Gregory Norris - Down with the Fallen - A Post-Apocalyptic Horror Anthology

With one shuddering scream, she slammed the knife into his clavicle, feeling the twigs of his ribs give way, the canvas of his skin tearing. His arms jerked down and she saw the madness of his eyes, one partially hidden by the long strip of skin that hung over it, and the other a dazzling sapphire, the reptilian pupil dilated into a pinprick. Hysteria swirled from his face like the Great Red Spot of Jupiter and she felt excruciatingly dizzy. He reached up to grab her but it was too late, his grip was nonexistent as she screamed with him, screamed and stirred his lungs like a soup, until his faded into silence.

When the Gorgeous Man was dead, Charlotte was sure it was almost over.

It’s almost eleven, we’ve got an hour, we’ve got an hour…

But after an hour, what then? What happened when the ringleader was dead?

She remembered the very last line of her letter:

Ephesians 5:15-16: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

She was struck by cold nausea.

They only give us an hour, because we are agents of the wrath of God, to lollygag is to sin. We are pigs, raised in a slaughterhouse on a schedule. To fight is to waste time.

The pain in her back slithered down her legs, wrapping around her hamstrings and twisting into her butt. She rubbed her lower back and winced, standing like a person might after weeding a garden all day. But she had been killing this day, the Gorgeous Man’s lungs sliced into smooth, pink pieces in his chest, like a nest of newborn mice. Her head began to throb and her throat screamed for water. I can’t do this much longer.

She headed for the laundry room.

As Charlotte’s knife sliced through the woman’s collarbone, she thought again of the yellowed shade in the main room, the only color in the entire place, besides the blue pools of the Gorgeous Man’s eyes. Kaitlin had found her here, as she struggled to move the washer from the wall to hide behind for a quick break. Kaitlin rushed her, powerful like a horrible wave, screaming with joy and panic. And victory.

“The rules say no hiding,” she shrieked.

Charlotte’s knife had a life of its own in her hand, her fingers wrapped around it like a bouquet of flowers. As Kaitlin stopped in front of her, she presented it upward, plunging it deep into the meat of Kaitlin’s chest, her breasts hungrily devouring the blade. Her white cardigan sprung crimson fault lines along the front, feathering the wool with bright blood, almost pleasant in its vivacity. Upon that impact, time hit its brakes and dragged its fingers slowly across the room. Kaitlin’s smile faded, lips falling over her teeth like curtains.

Or shades.

Charlotte watched calmly as Kaitlin’s brown eyes widened, the raft of her pupil floating slowly to the middle of a hazel sea. The shock sent her mind elsewhere.

I can remember boating in Chadron with my dad, the life jacket was too big and the sun was so hot, but we were laughing, paddling around the lake that summer, that trip when we woke up and Mom was gone, Dad was worried but said she’ll come back, and she did an hour later still in her pajamas and no shoes, her feet were bloody, her pajamas torn, she said she was abducted by aliens, that they dropped her off in the woods, and she was laughing and crying then screaming, and I wasn’t laughing anymore, because there is evil here, there are monsters in this world…

Back in the room, she could see the shift of Kaitlin’s arm. Still shaking off her flashback, Charlotte couldn’t move quickly enough. In a sideways motion, Kaitlin tore open Charlotte’s stomach. Charlotte could feel a quick, white heat, the pain melting into a buttery numbness. Her intestines spilled out in wet ribbons, twisting around her thighs like a vine. She could smell bile, rot, and blood, her vision fading under the weight of shock. Involuntarily, she let go of the knife still feeding in Kaitlin’s chest, her own hands grabbing for the organs as if to put them back in her belly, slippery in her hands. As she pushed them back into the gash, the pain became violent, wrapping its hands around her and throttling. The world was red.

Suddenly, under Kaitlin’s screams, she could hear something else. The wind blowing through mulberry trees, the sound of the corn stalks brushing against one another like running water. She closed her eyes and could suddenly see the red barn, her father’s yellow truck, the wheel wells lined with rust. The colors were so bright, so alive , breathing against a background of emerald crops. She could see the wild rosebushes, pressing their petals against an opal sky, their pink petals with their delicate scent, calling to her. Home.

The taste of iron seared across her tongue as her lips spread into a dying smile.

She could finally smell the lilacs.

I didn’t flinch at the sound of Howlers screaming into the blizzard outside the log cabin or at the sound of bombs exploding on the other side of the mountain, but I did at the sound of the door leading to the garage slamming shut.

“Good thing I headed out when I did,” Flynn shouted from the mud room. “The weather’s getting nasty.”

I snatched a rag from where it hung over the faucet and forced myself to clean the kitchen island. I’d already cleaned the granite countertop until I could see the natural wood beams on the ceiling reflected in it. But going through the motions kept ants from racing beneath my skin and standing my hair on end.

Flynn swaggered into the kitchen in stocking feet. He deposited his snow-soaked hat on the kitchen island, freeing his shaggy, black-nearly purple hair to cling to his head. He still wore his winter jacket, and the white, water-proof fabric was covered in a paste of snow, mud, and blood.

“I didn’t know you were hunting,” I said.

“I wasn’t. Just headed into town to fill the gas cans before the storm hit.” He laid a Winchester shotgun on the counter and then scratched the dark stubble along his square jaw. “A couple kids thought they were going to take the last of the gas, but I handled them.”

“How?”

His lips stretched into a full boyish, toothy smile that didn’t come close to reaching his amber-colored eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “What’s for lunch?”

I swallowed and turned my attention to the stove, where crumbled, brown meat sizzled amidst rice and beans. I grabbed the spatula and began stirring the food. In doing so, the smell of cooking meat—a smell halfway between the greasy aroma of beef and the lighter scent of turkey—burst into the air.

“Squirrel,” I said. “It’s almost ready.”

“It already smells good.” The sound of clothes sliding off skin and crumpling into a pile on the floor came from behind me. “I’m gonna hop in the shower real quick, then I’ll be back. Do you mind washing my clothes right away? They’re pretty ripe.”

“Leave them on the floor, and I’ll take care of them.”

The putrid smell of body odor reached my nose an instant before his lips pressed against my neck. His ropy, muscular arm wrapped around my midsection and gave it a quick squeeze before he jogged upstairs.

The sound of the bathroom door snapping shut opened the floodgates for the tension to scream out of my body, and I nearly fell forward into the sizzling pan.

“Just get through the day,” I muttered. “Get through the day.”

I stirred the rice and beans and squirrel one more time to prevent it from burning to the metal and then gathered the clothes off the floor. I tried to pick them up by the clean sections, but my fingers quickly started sticking to his clothes.