The Attic

by Prior, Derek

  But Wesley J. Harding was real famous in my family. He was in India, they said. In the stories Dad used to tell, Wesley J. was always doing magic stuff, like rope tricks so he could escape from the evil tiger-men. He could even lie on a bed of nails without getting pricked to death.

  I turned the key and lifted the lid. It fell back on its hinges with a loud clang.

  There was an answering growl from below. It sounded like those things from outside, only it was definitely closer; right underneath me. I closed my eyes to listen better. Someone moaned, and there was a noise like Darth Vader breathing and Dad gargling mouthwash all rolled into one.

  “Daddy?” I said, too softly for him to hear. Then a little louder, “Dadda?”

  There was an snarl, then lots of smashing and crashing, like someone was throwing furniture about. There was a heavy thud right beneath the attic, and more moaning and groaning that sounded even closer. I yelped in fright as something bashed against the trapdoor and then roared.

  My eyes snapped open, and I was staring at an old yellowish photo of a man in a pointy white helmet standing with his foot on a tiger. He had a big gun in one hand, and was smoking a pipe with the other. I knew who it was from the dangly mustache: Wesley J. Harding.

  There was more pounding on the trapdoor. It bounced in the opening, and the bolt rattled. I knew I was still safe, though. The trapdoor opened outward, so no amount of hammering was going to help. If it was Dad, he’d know all he had to do was unbolt it and lower the cover.

  But maybe it was him, only he might be like Mom had been. She’d looked the same as normal, except for the dribble and the milky eyes. Maybe zombies weren’t too clever. Maybe they were too thick to work a bolt. Even so, I knew I couldn’t take chances. I had to think, and think quick. I needed a weapon.

  Next to the picture of Wesley J. Harding there was a wad of cloth tied up with string. I lifted it out, surprised at how heavy it was. I nearly dropped it when the banging got louder and the wood of the trapdoor started to split. I fumbled at the string, pulling it over the edges of the bundle, because I couldn’t untie the knots. As I began to unwrap the material, it suddenly went quiet below. I heard the bolt being turned; heard it snap back. Acid came up my throat, almost made me sick. I dropped the bundle, and it hit the boards with a thud, coming unwrapped.

  A gun.

  It was pistol-like thing with one of those chambers like I had on my Nerf gun. It looked really old. Really, really old. There was a strange thrill as I curled my fingers around the handle and lifted it with both hands. How do you open it? I thought, trying to remember what they did in those cowboy films Dad made me watch. I fiddled with the chamber but couldn’t budge it. Would it still work? Did it have any bullets? Would I be thrown back through the wall if it went off, because I was only a kid, and kids don’t fire guns?

  Light beamed up from below as the trapdoor fell open. I scrambled back on my butt, holding Wesley J. Harding’s gun so tight my knuckles went white. I inched back further, never taking my eyes off the entrance, heart pounding so loud I couldn’t hear anything else.

  A hand reached over the edge, then another. It was Dad, I knew it. I could see his wedding ring glinting in the dirty light. When his head popped up, I nearly dropped the gun and went to him. My whole body ached to be held. Dad must’ve killed that thing down there; must’ve come to rescue me.

  But then his head turned toward me, and I saw his eyes. They were just like Mom’s—all white and empty. He roared and sprayed spit and slobber everywhere. He started to drag his body through the opening, hissing and growling. My arms were shaking from holding the gun; my head was bursting with tears and fear and sadness and loneliness.

  I squeezed the trigger.

  Click.

  Nothing happened.

  I tried again.

  Another click. Nothing. There were no bullets. There was no magic.

  I hate you, Wesley J. Harding. I hate you!

  I screamed and threw the gun with all my strength. It smacked into Dad’s head and splatted it like a melon. He dropped back through the opening and there was a thud, a crack, and a slosh. I had to see. I had to see what had happened, so I crawled on hands and knees to the opening and peered over the edge.

  Dad was lying in a sprawled heap on top of a smashed up chair. There was blood all around his head, and his legs were twisted at a horrible angle. Then I was sick, really sick, when I saw the bone poking through his jeans, the chair leg sticking out of his chest, dripping blood. A stream of my vomit poured down on him, and he growled. His head twisted to glare at me with dead eyes, and his fingers scratched at the carpet. He reached a hand up and clawed the air, roaring at me and gnashing his teeth.

  I drew back from the edge and stood. I knew he couldn’t get up, not with his legs all broken like that, but I didn’t want to chance it. I took hold of the canvas wardrobe at the top and pulled. It was real heavy, so I tried again, using more of my bodyweight. It rocked and then tipped right over the opening. Clothes fell out and flopped down below. Dad growled some more, but he was muffled now, buried under Mom’s cast-offs. The wardrobe sagged, but it covered the opening good enough.

  I noticed Wesley J. Harding’s gun up against the wall, where it had bounced off of Dad’s head. I narrowed my eyes at it and screwed my nose up. But then I sighed and gave it a nod of respect. It might not have worked, but it had saved me anyway. Maybe Wesley J. Harding was on my side, after all.

  I decided, if I was gonna get out of this alive, I needed to do some rummaging. Maybe there’d be some rope so I could do that rope-trick thing Wesley J. used to do. Dad said the rope would go stiff, and Wesley J. would climb right up into the clouds.

  I started going through some old suitcases that were stacked along the sides, but they were mostly filled with more of Mom’s old clothes. She had so many clothes, my Mom, but most of them didn’t fit anymore. She did lots of silly things, Dad said, like going to Weight Watchers and then ordering Chinese; or telling Dad to hide the scales so she couldn’t weigh herself every day, and then messing up the whole house trying to find them. She’d moan about having all this junk food in the cupboards because she couldn’t stop herself from eating it, even though she was the one who bought it in the first place.

  Tears were pouring from my eyes, and snot ran over my lips and onto my chin. I missed her, my big silly Mommy. I really missed her. And Daddy, my best friend in the whole world—I needed him now like never before. If he’d still been with me, everything would have been all right. We would have found a way to beat these zombies. I know we would.

  “Shut up,” I said to myself. “Ain’t got time to whine. No one’s gonna save you, so stop acting like a baby.”

  That reminded me of something Dad used to say to me if I was blubbing for no good reason. “Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about,” he’d say. It always sounded mean at the time, but I’d have given anything to hear him say it now.

  There was a groan from down below, and this time it was answered by growling from outside.

  I got closer to the low part of the ceiling and tried to listen. It was still raining, but it had slowed to a steady pitter patter. The thunder had moved off into the distance; there were just occasional rumbles, and they were getting further apart. I couldn’t hear the policemen shouting anymore; couldn’t hear their gunshots, either. Just the horrid wails of the zombies. No one was even screaming now.

  I pulled myself together and moved on past Mom’s clothes. I lifted down a cardboard box that had been sealed up with tape. As I did, something squeaked, and I heard the trip trap of tiny feet.

  Ain’t got time to worry about mice, I thought, as I ripped the tape from the box and looked inside. It was crammed full of toys. Old toys I’d never seen before. Perhaps they were Dad’s childhood things that he’d kept in case I wanted them. Maybe he was secretly collecting stuff to give me for Christmas. He’d done that last year, when I got all these really cool Cylons, and a phaser from the original S
tar Trek.

  I pulled out an action figure. He had on a red suit and trainers, and he had a see-through eye. I squinted through it and saw things a little bigger. One of his arms had rubber skin over it. It was split and hard in places, but I managed to roll it up. There were colourful pretend electronics underneath, like he had a robot arm or something.

  Dad had a real robot arm. He got it when his old arm was bitten off by a great white shark, he said. Bionic, it was. Looked just the same as a normal one, only it was super strong. If Watson had bitten that one, Dad might have been all right. He could have used it to clobber the zombies, no matter how many came at us. With that arm, he’d have picked them up and thrown them so high in the air, they would have hit the moon.

  I put the figure on the floor and lifted down another box. This one rattled, and when I opened it, I saw it was full of Lego. I was about to put it to one side, when I remembered building this enormous castle in the living room when I was five or six. Dad helped me, and it took days, it was so big. Mom kept complaining she couldn’t do the vacuuming while it was there, but I think she must have liked it, because she let us keep it for a week or so.

  I took out a block and set it on the floor, humming a tune to drown out the groaning from the street. I began to stack brick upon brick. It was odd, because I didn’t really know what I was making. I just kept piling the bricks up, one on top of another, and as I worked, I heard words in between my ears, getting louder and louder—songs Dad used to play on the stereo.

  Guess who just got back today.

  It was his voice, all scratchy and kind of silly.

  Them wild eyed boys that had been away.

  Mom’s voice cut across the singing. It was that screechy way she yelled “Dinner’s ready.” I half stood, started to call back, but there was a lump in my throat that slowly sunk all the way down to my belly.

  Haven’t changed, haven’t much to say, but man I still think them cats are crazy.

  My hands moved faster and faster, stacking the bricks higher and higher as the song built up to the chorus. That was the bit I used to sing along to, and me and Dad would dance around playing air guitars.

  The boys are back in town.

  The boys are back in town.

  The boys are back in town.

  We were always the boys who were back in town. We’d do this thing with our Nerf guns, where we’d jump out of the car and lock and load. I could see it in my head: me and Dad fighting off hundreds and hundreds of monsters—you know, Zygons, Cybermen, Daleks, or the Borg.

  A crash from downstairs startled me out of my daydream.

  Glass.

  Breaking glass.

  Then I heard angry growls and the sound of wood snapping and splintering.

  I knew if I could just keep focused, I wouldn’t get scared. I watched my fingers picking up blocks of Lego and placing them on whatever it was I was building, like they had a mind of their own. I worked quickly, brick upon brick, Dad’s silly songs running round my head and making me laugh and cry and miss him and Mom so much. I cried, but they were someone else’s tears, and the people I saw—Nanny and Granddad, Aunty Paula and Uncle Del, even my best friend Joe Molloy—they all looked like they’d been cut out of a comic.

  Kings of speed, we’re gonna make you kings of speed, Dad sang.

  Smash, crash, bash went the creatures downstairs.

  The ace of spades, the ace of spades.

  Moan, groan, moan, groan.

  The thing that used to be Dad roared, and the zombies downstairs roared back.

  I cried out loud then. I still wanted to go to him, even though I knew he was gone. I didn’t want to be on my own. I didn’t want them to get me.

  Something squealed, and I looked up.

  Two beady white eyes were watching me from the shadows. I threw a Lego brick at them, and they vanished for a second, only to reappear a few feet away. I picked up another brick and placed it on whatever it was I was building. Somehow, I knew it was finished.

  I pushed back and stood so I could see it better. It was a rectangle, like a doorframe for a dwarf. It stood on a chunky base of stepped bricks and had a shiny piece, like a lamp, on top. I was about to see if I could walk through it, when more beady eyes lit up beyond the doorway.

  I stepped away and looked around for something I could use to frighten them off.

  The yellow plastic of one of my old Nerf guns caught my eye. I pushed past some boxes and grabbed it. It was the one with the revolving chamber and a full load of foam darts. I cocked it, spun round, and fired at the first pair of white eyes. There was a squeak, and they disappeared. More and more eyes were appearing all over the attic. Some of them scurried out into the light, and I kept turning to make sure they didn’t sneak up on me.

  Rats.

  Dozens of them, all filthy and frothing at the mouth. They were squealing at me, staring me down with milky eyes just like Watson’s.

  Just like Mom’s.

  Just like Dad’s.

  There were heavy footsteps on the stairs, and more moaning and groaning. I fired off another Nerf dart, and one of the rats scarpered. The others kept closing in, hissing and baring their yellow teeth.

  Something roared below on the landing, and then light spilled up through the trapdoor as the canvas wardrobe was pulled down. Fingers grabbed the edge of the opening, but they slipped away. There was a crash as the thing must have hit the ground, but straight away more fingers took hold of the edge.

  I’d taken my eyes off the rats, and when I looked back, they had crept closer. I shot one right on the nose, but I could see it was no good. More were crawling over the attic junk and coming at me from all sides. I fired again, and then threw the gun at a pack of them.

  A head appeared through the trapdoor opening, and the most evil face I’d ever seen snarled at me. Long ropes of drool dangled from its chin as it thrashed about crazily and started to drag itself into the attic. More hands appeared behind it, and below, I could hear so much moaning that I knew the house must be crammed full of zombies.

  I kicked a rat that had gotten too close, then turned, looking for somewhere to run. They were everywhere, spitting and hissing, squeaking and scratching. The first zombie was finding its feet, while the next was halfway into the attic. I screamed, whirling around desperately, and knowing one of the rats was gonna bite me any second. There was no more being grown up, no more being brave. I wanted Mommy. I wanted Daddy, and there was no one. Maybe there was no one anywhere.

  I tottered and nearly fell, and when I steadied myself, I saw a misty violet glow. It was coming from the Lego doorway. I stared at it, open-mouthed, even as cold fingers touched the back of my neck.

  The rats swarmed toward me in waves, and the fingers started to dig into my skin. I screamed again and broke away, tripping on a big rat and falling headlong through the doorway. I hit my head hard, and it all went black.

  There was a buzzing in my ears. Everything itched and prickled and ached and burned. I was cold, then hot, then cold again.

  Mom was standing in the doorway, holding out a bag of shopping for me to take.

  “Chain gang time,” Dad said, leaning over my shoulder to kiss Mom on the lips.

  The second they touched, it all went fuzzy. My head spun, like I was in a washing machine, and I ended up face down in bed.

  Bad dream, I thought, and tried to pull the covers up, only there weren’t any covers.

  I let out a whimper and tried to move. There was something gritty in my mouth. I spat and raised my head to see what it was.

  Dirt.

  I was lying face down in dirt. There were trees all around me; tall scraggly trees with no leaves. Big birds flitted in and out of the branches.

  I started at the sound of crunching footsteps.

  “Steady now, old chap,” a man’s voice said. It was so gruff, it sounded like he needed a good cough to clear his throat.

  I twisted my head to look up at him.

  At first, he was just
a blurry blob of white, but as I blinked, a pointy helmet came into focus. He bent down, resting his weight on a shotgun.

  I rolled onto my back and sat up.

  There was something like whiskey on his breath, and crumbs of food clung to his dangly mustache. His eyes were sparkly blue with magic, and his cheeks were red and blotchy.

  “Good show, old man,” he said. “Good show.”

  “I…. but… I… Omigosh. Wesley J. Harding! But it can’t be… This isn’t real.”

  Wesley J. Harding’s brows knitted together, and his eyes lost their luster.

  “You could say that, I suppose. Yes, you could say that.” He twiddled his mustache, and the sparkle returned to his eyes. “Come on, lad. Can’t dally. Tiger-men on the tail, wot, and you don’t want them to catch you in the open, mark my word.”

  He took hold of my elbow and led me off through the trees toward the red disk of the setting sun. I had a zillion questions, but he started to run, and it took all my breath just to keep up.

  “Tell me, sonny,” he called over his shoulder. “Have you ever tried a bed of nails? Look like you could use a good sleep, wot.”

  “Sleep?” I said. “I can’t sleep.”

  He stopped and took me by the shoulders, nodding and frowning.

  “I know, sonny. Forgive an old codger. Course you can’t sleep, after what you’ve been through.”

  I pulled back from him, all tensed up and ready for a fight.

  “No, it’s not that. I’m hungry, is what. Really, really hungry. Starving.”

  “Ah,” Wesley J. said, slapping the barrel of his shotgun. “And I think I know just what you need.”

  I was already licking my lips, somehow knowing what he was gonna say. It felt like someone had lit a fire cracker in my tummy and filled my veins with pepper. My mouth was squelchy and full of spit that dribbled down my chin. There was a hole in my stomach the size of the Grand Canyon, and nothing was gonna make it go away.

  “Come on, lad.” Wesley J. turned around, sniffing the air and raising his shotgun to his eye. “Let’s go hunt ourselves some tiger-men.”