John Lombardo was sitting on the back deck of his home at three A.M. watching the fireflies when he saw the animal. He couldn’t sleep, so he’d wandered downstairs and watched infomercials for a little bit, then headed out to the deck to smoke a cigarette. Barbara couldn’t stand the smell of cigarette smoke in the house, so he had to feed his nicotine habit outside. Can’t say he blamed her. Their three thousand five hundred square foot home was not only immaculate, it still had that new house smell despite their ten year residence. Barbara hated it when he smoked around the kids, too. Can’t say he blamed her for that, either. Their oldest son, Mike, had just turned twenty-one, and while he still lived at home, he had not picked up John’s nasty smoking habit. Their middle child, Mary was thirteen now, and Billy was three years younger, and both were at the age where their parent’s habits, including the bad ones, would influence the habits and traits they would carry for the rest of their lives.
John took a step forward, peering into the gloom of the yard. He’d initially been surprised, figuring it was a possum or something. Now he wasn’t so sure.
The thing was hobbling funny, like it was hurt. John was pretty sure it was a possum judging by its overall appearance. He took a step back. If it was hurt it might be aggressive.
As the animal came within the light of the porch John saw that it
…or used to be a possum.
John gasped and backed up against the closed screen door. The possum looked up at him with a face that was devoid of much of its flesh. Maggots writhed in its eye sockets. Its fur was dull and appeared in rough patches on its brittle skin. John saw portions of its skeleton peek through the rotting tatters of its flesh.
“My God,” John muttered and that’s when the thing launched itself at him.
It covered the ten feet from the edge of the porch to the screen door quickly. John scrambled to get the screen door open and yelled as the thing landed on the back of his right leg. He felt its claws dig into the bare skin and he screamed as he felt its teeth sink into flesh.
John scrambled to get the thing off him, swinging his arms behind him, trying to knock it off, but it climbed his leg, seeking purchase with those sharp little claws. John was yelling now, hoping Barbara would hear him, but the thing was so goddamn fast, and his mind was still reeling at the unbelievability of it all that when it launched itself at his throat he was too slow in his reflexes to deflect its fatal bite.
The last thing John thought as he fell against the screen door, his jugular spurting blood as it ground its jaws into his throat, was that he hoped Barbara had been woken by his screams and would get herself and the kids out of the house.
Mary Lombardo was a light sleeper, so when her dad’s screams woke her up she looked out her bedroom window that overlooked the back yard.
The porch light was on, but she couldn’t see beyond the brief expanse of yard due to the canvas that covered the porch in the summer. There was a rustling noise down there, as if somebody was falling against the screen door, and then another sound, like a grunt, and then nothing.
Mary looked out the window, trying to see if there was movement below. Was Dad outside? Sometimes he liked to sit on the back deck and smoke, but it was pretty late — after three A.M., according to the digital numerals on her clock radio. Dad had to go to work in four hours. He worked some kind of office job in Lancaster. Surely he wouldn’t be outside
Mary got out of bed and exited her bedroom. The hallway was silent and dark. Bill’s room was next to hers, the door closed. She didn’t hear anything from Bill’s room. What used to be Mike’s room had been converted to a guest bedroom — Mike had converted the living space in the basement as a bachelor pad where he lived and worked on those weird low budget horror movies he liked to produce. Mary padded down the hall toward her parent’s room. She pushed the door open softly and tip-toed inside.
Mom lay in deep sleep on the king-sized bed, her back facing the door. Dad was absent from his side of the bed.
Concerned that Dad was hurt, Mary exited her parent’s bedroom and entered the landing, which served as a kind of bridge across the entryway and great room of the house. She stood at the railing overlooking the great room, trying to look out the large floor to ceiling plate glass windows that looked out to the back deck. “Dad?” She called out. “You okay?”
There was a sound from the screen door. A rustling noise. She instantly became worried. “Dad?”
The screen door opened and she saw her dad shuffle in the house. He looked beat. Mary sighed in relief. “Dad! You okay?”
Dad looked up at Mary, who drew in a sudden intake of breath.
The entire right side of Dad’s body was drenched with blood. He looked up at her with wide eyes, his face pale. He mouthed her name.
“Mom!” Mary yelled. “Mom, Dad’s hurt!” Mary darted back down the hall to her mother’s room to get her up, so she wasn’t aware of her father as he made his way up the stairs, his dead eyes wide open and unblinking as he was guided to the warm, living flesh of his family.
Living at home had its disadvantages, but one of the perks was not having to get a career-minded job while he worked at trying to build his low budget film production company from the ground up.
Mike Lombardo was in his basement living room/office, sitting at his desk performing the final edits on his horror film
Bob was sacked out on the sofa, snoring softly. Milano was sitting next to him, glassy-eyed. He shifted his stocky frame in the chair and Mike could tell he wanted nothing more than to crash. Bob just didn’t give a shit; he could sleep anywhere, at any time, and had done so accordingly.
“Just one more scene,” Mike said. He was wearing a black T-shirt with the Dr. Chud character on the front. Dr. Chud was going to be a recurring character for future films, and Bob was the perfect actor to portray him. He was a little guy, for one thing. The Dr. Chud character was written to be slight in stature, and Bob fit the bill perfectly. And despite the fact that Bob was a horrible actor, when he donned the gas mask it transformed him — he was actually a good actor when he was in costume. Maybe it was because his inhibitions were down and he could actually let loose and play the character. Whatever the case, Mike had been forced to rewrite his screenplay to remove Bob’s dialogue from much of the film, since he was such a horrible actor. Restructuring the screenplay had allowed him and Milano to build Dr. Chud’s backstory in a different way but the end result still worked. When you operated on a budget of less than a few thousand dollars, you had to work with what you had. That meant relying on your friends to play pivotal roles in your films, even if they couldn’t act.
Milano cocked his head toward the ceiling. “Sounds like the rest of your family is up now.”
“Huh?” Mike said. He had multiple files open in Adobe Premiere.
“Your family,” Milano said. He yawned again, took off his glasses and began polishing the lenses with his T- shirt. “Your dad was outside yelling about something, then he came in the house. Then Mary started yelling about something. I figured they were arguing.”
That stopped Mike cold. He looked at Milano. “Mary never argues with my parents.”
“I know. That’s why I thought it was weird.”
“I haven’t heard anything.”
“You’ve been too focused on trying to finish this.” Milano gestured at the PC. “Seriously man, it’s late, and we’ve been at this for over twelve hours. Let’s call it a night and — ”
The door to the basement opened and they turned toward the sound. Mike immediately moved to save the last edit. Milano scooted out of the way and Mike could hear the fumbling footsteps of several people trumping down the stairs. Probably both his parents wanting to talk to him about Mary. What the hell was going on?
Milano’s scream came just as Mike caught his first glimpse of what had entered his basement digs, and he
