Caleb pointed in the direction of his grandma’s house, noting that it was not a far walk. Kozz thought she may have left town like everyone else, but it was possible that she had stayed behind, wondering where her grandson was. His hopes were not high.
Only a couple of blocks away, the home was small and subdued, perched further back from the street than the other buildings. Soft light seeped from a side window. Caleb moved forward towards the door, but Kozz held him back.
“I’ll make sure it’s safe first.”
“But Kozz, she’s in there.”
“Wait outside until I come get you.” Kozz pulled out his knife and handed it to Caleb. “Use it if you need to.”
Caleb did not have the breath to argue. Kozz opened the unlocked door and walked inside with Red ready to draw. The air was musty and cold. The furniture was neatly in place and untouched trinkets decorated every inch of shelf space, none having been packed and taken away. Thick carpet brushed ice and snow off of Kozz’s boots as he crept about the house. He made his way to the hallway at the other end of the living room and saw the same soft, stagnant light under a doorway at the far end. He heard a low, unintelligible murmur coming from the room.
The hallway was thin enough that Kozz had to squeeze his way through. The noise became louder as he approached the door and he recognized the sound.
“Warning. A fatal disease is spreading...”
His body shivered at the remembrance of the deafening message. Kozz pushed the door open with his free hand, the other held his protector. The hinges squeaked like scurrying mice as they slid on their pivots. A small telepod displayed a gray screen with the warning message playing on a quiet loop. The muted light dispersed throughout the room and led Kozz’s eyes to a horrifying mess on the master bed where a figure almost not recognizable enough to call an old woman laid battered and eviscerated on top of the mattress.
The mess was a dark red stain in an otherwise colorless room. Kozz would have considered himself faded to such a sight after living a life such as his, but a decade of gore sobriety had weakened his gag reflex. He backed out of the room and down the hall, half falling and half leaping onto the living room couch.
Kozz sat up and buried his face into the cushions, trying to erase the image and settle his stomach.
“Grandma!” Caleb called as he entered her home. "It's me grandma!" He ran to the telepod-lit hallway as Kozz sat up, shouting “Caleb, no!”
A short, high-pitched scream pierced Kozz’s heart. The boy let out a few wails, then he stumbled back down the hallway and landed himself on Kozz’s lap.
“I remember!” Caleb shouted, tears dripping and snot oozing. “I did it. I remember. I did it. I did...” He repeated the phrases until they turned into drooling sobs.
“You didn’t do anything, Caleb.”
“No!” the boy cried. “I did it. I killed grandma! I killed her I killed her. I remember! The thing inside me, it made me do it. I fought it, but it was too strong. I watched it make me kill her. It killed my grandma!”
The boy’s confessions hit Kozz like a smack in the face. That was proof enough to him that this was no disease. A monster had taken over the little boy, the weak child that cried in his lap, and had made him murder his own flesh and blood.
“It wasn’t you, it was that evil demon that was inside you. Caleb, you have to understand that this isn’t your fault.”
“But I did it—“
“No! The demons controlled you. They committed the crime. You fought them, you were brave, and your grandma would be proud of you for trying to protect her. You can't blame yourself.” Kozz held the child and rubbed a warm hand on his back. “Caleb is a brave name. You were very brave to try and fight them off. There was nothing more you could've done.”
The boy convulsed in his sobs, the pain in his ribs making it difficult to breathe between the wails, and Kozz just held him, giving Caleb something solid to hold on to in the chaos of everything around him until the boy cried himself dry. Kozz waded in the sadness of the moment and processed his thoughts. They had to move forward.
An hour passed before Caleb was steady enough to go on. Sad thoughts consumed the boy, but his uncontrollable cries had quieted. He mentioned his parents' home and told Kozz that it resided miles east of the town.
“How far of a walk would it be?” Kozz asked.
“I’ve only walked it once with my dad when we went on a hunting trip.” Caleb mumbled. His energy had faded. He stared at the ground as he spoke. “Took us like five days but we camped a lot and moved slow when we were hunting the whitecats. Probably be shorter if we went straight there.”
“With the two of us beaten up like the pair of eggs we are it’ll take a week, I bet.” Caleb huffed at the remark, letting Kozz know that he would have smiled if the situation were different. They limped their way back to Kozz’s destroyed truck. A few days walk out in the frozen wilderness would kill them if they were not fully prepared, but as luck would have it Kozz had stowed emergency supplies in his truck cabin in case the behemoth broke down on the frozen plains. He grabbed a pair of rolled up sleeping bags, a few everlights, and the remaining food storage. Kozz held an assortment of bags on his shoulders, but Caleb insisted that he could carry something and so Kozz strapped the smaller of the sleeping bags and a small bundle of food to the boy’s back. They walked eastward, leaving the rig behind them as Kozz pondered the likelihood that Caleb’s parents were still around. The couple lived out in the country and may have missed the initial catastrophe that struck the town, much like Kozz had.
Caleb looked pitiful. Kozz had never seen a child so sad. “Hang in there, kid. She loved you, you know that. It wasn't your fault.” Kozz felt a memory stab him in the chest. “It wasn't your fault. It never was.”
“Yeah,” muttered Caleb. The word oozed out of him like it was sludge. He wanted to believe it, but he did not.
The duo headed towards the end of town and Kozz scoured the landscape in front of them for any signs of danger, his instincts telling him to search every hole and shadow an enemy could hide in. He now knew that there was not a soul left in the town other than the demon-eyed zombies, and so he kept his senses open to anything that would catch his attention.
A face with glowing eyes flashed in a second story window. Kozz had seen it. “Run, Caleb.” His voice was firm, but not harsh. “Run to the tree and hide behind it.” Caleb looked ahead and saw the tree Kozz was pointing towards. A large pine stood at the end of the street, guiding tourists to their destination like a welcoming beacon of vacation and relaxation. The tree was the only one in the entire town. Planted long ago, it had been well tended by the townspeople. The pine had become the image of Edgetown, a monument that could be seen from miles away on the flat ice fields.
Caleb hesitated at the sudden command, but he saw Kozz’s silver eyes staring at him through the darkness and understood the sternness in his voice. Caleb started to run, but a woman burst through the front door of one of the houses and sprinted straight towards the boy and Caleb froze in place. He pulled out the knife Kozz had given him and held it out, fully extended in the direction of the blood-covered woman. She clawed at the air as she ran towards him. Caleb heard Kozz’s voice in his head, telling him again to run, but his muscles had seized up and he could not make them move. The woman’s voice mixed with something deeper and grittier and together they screamed as she launched herself at the child.
KABLAM!
The woman’s shoulder exploded in a flurry of flesh. She fell to the ground and grabbed Caleb’s leg, her blood staining the white snow she sank into. The boy stood still with his knife extended and the woman pulled his leg out from under him.
KABLAM!
The woman howled into the snow as light spilled out of her body. Kozz walked over and pried Caleb’s leg free from her dying grip, only then seeing the face of his victim. “Oh God,” sighed Kozz, “Linda.” The number of friends he had killed was increasing. I had no other choice. She was going to kill the boy.
“Kozz, behind you!” Caleb pulled on Kozz’s coat and pointed down the street back towards the truck. Three more demons were bounding through the snow.
“Run Caleb! To the tree!” Caleb did not stall this time. He went straight for the tree as Kozz turned around and found Red in the air, eyeing her targets. Aim true, Kozz. Take your time. His eyes followed the barrel, landing square on the foremost threat. He saw the straight line that had forged between Red and the young man who charged down the street. If Kozz waited a second more, that line would be gone.
KABLAM!
All that was left of the young man's throat were a few slivers of clinging flesh. He did not scream, but his wounds poured blood and light like a waterfall. Next up was an older man with frostbitten fingertips. Is Caleb alright? Did he make it to the tree?
KABLAM!
The man fell. His knee had been shot through, the bone blasted to splinters. Kozz went to fire once more.
Click.
“Damn!” Kozz had not reloaded. “It’s been too long. I must be way out of practice to forget this kind of shit.” The third charging demon was a bulbous woman who was now upon Kozz. She tackled him and landed a solid head butt on his forehead that put him in a momentary daze. The glow in her eyes brightened with ferocity as she pummeled him with her fists, drool dripping and slinging all over Kozz as she gnashed her teeth and bit at him. He held her back with his forearm and landed a blow to her jaw. Blood mixed with drool as he hit her again and then a stinging pain shot up Kozz’s leg.
The frostbitten man had crawled his way to Kozz, leaving a bloody path in the snow. The demon sank his teeth into Kozz’s calf. He kicked at the glowing eyes with his other leg and landed a solid strike on the man’s balding head, knocking him back and sending a swell of pain through Kozz’s sprained ankle. Another direct hit with his good foot cracked the man’s neck and Kozz heard him scream his death to the world.
The woman’s weight crushed Kozz and made it difficult for him to breathe. She attacked with her fists, landing blow after blow on Kozz’s hardened face. He caught one of her punches with his right hand and bent her arm back further than it was meant to go, dislocating it with a pop. The woman shrieked in pain and bent forward to bite at his throat. Kozz tried to buck her off, but her weight was too much. As she went in for the kill, he grabbed her other arm and snapped it over her back, then he pulled at it hard and she rolled off of him with the flow of pain.
Kozz stood up and kicked her onto her stomach. He jumped on her back with both knees landing firm on her backbone, then he grabbed her head and twisted it.
The woman’s body flopped around like a blubber-filled fish. She bellowed into the night, eyes and mouth shooting shafts of light into the darkness. When she died all was silent again.