Tamara.
Fannie Mae was trying to drag me down the hallway, bypassing the next bedroom completely, heading straight for the front door. I reached out with my hand and gripped the doorframe of the other bedroom tightly, jerking us both to a shuddering stop.
She didn’t notice that we were no longer moving.
I felt like a wishbone, being tugged between her and my own hand on the doorway. I finally reached deep within me and found my voice.
“Fannie Mae. Stop.” She didn’t listen to me. Just tugged relentlessly. I returned her grip, tightening my hand on her own, and pulled gently backwards. Raised my voice a touch and said, “Fannie Mae!”
She looked back at me. Tears glistened down her cheeks. She was sobbing silently. It was only then that I realized that my cheeks were wet as well. I’d been crying this whole time.
“Let’s go, Duke. We need to get out of here.”
I shook my head. “We have to see about Tamara. This has to be her bedroom.”
She shook her head back at me vehemently. “No, Duke. If she was okay she’d be gone or out here already. We don’t want to see what’s in there.”
I jerked my hand out of hers and she opened her mouth in pain. “
She didn’t say anything as I went through that darkened doorway.
Tamara could have been sleeping. She looked so peaceful. It was only if you looked closer that you could see a huge hunk of flesh was missing from the leg that was casually tossed out from under the covers. A bite had been taken from her thigh like she was a piece of chicken dinner. Her lips had been savagely ripped off, leaving her face bloody and caked in filth. As if someone had kissed her and then bit down and taken everything off with one savage rip. One arm dangled from the bed, fingertips grazing the floor.
I collapsed to my knees, feeling a rush of emptiness fill my brain. Circuits and synapses were misfiring and shutting down. My eyes were dilating and it was like I was seeing everything from a million miles away. I could feel my breath coming in huge gasps of air. It was all like it was happening to someone else.
Then a huge slap across the back of my head brought me back to myself. The pain brought a grunt from me and I could feel my face burning with the ache of it. I looked at Fannie Mae. She was nursing her hand.
“Had enough?”
I nodded, not able to say the words. She held her hurt hand to me and whispered softly, “Please, Dukey, let’s go.”
I nodded again and wobbled to my feet, not even registering the pain in my thigh. Fannie Mae took my hand and led us from the trailer. I unthinkingly closed and latched the front door behind me. We stumbled slowly through the Acres back to my home, using the flashlight to search every nook, cranny and shadow for Mason. He was nowhere to be found, thankfully.
Neither of us noticed the drumbeat in Tamara’s room as her fingers began twitching and rapping a staccato rhythm on the floor.
7.
It felt like we ran across the Acres for an eternity or two. Every shadow looked like Mason reaching out to grab us. Every sound or brittle crunch of the gravel sounded like the shambling footstep of the dead. What’s the shambling footstep of the dead sound like, you ask?
Scary as all hell.
I wanted to beat on the door like hell had broken loose to get Barrett to let us in but my guess was that if he heard someone beating on the door like that that he’d go hide under the bed or something. There was a deep itch between my shoulder blades and I could just feel the darkness looking at me.
So I calmly knocked on the door and whispered to Barrett to let us in. The back of my trailer was on the edge of the park and beyond the border lay a few acres or so of deep woods filled with wild Roses (“Rosie Acres,” get it?). They were spooky at the best of times and this wasn’t really the best of times.
He opened the door an inch or so to make sure we were alone and then I yanked the door the rest of the way open and ran into the trailer, pushing him out of the way and dragging Fannie Mae behind me. The look on his face was grim in the flickering light of the candles strewn throughout the front room. Apparently he’d been digging in the kitchen. Too bad he hadn’t gone back into the bedroom for the lantern we kept back there.
He began to speak but I waved him off, turning around and locking the door. I threw the dead bolt and still didn’t feel safe. If mom wasn’t still passed out on the couch I would have dragged it over to barricade the door. I was still considering it with a critical eye when Barrett finally put his hand on my shoulder and whipped me around.
“What happened? What’s going on?”
Fannie Mae collapsed to the floor, leaning her back against the couch. She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them, burying her face in them. Her shoulders shook with sobs. I ignored Barrett and went into the kitchen, slamming drawers open and closed as I looked for anything that could be used as a weapon.
Barrett followed me, asking repeatedly what had happened. I finally stopped with my hand in the silverware drawer, cupping a butcher knife in my palm.
“They’re all dead,” I said. “Tamara and her family. All dead.”
“What?” Barrett asked, confused. “How can they be dead?”
Fannie Mae’s voice carried to us from the front room. She spoke in a quiet voice but every word was crystal clear. “Butchered. Eaten. They were torn apart, Barrett.”
