Dead Things (17 page)

“I guess so,” she said, pausing to sip tea from a mug bequeathing her the title “World’s Best Secretary.” “Let’s examine your definition of ‘living.’ If ‘living’ means losing a job, downing a fifth of moonshine every night, watching 70 plus hours of TV per week, and humping your wife twice a year—three times if she’s having a particularly bad one—then I guess the military hasn’t done much to prepare me for that.”

“Hey!” Jim decried, holding his mug before him like a shield.

“Goodbye, Jim.” Wright left the house, her last memory of her brother just his quaking mug putting the world on notice that his other car is a Cadillac.

But Ian, this kid, shows her more just by looking at her, than, well, anyone.

If Richard had lived, he wouldn’t have wasted a moment on her. No, he’d be too busy blubbering about his docile wife and their towheaded baby to give a shit about some piece of ass he tapped between flights.

Not Ian, though.

Sure, he is stupid and careless, but only because he cares, cares for her. She feels an odd flutter in her bosom, but quickly dismisses once again the nagging suspicion that she may be falling in love with this boy.

Ian has problems finding words. They drift before coming to his lips. He struggles to fill the void. He almost says, “I fucked up.”

“He helped me secure the floor,” Wright exclaims from the staircase, bounding down them in twos. “We’ve got to fortify the rest of this place. We’ll be staying for the night.”

Chapter Fifteen: Bathroom Break

The hammer and nails are easy to locate. The home’s owners left the tools on the kitchen island with a handsaw and crow bar. They make the front door fast by nailing the second floor’s bathroom door across it. They move to assess the risks in other areas.

The house rests on a slope, meaning the primary means of ingress is the front porch. Unfortunately, it spans the width of the house, and the living and dining room windows require reinforcement.

The glass panes, save for the southern most window of the dining room, are broken and brown with blood. They are literally held in place by varying grades of scrap lumber.

As Ian fortifies the windows using portions of the dining room table, Wright pounds at the front door to hold the creature rapt.

If enough of them descend upon the house, the window casings themselves will not hold. Best, then, for the animals to focus on the traditional forms of entry.

Van finds a shotgun in the pantry. It is glued to the floor, its barrel caked, scabbed with blood. He comes upon it by following spent shell casings from the living room. Like a trail of breadcrumbs in a fairytale, the used cartridges evidence a tragic and violent end. One unused bullet remains in the chamber. He suspects the wielder saved it, purposely hoping for a few precious seconds to wrap his mouth around the barrel. Perhaps at the end, he just couldn’t pull the trigger.

The owners had never gone far. When their attackers had roamed off in search of more prey, the family lingered, drawn by the familiarity. The husband is at the front door, his wife still feasting on the remains of the Hestons.

If faced with similar circumstances, Van promises himself he will choose the path of the bullet.

At any rate, the creatures will not gain access through the rear of the house. The windows are a good twelve feet, maybe more, above the lawn. Thankfully. The bathroom reeks horribly of mildew and mold. Burt throws open a window to air it out.

Though not enough to save them, the home’s owners wisely demolished the back porch. They left its remnants to rot in a heap beneath the rear entry. Burt and Van stare down at the worm-infested fragments, sighing in relief. Burt smiles smugly, a flash from the wilds of his beard confessing his satisfaction that they are safe. Together they shut the door.

Ian does not linger as he does most nights, waiting for an opportunity to share a furtive moment with Wright. Drained by his embarrassment and shame, tonight it is straight to bed. Within a quarter hour, he is fast asleep.

He doesn’t wake when Wright, patrolling the floor, steps gingerly over him.

Locked in battle in another fever dream, Ian grimaces unconsciously.

Wright searches the room for prying eyes. Seeing none, she kneels to Ian’s side and runs a finger across his cheek. She moves a piece of hair over his ear. She grins and then continues on.

Ian does not wake, but he is not oblivious to Wright’s touch. When the closet in his mind opens to the thundering hands of his fiendish enemies, no infant lies there to greet them. Instead, Ian, The Man, stands before his attackers, and he launches at them with the fury of a cornered wolf.

For Jessica, sleep is elusive. The pounding on the door has yet to relent, and each punch is a hammer tapping her skull. She burrows under her pillow. She is growing madder by the hour, her brave veneer fading. Finally, sleep comes, but it does not last.

She awakes with a start to the sound of breaking glass; not the crash of a window, but something different. A sound akin to something distant, to a delicate Christmas ornament impacting the tree skirt…the soft twinkle of blown glass turning to powder.

She sits up and listens, her eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness. Slowly, the forms of sleeping bodies take shape in the early morning light, sprawled here and there like fallen soldiers.

The rapping at the front door continues, somewhat muffled. The creature’s hand has been reduced to mush, deadening the sound of his weakening blows.

Jessica holds her face in her hands, her elbows resting on her knees. Please, God, make it stop.

Her small bladder once again aches, and for the first time in a long time she feels her spirits rise.

She has almost forgotten the hidden pleasure of sitting on a commode. She is sick of squatting in the brush, her rear a pin cushion for an assortment of sticks and bugs. Her lower left buttock itches incessantly. She suspects poison ivy.

Now, though, clean porcelain awaits her raw derriere. How nice it will be to use tissue paper instead of leaves! How nice it will be to do so in private!

Jessica tiptoes through the vestibule. She passes the stairway and mourns she cannot use the second floor bathroom. It is nicer than the bathroom near the kitchen (the former is pink and the latter smells of mildew), but it has no door. The boys used it to barricade the window.

She moves swiftly down the hallway, dancing as the pressure in her bladder builds. Into the darkness of the bathroom she goes, jigging like an Irish schoolgirl. Her hands search the back of the door frantically until they happen upon a deadbolt. She locks it, barely has time to drop her drawers before she sits hard on the seat. She sighs with relief, hissing echoing from the bowl beneath her.

Her enjoyment is relative. As much as she likes pissing like a human again, the putrid stench of rotting wood assaults her nose. A pipe bringing fresh water to the toilet has been steadily leaking for nearly twenty years, one of the few items left unattended on an ancient “honey do” list. A drip at first, the leak has become a steady trickle. It has permeated the drywall, the baseboards, the floorboards, and the load bearing joists beneath.

Dutifully, the beams have supported the weight of the toilet and its occupants for more than ten decades. But today, the boards rebel. The slight weight of Jessica is just too much to bear.

She screams. The toilet bucks forward as the floorboards collapse. The floor beneath Jessica falls away. She is tossed from her seat as it lurches forward, hitting her ribs hard against the splintering floor. She splays her arms wide for a hold as she plunges through the flooring. She grimaces, struggles to distribute her weight as evenly as possible. Her legs and hips dangle, she can only guess, into the basement below her. If she could just swing a leg over…

But the toilet pitches further, pinning her chest firmly against floor and hampering her escape. The contents of the bowl slosh, soaking Jessica’s head and back. She gasps, the cold water startling her. “Oh, gross!”

With a low growl she claws to free herself. She stretches mightily, but her fingers cannot find a hold. “Shit,” she sighs, then laughs out loud at the double entendre.

Between labored chuckles, Jessica half-heartedly calls for help. “Can anyone hear me? I’m having a problem in the bathroom.”

A problem? In the bathroom? She snorts with laughter, then groans, her chest aching. She clears her throat. “Help, help, help, help, help,” she mews like a starving kitten. “Help anyone?”

And then, from the cellar below her, comes the familiar sound of breaking glass.

What? Jessica labors to peer into the darkness that’s swallowed her lower half. Blackness masks her legs. She stops straining and listens for further sounds.

She hears a soft shuffling and the sound of shattered glass scattering across a concrete floor. Almost rhythmic, it gets closer—and then silence.

Is someone down there? She wonders if Van is playing a practical joke.

Jessica feels pressure against her leg, something cold and wet. Her face goes blank…before white-hot pain shoots up her spine, so intense that she can do nothing but shriek uncontrollably.

Without responding, they are running, Wright, Burt, Ian, Anne, and Van groggy and at the rear. Through the hallway they go, Jessica’s bloodcurdling cries echoing throughout the old home’s shell.

The screams bounce about in Van’s head. Good God, she must be dying.

Someone in the lead realizes the screams are coming from the bathroom, and leads the circus to the door. Burt hits the oak door first, but to no avail. He retreats to ram it again, but instead bangs Ian immediately to his rear. Ian caroms into Wright, and Wright into Anne like some human billiards trick.

“Out of the way!” Van calls from their rear. They have barely enough time to scoot aside before he barrels through. He hits the door like a wrecking ball, his shoulder splintering the frame, popping the deadbolt. The door flies open, and he follows it, sprawling forward. His face and elbows plant next to Jessica’s unconscious body.

Van’s forced to the side, Burt and Ian each taking one of Jessica’s arms. The toilet, though, holds her fast, pressing her against the dank floor. “She’s stuck!”

“Van,” Burt calls, “help us out here!” Van crawls to their side. “Lift the toilet when we lift,” Burt instructs. Van seizes the commode with both hands, pushing its porcelain tank up and away from Jessica.

The floor beneath strains, moaning as the toilet’s base levels out. “Is the floor safe?” Anne asks.

Still, Jessica is wedged tight. Burt urges Van to do more. Van pushes harder, Burt cries for Ian to pull, and they lift Jessica by her armpits.

Van plummets, pirouetting. He stretches his arms before him, hoping to find a hold. Instead, his left arm hits cement, folding beneath him. Before the pain can register, he rolls, barely managing to avoid the falling toilet.

The porcelain hits with a heavy slap, bouncing, splintering, spinning half around and rolling once, before coming to a halt at the edge of a faint circle of light.

Van turns to the sky. He sees the dimly lit hole above him from whence he fell. Burt and Ian have drawn Jessica from the hole, and Anne starts crying.

Wright calls to Van, asks him if he’s all right. Van rises and assesses his forearm. It doesn’t look broken, but it hurts like hell.

Wright’s silhouette calls back to him. “Hold on,” she says. “Don’t move. Stay exactly where you are.” Her flashlight flickers alive, trains on him.

“Why?” Van questions, his eyes trying to adjust to probe the darkness. “I need someone to look at my—” Van’s eyes fall on a pool of dark liquid, not four feet from where he stands. He freezes. What’s going on here?