by T. Gault
Hoping that the trash truck had not come yet, he ran to the front door, opened it up and quickly ran to the side of the house where we kept our trashcan. Thomas grabbed the handle to the wheeled, trash receptacle and tried to gently tilt it back, but the can was packed full and was very heavy. He gave it a sudden tug and managed to get it rolling. He quickly moved it to the street and set it against the curb. In the distance Thomas heard the rumble of a diesel engine heading his way. He felt relieved thinking that he had not missed the garbage truck yet. Thomas then turned to head back into the house and casually walked to the front door.
Once inside, Thomas shut the door behind him and flopped onto the couch in front of his still-running game. He half-sat-up on the couch with the controller in hand, pressed the “start” button and heard the familiar sound the game played as a new game was initiated. Outside Thomas could hear the wind blowing through the trees and the sunlight would come through the front room window when the clouds cleared the way. Thomas preferred to have some light in the room while he played, but the game did not feature very many brightly lit settings and the light from the window was making it difficult to play. He reached over the couch and grabbed hold of the shade to the large window, pulled it most of the way down and locked it there.
Thomas was quite pleased with his performance level on the game and was very much glued to the screen. The wind outside would blow ever so often and sometimes the storm door would bang against the doorframe. Thomas heard the wind rustle the leaves outside and rattle the storm door again and again. Then Thomas heard something different. He heard what sounded like some of the branches cracking on the bushes directly outside of the front room window.
The wind must be picking up, he thought.
Then he heard it again without and wind noise at all. Thomas put down the controller and peaked through the small opening between the top of the couch and the bottom of the shade. He couldn’t see much; the bushes had gone without being trimmed for quite some time and blocked most of his view. Thomas got up off of the couch and walked over to the front door. He peered through the peephole but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Thomas opened the door and looked through the grimy glass of the storm door. There was something in front of the bush nearest to the front porch steps.
Thomas leaned a little closer to the door to try to get a closer look. It appeared to be the person he had seen walking earlier had somehow walked into our yard and fell into the bushes. Still standing behind the glass door, Thomas said “Are you alright?” The clumsy person extracted himself from the bush and began walking toward the steps. Thomas could see the right side of the man’s face now. He was wearing a pharmacy uniform and had a nametag that read “Greg.” The man had a well-maintained goatee and shoulder length brown hair mostly pulled back into a ponytail. “Are you OK?” Thomas asked. The man then turned to face the door.
Thomas could see almost his entire face now. The man stood still for a few seconds, just staring at the door. Thomas could see that something was wrong with the man’s left eye, but couldn’t make out what was strange about it.
As Thomas waved his hand back and forth again he said, “Are you OK?
The man’s eyes widened and he appeared to become excited. Thomas could see what was wrong with his eye now. He had a huge gash that started at his hairline, slashed through his left eye and continued through his cheek. The man suddenly moved up the stairs and tried to grab Thomas though the glass. His first attempt only bounced off of the glass, sending him stumbling back. Thomas was startled and shocked at what he was seeing and for a moment he stood still. The man came back a second time and shattered the glass.
A shard of glass from the top of the door snapped off and flew back toward Thomas. Thomas only felt something hit him on the left side of his face. He didn’t realize what had happened until he saw drops of blood on the floor at his feet. The man came crashing through the door, sending Thomas to the hardwood floor. Thomas struggled to get up while the man continued to grab at Thomas’ feet. Thomas managed to get just far enough away from the crazed man to stand up. Before Thomas could completely turn around, he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. The man had bitten Thomas on the shoulder and was clamped on. Fighting the desire to panic and scream, Thomas pushed and hit the man with everything he had until he was able to get the man off for just long enough to distance himself.
The man staggered for a few seconds before he could regain his balance, but as soon as he did he was back on the attack. Thomas turned and ran through the hallway, past the kitchen and into the den where he had just enough time to grab a fire iron from the rack, but as he ripped it away from the rack, the rest of the fire irons tipped over and fell to the floor. Thomas spun back around to aim his weapon. The stumbling pasty-looking figure did not seem to have any concern for Thomas’ retaliation and came at Thomas with arms outstretched. Thomas swung the iron fire poker with all of the force he could deliver. The poker connected solidly with the left side of the man’s jaw. A very noticeable, mushy, crunching sound let Thomas know he had broken his attacker’s jaw. But as Thomas struck the ravenous intruder, the sweat on Thomas’ palms caused the poker to slip from his hand, fly across the room, bounce off of the couch, and land on the plush tan carpet. The force of the blow sent the man to the floor and stunned him for the moment.
Thomas quickly ran to the door that led to the mudroom, pulled it open, and slammed it behind himself. He did not want to see if the stunned insane person on the floor in the den was going to try to follow him. So Thomas ran out the back door, shut it behind himself and sprinted to the garage. When Thomas got to the garage door, he noticed that he was starting to feel sick, but this was a kind of sick that he had never felt before. He felt like his shoulder was on fire and he started to feel dizzy. His vision was beginning to blur slightly and his skin was becoming numb. Thomas grabbed the garage doorknob and went inside.
He looked around the large detached garage and saw several things that could be used as weapons. He remembered that dad kept a small hatchet in the bottom drawer of his workbench and, given how he was feeling, he thought it would be best if he had something light. Thomas staggered over to the drawer and pulled it open. Inside were several different hammers, but the hatchet was not inside. Thomas then noticed that the small wooden-handled hatchet was lying on top of the workbench right in front of him. Thomas took the hatchet and walked back to dad’s desk and sat in the old torn chair set in front of it. Thomas wanted to call someone for help, but all the phones were inside the house. Dad had once talked about getting a phone line set up in the garage but it had just never happened.
He sat staring at the desk for a few seconds, wondering what he was going to do. Then he thought about his face where that shard of glass had struck him—thought about the bite on his shoulder. Across the garage, dad had a mirror mounted to another workbench. Thomas walked over to the bench and slowly brought his face into view on the mirror.
The glass had sliced his cheek wide open and also cut through his upper and lower lip on that side of his face. Thomas couldn’t believe what he was seeing and then he looked at his shoulder. At first he couldn’t tell what it looked like through the dark, blood-soaked shirt, but as he looked closer he could see that the bite had taken a part of his shirt and a small chunk from his shoulder. Thomas dropped the hatchet he had been clenching to the floor. He covered his face with one hand and covered his shoulder with the other hand. Thomas stumbled back to the chair and sat down as quickly as he could. He sat, staring at the desk, dumfounded, trying to figure out what he would do.
“Dad must have a first-aid kit out here somewhere,” Thomas thought as he stood up slowly.
Throughout the entire garage, all Thomas could find was a stack of small white napkins and some duct tape. He placed the napkins on his shoulder and wrapped duct tape over the napkins. The duct tape went all the way around his shirt and his arm. He couldn’t wrap his facial wounds though. The tape wouldn’t stick on top of
all the blood on his face.
During his search for medical supplies, Thomas found dad’s video camera inside of one of the cabinets. He didn’t know why, but he felt like recording a message on the camera. At first he just sat and stared at the lens and the small flashing red light as the eight-millimeter tape was recorded. He thought of several things to say, but as he spoke, his speech became slower and more difficult to understand. Finally Thomas’s energy was gone and he couldn’t even sit up in the chair anymore.
Thomas closed his eyes and fell to the cold concrete floor.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 - Ordinary Chaos...
CHAPTER 2 - The School...
CHAPTER 3 - The drive homeless...
CHAPTER 4 - The plan...
CHAPTER 5 - Chance meeting...
CHAPTER 6 - Origin of Matt...
CHAPTER 7 - Previously occupied...
CHAPTER 8 - The more the... just more...
CHAPTER 9 - Plan for the Worst…
CHAPTER 10 - Execution...
CHAPTER 11 - Passing the time...
CHAPTER 12 - Our castle...
CHAPTER 13 - Pull the Trigger...
CHAPTER 14 - Relocation...
CHAPTER 15 - Home...
CHAPTER 16 - Successful failure...
CHAPTER 17 - Breaking Point...
