Carson and Isaac
Carson had this awful habit of staying up late
sitting on all kinds of random websites or skyping his girlfriend Naomi until
the early hours of the morning. This meant that when he got to bed he often had
a sore back and neck from leaning over his laptop for five hours straight. He
would roll and turn and twist in his bed, fluffing the pillows and then
fluffing them again until finally he could feel his eyes grow heavy and he
could drift off to sleep. So you could imagine Carson's annoyance when he was
woken up only an hour after having fallen asleep by the noise of the door to
his room creaking open.
"Whatcha want?" Carson mumbled, trying to make out who'd
entered his room in the dark.
A high pitched growl met Carson's ears and he grimaced. Every damn night, he thought to himself. I'll kill him, I really will.
"Isaac, get the hell out of my room!" Carson yelled, throwing a pillow at the shape that was shuffling by his door.
The growl turned to a hiss of fury and the shape charged at Carson, who soon realised he'd made a big mistake. This was not his brother, there was a monster running at him. A young man with decaying flesh was lurching across the room and howling at him. Carson did what any rational adult would do in a situation like this.
"Leave me alone! Leave me alone!" Carson shrieked as he bundled himself up under his covers and rolled sideways off his bed.
The monster landed atop of him and began scratching at the duvet, ripping away with both tooth and nail. It looked human but Carson could feel it trying to rip away at him through the sheets; it was nothing but an animal. He attempted to push it back but this only seemed to make it struggle more; the sheets would be ripped away from him in a matter of seconds.
And then a resounding crack sounded and interrupted the monster's attack, then another and another. Suddenly all Carson could feel was the full weight of the thing slumped upon him. It no longer attacked at him, instead having gone limp. Carson shoved the monster off himself and felt a hand grab at his wrist. He made a nervous yelp and curled back up deeper into his torn up duvet.
"Seriously Carson, you are killing me right now. Get up," a deep voice said.
Carson flung the shredded bedspread off himself and looked up to see his brother Isaac standing over him, holding a bloodied wooden walking cane. The head of the cane was shaped like the head of a dragon and it was the tip of this that Isaac had smashed into the monster's skull. Thankfully the cane hadn't broken; Carson was surprised by this as it was an old prop from the brothers' high school drama classes.
"Oh, I'm killing you?" Carson exclaimed, flustered as he grabbed his brother's offered hand and got to his feet. "Seriously Isaac when you pull shit like this it just pisses me off. So who is this, one of your friends? Hey, guy, get up- whatever he’s paying you, it’s not enough."
"We don't have time for this, Carson," Isaac hissed.
"Sure we do," Carson said, smirking. "Guess your little prank failed."
Isaac sighed and stomped on the monster's head, caving in the hole he had made. Brain tissue and rotted flesh spilled onto Carson's floor and clung to Isaac's shoe. Carson stared at the mess, transfixed. Finally he looked at his brother and took in the fact that he was fully dressed. Isaac had put on his jeans and slung a leather jacket over a t-shirt. A line of sweat clings to the fringe of his short, brown hair and his piercing blue eyes are tensed with determination.
"What's going on?" Carson whispered, a pang of fear stabbing through him.
"I don't want you to freak out, man," Isaac said, turning away and beginning to rummage through Carson's drawers. "But these things are in our house. There are more of them and they will attack you on sight like this one did."
"How do you know that?" Carson asked, catching a pair of jeans that Isaac threw at him.
"I know because I've seen them downstairs and had to deal with another one up here already. We need to move before we're trapped up here. So just shut up for a while and listen to me, okay?"
Isaac tossed Carson a shirt and a black woollen sweater. Carson caught them both and looked up at Isaac quizzically; something was wildly off about his brother. Isaac was never this grim and pensive, he was normally someone who was very outgoing and a bit of a jokester. That was certainly not the case tonight. Complying with Isaac's orders due to the gravity of the situation, Carson did a quick change into the clothes he'd been thrown and followed Isaac out of the bedroom and onto the upstairs landing.
A harrowing sound of growling, crunching and tearing came from downstairs; it was a sickly, wet sounding noise. It reminded Carson of the time he'd found their cat Bonnie devouring a baby bird in the backyard. He tried to poke his head over the bannister to see what was happening, though all he could make out were shadows and silhouettes moving about.
As they advanced towards the stairs Carson glanced at their sister's room. Normally Laura was a loud sleeper; she snored and grated her teeth... but tonight she'd fallen silent. Straining his eyes against the darkness, Carson could make out large flecks of dark red coating the interior of her room. It looked like something out of a crime show. Carson looked at his brother and eyed the bloody cane and shuddered to think what had happened.
"Isaac," Carson whispered, grabbing Isaac's sleeve. "We need to stop and get Laura. Come on."
Isaac shook Carson's arm off and just scowled in response. This abrupt reaction shook Carson who searched Isaac's face for some kind of answer as to what he meant. When Isaac finally shook his head and looked away, Carson knew what had happened. He choked back a sob and moved to go into his sister's room, but a strong hand on his shoulder pulled him away and back toward the stairs.
"We can't do anything for her, Carson," Isaac said firmly. "Believe me, I know what's in that room. It's not worth seeing. You didn't do what I had to, so you shouldn't pay the consequences. Now what comes next is really important; you need to be silent. Incredibly silent. Okay?"
Carson ran a hand through his ebony brown hair but managed to nod in response before following Isaac slowly down the stairs. Outside the house he could hear screaming and the sound of a loud crash in the distance. What was going on? What were these things that had invaded his home?
Finally as they approached the bottom of the stairs the lounge came into view and Carson realised what the sound was that he had been hearing. In the brightly lit lounge was a group of five of the same monsters crouched over the bodies of his parents. Carson's father had been completely disemboweled and three of the monsters were ripping into his flesh. His mother’s head had been disconnected from her body and the other two beasts were fighting for it like dogs over a chew toy.
Carson let out a short cry of anguish at the sight of his parents' bodies. Isaac instantly slapped a hand over his mouth in response. Sadly he was far too late and Carson had made a terrible mistake. The monsters in the lounge turned to see the brothers standing awkwardly at the foot of the stairs. One of the things bared its teeth, revealing a bloody maw with bits of flesh still visible.
"Run."
Isaac shoved Carson, who remained rooted to the spot. He was still recovering from the sight before them, the open and insatiable carnage of their parents. Unfortunately they didn't have the luxury of time for grieving. As the monsters began clambering to their feet, Isaac gave Carson a sharp kick to the shin and pushed him down the hallway to the second lounge and past the kitchen. The sound of wild snarls made Carson pick up the pace and he turned down another hallway, flinging open the door to the garage. As Isaac sprinted through the door Carson slammed the door shut, immediately watching the door buck and sway in its frame as the five monsters slammed into it.
"Move," Isaac barked at Carson, who jumped out of the way as Isaac brought a fridge crashing down in front of the door.
Carson turned to look at the rest of the garage as he caught his breath. There was one black Holden Captiva sitting on the left and a small red VW Polo on the right. Around the edges of the garage was a miscellaneous assortment of sports gear, tools, bits and pieces for gardening and camping equipment. Surely there were some things here they could use to get out of the house. Isaac seemed to have the same idea; he'd already grabbed a backpack off a hook on the wall and was now searching through the rest of the garage.
"So are we taking the Captiva?" Carson asked, looking through the garden tools.
"Um, no," Isaac replied, distracted by his search through the tool box.
"Well I mean the Polo isn't great but it'll do," Carson said with a shrug. He picked up a light gardening fork hanging on the wall. Hefting it in his hand, he practiced thrusting it forward and gave a nod of satisfaction.
"I, um, I forgot to grab the keys," Isaac mumbled, averting Carson's gaze.
"You what?!"
"Hey, don't get huffy, I got us this far," Isaac retorted, resuming his check of a set of shelves. "We'll just have to run. Be ready to pop the garage door, okay?"
"Are you suicidal?" Carson was beginning to wonder at how smart it had been following Isaac's instructions up until this point.
"No." Isaac pulled a long pruning blade off the shelf, checking to make sure the blade and tip were sharp. "Now open the door, Carson."
A thud on the hallway door made Carson's mind up for him. He paced over to the switch for the garage door, flinching as the hallway door started splintering around the hinges. He flicked the switch and jogged over to Isaac, who was surveying the street through the growing crack of the door.
"Alright, three of them out on the street heading this way," Isaac said to Carson, as they both stepped out into the cold night air.
The sound of a few car alarms hit their ears, the noise bouncing all around them. In some of the houses about them the lights were on and the sound of screaming and furniture being overturned could be heard. Front doors had been flung open and small groups of monsters had gathered around the bodies of those that had attempted to escape. Two of the same monsters were shuffling towards Carson and Isaac from across the street, while another was already making its way up the short driveway.
Carson stepped forward and with a fast jab, plunged the gardening fork into the monster's chest. The monster snarled in response and heaved its body further onto the fork, attempting to claw at Carson. Wrestling for control of the fork Carson stumbled back and almost lost his footing; the monster began snarling louder in anticipation of an easy meal. Isaac moved forward and with a sharp thrust, buried the pruning saw in the monster's head.
"What the fuck?" Carson exclaimed, watching the body drop.
"You have to go for the head," Isaac replied, pulling the blade of the saw out of the dead monster's skull. "I tried beating the shit out of one earlier, didn't work. Crack them in the head enough times though and they seem to stay dead."
"So what now?" Carson eyeballed the two monsters that were approaching.
"Now we run."
"You are a funny guy. I can run about as fast as a potato."
"Then run ahead of me."
"What's that going to achieve?" Carson scoffed.
"Because if I run in front you'll get left behind," Isaac retorted.
Carson gave his brother a quick glare as he ran down the driveway towards the street. The two zombies had now reached the foot of the driveway so Carson and Isaac were forced to run across the garden and out onto the street to get past them. As they ran Isaac pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and looked down at a brightly lit screen. In the distance the sound of wood splintering and howls filled the night as monsters poured out of the brothers' house.
"We need to get to Northlands," Isaac urged Carson, who glanced back.
"That's a half hour run," Carson exclaimed. "Why the hell would we go there?"
"Because Sasha just sent me a text, man; they're evacuating civilians from large public centres. We're going to have to move fast to get there."
"Alright then," Carson said with a nod. "Just a casual sprint through Hell, no biggie."
The two brothers shared a grim smile as they pressed on into the chaotic night.
Written by Ciaran Findlay
Edited by Nicole Campbell and Blair Findlay
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