Day One (Book 3): Alone (2 page)

Where they hiding from me, waiting for me to think the coast was clear and come out only to find a room full of them with hate flaring in their eyes, or had that really been all of them? Earlier they had hunted in packs, or so it had appeared to me, so the odds of there being more of them was highly likely. Safety gave way to curiosity though, as there was no way in hell I was going to try and get anymore sleep, especially if there were more within the house, so I took each step cautiously toward the doorway. Suddenly though, another one appeared and I put two rounds into the side of its head. Blood splattered the wall and it crumpled to the floor not far from the first one. That was extremely too close for comfort in my book. I needed to be more careful.

In the short hallway I was confronted by only darkness. Around the corner into the small foyer, the doorway was just ten feet, but there was a massive room directly to my front.

I scanned the motionless room, seeing only jittery shadows with each new blast of lightning and nothing else. I asked myself if I should flee into the falling rain and be surrounded by the unknown, or wait till dawn. That thought last shorter than it had taken me to think it up. Of course I wasn’t going to race out into the unknown. If those bastards wanted me, then they’d have to come inside where I had the advantage. I’d let them funnel through a narrow doorway where I could gun them down easily.

I moved into the large open room, pushing along the wall, which gave me ample sight in all directions. If anything stirred or swiftly came up out of nowhere after me, I’d be able to aim and put it down before it got close, and then retreat back to my son’s room and wait. The lingering pull of sleep still pumped through my body and I found it harder and harder to keep my eyes open, even with the adrenaline in my veins, the lack of sleep was winning and there was nothing I could do to counter it.

I quickly switched magazines and placed the half full one into my chest rig. No need in getting into a fire fight and running out of ammo in the middle of it all. I pushed off the wall and headed straight toward the kitchen were the door to the garage was. The fear of safety fleeted from me and I was looking for a fight so bad that I could taste it. I wanted to kill as many of them as I could, and given the chance, I would. Sleepy or not.

Reaching the kitchen unmolested, I cleared the master bedroom and moved back into the narrow hall. If there were any more of those things inside with me, then they had found the perfect hiding places, but I would find them eventually and offer them a hollow point exit out of this world and their pain.

“Here I am assholes, come and get me!” I shouted. My voice carried through the house louder than the earlier rumble of thunder, yet none of them slithered out from the darkness. I tried once more. “C’mon! What are you waiting for?” Still nothing.

From where I was standing I could see the pickup truck in the garage. It would be my ticket out of town, after I found the keys of course, but I had found my Ex’s keys, so how hard would finding these be?

I had been in the house for at least a few hours and for the first time I detected a hint of something I hadn’t noticed before. I shifted in a few different directions trying to lock onto where the smell was coming from, which took me back into the master bedroom. There the smell grew and became pungent and powerful. In the past week it had become a smell I had grown accustomed to and that’s probably why I hadn’t noticed it at first, but now in the middle of the dark room with all of my sense heightened, I gathered that the arrant smell was coming from the opposite side of the bed.

I’m not going to lie and say that the Ex and I got along perfectly. We had had our ups and downs through the years, although I can say with great certainty that I never wanted anything bad to happen to her. Our son needed a mother just as much as he needed a father in his life and the thought of finding her dead was not something I wanted to see, let alone think about. Sure, there were things she had done that pissed me off, especially when she tried to talk down to me as if I were a child, or went against a court order and kept him from me for a few weeks, but none of that mattered now. That was in the past and neither of us could change that – god I was getting sick of saying that over and over again.

I strolled along the foot of the bed and my eyes came to a darkened heap on the floor just left of the bed. I could tell the lump was larger than she was, although bloating is a natural part of decomposition, so it could still be her. I hesitantly raised the barrel of the rifle, wasted a few seconds wondering if I really needed to see what was on the floor, and then turned the flashlight on. A slight sigh exited my mouth as the light held steady on a male victim. It wasn’t her.

I took a quick glance toward the door, saw nothing waiting for me, and quickly knelt holding my breath. With my free hand I located the nearest pocket and shoved into it only to find a few crisp dollars and some change, none of which would do me any good. He was lying on his right side, so in order to check the remaining pocket I would have to roll him onto his back. The fear of disturbing any areas that had putrefied and would burst open immediately, spewing the foulest smell known to man directly up to my face wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

The hesitation of the ordeal seemed worse than the actual act, or so I hoped.

I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled. His body rolled onto its back granting me access to the second pocket and I quickly held my breath and dove in, found what I was looking for and rose to my feet. There standing just outside the doorway was a silent figure. I couldn’t tell whether it was facing me or looking away. I froze as neither hand was holding my rifle. The sling was and if I made any sudden movement and the silent figure was looking at me, it would charge forward.

The distance from the left side of the bed to the door was fifteen feet at most, which meant a well-aimed shot was out of the question. I would simply have to swing the barrel in its general direction and start shooting, hoping for the best. If I missed it would take me to the floor, yet even if I was able to hit it with several rounds. It would no doubt be in a full sprint by this time and its momentum alone would easily allow for it to collide with me, taking both of us to the floor. Dead and harmless or wounded and tearing my stomach open, that was NOT where I wanted to be in either case.

“No… hide,” a voice broke through the dangerous silence.

I was about to make my presence known to the figure, I know believed to be a survivor, yet something about its speech concerned me. There was just something about it that didn’t sit well with me, making me question its validity in full detail.

“No hide,” the voice said again, this time a little better than before. It took a few steps forward and stopped, its head turning from one direction to the other as if listening for me to either move or reply.

I could still see the figure, but not as perfectly as I had just moments ago.

“Hide… die,” it said.

I was positive now, more than I had ever been about anything in my life, that this figure hunting me was trying to lure me out into the open with a false sense of security. To make me feel at ease before I was attacked and killed in the very house where my son had lived. It wasn’t a survivor at all, but merely another one of those things that had grabbed me at the school complex and I was frightened. It wasn’t slow and stupid as the others I had dealt with had been. These things were smart and had the patience to not only wait for you to screw up, but it could also mimic the living with such perfection and draw you into its trap.

Why hadn’t I seen it earlier when I was sweeping the house? Why hadn’t it come out of its hiding spot as I passed by and attacked me? I had no answers to these questions, although the most likely answer was that it had come through the garage and possibly heard me moving around or saw its dead friends and figured I was still there. That explained only part of a much larger picture I was unable to see at the moment. The reason it had even entered the house,
this house
, in the first place was the real mystery. As there were almost two dozen other houses on the same street, in which other survivors could be hiding, yet it picked this exact house.

Could they track me somehow? Kind of like you would give a bloodhound pieces of someone’s clothing and watch the animal react and follow their scent? Did I leave a scent that it could track all the way from the school? Quickly I began to doubt my ability to hide from it and began to think it knew where I was, it was just toying with me. Leading me further down that road of misconception until I had lost my way and would be unable to find my way back.

I seized the moment with it looking away and hurried to the wall closest to the door, unslinging my rifle as I went. From there I could see it better if it decided to venture further into the house or if it came into the master bedroom I would have more than enough time to shoot, although it would be much closer this time around.

Lightning raced across the sky and I was able to get a brief glance at it before the powerful thunder ripped a hole in the sky and shook the earth violently. The windows shuttered and I could feel the vibrations beneath my feet. The storm was getting stronger, my hiding place had been uncovered, and the longer I dottled in the house the harder it would be for me to see clearly when I left…
if
I ever got that opportunity.

“Find you,” it stated as it moved into the dining room.

I inched closer to the door hoping to keep this thing in sight; however, it had slipped too far away for me to watch any longer. I peered around the door to see the garage empty of anyone, and even though I could not see the pickup, I knew it was still there. I looked toward the kitchen to see it standing by the large bar facing a narrow window over the sink, at least that’s what I thought it was looking at anyway. I could have been wrong.

Go… run your ass off, but go for God’s sakes!
My mind instructed me, yet I hesitated to long and it suddenly turned toward the bedroom again. I ducked back into the darkness wondering where I could hide in such a short notice. The closet was not the place I wanted to be, nor was hiding under the bed. I needed a place, where if I was discovered I could shoot and flee all at the same time. There could only be one of them to deal with or a great many more just waiting outside for me to try and escape. I had to outsmart this thing, which was swiftly becoming a challenge in and of itself. I felt stupid compared to this thing.

Wet footsteps beckoned the approach of the figure, growing closer to my position as I hurriedly looked for a place to hide, which wasn’t obvious or damning. The only possible place available, which was also the last place in the world I wanted to be, was all I had left to work with. I took my place quickly, yet quietly at the same time.

The silent figure moved into the room and came to the foot of the bed. Through partially closed eyes, I could see it looking in my direction. It knelt and began sniffing like a dog looking for its chew toy, and in my haste to blend in I had left the rifle barrel pointed toward my feet. If I moved it up to fire the figure would recognize the movement almost before I could get a so called bead on it. The outcome would be disastrous on my part, so I remained as still as I possibly could. Deathly still, even with the foul smell of decay filtering into my nose, which I was more than positive that at any moment I would throw up and the game would be over.

Moving in closer to the body next to me, the figure shook its head as though the smell offended it as well, and then moved ever so slightly to the left and leaned in for a good whiff of me. It took several breaths into its lungs with more bolts of lightning flashing through the window to give me a clearer picture of the figure before me. To give me that perfect up close and personal view of death, right before it devoured me in one gulp.

It wasn’t like the others in many ways. Its eyes were not dilated, and given the small amount of blood on its mouth, probably from snacking on some poor soul, it looked no more different than I did. So why was it hunting me if it was not dead… or undead? And why had it spoken in a manner befitting a young child just learning to speak and put words together?

I was totally confused at this point, yet still cautious not to move. It may look like me, but that is where the similarities stopped. I didn’t kill for sport, maybe for food, and then maybe; just maybe, it killed because it felt the need too. A basic instinct we all shared when we first crawled out of the ocean all those millennia ago, however, in today’s society the need to kill was justified only in the line of duty as a Police Officer or a Soldier. But something told me this thing didn’t care one quirt of piss about justification. It killed simply because that’s what it does.

It stood and took a quick glance around the room. It opened the closet to find nothing and even knelt at the foot of the bed and peered under, once again to find nothing. When it was satisfied that I was not within the room, it waltzed out with a confident swagger and disappeared in the dark house.

“I have
got
to get the hell out of here,” I said silently as I rolled away from the body and slowly got to my feet. I kept the rifle pointed in the direction of the door, trying my best to keep from vomiting. It was in the midst of all that, that I realized I could not remember when I had last eaten anything. Through the fear, the stress, and anxiety of being found and killed horribly, which was far more than one person could handle. I was suddenly concerned about eating.