Painted Red Read online

  But you won’t forget about us, right?

  “You’ll always been there, Aisley.”

  Xavier, please stay at the hotel. If you leave, you’ll forget.

  “I won’t forget,” I say. I look up into the water stream and let it beat against my face. “I can’t forget.”

  Forgetting isn’t my intention. The only reason I fought back against Earl and his gang was because I remembered my family is waiting for me. But I can’t be the Xavier that climbed that mountain in New Paltz with Hayley nine months ago. Earl and his now deceased gang members were a clear indicator that the normal rules of society are gone. I have to be brutal. Ruthless. I can’t have a conscience. There’s no room left for that in this world.

  April

  “Hey!”

  The voice jolts me awake. I grip my rifle and slam the butt into my shoulder. The door explodes open into the room sending wood chunks in all directions. I hear glass shatter; a small bloom of fire erupts on the carpet.

  I let off two rounds. One clips the guy in front, the other drops the second. I’m tackled from across the fire into the wall. I lose my rifle and feel hands close around my throat.

  “Earl was our father!” He pins my body to the floor and puts all his weight on my windpipe. “Now we’ll eat you in remembrance of him!”

  I scratch at the back of his hands trying to get a grip. His bullet wound drips onto my skin. I reach for his face and press my finger into his eye until my hand throbs. A screeching squeal escapes his throat the harder I press. He releases my throat, and I scramble towards my rifle. Blood pours through his fingers as he tries to balance himself. He falls backwards into the fire and goes up in flames. I sit with the rifle pressed into my shoulder. He screams for the first couple of seconds. I think about helping him, putting him out of his misery, but the desire to watch him burn wins out.

  You’re turning into someone I’ll never be able to love.

  “I’m turning into what I need to be,” I say.

  “Chester!” I hear from down the hallway. “Chester, where are you man?” The familiar sound of doors being kicked-in travel down the hallway. I throw my shirt on and sling my jacket over my shoulders.

  I bolt out of my room and head towards the stairs to the roof. My heart raps against my ribcage. I’m in the stairwell before they make it to the next door. I take the stairs three at a time until I burst through the roof access door. I sprint behind the air conditioning units and reload my rifle. I cock it and aim at the metal door. But no one comes through it.

  The sky brightens and still all I can hear is my own breath dissipating into the cool spring air. I lean back against the air conditioning unit and let out a long sigh.

  Remember when you took us up here? It was beautiful that day.

  “I do Hayles,” I say fiddling with the safety on my rifle.

  You said you wished things could be this simple forever.

  “I still do.”

  I think I know what you meant by that now.

  I cradle my rifle in my arms and lean my head back. I’ve gotta shut my head up once in a while or I’ll be my own downfall.

  Down below, I hear the voices of other gang members. I crawl to the edge of the roof and peek over.

  “You said he was here!” a balding man says.

  “I—I—I swear, this is where he was when I left him—”

  That voice. I know that voice. I peek further over the edge of the roof and spot the doctor who I found at the hospital. Jude. His hands are folded together as if he’s praying. I can almost see the veins and tendons under his skin from up here. He doesn’t look good.

  “Well,” the other responds. “It seems to me that he’s not here. Itseemsthat you’re lying to us.”

  “I’m not,” Jude says. “I swear it. He’s here. He had no plans on leaving.” He looks around the group of gang members with wide eyes. “Please. Please! You have to believe me—”

  “I don’t have to do shit!” the other one yells. He scratches the back of his head with his pistol and shakes his head. He looks in the direction of the hotel and gives a quick nod. “Anything?”

  “Nothing,” a female’s voice responds. “And the assholes who ran out here ahead of us are gone.”

  “That’s what they get for being irrational,” he responds.

  “They should’ve waited—”

  “Well things are really not looking good for you Jude,” he says turning back to the doctor on the ground.

  “Please! Please,” he begs. He looks up at both of them. His face falls into a look of distress and then he begins sobbing.

  “You lied to us,” the man says again. “That doesn’t go without punishment—”

  “Don’t hurt my family,” he cries.

  I flinch at his words. I wasn’t expecting it. They were holding that over his head, and here I was hoping karma would blow his brains out over the ground behind him.

  “Do you think I’m going to take requests from someone who lied to us?” the man yells in his face and pulls the trigger to his pistol.

  Jude jerks for a split second and then collapses backwards on the frozen ground. Blood from his head seeps outward into the snow. I watch the man with the pistol stand over him and shake his head. He holsters his weapon and stalks away from the body.

  “Get him back to the cabin,” he says.

  “What about his family?” says the woman.

  “What do you think?” the man says again and then, disappears out of earshot.

  I let my imagination fill in the rest.

  If I Run

  I rip open a muffin package and pull it into two pieces. I’m running out of food faster than I anticipated. The gang members came by a few more times in the past couple of days before disappearing completely. I know what they’re doing. They’re waiting me out. Eventually I’ll have to leave for food. That’s no secret. I swallow the muffin and grab some water I boiled overnight.

  I left the room I was in. The smell of burnt flesh was starting to make me nauseous. I peek from the side of the curtain and watch one of the gang members pace back and forth on the edge of the forest. I have a full arsenal on the roof, but I don’t know how many of them there are. If I pick them off, more could come and then I’d be stranded up there until they made their way up.

  “I have to leave,” I say.

  You promised.

  “I know, but I’ll die here if I stay,” I say. “I’ll starve.”

  But what about us?

  “I’ll come back.”

  When?

  “I don’t know, Hayles,” I say.

  I lace up my boots and grip my rifle. If I’m gonna have a chance, I’ve got to pick off who I can from the roof and then make a break for it. Maybe I can create a distraction on the opposite side of the roof. I pull open my door and hear voices.

  Shit.

  I duck down and sprint into the next doorway on my right. The hallway is dark which allows me to see the vague outlines of two people coming towards me.

  “I’m tired of coming out here looking for this guy, Dalton,” a deep voice says.

  “I know. Me too,” a nasally voice responds. “But this guy killed our father. If it wasn’t for him, we’d have died months ago. That’s something we’ll never be able to repay him for.”

  “Do you think that he’s still here?”

  “I don’t know, but we took all the food. It’s only a matter of time before he has to make a move.”

  “Or he could’ve already made his move,” the deep-voiced one says. “I’m just saying I think this one is smarter than the others we’ve hunted.”

  “Will you stop putting our methods down? God you’re annoying with that shit.”

  They walk past me towards my room. I stalk behind them and pull out my blade. The one on the left walks into the room first and mutters something. I cover the other’s mouth and drag the blade across his throat. He spasms in my arms and collapses into my chest.

  “I think this was where
he was staying,” the other one says. “It looks like he wasn’t here too long ago.”

  I drag the body out of site and run to the side of my doorway.

  “Dalton?”

  I tighten my grip on my knife handle.

  “Hey man, this shit ain’t funny if you’re messing with me,” he says taking a step into the hallway.

  I slam my knife through his boot into his foot. He lets out a growling screech and aims his pistol at my forehead. I push up under his grip, and a round goes off into the ceiling. The plaster falls onto our shoulders as we fight for the gun. I step onto the knife in his foot, and he lets out another screech. He releases the pistol, and it tumbles down the hallway.

  I dive towards it and close my hand on the grip. The man jumps on my back and pins my arm to the ground. I throw my elbow into the bridge of his nose three times before he releases enough pressure for me to lift my arm. I scramble to get out from underneath him.

  “Please,” he says holding up his hands in surrender. “Please don’t shoot. I don’t want to die.”

  “‘Cause you’ve given me a reason not to,” I say.

  Don’t do it, Xavier.

  “Please, I’m begging you,” he says. “I only joined these guys for my kids. Those men and women at the cabin were gonna kill them. We needed food. We were starving.”

  “You’re eating people!”

  “No, no I haven’t,” he says shaking his head. “I only did this to protect what’s left of my family. I’m not hunting people. I swear.”

  Let him go. Please, Xavier.

  “Please,” he says reaching behind him. I squeeze the trigger. Three dark circles appear in his chest. Blood pours from them into his jacket. I let out a long breath of air and disengage the pistol.

  It takes a couple tugs to get the knife from his boot. While patting down his jacket, his body slumps onto its side and a tattered picture floats to the ground.

  Oh no.

  Look at it.

  I shake my head at Hayley’s demand.

  Look at it!

  I flip the worn photo and see three smiling faces staring at me. I don’t feel sorry for what I did. I don’t even really feel anything towards the faded faces looking up at me. Hayley and Aisley’s voices mourn what I’ve done, but I can’t bring myself to care. I was doing what I needed to survive. It wasn’t my fault that this man ended up on the wrong side of the tracks.

  I pat down the back pockets of his jeans and pull out three clips. Shouting from the end of the hallway bounces off the walls. I run into the stairwell and up to the roof. I slide behind the air conditioning ducts and click the safety off my rifle. The footsteps boom inside the stairwell.

  This is it.

  I take aim on the door and slow my breathing. It swings open. With one exhale, I take out three of the gang members with shots to their body. One collapses in a heap while the other two collapse to the ground and writhe in pain.

  “You son of a bitch!” one says and begins firing off rounds from his pistol. I hide behind the duct and wait for him to stop.

  “Mary,” he says. “You all right?”

  “There’s so much blood,” her voice says. I peek from behind the duct and see the wispy strands of blond hair from the woman. “There’s—there’s—there’s so much blood!” She sobs and leans her head onto the ground.

  “Hey asshole,” the man says. “Every one of our family knows you’re here now. They’re coming for you. And I swear to god, I’m going to rip your liver out with my bare hands!”

  I lean around the corner again and make eye contact with him. He fires off a couple more rounds until I hear the faint click of an empty chamber. I stand and stalk towards him.

  “Go ahead,” he says. “There’s plenty of us to go around.”

  Xavier—

  I squeeze the trigger and watch his head snap back with a smile still planted on his face.

  Hunter: Late April, 2013

  The rain eases up around midday. Sunlight breaks through the grey sky finally bringing heat to my damp and cold limbs. I grab my bow from my back and hold it out in front of me. I haven’t eaten since I started my three-day hike from the hotel.

  The area surrounding the fort is vacant besides the cannibals. As much as I wanted to stay at the hotel, I knew I couldn’t. I have to stay close to the fort in case Hayley came looking. But the cannibals out there are coming in groups and are more unpredictable by the day.

  A branch crunches behind me—forty feet away, wind is blowing about five to eight miles per hour from the west. I turn and release an arrow. A dull cry from an animal fills the silence momentarily and then, a dull thud echoes among the trees. That looked like a small deer, but some meat is better than no meat.

  I trek through the thick mud and feel my heart sink as I make my way towards the limp body. The dog is nothing but skin and bones. Its nipples are swollen and red. The fur on its body shines a blackish burgundy with white littering its paws and chest. Her eyes are brown with large pupils taking up most of her irises. She squeals with each heave of her chest. The arrow sticks clean through her ribs.

  “I’m sorry girl,” I say. I know I need to save bullets, but I can’t let her suffer. There’s no saving her now, I can see it in her eyes. I press the barrel against her head and squeeze.

  After the gunshot dissipates into the forest, I start gutting the emaciated body. I hear panting behind me. I turn to find a miniature version of the female dog I just killed.

  “Really?” I say looking at the sky. If this was some god’s work, he has one sick sense of humor. “I’m sorry, little one,” I say packing up the rest of the dog meat. It whimpers when I stand and swing my bag over my shoulder.

  I march through the mud in the direction I was hiking before. I hear three minuscule barks and then, the panting returns. I look down to see the puppy sitting by my feet, it’s tongue lolling out of it’s mouth like it’s smiling at me. American Staffordshire Terrier—the breed pops into my head like a flashing billboard.

  I’m seven all over again. I tried to rescue one of these from the street. It was white with black rings around its eyes. Someone had tossed it in a box next to a dumpster on the run-down streets of Middletown. When I came home with him, my father lost it and grabbed the puppy and left.

  He was always bitching about money. Lecturing me over smiley-face pancakes from my mother about doomsday coming and only keeping the necessities. He was also an undiagnosed bi-polar with PTSD from war.

  The puppy barks bringing me back to the winter forest. I look down at the little wrinkly ball of fur, and its tail wags. “Well,” I breathe into the humid air. “We’re gonna have to think of a name if we’re gonna stick together, right?”

  The puppy barks, and we continue to trudge through the snow.

  * * *

  “Rufus?” I say.

  He grunts and rolls on his back with his feet in the air.

  “Well, you’re not giving any suggestions,” I say cutting a piece of squirrel for him. “What about Hunter?” That’s some cruel irony there.

  He flips onto his paws and barks.

  “Really?”

  He barks again.

  “All right,” I say throwing another piece of squirrel to him. “Hunter it is.”

  I wait until he goes to sleep before I start cooking his mother. It’s the least I can do after killing her. I bite down into the meat and tell myself it’s venison the whole time.

  I check outside the door to the shed one last time before closing the door for good. The moon reflects off of the budding tree branches just enough to illuminate the forest. I don’t see or hear anything, so I push the door closed and pull the work bench inside against it.

  Now is the time where I usually breakdown. I can crumble without the threat of being attacked. I’ve got nothing left but the blood of everyone I’ve killed to keep myself alive and breathing. I’m at the mercy of a bunch of soldiers following orders. Soldiers like my father; a half soul living in a cruel, abusive,
robotic body. I bury my head into my hands and wait for the meltdown to begin.

  Something cold and wet rubs up against my hands. I pull them from my face to see Hunter’s brown eyes. He whimpers and licks the back of my hands. Something in his hazel eyes makes me stay together. I scratch behind his ears, and he crawls into my lap and falls asleep again.

  “Maybe you were a good thing,” I say. “How about we keep each other sane for a while?”

  I lean my head against the wooden shed and grip my pistol until my knuckles throb.

  May Flowers

  “Hayley.” The strain in my throat tells me that I was saying it all night in my sleep. Hunter snores in my lap still and doesn’t wake when I stand and cradle him onto the floor.

  I grab my bow and stretch before throwing my jacket on. Hunter barks at my feet.

  I look down at him and laugh. “Oh, so you’re gonna help with all your strength?” I say.

  He barks.

  I zip up my jacket and push the workbench from the doorway. The wind blows the door open and knocks Hunter backwards.

  “That’s why you wait,” I say to him.

  He barks and growls at the wooden door. I shake my head and walk out the door with my bow drawn.

  Left, right—nothing. I hold my bow horizontal to the ground and tip-toe into the water-soaked ground. Hunter bounces along next to me leaving a light splash every time he walks.

  “This will be our stronghold Hunter. Somewhere the crazies won’t think to look, but also somewhere that’s close enough to the Fort and the hotel.”

  He grunts which I can only interpret as a yes.

  * * *

  My bones shake like they’re on vibrate. I dig my feet into the bark of the tree and climb with the rest of my strength. If I can just catch a glimpse of them—just a glimpse—maybe everything wouldn’t feel so hopeless.

  The rain from another spring day beats against my skin; it feels like razor blades. Hunter whines at the base of the tree. I turn and glare at him. His ears go straight back, and he hides his block head under his paws. I claw into the tree trunk and scale the rest of the limbs.