Jason Morrow - Anywhere but Here

I got up and walked into the kitchen to get some water. When I filled the glass and brought it to my mouth, I could see that my hands were shaking. I didn’t feel fear. I didn’t even feel loss — that would come later. I guess in that moment all I felt was shock. It was as if I didn’t believe any of it was actually happening. I couldn’t believe that I heard my father die over the phone. I couldn’t believe that I saw my own mother’s blood seeping through the crack of the door. I couldn’t believe that I had been chased by the… what did that scientist call them? Greyskins?

It was a name that fit. I had been calling them grey people, but greyskins seemed right. They were less than people. They were sick animals. To call those monsters people gave them too much credit.

“Are you all right?”

Lucas’ voice startled me and I turned quickly, spilling water on the floor at the same time. “Yeah,” I said, grabbing a rag from the counter to wipe up the mess. “I just…I don’t know.”

“The greyskins,” Lucas said, staring past me as though he were deep in thought. “I suppose the news stations like the name. That’s what they’re calling them now.”

“Have you seen them?” I asked Lucas.

He shook his head. “No. I don’t really want to though.” He pulled a chair out at the table. “Why don’t you have a seat? I’ll make you a sandwich.”

“I don’t think I’m very hungry,” I said as I sat.

“Dad seems to believe that this thing will last longer than people think,” he said, pulling down a jar of peanut butter from a cabinet.

“Why does he think that?” I asked.

“They say it has been going on for a week and has just spread like a forest fire. It’s hard to contain something like that.” He pulled out the bread and started to spread the peanut butter thickly onto one of the slices. He then walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a jar of jelly and applied it to the other slice of bread. “Dad thinks we should be safe out here, though I’m not so sure. We’re so close to everything. If as many people out there are infected as they say, we aren’t safe.” He put the jelly back in the refrigerator then grabbed the milk and poured a glass. When he finally set the sandwich and milk in front of me, he sat at the table and looked deep into my eyes. “But I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe with me.”

I wanted to tell him that no one was safe no matter what, but instead I just took a bite of the sandwich. I remember it being strange not being able to taste it. It was as if my mind was so preoccupied with the events of the day that I didn’t even know I was eating.

“They crashed into my house,” I said. “Doors and windows won’t keep them out if they are determined to get in.” I could feel my eyes sting with water, but I just took another bite of the sandwich to distract myself.

“Are you scared?” he asked. At first I thought he was taunting me cruelly, but then I saw the sincerity in his face. His light-colored eyebrows crinkled and his blue eyes stared into me as though he were trying to read my thoughts.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Me too,” he said. “But there is nothing wrong with that.”

I took a bite of the sandwich, but it wasn’t enough of a distraction to stop the tears that began down my cheeks. One after the other, the water flowed like a fountain. I set the sandwich on the table in front of me and let my head fall into my hands. My body shook as I sobbed there in the kitchen, but it was only a second or two before I felt Lucas’ strong arms wrap around my shoulders.

“It’s okay to cry,” he said. “It’s okay to cry.”

I didn’t know how long he held me. I couldn’t remember much after that until I woke up on the living room couch with a pillow under my head and blankets tucked around me. It was night time and everyone seemed to be gone. I jerked upward and looked around the living room and that’s when I saw Lucas on the floor just a few feet away. He slept soundly on top of some blankets, his breath going in and out slowly. Hattie and Charles must have been asleep in their bedroom.

I was happy that the television wasn’t still on. I was tired of seeing the images of the greyskins eating people. I was weary of hearing about all the death. I wiped away the crusted tears around my eyes and sat up on the couch for a moment. My stomach rumbled and I realized that I was very hungry. The few bites of sandwich that I had eaten must not have been enough for me.

I got up and walked into the kitchen, being mindful not to turn on any of the lights for fear of being noticed. I saw that Lucas or someone must have wrapped my sandwich in plastic wrap and left it sitting neatly on the counter. I took it and sat at the table. As I unwrapped it, I noticed that some of the jelly had bled through the white of the bread. Something resembling the feeling of a grin formed at the corner of my mouth. That was my favorite way to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. When I was little, my sister and I would make them and add extra jelly. We would then wrap them up only to eat them hours later when the bread was completely soaked on one side. It was always best when it was so wet with jelly that we couldn’t even taste the bread.

The sandwich felt like sweet memories, but the memories only made me feel sick inside. I took another bite and started to get up to make another glass of milk when something made me freeze in my tracks. A shadow moved slowly behind the blinds of the window above the sink. I licked some jelly off my thumb as I tiptoed to the window and peeked through the blinds. It was all I could do to stifle a gasp.

One… two… three… I counted eight greyskins in the front yard alone. My hands began to shake again. I dropped my hand from the blinds and snuck back into the living room. I knelt over Lucas carefully and shook him.

He sat up suddenly and wiped his eyes. “What is it?” he whispered.

“The greyskins are here,” I said.

He stared at me for a long moment before the information seemed to register. Then he threw the covers off of him and quietly went to wake his parents. Within a minute we were all in the living room holding a gun. I held the pistol close to my chest, though I felt that my hands shook too much for me to be very effective.

Lucas and his parents stared through cracks in the blinds as I sat on the couch, trying to calm my nerves.

“Incredible,” I heard Charles whisper. “They barely seem alive at all, but they are moving around.”

“That’s just it,” Hattie said. “They aren’t alive.” She left the window and sat on the couch across from me. “Waverly and I shot them in the chest enough to kill any normal person. These things didn’t even notice that we hit them.”

Charles stared at her with creased eyebrows. “You mean, they can’t die?”

“They can,” she said. “You just have to shoot them in the head. Destroy whatever brain function they might have that keeps them going. Waverly and I finally managed to kill one today.”

Charles nodded thoughtfully and turned back to the window, but this time he let out a gasp.

“Don’t move!” Hattie whispered a little too loudly.

Charles stood like a statue as he found himself face-to-face with a greyskin at the window. The creature stared into the glass, tilting its head from side to side almost as if to study what it was looking at. I could see Charles holding his breath, but he couldn’t hold it forever. With each little breath, the window began to fog.

I don’t know what it was — a twitch, a noise — but the greyskin went ballistic, letting out a loud groan as it smashed its hand through the glass and reached for Charles’ shirt. The greyskin had taken him by surprise and it latched on to him, pulling him forward against the glass. Hattie brought up her gun, but hesitated because she feared she might hit her husband. Charles tried to wrench free and Lucas jumped forward to grab his father, but the greyskin had a good hold on him. It pulled Charles forward until his torso was pressed against the broken glass, the edges cutting into his skin.