by Dawn Brazil
That was Momma’s song. She taught me and it’s haunting me now.
Right in front of me, the reaper snatches the girl with the red dress. “No!” I scream. The reaper wraps the little girl’s writhing body into her arms. The mother and other little girl are caught unawares. They scramble to get her back, but the reaper carries her away. The sister in red thrashes and kicks in her captor's arms, to no avail; the reaper steals her further into the alley and I can’t see them.
Another reaper pounces on the other little girl. She clings tightly to her mother, who must have seen this one coming. The reaper snatches the girl's arm and the mother grips the other arm. The mother’s eyes dart from the reaper, who has its hands on both her daughter’s shoulders now, to her daughter, who thrashes and claws to stay with her.
Fear slams into me and renders me immobile for a second. I can help. I could die or be thrown from VOLT for doing so, but I have an opportunity. It’s not even a question. I’ll die for them if I have to.
I stumble one more step to where they struggle on the sidewalk. As I’m close enough to see the crimson drops on the little girl's ruffled sock, I’m snatched off my feet from behind. No!
The reaper shoves the mother to the ground. I squirm away from my captor.
With one quick thrust of its hand, the reaper is off with the mother’s other daughter. The woman runs after her, screaming, “No! Give them back! Give them back!”
A third reaper creeps behind the mother.
“Let me go!” I yell. I dig my nails into the skin of the person carrying me away from the mother and her children. “Stop. No. I have to help them.” My protests aren’t acknowledged. We’re running backwards, away from them…
What’s going to happen to them? Will they kill them? “Sam!” Joe yells my name. I can’t answer because I’m far, far, far away from everything. Everything but what’s happening across the street.
But not across the street anymore.
Joe is running.
No. I’m running, too. I’m running away from the twins.
No, this isn’t right. I have to help them. I snatch my hand from him and whirl around to where they were.
Joe and Ferris snatch me off my feet and scramble in the opposite direction. I lash out in their arms, but they don’t let me go this time. We crash into a building but they don’t stop their frantic movements.
“We gotta stay out of sight,” Joe is saying. “They saw us. Shit.”
“I need to go back!” I scream. “I need to help the twins. I have to save her. I have to save her.” We burst through a hatch hanging from a frame. Joe shoves me into the room. I skid across the wood and rest on my knees. Joe and Ferris run back to the hatch and slam it shut. They have to push and hold it up to secure it in place.
I charge them head-first. Joe reaches out and smashes me back to the floor with one quick extension of his arm. I bite the inner part of his hand and shove him back with all my might. He snatches me around my waist and lifts me from my feet. He thrusts me back to the floor.
I lay there—spent. “They took them.” I sob. Tears flow down my cheeks, and I gasp for breath to beg him to let me go. “I have to help them. I have to save her this time.”
“I can’t save them, but I can help you,” Joe whispers.
“I have to go back. You don’t have to come, but I can’t let them die. You don’t understand; it’s not right.” I swing my arm and catch the side of his face with my closed fist. He grunts and anticipates my next move. Before I can connect my fist with his jaw again, he tucks me under his arm. I wrestle against him. I claw at his chest, his arms, whatever I can feel.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Sam. We can’t help them. We’ll die trying. I can’t let you go. What would I do without your smart mouth?” Joe murmurs against my ear. My hysterical movements are tiring me out; I drop my arms to my side. Joe still doesn’t release me from his tight grip, and I don’t fight anymore. I fall back to the weathered floor and Joe follows me down.
I’m a colossal failure. A shimmer of something on the oak floor draws my attention. With Joe’s hold on me slacked, I slip one arm away from him. I wrap my hand around a piece of glass on the grimy wood plank.
“It’s okay if I die. Just let me help them. You and Ferris stay here… please.” He doesn’t release me or respond to my plea. His arms wrap tighter around me. Everything is wrong. I should not be here. Something that feels like a twisted, sour hand rattles the inside of my stomach. “You’re hurting me, Joe. Not so tight.”
As soon as his grip loosens, I slide out of his arms. I run across the wood floors to the head, and lock the hatch behind me so they can’t get in.
When I enter the room, the tub is already full of water. I skim my hand across the clear liquid. It’s cool against my wrist. I don’t have time to warm it how I like. I slide in with my clothes and shoes on.
Once submerged, I lay my head back for a moment. My mind wanders to the good times I’ve experienced in this life as I come to my end. But I can’t. The insidious memories refuse to stay at bay. They creep all around me—suffocating me, choking me, slamming into me with more force than a speeding car. I shake so hard, I can barely pick up the shard of glass. Tears obstruct my vision, but there’s no point in wiping them away.
These will be the last of them. No more will this universe collect my tears, my sorrow, my heartbreak to regurgitate it back at me.
The tiny piece of glass rips a hole in the flesh on my wrist. Crimson liquid bursts from my honey-colored skin and drops to the water below with a light splash. I watch, mesmerized, as the color glides across the top of the water.
Then the hatch explodes. Chipped wood and spikes of metal fill the air and fall haphazardly to the floor with dozens of clunks.
Joe and Ferris rush in, yelling my name. I drop the glass fragment in the water before I can tear into my other wrist. Florida. I blink up at them. I plunge my cut wrist into the water to retrieve it.
It burns so good. They reach into the tub and yank me out. Sopping wet, we collapse onto the white tile floor. The blood oozes from my arm in slow motion, like a leaky faucet. I don’t think it’s enough to do what needs to be done.
“Why, Sam?” both Joe and Ferris mumble.
“Don’t worry. I’ve done it before,” I whisper. “Please let me finish?”
Joe says nothing. He holds me tighter to him. I can’t move. Can’t do anything. Tears strangle away any more words I have. My eyes eventually shut everything out.
When I wake, all is silent. I’m stretched out on a soiled rug with dust blowing around close to my hand. I sit up. Ferris and Joe are at a window, peering out. “Do you think they’re still out there?” Ferris asks. He peeks out through a loose wooden blind.
I have no idea where we are. Emerald green paint peels from the walls where there are no holes. I’m stretched out on an old shaggy carpet, so dusty it leaves a feathering of dirt on my clothes. Beyond the rug, an oak floor peeks from beneath a mound of grime. The only light in the space is provided by the enormous holes in the walls that look toward the street. The room is in near-complete darkness. We’re in an abandoned apartment building.
“I have to use the head,” I say to no one in particular.
I rise and walk toward a closed hatch behind me. “No,” Joe shouts. He scratches his head. “It’s not functioning.”
“What the Houston are you yelling for? God. I’ll relieve myself real quick.” I touch the knob of the hatch.
“No,” Joe shouts again. He walks over to where I stand and pushes my hand from the knob. “It’s messed up in there. You don’t want to go in there. We can try to make it to a hotel. Looks clear out right now.”
For what feels like a century, Ferris and Joe stare at me like I’ve grown two heads.
“What the Florida. Stop staring at me like that. What’s the matter with you two?” I walk back to my spot on the floor and drop down. Neither of them say anything. Joe turns back to the window. Ferris keeps staring.
>
“Sorry,” Ferris finally says and picks up surveying the outside with Joe.
The image of two little girls clad in the cutest ruffled socks slams into me. “The girls,” I say loud enough for both Joe and Ferris to hear. “We didn’t go back to help them.” I shake my head. They both blink at me but don’t offer any words.
There aren’t words for what I witnessed—for what I stood by and allowed to happen.
After a few minutes of awkward silence and me picking dust bunnies from my clothes, Joe clears his throat. “We can try to make it to a motel, but we’ve got to be careful. I think they’re still out there.” He pushes from the wall and strolls toward the hatch. He and Ferris work together to shove it open.
I follow Joe out and Ferris brings up the rear.
I creep on tiptoes through the hallway, careful not to make any noise on the old floors. We stumble down two flights of stairs in darkness before we exit into the night. Joe stops moving and turns back to us. He looks behind me at Ferris, then to me. “I just… We want you to know we understand what happened in here. You don’t have to talk about it. More than you know, we understand.”
I rub my hand against my sweating wrist. A wisp of a nightmare I’m not sure was a nightmare floats around me. I can’t speak. That’s why he didn’t want me in the head. I swallow and nod.
“Follow my every move.“ Joe looks from the left, then the right, before he steps onto the sidewalk. His feet hurry over the cracked cement to get us to the alley beside the building before we are spotted by reapers. A pack of them are collected across the street from where we are—their eyes trained in a different direction.
Joe treads softly around the debris to ensure the reapers don’t hear us.
I shadow Joe’s movements.
The only sound is our hands as they glide over the walls of the building we creep around. It’s our only way to determine where we are going. We shuffle about in complete darkness. No light from buildings or street lamps. When we make it to the next block, streetlights illuminate the area in front of us. Joe comes to a halt, sending Ferris and me crashing into him. I’m about to complain until he points a finger to a pack of reapers.
Decaying flesh twists in our direction. Their beady eyes follow every movement we make.
Chapter 37
We cut around the corner and dash past shops—all closed for the night. My leg aches as I struggle to stay ahead of the reapers. Maybe I should stop. Let them have their fill with me so Joe and Ferris can get away. I don’t turn, but their hisses of anger reach me. Their irate jeers direct my feet to move, even as my brain sends pulses for them to stop. Ferris and Joe are a step ahead of me. Something lava-hot wraps itself around my left calf. Pain fires through me. “Florida!” I scream.
Joe and Ferris spin around as the ground is snatched from beneath my feet. I slam into the pavement headfirst. “Florida.” A pool of stars swims across my vision. Pulling my aching body over, I glance up.
A female reaper stands over me. Her hair is dark as the night sky and strands of it are wildly pushed across her scalp and covering portions of her decaying face. She pulls her mouth back and snarls at my gaping stare at her. Sharp teeth cut into her bottom lip and a trickle of blood dribbles from her wound. A bead of red death spatters to my wrist from her open jowl.
To my left, something crashes and snaps, breaking up my inspection of the blood droplet. Another reaper starts toward me, saliva and blood oozing from her open mouth. I squeeze my eyes closed. Ferris' and Joe’s safety are my only concern. Hopefully, they fight to the death—the reapers' and not theirs.
Whatever these things do to me, I hope it’s quick. I relax my muscles and wait for the nothing to wash over me.
A hard hand collapses around my shoulder and someone screams in my face. Still, my eyes remain closed. Do it. Florida, get it over with.
The voice screams words I can’t decipher. Then I realize it’s Joe’s voice shouting at me. Still, I don’t open my eyes. He and Ferris need to go on without me.
My head is rattled by a sharp thrust to my scalp. My eyes pop open and Joe grimaces over me. “Stop playing dead. Get the hell up and fight. Now.” Joe has the reaper that was over me pinned to the wall. A large metal pole sticks out of her gut. “Get off the damn ground, Sam. I’m not losing you.”
I stumble to my feet as a reaper smashes into me, pushing me into the brick wall behind us. My head hits the block with a thud and stars flint across my vision. I’m pinned next to a trash bin that overflows with debris. Pressing my arm all the way to the receptacle, I wrap my hand around a thick broken glass bottle. I squeeze it between my fingers and lift it from the can. Swinging my hand around, I hit the reaper in the head with the jagged edge. Shattered glass scatters everywhere. The reaper falls to the ground.
I watch as the fragments of glass mingle with the blood on the ground for a second.
Then I run. Not because I want to live. Not because I’m afraid of the reapers—I am afraid of the reapers, though. I run because Joe asked me to.
I don’t think. I run. I stop because I remember Joe is still fighting. I spin around. “What the hell, Sam? Keep running!” Joe yells. He’s rocketing toward me full speed. “Move your ass.”
Ferris is further ahead. He’s pointing to the right. His movements are jerky like he’s running out of breath. Or dancing like the dork he resembles. He turns right. I catch up to where he was and turn, too. I don’t look back because I hear Joe’s tennis shoes crashing over the pavement.
I make it around the block. Ferris is ahead of us. My lungs squeal for me to stop and take a breath. I don’t. Joe runs at my side now. I don’t look at him, though. Ferris yells something I can’t decipher. He points to a restaurant with a sign out front with a sign of a dove. He pushes the hatch open and enters. A few seconds later he comes back out, waving his arms and jumping up and down, urging us on. My feet race over the asphalt as fast as I think they’ve ever moved.
I’m running away from something I really wanted. I’m running only because I can’t allow someone else to pay for my decisions.
Reapers screech their fury at us as we hurry toward safety. A reaper slams into my back and we both crash to the ground and roll two times. She’s up and over me in no time. Again, I close my eyes.
“Get up!” Joe’s command is screamed directly into my face. I jump to my feet and run. Florida. He has to stop saving me. What the Houston is wrong with these reapers, why don’t they do it already?
Joe and I reach the hatch at the same time. He shoves me in first and slams it behind him. I catch a glimpse of about ten reapers slamming their bodies into the invisible wall that makes it safe for us to wait it out in the restaurant.
“Uh guys, we should sit,” Ferris says.
Without any more admonition, I follow behind them and plop into a seat at a booth near the entrance. I cannot see out the windows of the restaurant. The lower half is covered, like the first restaurant we went to. I collapse my head to my hands to gather my breath and my thoughts, and push aside my fears.
It almost happened. Twice. Regret lingers close at the realization of how close I came to it.
Permanent nothing. The idea of sweet nothing forever makes me nauseous.
I glance up. I’m forced to register something all around me.
Silence. It’s everywhere.
Chapter 38
I lift my head to peer around the restaurant. No one moves or speaks. They stare at the three of us like we’re some fascinating reality show. Even the wait staff stop serving to watch us.
Everyone in the place looks as young as us. It isn’t that jarring, except all their bodies are in some state of decomposition. Like zombies.
A girl and guy sit at a table not far from us, and the smell of rotting flesh wafts to my nostrils. I’m sure I vomited in my mouth.
A hatch opens to a well-lit area beyond where the tables are set up. Three guy zombies occupy the space. They each hold a different cooking instrument between their
corroding fingers—a large kitchen knife, a metal mallet, and a colossal cast-iron pan. All three have their yellowing eyes fixed on us. Everyone else in the restaurant has their rotting heads craned over and around anyone near them to catch a glimpse at the three of us.
After a few seconds of no one moving or talking, I turn my attention to Ferris and Joe. They wear matching looks of bewilderment. “Maybe we should go,” I whisper to them.
“Yeah, it’s weird, but we need to wait it out in here,” Joe says. “Especially you, Sam.”
“What do you mean, especially me?” I blink over at him several times like I don’t understand.
“I mean, you have a death wish. It’s like you don’t care if you live or die. Like you’re okay either way. You gave up out there. You didn’t even try to fight until I screamed at you.” With each word, Joe’s voice rises and my blood boils. How in the Florida does he do that? I shouldn’t let what other people say or think about me rule my emotions. Especially him. I want to scream at him to shut the Florida up and mind his own business. And I do care if I live or die. I’d much prefer the latter. Especially now that I’m certain I won’t be seeing anyone at The End.
“Don’t worry about me. Next time, worry about yourself. And Ferris.”
Joe and Ferris laugh at my comment. Joe sits forward and looks me in the eyes. “I can’t do that and you know it. This isn’t about only you anymore. This is all three of us in this fucked up place, running for our lives every five minutes, and I’ll be damned if I lose someone else I care about. Get your shit together, before you get one of us killed.”
His words are a slap in the face.
“I deserve whatever happens to me. But I don’t want anything to happen to either of you. I want… I don’t even know what I want anymore.” I sigh. Joe and Ferris stare like they’re waiting for me to say more. ”It’s not your place to worry about me. I’ve tried to protect you from me. You have no idea. If I tell you what’s in my head, it’ll ruin you both. I tried to push you away. I should have tried harder…”
