Hissers

by Ryan C. Thomas

  “Way ahead of you.”

  “Wait. Before we go, take back what you said.”

  “What? About you being a geek?”

  “No, about hoping I die.”

  Amanita put her head in her hands. “It was a joke.”

  “Wasn’t funny. I want an apolo—”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, I’m sorry. Will you shut up before some face-eating asshole jumps out and kicks your ass?”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “You know, you swear a lot.”

  “Yeah, well I’m sorry but a plane just crashed on my friend’s house and now people are biting each other to death and I’m a little messed up. I’m gonna swear a little bit, okay? You know for all the insults you claim I sling at you, you sure as shit have a lot to say about me.”

  Seth thought about that for a second. “Alright. Sorry.”

  “Good. Now let’s just do this, I want to get home.”

  “Okay then, Lara Croft, on three. One…two…”

  Someone hissed.

  Seth felt a shiver race through him. The hiss came again, close by. Directly to their left.

  Standing on the adjacent lawn, the one they’d just run across, was a man in his pajamas. He was covered in dark stains, his hair wild, his eyes yellow orbs, sniffing the air like a wolf. The front of his pajama top was torn open and a wound like a red saucer was oozing fluids over his right pectoral. He stepped toward the willow tree.

  Seth and Amanita huddled together, rotating around the tree trunk as the hissing man drew closer. He stopped short, turned and ambled onto the street, moving jerkily as if he’d been given new legs, chuffing with his mouth open the whole time.

  Both Seth and Amanita fought back the urge to scream as the clouds parted and illuminated the man with moonlight.

  The man had three arms.

  The one sticking out of his back was wearing the black and yellow fire retardant sleeve of a firefighter. As the man moved off down the road, stopping to sniff the air every few feet, the arm swung back and forth, grasping.

  Saturday 9:01

  The gouge on Connor’s leg was starting to swell so badly he thought he might have to take his shoe off. Dried blood was caked up along the edges of the torn skin, but fresh blood still continued to dribble out. He did his best to ignore the pain that shot up his leg as he and Nicole rounded a parked car and emerged onto his own street. He paused for a second, then pointed down the road. “Okay, we’re here. So far no one’s noticed us. I think I should get you home first and then—”

  “No way. Look at you, you’re leg is about to fall off. We’ll get to your place and I’ll call my Mom to come get me.”

  The mention of the phone got Connor thinking about how he was going to tell his parents about what they saw at the crash site—people biting and killing one another. Mutilated people who should be dead racing around like cannibalistic savages. They needed to call the cops and report it but it sounded so outlandish he was afraid they’d laugh at him.

  As if challenging him, a scream erupted into the air from somewhere nearby. It was cut off with a choke.

  “Seriously, we have to go.” Nicole began jogging toward Connor’s house. “I don’t want to be out here any longer. Please, Connor. Please!”

  She was right. It was dangerous out in the streets. There was no telling where those crazy people were. Together they ran down the middle of the street, keeping an eye out for anyone or anything strange. They made it to the end of the street without incident and started up Connor’s driveway.

  He lived in a gray two-story house with brown trim. A collection of Green Mountain Boxwood bushes grew up against the front of the house. A Toyota Camry and Mazda 323 were parked side by side in the driveway. Typical family fare. He never noticed how bland it all looked until now, standing next to Nicole. He almost felt embarrassed.

  Something else caught his eye. “The lights are off.”

  “They’re off everywhere. The plane must have really done a job on everything, knocked down more than a few telephone poles. No power.”

  “Then wait, if you’re cell isn’t working either, how will you call your mom?”

  Nicole stared back at him, at a loss for words. Immediately he felt bad for ruining her hopes of calling her parents.

  “No problem, I’ll have my Dad give you a ride. C’mon.”

  Nice save, he thought.

  He opened the front door, knocking as he swung it in. “Hello. Mom? Dad?”

  No answer.

  “Maybe they’re upstairs?”

  “Maybe.” Connor closed the door behind them and headed to the kitchen. Behind him he heard Nicole bump into the rocking chair near the bookshelf.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Can’t see anything.”

  “No, my bad. Should have warned you. I stub my toe on that damn thing all the time, even when the lights are on.” Strike two, he thought. Jeez, he kept messing up with her.

  He tried the light switch in the kitchen just to be sure. It was dead. From the dining room he saw an orange glow. “Mom?”

  “In here,” came his mother’s voice. “Lighting a candle. The power is out.”

  Connor rushed into the room and hugged her, fighting back the urge to cry.

  “Connor, sweetie, you’re gonna break my ribs.”

  “Sorry.” He let go of her just and turned to find Nicole standing against the wall. “This is Nicole.”

  His mother placed the lit candle next to the other six already lit on the dining room table and blew out the match. “Hi, Nicole.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Prudhome. I think you should look at Connor’s le—”

  “You’re Nicole Fitzgerald, right? I met your mother at a PTA meeting a few years ago. Very sweet.”

  “Thanks. She’s okay. Connor needs—”

  “Hang on a sec. Let me throw this out.” Mrs. Prudhome made her way back into the kitchen and disposed of the match. “So, what is going on out there? We heard a huge explosion of some kind and then a lot of sirens. All the power went out and I can’t get anyone on the phone. I’m telling you the whole house shook! Your dad is looking for a flashlight and a radio, as if he can find anything in that disaster zone he calls a garage. I’ve got food in the fridge that’s gonna go bad if it doesn’t come back on soon.”

  Connor followed her into the kitchen with Nicole in tow. “Mom, a plane crashed near the Sunoco station. People are—”

  Mrs. Prudhome spun around so fast it looked like she was dancing. “What? A plane crash! Oh my God, is anybody hurt?”

  “You could say that. Mom, something weird is going on. We saw people—”

  His mother struck another match and gasped. “Connor! Jesus Christ what happened to you? Mark! Mark!”

  Connor’s father came racing into the kitchen. He was screwing the top onto an old flashlight. “What? What?” He pressed in the flashlight’s rubber button and shot a weak beam of light across the dark kitchen. When he saw Nicole and Connor covered in soot and dirt and blood, his jaw dropped. “Connor! What they hell did you do to your leg?”

  Mrs. Prudhome went to Connor and bent down in front of him, delicately examined her son’s shin. “What in the name of God were you two doing?”

  Connor shook his head. The sudden barrage of meaningless questions was driving him nuts. “Mom, you’re not listening. A plane crashed and—”

  “That was a plane crash?” his father asked. “That loud bang we heard that knocked the power out?”

  “Yes, a plane crashed and a lot of people are dead—”

  His mother was on the verge of hysterics. “Did you get hit? Were you near it when it happened? Jesus, Mark he needs to go to the emergency room. This is really bad. I think I can almost see bone. Oh my God, where’s the gauze?”

  “Mom, chill out, there’s no way they’re seeing me at the emergency room. You have no idea how many people are hurt right now. The bodies alone…”

  “It’s a lot of peopl
e dead, Mrs. Prudhome.” Nicole was crying now. Connor’s dad put his arm on her shoulder to comfort her. Nicole looked a little awkward so Connor got up and stood next to her. She didn’t look any more comfortable.

  Mrs. Prudhome checked the cordless phone again. “It’s still dead. Mark, we need to get him to a doctor.”

  Connor’s father took out his cell phone and dialed a number. “Okay, get your coat. We’ll drive over and see what kind of resistance they give us. And we’ll drop…um…”

  “Nicole,” Connor said.

  “…Nicole off at home. Where do you live, Nicole?”

  “I’m a couple of streets over. On Poplar.”

  “This is Jenny Fitzgerald’s daughter,” Mrs. Prudhome explained, taking her purse off the kitchen counter, “from the PTA fundraiser?”

  Mark Prudhome said he remembered but it was obvious he didn’t. Lucky for him this was no time to for his wife to argue about white lies. He finally closed his phone and clipped it back on his belt. “I can’t even get an operator. It just makes a beeping noise.”

  “I have no service either.” Nicole took her cell phone from her purse and tapped the screen to light it up.

  Connor said, “I’d try, but I’m not allowed to have a phone.”

  “Not now, Connor.” Mrs. Prudhome ushered him into the living room. “Let’s get going before you get an infection.”

  Mark Prudhome led Nicole to the door and swung his flashlight around. “Where are my keys? They were in my jacket. Where’s my jacket?”

  “Jesus, Mark, can’t you keep track of anything?”

  “Well next time I know our son is going to be wounded in a plane crash—”

  “It was a tree, actually, Dad.”

  “—I’ll be sure to file them in the appropriate disaster drawer.”

  “Well, the wing hit the trees so I guess—”

  “Found ‘em! They were in my pocket.”

  “Can we please go now,” Mrs. Prudhome said.

  Mark opened the front door and all four walked out. Nicole and Connor hung back, Connor’s parents taking the first step.

  The slap slap slap of someone running down the street drew their attention. Nicole squinted, and let out a shriek. Connor saw what she saw: two men in tattered rags, their mouths agape, running full tilt toward them. They were only three houses away.

  “Inside!” Connor yelled. “Inside now!”

  Mr. Prudhome jingled his keys but didn’t move. “What the hell do they want?”

  “Dad, get the fuck inside now!”

  Mrs. Prudhome turned on Connor as if she might throttle him. “Connor!”

  “No, he’s serious,” Nicole said, “They’ll get us!” She was already opening the door back to the house and retreating inside.

  The running men were one house away now. Their hissing carried straight to Connor’s ears. Their mustard eyes caught the moonlight for a second and then winked out of existence. “C’mon, go go go!”

  Now Mr. Prudhome recognized there was danger, and whirled and ushered everyone back inside. He slammed the door and spun the deadbolt just as it rocked with the impact of something crashing into it with incredible force.

  “Who are they?” Mrs. Prudhome yelled.

  “From the crash,” Connor said. “I was trying to tell you. Something happened at the crash.”

  The door pounded again in its frame, shaking the entire front wall of the house. Again and again. The muffled and rage-filled hissing was incessant.

  “Leave us alone! I’ve called the cops!” Mr. Prudhome shouted through the door.

  Nicole was having trouble catching her breath but nobody seemed to notice. Connor ran to the window next to the door and made sure the latch was locked.

  The front door took a mighty blow, and even in the dark of the house everyone heard the audible crack.

  “What do they want?” Mrs. Prudhome yelled. She was steadily backing toward the kitchen, her purse in front of her like a shield.

  Mr. Prudhome yanked his phone off his belt and tried to dial 911 with shaking fingers. “Get away from this home right now or I’ll… Shit!” He tossed the phone aside and grabbed a desk lamp off the small end table where they kept a basket for the mail. The cord broke as he pulled it from the wall and held it up as a weapon. The door thundered again, the glass in the small window at the top splintering and falling out onto the front step. Bone-chilling hisses swam into the room.

  “Dad, forget it. We need to get out of here. They’re gonna get through.”

  “Back door?” Nicole asked.

  Connor shook his head. “We’d have to go out the gate near the driveway. They’d see us.”

  “Okay, everybody upstairs.” Mr. Prudhome wrapped the lamp’s broken cord around his wrist and pointed up to the bedrooms. “Now!”

  Connor, Nicole and his mother raced up the stairs. Mr. Prudhome stayed near the door as it took another blow from the two crazed men on the other side.

  “Dad?”

  “Connor, get up the stairs and lock the bedroom door. Find a weapon. Anything. If anyone comes up that’s not me I want you to hit to kill. Look at me. You hit to kill. Go go go!”

  “But, Dad—”

  “GO!”

  Connor turned and raced back up the stairs, threw himself into his parents’ room where Nicole and his mother were taking golf clubs out of Mr. Prudhome’s golf bag. He locked the door just as his mother looked up. “Where’s Mark?”

  It was weird hearing his mother call his father by his real name. It made him realize they had a life outside of being his parents. “He’s…he’s…”

  The sounds of shattering glass blared up the stairs. The hissing was suddenly coming from inside the house, like demonic canned laughter in a bad sitcom. Now the sounds of fists on flesh and people being slammed into tables and walls. Furniture screeched across the hardwood floor. More glass shattered, something slammed hard into the stairs, strong enough to shake the entire upstairs. Mr. Prudhome’s gurgled yell—”Run!”—was cut off with the wet noise of teeth tearing into his flesh.

  Mrs. Prudhome shook her head. “No! What’s he doing?” She ran for the bedroom door. Connor blocked her.

  “Mom, you can’t.” He was on the verge of tears and trying to keep from fainting. He pushed past his mother, grabbed the nightstand from beside the bed and threw it toward the closet. It landed on its side, spilling the content of its drawer all over the floor of the nearly pitch black bedroom. Without losing momentum he started pushing the king size bed in front of the door. “Help me!”

  Nicole saw why he’d moved the nightstand—to make room to slide the bed—and got beside him and pushed as hard as she could. Together they got the bed in front of the door just as the two men on the other side reached the top of the stairs and slammed into it. The lock on the door held but it wouldn’t for much longer. They shoved the bed closer, butted it against the door. Mrs. Prudhome was shaking her head back and forth, fighting her fear and disbelief. The door took another impact, hissing spilling into the bedroom. The bed moved backwards.

  “Mom!”

  Mrs. Prudhome suddenly snapped out of her shock. Perhaps it was the sight of watching her only son try to save her, or acceptance that her husband was dead, but she was running to help hold the bed against the door.

  The two men on the other side were fueled by rage, an advantage that let them push the door open despite the weight against it.

  Connor let go of the bed and yanked open the window overlooking the front yard. It opened onto the overhang covering the front steps. “Quick, out here.”

  The door slid open further, pushing the bed backwards, and consequently Nicole and Mrs. Prudhome with it. Four arms hooked their way in and grasped for anything within reach.

  Nicole climbed out the window and sat on the overhang. She waved for Connor to hurry and follow.

  The door slid open further. Two heads burst in, dead eyes visible even in the dark, mouths hissing at nothing. Arms frantically reaching. A leg
working its way in.

  “Connor, take these.” Mrs. Prudhome drew her keys from her purse.

  “Mom?”

  “Just go. It’s not hard. Make sure the emergency break is off.”

  “Mom, I can’t—”

  “Connor get out that fucking window and get out of here! Now!”

  Tears finally spilled down Connor’s cheeks. He could not believe what he was seeing or hearing. This was not happening. He was not losing his parents right in front of his eyes. “Mom, please don’t.”

  His mother grabbed him and hugged him harder than she had ever done in his life. “I love you. You’re my angel. Now go. Go!”

  The two men were inside the room now, scrabbling madly over the bed. Mrs. Prudhome swung the golf club and connected hard with the nearest man’s face. He stumbled and fell to the ground.

  Connor felt himself being yanked backward. Nicole was reaching through the window, grabbing his shirt with one hand and holding the window open with the other. “Please, Connor. We have to go!”

  He looked back once, saw his mother swing the club at the second assailant, saw the club bend in an L around the man’s face and knock him off the bed, saw the first attacker up again and tackling her to the floor, the sounds of face cartilage and bone cracking under human teeth filling the room.

  He spun and dove out the window, letting it shut behind him just as his mother’s screams of terror and pain reached a crescendo.

  Saturday, 9:21PM

  Seth and Amanita rushed up the front lawn of her house, constantly looking over their shoulder at the empty street.

  Seth was panting. “Hurry. Open it.”

  Amanita’s hand shook as she tried to insert her key in the lock. “Stop rushing me. You’re freaking me out.”

  “I’m not rushing you, I just don’t want to die.”

  “You’re rushing me.” The key turned and she pushed the door open. They raced inside and shut the door behind them, locking it again. Seth drew the curtains on the front picture window and then peeked out through the slit. “I don’t see him. He must be on another street.”