“Jack, it wasn’t your fault.” Ensorcelling emerald eyes stare deeply into Jack’s. Her pink lips, soft and voluptuous, turn into a smile that could melt hearts. Laying in the soft bed with him, her skin sticks against the gummy sheets. She opens her mouth to speak but he can’t hear what she’s saying, he can only try to distinguish the words as they come out in slow pitches. “It wasn’t your fault, but you need to wake up already.” Jack stares ahead with his mouth open, yet no words fall out. “Jack,” she continues. “Wake up…wake up…Jack!”
Jack jerks out of his sleep as Kirk stands nearby, his foot kicking the bed with a rifle in his hands. “Jack, wake up! They’re breaking in!”
He jumps out of bed in a half glazed state of mind, everything running slower than it should. He tries to grip his hands on reality and focus on his surroundings. The house is rattling; the roof is creaking; the front door sounds as if it’s about to splinter. He scuttles down the stairs and drives his shoulder against the door, pressing all his weight into it.
“Jack!” The girl yells as she tosses her pistol towards him. He reaches out catching it as wood splinters apart with claws protruding through a opening. Retracting it’s hand, a vitreous red eye with a murky white center glares in. Shoving the barrel into the hole he squeezes the trigger. A roar is heard in-between gun shots.
“What happened?”
“They must’ve saw us on the way in, ain’t ever seen ’em this hungry!” The girl yells. Her chair positioned towards a window, she adjusts loose boards trying to make sure they’re sturdy.
“Kirk, what’s the time!” Jack yells.
Kirk stands by a window with creasing boards, an axe positioned above the splitting wood. His rifle resting against a wall next to him. He lowers it momentarily to check the time. “It’s two minutes to six, they just clawed around most of the night but as it got closer to dawn they just went crazy.”
“Keep em at bay, it’s almost time!”
The house shifts and sways with the completion of his sentence, as if something told them their was a plan unfolding.
“We’re not gonna make it, they’re coming in!” The girl yells.
She is grabbed by a slick, slime covered fist pulling her out of her seat and into the boards. The front of her face slams into the wood, fracturing her mouth into a blooded gob of saliva and particles of teeth. She leans back unconscious, involuntarily allowing her body to be taken for feeding. The clenched fist begins to slide back with her shirt balled in it’s vice. The withdraw is cut short when a gash is cut into the center of the black, leather like skin. A dull edged axe wedges into the forearm, splintering bone. A geyser of hot blood begins to spew out in heavy fountains. “Watch the blood!” Kirk yells, lifting his arm as a shield. Speckles land on him and the girl. A cry of defeat rattles the home as the arm is sucked out quickly.
Kirk picks the girl up from the floor she fell on, cradling her in his arms. He lightly shakes her head with his calloused palm. “C’mon, Gabby, wake up.” Jack continues to fire slugs into bodies through the creases of the boards. “Is she okay?” He manages to ask between shooting.
“Oh, so now you’re concerned?” Kirk responds.
Jack turns his direction with the gun following him, he then squeezes the trigger. Kirk flinches downwards in a panic, something squeals behind him. He looks back to see bloodied fingers retracting through slits in the window.
“We’ll talk when this is over, for now let’s worry about seeing a new day.”
Kirk carefully lays Gabby down and reaches for his axe. A set of claws burst through the wood and burrow into his arm reeling him back. He collides against the window, and has the air knocked out of his lungs.
Jack runs over and shoves the gun through a crack firing rapidly. Blood spills through the boards soaking Jack’s tight lipped mouth and Kirk’s shoulder. A beam of light pushes through a covered window, screams of rage and anguish bellow through the dense walls. The porch boards shamble under a stampede of feet rushing over them. Kirk slides down the wall while applying pressure onto his shoulder. Jack rubs his face off with his shirt and opens the front door, exposing himself to the open. Stepping out with a pistol still in his hand; still glowing hot from the battle, he walks out onto the porch. Blood stains and claw marks adorn the front door and walls, on the side of the house there’s holes dug up at awkward angles, as if they planned on coming up from underneath the house.
“They’re getting smarter,” Jack mumbles. He looks off into the horizon one last time before stepping inside. Kirk walks by carrying Gabby, one arm hanging down as he passes by. “I’m sorry, Kirk. Is she okay?”
“I don’t think she’ll be eating solid food for a while, if that’s what you’re asking. You didn’t get any blood in your mouth, did you?” He asks in a manner as if he was only half concerned, like a teacher responding to an annoying student. Jack shakes his head and walks past him, leaving the front door open. Despite the heat emanating from outside, filling the house with its suffocating embrace, he felt a chill go down his body. His skin and clothes cold from the blood; cold and sticky. Peeling his shirt off he heads to the bedroom and quietly shuts the door. Kirk lays Gabby down onto a bed and sits down next to her. Her skin began to turn purple around her nose accommodated with heavy swelling. Pressing his thumb on her split lip he tugs it downwards revealing a variety of broken teeth.
He wipes the blood off on his one clean sleeve and slides downwards onto the hardwood floor, his back pressed against the edge of the uncomfortable bed. He glances around the room and takes notice of the room. A small white dresser up against a wall with a vanity mirror attached to it, lined across the dresser were stuffed animals. The walls were hot pink with shooting stars painted across in a galaxy like theme. Above the door in cursive was written: MACY’S PALACE
Kirk rubs his hand on the floor bouncing the tips of his fingers in and out of the embedded grooves in the floor. A row of five lines started from the edge of the bed and out past the door. Blood splatters were on the sides of the doorway, with a hand print half gripped onto the edge of the entrance. A hand print the size of a child’s. Kirk puts his head down, and quietly begins to weep.
