They Smell Their Dead

Jack leaned against the wall in his bedroom, staring out between the slats that had been nailed across the window.  He pushed his hair back, dark brown locks the fell to his chin.  At thirty years old, he looked closer to forty, especially with the week long growth of hair on his jaw and neck and above his thin lips.  Crows feet at the corners and bags in the dark circles beneath his eyes gave him a perpetually tired look.
         The sun sat low in the sky off to the west, the waning, golden light spilling  across the seemingly endless fields of thatched grass and mud. The rain had finally stopped just that morning, leaving the ground mushy and saturated after the two days of heavy downpour.  The stream at the bottom of the hill his house stood upon had turned into a river in comparison to its usual flow, creeping up the banks and threatening to spill over.  Once the run off collected, it was likely it would do just that.  The stream wound itself away from the house, heading south until it disappeared down a hill.
         His eyes weren’t on the stream, though.  He could hear it rumbling in its temporary strength and from the corner of his eyes he could see the water churning against the banks, frothy and white, but his eyes were instead fixed upon a shape out in the grass, perhaps a hundred or so yards away.  It was dark, perhaps the size of a small pony, and walking awkwardly across the muddy terrain.  Its movements were so unnatural, devoid of grace or rhythm. In some ways it was almost human-like, a prominent rib cage that tapered to a slender torso then flared into a back quarter. Instead of walking like a human, though, it moved on all fours, skinny legs with swollen, bulbous joints that bent backwards like those of a bird.  At the front of the grotesque creature was the most disturbing part, its very humanlike head.  Jack couldn’t make out details at the distance, but he had seen such before: hairless heads with large, translucent eyes and gaping, soundless mouths.
         The creature seemed to struggle in the mud, slipping and occasionally falling down and rising with the muck caked up on the disfigured legs and hairless body.  Its head swung from side to side on a narrow neck, as though confused by its predicament. 
         “Jessie,” Jack shouted.
         From downstairs he heard his wife call back, “yeah?”
         “Is the barn locked up?” he asked, turning away from the window and crossing the wooden floor of the bedroom. He stepped out into the hallway and leaned over the banister, dropping his voice a bit as he called down the stairs, “somethin' out in one of the fields."
         He heard the soft footsteps of his wife as she approached then poked her head out of the den and looked up the stairs at him. "Yeah, I locked it up after I got done milking."
         Jack nodded and ran a hand over the short beard he wore, then scratched at his neck and said, "make sure the kids stay inside.  Turn out the lights."
         Her brow creased with worry before she turned and glanced out the window next to the front door.
         "I hate seeing them," she said.
         Jack slowly walked down the stairs, his socked feet virtually silent as he came up behind his wife and put a hand on her hip.  She was already trembling.
         "Hopefully it just walks on by," Jack said, then placed a kiss on the back of her head before turning and walking past the stairs and down the hallway towards the room in the back.
         "What're you doing?" she asked, turning away from the window.
         "Getting my gun. Just in case.  Tell the kids to keep their voices down for a bit."
         The back room of the house Jack's workshop.  It was a twelve by twelve space with a workbench off to the right and the far and left walls covered in shelf space.  There were spare parts from machines, jars of nails, broken garden tools, half-stripped radios, gunpowder, bullet casings, crucibles, and bullet molds. 
         Next to his workbench was the gun cabinet. He only had three serviceable weapons: a lever action rifle, a single-barrel 12-guage shotgun, and an old revolver his father had given him as a boy.  Most of the parts he had went into keeping those three functional, for there wasn't much need for more than those. Efficiency was the name of the game these days.
         The pistol sat in a holster on a belt, coiled at the bottom of the cabinet. After buckling it around his waist, he picked up the rifle and the rounds from the shelf at the top of the cabinet. Levering open the chamber, he slid five rounds in and closed it, then flicked the safety on. Walking back to the window by the front door he gazed out between the slats and saw the creature.  He grimaced when he saw its gait bringing it towards the house, though still slow and clumsy. The sun had fallen behind the horizon and darkness was rapidly claiming where light had once been.  Jessie had turned off the lights as she had been told and now sat in the den on the floor, her arms around their two small children.
         Both children looked like their mother. Sarah, the oldest at twelve, had the same fair skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, and a pixie-like round face.  Despite that, she had always been a daddy's girl.  She helped him in the shop and had even taken to practicing with the pistol and soon he planned on starting her on the rifle.  Jack was proud of her, proud of the responsibility she was willing to take on at such a young age.
         Her brother Michael was no different in his looks, though he hadn't shown the interest in his father's tasks that his big sister had.  Jack assumed this stemmed from him being the baby of the family, always wanting to stick close to his mother. 
         "What is it, Daddy?" Sarah asked.
         Jack kept his voice low, a subtle message to keep their voices down. "Just something out in the field, sweetheart. Just a monster."
         Michael buried his face into Jessie's chest, whimpering softly. Sarah reached across and rubbed his back, her eyes still on her father.
         "Can we turn the lights back on?" Michael said, so softly Jack almost didn't hear it.
         "Not yet, baby," Jessie said, then pulled the boy into her lap and hugged him.
         The rapidly failing light was making it difficult to make out the creature, despite its approach.  He leaned against the wall so only part of his face was exposed, for there was no telling how good its eyes would be in the dark. If it was like the others, then it was probably pretty good and the less it thought was in the house, the better.
         Jack shot a look over to Jessie and motioned for her to stay quiet, then for her to go upstairs with the children.  In the gloom he could barely make out the anxious look on her face as she slowly got to her feet and, staying low, moved quietly out of the den and up the steps.  Michael continued to whimper...
         
         It had happened world wide, almost overnight.  The first ones had been sighted by some campers on the northern coast of Maine.  They reported it to the local game wardens, saying they saw huge, winged 'somethings' in the woods. It was written off as city folk who let their imaginations get the better of them, until a game warden caught one on video later that day...right before it attacked and killed him.
          There was no explanation for them.  Hundreds of different kinds of monsters emerged from the wilderness and ocean, converging on the population centers and slaughtering anything they could find.  Everything from reptiles to mammals to insects, as though the fauna of another world had appeared on Earth.  Massive blimp-like entities drifted through the skies, bloated bodies with tendrils hanging from their swollen bellies, as though they were only there to watch.  Civilization began to fall apart across the world.  Governments toppled and survival became the only rule. 
         Were they demons? A government experiment gone horribly wrong? Creatures from ages long past that had awoken to reclaim the world that had once been theirs? Some kind of biblical plague?  No one knew. Eventually, no one cared.  There would be no reversing the damage the monsters had done.  All that mattered was the day to day; surviving long enough to see the sunrise once more...

         In the darkness Jack sat with his back pressed against the front door.  His hands tightly gripped the smooth wooden stock of his rifle and in the darkness, he listened.  He could hear the monsters steps in the mud, the shluck as it walked on feet shaped like human hands.  It made a noise, a moan with a panting rhythm, as it paced about the front of the house.  Jack was thankful his children were doing such a good job staying quiet, as no doubt Sarah and Jessie had taken turns stealing looks down into the yard.  They both had seen the monsters enough, but that didn't make them any less horrifying.
         Jack slowly moved over to the window and arched up.  The monster had stopped pacing and stood at the bottom of the front steps, its head still swinging from side to side.  He could barely make it out in the dead of night, but his eyes had adjusted, allowing him to see the pale form.  It seemed to stand there for an eternity, occasionally turning a few degrees left or right, twisting its head around on the long, low hanging neck. 
         "Ugn...ugn...ugn," the creature said as its abdomen rhythmically swelled then shrunk in time with the noises.
         It knows something is here. It’s not gonna go away, Jack said to himself with a knot forming in his stomach.
         It was climbing the steps. The wood creaked with each step until it crested the porch and walked towards the door. Jack’s eyes rose to the handle and he felt his blood go cold: the door was unlocked.
         He scrambled and grabbed the small switch in the middle of the door handle, turning it and as he did, he felt the handle jiggle. The creature was trying to open the door.
         “Ugn! Ugn!” the creature groaned frantically. It knew he was there. It had heard him when he moved to lock the door.
         Jack rose to his feet and stepped back, his rifle leveled before him.  The creature outside was pawing at the door, jerking violently at the handle, its groans getting louder and more frantic.  From upstairs, Jack could hear little Michael starting to cry.
         The door handle went still and the pawing stopped.  All Jack could hear was Michael crying up stairs and the panting and moaning of the monster beyond the door.  The moaning stopped, followed by rapid thumps along the porch.  Jack moved to the window and glanced out, cursing under his breath at the darkness that cloaked the creature from his sight.  He felt a slight vibration through the floor and puzzlement crossed his face. What was the creature doing?
         Sarah's scream, followed a split second after by Jessie's and Michaels, brought Jack bolting up the steps, his heart pounding in his chest.  He turned at the top of the stairs and crossed the few steps into his bedroom.  Jessie and the children huddled against the wall upon his bed, their eyes locked in terror on the window across from them.  Jack looked and felt his skin goose bump over and his heart leap into his throat.  The creature was staring at them between the slats, pale hands pressed against the glass. 
         "Get out of here!" Jack shouted at the monster, raising his rifle. "Go away!"
         The translucent eyes, with their faint glow in the darkness, didn't move. They were transfixed upon Jessie and the children. 
         "Ugn! Ugn! Ugn!" It was pawing at the window, then began to pound against the glass. 
         "Just shoot it!" Jessie shrieked.
         Jack pulled the trigger and the room filled with the ncrack! of the rifle's discharged. The window shattered outward and a terrible scream rose up from the creature. Jack cocked the lever and took several steps forward, keeping his eye down the iron sights. All he could hear was the crying of the children and Jessie's whimpering behind him and the heavy pounding of his heart.
         Seconds ticked by agonizingly slow before Jack mustered the courage to step up to the window and peer down through the slats.  Glass littered the porch roof, but there was no sign of the creature.  The air that came in to the bedroom was cool and still smelled of rain and mud.  He hadn't realized how much he had been sweating until the cool air passed over him and chilled his perspiration.
         Something slammed into the house and made it tremble all over. The children raised their voices in a shriek and Jessie looked at Jack with terror, her mouth frozen in a silent scream. 
         The door, Jack realized.  It's trying to break down the door.
         He was cautious descending the steps, keeping his rifle raised and pointed at the door. Each time the creature threw itself into the door and shook the house, Jack felt himself hesitate in his descent, expecting the monster to break through.  He finally stopped on the second to last step and waited, trying to control the shaking in his hands.
         Then it all stopped and he heard the creature gallop off the steps, and the shluck of it running through the mud faded.  Jack strained his ears, trying to hear something, anything that told him the terror was still at hand.  All he heard was the crying of his children and the 'shhh's of his wife upstairs.  Finally he lowered his rifle and climbed the steps once more to return to his family.
         As he stepped into the bedroom, Jessie looked at him with pleading. "Where is it?"
         Jack shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed.  Sarah scurried across to him and he wrapped his eldest in his arms, kissing the top of her head.  Michael continued to cling to Jessie as though his very life depended on it, his weeping muffled in her breasts.
         "Is it gone, daddy?" Sarah asked, her face burried in his chest.
         "I think so, honey. I think so." With all his might he tried to stifle his own trembling, not wanting his fear to show to his little girl.
         This time the pounding wasn't against the house. It echoed in the still of night and came in through the broken window, soon followed by the 'hmoooah!' of the cow and the terrified cries of Jack's horse.
         "Oh no," Jessie said, her eyes locking with Jack's. "No, no, no..."
         Jack leapt from the bed and bolted out the door and down the steps.
         "No, Jack! No! Don't go out there! Leave it!"
         Unlocking the door, Jack threw it open and charged out, leaping from the porch. The cold mud soaked into his socks as he ran around the house towards the barn in the back. He turned the corner and saw the creature throwing itself against the barn door. 
         "Hey! Hey, hey, hey!" Jack shouted, waving his arms.
         Instantly the creature turned and froze, staring at him with massive eyes, mouth still hanging stupidly.  Jack raised his rifle and stared down the iron sights, his heart racing and causing him to tremble as he took aim.
         "Ugn...ugn..." the creature said, its head dropping down and swaying side to side.
         The barn was only twenty five yards from where he stood, but in the darkness it made the shot practically impossible.  He could make out the shape of the creature and see its movement, but between his trembling and the lack of light, his chances of hitting were slim to none.
         Shluck...shluck...
         It was moving towards him, occasionally calling out with a mindless, "uuugn..."
         That's it, keep coming, Jack thought, lowering himself to one knee to steady his aim.
         The creature was only ten yards away and now Jack could make it out much more clearly.  He felt his stomach start to turn at the sight of it.  The clumsy gait, the swaying head...it all unnerved Jack. 
         Without warning the creature charged forward, its voice raising into a shriek as it raised up on its back legs sprinting.  Long fingers with swollen joints and filthy nails reached for Jack as he pulled the trigger, cocked, pulled the trigger, cocked...
         
         The sun broke up the clouds as it climbed the sky the next morning.  Jack ran a gloved hand across his brow, wiping the sweat away, then stroked the neck of his horse. He clicked his tongue several times and pulled firmly on the horse's halter as he leaned into it.  The horse began to back up, the harness around it's shoulders pushing back on a flatbed cart.
         "Whoaa, that's far enough," he said, petting the horse's neck again.
         He handed the lead rope to Jessie, who had been standing off to the side, and walked back to the head of the cart and began to crank a large handle. Slowly the bed tipped back until the body of the creature, finally dead from five shots, slide off and tumbled down into a pit.  It landed with a fleshy thump upon a half dozen other grotesque creatures of varied shapes and sizes, all dead.
         "We'll have to burn them today," Jack said, staring down into the pit. "I think they can smell their dead."
         Jessie nodded.  Jack walked up to her and, peeling a glove away from one hand, stroked her cheek.  She leaned in to him for a moment before stepping away and tugging on the lead rope, leading the horse back towards the barn.
         Good day for Sarah to start learning on the rifle, Jack thought.