Chapter 2
What Family?
A long drawn out moan rang through the house, immedietely breaking my sound sleep. My eyes opened slightly, before closing again they felt as though they had cinderblocks tied to them forcing them to close. A high pitched screech then rang through the house, followed by a loud scream. My eyes darted open and I tossed the blankets off me to run to my door. The screams continued as I sprinted down the hallway at full speed to the door of my twin brother Austin's room. Without any hesitation, being wrapped up in the heat of the moment I pushed the door open to see the sight of my mother grabbing at Austin, and Austin desperately trying to fend her off with a look of frantic fear on his face.
"Mom! What are you doing!" I screamed as I grabbed onto my mom's shoulder to attempt to pull her off of my brother, when she slammed her head down with force and drove her teeth into Austin's shoulder, blooding leaking down her lips.
Austin screamed and grabbed at my mother's face to attempt to force her off, but to no avail. Her teeth just sunk deeper and deeper into his flesh as she pulled back in an attempt to take the full chunk of flesh with her. I looked around the room quickly, and grabbed the lamp placed on my brother's dresser and slammed the lamp into the side of my mother's face. It was enough for her to release her hold on Austin, but she immedietely turned her attention to me and pounced at me pinning me to the wall.
"Stop! Why are you..." I stopped mid sentence at the sight of my mother's face. Her eyes were dead, they being blood shot with the iris gray and dead, along with blood dripping from her lips. She looked like an animal.
In shock from my mother's face, I loosened my grip slightly giving my mother the chance the lunge again, getting inches from my face before I caught her head and held her back as best as I could. She bit at me desperately, and I could feel my hands slowly sliding off of her head losing my grip. Just as I could see my life flash before my eyes, I watched a baseball bat swing out from the darkness and collide with my mother's head with extreme force knocking her to the ground away from me. I stood there for a minute staring at my mother who was stirring on the ground in an attempt to get up, when I saw Austin baseball bat in hand, swing the bat downwards at my mother's head caving her head in. She went limp.
"Fuck!" Yelled Austin as he threw the baseball bat at the wall as hard as he could, before falling to his knees holding his bleeding shoulder in pain.
"A-are you okay?" I asked, as I leaned down next to him prying his hand away from his shoulder to reveal a piece of flesh hanging from it by a small piece of skin. I whinced in disgust before raising to my feet as I heard another moan leak out from downstairs.
"Did you hear that?"
"Shit.. Not again!"
I pushed open the door to the hallway, and glanced from left and right. After a moment, I could make out a figure in the darkness. The figure was staggering up the stairs and looked to be hunched over having difficulty walking, loud grunts accompanying every step he took. I retreated into the room for a minute, before grabbing the baseball bat from the floor next to Austin who was attempting to wrap his shoulder up in a shirt to stop the blood flow.
I paused leaning against the door, closing my eyes listening to the grunt before abruptly running into the hall screaming like an indian at war, and slammed the long end of the baseball bat into the figure and forced it backwards down the stairs it toppling down each step roughly, not taking any chance to protect itself when I heard a loud snap and the figure laid at the bottom of the stairs, neck limply to the side broken. I took a moment to collect myself, hunching myself over and panting as Austin appeared behind me holding his arm.
"What the hell is going on? Did you see her face?" Asked Austin, looking back to the entrance of his bedroom with a look of dismay.
"We need to call the police!" I ordered, as I turned toward the stairs again to see the figure I thought I had just killed, standing a few steps away from me. It threws itself at me, causing me to instinctly jump back feeling its fingernails graze my pajamas bottoms.
"Back, back, back!" I told Austin, as I grabbed him and pulled him backwards he groaning in pain from his shoulder. I led him into the nearby bathroom, and slammed the door shut quickly flipping the lock only to immedietely hear scratching and banging at the door.
We must have been in that bathroom for a solid four hours, and for three of those hours we had to listen to the scratching, banging and splintering of the door. Austin fell asleep soon after the banging stopped, explaining that his wound was making him a little whoozy. I remained awake, leaning against the wall with a small flashlight in hand we kept in the medicine cabinet. I had already lost my mom, I wasn't about to sleep and let anything happen to the one member of my immediete family I had left. My dad died a few month previous to the infection. But, being in almost pitch black and complete silence, you can only stay awake for so long and eventually I dozed off.
I was awoken in a fashion very similiar to the last time I woke up, to a loud moan. My eyes darted open and I shot to my feet pressing myself against the wall, reaching onto the sink for the pair of scissors that laid there and gripping them tightly in hand.
"Austin... one of those things are back..." I whispered as I leaned my ear to the door to listen, but felt no scratching or shaking of any kind on the door. Just the moan, and upon further examination the moan wasn't coming from behind the door, but behind me.
I swung my body around to see Austin's figure standing infront of me, just standing there moaning. My hand shook as I rose the flashlight up his body to his face, to reveal a familiar pair of dead eyes staring back at me as he grabbed onto my arm and went in to bite. I dropped my flashlight and used the hand to push my palm into his head to keep him back. The scissors felt as though they weighed a thousand pounds as I tried to keep Austin at bay. Just a few hours ago, I wanted to keep the one member of my family alive and now they were trying to kill me just as my mother had to. I rose the scissors up and pulled them back, my hand quivering but I couldn't find the strength to put down my brother with them. Instead, I pushed my whole bodyweight forward into one push that sent my brother flying into the toliet behind him and then to the floor. I took the chance to pull open the bathroom door and quickly shut it again, grabbing a nearby chair to prop it on the door handle to make sure Austin couldn't get out.
I stood at the entrance of the bathroom for a minute, staring at the door. Tears were streaming down my eyes, but I wasn't crying. I just couldn't stop them from streaming down my face. I slowly began to back away from the bathroom, listening to Austin groan and push at the door in a futile attempt to open it. Shaking my head slowly, I began to descend down the stairs to the first floor. The downstairs looked the way I remembered leaving it earlier when I went to bed, with a few pushed over pieces of furniture and mess. I could see the door to outside from the stairs, and wallowed over to it still in shock from what had just happened.
"Why couldn't it have been me... Why did they leave me..." I mumbled to myself, as I opened the door to reveal two figures in the darkness staggering around, being no more than four feet away from the door.
I gasped as I attempted to shut the door only to have one of them grip the door and attempt to force it back open, alerting the other one as they staggered over. I desperately retreated to the back of the house, and swung open the back door to the alley to reveal another four of them. I attempted to back away from the door but tripped over the carpet and fell to the floor, as the figures began to pile into my house. I screamed as loud as I could as they neared me.
One of them fell to its knees and grabbed my leg in an attempt to bite me, I screamed once again when I heard three consecutive gunshots echo behind the man ontop of me. Finally, a fourth gunshot and blood sprayed from the man's face ontop of me. I quickly pushed the man off of me, and looked forward to see the shadow of a man standing infront of me, shotgun in hand, the barrel pointed at me.