Among Monsters: A Red Hill Novella Read online

  Darla’s lip trembled. “I…” She looked to her husband. “Brad, this is wrong. We should try to find a way.”

  Brad shook his head, sad. “You asked me to get you and the kids to your parents. This is how it has to be.”

  Darla looked down at the paper in her hand, folded it, and put it in her back pocket. “I will, Jenna. I promise.”

  I yielded, taking a step back, and watched them walk out the door. Blinking and looking up didn’t stop the tears, and once they’d started, they wouldn’t stop. I retreated to the bathroom, shutting myself inside. My entire body shook as I sat on the floor and sobbed into a folded towel. I didn’t want to wake anyone. Halle didn’t need to feel this kind of frustration and disappointment, too.

  Thankfully, no one bothered me until Halle knocked on the door, needing to use the toilet. I washed my face with cold water, grateful it was still running, and I opened the door with a smile.

  Even without her glasses, I couldn’t fool my sister.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  I sighed. “I just miss Mom.”

  “Me, too,” she said, throwing her arms around my pelvis.

  I wasn’t quite Tavia’s height, and she was fairly short, probably five feet five inches. But Halle’s forehead barely hit my belly button, and if I didn’t bend down, she’d always end up hugging my butt.

  I squeezed her back and stepped to the side, deciding to stay behind and help her get ready for the day. We hadn’t left April’s house, and it was easy to stop caring about things like showering or brushing our teeth. But I would keep reminding Halle that we should do it while we still had soap, shampoo, and toothpaste because one day very soon, we would miss them.

  After breakfast, Dad slipped his backpack over his shoulders. When he went out, he’d typically keep his pack light, just enough to get him by if he were caught somewhere. I could tell more was inside the bag than a few bottles of water, a sandwich, and extra ammo.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Get your pack. You’re coming with me.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Okay, if you don’t wanna go.”

  “I wanna go!” Halle said.

  “I wanna go!” Tobin echoed.

  I stared at him with a blank face. “What are you doing?” I asked again, emphasizing each word.

  He glanced at April and Tavia, seeming nervous. They were making breakfast in the kitchen, peeking at him from over their shoulders. They didn’t know either.

  I picked up my bag, put two bottles of water inside with a package of crackers and a knife, and quickly threw it on. “Fine, let’s go.”

  I grabbed Jud’s aluminum bat sitting by the back door, and then we walked outside to the center of the fenced-in yard. I squinted from the bright sun. It was already hot.

  Dad handed me a hat and sunglasses. “Here.”

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked, pulling my dark hair through the hole in the back of the cap. The hat didn’t sit right when I put on the sunglasses, so I pulled up the bill to sit higher on my forehead.

  “Yes, we’re going this way,” he said, taking the first step.

  I followed him out the gate and to the right, heading through backyards, until we reached the first road to the west. It was paved but not very well. Fairview only had a school because two rural towns had combined to form one. They had no hospital, no Walmart, not even a grocery store. But they had two banks and four churches.

  Figures.

  “I thought you might like to get out of the house,” Dad said.

  “Yeah, but that’s not why you brought me with you. Everyone wants to get out of the house.”

  He looked both ways and then gripped the hammer in his hand. “I brought you for two reasons—to talk and to help. Did you see that church on the highway when we came into town? People were holed up in there the first day or two. I’m thinking it has supplies.”

  “If you want to go to the church, it’s in the opposite direction.”

  “I don’t want to lead any infected to the house, Jenna.”

  “They’re not that smart. They don’t know where you’re coming from unless you get caught standing in the yard or they hear someone inside.”

  Dad sighed, annoyed. “You don’t know that, Jenna.”

  “I’ve been right so far.”

  “Just … let’s just go to long way to the church. Humor me.”

  “If it does have supplies, I bet Skeeter took them.”

  “What?”

  “His name is Skeeter. Connor said he saved a bunch of people at the church, including Connor, but Skeeter lost his wife. He was burying her the last time I saw him.”

  “You saw him? When?”

  “Through the hole in the plywood that Connor’s always looking through. What does it matter?”

  “Is he still around?”

  “No. He went to go find his family.”

  Dad seemed comforted by that thought. He continued walking, keeping a watchful eye in all directions.

  Infected were spread out—some of them standing in place, some of them stumbling around. None of them were closer than a block to us.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Just want to know who our neighbors are. Keep an eye on that one,” he said, nodding to a woman in a black dress.

  Her dark hair was long and tangled, and it dawned on me that while I was noticing her, she had noticed us, and she was now walking in our direction. A low moan came from her throat, her arms reaching toward us.

  I gripped the bat, but I didn’t panic.

  “I worry about you,” Dad said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You’re thirteen, and you haven’t really…you know, had a moment.”

  “I’m not talking about my period with you.”

  “No! No,” he said, making a face. “I mean, you haven’t seemed too upset by all of this. And that’s concerning. It should be damn scary for a girl your age. It’s scary to me.”

  “Maybe you just don’t know me that well.”

  Dad pulled his mouth to the side, not amused.

  I blew out a breath. I hated being too honest with him. It made me feel too vulnerable, like he would use it against me later. “I’m concentrating on getting to Mom. Once we get there, I’m not making any promises. I reserve the right to freak out at that point.”

  Dad picked up the pace, pointing to a few more infected who began to follow, too. “Jenna,” he said, his tone a warning.

  “Don’t tell me that we might not make it to Red Hill. I won’t accept that.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “That is why I wanted to bring you with me. We’re going to have to make a choice. If we go to Red Hill, the little ones can’t make the trip.”

  “Halle can make it.”

  “Connor, yes. Halle, maybe. The other little ones, definitely not. Jud is barely five, and Tobin and Nora are practically toddlers. It’s too far. We need to find a vehicle, a van, or maybe even two cars and gas that will get us at least most of the way there. If we can’t…we’ll have to leave them behind.”

  “I’ve already told Tavia that.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes, and I’ll tell April that, too. If they expect us to stay with them instead of being with our mom, they’re crazy.”

  We crossed the highway, walking with purpose, and went past Brad and Darla’s silver minivan and the green truck we’d crashed into. The church was just two blocks away on that side of the road. The first day when we’d arrived, it had been crawling with infected, but as far as I could tell, it was pretty much empty now. Dozens of bodies were lying on the back side of the church in line from the back door to the fresh grave Skeeter had dug.

  “Skeeter must have cleared most of them before he left. He knew April was still here with her kids. Probably did it as a favor since he couldn’t stay.”

  “Did she want him to stay?”

  “Connor said
she asked him to, but he said no.”

  Dad frowned.

  I rolled my eyes. “No. Don’t tell me.”

  “What?” he said, instantly defensive.

  “Are you and April—?”

  “No,” he said, tucking his chin and making the most ridiculous attempt to deny it.

  He was a terrible liar. His eyes would glass over, and he’d blink a lot. That, and he had a whole lie face that he’d make.

  My eyes and stomach rolled at the same time. “Gross.”

  “Don’t ask if you don’t wanna know,” he said, positioning himself to swing if something came out of the back door.

  “She just lost her husband. Her kids are in the house. It’s just wrong.”

  “We all cope differently. Get ready.”

  I pulled up the bat, holding it in both hands.

  Dad pushed open the door and then stepped back, waiting for something to jump out at us. When that never happened, he walked inside.

  I glanced around me. A few infected were just walking into the church parking lot, a hundred or so yards away.

  “Dad?”

  He appeared in the doorway. “It’s clear—for now. Let’s get in and get out. The windows are wide open.”

  The room was dark, so I took off my sunglasses and perched them on the bill of my hat. Then, I stepped over the mess of bodies on the floor before shutting the door behind me.

  Just inside the door, in a small kitchen in the back of the church, I saw a few cupboards. I found an opened case of water, a big bag of chips, a mixed bag of apples and oranges, half a dozen cans of various vegetables, and cans of Spam.

  It all went into my backpack, and then I walked down a hall before seeing a flight of stairs leading up to a doorway. Corpses of infected lay in a pile at the bottom, and a few were draped over the stairs.

  “Should we check up there?” I asked.

  “We’re going to have to. They’re coming in. Go. Go!” Dad ran past me to the top.

  He opened the door, getting ready to swing at anything in his way. He checked behind the door and then motioned for me to follow him inside just as I heard infected pawing at the back door downstairs along with moans coming from another part of the church below.

  Dad shut the door behind me, and I looked around. It was just one big room with a few tables, chairs, and a corkboard. There was also a television on a rolling stand and a gaming console. The walls were decorated with pictures illustrating stories from the Bible, from Jesus walking on water to Noah and the ark.

  I laughed once.

  “What?” Dad asked.

  “They’re all white.”

  “So?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve just always thought that it’s funny how all the people in Bible pictures are depicted as white. They weren’t all white.”

  Dad glanced at me and laughed, shaking his head. “Don’t let your grandma hear you say that.”

  He was right. Grandma was very strict on the way things happened in the Bible, history and science be damned.

  We both chuckled until realizing at the same time that Grandma wouldn’t hear me say that because Grandma was probably dead. My mom’s mom was always serious about religion and church, and she’d tend to give Mom a hard time about everything. It just hit me that I’d probably never see her or Meme again. I might not see Chloe again. That freak-out that Dad and I had just discussed didn’t seem so far away.

  That was, until a sound from below had us scrambling over bodies on the floor to the already open window.

  “I bet this is the window Connor came in and out of when they were here,” I said, climbing out.

  I looked down, seeing the AC unit. The infected were following each other to the back of the church, and there were more than before. When the moaning began, it was almost as if they were calling each other, signaling that there was food.

  “We can make it, but we have to hurry,” Dad said before jumping down.

  He reached up for me, and I jumped down, too. We climbed down the unit together and ran across the street, retracing the route we’d taken to the church so that we wouldn’t lead any infected to the house.

  When we got to the school, I rested my hands on my knees. Dad kept an eye out while we caught our breath.

  “My pack is heavier. I didn’t account for that,” I said. “If we end up on foot to Red Hill, we’ll have to pack light.”

  “If we can get to Shallot, we can spend one night, leave there in the morning and make to Red Hill by evening. I hope. I’m not sure.”

  “So, we’re going?” I asked.

  At the same time, a low moan sounded behind me, and something lunged at Dad from around the corner. I didn’t look. I just swung my bat at what I thought to be at head level. It wasn’t like the video games or television shows. I hadn’t seen it coming. No scary music had built the suspense or indicated foreshadowing.

  I could hear Dad struggling behind me, but all I could think about was the mouth belonging to the infected coming at me and keeping it away from my skin. The adrenaline made everything both sharp and blurry. In one moment, I was next to its bloodstained clothes and dry, scratchy skin, and the next, it was standing in front of me, reaching out again. I wasn’t quite sure how I’d gotten away.

  He was tall. I couldn’t kick his knees out from under him, so I swung the bat as hard as I could. That wasn’t like the video game either. The vibration from the impact traveled up the bat and into my arms, startling me, but the creature fell, and I swung at his head. The bat met his skull with a crack, but I didn’t stop until the bone gave way.

  Dad grabbed my collar, and we ran south—away from the school, away from the house. The groans from the infected had attracted more.

  “We’ve got to lead them away from the house!” Dad said. “This way!”

  We sprinted through backyards, hopped over fences, and dodged plastic pools and swing sets until we made a full circle, sneaking into April’s backyard once we were sure it was clear.

  “Oh,” I said, noticing Dad was covered in dark goo.

  “I panicked,” he said. “I was trying to get him off me, so I could help you.”

  “I held my own,” I said.

  “I noticed. You weren’t bit?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “You?”

  Until that moment, I hadn’t been truly afraid. I hadn’t realized that something as simple as a bite could take Dad away from me. He would die, and Halle and I would be on our own.

  He pulled open the back door of April’s house, and once it was closed behind us, he hugged me, and I sobbed into his chest.

  TAVIA FANNED TOBIN, who was playing quietly on the floor. She had already tried to turn on the television in hopes that basic cable might have the smallest bit of news, but every channel was snow.

  We had been at April’s for nearly a month. Almost a week after we had fled Anderson, we had been putting together a puzzle on the floor when we heard a loud boom, and the house had even shaken a bit. Dad had run outside, afraid the military were bombing the cities, but all we had seen was a thick black pillar of smoke.

  After that, aside from that, life had consisted of trying to keep the kids quiet when an infected wandered close and fighting boredom. Dad had been trying to convince April and Tavia to help him clear out the school, so we could move there, but they were afraid the effort and risk wouldn’t be worth it. April had argued that there were too many windows to secure. After they had returned from a scouting trip, Tavia had reasoned that the three of them would quickly be overtaken by the number of infected children and the few adults who were still inside—and she didn’t think she could bring herself to kill them, no matter how desperate we were for shelter, and despite the many times Dad and I tried to convince her that they were already dead.

  Neither of them knew that Dad was trying to help them find something more secure if we couldn’t find a vehicle for everyone—and we hadn’t yet.

  Summer was in full swing. By mid-morning,
we would be sweating. By some miracle, we still had electricity, but April was afraid to turn on the air conditioning. She was worried that when the outside unit kicked on, the noise would draw the infected. She was right, but with no air conditioning and no open windows, the house had become stuffier with each passing day. Dad had scavenged several box fans and a single tall oscillating fan, which helped with the heat.

  The younger kids were becoming depressed, getting turned down every time they’d beg to go outside and play. We were all afraid their giggling and screams would attract the infected, and if we took the kids away from the house, we would get into trouble and be too far from safety. Dad and I would try to bring back a new toy every time we went out to keep the kids busy and happy.

  I was more worried about the food situation. April’s once-packed pantry was looking sparse. The adults had talked about rationing. Dad and I would rummage through the houses in the tiny town every day. We only had a few houses left to search, and a lot of the food we found had spoiled.

  “Are you going out today?” Connor asked, watching me fold towels with a bored look on his face.

  “For food? I don’t know,” I said. “Dad hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “I’ve gotta get out of this house. I want to go with you next time.”

  I looked over at Dad, who was sitting on the floor with April, Nora, and Tobin. Jud was walking around them, patting their heads, while calling each of them a duck.

  “Goose!” Jud said when he patted Dad’s head.

  Dad scrambled up and tried to catch him before Jud got to his spot, but Dad wasn’t trying very hard.

  Tavia was napping in the recliner, in and out of consciousness.

  “It’s dangerous, Connor. It’s not an errand.”

  “I know. I was thinking maybe…that maybe your dad would teach me how to shoot a gun.”

  I snorted. “He won’t even teach me.”

  “Maybe he should.”

  I stopped folding towels and watched as Dad tapped April on the head and called her a goose. They ran around the circle as the kids laughed hysterically.

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said.

  “Good.” Connor went back to his window, watching the world go on without us.

  April clapped once and stood, directing all the kids to the bathrooms to get ready for bed.