Afterbirth (10 page)

Penny lay in the double-bed of one of the children’s bedrooms, which was more the size she was used to sleeping in. She rolled from her back, to her side, and then finally onto her stomach. Her eyelids fluttered, and as tired as she was, she couldn’t force sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she heard the smacking sound of her father’s mouth tearing chunks from her mother’s flesh as clear as if she were back there with them. The nagging fear of nightmares unsettled her, and guilt for treating Foster the way she had, made her want to apologize.

The sheets twisted around her legs like a cocoon. She wrestled her feet free, pushed the blankets aside, and headed downstairs.

The fire had died down, but the air was much warmer than in the rest of the house. A silver mp3 player on the last of its battery glistened in the dim lighting and Foster lay, stretched out on the couch and sleeping to the sound of whatever was loaded on it. The pistol in his lap, and the fact that he was still wearing his glasses, said he hadn’t intended more than to rest his eyes.

Penny moved the metal fireplace screen and tossed a knotty piece of wood onto the charred pile. A draft rolled along the hardwood as the damp pine smoked and finally caught. She sat down and pulled her knees to her chest, basking in the radiant warmth as the flame grew.

She waited for him to hear her and to wake up, but even through the thick lenses she could see the bags under his eyes. She had no idea how long it had been since his last good night’s sleep.

He snored loudly and she couldn’t help smiling.

She pulled a crocheted afghan up to his chin and settled in the oversized, leather recliner across from him.

Her eyes had barely closed when she heard the first metallic
clang
outside. A thud came at the side of the house and when she heard it again, she tried to wake Foster up.

“Brian?” She shook his hand. “Brian, answer me.” She pulled out one of the earbuds. He swatted at his ear, but didn’t wake up.

She picked up the pistol, which rested heavy and uneven in her hand, not at all like the .22 caliber rifle she was used to, and reluctantly checked the noise out.

The lantern flames flickered and a cold breeze drifted down the stairway.

“Shit.” She steeled her nerves, knowing that if she couldn’t handle going upstairs alone, she’d never make it outside of a house whose first floor was boarded up and where the draft was most certainly a window she forgot to close while cleaning. “You can do this.”

She climbed the stairs and paused when she thought she heard footsteps. The light from the fireplace diminished by the halfway point and she strained her eyes, telling herself the shapes in the shadows were figments of her fertile imagination.

“Hello?” Her voice echoed in the hallway. She tightened her grip on the pistol and held it out at arm’s length, unable to stop her hands from shaking. “Is anyone here?”

The wind picked up at the top of the landing, the draft clearly coming from the master bedroom.

She kept her back to the wall and pivoted into the empty room the way she’d seen done many times on television. The lined, floor-length drapes flapped in the breeze. The window was more than half open. She looked around the room, able to see the outlines of the furniture in the moonlight, and checked for signs of an intruder.

A thumping sound, a bare tree branch against the house, resonated.

“Friggin’ wind.”

She exhaled a sigh of relief, set the gun on the bed, and went to close the window. By the time she saw the ladder propped against the side of the house, it was too late.

A muscular man wearing a black ski mask came from behind the drapes. He grabbed her, turned her around so that she couldn’t fight him, and held a damp rag to her face. She squirmed and threw her elbows, trying to get free while holding her breath, but his grip was too strong. Her hands and feet began tingling and she knew she had to get away fast. She tried to pry a space between them, but he pushed her forward into the bed, slamming his weight into her. She went for the gun, which was just out of reach on the bedspread. She gasped and the sweet, pungent smell of the sedating liquid filled her nostrils and mouth. Her vision fogged and her ears felt plugged as though she were under water. Her whole body twitched and when she grabbed at the man’s sleeve, she saw the crucifix tattoo that told her the man was Max Reid.

Frank lifted his knees and trudged through the foot-tall grass toward the crash site he’d seen from the upstairs bedroom window. The heels of his boots sunk in the mud and made it harder to walk. He gripped the pistol handle and tried not to fall.

“What are the chances this thing runs?” John asked.

Frank aimed the beam of the penlight at the ambulance fifty feet or so off the road. The words ‘Strandville EMS’ stuck out in bright red lettering against a white background. “I’d say good, considering where it is. Had I not been upstairs, I wouldn’t have seen it. Means no one else has, either.”

“For our sakes, I hope you’re right.”

Frank glanced at sunken back tires, caught in two rivets of partially dried mud. “Looks like it might be stuck, but at least the fuel door is closed. Means no one’s siphoned the gas.”

“Now all we need are keys in the ignition and a working engine.”

Frank cautiously approached the driver’s side. A spotty film of mud covered the window and made it impossible to see in. He felt a run of palpitations in his chest as his hand closed around the door handle. He threw it open and coughed.

John bent over, his hands on his knees, and vomited the undigested remains of a sleeve of communion wafers and alcohol.

Frank grimaced and looked over the dead body in the driver’s seat. “You were hoping for keys, right?” He jingled the keys in the ignition, keeping his eye on the emaciated body of a distantly familiar man in the driver’s seat. Dressed in the requisite blue jumpsuit and boots with the nametag that said Carl, the body of the once hefty man whom he’d only worked with for a couple of months before retirement, had deteriorated to little more than bones and spotty patches of tissue.

“Help me get him out of here,” Frank said.

“I…” John’s cheeks puffed out and he continued vomiting, unable to finish a sentence.

“Never mind.” Frank opened the passenger’s side door and set his gun on the dash. His boot stuck in the mud and as he stepped up into the ambulance, his foot came out of it. His dingy, white sock dangled from the tip of his sweaty foot and he pulled it up before reaching for his shoe. “This is just great.” He took a long look at Carl’s remains, checking him for bite marks, and found none immediately visible. His eyes were closed, his pallor the ashen color of quick-dry cement mix. His left hand rested on the steering wheel and the flesh had all but disappeared, leaving his wedding ring circling the bone of his finger. “Poor son of a bitch.” Frank pulled on his boot and situated himself sideways in the passenger’s seat. He put his foot against Carl’s side and prepared to shove him out when his opaque, white eyes popped open. “Holy shit!” Frank fumbled for his pistol. “John, get the hell over here.”

Carl’s near-skeletal right hand grabbed Frank’s leg, and before John could even try and help, Frank put three bullets into Carl’s head. Black blood dripped from the gaping holes in Carl’s right temple. Frank kicked, hard, and ejected the body onto the ground in front of where John was standing.

“What the hell, Frank?” John wiped his chin and stepped back from the corpse at his feet.

“Thanks for handling that one,” Frank said, sarcastically, and climbed in the driver’s seat. “Get in.” He closed the driver’s side door and turned the key in the ignition. The engine spat and sputtered a few times before finally turning over.

John got into the passenger’s seat and immediately rolled down the window. “I don’t know how much more of this smell I can handle.”

“The body’s out. It should dissipate.”

“Think we can get this thing unstuck?”

Frank slammed on the gas and spun the tires. The ambulance pulled forward and settled back into the rut. A cloud of smoke wafted through the open windows with the smell of exhaust. “We can if you push.”

John’s expression said he’d rather not.

Frank wasn’t fit enough for that kind of strain.

“The faster you get out there, the faster we’re out of here.” Frank pulled a pack of Pall Malls from his breast pocket and struck a match. The sulfur smell, however unpleasant, temporarily masked the decomposition. He touched the flame to the cigarette’s tip and inhaled.

John finally conceded. “Fine, I’ll go.”

The passenger’s door slammed and Frank took a long, calming drag off the cigarette. “You ready?” He adjusted the enormous side mirror enough to see John chewing his lower lip and trying to get a hold on the back of the ambulance.

“Ready.”

John leaned into the ambulance, pushing with his shoulder like a plow horse while Frank accelerated and twisted the wheel. Mud sprayed up and John closed his eyes, shouting for Frank to stop.

“Almost there,” Frank called back. “Keep pushing.” John winced and Frank kept watch, careful not to back up over him. The tires caught and the ambulance went forward. “Thank God.” The knot in Frank’s stomach let go and his heartbeat normalized. “Get in,” he said and only turned around when he heard the rear doors open.

John jumped up on the bench next to the gurney that both of them had carelessly overlooked. A high-pitched moan escaped the mouth of an infected female struggling to get loose. The neck collar kept her from turning her head. Bruising and a deep gash extending from her hairline gave the appearance of someone who had been in a car accident and slammed their head into the dash.

John pulled his knife, holding it overhand as he drove it with impunity into the woman’s skull.

Blood sprayed the ambulance walls, growing darker and thicker with each subsequent thrust, and painting John in the process.

Frank watched as John pulverized the undead woman, who hadn’t been a threat after the first jab.

“Whoa, whoa,” Frank said, concerned more with the mess than the slaughter. “Overkill.”

John slammed the rear doors shut, wiped his face on his sleeve, and smirked as he climbed into the passenger’s seat. “Thanks for handling that one,” he said.

Frank couldn’t help laughing.

Allison followed the creek as far as she could in the darkness and slept under a blanket of dry leaves in a cave a ways down the mountain. She didn’t freeze to death, but her mud-caked scrubs and slipper socks didn’t dry out either.

She shivered, stiff from the cold, and stepped into the light of the sunrise, savoring her freedom. Leaves crunched beneath her burning feet. Two of her toes were swollen, red, and discolored in a tip-first pattern she recognized as frostbite. She followed the stream and noted a thin layer of ice forming at the edges. She wasn’t sure she could survive another night. Her feet moved clumsily and it took some concentration not to fall. She stumbled into an old, white birch and recoiled when something sharp cut her.

“Ouch.”

A thin line of blood appeared on her thumb and she stuck it in her mouth to clean it. The copper taste upset her empty stomach. She looked up to see what had cut her.

The round badge on the tree said, “Marcy Dam.” She was on a hiking trail, though there was no clear footpath to indicate anyone had been through recently. She looked for the next trail marker and stopped at the sound of approaching footsteps.

Chains jangled and a familiar, male voice boomed through the forest.

She crouched behind a thick Oak and was careful not to be seen peeking around it.

“Get going!” Joe, one of Nixon’s nastier guards, held Ben at the end of an animal control loop and prodded him along with a handful of metal stakes whenever he slowed down.

Ben shuffled, chains dangling from his limbs and one around his neck dragging behind him. His left eye glowed pure white. The right one had been burned out, lid and all. A black, seared hollow took its place, weeping a thick, yellow liquid, which shimmered like resin in the sunlight.

Allison tried to make sense of what she was seeing, but she couldn’t understand what had happened to Ben, or why he wasn’t howling in pain.

“Stop.” Joe stood on the tail of the chain wrapped around Ben’s neck and yanked his head backward. He pulled a mallet from the loop on his uniform pants and staked Ben’s chains to the ground.

Allison turned away, the sight of Ben’s wounds making her even more nauseous. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she wiped at it with the back of her hand.

A crow pecked a squirming grub from the moist ground in front of her and she shooed it away with her hand.

“Get,” she whispered.

The pounding of the mallet on metal masked the sound of her voice.

The crow’s black eyes bore through her, engaging her in a standoff that dared her to move him. He jumped, erratically, and sifted through the crunching, dead leaves for more food.

“Shoo!” She threw a small pebble and hit the bird in the beak.

He cawed and flew away. His shimmering, black wings beat the air and drew the attention she had hoped to avoid.

Joe looked almost directly at her. She held her breath and flattened her back against the tree. Her chest tightened and her head spun as she hyperventilated for the long minute that passed before Joe resumed his task.

He hadn’t seen her.

Ben, however, had.

He held up his arms, clawing the air in her direction. The chains rattled as he struggled to move his feet which were firmly held in place. He opened and closed his mouth, and his teeth snapped together on impact.

Allison wiped the tears spilling down her cheek. Whatever had happened to him was her fault.

Ben pulled one foot free and took a long step.

Joe yanked the chain and forced him back into place. “Hold still!” He drove a spike through Ben’s foot and laughed. Ben, determined to get to her, pulled the stake out of the ground and kept moving. The metal tip broke through the sole of his boot and dripped with blood. “I said, ‘hold still’.” Joe pulled a needle out of his shirt pocket and injected something into the back of Ben’s thigh.

Ben collapsed without so much as putting out his hands to break his fall. The stakes pulled from the ground and Joe shifted his position. Ben was dead weight and Joe took no care to check his condition. He cleared a blanket of leaves and dug a shallow groove with the heel of his boot.

He dragged Ben into the dip so that he was lying on his back and drove the spikes in place.

“That ought to hold you.”

He covered him up with dirt and leaves and headed in the cabin’s direction.