Tess and Lidda: Teens facing the apocalypse part 4

Before you read this, be sure to read Part One  Part Two and Part Three first. Enjoy!

 

"Daniel"

**Warning: Graphic Violence and Foul Language**

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

 

 

We were marched into the woods. The path had been cleared, so it was a lot easier to walk here than it had been near the cemetery. After about fifteen minutes, we stepped out of the woods and into an overgrown backyard, complete with a cement patio and a rusted out grill. The gas tank had long-been removed by scavengers, and the sliding glass door had been busted open. The cool night air clacked the broken blinds together behind the frame. A teddy bear lay slain on the glass fragments, half in and out of the door, his body flat from a loss of stuffing. The man behind me tripped and nudged into my back with the rifle, reminding me of our current situation.

“Careful, big boy. Don’t get too excited there,” I turned back to look at his night-darkened face. Joking kept me from thinking too much about that poor Teddy and his owner. There was the hint of a smile on the man’s face. He wasn’t bad looking, for one of Jefferson’s douchebags, but I wasn’t supposed to flirt with the enemy. Besides, it was hard to think about much other than surviving the next wave of bullshit we would surely face.

We trudged through the overgrown weeds into the front yard, and finally onto a road. This had been a normal suburban neighborhood not long ago. Now it showed no signs of life, save for the rustle of curtains behind broken windows. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched from behind the flowing fabric, but I knew Jefferson would have purged this place of clingers a while back. There wasn’t any way to keep out the See-Thrus though. A chill ran down my spine, and I told myself it was just the cool night air that made me shiver.

The company of armed men marched us towards a cul-de-sac, and then we were making our way through more weedy overgrowth into another backyard. This yard had a broken swing set and a sad looking little sand box. It backed up to a six-foot-high wooden shadowbox fence with a two-foot-wide break in it. The missing piece was leaning haphazardly up against the still-standing portion. The two men in the front picked up the leaning piece of the fence and moved it aside, leaving a gap just large enough for one person to fit through at a time. If we had been trying to escape, we would have done so long before now, but we actually needed to go with these people. We needed Jefferson’s help, unfortunately. My heart beat faster, and my fight-or-flight instincts kicked in as the first two men disappeared through the fence. I suppressed the urge to kick someone or bolt, and stepped through the gap myself. I peered around at the closed-in backyard of a large two-story house with boarded-up windows. This was Jefferson’s house, and my old home.

The fence was in surprisingly good condition, considering what it had been through. The last time I had seen this place, Coyote and I were making a run for it. The place was being attacked by clingers, and we managed to escape during the excitement.

I looked back to see Lidda being forced through the fence with some effort. She was fighting every step she took. I rolled my eyes. There was no need for the drama, she just wanted to be a bitch to our captors. I couldn’t really blame her, but she was going to tire herself out before we even made it to Jefferson.

“Lidda!” I hiss-whispered.

She glared at me in response. My good-looking guard was still between Lidda and I, so I couldn’t exactly explain to her what I wanted without him overhearing. I settled for telling her to, “Calm the fuck down.”

Lidda’s glare deepened, furrowing her brow, and she pursed her lips at me. I just know she wanted to cross her arms, but she didn’t. She kept marching forward, without fighting now, and we stepped onto the covered back porch of my old house. The screens were all busted out, but the frame was still there, along with the same set of porch furniture that had been there as long as I could remember. New boards had been nailed to the door where the glass used to be, but it still opened and closed with that suction-sliding sound that it had always made. The tile floor was exactly the same. The granite countertops and the swiveling barstools hadn’t changed either. It even still smelled like home. Aside from the utter quiet and darkness, the house looked almost exactly as it had before. The familiarity made my stomach do little flip-flops. I swallowed down a feeling of nausea that crept up with the bitter memories and the fear of seeing my father for the first time in four years.

It was hard to believe I had been fourteen, Lidda’s age, when I had fled this place with my life. A lot had happened in that first year. So much had changed that my Dad had become my enemy, and left me to die at the hands of clingers. Coyote had been my only ally then, helping me get out of here in one piece. Back then, Coyote was still going by “Daniel”, and Jefferson had only just stopped being “Dad” to me.

Daniel was a friend of my brother, Brayden, so he used to come over often. Before the dead stopped staying dead, Daniel and Brayden would stay up all night playing video games in the living room, talking about sports and girls. I always thought Daniel was kind of an asshole, but things changed one night when I sat in the kitchen doing my homework.

“What’s up, Tess?” Daniel’s voice startled me from behind my seat at the bar.

“Oh, hey, Daniel,” I muttered, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear as he opened the refrigerator door. He was comfortable enough in our home that this was a regular occurrence.

I don’t remember what he said next. It was probably something about my homework being easy or some other smartass comment, but I do remember that my heart was beating faster the longer he stood there talking to me. He’d been looking at me differently for a while before that, and I had noticed how his t-shirts were getting tighter around his arms and chest. His hair was growing out a little bit, and it curled a little around his ears and around the bottom of his neck. I suddenly wanted to know what it felt like to run my fingers through those little curls.

“Tess?” he said, waking me from my fantasy.

Crap, I thought, How long had I been staring at him, thinking about running my hands through his hair?

“Yeah, sorry,” I said, “I kind of zoned out for a minute there.”

“What were you thinking about?” A little grin was spreading across his face.

“Um,” I had to think of something fast, so I said, “Homework, of course.”

“Right,” he grinned even more. It was really cute when he grinned in that mischievous way.

I straightened nervously in my seat, and I felt the heat flush up into my cheeks.

“Well,” he said, coming around the bar to stand next to me, “when you’re done thinking about homework,” he leaned in, lowering his voice to speak into my ear, “why don’t you try daydreaming about something a little more fun?”

I turned my head to respond, and our lips brushed against each other for the briefest of moments. He grinned triumphantly as I pulled away from him. Although I hadn’t known what to expect when he had first walked into the kitchen, it all became clear when he pressed his lips harder into mine. He tasted like Coca Cola and Twizzlers, and he smelled like Old Spice. It was all boy. I breathed him in, closing my eyes, relishing in the moment. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, turning my head to deepen the kiss. His hands slid around my waist, fitting us together like a pair of those magnetic kissing teddy bears.  

“Dude!” Brayden’s voice knocked me back into reality like a fist to the face.

“Sorry, bro,” Daniel shrugged, pulling away from me. The hint of a grin still remained on his face, and I knew that he wasn’t really sorry. I was relieved and ashamed at the same time. My face flushed beat red in an instant. My brother had just caught me making out with his best friend in our kitchen.

“That’s my little sister…” Brayden’s face was pure horror, his voice was pure rage, and he shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the image of us kissing.

“You don’t have to talk like I’m not in the room, Brayden,” I said, crossing my arms as I swiveled around in the barstool.

“You shut up, Tess. You’re just a kid. He knows better,” he said, pointing to Daniel.

“Aww, Bray, she’s a big girl,” Daniel said, “Just look at her. I don’t know how you stand living under the same roof with such a hottie, even if she is your sister.”

That was when things got bad in a hurry. Brayden had closed the distance between himself and Daniel in less than a second, and Daniel was suddenly on the ground. His nose was bleeding from where Brayden had punched him, and Brayden was standing over him, trying desperately to hold back from punching him again. I watched in horror, not knowing how to react from the suddenness of it all.

“Get out!” Brayden shouted, pointing towards the door.

“Stop it, Brayden! Look what you did!” I shouted, dropping from the barstool in a hurry. I crept protectively over Daniel, lowering my voice to talk to him, “Daniel, be still, I’m going to put some ice on it.”

I felt myself being yanked backwards at the shoulder, and looked up to see Brayden’s rage-filled eyes behind me.

Brayden’s voice was deceptively calm when he spoke, “Tess, you better get the hell out of my way. I don’t want to hurt you, but he’s going. Now.”

I had never seen my brother this way, and I was suddenly afraid. I stood up and moved, cowardly I know, but this was new territory. Even through the blood and the forceful dragging by Brayden through the house, Daniel’s eyes were twinkling wildly with some unreadable emotion. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed off, or giddy with delight. I followed them to the front door as Brayden tossed Daniel outside. Daniel gave Brayden the finger, and gave me a wink. My mouth hung open like one of those creepy wooden dummies throughout the whole thing. Daniel turned and jogged off to his car parked on the curb, punching our mailbox as he passed it. To this day, there’s still a dent in the mailbox.

Mom and Dad suddenly appeared behind us, wearing pajamas and dreamy looks on their faces.

“What happened, son,” my dad asked. Typically that wouldn’t have annoyed me, but I was sick of feeling like a lesser person just because I was younger and a girl.

I turned, fuming, and spat out a response, “Your idiot son just threw his best friend out of the house for no reason.”

“Tess!” My mom gasped at me disapprovingly.

“Brayden, what happened?” My dad continued to ignore me. I stormed down the hallway, still listening.

I caught the first part of Brayden’s response before I was out of earshot. He said, “Daniel and I aren’t friends anymore, he…” and I didn’t stay to hear the rest. I stormed upstairs, forgetting to finish my homework, and put on my headphones. I fell asleep listening to the most angst-ridden emo garbage I had on my iPod.

Things didn’t get better between me and my family after that. I got caught sneaking out to see Daniel more than once, my grades went to shit, and the male-half of my family continued to ignore me other than to yell at me for fucking up all the time. Mom was the only one I could talk to, and even she didn’t understand why I was acting out, because I couldn’t tell her about Daniel. Something told me that seeing him was a bad idea, but I didn’t care. I thought I was in love.  

Then, people started coming back from the dead. It was on the news first, then it was from the mouths of people we knew, and after that, clingers were eating people and making more clingers. At first, we didn’t understand why not everyone turned into a clinger, then See-Thrus started making their existence known. The ghost stories just sounded like mass paranoia at first, due to all the other shit that was going on, then the black clouds with their red eyes were caught on video.

Mom was suddenly gone all the time with work, and Dad was absent in other ways. Brayden could hardly stand to look at me. I had never felt so alone. Most of my friends had left or gone missing, but we stayed in our stupid house, on our stupid street, with our stupid fence and our stupid cars. The only way it was bearable was by having secret visits with Daniel every night. It wasn’t long before we were doing more than just kissing, and I felt our secret weighing even more heavily on my shoulders. Every time I saw him, I felt a thrill because I knew what we were doing was wrong, and it came with a heavy serving of shame.

Not long after Daniel became my first everything, Mom was killed in a botched robbery at the research center where she worked. People were stealing everything from bottled water to televisions, and nobody felt safe anymore. Dad kept a couple of guns in the house, but he came home with more that same afternoon. I started crying when he told me about Mom. He slapped me hard across the face and told me to get a grip, that there wasn’t time for crying anymore. He sent me to my room while he and Brayden boarded up the house to the sounds of my stifled sobs.

I lost my shit after that. I packed everything I thought I would need in my school backpack; clothes, my stuffed Mickey Mouse, toiletries, and a hair straightener. Then, I climbed out my window, which was on the second floor. The drop from the patio roof jolted my legs, but I kept moving, creeping against the side of the house to where the gate led out of the backyard. I clicked the latch open as quietly as I could, slowly easing the gate open so it wouldn’t creek, but it did anyway.

“Did you hear that?” Brayden’s voice was just on the other side of the wall. Shit, I thought, I didn’t think this through very well.

“What?” Dad’s voice was farther away but still too close.

“Shh,” Brayden shushed my dad, and I could hear his footsteps approaching. I didn’t wait to get caught. I bolted forward, running as fast as my legs would let me.

Brayden was faster. He had me by the backpack in a matter of seconds, and was yanking me into his arms. I tried to shake free of the bag, but it was too late. I was caught.

“Tess, where the hell do you think you're going?” his voice wasn’t gentle as he turned me to face him. Dad was running to catch up to us.

“I’m getting the hell away from you two psychos. Y’all can’t even talk to me like a normal person. I can’t stand to be around you anymore. I don’t have any reason to stay.”

“You aren’t acting like any daughter of mine,” My dad’s stern voice overpowered my own.

“Get her back inside the house and keep her there, I don’t care how you do it,” he ordered Brayden, and Brayden obeyed. I was dragged, kicking and screaming, back inside the house, and aggressively tied to a chair with a pair of Mom’s scarves. I started crying then, realizing that things really had changed. Brayden continued his task with cold calculation, not looking at me once during the whole event. I could hear my dad hammering away outside over the loud sobs coming from my own throat, and then Brayden slammed the door on my parents’ bedroom without looking back. I don’t know where they slept that night, and I don’t care. I didn’t sleep at all. I sat in my soft shackles, perfumed by my mother’s lingering scent, plotting all sorts of horrible vengeance scenarios in my dark mind.

I started to drift to sleep in the early hours of the morning, when I was shocked wide awake by a noise outside. What I would soon learn to associate with the sound of approaching clingers was coming from outside the nearby window. No light permeated the boarded window, but the sound was undeniable. A dry groan followed what I can only imagine was brittle fingernails against the glass. I screamed. Stupid, I know, but I was a kid, tied up alone in a room, with the sound of something horrible trying to break in through the window.

I kept screaming until my dad burst in the room and backhanded me across the face. I tasted blood in my mouth, and felt hot tears running down my cheeks.

“Shut the fuck up, Tess!” My dad hissed unnecessarily. Brayden followed close behind him, glancing at my bloody mouth with some unreadable expression on his face. Up until that point, my dad had never hit me save for a spanking or two when I was little. The shock was more than I could bear.

A few moments of silence passed, then another groan came from outside, followed by more farther off. The groans began to increase, and even I could tell that the house was surrounded. I started screaming again.

“Shut her up, Brayden, I don’t care how,” Jefferson said, stepping out of the room. He was too much of a coward to deal with me himself, leaving the chore to his seventeen-year-old son. Even then, I couldn’t believe how cowardly that was. That was the moment I started hating him.

Brayden grabbed another one of Mom’s scarves and wrapped it around my mouth, tying it behind my head. His eyes were apologetic, but he didn’t speak to me. I mumbled my last plea through the cloth, but he closed the door on me once again, leaving me alone to listen to the rising sound outside.

I heard a tearing sound at the window, followed by breaking glass. The clingers were climbing inside. I was panicking in silence, trying to break free from my restraints, my face soaked with tears.

I leaned forward, trying to put my weight on my feet, but I was too short. My toes just barely touched the floor, so I started rocking back and forth, trying to fall forward on to my feet. All I managed to do was fall onto my left side. The fall caused my neck to jerk violently to the side, and my arm took a lot of the weight. I ended up just being bruised. From the ground, I kicked my left leg against the carpet, trying to inch the chair and myself towards the door. The dry groans were coming from inside the room now, and I could just see some dark round shape inside the white curtain. It was the head of a clinger; my neighbor, Mr. Porter, from the looks of it. He was staring blankly in my direction, but his lips were curled back in a snarl, and one of those horrible dry groans leaked out of his throat.

I was making very little progress when the door flew open. I was expecting Brayden or Dad, and instead I got a pleasant surprise. Daniel stood in the doorway holding the biggest gun I had ever seen. I had never been so happy to see anyone in my whole life. He coolly fired two shots into the clinger version of Mr. Porter, whose body blocked other clingers from coming in the window. I watched the body jerk violently as other clingers tried to get around him to get inside. Daniel dropped down beside me, untying the scarves from around my wrists and then my mouth. I thanked him as he pulled me to my feet, then I picked up my backpack from the floor nearby the door. I asked where my dad and Brayden were as we crept through the house.

“They left,” was all he said.

“What?”

“I know, Tess. I can’t believe they would leave family behind like that either, but I came back for you.”

We stepped over a body in the hallway, and even though they had left me for dead, I was relieved it wasn’t Brayden or Jefferson.

“How did you know to come get me?” I asked, my mind surprisingly clear for the situation.

“Coincidence. I was already planning on taking you with me to the city while everyone was asleep. When I got here, I saw your Dad and… Brayden,” he said my brother’s name as if it tasted bad in his mouth, “running out the front door shooting, and the house was covered in those undead fuckers.”

“Clingers?”

“Is that what you’re calling them?”

“Well that’s what they do, isn’t it?”

“Sure, Tess. Let’s get you out of here,” he said, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me through the front door.

His car was parked in its usual spot at the curb, with the engine running. He led me to the door but didn’t open it for me as he ran to the driver side. I looked back to see that we had just run past a disturbing amount of monsters. I didn’t want to think about what it would have felt like to be embraced by one of them, but eventually I would find out. I locked the car door behind me as a clinger slammed hard against the glass. Coyote floored it and we were out of there. I watched the house get smaller through the back window until we turned off my old street.

That was the last time, until this day, that I had looked at my old house. Now I was standing in the dark kitchen where I had first kissed Daniel, aka Coyote, under the bright halogen lighting. Lidda’s shoulder was pressed against mine, and a man stood at each of our backs. The men reached up and held our arms, I guessed to keep us from killing anyone. I was actually happy they were giving us our due respect. We were two dangerous people, and it felt good not to be underestimated for once, especially by my Dad’s people, when he himself had looked down on me for so long. I just hoped that not everyone we encountered was this smart. It was a lot easier to kill our enemies if they took our girlish forms for granted.

Someone lit a match, and used it to bring a candle to life. The room suddenly seemed crowded with the orange-lit faces of our captors, and two extra faces that hadn’t been with us earlier.

“Hello, Daddy,” I said, “and Big Brother.”