The Night Has Teeth: Chapter 2

In which John deals with uninvited guests during the apocalypse.

Chapter 2

A clawed, pale arm thrashed back and forth through an opening in the window. Its forearm banged against the wooded supports I’d nailed down weeks ago to protect myself while I slept on the couch.

I ran over to the fireplace and picked up a poker, tripping over the cabinets and scrap wood I’d been taking apart to burn and keep warm.

With the poker in hand, I stood in front of the window and lifted the poker above my head.

“Go away!” I shouted.

But the beast just kept thrashing and clawing.

CRASH.

Another arm came through a pane of glass.

I swung the poker down like an axe, tearing into the flesh of the first arm. The skin peeled away like I was cutting an apple, and the black ooze they had for blood dripped slowly down onto the floorboards like syrup on pancakes.

The arm wouldn’t give up. It grabbed one of the planks of wood and started to push it outwards. Nails rose from their embedded spots in the wall, and the support started to give.

I brought the fire poker down again, and again, and again.

The ooze collected on the floor and ran between the grooves in the wood like black ink in a mold.

The arm fell to the floor, severed from the screaming body outside.

It kept thrashing and clawing. I was convinced it would stand up on its fingers and skitter towards me.

I didn’t have time to wait and find out.

I ran to the other side of the room and got to work on the other arm. Knowing where it was weakest from taking care of the bastard’s little friend, I brought the poker down until the arm joined its cousin on the floor and stained my house with their vile black blood.

I stopped when it grew quiet. I listened like a frightened animal in the woods for any creak, crunch, or soft footstep outside.

Backing away from the windows, I reached back until my arm found the couch that I’d made into my bed. I had been sleeping there for weeks. I figured it was safer to be on the first floor and get out as fast as possible.

I didn’t want to be caught on the second floor like the Thompsons.

Sitting slowly down on the couch, I reached around the right arm and found the bug-out bag I had prepared. Inside was an old revolver that Addy’s grandfather had given her, a box of shells, water, candy bars, and small cereal boxes.

The bag felt heavy in my hands as I set it on my lap and waited.

I had played this game before. Stay or go?

The last time I played was the night I last heard from Addy.

We had a big fight. And if you know us, that wasn’t a surprise. The fights had been getting worse as the outbreak…should it be called an outbreak? Maybe invasion? Either way, it had started even before the pale ones began their campaign to eat every poor bastard in the country.

The last fight we had was about the bug-out bag. She didn’t think we should stay. She thought we should’ve tried to flee the country and make it to Canada. After all, we were in Michigan–it would be easier for us than most people to get out.

The last thing I said to her before she left was that she was wrong.

The last thing she said to me was not to follow her.

Three days later, I got her voice message. And I still hadn’t listened to it.

I sat on the couch holding the fire poker in one hand and the bug-out bag in my other. Nothing had made me leave the house. Not even Addy’s defiant trek out of the city. But as I clenched the bag and the cold iron in my hand, the wave of regret finally hit me like water crashing against a lighthouse.

I wasn’t going to see her again.

The front door rattled slightly, like a mouse running across the floor.

My gaze turned slowly towards the door handle. The frame was secure. I’d checked it a thousand times. The boards and locks all over the door kept me in just as much as they kept anyone else out.

The rattling came again as the doorknob twisted one way and then another.

No. I thought. They couldn’t have learned how to open doors…could they?

Until then, they had only tried to smash their way inside. I slowly stood up, the bag in one hand, the poker at the ready in the other.

The knob turned again. One way and then the other. Each click of the metal twisting against the lock mechanism ticked like a clock inside my head. How long until what was outside got in? An hour? A minute?

“Hellllllooooooooo,” a voice rasped.

I froze.

“Helllloooooooooo,” it rasped again.

The doorknob turned quickly back and forth.

“Home?” it asked.

I felt my mouth open like I was going to answer. I dropped the bag and held my hand over my mouth to stop from talking. But the sound of the bag hitting the floor was enough to let the thing at the door know I was inside.

“Home!” the thing shouted.

The door shook against the frame as the sound of a dozen fists started to hit the door and the frame.

I picked up the bag and ran up the stairs. The sound of my feet hitting the steps was replaced by the sound of splintering wood as each pounding fist shattered more of my door frame.

I was on the steps toward the third floor when I heard the front door crash down on the rug in my entryway.

Claws hit the floors like wild dogs running for the dinner bell. There was no hiding now. The monsters were inside my house, and I was going to be ripped to shreds, just like the Thompsons.

Unless I did the unthinkable.

TO BE CONTINUED!