Z Children (Book 1): Awakening (23 page)

At the very back
of the closet there was a woolen blanket, rolled tightly and nearly hidden
under all the random things I’d shifted. I gripped its folds and pulled,
releasing it from beneath the avalanche of my dad’s… my dead dad’s… crap. It
was heavier than I expected, but that meant it would be warm when I needed
warmth. I stood up, clutching the roll of material against my chest, and
carefully navigated out of the narrow, but deep space. It was like playing an
impromptu game of hopscotch.

Exiting the
closet, my foot snagged on a raggedy messenger bag. I began to fall forward,
scrambling to regain my footing while keeping a tight grip on a corner of the
blanket. I righted myself, but the sudden movement caused the length of wool to
unroll. Something hit the scratched hardwood with a thud. Whatever it was lay
hidden beneath the dark folds. Steady on my feet again, I started bundling the
blanket once more. As the cloth left the floor, I saw it.

A gun.

My dad had never
said anything about owning a gun. I shoved the wool cover under my left arm and
leaned down to pick the weapon up. It was a single barrel shotgun.

I’d never held a
gun before, not once, never. I’d lived in Texas my whole life, a state that
might as well be coined the patron state of shoot first, and I’d never fired a
weapon. This was only the third time I’d ever even seen one. But it was a gun.
People would take that seriously. And I could defend myself. I knew I could.
With Grandpa’s machete and Dad’s gun, I might have a chance. I fiddled with the
shotgun for a moment, trying to figure out how to use it. Depressing the small
lever at the barrel’s termination into the stock, I grinned when the barrel
fell towards the floor with a rather loud click. Then the second lever thing
was called a hammer. Wasn’t it?

Pondering the
‘hammer or not a hammer’ debate, my eyes locked onto the dark hollow opening
where I was pretty sure a bullet should be. There wasn’t a shell. I groaned
loudly, not giving a crap if a killer kid or psycho adult heard me. “Really,
Dad? Really? A gun and no bullets?” I wasn’t really surprised though, not at
all.

It was Dad.

Dad was never
prepared for anything. 

I reentered the
too-small closet and began yanking items up and tossing them back down without
decorum. There had to be shells. Why would Dad keep the gun here? Why keep it
at all if he didn’t intend to use it? I’d nearly given up hope, when my fingers
brushed against a petite box on the highest shelf- just out of my reach. In the
dim light, I could read the label “Remington” on the white cardboard. My heart
leapt in happiness, like it wanted to launch up my throat, out of my mouth, and
abandon me.

Slowly, I moved
the box a little more with my fingertips and it fell. I tried to grab it as it
fell, but the precious bullet container bounced away from my grip and hit the
floor. I stared at the box lying on the wood a few feet away from me and its
sole occupant, which was rolling lazily away across the floor.

One shell. One
lousy round between me and the end of the world. One bullet.

Dad. Typical
Dad.  

“Hell,” I didn’t
bother exiting the closet first; I just dropped onto my ass and pouted. I felt
like giving up. In a split second, my bravado of being the apocalyptic heroine
with a shotgun and never-ending bullet supply got smashed. My mind couldn’t
handle the revelation of the singular shell. So I laughed. I sat there, atop
piles of miscellaneous junk, and I laughed. My eyes were crinkled closed, tears
streaming down my face, as I half-sobbed, half-cackled my way back to
sensibility. When I was spent, my body no longer shaking with emotion, I opened
my eyes and wiped at them roughly with the sleeve of my shirt. It was
short-sleeved, so I had to yank the material hard towards my face.

When I’d
finished, the material did not un-stretch; it had changed to this loose, gangly
piece of fabric that had no hope of covering my left shoulder. Now I’d have to
grab a new shirt.

The need for a
new top didn’t move me from the closet. I felt safe there. Crawling forward,
yet managing to somehow keep my butt planted against the floor, I retrieved the
bullet. Sitting cross-legged with the shotgun against my lap, I spent the
longest time just spinning the single 20 grade shell between my fingers. Who
was I kidding? Grown men were out there dying, not able to save themselves or
their families, and here I’d been thinking I was going to defeat monsters with
an ill-treated, ancient bazooka. Like I was going to save the world.

What an idiot I
was.

Here was safe.
Here in this house. Maybe I should stay. Maybe it hadn’t been silly to think I
could hole up between these walls and survive. I could still feel Dad here.
Still hear Grandma banging about in the kitchen looking for the kettle. The
tears were threatening again, this time without the balancing force of
hysterical laughter. The woman inside of me was giving way to the little girl
that I actually was. It was alright though.

It was alright
to still be a little girl at the end of the world…

No, it’s not
alright, you dummy.
The grownup beneath the young child rearing her head.

Pulling myself
to a standing position, shotgun in hand and shell now in my pocket, I took one
step out of the claustrophobic space, my eyes focused downward so I wouldn’t
trip again. And that’s when I saw them. Fanning out from the crappy messenger
bag was a stack of old girlie magazines. If only Dad was here to have that
awkward moment with.

But he wasn’t.

I turned back to
the closet, tears threatening again, and saw a touch of pink peeking out from
between an old winter coat and moth-eaten black suit. It was nearly obscured,
just a touch of girly color, but I knew what it was.

Mom wore the
shirt when she and Dad had brought me home from the hospital. I remembered it
from the picture. Glancing down at my stretched-out collar, I pulled off my
shirt and retrieved the bubblegum pink, button-up blouse from its hiding place.

Slowly, my
fingers undid the buttons and pushed my arms into the sleeves. It was silky,
even after all this time, like it had just been fresh-washed with expensive
softener. Closing my eyes, I imagined a time when we were happy. The smell of
Mom making pancakes, Dad laughing as he hugged her from behind. 

I could almost
even hear Grandma rummaging around in the kitchen looking for that stupid
kettle so she could make us all tea.

My senses went
into overdrive and I opened my eyes, fear clouding my vision slightly.

A noise. A
creak. These weren’t figments of my imagination. That wasn’t Grandma
downstairs. Grandma was dead.

I had locked the
kitchen door. I knew I had, but, something nagged at me. My own stupidity. The
key. I hadn’t removed the key from the exterior lock. I’d just been so relieved
to be inside… I’d locked the latch and forgotten all about it.

My ears perked
as the sounds came alive again. Right below me. In the living room.

I held my
breath. Quiet as a church mouse, I listened. Something was definitely walking
below me, but there was also something else. Scratching. No, more of an
animalistic scuffling. And whatever was causing the secondary sound was moving
fast, with purpose.

It had to be one
of them. One of those monster kids… in the house.
Oh, my god… oh, my god.
 
All I could feel was fear, deep seated and overtaking.

I thought of my
machete. Where I’d left it on the kitchen table. I couldn’t get it. No way. The
stairs exited next to the living room. I’d be dead as soon as I walked off the
last step. I had to stay put, try to hide. Hope it went away. If only I had the
machete I would have a chance. What defense did I have up here? Here with an
old rusty gun and one bullet. One chance.

I had one chance
to save myself.

Opening the
shotgun’s barrel again, the too-loud click caused by the action making my heart
lose its rhythm, I slid the singular shell inside after retrieving it from the
folds of my pocket. It taunted me, teasing that I didn’t have a chance in hell-
not with one shot and no experience. Resolutely, I lifted the barrel back up.
The sound of it reconnecting resonated throughout Dad’s bedroom. Had it been
that loud the first time I’d reclosed it? So noisy. Too noisy. Like a hammer
hitting steel.

I froze,
listening intently. Silence.

Everything was silent
within the house now. Had I imagined it?
Please, let me just have imagined
it…
But I could feel the threat, like a living organism of fear inside my
belly. It was still there, quiet and waiting.

Hell was out
there waiting.

I didn’t want to
leave the room. I wanted to curl up in a ball and hide.

But hiding
wouldn’t save my ass. I knew that, without even a morsel of doubt. I moved
backwards into the closet, closing the hollow door behind me, and tugging on
the light cord to plunge the space into black. The piles of crap shifted as I
gingerly stepped upon them, causing small avalanches within the narrow space.
Eventually, I could back no further and the length of my body came to rest
against the wall, poorly insulated and hot from the sun outside. I pulled the
hammer back on the gun and I waited in the dark, thankful that that lever, at
least, did not cause a heart attack-inducing sound.

It was moving
again, rapidly through the house and there were no two cents about it, it was
looking for me. Layered atop the sound track of erratic search, was the
walking. The walking that, I realized now, had never actually stopped. It was
innocuous, but terrifying in its own measure. In some ways, it scared me more
than the rapid scuffling. It felt constant, unchangeable- the tortoise that
would eventually win the race instead of the rabbit, who, by all accounts,
should not have been beaten to the finish line.

And I was the
finish line. Me. Bonnie with the mother issues and untamable hair.

I was shaking
now, the weight of the gun an anchor in my hands. I didn’t know how to use it,
how to shoulder it. I’d never been taught and it wasn’t fair. I should have
been taught, given some sort of advantage. Unless I wasn’t worth surviving.
Hell, I wasn’t worth my mother staying. Maybe that was testament enough to my
worth to the world. 

Shaking. I
couldn’t stop shaking.

Then the door
opened. And a figure stood, outlined by the sunlight pouring into Dad’s
bedroom. The details of her face and form were shadowed by the darkness of the
closet, but I’d recognize the shape and hint of white shoulders perfume
anywhere. 

It was Mrs.
Alice. My Mrs. Alice. My wonderful next door neighbor whom I loved and
cherished. She wouldn’t hurt me. Mrs. Alice wouldn’t hurt me. I wanted to run
to her, clutch at her floral blouse and cry. But the logical, ever-present
woman inside me instructed me to stay still and keep the gun ready. Not that I
could hurt her. I couldn’t. The little girl inside of me warred with the adult,
a desperate bid to not lose yet another person I loved.

I needed to see
her, really see her. I stepped forward, only far enough to tug on the light
cord halfway between myself and my neighbor.

I couldn’t
control the gasp that escaped my mouth.

It’s Mrs. Alice.
She would never hurt me.

And, in a way, I
was right. Mrs. Alice would not have hurt me.

But this wasn’t
Mrs. Alice. Mrs. Alice was dead. That was an obvious truth. Her lower cheeks
and neck were littered with bite marks and four of her fingers were missing-
two cleanly bitten off, two fleshly tatters of skin revealing stained bone.

She moved toward
me, moaning and opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water. No
teeth. Her mouth was a gummy, toothless expanse of pink. She couldn’t bite me;
maybe I could get away from her, squeeze by her somehow without having to hurt
her.

But I’d
forgotten about the scuffling; the ‘it’ that had been moving so fast throughout
the house. That couldn’t have been Mrs. Alice.

From between
Mrs. Alice’s leg, a tangled mess of dark hair emerged. It was her
granddaughter. I’d seen her picture so many times atop the large piano in Mrs.
Alice’s living room. The child’s face and hair sported drying blood and she
gnashed her teeth together, spitting and hissing at me. The girl inside of me
just wanted to scream, to cover my face with my hands and pray I’d wake up. The
woman inside of me did not wish to go quietly into the abyss. She screamed,
wanting to survive.

Pull the damn
trigger!

The fireball was
enormous. The old paper and wax shell erupted into a flaming mass of wadding,
powder, and shot. The force of the blast made the stock shove into my shoulder
and knock me backwards. My head met the wall with a resounding crack and instantly
I saw stars. Impaired vision- not the greatest thing to experience during a
monster assault. I felt nauseous, my head throbbing, my body threatening to
give way to unconsciousness. But the woman was there again, yelling at me to do
something. The pain and noise and alter-ego sounding in my head was too much.