Dead Meat | Day 5

by Clausen, Nick

  Then, the engine roars loudly and the boat lurches forward with a jerk, causing Mommy to stumble and scream out, and both her and Christine would’ve no doubt fallen over if Daddy hadn’t caught them.

  Anton, on the other hand, isn’t that lucky. Christine sees him tumble backwards and disappear over the railing. There’s another splash.

  “Nooo!” Mommy screams, causing Christine’s head to ring. “He fell off! Get him, Steffen! Get Anton! He’s in the water! Stop the boat, Kent!”

  “Shit!” Daddy shouts, running to the place Anton fell over. He leans over the railing, reaching down. The boat has stopped again.

  Christine can hear Anton splash and gurgle. He knows how to swim, but he doesn’t like it.

  “Grab my hand, Anton!” Daddy says. “Grab it!”

  Then he groans and pulls back and Anton’s head appears, his hair clinging wet to his forehead, his eyes wide with shock, his lips quivering.

  “Oh, thank heavens!” Mom cries out as Daddy hauls Anton back onto the boat. “You okay, sweetheart? You okay?”

  Anton doesn’t look like he’s able to speak, so he just nods as he clings to Dad like a wet mouse.

  “Shit, I’m sorry about that. You got him?”

  Kent’s voice. His head is poking out of the door to the cabin.

  “Yes!” Daddy shouts. “We’re okay! Get us out of here!”

  Kent nods, disappears back inside, and a second later, the boat gets moving again—a little less sudden this time. They sail away from the pier, and as Christine looks back, she thinks she can make out someone running over there. There are voices, too, and someone screams again. She realizes she’s shaking all over. So is Mommy. And so is Anton, but that’s probably mostly because he’s drenched.

  “Let’s get downstairs and get you dried off,” Daddy says, his voice a little less tense but still trembling slightly. “That was a close call …”

  They head inside the cabin, where Kent is standing by the wheel—or whatever it’s called on a boat. There are screens, too, and he’s navigating them with silent concentration.

  “Everything’s okay?” Daddy asks, stopping briefly.

  Kent nods. “I think so. We’re pulling a little to the right, but that’s probably just the current.”

  “We’ve got enough gas?”

  “Plenty. I just filled ’er up.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Till we’re there? Close to twenty-four hours. Don’t worry, I brought food.”

  “You got any spare clothes, too?”

  “Check the cabinet.”

  They go down a couple steps leading to the inside of the boat. There’s surprisingly lots of room, Christine notices; four beds, a small kitchen and a dining table.

  Daddy puts Anton down on one of the beds and helps him get the wet shirt and pants off.

  Mommy lets go of Christine to go to the cabinet in the corner and open it. She pulls out a set of clothes which looks a little too big for Anton. But he puts it on anyway.

  “There you go,” Mommy says, squeezing him. “Isn’t that better?”

  “I … I saw her,” Anton mutters.

  “Saw who, sweetheart?”

  “The old lady. In the water.”

  Mommy and Daddy look at each other. Then they look at Anton.

  “She came for me,” Anton goes on, staring at his hands. “She was, like, moving through the water …”

  Mommy’s hand goes to her mouth.

  Daddy clears his throat. “Did she … did she touch you, buddy?”

  A moment of dead silence inside the cabin. Then, Anton shakes his head.

  Mommy gives off a trembling sigh of relief. Daddy closes his eyes for a second.

  “Good,” he mutters. “Then we’re okay.” He breathes deeply and repeats it: “We’re okay.”

  To Christine, it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.

  Personally, Christine has never felt less okay in her short life.

  TWO

  “I thought you were a good boy, Dennis.”

  The words echo around him in the empty living room, but Dennis can’t see Old Niels anywhere; yet he recognizes his voice. He also recognizes where he is: back at Esther’s house.

  But how can Old Niels be here? After all, Old Niels is dead. Mom killed him. Dennis saw it. He was right there.

  Judging from the dim lighting, it must be nighttime. There’s an eerie silence hovering in the air. Dennis can hear his own, ragged breathing. He’s scared, but he doesn’t know exactly why. Something’s wrong. Very wrong. Not just here, but everywhere. The world is burning.

  “Goodness gracious. What have you done to that little girl?”

  Dennis spins around and looks at the door to the bedroom. It’s open. A faint, flickering light comes streaming out.

  Dennis doesn’t want to see what’s going on in there, but he can’t help it; his feet move all on their own, bringing him closer to the bedroom, and then his hand reaches out and pushes the door gently open.

  The bedroom looks like it’s been out of use for decades: piles of dust on the cracked floorboards, cobwebs dangling from the ceiling, the wallpaper curling at the edges, revealing the bare brick wall underneath.

  The only piece of furniture is the old bed in the middle of the room. On the windowsill, a single, black candle is burning, casting its orange glow out over the room.

  A figure is lying on the bed’s naked mattress, arms and legs spread out to the sides, neck craned back.

  It’s the girl. Esther’s granddaughter. What was her name? Nadia.

  “That’s not Nadia.”

  Dennis looks towards the window. Outside in the darkness, he sees Mom looking in, her eyes resting on the girl on the bed, her expression grim. She shakes her head slowly, then repeats: “That’s not Nadia.”

  Dennis looks back at the girl.

  Her face is white, her mouth open and her eyes closed. From her pale lips runs a trickle of dried-up blood—although it’s so dark it looks more like tar to Dennis.

  Yet he knows it’s blood. He recalls how Mom and Esther made the girl drink it.

  He looks to the window again, but now Mom is gone. Then, suddenly, a voice hisses in his ear: “I know you stole my rabbits, you bloody thief!”

  Dennis spins around—at least he tries to, but it’s more of a long, slow turn, as the air around him has suddenly grown thick like mud, making it hard to move.

  When he finally manages to turn all the way around, he stares into a face which once belonged to Old Niels, but now is a mask of horror.

  The skin is hanging in threads, spotted in blue, as the flesh underneath has begun to rot. In the tufts of white hair still visible at the skull sit tiny cakes of dirt. The eyes are white and have no irises, yet they stare fixedly at Dennis. Old Niels—who has obviously been dead for a long time—opens his mouth to reveal a row of broken, brown teeth and a purple, dried-up tongue.

  “I thought you were a good boy, Dennis,” he whispers, tilting his head, causing more dirt to drizzle off his skull. “How could you let her do this?”

  “I … I … didn’t mean to … I didn’t think she … I … I …”

  Dennis fights to get the words out, but it’s no use, his throat is squeezing itself tightly shut, strangling his vocal cords, making it hard to breathe.

  Old Niels doesn’t seem to pay any notice. He raises his hand and scratches his cheek like Dennis has seen him do many times back when he was alive. This time, however, the fingernails dig into the skin, tearing off large pieces, revealing the jawbone underneath.

  It doesn’t seem to hurt Old Niels, though, as he just keeps scratching.

  Dennis notices the hand is also full of dirt, and then it finally dawns on him why Old Niels is so dirty.

  He dug himself out. He woke up and dug himself out of his grave.

  Dennis wants to scream, wants to run away, wants to cry out for Mom, but he can do none of it. He can only stand there and watch Old Niels tear up his own fa
ce.

  “I’m sorry,” Dennis croaks, warm tears spilling down his cheeks now, and suddenly he’s able to get the words out. “I’m so sorry, Niels. I’m sorry I buried you, and I’m sorry I stole your rabbits, and I’m sorry Mom killed you, I’m sure she didn’t mean to, it’s just that she didn’t have a choice, and I’m sorry about the girl, too, it wasn’t supposed to happen, none of it was, they wanted to help her, they tried to bring her back to life, but not like this, not like this at all! And I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry about everything!”

  Dennis closes his eyes for a moment, waiting for Old Niels to say something, but when Dennis looks again, Old Niels is gone. Instead, there’s a noise from behind, and Dennis turns to see the girl sitting up in bed, reaching her tiny hands out to grab him, growling and spurting fresh blood from her mouth.

  Dennis screams and stumbles backwards, hitting the wall just as a bang rings through the room and the girl climbs down from the bed and comes for him, and Dennis squeezes into the corner and tries to move even farther away, but he’s trapped, and then there’s another bang, even louder this time, the sound filling his ears, drowning out the girl’s hungry grunts as she lunges for him, and Dennis screams at the top of his lungs, he flails his arms and tries to get the girl off, but he can feel her hands groping him everywhere, and there’s another bang, and then Mom’s voice very close by: “Dennis, for heaven’s sake, wake up! You’re dreaming!”

  Dennis sees the girl morph into Mom’s face as Esther’s bedroom disappears around him.

  Dennis blinks frantically, trying to catch his breath. Mom is sitting on his bunk, clutching his wrists, staring at him intently in the dim light. “Are you awake?”

  “I … I think so,” Dennis croaks.

  Mom lets go of him, and Dennis wipes his cheeks, which are wet from tears. He looks around and at first has no idea where they are. Then he remembers. They’re at Holger’s place. In the secret underground bunker.

  “Listen to me, Dennis,” Mom begins, when she’s interrupted by a bang from somewhere nearby, exactly like the ones from Dennis’s dream just now, and for a moment he’s not sure he really did wake up.

  “What was that?” he asks wide-eyed.

  “Someone’s shooting a gun outside.”

  “Why? What are they shooting at? Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. I just woke up too. Come with me.”

  Mom gets up and leaves the room, still wearing her white nightgown. Dennis sleeps in his worn Timon and Pumbaa T-shirt, which Mom wanted him to throw out a long time ago, but he loves it so much he convinced her to let him keep it.

  He gets up and follows her out into the main room of the bunker, where the lights are on.

  Mom goes to the computer and looks at the split screen showing all the many different rooms of Holger’s house. Some of the cameras are placed outside, too, and Dennis immediately notices movement on the one in the corner, which shows the courtyard.

  It’s still nighttime, but the courtyard is lit up by the headlights of what looks like a pickup truck parked right in the center. A figure is standing on the bed of the truck, while several others—the dead ones, who have been hovering around the house—are crowding the truck from all sides.

  Suddenly, a tiny white flash.

  Then, a quarter of a second later, another bang reaches Dennis’s ears from upstairs.

  “Ooh,” he says, staring at the screen. He’s never seen or heard a weapon outside of movies, so it takes him a moment to put the pieces together. “I think he just fired a gun, Mom …”

  “How do I make it bigger?” Mom says, moving the curser around the screen.

  “I think it’s that one right there,” Dennis tells her, pointing at a tiny square symbol in the corner.

  Mom clicks on it, and the window pops up to full size. Now, Dennis can see the guy on the truck bed brandishing a rifle, which he aims at one of the dead ones, and then—

  Flash.

  Bang.

  The dead person collapses.

  “He’s … he’s killing them,” Dennis muses, not sure whether to be terrified or excited. “He’s killing them for real, Mom!”

  “I can see that,” Mom mutters, not taking her eyes off of the screen. “But why?”

  Dennis hasn’t even considered the guy’s motives, and honestly, he doesn’t really care, either. He’s just amazed to see that the dead people can be killed properly.

  Another flash, another bang, another figure tilts backwards and lands in the gravel, not moving. There are only three of them left now. The shooter seems to be reloading the rifle. His movements are impressively calm, like being surrounded by dead people wanting to eat him doesn’t cause him any stress at all.

  “It’s got to be a policeman,” Dennis says, looking at Mom. “Don’t you think? Or maybe a soldier?”

  “He looks like a civilian to me,” Mom says, still eyeing the screen closely. “And the car isn’t a military vehicle, either.”

  “But … he’s come to help us, right?”

  Mom doesn’t answer. Instead, she gets to her feet, just as the guy on the screen fires two times in quick succession, followed by the bangs. Only one dead person is left standing now.

  “Where are you going, Mom?” Dennis asks as Mom heads for the exit which leads through the tunnel up into Holger’s bedroom.

  She turns around and looks at him. “I’m going to talk with him. Find out what he wants. You just stay right here.”

  “But—”

  “Lock the door when I leave, and don’t open to anybody but me. Okay?”

  Mom doesn’t wait for an answer, she just turns and leaves the bunker, slamming the door behind her.

  Dennis goes and slides the bolt in place.

  Then he goes back over to the screen. He needs to pee really bad, which usually happens whenever he’s feeling anxious. But he doesn’t want to miss what’s going on.

  On the footage of the courtyard, there isn’t much movement now. All around the pickup truck, the dead people are lying sprawled in the gravel, some facedown, some faceup. The guy who shot them is still standing at the bed of the truck, the rifle flung casually over his shoulder, the other hand placed on his hip. He’s looking up at the house, and it looks like he might be saying something—Dennis can’t really tell.

  Then, he notices another symbol at the bottom of the screen. It’s a loudspeaker with a cross over it. He’s pretty sure that means Mute. Without really thinking, Dennis moves the curser and clicks the symbol.

  Immediately, a voice comes through the speakers, clear and crisp: “… you in there? Holger? … Hey, man, we just helped you get rid of all these assholes—least you can do is talk with us!”

  “‘Us’? What does he mean, ‘us’?” Dennis whispers to himself, just as the truck’s driver side door opens and another guy steps out.

  “Hey, Holger!” the driver shouts towards the house. “We’re not here to harm you in any way. We just want to talk, all right?”

  A moment of silence, as the men apparently wait for an answer. When no answer comes, the guy with the rifle flings out his arm: “Listen, we don’t have all night for this! If you’re in there—which I know you are—come out here and let’s talk!”

  “Easy, Silas,” Dennis hears the other guy say in a low voice, looking up at the guy on the truck bed. “We can’t be confrontational, remember? We’ll scare him off. He’s not normal.”

  “But what’s taking the prick so long?” the other guy replies in a whisper. “Don’t tell me he slept through all those rounds I just fired.”

  “He’s probably just—”

  The guy cuts himself off, and both of the men turn their heads in unison to look at the house, as they apparently pick up on something Dennis can’t see or hear. It seems like they’re looking up at the second-floor window—the one Mom instructed Dennis to push Holger’s corpse out off last night.

  “What do you want?”

  Mom’s voice. Dennis feels a measure of relief. Mom’ll deal wit
h the situation.

  “We just want to talk,” the one without the rifle says, stepping closer to the house, taking care to not step on any of the dead people.

  “We don’t have anything to talk about,” Mom says.

  “Is Holger in there?”

  “Holger’s dead.”

  “Oh,” the guy says, shrugging. “I’m … I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “We don’t have anything to talk about,” Mom repeats. “Please leave the premises.”

  “Hold on, lady,” the guy with the rifle chimes in. “We’re not leaving till you talk with us. You owe us that much.” He gestures towards the dead people, then looks back up at Mom.

  A moment of silence.

  “What do you want to talk about?” Mom asks. “We’re not letting you in, if that’s what you think. And as to the favor you just did us, I’m sure the house will be surrounded again by daybreak.”

  “That’s just the thing, though,” the guy without the rifle says, and to Dennis, it looks like he’s smiling invitingly—though it’s hard to tell in the light of the car. “You’ll need someone to keep the dead ones at bay. And we’ll need a safe place to stay. We can help each other out here.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mom says. “We’ll manage just fine without you.”

  “Listen, we knew Holger,” the guy with the rifle says, now jumping down from the truck. “We grew up just a few miles from here. I’m Silas, by the way, and this is my brother Jonas. Our mom still lives out here, couple of houses down road. We came back as soon as we heard what was going on. We wanted to help her, but we couldn’t leave the area again, so now we need to figure out something else. And then our mom told us about the rumor of Holger’s underground safe place. That’s why we’re here; we wanted to make a deal with Holger.”

  “Well, like I said, Holger is dead,” Mom replies from off-screen, “and we’re not interested in a deal. Now, please leave.”

  The men exchange a brief look, as though they both hope for the other to come up with something more to say.

  “Wait,” the guy without the rifle—Jonas—says, holding up a hand. “What happened to Holger? Did he get bitten?”