by Angie Morel
Cory was the male version of Claire, although he tried desperately to hide it. His hair was a little darker than his sister’s, and was styled in a swoosh cut which he mostly hid beneath a stocking cap. Where Claire was a goody-goody, Cory was a smart-ass. My heart gave a squeeze. Our group was a perfect fit, like…how did Claire put it? Oh yeah, peas and carrots.
Once a week we’d have movie night. The blue-ray and TV got plugged into the socket that was fed by the solar generator, and we’d alternate who got to pick out the movie. Right around Christmas, Claire had picked a movie called Forrest Gump, and when the peas and carrots bit came up, I looked over at her with an aha look, remembering what she’d said on our first day here. Claire had given me an exaggerated wink that incorporated half her face and nodded, mouthing the words peas and carrots. She was such a goofball.
“I see ‘em,” Rolo said quietly.
Tick, tick, tick…it was as if the grandfather clock in the formal living room had somehow plugged itself into my central nervous system. I was aware of every second. I swear a thousand of them went by in my head before he spoke again.
“They crossed the post, let’s go.”
Rolo handed off the binoculars and picked up the weapons he’d deposited on the floor while watching out the window. Rolo was a blade man. He had a machete like me, but also a weird axe-sword looking thing and several knives. Smiling as he walked past, I swore there was a spring to his step and a twinkle in his eye. I smiled as well, feeling a rush of excitement run through my body. Perhaps I was looking forward to this too. Was that wrong?
Nah.
As we made our way out of the room, I heard Claire say something along the lines of kick ‘em in the whoop whoop.
Chapter 19
The click of the deadbolt had a distinct yet almost ominous sound as Snick engaged it behind us. His job was to watch from the window and be ready to use the guns if needed. The others would remain upstairs, at a safe distance, looking out from the dormers.
A brief thought slid through my mind. An ugly one. What would happen to the others if we had to fight a large group sometime in the future, and the bangers were able to press past us, and even past Snick? D, Cory, and Claire would be defenseless. A decision was made. After this afternoon, they would have to learn how to fight and kill, that’s all there was to it.
My attention returned to the task at hand.
The four bangers came at a slow pace, having lost their target, until they spotted us. Reenergized, they veered off the driveway and cut across the yard, their pace picking up. Wow, I thought, watching their approach. Winter had not been kind to them. However, winter had been more cruel to another that I’d come across recently, as an image flashed across my mind of a black-tongued legless banger rubbing his useless frozen digits on my arm as he wriggled weakly in the dirty snow. Yeah, they certainly weren’t as bad off as he had been, but they were close.
At fifty feet away, I was able to notice a few other things. Parts of their faces were black, a gift from the frostbite that had also visited their stumpy friend I’d killed in the ravine. Clothes hung in dirty folds on their skeletal frames, and one didn’t even have pants on. They didn’t look like people anymore, as if madness and the elements had turned them into a different species. That was a good way to think of it, considering we were about to put them out of commission.
As planned, Rolo and I separated. We stayed approximately fifteen feet apart and ran, meeting the bangers dead-on. As expected, the group of four split down the middle, two for each. I reached one of mine first, the pant-less man, and using the blunt edge of the hurling stick, struck him full force on the kneecap, shattering it. Spinning, my next blow was to the back of the head as his momentum tipped him towards the ground. With his lower leg hyper-extended and his head partially bashed in, he remained on the ground, giving me time to come around and chop the other banger right under the jaw, a direct hit on the throat, crushing it. The banger took two wobbly steps backwards before tripping over some landscaping rocks and going down hard right next to the flowering tree in the shape of an umbrella.
This one was female, I realized, as I stepped over the rocks and ducked beneath the white flowers, dropping the hurling stick in favor of the machete. I made quick work of slicing her across the neck, a favor really, since she couldn’t breathe through her damaged throat anyway. Still, the banger reached for me from the mulch covered ground as she bled out.
There was something about the sight of what used to be a girl around twenty—so different than the normal person I’m sure she used to be—staring at me with such an unfathomable hatred, that gave me pause. Maybe it was the way her toothpick arms stuck straight out from the puddle of clothing on her body, and the way her blackened fingers were moving in a feeble last attempt to get at me that caused me to envision a child before they could speak, reaching for something they didn’t know how to ask for.
Something clicked with a sudden intensity inside of me. Inside the part that was maybe a bit sad, a bit hesitant about killing these things that used to be people. I shouldn’t be feeling that way at all, I discovered. This was the way it had to be. This was good triumphing over evil. This was putting an end to the lives of creatures who were no longer people, creatures that were suffering incredibly. It was something to feel good about. This was…this was righteous.
Jeeeezus, enough of this deep shit, I thought, shaking my head. Just kill her already. Sheathing the machete, I picked up the hurling stick on the ground by my feet.
I quickly delivered a couple of blows to the banger’s head with the hurling stick, which whacked into the branches above on the upswing both times causing the flowers to lose their fragile hold on the branches and drop from the tree. Watching the body for a couple of seconds to make sure there was no more movement, I found my attention drawn to the tender white blooms that fell gently on and around the dead banger, decorating the ground and her body like a memorial, reinforcing the belief I had about this being a good thing. Feeling a bit recharged, I turned towards the other one.
The other banger made one feeble attempt to stand, and after falling down because his leg was unable to bear any weight, he began pulling himself along the ground towards me, his useless leg dragging behind him like a crooked tree limb.
Talk about a one-track mind. It was like all of the bangers were hard-wired to kill us, no matter how they had to do it. Hell, he’d probably bite me to death if that was the only available option. Unfortunately, that brought the image of Harvey to mind, which I quickly shook off. Can’t afford to get distracted. Tossing the hurling stick aside, I grabbed the machete again, ready to finish him off.
I threw a glance towards Rolo to see how he was doing and noticed that both of his were already dead. He stood ready to help, looking at me with a question in his eyes. I gave him a thumbs-up in response. Turning back to the crawler, I brought the machete down on his wrist as he extended his arm out to grab me. Since I swung it down and to the side, the blade cut into his wrist but flung it away as well, so it didn’t sever the limb like I planned. It did put his hand out of commission, though. He pushed with his good arm and managed to roll face up.
Moving so I was at his side, I grabbed the machete with both hands and brought it down on his head, just as he made a grab for my leg. It sunk deep into his skull. He quit moving and his hand dropped short of its target. Putting my foot on his head, I yanked the blade out and delivered another two-handed blow to his neck, just to be on the safe side. I put all of my weight into it, and the sharp blade went clean through, not stopping until it was embedded a good three inches in the soil beneath him. After pulling it from the earth, I used the corpse’s t-shirt, which declared #GEEK in black letters on the front, to clean both sides of the blade before putting it back in the sheath on my side.
As I stood there, breathing hard, it began to sprinkle. Within seconds the clouds ripped open and heavy drops fell fast and hard and straight down, drenching us in a solid wall of water. I glanced up
at the sky, and then at Rolo, blinking the rain out of my eyes.
A grin pulled at my mouth.
In return, a smile slowly formed on his face, growing bigger and bigger until you could swear that the sun just came out. My breath caught for a moment. It dawned on me then, that I’d never seen his teeth; he’d never smiled or laughed broad enough to reveal his teeth. And they were nice teeth as he was a big advocate of brushing and flossing. It was spectacular to see. My face bloomed with a smile big enough to match his.
“That was twenty seconds, tops.”
“Hell yeah it was! It was wicked delicious,” I said, borrowing Snick’s favorite phrase.
Lifting my face, I let the rain dance all over it. And then I laughed, feeling fantastic. We’d killed bangers before, but only one or two at a time, and we’d kind of winged it, not really knowing what we were doing. The three at the barn where Mary died didn’t count, as the entire day, and the few that followed, were a blurred mess in my mind.
This fight today though, it’s what we planned for and practiced for all winter…and it worked beautifully. I was ready to plow my way through an entire herd of them…ok, maybe not. However, I felt confident that we had a real chance to survive now—that we were fully capable of taking care of our family, of protecting them.
Fuck it felt good to have confidence again.
Hard taps could be heard from the dormers, and then a second later a window slid open from above. My hand went up to shield my eyes from the torrential rain. Claire’s head poked out, followed by her brother’s.
“You guys were AWESOME!” Claire yelled, followed by Cory’s drawn out and extremely loud battle cry.
The front door burst open and D and Snick galloped into the yard.
Chapter 20
“Oh My GOD!” said a breathless Cory.
“No! Oh My GA-God!” Snick practically squealed, which led into a whole new bout of belly-clutching madness.
I chuckled as I watched Claire, Cory, and Snick collapse against each other, laughing so hard they were making no sound except for when they sucked in big lungfuls to laugh again. D stood proud before them, brushing off his sleeves like he was all that.
“D, you are so funny,” a weak Claire finally said, wiping at the tears on her face.
“WhoMeWhaa?” D said with big eyes, and then he busted out laughing, bouncing his way to the couch. He’d sung and danced his way through a montage of songs, finishing up with a one that said something about being “born this way”. I had to admit, he was really good. Quite the entertainer. He’d been going non-stop for 20 minutes, which in itself was pretty amazing. He knew a lot of songs.
We decided a celebration was in order; in part because of our quick victory, and in part because of Savannah’s safe arrival. I was in agreement with celebrating the first one, but not so much the second. My first impressions were usually spot-on, and that girl was nothing but trouble.
It was “that girl” we were waiting on now. She was showering, and yes she really needed it, but she’d been in the bathroom with the water running for a solid forty-five minutes so far. The high I felt from the fight was slowly being depleted with every minute that passed. An image of a gauge, or some type of meter with a needle spinning around and around, kept playing in the back of my mind. That girl had no concept of the fact that we needed to preserve the gas that was being used to heat the water.
We each took only two lukewarm showers a week, and we’d have contests to see who was the fastest. D was the front runner so far at eight seconds. Of course one could argue the fact that he probably wasn’t really clean in the proper sense of the word, but at least he didn’t smell like a goat.
Feeling too fidgety to sit, I stood and wandered around the basement with my hands in front, cracking each knuckle individually as I strolled. Despite the merriment, I wasn’t able distract my mind from envisioning Savannah engulfed in clouds of steam in the shower, lathering and rinsing her hair over and over again in the hot spray like a girl in a goddamn shampoo commercial. A part of me knew it wasn’t really the length of the shower that was irritating me to the point of distraction; it was the simple fact that I didn’t like Savannah being out of my sight.
Earlier, I’d spent the better part of an hour watching her after we came in from the fight. We’d ambled to the kitchen, dripping wet, everyone talking at once. D and Cory had been in the middle of a re-enactment (with D as the banger and Cory playing the part of Rolo) when Savannah finally came down from the upstairs bathroom. What the hell had she been doing? Not cleaning up, that’s for sure. She appeared just as nasty as she was before, and everyone had to pretend her sour smell wasn’t gag-inducing.
It came to me after a few minutes—poopy diapers and cooked cabbage. I couldn’t put my finger on it earlier when we were upstairs, but in the kitchen, standing in the kill zone, the aroma had time to really work its way up my nose and poke at my brain. I was familiar with both smells, each of them awful of their own accord, but blended together? That was one knock-out combo if there ever was one.
Savannah wore a dull expression as her eyes flitted from person to person, studying us as she picked at the blemishes on her face. Why did it feel like she was sizing us up? When her attention landed on me, and she realized I’d been watching her the whole time, her eyes narrowed. I continued to stare at her, the ability to look away first not being in my nature. We must’ve locked gazes for two solid minutes before Savannah finally dropped her gaze, rubbing at her neck as if a sudden pain had flared up. I got my point across though, and Savannah understood my feelings.
Like a petulant child, she didn’t join in any conversations and didn’t smile or seem relieved to be safe. And when spoken to, she provided only monotone one-word answers. Something was up with that girl, and as I watched her slink after Claire (who, to the olfactory relief of everyone, had politely offered the use of her parent’s large walk-in shower) I was determined to find out what it was.
My gaze travelled to the ceiling and lingered there, as if glaring at it long enough would allow me to see through the plaster, wood, and flooring layers to check on Savannah.
This was ridiculous. Needing to do something other than drive myself crazy, I decided to head upstairs and find Rolo…and maybe check how the chicken was doing. Not that I knew when it was done or not, I left that to Claire, but wow, it sure smelled good.
Claire had killed the last of the chickens and was baking it up now. This last hoo-rah of a meal was to be served with the two remaining (and least favorite) pantry items; a can of ruby-purple beets and a jar of green olives. I thought we did extremely well rationing out the food. We made it through the entire winter eating the food that Cory and Claire knew how to get from around the farm, and the canned goods and preserves from the well-stocked pantry. However, everything good must come to an end, and our food supply had dwindled down to nothing. Plus, we were getting really tired of eggs, in every way, shape and form, which is why it didn’t break our hearts to eat the last chicken tonight.
And now that bitch Savannah was probably using up the rest of the shampoo.
In addition to lucking out with the food and vast amount of drinks, we lucked out on shampoo, body wash, toothpaste, and even toilet paper. Cory and Claire’s parents were big on donating goods to shelters and various other charities, and they’d begun the process of gathering paper products as well as a box of toiletry items. Of course our group had used those things to our hearts content up until a few weeks ago. At that time it hit us that this stuff wouldn’t last forever, so we started stretching it out. As of now we were either out—or almost out—of everything. We needed to restock.
The plan was to head into the nearest town to pick up some supplies. I wanted to get some new clothes too. Claire’s mom’s clothes were too short on me, in addition to being a tad baggy. Claire insisted that I wear them, and help myself to anything of hers that I could find (she said her mom would’ve wanted it that way). Still, I felt funny wearing them. The last thi
ng I wanted was for Claire to feel sad in any way by seeing her mom’s clothes walking around on someone else. I didn’t want to be a constant reminder.
Rolo was probably ready for some fresh clothes as well. He still wore his pants, washed by hand once a week, and then squeezed into some of Cory’s larger shirts and sweatshirts, refusing to even look at the dad’s clothes. D shared Cory’s clothes as well, able to fit into both tops and bottoms with only minor adjustments. I didn’t have that luxury, as Claire was petite and about eight inches shorter than me. However, Snick had to wear the dad’s clothes because of his height, and they were super baggy on his thin frame. I wore some of the dad’s clothes myself, but only boxers and t-shirts to sleep in. Snick never said anything, but I’d bet he felt the same as I did about the clothes being a constant reminder. What it came down to was the fact that we all were due for new wardrobes.
The nearest town was about a twenty minute drive, if the roads were clear. As of yet, we hadn’t travelled further than a mile or two from the homestead, and that was done to keep the cars in running shape. Not that I went, I let the others do that. Now we had no choice. We had to leave our protected environment. In fact, we’d need to head into town in the next couple of days. Besides food, there were other things we couldn’t do without. Like toothpaste. We ran out four days ago, and the mouthwash we were using in its place was almost gone as well.
And now there was an additional person to waste our stuff on.
As I got to the top of the stairs, I decided to make a detour to the library. Stepping inside, I pulled a breath in and released it slowly, feeling some of the tension leave. Wandering around, I held my arm out, letting my fingers skim the spines of the books on the shelves. The sun was behind the trees and what meager light remained was pulled through the west windows and stretched across the floor in soft purple rectangles. It would be dark soon.
