We found a house on a block that looked like it hadn't been touched in years; the shutters still hanging on like new, the windows shimmering with a glint from the moon. Everything seemed to say yes for this find. When we circled the block and picked our way through the bramble of the forested backyard, the rear entrance told the same story as the front. We knew it had to be the perfect spot. I worried about the sliding glass doors as being a weak entry point, but it sat off of a raised wood porch that could easily be dismantled and then barricaded. Even better, the leftover wood could be used to block off the windows on the lower level. The rest of the group sat off deeper in the woods as I gingerly worked my way up to the windows lining the back of the house. Just as I saw from across the street in front, it looked to be empty. The furnishings were sparse; a house that had only recently begun its transformation into a home. The first floor held the kitchen, living room, dining room and full bathroom. No attached garage. No side entrance. We could easily barricade ourselves in. I walked my way up the three creaking steps of the back patio, holding my breath as with each step the groaning wood announced my approach to the deadly quiet neighborhood. When I reached the sliding door, I was simultaneously relieved and worried by the fact that it sat open a couple of inches. Either someone had already beat us to it and claimed stake - which seemed unlikely, they would have fortified their win of this fortress - or something else entirely awaited us inside. Either way, the noisy grunt work was done for me already. I steeled myself and eased the door along its track; the crowbar in my hand felt cold against my skin, yet its weight was reassuring.
As I stepped into the combined kitchen/dining/living room, the first thing that hit me was the smell. It was clean; fresh even. Like this little oasis of a building was completely sealed off from the outside world. My heart came down from my throat and my grip relaxed on the crowbar. I knew that the house was empty. Intuition and experience backed me up. If there were any of them in here, it would have reeked of rot and decay. So I continued my journey through. Call it wishful thinking, but I headed straight for the cupboards. Empty, of course. I knew better than to check the fridge, it had been too long for anything in there to be even halfway appetizing. Even the pantry attached in the back laundry room was empty. Not raided exactly, but perhaps never even stocked. I took a quick tour through the rest of the downstairs, noted that there was no basement, and finished my search upstairs. I slipped open the window in the top right of the house and hung out a small white hand towel. This was our signal that the rest of the group could come in and try to make themselves at home. We knew never to get too comfortable, but it had been a while on the open road and we were all ready to settle down.
Once the rest of my ragtag crew had found their way in and thrown their things down, we took a moment to gather around the big dining room table and just sit for a moment. We were silent for a long time. Hoofing it on the road for days at a time, always on edge and high alert, you slip into a place of introversion. No one dared to make a sound louder than the crunch of the dead leaves beneath their feet. Not to mention that we always traveled at night; the moon hung on a whisper in the sky, the night's breeze carrying the low moans and cries of animals. The voice takes a back seat in all that silence and has a hard time finding itself again once it's allowed to stretch it's chords. So I sat mutely with my thrown-together survival comrades. The five of us were worn down. Exhaustion etched its way across every face. My sister, sitting across from me, looked simultaneously aged beyond her years, and yet shrunken down to the size of a small girl. Her eyes told the story of a war-torn veteran and her body that of a malnourished child. Time, and the rather meek aspect of our newly fraught lives, stressed her body and mind. I could only guess what time had done to my appearance. I hadn't really looked at myself closely in a mirror in months. What was the point? The rest of our new friends joined us well into the fight, their stories already worn into their fatigued faces and torn clothing. How their story played out was still somewhat of a mystery to us. The basics were easy enough to guess and the details too fresh for me to venture to ask. It was their story anyhow, none of my business, and unnecessary to bond us together. Survival was enough for that. My eyelids began to droop, and a quick snap of my chin falling into my chest shocked me awake so that I immediately stood up. My chair was knocked backward and the sound reverberated through the house like a gunshot. Both my sudden movement and the crash of wood on tile put everyone else on the edge of their seats. We all stared at each other with eyes wide in shock. I felt the corners of my lips pull back towards my ears. A funny sensation that reminded me of my past when smiling seemed natural. It helped relax everyone else though; their shoulders easing down, their backs slackening, some smirks of their own arising. The tension had been broken. We were slowly letting ourselves relax into this new, temporary haven, but falling asleep was a luxury we couldn't afford quite yet. "Let's get this done before the sunrises," I croaked out, "We probably have another three hours to pull this deck apart before the noise brings in every haunt from around the neighborhood." So we got to work. It was quick, but laborious, to pull apart the deck. Being the only man on the team, I took moral responsibility for most of the grunt work. Honestly, though, my sister and Annaleigh were probably stronger than me on my best days. Together we ripped through the wood in just about an hour. I was surprised, yet heartened, to find out that all the shutters on the house were functional. So while we demolished the porch, I had Christie and J go around the house - with a ladder I found in the backyard tool shed - to nail them shut. While food would have been the best find in any circumstance, I was delighted to see a fully stocked set of tools and supplies in the shed, scattered about in a tableau of homestead construction.
Equipped with our new acquisitions, we set out to make our temporary home a bit more habitable. By the time we had the first floor blocked off, I could see the sky was just beginning to tint a hue of purple I wasn't quite fond of seeing anymore. Time to hunker down is what it told me. Just enough time left in the night to open up a can of salty potatoes and tasteless peas. The noise of a window sliding open above brought me out of my reverie and I looked up to see Annaleigh's sister, Christie, poking her head out. She threw out a stage whisper. "Hey idiots! While I was busy setting up your shit, you failed to realize you didn't leave yourself a way to get in!".
Dammit, she was right. And what's worse, that meant we didn't leave ourselves a way for a quick escape either. We were tired, starting to slip. This new fort we built ourselves had to last. We needed the rest; we deserved it.
After our dinner, we laid ourselves out on the floor of what appeared to be a small office or playroom. All of the rooms on the top floor were empty, their purpose to be determined by the decorations its inhabitants would choose to fill the space. Since the people who purchased this place ran out of time before they played homemaker, we decided to anoint it our communal sleeping area. Besides, it was halfway between the front and back staircase.
I didn't trust myself to lay down, so I propped the back of my head onto the windowsill, letting the hard edge jut into my neck and make the blood pound a little harder in my head. I volunteered the first watch for the night, as usual, but I wanted to see everyone safely into slumber. By the time the room fell still and filled with the heavy, slow rumble of sleep's calm breathing, the sun had already risen above the horizon. I pulled the blinds shut and used a sheet to create a makeshift curtain with two knives holding it in place behind the top of the windows molding. I picked my way through the sleeping bags filled with my friends and out through the door that opened onto the galley style upper-hallway. Directly in front of our new bedroom was a wide railing that ran half the width of the house. It looked down onto the living room, foyer, and staircase. I took a seat at the top step and positioned myself there for the first night’s lookout. Earlier we had rigged somewhat of a booby-trap at the base of the staircase in the back of the house so that no one could make it past without toppling over a stack of kitchen chairs and making a racket loud enough to wake the dead. Pun intended. So I stood guard - or rather sat - and steeled myself against another sunny fall day.
One more day marked off the calendar. Another day of life, yet a day closer to death. Oh the irony. Struggling every minute to keep one foot in front of the other instead of finding ourselves six feet under. I couldn't understand the point anymore. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't having thoughts of ending my life. Had it crossed my mind? I guess that's probably an obvious answer. Even still, why did we continue to fight? It was something completely different from life before all of this had started. The purpose of it may have been elusive - the struggle to find a purpose was common amongst us all - and now we lived like animals. Our days and nights were spent searching for food and shelter, always with an eye over our shoulder looking for the jaws of another to clamp down on the end of our lives. Gone were the days when we would spend our free time fantasizing about our futures filled with dream homes like the one we occupied tonight.
As I sat there working down a long chain of thoughts that were all too familiar to me, I heard from the room a rustle of a sleeping bag and the sound of bare feet on the wooden floor. My sister, Donna, no doubt. Never one to sleep through the night.
“Hey, it’s me”.
“Took you long enough.” I joked.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you. I just couldn’t sleep”. Donna had her bouts of insomnia even before all of this, so it wasn’t a surprise that she kept the circadian cycle of a mouse.
“Don’t worry about it. I heard you coming long before you hit the hallway.”
She held a smirk on her face as she took a seat next to me on the stairs. We sat with each other for a moment, listening to the house settling into itself. The creak of a joist, the moan of the wind through a badly sealed window.
“This was a great find.” She mused, letting her eyes roam the empty walls and sparsely furnished living room below. “You know mom would have killed to decorate a place like this”.
“Yeah, well, mom killed for far less.” My stupid snark killed the mood.
“You know...” Donna hesitated, “that wasn’t really mom anymore. She wasn’t the one in charge of her body.”
She finished the sentence looking at me, but it took me a beat to turn my head and meet her gaze. The pain was present in her eyes. A glint of the sun sent them sparkling, but the darkness was still there; the suffering. I had nightmares where I would look into those eyes and see the flat, dead, glint of silver that her pupils had changed to. The same dime-like appearance that took over our mother's eyes when she came for us that day with a butcher knife in hand. Sometimes, while we milled through the woods at night, the moon would reflect off of Donna or Annaleigh’s eyes and my heart would freeze in its chest. The trick of light always passed, but the fear never left.
“I know, Donna. But sometimes I think…” I pondered a moment. “She can’t have been all gone. There had to be some of her left in there.” I cast my eyes down at my feet for a breath, too embarrassed in front of my sister to look at her as I said: “If she really ever cared for us, I think that she could have fought it. She could have stopped herself. But she didn’t. She just kept going for the next kill. We locked ourselves in that closet and she didn’t even take a moment’s hesitation to run up those stairs and find Dad. She couldn’t get to us so she sniffed out the next victim like an animal. We listened as she attacked him, Donna. Heard him plead with her even as his voice faded and all that was left was the sound of her knife crunching through his bones.”
“That’s just it!” She pleaded. “She wouldn’t have done that. To any of us. It wasn’t her, Brandon. Mom wouldn’t have let anything happen to us if she could stop it. She was gone”. I looked at her then and saw the tears trickling down her face. Her voice was resilient and strong, I hadn’t even noticed she was crying. “Don’t you think, if someone was able to stop themselves, we would have seen it by now? Instead, we’ve spent months running in the dark, hiding from these lunatics who attack each other like wild savages. Mom couldn’t control it any more than the rest of them.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry Dee, I didn’t mean to bring it up again. I just can’t stop my mind sometimes. Things get to me.”
Donna wiped the tears from her face, composing herself quickly, once again. She threw me another smirk.
“I told you to stop calling me Dee. I’m not a little girl anymore.”
“That’s still debatable.” I mused.
We smiled at each other and then Donna put her arm around my shoulders as I rested my head against hers. Alone without a family, but alone, together, at least.
~ ~ ~
The next two days passed by uneventfully. We didn’t allow ourselves to find too much comfort yet, but the future held some possible good outcomes. We spent a night searching what was left of the houses around the block. The neighborhood was spread out on rich land, each house sat on an acre, at least. The one to our left was burned down to its foundation and the one on the right had seen better days; half of it lay on the front yard - looking like a bomb had blasted it there from the inside - while the other half sat on a slant as if confused as to why a chunk of itself was missing. The house across the street sat far enough off the road like ours that it seemed to have missed most of the chaos that ransacked the block. We really did feel like this find was our best yet and hopefully a sign that we were finally getting some luck thrown our way.
We searched the rest of the homes and found many with the now common signal of a spray-painted slash across the front door. A marker that it had already been pilfered or claimed. We saw many of the same set-ups as our own, with all the windows boarded up. We didn’t see another living soul during our treks and luckily we didn’t encounter any wandering, detached Souls either. There was one house about half a mile away from ours that we missed on our way into the town because it sat behind some strategically placed shading trees. J thought she saw someone moving in one of the windows on the top floor as we passed. There weren’t any marks on the door and there weren’t any new renovations blocking off the bottom half either. I felt suspicious about the whole thing, so I thought it best that we leave it be. We were low on food, but we weren’t desperate yet. No need to make a stupid mistake when we could go on a bit longer with what we had.
The best find from our searches was on the third night, just an hour before we were going to call it quits. There was a small sandwich shop that sat right off the exit of a nearby state highway. I assumed it to be a lost cause because of its location; bound to have been torn through ages ago. Annaleigh had a hunch about it though and we learned to trust our gut instincts early on, so I didn't second guess her. Of course, when we entered, the small store was wiped clean. I admit that I had gotten my hopes up and was feeling them sinking back down into my stomach. That was when Christie yelled from around the back. She sounded excited rather than alarmed, so we curiously made our way to her. Christie stood there in all her 4’ 8” glory, looking around 6’ with how high her pride was boosting her right then.
“Guess what I found, fuckers?”
“Christ, Christie!” Her sister retorted. “Language, please!”
Dee and I sniggered to ourselves while J grew impatient.
“You going to spill it or what?” J demanded.
Christie glared a second longer at her sister and then beckoned us with her finger. She turned around and used her crowbar to pry open a door I hadn’t seen sitting in the wall. Leave it to Christie to weasel her way into a hidden door. While her sister, Annaleigh, was nothing but book smart, Christie rounded out the pair by being quick on her feet and extremely street smart. I counted my lucky stars that all of our paths had crossed to bring us together.
When the five of us squeezed into the tiny room, we immediately saw what she was so excited about: taking up most of the square footage was a large, white, deep freezer. I felt that hope rise from earlier and I fought to keep it at bay. I knew the odds were astronomical that the things inside – if any – were still going to be at a safe temperature for them to be edible. We all stood so close together in that tiny room that I could feel excitement building like an electrical charge, even though we all remained quiet and motionless. J broke the silence first.
“There’s no way that there would still be anything in there. Even if there was-“
“There would be no way that it could still be fresh.” Annaleigh broke in. “Right?”
“You guys are missing a big part of the picture right now.” Christie said as she used her crowbar to point at the large Samsonite bolt that was still clasped tightly on the hinge.
“Shit! It’s still locked!”
“Then you think there's a chance-“
“Guys, don’t get too excited-“
“But what if it’s full to-“
“Stop it, you’re making my stomach growl-“
“Shut up!” J silenced the room.
She grabbed the crowbar out of Christie’s hand and set it under the flap of the lock’s hinge. I pulled up alongside her to add my weight to the job. We both looked at each other for a moment and shared a mutual tug of hope on our heartstrings. We set our jaws and put all of our strength down on the bar. It slipped out from under the lock and came swinging back at us. J and I fell into each other, her nose went straight into my clavicle, I bit my tongue on impact and the crowbar whacked me so hard on the shoulder I forgot all about the pain in my mouth.
While Christie laughed at us like a wild hyena, J took to pinching her nose and throwing her head back to staunch the immediate flow of blood that was dripping down her chin. I tasted a bit of iron in my mouth from chomping down on my tongue but it was the laceration on my arm from the crowbar’s sharp steely edge that garnered most of my attention.
"Who has the first aid kit?"
"It's right here." Donna was already at my side ripping open an alcohol swab. "It might need a stitch or two".
"It's fine," I grunted, "just butterfly it and throw a bandage on. We don't have much time left till sunrise and I want to get this damn thing open."
"Here, try my bolt cutters." Christie offered nonchalantly.
"You're such a dick wad. You've had those the entire time and stood there watching us trying to pry it open with a crowbar?!" J was borderline vehement as she sent blood misting off her lips and trailing along behind her words.
"Where did you even get those?" I wondered.
"Back at the house in the storage shed."
"I swear to God, Christie, you're always a day late and a dollar short." Christie blanched at Annaleigh's retort. "I'm sorry." she quickly added, then announced to the room, "That's something our dad used to say."
No explanation was needed. Donna and I were familiar with the pain of loss and how it could sneak its way into the mildest of conversations. We exchanged a glance and then continued our efforts on my bandage.
"Toss them here. Let's get this disappointment over with quickly and start heading back to the house." J said.
J caught the bolt cutters from Christie who hefted them over. Although a hard subject to change quickly, it seemed everyone forgot about their losses in that second and was back on the hope of striking gold in the ice chest. It took the two of us again to bear down until the Samsonite finally cracked. It hung there, swinging back and forth, taunting us to continue. We were once again all frozen in anticipation. It seemed to be a favorite reaction of ours when new surprises popped up. That didn't bode well for any future life-saving situations that may arise. Being the one who found the chest, Christie must have felt the responsibility to open it. She stepped forward, hastily ripped off the lock, letting it clatter to the floor, and threw open the door.
~ ~ ~
That next night, after we awoke, while we sat at the dining room table we took down from its post as a blockade in the back staircase, we were nothing but smiles and laughter as we each chomped down on massive pork chops. The room filled with the sound of happy voices, something I never thought would happen again. We were completely astounded when we looked in that cooler and saw dozens of packets of vacuum-sealed meats floating in a pool of ice water. The only explanation we could think of was the freezer itself had iced over and gone unchecked before the “Upcoming”. While the rest of the group was eager to accept the scenario, it didn’t sit well with me. I knew there was no way the ice could have lasted that long unattended, but the thoughts of hearty meals to come flooded my mind and washed away the worry. So we hustled home with what we could carry and dove into the food, crunching through frozen deli slices while we sat in a circle on the floor, the morning rays piercing through the slats against the windows. Meanwhile, pork chops were left to sizzle in the embers of a dying fire, slowly defrosting and roasting them to perfection as we went to bed, sleeping through another sunny day.
After we finished those ridiculously amazing, slow-roasted wood-fired chops, we headed out for the rest and set our minds to preserving them as long as possible. But when we arrived back at the sandwich shop, we could see we were already too late. The door to our hiding spot was whining on its hinges as the wind pushed it around playfully. A trail of water led out from a big wet spot in the entryway. J rushed over into the room and swore loudly from the inside. "It's gone!" She announced unnecessarily. "All of it."
As she rounded the corner out of the stock room she looked defeated and - for the first time - like the child that she was. Her tough exterior tore away in that instant and was replaced by the fragility that was inside us all. "You guys, look." Christie pointed down at the trail of water leading out of the back parking lot and disappearing into the woods. "We'll never be able to follow that, Christie." Her sister said, reading her mind. "That water will have soaked into the ground already." "And the moonlight isn't strong enough through all those trees." Donna chimed in. I could see the strength draining from the girls. That stroke of fate I worried so much about, finally slashing down to cut our newfound hope in half. "Well... what else are we going to do? Sitting around here moping about something we can't change... that's not going to help anyone." I was struggling to rally the groups. Disappointment made it hard to believe my own words. "I agree with Christie. Let's try and follow the trail." That seemed to liven something up in her. "And look!" She quickly added, "That watermark is wide. It looks like they were dragging something. I mean, all that frozen meat would be heavy." "I guess that would leave a rather distinct trail..." Annaleigh said, nibbling her lip in thought. J pulled out a flashlight from her pack and set out on a jog into the grassy knoll that thickened into gnarled woods. "I guess that means we’re going." I chuckled. Everyone else grabbed for their flashlights and followed behind J. The moon was full and strong that night, but the crowded canopy of the trees turned the night into blackness. We were used to this kind of travel by now, but the light of bobbing flashlights cast many shadows that tricked the eye. It took us half of our night to track that which we had lost.
The wet spots in the dirt, and the many broken twigs and crumpled leaves, took us on a search through what seemed to be the deep tangle of woods we had journeyed through only nights before. But it turned out we were keeping a rather close path along the road to the little sandwich shop by the highway. We saw a clearing ahead of us that had a well-worn path highlighting its way. Even better, the path looked recently disturbed and small clumps of mud were drying their way back into dirt. When we popped out into a generously sized backyard, we saw how close we had kept to the main road. More than that, we looked upon the house that, days ago, J said she thought she had seen someone moving in the window. It looked like we couldn’t avoid it anymore. I had an odd feeling about this house from the moment J brought it to my attention. To then find out that it belonged to the thief who had stolen our goods didn’t make it sit any better in my stomach.
It was about 3 am when we came upon the opening into the woods that led to the stranger’s house, so we knew we couldn’t have been that visible. But we had just wandered into this person’s yard with flashlights bobbing in the woods, making us bright neon targets, had they been looking out their rear windows. So we stayed back a few feet and cased out the scenario.
“I knew I had a weird feeling about this place before.” Christie murmured to herself.
“You and me both.” I agreed.
“What do you think we should do next?” I realized that question was for me.
“I think we should probably wait until tomorrow night to encounter this person.”
“What for?” J intoned.
“Because we need to figure out what our next move is.” It came out a little too harsh and all the girls looked at me in unison. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… Look, this guy has me frazzled. I don’t know what to do.”
“Who says it has to be a guy?” Donna responded.
“Really not the time for that Dee.”
“Listen,” J cut in. “What do you want to sit around and wait for? You thinking to plan a coup and burn this guy’s house down?”
“Still don’t see why it has to be a guy.”
“Let’s just go up there and tell him how it’s going to be.” J said as she stood up, looking ready to march up there with or without us.
“‘Tell him how it’s going to be’? Who are we, the mafia?” Christie couldn’t help but laugh. “We going to go up there and break his legs if he doesn’t pay up? If that’s the plan, I think Brandon is right. We should go back to the house and re-group. I mean, I’ve never broken anyone’s legs before. We should have a strategy.”
“No one is breaking anyone’s legs.” Annaleigh said.
“Well, just walking up there and knocking on the door isn’t the greatest idea either. What if the guy has a baseball bat? Or knives? Or guns?!” Donna’s worry grew as she spoke.
“Listen!” I interjected. “No one is breaking any legs and no one is getting shot. Not today at least.” I joked and winked at Donna, trying to ease the mood. “You guys are right, I don’t know what the use of waiting another day would do. I don’t plan on riding in on horses and setting the guy's house on fire.” J tilted her head and raised her eyebrows at this, as she mulled it over as a possibility. “Maybe we should just knock on his door.”
That got a few eyebrow raises as well, but in a more appalled fashion.
“We will absolutely not just walk up to this person's house and knock on their door!” Donna said to me, sounding so much like our mother that I was slightly taken aback.
“No,” I said, “we won't, but I will.”
With that last word, I pushed my way out of the brush and headed around the house to the front door. I could hear the girls hissing and hollering for me to stop, but I was glad to see that none of them were following. I looked through the windows as I circled around, but kept my distance too far to afford any real insight as to what could be inside. There weren’t any spray-painted slash marks on the doors around the house, nor were there any boards to keep trespassers out. It looked like any normal house did before the “Upcoming” hit.
I hesitated on the front porch with my fist hanging limp in the air, waiting for it to find a strength of its own to knock on the door. Time ticked by as if wading in glue. I immediately regretted walking up onto this person's porch. I had no idea what kind of lunatic I could be introducing myself to. Most of all, what if this guy had a Soul inside of him? But that didn't make sense. They didn't need meat. And besides, it wouldn't be up and moving at a time like this in the middle of the night. So I steeled myself against my nerves and tried to keep my heart from bursting out of my chest. Then I knocked solidly on the door. Without missing a beat, it whipped open to expose the grand house behind it and a congenial-looking man who blocked most of it from my view. "Took you long enough. I've been watching your group huddle out in the woods for the past 15 minutes. Wondered if you'd ever make it up here!"
The man smiled down at me with a smirk reserved for an old friend. I found myself standing there, mouth agape, lost for words. The middle-aged man stepped aside and waved his arm across the abode to welcome me inside. "I think I'm more comfortable standing out here, thank you." "Suit yourself, I was just getting ready to eat some beef stew and have a cup of tea. Plenty to share if you want to join me. Your friends too." I hesitated a moment; the smell was starting to reach my nose then. Our pork chops from earlier were beyond anything I could imagine, but the smell of that stew made my stomach growl and my knees weak. And a cup of tea! I'd been drinking hot dandelion water for months, I'd kill for some earl grey. I gathered my wits and held strong against the temptation.
“I believe that you took something of ours that we found the other day. Since we claimed a stake on it first, I think it’s only right that you give it back to us.”
I sounded like a fool, I could hear it in every word. But they rolled off my tongue rather smoothly and I thanked all powers above that at least I didn’t sound like a cowardly idiot.
“Well, you have some machismo. Walking up to a stranger's house in a time like this and making demands.” The man stepped back to take me in for a moment. “But it won’t work. The meat is mine.”
“We found it first. It’s ours and we want it back.”
I tried not to sound too desperate at the end. I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going with the conversation.
“Yes, you did find it first.” The man agreed, “But they weren’t lost to begin with. They are mine.”
“What?”
“The meat is mine. I owned that shop way back when and I’ve been keeping the meat locked in that room since this all started. I just recently ran out of gas for the generator that was keeping it going but thought it would hold a bit longer until I could figure out what to do with it. But then I watched you and your travelers walking up the road towards the highway and had a bad feeling. I saw what you all did to the Mulligan’s house around the corner, you look like you’re a pretty handy group. Quick on their feet and smart to boot. I was worried you would stumble upon my shop and figure out my secret hideaway. So I followed you to make sure. Turns out it was a good idea.”
“You followed us?” I was a little shocked that we could be so oblivious.
“Sure did. And I knew I was outnumbered to face you all outright and stop you. But I could see that you only took a few pounds of goods with you. So I came back when the sun was out and trucked the rest back here. I’m probably going to have to cure most of it to stop it from going bad…”
He trailed off in thought. I had to admit, I was lost in a tangent myself. Had this man been watching us the whole time? Did he own the shop? I was hesitant to believe him, but I also wasn’t a thief and didn’t plan on starting to be one. If the meat truly was his, then it belonged to him. And did he say he went out in the sunlight?
“Wait a minute! Did you say you were out during the day?”
“Sure did. I didn’t want to chance you guys coming back for more that night while I packed it up, so I went in the daytime and took my time hefting it over here to my basement.”
“I’m sorry sir,” I was lost for words. “But… why would you chance it just for that food?”
“Those ghouls don’t bother me.” He said, brushing the words out the door with his hands, his face marked with disdain. “I keep to myself, they do the same.”
I was completely astounded by this man. He was so nonchalant about everything, his tone was as if I had come over for a cup of sugar. The way he referred to the Souls made me think he hadn’t yet seen a Possession, or possibly even knew what was going on in the rest of the real world.
"How am I supposed to believe you owned that sandwich shop?" I focused on the reason I came here and put the other questions out of my mind for now.
"Come on in. I'll show you." He turned on his heel and walked further in towards the kitchen. "And please leave your shoes and baseball bat at the door."
I hesitated in the frame of the door a moment, rolling the bat in both of my hands. Before the stranger turned the corner into his kitchen, a tabby cat the size of a small dog pounced off the back of the couch and landed with a sizable thud in the hallway. It was so still before and I'd been so focused on the man, that I hadn't even noticed it. The cat stretched up on all four paws, tail shivering in the air, as it shook off the remnants of sleep. It cast a glance over to me at the door, its eyes sparkling green and blue, looking completely unbothered. Then it turned down the hall and followed gingerly in the man's footsteps, its belly swaying side to side. If there were a more compelling sign to trust this man, I couldn't think of it. No way would a cat stay anywhere near a Soul, let alone follow in its heels.
Barefoot and conscious that I hadn't washed my socks in a while, I worked my way into the man's home. The walls were full of life the house had contained over the years. Pictures were abundant in telling the story of what seemed to be a happy family. Two boys were the center of most photographs. I saw the gentleman on the wall too, photos showing him through many stages of his life. I wondered where the rest of his family must have been.
In the kitchen, the full force of the man's stew completely steamrolled me. He stood over the pot that was being heated by a wood-burning stove, stirring his concoction.
"Rigged this up myself." He mentioned, pointing to the stove. "Had to cut through the drywall and knock out a brick from the exterior wall. Then I used some sheet metal to create the flue. The smoke goes into my garage. I didn't want to be sending up smoke signals for everyone miles away to see. Garage smells something awful though."
I blanched at his statement. We didn't even think about the smoke coming out of the chimney when we roasted our pork chops. I worried about the smell of cooking meat attracting scavengers, but I hoped the smoke in the sky didn't reveal our hideaway to anyone else more unfavorable.
"I see you've met Charles". He must have been talking about the cat who was then winding its way between my legs. "He likes you. That's good." He said with a smile.
Charles bumped his head affectionately into my shin. He looked up at me and mewled, anxious for a scratch behind the ears. I was happy to oblige.
"Why don't you have a seat." He gestured to the table behind me.
When I sat at the table, Charles jumped into my lap and looked at me expectantly. I continued my job as his personal head-scratcher and he made himself comfortable. The man, whose name I had yet to learn, smiled over his shoulder at the pair of us.
"I'm sorry sir, I never got your name."
He came over to the table to set down a bowl of stew and crust of bread.
"Gizzard." He replied, sticking out his hand to shake.
"Like a turkey?" I spoke before I could stop myself.
"Exactly." He said, with a touch of humor.
We shook hands. Charles reached up and put his paw on mine, signaling that I wasn't living up to his expectations of obedience. I couldn't help but smile.
"He's never going to leave you alone now - er -"
"Brandon." I offered.
"Brandon. Please, have some food." He motioned.
I wanted to selfishly dive headfirst into that bowl, but I had to keep my mind straight on what was happening and why I came here. Besides, I would have felt horribly guilty with the girls waiting outside while I stuffed my face.
“Perhaps we could stay a bit more on topic.” I suggested.
“A man on a mission. I like your style.”
Gizzard turned to a tall pantry door. Inside, he seemed to keep every paper he had ever collected in his entire life. While it was filled to the breaking point, it was possibly the most organized chaos I had ever seen. I watched him move through the piles and stacks, taking each one out with patience and care, placing them aside to find whatever it was he was looking for. Since my adrenaline levels had dropped a bit since first walking in the door, I had a moment to take in the details. While he moved with ease, I could also see that age had worn him down from the young, vital man he was in the pictures from the hallway. Slowly, my fear of this new unknown was dipping below the danger levels. I didn’t suspect Gizzard of aiming harm at me any more than Charles, who was purring contentedly in my lap.
“Here we go. Just what I was looking for.”
“Which is what, exactly?” I was curious now.
Gizzard brought down a thin manilla folder that held a dozen or so papers. He brought them over to the table, sliding my bowl of stew aside to make room.
“This here is the lease for the ‘Slice of the Corner’. My little deli and sandwich shop that I bought out around 5 years ago. You see the address here and my signature just on the bottom?” I’ll be darned if it didn’t say clear as day, “Gizzard” right on the signature line. “And here, a copy of my drivers license.” There he was looking up at me from the table, with the name Gizzard Solomon printed right next to it.
“Gizzard,” I sighed. “Why are you showing me all of this? You could have just as well thrown me out of your house and on my butt.”
“Well,” now it was his turn to sigh, “Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve talked to anyone else.” He cast a glance at a family portrait on the wall. “There hasn’t been anyone walking in this neighborhood for weeks now. I watched you and your group setting up that house, scavenging for food and whatnot. One of your friends caught me looking out my window as you passed by one day and I thought for sure I’d been made. I was ready with my shotgun, hiding in my closet. I must say, choosing not to barricade my house was a choice I was hesitant to make, these bones aren’t what they used to be. Then again, I love this house way too much to deface it. It goes against everything I used to stand for as a family man.” Again, he glanced at his family on the wall. “But then you and your friends kept moving down the street. That’s the first time it hit me. Maybe you bunch weren’t so bad after all. Anyone else in your situation would have kicked down my door and taken everything they could get their hands on. And trust me, people did try in the beginning. But my shotgun gives a hell of a scare when you hear it go off. Not to mention, Charles is a feisty little one.” The cat's purr may have intensified a bit at the sound of his name. “So I followed you down to my shop, listened to the way each of you talked to one another. So protective, caring, worried. It was refreshing to hear the way a family talks to one another.” I expected him to glance up at his family again, but rather his eyes fell to his hands as he toyed with the wedding band that seemed two sizes too big for his thinning hands.
“Now here we are today.” He picked up where he left off, a bit more refreshed from the crestfallen note he paused on. “You walked up to my door and knocked - albeit, with a baseball bat in hand - with such a show of neighborly consideration. I knew then that you couldn’t have any ill harm against an old man like myself.” He finished with a smile that reminded me of my grandfather.
I instantly felt for this man. Clearly, his family had been taken from him since the “Upcoming” started. He’d been sitting in this house alone, with a cat, always with anticipation of fear that someone was going to knock down his door. My heart filled with compassion. I returned his smile, grabbed for the spoon he set down for me before, and took a small ladle of stew.
Before I could even put the spoon to my lips, the door that led from the kitchen to the backyard burst open. It swung fast on its hinges, slamming against the wall, shattering the glass. At the same time, the front door down the hall burst open and footsteps echoed down the hall. J and Annaleigh ran in from the backyard, crowbar and baseball bat held high over their heads. Christie and Donna sandwiched Gizzard and me in the middle as they made their way in hurriedly from the hallway, toting their weapons. Gizzard sat there, clutching his chest, while I found myself clutching Charles to mine. His claws dug in while the spoon hovered in front of my face, its contents now splattered across the table and papers in front of me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” J said as she lowered her crowbar.
“What the hell?” Christie added. “We’re out there squatting in the woods, thinking you’ve been taken hostage. Meanwhile, you’re eating stew with Mr. Rogers and petting his damn cat?”
“She’s got a mouth on her, that one.” Gizzard sputtered.
“Jesus Christ!” I struggled to get out. “You guys scared the hell out of us!” I managed to loosen my grip on Charles, who took off like lightning, back to the living room no doubt. “What were you girls thinking? I told you to stay outside and wait for me.”
“Yes, well ‘us girls’ were getting a bit antsy.” Donna was a tad annoyed. “You maybe want to clue us in on what’s going on here?”
I still held the spoon a few inches from my mouth. I dropped it on the table, letting it clatter to the floor.
“This is Gizzard,” I said from below the table, trying to pick up the spoon. “He owns the store we took the meat from.”
“I’m sorry…” Christie looked shocked. “Your name is Gizzard?”
I took the next minute to fill the girls in on everything that had happened. I repeated the very brief run-down I was given and I could see the skepticism plastered on all of their faces. I showed them the paperwork and the pictures on the walls.
“And the cat I saw before really is yours?” Annaleigh asked.
“My son’s, yes.” Gizzard responded.
Annaleigh turned to go in search of Charles. J, Christie, and Donna all looked at the man sitting between us. They took him in, head to toe, and probably ran through the same thought process that I did only moments before. I could see a million questions turning the gears in their heads. Annaleigh came back into the kitchen holding a once again content Charles. Gizzard suggested that everyone have a seat at the table and eat some stew and bread while he told us his story. It seemed important that he got it all out and earn the trust of those in the room. The girls looked to me for the next move. I nodded in agreement with Gizzard, and everyone took a seat. Donna sat next to Annaleigh and they both took turns scratching Charles behind the ears and under his muzzle. J sat at the head of the table with her crowbar resting in her lap, one hand gripped safely around it. Gizzard, with skilled efficiency, quickly served everyone an equal portion of his homemade stew and hearth-baked bread, all the while telling us his recipe and secrets for a crunchy crust and soft center for the rolls. He was even kind enough to add my stew back into the pot, giving me a fresh, piping hot bowl. Between Annaleigh and Donna, he set a tiny saucer of canned tuna and one of water. By the time he sat down, everyone around the table was eyeing their dishes greedily, Charles was already face-first in his tuna.
“Please.” He motioned to the food. We all picked up our spoons, looked at each other for a moment, smiled like bandits, and dug in heartily. Gizzard swallowed a spoonful of the thick broth and laid his spoon to rest on the bowl.
“You have to understand - I’m sure you do already - that this world has become quite a different place. Much has happened to me, you, everyone we know. Or knew, I guess is more accurate. But for me it wasn’t just the start of this ‘Upcoming’, as most want to label it. It started for me about 8 years before that.” He gave us a moment's pause to register the statement before he continued. “As the story goes, I was diagnosed with brain cancer. I had a tumor on the top of my spine about the size of a walnut. I have the MRIs if you want to see them later. They give me a chuckle every now and again.
“After I was diagnosed, doctors said that I had around 7 months to a year. The tumor was inoperable, no doctor wanted to touch it because it sat on my spine. The surgery was too dicey. I risked paralyzation, death of course, and a myriad of other complications. But none of that made sense to me. I was going to die anyway, right? So why not at least try?
“Eventually my wife found a doctor that was willing to take a whirl with a new procedure that was still in its testing stages. An electro-pulsation process that shrank the tumor down to a more approachable size, all without damaging my spine. It worked in the beginning. The doctors were able to get it down to a peanut-sized tumor, but what they wanted was something more like a pea. The tumor refused to shrink anymore and my time was being cut shorter with each passing minute. They said to my wife that the odds of a successful removal at this point were only 45%, and recovery, even less. We said yes anyhow. The doctors went in and thankfully were able to get all of the tumor, but I didn’t wake up from the surgery. I fell into a coma and stayed that way for 7 months.
“Now, at this point in my tale, I must tell you, this isn’t entirely my story.” We all looked around the table a moment, wondering where he was going with this.
“Everything leading up to waking from that coma has been told to me by my wife. I don’t remember anything from before that.”
“Amnesia.” Annaleigh offered.
“That’s what the doctors kept explaining, and my wife, Julie, kept clinging to. Yes. But…” He took a moment, looking around the room, searching for his next words. “That’s not what it felt like to me. I felt like years had passed. Decades even. My body felt alien. The time unfamiliar. Of course, I didn’t know who any of my family were. They looked just as much a stranger to me as the doctors and nurses. The first few months, I was completely out of it. I was groggy from all the medication they had me on. My mind was completely jumbled with all of the information my family kept throwing at me, trying to jog my memory. I had to go through chemo to stave off any recurrence of cancer. I went nearly two and a half years feeling like I was crawling out of an endless tunnel of fog.
“When I got back home - here - and Julie helped me get back into the routine of the life I had before, I finally started to feel the fog clearing. My memories weren’t coming back, but at least I started to feel right again. I felt alive. But that’s when it started to get even more complicated.
“I found the store on that corner that brought us all together today. Julie and I had apparently saved quite a bit of money from the hard work we put in while we built our lives. And the disability I received from work was more than enough to keep us afloat. So I proposed to her that we buy the shop and invest. It felt like the right move to me. Julie saw the fire in my eyes and seized at the opportunity to get me moving on the path to recovery. She admitted that the choice was a bit out of character, but I told her it was what I wanted; needed even. So we invested.
“I was in love from the moment I had the keys in my hand and flipped the light switch in the store. I spent all my time there. I would open at 7 am and often stayed the whole day through, closing at 10 pm. I saw less and less of my family, but more and more of the strangers that came in off the highway. They sat at my counter and shared their stories. Turns out I had a knack for listening and working the grill too. Customers would open up and share their life stories and I found it utterly fascinating. Unfortunately, Julie and the kids didn’t. Less and less of my time was spent with the family that so desperately wanted me to return to the father and husband I had been before. Yet more and more I would forget that they were at home waiting for me, and I would focus all of my attention on that diner and the people who filled my day.
“Julie was so patient. So tender and caring. She had so much love in her heart. And the kids, John and Eric, had a yearning in their eyes that hurt when I looked in their faces. They both wanted their father back and with each passing day, I was convinced that I wasn’t that person.” Gizzard cleared his throat and took a sip of water, trying to deter his emotions. “I tried, though. Don’t get me wrong. Family felt right to me. A wife, children, a cat.” He whistled at Charles, who regarded him with that knowingness most animals hold for their owners. “But this family just didn’t feel like mine.”
Gizzard looked down at his folded hands and then up at the now familiar picture of his family that hung in the kitchen. He smiled to himself and left us in our thoughtful silence for a moment. We were enraptured by his tale. None of us focused on the food in front of us any longer. We sat eagerly waiting for Gizzard to continue.
“Eventually their patience wore thin. I was completely convinced that I wasn’t the same man who went in for that surgery. I spoke about it adamantly with Julie. I tried to explain to her that I was trying, and she saw that, but when I would go off on my tangent that I was a different soul in her husband’s body, she would break down and lose her temper.” The girls and I caught each other’s eye at the mention of his soul, but we let him continue without interruption. “She couldn’t take it anymore. So, she finally gave in and asked for a divorce. My heart was broken. Not because I felt I was losing my wife and family, but rather, my heart broke for her. I could see the hope was gone from her eyes, her future crushed and reality weighing down her shoulders. I offered to leave and start my life elsewhere. But she was too kind even for that. She insisted that I stay in this house and she would take the boys to her sister’s on the east coast and start a life there. I think the memories that she and her Gizzard made in this house haunted her too much.
“So they packed up a little moving truck, the boys emptied out their rooms, but Julie didn’t take much more than the clothes in her closet and the kids' baby pictures. Noticeably, she left everything behind that reminded her of me. Of her husband, Gizzard. The boys: they left me Charles. They said they didn’t want me staying alone by myself in this big, old house. That just about nearly split my heart in half to see how much they cared about me and to know that I couldn’t offer the same thing back to them.”
His voice caught here and he took an old handkerchief from his breast pocket. Charles felt his cue and picked himself up off the table to walk over and nudge his head under Gizzard’s chin. While he took a moment to collect himself, wipe a tear and scratch Charles’ head, the five of us looked from one to another, all thinking the same thing. I chose to break the silence.
“Sir, you mentioned that you weren’t the same soul in your body anymore?” I was hesitant.
“Yes, hm-hmm.” Gizzard had to clear the emotion from his voice. “Yes. That’s what it felt like to me. That’s what I kept trying to explain to Julie. I still don’t feel like I belong in this body. Sometimes I have moments of deja-vu, but rather it feels like memories of another life that I’ve lived before.”
“So…” Annaleigh interjected, trying to work her thoughts through out loud. “You believe that you’re a soul that has been trapped in someone else’s body?”
“Yes.”
We sat silently for a moment, everyone processing the information that Gizzard had just laid out for us. Gizzard waited patiently, looking from face to face, probably trying to see if he could piece together what each of us was thinking at that moment.
My mind whirled, that was for sure. I was still on the edge of whether or not I believed this new character in our life before he even started in on this reality-bending story. So it was obvious to find myself leaning a bit more towards the side of lunacy. But I had to take into account the fact that the current reality was something completely bent from what had been in the years past. No one could have imagined the world turned on its head like it was. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I tried to process. If what he was saying was true, it sounded to me that the Gizzard before was gone and he was the new occupant. It scared me a bit, it sounded exactly like what was happening to make everyone go crazy. But this man before us wasn’t acting crazy. He was nothing like the Souls that terrorized the world. Charles was living with him and that, for one, would never have happened. Secondly, his occurrence was years before the “Upcoming”. Not to mention, he was still walking around a healthy man. The Souls didn’t seem to last in the flesh of humans longer than a month or so before the body rapidly decayed.
“Ok, let me just bullet point this for a moment.” Christie broke the silence first. “You had cancer. You had the surgery, which was a success, but you went into a coma. You woke up feeling Sigourney Weaver-ed-“
“I’m sorry... Sigourney Weaver-ed?”
“She’s referring to the movie Alien. You woke up feeling like an alien in your body.” Annaleigh translated.
Gizzard nodded, somewhat amused. Christie continued counting off the bullet points on her hand.
“So then you found a home-away-from-home in the deli and scared off your wife and kids by telling them you were possessed by someone else’s soul.”
“That would seem to be the gist of it, yes.” Gizzard’s amusement grew to a fondness for Christie’s blunt attitude and colorful language.
“But wouldn’t that make you just like the Souls out there?” Donna asked, motioning to the world outside.
“I’ve put a lot of thought into this. Research too.” At this, Gizzard walked back over to his pantry/filing cabinet and pulled out an overstuffed manila folder that had a rubber band around the middle, holding all of the papers together. “After Julie and the kids left, I dove deep into trying to figure out what exactly was going on with my mind. I knew I couldn’t have been the only one suffering from whatever it is I am going through. Turns out I was right, of course, there are documented cases all over the world. People talking about reincarnation, born in the wrong body, encountering strangers whom they have instant connections with like they’ve known each other for decades. I’m not the only one.”
He passed around printed documents he scoured from the internet. Pictures, news clippings, magazine articles, blogs. He had endless information.
“So what does all of this tell you?” I asked. “Did you figure anything out from your searches?”
“It’s clear, isn’t it?” Gizzard looked at each of us expectantly, waiting for realization to hit. “We’re old souls!” We still weren't getting it. “All of these stories, the articles and case studies, they’re cases of old souls taking root in new bodies. I’m not the first occurrence, clearly not the last, considering the “Upcoming” that's happening around us.”
“Wait, so you do think you’re similar to the Souls out there?” J was waiting for the moment to find a fault in Gizzard's plan and start poking holes.
“Well, no.” Gizzard patiently smiled at J. “I think that what is happening today is quite different. Now, you have to keep in mind that this is pure speculation on my behalf, but I have done quite a bit of study on the matter. That said, I think what's happening today is that someone, or rather, something, found a break in the window between our world and the ones, well... below us.”
“Like… Hell?” Annaleigh barely breathed out the word.
Gizzard responded by shrugging his shoulders and splaying out his hands above the table, seeming to gesture toward all of the articles before us.
“That’s why you said before, those ghouls don’t scare you.” Lightbulbs were starting to go off in my head. “You said ghouls because that's what you think they are. Ghosts, demons, corrupted souls from purgatory. Somehow they found out the way souls like you are getting a second chance to tour our realm, and now they want a chance.” Gizzard let a solemn smile begin to spread across his face as he listened to me connect the dots. “So they’re coming up, actually possessing the human race, taking over our bodies. But they can’t touch you, because your vessel is already occupied. You already have a soul visiting your body. Gizzard’s body.”
I finished my rant in a rush of words. My body was sizzling like a live wire. The information coursed out of my head and along my veins. Donna, across from me, had her hand over her mouth, settling into shock. Annaleigh’s eyes were going a million miles, scanning from our faces to the papers on the tables and back again. Her mind was going faster than mine. J sat at the end of the table with her eyes wide. I saw the skepticism lingering in her face, but she only held onto it to stave off the fear of the reality setting in; she was in denial. Gizzard took a deep breath in.
“It’s a lot. I know.”
“Understatement of the freakin’ century.” Christie barked out.
“Listen, as I said before, this is all speculation. I have no one else to back up my theories.” Gizzard tried to soothe our nerves.
“But you’re probably the foremost educated person on the topic, so there's not much we can debate here.” Donna responded.
“Why do you think they’re demons? Where does that come from?” J wanted more information.
“I don’t know if they’re necessarily demons, but they are definitely damned. Look at their behavior: they’re crazed, murderous, destructive, vengeful. They fiend for blood, death, chaos and anarchy. They don’t act like humans anymore, they’re alien to this realm. Even if they were souls that were rising from purgatory, don’t you think they would start to find basic human functions again? If a psychotic serial killer rose from Hell and had the chance to live again, don’t you think he would plan and manipulate and scheme? These possessed bodies are animalistic and destructive. They bulldoze over the land and take whatever they can with them. They’ve found a way to take a free ride in a new world and our bodies are their vehicles.”
~ ~ ~
To say we were speechless on our walk “home” wouldn’t even begin to describe the silence that enveloped us in those woods. The light of the moon was dimmer, the stars seemed glossed over, our feet landed silently on the worn trail of grass. It was only until about halfway to our safe haven that I realized how checked out we were. Not even scouting the shadows for the silvery glint of a floating Soul, or listening for the chaotic shuffle of a newcomer's feet. Looking around at the girls, I could see them all withdrawn into worlds of their own. Annaleigh wore concern on her face, but the furrow of her brow and intensity of her eyes showed that she was still pummeling through the magnitude of information we just received. Christie seemed to withdraw into a world of innocence. Her face was that of a cherub baby who couldn’t quite comprehend the atrocities of its new world. J put on her hardest poker face yet, the only tell of her mental departure showed in the way her eyes couldn’t seem to come into focus. Donna, on the other hand, showed nothing but worry, specifically, for the others. I caught her looking from each member in our chosen and twisted family before her eyes met mine. We shared a moment of unspoken sibling comprehension before we both turned our focus to keeping our wits about us to ensure a safe journey back to the fort.
Clearing the field and coming around from the back of the house, I had a momentary pang of nostalgia. The feeling you would get after coming home from a long trip away. I worried that we were becoming too connected to this strange new home. But it was all we had, and I was thankful to have that much at this moment. Somewhere we could all rest our feet, and our minds. Gizzard had so very generously allowed us to keep the food we had scouted from his stash, on the promise that we would eat dinner with him every night; potluck nights, just like neighbors used to do. Grateful for an opportunity to eat real food, share time with a new friend, and learn more about the Souls among us, we all eagerly agreed. The need to relax and calm our bodies and minds plagued us all.
That following morning - like most - I volunteered to be first watch. I was exhausted, mentally and physically, but everyone else nodded their heads in agreement, their eyes hooded and tired. I didn’t trust myself not to fall asleep sitting on the stairs, so I strolled through the bottom floor, checking and rechecking our barricades. I stood in the front room, peering out the cracks between the closed shutters. The sun’s first light was shooting out like cartoon rays behind the tree line across the street. They painted a lovely tableau against the fluffy whiteness of the clouds and the deep evergreen that filled the trees with life. A breeze rustled the woods and sent a few nameless birds into the fray. First backlit by the purple and pink hues of the rising sun and then eventually disappearing into the darkness that was ever slowly being chased away by the morning.
A rustle of a sleeping bag followed by bare feet working almost soundless across hardwood floors announced Donna’s nightly bout of insomnia. I turned to meet her at the bottom of the stairs and was mildly surprised to see Annaleigh working her way toward me with eyes wide and full of questioning.
“Oh, I thought you were Dee.”
“My turn for a restless night, I guess.” Annaleigh huffed. “You’re sister is dead as a rock up there.” I pursed my lips in disapproval. “Sorry, bad turn of phrase I suppose.”
“It’s ok.” We sat in a moment of awkward silence. “What do you make of everything Gizzard had to share?” She huffed out a heavy breath and let her shoulders sag a bit.
“I don’t know, to be honest with you. That’s why I couldn’t sleep. Way too many thoughts running around to coax the mind into a restful slumber.” She stood staring at nothing in particular for a moment. “Do you think he’s right?” She asked while searching my eyes.
I tried to conceal any initial reaction, but thought better of it; the truth was always better. So I shook my head and looked around the room for an answer.
“I don’t know, Annaleigh. He put a lot out there to think about.” She seemed to deflate a bit more with that answer. “But… he made a lot of really good points.” Annaleigh found a nugget of energy from that response.
“I think I believe him.” She said in a rush.
I nodded my head with quiet acknowledgment. I wasn’t quite ready to talk about how I felt. Annaleigh saw my hesitation and pushed forward.
“Can I tell you a story about where Christie and I came from?”
“Of course,” I was a little surprised, they hadn’t shared much yet in the time we had been together. “You can tell me anything”.
“I don’t like to talk about the past much when Christie is around. I think it affects her more than I. Although if you ask her she’ll probably say the same thing about me.” She chuckled.
Annaleigh walked over to one of two large overstuffed chairs that dominated the room. She sat down with her legs underneath her and arms crossed over her chest, looking cold rather than defensive and cut off.
“Christie and I didn’t always have the nicest upbringing.” I sat down in the other chair, already feeling the weight of the story settling in. “Our father wasn’t around much of the time. Sometimes gone physically for weeks, other times gone emotionally. He traveled for business and when he was home, I always got the feeling he wasn’t too happy in the situation he found himself as a middle-aged man. Our mother was a doting, hard-working, loving, patient woman. They were an odd match, to say the least. I don’t know if it was because my mother thought me too young, or perhaps she would never have shared their story, but I don’t know too much about their relationship before Christie and myself.
“Anyhow, before the ‘Upcoming’, we were in one of those emotionally charged black holes that my father liked to disappear into. He had come back from a business trip to Taiwan. From the get-go he was completely blocked off from everyone in the house, even my mom, who was always good at coaxing one from the depths of their solitude. She was a smart woman. She knew a lot about life that you couldn’t get from books and school.”
“Like Christie.” I offered.
“Yeah. exactly. They were two peas from the same pod. I received my headstrong drive in education from my father, but that's about all we shared in common.” Annaleigh took a moment to push her hair behind her ears, seamlessly reverting her age by a few years. “But this last time… he was just different. I didn’t know how to explain it. He wasn’t sullen or spiteful, like he would usually get. His face was blank, he would sit and stare at the wall for an hour, two hours. His eyes had a deadness behind them, like the light had been stolen out.” My concern as to where this story was headed began to grow.
“My mother tried every trick she had in the book to get him out of his daydream, but he would only offer a small smile and nod, then wander off to the backyard or to sit in his rocker in the upstairs study. After the first week my mother decided to send us away to our Aunt's only a few miles into the city. We lived just on the outskirts, at the beginning of the suburbs.” She added as a side note. “That first night, Christie had forgotten her nightlight at home.”
“Oh?” I was surprised. “I would never have pegged Christie as a night light sleeper.”
“Yes, well, the ‘Upcoming’ changed us all in more ways than we’ll probably ever know.” We both nodded our heads in understanding. “Anyhow, we told my Aunt that we would ride our bikes back home after school, grab the nightlight and head right back so we could be home before dark. We had texted our mother earlier in the day to let her know, but she never responded. She never did when she was at work. When we were only 10 minutes from our house, my Aunt called. Her voice came out in a panicked rush.
“‘Turn around immediately!’ she said, and then something about, ‘Something’s happened! Come back now!’. The cell phone cut out then. We tried to call back but we didn’t know the cell service had been cut at that point. The proverbial crap was hitting the fan and we were still just two girls riding our bikes, worried about our mother.” She guffawed without much humor and a sullenness behind the eyes. “We didn’t know what she was trying to say, but it was the wrong thing, that’s for sure. Christie and I looked in each other's eyes and could see the decision was already made. We were going home to see what was happening. No doubt about it.”
At this Annaleigh looked upstairs, assumingly to where Christie was sleeping. She let her head slump down a bit, her hair falling to cover her face. When she picked her gaze back up to look at me, her eyes were beginning to fill with tears.
“I’m sure it’s not too much of a stretch for you to figure out by now that our Father was prone to violence every now and then.”
I was surprised actually. Christie and Annaleigh were such strong women. Perhaps that was made possible by the bite of our new world, but I would have never guessed that they would fall victim to a ruthless father. They were the ones you expected to come from a nurturing, loving family. I could feel questions starting to bubble up, but let them rest as she finished her story.
“Our father had never raised a hand to neither me nor Christie, and I can't say for certain the same for our mother, but it was a safe guess. Rather, he would trash the house. Smash a cup on the floor to underscore his point. Punch his fist through the wall if something didn’t turn out his way. You could almost say he was as violent as a disgruntled teenage boy. But he was a grown man, somewhat unaware of his strength. The power behind his rage was tepid, but we waited for the time when it would eventually boil over. When my Aunt called us that day, I just knew the time had come.
“When we jumped off our bikes in the front yard, we could hear the familiar cacophony of glass and wood raining about in the house. It hit me then: what in the world did we think we could do to stop him? Two little girls. It didn’t matter though, we weren’t going to let our mother be alone in the matter and that was final. We rushed in the side door, stormed through the laundry room hallway, kicking knick-knacks and broken picture frames out of our way, and barreled through the door to the kitchen.
“Have you ever had a moment when you find a second turn into an eternity?” I simply nodded my head yes, my stare rapt with intent. “They say it’s adrenaline, you know. It dilates your pupils so you can take more in. Gives you the feeling of time slowing down as your brain works in overdrive to process every minute detail. I had thoughts rip through my head so quickly…”
Crystalline tears dropped off the tips of her eyelashes as she sat there with the memory. The questions that were bursting to get out before began to buzz so loudly they made a static noise in my head that left me lost for words. I was adrift in the telling of Annaleigh’s story. I was realizing at that moment that I had never heard her talk so much in one sitting, nor with such openness about her past. This young woman that sat before me was essentially a stranger still.
“Even with all that clarity trying to run through me,” She said, breaking her silence, “I still can not make out exactly what I witnessed as the two of them struggled on the floor amongst the overturned dinner table and splintered chairs. They fought like two caged dogs, mauling each other for their abusive owner's pleasure. Grunts escaped them both with the effort of the struggle. My mother’s white blouse was spotted with blood. My father’s hair was missing chunks where it had been cleanly ripped out of his head. More blood streaked the kitchen floor, from whom, I don’t know. Then my mother… my mother… she…”
What little composure she struggled to retain broke at that moment. Her tears flowed freely and abundantly. She covered her mouth as whimpers of distress pried their way out. She spoke the next part in a strangled whisper. Whether to make sure Christie couldn’t hear her or afraid to hear it herself, I couldn’t tell.
“She flipped onto her stomach and began struggling for a knife that was just inches away from them both. My father took the opportunity to grab a handful of hair and smash her head into the floor. Blood burst out from under her like a popped balloon. She cried out, but not in pain, more in rage and frustration. Her reach was stretched out away from us, they still had yet to hear us enter. I suddenly remembered Christie and time seemed to come crashing back in on me. Everything turned into a blur, I saw Christie quickly shuffling back into the living room, shaking her head in denial. The screams and grunts of our parents boomed in my ears and my mind spun off its wheels and rocketed out of my head. My only instinct was to protect everyone.
“One moment I was standing in the kitchen doorway, the next I was holding the knife that had been on the floor and I was straddling my father’s back. The intensity of the screams reverberated off the windows, and I realized that mine had joined the fray. My mother was turned around on her back again and smiling up at me. It seemed odd at the moment, but so did the entire scenario that played out there in our home. I raised the knife high above my head and let out another scream that tore at my throat. I plunged the knife down into my father's back and used my weight to push it deeper still. He took in a shuddering gasp of surprise, choked on it and coughed out a spray of blood onto my mother’s face.
“My mother screamed in surprise. At least, that’s what I thought at the moment. But I realize it was more of a scream of triumph. A crazed cry of excitement and enjoyment. Because when she laid there smiling up at me, the light flicked off her eyes and set them aglow. It was something I didn’t realize until later, that she was possessed.”
My breath caught in my throat. I found my hand was already at my mouth, trying to cover my shock. Something my mother used to do. I was in awe at Annaleigh’s blood-soaked and devastating emergence into this new world. But I guess we all had our own terrifying experiences since it all started.
“That one stab was all it took. I must have hit something right because he simply fell forward and pinned my mother onto the ground. Her smile remained on her face, but the glow that I mistook from the setting sun shining through the window, or the light from overhead, slowly faded out. I had thrust the knife through my father, out of the other side. When he fell on top of her, it pierced her heart and took both of their lives. Can you imagine? Both of your parents, dead within the same few seconds, and their blood on your hands.
“The worst part for me now is that I don’t even know if my father was possessed too. We assumed he was the one attacking her, and then later thought perhaps they both had Souls in them, fighting just to fight. But honestly, we’ll never know.”
Annaleigh finished her story with a face of stone. Her tone was flat and her eyes had dried up, even though her face was streaked from the rivulets of tears that fell moments before. The veil of strength was back up and protecting her mind from any more damage. We were all on the edge of losing ourselves, pretending like the past didn’t affect us was the biggest defense we had left for our sanity. I couldn’t move, I was afraid to. There hadn’t yet been a moment like this for me. I only had my story, the one I shared with Dee. I selfishly lived in my past, thinking my pain was the only one that mattered. I didn’t make those choices purposefully, it was just the way it worked. But now all of that was different. Annaleigh’s pain was real. It was personal, hers, and she shared it with me. Now we both lived with its weight.
“Annaleigh...”
“You don’t have to say anything. It’s ok. I just felt like I needed to share that with someone, after everything we talked about with Gizzard last night.”
I couldn’t think of more to say, at least that would take away any of her sufferings. So we both lapsed into a deep silence, while inwardly our minds screamed with chaos. After a few minutes that felt like hours, a yawn ripped through me with such gusto that my jaw cracked mid-stretch.
“Ow, heard that.” Annaleigh’s comment gave us both a hallowed chuckle. “Go to bed Brandon, you always take the first watch, and tonight it seems like you need the rest.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Please. I’m nowhere near being able to sleep, anyhow.”
While the pain still lingered in her eyes, it was cast under the shadow of the strength and determination that she always held. I knew I wouldn’t win this one, so I stood up into a stretch that reached for the sky and smiled down sadly at Annaleigh. While I knew it would offer no comfort, I had to say something.
“You know, for what it’s worth, I believe every decision you’ve made, and action you've taken, has done nothing except make you and your sister stronger, better people. Don’t take that for granted.”
Annaleigh shut her eyes for a moment, seeming to take in my comment. When she opened them. They were darker and harder than before.
“I hope you’re right. She’s going to need it.”
I took her comment as it was, a fear of very real threats to all of our futures. She kept her eyes trained into the distance and I took it as my cue to leave. With each step up the stairs my body weighed heavier, until I was nearly asleep before I hit the top. I cast one last glance down unto Annaleigh who was now peeking through the slats of wood and out the window, the rising light from the sun cast off her eyes, giving it the silver tint we all learned to fear. It did little to rattle the sleep from my brain, my eyes were closed before I could even lay down on the ground next to Donna.
~ ~ ~
Donna’s hands were on me, shaking me back and forth. She rocked me awake violently, but my mind did nothing to hurry from its muddied waters of sleep. Soon I heard the urgency in her voice, she whispered my name in my ear vehemently.
“Brandon! Please, wake up! Brandon!”
My eyes snapped open at the sound of her voice. Suddenly I was back in my old bedroom, Donna waking me up to say that our mother had gone mad and was talking to the knives in the kitchen. But no, we weren't in our home. We were in the abandoned house in the woods. I sat up quickly.
“What? What is it?” I sputtered out of my sleeping lips.
“Shhhh!” Both girls hissed at me. Dee on my side and J just in the doorway, looking over the railing to the living room below. Donna’s hands clasped on the sides of my head to force my face to hers. Her eyes were saucers as she said to me:
“Something’s in the tool shed.”
“A Soul?” I whispered back.
She merely shrugged her shoulders, perhaps too afraid to say. The small gesture pushed a tear from the corner of her too-big eyes. I put my hand on her shoulder to settle her, then slinked over to the window to push the sheet aside ever so slightly. It gave me a sliver-sized view of the backyard, the nearest corner of the tool shed the only bit showing from the otherwise small building. I saw something familiar flowing from around its corner. Something I didn’t want to recognize. The brilliance of the midday sun set its many colors aglow; deep golden yellows, streaks of molten amber, and burnt orange. It was a woman's long locks of hair laid out on the ground. It was then that I realized Christie and Annaleigh weren't in the room with us.
“Where are the girls?” The question flew from my mouth louder than I intended.
“Annaleigh wasn't downstairs when we woke up to the noise, we tried to stop Christie, but she was down the stairs looking for her sister before we could do anything.” J answered, worry showing in her eyes for the first time since I'd met her. Pieces of a puzzle were coming together in my mind, but I was woe to make sense of the final picture.
“Did you see where the girls went?”
Neither J nor Donna answered. They looked from each other, to me, to the window. There was no more denying who’s hair that could be flowing on the ground. We didn’t want to speak it out loud, but the truth was there in front of us. I was up in a blink of an eye, beaming for the stairwell.
“Brandon!” It was Donna, her fingers clamped on my wrist like a vice. “You do NOT get to go down there,” her whispers were as strong as a snake’s hiss, the warning apparent in the sound. “We stay here and wait it out. Maybe they’ll just go away!”
“We can’t just leave them down there, Dee. I have to try and find them.” Her grip persisted, but I could see the shock in her face starting to fade, she knew I was right. I looked to J, whose worry still held. “J, you two stay up here and get ready to go if things start to get hairy. You know the plan.” She nodded once, her eyes starting to set into the stony J I was familiar with. It gave me a moment of comfort to know Dee would be left with her.
“We’re not going to leave you, Brandon.” Dee’s hold on my arm had softened but she wasn’t letting me go.
“Yes, you will,” I answered, “If you have to, you will. You both know the plan. We meet at Gizzard’s and wait until sunset. If we need to search for each other, then that will be the time.” I took Donna’s hand that was clasped on my wrist and held it with both of mine. We looked into each other’s eyes, speaking the silent language only siblings can. “I’ll be back soon.” I said to both of them. I turned on my heel and made for the stairs.
Each step down was increasingly louder than any other time I could remember. I skirted along the wall in the living room, trying to make myself as small as possible in case anyone was watching. The light peaking through the slits of the storm shutters lit up every corner of the house. Not a single shadow for an intruder to hide in; or me for that matter. Rounding the corner into the kitchen, I could see the boards over the sliding glass door had been removed and it stood open on its track. The mess around the door gave me the impression that it was torn through in a panic. On closer look, I could see the wood was spotted with blood and small pieces of skin that had been torn off in the process. Was this Soul in the house already? Was this how the girls got out? Did it take Annaleigh into the backyard and Christie went chasing after them?
For a moment I was stuck in a maddening cycle of thoughts. Afraid to go further in case the Soul was behind me in the house, leaving J and Donna vulnerable. But what if they waited outside? It would see me as soon as I stepped into the sunlight. Stuck in that moment, I finally heard a noise coming from the shed. Metal was being smacked together, it clanged and shrieked an awful noise. Maybe it was Annaleigh fighting with the Soul? I had to go out there and help her!
Just then, the door to the shed burst open and Annaleigh came stumbling out. She carried a heavy golf iron in one hand, waving it above her head. She looked to be fighting off a cloud of angry bees. Maybe it was the Soul in the shed she was aiming for! I stepped into the opening of the door, ready to jump out, and then I saw it: Annaleigh’s arms were covered in gouges and dripping in blood down to her elbows. Her hair was just as crazy as her erratic swings of the nine iron. A large part of her shirt was ripped open, showing the bare skin beneath. She saw me. Our eyes connected. There was no glint, no sparkle of life. Her eyes were a cold, flat grey of stone.
Annaleigh came for me, with death leading her by the hand. Her steps were long and powerful, bringing her upon me faster than my thoughts could move. Her figure towered over me as I stumbled, falling, working my way back into the house. She grabbed hold of each side of the door frame, pulling herself up in one thrust, despite the three-foot drop-off left from dismantling the porch. My dismissal of rational time made me realize I was already halfway through the living room, dragging myself on my ass. Annaleigh didn’t see as I slid behind one of the only big pieces of furniture in the house. All I heard was her sniffing the air like a great beast, sharp inhalations causing her to sound like she was huffing, and then two creeks of aging stairs as someone descended them.
“Brandon, are you there?” Donna called out in alarm.
The next moments I saw of my sister came in a series of slow-motion snapshots:
I watched in silence as the golf club whistled through the air, swung with such power, the force of impact making a sound like cutting down a tree.
I watched as the once white walls were confettied with chunks of gray and splashes of red.
I watched Annaleigh’s expression sit like stone on her face, not even a strain of effort for each swing.
I watched, in silence, Dee’s body turn to a bag of broken bones. Not even a cry of surprise had left her lips. The part of me that still functioned in the comatose moment hoped that it meant she was dead before the pain could even register. Another part of me hoped I would soon open my eyes from this unthinkable nightmare and see Dee sleeping on the floor next to me still.
I made to move towards what was left of my sister, crawling on my hands and knees. Up from the balcony came a cry of surprise. Annaleigh and I both swung our heads up to see J peering over the balcony. Her glassy-eyed stare inched away from Annaleigh and Dee’s body, to drill into mine. Eyes still locked, J inhaled and let out a guttural scream of rage and hatred. Whether it be her war call or reaction to such malice and death, I didn’t know, but either way, it sent Annaleigh bounding up the stairs in pursuit of her.
Still frozen in the same eternal spot, I heard tables and chairs crash down a cacophony into the space behind me. J had hustled down the back staircase, spilling over the booby-trap, fleeing out the gaping hole that was the back door. In a flash, Annaleigh fumbled over the obstruction and was hot on J’s heels. They soared into the day, two birds of prey, jousting through the air, their quarrel never quite won.
In time, I found my way to my sister. I stood over her body, a small distance away. I knew the reality of this world, I no longer held on to the intimacy of a body. I knew that the real part of Donna was gone. Her mind and soul no longer present. I didn’t need the closure of looking into her face one more time. Yet, I couldn’t seem to peel myself away from her body, for I worried then that I would really feel the loss.
Eventually, I heard what I thought was J - or Annaleigh - running back toward the front of the house; rapid footfall rustling through the grass. Then two, three, four sets of feet. I stepped over to a far window, looked between the slats of wood and saw people running through the streets. They were few at the moment, but I could see them thickening further down. It wasn’t a mob, necessarily, more of a mass on the run. You could see fresh fear on their faces. Something was chasing them down, they ran with a purpose. What that was, I wasn’t willing to find out. I could see some in the crowd were twisted and dangerous, not necessarily possessed, but perhaps, rather, an opportunist. The time in this house had come to an end.
I made for the kitchen, but stopped in only a few steps. I turned around, needing just a moment more of some sort of goodbye. Kneeling to Donna, I was acutely aware of my gratitude that her face lay hidden behind her arms. Because I wasn’t quite sure what would be left of it. Tentatively I reached out to touch her arm, thinking the connection would be a parting relief. Instead, the coldness that was already seeping into her lifeless body sent me reeling back, feeling disgusted, and then ashamed.
Outside, I quickly took a moment to peer around the shed’s corner and confirm what I already knew. Just like Donna, I needed to see Christie’s body to properly acknowledge she was gone. Only a few people ran by me in those moments, the main current staying toward the street, but the presence of strangers during a time when you have been left utterly alone, makes you feel a paranoid madness. I quickly gathered my things from upstairs, feeling completely left behind, and ran back out to the tree line of the forest. The crowd here was still thin, the push not too bad if I were to run against the stream. I needed to go up the street to see Gizzard. I was praying that it would be where I would find J, safely wrapped around the fur of Charle’s luxurious coat. Or at least, the friendly face of Gizzard. I was wrong on both accounts.
I felt it before it came into view. The day's brilliant light cast away its brightness, but the heat was immediately intense. Leaping a good hundred feet in the sky, flames barreled every which way from Gizzard’s house. The once lush privacy bushes torched away, revealing the burnt ugliness that the fire was leaving behind. Glass from the windows lay in glistening pools of liquid heat. A short distance away, a singed Charles stood silently staring at the house; smoke still danced off his fur. That was more than enough proof to tell me that Gizzard never made it out of the house. His loyal comrade still sticking around till the end.
While I wished at that moment to have the luxury of time - for grief, sorrow, tears, madness - I chose to stay in action. To stay alive. I had no idea who I was supposed to be now, but I knew sure as shit that I would never be the whole person I was before. Nothing now but a bag of broken pieces. For a moment I imagined my sister's body reanimated, a sack of a splintered skeleton that jerkingly came to standing, the movement making the sound of dead branches being dropped into a pile. We would walk side-by-side, two sacks filled with shattered bits, forever siblings in life and death. The image brought up a burst of bubbling laughter that I had to bite back before it turned into a maniacal scream that would undo me. I shook my head to try and rid of the image, knowing it would haunt me forever. I quickly scooped up Charles, putting him over my shoulder, his butt cradled in the bend of my arm, his front paws draped over my back, head peering at the past, and did the only thing I could do.
I ran from it all.
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