At the End - a post-apocalyptic novel (The Road to Extinction, Book 1) (13 page)

The all nodded, scared.

The foyer was barren, clean, and well lit in
the daylight. The door swung open, and calmed as it hit the
doorstopper. We scurried in, Tortilla and I went right, while Jelly
and Penelope darted left. We crouch-walked to find cover.

Suddenly a resounding PANG pierced the heavy
wooden door. An arrow stuck in the wood, just above the peephole. A
piece of paper was rolled up around the shaft, by the feathers,
taped. A carpeted staircase lay in front of us, but when I shifted
my eyes there, no one stood where the shooter should have been.
“He’s fast,” I said. I reached up and plucked the arrow from the
door, unbinding the paper. “It says: I’m here, in this castle, but
there are so many rooms. Pick the wrong one, and . . .” I spoke,
trailing off as the note did. “That’s all it says.”

“Where should we start looking?” Tortilla
asked

“We should sweep from the left to the right,
to make sure we don’t miss a room,” I said. “Or right to left, it
doesn’t matter.”

“Left to right sounds fine. Let’s go.”
Penelope crouch-ran forward, into a living room. “It’s empty.” She
pointed to a hall when we pulled up behind her. The hall connected
to a den, a library, and a master bedroom, all of which were empty
as well. We swept through the kitchen, dining room, a giant pantry
the size of my bedroom, a family room, and two more bedrooms, but
nothing was abnormal about them.

Tortilla positioned himself at the staircase
at the right end of the house: it was the third one we had come
across. He aimed up to the second and third floors, scanning. I
edged up the stairs, trying to maintain complete silence; it was
harder to do than in the movies. I was making too much noise, so I
crawled back down and took off my shoes. Everyone nodded at me, as
they slipped off their own shoes.

I crawled up the steps again, this time
without the squeak of my deteriorating soles. Penelope and Jelly
followed, taking to the wings at the top of the stairs as I went to
the corner of a hallway. I peeped around the side. Nothing. There
was a closed door ahead of us. Jelly nodded towards it.

He knelt by the doorknob and twisted it
slowly. The stale air in the room choked us. Jelly coughed and
cleared his throat a few times.

Penelope ran to the bed and picked up
something lying in its center. “It’s a picture of my sister.” She
showed us the picture inside the frame. “Looks like she’s in a
smaller room, tied to a chair.”

“He works fast, must have printed out that
picture from his phone,” Jelly said.

“Maybe. Let’s keep moving,” I said. I walked
to the door attached to the room; it was a shared bathroom. “Guys.”
The urgency in my voice forced them into a run.

“What is it?” Tortilla asked.

I showed them another picture; it was
gruesome. “I think he’s a serial killer or something.” A person’s
remains lay chopped up into pieces on a big slab of a
countertop.

Jelly instantly turned away. “Why did you
show me that?” He leaned against a high desk, clearing his throat,
holding back his stomach.

Another open family room lay across the hall
from the two bedrooms, and resting on the couch was another
horrible picture. “You think he did this to these people?” Jelly
asked. “I mean I knew he was melted, being a sex offender, but this
. . .”

“Yeah, bromigo, I think he did it,” I said.
“We gotta find Jane.”

After we searched two more bedrooms on the
floor, finding two more pictures of mutilation, we sneaked up to
the third floor. My stomach rebelled from the repulsive scenes
framed ever so nicely for us. It was difficult to hold the acids
in.

“That one,” Jelly whispered, pointing a gun
towards a shut door to the right of the stairs. He turned the knob,
and I twirled around the frame, guns up. The darker room was full
of shadows, and a silhouette of a man stared back at me. My
slippery fingers clamped down on the triggers. The bullets whizzed
past the figure. I fired again, this time the bullets pierced their
target, carrying on through and into the wall. The shape remained
still.

Tortilla ran over the threshold, stopping
next to me. He flipped a light switch on.

I laughed, shaking. “A coatrack.”

“So they can be confused for real people,”
he said, laughing.

I sat down on the bed, trembling out of
control.

“So much for a surprise, our stealthy steps
won’t matter anymore,” Penelope said. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, look at her, she needs a second,”
Tortilla whispered, rubbing my back.

“I don’t have a second to spare,” Penelope
said. “You do what you gotta do.” She bolted out of the room. Jelly
followed her.

I sucked in a huge breath. “I’m okay,” I
said as I blew out the air. “Let’s catch up.”

Penelope was rushing into room after room,
shotgun raised and prepared to launch a decimating spray of shots.
I could see the anger and fear in her sunken, exhausted eyes. We
stopped looking at the pictures left for us, no use doing what the
Troll desired us to do: lose all of our senses and nerves.

Jelly opened the second-to-last door, and
Penelope dashed in. We all followed in a hurry. We halted, staring
at the Troll with the assault rifle at the back of Jane’s head.

Penelope dropped the shotgun and whipped out
a pistol from a holster wrapped around her ribs, hiding underneath
her jacket. Her movements were as quick as a cat’s, and fired
straight for the Troll’s head.

The bullet flew. Suddenly, glass shattered,
and a hole emerged from where the bullet had struck the mirror
wall.

“Move, and little princess here dies right
now,” the Troll ordered, his gravelly voice hurt my ears. “Drop
your guns.”

Jelly put his down first, then Tortilla,
then I decided I would be too slow to get the best of him. Penelope
kept her pistol raised, resolute and defiant.

“Come on, princess. You know you can’t shoot
me before I shoot her. Put it down. NOW!”

Penelope flinched at his shout. She released
the gun, tears streaming in a torrent.

“Now here’s how it’s gonna go: I’m gonna
have my fun with each of you, one by one. I have plenty of frames,
nice frames that will do you justice, don’t you worry.”

“Why?” I stammered. “Why are you going to
kill us?”

He laughed a sadistic, rough laugh,
consistent with his harsh voice. “Little princess, what else would
I do with this house? Gotta make my parents proud, show them that I
did something with it after they died . . . NOW ON YOUR KNEES!”

Jelly knelt first, then Tortilla, then both
Penelope and me, our hands behind our heads, like on cop shows. It
was instinct to place them like that, too much TV.

“It’s okay, Jane. It’ll be all right,”
Penelope comforted her little sister.

“Why would you lie to her like that,
princess?” the Troll asked. “Didn’t you see my last guests? How
much fun I had with them? I have some great ideas for you, too.” He
cleared his throat. “What was that?”

“I’m going to kill you,” Penelope
repeated.

“Oh, sweet, sweet princess. You’re on your
knees, and I have a rifle.”

“Mr. Hammolin, why are you doing this?”
Jelly asked. “I know who you are . . . we’re neighbors—”

“We
were
neighbors. But I noticed
things are a little different now, haven’t you? I also noticed that
you took my bows . . . having fun with them?” The Troll laughed.
“You take my knives too? I bet you did, maybe that’s how I’ll do
you, neighbor. I’ll use my precious knives, would you like
that?”

I could still see the Troll, smiling in the
fragmented mirror. “Why are you killing us instead of the alions?”
I asked.

“Alions, what the hell are alions?”

“The aliens,” Tortilla clarified
abruptly.

“Don’t remember asking you, spic. Keep your
mouth shut.”

Preoccupied with us, the Troll didn’t notice
Penelope rocking back on her knees, building momentum. She spun in
the air, kicking. Her foot connected with only air, still a meter
away. The mirror deceived my eyes, as the Troll stood much farther
from us than what I had thought, and apparently, it got the better
of Penelope, too.

“Oh, you poor, dumb princess. You didn’t
want to do that.” The Troll moved forward and stomped down on her
legs. Penelope cried out. He kicked her in the stomach, then her
head. “Why would you be so stupid?” He unsheathed a knife at his
belt with his left, then crouched beside her. He lifted the knife
high, his eyes crazed, his brain melted; he gripped the weapon,
preparing to strike.

PAHWKkk.

I turned and spotted Amanda, holding up two
shaking arms, gripping a pistol. The Troll fell to the carpet, a
hole through his brain.

“Amanda!” Jane cried.

I got up and went to the Troll, stealing his
rifle and knife from his limp grip. “Check Penelope.”

Jelly rushed to her side, feeling her neck
for a pulse. “She’s unconscious,” he reported. “Is he?”

“I don’t want to touch him,” I said.

“If we leave him and he survives, he’ll hunt
us,” Jelly remarked.

“Tortilla, take the twins. Jelly, carry
Penelope, get them out.”

Jelly shook his head, obstinate. “No, you
get out.”

Tortilla untied Jane, who was bawling her
eyes out, then gathered up Amanda and rushed them out of the room.
I went to the door and watched as Jelly picked up his OMP2s, aiming
his right pistol at the Troll’s unmoving body. He fired. The
bullets penetrated his head, almost in a single hole. He lifted
Penelope off the ground, and I went in to collect our weapons and
the Troll’s assault rifle. Boxes full of ammunition lay stacked in
the corner.

We ran out of the house as fast as we could,
gathering our shoes, all of us with full arms, except for the twins
and Penelope.

Jacob slept inside of the car, unknowing of
Amanda’s absence. When Tortilla opened the driver’s backdoor, Jacob
jumped awake. “What’s going on?” He peered at Jelly with Penelope
in his arms. “Did he kill her?”

The twins climbed into the backseat with
Tortilla. Jane was still crying, comforted by Amanda.

I opened the hatchback, loaded up the gear,
clearing out some room.

“No, she’s alive,” Jelly said, laying
Penelope in the flat trunk space. “I’ll stay back here with her
Just get us out of here.”

I nodded and closed the hatch. In reverse, I
tore out of the driveway, heading for the main road we had come
off, to the east. Up above the dash hung a GPS display, but it
didn’t work anymore, and I sorely needed it. I had never been down
in Olympia; I didn’t know any of the streets, except for I-5, as it
ran through it.

I drove for a few hours, until the sun
decided it was time for bed. I saw a sign that gave directions to a
mall and followed it. We all needed fresh clothes. My spares were
soiled, beyond stinky.

The mall parking lot was stuffed full of
vehicles, and instead of navigating through the mess, I pulled up
on the empty walkway, stopping at the front doors of the north
entrance. “If there’s a Luxury Mattress Town inside, we can sleep
there,” I said, hopeful. We all needed a decent night’s sleep.

Penelope was coming round as we unloaded the
SUV. “What’s going on? Where are we?”

“At a mall, south of Olympia somewhere,”
Jelly informed her.

“Where is Jane?”

“Here,” Jane said, walking up to the trunk,
hands interlocked with her twin. “Amanda saved us!”

“What?”

“He was going to kill you, and Amanda saved
us,” Jane shouted happily.

Penelope looked at Jelly. He nodded that her
sister was telling the truth. “Amanda did what no little girl
should ever have to do, but she did it. She saved us.”

Jelly explained everything as we made our
way inside, and to our jubilation and relief, the mall had a Luxury
Mattress Town.

Tortilla came up to me as I prepared my bed.
He had found an eyeglass shop and fixed his spectacles with
rubber-tipped pliers. “Crazy day, bramiga.”

I smiled. “And I thought yesterday was
crazy.”

He smiled back at me. “You want me to . . .
you know . . . sleep with you?”

My heartbeat skyrocketed, happy and
confused. “Well, it’s just . . .” I peeped over at Jelly and
Penelope, who were making their beds next to each other. Jelly
stopped Penelope and hugged her tightly. “Yeah . . . okay.”

“We don’t have to if you don’t want—”

“I want to, Tortilla. I want to.”

Jelly took first watch. I told him I would
relieve him soon, but I’m not sure he heard me. We went to sleep
with the main lights off and just the perimeter lights on. They
hung around the edge of the store, glowing softly, a reassurance
that if the boogeyman jumped out at us, we would see him
coming.

Darrel

I
awoke when I saw
glass shatter, as two giant paws plucked Mike from the floor and
out the window.

I sat up in the bed, sweating. It was cold
and nasty, my hairs clinging to my legs. In the dim lighting, I
could make out Maggy cuddling under heavy blankets with Félix. An
unwanted sigh broke out. I turned my vision to Penelope and her
sisters all bundled up together, tightly wrapped, and breathing
softly. Beds of luxury: it was great to finally find some
peace.

I didn’t know who was supposed to be on
watch, but whoever it was fell asleep on the job.

I grabbed a water bottle and walked into the
silent mall. Minor humming came periodically from the food court
area, probably the refrigerators. I passed a clothing store for
young kids, then a sporting goods store, then finally I came to a
store where I could pick out a few new articles. The racks were
still full for the most part, not quite as devastated as the
grocery stores.

After shuffling through the racks and
finding two pairs of jeans that might fit, I seized a pack of
boxers, in desperate need of a swap. I had soiled mine two mornings
before, but I think everybody else had too, so no one bothered me
about it. I strolled into the backrooms, searching for a shower. I
found a single for men off to the side of the manager’s office. The
hot water felt like it was washing the last four days away. I had
never taken a shower like it, and I didn’t think I ever would
again.