Category : Stories

Sub Category : Horror

“He’s coming.” I quickly glance to the side to see Trisha race up to a dresser in my dead Grandmother’s spacious bedroom and tries to move it to the thick oak door. I run up to her and start to help. “Hurry.” I yell. I can hear the primal growls of what used to be my Papa charging up the aged staircase that is just two doors down from the room we are hiding in. Finally, we haul the heirloom piece of furniture to the door and slam it against it. My sister stares at me with eyes that makes me want to tell her everything will be okay, but I know that isn’t true. The world is overrun with ravenous beasts that were once people we cared about. The door starts moving the dresser as the thing slams against it trying to close the space between it and us. My eyes examine the room to see if there is anything else we can put in front of the one thing that was preventing it to change us into a thing like him. My sister spots the worn maroon sofa arm chair. I follow her eyes. With no time to waste we speed over to grab it. Suddenly the dresser starts to move forward. I panic. Looking to Trisha, I order, “Move that over here while I keep the dresser in place.”“Joan, I can’t move it all by myself.” I can see she wants to break down. I can’t have that. “We have no choice.” I start to shake as the thing is ramming itself at the door, trying to move the dresser that is blocking it. Trisha is dragging the chair to me. Her small frame giving everything it’s got to scoot the chair across the room. When she makes it over, I move away from the dresser for a moment to situate the chair so it can join the blockade. Trisha helps holding the furniture in place. She gives me the pissed off glare she gives me when she thinks I made a dumbass decision that directly affects her. I know this time, I deserve it. I take a deep guilty breath. “Go ahead. Say it.”“Why should I?” She grunts as she fights the furniture that is shoving her back due to the thing on the other side of the door. “If that monster gets us and we turn, it will be all on you.”I shake my head in shame. I now wish we would of stayed at the Super Walmart that was transformed into a safe place for all the uninfected. We had  food, shelter, beds, and security to actually be human, again. But, I could see how heart broke Papa was. He wanted to be at home. He kept saying that he would rather die in a place of love than among strangers. Plus, he wasn’t happy knowing that we left before he could find out if Grandma made it. All she did was go to the store to pick up his favorite snack, pork rinds. It was the last time he saw her and that was two weeks ago. I can hear the snarls of what was left of my Papa. I guess it was fitting that he was bitten by my Grandma who also was turned. The only thing I can think of was she came back after we left with Papa and either she was already infected or she got attacked here. Moments after she bit Papa, we decapitated her. What we didn’t expect was how fast Papa turned. We barely got away from him. My sister is about to say something, when it get quiet. The furniture isn’t moving. Trisha peers at me. I can tell she wants to sit down. Without saying a word, I stare her down. She slumps her shoulders then reinforces herself to the chair again. We wait for what seems like forever, still nothing. I look at her. “Should we chance it?’She looks around the room then back at me. “Do you want to die here, too?’I look at the door. I think Maybe it’s gone. I start to move the chair. Silence. I bet I can hear a pin drop, if there was one around. I start scooch the dresser. I start to have hope. That hope dies when I hear an animalistic scream and the door starts shaking again. Faster than the Flash, we shove the sofa chair back to the door. Trisha’s alarmed eyes look to me like I’m the one with all the answers.“Now what?’Squeezing my eyes shut, I feel the pressure build up inside me. If you would have told me a month ago that the world was going to go to Hell with rabid monsters that used to be people and I was going to have to navigate through it like a damn Eagle Scout, I would have asked if you were high. I wish this was an acid trip and I could just wake up and we would be at Grandma and Papa’s house to visit. That reality is gone now.An idea hit me. I eyed the window. I look at my sister. “Go to the window and tell me what you see.”She stared at me. I can see she knows what I am thinking and begins to protest. I stop her. “Do you want out of here or not?”Her eyes turn into slits. She knows that we have no other choice. She runs to the window near the queen size bed that was still made and sticks her head out the open window. After a few seconds, she pops her head back in. “The coast is clear. The only thing that’s down there is the car we came in.”I inclined my head. I tell her to switch places with me. She races back and pushes against the shaking chair. I made my way to the window. I look to the side of it. I sighed in relief. On the side of the window, my grandparents had one of those vine climbers. I look around the outside. Not one living or animated thing around. I turned toward her. I can she her weight isn’t doing much to hold the furniture and the thing was making ground. I charge back like a quarterback and slam everything back against the door.I look at her. “When I say so, I want you to go to the window and climb down the vine ladder.” She doesn’t argue. I start counting. “One”She stares at the window.“Two”She gets into running position.“Three.” Trisha runs like a bat out of Hell and climbs out the window. Seconds later, she pops her head in. “I made it.”Her eyes widen. I know I have even less time to get there. I tell her to start climbing down. She nods and complies.I close my eyes. You can do thismy brain encourages me. Without hesitation, I dash away from the furniture and zip to the window and climb out like a monkey. I can hear the furniture being moving out of the way. I climb down. My sister is already on the ground. I jump down the last couple of feet. We both look up as we can hear snarling coming from the bedroom. Trisha and I book it to the car. We whip open the doors and quickly get in. I grab the keys that are already in the ignition and turn it. The car sputters a bit then the engine roars to life.That’s when we notice that we weren’t the only ones around there. Heads of the once human creatures hear the car and started crawling out of the woodwork. Not waiting for them to come near the car, I slam on the gas, and zoom away, leaving them behind. I’m not really heading anywhere. I’m just driving aimlessly then Trisha pleads for us to go back to the Walmart. I sigh and tell her okay.We get to the store and stop the car. The Walmart doors are wide open. The monsters walking in and out the doors. Half-eaten bodies everywhere. I put the car in drive. I can hear Trisha bawling beside me. “What do we do now, Joan? Where do we go?’I sit silently as I drive through our hometown that has been taken over by walking death. I don’t know what to do. I’m sixteen years old who just got my license two months ago. I’m supposed to be worried about school. Winning the football game. Giving my younger sister a hard time. Instead, my childhood was ripped away from me and now I am taking care of my thirteen year old sister and making life or death decisions.“I don’t know. I guess we will have to keep going until we get lucky.” It’s the only thing I can think to say. I know, eventually we will run out of gas and it will be too dangerous to go to a gas station to refill. “Trisha, this is our life, now. We are going to put away our fear and stay ahead of the game. No matter where we go, we will face our possible death. We just need to hold on to our humanity and fight to live to another day.”My sister stops crying. She sniffs and wipes her eyes. “You’re right.”As we drive into the unknown, I think that there is got to be hope, somewhere. A colony of survivors living someplace. Holding onto that possibility, we venture on. Unsure of our future. I feel that we aren’t the only ones left alive.Crossing my fingers, I pray that I’m right.