by Megan Hart
Dennis looked serious, but gave her a nod. “When you get the door open, there will be just enough space for you to move forward. It’ll be a small alcove, with another door that leads into the basement. Beyond that is the door to the tunnel.”
“Also locked?”
“Yeah. Of course. But I’ll be able to help you with that combination. Yell up to me, and I’ll come down.”
“Your hand,” she said.
Dennis looked at the mess of bandages. “I’ll have to do the best I can, that’s all.”
They had no other choice. She wanted to kiss him suddenly, and couldn’t. She settled for a smile he slowly returned.
“I’ll see you at the bottom,” Kelsey told him. “And then we’ll get the hell out of here, yeah?”
Without waiting for an answer, she let her weight pull her down again. The metal pole dragged on the skin of her thighs while the wall at her back pushed her shirt up and scraped the bare skin there too. The sting was nothing compared to other indignities she’d suffered, and Kelsey gritted her teeth and kept going. With every inch, the air grew more stifling. She could smell smoke, but faintly. She had no idea when she’d reach the bottom, so every few feet she cautiously felt with one foot for a floor.
Above her, the circle of light and shadow of Dennis’s peering head seemed very far away. Below her, darkness and heat. At last the tips of her toes touched solid ground.
She stopped moving, but couldn’t make herself put her weight on the ground. What if there was a trap, triggered by weight? What if a hundred stabbing spears shot out and gutted her?
“What if,” Kelsey muttered, “you moved your ass and got the hell out of this carnival horror show?”
The pain isn’t unbearable — nothing much is unbearable, Kelsey’s figured that out long ago. But it is excruciating. A metric fuckton of bricks on her chest, pressing, not to mention the stabbing sharp bite and sting along her incisions every time she moves. Her stomach rolls with the pain, though it’s not as bad as it had been when she woke up from the anesthesia.
The surgery went really well, according to the doctor who came in to check on her, to the nurses who held her hair while she vomited bile into a small, curved bowl. She’ll be recovered in no time. It doesn’t feel that way, lying here in her bare, white bedroom with the radio playing the same four songs over and over. When she can barely get herself up to use the toilet, much less make herself something to eat or drink or to brush her teeth.
She’d lied about having someone to stay with her, and wishes now she’d hired someone to come. Someone to help her change the dressings, at least. She couldn’t afford it, but at this moment when she grips the back of a chair and tries to keep herself from pitching forward onto her face and crushing the thousands of dollars of work she just had done to her chest, Kelsey thinks any debt would be preferable to this.
Standing in front of the full-length mirror, what she sees is something from a monster movie. None of the other surgeries have been this extensive, and somehow, oddly, what she’s done to her face and teeth seem to have changed her way less than what she’s had done to her body. The breasts seem comically immense, jutting from her like mountains. Much of it is still the bandages, she knows it, but when she turns to the side to look at her new profile, all Kelsey can think is that she looks like a fashion doll.
She needs to see them. She needs to see what she’s done to herself. Not irreparable, she tells herself. She can always go back to what she was before. Implants can always be taken out.
And still, she can’t move to unclip the bandage. Not even when the room spins the longer she stands, and she has to put her head down to keep herself from fainting. She can’t move. She is paralyzed by her own indecision and fear.
“You promised,” she whispers to nobody. “You promised yourself, Kelsey. You would never let yourself be stuck like this again. Never let yourself be helpless like this.”
She stares at her reflection, eyes hard, mouth a thin line. “You promised yourself.”
And, remembering that, with shaking hands she starts to unwind the bandages.
Kelsey moved. She’d made it this far through the minefield of life without getting herself blown to pieces — some of it was luck, but most of it was just raw determination. If she was going to die at the bottom of a metal tube while fire raged all around her and the shambling undead waited for her outside…well, that was how she was going to go.
Nothing happened when she lowered herself to the floor. Clicking on the flashlight, she found the keypads. She tucked the light back into its place in her cleavage, letting herself let out one small laugh at how useful these big tits had been, in so many different ways. Dennis had given her the codes, and she could type fast and accurately without looking at her fingers, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.
Fingers resting lightly on the keypads, she pressed the first two numbers.
When nothing shot or gouged or burned or sliced her, she let out the breath she’d been holding. Number two. Three. Four. Just before the final set of numbers in the sequence, she took another long, deep breath.
Push.
The door in front of her slid open with a creak. Hot air, but thankfully no smoke, rushed in to pummel her. She stepped forward, turning to call over her shoulder to Dennis that she’d made it safely.
That’s when something that felt like a thousand angry wasps closed on her ankle.
56
Three days. That’s how long it would take. Maybe four. But no more than that. Maddy lay in bed, hands folded on her belly, staring up at the dark ceiling. Her bedroom at home had glow-in-the-dark stars on it the ceiling, but here it was only darkness.
To see the stars, she’d have to go outside.
It wouldn’t be any easier to get outside than it was for people out there to get in here. Even though Maddy had made a habit of sneaking around down here, she wasn’t quite sure how to make it past the locked doors and barriers they’d set up to keep everyone safe. She’d need an adult for that, and she’d have to do it soon, before Mom became…something else.
She squeezed her brains out of habit, just to keep the squigglethings in line, but really, they were hardly moving or doing anything right now. The whispering and pictures had faded, replaced by a constant tingling all through her.
She needed to see the sky. She needed this like she needed to breathe and eat and drink and sleep and go to the bathroom. Maddy ached with her need for the stars.
Out of bed, wearing her favorite nightgown, the one with the teddy bear on the front, Maddy went into her parents’ room. Dad was snoring, but Mom lay awake with her hands on her stomach the way Maddy’d been laying earlier. She didn’t blink, not even when Maddy leaned over her.
Mom’s breath smelled so bad Maddy had to hold her nose. “Get up.”
Mom’s lips parted. With a grimace, Maddy backed up, waving a hand in front of her face. Mom turned her head on the pillow to stare at her.
“Maddy?”
“Get up. I need you to do something for me.”
Mom didn’t move for another few seconds, but before Maddy could tell her again, she sat up. Slowly she put her feet over the edge of the bed. She put a hand to her forehead, then her cheek, like she was checking herself for a fever.
“Sleep, baby, sleep,” Mama sings as she puts a cool cloth on Maddy’s head to chase away the bad bugs. Maddy got a bug, that’s what Mama said. Chicken Soup and ginger ale will kill them. “Feel better.”
Maddy can’t sleep. She’s too hot. She throws off the covers and then is cold. She cries out, and Mama’s always there with a cool cloth, something to sip at, a tissue for Maddy’s sneezes.
Maddy blinked at this memory of being small and sick, of her mother loving her. Her mom had taken care of her for her whole life, and now…The tingling in her fingers and toes became a shock. Lightning raced up her arms and down her spine. It circled inside her skull, stabbing her all over, and Maddy doubled over at the sudden pain.
She was the boss, but it had taken her by surprise. She fought it, gasping, until Mom’s cool hand cupped the back of her neck and Maddy looked up. She couldn’t see at first, nothing but a red haze swimming with those black worms. She blinked and blinked until they went away.
She heard nothing but Dad’s snores.
“I need to be outside,” Maddy whispered. “You need to get me outside. I need the stars.”
57
At the sound of Kelsey’s scream, Dennis didn’t hesitate. He leaped into the hole in the floor, agony slapping him when he gripped the pole with his bad hand. He slid ten feet before he managed to get himself braced, and didn’t stay that way for more than a few seconds before he kept sliding down. He tried to judge the distance, second floor to first, first to basement, but he was wrong. The foot he’d put down to test for the floor hit so hard he swore he heard his ankle snap.
Not broken, he thought disjointedly when he could put weight on it. Sprained bad enough though. Inches in front of him, he saw light from the flashlight he’d given her. It was shaking.
“Kelsey!”
“Get it off me,” she cried, pointing the light at her ankle.
Shit, oh shit. It wasn’t a bear trap, though the design was similar. A snap-trap, triggered by weight, but instead of a heavy duty claw, both sides of the trap were made of wire-thin and barbed spikes. They’d clamped on Kelsey’s ankle, some of them interlocking, others going straight through her flesh and out the other side.
“Fuck you,” Dennis muttered to his mother’s memory. “Why can’t we get a fucking break?”
Kelsey’s voice slurred. “Dennis, help me. Can you pry it open?”
He shone his own light on it. He would have to cut it off her, then pull the spikes all the way through, the way you would with an arrow or fishhook. He couldn’t do that in a space just barely big enough for her, much less both of them, even if he’d had the tools for it.
“There will be wire snippers in the garden shed. If we can get there —”
Kelsey snorted laughter that trailed into a sob. “Oh, God. You think we can? Really?”
“Yes,” he told her firmly. “We can get there, together.”
Kelsey swiped at her face, shiny with tears, but lifted her chin. “Your mom was some kind of bitch, you know that?”
“I know it.” It was stupid but he pulled her close anyway, mindful not to move her leg too much. He kissed her on the mouth. Then again. Her arms went around his neck; they breathed together for a minute.
“It hurts,” she told him in a low voice. But I can move. Can you get the other door open? Will there be more traps?”
He didn’t know for sure about the traps, but he could get the door open. The tiny tunnel stretched away into darkness barely dented by his flashlight. At the end of it, there was one more door. One more set of locks.
“This wall is hot.” Kelsey sounded faint. “The one behind me.”
The fire had been burning long enough that it was entirely possible the house had started collapsing into the basement. Any second could see a beam punching through the ceiling of this small room. Dennis slipped an arm under hers to support her on his shoulder.
“We’ll get out.”
Kelsey didn’t answer him, though with every step she let out a low grunt of pain. The trap on her ankle dragged on the tunnel’s ridged metal floor. Dennis rapped his elbow on the curved wall, and pain reverberated through his jacked-up hand.
At the end of the tunnel, he found the lock set into a small panel at the side of the door. It was another series of numbers, this time on tumblers, not electronic. “In case the power went out by this time,” he explained. “She went old school.”
“I had a bike lock that looked like that,” Kelsey said hoarsely. In the bright white light of the flashlight, she looked too pale. Her ankle was barely bleeding, though. That was good, at least.
His fingers fumbled, but he got the lock open. The door, next. And then they were outside in the smoke-choked night air with an inferno behind them.
In the garden shed, which was not locked — Mom apparently didn’t give a rat’s ass if anyone took her hedge clippers or bags of mulch — Dennis settled Kelsey on the rickety tool bench. He found wire clippers and snipped at the trap, tossing the pieces to the floor. He moved as fast as he could with only one hand and trying not to hurt her more than he had to. The heat from the fire, the crackling snap of it, and the smoke were all getting closer. The shed was wood and would easily burn. They didn’t have much time.
Kelsey said nothing as he pulled apart the bits of wire and spikes. She gripped the edges of the bench and her body jerked with each yank of the wires. When he stripped out of his shirt to tie it around her seeping wounds she gave a strangled cry, but when she looked at him, she had a smile.
“We are really messed up, Dennis. My foot, your hand, my ankle…everything hurts.”
“I know.” He straightened.
“And those things are out there.”
“I know that, too.”
Kelsey looked at the piss-poor bandage he’d given her, then held out her hand. He took it in his good one and helped her off the tool bench. He looked around the small room, cataloging what they might be able to use. He strapped a tool belt around his waist, loading it with a hammer and some screwdrivers.
“Too bad there’s no chainsaw,” Kelsey said with a hint of humor he admired. “We could totally go Evil Dead on those things.”
Dennis lifted a golf club from a jumble of old sports equipment in a corner. Also a baseball bat, which he handed to Kelsey. “This will have to do.”
“What about those?” She pointed toward a pair of rusted bikes leaning against the far wall. Dennis hadn’t seen them in years, though they’d both been his. “Better than going on foot, since the truck’s…gone.”
He wasn’t sure she could ride with her bad foot, or that he’d be able to balance with his bad hand, but together they managed to limpingly push the bikes into the yard. The house had been almost completely consumed, orange-red flames so bright he had to shield his eyes from the glare.
“All our supplies.” She sounded angry. “Our safe place. How could they do that? Make a fire? They’re…dead. They’re dumb, they’re not supposed to be able to do that!”
“He’s the only one who could’ve,” Dennis said. “Tripped the alarms, got around the fireproofing. He knew all that stuff before he died…I guess maybe it stayed with him.”
She glared. “That bastard better be burned up, because if he’s not, I’m going to tear him apart with my bare hands.”
Looking at her face, Dennis believed she’d do her best to try. As it turned out, when they took a wide loop around the house to keep out away from the flames and bits of burning debris, they found the small group that had been led by the man his mother had sometimes referred to as “the sperm donor” all standing in front of the house. Well, most of the group. Dennis remembered there’d been four to start, and now there were only three. They stood close enough to the fire for it to have started scorching their clothes. Smoke curled from the soles of a woman’s shoes, while her hair, lifted by the hot wind coming off the house, was streaked with gray from tendrils of smoke wafting from her searing scalp.
The smell was horrific.
“What…what are they doing?” Kelsey held the handlebars of her bike in one hand, the baseball bat in the other. Ready.
“I don’t know.”
The three stood, ravaged faces tipped to the sky, mouths agape. Above the roar of the fire, Dennis heard a low, buzzing hum. The things rocked slightly in unison, making that noise. It rose the hair on the back of his neck. He followed the line of their gazes to the sky, to the scatter of stars and the moon…and one light brighter than all the rest.
Kelsey moved closer, also staring up at the sky. “What is that? A star?”
Dennis had no idea, only that whatever it was, it didn’t look like it belonged in that dark sky against all the other pinpricks of lig
ht. “A satellite, maybe?”
“Once I saw the International Space Station going by overhead, but it moved. It didn’t stay still. It was that bright though. About that size. Is it a planet?”
In front of them, the fire raged. The dead things hummed and swayed. “I don’t know.”
Above them, the star went out.
The battered risen dead stopped humming and swaying, and turned toward them.
58
Maddy took in the scent of living earth, of trees and grass and flowers, of water in the air from a far-off storm. Her body shook with how good this all smelled and tasted. She wanted to throw herself down in the grass and roll around in it, to grind her face into it. Eat it up.
She didn’t, though. Instead she spun around and around, arms out, until she was so dizzy she almost puked. She let her head fall back so she could look up at the sky, the real sky, the dark night sky with billions of stars all through it. The moon.
“Everything is…” she said. “Everything. Is.”
Mom said nothing, just turned her head and coughed into hand. Then harder, until she bent over from it. She spit out a huge mess of snot and boogers onto the concrete, so gross, but Maddy didn’t care. She’d given that to her mother, and it was working inside her the way the stuff had wanted to work inside Maddy. The difference was, Maddy was the boss, and Mom wasn’t.
Inside Maddy, the voices began again. Pictures and whispers and the wiggle-squiggle of those things, the electric shock and zip and tingle of stuff all through her veins and arteries and nerves and all over her skin.
