by Mike Miller
Then Jim’s fingernail hooked onto the piece of exposed glass.
The boy did not like the thought of what he had to do next, but could see no other way. He steeled himself with a deep breath, and then he sank the sharp dagger into the soft flesh hidden under the fingernail.
Jim screamed loudly as it pierced him. But finally he had succeeded in gripping the glass.
Next, he pulled back towards himself. The levering hurt as the shard worked to pry away his fingernail. But the boy refused to relent to the pain.
So the glass had to surrender instead.
First, there sounded a light series of clicks like the scuttling of a tiny insect. Then louder cracks popped as the broken sliver tore away from the glass.
A three-inch long point rose outwards from the plane of the window. Now Jim was able to pinch the length in his hand.
His fingertips settled into the edges and stung with fresh cuts.
He took another deep breath, and then the small boy roared. He tugged hard on the piece. Blood poured more and more quickly onto the car door.
The window announced its defeat with one loud, final snap.
But the improvised dagger began to slip from his hand.
“No!” he shouted as his hand bobbled the wet piece. His off right hand instinctively leapt to its aid, but was stopped by the car-seat harness.
Though the glass knife came loose from his grip, he flipped his palm, and was able to pin it to the side of the door with the back of the hand.
He paused to be sure it fell no further.
After a moment’s peace, Jim began to inch the item back up the surface while sliding his hand down its length.
He knew he only had one chance to get the next part right. He skipped the hand away and watched the glass begin to topple to the ground.
But his miniature mitt scooped back under to catch the piece of glass.
Jim brought the tool safely to his body in a hug. He proudly inspected the sharp pick which measured almost from his elbow to his wrist. The shattered window now had a tiny strip removed, presenting a thin dark hole into the cold universe beyond.
With searing cuts lining his skin, Jim still found himself smiling. Lucy was happy too, so she chuckled in support.
Jim looked at the tendrils of straps wrapped all around his body, wondering which to attack. Over his hips, his waist, stomach and shoulders – there were any number from which to choose. He wondered if any one of them were better than the others to hasten his escape.
As he poked at the woven, reinforced belts, the point harmlessly deflected from the material.
He tried to pick at the buckling mechanism, jamming the tip into the seam between the red release button and its housing. The tiny sword was pointed directly at his own bellybutton. Once it was wedged securely in there, Jim wiggled his tool back and forth, as if he were having difficulty disemboweling himself.
When the end snapped off, he cursed his failure.
Then he noticed a small tear in the belt on his left shoulder. A few strands of brown thread exploded outward from the fabric, leaving a small chunk missing like it had been bit by a tiny bug.
He placed the edge of his bloodied instrument into the gap and began sawing.
The first few movements pricked himself in the chest. So he adjusted his style, using his other arm to lift the belt a sparse inch off his body.
The space was now enough for him to continue the operation without stabbing himself.
Trickles of blood dripped down the glass as he worked. But in reciprocation, more and more fibers of the belt split away. The increasing size and number of errant strands looked like a small patch of blossoming weeds.
A car approached. He saw its growing headlights in the distance before him.
Jim feverishly rushed his work, yet the car was but seconds away. He would need far more time to finish this job before the car’s inevitable arrival.
He held the sharp glass tight like a weapon and sunk as far down into his seat as possible.
But the foreign car’s acceleration did not change, steadily speeding down the dark avenue.
In rapid succession, Jim figured that this car did not have the mad stranger and friend returning for them. Likewise, whoever this new stranger might be could not possibly be as evil as the others.
Jim reversed course. “Help!” He waved his hands as he shouted. “Help please!” As the car passed, he screamed as loud as he could. He did not enunciate any word, just a wail of pure desperation.
The car was oblivious and continued without pause.
The rescue attempt left him panting. But he knew he could not wait long.
So he resumed his labor, stopping only to smear excess blood on his pants when things got too slippery. Otherwise, he diligently sawed away at his freedom.
Finally, the band became severed in two. “Yes!” He pumped his red, wet hand victoriously.
After carefully placing the tool on the door handle, he set about removing himself from the seat. With the upper left strap not cut, he had only to slide the center brace out the loose end to free his upper left half. He was pleased to discover that feeding the belt further along also removed the restriction on his waist too.
Though his right side was still technically trapped for the moment, a little wriggling helped his limber limbs to squeeze away for escape on that half.
Liberated at long last, Jim’s first act of freedom was to tumble headfirst to the floor. After bouncing off the back of the driver’s seat, his head landed upside down on an empty can and several paper bags. None of the aching anywhere could diminish his spirits.
He triumphantly rose from the detritus of the backseat with arms raised in victory. As old food wrappers fell from his shoulders like confetti, he set to work on the next phase of his plan: freeing his sister.
He took his broken glass and climbed over to his sister’s side of the car. He readied himself to cut her free until he realized that this job would be far easier. So Jim placed the shard to the side of the baby’s seat.
While he still couldn’t unfasten either of the main buckles, he now had the proper position to at least loosen the apparatus. The straps easily grew to accommodate a child twice the girl’s size. The simplicity of the plan was the first lucky break of the cursed evening.
Placing his hands under her armpits, he hoisted her from her seat. Though he knocked her head against the plastic frame as he lifted, she still laughed as she floated out to his side.
“I got you.”
Lucy’s tiny hands involuntarily slapped at Jim as he reflected upon their next move. Strange thoughts of the future began to overwhelm him. Where and how the two would live, if they’d be together. How they would eat their next meal.
The boy paused to refocus and reprioritize. He did not know how, but he knew they first had to escape before Birdy Boo and friend returned. The wild zombies and other unknown monsters in the outside world had to be easier to contend with than the one they already met and the one that would come with it. There was the lit window he could start with to find somebody to save them.
As if someone had heard these thoughts, a pair of headlights appeared in the distance. He cautiously peered out the window to see a big silver car slowly rolling down the street. With its interior light on, the boy easily spied its occupants.
At the wheel was an older man. Nearly bald on top with white hair on the sides, he wore thick glasses while hunched over the wheel. A thick gold watch decorated his wrist as he looked back and forth between the road and his passenger. His hands moved with swift, embellished gestures.
To his side was a woman. She had elegant, long black hair, and a bright black dress. She held a phone before her, and likewise moved her attention between the gizmo and the driver.
The man seemed angry, and the woman seemed sad.
Based on a variety of factors, most notably the fine condition of their car, Jim decided to approach them. The creature who collected junk would not have such fine fri
ends.
He put the girl down on the car seat. She quickly wobbled over onto her side.
“I’ll be right back,” he promised gently. She smiled.
After opening the door, he raced out onto the road. “Stop please! Help!” He held both arms up before the oncoming car, placing himself directly in its path.
They did not see him.
“Stop!”
Jim watched their faces melt with panic.
The car slid to a stop just inches from the boy.
He hobbled around to the passenger side to address the woman. The window rolled down to greet him.
“Please! Help me! Please, miss!” he panted.
The woman’s face shifted from confusion to compassion. “Of course, sweetie. You’re okay now.”
Jim slumped as joy released from his exhausted body. A grin spread across his dirty face.
As she went to open the door, the lock clicked close.
“Henry! What are you doing?”
The man scowled at the boy, but addressed his wife. “Look at him! There’s something clearly very wrong here. This is how they trap you around here, sending out an innocent kid. I’m not falling for it.”
She fidgeted with the lock and handle, but neither would budge. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “He needs our help!”
The window began to roll up, and the man shifted out of park. “Then you can tell somebody else about it,” he coldly announced.
The car began to leave.
Jim chased after them. “No! Please don’t! We need help!”
His hopes departed with the car. He slumped to his knees in the middle of the dark, empty street.
The tired child might have surrendered on the spot were it not for his tiny sister back at the car.
When he placed his hands on the ground to lift himself back up, the lacerations stung from the rough asphalt.
He walked slowly back to the car and studied the desolate environment.
The small pockets of light around the lampposts seemed darker than before. The one light in the building had even been extinguished now, leaving only the street lights. Each little spot shined like a dim star within a vast galaxy.
The sidewalks and buildings were as bare as possible, though some dark walls on the peripheries were painted with tangles of strange graffiti.
The ground was littered with small pieces of trash. Only small remnants that any life had ever existed here before were all that remained now. This was the dust and bones of larger bits of garbage that had been ground down and torn apart over time. A stale breeze stirred some flecks of paper around down the road.
“Hello?” called the boy. “Anyone?” He cupped his hands around his mouth and aimed it straight to the sky. “Can anyone help us please?”
The call echoed across the silent terrain. Then the world returned to its unnatural quiet.
As he sighed, he spied a pair of feet. On the outer edge of a halo of lamplight lay a pair of shoes. Jim’s vision adjusted to the darkness to see they were attached to a body lying on its stomach. He advanced closer, but then quickly stopped.
The boy was staring at his father. He weighed the merits of going to the body or not.
When Jim realized that he might conceivably find something of use, he continued onward. For the duration of the approach, the prone body never moved once. Yet Jim could not help but feel that upon this surreal night, the inanimate thing would likely spring back to life at any moment.
Jim tried not to stare at the bloodied skull as he knelt down besides the body. But still he could not help but notice the blank expression painted on his father’s face. It was the most peaceful the son had ever seen his grumpy father.
A quivering hand reached for the nearest pants pocket. Jim’s eyes were locked onto his target, ready for anything.
A thump sounded from behind him, startling him backwards and around for defense.
The noise had come from the car, and it was followed now by a distressed sobbing.
He raced back to their vehicle, angry at himself for forgetting his infant sibling.
When Jim flung open the driver door and hopped on the seat, he found the poor girl lying belly up on the rear floor. Half-buried in the filth there, Lucy stared at her brother upside-down and full of sadness. Her tears ran back up her head and into her hair. His reappearance placated her only momentarily.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he soothed softly. He was careful to close and lock the door behind him, which locked all the doors as well. Then he crawled over the armrests and through the trash to gently embrace her.
While propping her up, he slid behind her. The two laid on their backs with her resting on top of him. The boy rocked slowly and sang to her the only song he could remember.
“A, B, C, D, E, F, G…”
When he got to the end, he started it again from the beginning.
His rocking slowed from the efforts, as the lullaby was making him sleepy too.
Little by little, the girl’s wailing softened. The pair shared a yawn between them.
On the floor of the backseat, they both fell asleep within seconds of the other.
4
The heavy thump of a shutting car door awoke Jim.
He looked around disoriented. He was still trapped in the car, with nightfall still surrounding them. But the street outside was not still.
“You’re gonna be so happy, Ray. You’ll see,” squealed the familiar voice of Birdy Boo. “They’re just both so beautiful and magical.”
“They better be, motherfucker,” grunted a much deeper male voice. “Call me at this hour for this shit.”
“Oh, you’ll be glad you came. I ain’t lying. No, sir, no, sir.”
Jim laid his slumbering sister down as gently as he could, using the same careful tenderness of someone handling a powerful bomb.
He cleared some of the junk away to get her down to the floor, then began to bury her back under the dirty clothes and empty bags. She remained asleep throughout the operation.
A pair of figures flickered across the broken window from the headlights of the car. Their shadows grew in strange, irregular forms as they walked nearer.
The boy went to work gathering more scraps for himself. He lunged into the front seat for some fast food bags and crumpled wrappers, then scurried back without being seen.
As he finished concealing himself beside his sister, he realized that the nearest weapon, the broken glass, was up on the above seat.
A door handle rattled, but the door stayed close. He heard the same happen with the driver’s side up front.
“It’s fucking locked,” sneered the big man.
“What?” shrieked Birdy Boo. “Uh-uh, no way. Impossible.”
Jim shaped a tiny hole from which he could spy. As he looked to the driver’s window for signs of the visitors, a massive face slid into view.
The man’s head was huge. His hot breath quickly fogged the window to obscure his face, but he seemed perhaps twice as large as the frail Birdy Boo. Therefore it must have been the one called Ray who said, “They ain’t here, you fucking crackhead.”
Accompanying the large stranger was an odd aroma: a pungent mix of industrial disinfectant and fresh leather. The smell made Jim’s empty stomach retch.
Lucy whimpered softly. The boy rushed his hand over her mouth. In the concealed shadows, he stared right into her to plead for silence.
Her eyes blinked as she awoke. But she kept quiet and still.
“No, no, no,” shouted Birdy Boo. “They’re in there, I promise. They have to be.”
The back handle just above Jim began to thud wildly. The door’s wall vibrated from the attack.
“After I get some rest, I’m gonna fuck you up tomorrow real bad,” promised Ray.
“No, Ray, they in there. Or maybe something else is. We should see!”
“In that piece of shit?” scoffed Ray. “Fuck that.”
Jim could hear the pair of voices leaving. Then a distant
car door opened and closed to silence any talk.
The boy shot up in his seat, and quickly found his trusty shard of glass.
He also found the deranged vagabond Birdy Boo with its bug eyes glued to the nearby window. “They here, they here!” shrieked Birdy Boo, pointing right at the two children.
Jim whipped the little blade over towards the creep, and the fiend quit his celebrations. The world dropped back into silence.
The boy watched the slender stranger back away from the vehicle with hesitant caution. Birdy Boy’s eyes did not look inside the car, but stared across the way to the space hidden behind the shattered car window. Where Ray likely was.
The boy swiveled back around. His weapon now pointed forward to the far door as he awaited the attack.
A fist smashed through the glass, sending jags sprinkling down on the two kids.
Lucy began sobbing wildly.
The gigantic hand reached down to unlock the door, and then it opened it.
Ray leaned into the vehicle. His massive shape eclipsed the light from outside. His nose and lips were large and bumpy, both broken countless times. But while his forehead, ears and shoulders all appeared deformed in their oversized proportions, his eyes were both small and tiny, peering out from deep recesses in his giant skull. A wide, discolored scar decorated his left cheek and neck.
Though Birdy Boy was dressed in derelict tatters, this character wore an immaculate white t-shirt and black jeans. Several gold chains hung on his neck.
The man’s foul cologne was even more repugnant now. Its toxic tendrils instantly burned the small boy’s nostrils as the first wave of the monster’s attack.
Jim slid himself before his sobbing sister to shield her from the brute.
“Lookie,” grunted the huge man. A smile parted his lips to show some missing teeth.
Jim’s tiny dagger seemed to keep the giant at bay.
Birdy Boy jubilantly leapt on Ray from the side. “I told you! I told--“
Ray flung the skinny person to the ground, bellowing. “Don’t touch me!”
