by Steven Novak
I didn’t see what happened next, only heard it. There was a gunshot and then another, a flash of light. Someone screamed. Something shattered. A roar of thunder hid the rest. It was a minute before Blueeyes emerged, jacket soaked in blood, beard stained red. He looked at me, looked past me. Without a word he moved to the body of the old woman.
I didn’t know what to say. “A-are you…?”
With one hand he snagged her by the hair, lifted her head. With the other, he drove his knife through her skull.
I froze.
“Everything comes back, Megan.” He stepped over the corpse and moved to the body still hogtied in the mud. It was a man, younger than the others, alabaster skin, red sores along his arms. Blueeyes put his fingers to the man’s neck, searching for a pulse. When he found none, he put a knife in his brain. “Gimps, howlers, biters…we all come back as something.”
I wanted him to yell at me. I wanted him to scream and leave me there, alone in the mud, alone with the dead. He didn’t. Instead he helped me up, knocked the globs of mud from my jacket, turned my face up, and let the rain wash away the filth. He should have smacked me, should have put his knife in my skull as well. I wanted him to. It would have made things easier. I told him I would never mess up again. I lied. He didn’t even shake his head.
He barely looked at me.
When Blueeyes finally spoke, it was to the night, to empty space. “We need to take what we can from the house…need to be quick about it. Gunfire will have riled up anything nearby, rain or not.”
I followed him inside without a word. The house was a mess, blood everywhere, broken glass and snapped wood. A pot of still steaming liquid had spilled onto the floor, soft steam rising from the puddle. In the corner a man’s body was bent over a table, chest gushing blood, a knife wound between his eyes. A few feet away lay the corpse of the man we’d seen earlier in the day—at least, I think it was. It was contorted in such a way it was nearly impossible to tell. The upper half of his body was soaked in blood, his face a mess of meat and shattered bone. When the smell hit my nose, I retched. It was awful: decaying meat and sweat, exhaustion and hopelessness. I plugged my nose. It didn’t help.
Blueeyes retrieved a satchel from a hook on the wall and tossed it to my feet, keeping a similar one for himself. “Fill it with whatever you can. Quickly.”
I didn’t know what to take; I didn’t want to touch anything. Everything was jumbled, messy, coated in grime. I pulled my jacket over my nose, hoping to disguise the smell. That didn’t work either. There were knives everywhere, every shape and size, dried blood and dulling blades. My eyes began to hurt: something in the air, acrid, disgusting. I grabbed what I could and tossed it in my sack, figured Blueeyes would sort it out later. Near one of the windows I found a box of bullets, near the other a handgun. It was sticky; when I dropped it in the satchel, it clung to my fingers. Everything was sticky. In the back of the room there was a doorway with a frayed piece of fabric doubling as a door, gently swaying in the breeze. I moved toward it.
“No!” Blueeyes shouted from across the room, stopping me in my tracks. He pointed to another door across the room. “Nothing in there we need. Grab what you can from the kitchen. Meet me back here when you’re done.”
There wasn’t much in the kitchen: a few empty pots, edges charred with bits of blackened meat, each smelling worse than the last. A pile of tin cans in the corner offered nothing; the insides were bone dry, been empty for a while. The cabinets had even less: a few spoons, a couple forks and little more. With nothing to show for the trip, I returned to Blueeyes. His pack was significantly fuller than mine, stuffed with bladed edges and a few articles of clothing. A shotgun and a rifle hung from his back, straps crisscrossing his chest. A machete dangled from his belt, wrapped in leather, and bobbed when he walked.
He spotted me the moment I entered. “Food?”
I shook my head.
“Damn it.”
A few minutes later we were done. Thankfully, there was nothing remaining to take; we had all we could carry. Blueeyes pulled the hood over his head, heading for the exit. “Come on. Need to get moving.”
I was happy to leave. I regretted going there in the first place, for leaving the way I had, for failing my friend yet again. I didn’t ever want to come back.
Blueeyes stopped suddenly in the open doorway and planted his feet. He reached behind him and put his hand on my head. “Back inside.”
That’s when I heard it, a growl. It was deep, guttural, and noticeable even over the pounding rain. I recognized it immediately. As Blueeyes shoved me back into the house, I gazed past his leg and into the yard.
Three howlers gazed back.
10.
They were massive, mountainous bodies heaving, wet hair plastered to taut muscles, steam rising from their snouts. The largest of the three barked and bared its teeth, red eyes glowing in the moonlight. Its head lowered. Its back rose. Its upper lip quivered.
When it took a step forward, Blueeyes shoved me in the chest. “Get inside!”
He hit me hard, knocked the wind from my chest. The blow threw me back, sent me sliding across the floor and under a table against the far wall. The howler charged. Blueeyes retrieved the shotgun from his back, cocked, and fired. I’m not sure if he hit it. Everything happened so fast. The monster yelped and leapt out of range, enveloped by shadows. Blueeyes ducked inside and slammed the door behind him. Immediately, his hands went to the locks, all six, fingers working frantically. He’d secured three of them when a howler slammed into the exterior. The weight of the beast bent the thick wood inward, splintering the frame, nearly snapping it in two. The creature crashed into it again, barking at the lightning, biting at the doorknob. While the house was disgusting, it was also fortified. The door had been custom made, thick and sturdy; it could take a beating. The howler hit it again.
At least we hoped it could take a beating.
A window on the opposite side of the room exploded, howler paws smashing wood and glass, flinging debris. Claws snagged the frame and dug in. When the beast pulled the paw back, it took a section of the wall with it. Blueeyes moved to the exposed window, raised the shotgun, and fired again. The attacking howler yelped, barked, and scampered away. The door bucked again. Another window shattered. A wall on the opposite side of the room bent inward. They weren’t giving up, smashing into anything they could, fueled by hunger and animalistic rage. Blueeyes moved to the partially collapsed window. He wedged his shotgun through an opening in the debris, firing blindly into the night. The door cracked and shuddered; the hinges snapped loose and fell to the floor. A single red eye stared at me through a newly formed opening between the door and wall, eyelids narrowed. When its pupil dilated, I shivered. When it snarled, I leapt to my feet and scurried to Blueeyes’ side. The house was collapsing around us, walls twisting, rusted nails showering our feet. The snout of one of the monsters ripped through the debris of the window amidst a maelstrom of dust and splinters. Jaws snapped at the air, spittle flinging from hungry lips. Blueeyes raised his shotgun and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Out of ammunition, he cracked the beast on the snout with the butt of the weapon and opened a wound on its nose, blood spewing. The head of a howler crashed through the door. A bloody paw reached in and peeled away shattered bits of wood, creating an opening. A wall began to buckle, bits of debris trickling from above. They were going to get in. We couldn’t’ stop them.
Nothing was going to stop them.
Blueeyes wrapped his arm around my waist, lifting me into the air, and headed for the fabric door he’d told me to avoid. It was dark inside, lit sparsely by mostly burnt candles. In the center of the room was a steel table drenched in fresh blood. A crudely assembled drainage system ran along one side, leading to a blood filled bucket underneath. Sprawled on top of the table was the old man from the yard. One of his legs was gone, cut cleanly, pale bone peeking through a stump of lumpy meat. His chest was sliced open, ribs peeled back. On a counter against the wall
, in a bowl soaked in blood, were his intestines. My stomach lurched. If I had the time I would have thrown up.
Blueeyes kicked open another door at the far end of the room and lunged inside as the roof collapsed. The rear of the house had taken a beating and couldn’t handle anymore. An entire wall gave way. Structural beams cracked, snapped, and broke in half. The roof slid over the dismantled section and crashed into the backyard. Blueeyes dropped to one knee, engulfing me in his arms, sections of the ceiling threatening to bury us. I smelled smoke, the familiar glimmer of fire from the butchering room we’d left behind.
That’s when I heard their feet, the grotesque tapping of howler claws on what remained of the roof over our heads.
Blueeyes dropped me to floor, pressed my chest to wood, and screamed over the madness. “Stay here! Do not move!”
My hands went to my ears, my eyes closed, and my head nodded.
Bent over, roof collapsing around him, he shuffled through the spreading fire and into the room with the old man’s corpse. A wall of smoke engulfed him. The howlers screamed, jumping on the failing roof, gnawing at shingles, flames rising around them, thunder cracking the sky. The door to the butchering room collapsed the moment Blueeyes returned. He was holding something. A cloud of debris, black smoke, and dust rose from the ashes, swallowing us. When I inhaled, it filled my lungs, spread out. I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t breathe. It was too much. It was happening too quickly. I couldn’t think straight, too many noises, colors. The smoke cleared for just a moment and I realized what Blueeyes had in his hands. It was a leg, the old man’s leg. He dug into his satchel, felt around, retrieved a single stick of dynamite. He tied it to the severed limb with fabric ripped from his shirt. The roof moaned, moonlight peeking from an opening near the corner, howler eyes glaring. Blueeyes slid across the floor, flames crackling, clinging to his jacket and singeing his beard. He used the inferno to light the dynamite’s wick, cooking flesh in the process. The roof buckled and a flaming support beam crumbled to the center of the room, further spreading the blaze. His jacket on fire, Blueeyes charged toward the opening in the corner and flung the flaming leg into the night.
The howlers took the bait. The monsters caught the scent of blood in the air, chased it like the animals they were. One of them captured the flaming appendage in flight, landed in the mud and chomped down. A second knocked the first aside, taking an end for itself.
Blueeyes laid his body on top of mine and smashed me into the floor, covering the back of my head with his chest.
I never heard an explosion. It rattled my ears. I felt it in my teeth, behind my eyes. My body vibrated, hummed, indescribable heat engulfed me. Surviving the aftershock was too much to ask of the already decimated house. The inferno had done its damage. The walls popped and snapped, began to crumble. Blueeyes scooped me up again, wrapped me in his arms, and lowered his shoulder, heading for a collapsing wall nearest us. Burning wood ripped, crunched and exploded, bathing us in embers. When we hit the ground, we rolled, sliding on wet mud past bits of flaming debris and chunks of cooked howler meat. I slipped from Blueeyes’ arms, mud in my face, embers sparking my hair. I’m not sure how many times I spun. It was a lot. The world turned upside down, flipped left and right. Everything meshed together, a blurry mess of images. When I finally stopped, I still felt like I was moving. My head was pounding. Everything was sore, every inch of me throbbed. Blood trickled down my face, originating from an unknown source somewhere in my hair. When I tried to move my neck, I couldn’t. When I tried to move my fingers, they refused. Instead of breathing I belched smoke.
For a moment I thought I saw Blueeyes stumbling around, hand on his head, a vaguely familiar silhouette against the madness. He disappeared. The back of my eyelids ate him, folded him into black. Everything disappeared. I couldn’t stay awake, couldn’t keep my head up. I wanted to. I couldn’t. It all felt so heavy. Everything was made of lead, refusing to bend.
When my eyes finally opened I was barely aware. Everything was shifting, blurred, watery. For a moment I saw Blueeyes, machete in hand, swinging at a fiery howler. One of them had survived. The creature’s face was engulfed in flame, barking smoke, spitting liquid venom, steam rising from its back. If it hadn’t been so terrifying it might have been beautiful. A yellow-red blur of crackling combustion, the howler hit Blueeyes with its paw and knocked him to the mud. He dropped his weapon.
I’m not sure how I thought to reach for the satchel I’d been carrying, or how I managed to find it among the mud and debris, but I did. With shaky hands I dug inside, felt for steel, and grabbed hold. I’d never shot a gun, never even held one, didn’t really know how they worked. None of that mattered. My brain had nothing to do with it. My body was reacting. Tiny hands gripped the handle, arms jutted forward. The howler was heading for Blueeyes, snarling, a swirling light dragging behind. I steadied my arms, inhaled, and held my breath. When I pulled the trigger, the recoil launched the weapon back, breaking my finger and bouncing off my head. I’m not sure I even hit the monster, or came close. It didn’t matter. It was enough to get the howler’s attention, enough to give Blueeyes an opening. The pain in my forehead spread out and my brain went loopy. My eyes began to close. I remember Blueeyes. I remember seeing him on the creature’s back atop a mountain of crackling flames, engulfed, chopping away, blood everywhere. I knew he’d be okay. I’d done what I needed to do, what he’d have wanted me to do. Nothing could hurt him.
Nothing would ever hurt him.
The darkness felt good. It felt empty and new, a wonderful nothing. I embraced the sensation, allowed it to wash over me, to seep into my pores and melt away. I wish I could have stayed there.
It would have been so much easier to stay there.
The rest of the night was mostly a blur. I faded in and out. I remember the rain, Blueeyes standing above me, weightless in his arms. I saw the forest, the clouds and the moon. At some point it stopped raining. Everything turned cold. When I woke it was morning; at least, I think it was morning. Vague hints of sunlight warmed my face.
Blueeyes pressed something between my lips, “Gotta eat, kid.” I think I swallowed, not sure. The only thing I tasted was smoke.
At some point he informed me my finger was broken. He wrapped it with a makeshift splint, told me not to move it. It was a while before the aftertaste of soot disappeared, but it did, mostly. My lungs cleared. The heaviness went away. I woke in the middle of the night and lifted my head from the floor. My weary eyes opened. Once they adjusted to the light, blurry became clear and the fog rolled away. At first glance, I recognized nothing. It was another old house, worn and weather damaged, an old house I hadn’t seen before. Instinctively, I looked for light, to a window on the opposite side of the room. There was Blueeyes, a familiar silhouette against the night sky. He was exactly where he’d been since I met him, since he saved me from the compound, exactly where he’d always be. Nothing could change that. At least that’s what I thought.
Children can be so stupid.
11.
The following week things were different. Blueeyes began to train me. He taught me about the howlers, their weaknesses and strengths, everything I needed to know. He said they usually traveled in small packs, kept to the woods, hunted at night. They were big and strong and fast, but maneuvered poorly. He told me that my size was actually an advantage, that I could go places they couldn’t, that I could hide. If things ever went badly, I needed to remember that. When we found the corpse of a howler on the side of the road, he sliced it open. It had been dead for some time, rotting. Its insides were basically mush, covered in maggots and insects I’d never seen. Blueeyes peeled away the skin, showed me its bones, gave them names. He focused mainly on the weak points in the chest. While only a blow to the brain was the only thing that would kill them, the howlers felt pain. They weren’t gimps. If you cut them, they felt it. When they felt it, they slowed.
Injuries are opportunities. That’s what he said.
When he fi
nished with the howlers, he gave me a lesson on the gimps. Like the howlers, they tended to travel in packs. Packs could be dealt with. Bloated packs of fifty or more were a horde. Hordes were dangerous, too many hands and bodies, too many mouths. Hordes were to be avoided. Blueeyes explained that most people turned into a gimp when they died. He didn’t know why, didn’t particularly care. There were millions of them. That’s all that mattered. Mostly, they kept to abandoned towns, shopping areas, wandering through vague remembrances of what they’d lost. Blueeyes hated the gimps.
He mentioned the biters, but only a little.
When he was fished with the monsters, he taught me about fire, and shelter, and food, basic survival. I learned what was safe to eat, bugs mostly, and what wasn’t. Plants were off limits.
We turned them into poison. That’s what he told me.
Howler meat was a no-no. It was dead flesh, infected, rotting. The howlers looked like animals, but they weren’t. They were people once, just like us.
It’ll be the last thing you ever eat. That’s how he put it.
I never considered it anyway.
When we were low on scavenged food, we dug through the dirt for a meal. I’d never eaten a cockroach, didn’t much like the taste. They were crunchy, insides like slime. The first time I bit into one, it exploded in my mouth, coating my tongue in warm goo, spindly legs twitching all the way down. Worms weren’t much better. The spiders? Don’t get me started on the spiders.
When we weren’t walking, Blueeyes showed me how to use a weapon. He gave me a knife, taught me how to stab. Stick and twist. He made me repeat it: stick and twist.
“When you pull your knife out, you want to take as much with you as you can.”
He made a sheath from howler skin, attached it to my belt. I practiced as often as I could, throwing my arm forward, twisting my wrist and pulling back. It was heavy, felt awkward. Blueeyes said I’d get used to it. He said I had to and didn’t let me put it down. I needed to become comfortable with it. Using it had to be second nature, like an extension of my arm. Late one night, he presented me with a bow. It was crudely made, little more than bent wood and string. I loved it. He cut one arrow for me, dropped a pile of wood in my lap and told me to do the rest. I didn’t sleep that night. I carved. When I was done carving, I carved some more. The next morning I asked him if I could use it. He told me to wait. A few hours after, I asked again. He said later. From that point on, I bugged him about it every ten minutes, fiddling with the bow as we walked, pulling the string and watching it snap, looping it across my chest, playing with ways to carry it.
