by Alexa Dare
At a loss, he scooped up one of the doily-type square throw pillows stacked on top of the regular pillows. “Hey, let’s play pretend.”
Darcy Lynn hugged the small pillow.
“Tell me a story,” she said. “One without bad storms and ground shakes and mean growly people.”
“I’m as bad at telling stories as I am at tucking little girls in at night.” Brody lowered his head onto a comfy, welcoming pillow.
“I’m a big girl and can tuck myself in. Story, please.”
Brody propped his arms behind his head. “Hmmm, except for, Once Upon a Time, I don’t even know where to begin.”
Darcy Lynn hugged the pillow and rubbed her chin against the throw pillow. “How about, ‘Once upon a time, there was…’”
“Nah, this story happened way before once upon a time.” He shut his eyes. “Here goes. In a time long ago, long before once upon a time, there was a little girl and her real-life dog.”
“Named Fluffy,” said Darcy Lynn.
“Have you heard this before?” He lifted a mouth corner.
“Not a long before once upon a time story, but I like this one almost as much as I like chocolate chips.”
“Well, alrighty then. The little girl and Fluffy went fishing and ended up on a wondrous quest and a great adventure where she met a whole bunch of extra special friends.”
***
Wrapped in the safety of the Inn’s second-story bedroom, Brody slowly came to awareness that he and the child sleeping next to him were no longer alone.
Cantrell, sopping wet and broken legs bent and crooked, slumped in a high-backed blue-with-red-flowers upholstered chair beside the fireplace.
“You’re in one whopper of a mess, bro.” Cantrell wore the same camo shirt and pants from before. His short, but grown out to the just shaggy stage, hair plastered wet like a reddish orange cap. Water dripped in dull plops onto the fancy flowered area rug.
A heavy molded, rancid meat fume joined the soot-overlay of the fireplace.
“You’re dead.” Brody gulped back a banana-tinged maple syrup liquid surge.
“You killed me.” Cantrell shrugged at the unlit fireplace.
“I had to. What happened to you? How could you have tried to hurt little kids?”
“Stopping them would have kept the apocalypse from being set into motion. The sacrifice of the five Children of the Elements would have saved hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives.”
“There’s no apocalypse.”
“Keep telling yourself that, bro.” An opaque sheen shielded Cantrell’s gaze.
“I don’t know anything about any apocalypse.”
“Of course you do, because I’m in your dreams, and I can only know what you know.” Mildewed water dripped from Cantrell’s askew pant legs.
Brody shook his head. “So real.”
“You know what you’ve got to do.”
“Electronics and gadgets are who I am. If I take out everything, I’ll be taking myself out.”
“You’ll learn and adapt. You were always better when it came to change and to thinking things through. Look where my chaos theories took me.”
“Brody? Brody.” Darcy Lynn shook him by the upper arm.
“What?” Brody gasped and sat up.
“Can I take the pretend Fluffy to mine and Hannah’s room?”
Brody whipped his head toward the fireplace.
The chair stood empty.
Stupid creepy dream.
“Fine with me,” Brody said.
“Good, cause all your mumbling is keeping me awake.”
Darcy Lynn slid off the bed. “Why’s the rug all wet?”
“Wet?”
Darcy Lynn shook one foot, then put the other down and shook the other, which mean the first returned to whatever soaked the carpet.
“Yuck.” She took off, taking the pillow with her.
Brody got up. He pulled the bed skirt up. Nothing, not even a dust bunny, let alone an undead zombie brother.
Yet the carpet was damp.
A full stomach of bacon and pancakes from supper and a firm bed in a cozy room, yet Brody’s second round of sleep failed to set in until the early morning hours when darkness grayed toward daylight.
Finally, his heavy eyelids blinked closed over scratchy burning eyeballs.
“Bad things happen at night, bro,” Cantrell’s disembodied voice resonated through his head, “but worse things happen in the light of day.”
Chapter 16
Too much mastery of fire meant a heck of a fever spike.
Sweaty hot chased Abe so he crawled out of a tangle of laundry-fresh sheets. Inside the girly slivery gray and light blue bedroom, he pushed aside a sheer white curtain and peeked out into the dawn.
His brand-new day didn’t take into account the shapes outside of the tall, heavy-duty wrought iron fence.
At the sight, last night’s breakfast for dinner hardened into a ripe banana, greasy bacon lump in Abe’s belly.
Within a yellow glow, dozens of the things waddled place. They reached through the fence, and, no doubt, growled like rabid dogs. Their limbs angled like their joints refused to bend.
Dead people walking.
He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. What with Irene’s sister’s recent death in a house fire, the dead, though missed and mourned, should stay dead.
Brow rested against the windowpane, the chill soaked into his skin, and the glass fogged.
“Share some of your warmth?” Hannah’s image in the glass showed her wrapped in a blanket. Below a tiny smile, her jaws shook. She stood close and leaned her head on his shoulder. “You’ve grown taller. We were the same height for so long.”
“Growth spurt in the middle of crisis I guess.” Abe stood and tried not to let on that she calmed him as well.
“How many are out there?”
“One is too many.” Abe scowled at the shifts of fog.
“Like a scary movie, but this is real.” Hannah’s voice lowered, “But it can’t be.”
The window steam frosted as the temp in the room dipped colder and the chill wrapped around him. He said, “No popcorn and soft drinks, and not even a good movie.”
“A really bad one.” Hannah sighed.
“You think maybe we should have hung on to Nora.” Abe scooted an inch or so away from the cold seeping from his sister. “You know, that keep your enemy close thing.”
“No wrongs or rights when there’s so much going wrong,” said Hannah. “She would have hurt us more, maybe even turned us against one another.”
“You were so danged uneasy about her being with us.”
“If you weren’t worried by what she’s done to us or what she’s capable of Abe Jenkins, you’re a fool.”
Abe walked away from her and her coldness.
He faced a tiny hearth and stared into the fake piled logs.
The propane upgrade might work out okay.
“I wish we could go back to lighting a bonfire every weekend.” Longing lowered Hannah’s tone.
“We were stupid kids who thought our parents were going to come home someday.” Abe grunted. “That’s foolish, so who’s the fool?”
“Nothing wrong, Abe, with holding on to a little hope.” Hannah’s teeth clicked in quick taps and her breath blew cloud wisps.
Abe stared into the hearth. Since there didn’t seem to be a pilot light, he heated the logs. Ready for a swoosh of flame, he nudged on the gas.
Fire rushed with a sulfur-tinged flapping whoosh to fill the area behind the grate.
He fetched a rocking chair from a corner near the head of the bed. With a wave of his hand at her highness, he placed the rocker before the hearth.
Lifting up the blanket as if she raised the hem of a fancy gown, Hannah plopped into the chair.
Abe tossed the spread from the bed to her and went back to the window.
Golden sunrays fanned the tall black fence.
The shapes turned to gray, then dawn ill
uminated the blood and gore. The things wore camo and denim, even pajamas, and clawed at the air with hooked fingers.
Head again to the glass, he rolled his forehead to the side.
A wheezy snore, way too much like undead gurgles, echoed from behind him.
He snorted. “At least one of us can sleep.”
Outside, an arm strained through the lower part of the iron bars. The fingers scraped at the ground. The camo pattern…
He’d seen that design before.
Then again, didn’t most of the clothes look all leafy and woodsy like?
Abe’s breath melted the snowy window glaze and drips slid slowly down the pane. He blinked, “Can’t be.”
The man looked like the picture they’d seen on the rock back at Briar Patch and like someone he’d seen at the bad guys' camp.
Which meant the guy out there looked like—?
Nah, heck no.
Abe jerked back and paced the rug along the foot of the bed.
The rug’s fibers curled before him.
To keep from setting the place on fire, he shut his eyes. “Seen too much already. Too much death and ruin is all.” His foot caught on the rug’s edge, and he tripped. His knees and the heels of his hands thumped the floor.
Hannah snuffled , but didn’t rouse.
Abe crawled toward the window. Wide-eyed, he pulled himself upright by the white-painted sill.
The crowd, about one-third women, teemed against the fence. With gray skin, glazed eyes, and gnawing mouths, they bumped into one another. Like a clumsy dance of the dead. All had chunks of flesh missing and smeared blood, like made-up actors on a horror movie set.
“Except nobody’s acting,” he muttered, “and this isn’t a movie.”
The lower arm that reached through the iron bars wasn’t there any longer.
Abe angled his head.
Were there drag marks from the fenced yard into the woods?
Well, at least that one was gone.
A bunch of bad things going on could make you see things that weren’t there. On top of his high temp, no way had he seen what he’d thought.
A knock banged the door.
Abe jumped and bonked his head on the steamy glass. “Ouch.”
Hannah shifted and moaned.
More knocks.
“Come in,” he called out.
The door swung inward.
Brody pressed his face between the door and frame like that creepy guy in one of those horror movies. He glanced toward the rocking chair off to the side. “Did you guys notice wet carpet or rugs last night?”
Since a sister asleep was better than a talking one, Abe spoke low, “No wet floor in. here.”
“Must have had one strange weird dream is all. I think I got a nose full of bacon from downstairs.”
“Another big meal.” Abe grinned.
“Uncle Merv says you can’t go wrong with bacon and eggs.” Brody pulled the door closed and his steps echoed on the stairs.
Another glance outside, and the idea of eating burned hot in Abe’s gut. Yet, the aroma of bread baking and bacon frying kicked in his hunger and ramped the gnawing in his belly.
“Come and get it,” Merv yelled.
“I love the honey and oats bread.” Hannah bolted out of the room.
Diving into his pants, he shoved his feet into his boots.
Hungry but not all at the same time, he clumped to the floor below.
The clink and scrape of forks and plates led the way.
Not joining the kitchen chatter, he hung back. While they filled their plates from the grub on the island and headed to the big table, he waited.
“We’ll be dining on fine china this new morn.” Merv twirled a spatula. “We got eggs, bacon, sausage, and some of the colonel’s fancy breads for toast.”
“Anyone up for French toast?” asked Irene.
Belly hurting, Abe stood and shifted from foot to foot.
One big happy family…
But the things outside showed there was no happily ever after here .
After seeing what he thought might have been Brody’s long-dead brother, he accepted that the notion of family was just as fragile as the fancy plates.
An arm slipped around him, and Irene hugged him close. “This may be our last sit-down meal for a while, best eat up.”
“No way we can stay?” Abe knew the answer but had to ask.
“Best we keep moving. Stay and you get found.” Merv passed a plate of sliced fruit Irene’s way.
From out toward the front of the house, a car horn blared and gunshots boomed.
“Are the peoples back?” Darcy Lynn asked around a bite of buttered bread. “Are they going to be mad we ate all their food?”
“Duck down behind the counter and stay down.” Merv scooped up and held the platter of bacon and sausage as if cuddling a baby in his arms.
Forks clanked and each of them slid to crawl
Merv edged past the fridge.
“Best let me and Abe,” Brody said.
“Smaller targets.” Merv grunted and nodded. “I know.”
Abe’s heart leapt into his throat like a hot melting marshmallow and his chest burned. Dang why didn’t they just leave them alone. Bent low, he crept behind Brody down the hallway and to the front door to peer out the small front windows on each side of the frame.
A pickup with a camper top idled outside the gate. Pieces of tin and welded metal covered all the windows. Small cut holes outside the side windows and one in the metal plate over the front glass gouged the jagged tin.
Dozens of zombies attacked.
From the holes, gun barrels blasted shots out of the cab.
Even shot, some of the dead got up.
From the woods, more kept coming.
“Do head shots kill them? Like in the movies.” Abe gripped the windowsill.
“Seems like, hard to tell.” Brody crouched beside Abe. “Most of these guys out there are sucky shots.”
Right outside the big sliding gate they’d chained shut behind them yesterday, an undead’s head blew apart. The body folded and fell.
One of the truck’s doors opened, and a bullhorn stuck out.
“We know you’re in there,” a man’s voice boomed. “Zombies gotta be after someone. You all are the ones that caused this mess, and you’ll be made to pay.”
A dented black SUV pulled up behind the truck. Barn tin held on with wire and baling twine covered the sides.
A faded orange pickup skidded in behind the second vehicle.
A dented red VW bug with what looked like cookie sheets wired over the windows chugged to swing lengthwise across the driveway.
At the end of the graveled road, a dirty white van slid to a stop at the end of the drive.
“Those of you taking care of the freaks,” the bullhorn man said. “ Hand them over to us and we’ll move on and leave you be.”
“He called us freaks.” Abe pressed his lips so tightly together his jaws ached.
“They’re locals.” Brody craned his neck to peek out the window. “People that Irene, Merv, and I may know. Folks are scared of things they can’t grasp.”
“I’ll show them how freakish we can be.” Anger jolted through Abe harsh enough to shake his jaw and arms. Cheeks flushed extra hot, he charged through the kitchen and blasted out the side door.
Under his stare, grass singed a few yards out in front of his feet.
“Abe, wait,” Brody called out.
If the locals were scared, he’d give them a thing or two to fear.
Hannah did the right thing getting rid of Nora.
Adults kept telling them what to do, how to be, and think.
“Being special doesn’t make us freaks,” he muttered, “you jerks.”
Ready for steps to pound behind him any second, he bolted first to the garden shed. Once he slid his shoulder along the wood, he barreled toward the red one-story barn.
Blades of grass sizzled and flashed like lit candles in the mo
rning shadows. The singe of burned grass, way too much like scorched collard greens, led Abe’s way.
The tank’s hull loomed inside the barn. Among the horse stalls, the armored vehicle waited out of sight, in need of repairs, or so Merv said.
Repairs could wait, and no use to hide the tank in a barn.
Hay and manure blended with machine oil and fuel fumes, as Abe climbed aboard. The hatch cover defied Abe’s two-handed grip. He put his back and legs into the lift.
With a screech, the hatch rose.
Once tucked inside the driver’s seat, Abe gripped the steering knobs.
The metal bin, to his right and within reach, made him a one-man army. He jabbed the starter button, and the tank’s motor chugged to life.
Next, he twisted open the latch of the ammo bay installed within arm’s reach, making him a one-man army.
The tank’s motor chugged to life.
If Junior drove the thing, so could he, after all Abe had driven a state-of-the-art ATV, hadn’t he? He edged the tank forward to nudge the barn doors he forgot to open.
Wood popped, and the double doors swung wide.
The tank burst into the yard.
“We’ll see who pays.” He laughed aloud. “Here comes freaky fire.”
Chapter 17
Odd that the same dreary exhaustion that dragged her into a fitful sleep shoved her into awareness.
Eyes nailed shut by tiredness, she lay on her back on the thin, damp mattress of her son’s starving-artist cot. Weariness thrummed in her head like the chugging motor of the ancient tank. Her shoulder, strained from her twisting weight while tied to the tank, sent pangs of hurt all the way to her toes.
The radiating pain in her swollen and bruised wrist throbbed in time with her pounding heartbeat.
How long had she slept?
In the meantime, where had Yates’ old friend and obviously fellow fanatic Merv Thackett taken the children?
The dimness within the area the size of a small bedroom, offered walls stripped bare of her son’s drawings yet presented a six-sided view of metal.
Not that their whereabouts mattered because she remained imprisoned and locked away.
Stiff and aching, during Wednesday’s early morning hours, she shifted her hips a bit to the left on the narrow mattress.
The movement scrubbed and pressed what had to be a deep mega bruise on her upper thigh. Stabs shot sharp enough to bring tears to her eyes. Hurt worsened as she once again shifted to lying flat face up, prompting her to moan.
