Bill shrugged, turning to join the other men. Jake sighed in relief.
“I guess they don’t give a shit about Jimmy,” he said.
Toni grunted. “I guess not.”
Still miffed at why the occupants of the pickup had forgotten about their friend, Jake was a little sluggish in their ransacking of the house. Though he was eager to find lots of goodies, he just couldn’t wrap his mind around their indifference. Toni, however, was as focused as one could possibly be during a home invasion.
The house was stocked with quite a few useful food items. Being on the edge of town, there was also a propane tank out back, meaning the stove top could be used. Jake had found a lighter on the kitchen table, and had lit one of the burners. He warmed his hands over it as Toni looked for a good pan and some canned food to heat up.
“It’s getting cold out,” Jake said. “But it’s still not as cold as it should be.”
“If that’s the only strange thing you’re thinking about,” Toni joked. “Then you might wanna look at that bite mark on your shoulder.”
Jake grinned. He had actually forgotten about his bite. Toni had done such a good job bandaging it, he barely even knew it was there. There was no itching or stinging, telling him there was no infection, but Toni had insisted they look for antibiotics whenever they had the chance.
He rubbed his hands one last time, leaving the warmth of the burner. “I’ll check the medicine cabinets for antibiotics,” he said.
“Grab whatever you can,” Toni said. “No matter what it is. Pills are like money now. Trust me.”
Jake nodded as he left. That made sense. Money itself was no good anymore, but just about everything else was worth its weight in gold. Like Dan, he hoped there were some good pills in the house’s stash—for different reasons, of course. A nice bottle of narcotics would fetch a good trade price.
He pushed open the nearest door in the hallway. It was a half bath; probably for visitors and the kiddies. He opened the medicine cabinet anyway. There was some toothpaste, two toothbrushes, a small bottle of red mouthwash, and a retainer.
“Yuck,” he said.
He went further down the hall, checking all of the doors. There were two bedrooms for older children; one boy, one girl. Nothing interesting in either one, except for a Fender Jazz bass with a broken neck.
Too bad.
The third door was the master bedroom, with another door on the far wall. He passed the king-sized bed, noticing the leopard print blanket, and the dead cat. The far door was a master bathroom as he suspected. There was a large bathtub, a wall-length counter with full-sized mirror, and a giant mirror medicine cabinet next to the toilet.
Jackpot!
It looked like mom and dad were pill-poppers. There was a little bit of everything he had never heard of. He wasn’t much of a druggie. In fact, he never did anything. But with an expert hand, he gathered all of the bottles together in his fists, and carried them out in front of him.
Toni was there at the stove warming up a pan of chili.
“I found a few things,” Jake said, setting them down on the kitchen table.
There were a number of unopened water bottles there that weren’t there before. He took one and cracked it open, relishing the cool water.
“Read them off,” Toni said.
Jake cleared his throat, picking up the bottles one by one. “Amitriptyline. Metformin—I’ll take that. Hydrocodone/Apap? Um… Diazepam. That’s Valium right? Uh… Cipro—something or other. Wait, that’s an antibiotic. Naproxen Sodium—
pttttttt!
Percodan. And finally, some birth control pills, looks like.”
“It’s all useful,” Toni said, smiling. “Except for the birth control pills. Take a few of those Metformin before we eat.”
“Good idea,” Jake said, opening the bottle.
He washed down a few of them just as Toni began spooning some chili out into the two bowls she had found. She set one in front of Jake and they ate in the dim light of the stove burner. The chili was pretty good, better than Jake remembered. It must have been
Ray’s
. The best.
“So,” Toni began. “What did you do before all of this?”
“I was a healthcare worker for a while,” he said. “Doing home visits and shit. Nothing too exciting.”
When he looked up, he realized she was staring at him strangely. “What?” he asked.
“You
were a healthcare worker?”
“Yeah,” he said, confused. “Why?”
Toni chuckled. “Oh my,” she spooned some chili in her mouth, shaking her head. “I bet you scared the hell out of those poor people.”
Jake grinned. “Sometimes. So what about you?”
“I was a personal trainer,” she said. “Weight lifting, aerobics, Pilates.”
“Ah,” Jake replied, impressed. “I bet you have some kickass abs, then.”
“Of course,” she said. “And I can run ten miles in one session.”
A slight flash of reflected light sparked in the corner of Jake’s eye. He stopped chewing, turning his head toward a door that was nearby. He squinted, keeping deathly still as he waited for the reflection to flash again. His heartbeat quickened, and he could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.
“What is it?” Toni asked.
Jake held up his finger, keeping his eyes on the door handle; the only metallic part of the whole door that was visible. They both waited silently. Then, the handle began to turn slowly—
very
slowly. Jake’s heart thumped even harder, and he could tell that Toni was uncomfortable as well. She slowly reached down to her holsters, placing her hands on the grips of her revolvers.
The handle slowly slid back to its original position with a tiny, audible click. Jake’s eyes darted over to Toni. Her own eyes were wide, and he could see her bottom lip quivering. That thick, luscious lip that glistened in the…
What?
Jake turned his eyes back to the door. The handle began to turn again, this time farther. The door squeaked open, just enough for the latch to catch on the outside of the jamb. Toni stood, drawing her revolvers. Jake reached for his shotgun, still sitting, and pointed it at the door.
Toni moved in an arc around to the front of the door, keeping her revolvers out in front of her like Lara Croft in sneak mode. The door opened about an inch, and Jake could swear he saw a hand drop away from the inside handle; barely lit by the dim light of the stove burner.
Fuck,
he thought to himself.
What the fuck is going on?
There was a thump on the other side of the door, far away as if at the bottom of a flight of stairs; wooden stairs.
“Something’s in the basement,” Jake whispered. Toni turned her eyes toward him, nodding.
Jake stood, slowly moving next to Toni, hoping the floor wouldn’t creak or pop with his weight. She holstered one of her revolvers and crept toward the door, reaching out to grab the handle. Jake shook his head. He didn’t want to see what was down there. His heart was already about to explode, and the look of horror on Toni’s face was enough to make him bite his own tongue off. She pursed her lips, flicking her head toward the door to tell him to point his shotgun at it. He did so, ready to blast a round into anything that moved.
Toni slowly pulled the door open, cringing as it squeaked. She stopped, scowled, and then quickly flung it open. Jake pumped the shotgun and immediately raised it to his eyes. Toni’s other revolver was back out in an instant. They both stood there bouncing at the ready, but there was nothing there but darkness.
“Jesus Christ,” Jake said, lowering his shotgun.
Toni leaned in, peering down the stairwell. She hung back as far as she could, straining to stretch her neck far enough to see down. After a second or two, she shook her head and backed away.
“I don’t see anything,” she said. “Maybe you should go down there.”
“Fuck that,” Jake said. “The fat dude always dies first.”
“Bullshit,” Toni corrected him. “The black dude always dies first.”
“You’re not a fuckin’ dude, are ya?”
She shot him an annoyed look. “Fine,” she said. “I’m smaller and quicker anyway. You would just run me over if you got scared. But what if I get scared and you’re in the way?”
“If you have legs, you’re never in the way,” Jake said. “I’ll be gone before you can even turn around.”
Shaking her head, Toni took Bill’s flashlight from the table and shined it down the stairs. Jake moved up and looked, too. The landing down there was visible. It was dusty—very dusty—with no footprints.
“What the fuck?” Toni said. “There was nobody here.”
Jake shook his head in agreement. “They would have left footprints.”
He suddenly thought back to Dan’s story about the shadow people—
all
the stories about the shadow people. He had never seen one himself, and personally thought the whole thing was bullshit. But hey, you never know.
“Have you ever seen a shadow person?” Toni asked.
Jake’s heart skipped a beat. Had she seen them, too?
“No,” he said. “Have you?”
“No,” Toni said, leaving Jake with a feeling of relief. “But I’ve heard about them.”
A shrill, deafening cry came from the family room behind them. They both turned around in an instant just as the screamer turned the corner. It was a flash of movement—with a face twisted and tormented—that shot toward them like a comet.
They both unloaded their weapons into it, not stopping until they were empty. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing there.
“What the fuck?”
Toni screamed, her revolvers still out in front of her.
Jake was frozen, too, feeling like his chest was going to explode or his bowels were about to let loose.
A low hiss came from the darkened doorway. Toni and Jake both turned in an instant, staring into the shadows. They backed away, grabbing everything off of the tables, keeping their eyes trained on the shadowy gates of Hell.
A demonic face popped down from the top of the doorway, screeching like an eagle through its long, transparent fangs. Jake and Toni fled quickly, jumping over tipped furniture and nearly slamming into the walls. They were out the door in less than two seconds, sprinting at full speed across the lawn.
They kept going, turned left onto the street and not stopping until they reached the next block. Jake’s breath was ready give out, and his chest began to ache badly. He stopped, walked forward a few steps, and then collapsed to his knees, breathless. Toni turned, keeping her revolvers raised and pointed behind the house behind them. She too was breathless.
“What the holy fuck was that thing?” she asked, panicked and pacing. Her face was screwed up into a grimace.
“Stalker, I think,” Jake said between breaths. “But I’m not sure what the other thing was.”
Toni holstered her guns, putting her hands on top of her head as she caught her breath. “It was there, and then it wasn’t,” she said. “Things just keep getting weirder and weirder. It’s like a motherfuckin’ dream.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Jake said.
Toni chuckled, almost maniacally. “Did that shit really happen?” she asked. “Or are we just crazy?”
“Yes,” Jake replied. “Both.”
“The slow ones are called shufflers,” Jake said as they wandered along in the dark. “They’re usually not aggressive though. At least they didn’t used to be.”
“Maybe they’re just now getting hungry,” Toni suggested. Jake shrugged. “What about the ones with the red eyes? I’ve seen a few of those.”
“Shamblers,” Jake replied. “I don’t know why they call ‘em that, though. But then there are the stalkers. That’s what the thing crawling on the ceiling was, I think.”
“Those ones are freaky,” Toni said. “They don’t even look human anymore.”
“Nope. They go into some kind of cocoon when they get infected, and then come out looking like that.”
Toni shook her head as she sighed. “Damn,” she said. “I don’t know much about science, but that sounds like some kind of genetic thing. Like a butterfly hatching after living most of its life as a caterpillar.”
Jake nodded. “Sounds about right.”
“Have you seen anything else?”
“Well, there are the floaters,” Jake said. “Those are the glowing green pod thingies. They come out of the shufflers. We saw it happen the first morning I was with Dan and Drew.”
Toni glanced at him curiously. “How do they do that?”
Jake shrugged. “Not sure,” he said. “But we saw one come out of a woman who was wandering down the street. We though she was pregnant, but then she collapsed on the street and that thing came out of her. Well, it
forced
its way out of her.”
“Hmm,” Toni said. “That’s nasty.”
“Yeah, it was. Interesting, though.”
“I wonder about the dead things,” Toni said. “The ones that actually look like they’re dead, instead of just infested with fungus.”
“I don’t know,” Jake said, moving his pack to his other shoulder. “I’ve never seen those, and no one on the forums has ever mentioned them. They must be new.”
“Well, whatever they are, they don’t seem to be any more dangerous than the shufflers. They just smell different.”
Jake chuckled. He was beginning to get tired, but tried to keep his spirits up. He knew his blood sugar was a little high, but it was tolerable. The walking would help. But a lot of nice, cold water would help even more. The problem was, they didn’t have any.