Demonspawn

by Glenn Bullion

  Aaron grabbed the gun from his father's hand.

  “Aaron? What are you-”

  He fired at the corpses. The gun felt heavy in his hand, and his aim was terrible. He fired until the clip was empty, and didn't kill a single corpse. It wouldn't have mattered if he did. The store was full of them.

  “Get out of here,” Frank said weakly. Blood poured from his stomach and formed a pool under them.

  Ten seconds.

  “No,” Denise said. “We're not leaving.”

  Joe grabbed her hand. “Denise,” he begged. “Please, take Aaron and get out of here.”

  “She said we're staying, Dad,” Aaron said.

  He felt hopelessness for the first time, something his father and family had shielded him from his entire life. The corpses marched for them, and nothing was going to stop them until they had their warm meal.

  Five seconds.

  “Come on,” Denise said, determined not to give up. “We'll drag you out of here.”

  She grabbed Joe's arm. He pulled her in close, so only she could hear.

  “I love you.”

  She smiled, despite death on top of them. “I love you too.”

  She grabbed one arm while Aaron grabbed the other. Margie grabbed Frank's wrists. Before they could start pulling, the undead attacked. They nearly stumbled over Frank, and two of them took a bite out of his thigh. He screamed in pain and managed to shoot the closest one in the head, covering himself with gore and thick blood.

  Their time had run out. Margie tossed herself at the undead mob, trying to get them off of Frank. They swallowed her up and pinned her down. Three of them fell on top of Denise, biting her face as her head slammed to the ground. Aaron jumped on his father to protect him.

  Aaron cried as he heard his family slowly dying around him. Their screams all mixed with his own. He felt his body being shifted around, and realized he was no longer on top of his father. He curled into a fetal position and covered his face. He heard Margie's cries of pain slowly die down until there was nothing. Frank died while cursing at the undead. Joe was next, screaming his son's name, followed by Denise, who had somehow managed to grab Joe's hand while dying.

  Aaron didn't know that he was fourteen years old. His family, his life at the cabin, was all he'd ever known. It took two minutes to destroy everything.

  He kept quiet, waiting his turn. He felt the corpses moving and shuffling around him. He heard the sickening sound of skin being pulled from bone. He felt something on his face, and realized he was laying in a pool of his family's blood.

  But there was something he didn't feel.

  Pain.

  He didn't know how long he lied there before he risked opening an eye. Five, maybe ten minutes.

  There were corpses everywhere. They stumbled and fell over each other trying to get to the warm flesh. Aaron looked at the lifeless face of his father, right before a corpse reached in and pulled out Joe's tongue.

  Tears fell from his eyes. He slowly pulled himself into a sitting position, not caring that he was sitting in what was left of his family.

  He couldn't think. He just stared straight ahead, not quite seeing the corpses shuffle around him anymore. This was the moment Frank used to tell him could happen at any time, but deep down, Aaron didn't honestly think he'd see.

  He was alone.

  The fact that he shouldn't be alive finally crept into his mind. He looked at the corpses around him. They continued to feast on his family, just a few feet away. Others wandered around the store, tripping over each other and fallen shelves.

  Aaron climbed to his feet, almost slipping in the pool of blood. He tried to piece together what was happening in his mind, but he just couldn't figure it out. The walking corpses simply ignored him, as if he wasn't there. For a moment, Aaron thought that maybe they couldn't see him for some reason. Then he noticed some did look at him.

  They just didn't want to eat him.

  A new low moan caught his attention behind him. He spun around, and his shoulders slumped as he started to cry all over again.

  The undead didn't leave enough of Frank, Denise, and Margie to reanimate. That wasn't the case with Joe. Aaron's father pulled his hand away from Denise. He slowly stood up, almost losing his balance a few times. His eyes were white marbles. There was a hole in his mouth where his tongue used to be.

  He looked at his former son, not a single glimmer of recognition in his eyes. Then he looked at his surroundings with only one goal. Fresh meat.

  The rest of the undead no longer enjoyed the taste of cold flesh. They wandered off, not caring that Aaron was right there.

  Aaron grabbed Frank's gun from his severed hand. With tears clouding his vision, he leveled the gun right at Joe's head.

  The first corpse Aaron would ever kill with a gun was his father.

  “I love you, Dad.”

  He fired a single time. After his father died for the second time, Aaron leaned over and vomited.

  He looked at the undead around him. He was not happy he was alive. “Why don't you kill me?”

  He waved his hand in their faces and jumped up and down. Some looked at him, even gave him what might have been a look of confusion. But they didn't attack him.

  As the walking corpses milled about, Aaron looked again at Frank's gun. He thought about putting the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

  None of it was fair at all. Frank and Margie had finally opened up about their relationship. Joe and Denise were about to do the same. Aaron felt it. He wanted to be with them, wherever they were. He didn't want to be without his family in the world of the dead.

  But he couldn't do it.

  His father wouldn't want Aaron to kill himself. Joe taught Aaron how to do everything, to take care of himself. He wanted his son to have a long life.

  So that's what Aaron would do.

  He left the clothing store, pushing a corpse to the ground as he did so. “Fuck you all.”

  Aaron looked at the streets of Walton one last time before he left. He half-expected the undead to pounce on him at any second, right as he started to relax.

  That would never happen.