Timothy Long - Beyond the Barriers

The housing complex in which I’d lived was just ahead. The old fence that bordered one of the farmer’s lots was still there, and I thought I could see my house, but it was so close to the overgrown weeds and blackberry bushes that it was hard to be sure from this angle.

The fence was an old chain link job that some cheapskate had built about fifteen years ago. It was sagging and rusted in spots, and I remembered where the greenbelt grew close to the field. Here I could slide in between the shrubs and the metal barrier.

I went first, and couldn’t help but snag my shirt on the fence, which set it tinkling. Scott reached out to touch it to muffle the sound. He followed, and just like that, we stood in my neighbor’s back yard. I drifted to the window that looked into his kitchen. It wasn’t that long ago that I left him here, his dead wife banging at the window. The house was dark, but I saw a pair of rotted legs sticking out of the hallway that led to the living room. I slid along the side of the house and lowered the gun as I got a view of the street. Here, I felt very exposed, even though I was less than a mile from my new friends.

The street was clear, and I breathed a sigh of relief. My house looked much like the others we had passed. The door was open, and my possessions were scattered in the front yard. Pots and pans lay in a heap near a burned spot. It looked like someone had used the yard as a camp and cooked something there.

I looked past it, at Lisa and Devon’s house. It was a ruin. Burned to the ground.

Scott and I had never worked together, but I used signals nonetheless. I pointed at the house and made a cup with my hand like it was binoculars. He nodded, and I hoped he understood that I meant for him to keep an eye out.

Slipping around the corner, I kept my gun high and went to the front porch.

The first thing I noticed was that the shrubs were a mess. The rhododendrons, of which Allison had been so proud, were nearly dead. They hung in clumps of miserable brown that looked woven into the weeds that were taking over the rest of the bushes. The grass, like all the lawns in the lots, was now measured in feet instead of inches. I felt like I was walking through a field and not a yard. If I laid down in the stuff, I would be all but invisible to any casual observer. This gave me some tactical options, if this little jaunt went to shit.

I stepped up the concrete steps and onto my porch for the first time in nearly half a year. My furniture was gone, and it wasn’t hard to guess that the burned marks in the tall grass were all that remained of those possessions. I crouched down by the door, which wasn’t open but was ajar. The window facing out had the blinds drawn, so I had no idea what I was walking into. I slung the assault rifle over my shoulder and drew my handgun, double checking the load for what seemed like the tenth time that day.

The living room was murky when I pushed the door open. Shadows cut through the blinds at the rear of the house. Dust hung in clumps from the corners, and each had a small population of spiders with webs spun and ready for prey. The carpet, once light gray and pristine, was covered in dirt and things one might find in a trashcan. Wrappers, empty cigarette packs—I think one nasty pile was human feces. It was hard to be sure; it might have been an animal, but no matter what it was, I knew that someone or something had used my living room as a bathroom. I had to maneuver over several similar piles until I reached the kitchen.

I kept my weapon raised the entire time as I searched for anything living in my house. Standing at the kitchen entryway, I stared at the mess for a full minute before my mind could comprehend what I was seeing. Everything Allison and I had collected was either on the floor or smashed on the counters—dishes, glasses, cups, and coffee mugs. Pots and pans were strewn about as though at a garage sale. There were cigarette butts on the floor, and wrappers from food all over the place. The refrigerator was open, but it was bare of anything except a pile of green gunk in one vegetable drawer that looked like some mad scientific experiment.

I had to step over the remains of an expensive set of china. Beautiful plates I asked Allison to take when she moved out, but she refused to. Said it wasn’t hers anymore. I think shame drove her to leave so many of the things she loved behind, and now they were everywhere. Not that they would have fared much better with her. Last I checked, she didn’t have access to a bunker.

The family room was just as bad as the rest of the house. My LCD TV lay on the floor with several holes through the back. It appeared someone had used it for target practice. I wished I could meet the people who trashed my house.

I lowered the weapon and turned in a full circle to take in the mess. I wanted to break something, wanted to smash my fist into anything that would shatter.

I heard a noise then, just a thump, but it was loud enough to set me on edge. Something or someone was still in the house. I walked to the bathroom next to the living room, past what had at one time been a nice couch. Now it was a ripped-up hunk of Italian leather that needed to be burned. It probably had rats living in it.

The door was slightly open, so I pushed it the rest of the way with the barrel of the gun and kept my focus everywhere at once.

Nothing. Just an empty room. I heard scratching at the front of the house, and slid around the corner of the kitchen to see what it was. When Scott slipped in with his big Remington extended, I nodded at him. I motioned with one hand to tell him to slow down, then put a finger to my lip and pointed upstairs. He nodded back that he understood and took point. I stared at the closet where access to the house lay. Looking at the closed door, I decided to check there first. No sense in leaving an opening unexplored before going upstairs.

Putting my hand on the wood, I almost jumped out of my skin when something hit the door hard enough to shake it. As I stepped back, I raised the handgun. I was pretty sure that every hair on my body was standing at attention and ready for inspection.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, but it did no good. My hand was shaking from the scare. Taking another breath made it stop. Scott stared at me with big, round eyes, like he had seen a ghost. I reached for the door again, and he shook his head.

Closing my hand on the knob, I jerked it open, and stepped back just in time to avoid being bowled over by a shambling horror.

It was hard to tell how long the creature had been in the closet. Its body was covered in rotted skin, and its eyes were nothing but dried-out white orbs. It stumbled forward, and I drilled it through the head with one shot then another before it could acknowledge the blast of lead. The second bullet went through the bridge of its nose and exploded out the back of its head. Blood and congealed chunks that looked like Jell-O splattered over the wall in a pattern that would make a four-year-old finger painter proud.

The body slumped back and fell into the closet. I still had to get in there and open the access to the space under the house. I didn’t want to have to crawl over a floor slick with blood. Grabbing the man by his ankles, I pulled him back and away from the tiny room.

Scott looked like he wanted to throw up. Maybe he wasn’t used to the up-close stuff. I offered him a mad grin and set the man’s feet on the floor. He was just as rotted as the woman I had killed in the street. His eyes were off center where the bullet had punched through his forehead, and he was covered in dirt and blood. He had green streaks all over his clothes, like he had crawled through the grass to get there.

I wanted to sweep the rest of the house before I went in. No sense having one of those things come downstairs while my ass was hanging in the air. I wished I had brought a flashlight. When I opened the door to the garage, it was hard to see anything in the murkiness. No movement, but it looked to be just as wrecked as the rest of the house.