Turned: A Spine-Chilling Young Adult Apocalyptic Fiction (The Undead Series, Book 1) (13 page)

I finally found three matching keys in a row and figured these had to be the keys since there were three of the same padlocks. I jammed it in the top lock first. It popped open when I turned it and created a loud sound that made my skin jump. It may have made the person behind the door jump too because the handle stopped wiggling. I wiped the sweat and hair from my face and bent down to handle the middle lock. This one opened with no problem either. Finally, I bent down on my knees to open the bottom lock. I got up on my feet because if I was on my knees, I'd never make it away from the person if I needed to. One last lock left, and I stared reluctantly at it, as if the lock itself was going to hurt me. It seemed that whatever was behind the door sensed my doubt when I paused, and began to frantically jiggle the handle again. I tightened my grip on my knife and stuck the key in the lock but didn’t turn it just yet. The sweat rolled down my face and arms, and my hand shook, making a rattling sound. Jesus, I wasn’t ready, I thought. I wished Em or Jasper was there.

I bent back down, stuck the key in the lock, and took a deep breath. Any second now, I could be attacked and murdered and the baby would die too because there were no police or 911 stations or ambulances or hospitals anymore. I turned the key to the right and jumped back around the corner, knife in hand. The doorknob turned and the door busted open followed by a bloodcurdling scream. I saw a knife pop out from behind the door first, and I knew I was going to die in a very violent way.

What followed the knife from behind the door was a handcuffed arm and another bloody arm with a severed wrist. I realized immediately that the hand had been severed off, probably in an attempt to break free from the handcuffs. A sickly pale woman with wide, terrified eyes came around the door. It took me a moment to realize that the woman was Em.

My mouth gaped open, and I had to cover it so I wouldn’t throw up. The scene before me was horrific. Em’s severed arm turned the white tiled kitchen floor red beneath her steps as she pushed forcefully into the kitchen in full attack mode. She didn’t see me until she turned into the hallway.

Em wore nothing a pair of men’s basketball shorts and a bloody t-shirt that once was white but now the entire front of it was soaked bright red. Streaks of blood ran down her legs and her bare feet. Her beautiful red hair was matted with blood. As her gaze locked on to mine, Em collapsed into my arms and all I heard were her spine-chilling wails. We fell on to the floor together, and her bloody limb soaked my pink tank top and jeans. I was in a state of complete shock, and could do nothing but hold on to the woman that was clinging to me for dear life.

Em didn’t say a word. She couldn’t. She could barely breathe in between sobs. After a few moments, she poked her head up like a cat who just heard a noise, and looked fearfully around her, while holding the stub at the end of her arm. I had never seen her so broken, she was always such a fighter. I finally managed to say something.

“Oh my god, Em, what happened?” I asked and ripped off my tank top. I wrapped it around Em’s limb tightly to help stop the blood flow. I tried to quiet Em’s shrieks and sobs so that any lurking zombies outside wouldn’t hear her. Even though there was a gate surrounding the house, I didn’t want any zombies to surround the gate or Jasper might get attacked when he came home.

Em was still unable to say anything and trembled madly. She attempted to lift herself off of the ground, but looked as if she had no power over her legs. She fell back down to the ground and began crawling into the living room on three limbs like a handicapped dog. I jumped up to follow her into the living room where she had stopped and held a shirt of Jasper’s. I looked at her, disoriented and confused.

“Is there somebody else down there?” I asked Em. I motioned to the basement. Em nodded yes. I ran over to the hallway, scooped my knife back up, then ran over to the basement door and slammed it shut. I grabbed the keys off the floor and fumbled for the right one to lock it. I found the right key and stuck it in the lock when Em wobbled into the kitchen.

“No!” she screamed, but the top of the door was already locked.

“Em! I don’t know what happened to you! I need you to tell me what happened NOW!” Just as Em opened her mouth to respond, the sound of a car coming up the driveway sent her into panic mode again.

“It’s him!” Em shrieked. Her voice trembled.

“That’s Jasper,” I replied. “It’s okay, he’s going to help you.” Just as I finished that sentence, Em whipped her head back around to look at me.

“It’s Jasper!” she shrieked, falling to the floor. “He did this to me!”

“What?” I replied confused, as I heard the gate at the front of the house open and a car drive through it.

“Oh gawwwwwwd,” Em whined. “He’s going to kill us.” The gate in the front of the house closed, and the car drove up to the garage. My mind clouded with confusion. The thoughts of what Jasper had told me about what Em supposedly did to me, how much he didn’t like her, and how he tried to tell me Em was evil and wanted to hurt me, raced through my mind. As the footsteps rounded the house, I looked sternly at Em. I ripped the bandage from my incident with the zombie off my arm and looked down at it. There was a small flesh wound, but it wasn’t a zombie bite as Jasper had told me. That was all the clarification I needed.

“Go hide upstairs…you need to stop the blood on your arm!” I said with a newfound ability to react swiftly. With that, Em pulled herself up with the small amount of strength she had left and hobbled up the wooden stairs. All of the curtains and blinds in the back of the house were pulled, so Jasper wouldn’t be able to see her. The back door was locked, so he’d have to walk back around to the front. That gave me some time.

I frantically ran over to the closet and pulled out a mop to wipe the blood up. I heard the car reach the top of the driveway and shut off. I rinsed out the mop and soaked up some more blood in the hallway and on the stairs. Then I realized I was bloody and had no shirt on. That may be good, I thought. I tore off my jeans and rinsed myself in the sink. With all of the blood cleaned up, I threw the mop back in the closet. The car door opened and then shut again. I dashed over to the basement door to lock the remaining locks. As I did, Jasper reached the back of the house and tried to open the door, but it was locked. Since he didn’t have a key to this house, he knocked. I remained silent. He knocked again and I grabbed the knife, ran into the bathroom and shut the door. I heard him leave the back door to walk around.

A minute later, the front doorknob turned and I heard Jasper step into the house and pause. “Babe?” he called out sweetly. I flushed the toilet. He came to the bathroom and knocked.

“One sec babe, just cleaning up.” A few seconds later, I took a deep breath and opened the door to the bathroom. I was still nude. He stood beside the door. “Find anything?” He said nothing, but looked me up and down, which is what I wanted.

“Why are you nude?” he asked, but I could tell he enjoyed the scene.

“I just wanted to wash off,” I replied. “My clothes had dirt on them so I was going to try and find something else upstairs.”

He put his arm around me and grabbed my butt. I laughed coyly as if I liked it. Whatever, I needed to distract him. I followed him into the living room and he sat down on the coffee table and pulled me on to his lap. I pretended I had an itch on my breast and rubbed the underneath of it. He continued to stare at me. I stroked his hair.

“Anyway, did you find anything out? Any signs of her anywhere?”

“Actually, yes, there was a sign of her,” he said, and looked up at me disturbed. I knew his look was fake.

“What did you find?” I asked. I was eager to hear what his response would be and whether or not he’d continue to make up lies.

“She’s dead,” Jasper answered bluntly. “At least, I believe she is. I’m sorry babe.”

Even though I knew it wasn't true, Jasper’s response made the blood drain from my face. It confirmed everything that Em had told me - Jasper was indeed a monster. He was making up lies about what had happened to Em when, in fact, he was the one who had abducted her and mutilated her. He was trying to convince me that Em was dead, when in fact he was the one who took her and locked her in the basement and tried to kill her. I didn’t know exactly what happened to Em, but I knew enough to know Jasper hurt her. I also realized at this point that I had no idea who this man that I fell in love with was. Everything that he had told me – about his background, about his life, about his family, about his love for me, and even about Canada – were likely lies that were fabricated in his imagination. At that very moment, I sat on the lap and stroked the hair of someone purely evil, who may or may not want to hurt me too. So now what was I supposed to do?

Jasper must have thought I was upset over Em’s apparent death, so he put his head on my shoulder and wrapped his arms around me. I trembled with fear. Every ounce of hope I ever had slowly diminished.

“How do you know?” I muttered.

“Her boots, I found them covered with blood, up in the woods behind the house. They’re all that was left of her except for a hand that was in the grass about ten feet from the boots. She must have been attacked.”

I heard the howl of wind outside and turned my head towards the window to look out the sky that had turned cloudy and foreboding. A storm wasn’t far away. If I were lucky, it would be a tornado and it would suck this horrible man up into the sky so I wouldn’t have to deal with him.

“I’m sorry,” he added.

My glare never wavered from the window, but not for the reasons Jasper thought. If I locked eyes with him right now, I felt that he’d be able to sense that I realized now he was a monster. I felt frozen, not knowing what to say or how to act or what to do now. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and have him hurt me too.

“I’m going to go find clothes,” I muttered. “I don’t want to talk about this.” The words just fell out of my mouth. Jasper nodded and I stood up. I walked solemnly out of the room and into the hall, then turned to go up the stairs. I figured I'd lock myself in one of the rooms and get as far away from Jasper as possible until I thought of a game plan. The only thing I knew for sure was that I had to get myself and Em out of this house as quickly as possible without Jasper realizing it.

I walked up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom. I then walked through the doorway, closed the door softly and locked it. Once inside the room, I sat on the bed to think. A few moments passed when I heard the knob on the French doors of the closet turn. The door opened gently and Em peeked through. I quietly tiptoed over to the closet and wrapped her in my arms. Thankfully, her experience as a doctor allowed her to fashion a tourniquet for her arm out of a t-shirt and a ruler, and she had stopped the flow of blood. Her condition seemed to improve slightly.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered. I needed to think…fast.

“We…we…we need to get out of here,” Em whimpered. How ironic, she was once the warrior and I was the girl who needed saved. How the tables had turned. I looked down at the floor, my mind raced. At that moment, I realized that my only option was to kill Jasper. I didn’t want to kill him. I wanted to find out why he did this to Em. I wanted to hold him at gunpoint, but he had taken all of the guns. All I had to defend myself and protect Em with was a knife. I had to surprise him…slit his throat. Then Em and I could take the car and try to find help.

The thought of slitting Jasper’s throat…murdering him….made my eyes water. What the hell had happened? This was the man I loved. He couldn’t have done this. Could Em be lying? Was his love for me even real? The doubt started to collect in my mind.

“He’s going to hurt you too,” Em said to me, as if she sensed the doubt that I was feeling. “He told me…he needs…he doesn’t love you. He’s psycho, Retta. Listen to me! He’s going to kill you!”

None of this made sense to me. I stared into Em’s eyes, searching desperately for the truth. For a split second I wondered if Em could have set this up to hurt one of us…but then why did Jasper say she was dead? A knock on the door startled me. I was so immersed in Em’s eyes looking for answers that I hadn’t heard anyone come up the stairs.

“Babe?” Jasper’s voice called to her from behind the locked door. “Babe…I made you some tea.” I couldn’t find the words to say. Em retracted to her spot in the closet.

“Babe? You in there?” he called again.

“Y…yeah,” I answered, pretending to speak through slow sobs. “Would you mind taking it downstairs? I’ll be down in minute…I need to collect myself.” Silence.

“Uh…yeah…sure.”

“Thanks. I’ll be right down,” I said. I waited for the sound of his feet to walk down the stairs, but I heard nothing. I walked over to the side of the bed to steal a tissue from the box. I blew my nose and pretended to catch my breath. I saw blood on the tissue – my nose was bleeding again. I held the tissue to my nose to clot the blood and waited. Still no footsteps on the stairs. I had no idea what to do, but I couldn’t just stay in the room – I had to take some sort of action.

I threw on a pair of big men’s sweatpants from the drawer and stuck the knife in the pocket of them. I walked over and opened the door and looked up at Jasper. But he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at the floor. I looked down too, and noticed that there was an inch-wide spot of blood on the carpet. Before I could even process a thought, Jasper’s right hand flew out from his right pants pocket and his hand met my nose with a white cloth. The smell of chemicals rubbed against my nose, and then my world turned dark yet again.