The Rule of Three

— 13 —

Thump!

Dee shuddered and risked a peek out the window. She had boarded up the windows as best she could, using every available scrap of timber and furniture. Anything to barricade herself in and keep the creatures out. So she only had a slither of a gap available to watch for Jack. She reached out and gently pulled the curtain aside. Her view was limited, but she could see the driveway and gate. Both led to the street.

Thump!

There it was again. Dee clenched her teeth and scanned the property, still seeing nothing. It was a bright sunny day, hardly a cloud in the sky. Dee loved autumn days like this. The last remnants of summer hanging on before the dreary winter set in. Seeing nothing, Dee let the curtain fall and relaxed the grip she had on her katana.

Still reeling from losing Rachel, and barely making it home, she tried to make herself safe. She’d fortified her house and boxed up all her provisions. She and Jack had prepared bug-out bags months ago. As she waited, Dee busied herself checking and rechecking the bags. It was two days since she had spoken to Jack, and with each passing hour the fear that she might have lost him gnawed at her more and more. She’d been out in that bedlam twice now, taking the risk to bike back to Rachel’s to retrieve her car. Having it home settled her, like she needed it. Knowing that she had an out mattered, a means of escape in case Jack didn’t come home.

Dee checked the driveway and gate once again, glanced at the pile of supplies. She had noted the growing number of creatures. At first it had been just the odd one, still human-looking with tattered clothes hanging off them. As the hours passed and day turned to night, they had come out in ever-increasing numbers. Solitary creatures had begun to gather in packs, prowling down the street and sniffing the air. When they smelt something, they would emit a high-pitched shriek and bound across the property and into the house.

Dee cringed every time she heard glass breaking and the screams that followed. Once, in the early morning, she had heard the boom of shotguns. Even that hadn’t lasted long. With nothing to do but wait, her mind wandered and she found herself imagining what had become of Jack. Two nights had passed since they’d last spoken, but still she found it difficult to accept that he wasn’t coming back.

Dee sighed and checked her phone for the hundredth time. She had very little battery power remaining and only kept it on out of habit. She switched it off and slid it into her jeans pocket.

She decided to move down to the basement. It was more secure there, and easier to defend with only two entries: one leading from the kitchen and the other from the back yard. Dee strapped the katana over her back and lifted the first box. Better to do something than sit around waiting.

It took Dee half a dozen trips to move everything she needed down to the basement. Next, she emptied out the pantry of all the canned goods, the fruit she had preserved over the summer and all the dried foodstuffs. Once she had everything she thought she’d need, she decided to secure the access door from the kitchen. She found some of Jack’s tools and put a dozen 80 mm screws through the door into the thick timber jambs. Thankfully the door was solid with no window.

She had just finished screwing the door shut when she heard the shriek. It was so loud it wailed around in her brain. Frantic, she scanned the kitchen, looking for somewhere to hide. She glanced at the back door, which was ajar. Could she make it to the basement?

There was another shriek. This time it was close, perhaps even down the side of the house. Gritting her teeth, she ducked into the only hiding spot available: the pantry. The handle of her katana knocked the spice rack over, spilling the contents all over the floor. She swore quietly and pulled the door closed behind her. The pungent aromas from the spices hung in the air around her, so Dee covered her mouth with her T-shirt and held her breath.

The clicking of a creature’s claws across the kitchen tiles and the popping of its joints made her skin crawl. She gagged when the rotting fruit smell that seemed to hang around them reached her nostrils through the mix of spices. She squeezed her eyes shut and held the door closed with one hand. Sweat began to pool in the small of her back and behind her ears, saliva in her mouth.

All it would take for the creature to discover her was one peek in at where she was hiding, one whiff of her scent.

Crouched in the pantry, she listened to the beast. It scrambled around, knocking God-knew-what to the floor. It would stop in its destruction every few seconds to sniff at the air. Dee could hear each sniff, because it made the creature sound like an obese asthmatic trying to breathe. She gulped in her own breath, as quietly as she could, when the creature scratched at the door. She heard it sniff again, and it sneezed. Powerful sneezes, one after the other. It seemed to scramble away from the door, its clawed feet scraping on the smooth tiles. There was a shriek, and the creature crashed out of the kitchen.

Dee waited until she couldn’t hear it anymore. She counted to ten, slowly. She peeked out of the pantry. Pots, pans, cups and plates lay smashed all over the floor. The spices she’d spilled had claw marks in them.

Something clicked. The creatures hunted mainly by scent. Twice now she had escaped their detection because of overpowering smells, once in the compost and now again with these spices. To have any chance of surviving in the basement, she would need to disguise her presence.

Dee dashed for the basement and bolted the door shut. Smiling, she took the seaweed plant-food off the shelf and poured its contents over the door and threshold.

That would have to do for now.

Hurry, Jack! Come home.