Past The Patch

“You killed him!”

Brenda looked at Mrs. Mears and then back at Lomax. “Nah, he’s still breathing. He—“

A stabbing pain flared in her left thigh and she looked down. A number two pencil was sticking out of her leg and her blue jeans were turning purple as they soaked up her own blood. Gary was standing at her side, defiant.

“You little cocksucker!”

Brenda backhanded Gary and he fell to the floor crying. Lyle took a step forward and Brenda stood and kicked him in the gut. He fell on his side and vomited on the floor. Shae tried to stand up and Marisa grabbed her by the hair and threw her back down to the floor.

“Stop it,” Lomax said. He wanted it to come out in a roar. Instead it was a pathetic wheeze. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Eddy is coming.”

Brenda pulled the pencil out of her thigh and said, “Fuck Eddy,” and then raised the gun when she heard a metallic squeal, the clatter of wood, and a long, wavering scream from Patty at the back of the house.

“Marisa,” Brenda said, easing herself into the chair again. “Go see what the fuck Patty’s doing back there.”

“Okay,” Marisa said. She didn’t sound as sure of herself as she had earlier. Holding her switchblade in one hand, she crept down the hall.

In the half light from the kitchen she saw Patty huddled by the back door. The door was open. The exterior screen door had been torn from its hinges and was lying on the porch. Patty was making shivery, gabbling noises as she hunkered down the dark.

“Patty, what the fuck are you doin, bitch?” Marisa grabbed Patty’s shoulder and shook her, and pulled her to her feet, and when Patty turned around it was Marisa’s turn to scream.

At the front door, Liz saw the doorknob turning. She pulled the door open, thinking the sooner she grabbed this ten year old boy and had everyone accounted for, the sooner they would be done and out of here, and she dearly wanted out of here.

She only had a moment to register something orange coming at her and then the carved pumpkin from the porch struck her on one hip and burst open.

She shouted, “You little brat!” and stepped onto the front porch just as someone, some thing, leaped up the stairs and came at her, teeth bared, jaws wide.

Marisa ran into the kitchen screaming, “Her face, her face, something took her face,” and before Brenda could even begin to calm her, Liz appeared and took one last unsteady step through the kitchen doorway.

Rhythmic jets of blood sprayed from Liz’s ravaged throat and her last breaths were released as small and wrenchingly sad piping sounds, like a breeze blowing on a broken reed. Liz dropped dead onto the kitchen floor, and Marisa screamed again.

Brenda looked at the children, and Mrs. Mears, and Lomax. They weren’t screaming now. The younger children were grinning. The half-breed with the scar on her lip looked triumphant. Mrs. Mears head hung down, and she might have been whispering a prayer. Lomax said, “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Bullshit,” Brenda said, standing. “This is bullshit and if you think I’m going to be scared—“

Something darted by the door to the TV room. Brenda fired a shot at a blur, naked flesh, shaggy hair, and then the mask of a woman’s face, it had to be a mask, slapped the floor at Brenda’s feet.

There was movement in the hall doorway again. Brenda turned and shot at it with a barking laugh and saw a thing without a face, a thing wearing Patty’s blood-soaked clothes. It staggered and fall against one wall.

Marisa said one more word, “No,” and then ran out into the hall. She was crying as she pulled the car keys from Patty’s pocket, hearing guttural, barking laughter from outside the front door. She ran down the hall in the opposite direction and jumped off the back porch. She almost made it to the side of the house when she felt twin flares of pain in her ankles and fell hard, her Achilles’ tendons slashed in two. She began to crawl, only realizing that her pants and panties were ripped away when she felt the cold night air on her skin. There was another burst of pain from one cheek of her ass and she rolled onto her side to see a slender, shaggy-haired shape outlined by the light from inside the house. The thing was holding her buttock in both hands and biting into it and chewing. Marisa was still convinced she could crawl around the house to the car as slender, boyish hands twisted her head with incredible strength, shattering the bones of her neck.

Brenda stepped onto the back porch and saw the thing, whatever it was, let go of Marisa. Her nina’s head lolled loosely. Brenda fired a shot and was sure she hit it, but the thing leaped to one side, out of the light. She saw a dark blur and fired again and again, until pulling the trigger produced nothing but a dry click. She threw the gun away.

“Fuck this, she said. She went back into the kitchen, took a big knife from the dish drainer by the sink and then grabbed the smallest kid, that little fuck Gary, and dragged him out onto the back porch. “I don’t know what the fuck you are,” she shouted, standing tall, her fear giving way to confidence,

“but I’m walking outta here in one piece or this kid—“ The old boards of the porch exploded between her feet and a shaggy head shot up. Brenda saw red eyes above a narrow muzzle and jaws gaping wide. Sharp teeth clamped shut on her crotch and she dropped the knife, letting go of Gary as those teeth sank deep, tearing denim and flesh. The head twisted back and forth, pulling at a meaty plug of skin and muscle and ripping away her very center. A torrent of blood spilled out of her and she felt light-headed.

Brenda took a step, her face as white as the moon, and then she fell down the porch steps, the last of her blood rushing out of her as the shaggy-haired thing stood over her and sniffed at her in curiosity.

Lomax felt relief when Gary ran into the kitchen, running right into Shae’s open arms.

Eddy padded into the room a moment later. He was covered in blood and pawing at a wound on one arm.

Lomax saw a gleam of light on metal and realized Eddy was holding the key to the handcuffs. Eddy licked one of Mrs. Mears’ hands, and then gently set his head in Lomax’s lap.

“Daddy,” Eddy said

“Good boy,” Lomax said, scratching behind one of Eddy’s ears and realizing they had one hell of a cleanup job ahead. “That’s a good boy.” INFECTED, YELLOWING MOMENTS

Brian Fatah Steele

Brian Fatah Steele, a member of the indie author co-op Dark Red Press, describes the majority of his work as 'Epic Horror with lots of Explosions.' Along with having written multiple books, his articles and stories have appeared in various e-magazines and online journals. Steele lives in Ohio with a few cats that are probably plotting his doom. Surviving on a diet primarily of coffee and cigarettes, he occasionally dabbles in Visual Arts and Music Production. He still hopes to one day become a Super Villain.

***

Sometimes our daily lives take a turn we wouldn’t usually expect. It’s no one’s fault, there’s nobody to blame, and that makes us all the more mad.

We like to think we’re in control, and in fact, have deluded ourselves into believing we’re the masters of our little corner of the universe. It’s quite shocking when we realize we’re nothing more than passengers, and even more brutal the surprise when we discover our trivial desires are of little consequence.

Every moment of our lives we are manipulated by forces far greater than ourselves. We are held sway by higher concepts, but rarely do we fight our imprisonment. We don’t like to admit we are bombarded by these external powers and held fast by them, don’t like to think about it, for it would call our own fragile identities into question. False excuses and even weaker justifications are given to make sense of the lunacy we routinely experience. In all honesty, we are raw things, quite malleable, and out there beyond our safe bubbles of contentment, are players that would see us fashioned into their own toys. Arguments can be made that we live in a