Fragments & Fancies: Ficlets, Flash Fiction & Shorts Read online

  He knew he had waited long enough.

  For the first time in five eternities he became aware of the ground beneath him. The sensation of the darkness pressing in had left no room to take in such details. But he was finally growing accustomed to it. The ground was hard and cold. It was also pliable.

  More times than he could count, he had tried to open his wings and fly out of this place. It couldn't be done.

  And so, done with waiting, the angel began to dig.

  ###

  Enjoy this sneak peek at the upcoming novel

  by Jean Marie Bauhaus

  Dominion of the Damned

  Coming December 2012

  Chapter One

  Hannah cradled the newborn in one arm and looked down at the iron skillet in her hand, at the droplet of red dangling from the bottom, about to fall. It broke free, and her eyes followed it to the floor, saw it splash onto the linoleum tile. That bright spatter brought her back to her senses, and suddenly she became aware of the infant screaming as only brand new babies can, of the blood on her face, neck and hands, already turning sticky as it dried, and of her mother. Their mother, lying on the floor with her skull caved in.

  She gripped the skillet. “Shhh,” she said absently to the baby. She waited.

  Her mother didn’t get up again.

  Hannah breathed a sigh of relief, then sucked it back in sharply as the grief of what she’d done hit her like a swift kick to the gut. She dropped the skillet and spun toward the sink. Her last meal hit the drain as the skillet hit the floor. She stayed bent over the sink for a long time, retching even after her stomach had given up everything it had to give. Finally, she rinsed her mouth out, then grabbed a rag and wet it down before shutting off the water.

  She slid to the floor, still hugging the baby to her chest. Dried blood and fluid from the birth still coated him, and he’d gotten more of their mother’s blood on him during the fight. Hannah hummed an absent-minded lullaby as she wiped him down. Then she tossed the bloody rag in the sink and leaned over to pull a fresh towel from a nearby basket. She swaddled the baby and held him tight, and for the first time since taking his first breath, he stopped crying.

  “Noah,” Hannah whispered, tears burning her eyes and the back of her throat as she cradled her newborn brother. “They wanted to name you Noah.”

  She lifted her gaze from the baby to her mother’s disfigured corpse, and her cries took over for the baby’s. She didn’t know what to do next. She wasn’t sure what was happening. And she didn’t understand how the whole world had gone to utter hell before the day had even begun.

  ***

  “No!” her mother had screamed while fighting her contractions. “He can’t come now! Not like this!”

  “I don’t think he’s giving us a choice,” Hannah told her. The bite on her mother’s arm bled heavily. Hannah retrieved the first aid kit from a nearby shelf and torn open a package of gauze. The distant part of her mind had already guessed what the bite meant, but that part of her had stopped communicating with the rest of her, the part that moved quickly to wrap the bite and then put water on the stove to boil.

  For a long moment she just stood there, staring at the pot and trying to wrap her mind around everything that had happened. Everything happened so fast. Not even an hour before, she had been asleep in her own bed, and the biggest problem she'd had to worry about was whether she should head back to the university if the baby didn't come by the end of spring break. Then her dad shook her awake. The baby was coming, he'd said, but that wasn't all. Then he shoved a gun in her hand and told her to cover him as he carried her mother to the shelter. The big underground bunker he'd built himself out of shipping containers to protect them from terrorists or nuclear bombs or tornadoes. But not from this.

  Neighbors, schoolmates. Friends. People Hannah had known her entire life, killing each other, eating each other, getting back up and coming after them. “Aim for the head,” her dad had said, and she didn't ask how he knew. All of the training her dad had put her through, since she'd been big enough to wrap her hands around a pistol grip, kicked in, and there was only one imperative: protect your family and stay alive.

  Except, he didn't. He was too weighed down with her pregnant mother to defend himself from the disfigured thing that had been their next door neighbor, Mr. Helton, when it dragged itself along the ground and bit right through his jeans to tear a chunk out of his calf. As her dad fell to his knees, he screamed for Hannah to get her mother, and she obeyed. She couldn't say how, but she got her mom to the shelter while the remnants of her neighbors piled on her dad.

  His screams still echoed in her ears as her mother let out an agonized shriek, snapping Hannah back to the present. She hurried back to her mother's side.

  Hannah was only in her second year of a four-year nursing program. She could calculate the dosages of medications and identify all of the organs on a human anatomy chart, but that hadn’t exactly equipped her to deliver a baby on her own, so she was mostly going off of things she’d seen on television. She found a knife and stuck it in the pot of water to boil, then gathered up several towels and took them over to her mother, who she helped to remove her underwear and get into position to push.

  She pushed back the skirt of her mother’s nightgown. “I can see the baby’s head. I think it’s time to push.”

  Her mom shook her head. She looked deathly pale, and dark circles had already formed beneath her eyes. “I can’t.”

  “Mom, you have to. The baby will die if you don’t.”

  “What kind of life will he have?”

  The distant part of Hannah wanted to cry and scream and curl up next to her mother for whatever time she had left. But the part of her that was currently in charge took hold of her mother’s hands and said, “Look around, Mama. We’re in a safe place. Right now it doesn’t matter what’s happening out there. All that matters is what Dad sacrificed so we could all be safe. So Noah could be safe.”

  “Will you keep him safe, Baby?”

  Hannah nodded. “I will. I promise. But first he has to come out. You have to push.”

  Her mom gripped her hand and took a deep breath. She bore down, screaming out enough grief and pain for the both of them in the process. The baby’s head cleared. It was covered in thick, dark hair, slick with blood and fluid. “That’s good,” said Hannah. “You need to do it again.”

  Somehow, her mother found the strength to bear down one more time. The baby’s shoulders emerged, and Hannah’s mother fell silent. “One more time, Mom. Just one more push and he’ll be out.” She looked up to see that her mother had lost consciousness. “Mama?” She left the baby to check her mother’s vitals, but she couldn’t find a pulse. “Oh, God. Mom. Mom!” The distant part of her slammed back into her body with full force, and took over, shaking her mother. “Mommy, please! Please wake up!”

  She didn’t respond.

  It was over. There was only one thing Hannah could do.

  Gently, she took hold of her brother's tiny shoulders and pulled. He slid out with less effort than she expected. She used the corner of one of the towels to clear his mouth and nose of fluid, and he took his first breath and let out a strong cry. Hannah left him lying on the bed next to their mother and went to retrieve the knife. The water hadn’t yet come to a boil, but there was no time, no need, to worry about disinfecting it. She only prayed that it wasn’t too late as she cut the umbilical cord, that the sickness hadn’t already spread. But as she examined him, everything about him seemed healthy and perfect. As the baby cried, Hannah sat down at their mother’s feet and joined him, cradling him close as her grief erupted in uncontrollable sobbing.

  After what seemed like an eternity, she got her crying under control enough to reach over and pull her mother’s skirt down, to grant her a measure of dignity. Hannah gasped as her mother’s leg twitched. “Mama?” she asked, hope welling up in her chest. Her mother turned her head and looked at Hannah, and that well of hope dried up, replace
d by a surge of fear at the sight of her mother’s lifeless gaze. Too transfixed to move, she just sat and stared as her mother sat up slowly, her expression a blank slate. Then she looked down at the baby, bared her teeth like an animal and lunged.

  Hannah jumped up from the bed and backed away, holding the shrieking baby to her chest. Their mother’s movements were slow and clumsy as she climbed out of bed and lurched toward them. Hannah heard herself crying along with the baby, felt new tears sliding down her cheeks as she backed up against the stove. She reached behind her and grabbed the handle of the pot she’d placed there earlier. Pain seared through her hand as the handle burned her. Still lumbering toward them, the thing that had been her mother had eyes only for the baby. It gnashed its teeth as it came, biting the air as if in anticipation of biting into flesh.

  Hannah grabbed a dishtowel and used it to grasp the pot handle. Shielding the baby, she flung the pot of now-boiling water at her mother. It hit her in the face, scalding her flesh and causing the skin to bubble and peel.

  She kept coming.

  Hannah scanned the shelter for something she could use as a weapon. Her gun still lay where she'd dropped it once they entered the shelter – on the other side of her mother. She reached behind her again and fumbled until her hand found another handle, this one cool to the touch. She grasped it and picked it up. The weight of the iron skillet felt reassuring in her hand as she raised it above her head.

  ***

  The ground was rocky and hard, and it took longer than Hannah expected to dig a decently sized hole. She had to use the edge of the shovel to bust up some smaller rocks and tree roots, which made more noise than she liked. With every shovel of dirt, she would stop and scan the perimeter to make sure she was still alone.

  She stopped digging at four feet. It was a shallow grave, but it was taking too long to dig, and she had to get back to the baby. It would have to do. She laid the shovel down and went to get her mother.

  It was slightly easier to drag the corpse across the yard than it had been to get it up the steps and out of the hatch, but the maze of fallen bodies she had to navigate slowed things down. Finally, she reached the open grave. She didn’t pause to catch her breath. That would allow too much time to think about what she was doing. She rolled her mother’s body into the grave, sheet and all, then picked up the shovel.

  A rustling, scraping sound came from the front of the yard, near the house. Hannah threw down the shovel and lifted the shotgun.

  She didn’t see anyone, at first. Then she noticed movement low to the ground. Something crawled toward her. It pulled itself into a clearing, and as she got a good look at it, Hannah’s heart plunged into her gut. Grief and nausea overwhelmed her as she watched her father’s dismembered corpse drag itself along the ground with his one remaining arm. Half of his face had been eaten off, but she could still recognize him. She lowered the shotgun, and waited.

  He moved surprisingly fast, considering. It only took him a few minutes to cross the yard, but as Hannah watched it felt like forever. As he drew closer to the grave, she swallowed the bile in her throat and blinked away the tears. She raised the gun, and fired.

  She let the tears come as she dragged her father into the grave. He landed on top of her mother, and Hannah tried to take some small comfort in the fact that at least they were together as she shoveled dirt on top of them. She only filled the grave in part way before realizing that the gunshot had attracted more of them. They were filing into the yard from the front and crossing the field that adjoined the back yard.

  Hannah didn’t waste any ammo on them. They were still too far away to be an immediate threat or provide an obstacle between her and the shelter. She wanted to shoot them, to destroy them all for interrupting this moment, for not allowing her to finish burying her dead. But that would only bring more of them.

  As she headed back to the shelter, Hannah tried to take solace in knowing that she’d given her parents peace.

  Chapter Two

  The lights were on in the house.

  Hannah’s mind raced as she climbed up out of the hatch. It had been 30 days since the last time she’d emerged to check the lay of the land and try to raise someone on her dad’s ham radio. Did she leave the lights on after her last trip to the house?

  A shadow passed behind the kitchen window. Somebody was in there.

  She debated what to do next. If the house was infested, she might still be able to make it to the the truck to try the CB radio. It would be safer to go back inside and wait, but for how long? What if those things never left? What if help was out there, but she missed her shot at it?

  What if whoever was in the house was alive? What if they could help her?

  She checked the magazine on the .45 she carried to reassure herself that it was fully loaded, and slid a bullet into the chamber. She had another pistol tucked in the back of her waistband, and an automatic hunting rifle slung over her shoulder. If there was one thing her dad had stocked no shortage of, it was defensive weapons and ammo. If they could eat bullets, she and Noah could live down there indefinitely.

  But since they couldn’t, she had to risk venturing out once in a while. Not that they’d run out of food any time soon—there was enough for a family of four to live on for at least six months, including an ample supply of baby food and formula. Hannah figured she could make it stretch more than a year if she had to. She just hoped she wouldn’t have to. That’s why she made the trip to the house once a month, to see if civilization had started to find its footing once again.

  So far, every trip had resulted in nothing but radio static and target practice.

  Maybe this time it would be different.

  She lifted back the flap of the sheet she used for a makeshift baby sling. Noah was snuggled up against her side, sound asleep. That baby could sleep through almost anything. She envied him that talent, but was glad that he had it. It kept him quiet. Every time she left the shelter, she debated whether she should take him with her, but visions of him being left alone, helpless and starving, if anything happened to her always convinced her to take him.

  Quietly, she closed the hatch. She held the .45 ready as she crept forward, choosing her steps carefully. The bodies that had littered the yard were gone. Had someone removed them? Or did they get up and leave on their own? She gave a wide berth to the spot where she’d dug her parents’ grave, partly to avoid falling into it, but mostly because she didn’t want to see if any part of them was still exposed.

  At the back of the yard, Hannah waded through grass that had grown waist-high, but as she got closer to the house she found that it had been recently mowed. She headed toward the east side of the house and the gate that led into the front yard. She stepped softly, careful to make no sound.

  She picked up speed as she crossed the middle of the yard, hurrying to get into the shadows cast by the wooden privacy fence that ran along the property line. She was almost there when a bright light snapped on, temporarily blinding her and leaving her completely exposed.

  The back door swung open. Hannah pointed her pistol in that general direction and squinted into the light. The shape of a man stepped out and asked, “Who’s there?”

  He was back lit by the flood light, and Hannah couldn’t make out his face. She could make out the silhouette of another shotgun in his hands, though, so she lowered her gun and called out, “Don’t shoot!”

  “Who are you?” he asked. He sounded like an older man, probably around the same age as Hannah’s father. He kept the shotgun trained on her.

  “I live here,” she said. “This is my house. Who are you?”

  He pointed his shotgun away from her, but he didn’t completely lower it. “Your house? If that’s so, where the hell’ve you been all this time?”

  “Hiding.” She didn’t mention the shelter. They had obviously missed the concealed hatch when they cleaned up the yard. If things went to hell again, she didn’t know how she felt about having to share it with this guy.
r />   He lowered his gun and gestured toward the door. “Well, come on in. All this standing around and talking’s liable to raise the dead.”

  Hannah hurried inside. She paused to look around the kitchen, which looked pretty much as they’d left it. A wave of grief and nostalgia washed over her as she remembered the last time they’d all gathered there around the kitchen table, laughing and playing Pictionary and having no clue what the next morning would bring. Her throat tightened, and she coughed to clear it as a woman came into the kitchen.

  “Albert, who’s this?” she asked sweetly. She was a thin woman, about fifty, with gray-streaked brown hair done up in a loose French roll. She wore a pair of dark glasses. At Hannah′s questioning look, she waved a hand. “I just put in eye drops. The light hurts my eyes.”

  “Um,” said Hannah. “I’m Hannah.” She turned to get her first good look at Albert as he stepped inside and locked the door behind him. She’d been right about him being older; he looked like he had about ten years on her father. He, too, was slim, but wiry and strong. He avoided looking directly at her as he moved past her toward the woman. “Says she lives here,” he said. “Says she’s been hiding out all this time.”

  “Good gracious,” said the woman. “Where on earth were you hiding, child?”

  “Around,” said Hannah, still wary about mentioning the shelter. “My dad was a survivalist. He taught me a few tricks.”

  “Well, how about that, Albert?” She approached Hannah and held out a hand. “I’m Marie. You already met the old coot I’m married to.”

  Hannah studied Marie’s hand before reaching out to shake it. “What are you folks doing here?”

  “We thought it was abandoned,” said Marie. “We’ve been here just short of a month. You seem a little young to own a house. Are your parents hiding out around here, too?”

  Hannah went still. “No.”

  Noah picked that moment to wake up and start squirming and fussing. “Oh, Albert, look! A baby!” Marie leaned over to peel back the sheet and have a look. “Hi there! Look at you! Oh, you’re so scrumptious I could just eat you up!”