“I’m fine,” she whispers, covering up the pain with a brave smile.
“Sure you are.”
I’m happy to see that everyone has left the living room. Mom is showing Hope the house and Dad is standing watch by the back door, peering through a gap in the shutters in a window to the right of it. He doesn’t carry his shotgun but still has his revolver on his hip.
Speaking of which.
I slip out of my shoulder holster and set it on the coffee table in front of us and recline my descent to a comfortable angle. I plop my feet up on the coffee table with a loud bang. We both flinch and look for her mother. Usually, she’d stare lasers into anyone who defiled her overpriced piece of furniture. But she doesn’t. Instead, she continues her staring contest with the unlit fireplace.
Her lack of reaction has me worried.
So does the bandage on her left forearm. It’s the first time I’ve noticed it.
I lean in close to Jill. “What happened to her arm?”
She cringes and mimics my posture and leans into me a little.
“Without saying as much, she told us about something attacking her and—and my father.” Jill’s eyes glisten, but she stays in control. “I’m worried about her, Frank.”
I bite my lip.
“What?” she asks.
“We need to make sure she isn’t infected.”
Jill nods but doesn’t look so sure. “How?
I breathe in deep and blow out a long breath.
“Right,” Jill replies. “We wait and see what happens.”
Jill isn’t happy, obviously, and I want to reach around her and grab her shoulder and pull her in. But I can’t, and it burns my ass that I can’t. My choice of words makes me instantly feel like an asshole.
BURNS my ass… Good one, dipshit.
Something comes to mind, and I grin. It doesn’t go unnoticed either.
“What’s that for?” Jill asks.
I look deep into her eyes and say, “My love burns for you.”
With her hand already on my thigh, she quickly slugs me in it. The shot lands right in the area where there is no muscle—the perfect dead leg. I leap to my feet and hop around on one leg.
The corner of her mouth curls into a smile. “That’s for being such a dickfuck.”
Rubbing out the pain, I eventually sit back down, but with a sizeable gap between her and me. She gives me a look that says “Really?” and I respond by scooting back into her. She leans her head on my shoulder and closes her eyes.
She yawns. “But…you’re my dickfuck…”
And with that, Jill is out. I’m half-tempted to get up and take a look around, specifically the D’Angelo’s high-shelf liquor cabinet. They’ve got crap in there that I can only dream about buying. I close my eyes and realize that I don’t have to dream anymore. It’s all mine, and I can’t wait to indulge in it. But first, a nap with my lovely, disfigured bride.
I know, I’m a douche.
And I really don’t care.
I lay my head against hers and say a prayer to anyone listening that the pain she’s guaranteed to wake up in is manageable. I have yet to sustain an injury as severe as Jill has. Even the wound I sustained while jumping through a window wasn’t this bad—or the sliver of metal in my thigh I was graced with inside the prison back in Wellington.
My body tenses at the thought of being burnt by my crazed father’s body heat. What she went through mentally was even worse, I know that for a fact. Even though he was an ass to me, Anthony was a saint to his little girl. I was never good enough for Jill because NO ONE was ever going to be good enough for her.
I bet most fathers feel that way.
Before I drift off to sleep, I recall the time my dad laid out another kid’s old man when he openly encouraged the little shit to bully me. We met the pair on the sidewalk outside of my school, and the fathers wasted no time getting into each other’s faces.
Seconds after Brad’s dad shoved mine in the chest, Irvin Moon knocked the guy out cold with an incredible right cross—right in front of the school cop. Officer Kelly did absolutely nothing, stunned, but he also witnessed the entire thing. Brad and his dad were pricks to everyone and both of them had it coming.
The last thing I remember before passing out is the feeling of my right hand squeezing shut. Instead of the dads going at it, I visualize myself punching Brad. Officer Thomas R. Kelly was a cool dude, and the reason I became a cop. He treated everyone with respect and testified against Brad’s father, saying that he acted first.
While technically accurate in a legal sense I guess, it prompted me to do the right thing whenever I could, even if it meant bending the law a bit if necessary. I’ve never professed myself to be a perfect man, nor a flawless police officer, but I pride myself in my character as a human being.
I fight for what I believe in—and I whole-heartedly believe that I can keep my family safe. I really do. And it’s a great feeling!
And…I’ll die trying.
18
“Frank.”
My dad’s whispered words rouse me from my sleep. I’m still on the couch with Jill, underneath a second, thicker blanket. Someone put it on us while we were dead to the world.
Dad, I’m guessing.
“Yeah?”
I yawn and look at my watch. It’s 2:30 in the morning. Jill and I have been asleep for a while. It feels like it too. I haven’t slept that much straight through in weeks. Typically, it’s a couple of hours at a time tops, not half a night.
In the light of an LED lantern, I find Dad standing back by the rear door again, once more peeking through the gap between the window frame and the protective shutter. He looks my way, concerned.
“We have a problem, son.”
I slip out from under Jill and lay her down with her injured side up and join my father at the door. It’s only then that I see that he has both his shotgun and revolver on him. Something has him spooked.
“What’s wrong?”
The only answer I get is a tilt of his chin to where Cynthia was sitting. I dozed off before I could see if she had gone to bed or not. It seems that she did, unless…
“Where is she?” I turn to go upstairs, to where the only bedrooms in the cabin are but I’m stopped by a firm hand.
“She’s not here, Frank.”
I face my father. “What do you mean, ‘not here?’”
He grips his weapon harder. “I checked the entire place, garage, and basement too. Cynthia…” Jill mumbles in her sleep, quieting my dad. “She isn’t here.”
I rush to my holstered pistol and slip into it. Dad meets me halfway to the front door, and he has our other shotgun in his hand. Without question, he hands it to me, but not before I slip into one of Anthony’s designer coats.
“Near as I can tell,” he explains, “she went out the front.”
I raise an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”
He points at the ground. It’s wet just inside the door.
“Because it was wide open when I came to check on you and Jill. You were damn lucky that nothing ugly came by before I found you.”
I pat him on the shoulde
r and grab a beanie cap from a hook by the door. Dad does the same thing, tossing a hideous version of my own headgear on. It looks expensive and ridiculous.
Must’ve also belonged to Anthony.
Dad nods that he’s ready and I open the door. We’re about to leave when we hear someone coming down the stairs to our left. It’s Mom, and she looks worried.
“Find her,” she says, arms crossed, glancing at Jill. “For her. We already lost one of her parents.”
My eyes flick between the two women and settle on my mother. “We’ll find her.” Dad and I step through the door, but not before instructing Mom to lock it behind us.
She doesn’t look happy, but nor does she argue. With Jill incapacitated and useless in a fight, my mother has to step in to protect her and Hope.
We make it down the steps and to the car before hearing the first signs of life somewhere in the neighborhood. The moonlight is remarkably bright, and it shouldn’t really surprise me either. With no power anywhere, the only illumination is natural. As long as it doesn’t get too cloudy, we should be okay.
Before we move any further, we duck behind the SUV and put together a game plan.
“Move house to house until we find something?”
Dad shrugs. “Sounds good to me.” We stay low and head around the front-end of the vehicle, keeping our barrels pointed safely at the ground. I take the lead, but Dad stays beside me the whole time, keeping his head, like mine, on a swivel.
“How’s Jill?” he asks, keeping his voice low.
“As good as you can expect.”
“She sleeping okay?”
I nod. “Better than I thought.”
“That’s good. I was against your mother drugging her at first, but—”
I stop in my tracks and face him. “You did what?”
Dad’s face falls. “Oh… I thought Mom told you. She slipped a few of her pills into Jill’s tea.”
I want to be angry, but if I had the prescriptive strength of Mom’s muscle relaxers, I’d have done the same for my wife. She, more than anyone, needs a good long rest.
“Fine, but one of you needs to come clean when she wakes up.”
We spend the next couple of minutes checking the neighbors’ homes for break-ins, new and old. The first of them is full of death. The next one is locked tight and peaceful. No one is around that I would call “friendly,” though.
Three houses away, we’re forced to take cover in the bushes at the front of the home. A series of grunts and growls alerts us to the incoming creatures, and we barely make it before they show their ugly mugs.
Four goblins scurry by, not fifteen feet away from our position. I’m shocked that they didn’t notice us immediately, but we aren’t the only ones around. Another person is making his way down the road. Dad and I plan to on simply taking the shirtless man down from behind but are forced into hiding when we hear a small group approach.
The guy is fifty feet further down Sanctuary Way before he notices that he isn’t alone. Then, we get a light show like like none I've ever seen before. The Unseen, the burner, begins to glow from the inside out. It starts in his chest cavity, specifically his heart. Next, the combustible energy makes its way through his torso and limbs, pulsating with every beat of his heart.
I can literally see his glowing heart beating from here.
The goblins react and charge the lone Unseen. For his part, the burner doesn’t change course and keeps staggering down the snow-covered road. It’s really coming down now and it's unbearable. For me. Dad doesn’t seem to be bothered, but then, most things don’t bother that man.
The goblins hack and slash at the helpless burner, one after the other. He barely puts up a fight and goes down beneath the barrage.
But he gets the last laugh.
Just when I think he’s down for good, his chest turns bright white, and then, he ceases to exist. The burner quickly goes supernova and detonates like a block of C4. The goblins are torn to pieces by the blast and thrown in every direction.
Well, their parts are, anyway.
I almost take a sneaker to the face, but Dad pushes us to the ground. We cover our heads and watch as the dust, and snow settles on…nothing. Even from here, I can make out the charred road and missing white powder.
“Mother of God…”
I look at my father. “Is that blasphemous talk?”
His only reply is to knit his eyebrows and send me a look that says, “Drop it.” So, I do, and we stand and step out of hiding. Weapons up, we clear the immediate area and survey the battlefield. There’s nothing there. There isn’t even any blood present. Whatever remains there were, they were either scorched away or blasted into the air.
A second group of goblins, six in all, show up, along with a couple of reapers. This is the first time I’ve seen any of them in a while. Instead of engaging in open conflict, we duck behind the next closest house and make our way inside through an already busted window. If we have to wait them out for a short time, I’d much rather do it indoors than out in the freezing cold.
Not that the house is warm, by any means.
Like the rest of the neighbors so far, the cabin is without power and is dark. It’s icy cold inside as well, but at least we aren’t getting snowed on anymore. This cabin, like the D’Angelo residence, is one big room on the first floor. But unlike the family cottage, this one is ransacked and slathered in blood. Moonlight peeks in through the broken windows, making the visibility decent, but not great. The only room that isn’t caked in the crimson is the central living room. It, instead, has a single char mark, dead center. The burner that caused its destruction went off inside the home.
Just like the one yesterday, back on the road south of Gatlinburg. It had taken out the entire front half of the small, rural home when it went nuclear.
Dad checks the front yard while I look out back. Whereas our place has the cliff and creek combo, this one is butted up against another home’s fenced-in backyard. And the neighbor’s place is missing most of its roof. From here, I can see right into the back of the living room.
Geez, those things are powerful.
Some look to be more destructive than others, and without being able to study them more, I’m sure it’ll be impossible to tell which are the more powerful of burners. It brings up the question: Could one be so unbelievably strong that it levels an entire neighborhood and not just a single home?
I’ll have to leave that possibility open, and not seeing anything, I join my father at the front of the cabin and listen to what he has to say.
“They’re just standing there.”
I take a look for myself and see that he’s right. It’s the same behavior that I’ve seen many times. Sometimes, instead of moving, the Unseen just stand still, listening for something to prompt them.
Dad speaks up again.
“We could wait them out. Maybe they’ll freeze as the temperature continues to drop?”
I shake my head. “Cynthia.”
His face sours. “Frank… The chances she’s made it this far, or even went this way at all, are slim.”
I stand tall. “I thought the same about you and Mom, and yet, here you are.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “But I agree—it’s a long shot. Still, we can’t give up.”
He nods and glances at the window, looking discouraged.
“What about them?”
I smile. “We move them.”
I quickly relay my idiotic plan. Surprisingly, Dad doesn’t argue against it. The fact that he's going along with it, and doesn't fight the idea at all, tells me that he’s stumped and has no idea what else to do. Plus, I just so happen to be the Unseen expert, not him.
“Okay,” he says, “but I blame you if I die.”
I grin and throw open the front door. “Fair enough.” Then, I purse my chapped lips together and whistle, making sure the group of creatures hear me and know where to find me before we run upstairs. A random floorboard protests against my weight, and creaks noisily, t
hrowing off my mental rhythm. My father leads the way, and I’m about to follow him, but I freeze in place. Thankfully, I did that too, because I witness a siren step into view.
Shit.
The goblins and reapers would’ve been easy enough to mow down with our dual firepower, but the siren will take a little more effort than just going all Rambo on her. Unlike the one I saw freezing to death while on the way here, this siren looks healthy and comfy in her thick, winter garbs. I can’t see whether she’s as emaciated as the other woman, but she’s moving like she isn’t.
Which is to say, fast.
“Move!” I hiss, taking the stairs two at a time.
Halfway up, they cut left and follow the layout of the cabin. Dad ducks into the first room on the left and I do the same thing at the first doorway on the right. There, we wait, shotgun barrels aimed back down the hall. We’re only ten feet from the tight stairwell—the perfect bottleneck. We should be able to take them down before they can even make it to the second floor.
I quickly take in my surroundings and realize that I’m on the outside of the cabin, facing the neighbor to the north. Our emergency escape route, if we need it, will be out the window and onto the peaked, snow-covered roof.
Great friggin’ plan, Frank.
Now, instead of one of us dying by the claws of an Unseen, we can slip and fall to our deaths.
Somewhere below us, a floorboard creaks—the same one that sounded off when I stepped on it, I bet. One of the creatures has just entered the home.
We take aim and wait. Seconds go by, and I’m half-tempted to investigate the lack of movement below. Did they give up and leave, or are they just being more patient than me?
The tingle in my bladder says that it’s the second option.
The window at the back of the hall is perfectly illuminating the upstairs hallway, which is excellent considering how dark it was downstairs. If the lighting holds, we should be able to get a great look at exactly what we’re dealing with. There’s a chance that only one of the Unseen reacted to the whistle.
