Robert j duperre, p.18
Robert J. Duperre, page 18
The boys turned tail, stumbling over the dune to their rear. David, holding his cheek (which was already purple and swelling), turned back to her. He spat a tooth out on the dirt and glared.
“Pa’s gonna hear about this,” he said, and then disappeared from sight.
Abigail stayed as she was, gun in hand, nerves on edge, for some time afterward. She feared the boys would circle around and attack her from behind, but after a while that worry evaporated. She threw the rifle over her shoulder and looked to the spot where the wounded creature lay.
It wasn’t there.
Her head shot from side to side, but it was no use. She could see nothing but sand beneath a light blue horizon. Shrugging her shoulders and breathing deeply, she trudged back the way she came, hoping the mule hadn’t taken off in her absence—especially since it still had a hundred pounds of valuable beef strapped to its back.
Abigail Browning shivered. She was sure she’d done a good thing. It wasn’t right what they were doing to that poor little creature. The Mullin boys got what was coming to them, she thought. The beginnings of a grin spread across her chapped lips.
*
Evening came, and so did the howls. They pierced her eardrums with their shrill timbre, louder than ever. The dying sun cast glowing streaks across the ceiling of the shack as its rays slipped through the gaps in the shutters. She lit the candles on the table beside her, hugged her nightclothes tight, and slipped beneath her covers. Her hands were clenched and held close to her mouth. She sucked on her knuckles. That damn wailing sounded so close now, as if it was right outside her door. She shivered with terror, imagining the Howlers, whatever the beasts might be, barging in and devouring her whole. With that thought, she kissed away any chance of sleep she may have had.
Something hard smacked against the door, as if her fear had been given life. She shot up in bed and pulled the blanket to her chin. Maybe it’s nothing, she thought, but then it came again, louder this time. The lone cupboard in the room shook with the impact, and one of her two drinking glasses fell over. It rolled across the shelf, dropped over the edge, and shattered.
All sounds—the howling outside, the banging at her door, the breaking glass—swirled inside her head. Her heart raced out of control and she screamed. It felt like she could have a heart attack any moment.
“Miss Browning!” a panicked voice yelled. “Miss Browning, they’re after us! Help!”
Abigail cocked her head. She couldn’t decide if the voice was real or in her head, but when it called her name again, followed by yet another loud bang, she jumped out of bed and sprinted to the door. There was someone out there. Someone in trouble, pursued by the Howlers. She had to help.
She gripped the bar across the door with both hands, yanked it from its moorings with a shrug, and tossed it aside. What followed was a prompt smack in the face as the door barged inward, sending her to her ass. She bit her tongue when she landed, and blood pooled in her mouth.
Her forehead ached, and something wet trickled into her eye. Her vision grew wobbly as she sat there on the dirty floor. She lifted her chin slowly, watching the door swing open and four sets of feet clad in filthy work boots tramp into the shack. Her eyes went from the boots, to the pants, to the tattered shirts, to four grim, scowling faces.
“Well well,” said Ennis Mullin, his sons looming behind him. “This little lass the one who did ya?”
The three boys nodded; David with his jaw in a sling, Billy with his face wrapped in bandages stained red, Barry with his weasel-like nose scrunched up. All three glowered at her, hatred in their eyes. Ennis, however, simply looked amused.
“She’s pretty.”
With the front door left open, the howling ratcheted up a notch, drowning out the ringing in her head. Abigail tried to plant her feet and kick herself backward, but her heel found no purchase. Her vision wobbled and she felt close to passing out. She leaned over and dry-heaved, drool trickling from her bottom lip.
“What should we do with her, pops?” she heard one of the brothers ask.
Ennis, cocksure and sickening, replied, “Anything you like.”
Hands on her. Beneath her armpits, under her knees, lifting her. The bed then beneath her, and a hard something striking her face. She collapsed, the back of her skull striking the headboard. She flailed her arms and legs as hard as she could, but the hands holding her were too strong. Then her nightclothes were tugged. She heard the fabric tear, felt the coldness of the open air on her bare flesh. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to focus on something, anything, to distract her from the here and now.
But all she could think of was the last man who’d seen her naked, Mitchell, and then of how she’d come home and found him on top of her son, holding a cord around his neck while Nathan’s little face turned blue and his eyes bugged out, of how she’d grabbed an axe and buried it in the back of Mitchell’s head.
She’d done so much—survived the War, then the Flood, then the Sickness—she’d brought life into the world, only to watch it get snuffed out by the man who’d promised to love and protect her.
Someone scratched her inner thigh. She came back to the real world, and that’s when she noticed there was something missing. It took her a moment to realize it, but the howling had stopped.
Again something hard whacked her in the face, and blood cascaded down her nose. One of the brothers—she couldn’t tell which, her vision was too hazy—grabbed her legs and tried to force them apart. She squeezed as tight as she could, but the pain seeping into her mind made her weak. Her knees buckled and shook, and whoever wedged his hand between them grunted. She wanted to scream, but nothing came out but a hoarse, wet gurgle.
Footsteps now, fast and plentiful. It sounded like a million ants crawling around her, their spiked feet clicking against the floor. Wood breaking, glass shattering, people shouting. She felt a withering sensation, as if she’d been transferred to another plane of existence entirely.
It took a great amount of effort, but Abigail raised her head and opened her eyes. What she saw defied description. There were bodies in motion everywhere—some dark, some light. There were men screaming and beasts growling, and every so often a geyser of red would erupt and strike the walls. Bones snapped, teeth gnashed, and still the screams of torment persisted. She felt as if she indeed had been taken away from the mortal coil, and now resided in Hell.
Something crept beside her on the bed, something large and glowing. A pair of cold, coarse hands touched her forehead. She glanced over at a muddled white oval with a torrent of red running down its bottom half. That was the last thing she saw before the blackness took her.
*
Abigail Browning lay with her knees drawn up to her chest. She was cold, so cold. She could’ve kicked herself for not starting a fire in the small stove that sat in the corner of her shack. It wasn’t much, but at least it would’ve provided some warmth.
She reached down for her blankets, but they weren’t there. She tried to move her head and was struck by a surge of pain that ran from the side of her face on down her neck. Her hand reached up and touched the sore spot. Her eye and cheek were swollen, and her nose felt like silly putty. With a groan, she opened her eyes.
There was no bed beneath her, only sand. And she was surrounded by sound—voices, quite a few of them, guttural and primitive, squealing. She gulped down the bile in her throat and raised her head.
All around her, creatures with gray skin sat cross-legged, their disfigured, horrendous faces aimed at the sky. They cried at the moon, their throats vibrating as the noises emerged. I’m dreaming, she thought.
Abigail gradually sat up, waited for her dizziness to subside, and then looked around once more. No dream. She glanced to her right and saw a female creature with gray, flapping breasts sitting beside her, eyes to the night sky. It acted like she wasn’t there, and as its sunken jaw moved she saw droplets of blood drip from its chin and cascade down its belly, only to be licked up by the two smaller creatures it held in its lap. Abigail’s eyes widened—really only the left one, since the other was virtually swollen shut—and one of the smaller beasts looked at her. There it was. The monster, her monster, the one she’d seen eating the dead calf, the one she’d saved from the Mullin brothers earlier that day.
The mother ceased her howling and her dotted black pupils turned Abigail’s way. The female opened her arms, and the young one burst from her grasp, its malformed penis dangling. It barreled into Abigail, and for a moment she feared the thing would rip out her throat. It didn’t. Instead it nuzzled its huge, bald cranium into her neck. Hesitantly, she brought up her hand and stroked its head.
The mother, apparently satisfied with the result, wrapped her arms around her remaining child and resumed her primal song.
Abigail sat there in amazement, holding the strange little life form. All around her she noticed it was the same scene, over and over again—female monstrosities with their young ones, weeping at the sky. She looked straight ahead, saw her farm in the distance, nothing but a speck, and gazed at the thing in her arms.
The child cooed, and then placed his crooked palm on her chest. That hand rose up and bony fingers wrapped around her jaw, moving it up and down.
In that moment Abigail understood the purpose behind the strange chorus. She mimicked the rest of the clan, gazing at the ugly yet precious thing in her arms while she sang.
“Hush little baby, don’t say a word
Mama’s gonna buy you a mocking bird
And if that mocking bird don’t sing
Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.”
The mutated child’s eyes began to close, and a smile stretched across Abigail’s face. After years of searching, she’d finally found a place to belong. She was home.
—
Chorus, a story inspired by the illustration by Jesse David Young that accompanies it in this collection, originally appeared in Dark Tomorrows: Second Edition, a collection of short stories by J.L. Bryan.
THE ONE THAT MATTERS
Bonus Story by Robert J. Duperre
Ash covered the landscape like cold, dead snow. Small lumps scattered throughout the yard, buried in the piles of blowing dust. They might have been objects forgotten during the rush to beat the easterly wind, the old feed buckets, or perhaps the remains of the chickens those buckets used to nourish. A cold wind blew, revealing a blackened joint. It might have been the elbow or knee of some poor soul who’d come in search of help; help they obviously no longer needed.
Guido grunted and turned away. Nothing he hadn’t seen before. He continued around the old farmhouse, back creaking, lungs wheezing. Placing a hand on the back porch’s stoop, he rested a moment. His eyes looked skyward. Dark clouds still loomed ominous overhead. They billowed deep and low, yet seemed to stretch for miles into the atmosphere. Water fell on the shield of his gas mask. He whisked the drops away with a wipe of his gloved hand, leaving trails of black soot. Another gust of wind caught him unawares, and he shivered at its biting cold.
Turning back to the task at hand, Guido circled his house until he found what he was looking for—a thick, curved metal construction that jutted from the foundation. He dipped beneath its lip, knelt in the mounds of wet, gray powder, and took a large brush from his belt. Originally used to clean the horses’ hides, it had gained a new purpose, much like everything else since the eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera. He swept the bristles from side to side against the grate beneath the steel casing, clearing ash from the gaps in the filter. It was tough work, and his back ached with each stroke, but Guido Malfi was nothing if not a diligent man. Before long, he’d cleared the filter as best he was able. In another three days he’d have to come out again, but that was still three days he could spend inside, warmed under the cover of many blankets. Three days that he could spend with Her.
*
Guido slid the lock through its catch after he closed the bunker’s overhead door. The sound of metal scratching against metal echoed through the small entryway, like fingernails over a chalkboard. He winced, waiting for the reverberations to cease. When they did, he moved to the second door and slid it open.
She was waiting for him. She sat on the couch, still wearing the Bratz pajamas she’d had on when she first arrived. Her brown hair was clumped and ratty, but to him, in the dim yellow light, it looked silky and beautiful. Her eyes lifted. She recoiled for a split second and then smiled. Her teeth were crooked, in bad need of braces she would never get.
He slid the gas mask from his head and took a deep breath. His lungs rattled, but that was okay. He’d lived with worse than that before.
The room was small, barely ten feet by ten, entombed by concrete walls four feet deep. This was Guido’s pride and joy—a bomb shelter he’d constructed over the last twenty years, a bomb shelter folks assured him he’d never need. He chuckled. So much for them.
He’d stocked the cubby beneath the shelter with enough canned goods and water to last two years, though the girl had thrown off his initial estimations. Grabbing a flashlight, he lifted the hatch and looked inside. The gas generator that powered the lights and the air filter chugged along below the earth, its exhaust piped out to the surrounding woods. He smiled upon hearing its guttural purr. Snatching a couple cans of peaches from a shelf, he shut the hatchway and turned.
“Do you want some food, Alyssa?” he asked.
The little girl nodded.
“Yes please, Mr. Malfi,” she replied.
They sat down to eat.
*
“Tell me one of your stories,” said Alyssa. She picked up a syrupy peach with her bare hand and plunked it in her mouth.
Guido stroked his white beard. “Hm. Let’s see. I told you about the Kennedy assassination, right?”
She nodded.
“How about G.W. and his plan to dominate the world economy by crashing planes into a couple buildings?”
Again, she nodded.
“How about the moon? Have I talked about that?”
“No,” she said with a shake of the head. “Tell me that one.”
“Okay. Well, it happened a long time ago, when I was a young’n in college. We and the Ruskies were always at each other’s throats, trying to beat each other at everything, as if that would help distract us from knowing one side or the other would soon lose patience and launch the first nuke. One of the meanest competitions was this ‘race to space’ thing. Whoever landed on the moon would get some sort of bragging rights, take first place in this pissing contest we had going. So one day, we did it. We landed on the moon. The whole world stood up and cheered for us, as if we’d accomplished something. But here’s the thing, Alyssa. We never did reach the moon. It was all a ruse. You know what a film studio is?”
She listened intently as he spoke, her chin resting on her fists. She stared at him with those wide eyes of hers, and he felt his heart melting. This little girl was everything to him, had been since the day she came running into his yard screaming while sirens blared in the background. The announcement had just come over the airways, and everyone was in a panic. Vandals tore through every corner of Mercy Hills, Connecticut, his hometown. The little girl had looked so scared, so on edge, when she arrived at the doorstep of his farmhouse while he was outside sealing the shelter from the rain of ash soon to come. At first he thought to ignore her, to turn her away like he had the Letts family when they came calling. He hesitated, though, and when he looked in those large, innocent eyes, he remembered the dreams of his youth, the love of his family. The family she’d most certainly lost in the chaos of a crumbling society.
So he’d brought her in. He’d saved her, and that memory filled him with pride. Daughter, he thought. She is my daughter now. Or granddaughter, at least.
When he finished his story, he smiled. They said their goodnights, climbed into their cots on either side of the room, turned off the lights, and fell asleep.
*
A sound awoke him. It was like static, or baseball cards fastened to the spokes of a bicycle. He sat up, his tired muscles aching, and searched for the pull chord in the dark. He found it dangling above him and yanked. The overhead light clicked on. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust.
Alyssa was already awake. She sat on her cot, knees pulled to her chest. Her eyes, always wide, were even more so now. The poor girl looked petrified. The strange crackling sounded again.
“What is that?” he asked.
Alyssa clutched her knees tighter and buried her head between them.
Guido swung his legs over the side of the cot. The concrete floor was cold beneath his bare feet. The thought came to mind that there might be people outside, desperate people who would do anything, kill anybody, for a chance at survival. He grabbed his baseball bat from above his reading desk and went to the reinforced door. Pressing his ear to it, he listened. There was nothing at first, and then that fizz came again. Only it wasn’t coming from beyond the door, he realized. It came from inside the shelter.
He glanced at his desk, walked to it, and sat down. Positioned on the side was his ancient radio, still plugged in. His fingers touched the volume and turned it up. At first there was nothing, and then it crackled. It sounded like static, but beneath, he swore he could hear a voice. He twisted the tuning knob—Guido Malfi believed in the solid construction of the old, and this radio hadn’t failed him since his teen years—and slowly, the speaker on the other end broke into startling clarity.
“This is a message for all survivors,” the voice said. It was male, polite, and had a thick accent. “My name is Colonel Martin Doucette. Citizens of the United States, we have arrived. We apologize for the delay, but we’re here now, and we’re here to help. As of this moment, our ships are docked and waiting for your arrival. You will be granted amnesty in France, if you choose to exit your homelands. We will remain docked for a period of one month, and hand out supplies to those that remain behind. The list of safe ports is as follows: Boston Harbor, Groton Harbor, New York Harbor…”
