End of the Road (38 page)

Then the bitch walked up, holding one of
her miniature yapping furballs. “How much longer is this going to
take?” she groaned. “We signed this contract a week ago, and you’ve
hardly done anything!”

I barely glanced at her. “As long as it
takes to get it done.” I already hated her.

Jason ran down to the truck to get the
jackhammer and in pure overdramatic fashion, she dropped her dog
and started grabbing her hair in panic at the sight of the tool. I
tried not to laugh.

“What the hell is that thing?!” she cried.
“You’re going to destroy my home!”

I forgot to mention my suspicion that she
didn’t know a damned thing about construction. Hopelessly, I tried
to dumb it down. “It’s rock down there, we have to dig it out so we
will be able to put your room in.” I wasn’t getting paid to chat,
so I removed a chalk line from my tool belt and started marking the
border of where we would be digging.

“This wasn’t part of the original plan,”
she hissed, pacing around the backyard. Her ‘dog’ yipped again.

“Neither was digging into all this rock,” I
repeated, watching Jason walk up with the jackhammer and my boss
drive away. “I’m just doing what the contractor told me to do.”

“My husband will hear about this,” she
snarled, pulling her cell phone from her purse and walking back
into the house.

“Hope he can hear her over this thing,”
Jason chuckled, gesturing toward the jackhammer. He cleared his
throat and brought it near the center of the stone slab where we
were working in the back yard.

I finally smiled, feeling a little more
normal. I wasn’t generally this depressing; to this day I still
blame the heat, combined with the stupidity of the situation. I was
usually the one cracking the jokes and putting on a show for the
guys. I’ve been through enough in my life to learn to get over
things quickly and keep life from getting dull. If I were in a
better mood I’d have been mocking the wife behind her back to get a
laugh out of Jason. I don’t shy away from sarcasm, and I pride
myself on being well armed with snappy comebacks and goofy
expressions. This day just sucked.

To get my mind off things, I took a moment
to look over the home; admittedly I was a little jealous, as it was
by far the best and most expensive looking house on that street. It
stood three stories up with a slate colored shingle roof, a stone
grey exterior with white accents, an ornate wrought-iron fence and
perfectly manicured lawn, complete with rose bushes by the front
door. I wondered to whom the husband sold his soul to in order to
get his hands on this place.

The only thing killing this Kodak moment
was the incessant wailing of sirens in the distance. I’d been
hearing them all day, but I didn’t pay it much thought at the
time.

It was a far cry from my living situation.
I lived with my 13-year-old sister Danielle halfway across town, in
a tiny one-bedroom home where I barely made the rent every month
and struggled to keep the power on. My personal belongings didn’t
expand much beyond a limited wardrobe and some hand-me-down
furniture. We had a TV, but it was more effective as a coffee table
since I didn’t really watch anything and, well, Danielle had been
deaf since birth.

She was old enough to stay home alone, but
the thought always bothered me. Granted, she was smart enough to
handle herself, but sometimes I’d slip it by her that I could get a
babysitter to keep her company. She’d get pissed at me and assert
her independence, ending off the argument by flipping the bird in
my face. I would have liked to put her in school, but I had to keep
her out of the system until she was grown up.

It had been seven years since I took her
away from our foster home. Our parents died in a car accident when
Danielle was 6 and I was 11, and we were sent to foster homes. When
I turned 13 I was told that we would be separated and sent to
different families; I wasn’t going to allow that. I packed up our
things and snuck us out overnight. For a while we lived on the
street, then I made a few friends and we were able to crash there
for a night or two at a time. When I was 14 I took small day jobs,
I even earned a lucrative gig as a McDonalds window jockey for a
while. When I was 16 I landed a steady job with a general
contractor, and I convinced a shady landlord to let us live in one
of the small beat-up homes he owned. Not that I’m bragging or
anything.

“Dude, you okay?” Jason asked me, waving
his hand in front of my face.

I snapped out of it, blinked a few times
and adjusted my tool belt before grabbing a push broom to clear the
debris from the foundation.

Jason sniffed a little as he moved the
jackhammer into place.

“You all right?” I asked with a smirk,
“you’re not getting all sad because Her Royal Bitchness left, are
you?”

“Oh yeah, totally,” Jason said, wiping his
nose with his shoulder. “I’m starting to think I caught that flu
going around.”

“What? I thought you got a shot for that
already,” I reminded him as I swept. I noticed he looked a little
clammier than usual.

Jason nodded, “I did, I got it yesterday. I
just think I got it too late. You ought to get them for you and
Dani, don’t want you guys getting sick too.”

“We may do that this weekend,” I said.

Then it happened - the gunshots. Three of
them. They were the warning cries of what was to come.

“What the fuck was that?!” I yelled in
surprise, moving toward the front yard where I heard it come from.
Jason dropped the jackhammer and followed me out, and we both
looked up and down the street. We didn’t see anything unusual, but
I know a gun when I hear it and I didn’t want to take the chance. I
grabbed my phone from my pocket and dialed 9-1-1, keeping my voice
collected. I didn’t get the chance to explain because all I got was
a busy signal. Confused, I tried again, and this time I heard in
the pleasantly automated voice, “The number you are calling cannot
be completed as dialed.”

“Jason, you try to call,” I offered,
hanging up my phone. He did as I asked, but reported the same
thing.

A shriek pierced my eardrums. I looked at
Jason, this time actually feeling worried; we both ran out toward
the front of the house, looking around the street. There was
another scream; across the street and up the block a ways, there
was a woman running in our direction with a man chasing close
behind. Within seconds the bastard had tackled her to the
ground.

Jason stepped up behind me, appearing more
tired than usual. “What the hell’s going on?”

I didn’t answer; I ran to help the woman.
The attacker grabbed at her violently, and her screaming became
more high-pitched and frantic.

“Get off her, fucker!” I yelled, and as I
got closer I became less furious and more horrified: the guy sank
his teeth into the woman’s face and neck, and he clenched into her
torso, pulling on her flesh until the blood spilled.

It felt like a dream. Maybe
the heat really was getting to me. I couldn’t even comprehend what
I just witnessed, but I knew I was running out of time if I wanted
to save this lady’s life.
I ran as fast as
I could, then launched forward and slammed into the man, knocking
him off of her. We toppled over each other a few times, rolling
away from the woman whose screams had died down to throaty gasps. I
silently hoped that I wasn’t too late. In my peripheral vision I
spotted Jason approaching, though he seemed unusually slow
considering the situation. I planned on ripping him a new one as
soon as I was done with this creep in front of me.

I gained the upper hand and pinned down the
attacker, who had grown increasingly aggressive. Then I realized
that the man was already covered in large amounts of blood, more
than what he just drew from the poor woman. He was missing a piece
of his neck, and had a few scratches on his face, and he wasn’t
talking. No matter what I shouted at him, he only responded in
grunts and growls, which made his voice sound like it had been
grated up.

But then I saw the eyes. Not only did they
rival the rage of a feral animal, the whites of the eyes were
clouded over in a sickly black, and the irises glowed a bright
crimson. This thing was a goddamn monster.

I glanced up for a moment and saw Jason
standing over the body of the woman, but he wasn’t moving. My
confusion shifted back to the immediate danger; I braced one hand
on the… thing’s neck and swung my other fist into its face. I
landed a few punches before the freak reared his upper body upward
and sent me to the ground. I had no idea why this thing was as
strong as it was - it looked pretty sick, to be honest. My head hit
the concrete, knocking me dizzy for a moment; in that time the
crazy man regained himself and leaped on top of me. Instinctively I
raised my hands up in defense, and then the lunatic grabbed my left
hand and bit down sharply on the outer side.

I felt the muscles in my hand tearing and I
roared in more pain than I ever recall being in before. I pulled
back but the thing kept its grip on me. With my free hand, and
without thinking, I grabbed the hammer still attached to my tool
belt and smashed it into the man’s temple. The impact knocked him
down long enough for me to get back up; I kicked the attacker in
the ribs, but he jumped right back up again and knocked me down
again. A small part of me wondered if this thing would ever go
down, but I quickly resigned myself to the fact that this thing was
out for blood.

I yanked him to the side with enough
momentum to roll him over and pinned him down; I took the
opportunity to swing the hammer again. Part of the man’s skull
caved on impact, but he was still alive. The adrenaline inside me
was pulsing, and I knew I had to take this guy out. I finally
turned the hammer to the claw end and sunk it into the forehead;
after seizing for a few seconds it finally died, the blood pooling
quickly around what remained of its head.

I blinked a few times, still trying to
fully register what had just occurred – I couldn't tell if I killed
a person or a monster. Regardless, the fact was I had smashed its
brains in. The pain re-surged in my left hand; grunting through my
teeth, I pulled my t-shirt off and wrapped my hand up. The bite
tore deep, but thankfully my hand was still in one piece.

Part of me still thought this was a dream,
and I started convincing myself to wake up. I looked ahead of me
and saw Jason knelt over the woman, who hadn’t moved from her spot
since the attack started. I started to realize that she wouldn’t
make it. As I got closer, I noticed how still Jason was. I had no
idea what was going through his head, why he was acting like…
nothing.

“What the fuck, man?!” I spat. “I was
practically getting my ass kicked and you’re just standing there
like an idiot!”

Jason barely acknowledged me - instead he
reached his hand out and touched the woman’s head. She showed no
sign of life as the blood emptied from the wounds on her face and
side of her abdomen. Jason, with some hesitation, pressed two
fingers against the gash on her cheek.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to be
even more creeped out. “Uh, Jason, what are you doing…” There was
no logical answer that I could come up with to explain the sudden
change in my friend, and it was freaking me out more than what I
just experienced minutes earlier. I heard the police and ambulance
sirens getting closer and more frequent - no doubt someone had
called the police after witnessing this massacre. Then again if I
was getting a busy signal, others may have, too. It was beginning
to sink in that something was wrong.

During that time Jason retracted his hand,
the blood now on his fingers. He brought them up to his face; after
examining them for a moment, he licked the blood off of them.

My jaw dropped and I closed my eyes in a
tight squint, my face curling into intense disgust. I had no words
or thoughts at that moment; I could only sputter, “What the holy
fuck is wrong with you!?”

Jason looked up almost innocently. “I don’t
know man… I’m just… really hungry.”

It was at that point I decided, “screw it.”
I backed away slowly, and then I heard more gunfire. I didn’t know
what kind of riot this was, but I didn’t want to stick around any
longer to find out. Only one thing came back to my mind at that
moment: Danielle.

“Jason, we need to get out of here now!” I
demanded.

Jason remained almost motionless, his voice
turning raspy as he spoke slowly. “I don’t know what’s wrong… I
feel… sick…”

The sounds of chaos grew louder around us,
and finally I said, “You know what? You're on your own, man.” I'd
given up on trying to get my friend to come to his senses.

I ran back to my truck and peeled out of
the driveway, speeding through the neighborhood.

Two

I started feeling a little dizzy; I
glimpsed at my hand and noticed it was bleeding through my
makeshift bandage. Who knows how much blood I lost. As I drove, I
saw repeats of what I had just experienced; every so often crazed,
bloody people ran up and down the streets and attacked anyone in
their path, including a dog in someone’s front yard which made my
gut churn and my head pound.

There were still some miles to travel
before getting home, and it was all I could do not to slam into
other vehicles that seemed to increase in numbers around me. All
over there were crashed cars and bodies strewn in the streets. I
had a hard time focusing, but I kept my thoughts on my sister; if
I’d believed in God I’d have been praying at that moment. Instead I
kept willing myself to wake up from the insanity.

I continued swerving around the wreckage
while trying to maintain speed. Then more of those crazies appeared
and swarmed my car, pounding and scratching on the windows. Some of
these things were more grotesque than what I faced: missing eyes,
chewed off jaws, all of them looking as if they’d been shredded up
by wild animals.