“I…” he stammers again. “Must… What…”
“I mean it,” I say, the warning tone in my voice rising. “You stay here and don’t follow me.”
Fraud doesn’t even try to respond now and I see his jaw flex, his muscles grow rigid. His fingers now curl into fists, the twitch dying away.
I curse under my breath again.
Slowly, I back up, never taking my eyes from him.
His left eye is now more metallic than human white. I can see tiny lines forming in the other eye.
My heels meet the pavement of the highway. I keep both fire arms leveled on him.
He takes one step toward me.
“Stop right there!” I shout. “I will put a bullet between your eyes!”
He takes another step toward me. He moves differently now. Stiff, slightly jerky. He looks disoriented and empty.
“This is your last warning,” I say. I’m backing away faster now, across the first two lanes of the highway.
And suddenly Fraud sprints towards me, every trace of human reason in him gone.
I bury two bullets in his chest and one in his forehead.
The man who very likely saved my life collapses to the ground. Blood pools around him on the pavement.
I pause and look at his body lying there. I’m regretting that I never asked his name. Surely it wasn’t Fraud. Maybe it was Ted, or Giles, or Scott. I feel as if I should drag his body off to the side of the road at least. But the guard’s words come back to me once again.
Don’t let anyone touch you.
So instead I turn and jog down the road toward the police car. Change of plans. I’m not walking to Stella’s.
I hop out of the car as I pull into Aunt Stella’s driveway. I glance back at it as I jog up to her front door. There are dents on every surface of the vehicle. The lights on top have been smashed beyond recognition and the back windshield shattered when one of those things bashed its head against it over and over. I watched as its skull caved in the same time the window finally broke.
Somehow I made it alive.
I hesitate at the front door. Stella knew what I was in for and that I shouldn’t be outside of the prison for the rest of my days. But the way the lawn is overgrown, the way her tiny, annoying dog isn’t barking like a maniac tells me that whatever madness has touched the world had made its way into Stella’s house.
I push the ajar door open.
There’s a smell that hits me as soon as I walk inside. It’s pretty hard to mistake the smell of rotting flesh. Not something you encounter every day, but you know exactly what it is when you smell it.
The front foyer is a mess. All the fancy vases and plates and whatever else it was Stella and Rich collected are smashed into tiny pieces on the marble floor. The house is silent as I make my way across the debris toward the living room.
The main living area is devoid of any life, in the same state of broken chaos. I find the kitchen empty as well.
It’s been nearly eight years since I’ve been in the house, so it takes me a moment to bring up a mental map of where I might find Stella or Rich. Careful to make sure my feet are soundless, I make my way toward the back of the house.
The smell grows stronger as I approach the door to Uncle Rich’s office. My weakened stomach threatens to lose the tiny amount of food I have in my system.
Finally, I step inside.
Uncle Rich is lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with red, wide, dead eyes. He’s a strange blue gray mixture. And there is a ring of bruises around his throat.
Someone choked the life out of Uncle Rich and left him here to rot.
I’m about to leave, but as I turn to go, I freeze in place. Adrenaline burns through my veins.
Aunt Stella is standing just to the side of the door and she’s staring straight at me with metallic, empty eyes.
I take a step away from her, back into the office. I’m careful not to step on Rich.
Stella doesn’t move. She stares out into the room, completely motionless, like she’s frozen in place.
There’s a big section of skin missing from the lower left side of her face. Where her jaw bone should be, there is a shiny metal plate gleaming in the evening light.
I don’t dare breathe. I saw what those things did as I made my way to this house. They’d tried ripping the police car apart and very nearly succeeded. As soon as I got to the middle of town they were coming out of thin air, leaping at the car with their dead eyes, disoriented but aggressive.
But Stella is just standing there, frozen, like she’s not even real.
I brave a small wave, just a quick back and forth motion in front of her with my hand.
She still doesn’t move.
Holding my breath, I step out of the office, and make my way back toward the kitchen.
Every survival instinct in me screams that I should get out of this house and get back in that police car. But the need to know what happened to my only living family pushes my hand into my back pocket and pulls out the envelope I found on the warden’s desk. The letter addressed to me.
It was postmarked eight weeks ago.
NOVATOR BIOTICS WOULD LIKE TO OFFER YOU THEIR CONDOLENCES IN THE LOSS OF STELLA VERREL. HER LOSS WAS A RESULT OF UNSEEN COMPLICATIONS OF HER TORBANE HEART UPGRADE. ENCLOSED IS A COPY OF HER WILL.
There isn’t even a signature on the page. Just one other page behind that states that I am to inherit everything. It’s an old document. Aunt Stella and Uncle Rich had it written up before I was convicted.
I knew Stella had been on a waiting list for years, hoping for a new heart to replace the one that had been failing her. I didn’t know anything about an “upgrade” or TorBane but it sounds like she’d turned into a killer robot freak because of it.
A loud slapping sound just about makes me piss myself and the pages fall from my hands as I crouch behind a chair. But I see that it was just a book, fallen off a shelf. There is a pile of books slouching. I dart over to them before any more of them call fall and possibly wake Stella. If she’s really sleeping. I have no idea what is going on with her.
Not waiting any longer, I dart up the stairs toward their bedroom.
My nerves are strung out, my hands are shaking, and I’m fighting back emotions I haven’t allowed myself to feel for seven years. But I have to get out of here, and I have to prepare.
Rich was a bit smaller than myself, but his clothes will be better than the gray ones marked CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION. I rifle through his closet, pulling on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. As I’m digging through the back of his closet, hoping he’ll have a pair of boots that will fit me, my fingers brush something hard on a low shelf.
I pull out the rifle, careful to keep my finger off the trigger since the safety is off. I check it and find it loaded. The thing is ancient, but if Rich had it hidden and loaded with the safety disengaged, I have to wonder if he planned on using it on his wife.
If only she hadn’t choked the life out of him first.
I find a pair of boots that are tight but will do for now. I also dig up a backpack and store one of my handguns in an easily accessible pocket. Grabbing a few more items of clothing, I silently make my way back downstairs with the shotgun in hand.
No sign that Stella’s moved, I head back for the kitchen. I don’t bother opening the fridge. Anything in it will be long spoiled. Instead I head for the pantry.
I load up on canned goods, anything that looks non-perishable. I also shove in as many water bottles as I can. All the while I’m stuffing my face with crackers, my stomach growling ravenously. The backpack is heavy and solid feeling when I pick it back up.