Fenrir's Fangs

Chapter 3
Sky of Ash
Leaving Home


I slowed to a walk as the house came into view through the haze and darkness. It loomed over me with cold empty windows that, with my mind as **** as it was, reminded me of a fuming zombie, the door, gaping and jagged in the darkness seemed as if it were a mouth, ready to swallow me whole. I came to the door with a shudder, ’oh yeah…it’s boarded.’ I thought to myself with a shake of my head as I walked to the window that we left through. I pulled the key from my pocket and grabbed the cold padlock, unlocking it with a twist of the key and I slipped inside. “Baby?” I inquired into the blackness of the house.
No answer came.
I began to search the house systematically, room-by-room I hunted for her, but no signs of life in that dank place. “Goddamnit!’ I yelled in defiance of fate as I pounded my fist on the wall.’ where is she?!’ I thought to myself frantically as I paced the hallway, boots thumping hard against wooden floor as the boards creaked , creating a rhythm that echoed throughout my mind.

“I can’t continue to look for her tonight.” I spoke to the empty air in front of me. Running my hands through my hair, I began to walk towards our room. I came to the door and was loathe to open it, ‘what will I do if she isn’t in here?’ I asked myself as I reached for the knob. Tears welled up in my eyes because I knew that she would have come out by now, meaning that she isn’t here. My hand dropped mere inches away from the knob and my head sank to my chest and my arms went limp. The tears began to flow as I sank against the wall and slid to the floor. “what if she’s dead?” I asked myself through choked sobbing.

I clenched my jaw and rubbed my eyes, now wasn’t the time for this, and I knew it. I rose from the floor and realized how exhausted I was. ‘ I need to sleep.’ I thought to myself as I reached for the knob again. I turned the knob and walked in, it felt so empty without her here. I shrugged the USAS off of my shoulder and felt where the lanyard had been sitting, it had created a callused line in my shoulder where it had sat for so long over the past years. I brought the trench knife out of from behind my belt and surveyed it for a minute before putting it down. I didn’t bother to take my clothes off before falling into bed. As little as I wanted to sleep, I had no choice and within seconds I was sound asleep.

Blood ran down her face as I watched, helpless and scared, she called to me as she died, and I could do nothing my body frozen, my mind betrayed me. They began to dismember her without mercy, eating her flesh and I still couldn’t move. Her eyes began to empty slowly as the look of sadness in her eyes faded, her cries fading into low whines of pain. I sank to my knees as she died, the world around me fading into gray blurs, except for those corpses and her, clear as day. They rose from her corpse and began to come for me, and I began to cry, my breath escaping my lungs in short, strained sobs. They fell upon me with unforgiving hunger…..

“AHHHH aha ah…” I screamed as I sat bolt upright, beads of freezing sweat rolled down my forehead, my shirt soaked in salty, cold liquid. I rubbed my face dry as I rolled my legs out of the bed. The clock read seven fifteen AM. I looked in the dusty mirror across from my twin bed and gazed at myself with glazed eyes, my hair disheveled and my eyes sagged from stress. I straightened my hair with a swipe of my hand as I ambled down the stairs into the living room.. Nothing different, and she wasn’t there. I did a systematic search once again just to make sure, only to find, once again, nothing.

I felt like crying again when I heard moaning from outside, faint: but still there, and it wasn’t just one, there were quite a few of them. I snuck back up the stairs slowly and carefully, so as to not alert them to my presence. I slowly shouldered the door open and grabbed my USAS and trench knife. Strapping the belt to myself, I bolstered my confidence as I tip toed to the foot of the stairs and sat, shotgun white knuckled and my breathing bated, waiting for them to either come in or continue on their brainless search for food.

An hour passed and the moaning had grown stronger, and I still sat as I had been. ‘ they are close now, I can’t lower my guard just yet.’ I thought to myself as I crept to the window and looked out the crack, at least fifty of the red bustards cavorted outside in the cul-de-sac, why they were here was beyond me, but they weren’t leaving and more of them passed them by the cul-de-sac in search of fare. It reminded me of an overflow dip in the side of a dirt road, they swirled around while the rest passed by, unhindered by the dip in their path.

“****.” I whispered as I sat down under the window with a grimace. ‘ Maybe they followed me, or they followed my scent? What the ****… I’m totally screwed if I don’t think up a plan.’ I pondered this dilemma until a loud thump broke my concentration. It happened again, but this time louder and the fridge in front of the front door shook. “Mother-****.” I whispered as I stood and sidled across the wall towards the door and listened. At least two of them were outside, and they seemed frustrated.

I snuck up the stairs once again and went to the bedroom. Through the dusty window pane I watched as the two at the door shambled away slowly. I rested my hand on the window and sighed, leaning forward slightly in relief and as I did my USAS swung forward on it’s lanyard and tapped the window. “ Oh ****..” I said as the horde stopped in unison and turned. “ Oh hell.” I breathed in a low voice as I backed away.

The ground shook as the pack made it’s sprinting advance at the house. The ululating sound of them pounding on the entire front of the house reverberated in my heads as I ran down the stairs and slammed into the fridge in defiance. Each blow knocked the fridge into me with insane force and it continuously broke my footing. Holding the fridge was not going to work much longer for the fact that the walls were beginning to crack and splinter. The first arm began to come through the wall as I shoulder the fridge and leaned against it, raising my shotgun toward the arm three feet in front of me, I squeezed the trigger and watched as the arm exploded into a rain of gore. The sound of the gunshot augmented their hunger and the next blow sent me flying, and crashing the fridge to the floor five feet in front of the door.

As I hit the wall I felt my shoulder dislocate again. I screeched in pain as I hit the floor with a sickening thump, my arm dangled at a precarious angle and so I rearticulated it with another shriek. As I began to stand the door gave way and exploded. Shards of wood flew as the crimson demon sprinted right for me, his moaning became a heated roar as he reached for me. I shouldered my shotgun once again and squeezed the trigger with my teeth grated in bloodlust. The creature opened it’s mouth just in time to catch the round, brains and spinal column sprayed the ensuing horde as the corpse fell to the floor and I ran.
I hit the back door like a shot and clawed the boards off. The onslaught poured through the door way, tearing the paneling off like paper, I only had a few seconds to get through, and just in time I slipped out the small opening that I had created. As I sprinted out the door my pant leg caught on a nail and I crashed to ground, my shotgun sliding beyond my reach. “****!” I yelled as I jerked my laid in an attempt to free myself. I felt a large hand grip my foot with sickening force and yank, slamming me into the door frame. I raised up off of the ground and dangled as I felt more hands grab my leg and foot. The USAS lay tantalizingly close to my fingertips, but it was just too far away. The sudden pain of a chunk of my leg being ripped out brought me back to the problem at had as I kicked with all the strength I could muster and finally I kicked free and fell to the dirt.

The boards began to splinter and I knew I did not have much time to get away. I shot to my feet only to realize that the bite had taken tendons and muscle tissue with it, leaving my leg nearly useless. I held my thigh with one hand and reached down for my shotgun, and as I did a few of the boards shattered like glass, throwing chunks of wood onto my back, and I shambled faster towards the street at the other end of the alley.

As I neared the end of the street I could hear the boards shatter, and the horde howled into the blackened sky as the continued their hunt. As I saw the first red come out of the yard I opened the wooden gate and hid up against the fence of some poor guys backyard. It looked as if they had ran out here to get away from the corpses that were surely following them, a woman, from what I could tell she was around twenty five, and a younger man that wasn’t recognizable save for his body structure. They had been mutilated to the point that they could not reanimate, his legs had been dragged back into the house, evident by the blood trail running from his carcass and up the back steps. Their clothes were shreds and chunks were missing in more places than I could count on both hands and feet.

I stared at the cadavers, completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing in a puddle of my own blood. I collapsed to the dirt once again, but this time I didn’t think I was going to be getting back up, at least not alive. Taking my shirt off and wrapping it up was the only option I had and by the time I was done I had lost too much blood, I couldn’t even move. ”This is it…” I told myself as I stared at the blasted sky and watched the ash float through the air like butterflies. The horde had gone on to find easier food, and I was safe, at least safe enough. I began to lose focus and soon I had passed into darkness.