to his ankles. The creature slammed Victor’s head up against the glass door and inserted its penis into him. A high pitched scream exploded out of Victor’s mouth as the monster thrust himself further into him. Victor flailed his arms, trying to escape its grip.
Kyle looked into the man’s face. It was Chet, their new companion. A large grin was plastered across his face. Victor continued to scream in a high pitched, deafening cry.
“Save him, Kyle. Wake up,” Mary said.
Kyle continued to pull on the sliding door, but it still wouldn’t open. He searched the area for anything to break the glass with. He lifted one of the chairs above his head and heaved it toward the door. It bounced off with no effect.
“Wake up, Kyle. Wake up,” Mary whispered.
Victor looked through the glass at Kyle. Tears built up in his eyes then came running down his face. “Help me, Daddy,” he said in Eddie’s voice.
Enraged, Kyle shrieked into the air like a wild medieval warrior in the heat of battle. He ran full force toward the door and braced himself for the impact. The glass door shattered into a thousand pieces as his body caved through. He felt the shards of glass scrape against his skin as they made invisible slices on his face, neck and shoulders. The entire world when black for a moment, and then Kyle’s eyes strained open.
Chapter Thirteen
The dream left Kyle with a combination of anger and fear. He didn’t know what to make of it, nor did he know if he was still dreaming. He remained on the ground with his eyes half open, staring up at the ceiling. Slowly he closed them again, but he did not fall into another deep sleep. He sensed something was wrong and he needed to fully awaken. The noises of wood cracking in the fire and rain pouring down outside were prominent in the room. But there was another noise, something that Kyle couldn’t understand.
Kyle slowly sat up, his eyes half open, and the undistinguishable noise grew louder. It was the sound of weeping. Kyle’s stomach was sore, as if he’d been doing a thousand crunches the night before. He rubbed his abdomen softly, taking in a few deep breaths while the lamenting noise continued to grow louder. He looked around the area, but was unable to see anyone.
“Victor?” Kyle muttered, disoriented. “Chet? Where … where are you guys?”
He shook off some of his fatigue and stood, nearly tripping over his own feet. He grabbed on to the nearby counter for support. Again the crying sound continued. It was coming from the other room. Kyle searched the area where he lay for his weapons. They were gone. His Winchester shotgun, the Glock and most importantly, Eddie’s robot backpack: all gone.
Kyle’s anger and fear quickly turned into worry and anxiety. He looked into the metal can that they used as a fire pit, the blaze was almost out, but orange embers still flew into the air. The crying continued.
“Victor? Where are you?” he asked in the loudest voice he could muster. There was no reply, just more weeping. Kyle started regretting taking the pill Chet had given him. His head pounded and every nerve and desire in his body was telling him to go back to sleep. He needed to do something that would completely take the weariness away and let him take control of his body again. He looked at the fire again with one eye exposed and the other struggling to open.
The orange glow sparkled in his eye. Without much thought about how this act would affect him later, he reached down with his left hand and shoved it into the inferno.
A violent shockwave of pain and heat shot through his body, instantly taking away any fatigue or soreness he had. Sweat immediately began to build up on his forehead and above his upper lip. He snapped back his head as if he were looking to the sky and, with as much force and power that it could have shaken the walls, he screamed. He yanked his hand out of the scorching ashes and yelled again, this time louder than before.
The whole experience lasted only a second, and the damage done to his hand was nothing more than a minor burn. After all, Kyle was a welder and being burned at high temperatures was part of the job.
All of Kyle’s thoughts rushed into his head and besides the pain, he was fully awake and thinking clearly. He unhooked the front door from the chain—for some reason it was no longer open—and ran outside, quickly dunking his hand into the nearest puddle he could find. Once his hand cooled, he retracted it and turned it into a fist. The calluses on his hands really helped absorbed the burn.
Kyle turned to face the entrance to the post office when he heard another faint cry.
“Victor!” he yelled, and ran through the door.
Turning right immediately after entering, Kyle entered into the front desk area. The smell of blood and feces dominated the little room. He looked around the lobby area, but no one was in sight.
“Victor! Where are you?” Kyle called out.
Kyle felt tightness in his throat and chest. He could hear Victor groaning and crying, but he couldn’t find him. Kyle jumped onto the counter so he could peer to the other side. There was no one in sight.
A lightning flash illuminated the room for a split second, giving Kyle enough time to see Victor’s head poking from around the corner.
“Victor!” Kyle yelled as he rolled to the other side of the counter and landed on his feet. He had forgotten about the dead postal worker they had destroyed earlier. Nearly slipping on the blood, Kyle began to make his way toward Victor.
Another flash lit up the room as he turned the corner. This time he got a better look at Victor’s condition. The boy was bent over an overturned chair with his hands bound around its legs. His face was severely bruised around the cheeks and his eyes were so puffy and swollen that Kyle didn’t think he could see.
“Holy shit,” Kyle said as he quickly began to loosen the rope tied around Victor’s mouth like a makeshift gag. “What the fuck hap …”
Kyle suddenly stopped moving. After loosening the ropes, Kyle noticed that Victor’s pants and underwear were missing. His rear-end pointed to the sky as if welcoming someone to have their way with it.
A tear ran down Kyle’s face as he quickly realized that his dream had been trying to tell him what was happening. The screams and cries for help he heard in his dreams had been real, they had to have been. The proof was in front of him. Victor lay strapped to a chair, bare-assed, with blood slowly leaking out and landing on the ground around him.
“Chet … Chet … Chet …” Victor slowly breathed as more tears began to run down his face.
Every bit of anger that Kyle had felt throughout his life was nowhere near the amount of anger he felt at that second. For the first time in his life, Kyle saw red glaze over his vision. He finished untying Victor, and then clutched his hand into a fist as he slowly stood from his kneeling position.
“Where did Chet go?” Kyle asked, hoping that Victor had enough in him to at least guide Kyle in the right direction.
“Stole weapons, stole keys, stole truck … stole … me.” Victor breathed through tears and whimpers.
Thoughts about where Chet could have run off to were quickly racing through Kyle’s head. The most logical answer was that Chet stole their supplies and the truck so he could either make it back to his car and fix it or load his supplies into the truck and continue on his way. But this was all in the hopes that he’d been telling them the truth.
“Stay here,” Kyle ordered, slowly helping Victor off the chair and laying him, stomach-first onto the floor.
“It hurts … it really hurts,” Victor said as he motioned his arm to his rear-end.
They didn’t have any real painkillers, only a few aspirin and Ibuprofen Kyle had kept in his pocket, but those wouldn’t be too effective on pain like this. Besides, the pills had been soaked along with Kyle’s clothes and were probably completely useless by now. Kyle knew Victor was in tremendous pain. With the amount of blood and feces on the ground he could only imagine how much of a terrible experience it was for Victor. Kyle decided to do something for the kid, something that would take the pain away, at least temporarily. He knelt down to face him. Victor slowly turned his head to see Kyle. All he could see through the puffiness of his eyes was Kyle’s massive fist flying toward his face.
Kyle put so much force into the punch that it quickly, and with as little pain as possible, knocked the boy unconscious. Victor’s body fell limp. Kyle maneuvered the boy’s face to the side and elevated it to open his airways. Using the curtains that draped over openings on the walls, Kyle covered Victor, for safety and decency.
The red in his vision had not gone away, nor did he want it to. He felt the adrenaline course through his body,
