Weston Ochse: Blaze of Glory

A scream wound around four gunshots. Glass crunched beneath something immense. Another shot. Illuminated only by the emergency light on the back wall, her mother glanced over her shoulder towards where her dad had to be.

"Hurry before it’s too late!" Her dad fired once more then shrieked.

Her mother stared at her wide-eyed for a moment, then slammed the door shut. "I love you Nikki. Be safe," came muffled through the door.

"No, mommy! No! Don't leave me." Nikki launched herself at the metal that separated them and beat against it with her tiny fists. "Mommy please don't leave me."

The unmistakable sound of her mother screaming silenced the girl, then the door shook as an immense weight shoved against it. Nikki ran back to the corner where they'd placed a box of food and bottles of water. She crouched and sobbed into her arm. Her mother had said to be quiet. She'd said not to make a sound. The door shook once again as if something was trying to get inside. Nikki covered her face and bawled into her hands.

Buckley awoke to find his hangover murmuring the great Tibetan secrets of pain to his subconscious. Surrounded by darkness, he could tell he was still in the kitchen. He lifted his head from the table and wiped a line of drool from his cheek. Other than a few snores from the other room, everything was quiet. Then he paused, recognizing the significance of the darkness. They slept in shifts. There was always a guard with a battery operated lantern to check the integrity of the windows and the door. It was one of their only rules.

So where the hell was the guard?

His old knees ached as he stood. His right, a victim of a car accident, seemed to grate as loud as the chair legs upon the floor. Buckley’s elbow sent an empty bottle spinning across the table. Using his hands as eyes, he felt his way to the kitchen counter where he fumbled around until he found one of the flashlights. Snapping it on, he panned the beam across the kitchen and to the front door where all he saw was an empty chair and a shotgun leaning against it.

He rushed into the living room and took inventory. Sissy and Little Rashad were curled up on the couch in a dream-trembling clutch. Grandma Riggs was slumped in her armchair, the glass pipe pressed to her chest by liver-spotted hands. Bennie and Samuel were sprawled along the carpet like a couple of boys at a sleep over. MacHenry and Gert, however, were nowhere to be seen.

Buckley plodded down the hall and noticed light seeping from beneath the master bedroom door. As he approached he heard the sounds of heavy breathing and a long muffled squeal. He banged on the door with the flashlight.

"What's going on in there?"

"What do you think is going on in here," MacHenry said, after about ten seconds of hesitation.

"At a time like this?"

"Is there a better time?" Gert piped in.

Buckley scratched his head and shuffled his feet. "Well, no. Come on out when you're done, then."

"Okay. Just a sec. Almost finished."

The sounds of heavy breathing resumed, joined by the squeal of bedsprings. Buckley stared at the door for a second, then shook his head and headed back down the hall. He plopped down in the chair and laid the shotgun across his lap. He was pretty pissed at MacHenry for deserting his post, but really couldn't find the energy to get actively angry over it. Maybe the old man's morale would be improved with Gert's immoral contributions. Love was a hard thing to find. Even in small increments, it was worth more than anything else sometimes.

Buckley smiled. The old whore had finally found a way to help out. Good for her. He checked the salt beneath the door then felt himself nodding off. Maybe a few more hours of sleep would help him get rid of his hangover.

He couldn’t be sure of how long he’d been asleep, but it was Sissy's shriek that sent him to his feet and the shotgun clattering to the floor. She was sitting up, her finger pointing towards the door behind him. Her mouth gaped open in a frozen scream.

Buckley spun and jumped back as he noticed that several maggies had breached the line of salt below the lower edge of the door. There must have been a dozen of the little bastards sliding across the floor towards him. They only got a few inches, however, before Bennie emptied a canister of salt atop them causing them to writhe, smoke and dissolve.

"Holy Fuck, if that wasn't close," Buckley gasped.

"What the hell, old man. You falling asleep almost killed us."

Buckley could understand the anger. He stared ahead and took it like a man.

Never mind he wasn't supposed to be on shift.

Never mind it’d been MacHenry's job.

Buckley had messed up and deserved what was coming, and it seemed as if everyone was ready to let him know it. Maybe they were really mad at him, or maybe they just needed an outlet for their emotions. Whatever the case, he’d be their whipping boy if it meant that they’d keep their sanity. Buckley nodded and accepted everything that came his way for almost ten minutes. Everyone except Sissy and Little Rashad seemed to have something to say. It was better they were angry at him than to remain in constant fear. Their litany of complaints went on and on for an hour until the first crunching noise echoed through the deserted streets. Then it came again. The sound of a building being eaten boomed through the empty streets and slammed against the stout wood covering the windows.

The two things Buckley thought of was the caddies they'd talked about on the news and what they could do to this building if hungry enough. Another crunch could be heard from somewhere else in the city. That screwed it. The caddies had come to Wilmington. It hadn’t been enough that the people were dead. The creatures wanted the city too. Goddamned maggies wouldn’t stop until all evidence of humanity was erased from the planet. If there was one thing that was for sure, it was time to postpone the democratic process.

"Enough! I messed up. I'm human. But if you want to keep this up, you’ll have to wait. Right now, we got ourselves a problem. Soon. Very fucking soon, this city is gonna come down around our ears. Whoever is controlling these things has sent in the big guns and ten to one they ain't tourists.” Realizing he’d been shouting, he lowered his voice to normal. “I don’t know how much longer we can stay here. For all I know, this place is next. So, if it’s okay with the rest of you perfect individuals, we need to make ourselves a plan."

He looked from one to the other. They’d had their say and felt better for it. Now, it was back to the business of survival. Two faces were still missing, however.

"Where's MacHenry and Gert?" Sissy asked.

Blank stares all around.

"Fine," he sighed. "Samuel, you and Sissy go and inventory the salt. Bennie, you do the same with the ammunition. Little Rashad, can you grab all the empty bottles, buckets and jars and place them on the table in the kitchen? I have an idea about making us some special North Carolina Cocktails."

He turned to go.

"What about me?”

"Grandma, your eyes must be hurting. Why don't you take a few hits on the pipe and watch the door.”

"Don't you condescend to Grandma Riggs, boy. I marched with Martin Luther King. I fought the KKK. I’ve seen and done things that would scare even your badass self, King Kong garbage man. You can treat me like I’m old, but don’t make me out as crazy.” She sighed and stared at the bulge in her robe that hid forty ten-dollar bags, each holding a single rock that had been destined for resale on the street before the world came to an end. “Just the same, you're right. My eyes are hurting something fierce. I'll just do me a rock and watch for them maggies. It don't matter if I can't see, I can smell them. I can smell them real good."