“Do you know how to fire a gun?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” Hattie said, reaching for one of the large hunting rifles.
“Good,” he said. “Waverly, I want you to take one too.”
I felt sickness overtake my stomach. “I don’t want to use a gun,” I said.
“Sweetie, I’ve taught you how to shoot, now it’s time to put that into good practice. I want you to shoot whoever comes into the house that you don’t recognize.”
I couldn’t believe the words I was hearing. Dad wanted me to shoot an intruder? Were those monsters coming here? “Dad, are you coming home?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, I heard him yelling out. “No!” He screamed. “No, no, no! Get out!”
“Daddy!”
Glass shattered from his end of the phone. My dad’s voice was drowned out by grunts and moans.
“You can’t! You can’t! Oh no! Please!” His cries ended in a gargling noise and the phone fell from my hands as I dropped to my knees.
“Daddy,” I whimpered.
Hattie wrapped one of her arms around me and grabbed the phone with the other, ending the call.
“Those things just killed my dad,” I said as I buried my face into Hattie’s chest. She had no words for me. There was nothing she could have said that would have changed anything or made me feel better. She just held me close and rubbed my back.
Were those things coming to the house? Were they coming for us? Where was my mom? I finally pulled away from Hattie, wiping my eyes. I took a handgun from the safe, unsure of myself. I checked to see if it was loaded. Neither of us knew what kind of enemy we faced, but we knew we had to fight it, no matter what it was.
We went back into the living area and my eyes were glued to the television. I stood there numbly, unable to comprehend that I had just finished the last conversation with my dad that I would ever have. The reports kept coming in about these mindless grey people going around biting, scratching, and eating human flesh. That was all anyone knew. Had my father just been eaten by one of these things? A few of these things? Were these just normal people with a sickness like rabies or something?
I wanted to throw up. I wanted to cry more. I wanted my parents to be home. As I stared at the screen, just as clueless as the reporters at the station, I couldn’t help but wonder how big this must be.
I was lost in my thoughts until my heart jolted at the sound of the someone banging on the front door upstairs. “Mom?” I said as I stood up sharply. I headed straight for the stairs, but Hattie grabbed my arm and pulled me to the ground. She raised a finger to her lips and motioned for me to stay quiet. The thought then hit me that it might not have been mom at all. I froze when I realized that it could have been those creatures. The banging got louder and louder. I could hear the wood start to crack underneath the weight of the intruders. Finally, there was a crash and the door sounded like it was flung open.
I held the handgun close to me. I hoped beyond all hope that my mother wasn’t on her way home. As we sat at the bottom of the stairs, I could see shadows move under the doorstep. Something, a hand maybe, grabbed for the doorknob, but never turned it. Next, it started scratching, then hitting its fists hard against the wood. As the pounding became louder, I nearly screamed. Hattie pointed her rifle at the door, ready for anything to come through.
The noise, I thought. I instantly stood and ran for the television and shut it off. I then walked quickly to the light switches and shut off all the lights in the basement.
They sounded like ravenous animals determined to find meat before they died. Fear had replaced my grief, and I sat staring at the door, my hands shaking so badly that I had to set the gun down in front of me for fear of letting off a round by accident. Hattie took no notice of me as her remained fixed on the door above us. It took a minute or two, but the pounding became less severe and it seemed they had finally lost interest in us.
Then, I heard a noise that sent icicles through my chest. I could hear my mom’s voice from the front of the house.
“Waverly? Hattie? Are you home?” she yelled out. Her voice was frantic with worry.
I wanted to yell for her, to tell her to get out of the house, but Hattie reached out and covered my mouth, shaking her head vigorously.
“We’ve got to get out of the city,” she said, coming nearer to the basement door.
Hattie let go of my mouth, and it was everything I could do not to yell out, but if I did, I knew that the scratchers would be down here in a second. Mom would see them and run, surely.
Her steps came closer to the basement. “Waverly? Are you down…” Her words stopped short and were replaced by a scream that sent chills up and down my spine.
“No!” I scream out.
Something slammed against the door and the horrific grunts mingled with her screams flooded into my ears. I started running up the stairs, but Hattie grabbed me by my pants and pulled me down. “Waverly, no!” she said harshly. She dragged me to her and pulled me close. I tried to fight her for only a second before the screaming stopped and blood started oozing between the crack from under the door and onto the steps ahead of us.
My sobs were silent, but not because I tried to quiet them. I cried so hard I thought my ribs might crack. I had no way to gasp for air. It was as though my windpipe had closed off and would allow no breath to come in or out, yet the tears flowed freely from my eyes. I could hear the sounds of chomping jaws closing around soft tissue, lubricated by my mother’s blood that I could see dripping just above. Hattie pulled me away from the stairs and let me lie on the floor.
She lay next to me, holding me tightly. “Just breathe,” she whispered into my ear. “There’s no time for crying yet, just breathe.”
Just breathe, I thought. Just breathe. Finally, air entered my lungs and the result was a loud gasp. The chomping from upstairs stopped and the scratchers suddenly seemed interested in the door again. The moaning grew louder as the house became populated with more and more of these creatures.
“Why are they coming in here?” I asked. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Hattie said. She reached down and clutched her gun and handed me the pistol I had set on the steps. “We’ve got to get out of here. Whatever those things are, they know we’re down here.”
“Where are we going?”
Hattie nodded at the television. “They say it’s all over the city. We’ve got to get out of Oakridge. My house will be safer.”
“My parents…”
“Are gone,” Hattie said bluntly. She set the gun down and grabbed my shoulders with her sturdy hands. “Waverly, listen to me. If we don’t get out of here, those things are going to tear that door down and we’ll meet the same fate as your father and mother.”
“How do we know they are dead?” I asked.
“Waverly, stop it!” Hattie yelled. As a result, the scratchers started pounding against the door even harder. Both of us turned our heads toward the stairs. When the sound of cracking wood reached our ears, I jumped to my feet, gun in hand. Hattie turned back to me. “My car is in the driveway. If we run out the back we can get out of here fast enough.”
“Your keys?”
She reached for her pocket and nodded. “I’ve got them.”
The grunting and breaking of the wood became louder and then the door hinges snapped. I let out a scream as the creatures came tumbling down the stairs. The first few fell face first, but that didn’t deter them from getting back up to their feet, bones jutting out of their skin. I was frozen in place as about ten of them started toward me. The pictures I had seen on the news were not nearly as terrifying as seeing one of them up close. Their eyes were black, their skin was grey, yes, but their teeth chattered at me, biting the air as if they could already taste my flesh. They smelled like a dead animal, rotting on the side of the road. I lifted my pistol into the air and let off five shots into the chest of the first one coming after me, but he only gained in speed. Then, he was running toward me.