American Revenant (Short Story): Family Read online

  Family

  An

  American Revenant

  Short.

  Written by

  John L. Davis IV

  Based on the American Revenant Movie screenplay

  By

  Josh Mullner

  And

  John L. Davis IV

  Copyright 2017 © John L. Davis IV

  All rights reserved by author.

  1

  Darkness surrounded the large white Victorian style home, pressing against windows, suffocating to those inside. Dim starlight failed to enhance the night, hiding the shuffling, moaning creatures that occasionally passed the walls of the old house chasing a neighborhood cat or neighbor.

  Inside the large home a man searched through drawers in a candlelit kitchen, beads of sweat reflecting the dancing candle flames.

  “Tony, don’t do this, we can wait it out here, together.” Fear and tension drew tight lines across the young woman’s face, pulling her frown even deeper.

  Tony looked up from the drawer, “Where’re the batteries? I know we have some around here somewhere.”

  The woman took a step forward, pleading, “Tony, please…”

  “I don’t want to go Amanda! I want to stay right here with you and Ellie, but the power’s been out for two days, and you… you’ve seen those…”

  “Say it, Tony. You know what they are just as well as I do.”

  Exasperation washed across the man’s face, “No, I don’t know that and neither do you. People are just going crazy, because of the sickness, and now with the power out…”

  “Zombies, Tony, they’re zombies, just like in the movies.”

  “Bullshit!” Tony spat back at his wife. “That’s fiction; fake, made-up, Amanda. This is real life and there are no zombies walking around outside our house!” Tony hung his head for a moment, exhausted, knowing deep inside she was right, but unable to bring himself to voice it. He knew that once he acknowledged the reality of the things outside he would crumble, leaving his family more defenseless than they were now.

  Amanda reached out, placing one hand on her husband’s shoulder, the other sinking into the large pocket of her sweatpants. “Tony, stay with me and Ellie. We’ll figure something out.”

  Tony looked into the reflected firelight in his wife’s eyes, losing himself there for a moment, just as he had done so many times in the thirteen years they had been married. “I have to Amanda, for you and for Ellie. I’ll get to Uncle Raymond’s cabin on Old River Road, get the guns he had there, and some extra food. When I get back the three of us can head for your parents place outside Emden.”

  “Tony, you hate guns, and Emden is thirty-five miles from Hannibal. How are we going to get there, walk?”

  “Yes I hate guns, but, well, they may be necessary now. We’ve heard a few vehicles, maybe we can find one; or we can find some bikes. I just know we can’t stay here.”

  Amanda could see both fear and determination in Tony’s eyes and on his face. Pulling her hand from the pocket of her sweats she reached out, two D-Cell batteries sitting in her palm. “There’s a four-pack of new ones in the cabinet. These will last you for a while.”

  Tony looked from the batteries to his wife’s face, feeling conflicted. He loved her for trying to keep him home, while feeling angry that she had delayed him so long.

  Slowly he took the batteries from her hand, slipping them into the plastic flashlight sitting on the counter in front of him, flicking the switch up and down several times to make sure it worked.

  “Where’s Ellie?” He asked, watching the light on the wall instead of his wife’s face.

  Amanda stared in abject silence at her husband for a couple of deep breaths before answering. “She’s in the living room, curled up on the couch, terrified.”

  Without speaking, Tony gathered up his pack, sliding the zipper closed as he walked into the living room. “Ellie, I have to go now.”

  The girl looked up at her father, eyes red and clouded with terror. “You don’t have to Daddy, you can stay; we’ll be okay together.”

  The broken, sad sound of his nine-year-old daughter’s voice pierced his heart, leaving him momentarily speechless.

  Though she was tall for her age, Ellie seemed tiny and frail curled up on the couch with the ratty old teddy bear she hadn’t carried around in several years. Emotion welled in Tony, and he had to work to push it down. He knew what he had to do to protect his family, and part of that meant leaving them for a little while.

  “I love you, Ellie,” he said as he sat next to her on the edge of the couch, picking her up and wrapping his arms around her. “I don’t want to go, kiddo, but I have to. There are things we need to help us get away from here, and we don’t have them.” This last bit he spoke looking up at Amanda as she stood by, watching with fresh tears in her eyes.

  Ellie looked back and forth between her parents before simply nodding her head and leaning into her father.

  Tony stood, still holding Ellie, and kissed her cheek before standing her on her feet. Mother and daughter followed, standing in the wide foyer, watching in tearful silence as Tony stood at the door, knob in hand.

  “Stay quiet, stay safe,” he told them, looking back, his voice straining to hold in the emotion he felt. “I’ll be back soon, no more than half a day”

  Tony opened the door and stepped out into the night. The darkness swallowed him even before he quietly pulled the door closed.

  2

  After almost twenty-four hours, she could wait no longer.

  Amanda stepped to the bottom of the stairs, cringing as the old hardwood floor creaked beneath her feet, though she knew the sound could not be heard outside the house. She stood still for a moment, listening to the night noises outside. Shuffling footsteps, the sound of crickets, faint scratching at the walls. All of the sounds were intermittent and barely discernible over the pounding of her heart.

  Swallowing her fear, Amanda called into the darkness at the top of the stairs. “Ellie!” She said, her voice straining at the heavy whisper, attempting to project her voice while not calling too loudly. “Ellie, I told you, we have to go, now!” She called again after receiving no reply.

  More creaking floorboards, this time above her, as small feet wearing white socks came into view.

  “Get down here now, Ellie!”

  Amanda waited for her daughter to reach the bottom step, her heart breaking at the terror the little girl wore so openly on her face. Reaching out she placed a hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “Sweetheart, you have to get your shoes on, right now, okay? We have to go.”

  Ellie nodded, casting her eyes to the shoes sitting next to her sock feet on the bottom step. She really liked the shoes when her mother had bought them nearly three weeks ago. Now she hated the thought of even slipping them on.

  Amanda left her hand resting on Ellie’s shoulder for a few seconds, trying to comfort herself and her daughter at the same time. Turning away she took several steps before Ellie called to her softly.

  “Mommy.”

  Amanda turned to look at her daughter, knowing what she was about to say.

  A recalcitrant look settled onto Ellie’s face. “We can’t leave yet.”

  Without a word Amanda turned, walking away.

  “Mommy?”

  Amanda spoke gently over her shoulder. “Just put your shoes on.” She walked into the kitchen, leaving the girl alone on the steps with her shoes.

  Several low candles burned in the kitchen, flickering shadows dancing on the walls like souls in torment.

  Amanda opened a cabinet, taking out the last few cans of food and setting them next to an open backpack on the small table
in the middle of the room. She slid open a drawer, rummaged inside, and pulled out a flashlight, a pack of batteries and a hammer. After placing all of these items in the backpack she looked around the kitchen, wondering what else she would need. In a small drawer next to the stove she found a box of matches, turning to toss them in the pack as well.

  A loud noise behind her caused Amanda to whip around, the matches still in hand. Ellie stood in front of the refrigerator, a piece of paper in her hands. Scattered around her feet were several plastic magnets that had been used to hold the paper to the surface of the appliance.

  Heart still pounding, Amanda asked, “Ellie, what are you doing?” She noticed that the girl was still in her sock feet.

  Ellie silently looked at the paper then back to her mother, candlelight flickering in her eyes. “We have to wait, Mom.”

  Walking over to her daughter, Amanda crouched down, placing her hand on the girls face, cradling her cheek. Taking the paper as Ellie handed it to her; Amanda looked down, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears. “Oh, sweetheart… we… Go get your shoes on, baby. Right now, ok?”

  Amanda stayed crouched where she was while Ellie walked quietly away. She hung her head, fighting the emotions that threatened to derail her plan to leave. Standing up she glanced at the paper in her hand, the wistful trees and tiny crayon house, with two people, one large and one small, holding hands. On top of the paper in large slanted letters was the word “Daddy”.

  Amanda slipped the paper into the pack along with all of the other items and zipped it closed, keeping the hammer and flashlight beside the bag, ready for use.

  From the other room Ellie’s voice came soft and quiet, “Mom, I need help.”

  “What’s wrong?” She asks as she walks into the room and crouches down in front of her daughter once more.

  “I need help with my other shoe.” The petulant lilt to Ellie’s voice told Amanda that the girl was still stalling.

  As she reached for the lone red shoe sitting on the bottom step she heard a loud crash, a door slamming open from one of the neighboring homes, followed by several gunshots. “Oh, God,” she whispered, dropping the shoe and running for the kitchen. She was surprised to know that anyone else nearby was even alive.

  Amanda grabbed the backpack and slipped the hammer into the back pocket of her jeans. She gripped the flashlight tightly, leaving it off as she frantically extinguished the candles in the kitchen, moving quickly down the hall, blowing out every candle but one, which she held as she sat down next to her daughter on the bottom step of the stairs.

  Ellie held her shoe with shaking hands.

  “Slip it on, baby, quickly.”

  Just as the girl leaned over to slip the shoe on her foot a loud, horrid scream exploded outside, tearing through the walls of the old house, ripping into Amanda’s ears, causing her to cringe. Amanda watched Ellie’s face contort in terror and she leaned in quickly, pulling her daughter close, whispering softly before the child began a scream of her own.

  Fearing that whatever is outside would see the faint flickering of the single candle Amanda blew out the tiny flame with a shaky breath.

  “I’m scared mommy,” Ellie said softly from the darkness beside her.

  “I know sweetheart, it’ll be ok.”

  “We can’t leave without Daddy.”

  “We’re going to get Daddy and go someplace safe, Ell.”

  “But, Mom…”

  “Ellie, hush.”

  The scream did not stop, as much as it slowly wound down, as if the screamer was a wind-up noisemaker instead of a human being.

  Following several long minutes of near pitch-black darkness and silence interspersed with faint shuffling noises, Amanda flicked on the flashlight, casting the beam at the large front door only steps away.

  Waiting, watching the door, the two sitting on the step heard unsteady footsteps outside. Together they huddled, nearly petrified by fear, the dim backwash of light from the flashlight casting deep lines and ghastly shadows on their faces.

  “Mommy,” Ellie whispered, her tiny voice tense with emotion.

  Amanda placed a finger on her lips, softly “shhh-ing” her daughter. Taking the shoe from her daughter, Amanda leaned over, intent on finally getting the red sneaker on her little girl, focused on being ready to run.

  From the kitchen a window shattered, the crash and tinkle of broken glass cutting through Amanda’s fear. She bolted up, passing the shoe back to Ellie and yanking the hammer from her back pocket.

  Standing there, her daughter at her side, gripping the flashlight in one hand and the hammer in the other, Amanda debated within herself whether or not to check out the sound. The thought that it could be Tony spurred her forward through her apprehension. “Wait right here Ellie, and get that shoe on.”

  “Mommy, wait, don’t…”

  “Just do as I say Ellie, I’m only going to check, I’ll be right back.”

  Ellie fell silent, shoe dangling from her hand as she watched her mother walk quickly toward the source of the noise.

  Coming through the wide dining area and rounding the corner into the kitchen, Amanda could see broken glass and bloody footprints. The footprints trailed to the side, off toward the small pantry. Chill night air pushed fallen leaves through the broken pane of the sliding glass door.

  She knew as soon as she stepped into the kitchen that she should have turned around, grabbed Ellie, and ran. Three undead things stood next to the pantry door, where one of Ellie’s loosely-taped pieces of art fluttered in the cold breeze.

  Amanda stopped, beginning to turn around just as an unseen fourth zombie reached for her. She screamed as cold fingers brushed her arm, snatching it back just as they began to snap closed. She stumbled backward, falling onto her backside as the zombie, once a man with a thin scraggly beard, pursued her through the door.

  From the kitchen Amanda could hear the other zombies take up their moaning call as the one in front of her took another shuffling step forward. He was close enough that she lashed out with her foot, kicking the creature hard in the shin, toppling it forward to land face first on her legs.

  She screamed again as the thing tried to bite at her leg, jerking it out from under the zombie and pushing herself backward as it crawled toward her.

  She could see the other undead coming through the door, following her screams and the harsh grinding moans of the zombie on the floor.

  As the thing reached for her again, teeth clacking together painfully, Amanda felt hands on her shoulders, small and cool through her shirt. She would have screamed again if Ellie had not said “Mommy!” at the same time. She glanced back to see her daughter standing there, shoe still dangling from her fingers as the girl tried to help her mother up from the floor.

  Flipping over, she grabbed Ellie’s hand and pushed up from the floor, kicking the zombie in its face as she did so. The nose flattened with a wet crack and her heel peeled away a chunk of the upper lip, leaving the zombie with an evil grin as it pursued.

  “Out the front door,” she breathed.

  Flashlight and hammer held in one hand, Ellie’s small hand grasped in her other, Amanda twisted the doorknob violently, slamming the heavy door back as she charged through it, pulling her daughter with her.

  Two undead stood on the front porch, grabbing for her as soon as she came through the door. She shoved one, knocking it backward over a small table sitting next to the outdoor sofa. The other she skirted, not wasting time with it. Ellie screamed as it grabbed for her. Amanda kept moving forward, pulling her daughter away from the zombie and rushing down the front steps.

  As they rounded a low wall that separated the patio and porch from the sloping yard a hand darted out, grabbing Amanda’s ankle, tripping her as it latched on. A fleshy rotting vise that refused to release, no matter how many times she kicked at it.

  Ellie stumbled, falling to the grass several feet past where her mother lay. She watched as the zombie pulled itself up her mother’s legs, completely unr
egistering the frantic kicking at its face. For a second Ellie was entranced and horrified by the bulge of brain hemorrhaging up through a large ragged hole on the top of its bald head.

  Amanda continued to kick madly, but the zombie’s grip was firm, it would not release.

  She stopped kicking, realizing the futility of it and started pulling with her caught leg, pushing backward with her arms, trying to yank herself free. Though she felt as if her knee was about to be ripped out of joint she forced herself backward harder, tugging the creature with her.

  The head of an old lawn sprinkler not fully retracted caught the creature’s pants, stopping its forward movement. Amanda continued to pull, rage, hate, terror all driving her. She glanced over her shoulder to see Ellie sitting on the ground, her red shoe sitting several feet away.

  Amanda found it funny, in that moment, that even as she tried to dislodge herself from an undead creature intent on devouring her, she still felt a need to scold her daughter for not getting her shoe on.

  A sound like wet cloth ripping caught her ear. Snapping her head back to the zombie, she could see where its arm had separated at the elbow, and her forceful retreat had begun to tear the soft rotting flesh apart.

  With a guttural cry she heaved backward, twisted her hips and drew her leg back toward her all at once. Amanda nearly sobbed when she was rewarded with a gruesome tearing noise and sudden freedom.

  She fell hard, flat on her back, as the zombie’s arm came free. Without wasting a second on her own pains, Amanda flipped over and jumped up as quickly as possible, lunging for her daughter while trying to pluck off the gory stump of hand, wrist and forearm still latched around her ankle.

  Catching Ellie’s wrist, Amanda pulled her up as she finally worked the hand free from her ankle, which she kicked away as it fell free. Zombies came from around the sides of the house, through the open doorway, and down from the porch, all moaning loudly, their shuffling gaits seeming far too fast for dead things.

  Wordlessly she began to tug Ellie away from the carnage and death in front of their home and toward the street. She felt resistance and her heart skipped a beat, thinking one of the zombies had grabbed Ellie. Without stopping she glanced back to see that Ellie was trying to reach her fallen shoe, fingers outstretched, nearly grazing the side of the bright red fabric.