Day One (Book 1): Alive

DAY

ONE

_________________________________

ALIVE

BOOK 1

A novel

By

Michael McDonald

http://www.facebook.com/fromdarknessroams

To Hell It Goes…

            
 
No one really knows how such a thing happened or even when or where it started. It seemed to come out of thin air, catching us all off guard. For years we knew it was a possibility, we each toyed with it subconsciously in our minds, although the reality we now face is far greater than any lucid dream we could ever have imagined. Such things were what nightmares are made of, conceived in the darkest fathoms of the never ending night, in which we are all unable to awake. Stuck in this unfamiliar abyss, drowning in a sea of fear and regret, unable to change the way the world has become, unable to change ourselves.

              There is no going back now. No changing what we have created. No escaping the fate that awaits us in the shadows, around the next corner, and lurking right outside our very front door.

The world burns and we can do nothing but watch helplessly.

To hell it goes!

Chapter One.

            
 
The faint and very distant sound of thunder rolled across the darkened sky. I stirred from a peaceful sleep and opened my eyes. Flickering lightning entered the house through two narrow windows above my head, casting obscured shadows to dance momentarily across the bedroom before fading and allowing the darkness to return. I lie there for a few seconds until another rumble called to me, followed by even brighter lightning to which I sat up.

              I loved a good storm, always have. It was amazing how something so destructive, given the appropriate conditions, could relate a tranquil feeling to flourish within my soul. And with the approaching rain that would soon fall, I was certain that sleep would definitely find me again with no trouble. Oh how wrong I was. Fluffing my pillow a few times quietly, as not to wake my sleeping wife, I was about to lay down when a different noise cried out from somewhere in the silent house, a noise that was completely foreign to anything I had ever heard before. I shot up once again and strained to see through the blanket of night, looking for any movement, as our five year old had a habit of waking during a storm and getting scared. There were several times she would find her way to our room, yet quickly I was able to dismiss that notion, as she never made her way into our room. It’s just the house settling or perhaps something falling from one of the many trees surrounding the house, forced earthward from the high winds.

              Resting my head back upon the pillow and facing away from the box fan, which sat on my nightstand blowing cool air, my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness when I noticed something odd about my wife’s side of the bed and reached out to touch her. She wasn’t there.

              There were no alarms that went off in my head, no frantic searches undertaken in the dead of night, as she simply could have went to the bathroom moments before the storm pulled me from my slumber. I simply rolled over and looked at the alarm clock to see it was hovering near midnight and quickly counted the hours remaining until I would have to wake, dress and head off to work, coming up with four hours and some change.

              “Great,” I mumbled to myself. “It’s going to be a long day, I can see that already.”

              Again the faint noise lurched out of the darkness, but this time it had been loud enough for me to narrow the location down to either the living room or kitchen. Both rooms bordered each other and it would be difficult from where I was to determine the exact room unless I went and looked, but still easy enough for me to gather that she was more than likely in the kitchen looking for a midnight snack.

              There was a sudden burst of hunger that erupted from the pit of my stomach and I figured that I might as well join her since I was already awake. Maybe the rain would start before I finished and crawled into bed, which would surely serenade the throws of sleep back within my grasp.

“Why not,” I said and got out of bed.

I grabbed my trusty cell phone, to navigate the darkness through my daughter’s bedroom. Her room is attached to ours and is also the direction we take to our bathroom since her room is actually more of an office than anything else. I stopped a moment to look down at Kember, my twenty month old daughter. She was snoring faintly and looked at perfect peace. One leg hung out from under the light sheet and both hands were up above her head as though she were stretching in her dreams. Seeing her makes me smile, no matter what I am dealing with in life, she is the one true constant that keeps me going. I cross her room, turned right and opened the door, which lead into the kitchen near the back side.

I took only two steps into the kitchen to see the refrigerator door open, the soft light from within cast out upon the dark room where I saw my his wife lying on the floor face up. A small figure hovered over her. She wasn’t moving, nor was she making any noise as she would normally do with her older daughter when they played together in the large expanse of the kitchen.

“Honey, what are you doing? It’s nearly midnight,” I asked softly.

The hovering figure, which I was certain, was the five year old, stopped whatever she was doing and looked in my direction. In the dim light of the fridge I wasn’t able to make out any facial expressions my step-daughter had, as she just stood there a moment looking back at me.

To her. “Shouldn’t you be in bed little missy?”

She rose and instantly ran at me. Several times in the past we had played chase through the house, growling at each other like wild animals, however, she had never chosen to be the aggressor by any means. There wasn’t an inch of aggression within her tiny frame. She was petit and soft-spoken. Not lewd and aggressive. I wasn’t in the mood to play at such a late hour and made a quick command for her to stop and return to bed, as she had school in the morning. She ignored my commands and continued toward me. Again I offered her a warning and dropped my tone a few octaves to show her I wasn’t playing.

The Young Girl grunted as she approached and grabbed my left arm, but as I tried to pull away she bit me. Pain cascaded through my body and I could feel the warm blood erupt from the wound and fall to the hardwood floor. Instinct kicked in and I shoved her away with force, as I tried to keep from crying out in pain and grabbed the wound. She hit the nearby wall, bounced off and hit the floor.

“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted to her.

She got to her feet and came after me again, this time the grunting was replaced with screams. I sure as hell didn’t want to get bit again, so as she darted my way once more I stepped back knowing that there was something violently wrong with her. If she was able to take me to the floor there were more than enough objects within the room she could use to inflict serious harm or worse. Fear formed in my throat and made it impossible to swallow. I watched as she scurried toward me. I had to put distance between the two of us and quickly.

This cannot be happening!
My mind thought, yet it
was
happening. Quickly I back peddled into my younger daughter’s room and slammed the door shut. The door groaned as the Young Girl plowed into it and began punching and kicking as she screamed wildly like a maniac.

“Jesus Christ!”

I locked the door. From there I made my way into the bathroom and flipped the light on to see the extent of the damage to my arm. It was bleeding freely and hurt like hell. Without so much as thinking, I grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and doused it on the wound. And anyone five state away was sure to hear my screams. To that I am positive! Next was a full bottle of peroxide, which began to boil as it killed things that could easily have been introduced to the inside of my arm. Bad things that could cause an arm to rot off… yes, I know I was probably being a tad bit melodramatic at this point, but dammit that shit hurt! The pain was less than the alcohol; however the initial sting was still winding through me with brutal consequences.

Looking into the mirror I wondered what was going on. Wondered why the Young Girl I had been raising for the last three years would out of nowhere just up and attack me? It was at that same moment, my all too consuming thoughts shifted to my wife. She was still in the middle of the kitchen floor, unmoving.

I shouted to her. No reply returned. There was only the violent thrashing at the door to fill my ears as I began to worry more and more with each passing second.

I caught my reflection in the mirror and it didn’t look like me at all. I looked worn out and much older than an average twenty-six year old. My eyes were sunken in their sockets; there were bags under them as well. I looked like I hadn’t slept in weeks. The more I stared into the mirror the more I questioned who was truly looking back.

More and more my mind raced about what to do. What was my next move? What had caused such a sweet child to suddenly turn so violent? Curiosity got the best of me and I opened the bathroom door slowly, as the sounds of the assault on the bedroom door still wailed. I crossed the room, hurried down the two steps in to my bedroom and quickly froze. Six feet away, to my left, was another door that led into the living room and it was standing wide open. How in the hell had I forgotten about that? How do you forget about something so important? Something that can decide if you live the next few minutes or die horribly.

If the Young Girl realized this small possibility, which she would in a matter of minutes, she would have another shot at attacking me. That
wasn’t
going to happen.

I used the cover of her assault on the one door to creep toward the second door and shut it. I had no more than turned to figure out what to do next when suddenly something slammed into the door and began screaming as well. Where there two of them now, I wondered or had my Step-Daughter simply attempted to enter through this new door and try to get me?

“Think, Brandon… slow down and think!” My feeble attempts at calming myself were not working as I hoped that would have. I was still scared shitless.

Away from the door, I shot my eyes to the narrow windows above the bed. They were large enough to escape through, although, with my younger daughter Kember in my arms there was too much of a risk of her getting hurt in the process. She could slip from my grasp, fall to the ground and break an arm or worse. No, I would have to find another way to vacate. One that held a greater chance of her not getting hurt.

As it stood, I was trapped. Fear surrounded me, gripped me with eager hands and I began to worry for the safety of my daughter and that she’d never make it to see the next day. What the hell is going on?

The wound to my arm began to throb and it hurt like a sonofabitch. Several steps through the darkness to my wife’s dresser would solve that problem. She had a bottle of painkillers and I downed a whole one, letting the sour taste corrode in my mouth as I continued to search for a way out of danger, It might be all in vain, but I would rather try and fail, then never try at all.

At my night stand I opened the first drawer to see the pistol I kept for protection, sitting atop a few pair of new socks. Never in all my life had I ever imagined actually having to use it to defend myself or my family. It was simply a tool to make me feel more secure, yet if the situation ever arose, I’d be ready. Or so I thought.
That
situation was now unfolding before my very eyes and I was no surer of being able to use the pistol on anyone, as I would have to live with the consequences of my actions afterward. Not only that, but the one I’d have to use it on was my step-daughter… a child. There was no way in hell I could do that. No way!

“Maybe I won’t have to use it. Maybe things will change,” I boasted, fully knowing that things
would
not change in the next few minutes, if at all.

Gunshots from some distant place echoed out. I looked toward the window in Kember’s room and wondered what was going on. The shots got louder, but suddenly ended with a piercing scream. I tightened the grip on the Beretta 92FS, racked the slide rearward and let it go, chambering the first 115gr full metal jacket round. The sheer vigor of the weapon didn’t give me the confidence that the gun shop owner had said it would. In fact, I felt more vulnerable with it than without it. It was nothing more than an added weight that I would have to endure until things came into better perspective. And I hoped that the rest of the world got its shit together. And soon!

The vicious assault on the bedroom door stopped. I could hear her continue to scream, yet also hear her frantic steps as she ran away from the door. Where was she going? Maybe around to the second door, hoping to find it unlocked and she could get through. I hurried to that door and grabbed the knob, trying to turn it, only to find it was still securely locked. I knew it would be, but sometimes double checking was better than guessing and letting your mind roam freely to create a paranoid or delusional state. A hint of relief flashed through me.

The front door suddenly opened and I could hear it contact the wall loudly, followed by the screen door opening, and then slamming home. She had ventured outside and I figured if there was ever a chance to try and leave, that time was now. I moved to my daughter’s crib and looked down at her, and then to the right to see her diaper bag on the changing table. She was still asleep.