As he knocked on his mother’s front door, he surveyed the adult community around him. It was peaceful. More than peaceful. There wasn’t a single person out and about. He assumed old people in this kind of community didn’t get out very much.
Meridith Emberson, however, was not an old person. She was only fifty-nine. They accepted residents over the age of fifty-five, although most were much older than that. The award-winning staff was the reason Meridith decided to check into Pine Coast Village a few years early.
Meridith loved Pine Coast Village. She also loved when her only child came to visit. Unfortunately, she always forgot when he was coming, which made her even more excited when she opened the front door and saw him standing there, glassy-eyed and gawking at the neighborhood homes dreamily.
“Joshy!” she cried out, giving her son a powerful hug.
“Hey, ma,” he said, squeezing her gently.
“It’s been too long.”
“It’s only been three weeks.” It had actually been longer than that, closer to a month and a half, but she didn’t remember those kinds of things. It was cruel how he sometimes used her sickness to skate around visiting her. What she doesn’t remember, won’t hurt her. He repeated the same thing while he slipped a few twenties out her pocketbook whenever she ran to the bathroom during his visits. She always found a few bills missing, swearing she had visited the ATM earlier that day. In the end, she’d deduce that she hadn’t gone at all.
“Well… I can never see too much of my Joshy,” she said. “Come inside.” She patted him on the back as he entered the house.
As she was about to close the door, she spotted her next-door neighbor, Russ Lowery, taking his daily walk. He was stumbling over himself, came close to falling down several times. Meridith smiled, thinking the old coot had a bit too much to drink. She reminded herself that she didn’t want to be outside when Wanda Lowery caught up to him. She had met Wanda several times over the last four years and she was no joy to be around.
Meridith Emberson shut the door. She was going to lock it, but thought about offering her son a cup of coffee instead. In fact, she forgot to shut the door all together, leaving it slightly ajar with enough room for mosquitoes and other summer insects to get in.
Unfortunately for Meridith Emberson, bugs weren’t the only thing out there wanting to get in.
“How have you been feeling?” Josh asked.
“Fine,” she replied. She set two fresh cups of coffee down on the table, one for each of them. She sat down, sighing simultaneously with the creaking of old wooden chairs. “I have good days and I have bad ones. Mostly bad ones. The goddamn medication they have me on doesn’t seem to want to work. They rave about this shit like it’s a miracle drug—well, the only miracle it gives me are bad dreams and awful headaches in the morning.”
Josh grabbed the small bottle off the kitchen table and read the labeclass="underline" APEDESIAM.
“Never heard of it,” Josh admitted.
“Have you been living under a rock?” she asked. She slid a cigarette out of her pack of Misty’s and lit one up. Her son joined her, sparking a full-flavored Marlboro. “This stuff was all over the news. The cure for Alzheimer’s. Yeah, well, some days I wouldn’t be able to remember my name if it weren’t on every envelope that comes in the mail.”
“Sounds bogus.” Josh took a long drag and exhaled.
“What about you, honey? You keeping out of trouble? Got any future daughter-in-laws for me?”
He shook his head, laughing. “Na. Not really. Don’t have the time.”
“What do you have time for?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? He had time to buy drugs and plenty of time to do them. He had time to go to work, although, lately, he had burned through his sick time faster than hemp at Woodstock. Late-night security gigs wasn’t exactly a premier career choice, but it paid his rent and supported his drug habit.
“Not much, Mom. Not much at all.” Josh stamped his cigarette out in the glass ashtray, then stretched his arms behind his head. He was tired. The effects of the oxycotton he had popped three hours ago started wearing off. In an hour, he’d be completely drained and ready for bed.
Outside, something exploded with a thunderous bang. The power went out. Meridith nearly jumped out of her skin. “Oh, dear!” she yelped.
Josh giggled. “Relax, Mom. It’s just the power. It’ll come back on any minute.”
About thirty minutes after the power went out, Josh decided he had had enough. He longed for his cramped, grimy apartment. His mother’s house grew tiresome in no time at all. He only hung around hoping she would leave the room, so he could fish a few twenties out of her purse. He had a craving for Taco Bell and payday wasn’t until the end of the week. Instead, Meridith shuffled around the kitchen, occasionally peaking through the window into the dead world, reciting the names of those who walked around without any agenda.
“And there goes Brenda Johnston. What the hell is wrong with her? She keeps looking up into the sky and walking in circles,” she said, sounding confused.
Josh rested his head on his hands. Yawning, he struggled to keep his eyes open. He couldn’t wait any longer. Stolen money or no stolen money, he decided it was time to leave.
He stood up from the table, grabbing his cigarettes. Pocketing them, he headed around the counter. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom, then I’m heading out.”
“Head out? You just got here,” she whined.
“I’ve been here over an hour, Mom.”
“Well, can you wait until the power comes back on? I don’t want to be by myself without power.”
He sighed heavily as he entered the bathroom, never bothering to answer her question. As he listened to the sound of his piss rain into the toilet-bowl water, Josh swore he heard the front door swing open. There was a loud bang, something heavy colliding with the floor. Then he heard his mother shriek.
“Oh, Tilda. What happened to your fa—” Josh heard his mother say, but her words were cut short by another ear-scraping scream. Then there were other noises. It sounded like dogs growling. Quickly zipping his pants, being careful not to mutilate any parts he might need down the road, he rushed into the hallway.
“Mom? You okay? I heard—”
He walked into the kitchen and saw his mother on the floor, a sea of red beneath her. There was a woman—or at least it looked like a woman—kneeling over her, feasting on a long string of Meridith’s intestines. His mother was squirming, screaming out, extending her arms toward her son. She cried for help. Her eyes bulged out of her skull as she yelled frantically. The woman growled brutishly. She kept shoveling the long pink strand of meat into her mouth, devouring it ravenously.
Josh’s legs felt absent, as if they left the room without him. He froze, his stare locked on the woman’s eyes. They were hazy and lifeless. Gore had settled around her mouth. Some ran down her blouse, a once-pretty blue and flowery-patterned fabric, but now stained dark with blood. The woman’s hair was matted with crimson fluids mixed with chunks of raw meat.
Before Josh thought about rushing to his mother’s aid, a man appeared in the doorway. His gaze mirrored the woman’s. He too was covered in the blood of the people he had mercilessly feasted on. He leered contemptuously at Josh before bolting toward him like a bullet from its chamber.
Instinctively, Josh turned, running as fast as his rubbery legs would carry him. He felt the thing on his heels, the rotten aroma that perspired from its pores filled the air. Josh imagined the man’s fingers on the back of his neck, inspiring him to run faster.