2 Morning Dew

I wake up screaming again. With shaking hands and uneven breathing, I reach up with sweaty palms to clutch my chest and feel my heart beating rapidly as if it will break out of my rib cage. My breath  becomes clear in a white cloud around my lips and I suddenly become conscious of how cold it is in the room. There is a thin layer of frost covering the outer layer of the window and everything feels stiff with cold beneath me.

I suddenly feel a tear slip down my cheek. I reach up with shaky fingers and brush it away angry with myself for letting it fall. I haven't cried since...

Looking over to my left, my eyes rest on the small wooden nightstand where I laid the same full black pistol Tom gave me a year and a half ago. I reach over and gently grasp the small handle and bring it back to look down and examine the simple gun. My thumb gently slides across the smooth surface of the weapon and a new flood of emotions comes running through me again. It's all I have left, he's all I dream about. But he's gone and my heart with him.

With a light sniffle and a deep breath, I push away all my emotions to throw aside the soft blankets and rest my feet on the cold hardwood floor. This simple feeling brings back the old memories of late Saturday mornings when I was young and I would crawl out of my bed to the smell of my mother's famous pancakes waiting for me at the kitchen table.

I bend down while sitting on the bed and slip into my brown knee-length leather boots and tie up the laces while still trying to wake my cold senses. I tuck the small pistol into the bottom of my backpack before walking towards the dresser. I steal a quick glance at the stranger staring at me in the mirror before reaching over to clip my black weapons belt to my waist and pick up the gold knee pads so I can tighten them around my knees. I carefully adjust the laces on my wrist blades after pulling on my black jacket. I clip my small bag to my belt once again and quietly slip out of the bedroom.

I decide to leave the upstairs portion of the house for later and continue to explore the lower level. I still hope to find any extra supplies hidden from the average survivor's eyes. The rest of the house is clear and the only thing I find is empty shot gun shells laying in a bathroom and a fair amount of dried blood sprayed across the mirror and shower curtain. I decide to leave that room alone and quietly close the door keeping my distance from that area of the house.

The kitchen looks still like the best place to find anything worth seeing. I bend down and stand on the tips of my toes looking in every crevice in case anything was stored way in the back that nobody bothered to see. But all the cabinets and drawers are empty of anything useful. I sigh in defeat. But my eyes wander the room once more and see that I have neglected a small door off to the side that I can safely assume is the pantry. Although I have my doubts, I go ahead and make my way towards the small wooden door.

Slowly pulling it open, I see only the light catching the empty and dusty shelf of the kitchen pantry.

A light laugh escapes my lips. "Better than seeing a head," I mutter to myself as I pull the entire pantry door open. Last spring I happened to find the head to a very unhappy stiff wedged between an empty jar and a rock with a piece of cloth shoved in its mouth. Not a great way to be hungry and find something like that in the place where your food was once stored still trying to bite and rip your flesh apart.

I do manage to find in the far dark corner of the bottom shelf, a dented can of cherry preservatives which were once my favorite thing to eat with a spoon for quick energy before a competition for track. I slowly bend down to pick it up and the memories come flooding back like when you stub your toe and the pain doesn't come until a few seconds following.

My eyes slowly begin to fill with tears again at the thought of all of my sisters on that track team that I will never see again. I feel myself playing back the flashback of seeing my best friend, Kelly, who also shared my love for cherries, ripped from my arms by the dead who tore her apart right in front of me. I will never forget her screams and cries for help when I tried to pull her away. Or her terrified eyes that stared into mine, pleading for an end. She was the first person I ever lost.

I push away my childish feelings and memories once again. They only make me weaker. That's one thing Evan taught me. Unzipping the bag at my hip, I carefully place the can of cherries into my bag along with a dented spoon I found in one of the drawers.

The sudden yet quiet sound of the wooden floorboards above my head creaking is enough for me to drop my hand to my hip and pull the axe from its straps. My eyes dart to left then to the right in case my ears failed to say that the sound was on the same floor as I.

With fingers curled tight around the red handle, I lightly step towards the door I believe leads into the second level of the house. I slowly reach out and curl my fingers around the brass door knob and wrench the door open to see a simple empty stairway.

A soft sigh escapes my lips along with another wisp of white cold air. I close my eyes and take a deep breath to calm my panicked senses and I lower my axe to my side. But it doesn't last long enough when I hear that same sudden yet soft creak in the floor boards again putting me on edge. I bring my cold and stiff hand to lift the dog whistle from beneath my shirt to place between my parted lips. If nothing else, it will be the thing that saves me from being totally eaten.

...

"Oh my god, look here he comes."

Kelly suddenly elbowed me in the ribs as I was bent over, stretching my right leg with my hands holding the light shoe on my foot.

"Wha-"

"Shh!" Kelly silenced me as she looked off in the distance towards the boy's track team on the other side of the field.

A light comforting wind stirred across the football field as I looked over towards the many shirtless and sweaty guys still stretching after our morning run.

The humidity only made the moisture on my tired body more prominent as the sun was beginning to rise over the bleachers once again. I pushed aside dark waves of wet and sweaty hair and my eyes finally noticed who Kelly was talking about.

My own stomach started to do somersaults at the sight of him. Tom Smith with his gorgeous green eyes and wavy brown hair and his prince charming smile. He was one of the boys who was open about his perfectly tanned and bare chest and firm abs to match. He seemed only perfect in every way imagineable. And he was dating my best friend.

"Hey, you," Kelly said sweetly as he walked over to us with that same prince charming smirk on his face.

"Hey," Tom said kindly and he slowly bent over to give his girlfriend a soft kiss on the lips where she sat on the running track stretching out her legs same as me. I felt my stomach clench at the sight. Although I'm not the jealous type, at times, I felt as if I didn't want them to be together. I wanted him to be with me. To love me. To kiss me every morning and hold my hand in the hallways and tell me I'm beautiful. I've only ever had one boyfriend; and it did not end well...

When he had finished his sweet kiss, Tom turned around and looked down at me. "Hey, Tatum," he said with a smile and a nod.

I gave him a small smile and a nod. I tried to form the words I wished to say but I tripped over them and nothing came out. I looked down at the hem of my dark blue and gray Dawn Track dri-fit shirt feeling this need to perhaps leave the happy couple to themselves and be removed as the dark shadow or spot in the canvas.

It was the final track meet of the year for all the finalists hopefully going on to nationals. Myself and the happy couple were part of the small group that made it from our district this year. But our fellow rival high school's runners joined us for early morning practice before we would board a single bus later that afternoon and head to wherever the competition was being held. They failed to tell us.

I drew in a wishful sigh and I looked across the shiny dew covered turf to the other side of the track where the bleachers were dark and the light did not touch the cold and humid air. Some days I just wish I could disappear like the morning dew or perhaps still exist as a simple problem with a simple solution.

...

"Shit," I mutter through clenched teeth and a cold cloud of air exhaled in a soft breath. My foot made an awfully loud creak in the wooden step the moment I put pressure upon it.

The rustling from the upstairs floor suddenly begins again, even louder than before.  The sounds cause my body to tense and my heart to quicken with the pounds hammering in my brain.

I carefully lift my right foot once again and this time,  I bring it higher and rest it on the second step from where I stand. Thankfully this time, I am silent. A soft sigh of relief escape my cold lips.

When I do finally manage to get to the top of the stair case,  I find a long hallway before me with tall and wooden doors on the right and l left.

I can already see one of the doors on the left is slightly ajar revealing into a small bathroom from the early morning light  spilling through one of the windows.

A door on the right leads into a bedroom with a large window in my view. I can see a small twin bed with colored flowers  and butterflies plastered upon it. I can safely assume that this once belonged to a young girl who had loving parents and dreams that were hoped to come true. A twinge of pain and sadness runs through me for a moment when I think upon that young girl who is probably no longer among the living.

I suddenly hear a thump from a closed door on my left. A soft yelp suddenly jumps up my throat at the sound. I silently curse myself for it. I know better than to make this much noise. But I can definitely tell this is more than a mere animal trapped in a bedroom. My fingers curl tighter around the red handle of my mountain axe.

Thankfully, not another sound is heard coming from the room. I carefully step in my brown leather boots towards the door I believe the sounds emerged from. Ever so carefully,  I reach out and curl my free hand around the round door knob that feels oddly rough in the certain places where my fingers lay. I'm pull back for a moment to look down at the door. My thumb gently brushes against the knob to feel the familiar roughness of dried blood stains.

My heart beat picks up and the air around me seems to grow colder like the feeling when death is near. I muster up my courage, tightly grip the door knob, and push open the door.

I already have my axe up and ready to strike whatever lies behind the door but it suddenly stops and the deep breath I took only seconds ago is now caught in my throat and turned into a studdered whimper and the foul stench of death fills my nose.

The little girl on the floor, with her stomach opened spilling her insides with her blood soaked into the fuzzy blue rug beneath the shredded pink dress she once wore with beauty is what I see first. Her dead and lifeless eyes rest open staring up at the white ceiling and brown waves of long hair are caked in dried blood like the flesh or her face and arms.

Once again in this cold house, I feel the hot tears form in my eyes at the sight of her mangled body. I force myself to look away and allow my eyes to wander around the round the large room I can only assume once belonged to a boy. The entire room is set in a sports theme. The comforter and the walls are a similar shade of dark blue and in a strip along the top of the walls holds different types of equipment from various sports. I catch the sight of a coach's whistle and a pair of running shoes and quickly look away at the sight of something from my old life. You have to let that go, I keep telling myslef. It only makes you weak. And weakness get you killed. 

I don't get a lot of time to feel sorry for this scene or for myself when the sounds come again.

I force the yelp back down my throat at the sight of the little boy whom I believed for a moment was still alive. The tight grip I have around the handle of my mountain axe lessens when I realize the boy is not coming to attack me. He takes a few steps out of the closet he was hiding in and a few more towards me but stops just to where he's at arm's reach to me.

Studying the features of this little boy, I begin to notice the similarities between him and the little girl on the floor. I can still see the tear stains running down his cheeks and see how fresh the blood is on his shirt and surrounding the floor and his sister.

My eyes wander downwards to the little girl again who lays on the ground, unmoving. I then look back to the little boy who stands before me looking blankly at nothing with his dead and lifeless eyes. It almost seems like the boy is still left inside him and the stiff is slowly taking over the human left in him. That is how every transformation happens. You slowly forget who you are, losing yourslef, slowly and painfully piece by piece until you are completely consumed in your own fears of death.

I suddenly become aware of the tears beginning to form in my own eyes and the breaths I take that form cold air around them unlike the stiff before me that continues to take its struggles gurgling breaths where not even the memory of air escapes his lips from the cold.

Another whimper escapes my throat and I slowly reach out and rest my palm on the filthy and ruffled hair of the young boy. I carefully curve my wrist in an upwards motion to reveal the sheathed blade beneath. The stiff's gurgled voice and breaths become panicked and the boy begins to struggle beneath my gloved hand. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and drive the unsheathed blade into the stiff's head. In that single moment, I have ended his struggle and let him go silent and crumble to the ground at my feet.                  

My breaths begin to calm again and my heartbeat slows and the tears come to a stop. I find myself staring blankly at nothing knew that bedroom with blood soaked into the glove and blade of my left hand where it rests next to my hip. There's a cold and dead silence that quickly fills the room while small puffs of air escape from my lips. I stay in that room until I can't bear it any longer.

My walk down the stairs is slow and I dare not check the other rooms for anything  I can't bare to be in this house another minute. Too many memories are coming back. I can't have that happening now. I spend the next hour ripping apart the couches and beds and pillows to throw the stuffing all across the house. I spill and smash a few bottles of stale beer I found in the trash throughout the home until I feel satisfied.

I keep my back to the burning flames that devour the home in minutes forcing myself to not look back and keep walking forwards with my boots crunching loudly and soaking up the frozen morning dew.