by Rector, John
Nathan closed the window.
Mattie sat back on the porch. She laid the gun across her lap and ran her hand along the barrel, feeling the heat of the metal against her skin. She took a cartridge from the box on the porch and replaced the empty shell. Her shoulder ached, and she massaged the muscle with her hand.
“It’ll get easier the more you do it.” Her father reloaded the rifle and held it out to her. “Remember, take a deep breath, count to three, and squeeze the trigger, don’t pull.”
Mattie took the gun.
The keys in her front pocket dug against her hip, and she thought about the Jeep in the garage. Tomorrow would be day three, and they would have to leave. She’d promised. Three days. No more.
Mattie looked down the road that led to town, and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. The road was empty, the sky was red and heavy, and all around her the cornfields swayed green and endless in the breeze.
~
There had been rumors. News reports, incomplete and vague: something bad happening in the city. Soon after, the TV and radio went out completely and that was it. The next day Mattie’s father drove into town and came back with the guns.
“I think it’s time you learned how to shoot.” He handed her the rifle. It was heavy, and she almost dropped it in the dirt. Nathan laughed behind her. Mattie turned toward him and wrinkled her nose, then smiled.
“Don’t worry,” her father said. “You’ll get used to it.”
~
Mattie was upstairs when the first one came.
Nathan was alone. He was on the tire swing, when the man came out of the corn.
Mattie heard her father yell, and she ran to the front of the house. There were shots, and she saw Nathan on the ground, pushing himself across the grass and away from the oak tree. The tire swing spun in circles on the branch.
Nathan was crying, and there was blood on his arm. Her father reached down, lifted him to his feet, and pointed to the house. Nathan ran to the porch and stood behind her. He held his hand over his arm and blood seeped between his fingers.
Her father walked to the man under the tree. He was twitching and trying to stand, and as the man got to his feet her father shot him again, spraying his chest, wet and black, over the tree trunk. The man fell, and her father turned back to the house. He’d only gone a few steps before the man stood up, bracing himself against the tree.
Mattie couldn’t speak. She watched the man take a few steps before she raised her arm and pointed. Her father turned around and lifted the gun to his shoulder. This time the bullet took off the top of the man’s skull, and he didn’t get up.
By nightfall, Nathan developed a fever. He was cold to the touch and sweat poured off him in rivers of sickness. The scratch on his arm was bruised and black.
The next day they lost power to the house.
“I’ll go to Gretna. If there’s not a doctor there, I’ll drive to Fremont.” He handed her the keys to the Jeep and pointed at her. “Three days Mattie, I mean it. You don’t see me by then? You and Nathan head north to Uncle John’s.” He nodded toward the house. “Maybe in a couple days he’ll be in better shape to travel.”
Mattie turned the keys over in her hand. She didn’t look up.
Her father loaded his gun into the cab of the pickup. “Promise me, Mattie. Three days. No more.”
She promised.
~
Mattie closed the front door and slid the locking bolt in place. The smell in the house was worse today, and the flies were everywhere, hundreds of them, moving like living art on the walls. She covered her mouth with her sleeve as she walked up the stairs toward the bedroom.
Nathan was leaning back against the headboard and staring out the window. The remaining sunlight bled into the room and dripped gold across the bed.
“We have to go tomorrow, huh.”
“Uncle John’s expecting us.” Mattie leaned the gun against the wall and sat on the edge of the bed. “Dad told him we were coming. He’ll be looking for us.”
Nathan turned toward her, and for a moment she didn’t recognize him. His face looked thick and gray. Black veins spread like spider webs up his neck and blossomed along his cheeks. His eyes looked old and worn. Only the blond hair, bleached by the summer sun, reminded Mattie of the eleven-year-old underneath.
“You’re not going to leave me here, right?” His eyes moved back and forth between hers. “You remember what you said after mom died. You promised, remember?”
Mattie touched his leg through the blanket. It was cold, and her hand sank into his flesh. “I’m not leaving you,” she said, pulling her hand away. “Why would you think that?”
Nathan looked back at the window. “’Because my scratch.” He pulled his sleeve up, and Mattie had to look away. The arm, from the fingers up, was ashen gray with black lines running in every direction. He looked at it for a moment. “It’s not getting better.”
“How do you feel?”
Nathan shrugged. “Cold.”
“You should rest tonight. We’ve got a long drive tomorrow.” She reached for the leather belts tied to the headboards. “Give me your hands.”
Nathan moaned.
“I can’t watch you all night. I can’t take the chance that you might hur—”
“I’d never hurt you, Mattie.” Nathan stared at her.
Mattie looked away. “I know,” she said. “But you could hurt yourself.” She patted the bed with her hand. “I just want us both to be safe, okay.”
He lay back in the bed, and Mattie tied the leather straps around his wrists. They were long and allowed him to move a little, but not too much.
Mattie closed the door and arranged her blanket on the floor along the side of the bed. She leaned up against the wall and watched the sunlight fade outside the window.
“Where do you think dad is?”
“Nathan, don’t.”
After a moment he spoke. “I bet he went on ahead. He’s probably already at Uncle John’s.”
Mattie was quiet.
“I’m sure that’s where he is,” Nathan said. Mattie heard his breath wheeze in his chest. “How long does it take to get up there?”
“Not long,” Mattie said. “Go to sleep now.”
Nathan shifted on the bed, and Mattie closed her eyes and listened to the sound of his breathing. Wet and slow and fading.
~
Fading…
The gun was lighter now, and as she walked up the steps to the porch she barely felt it in her hands. She looked down to make sure it was there. It was, and she squeezed it against her chest as she walked. The boards on the porch bent and moaned under her feet. She opened the screen door to the house and reached for the doorknob. There was a buzzing behind the door, and Mattie stopped. It was quiet, almost inaudible, just a low, rhythmic hum.
Mattie pushed the door open and stepped inside. The entryway floor was covered with dirt, and the wallpaper flayed off the wall in long strips. There were cobwebs along the ceiling that pulsed back and forth above her head.
And there was music.
She held her breath and listened. It was coming from the living room, slow and easy, a waltz, her dad’s favorite. She moved toward the sound, and felt her stomach twist. She walked faster. There were voices coming from the room, a woman’s voice, somehow familiar, and the unmistakable rolling sound of her father’s laughter.
Mattie turned the corner to the living room. She saw them for a second—she did—and then nothing. The room was empty. The picture window was cracked and boarded over. The chandelier, broken and detached, lay in pieces on the floor. And all around her, the room buzzed.
Mattie looked at the fireplace against the wall. There were ashes and soot falling in from the chimney. A shadow passed in front of the boarded window, and Mattie jumped. She raised the gun. The buzzing was louder. Rocks and ashes bounced from the fireplace into the room, and she heard scuffling in the chimney. Something was there, trapped behind the brick, trying to get free.
“Mattie!” She heard Nathan’s voice. It came from outside, and she backed into the hallway and ran to the front door. It wouldn’t open.
“Mattie!” She heard him scream, and she let go of the gun. She grabbed the doorknob with both hands and pulled. The door opened and she ran onto the porch.
There was no one. The road was gone. The corn had covered it, growing up the driveway to the porch, brown and rotted and thick. In the distance, the oak tree, tire swing hanging motionless from its branches, stood dead and skeletal, silhouetted against the fading light of the sky.
“Mattie!” She turned and ran back inside. A shadow moved at the top of the stairs, then disappeared. Mattie looked for the gun, but it was gone. The buzzing was louder, drowning out his voice. She walked toward the stairs and put her hand on the railing. It was cold and slick against her skin and she pulled away.
“Mattie!”
She walked slowly and listened for his voice through the buzzing. The air was thick with the sound, growing louder with each step. There were pictures lining the wall along the stairway, family portraits and school photos, a happy family, children smiling from behind glass frames.
The bedroom door was closed. She reached out and put her hand against the wood. It buzzed and vibrated under her fingers. Mattie took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
Quiet.
Everything stopped. Nathan was sitting on the bed, blond hair falling forward over his forehead. He was looking down at his hands.
Mattie walked into the room. “Nathan?”
Nathan looked up, and Mattie stopped. His eyes were gone. Only black sockets, cold and empty, stared back at her. Mattie began to scream.
Nathan stared at her, and tiny cracks formed along his skin. Behind them, she saw movement. His body shook, and his skin split and came apart in small, dissolving explosions of noise and flight. The buzz was deafening. Flies, millions of them, filled the room, choking the air black. Mattie closed her eyes, feeling them in her hair, and on her skin, and in her throat as she screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
~
Something hit the ground, and Mattie opened her eyes. She sat up and reached for the gun in the corner. The room was dark except for a gray morning glow that sank through the window.
Nathan was on his side with his back to her. One of the belts had come loose.
“Nathan?” He didn’t move. She sat the gun down and reached for the leather strap on the headboard. “The belt came off. I need to put it back.” She ran her hand along the strap to the knot at the end.
His hand was still attached.
Mattie dropped the belt and the hand thumped against the wood floor. She picked up the gun and stepped away from the bed. Nathan was still on his side, and she could hear wet popping sounds coming from his throat. She moved around the room. Nathan didn’t look up. He was chewing through his other wrist, and the fingers on his hand twitched with each bite.
The sound she made surprised them both, and when he looked up Mattie saw the gray, rotted flesh between his teeth. He reached out to her and black blood dripped from the open arm and coated the bed like oil.
Mattie ran.
She opened the door and took the steps, two at a time, to the entryway below, then through the kitchen to the garage. She dropped the rifle in the passenger seat and went around to the overhead door, turned the handle, and lifted it open.
The morning air was cold, and the wind from the north chilled her skin. The sun was coming up, and a long, thin strip of light sliced across the horizon. She breathed deep, letting the air clear her mind, then walked back to the Jeep and started the engine. Static hissed out of the speakers, and Mattie jumped at the sound. She reached forward and turned the radio off.
Now the tears came all at once. She couldn’t stop them. They covered her like a wave, and she leaned her head on the steering wheel, squeezing until her fingers ached. As the tears passed, Mattie wiped them away with her sleeve. She put the Jeep in gear, and when she pulled out of the garage she stopped.
There were shadows moving in the driveway.
Mattie sat for a moment, watching them get closer. Dark shapes, silhouetted against a burning pink sky. She leaned forward and turned on the headlights.
Now there were faces, and Mattie recognized each one; neighbors, classmates, friends. The woman closest to the Jeep was wearing a pink and yellow waitress dress that Mattie knew from the Dinner Diner in town. Her skin looked rough, like asphalt, and her lips were dried and shriveled back away from her teeth.
She was smiling.
Her right arm had been snapped just above the elbow, and a thin shard of bone showed from under the short yellow sleeve of her dress. Her left arm hung to her side, weighted down. She was carrying something, but Mattie couldn’t tell what it was.
When she got closer, Mattie saw the diaper.
The woman was holding the child by one badly dislocated arm. Its face was gigantic, bloated purple and black. The eyes were gone, and its head, unattached from muscle or bone, rolled sickly between its shoulders. In the halo of the headlights, Mattie watched the child twitch, the mouth opening and closing, empty and silent.
Mattie couldn’t move. She was aware of others coming up the driveway, out of the corn, all moving toward the house. She wanted to scream. She wanted to drive. She wanted to head north, to take Nathan and just go. She’d promised her father. She’d promised Nathan.
She’d promised Nathan.
Something hard hit the rear window, and Mattie looked back. One of them was behind her, slamming his head against the glass. Mattie put the Jeep in reverse and backed up fast, into the garage. He held on, and when they hit the wall, a wet smack covered the window.
Mattie looked back. The glass was coated with a slow, black ooze. Through it, in the dimmed red glow of the taillights, the man slumped against the jeep.
Mattie grabbed the gun and got out. She inched her way along the wall toward the door, never taking her eyes off the man. When she got closer, the man’s head rolled back, his eyes focused on her.
She stared at him, and for a moment neither of them moved. Then the man opened his mouth and screamed. The sound started slow, building, growing louder, reminding her of the tornado sirens that sounded in the spring, sending everyone underground.
Mattie looked up, toward the driveway. The others were getting closer, and she reached for the doorknob and went inside. When she closed the door behind her, the screaming stopped.
Everything was quiet.
She made sure the door was locked, then lifted the gun and walked through the kitchen toward the front of the house. There was a low scraping noise coming from outside, and she tried to block out the sound.
When she got to the entryway, Mattie looked up at the bedroom door. It was half open, and as she climbed the stairs she watched for movement in the room. There was nothing. Her legs felt weak, and she balanced herself against the railing as she went. When she reached the top, Mattie held the gun against her shoulder and stepped inside.
The bed was empty, and for a moment she felt certain Nathan was behind her. She backed up, lost her footing, and came down hard on the floor. The gun fired into the ceiling, and dust fell in shards around her. Mattie slid back against the wall, pushing herself to her feet.
As she stood, she saw him on the other side of the room, staring at her, only his eyes visible over the top of the mattress. Downstairs, she heard glass break, and she knew they were inside the house. Mattie ignored the sound and walked slowly around the bed toward Nathan. When she got closer, her breath caught in her throat.
She didn’t recognize him.
Nathan’s face was the color of tar and covered with flies. His skin leaked dark fluid, which ran down his neck and swelled into a stain on his shirt. The smell was terrible. His eyes were cataract white, and she wondered if he could see her. She took a step forward. His eyes followed her movement.
“Oh, Nathan.” She was moaning, and the sound hung in her c
hest.
Nathan leaned forward, and she jumped away. He stopped, watched her for a moment, then leaned back against the wall.
Mattie let herself slide to the floor across from him. She held the gun between her knees and stared into the barrel. She thought about her father, about Nathan, about the promise to drive north if it came to that. She tried to imagine what they might’ve found up there, then smiled and traced the trigger of the rifle with her toe.
