by Tracy Sharp
Even though he was clearly great with Jessica, the kid scared me.
I opened my eyes and my heart froze in my chest.
He was looking right at me.
He knows what I’m thinking. Might as well say it out loud. “Danny, do you have any family we can take you to?”
Danny shook his head.
“What about the people you just visited with your mom? Your grandparents? Anyone?” I hated to bring her up, because she was one of the wandering now, but I had to know.
“They are all dead.” His whisper sounded like dead leaves moving in the wind.
“How do you know that? There may be some who are alive. Maybe hiding out somewhere.”
“No. They are dead. I know.”
I stood up, looked out the window. The dead were still wandering the street. There were more of them. Each time I looked out the window, there were more of them.
Now groups of them were surrounding houses, trying to get in. Some doors hung open, and the dead shambled in and out.
They surrounded houses with closed doors, banging against them. They broke windows, climbing over each other to get inside.
Several of the dead were standing in the yard, looking up at the house.
“Oh, shit,” I breathed, fear and panic twisting my gut and racing up my spine. I shot a look to Jessie. What about when the dead decided to try to get in?
“Don’t worry,” Danny said. “They won’t come in here.”
“They’re looking right at the house, Danny.” How long before they made their way up the stairs to the porch?
“They smell you inside,” Danny said. “But they won’t come in here with me and Jessie here.”
I didn’t ask why that should be true. Something told me that hearing the answer would be more than my already panicked mind could bear.
I trusted that what he said was true.
But we couldn’t stay in here forever.
“You are running out of time.” His whisper was a strange crackle, like it was coming from a deep well.
I don’t know what he is, but he isn’t just a kid. Not anymore. I looked back at Danny. “What do you mean, Danny?”
He watched me with that blank look on his face and those weird green eyes. “This world is not yours anymore. There is nowhere for you to go.”
“What are you talking about? Where did you kids go when you vanished? Do you remember?”
“It’s like a dream. Of lights. Of knowing. We aren’t the same. We’re more, now.”
“More what?” I said, fear and frustration raising the pitch of my voice.
He said nothing else. The corners of his lips lifted in that strange, knowing grin.
* * *
I woke up, startled, my heart beating wildly against my chest. It froze when I looked over at the couch and saw that it was empty, except for a few tufts of hair lying where Jessie and Danny’s head had been resting. It was dark, but the lamp over the couch was on. When I glanced toward the window, I saw my own image against the blackness beyond it.
It startled me. My eyes were large and wild looking. My skin was as pale as the dead outside. My hair, normally strategically messy because it’s cut that way, now made me look like I’d been living on the streets for a while.
“Jessie?” Faintly, I heard her voice coming from down the hall. It echoed in the bathroom, but sounded odd. It was like she was talking from the other end of a long tunnel. “Jess?”
Something small and white lay on the couch cushion. I leaned in, looking more closely. A tooth; one of her little teeth.
White blonde hair lay scattered on the carpet, little white teeth dotting the spaces beneath and between the baby fine strands, leading from the couch to the hallway, stopping at the closed bathroom door.
I reached out and turned the knob. Locked.
A jolt of panic shot through me. “Jessica!”
“Zoooooeeee.” My name was drawn out on a low whisper that sounded like a hiss.
“Where is Jessica?” I pounded on the door. “Open the door.”
“Jeeeeessssicaaa is nooooooot heeeerreee.” The sound of light splashing.
The hair lifted at the back of my neck and fear twisted in my stomach. “Where is she? Open the door!”
“Gooooo. Leeeave. Yoooou aaare ooout ooooof tiiiime.”
The sound of a low giggle over the voice. Hisses overlapping each other. There was more than one in there. One what?
Splash Splash.
“I swear to God I will kick this door down!” I screamed.
I took a couple of steps back and prepared to make good on my promise.
The lock clicked and the door opened a couple of inches.
With my pulse beating in my neck and blood roaring in my ears, I stepped toward the door. Every cell of my being wanted to run. There was something behind the door that sent fear so raw and complete through me that every instinct told me to get out. Run out of the house and keep going.
But I wouldn’t go without Jessica.
Please let her be okay. Please . . . he didn’t hurt her. I pushed the door open.
Jessica was lying at the bottom of the tub, her eyes wide open, watching me. Her blonde hair floated all around her head, no longer attached to her scalp. Blood swirled upward from her mouth. She was at least a foot longer. As if she’d grown rapidly overnight. She gave me a gummy smile.
I stopped, terror paralyzing me to the spot. I couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead. “Jessica!”
Danny knelt in front of her, trailing a hand in the water above her belly. He was bigger too, as if he’d grown a few years in a night. His hair was all gone. Locks of it lay all over the bathroom floor. I ran to the tub and grabbed her under the arms, lifting her up. Her head broke the surface of the water, and her hair stayed in the tub.
She sat up, smiling, and her teeth were missing.
“Oh, my God. Danny, what did you do to her?” I lifted her out of the water. She had to be twenty pounds heavier. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her, clutching her and walking backward out of the bathroom.
“I aaaaam waaaatching heeeeer traaansfoooorm.”
I ran down the hall, into Jessie’s bedroom and locked the door, then laid her gently on my bed. My voice was high with fear and my entire body trembled as I worked to dry her off. “I’m going to get you to the hospital, Jessie. You’re going to be fine. We need to get you dressed.”
Jessie gave me a slow smile. “It iiiiis ooooooookay, Zooooeeee. Iiiit doooooes nooooot huuuurt.”
“Jessie, what happened to your teeth?”
Then I heard her voice in my head as I worked to get her dressed. They fell out, Zoe. I’m growing new ones. Look. Aren’t they pretty? She smiled widely, tilting her head back to show me.
And there they were. Several rows of tiny, razor sharp teeth poking through her gums.
* * *
You need to go now, Zoe. They are coming. The Jessica-thing’s bizarre eyes tracked me as I backed away from her.
This wasn’t Jessica. Not anymore. She was gone; turned into something alien. If some part of her was still in there, it wouldn’t be for long.
“Who is coming?” I didn’t want to look at her, but I couldn’t look away. I watched in horror as she changed, and the abject terror I felt was complete. The world outside was going to shit. The person I cared about most in the world was gone --- or mostly gone. The last remnants of the love she felt for me warned me before being completely taken over.
The rest of them. The rest of us. They can’t harvest you, Zoe. You are defective.
“I’m defective.” My voice sounded far away and tinny as I tried to make sense of what the Jessica thing was telling me but it wasn’t making sense. I had backed into her bedroom. I watched the doorway as the hissing down the hall grew louder.
She slid of the bed, and she pulled herself along the carpet toward me, her movements lizard-like.
Go now. They are almost here.
I ran to the door, slam
ming and locking it, then turned, my back pressed to the cold wood, looking in disbelief at what she was becoming.
She cocked her head at me, studying me as if I were some interesting species. To the new Jessica, maybe I was. Her movements had become snake-like. Her arms, torso and legs moved in a strange, serpent-like paddling manner. Her skull was growing, transforming; the forehead stretched backward, the back of her head lengthening into a dome-like shape. Her teeth slid through her gums, long and serrated.
I heard the sound of the front door opening, and hisses overlapping one another.
I headed toward her window, unlocked it and lifted it. It was second story. The drop wouldn’t kill me. But the ever-growing group of zombies below the window would.
Thrown to the dead. Her head weaved side to side, like a cobra, and she sniffed the air, what used to be her nostrils in a now sunken nose flaring. Or eaten. I can smell your blood, Zoe.
I looked at her one last time; the strange, alien thing that used to be my niece. “The meteors. This is an invasion.”
Her eyes, now completely serpent green, slid to the door, where the handle started turning.
I didn’t wait to see what was on the other side of the door.
* * *
Thank God for all that tree climbing when I was a kid. There was a huge old spruce tree with enormous branches stretching out toward the windows, and in all other directions. The branches closest to the window weren’t strong enough to hold me, but further in, they grew thick. I needed to get onto the roof so that I could get a running start.
As I climbed out of the window, I grasped on to the gutter first, pulling myself up enough that I could swing a leg onto the edge of the roof. The snow that lay on top of the shingles had hardened. The temperature had dropped overnight, and although I was freezing, the hardened snow made it easier for me to gain purchase and pull myself up onto the roof. I said a silent prayer of thanks that I hadn’t taken my boots off after going out to get Danny. I didn’t have a jacket on, but the thick hoodie I wore over my old sweatshirt kept the worst of the chill from my skin --- for the moment.
That and the fear and adrenalin spiking through my body kept me warm, but I’d have to find a jacket to wear soon or I’d freeze to death.
I wasn’t going back into the house to get mine.
Scrambling up onto the roof, I crab walked backwards, working my way up. If I wasn’t careful I’d slide down into the waiting claws of the dead, who would happily break my fall.
Even with the moans and strange animal shrieks they made, I heard the hissing sound coming from beneath the roof line, where I’d just climbed out of Jessica’s window. I sat, frozen, watching for her --- for it, my breaths coming in little pants.
The ovaloid head rose up and weaved, snake-like, upward, emerging from above the roof line. The thing that used to be Jessica spotted me, and a long, black tongue slipped out from between the serrated teeth and licked its lips.
I scrambled backward, moving higher up onto the roof, my mind racing. I was trapped. The dead were waiting below, and this reptilian Jessica- thing was slithering toward me. It moved on its belly, zigzagging upward, the insectile legs paddling upward.
The knife was still in my boot, sitting in the sheath I’d made for it from thick elastic and Velcro. I’d thought, at the time, that I’d never really have to use it. But I’d used it already in the last two days, and I was about to use it again. I reached down and wrapped my fingers around the Uberti, pulling it out of my boot and gripping it tightly. If I dropped it, it was over.
Tears blurred my vision as I watched the thing slide upward toward me. Was there anything of my niece left in this horrific thing? My voice cracked when I spoke. “Jessica.”
“Zoooooeeee.” The thing hissed in reply. The tongue slipped out again, snapping in the air. “I’m soooooo huuuungry.”
My entire body trembled as I clutched the knife tightly in my shaking hand.
“Juuuuust a taaaaaste, Zoooooeeee.” It seemed that soon the thing wouldn’t be able to form words at all. The words were becoming less and less audible with every passing second.
The thing was only a few feet from me now. The eyes, greenish gold, sliding in sockets that had shrunken back, the lids no longer there. It snapped jagged, shark-like teeth as it approached.
There was nowhere for me to go. This thing would follow me. Silent sobs shook me as I waited. I knew I’d only get one chance.
Scaled legs scuttled upward, and the body zig-zagged as it reached my feet. I waited for it to move a little further up, praying that it wouldn’t take a bite out of one of my legs before I had the chance to stab it.
Moving forward with quick side to side movements, the elongated neck stretched toward my face. It was so close now. Drool slid over its teeth and down the greenish chin, dripping into the snow on both sides of me. The snow sizzled, holes steaming where the thing’s saliva hit it.
A couple of drops hit my hoodie, burning holes into it. My belly stung where its spit made its way onto my skin.
I screamed, it felt like I was being burned by cigarettes.
She was standing right over me. In a second, she would kill me if I missed.
What used to be lips stretched over the teeth as the mouth opened, head titled back. Eyes rolled back into the tipped head and a long, throaty screech came from the depths of her throat.
I flipped the knife over handed and drew my hand back.
When her head came whipping down toward my face, I brought my arm down with every ounce of strength I had, aiming for the left eye.
The knife sank into the strange, green-gold orb to the hilt, and the creature shrieked, a sound of utter surprise, rage and agony.
I yanked the Uberti out and jammed it into the throat, slicing sideways.
Black blood spurted, spraying onto the snow.
She gurgled, her eyes rolling in her ovoid head.
I hauled back my leg and kicked the thing in the chest, sending it sliding down the roof, legs skittering for purchase. She slid over the edge of the roof and vanished.
Before I could catch my breath, another one started to emerge, the elongated head rising above the roof line, golden orbs that used to be human, child eyes scanning the roof top.
If I let it get up here, I’d have to fight this one, too. I scrambled down toward it as it rose upward, two lizard-like arms pulling itself upward.
As I reached it, its mouth opened and it snapped its teeth at me, its black tongue slipping out and moving across its teeth. It began moving onto the roof toward me.
Placing one boot on its chest, I plunged the blade of my Uberti into the left orb-like eye to the hilt. As it screamed, I wrenched the knife out and jammed it into the right.
The shriek was unearthly.
I tugged the blade out and put the handle between my teeth, biting down on it. I needed my hands free.
I took a few steps back, then ran and leapt into the spruce tree.
The branches shook and snow flew up at me from crackling twigs, but I’d landed deeply enough into the tree that they held me. If I’d weighed ten pounds more, they might not have. I thanked my lucky stars that I was built like a stick. All the times I cursed having to shop in the junior girls section for clothes; all the years I wished I was curvier, sexier looking.
I’d finally found a reason to like my slight frame. Go figure.
Spruce needles poked into the skin of my hands, my face, scratching me, but I barely noticed. I could hear the dead below me, groaning, grunting, and beneath those sounds, the hisses. The hisses were growing louder, overlapping --- more and more of them.
I straddled the thickest part of the branch closest to the trunk of the spruce. Shivering, I peered through the snow speckled needles at the house and the ground below.
The two reptilian things were lying on the ground, black blood spreading around them. The dead wandered away from them, keeping their distance. If it weren’t for those reptilian things, I’d be petrified of the dead. I
t was a horror movie come to life.
But these snake, lizard things made the dead look like small potatoes in comparison.
Clinging to the branches, quivering in fear and cold, I wondered why I was fighting so hard to survive in this new, dead world --- this invasion.
Was this what I had to live for? Running, hiding, and fighting?
It was probably easier just to opt out and die. Leave the horror of it all. I had no one left. I knew it deep in my bones.
As I watched more of the lizards, which is what I’d decided to call them, climb out of the window and skitter up onto the roof, searching for me, I knew that I really had no one left in the world. They’d been eaten by the dead, or by the lizards.
I was completely, utterly alone.
Chapter 3
I watched and waited. Now so cold, I was afraid I’d fall. My hands were so numb I could barely feel them. If I didn’t get out of this tree, I’d freeze to death or I’d fall to the dead becoming a nice human Popsicle for them to dig into.
Or worse, the reptiles would find me.
They had left the roof. I’d counted fifteen of them. They’d swarmed the house, looking for humans. But I was already gone.
They’d moved out into the streets, slithering and skittering into the other houses.
Screams and shrieks cut through the frozen air.
I wanted to cry, but swallowed it down. I couldn’t afford for ice to form on my face. Instead, I hugged the branches with numbing arms, waiting.
It was the darkest part of the night, just before dawn, and I could see silhouettes of the lizards as they dragged people out, pulling them into the woods that lined the backs of the houses. There were fields beyond the woods, and the reptiles disappeared into the snow, dragging screaming people behind them.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I held on to the branch, trembling, trying to shut out the screams and the dragging sounds.
Underground. They were taking them underground. Why? To eat?
Oh, my God. Oh, God.
I remembered something Jessie had said to me, one day in the summer as we played ball in the back yard, not far from where I hid in the branches, shivering. She’d stopped playing, dropping the ball and laying on the ground, her ear pressed to the grass.
