Brains

All I Want Is To Not Be Alone: Stories From The Start #12

The engine is powerful. And loud. It might be ideal in a world clear of blocked and wrecked streets and dead bodies strewn around like stringless marionettes.

Now that every street paints the picture of the end times, the engine purrs uselessly. Even its mechanical nature sounds annoyed by its disuse.

The driver looks from left to right. After his trek so far, he’s surprised to be so surprised. After everything in the city, all that running, all that death. Then the highway. That was even worse. Those images will forever be tattooed on the back of his eyelids. They’re there every time he closes his eyes.

But he made it. He made it this far. With the car, though the gas is blinking empty. In his normal life, he would drive a BMW simply out of the pleasure of knowing he was in a luxury car. Now, it’s the main thing that has kept him alive for the last two days.

The journey has swept him in a too-large circle that’s kept his destination at an elusive distance. It’s been infuriating. He’s sure his family is OK back at the country place. There’s nothing around there, and they’re a smart bunch. They’ll be fine. If only some way through this mess would open to let him back in the right direction.

The tires slowly navigate a street full of your typical middle-class houses. They’re all built fast and a little too close to one another. He should have figured that there’d be nothing but tightly packed houses. Hell, his company was one of the largest that planned and built such places. As many homes as possible in the smallest space. No room or consideration of things like stores, cafes, or gas stations.

Behind the creeping BMW follows a mass of stumbling feet and grabbing arms. The driver is fully aware of them, especially because the one leading the pack is a monstrous thing. She must have been a massive woman before she turned into this sagging blob of ravaged skin. The lower half of her face is all but gone, leaving her exposed teeth and jaw. The bone looks extra white against the rest.

Once the driver spots a place to fill up, he’ll circle it, throw them off, then fill ‘er up and move out. He’s done the same twice now, and each time it’s worked like a charm.

The car bucks. It’s not a stick. It shouldn’t do that, but it kicks back again. It fights against his foot on the gas. It doesn’t want to respond. He jams his foot down. Nothing happens. The engine clicks, then goes silent.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”

The tires roll to their final resting place. The last roll for humanity. The driver wouldn’t be surprised if that were the truth, but he doesn’t waste time thinking so deeply about it. The hulking woman is only a few strides back from the rear bumper, and the rest of the jolly crowd only steps beyond her.

He grabs the two plastic bags from the passenger seat, not bothering about the dangling key in the ignition, and runs to the nearest house.

The windows look boarded up, contrary to the busted ones fronting most of the other houses. It has to be a good sign. There has to be someone inside. Someone alive who can let him in and out of this running nightmare.

He nearly trips on the porch steps up to the door. His off-balance stumble sends him into the door with pounding fists.

“Hey! Anyone in there? I’m alive! I’m OK! Let me in!”

The street parade moves closer, alerted by his desperate noise. He pounds so hard he thinks he might break his hand.

“Get outta here, man! You’re going to get them all up here. Knock that shit off.”

It’s a woman’s voice. It sounds cool and low, but stabs with authority.

“Listen, lady. Come on, just let me in. I can help you. You all alone in there? You need a man to help you? I can do that. Just let me in.”

“Oh, fuck off, buddy. I need a man like I need herpes. Get lost.”

“But they’re coming! I’m going to die out here!”

“You and everyone else. If you want any chance, I’ll give you a tip: better be quiet. Quiet as a little mouse. Now scamper away.”

The driver feels a flurry of rage fire up in his belly. This woman, whoever she is, is going to get him killed. It comes to that. Kill or be killed. It’s either going to be her or him.

The driver abandons the door as the once-woman pursuer drifts up the walk that cuts through the overgrown grass of the front yard. There is a small window that must lead to the garage. He can break it. As long as he makes it into the house, he can handle the rest. He has to. It’s down to survival.

He pushes at the small glass pane to see if it budges. It doesn’t. Then something clicks from the inside. A shadow appears. The worn face of a man holstering a rusty axe. He taps the sharpened edge against the glass.

“You’re just going to let me die out here? Come on! Are we people, or are we animals?”

The man taps the glass again, shakes his head, and points toward the neighboring house.

The driver pounds one last time on the glass. His time is up. The woman with her bare teeth reaches for him with her arms and skin that hangs like racks of pork you see in fancy butcher shops. He makes a dodge move, like he’s back in his high school football days, and jumps over the little wooden handrail. He sprints with heavy gusts of air to the next house and knocks on the door. It feels like being on an old VHS tape. Be kind, rewind.

There is no answer. He tries again. It’s an impossible situation to get the attention of whoever is inside, but stay as quiet as possible. It’s a losing battle, either way.

He knocks. He tries to sound nice. Less panicked. Maybe they can’t see the horde heading across the next lawn.

“Hello? Anyone home? Listen, my car ran out of gas up the road. Could you let me in? We can figure it out and get out of here together. I’m alone. Got plenty of space, just need gas. What do you say?”

The response is a sharp bark followed by hushed tones. They whisper in hurried flurries.

The driver’s fists pound without restraint. They knock desperation on the door.

“Hey! I can hear you in there. Let me in, yeah? Look, I’ll come clean. There are a lot of things out here. It’s almost like this one is leading them. They’ll get me. They’ll tear me to shreds if I stay. You’ve got to help me!”

He listens with an ear against the door. The voices are low, but he can hear a debate unfold. One voice says they should let him in. The other, not. The first voice reminds the second that it would be dead too if the second hadn’t let them in. The second voice says this is different. The first voice couldn’t manage herself, but this guy can. All he has to do is not stop moving.

“I hear you, and you’re wrong. You don’t know what it’s like out here! Don’t be judge, jury, and executioner. Please, just let me in!”

The voice comes from the other side of the door. It’s close.

“Go away. All you’re going to do is make them come here. You’re the only one who’s going to be responsible for any deaths. You should consider if it’s only yours to be the best case.”

His anger rises to a fever. Whatever happened to people? Whatever happened to common courtesy? To decency? He curses the pair on the other side of the door. He wishes nothing well for them in return.

As if called by his cast spell of misfortune, the footfall of his nemesis, the woman, makes her way up the sloping yard. Her body squirms toward him with renewed energy.

The group behind her has thinned, with some staying latched to the door of the previous house. The driver releases a flurry of spite and knocks widely on the door and facade of the house that rejected him.

“Hey! Come on. Over here! It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet! Go on, right inside. There’s more in there. They’ll fill your bellies, you greedy bastards!”

He yells until his voice cracks. He bangs down the front of the house and tries his best to break the biggest window. His hands aren’t strong enough. The glass rattles reluctantly in its place.

The driver runs out of house, and pounds the empty air. She is right there. Her pearly whites shine. Stars in a dark mouth. Her pace quickens the closer she comes. He can feel her puffy hands ripping at him even though they’re a few feet away.

His revenge plot has to be abandoned for an escape route. He stumbles over a small brick divider onto the next driveway. The front door stands open. God only knows what’s inside, but it can’t be worse than what’s out here.

He scrambles up and dashes in. He slams the door and flips the bolt lock. He presses his back to the inner side of the door just as her hands reach the outside. He can almost feel them crawl up his back. It’s just beads of sweat. The fact plays in a loop in his mind, but his skin refuses to accept it.

He wants to catch his breath. He wants to close his eyes. He wants to breathe a deep sigh of relief.

The hobbling figure doesn’t allow it. Its slick hands grab at his shoulder. He slides down to dodge the grasp. It falters and falls onto him. Its face is a sunken sea creature. The openings smell of wet death and make him dry heave in time with his struggle to pull free.

The thing’s bad leg buckles slightly under its weight. The driver kicks wildly at it. He lands a blow to the thigh, and the bone snaps with a wet thud. It falls to the floor in a moving heap.

He crawls back in a crab-like stoop. His eyes remain glued to the horror on the floor. Something grabs him. It grips like a vice around his bicep. It spins him.

The room blurs and disappears. His vision tunnels. The edges blacken, and the world moves in slow motion. He can make out every detail. Every line of spit, every curve of every tooth, the chipped paint on the fingernails, and how they’re partially ripped from the beds. It’s maybe the most intimate moment he’s ever had with anyone. It’s like a dance of two souls.

The teeth sink into his arm. It doesn’t even hurt that much. The first bite embeds into his skin as if it were a rubber facsimile of his own body.

The second bite hurts. The third and fourth escalate and send a piercing scream from his throat out into this brave new world. Other hands and mouths join the figure of the woman in the feeding frenzy at the broken window.

The driver goes limp. His body executes its last defense and cuts off his consciousness to save him from living through the pain. It falls out of the mouths and lands on the floor. A dirty mess next to the sloppy figure slowly making its way from the door.

The commotion at the window halts. The attention so narrowly placed on the fallen man dispels in an instant with the coming of something new. Sound, motion, lights.

The group pulls out of the frame and turns toward the newest tease. The woman is last to be freed from her pinned spot, but the first to push through the crowd toward the next shining interest.

The car pulls onto the street. The dying light flips the headlights automatically.

“Turn those off!”

“I don’t know how! They come on automatically.”

“There! Look, the button there, it’s set to auto.”

“Where?”

“Jesus, ma!”

Laila reaches from the backseat and pushes the button her mom can’t seem to locate. The lights flip off and paint the coming herd as a dark mass swallowing the street. They pour from several porches and front doors.

“There must be people inside,” says Brian, peering around the headrest, “They wouldn’t be collected if there wasn’t any noise to draw them. There must be people in some of those houses.”

“Or more of them...”

Beth cuts her thought off with a glance at Jannine. The poor girl is curled into a ball of pain and grabs onto her bulging belly.

They tried the hospital. They did. After picking up Brian. He helped them navigate some back roads, but the place was overrun. The whole town was. They had no choice but to move on. No matter where, these things crowd every corner, every building. They’re like vermin, constant.

They should have stayed at the house. They were safer there. Beth is secretly losing hope in finding any help for Jannine. She long ago abandoned the idea that they would ever find her husband. She’s already buried him, eulogy and all, in her mind.

A hand hits the hood and pulls Beth from the daydream she didn’t realize she was stuck in. It’s a plump piece of meat attached to a large woman. Her face is a mess and glistens with a fresh, deep red. Beth hates the way their eyes look.

“Mom!”

She pushes the car in reverse and backs away. The hand remains raised and follows suit.

Brian stands and checks through the open sunroof, “Look, there must be people in those houses. I don’t think we can stay in the car. They might have some meds. I don’t know, something. More than what we have. Back out, and circle from the other side. I think we can lead them off and have a chance to check the houses.”

Beth agrees and shows it by pulling a three-point turn, leaving the street the way they came. She drives slowly to keep the increasing group on their tail. She can see the figure of the woman in the rearview mirror, painted in the red taillights.

That’s what scares her the most about them. Their endless pursuit. It’s hard to look at a lot of them, but after the first dozen, she could stomach that. It’s the relentlessness they show. It makes her feel like there is no place on earth they would not follow you to. There is no safety.

The Audi runs the path and curves through the next street over. Beth gives a bit more gas to leave the group behind before turning two streets down. The path is an elongated rectangle, skinny, and with purpose. They make the last right back onto the first street.

Laila motions to the side of the road, “Look at that. Dad would love that.”

A BMW stands with the door open, like it’s inviting any passerby to hop in and go for a joyride.

“Oh, yes, that’s him up and down. He had one, you know? He sold it when we bought the country place.”

Beth tries to hide the waver in her voice. She doesn’t want to let her inner obituary for her husband be so outwardly evident. She changes the subject to distract from the obvious.

“Here. Look, these were the few houses they all came from. You think there might be people inside?”

Brian checks the street.

“I think we might have a good chance in one of those two. Look, the windows look closed off. They’re not all broken and open like the others.”

“Pull into the garage, ma. If we can’t get in, we don’t want the car too far.”

Beth agrees and pats Jannine to reassure the girl that they’re doing the right thing. She pulls into the driveway of the first house with the boarded windows. She hopes there are people inside. Alive people, and that they have a shred of humanity left to them.

“Wait here.”

She puts the car in Park and jumps out, leaving the engine humming.

“Ma, wait!”

Laila pushes to get out.

“You stay put!”

Her daughter doesn’t listen and scrabbles out through the sunroof. Her face drops. She jumps down and hurries her mom to the front door.

“We need to do this fast, ma. They followed us.”

Up the street, the crowd lumbers back to the houses that captivated them earlier. They don’t remember them. They don’t recognize them. They just follow. They pursue. Even the motor idling in neutral sends one of the only distinct sounds out into the evening air.

The woman with her bared teeth remains in the front. Her mass gives her an advantage as other, weaker ones are pushed aside. She stampedes several and assigns them as newly paved road.

She doesn’t think. She doesn’t plan, conceive, or attempt. She just is. She has become. She is coming. Always.