Jason Frost - Badlands

Paige swung her arms, knocking three children backwards into a couple hunks of whatever was hanging. One kicked a pan and the dark liquid slapped over the edge and spilled across the wooden floor.

Paige scrambled to her feet, reeling slightly from the pain in her head. A rush of dizziness spun her awkwardly around. She started to swoon, her eyes fluttering shut as she fell, but she caught herself on the edge of a large, metal garbage can. The same battered one that she'd used the lid from as a shield when she and her father had used broom handles to swordfight twenty years ago.

"God," Paige said, trying to catch her breath and balance so she could fight back. She still didn't know what these kids were up to, only that they had tried to kill her. And were going to try again. She felt their little hands grabbing at her arms and she fought the nausea, forcing her eyes wide. As she did, she found herself staring into the gaping mouth of the trash can.

And saw the pile of human bones filling the can. Mixed with the bones were chunks of flesh, strips of human skin.

"Oh no! Oh my God, please!" she gasped, barely able to get enough air to say even that.

"Hold her down!" Wendy ordered and the children began shoving at Paige, trying to tackle her to the ground.

Paige flung the one clinging to her right arm against the trash can. He slammed into it, knocking it over. The contents spilled onto the floor in a clatter of dry bones. But rolling out across the bones came a severed head, hair matted with blood. One eye gouged out, the other wide with terror.

Steve Connors.

As Paige stared at the head, she hardly felt the fists pummeling her stomach and back. Hardly felt herself being dragged to the floor. Hardly felt the children sitting on her arms and legs. Barely noticed Wendy's apologetic shrug as she came toward her with the knife saying, "Sorry, ma'am, but we got a lot of mouths to feed around here."

Eric studied the children as Peter struggled to cock the bow. These kids had something to be proud of. They'd formed a family and survived when a lot of other kids their age had died of starvation or been murdered by scavengers. Too bad about the sick ones, though. The little kid in the baseball cap coughed again, wiped some mucus from his nose with his sleeve.

"Not as easy as it looks, huh?" Eric said to Peter.

"I'll get it," Peter said defiantly.

Eric smiled, looked at his watch. Paige had stopped playing the piano almost five minutes ago, but she still hadn't left the house. Maybe she was chatting with the children, or helping them with something. They certainly were an endearing bunch.

"Got it," Peter announced, finally cocking the bow. He laid the arrow into the brass groove just as Eric had shown him.

"Good," Eric said. "Now aim it at your target, sight right through there, and gently squeeze the trigger. Don't jerk it."

Peter swung the crossbow up and pointed it at Eric's chest. The children applauded. Peter squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Peter looked startled, then panicky. He squeezed the trigger again, pulling hard. Still, the bow wouldn't fire. "Shoot, damn it, shoot!"

Eric reached out and grabbed the crossbow away from Peter, shoving the boy to the ground as he did. "The one thing I didn't show you or tell you, was how to release the safety. I never do that with someone I don't know until I'm sure of his target. Now, you want to explain to me what's going on?"

"Go to hell!" Peter said, still prone on the ground.

Eric heard the footsteps pattering behind him and turned in time to catch Sarah's wrist and shake the wrench free from her hand. He pushed her away. "What's the matter with you kids? We don't want to harm you."

Then the kid in the baseball cap began to cough and the truth flashed on Eric. He spun, saw Peter groping for his machete, and fired the arrow into Peter's right thigh. The 175 pounds of tension hammered the bolt through the leg and partially into the ground, pinning Peter there. He howled with pain.

Eric slung the bow over his shoulder and grabbed the HK 93 from the ground. He ran toward the house, the gun set for semiautomatic bursts.

"Hear that?" Fallows said.

"What?" Bedlow asked.

"That yelling. Someone yelling."

Bedlow listened. The rest of the men listened. They all shook their heads. Bedlow said, "I don't hear anything, Colonel."

Fallows looked at Tim. "What about you, kid? You hear anything?"

Tim listened. He didn't so much hear anything as felt it, like a slight vibration, a tremor in the wind that didn't belong. "There's something."

"He's just saying that," Phelps said. "He don't hear shit."

Fallows smiled at Tim. "See what I'm up against?"

There it was again, Tim thought, that look from Fallows. That tone in his voice that cut all the others out and made him feel special. He could feel the others staring at him with envy and even a little fear. It made him feel powerful.

Fallows pointed ahead. "Whatever it is, it's about a mile straight through there. We run it at double-time, we should be there in six minutes. Let's go. Move your lazy asses."

There was no hesitation. The men started running full-speed along the dirt road. Fallows waited until they were all moving before he started. Within seconds he and Tim had passed them all and were leading the pack toward the house.

Paige bucked against the weight of the children, trying desperately to throw them off her arms and legs. But they merely giggled at the disturbance, as if they were riding a particularly fun mechanical ride outside the grocery store.

Wendy gripped both hands around the long knife's handle and lifted the serrated blade over head, ready to plunge it down into Paige's heart.

Paige twisted her body to the side, wiggling with such ferocity that her right foot slipped free from under Max, twelve, and Gail, nine. As they grabbed for the snaking foot, she coiled her leg back and snapped it straight into Max's face. He groaned as he flew back into Gail, both of them tumbling into another half-full bucket.

"Hold her, kids!" Wendy said, distracted just long enough for Paige to kick her free foot into Wendy's chest. The blow staggered Wendy a few steps, but she recovered quickly enough to stab at the foot. The blade sawed through Paige's pant leg and sliced the ankle bone. The ankle pulsed with pain, but Paige kept kicking. Finally Max and Gail wrestled the leg to the ground, flopping their little bodies across it.

"Goodness," Wendy sighed, brushing a stray hair back into place and tugging her apron straight. She kneeled next to Paige and lifted the knife again.

The door to the pantry exploded open with such a violent force that it caught two of the children who'd been watching on the shoulders and hurled them into the wall. Eric stood in the doorway with his HK 93 held at waist level.

"Get away from her," he growled. "Move!"

Wendy dropped the knife and backed away, gathering her frightened children around her. She held her arms out, pushing them behind her, protecting them with her body as she imagined Ingrid Bergman might, or Katherine Hepburn. "Don't harm the children," she pleaded.

Eric ignored her. He gestured to Paige as she slowly pulled herself to her feet. "You OK?"

"Headache." That was all she seemed to be able to say for a moment. Then it burst out at once in rapid disbelief. "Eric, they were going to kill me and, Jesus…" She looked around the small room, her old secret hiding place. With the door open, the extra light revealed the hanging things more clearly. Legs, arms, torsos. Like a butcher shop. And there on the floor, spilled blood, scattered bones, and her former husband's severed head. "Cannibals. They're goddamn cannibals. Children." She shook her head, unable to continue. Then, in a sudden violent outburst, she snatched Wendy's knife from the floor and ran at the girl.