by Main, Lynn
The rest of the house looks empty. It’s quiet, somewhat clean and totally undisturbed. By undisturbed I mean no lunatics crashed through any of the other walls or windows. I can see practically the whole house -except the kitchen- from my bedroom door. The small foyer between my room and Brian’s is barely six feet across if that, but feels like it takes millennia to shuffle into it.
The bathroom door is cracked open. I can smell the water in the toilet bowl. I am so thirsty I can actually smell it. I can smell the lime on the underside of the faucet too. Even through the horror of smells in my room and all over me, I can smell the chlorine they use to bleach the water. It smells delicious!
I hobble into the bathroom. Turn on the faucet over the sink and plunge my mouth under the flow. I stop after several seconds to cough and almost choke on the water, spitting it all over the mirror. Dipping my hands under the flow, I wash the blood and gore off and take more water.
I can feel my throat swell and taste bile. Turning to the toilet, I violently spray yellow disgust into the bowl. I heave a few more times and nothing but water comes up. Not turning back to the sink until the convulsions settle. Each of which reminds me of my worst drinking experiences. The pain on the outside of my body seems to wane against the terrible ache in my abdomen.
Carefully, slowly, and a little frightened I put my face back to the sink. Lap up small amounts with my tongue and gingerly swallow. I take my hands and try to catch enough water to wash out my eyes and look back up into the mirror. I try the light switch, but the power is out.
An explosion of noise erupts on the front porch; a loud thud followed by some rattling and a few crashing sounds as if the clay pots are being shattered. My heart pounds hard as I turn cautiously toward the front door
Gone Other than the banging on the door there are scratching sounds on the walls, screams, sirens, and the sounds of crashes, gunfire, and explosions all around. Faith quakes and occasionally cries out in terror, but no one gets into the bathroom. In an hour it is completely silent outside.
Faith uses the sink to get the blood off of her skin and out of her hair as best she can. She looks the gun over several times but doesn’t dare move any of the parts again; steering especially clear of the trigger.
Eventually her need to find Rose wins out over her fear of going back outside. She creeps over to the door, sits the gun down gingerly and leans it against the wall. As she presses her ear to the door, Faith can hear the condensers for the coolers run in the store, and some static sound in the distance that might be a radio between stations, but nothing else.
She picks the shotgun up and turns the deadbolt slowly until it clicks. The click seems to echo through the silent bathroom. Faith cringes holding her breath. Several seconds slip by. Silence and the low humming of the store’s compressors fill the space. She pulls the door open and peeks out. The store is more destroyed than before but the attackers have apparently gone.
Faith creeps out of the bathroom and down a hall that’s mostly unscathed. She heads to the edge of the wrecked displays, torn products, and blood spattered everything of the store. She plans a route through the debris. She takes two quick steps onto the ruined merchandise racks, and immediately the clanking of glass and scraping of metal beneath her sends her into a panic. The shelves and strewn products move as Faith scurries across. She dives off of the pile of debris into a clear space in front of the counter. She looks around.
The store had been just normal as she stood right in this spot. It all came apart. It was attacked. But for what purpose, and who were these deranged attackers? She hadn’t a clue and they and all of their insanity are now all gone.
The store is vacant. The victims in the front aisle –the cop, and the woman and man- were all attacked right here and even though she can still see the impressions their bodies made in pools of blood they’re all gone. Faith can see the cop’s blood on the floor. Gone. Faith trudges through the broken glass doors and onto the sidewalk looking at the ruined city before her. The streets are both riddled with accidents. The pumps where her Camry still sits are destroyed. Driven into. Ran over. Just gone. Beyond that there are accidents on the north and southbound lanes of Tamiami. One of those wrecks is on fire.
The heat from the flames forces Faith back. “Rose!” She screams. There is a scream in reply; but nothing like a little girl’s. Then gunshots in reply to that. She turns one way then the other. The only road that is passable is MLK going east towards Ringling. Faith trudges that way. She is hunched holding the shotgun by its barrel and handle sobbing. She crosses a bridge that overlooks a park to the south. It is barren but there are signs that the lunatics had been this way. There are drag marks of blood staining the grass.
After crossing the bridge Faith decides not to turn into the park and continues until she reaches Cocoanut Ave. She turns south and starts walking. The road is not bare but not as stacked with wrecked cars as the larger highway. There are signs of life and movement in some of the houses but Faith tends to think she should avoid approaching any of them.
The squeal of a siren breaks Faith’s concentration and she wh ips her head around. A police car is barreling down Cocoanut straight for her. Her heart leaps. “Help!” She screams. She waves her arms wildly in front of her. She can see the head of the driver as the car approaches at speed. He seems to stare straight at her. She continues to wave for a moment but then panics when she realizes that the car is neither slowing nor turning. She leaps out of the way and feels the stiff breeze as the cruiser screams by. The moment it has passed the sirens stop.
A rage Faith has not felt in years boils up inside of her. She pulls the gun up training it on the back glass of the cruiser and fires. The glass fractures. The car swerves slightly but doesn’t slow. In a moment it is out of sight. Faith screams again nonsensically. She crumples onto her knees and sits the shotgun in her lap.
She cries for a while right in the middle of Cocoanut Ave. After she feels sat there for more time than she probably should have, she looks around. The sun is high in the sky. She is hungry. Hasn’t eaten today. She meant to take Rose out to a diner after the park. “Rose!” She moans and cries again.
Pretty Eyes A little fortified by my mobility, and the cool zeal the water has given me, I turn from the mirror and out in the foyer in one big step. It hurts but I am determined to know what is going on. I hear another crash. Close this time. It sounds like Samson is tearing apart the trash just on the other side of the door. One more step into the living room and I turn and watch my front door swing out. A girl takes a step inside.
My heart stops. The most beautiful blonde I have seen in my entire life is standing in my doorway. She’s wearing a blue dress that is tattered and dirty. It’s ripped just above her knees. She has big bright sparkling eyes the color of the sky and a few little reddish freckles running across the bridge of her nose with wide flaring nostrils and a pretty blush in her pale cheeks. Her face is framed well by tendrils of her spinning golden hair with a strong jaw. She is thin with average sized breasts. I size her up and attempt to put on a charming smile and choke on the word, “Hey…”
A moment too late to talk I notice the state of her. Her knees are skinned, and she has road rash on her elbows, scraped up hands, and a crazed look in her eye. Her lips are pulled to a thin line with a weaving of hatred knit in her brow. Her face is perfectly beautiful despite the fierce snarl behind a shotgun pointed straight at my head.
I want to throw my hands up and scream “Stop! No don't shoot!” but can’t. My body is petrified. Looking at those sparkling blue fierce eyes I’m certain that I am going to die. She doesn’t tremble. Her face is filled with a resolve I can’t quite understand.
She pulls the pump back on the gun and a bright red cartridge ejects. I lose grip. My legs betray me. I’m falling through a hole that seems to have no bottom into that same darkness. At least I don’t have to see her shoot me…but I feel an impact on my head…and then nothing.
Billboard Faith shr
ieks as she watches the boy/monster inexplicably fall. He looks as if he’s faint. But that makes no sense. In her confusion Faith only finds rage. She charges his prone body pulling her foot back like days on the soccer field and plants her toes in his chest. A rib cracks.
She grabs the barrel of the shotgun and slams the pistol grip into his forehead. There’s a terrible loud thwack, and his head bounces off the floor. Blood begins trickling from his mouth.
She looks down at him satisfied. But he doesn’t look like a monster anymore. Panic stirs. He looks like one of those poor people; attacked, but now she’s the attacker. His face is cut open. His arm is torn near apart. She covers her mouth. Then turns and flees onto the porch and out into the yard without looking back. A horrible scent assaults her as she turns the corner. She vomits beside a bush and looks up past the house at a gravel driveway.
A man is lying there next to a green van. His stomach ’s been torn open and his intestines are protruding. She walks deliberately, clinically, towards him faking numbness. He reaches up for her as if for help. His lips are parted and his teeth bared. He makes no noise though. Not like the boy inside. His eyes are different too.
Sunlight glints off something in his hand and her brain races ahead. She drops the shotgun behind her and lunges forward and grabs the man’s wrist. He reaches for her more earnestly opening his mouth. Faith leans away but pulls at the key in his hand while she tries to hold him off. She pulls at the keychain but he won’t let go. His grip is like iron. He leans up. Faith looks down at his eyes and they are dulled over. The color seems drained from them. She gives another yank and the keys pull free. She retrieves the shotgun.
She opens the door and the man, with his middle torn open, grabs her leg. Faith pulls it away and kicks his chest with the heel of her foot. The man falls back and she climbs in. She tosses the shotgun into the passenger seat and fumbles through the keys. Finding the ignition key, she jams it in, cranks it and pulls the shifter down into reverse. She stomps the gas then immediately stomps the brake at the end of the driveway and as the van rocks back pulls the shifter into OD and smashes her flip-flop into the gas again. She turns east and then north on Branden Ave.
She presses hard into the pedal as the side streets whip by. After several blocks the houses on both sides of the road thin. Soon there are only pine trees on either side of the narrow two lane road. Alone, and scared; confused; she breaks down again. Sobs heavily. Wipes the tears from her eyes to see to drive. A telephone pole’s coming up before a billboard and a parking lot. She aims the van at it and punches the gas pedal. A strange thought occurs to her. That boy was alive. He may have lived. He could have lived.
She looks at the billboard. It shows a man bent over his son hugging his wife around the shoulders. A very healthy golden retriever sits in between the family and a smiling man in a white lab coat. Another thought occurs to her. What are you doing? You are supposed to be a doctor, act like one. She slows her acceleration and pulls into the parking lot of Manatee County Animal Rescue Center and Animal Hospital.
She pulls the van right up to the marquis and shifts into park. Pausing only to retrieve the shotgun from the passenger seat, she hops out. There are glass doors under the awning. She creeps towards them but can already hear the buffeting noise of animals crying from within. Many different types of noises; dogs barking; birds squawking and other creepy roars. She gulps and pushes on the glass door. It is heavy but it opens without resistance. There is a chime as she enters a small reception area. There are double swinging doors like in an OR to her left and a desk with another office door behind it. Faith walks to the double swinging door and leans her head close to it.
The animal noises continue loudly through there. She turns just in time to see the man from the billboard coming from a third door across the office behind her. He had black hair and on the billboard a charming smile, but with hands grasping for her and his jaws stretched apart he looked almost nothing like who he had been. She remembers the look in the man’s eyes by the van; vacant. She pulls the shotgun up by its grip and grabs the barrel aiming it in the vet’s general direction and fires.
Candle light
I wake.
The last thing I remember; the barrel of a shotgun pointed at my face. Open my eyes. My bedroom glows with the soft and flickering light of candles. A thick spicy smell hangs in the air. It’s like a mixture of perfume, aged and dried fruit, and bleach. It’s nauseating. Beyond that is a faint odor, but such a foul one that I can still pick it out among all the rest. It’s a terrible smell that I can’t quite place. Or can I? Death? Or maybe it’s blood? I remember the blood.
I’ m in bed and under my sheets. I shouldn’t be here. I suppose I should be dead. I tilt my head forward and look at the spot where my window had been. A mattress is pushed up against it. My dresser is wedged up against that. It looks like the mattress out of my roommates’ bedroom.
I’ve been cleaned up. I look at my right arm. The upper part is wrapped. The bandages thick and tight around my bicep, but I can still see a small oval of blood seeping through. It’s the bite. I remember the bite. What kind of beast of a man would bite someone like that? More importantly what kind of crazy makes someone willing to climb through my window, framed with shards of glass?
I look around the room, slowly turning my head. It’s heavy, and I feel weak. It is exhausting just to keep my head tilted and my eyes open. By my closet, in the glider from my living room, sits the beautiful shotgun wielding blonde. Her legs are crossed at the knee. Across her smooth, light toned, cut, and bruised thighs sits the barrel of her shotgun pointed, not directly, at me. Her head is tilted leaning on her hand, with her elbow resting on the arm of the rocking chair. Her other hand is caressing the stock of the shotgun.
As soon as my eyes focus on the gun I freeze. I watch her for a while without moving. My breaths come shallow and my chest expands and falls. Her caressing slows until her hand is just dangling there twitching, but otherwise still. Certain she’s asleep, using my arms and pressing my elbows into the bed, I lean up a bit and look around. The man’s body is gone but a black stain remains on the spot where he expired. Just looking at that spot makes my stomach turn.
The tiniest noise comes from the gi rl’s direction and my eyes dart to her face. Her eyes are open; though blood-shot with dark rings beneath them. She looks like she hasn’t slept in days. That face is beautiful though. Her eyes are wide open now and it is hard not to stare at them. They are bright blue like the clear sky.
The girl tosses her hair, as if it is a nervous habit, looks at me and then down at the gun and very slowly and delicately leans forward sitting it up against the wall next to her chair. She gives me a short stiff smile, “I must have dozed off. Sorry.” She says with a creaking voice and yawns.
“It’s okay, I didn't even notice.” I say curling the corners of my mouth into a grin. She frowns. My right cheek hurts badly and I feel pressure on my forehead when I grimace from the pain of the smile.
“I had been trying to stay up until you woke.” She says, stifling another yawn. “I really appreciate you helping me…” She chuckled as I say that , interrupting my train of thought. I am dumb for a moment. But she stops laughing immediately and doesn’t speak; just stares at me with those tired slowly blinking sky full of sunshine eyes.
Uneasy in the awkward silence with this beautiful stranger I blurt out the next thing that comes to my mind. “Why are you in my house?” Her frown changes into something like the look of a frightened child. I regret saying it. I look around to avoid her hurt stare and see a small folding TV stand sitting by my bed, “Where did you get that?” It didn’t come from my house. It has all kinds of medical equipment strewn across it.
There are several rolls of gauze, all types of bandages, and needles in a flat dish with a little bloody water in it. There is also a ball of thin white dental-floss-looking twine. There are several different glass bottles with rubber stoppers for hypodermic syringes, and then several
obviously used syringes beside those.
A bowl of water and a pile of bloody towels sit over by the wall beside my lamp. The lamp and the bulbs in my ceiling fan are dark. All the light in the room is being emitted by several white candles burning, free-standing, in their own wax on the dresser.
I fiddle with one of the syringes and then turn back to her, “Did you use all this stuff on me? Where did you get all of this stuff? Are you a nurse?”
She stands and walks over taking the syringes from the table and places them by the pile of soiled towels. She calmly walks back to my bedside and moves the TV tray out of my reach. Then she returns to the glider before she says, “Yes, I did use that stuff on you, and no I am not a nurse.”
I reach up and pad gingerly with my fingertips at the stitches in my cheek. I can myself getting angry as I say, “You used all that stuff on me and you don’t even know what you are doing? You’re not even a nurse? Did you even know what the fuck you were doing?”
“Like I said I’m not a nurse. But I am a doctor. And yes, I did know what the fuck I was doing.”
“Oh…” I say with a sheepish look on my face.
She just stares, obviously angered. I’m not mad anymore. An uncomfortable amount of silence passes between us. I ask her, “So, what are you doing here? Why did you come to my house? Why did you fix me up here instead of taking me to the hospital?” The questions are coming out all wrong. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful but it just doesn’t make any sense…none of it. It sounds like I am not glad she is here, which is the opposite of the truth. I almost start to ask more questions, backtrack, apologize, or say something when she stands.
“I was going to loot your house…take your stuff…your food…clothes, weapons, or whatever…Okay?” She says. The natural blush in her pale cheeks blossoms across her face until the freckles on the side of her nose are lost in it. “I had been looking for food or weapons or whatever when I found you and you...” She stops her face twisting into a mixture of what looks like disgust and pity.
