Fortunes & Failures - 03 (23 page)

I cursed my injury…
again
, then made my way to the weapons room. Sitting on the now useless toilet, I went to work. A few minutes later, Melissa arrived.

“I brought help.” She opened the door to reveal Thalia and Emily. With much more enthusiasm than I felt, they went to work shoving rounds into magazines.

This is what I’d been reduced to: loading duty with the little girls. Try as I might, it was becoming increasingly difficult to not spiral into self-pity. As we worked, I marveled at how fast and competent both Thalia and Emily were at loading. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Thalia was the fastest six-year-old girl for miles when it came to that activity.

A knock at the door snapped us out of our repetitive action trances. I looked up to see Dr. Zahn standing in the doorway. “She didn’t make it,” the doctor announced. “I spiked her so she wouldn’t get back up. We need to toss the body as soon as possible.”

“Who died?” Melissa looked up with alarm.

“The gal Jon and Jamie brought back with them,” I said. “She was pretty chewed up…but was immune. Unfortunately, she’d lost a lot of blood by the time they got her here. Poor gal had some of the worst luck I’ve ever heard of.”

“That’s too bad,” Melissa sighed. After a pause, she asked, “Is it me, or are we becoming desensitized to people dying. I don’t feel a thing.”

A gunshot rang out making everybody jump and keeping anyone from responding to her query. With my usual awkwardness, I was the last one to my feet and out of the room. Everybody had grabbed an assortment of weapons and rushed to the front porch. I slung a pair of rifles over my shoulders and followed.

The popcorn-like sounds of gunfire were picking up. All the shooting did not bode well. Seeing all the slumped shoulders of the crowd gathered at the window sure didn’t help.

Just then, the door flew open. It was Billy and he was panting heavily. “Jon says that anybody who can shoot needs to get out here before the main body makes it to the driveway leading up.”

I followed out onto the porch after I told Emily to go and bring up more of the weapons and loaded magazines. As I stepped outside, I saw them. They were pouring through the treeline in numbers too big to count. I had no idea how many had fallen to the countless pits and traps we’d set in the woods, but it wasn’t enough. The berm-bordered road was already clogged with a sludge-like tide of walking death. Jon and Jamie were firing down into it. I couldn’t tell if it was helping or not.

They’d found us.

* * * * *

9

Vignettes XV

Garrett sat on the long, plush sofa. The once white sectional was dingy and stained now. He stared out the enormous picture window, watching the rain fall in sheets. A howling wind blew, drowning out the sounds of the dead. A row of empty beer cans stood in silent sentinel down the length of the ornately carved coffee table. Garrett briefly wondered if rich people had a fancy name for coffee tables, then popped the tab on another can and decided he didn’t care.

A flash of lightning turned the world an electric-blue for a second…one…two…three…BOOM. Thunder vibrated the cans as well as the windows and everything else. Garrett loved storms and this had the marks of a doozy. It might even be a hurricane for all he knew. The Weather Channel had gone off the air a long time ago.

A sudden thought wiped the drunken smile from his face. What if the gate collapsed, or a tree fell and crushed a section of the brick wall that kept those things out? Yesterday he’d gone out with the intentions of going to look for food. However, there was a problem; the entire property was surrounded. Those things were dozens deep at some of the thinner spots. In other places, they were all the way across the road and in the yards across the street. The hedge that had stood between the sidewalk and the narrow strip of grass was completely gone, no evidence remaining that it ever existed. At least nothing visible.

Garrett had checked everywhere, becoming more and more frantic as he did so. He’d passed The Toy tied to her post three times before realizing it. There would be no more food runs until those things left. Only it didn’t seem those cursed abominations would be leaving any time soon. From the numerous upstairs windows, every place he could see out past the wall, the numbers continued to grow.

Perhaps, if this were in fact a hurricane, it might brush these things aside. Tipping the can, Garrett drained another beer in two great swallows. As he set the empty can down, a shadow flickered across the big window. Garrett yelped and jumped to his feet. The sudden movement caused the room to swirl and sent a bolt of pain to his head. Once it subsided, he staggered to the front door, the poker from the rack beside the fireplace in his hand.

A line of slobber dripped from his mouth and down his stubbly chin, hanging for a second before cascading onto his sweat-soaked shirt and vanishing in the big, dark stain already in place. The side of his face pressed against the coolness of the door, and he listened. All Garrett heard was the howling wind and the pebble-like cacophony of giant raindrops pelting the ground, roof, windows.

Slowly he turned the knob. The door slammed into him and Garrett was certain that dozens if not hundreds of those things were pressed against it. He pushed back with all his might and the door shammed shut. Staggering back, he cocked his arm, ready to shatter the head of the first one of those freaks that came through the door. But nothing happened. He waited to hear the sound of dead hands pounding on the door, but all he heard was his heart hammering in his chest in sync with the pulsing sensation in his head.

Garrett staggered to the window, peering around the edge of the curtains. The swing on the porch had toppled. Nothing more. He could see that the rain was coming down horizontally now. And as it hit the windows, it sounded as if somebody were throwing handfuls of gravel.

Garrett laughed. At first in a nervous chuckle, then in all out hysterics. He was safe. Those things were stuck on the other side of the wall, and that’s where they would stay. His kingdom was safe. Returning to the cardboard box on the coffee table, he shoved his hand in and fished out the last can of beer. Popping the tab, Garrett guzzled it down, then belched loudly.

Stomping over to the door, he turned the knob once more, this time letting it fling open. Rain and wind pummeled and pelted him, but Garrett didn’t care. He stepped out onto the porch, instantly soaked to the skin as if he’d plunged fully clothed into a swimming pool. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled almost immediately. Stepping down off the porch, he turned his face to the sky and roared his defiance.

He staggered along the walkway, the wind amplifying the weaving path he took as he stomped down the driveway. By the time he reached the gate, Garrett had transformed all the fear of just a few minutes ago into rage. He thrust the poker through the bars into the face of one of the hellish creatures on the other side. It dropped as soon as he withdrew. Again and again he stabbed. Sometimes in the face, other times in the body. All the while he screamed obscenities or roared challenges. Arms reached through and were beaten and broken. On and on it went until he was exhausted. His screams of anger became sobs of frustration as his efforts showed no sign of making the slightest dent in the numbers gathered just on the other side of the gate.

In a final and futile act of desperation, Garrett unzipped his fly and urinated. Of course, the raging wind blew it away—in reality he probably got more on himself—but it was the act of defiance itself. Yet, even that brought him no comfort or contentment.

Exhausted, Garrett turned and made his way back to the house. Somehow, the journey seemed longer and the wind felt even more powerful. He stumbled through the front door and fought for a moment against nature to get it shut.

Peeling off his soaking wet clothes, Garrett made his way up the stairs. He paused in the doorway and stared in at The Toy, still bound by wrists and ankles to the four corners of the bed. Then, he staggered down the hallway to the master bedroom. Crawling into his own bed, he wrapped himself in the blankets and drifted off, grateful that, at least for tonight, he could fall asleep to something other than the sounds of the dead.



Kirsten listened to the storm outside continue to grow stronger. The windows of her bedroom rattled as the wind and rain continued their onslaught. The flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder had long since ceased in making her start.

She’d never been afraid of the weather…until now. The world had become a more frightening place, and storms, like darkness, held an entire new mystery to them. Something outside clattered on the balcony, but Kirsten couldn’t see what it was.

She lay still, her focus on keeping calm. It did no good to let fear overwhelm her. She needed to keep her head clear. The Big Man had changed in the past few days. In fact, he hadn’t touched her since that day he’d made the bargain resulting in her actually eating her fill. She shuddered involuntarily at what she’d had to do.

It was after she ate that Kirsten realized that The Big Man had just sat quietly. He’d left her be. Even going so far as to let her get up and walk around a bit. She kept waiting for him to spring his trap, but it never happened. After about an hour, he’d tied her back up, but still, this was completely out of character.

Laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, Kirsten felt the kernel of hope begin to sprout anew. What she had to do now was ensure that she watched for the opportunity. Perhaps she could lull The Big Man into making a mistake. She’d finally done that disgusting thing with her mouth that he’d wanted so badly without causing him injury. Maybe he thought that he’d won.

Could it really be that easy? Was it really as simple as pretending that she’d given up fighting? Kirsten thought about it. Since that evening, he hadn’t hurt her, done any of those terrible things to her, or so much as laid a hand on her. Instead, he’d given her water, food—not much, but some—and untied her a few times a day and taken her downstairs to the library which was where he kept the toilet bucket. She hadn’t been forced to lay in her own filth. And, the one day she’d been left alone too long and peed the bed, he’d taken her out back for a bath and let her change the sheets.

She heard the front door open and it startled her back to reality. The door slammed and continued to bang against the wall. The sound of the storm drifted up the stairs and the rain sounded like the television had been turned to a channel of all static and set to full volume.

Another sound struggled to be heard above the storm. It sounded like The Big Man screaming. Kirsten felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind that now whipped through the house. The storm was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. It dawned on her that perhaps this was a hurricane. If that were the case, it was possible something had happened to the wall. That might mean some of the monster-people had gotten in; and that scream…had they gotten The Big Man?

Laying in bed, helpless, was not the way Kirsten wanted to die. She struggled to hear anything that resembled feet coming up the stairs. Dead feet slapping along the hardwood floor of the hallway, coming for her. She considered which would be worse, seeing The Big Man turned into one of the monster-people walking through that door to eat her, or a bunch of complete strangers?

Kirsten struggled at her bonds. This couldn’t happen. She felt tears well up, stinging her eyes. She lay still again and listened. All she heard now was the door banging, swinging on its hinges as the wind howled and the rain poured. Still no sound of approaching footsteps. In that moment, Kirsten realized she wasn’t actually afraid to die. What she was afraid of was dying helpless.

She renewed her struggles, trying desperately to free just one arm. The tears changed from ones of frustration to those of anger. That feeling welled up and overflowed as she screamed. This couldn’t happen. She couldn’t die this way. Kirsten struggled, feeling the bonds cut into her, but she didn’t care.

The front door slammed and suddenly it seemed almost silent. Even though she could hear the wind outside and the rain hammering against her window, the door being shut cut down on the noise tremendously. Kirsten froze and listened. She was almost positive that the monster-people wouldn’t have shut the door.

Then, she heard them. Footsteps on the stairs. In strange, awkward sounding thuds, she heard them climb the stairs. Then, after another pause, she heard a sound she could definitely identify; the sound of belted jeans dropping to the floor. So…the break was over. As suspected, it had all been a trick. Well, she would try a trick of her own this time. She would pretend.
Yes
, Kirsten thought,
I’ll make him believe I like him
. She swallowed hard and prepared herself, closing her eyes, doing her best to clear her mind.

The footsteps stopped at her doorway. Kirsten took a few deep breaths. She tried to imagine how she should act to make The Big Man think she liked what he did. Then…the footsteps continued down the hall. Tilting her head up, Kirsten stared at the empty doorway. A few minutes later, the sounds of snoring could just be heard above the storm.



Jenifer-zombie stood amidst the masses. She had no concept of hundreds or thousands. Her body was pressed on all sides. Sometimes, a tiny gap would appear and she would move to fill it.

A rain began to fall and a wind began to blow, but the Jenifer-zombie paid heed to neither. She’d long since forgotten why she had joined the others here. But there was no place else to go. Another small gap appeared and she stepped into it.

Something flickered and Jenifer-zombie’s eyes twitched. There it was, beyond the heads of at least a dozen others, but it was there; the heat. Her hands scratched and clawed and Jenifer-zombie hissed at those who stood between her and the heat. Then, gaps began to happen. Jenifer-zombie moved forward, oblivious to the arms, legs, and torsos that she she stepped on as she drew closer and closer.