The screaming from the other side of the door has reached a shrill pitch. How the hell did Bevie work here with them so close? Sweat collects along my brow, the droplets beginning to slip down over my temples. How the fuck do I get out of here?
A loud thump lands on the door at my back, and I startle as a scream flees from my throat. Then the high-pitched screaming outside halts and everything goes eerily quiet. The only noise assaulting my senses is the pounding rhythm of my heart as it sounds throughout my ears. Can they hear it? Can they sense me here? A meal they’ve been craving for so long.
I wonder if there are still some of them left from over twenty years ago, from when I first started carving through them to develop this town. Would they remember me? Do they have such memories? Are they even sentient anymore? My back stays pressed against the wooden door as I take deep, calming breaths, trying to slow the rapid beat of my heart.
“Lyx…” something says, sounding as if its mouth is pressed to the crack in the door. It’s so close to my name, sounding like a taunt. They’re toying with me. Maybe they’ve been intelligent this whole time, but because of their gruesome looks and primal behavior, we considered them nothing more than mindless beings. But this just proves the complete opposite, and it does nothing to help the fear that’s locking me in place.
This is karma. Most would probably say I deserve all of it.
The smell of rot intensifies as I’m surrounded on both sides. Canary and her rotten corpse in front of me, and then the Others behind me, their scent emanating through the door. I don’t move, I barely breathe, but my heart is banging in my chest. I can feel it bouncing off the door at my back. I’m stuck here until they leave, and who knows how long that can be? Once they’re fixated, they don’t let up unless they get what they want. That’s why they’ve been circling our town for twenty years trying to get in, because of their fixation. Treaties have been put into place, but that hasn’t helped stop every attack. If a town’s member is one step over the line, it’s free game.
Even though I’m well inside of the town lines, right now I’m free game. No one is here to witness any laws being broken. We’ve all been warned to stay well away from the edge of town for this very reason. There’s no need to tempt the Others. I raised my daughter to fear them, but as I stand here and see her handiwork, the clay all over the floor, and Canary’s body rotting to nothing, I realize Beverly never obeyed a single thing I said. My hands clench into fists as I think about my daughter and the things she’s done—what she forced me to do. Again, I’m drowning in an ocean of shame as I think about those weak moments when I succumbed to her and ruined our family. My wife didn’t deserve what I did, and my daughter didn’t deserve what I did. I should have seen Bevie’s confused mind for what it was, and my body shouldn’t have reacted to her the way it did. I talk about her being tainted, but it’s me. I’m the one who’s damaged, and she just happened to inherit my genes.
The silence stretches on, and I slide down the door, my back grazing the wood surface as my jacket rides up until my ass hits the floor. This feels like the end. As I look around the room I’m trapped in, it feels just. It’s a fitting end for me. My face falls into my hands as a sob rips from my chest, I’ll never see my wife again. I can feel that she’s gone. Why would she want to come home to me anyway? My daughter is also gone, my little girl I used to cherish. The day I ripped into her in the most carnal way, destroyed her, and I lost her then, too. I’m sick with a disease no one can cure. It’s a rot of the mind, radiation poisoning coursing through my blood.
I run the sleeve of my jacket under my nose, collecting the moisture that’s running down from the force of my sobs, when I hear a slight shuffling. I freeze to the spot, holding my sleeve under my nose, and glance around the room. There’s nothing in here besides me and Canary. When the noise doesn’t happen again, I relax and drop my head back against the door. There’s no more noise outside, and I can only hope they’ve left. Maybe something else caught their attention, and even though it’s dreadful, I’m glad it’s no longer me.
Another low scraping sound has me pulling my head up and my brows falling together as I once again skim my eyes over the room. It’s dark in here, and even though there’s tiny spaces between the wooden slats, it’s too gloomy outside to illuminate much. I push off the door and get to my feet.
Canary’s body is still half exposed, and I begin to walk toward her. There’s no way the noise is coming from her, but maybe there’s a rat in here, lured by the tantalizing smell of a rotting corpse. Two things that survived the blast and still pester us to this day are cockroaches and rats.
I dust my hands off on my thin track pants, then curse how cold my legs are. I should have worn my cargo pants, but I was in such a hurry to get here. I approach Canary’s body, wrapping the sleeve of my jacket around my mouth and nose to stave off the stench.
My eyes burn at the sight of her mutilated and decaying body. Chunks of flesh are missing from her arm, the bone completely exposed. Her cardigan has been ripped to shreds, the bright yellow material an ode to her name. Emotion clogs my throat as I look down at the woman who didn’t deserve this ending. She might have been the town’s busy body and liked to poke her nose where it didn’t belong, but surely she didn’t deserve this. My eyes skate down to her legs, I see the clay molded up to her waist and I wonder just what she would have looked like if Bevie had continued. Would the features in her face be accurate? Would she have preserved her looking much younger than her true age? Maybe it would have been better for her to be encased completely in clay and preserved forever. It’s much better than being in this small shed decaying with rats.
I kick at the tarp, my anger overwhelming me as frustration boils to its peak. How did everything get so out of control? I kick the tarp again, and this time, Canary’s body twists a little toward me. I stumble back a bit with shock as I stare at her. There’s no way she moved on her own.
Once the fear subsides and I take a couple of deep breaths, a chuckle escapes me. I must have moved her when I kicked the tarp. Being cooped up in here with a dead body and hunted by Others is making me see things.
I approach her again slowly and bend over to grab the tarp. My fingers shake as I grab onto the blue plastic. The crinkling sound echoes around the room as I slowly drag it up her body. When I get it up to her waist, a scraping noise runs along the door and I snap my head around just as I feel a hand grip into my thigh, the nails digging in past the fabric. A scream wrenches from my throat as I flip back around and find Canary sitting up. Her mouth opens in a salacious grin, her teeth rotting with black liquid oozing off the tips.
“Canary!” I scream as I yank on my leg. “Let go of me.”
Something like a cackle coughs out of her mouth as her other hand, the one that’s been rotting, grips into the material on my other leg. Her fingers are long pointed talons, her bones like sharpened knives, yanking me forward with a strength she shouldn’t possess.
Canary is an Other.
I fight like hell to get away from her. My hand grabs onto her hair as I struggle to keep her mouth away from me, hauling myself backward, but it’s doing nothing except dragging her along with me. My hand in her hair pulls away with her scalp now firmly in my palm, and I watch in complete horror as she snaps forward, her teeth sinking into my cock. Once again, I damn the pants I put on today as her teeth rip through the thin fabric, sinking into my very sensitive flesh. I scream at the sky; the pain radiating all over my body, and I drop to my knees. I deserve this.
The door kicks open behind me. I don’t have the energy to turn and look because Canary has made a meal out of my genitals. My chin hits my chest with a moan as I watch the top of her head moving, and then a large machete slices through the air, cutting through her neck. Her body is sent back to the floor and her vicious mouth ceases its ministrations.
“Well, that’s unfortunate.” The voice belongs to Colby.
I don’t have the strength to lift my head. It doesn’t matter that he’s killed Canary, I’m done for.
“Don’t worry, Pollyx.” His hand hits my shoulder. “That thing between your legs brought you nothing but stress.”
It’s hard to form words. My brain is slowly becoming foggy with images of the things I once knew, the people I loved are all slowly becoming grainy, and in their place, a pulsing hunger begins. I’m an Other.
“You will join my army, Pollyx.”
I slowly raise my head and look up at the boy I think I know. He stares down at me, an earnest look in his single eye.
That’s when I hear them, the crowd behind him. The town’s folk are here to watch me fade into nothing, to gaze upon their leader as he transforms into the very thing they’re fighting. I’m finally deemed incapable.
Then there are the noises beyond the treaty line, branches cracking, and words are becoming clearer. They’re no longer grunting, no longer sounding unintelligible. I understand everything they’re saying.
They’re repeatedly chanting Colby for the man who stands over me.