Sacrifice

The darkness is the only reason I'm still alive. 

Slowly, quietly, I pick my way through the backyards of my former neighbors, running along hedgelines and keeping to the shadows.  I have shadows of my own, misty clouds of breath the only sign of their presence behind me as they gasp and struggle for air.  I look over my shoulder at them and see their eyes in the darkness, pits of white terror looking to me for a solution, a plan, a bit of mercy.  I urge them forward with my hand, knowing that stopping will lead us to death as easily as the coming of the dawn.  Our passing leaves a trail of dark red in the wet grass as the blood of people we'll never know slides across the shimmering edges of our crude weaponry.  Weaponry which suited yardwork not eight hours before.

A siren splits the silence from three streets over and we stop as one.  The girl behind me whimpers as I raise my hand and kneel in the cold, extending my neck to look around us.  Across the yard, I see a narrow alley between two houses, both of which are dark and silent.  With a quick glance at my wards, I sprint across the yard and herd them between the presumably empty former homes.  As we move, we step over the torn figure of a man.  One of his legs rests against the bottom step of his wooden porch, the dirt below him slowly soaking up the blood pouring from his broken body.  As we pass, I hear choked sobs from a girl behind me.  Her body convulses as she falls to her knees in the dirt, her shriek cut short by the fat hand of another man behind her, saving us before she's able to give us up to those who would have us join the corpse.  

I look to the end of the alley.  A fire burns in the shattered hulk of a car across the street, sending long shadows flickering in all directions.  The siren is loud, echoing off the brick walls on either side of us as red and blue lights finally slide over the greenery behind us.  The car is moving too fast for these streets, the driver running from hell itself.  As I crane my neck for a better view, the car strikes something and we all jump at the sound of rending metal and splintered glass.  The siren shrieks once, twice and then dies.  The silence which drifts down on us huddled in the cold sets us to shivering.  The gunshot immediately afterwards does nothing to warm us. 


When I hear what comes next, I think at first I must be imagining them.  Feet, dozens of them, slapping against the wet pavement.  Some with shoes on but most barefoot and unmistakably in a rush.  We all look to each other with sudden terror, the panic enough to boil our blood.  A scream sets the kneeling girl to shreiking again and the man with the hand over her mouth looks to me for guidance, looking as if he's seconds from shreiking himself.  

"They know we're close", I whisper.

I run back to the girl and grip her by the shoulders, hauling her to her feet.  I yell at the rest of them, "Go!".  They run towards the street and into the flickering shadows of fire.  

I run along behind them, pulling the girl along with me.  She looks over her shoulder as I urge her on, not wanting this moment to be the last with the dead man left behind.  

As we run along the street, we hear the slapping growing louder behind us, and closer, borne of desperation.  I know what's coming and I know how few options we have.  Ahead of us, the storefronts are broken, glass littered across the street.  The city is dark but the sky is lit with the glow of a hundred fires finally allowed free reign.  

I chance a glance behind us and immediately regret my decision.  The mass of people behind us pound the pavement as they run, many of them bleeding freely from wounds which mar their otherwise normal appearance.  They scream and yell as they run, though none in any language familiar to our ears.  Their hands claw at the cold air in front of them and their eyes, bloodshot, are fixed on us.  

"There!", I point along the side of the street.  An open door beckons, chipped red paint flaking off its thick wooden surface.  I stop at the doorway and urge my group through, pushing the sobbing girl to her knees inside as the horde sprints closer.  The man hesitates to help her up and they stumble up the stairway just inside.  I slam the door closed, placing my shoulder against it just as frenzied hands batter against it.  

I put all my strength into the door and still it moves, shoving my feet up against the bottom step. I panic as fingers curl around the wood and scream for my friends to get upstairs.  With one last burst of strength, I shove the door closed, waiting for the satisfying crunch of broken fingers before jumping back and turning to run up the stairs.  The man who held his hand over her mouth waits at the top, beckoning me through a door he holds just barely open.  I hear the door behind me burst open, an ear-splitting wail sending shivers up my spine.  I'm not fast enough.  My feet come out from under me, more fingers wrapped tightly around my ankle and dragging me backwards.  I look up to see the door above closing.  As it slams shut, I feel teeth at my neck.  The shivers up my spine end.  

I wake up.

Madmen

I race through my grandmother's house, my heart beating furiously in my chest.  Tables are upended, lamps and glassware smashed against the ground.  As I round a corner into the living room, papers flutter silently to a stop and our bookcases kiss the ground, their contents strewn across the trampled rug.  The front door is wide open.  As I run out into the night, I hear their laughs echoing through the darkness back at me.  Their bootheels clicking on the pavement as they run their mad victory run. 

I turn back to the house, closing the door against the cold wind and picking my way carefully around the pieces of broken glass littering the floor.  Other family members are slowly coming down the stairs rubbing sleep from their eyes as they take in the wanton destruction.

I begin to take a headcount as I reassure them. 

"What happened?"
"Who did this?" 

They ask, shivering in the warm house.

I walk into the kitchen, throwing the phone to my brother, urging him to call 911 now.  As the back door lock clicks under my fingers, I look through the window at the wing of the house which shoots out at a right angle from the rest of the building.  I can see the window of the room in which my sister and her two young children sleep.  My mind takes two seconds longer than my eyes to register the dull orange glow bouncing off the pane. 

I run.  Leaping around corners and down the hallway, I burst into the room, throwing the door wide.  The three of them sleep in one big bed.  Finger-like tendrils of smoke curl around from behind the bed as if to pull them all someplace dark and deep, somewhere I cannot get them. 

"Hilary."  I whisper, shaking her shoulder three times.  "Hilary, wake up." 

She opens her eyes, her body jolting at the intrusion.

"Don't worry, but there's a fire."  I tell her, already leaning over to scoop her baby into my arms.  With the urgency only a mother can exercise, she wakes up her groggy little girl, their fingers curling together as she leads her out of the darkness, into the light of the hallway.  I follow them, baby in arms. 

Everyone stands by the door, unafraid of the night's chill even with fuzzy slippers and sleep-warmed pajamas their only cover.  I hurry them outside, passing the baby into the arms of my blood before doubling back into the house. 

Under the bed, two orange eyes spark at me, hissing at my intervention.  Every electrical appliance this side of the house piled in the center of the room and plugged into a single cord, running directly under the bed and minutes away from overload.  I yank the cord and look up, blue and red lights already filling the darkness outside.


I wake up.