Creatures

by Michelle Khonsari

  “Hello!” they all called out, their voices echoing from the stone walls.

  It was dark and dusty inside, with cobwebs hanging in the foyer entrance. They closed the heavy iron door behind them and pushed their way through the cobwebs. They called out as they moved into openness and faced a massive staircase. They headed up the stairs, calling out again as they reached the landing. Hesitantly, they made their way down the hall. Matt pushed open the first door on the right. A massive-sized bedroom was before them. A skeleton lay in the bed, its bottom jaw hanging open from the rest of the skull. They looked at it momentarily.

  “I think this person died before the blasts,” Cassie observed. “Look at its clothes. They’re all ratty and yellowish.”

  “I guess we can stay here then, since the owner’s obviously dead,” Trey replied. “I don’t think we’ll be getting any objections.”

  “Should we just leave it here?” Dawn asked, looking a bit spooked at the thought.

  Matt shrugged. “What do you suppose we do with it, Dawn? I’m sure there are more than enough rooms for us to use. Just close the door to this one.”

  “We should find the kitchen,” Trey put in. “I’m starving and thirsty.”

  There were only bedrooms upstairs, six to be exact, each with their own full bathroom. After checking each one, they headed back downstairs. They found the kitchen and formal dining room to one side of the stairs, with a den, living room, and library to the other side. The kitchen was well-stocked, but most of the fridge items had expired, and the smell permeated through the kitchen.

  “Canned foods!” Dawn cheered, locating the pantry.

  “Gas stove, and it still works!” Matt announced.

  Meanwhile, Trey was running the water. “Running hot water!”

  They were very excited with their find. Cassie and Dawn rummaged through the food to put together somewhat of a meal. Matt and Trey worked at starting fires in the numerous fire places. There were two in each room, except for the kitchen and dining room, which only had one. The meal was like Thanksgiving for them. It was good and filling, and the iced water was refreshing. That night, Cassie crawled under the covers of an actual bed with an actual pillow and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning Cassie ran the shower in her massive bathroom. It had all chrome fixtures, with black speckled tile flooring that sloped down to the shower drain. The shower was an open type with double shower heads. The counters were dark granite. Mirrors graced the walls all around, making Cassie think of a mirror maze she once went into. A magnificent Jacuzzi tub sat a few feet from the shower, its sides covered in the same black tile as the floor, and the top around the tub had the same dark granite.

  Cassie stood beneath the sprays of the two shower heads, closing her eyes and taking in how the warm water felt on her skin. A warm shower was one thing she missed the most from normal life. Eventually she washed herself, using the little guest bottles in the shadow box on the wall. She made no rush of drying off, and walked casually back into the room with her towel around her. Once dressed, she wandered out into the hall. She knocked on the large door just across from her. When she got no answer, she inched the door open.

  “Trey?” she replied softly.

  He was sitting on the bed, his back to the door. Cassie could hear the sniffling noise he made, no doubt he was crying. Cassie moved toward him slowly, not really sure what to say or do. She sat down beside him when she reached the bed.

  “Want to talk about it?” she asked after a moment.

  “I miss home,” Trey replied, tears running freely down his face. “I miss Mom and Dad. I miss how life used to be. I hate this! I hate it, Cassie! When will it be normal again?”

  Cassie put an arm around him. “I hate this, too, and I don’t know that it’ll ever be like it used to be, but eventually, a normal will come. I miss Mom and Dad, too. I wish they could be here with us. I’m sorry I had to do what I did.”

  “It’s just really hard sometimes,” Trey sighed out. “It’s survival every day, and it’s really tiring. It’s nice here. We could just stay, Cassie. We haven’t got anywhere else to go.”

  Cassie nodded. “It is nice here, Trey. I think it’s a good home for us, too. We’ll stay as long as we can. You know, until the creatures come. I don’t think there’s any place free of them.”

  “Why don’t we just end it, Cassie?” Trey whispered, sounding very desperate and somehow far away. “We’re running and trying to survive, for what? How does this make any sense? If this is the normal thing, this life here and now, I don’t want to live it. I don’t want to run and be scared, and wonder if I’ll still be alive tomorrow.”

  “You’re strong, Trey,” Cassie encouraged. “There is a way out of this; it’s just going to take a while to find. I think if we can get to the water, we should try to take a boat out or find Uncle Paul’s boat, and maybe another country isn’t affected, and they’ll come save us.”

  “Maybe they’re all being eaten, too,” Trey replied.

  “We can’t think like that, Trey,” Cassie said. “We have to have hope. It’s the only thing good we have left. Please don’t lose it, Trey. I need you here with me. I can’t do this without you, and I don’t want to die. I want to survive. I want to find a way to make it. I won’t give up until every option imaginable has been taken, and I need you to be by my side. We will be alive tomorrow, because I’m not going to let anything happen to us. I will keep us alive, Trey. I promise you that.”

  The nearest town was three miles away, and Cassie made the trip with Matt a week later to find supplies and a car. They talked the entire way. They shared stories of their childhoods, of their families, of their interests. Cassie grinned at the fact Matt listened to the same music as she did. She found they had a lot in common, and she thought his looks weren’t too bad either. She realized she was beginning to really like him.

  “So did you have a girlfriend before all this?” Cassie asked out of curiosity.

  Matt grinned. “No, not really. I dated this girl for a short time at the start of school, back in August, but it didn’t really go anywhere. We went on three or four dates. She was a party girl, though, and liked having attention from any guy. Our last date was to a college party, and she was all over every guy there. She had to have won Most Flirtatious in high school. So I realized I would never have much trust with her, and I didn’t ask her out again. She didn’t really seem to care. I’m sure she had another date lined up pretty quick. What about you? Did you have a boyfriend?”

  Cassie shook her head no. “I really didn’t know anybody at my new school, and I didn’t stay in class long enough to even remember anyone’s name. I think the last boyfriend I had was my sophomore year at my old school. So, about a year ago, I guess. There were several of us hanging out at the cemetery one night, and he started making out with me, and at first I was okay with it, but then he tried to go further and I got nervous. So I told him I wasn’t ready, he got mad at me, and didn’t talk to me the rest of my time there.”

  “Doesn’t sound like he would have been worth it anyway,” Matt commented. “He obviously had no respect for you.”

  “Thanks,” Cassie smiled. “I was criticized for leading him on, and I guess I did, but I didn’t mean to.”

  “It happens,” Matt replied.

  When they reached the town, they found a decent amount of creatures looming, and they drew their guns. As the creatures came toward them, they fired, blasting blood and brain matter all over the place. Matt spotted an older model pick-up and hurried to it, shooting the creatures in his path. Cassie hurried behind him. She kept the flesh-eating creatures in her focus as they made their way to it, and Matt hot-wired it quickly. The truck had just under a full tank, and they were both very thankful for it.

  “There has to be a way to get gas without changing vehicles every time,” Cassie replied. “This is the third vehicle we’ve had.”

  “Well, the gas pumps don’t work, but if we can find a siphon
ing kit, we can take gas from all the other cars just sitting around,” Matt suggested.

  “I didn’t even think of that,” Cassie admitted. “So next trip we’ll look for a parts store. So, how’d you learn to hot-wire cars?”

  Matt let out a little laugh. “Well I didn’t boost cars if that’s what you think. One of my buddies grew up in his dad’s garage, and he taught me. But only because my first car, I lost the keys to it at the lake and we were stranded without them, so he taught me how to get it started. It was quite a while before my parents learned I had lost my keys, but they weren’t too upset. They got me a new set of keys.”

  They parked as close to the front door as they could and took the supplies inside. While out, Matt had found some barbed wire fencing, and they got to work making a boundary around the enormous stone shelter. It stood about five feet tall, with a two-inch space between each line of barbs, the last one about an inch off the ground.

  “I’d rather have a concrete wall twenty feet high, but this should do,” Matt replied with satisfaction as they surveyed their work.

  It proved useful. A couple days later, there were five creatures tangled in the fence. They killed the creatures, untangled them from the fence, and ensured the fence’s protection for future intruders. On every trip for supplies, Matt found different fencing to add to make it bigger and stronger. The gas still seemed to be working, and the large fireplaces provided an adequate amount of heat, as the stone walls provided no insulation, making the entire house quite drafty. The temperature outside was also drastically dropping as winter approached. Cassie had grabbed a calendar on one of the trips so she could keep up with the dates.

  “It’s almost Christmas,” she told them one morning as they ate breakfast. “We’ve made it two months now.”

  “I take it we have to go searching for Christmas decorations?” Trey asked glumly.

  Cassie looked down at her food. “I just think it would be nice to keep things kind of normal whenever possible.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Cass, but there’s nothing normal about a tree with no presents, and a celebration dinner of beanie weenies,” Trey mumbled. “It would just be more depressing. A constant reminder of how things used to be.”

  Cassie felt a little crushed at her attempt, but didn’t say anything back. She finished eating silently and retreated to her room. There was a knock on the door a short time later. Cassie went to open it, thinking it might be Trey, but it was Matt.

  “You okay?” he asked as he came into the room.

  “Yeah,” Cassie replied with a shrug. “It was a dumb idea anyway. No big deal.”

  “It wasn’t dumb,” Matt returned. “Trey’s just having a really hard time dealing with this.”

  “We all are,” Cassie said. “This isn’t easy for anyone. Christmas is usually a time when everybody is happy. Trey said he wanted things to be normal again, and I thought maybe I could make them a little more normal with Christmas. Maybe we could still have a good time. It’s okay, it was a dumb idea.”

  “You know, Cass, the days really don’t matter anymore,” Matt opinionated.

  Cassie looked at him. “But they do. The days can tell us about the weather and seasons to expect. If we can just stay here, that’ll be important to know so we can grow some vegetables. Dawn said she used to work at a nursery. We’ll also know when our birthdays are. I would like to know how old I am.”

  “I don’t know, sixteen might be a pretty good age to be stuck at,” Matt joked with a grin.

  Cassie smiled. “Maybe.”

  Matt later found a Christmas tree and decorations in a storage room and set them up in one of the dens downstairs. The lights were useless, but there were plenty of sparkling bulbs, crystals, and porcelain figurines. Matt hurried excitedly to find Cassie when he had finished.

  “Hey, come look at this,” Matt told her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just come see,” Matt urged.

  Cassie walked with him to the room he had decorated, and he insisted she close her eyes.

  “What is this, Matt?” Cassie laughed, closing her eyes.

  “No peeking,” Matt ordered as he took her hand and led her into the room. He stopped her in the middle, facing the tree. “Okay, open.”

  Cassie opened her eyes and gasped at the room. She laughed and wrapped her arms around Matt’s neck excitedly. “You found decorations! And a tree! It’s beautiful!” She looked him in the eyes. “Thank you, this really means a lot to me.”

  “You’re welcome,” Matt smiled. “I like seeing you smile. I think your smile is really pretty.”

  She still had her arms around his neck, and he leaned in slowly to kiss her. Her heart beat loudly in her own ears as their lips met, and she liked the feel of it. She felt his tongue lightly touch her lips, and she parted her own lips, allowing their tongues to meet. She wished her heart would stop beating so hard. She suddenly felt quite nervous as he continued to kiss her. She could feel his grip tighten around her torso, his hands pushing her against him. After kissing her for some time, he let his hands wander. At first she tensed up, not sure she was ready, but then she thought about what Trey had said…are they still going to be alive tomorrow? Did she want to die without ever knowing this experience? No, she was ready now. She gave him no objection.

  “Do you want to?” he asked in a whisper.

  Cassie nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Are you sure?” Matt asked.

  Cassie nodded again. “I’m sure.”

  Matt left her momentarily to close and lock the den doors. When he returned, he kissed her again, and then started to remove her clothes. He kissed her as he did so, and she helped to remove his clothes as well. He took his time, careful not to rush into it, and she was glad for that. She was extremely nervous and her heart wouldn’t stop pounding in her ears. She wasn’t sure what she was afraid of exactly. Maybe because this was her first time, and she didn’t really know what to expect. Once they had undressed, he grabbed a blanket that had been draped over the back of the couch and spread it out on the floor, which luckily was covered with an area rug. He laid her down on the blanket and was over her now, still kissing her mouth. Her nervousness subsided when he finally started, and she was surprised at how painful it actually was. She had never heard of anybody saying this activity hurt. She sucked in her breath, hoping it would not hurt the entire time. After a few minutes, she relaxed a little more, and the pain started to ease, although it wasn’t completely gone. She wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but it didn’t matter to her. She wasn’t sure what spectacular thing she had expected to happen, and she didn’t know why it had been such a big deal among her peers in high school.

  “You okay?” Matt asked after a short time.

  Cassie had been in a bit of a stare. She smiled at him. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  Becoming aware of the chilliness in the room, they finally got up and dressed. They sat on the couch then, having a cigarette. Cassie wished she had her music. She really missed listening to the iPod she used to carry around. She regretted not getting to go to a concert. She said as much to Matt.

  “I never got to go to a concert either,” Matt replied. “I’m sorry you lost your iPod. Maybe we can find you another one soon.”

  A few days shy of Christmas, they decided to go into town and find gifts for each other. Cassie found a heart necklace with matching earrings for Dawn, a backgammon game for Trey, and a hoodie for Matt. Dawn and Trey got Cassie CDs, and Matt got her a battery-operated portable CD player and a whole stash of batteries. She couldn’t have been more excited. She immediately popped in a Dying Fetus CD and turned up the volume. She played backgammon with Trey after the presents, and Dawn made hot chocolate with boiled water. It was the best day they had had in a long time.

  New Year’s Day came a week later, and they snatched a bottle of red table wine to drink as they rang in the New Year. They hummed the traditional New Year song as the clock chimed the hour. They hoped the ye
ar would bring a solution to them, an escape back to the world they once knew. They hoped it was not worldwide, and maybe someone from another country would come searching for survivors.

  “We should have gone north,” Trey replied as they sat staring at the blazing fire. “All the creatures up north are probably freezing to death.”

  “Yeah, right,” Cassie returned doubtfully. “We would freeze to death.”

  “Yeah, I doubt the cold has too much effect on them,” Matt agreed. “They’re not the least bit phased when I go out on runs.”

  When they headed off to bed that night, Cassie invited Matt to stay with her. Trey had already gone to his room, but Dawn had overheard. She looked over at them with one of those motherly disapproving looks. Matt and Cassie caught her stare, and then disappeared into Cassie’s room. Cassie shut and locked the door.

  “God, did you see the look on her face?” Cassie asked, keeping her voice to a whisper.

  Matt raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I did. You got me.”

  The next morning, Dawn caught Cassie alone. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Excuse me?” Cassie returned, looking confused.

  “With Matt,” Dawn clarified. “What do you two think you’re doing? Are you crazy?”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Dawn?” Cassie asked, raising her voice.

  Dawn paused a moment. “I’m not stupid, Cassie, I know what you two are doing together, and I think you need to stop.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask your opinion, did I?” Cassie returned defiantly.

  “No, but you need to think about what you’re doing. These hormones are going to get you both in trouble. The last thing we need is a baby to keep alive, and you two keep it up, and that’s exactly what’ll happen,” Dawn scolded.

  “We’re careful, don’t worry about it,” Cassie responded sternly. “I don’t believe it’s really any of your business. Just because you’re the oldest in this group doesn’t make you my mother. We’re roommates, and I am fully capable of making my own decisions, no input needed. And Matt, he’s eighteen years old, and also very capable of making his own decisions.”