Sky on Fire

9 DEAN

FIRST I CHECKED ON the chainsaws. I detached the chainsaw battery from the car battery and inserted it into the chainsaw.

I pushed the button and VROOOOOM, the thing came to life. I shut it off quickly – didn’t want to make Astrid worry or the kids come running.

But I was relieved. Now we had weapons of some kind. Not so good against bullets, but close up they’d be . . . horrific. Hopefully just holding one would be threat enough to make any intruders leave us be.

My next stop was the storeroom.

I wanted to make sure the hatch was properly locked and I also knew I should do something about the bodies.

I brought two chainsaws with me so I could bring them over to the House, when I was done in the storeroom. I decided I should teach Astrid how to use one, just in case.

I was right – the bodies were beginning to smell.

I needed to seal them off somehow. My first idea was to put them in giant plastic bins. But none of the bins were big enough. Not by a long shot.

So then I turned to plastic sheeting, but we’d used all the plastic drop cloths when we sealed the gates.

I headed for the shower curtains. We had used some of those, but maybe not all.

And that’s how Mr Appleton and Robbie came to be shrouded in floral nylon shower curtains.

Maybe it sounds funny. But it wasn’t funny to me. It was a nightmare to roll them up in those curtains. Mr Appleton’s body was heavy and rank and stiff, as if someone’d siphoned out his blood and replaced it with cement.

Robbie was grisly, with the blood, but the sheet we’d thrown on him stuck to his face, so at least I didn’t have to look at him.

I got them wrapped up and I laid them side by side on the floor. The next step was to drag them over to the wall. Then I thought I might get some boxes or maybe decorative rocks or something and cover the bodies, so the kids wouldn’t see them if they came into the storeroom.

And I needed to wipe down.

I smelled like something dead. Dead men, to be specific.

That’s when I felt the hit.

There was a sound, like a big THUNK, but more than the sound, I felt the impact. The floor shook.

I grabbed a chainsaw and rushed back into the store.

‘Dean?’ I heard Astrid shout.

‘I’m back here!” I yelled.

THUNK.

The impact came again. I was close to it.

I scanned around with my headlamp, trying to find what could be making that noise.

THUNK. And now a heavy chunking noise – the sound of cinder blocks caving in.

I scanned the wall, running from aisle to aisle. The sound was coming from the corner of the store near the storeroom, near the Dump.

‘Someone’s trying to break through!’

I saw Astrid’s light come jagging toward me.

Then I saw the attack site. The cement bricks were caving in at the floor. Then they moved and we saw the reason.

Two metal prongs had crashed through the wall.

‘It’s a tractor or something,’ I yelled.

The prongs retracted.

‘They’re trying to get in!’ Astrid screamed.

Behind Astrid, Chloe and the twins appeared with Luna at their heels, barking her head off.

‘Go back to the Train!’ I yelled at them.

‘You always say that!’ Chloe shouted back.

More bricks crashed inside.

There was an opening maybe two feet across now, down at knee height.

‘Get back!’ I shouted.

I pulled the starter on my chainsaw and it roared to life.

‘Dean,’ Astrid yelled. ‘Dean! We need our masks!’

The tractor came back, puncturing higher this time. The hole was getting bigger. Blocks rolled inward, towards us.

Astrid pulled the kids away from the site.

‘GET TO THE TRAIN! LOCK YOURSELVES IN, OR YOU’RE DEAD!’ she hollered, dragging them back, back, back.

‘Come on, Chloe!’ Henry shouted and the twins hauled Chloe off toward the train.

Astrid took off toward the front gate. Going for masks, maybe.

I didn’t care.

I could already feel my blood rising.

Who was trying to get in?

I would kill him.

Going to wreck our store?

I would kill him.

More cement blocks fell.

And I saw the front of the machine. It wasn’t a tractor, it was a palette lifter.

My chainsaw roared and vibrated, shaking my arm.

I loved that chainsaw. It felt like a natural extension of my body.

And so I stepped over the rubble, on top of it, and ducked through, into the black world.

I was out and I was about to kill someone and I had never felt so alive or so full of blood or so bone-deep fantastic in all my life.

Luna raced out alongside me, barking her head off.

‘Dean!’ I heard Astrid call, her voice muffled. ‘Dean, careful!’

But I didn’t need to be ‘careful’. No. ‘Kind’ and ‘considerate’ were all in my mind. I was in my body now and the body had a strength that puny mind could never wield.

I pushed Dean, the whole personality, right out of my being.

I was the chainsaw now.

I vaulted over the prongs of the loader as it came forward again. The driver saw me coming but he was too slow. Way too slow.

He pulled out a pistol and aimed it at me, but I was moving so fast now.

Whirring, moving, slicing, I pulled him out of the loader and cut right through.

Neckarmtorso. Done.

Then through again. Shearing through torsobellyhip. Done.

Then my hands were wet and the chainsaw was lodged in the man’s pelvis. The motor whined, growing louder and louder. It wanted more.

I pulled and pulled and meanwhile, I heard talking.

Voices.

A boy and a girl.

Something like, Jake? Jake! I came back. You came back? I saw the guy attacking but I was too late. Help me. Dean’s O!

And I thought, Two to kill. Two to kill.

But my chainsaw was still stuck and whining. It was jammed with bone and had bit into the metal and I couldn’t get it out.

I could kill them with my hands, though.

I ROARED and turned.

And then I was felled.

Jake.

He had hit me with something.

A cement block.

And I fell facedown on the ground. There was blood in my mouth and it tasted good.

Now I can kill Jake, I thought.

But then there was rope and he was tying me up.

I strained against the ropes as hard as I could, bucking and fighting. The rope cut into my wrists and ankles.

I bellowed in outrage, my face pressed onto the bloody asphalt.

He started dragging me back into the store, my arms and legs bound behind me.

Facedown on the pavement, I got dragged.

I would kill him. Jake was a dead man.

Then white-sneakered feet came close to my face.

And a gas mask came into view.

It was Astrid.

‘Don’t bite me!’ she shouted through her mask.

‘AAAAARRRRRRGH!’ I shouted.

And she forced an air mask over my face and duct-taped it to my head.

Jake. Jake. Jake. My blood beat the name of the kid I would kill.