The Last Days of October

by Bell, Jackson Spencer

  That heavy, wooden sound again.

  “Heather. Let me in.”

  Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin, she thought wildly, almost breaking out in a gale of insane laughter. She rose from the couch, clutching the pistol, and approached the door in the foyer. The knocking stopped when she laid a hand on the wood.

  “You’re not coming in,” she said.

  Mike took his time responding. She had thought her blood couldn’t run any colder, but when he spoke again she understood that this belief, like all the others, had all the strength of dry toast.

  “You’re mine,” he said. “You belong to me.”

  “No,” she said. “I belong to me.”

  “You took a vow. I own you. And I always will. Maybe you could have left in the beginning, but it’s really too late now. Without me you have nothing, you are nothing. You cannot exist on your own.”

  Her hands clenched. She reminded herself that this wasn’t Mike at all; this was some wicked creature from the basement of Hell that had broken in and found his dirty laundry.

  It didn’t make her feel any better.

  “Did you enjoy your trip to Wal-Mart today?” he asked.

  Her blood froze. For a moment, she quit breathing.

  The creature seemed to sense her discomfort, because he laughed. The sound was dead and mummified, hideous. “That was stupid. Exactly the kind of boneheaded, shit-for-brains mistake you would make. You didn’t think you got out of there on your own, did you? That Sir Galahad saved the day with his flashlight?”

  She had thought exactly that.

  “You continue to exist as you are because it is my wish,” the vampire hissed. “Because, as always, I’m protecting you.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re not.”

  “Yes. Look outside.”

  Heather didn’t move. She remained rooted to the same spot in the foyer, staring at the dark door that seemed to be talking to her.

  “Go on,” it said. “Go in the front room and look through the window. I’ll stay here.”

  She freed her feet from the floor and plodded slowly into the living room. She drew back the curtain and peered through the glass.

  A platoon of dark figures stood in formation on the sidewalk in front of her house. They appeared to be standing at parade rest. The dark obscured their faces, but she didn’t need to see them. She knew what they looked like.

  They’re his. They’re all his.

  She returned to the foyer.

  “They’re hungry,” the thing said from the other side of the door. “We all are. But here we have discipline. We have rules. We have this because I have imposed it. But remove yourself from my protection, Heather, and there will be no rules. Burn me, stake me, lie to me and those rules will change.”

  “What do you want?” she asked. She meant it as an honest question, but it came out as a cry. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I want you,” it said through the door.

  “You can’t have me! You’re dead! I’m not!”

  “Join me. Be with me.”

  “No!” she cried. “You’re not my husband! Do you hear me? Do you get that? Go away!”

  “Give yourself to me and I’ll let them go. Both of them. It’s you that I want. This is my offer to you. Give yourself to me and they may live.”

  “We’re out of here come morning. We’re going to leave and go somewhere you’ll never find us.”

  “If I believed that,” he said, “I would come through this door right now and I would take you.”

  “You can’t,” Heather said. “You can’t come in unless I invite you!”

  “Is that so?” It asked. “Is that because of this cross on the door? Or is it because those are just the rules, that vampires must be invited in? Or…”

  It paused, letting its words sink in.

  “…is it because I have forbidden my troops from taking you?”

  No. No, that can’t be.

  “It’s an interesting question,” he said. “You think about that. But don’t think about leaving Deep Creek.”

  Floorboards creaked. When he spoke again, his voice came from farther away.

  “Good night, Heather. Think about my offer. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  20.

  Late the next morning, Amber found her mother sleeping on the couch. Justin was nowhere to be seen. Alone, she stepped onto the porch and sat down on the top step, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jacket. The air was crisp and sharp despite the sun stretching its legs above the houses across the street. Stubby shadows stalked the bare trees and the homes where her neighbors—people she’d never bothered getting to know—had once lived.

  And maybe still did.

  She felt safe on the porch, out in the sun. The memories of the past two days remained firmly planted in her mind but they stayed quiet for now. She felt calm again for the first time in what felt like ages. She enjoyed this moment of peace. A moment to rest.

  The front door opened and the porch creaked beneath the feet of someone stepping onto it. Justin stood behind her for a long time before sitting down beside her. In his hands, he held a red plastic disc.

  “Where’d you get the Frisbee?” she asked.

  “Your garage. Found it when I was in there sharpening sticks. Here’s one for you.”

  He set down a pointy wooden stake. The blunt end wrapped in duct tape, it looked like a child’s play sword. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “Stab a vampire. I hope your mom wasn’t particularly attached to her mops or brooms. They’re all gone now.”

  “I see,” Amber said with a sigh. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. I thought about making spears, but we have to consider if there’s a difference between a wooden stake through the heart and a wooden spear through the heart. I’m still learning how all this works.”

  “I think a spear would work. It’s still wood.”

  “You would think so.”

  She picked up the stake by its taped handle and turned it over in her hand. She recognized the blue shaft as something that had once been the kitchen broom. It seemed incredibly short; if she ever got close enough to one of those things to use it, she’d probably already be dead. She set it back down on the boards between them.

  “This is a surreal conversation,” she observed. “We’re debating the merits of stakes versus spears in connection with killing vampires. That is per se fucked up.”

  “If you’re going to start using fancy words, I’m going inside.”

  She laughed. Justin smiled.

  Minutes passed in silence. The sun warmed the October air, but only slightly. Tomorrow, she realized, was Halloween. She had planned on driving back up to Norfolk to party with Tara and their few friends that hadn’t yet graduated, and she would have been leaving this evening after class. Mom was going to let her take the Durango. She felt a pain in her belly as she wondered what Tara was doing right now. If the same thing had happened in Norfolk that had happened here.

  “What do you think happened to all the dogs?” Justin asked.

  “Pardon?”

  He gestured with his head towards the house across the street. The owner had driven an eyebolt into a tree in the front yard. A rusting chain led from the eyebolt to the ground, where it disappeared beside a food bowl and water dish barely visible above a flood of leaves. The dog’s name was Harley, she remembered. He was—had been—a friendly dog, big but good-natured. He would lay in the shade of the big tree and wag his tail when Amber walked by.

  “Guess they got bitten,” she said.

  They sat with their hands holstered in their pockets, saying nothing for a long time. At one point, Amber thought she heard her mother’s footsteps in the foyer and expected her to come outside. When she didn’t, Amber simply drew another breath of cold autumn air and stared across the street at Harley’s chain and the great mass of nothing at the end of it and tried to wrap her mind around everything the world had lost.
/>   “Let’s play Frisbee,” Justin said, standing up.

  “Play Frisbee?”

  “Yeah. You look depressed.”

  “I am depressed.”

  “Then you need to move around. Come on. I like to sulk as much as the next guy, but me finding this thing was no coincidence. I think God wants us to get up off our asses and play. Get up and go long.”

  She stared at him, wondering if he’d lost his mind. He smiled back at her and gestured for her to go out in the yard.

  “I’m a klutz,” she said, standing. “And I’ve never been athletically inclined. You can’t laugh at me.”

  “It’s Frisbee, not Olympic tennis. Go long.”

  She descended the steps and walked to the middle of the lawn. Justin waved her on until she had reached the middle of the street, whereupon he motioned for her to stop. He stood at the bottom of the steps and drew back the hand holding the Frisbee. With an almost ethereal grace, he unwound his arm and released the disc.

  “Catch,” he said.

  It spun in the air between them, seeming to float on nothing as it glided across the lawn and sidewalk. It flew directly at Amber’s face and seemed to hover in the space before her. She reached forward and grabbed it. The spinning stopped abruptly.

  “Nice,” she said.

  “I played Ultimate Frisbee in high school. Ever seen it?”

  “No.” She tried to twist the way Justin had, but when she released the disc it wobbled, veered off course and clattered against the side of her father’s truck. She winced as Justin trotted after it.

  “It’s like a cross between football and soccer. You get the disc in the end zone to score. If we find more people up at the school today, I’m going to organize an Ultimate game. Autumn is the best time to play it. Get ready, now; I’m going to make you jump for this one.”

  He hucked the disc again, higher this time, and it arced above her head. She jumped, but her hands snapped shut on empty air. The Frisbee sailed unimpeded into the yard behind her, wobbled and struck the ground at an angle. It rolled on its side into the leaves between the houses.

  Her mother stepped out onto the porch just in time to see her miss. She looked surprised, as if she’d caught them boarding an alien spaceship instead of playing a game of Frisbee.

  “You missed!” Justin yelled. “Had this been a real game, that could have been a turnover!”

  “Only because you can’t throw!” Amber called back. She turned and jogged across her neighbor’s yard to where the Frisbee lay in the leaves. Not until she passed into the shadows between the houses did she realize she was smiling. She hadn’t smiled in days.

  She bent over and picked up the disc. No sooner had her fingers closed around the plastic rim than her mother and Justin both began screaming, and a single word flashed unbidden in her consciousness:

  Harley.

  The dog hit her full-on. She fell sideways, and hard; a few more steps and she would have cracked her skull on a concrete dwarf standing in a flower bed. Instead, her head bounced off the leaves and the soft soil beneath, momentarily stunning her but leaving her conscious enough to see her assailant turning in the air and hitting the ground on its back. Her eyes momentarily lost focus. She blinked to realign her vision.

  Crawlspace dust matted its fur. Clumps had fallen out to reveal clearings of white leather upon which flies lit and buzzed like tiny courtiers tending to their dark king. Skin stretched over xylophone ribs of starvation. The thing stared at her with black eyes like a shark's, open doors to a mausoleum where dry leaves scraped across stone floors and eternity was a word that had a terrible meaning.

  Why is he out how can he be out it's daytime it's sunny so how's he standing out here like its nothing?

  A chill in her bones answered for her. Here, where she lay, the houses blocked the sun.

  The creature drew back its lips to reveal sharp white fangs that seemed impossibly long for such a narrow mouth. A low growl rolled from the barrel of his body. The snout seemed to have vanished, replaced now by dozens and dozens of teeth. It lowered its head.

  Mom and Justin were both screaming. Amber opened her mouth to scream, too, but nothing came out. Every part of her body, down her vocal chords, was paralyzed.

  The animal pounced.

  Heather drew the Ruger from her waistband and extended it at the ready. But she couldn’t fire. Amber blocked her shot.

  “AMBER!” she screamed. “MOVE IT!”

  The girl acted like she couldn’t hear. Heather saw the dog smoking even in the shadows between the houses, but not enough yet to take it out of the game, not enough yet to save her child, who sat in between the front sight and the hungry creature that was so obviously going to kill her.

  Oh God, please protect my baby please don’t let anything happen to

  The thing leapt, and Amber jerked back on her hands and buttocks. It hit her in the chest, knocking her flat on her back and in the split second after this happened, Heather had a clear shot.

  She squeezed the trigger. The pistol barked once and the dog flew backwards off of her daughter with an otherworldly screech. This shattered Amber’s paralysis. She scrambled to her feet and began running. Again, blocking the dog.

  “GET OUT OF THE WAY!” Heather screamed.

  Amber veered to the right. Heather fired, hitting the dog again, knocking it down. It leapt up and continued the chase. Every bone appeared beneath its smoking and stretching skin, and as it hit the direct sunlight in front of her neighbor’s house Heather saw flames.

  “RUN!” Justin shouted.

  Amber was running, with a grace and precision that would have been appropriate on an Olympic track team. Heather fired again and missed, missed, hit. But the dog got up again and raced after her daughter.

  Amber tripped and face-planted in the middle of the street.

  Heather squeezed off two more rounds in quick succession, both hitting home. Moving more slowly now in the full sun, the thing that had been Harley presented nothing but a flaming mess on four legs. Still, he struggled to his feet and staggered towards Amber, who was getting up but not quickly enough. Not nearly.

  Heather witnessed her difficulty rising. A thought pierced her heart like a knife blade:

  She’s turning. It bit her and she’s turning right before my eyes.

  No time for that. She aimed at the burning animal and pulled the trigger again. Harley went down, got up. Heather’s trigger finger twitched once more.

  Click.

  The slide locked back.

  Empty.

  And the thing was still alive. Burning, screeching but still moving, still thirsting, and her daughter wasn’t moving at all.

  You will not.

  Heather dropped the empty handgun and charged. But before she could make it halfway, Justin beat her there. He drew back his right leg and drove his boot-clad foot straight into the creature’s chest. It flew in the air, flaming and smoking, turning like a rotisserie chicken. It hit the ground several feet away. This time, it didn’t get up.

  Heather slowed, dropping to her knees at Amber’s side. Dazed, Amber pushed herself up on both hands, rolled over and fell. She winced.

  “Are you okay?” Heather gasped. “Did it bite you?”

  Amber didn’t answer. She blinked irregularly and took great gasps of breath through her mouth. Her nose gushed blood.

  “Honey, you’ve got to answer me, okay? Did you get bitten?”

  Amber hesitated, then shook her head. She drew a hand to the bloody mess that constituted the lower part of her face and winced again when the hand touched it.

  “Fuck,” she muttered weakly.

  Heather collapsed beside her and wrapped her in a fierce bear hug. She rocked on her buttocks in the middle of Litchfield Avenue and sent a prayer of thanks rocketing into the heavens.

  Justin walked up beside them both but didn’t sit down. Heather looked up to see him studying the dog’s carcass, now only blackened bones and shreds of crisped tissue that bore
no resemblance to any living thing. His boot had crushed its ribcage.

  “Nice shot on goal,” Heather said.

  He frowned at the carcass, not responding. Heather watched him cock his head, rub his eyes. He turned to face her. “That thing was hungry.”

  “I know,” Heather said. “I saw it.”

  “We need to get the hell out of Dodge.”

  Heather sat back now and supported herself on her palms. The street was dirty and gritty beneath her palms. Cold and hard. Like the reality that she couldn’t keep everybody—anybody—safe in this new world. Anyone who invested her continued existence with Heather Palmer would lose her shirt. Heather knew this.

  If we leave, he’ll follow us.

  Another thought, on the heels of that one:

  All he wants is you.

  The adrenaline leaving her system now, she felt as if she had to vomit. She coughed and shook her head weakly. “We can’t run,” she said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Then we need to hook up with other survivors, like, now. Me and her have been playing frigging Frisbee when we need to be patrolling for people who might be able to help us get through this.”

  Would he allow her to move to another place? As long as she didn’t leave Deep Creek? Maybe.

  And maybe not.

  A breeze rolling down Litchfield wound around the trees and rattled the lonely wind chimes dangling from some vanished neighbor’s porch. The chill poked at the gaps in her clothing with the fingers of a mature autumn.

  “What time is it?” Heather asked.

  “I don’t know,” Justin said. “I left my watch inside. One o’clock? Two o’clock?”

  “We’ll ride by the schools,” Heather said. “But if there’s no one there, we’re coming straight home.”

  21.

  Deep Creek High sat at the end of an access road that snaked into the woods on the edge of town. It was a newer complex, with the forest still smarting from having so many of its members hacked away and this giant of concrete and brick plopped down in their place. As the Durango motored through the trees, Heather felt her stomach tightening.

  There’s not going to be anyone there, said a voice in the back of her head.