Among the Living (19 page)

She isn’t so good looking now, and all he wants to do is take an ax to her head.

He kicks out again. Solid impact this time, but low on the body. The shape falls away and thumps into the floor. Yeah, yeah, you want some of me? He lashes out his foot again but only finds air.

Lester moves toward the door, but a hand hooks around his shoulder, and he stumbles into the family room. He drops the flashlight at some point, so he is fighting in a dark room that is barely lit by the tiny blur of moonlight.

His hand quests along the wall and comes across a metal DVD rack. He lifts the thing and finds that it is pretty heavy. She flies at him with hands hooked into claws. Was her name Jan? Jane? Maybe it was Jane.

“Jane, back the fuck off!” He means to use a big, deep voice, but it comes out shallow, hollow, a rasp that wouldn’t scare a puppy. Then when she staggers toward him, he swings the rack across his body as hard as he can.

It mashes into the deader and sends DVDs flying in every direction. The thing howls and falls. He steps close and swings the rack overhead with real force this time, once, twice, a third time. The last manages to break the flimsy thing in his hand, so he is left holding two pieces of metal. He swings them against the shape over and over again until he feels nothing but pulped meat under the blows.

He stabs down, but the metal bars lack sharp ends, and they slide along the body. He stomps down where he thinks the head is, and indeed it feels like he strikes something round but hard that almost makes him fall, as though he’d stepped on a bowling ball. He stomps down again and again until breath whistles out of his mouth like a train struggling to get up a long hill.

“Die!” he yells and then wants to giggle at how stupid that sounds, telling a dead thing to die. Should be more careful with your insults, old boy, he thinks and then breaks into a fit of laughter.

He sits down and leans forward, hands on knees as he tries to catch his breath. Then he laughs until the smile is gone from his face, and he screams until his voice is hoarse.

Jan—or Jane—doesn’t twitch, and it serves her fucking right. Bitch.

You make a grab for the warm body, but your limbs don’t work like they used to. In fact, they barely respond at all. But none of that matters now; all you care about is the scent of real flesh. The hunger slammed into you the moment you saw her come into the room, an all-consuming ache that radiated from the center of your body and then out to all four appendages. Meat! Fresh meat!

The dead stuff you were chewing on feels like ashes on your mouth. You let the meat fall out and slide down your chin until it hits the ground in a bloody mess.

But she is fast, that one, several attempts to grab it result in you only grabbing air. You come after her on unsure feet. They stumble beneath your every step.

You shamble past the body on the floor and then carefully navigate the two large steps into the smaller room. Your eyes linger on the dead boy as you step past, but he no longer holds any appeal to you. All you can think of is the fresh meat down the hall.

You reach the door and push at it with your upper body. Then some part of you, some muscle memory grasps at the little metal knob on the barricade and makes a twisting motion, but the required coordination eludes you. Pressing against it has no result, nor does backing up and walking into it.

You try again, backing up until the wall is at your back and then moving forward. Smack, your head follows your body as it slaps against the wood. Then you pause and wonder what you are doing. Why did you need to get into this room in the first place?

“Ken, no, leave me alone!” a voice shrieks.

Meat!

You pound at the door, twisting your shoulder as quickly as you can to slam into the obstacle over and over. Then you smack your head into the wood a few times, but it won’t budge.

Sobs again, but this only renews your lust. So you twist and thrash, and a hollow moan spills past your lips as the hunger drives another spike into your gut.

* * *

She sits on the edge of the bed and weeps. The last few minutes have been a living nightmare, her son on the ground, dead from all appearances. Ken insane and covered in blood.

How can a gas leak cause him to act so crazy? She should have listened to the news, paid attention to what they were saying last night, but she was too busy. Besides, she hates watching the evening body count, the bad news and celebrity gossip, so she avoids it and watches the shopping network or, better yet, a cop drama from her DVR.

She can’t stay, and she can’t venture into the hallway because Ken is insane, so she decides to leave, to crawl out the window and head for a hotel. She grabs a pair of comfortable sneakers and slips them on, then she jumps on the bed and slides the window back. She tugs at the screen and figures out how to slide it to the left in order to force it to release. It snaps loose, and she is able to pop it out. The thin frame clatters to the ground outside.

She tries to crawl over the frame when there is a much louder bang on the door. She tries to scurry up and onto the windowsill, but she can’t seem to maneuver her body through. Another loud bang makes her do a little jump that takes her to the opening. She wiggles and squirms until she can get her body out through the frame. Then she struggles to sit up so she can swing her legs over. A last bang sends the door crashing open.

* * *

You step back and walk into the door. Nothing happens, so you get a better start and smash into it. The door holds. Both hands come up in frustration, and you smash them against the door as hard as you can. The hand that is twisted the wrong way flops back from the impact, but the door seems to move a little bit more. You back up and barrel into it, and the tiny lock gives way. The door falls open with you behind it. You fall to the ground but look up to see your meal escaping. As quick as your limbs can manage, you are on your feet and crawling on the bed.

The thing is rotating one leg out the window, but the other is hanging there, beckoning, a morsel that may stop the gnawing hunger that is eating at you. Another spike drives itself into your stomach, and you nearly double over from the pain.

Pain, that is something new. Before, it was a hollow that felt as if it had never been full. Now it is full-blown pain, and that is something with which you are familiar. You crawl across the bed and grasp the dangling limb.

* * *

Alice shrieks in horror as the cold hand closes on her exposed ankle just above her shoe. It is slick with blood, so she kicks free with a shudder and tries to wriggle out of the window frame. The hand grabs again, and this time the hold is like a band of iron. Then the face of her husband swims into view. She squirms in horror and screams.

His mouth closes over her calf, but she kicks her foot in his grasp, and he is left with just a taste of her slacks for his effort. He sits up and grabs at her hand, which she uses to bash away at him. She strikes his head and arm, but the blows do nothing to stop him. He leans over to take a chunk of her neck. She pulls away but catches a hint of the reek that comes from his bloody mouth; it’s like old rotten meat.

She falls out of the window and hits the ground with a thump. The breath is driven from her body. Her hand is outstretched to break the fall, but it just skids across the bark that covers the ground, picking up several splinters. Her elbow hits next, and it’s a real ringer. The pain takes half a second to reach her brain, but when it does, she gasps and cries out.

She landed badly, the breath knocked from her body. She rolls over and looks at the window, and sure enough, there is her devoted husband Ken looking to follow his love out of the window. He is clamoring onto the windowsill with little grace, more like a sack of potatoes trying to exit the tiny space.

She rolls over onto all fours and comes up slowly, panting, gasping for breath.

“Ken! You need to stop this!” she yells, but he ignores her and slides out of the window to the space she occupied not half a minute ago. “Dammit, Ken! Leave me alone!”

She turns and runs up the driveway to the car, past her beautiful rose garden, past what is left of the old tire swing, chopped to pieces by Anthony when he was in a ‘destructive’ phase. She reaches the car and hears Ken closing in from behind. She reaches for her purse and—OH FUCK!—her keys are on the kitchen floor, in the house. They may as well be a mile away. She turns around just as Ken barrels into her.

* * *

So close, you almost had a mouthful. You can almost taste the meat, the fresh blood. It’s going to be a feast unlike anything you have had. The pain in your gut has become unbearable, and all you can think about is filling it. But the cold meat inside the house doesn’t do the trick; you want the live thing.

You’ve managed to get outside after your prey, but now it is running away. You walk as fast as you can, but something is off, and you realize it is the arm with the backward hand. It doesn’t swing right, so you drag it close to your chest and set out at a half-run, with one foot dragging a little bit.

The meat reaches the big metal shape but stops and stares at her side for a moment. You pick that moment to collide with her at full speed.

* * *

Caught, and on her side. She claws at the arm across her body, scratches Ken’s face, which is right in front of hers. Then her hand shies away as he tries to bite her questing digits. She gets her hand under his chin. It is covered in cold, sticky blood. The ragged hole where his throat had been squishes under her palm; she wants to wipe her hand on her shirt in revulsion. He bites at her, pulling his head back, trying to shake her hand loose. She fights him off, holding his neck as tight as she can. She squeezes and squeezes to cut off his air supply, but he doesn’t seem to care. He is cold, so cold in her hands, and there is no pulse of life.

She manages to roll onto her back and push him to the side, but he is back on her in a flash. Then his mouth is close to hers, and that cloying stench hits her in the face. She gags as a piece of flesh falls from his mouth and lands in one eye.

“NO!” she screams and withers beneath him like an animal caught in a trap. He gets his hand around his body and presses it down on her mouth. It’s the broken one, so it grinds, bone against bone. The sound is too much, the smell is too much, and the fight has been too much. Horror tugs at her, and she knows she is going to die. She is about to be eaten by her husband.

She barely holds him off as he gets his mouth on her shoulder. The fabric of her jacket prevents his bite from going deep, but he nuzzles at the fabric like a rabid dog seeking warm, salty flesh. Soon he will bite into her neck, and they will be the ragged-neck twins, joined in matrimony with holes in their breathing apparatus.

Movement behind him. The sun is shut out for a moment before a large black shape smashes into Ken’s head. He rears up, eyes crossing for a moment as if in confusion, then the shape plows into his head once more, with authority, and Ken drops like a felled duck onto her torso.

She slithers out from under him as quickly as she can, her body shaking as adrenaline rushes though her system. There seems to be blood everywhere. She automatically checks on Ken, worried that the blow killed him, then she thinks on this and bursts out in hysterical laughter.

There is a guy standing over Ken’s body holding a skateboard. Alice recognizes the shape from earlier, the person who flew in front of her car, and doesn’t that seem like a lifetime ago? Only that wasn’t a guy.

“You okay?” the girl asks. She is young, maybe sixteen, with a row of metal studs dancing up each ear. Black eyeliner paints her eyes like a raccoon, giving her a frightful look, but at this moment Alice thinks she could adopt the child. Her clothes are ragged, but fashionable, like she paid extra for the holes. Jeans in tatters, a black t-shirt with a picture of a skull on it.

“Oh poor Ken, I don’t know what’s wrong with him!”

“He’s got the thing, the disease or whatever.”

“There is no such thing; it’s all lies—the leak, the gas. Maybe he just ate some bad chicken.” And even as she says the words, she knows how ridiculous they sound. How hollow they ring, how shock and dismay are fighting to control her mind.

“We should go; I don’t think I can finish him off.” The girl holds her skateboard close. “I just have to go check on my mom; she was acting weird this morning, like she wasn’t herself.”

“Is it the same …” Alice can’t finish the sentence.

The girl drops the board on its wheels and puts one foot on it.

“Good luck.”

“Wait, just wait a minute.” Alice can’t leave this defenseless girl alone on the street. And as if to punctuate this thought, a loud scream echoes through the neighborhood. A scream of terror much like Alice’s shrieks not so very long ago.

“Just let me get my keys, and you can ride with me.” She takes one shaking step toward the front of the house. “They’re on the floor. I know where, give me just a minute.”

Her arm throbs where Ken tried to bite her. The thick fabric of her shirt prevented his teeth from puncturing her skin, but it still hurts like hell.