“Yeah,” the big man, Logan, said. “What we saw.”
“Holy shit, I thought it was some kind of bear or something. Like a rabies-infested bear. Not…an…an—”
“Alien,” Brad finished. He pointed up ahead where his mother’s house stood, the least damaged of all the houses on Chestnut Road. “C’mon. I live right up there. You guys can crash inside until this blows over.”
Brad didn’t truly believe it would all ‘blow over,’ but he chose not to say that. His father had taught him to remain positive in trying times—which, after Brad had discovered his father’s body, turned out to be a hypocritical statement in the end.
Still, Brad was alive. He was here. He’d protect his mother and his house and he’d help whoever he could as long as he was able to.
“We already crashed,” the younger of the two men said as a joke.
No one laughed. No one could laugh.
He was probably eighteen or nineteen. On his face, he wore a wispy, dark beard that, from a distance, looked like dirt.
“You hurt, Derek?” the big man asked.
Derek, the younger guy, shook his head. “I’ll manage. How’s Jane?”
“She’s alive,” Logan said.
Brad walked over, bent down, and looked into the woman’s face. He guessed she had a concussion. That was getting off easy, compared to what could’ve happened. The big man got up and put an arm around the woman’s torso and one under her legs. He cradled her as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow.
“I-I can help,” Brad said. “You probably shouldn’t be carrying her.”
“I’ll manage,” the big man replied. “Could you help Derek with the luggage?”
Brad nodded. He and Derek pulled out the three bags. He took two, while Derek managed one, which looked like quite a struggle for the guy.
“All right. Follow me,” Brad said.
17
Mrs. Long Hears a Dog
While Brad traversed the outside world, plunging straight into the chaos like some hero, his mother, Brooke Long, began cleaning up the house.
The place was a mess. She started by sweeping up the broken glass from her china cabinet in the dining room. This particular task was the hardest. Most of the china inside of the cabinet had been wedding gifts from when she and Kevin were first married. Despite all that had happened recently—the weird void, the military, the mandatory evacuation, and now the earthquakes—Brooke couldn’t take her mind away from her late husband. First the shattering plates, and then Bradley had gone into Kevin’s closet, and she’d seen all his clothes, clothes that still smelled like him, and his shoes, and his belts, and his ties—ties that Brooke had to tie for him nearly every morning.
She focused again on the mess. Pictures that had once lined the walls near the staircase had fallen, the glass exploding like the china. Brooke picked them up one by one, lingering on each photo. The family trip to Lake Erie, them on a fishing boat, Kevin with his brutal sunburn, her with the pixie cut she’d been trying out back then; her and Kevin’s wedding picture; Kevin holding a newborn Bradley, grinning while Brooke looked completely out of it; Brad’s third grade basketball picture, Kevin standing right next to his seated son, who had a big gap in his front teeth and three bucks from the tooth fairy to show for it (‘Coach Dad’ was what Brad had called him). Seeing all of these pictures destroyed in their frames was too much.
Brooke suddenly wanted to be very far away from her home. She wanted to run outside and scream at the sky, up at her late husband in heaven: Why did you have to leave us?
But Brad was out there and he had told her that it was dangerous and to stay put.
She shook her head, wiped away tears with the back of her hand, and continued cleaning.
The cleaning lasted until she heard the first shotgun blast. Then she ran to the window and looked out into the dark street… She couldn’t see much of anything. The streetlights had either fallen over or gone dark with the rest of the town. Staring outside was like staring into the void in Stone Park, which she hadn’t seen in person, only on the news. She watched Fox News constantly, would probably be watching it right now, had the electricity not gone out.
Brooke couldn’t take being inside anymore. Her only son was out there, and she had heard the shot. That meant there really was danger, and she’d be damned if she was going to let her son get hurt or killed. He may be grown, but Bradley was still her baby. She couldn’t imagine a life without Kevin and Bradley; that seemed like no life at all.
She went into the kitchen and opened the utensil drawer. She took out a large butcher knife—another wedding gift, one that had held up surprisingly well—and she slipped the cover off the blade. From the ‘junk drawer’, as they called it around the Long household, Brooke pulled out a flashlight and flipped on the switch. The light stuttered, shone, died. She hit it with the back of her hand, and brightness flooded the kitchen. When in doubt, hit things.
As soon as she stepped out of the door, all thoughts of her son were zapped away. She heard a dog whining, in pain.
In a low voice, she said, “Here, puppy-puppy.”
There was no answer except for the whining.
For a moment, she didn’t move; she stayed rooted to the spot, waiting for the dog to come to her. It had been many years since she’d had a dog as a pet. Bradley was allergic, whenever dogs were around, he couldn’t stop sneezing and scratching his throat. But back when Brooke was growing up on a farm in Barberton, she had, at one point, over seven dogs. A black lab named Cupcake, two chihuahuas named Chico and Fancy, a couple of mutts named Lola and Rascal that she’d gotten from Linda down the street, another mutt, named Olive, that her mother had found rooting around in the garbage cans in town, and a beautiful Brussels Griffin named Louis.
Louis was her favorite after Cupcake, who she’d had to put down the spring she graduated from high school. Both of those dogs were something special. She’d come home from a tough day, and Louis and Cupcake would be there, waiting for her to take them on a walk around the pond. Louis loved barking at the ducks; Cupcake didn’t give a hoot about them, Cupcake just wanted food. Brooke would sit on the bench and contemplate her life while Cupcake sat at her feet and Louis got as close as he dared to the water and barked his head off. Believe it or not, it was oddly soothing.
Many decisions had been made at that pond; a pond whose name Brooke had forgotten until now: Williams’ Pond. It was right off of Williams’ Manor, a big house that sat at the end of a quarter mile driveway a little ways down the road. Her father was friends with everyone on the street except for the Williamses. No one had known them all that well, aside from a generic greeting here and there. But one summer’s day, Brooke had taken the dogs out to the pond.
She had expected to be scolded off the property, as the rumors of Mr. Williams’ crabbiness persisted around town, expected him to run out with his hunting rifle and shout, ‘Get the hell off my lawn, girl!’ But that hadn’t happened, nor, as the days went on, would it ever happen. The pond was hers and Cupcake’s and Louis’s as much as it was the Williams’, it seemed.
Sometimes she’d see Mrs. Williams watching her from the kitchen window. Sometimes she’d see Mr. Williams working in the barn. He was always building something.
Mr. Williams had dogs of his own; a Maltese and a Jack Russell Terrier, both girls. The Jack Russell was ‘Lucky’; ‘Maven’ for the Maltese. They were pleasant enough, and got along pretty well with Cupcake and Louis.
But, oh geez, that had been years ago.
Still, she had a soft spot for any and all canines. Even the rabid, crazy ones that would chase the mailman and bite you right on the behind.
So when she heard the dog outside, yelping as if it were caught in a bear trap, Brooke was useless to resist. She clutched the butcher knife as tightly as her son had clutched the shotgun in the Russells’ house.
“Here, puppy-puppy!” she whispered again.
The dog never came.
Its cr
y originated from the backyard, near the back fence, where, beyond, was a large group of trees and a pathway to what was left of the forest that had creeped her out on many a dark night. Like the forest was creeping her out now.
Still, she wasn’t stopping. The dog’s strained voice was too much to resist. Somehow, she completely forgot about her son. It helped that there were no more shotgun blasts to remind her of his absence. All she was focused on was the dog’s yelping.
I have to save it. I have to make sure it’s okay. It’s probably hurt, and I can help it. Poor thing. Poor, poor thing.
This was the litany repeating over and over in her head.
She opened the back gate in her fence. The trees stood over the yard like grave markers in a cemetery.
Brooke didn’t slow down, she plunged right into the darkness. What was the big deal anyway? Darkness shrouded the whole world. A little more wouldn’t hurt.
“Puppy!” she called, then she smacked her lips together in a kissy sound over and over again.
No dog came.
She soldiered on.
The dog continued its whining.
When she reached a deadfall maybe a quarter of a mile into the woods, she slowed. The flashlight had done its job so far, the batteries holding steady, but now they gave out. No warning. No flickering. Just gone.
“Crap on a stick,” Brooke said.
She smacked the bottom of the flashlight against her palm. Soon the smacking turned to punching, and a flicker burst forth from the business end. A weak light.
Brooke shined it in front of her.
The dog yelped again.
Brooke stopped on a dime, nearly losing her balance and plunging headlong into the deadfall. Luckily, a tree branch jutted out in front of her, and she caught it before she face-planted. She dropped the flashlight, though, and for the split second it took her to pick it up again, the world was completely enveloped in darkness.
Sobriety came first, the feeling of regret. Why did she come all the way out here in such a chaotic time? Why couldn’t she wait until sunrise?
Because the sun set long before it was supposed to, she thought bitterly. Brooke Long shook her head, ashamed. And it might never rise again…
Something moved in the deadfall, cracking branches and snapping twigs. Something big.
She took a step back. Her blood pressure spiked, sending her heartbeat off of the charts. A tightening pain seized her chest.
She began tapping the back of the flashlight once more, this time with the handle of the butcher knife. Tap-tap-taptaptaptaptap. No light came.
A good way to cut yourself, Brooke, she thought crazily.
Now all was quiet, much too quiet. She longed for the sound of the dog’s cries, at least that would make it seem like she wasn’t crazy. Had she actually heard the dog, or was she imagining it?
I heard the dog, darn it. I know I did. If I hadn’t heard the dog, I would’ve never come out here. I knew how dangerous it was. And haven’t I been feeling that danger lingering in the air like some kind of electric current?
Yes, Brooke, you have.
Well, go back! Go back while you still have the chance!
This part of her mind was right. She didn’t know how much longer she’d have the chance to turn and head to the house to wait for Brad, but she could feel the clock running out, just as she could feel the wrongness in the air around Northeast Ohio.
Ever since that void came. The void. That’s what it is. It’s making you crazy, making you see and hear things.
Three days ago, she had been over a hundred percent certain she had seen Kevin in the living room. He’d been sitting on the couch, in the same spot where he always watched his Indians games. That spot was permanently indented with his butt-print; a joke she’d made often while he was alive. Brooke had walked into the house, seen her late husband sitting there with a sweating Bud Light in his lap, and thought nothing of it. For a very short moment, she had slipped into the past.
“Don’t spill your beer, dear,” she had said in a singsong voice.
Kevin had grunted in reply, his eyes glued to the television, which, of course, was playing no Indians game that day.
Three steps in the kitchen, Brooke had turned around. That feeling of wrongness came over her—not for the first time and not for the last time—a feeling she couldn’t deny.
“Kevin?” she’d called in a small voice. “Kevin, is that you?”
She remembered thinking, If that’s not Kevin, you have a serious problem, Brooke. Someone broke into your house and you greeted him like your dead husband…
She couldn’t go back into the living room. She was frozen.
“Kevin?”
No answer.
Much like now, the fear had been paralyzing. She’d broken through that fear somehow, though, just like she would do so now, and when she’d entered the living room, no one was sitting on the couch. Tears had flooded her eyes.
“Kevin,” she moaned.
She had fallen to her knees, her hands feeling the spot where she thought she’d seen her late-husband sitting. No one was there, that was for sure, but the spot was cold—so cold.
But that wasn’t real, Brooke. That wasn’t real. That was a hallucination. Almost four years later, and you’re still a grieving widow. This is real. This is very—
Before her very eyes, the deadfall burst as something, some black shape, exploded forth from it. For this split second, Brooke Long saw her death in the cold, red eyes of the beast that came toward her.
She fell backward, the knife and the flashlight tumbling from her hands, lost. The animal—at least that’s what she thought it was—jumped over her. It made a wounded noise, as if each movement pained it greatly. Something like a tail jutted from its chest.
But that can’t be a tail, can it?
In its mad scramble out of the deadfall and into the dark of the woods, the beast’s talon-like claw raked up Brooke Long’s leg.
She cried out in shock and pain.
The smell of death, that sickening-sweet yet rotten scent, passed over her, and then all was quiet again except for her thunderous heartbeat.
Two minutes passed before she sat up, and only because a distant sound, like crumpling metal, followed by another gunshot, frayed the momentary silence. She felt the flow of blood coming from the wound, which, she saw when she found the flashlight again, stretched all the way up to her hipbone.
Brooke stood, gingerly putting weight on the leg that had been hurt.
Was that the dog? she thought. The wounded dog?
No, it couldn’t be. That was far too big to be a dog. That was…something else.
But what?
She didn’t know, and she wouldn’t find out until Brad arrived back at home with three strangers. She, of course, wouldn’t tell Brad about her excursion into the forest, and she would keep the wound covered from any prying eyes. An easy task, considering where it was.
As she walked toward the house, she saw a slimy trail on the ground. It was as black as motor oil and seemed to be burning the grass, letting off a smoky smell.
What?
The unreality of everything washed over her. Brooke shook her head and limped back inside the house. She didn’t put the flashlight away and lit a few candles. Then she went in the bathroom and tried the faucet. The water sputtered out then died down to paltry droplets.
She grabbed two bottles of Aquafina out of the refrigerator, went back into the bathroom, locked the door, took her pants off, shoved them far into the hamper, and began washing the wound.
It was deeper than she’d originally thought. The edges of the gash looked as if they were bubbling. Moving. For some reason, it reminded her of what a severe burn might look like after it had a week to heal.
Odd. So odd.
Out of the medicine cabinet came the Neosporin, a full tube. She slathered on a generous amount, wincing at the tenderness of the gash, then grabbed a Maxi-Pad and put that over it—the Neosporin helped it s
tick—and wrapped an even more generous amount of gauze around her right leg, all the way up to her hip. During this operation, she didn’t think of the creature she’d seen in the woods or the shotgun blasts or the voids; her mind was totally blank.
After she left the bathroom, she changed into another pair of jeans, put her shoes back on, and waited.
As she waited, the blankness of her mind turned to dark thoughts.
18
Paranoia
“In here,” Brad said.
He held the door open for the two men. His eyes flicked this way and that, scanning the street for more of the monsters. He couldn’t see them, but he could hear them, could feel them.
The big man who was holding the woman—Logan—turned sideways and sidled through the door.
Brad pointed to the couch. Once everyone was inside, he closed the door, latched the deadbolt, and then put the chain on for good measure. In all his years here, he didn’t think the chain or deadbolt had ever been used. Chestnut Road was a safe place. Everyone knew everyone; everyone trusted everyone.
Brad backed away, still looking at the door. He was waiting for the inevitable thud, the inevitable screech and scratch as nails raked down the wood.
None came, at least for the moment.
That isn’t gonna hold, he thought. You saw that thing—things, plural. They’re as big and vicious as lions and tigers and bears.
“Bradley?”
He turned around at the sound of his name. His mother stood in the short hallway that led to the door. She looked at him with what he thought was pain in her eyes, then she glanced to her right into the living room, where three strangers, all bloody and beat up, were currently making themselves at home.
“Hey, Ma,” he said.
Ravaged: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Taken World Book 1) Page 12
