“You bring that over here and you’ll be walking home.”
It was a few minutes and maybe a quarter mile later when we came across our first promising mode of transportation. It was an old Chevy Cavalier right at the outskirts of town. Both curbside doors were open and there were some personal belongings stowed in the backseat. A small house with the front door ajar was only a few short feet from the car.
“Looks like they never made it out in time,” Paul said with some sadness and regret.
“The keys in the ignition?” I asked Gary, keeping an eye on the doorway like I expected the occupants to come rushing out, demanding to know what was going on.
“No but there’s a box of ammo on the dash.”
“That’s promising, what caliber?”
“30-30.”
“Good hunting round,” I said. The door was intimidating. It was a black, gaping wound into a world I didn’t feel that I wanted to enter. It was a normal setting, overlaid with the surreal. “Something’s not right.”
BT did a quick three-sixty. “Nothing around, Mike,” he said in all seriousness.
“No it’s in there,” I said.
“Forget it then, let’s move on,” he said.
“There’s a car, which probably has gas because they were packing it to get the hell out of here and at least one rifle. We need both badly.”
“Gary, you’re going to stay out here and watch our backs.” It felt strange protecting my big brother, but that was exactly what I was doing.
“I’ll go in first.” I took a big breath and gulped down my fear. “We ready?” I asked BT and Paul.
BT nodded tersely; Paul didn’t even acknowledge my question, but he was right on BT’s heels as we entered. First, we were in the living room, which was stacked with suitcases and multiple bags that would have never fit into that car, even if there were no passengers. But I could tell by the toys strewn around the house, that would not be the case.
“Who cares about things when you’re trying to save your life?” BT asked softly. “They probably would have got out of here if they weren’t trying to save this,” BT said disgustedly as he pushed over a George Foreman grill stacked on a couple of the boxes that looked like they were getting ready to take with them.
To be fair, it looked like one of the top-of-the-line models, but I’m not sure when they thought they were going to get a chance to cook a hamburger, or worry about the fat they would end up eating because it wasn’t draining down into the little drip pan. Don’t get me wrong, there were possessions that I absolutely cherished when the world was still spinning somewhat on a normal axis. But life and the preservation of it top the list. I have yet to come across a Star Wars Astromech figurine that could ever replace the love I have for my kids, my wife or my Henry. But since they were all safe, I did have a pang of remorse that I had not been able to save at least one of the little R2 units I had.
“I see legs,” Paul said, moving over to the far side of the room. He was looking down a narrow hallway. “They’re not moving,” he added as we rushed to his side, rifles at the ready.
“Is that blood?” BT asked, looking over my head.
The hallway was in the shadows and the rug that was down may at one time have been taupe-colored, but years of use had left it something closer to brown and now something stained it even darker by the doorway where the legs were jutting out.
“My guess is yes,” I said. A cloying stench clung to the walls of this house; a blinding dose of claustrophobia struck quickly, lingered for long seconds and then began to diminish. “Wow, that sucked,” I said. Paul and BT, who had suffered no such attack, looked at me questioningly.
“I’ll go,” Paul said, trying to bolster his nerve.
“I’ll do it, this was my stupid idea.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” BT said.
The five steps it was going to take me to get down the hallway were worse than at Fitzy’s house. At least, this time there wasn’t any techno music. But maybe that would have helped drown out the sound of my heart trying to blow through my rib cage.
“Talbot?” BT whispered from the end of the hallway.
I threw an A-OK sign over my shoulder although it really meant shit. Something bad happened here, even above and beyond what you might think in this situation. I kicked what I figured were a man’s legs judging by the clodhopper boots he (it) was wearing. No movement yet, I waited a few ticks more, making sure this wasn’t the newest brand of sleeper we’d been encountering more and more of. I moved in a half step further, my foot coming down on the hardened rug--the blood, barbecue sauce, and ketchup having completely dried. “Keep telling yourself that, Talbot,” I said as my foot sunk into the sticky fibers.
I turned the corner into the bedroom, wholly unprepared for what I witnessed. God had died, pure and simple. Dad had blown the left side of his head completely off. It looked so clean, like it was one of the cut-aways you used to see at the doctor’s office. “Here, kiddies, is what the inside of your brain looks like when you place a high velocity round up and through the soft palate. See the separation in tissue as the bullet travels through the jelly-like material of your thoughts?” But this was just the beginning of the nightmare.
Across the room lay a crib. I said a silent prayer to a silent master, and all I received was a silent response. A small, blue fist reached up, the fingers not yet deft enough to do much more than clench and unclench in an unending struggle to reach a food source it could not attain. I glided across the room like I was on a moving walkway.
“Whaddaya got, buddy?” a nervous Paul asked. I could hear him approaching.
“If you value anything that resembles sleep for the rest of your days on this planet, Paul, do not come any closer,” I told him. I would swear I could hear his boots screeching in the carpet in an attempt to halt his forward momentum even faster.
“It’s a kid, right?” BT asked. “Aw, man, it has to be a kid. Is the kid dead, Mike? Did the dad eat it? This is horrible. Let’s get out of here, man,” BT said, very subdued.
The baby, an infant of maybe four or five months, was emaciated. Small bits of one of his parents lay scattered around him, but this thing hadn’t eaten anything more than some errant bugs since December. Its eyes, which seemed sallow and sunken, snapped open when it saw me leaning over its small bed. One small tooth poked through the upper gum. It must have latched on for dear life to be able to break through skin on whichever unlucky parent it had gotten a hold of. It began to rock back and forth, trying to get closer to me, strange gurgling noises bubbling forth from its lungs.
“What is that?” BT cried. “The kid is alive?” I could hear BT coming.
“It’s not alive,” I said flatly, my eyes fixated on the baby’s.
“I…heard…him,” BT said haltingly. “Oh sweet, sweet Jesus,” he finished when he realized what I was in the room with.
A feeling of intense hunger raked across my head, but that was the furthest thing from my mind. But not the mind of the one you’re looking at my subconscious piped in. “HUUUUUNNNNNNGGGGGRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!” it said, latching on to the word I had associated with its feelings. Apparently, it was a two-way street. “HUNGRY!” it shrieked over and over. I blew four holes into its head before the echoing in my brain subsided.
BT was in the room within seconds, picking me up under my arms and pulling me out of there.
“It was talking to me,” I kept mumbling, long after BT had deposited me on the curb outside.
“You alright, brother?” Gary asked, sitting down next to me.