He looked around the room, and felt his heart skip a beat.
The dead were strewn about everywhere, and a large cloud of flies buzzed about, hopping from one bloody treat to the next.
Most of them looked deformed. Felix wondered if he should start searching corpses. Then he had something more pressing to deal with.
The harelipped man jogged down the stairs, running right at him. Felix backpedalled, but Harry was too fast. His huge hands wrapped around Felix’s throat, completely encircling it. Harry giggled, spit and snot dripping through the split in his face, and then began to squeeze.
Felix instantly saw stars. He swatted ineffectively at Harry’s face, then made a half-hearted attempt to scratch at the giant’s eyes. Harry began to shake him, and Felix felt the edges of his vision begin to dim.
But he had no weapons. The only thing he had on him was his cell phone. The phone he’d carried with him every day since Maria disappeared. The phone with her last text message to him on it, that he’d read over a thousand times.
Felix fumbled for his ripped pocket, digging out the phone with his thumb and pinky.
Then he shoved it right down the massive hole in Harry’s face. Felix pushed past his squirming tongue, fitting his whole hand inside the split palate, jamming the phone into Harry’s throat.
Harry’s reaction was instant. He dropped Felix and clawed at his own face, digging his fingers into his mouth. But his fingers were too large, and the phone was down too deep.
Felix picked himself up off the floor than stared up at Harry as his face turned red enough to match his eyes.
And then Felix saw something else. Something above Harry. A woman, hanging from the railing up on the third floor, her feet dangling down.
Felix ran around Harry as the giant keeled over, ignoring all of the pain in his body, bounding up the stairs with energy driven by love, flying up the first flight, the second flight, desperate to reach her before she fell.
“Sorry, lover boy. Y’all don’t get to be the hero.”
Felix stared at Eleanor. Stared at the shotgun in her hands.
The sound was thunderous.
The shot slammed Felix into the wall.
For a moment, he felt a stabbing, white-hot pain.
Then he didn’t feel anything at all.
# # #
Millard dropped his overalls to his ankles, revealing a pair of filthy tighty-whities. His head was leaking blood like a sieve, but it didn’t stop him from smiling. He tugged a packet out of his breast pocket and dusted powder all over his face, making him look like a ghost.
Letti’s broken arm hurt like crazy, but she wasn’t thinking about herself. She was thinking about Kelly. And Mom.
Millard spat out pink clumps of styptic.
“You like eatin’ dirt before, whore? Maybe I give you a bit more to snack on.”
Millard bent down, reaching for the earth, and then he doubled over in a blur of blood and fur.
The German Shepherd locked his jaws right between Millard’s legs, shaking his muzzle back and forth, trying to rip his manhood free.
Two tugs later, the dog did.
Millard rolled around on the ground, holding his crotch with both hands, swearing and moaning. JD went for his throat, but Letti called him back.
“JD, sit! I got this one.”
It took Letti a minute to find a suitable rock. Big enough to do the job, but not so big she couldn’t lift it one- handed. Once she made her selection, she stood over Millard, whose red eyes were as wide as dinner plates.
“Eat dirt?” Letti asked. “Eat this.”
She smashed the rock down onto Millard’s screaming face. Over and over and over.
After the tenth or eleventh blow, his head split like a cleaved watermelon.
Letti dropped the bloody rock and spat on his corpse.
JD limped over to her. She could see a gash in his leg. It looked pretty ugly, but Letti vowed right there to get him the best vet in the country.
“Good dog,” Letti said, patting his head. “You are one really good dog.
He wagged his tail and licked her face. Then his ears pricked up, and he bounded off into the woods.
“JD!” she yelled.
“Mom!”
Letti hurried after the dog, and found him running circles around her daughter. Kelly hurried over to Letti, embracing her, and Letti hugged her back despite her broken arm. Love was the best pain reliever in the world.
“I followed your footsteps, Mom! That’s how I found you!”
“I love you, Kelly. I love you so, so much.”
Kelly buried her face in Letti’s neck. “I love you too, Mom. Where’s Grandma?”
Letti gripped her daughter tighter. “Grandma didn’t make it, honey.”
Kelly pulled away. She looked older. Much older. And Letti saw a glimpse of what her mother told her. Of the amazing woman Kelly would grow up to become.
“She saved me, Mom,” Kelly said. “Grandma saved my life.”
Letti blinked back the tears. Tears of pain. Tears of loss. But mostly, tears of pride. Pride in her daughter, and pride in her mother.
“She saved us all, baby. Your Grandma saved us all.”
# # #
Hanging from the banister, Maria heard the shotgun blast. And she knew whom Eleanor had shot.
The anger in Maria took over, like a monster invaded her body. It worked into every pore, every cell, filling her with such all-encompassing rage that Maria felt like she could put her fist through a brick wall.
Maria hooked a leg up on the bottom of the railing, pulling herself onto the third floor. Eleanor swung the gun around, but Maria was already running at her, the chain wrapped tight around her fist.
She punched Eleanor in the nose again, doing even more damage this time. Eleanor moaned, and Maria tore the double barrel shotgun from the old woman’s hands. She aimed at the bitch’s diseased head and pulled both triggers.
