Chapter 6
John closed his eyes and continued to wonder about his wife.
When he opened them again, the first thing that he noticed was the jelly-like thing on the floor. The creature's eyeball, lying in the middle of a pool of blood. He felt the urge to clean it up.
With what
?
he wondered. He wasn't about to use his hands.
He had his hammer on the work table and the young man had an axe, but neither of those would work.
Then, on the far wall, he saw one of his gardening shovels.
He pushed himself off of the mattress, groaning as he did. It was as though the more time he spent in the basement, the worse his body got. His knees cracked once he got to his feet.
Slowly, he walked over to the shovel and picked it up. Scooter and Julie's heads turned to watch him as he did. Though they didn't say anything about it.
He walked back over to the broken window and stopped in front of the eyeball. As he bent down, his knees cracked again and his back threatened to give out. He could see the iris glaring back at him. Dark veins ran through the white orb.
With one hand, he tried to maintain his balance. With the other, he used the shovel to try to scoop it up.
The eyeball rolled through the blood like deflated ball. It left a small trail behind.
He tried once more.
"Are you okay?" Scooter called from behind him.
"Just give me a minute." John pressed the blade of the shovel back underneath the eyeball and pushed once more. This time, he was able to get it.
"Let me help you with that." Scooter came behind him and placed his hand under his elbow.
They both rose together, the eyeball carefully balanced out front.
"I didn't want to see this anymore," John admitted.
"Of course not. I should've gotten rid of it already. Sorry about that."
John shook his head. "There's no need to be sorry. Let's just get it outside."
"Here, let me take that." Scooter took the shovel from John's hand, then took it over to the broken window. He flung the eyeball outside.
John watched it fly through the air. A sack of goo similar to the green stuff his children used to play with as kids. Except this wasn't a toy. It was someone's eye
.
An actual eyeball.
It dropped out of sight.
Scooter turned to look back at him. "Sorry about that," he said again. "Come sit down at the table. You should have something more to eat."
John wasn't hungry, but maybe the young man was right. He had been through a lot today. He followed him back to the table and grabbed a few more crackers.
Then they fell into another silence.
It was at that time that they noticed that the creatures were no longer banging on the door.
"Have they gone?" Julie asked.
"I think so," John replied.
"It doesn't sound like they're up there," Scooter added. He took a few steps toward the staircase and looked at up at the door. "I can't hear anything." He walked back to the work table.
"I told you that door was strong," John said.
Julie looked between John and Scooter. "What do we do now?"
Scooter shrugged his shoulders.
John wasn't all that sure, either. "We should probably wait," he suggested.
"Wait? And then what?"
"Then we can go upstairs."
"Upstairs? Why would we go up there?" Julie couldn't keep the worry out of her voice.
"There's more food up there."
"But…"
"He's right," Scooter interrupted. "We'll have to go up and get more things for us."
"But…"
The young man raised his hands to tell Julie to calm down. "We're not going to do it now. We'll wait a little longer. To make sure that they're gone."
"We're never going to know if they're gone," Julie argued.
Scooter couldn't disagree with that. They would always be at risk. But they didn't have a choice in the matter.
"We'll be okay," he said.
John nodded along with that.
Though she still didn't like the sound of it, Julie didn't say anything further. She simply took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Chapter 7
They waited a while before they decided to go up. However, it still wasn't long enough for Julie to feel comfortable about it.
"We haven't heard thos
e
thing
s
for a long time now," Scooter told her.
"I know, but…" Julie bit her lower lip.
"They're not up there anymore."
She glanced at the staircase and wrenched her hands. "They might be."
"They're not."
Even John added that he thought the creatures were gone.
She turned to the old man, but didn't say anything. It was obvious that they were determined to go.
"You can stay down here if you want," John said, "and take care of Emily."
Scooter nodded his head in agreement.
Julie shook hers, even though they all knew that she'd like nothing more than that. "No, I should help you guys keep an eye out in case thos
e
thing
s
come back."
"They're not going to come back," Scooter said.
"You don't know that."
"No, we don't," John agreed. "But I think we'll be okay up there. You really don't have to come."
"Yes, I do."
"What do we do about Emily?" Scooter asked. The little girl had been sitting on Julie's lap the whole time, though she still hadn't been paying them much attention.
"We leave her with my wife," John said without any hesitation. "She can lie down on the mattress and wait for us to come back. I'm sure she must want to take a little nap."
"Do you think she'll be okay?"
"
I
kno
w
she will," John replied. "My wife hasn't moved in days. She isn't going to hurt the little girl. Even if sh
e
coul
d
move, she wouldn't hurt her. Alice loved children." He glanced at his wife and felt another pang of sadness run through him.
"All right, then," Scooter said. He helped Emily off of Julie's lap and took her over to the mattress to settle her onto it. "We'll be back soon, okay?"
"Where are you going?" Emily asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"We're going to go upstairs. We need to get a few things."
"But thos
e
thing
s
are up there."
"Not anymore."
Emily took some time to think about that. "What happens if they come back?"
"Then we'll run downstairs." Scooter leaned over and ruffled the hair on top of the young girl's head. "You don't have to worry about us."
Emily smiled, then laid down on the mattress.
Scooter, John and Julie walked over to the staircase.
"Ready?" Scooter asked.
"No," Julie replied. "But I don't think I'll ever be."
John reached out and grabbed her hand. He didn't even know if he was ready himself, but there was no point worrying about it. "Come on," he said. "We'll be fine." He led them up the stairs.
Once he got to the top, he turned around an pressed his finger to his mouth to tell them to be quiet. He wanted to hear if anything of thos
e
thing
s
were still out there.
He placed his ear to the door and tried to listen. He couldn't make out much of anything. Though that could have meant that they were no longer there or simply that his hearing wasn't all that it used to be.
"I think it's clear," he said, hoping he was right. He fumbled with the lock and pushed the bar aside, unlatching it. Then he grabbed hold of the door knob and took a deep breath.
One…two…three…
He turned the knob and swung the door open. He waited a moment.
Nothing happened.
"I think it's clear," he said again.
He stepped up the final step and walked into the hallway.
I
t
wa
s
clear.
Scooter followed John into the hallway. He held his axe out in front of him. Julie stood at the door.
"You wait here," he said to her. "If there's a problem, tell us."
"And what if you don't hear me? What if you can't get back in time?"
"Then close the door."
Julie's mouth dropped open at that. She couldn't imagine leaving Scooter and John out to deal with the creatures.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," John said soothingly.
They left Julie at the basement door and walked into the kitchen.
John pointed out where most of the food was. "Pretty much everything in the fridge has gone bad, but there are a few things left in those cupboards. You might find some stuff in those cabinets too."
Scooter made his way around the kitchen and searched for things to take. He found a few cans of soup and another box of crackers. There was a bag of pasta, though he wasn't sure if they were going to be able to eat it without boiling water. He supposed that if it came to it, he was willing to try. He came upon a few more items that he thought would be good and cradled them all in his arms. He used to shaft of his axe to help hold it in place.
As for John, he grabbed some plates, bowls, cups and cutlery. It seemed a bit strange for him to worry about these things under the circumstances, but he didn't want the newcomers to have to eat everything out of the packages. He didn't want them to always have to use their hands, either. They were his guests. Maybe not in the old sense of the word
.
They were fellow survivor
s
. But they were staying at his house and he wanted to treat them with a little bit of normalcy.
He stacked them on the table, then turned to the young man. "There's another bed upstairs," he said. "Two of them actually. In the spare rooms. We should bring them down so you have something to sleep on."
Scooter liked the sound of that. It had been a while since he had slept on a bed. "But let's do that later," he said. "We'll bring these down first." He motioned to the food in his hands.
"Of course," John said. "We can come back and get the rest of the food too."
"Sounds good."
John picked up his things and followed the young man back to the basement door.
Chapter 8
As soon as Julie saw Scooter and John, she broke into a smile. "I'm glad you're back," she said. She no longer seemed as nervous as she had been.
"I told you there was nothing to worry about," Scooter said, smiling back.
"You found a lot."
"There's a bit more left, but we thought we'd come back to get it later."
Julie's eyes faltered for a moment. Even though she was feeling a bit more comfortable, she didn't like the idea of coming back up.
"There are a couple of mattresses upstairs too that we want to get," John added.
"Mattresses?"
"To sleep on. They were my children's. Kept them upstairs for whenever they came to visit. Though I guess none of that's important…" His voice drifted off and he thought about his kids.
"Come on," Scooter said. "Let's get these downstairs and we'll come back up to get everything else."
Julie stood away from the door and motioned for Scooter and John to go down first. With their hands full, it only made sense for her to be the one to close it behind them.
Scooter got to the top step. John followed close behind. But before either of them were able to get any further, they heard a noise.
They all paused and turned toward the front door.
"Did you hear that?" Julie asked.
"Of course we heard that."
"It sounded like…"
Knock, knock, knock.
Julie jumped at the sound and grabbed hold of the basement door. "We should go downstairs," she said.
"I think we should check who's out there," Scooter argued.
"Check who's out there?" Julie shook her head rapidly back and forth. Fear had crept back into her voice. "That's not a good idea. We don't know who it is! It could be one o
f
the
m
."
"They don't knock," Scooter told her. "It isn't one of them."
"Then who could it be?"
Scooter placed his food onto the ground. "That's why I want to go see."
John put his things down beside it. The old man as curious as Scooter to see who was out there. "It has to be someone like us," he said. "Another survivor."
“I don’t know,” Julie continued.
“It’ll be fine,” Scooter said. “Stay here and guard the door.”
“Guard the door?”
Scooter wished he hadn’t used that choice of words. “Just stay here and don’t worry,” he tried again.
Julie bit her lip and didn’t say any more about it. She watched as Scooter and John walked down the hallway.
Knock, knock, knock.
When they got to the front door, Scooter turned to the old man. "You open the door," he said. "I'll stand here." He raised his axe up over his shoulder.
John grabbed hold of the front door. His fingers trembled against the lock. He didn't think that it was one o
f
the
m
, but that didn't mean that it was safe. It didn't mean that the person out there wasn't going to cause them harm.
He looked back at Scooter. "At the count of three," John whispered. Then he began to count.
One…
Two…
Thre
e
.
He unlocked the door and swung it open.