Through Glass

by Rebecca Ethington

  They chilled me right to my core.

  The Tar are the dead.

  I froze, my breathing trying to regulate itself as I read it over and over. The words mirroring the ones I knew still sat on the back of the door, right behind me.

  I turned slowly in place, my heart beating erratically as if I expected to find an Ulama standing casually behind me, but nothing was there. The light of the fire flickered against the walls, lighting the desperate words, the destroyed room, shining off the blood that was smeared over the once white wood.

  Don’t trust a cut wrist.

  I stared at the words. I twisted my body awkwardly to see them and my breath caught in my chest.

  “Cut…” I breathed the word out, my shaky breath distorting the word as fear twisted inside of me.

  The image of the golden talons flashing through the darkness, of Cohen’s blood splattering over my skin, flashed through my memory. I stared at the words, the image running over and over. Cohen had been cut by the talons of the Ulama, only to be carried away. Only to be taken by them. I had counted it as a fluke, just another way to torture me. However the words had me instantly thinking otherwise; had me wondering what they would do with a dead man.

  “Don’t trust those who are cut…”

  I had watched zombie movies and post-apocalyptic TV shows before, mostly with Sarah who thought the guys in those shows were adorably fun. Not like I hadn’t minded, it was fun to watch the destruction and fall of society. Besides, watching a hot head with a cross-bow was far more exciting than it should be.

  We had laughed, joked, and enjoyed watching things that would never happen.

  Until they did and then they weren’t funny anymore.

  Two years of everything not being funny.

  Just as this wasn’t funny.

  In those shows and in the movies, survivors would just walk into grocery stores, pick up a basket and simply fill it with whatever delicacy they wanted.

  Saffron covered lobster tails, yes please.

  Sure, there may have been a few zombies to kill along the way, but all together? It was a smorgasbord of perfect food.

  This was not like that. Perhaps it was because my world had been taken over by darkness and not the undead with no brain productivity.

  That was the problem.

  The Ulama—the Tar—had taken everything.

  I noticed it as I walked through the streets, past the ripped apart gas stations, the looted clothing stores. I had ducked into a large grocery store in hopes of being able to find something, but the inside looked worse than the outside.

  I walked down what, at one point, may have been an aisle in the grocery store, but right now, I wasn’t so sure. The huge shelving units had been thrown and destroyed, twisted into large tangles of metal.

  They laid over each other, dust covered and forgotten. They were scattered throughout the store, skeletal reminders of everything we had lost. I searched through the ruins for cans, for unbroken bottles, anything with a high shelf life that might still be good.

  Hell, after two years of eating molding porridge, I would even consider items past their best by date. I had licked stew off a carpet after all, anything was a possibility now.

  Even with my open mindedness about food, however, I wasn’t finding anything.

  I held the makeshift torch I had made a little higher, letting the light shine over the isles that surrounded me, hoping that the flame would glimmer off anything useful.

  Still nothing.

  I bit my lip as I exhaled, turning left at what once had been the milk refrigerator and made my way toward the sign that announced ‘box dinners’ to be down that aisle.

  Nothing like dried noodles and cheese powder to cleanse the palate, but at this point, again, I really didn’t care.

  I stopped when I was about halfway there, the firelight glinting against something shiny. I poked the glittering object with the bed rail, crumpled papers and molding bits of who knows what moved out of the way to reveal the shiny circle of a can.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  I fell to my knees, careful to keep the torch high above my head. The Tar had already proven they were following me. Proven that they wanted me dead. The more noticeable I made my flame, the safer I was, as long as it didn’t go outside of my protective circle. Stay in the light.

  I moved the last of the garbage out of the way, releasing the can from its protective prison. I grabbed it and shoved it into my backpack, the zipper loud in the silence of the wreckage.

  One down, four hundred million to go. I smiled to myself and kneeled down, trying to look into the hole the can had made. The last thing I would want to do was leave something behind. Besides, for all I knew I had just picked up a can of dog food, not that I wouldn’t eat it.

  I moved down, trying to fold myself in half to get a better look when a loud clang echoed through the empty building. The sound of metal on rock vibrated through the air, sending each hair on my body up on high alert.

  I sat up quickly, my hand moving to cup itself around the bed rail, my heart beat increasing as I waited.

  My eyes darted around frantically as I uncoiled myself to standing, my movements slow and controlled. I stood still as I glanced around me, waiting for another noise to join the first.

  Waiting for the screech.

  The flame I held in my hands flashed above me and the shadows that the unsteady light cast turned everything into monsters in my mind. I tried to regulate my breathing. Each breath hissed through my clenched teeth as my eyes looked around me furiously. Waiting…

  Clunk.

  I froze, the light in my hand beginning to shake uncontrollably as a new wave of fear rolled through me. That was not the sound I had been anticipating. This sound didn’t even echo from the same side of the store. This sound was different, heavier and almost wooden. I spun toward the noise, my eyes checking before and behind me, waiting for either to sound again, for one to become clearer than the other.

  Someone was here, no two someones. Two sounds from two different sides of the empty store.

  I was frozen to the spot, unable to move. Should I move? Should I run? I couldn’t fight two, especially two coming at me from two separate angles. It was quickly becoming obvious that they would stop at nothing to end me.

  I looked through the darkness to either end of the store, the bright light above my head casting heavy shadows of light through the black.

  The light would keep me safe, that I knew for sure. Even without the rules written on the wall, I knew.

  Stay in the light.

  Creeeeeeeeeeeeeak.

  I turned at the sound, my body whipping toward the thud of a step as it rippled through the air toward me. The sound coming from another direction.

  Three.

  My eyes widened as I looked down the aisle, focusing on the long expanse of broken shelves as I tried to see something through the dark.

  Nothing was there.

  Creak.

  Again. I spun toward the noise, the sound of a footstep, of a shoe against the broken linoleum coming at me. This one in a completely different part of the store.

  Four.

  The sound came again, steps running, one after another, through the darkness beyond where I could see.

  I stared at the dark, my heart beating faster as fear coursed through me, the torch shaking above my head.

  More sounds—more steps—echoed through the store behind me; the others stopping only a moment after the others began. I swung toward the sound, the rippling of the flame above my head sent shadows over me, shadows my mind turned into shapes running in the dark. I was safe in the light. I repeated the fact to myself over and over again, but it didn’t seem to be helping. I couldn’t control my breathing anymore. It came in heavy little puffs of fear as I looked through the darkness, trying to see where the sound was coming from.

  The new steps stopped, just as another picked up from an opposite corner. The sound loud as talons clicking against
the linoleum. They were quick, like the clicking of fingers against a desk, before they, too, stopped, only to pick up again at the opposite side of the store.

  I fought the urge to scream as I turned toward the new sound, only to have it stop moments after it had begun. The sound never ending as more steps echoed again from the opposite direction.

  Everything was tense and scared inside of me as I turned again, my muscles knit together in fear as more steps came behind me, the ones before never stopping. The sounds met in my ears as claws against a chalkboard, the clicking echoing in my head and only increasing my fear.

  Another pair of running feet joined the others. I spun around, pushing my light toward the noise in desperation to see something, yet my light never hit them. I only saw darkness as they moved; the sounds loud as they circled around me, as they came closer. As they stopped.

  I stopped as the sound did; the only noise in the silence was my panicked breathing, the pain in my chest growing as I heaved in a desperate attempt to catch my breath to calm myself. I clenched my hand tightly around my torch, the fire shaking as fear rippled through my body.

  The silence ended with a heavy pulse, a crash in the dark. My eyes widened as I waited for more to join, for something to happen. The first footfall rippled through me like the heavy beat of a drum. The next coming shortly after from the same direction this time. One after another, the sounds began to flow, the rhythm steady like a clock as it moved closer, right toward me. As it pursued me, hunted me. My feet began to take me backwards as the sound came closer. My better judgment begged me to stay still, but I threw the thought away, my fear guiding me away from what was coming. Before I could stop myself, my feet turned and carried me away from the sound of my pursuer’s footsteps. The sound of their steps increasing as mine did. Someone… something was running.

  I couldn’t look away from the darkness behind me, from the heavy pounding of the running feet matching my every heartbeat. I watched the darkness as I ran, the sound picking up pace as I did, as my breathing did, as I ran, as the thing came closer.

  You are safe in the light, my mind screamed the phrase at me, but I didn’t hear. I couldn’t hear anything other than the heavy pounding of my heart. The sound perfectly in sync with the beat of the footsteps as someone rushed toward me. I needed to get out of here.

  I ran forward without looking where I was going, my eyes still focused into the darkness behind. I ran faster as my head darted back and forth, scared to take my eyes off the blackness that held the noise for too long. The pounding of my feet matched the ones that followed behind me, the sounds increasing as the beats came in time.

  “Help!” The pointless word was out before I could stop it. My head turned toward the blackness behind me. I looked into the dark as my feet took me forward, only to run into one of the many forgotten shelves.

  I screamed as I made impact, as my body was thrown to the side and the torch flew away from me. I reached for it in vain and the stream of fire soared through the air before hitting the floor with a crash and extinguishing itself, leaving me in the dark.

  “No… nonono… not again.”

  My fingers fumbled through the dark as the footsteps kept running toward me; the sound getting louder and louder in my ears. I blinked furiously as I searched, willing my eyes to adjust to the dark again, praying I would be able to see something through the dark grey haze I was trapped in.

  I reached for the torch and for the rail, knowing I would need both. The footsteps of my pursuer pounded in my ears, louder and louder. My fingers fumbled. I shouldn’t have run, I shouldn’t have let my fear get the best of me. If I had only stayed still…

  I shoved the thought from my mind and dragged my hand through the trash in search of at least my weapon, listening to the footsteps as they came up behind me and stopped. The echo loud in my ears as the pads against linoleum sounded only a few feet away from me. My fingers stopped, the silence freezing me in place.

  I could hear the labored intake of my breath, the heavy inhale, my exhale sharp in the darkness.

  However it wasn’t just my breath, it was someone else’s, too. Someone who stood above me, their body swallowed up in darkness.

  Darkness that had come to kill me.

  “Alexis?”

  Everything in me tensed at the sound of my name, unfamiliar on someone else’s lips.

  Someone, not something. I had never heard the creatures speak before, not since that first day when their voice filled my head. This was not in my head, though, this voice was in the air around me and decidedly human.

  I wanted to jump into their arms and thank God I wasn’t alone, but something in me stopped. That deep train of fear taking over as the warning bells went off. Something about this was wrong.

  I fought the need to turn, to look up at them and see who had come to end me. I didn’t turn, I barely moved. I said nothing as my arm reached forward, my movements slow and controlled as my sweat covered fingers wrapped around the large bed rail. It was the only thing I could reach as my torch was too far away to be useful.

  “Alexis?” the voice came again. I would walk away from this. I would fight if I needed to.

  I clung to the rail, allowing one more breath before my body moved, one quick swing as I turned to face whatever had followed me, whatever thing knew my name. The rail swung through the air, the point moving to come face to face with the person before me, the rail pointing at her like a barrel of a gun.

  “Sarah?” The rail slowly dropped as I spoke. The surprise at seeing her hovered above me, taking away all the fear I had just felt.

  I had just been thinking about her, only moments ago. Thinking about her crush on zombie hunters, on late night movies. Now, here she was, right in front of me. It was almost too good to be true.

  It was too good to be true.

  I wanted to say it wasn’t the same girl, but it was her, just in a different life. I brushed off my worry and narrowed my eyes at her, needing to know it was really her. She smiled brighter, her Barbie doll face looking more weather worn than I had ever seen it or thought she would let it get. She was as pale as a ghost, which only made her blue eyes seem brighter, the black and red blood stains on her clothes darker.

  “Oh, God, Alexis! It is you.” Her voice was deeper than I remembered it and her face older. Everything about her had changed as the world had. She was no longer prissy and perfect, she was hard and battle worn.

  “I mean, I knew it was… I thought it was… the red hair… that backpack. But how could you be…” she rambled for a moment, then exhaled just enough to show her relief before she was right next to me on the ground, her arms wrapping around my shoulders as she pulled me in for a hug.

  I froze.

  This hug was not like when Cohen hugged me. There was little joy in this happy reunion. Everything about her felt cold, heavy. She was stiff, like she was scared to touch me. The sensation sent a long shiver up my spine, one that I quickly pushed away. I was beginning to sound a bit too paranoid.

  Slowly my arms lifted to return the hug, the bed rail slipping from my fingers as I wrapped my arms around her.

  Then she squeezed me, her arms softening up as she pressed me against her chest. She exhaled heavily, her chest rattling in my ear.

  “I’m so glad you are alive,” she sighed, her voice sounding the same way it had two years ago and I felt everything inside of me loosen. What little of the stress and fear I had been feeling practically evaporating. I squeezed her back, my body tensing only enough to try to keep the ridiculous emotion caged behind my eyes.

  Sarah smiled at me as she sat down on the cluttered linoleum of the grocery store directly across from me. She flipped her head, letting her long ponytail swish down her back. It was weird, everything was different, but with the way she looked at me, it was like nothing had changed.

  “How are you… are you okay… wow… I mean...” I just looked at her as she rambled, her arms folded in front of her as if she was cold. It was so lik
e her to ramble. Of course Sarah used to be a bit better at forming coherent sentences, but I guess given the situation it was expected.

  “Sarah?” I asked uncertainly, not knowing what to say, what the proper greeting was in a situation like this. Somehow, have you killed any monsters lately didn’t seem to fit.

  Her eyes snapped back to mine at her name, her eyes widening as if she was as confused as I was.

  “So, I was thinking,” Sarah said, the confusion in her eyes only growing, “We should do a double. I’ll take Luke and you should invite Cohen.”

  “I’m sorry?” I asked, my nerves jumping at what she had just said.

  I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded familiar, like what she had told me one of the last times I had talked to her. Exactly the same. The infliction, the tone. It was as though she had just played back a recording. I felt a prickle of fear at the thought before she started talking again, her voice changing and taking my agitation with it.

  “The last time I saw you, remember?” she asked, but I could only nod in agreement.

  It was, I knew it was, but how she’d said it… like someone had pressed play on my mind and her memories. I shrugged the ridiculous thought away, hating how paranoid I was sounding.

  “How are you here, Alexis?” Sarah began, interrupting my thoughts. “How are you alive?” she whispered, her body leaning toward me as she continued to hug herself around her middle. “I mean, they cleared out our neighborhood years ago… how are you still alive?”

  “Cleared out?” I whispered, trying to make sense of what she had said. Of course, it must have been the cannons I had heard on the first day, the screaming. They had killed everyone. Everyone, except Cohen and I.

  “I… just…” I tried to form coherent words, but nothing came as bigger questions clouded my ability to speak.

  For years we had watched as the people in the houses around us tried to escape, as the Ulama had murdered everyone around us. Yet, we were spared. It wasn’t just because we stayed inside; we had watched them emerge from other houses. We didn’t even hear the fight of the battle. They just emerged, their cry wild after a job well done. They had taken everyone, everyone other than Cohen and I. Why were we spared? This wasn’t the first time I had asked the question—the first time I had wondered—but now, looking at Sarah, walking around in the dark, I was beginning to wonder why we were only jailed inside of our own houses. Why were we allowed to live?