Grunting, it stepped toward the pantry door. It was close enough now for Brett to smell it. The stench was cloying—an overpowering mix of sweat, feces, urine, and blood. It reached for the door and Brett tensed, ready to leap out and clobber it as soon as the door was opened. His only advantage was the element of surprise.
Before the creature could open the door, however, it was distracted by the sound of approaching footsteps. Brett recognized them immediately. They were the same footsteps that had been chasing him through the house.
The kitchen door opened and the hulk that had killed Tyler and Stephanie appeared. He walked backward, dragging their corpses into the kitchen. Each of his hands clutched one of their legs. Its hammer was slung over its misshapen back and tied with a length of frayed extension cord.
The other creature giggled.
“What you got there, Noigel?” Its voice sounded like someone gargling with broken glass. The tone answered for certain the question of its gender. Brett was pretty sure that no woman could ever sound like that. Besides, its shoulders were too broad to be a female’s. It coughed again, and hocked up another wad of phlegm.
The big one—Noigel—grunted in response. Then it let go of Stephanie’s leg. Brett winced as her foot thudded on the floorboards. He wanted to scream. Wanted to charge out of the pantry and kill the fucker who’d done this to her. Instead, he stood there, quaking. His terror filled him with shame and guilt. Javier would have fought back. He wouldn’t have let Heather be murdered like that. Tyler would have kept it from happening to Kerri. Brett felt snot and tears running down his face. What had he done to save Steph? Nothing. He’d been too scared.
He’d run away.
Enraged—at both himself and the killers—Brett looked through the slats again.
Noigel held up four fingers.
“Four more?”
Noigel nodded, then whined. Brett was reminded of a dog, begging for a treat.
“No,” the other one said. “You get those two down below. Let the others have some fun. Been too long since we had company. We let the little ones up to play. They haven’t had a chance to hunt in a while.”
Little ones, Brett thought. Children?
Noigel’s malformed lips stuck out in a pout. The smaller one crossed the kitchen and smacked him in the chest.
“Do what I said.” The smaller one bent over and examined the corpses. “Look at this, Noigel! You smashed their heads. That’s the best part. Why you wanna do that for?”
Noigel groaned apologetically.
“It’s okay, you big baby. Long as I get one of their hearts, that’s okay. Or this one’s dick. I could go for a good man-chew. Better than beef jerky! Come on, I’ll give you a hand.”
The man in the woman suit leaned over and grabbed Stephanie’s leg. Noigel whistled.
“I wish you’d learn to talk. What’s wrong now?”
Noigel held up four fingers again.
“It doesn’t matter. Not like they’re gonna escape. Only way out is down below, and they’ll never make it past the rest. Besides, the little ones will find them long before then. They out searching the house right now.”
The thing called Noigel grunted. His friend cackled with laughter, which in turn gave way to another bout of coughing.
They dragged the bodies out of the room. Brett caught a glimpse of Stephanie’s corpse, and hot tears streamed down his cheeks. The two cannibals left the room, disappearing through the second door that he’d noticed when he first entered the kitchen. The door slammed shut behind them. Brett could still hear the guy wearing the woman’s skin talking, but now it sounded like they were beneath him. Brett assumed the door must lead down to a basement level. Brett listened to their footsteps fade, but when the silence returned, he stayed inside the pantry, too afraid to move. Noigel’s friend had mentioned that there were more of them inside the house and “down below.” Brett assumed that meant in the basement. How many, and more importantly, where were they right now? The man wearing a woman’s body had said they were searching the house. Were they on this level, hiding in the shadows, waiting for him to pass by? Hunting his friends?
He had to find Javier, Heather, and Kerri. Had to warn them. Had to escape. But when he willed his feet to move, they rebelled. His knees trembled. His balls tightened and shrank. He glanced back down at the dead mouse and wondered how long it would be before the maggots started working on Tyler and Steph.
Then he imagined them going to work on himself.
Damn it. I can do this. I can’t just hang out here in the closet and wait for them to come back.
Brett reached out with one shaking hand and pushed the pantry door open. Then he hurried across the kitchen, heading back in the direction he’d come. He reasoned that if there were other hunters on this floor of the house, they were probably in other areas and rooms. Otherwise, he’d have seen them during his escape from the foyer to here.
He took a deep breath, exited the kitchen, and tried to remember which direction he should go. He felt like crying.
SEVEN
Leo leaned forward in the chair and peeked through the curtains.
“How many times you gonna stare out that damn window?” Perry asked Leo. “You think the police will show up any quicker if you keep looking?”
Shrugging, Leo let the curtain fall back into place and slumped down in the chair.
“Gawking out that window,” Perry continued, “ain’t gonna do nothing but attract unwanted attention.”
“Leave that boy alone,” Lawanda scolded her husband. “You were doing the same thing just a little while ago.”
Chris, Dookie, Markus and Jamal chuckled in the corner.
Perry took another swig of beer and shot his wife a dirty look over the rim of the can. It had been fifteen minutes since they’d called 911, and so far no one had responded to the call. Perry had suggested the boys wait outside for the cops to show, but Lawanda had shut that idea down in a hurry, inviting them to wait in the living room. Now he was stuck entertaining them when he should be getting ready for bed. On the television, a studio audience laughed as Tyler Perry ran around in drag. Perry groaned, wondering why the man had to dress like a fat woman in all his shows and movies. He hated Tyler Perry’s sitcoms, but he watched them because Lawanda usually controlled the remote. Every evening, he resigned himself to episodes of Dancing with the Stars and bullshit sitcoms.
“The cops ain’t gonna show,” Markus said. “We’re wasting time, yo.”
“Maybe,” Leo agreed. “Maybe not. But at least we did something.”
“That’s a good outlook,” Lawanda praised, offerring them a plate of cookies. “You’ll go far in life if you keep it.”
Leo smiled, but Perry could tell that the youth was merely humoring Lawanda.
“Go where?” Jamal asked. “The next block? Shit, Mrs. Watkins. There ain’t no escape from this place unless you can rap or play basketball. Or want to sell drugs.”
“You got that shit right,” Dookie said.
“I’d appreciate it if you boys wouldn’t curse in my house.” Lawanda set the cookies down. “Mr. Watkins does it, but that’s because he’s old and set in his ways.”
“Sorry.” Dookie slumped down.
“That’s okay. And listen to me. Don’t be saying that there’s no way out of this neighborhood. Don’t think that way. There are always opportunities. There are always doors. You just have to wait for the right door to open. Y’all can be anything you want to be. People said there would never be a black president, and they were wrong, weren’t they?”