by TW Brown
“No,” he whimpered.
All the reports came to his mind at once. The news stories about a small town in Kentucky that had been placed under quarantine. Then there were the peculiar attacks happening all over. People swearing that the attackers were the dead returned. Of course, the CDC had instantly discredited and dismissed that notion as nothing more than a juvenile fantasy.
Here it was. Right before his eyes. There was no way possible that any of those children or his beloved Marjorie could be alive. The visible wounds aside, there was enough blood soaked into the carpet that a squishing sound could be heard as Marjorie stepped past the children and began shambling towards him.
He’d reached the top of the stairs and froze as he felt his mind peeling away to its core. Madness was threatening to overwhelm him as the pain that scalded his soul touched every part of his being. He was still standing frozen when Marjorie reached him. She leaned forward as if to embrace him and despite the odd sensation of her cold hands on his arms, he did not move until her teeth clamped down on his left cheek.
Pain broke all the spells that had been preventing Paul from reacting outwardly to this terrible horror. He tried to scream, but the side of his mouth being ripped away caused him to choke on the blood. He gagged as he shoved Marjorie away, and that action seemed to trigger the three children into motion. He backed away and tripped over his own feet, his head smacking hard into the wall and causing his vision to momentarily flash bright and then dim.
Fighting to remain conscious, Paul felt something fall on him. He faded for a moment and snapped back when the pain sent a shockwave through his body. His right arm was agonizing fire from the shoulder to the elbow. He looked down just as Toby bit into his left arm right above the elbow and ripped away a strip of meat that brought Paul fully back to awareness of what was happening. Jenna and Skye had joined in and seemed to jockey for position on his bleeding right arm like a litter of puppies to their mother’s teat. All three children had blood smeared across their faces—his blood.
Using one foot, Paul kicked Toby away first. The boy collided with Marjorie and sent her tumbling backwards. Skye was the smallest, and Paul winced when he shoved her away with ease and the little girl smacked into a table with her face. The crunch could be heard as her nose flattened. Yet, despite that impact, the child did nothing more than roll over and start to her feet again.
Jenna managed another bite as Paul wrestled her off his body. She had slipped across his midsection and was now on his right side. He looked down just as blood bloomed around where her mouth was latched to his bicep.
Paul screamed.
It was rage, sadness, and pain all rolled together. His scream changed to a roar and he rose, his mind fighting to not topple over the edge of madness and plunge into its crimson embrace.
Skye was closest, and he physically lifted her in the air and hurled her into the pink-themed room that had once been a sign of hope and a future filled with joy. Spinning, he caught Toby as the boy tried to clamp down on his right forearm. There was a tingle of pain, but the boy was not able to gain purchase as Paul heaved his small body into that same room.
Something grabbed his leg and Paul instinctively kicked out. He barely registered that it was the face of his Marjorie that he’d kicked. He might’ve lost his heart if he’d seen her jaw snap to one side and a few teeth break off leaving jagged remnants that snagged at her lips as she moaned in what might’ve been frustration at losing her grip on her prey.
Jenna was on her feet and stumbling for him. Paul moved to one side at the last moment and the child staggered past, unable to stop her momentum. Paul slammed a booted foot into the girl’s back, sending her sprawling into the room with the other two children.
He yanked the door shut, fighting through the pain in his arms from the savage attacks. By now, Marjorie was slowly rising to her feet. He wanted to cry as he saw that the sac dangling from her open wound had burst. A small figure now writhed and spun at the end of that cord.
Staggering back, Paul led the thing that had once been his wife into their bedroom. She followed him, and when she tripped while rounding the corner of their bed, he rolled across the bed, came up on the other side and left the room. He slid down the door and wept.
When the clawing and pounding came from his bedroom as well as where he’d thrown the children, he tried to tell himself that the merciful thing to do would be to put them down. These were not his neighbors’ children nor his wife.
Monsters were real.
Unable to do it, Paul finally got up and made his way to the bathroom. He looked in the mirror and gasped. It wasn’t his torn cheek, the blood all over him, or condition of his arms that caused him to stagger back from his own reflection.
His eyes.
They were showing those dark tracers. While not as pronounced, he knew it was the same thing he’d seen in Marjorie and the children. He would become one of…them.
“Like hell,” Paul croaked around a mouth that was swelling on one side to the point where speech was becoming impossible.
He knew what had to be done. At least he knew what he had to do. He also feared that he did not have the resolve to follow through.
Stumbling downstairs, he made his way to the garage. He returned upstairs kicking his shoes off when he reached the top. He would do everything in his power not to back out, but he also needed to hurry. He could feel the infection…taste it in the blood that ran down his throat as he found it increasingly difficult to spit it out.
Grabbing the hand that was mounted to the wall of their large shower, Paul was grateful that this simple safety measure had been installed. He doubted the shower nozzle’s ability to perform the task at hand. This metal handle was supposed to allow a person to step up and into the shower with more stability. Personally, he’d never once touched it, but Marjorie loved it and made a big deal of reminding Paul that it would come in handy once he was old and gray.
Removing his belt, Paul tied it to that vertical metal handle. There was just enough of a loop remaining that he could slip his head through when the time came.
The next bit would be difficult; especially since his vision was beginning to blur. Bending down, he produced one of the zip ties he’d fetched from the garage. They’d been great for securing the Halloween and Christmas decorations. Forcing his feet together as close as they would go, Paul paused as he watched his blood draining all over the basin of his large bathtub. At last, he felt his feet were secured.
His hands kept betraying him as he tried to grip the belt and slip his head through it. The fit was tight until he got it past his chin. Also, he was forced to remain hunched over the entire time. That was edging him towards a blackout. He had enough time to think a blackout might not be so bad when his legs buckled.
Paul slumped to his knees, already unconscious. The noose proved to be unnecessary as the blood loss became too much and he slipped into cardiac arrest. With a few spasms and shudders, Paul Stokes died.
Ten minutes later Paul’s eyes opened
The growing voice in horror
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TW Brown is the author of the Zomblog series, his horror comedy romp, That Ghoul Ava, and, of course, the DEAD series. Safely tucked away in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, he moves away from his desk only at the urging of his Border Collie, Aoife. (Pronounced Eye-fa)
He plays a little guitar on the side...just for fun...and makes up any excuse to either go trail hiking or strolling along his favorite place...Cannon Beach. He answers all his emails sent to twbrown.maydecpub @gmail.com and tries to thank everybody personally when they take the time to leave a review of one of his works.
He can be found at www.authortwbrown.com
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