The forest cleared to thick brush and other wild green growth at the road’s edge and the sounds behind us fell away as we stumbled ahead, exhausted. I started looking for a spot to rest.
The property line ended and the dark forest along with it, revealing a small white house in the middle of a large, manicured lawn. Stains from rotting leaves streaked the shingled roof, but the flower baskets hanging in the narrow entryway of the porch—and the small table and chairs beside it—suggested recent occupation. A large shaggy hedge, nearly stretching to the roof, grew undisturbed between the side of the home and a small red outbuilding…not quite a barn but bigger than a shed. A two-track dirt driveway cut through the grass from the highway to the side of the home, but there were no other vehicles around.
“Looks like someone’s living here,” said Sue.
“Or they were,” said Sam.
“They probably evacuated, like everyone else with half a brain.”
“Let’s check it out,” I said. “It’s light enough now.”
The four of us moved across the yard towards the home, keeping an eye out for movement. The front windows were extra small and situated at the top of the walls, near the roof edge, barely large enough for a child to fit through. A plastic bucket and garden tools surrounded a freshly tilled flower bed that lined a gravel walkway to the front porch…a work in progress.
“I’m going to look ‘round back,” I said as we reached the porch, a small space covered with just enough roof to keep the rain off the head of any one person standing at the door.
“Right behind you,” said Tarah.
The rear of the home looked much more like what I thought the front should look like from the road, in terms of “curb appeal.” The windows were large with parted white curtains, looking onto the forest nearby. Another window cut into the wall above a larger porch. Next to the window, above the porch, was a small satellite dish, pointing south, nearly parallel with the wall. The back door was also green like the front, with a dried wreath hanging in the center, nearly drooping. There was a second floor on this half of the house, suggesting a loft or a couple of small walk-up bedrooms.
As the only one tall enough to peer through the windows without having to climb something, I peeked into the living room and its bright blue floral-patterned wallpaper. A rocking chair with a reading lamp stood near the far wall, next to a small bookcase, and a loveseat holding a couple of embroidered pillows.
“See anything?” asked Tarah.
“Looks like an old lady’s house.” I peered back through the window. “No old lady, though.”
I moved to the other window for another look. The interior had a definite Better Homes and Gardens feel, with plum-colored walls and a small dining room table and chairs. A windowless cabinet with two drawers sat against the outside wall. A kitchen counter lined the far wall through a doorway. All the furniture was on the smaller side.
“I don’t see anyone and there’s not much room in there to hide,” I said.
Sam tried the door, but it was locked, surprising no one. Then he tried a shoulder against the door but only hurt himself more than the door. Then he stepped back and reared up a leg for a more forceful try, bumping into the inquisitive Sue Spirit and Tarah close behind. He looked over his shoulder slowly and with an irritated “Will you excuse me?” and they backed up enough for Sam to kick the door in.
There was a stunning crash that sounded more destructive than it should have been. Something was blocking the door and it would not open more than halfway. With Tarah holding her rifle steady just over Sam’s shoulder, he gave the door another hard push and forced the door open the rest of the way, concluding with another resounding crash.
“I’m pretty sure we’d make the worst burglars around,” I said, looking through the window, where I could see the door from behind. “It’s a TV stand, a TV, and a bunch of picture frames. You broke the lady’s TV, Sam.”
He looked at Sue Spirit. “Sorry, but you can’t watch your stories tonight.”
She smiled and threw a piece of dandelion at him she’d picked. It didn’t even reach where he stood. I’d noticed something brewing between them. Some things you just can’t hide.
While we were taking turns washing up at the home’s two sinks, I walked through the kitchen, where a narrow stairway led to the second floor. I found two bedrooms next to each other, the first a guest room that held old lady storage-like bags of yarn and scrapbooks, and a twin bed holding boxes on its thin mattress.
In the second room, I discovered a body.
“I found grandma!” I yelled downstairs.
She’d died in bed among the ugliest yellow-colored wallpaper I’d ever seen. The smell of decay hung in the dead air and although it was quite funky, it wasn’t overpowering, sparing us from the brutal stench of an earlier discovery. Given her relaxed position—perfectly on her back with arms folded across her chest—she’d intentionally set the scene with a modicum of courtesy for whoever found her.
“She’s been here a while,” said Sue Spirit.
“Maybe even before everything started. She’s almost mummified.”
“Doesn’t mummification take a while? Like, years?”
Tarah sniffed and crinkled her nose. “I’m not moving her.”
“No one is,” said Sam. “We’re going to leave her be and respectfully hunker down in her home for a day or so. Then we’ll be on our way.” He turned to face the stairs. “I’m going to head downstairs to find some wood to barricade the door I smashed in. I can’t get it closed now.”
“I’ll help you find some wood,” said Sue Spirit.
“I’m sure you will,” I heard Tarah, just under her breath.
I took a step back into the narrow hall. “I’ll be in the guest room. Try to keep it down, people, will ya?”
***
I heard the squeak of a door and opened my eyes to find a ceiling above me, more shelter than I’d had for a few days. I rediscovered myself lying on a bed that didn’t serve my aching body, in a small room with the curtains open but the outside gloomy with dusk. My eyes traced the floral trim lacing across the top of the walls.
I felt an odd tug in my gut and turned my head toward the door, hoping to get a better idea of time and place.
Instead, Grandma stood in the doorway, her bones and wrinkles animated, skin writhing as dead cells piled together for one last murderous hurrah. She hissed at me like a leaky tire. Caught with nowhere to go, I sat up and moved into the corner, cowering from the insanity of waking up to a nightmare.
Then she spoke. “Get out,” she said wearily, gasping as though suffering through an asthma attack. “Get out.”
A horrific transformation then took place before my eyes; Grandma’s body shook and twisted, a phantom skipping through dimensions like a stone across a still pond. Gram had nothing further to say, other than a rising, hollow scream that ended with her raising her bony claws towards me as I wilted like a neglected houseplant, gazing perilously at my weapons on the other bed…too close to Grandma for me to reach for without putting myself in harm’s way more than I was already.
Grandma took a step forward but then stopped when a dagger ripped through the front of her face, the blade bursting out of her mouth in a gush of metal and black blood that poured down the front of her fuzzy pink housecoat. She then crumpled in a heap between us, leaving Tarah standing in the doorway with the dagger.
Tarah had a look of mild amusement. “Did I interrupt something? Was she going to show you her secret bowl of rock candy?”
“Nah, it’s probably all stuck together in one big candy lump, anyway. What I don’t get is how did Gram get up? She was dead in the bedroom. We all saw it.”
Sam stepped past Tarah and entered the room. He bent down for a closer look at the body. I got chills. “Be careful, Sam. She might not be dead, face or no face.”
“Check this out.” He took his pistol out and poked Gram’s head with the barrel, turning it to reveal an oval bite mark on her neck, like a vampire bite, but without the fang prints…not too deep but just enough to break the skin.
“Just as I thought,” he said. “A revenant got to her.”
“How?” I asked. “Wasn’t she locked up inside the house?”
“Had to be outside, then. She ran into one, maybe down by the farm. Came up here to prepare herself to die.”
“Then she turned into a rev and we came bumbling along to wake her up,” said Tarah. “She wasn’t well-preserved…just a slow turner who hadn’t started rotting yet.”
“Yum,” said Sue. “What’s for dinner?”
“We should seal up the upstairs and come downstairs so we’re all in the same room,” Sam said. “Unless you want to spend more quality time with Grandma. I heard about the possibility of rock candy?”
I grabbed my things and headed downstairs to join the others, where a small fire kept the chill out, its light dimmed by pieces of shelving that Sam had arranged across the windows, almost covering them fully. A little fire for heat and comfort also came with some risk, but sometimes the better path is the one towards humanity and not being victimized into savagery.
We also took the risk and talked a bit. Talking was risky because listening for revenants while talking was difficult and our flapping lips could attract unwanted attention just at the time we were winding down for the evening…except for myself, who’d had a nap and was now wide awake.
“This might be an excellent opportunity to figure out the best way to head south,” said Sam, unfolding a small map with pencil markings.
“Where did you get that map?” I asked. “Have you been keeping track of our location this whole time?”
“Roughly. I figured we’d take the major roads, but if we headed off the mark for whatever reason, this would be good for a look.”
I read the map from my sitting position, squinting. It was the type one finds at a park trailhead, custom-made with directions to boat launches and bait stores. “I see major roads on there, but there’s no way to tell where we are now based on this.”
“The good road atlas was in the truck with the other supplies we left behind at the junkyard.”
Ah, yes. The precious supplies were so fleeting. Even after risking our butts to go back and retrieve them at Roger’s, we would lose almost everything once again. And this time, we weren’t going back. They’d called it an “End of the World” party, but for some, the world kept spinning after the party was over. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it still felt like a tremendous loss to add our supplies to the caches of goodies that were likely lost to attacks and escapes, some to be found by scavengers and others to archeologists much later.
Sam put a pencil point on the map with an “I think we’re about right here,” and then a “Shit” when the pencil went through the paper.
“Be careful,” said Tarah, “We’re not gonna know where we’re going because you ruined the map before we even left Grandma’s house to get where we’re going.”
He glanced at her warily before continuing, his finger tracing an imaginary path across the grainy photocopied sheet. “The dirt road out here probably takes us back to the highway there, which goes southeast. Then it meets the interstate right there, by White Springs, where it turns into a business route. But I think we should keep going past that because it’ll take us right to Baldwin Township in the burbs…and right after a junction, a straight shot on the trunk line right into downtown Bridgeport.” He looked up. “If that’s still where we want to go.”
“We don’t even know where the bridge is,” said Sue. “How do we know we need to go downtown?”
“I have a feeling that when we get there, we’re not gonna miss it.” I traced Sam’s route in my mind. Like most others, I did most of my traveling on the interstate throughout my life, rarely turning down the two- and four-lane state highways that ruled auto transportation until Eisenhower’s expansion. But I was quickly learning how faster direct routes were, rather than the big interstates that wound around natural barriers and other inconveniences of construction. Many of the older state highways were based on trails indigenous tribes used and were therefore efficient beelines to destinations.
“So we’re halfway to the city, give or take a few miles,” I said.
“Give or take,” Sam replied. “And keep your thumb on the scale. It could be a little further.”
I stuffed my pack closer to the wall, where I could sit up with more comfort. “With the farm so close, I think I’ll stay up and take watch tonight.”
“The whole night probably wouldn’t be a good idea,” said Sam. “Then your sleeping schedule will be opposite the rest of us and we’ll have to deal with your constant complaining about how tired you are.”
“Gee,” I replied, “don’t hold anything back.”
“If your friends can’t tell you the truth, they’re not your friends,” said Sue, who’d cozied up close to her new friend Sam. They were turning into quite a pair, making less subtle connections as time progressed, using touch and lingering stares while the nightmarish world faded around them.
“I’ll take watch the second half,” said Tarah. “I wouldn’t get much sleep, anyway, being in a strange place with you weirdos.”
As the other three wound down for the night, I pulled out a book of word search puzzles to keep my mind occupied, instead of staring at the wall, or creepily watching my companions sleeping. I kept my ears open for any odd sounds, which I heard often because every sound there was new to me. Every time the house settled, I thought Gram was on her way downstairs to finish the job. Every falling pinecone on the roof was the soft landing of a revenant, ready to crawl down the narrow chimney and deliver death instead of presents like some psychopathic Santa Claus. I periodically tossed a little more wood into the fireplace to shine some more light around me…any monsters outside be damned because they were damned, anyway. Maybe we all were.
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