Dahmer Flu (6 page)

“Stay here,” I said simply. I approached the home; my eyes probed the darkness anxiously for any movement and my ears strained in the unnatural quiet for the now-familiar moan. I heard and saw nothing from inside the house or from within the corpse wall, but in my mind, they were waiting.

I skirted the bodies that littered the ground as I ascended the steps that led to the landing. The aged wood creaked under my weight as I approached the door, my heartbeat thunderous in my ears, and reached for the knob. It was unlocked. Slowly, I pulled the door open and peered inside, using the light to cut into the darkness; nothing moved as I walked further into the entryway. The home itself was rustic, at best, and the heavy furniture had been moved to fortify the windows and doors, which themselves had already been fastened with thick boards. Still, nothing moved, and there were no sounds except for my own ragged breathing and pounding heart. I felt that it was more dangerous to remain separated, or perhaps it was the fear of loneliness and inability to penetrate further, and I returned to the doorway to motion Aimee and Madi to the doorway.

“It’s okay, let’s get inside,” I whispered.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Aimee asked.

“Yeah,” I guessed.

Before we entered, I felt Aimee’s hand on my shoulder. “You checked the whole house?” she whispered.

“No,” I admitted before slinking inside. I felt her hand slip off my shoulder as she halted, alarmed.

We pressed into the home, with Madi behind me and Aimee carrying Jacob in the rear. We moved quietly through the hallway and into a spacious living room; each of our flashlights illuminated the room and cast ominous shadows on the wall. The sense of loss was almost palpable in this place; the remaining furniture was in disarray, turned over in the struggle, and blood stained the floor along our path. A hammer sad discarded on a table amongst a discarded pile of bent and rusted nails.

I remembered the woman’s story and led my wife and children to a nearby bedroom with the door already halfway open. I closed the room behind us and searched the room methodically, feeling like a child faced with bedtime. Under the bed, nothing. The closet, nothing. The large wooden chest, nothing. The bathroom, nothing. The room was empty, save for the living.

“It’s safe in here. I’m going to check the rest of the house. If you hear anything, just yell and I’ll come right back,” I promised.

“Okay,” they replied in unison. I was always reminded just how much alike those two were- more than either of them realized.

I left the room, stealing a glance back at my family as I closed the door. Through the narrowing crack, I smiled at the three of them-
four
, I remembered
; one in the belly
- before the lock clicked softly behind me. I pushed gently; it held firm.

The feeling of being in someone’s home, among their possessions and personal belongings, was a strange sensation that betrayed every one of my social graces- even in the situation in which I found myself. I realized that by the next generation, if there was one, something like this would be quite normal, even expected, as they rebuilt their society.

I crept softly through the narrow hallway, checking each room as I passed. One was a small den with little more than a small desk covered with papers and an antiquated computer. The next was cluttered with piles of clothing and an old washing machine and smelled of old-growth mold. Finally, I approached the room at the end of the hallway with an unnamable feeling of dread. The door was unremarkable in every way, but the feeling that emanated from it made me want to run; I knew I didn’t have the option.

The door was barely cracked, and I strained to listen- silence. Slowly, I pushed the door open; it creaked on aged hinges, but opened smoothly until it stopped against the inside wall. Slowly I entered, eager to be done with this room- to learn that my fears were nothing more than paranoia. I turned and saw that what had stopped the door wasn’t actually the wall, but the large, dark figure that loomed behind it, towering over me close and to my left. I wheeled around and pushed myself against the wall, clawing uselessly in the direction of the figure. Boxes and other objects were dislodged from the shelves and clattered to the ground around me as I fell hard to the ground, forcing the flashlight from my grip.

The figure, however, didn’t move. With shaking, desperate hands, I scrambled for the light and brought it to bear. A large, feminine seamstress dummy stood quietly in the beam; a portion of a wedding dress hung uncompleted around its frame. The woman that had lived here apparently liked to sew.

After a few moments, my breathing returned to normal and I left the room towards the rest of the home. The kitchen, the garage and the bathroom- all were empty and still. Only two doors remained; they were closed and locked and wouldn’t be reopened. From the woman’s story, I knew that one of the rooms housed the sacked bodies of the creatures that had invaded the home. Behind the other were the remains of her husband. As if in eulogy, I took a moment to remember that he had died as a human being, and not a monster.

I took one final glance around the home to check each door and ensure the boards on the windows were secure. Each held firm. In the morning, we would explore the town and formulate a plan; but this home would do for the night.

Without thinking, as if forced by habit, I scratched my left cheek as I approached the door. No one would be watching this time. I cracked the door, “It’s me,” I hissed, as I swung the door fully open.

“We’re okay?” asked Aimee.

“We’re okay,” I asserted. “Only two doors are closed. They stay closed. Everyone understand?”

“Yes,” from Aimee; “Why?” from Madi, simultaneously.

“They stay closed,” I repeated. The conversation was over. “Who’s hungry?” I changed the subject as I untied the bundled sheet. The starving rumble of Madi’s stomach was the answer. We laughed quietly, with our spirits lifting, as we had survived another night. We ate greedily, with little regards to rations. If need be, food could be found before we moved on. The stores, after all, were dead quiet.

We ate, drank and talked late into the night, although I had no real concept of the time. By habit, we spoke in whispers, and kept Jacob full, dry and happy, although the home had already been seen to be relatively secure. Jacob fell asleep mid-meal and snored softly against his mother’s arm, with drool dripping from the corner of his lips onto her sleeve. Madi gently lifted him from her arms and laid him on the bed. He rolled once, and then lay still, breathing quietly and peacefully.

“Children; they’re the only hope we have,” Madi exclaimed profoundly, looking down at her sleeping brother. Her mother and I exchanged amused glances at her pretense of adulthood. Our eyes lingered, and she reached for my hand. We sat there, silently for a moment, a family again.

We talked about old times, which now meant anything before the day that the undead took over. Perhaps it was unhealthy to dwell on a long-gone past, but it was comforting to remember that there was once a more innocent time.

I continued, “…And so Zack ends up meeting her, and she’s in a wheelchair, so he tries to play it off cool, but she can tell that he has a problem with it, so he ends up joining a wheelchair basketball game, which just embarrasses her even more!” I knew I was mutilating the storyline, but it was the best possible replacement for the television that I never guessed would be so missed.

My mind drew a blank, and I struggled to come up with something next. Madi chimed in, “Okay, so Chloe and Cameron have to break their study date,” she spoke haltingly trying to remember the story.

“Well, don’t stop for me, but I need to take a commercial break,” Aimee smiled, rising with some effort and crossing to the bathroom, leaving the door cracked. Her flashlight created dancing shadows from the doorway.

Madi, continued, “And the bratz have a study date, but-“

A scream peeled from the bathroom, making my blood run cold. It wasn’t fear, but something else, something I had never heard before. Madi and I sprang to our feet and ran towards the door.

“Jacob!” I yelled to Madi, pointing towards the bed. He had woken with a start and began to wail; I was afraid that he would find his way off the side, but Madi reached him first, half of her attention on her brother, the other half concerned for her mother. I thrust the door open, and saw Aimee, halfway curled on the floor near the toilet. She was staring inside, not moving, not speaking.  “Aimee?” I approached. No answer. I looked in the bowl.

So much blood. Somewhere, in there, was our baby.

Aimee looked at me, slowly, her eyes filling with tears. I hugged her and she clutched at me back, beginning to sob into my neck, wetting my collar. I felt Madi emerge behind me, concerned. She remained silent; maybe she understood what had happened, but she knew the time to ask wasn’t now.

I held Aimee until her sobs decreased to a pained sniffle.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” asked Madi.

I pulled her close. “We lost the baby, honey.”

“Oh,” Madi said, simply. We had never told her that her mother was pregnant, but she didn’t seem too surprised; perhaps it was shock. We each mourned, briefly, for our respective losses; for the fantasies and dreams of what not-yet-was. Somehow, among all the death and all the sorrow, this one was a true tragedy.

We each mourned, briefly, for our respective losses- the fantasies and dreams of what not-yet-was. Somehow, among all the death, this one struck us as a tragedy.

“I’ve been bleeding for a few days,” Aimee explained, “but it didn’t seem serious. I really thought that-”

She stopped in mid-sentence, having heard the same thing as Madi and I- a low guttural moan that was both hungry and primitive. The sound was muffled by and echoed off the walls, making it seem to come from every direction at once. Yet, it wasn’t the undead chorus, but only a single voice. We froze in place, afraid to breathe. We were mostly unarmed, tired and, for Aimee, too weak to fight.

The sound grew louder, the producer being frustrated at whatever stood between it and its meal. The sound reached a fever pitch until we heard a massive crash. Then another. And then another. It grew louder and more insistent and stronger as the beating continued. I knew- we all knew by now- that the sounds would attract others if any were around. The undead were remarkably social and would always come when they heard the sounds of a live meal.

“I’ll be right back,” I said. “Keep this door shut until I do.”

The three- now only three- sat on the bed, very still. “I love you,” I said to all of them.

“I love you, too,” said the girls in unison.

I left the room and closed the door behind me, hearing the lock click into place behind me. Clearly, they felt fear; me, I felt alone and on the wrong side of the locked door. I crept along the hallway towards the living room, my flashlight off, but ready. The crashing had stopped and now I heard the soft, rhythmic shuffle of undead feet, and the occasional knock as the creature hit an object. The sound was getting louder- it was coming this way.

I reached the end of the hallway and took a breath. The house was pitch dark and I knew that I would feel the creature before I saw it without light. I flicked on my flashlight, casting a beam into the living room; as if by chance, it fell directly on the face of a man, or what was left of it, at the far end of the room. He wore faded jeans and a plaid work shirt, and shuffled towards me anxiously. His skull had been caved in and dried blood ran from the wound, dripping over the dark cavity of his missing eye- the other watched me hungrily. Behind him, one of the doors, now seen to be hollow wood and thin, had been beaten off its hinges and broken in two. It was the husband- he wouldn’t die as a man, after all.

Along with the flashlight, I leveled the revolver at his remaining eye; I couldn’t afford to miss- couldn’t risk the sound of more than a single shot. I waited until he grew closer, for a clean shot. Halfway across the room, he hastened as if he could smell my flesh. His moaning reached a fevered pitch as he closed, closer still, one step at a time. Nearly within grasping distance, I squeezed the trigger.

Crack!

The creature stumbled in mid-step, its shoulder snapping back violently with the strike. It continued to close, undeterred; already I could smell the putrid breath.

Crack!

My ears rang with the concussion, but my lead had finally found its mark. The creature’s eye disintegrated in a mass of black frothy cream, and its head snapped at an impossible angle. It stood, aloft for several seconds, balanced only by bizarre fortune, before collapsing forward at my feet. I jumped back quickly to avoid the mass as the head hit the ground with a sickening thud. The house was now still, except for the fading ringing in my ears.

I paused and listened, and there were no more. The night was silent as I pulled the creature back to the breached room and closed the door as much as was possible. I knocked on the bedroom door, “It’s me, it’s gone.” The lock clicked, and the door opened to Madi peering through the crack. “C’mon girls, you know what we need to do.”

We had a rule about gunfire; after a shot, we moved as far and as quickly away from the area as possible. Reliably, the nearby undead are attracted to the sound and would be drawn to it. But if, as tonight, it wasn’t safe to travel or there was nowhere any safer nearby, we only watched. Watched and waited.