Read The Last Days of October for Free Online Page B

  And yet still she stood with her arms open to
the creature on the front porch.  
    “Can I come
in?”   It asked.
    “Mike?” she
whispered.   “What…”
    She didn’t get to
finish.   Amber shoulder-checked her
aside, aimed the pistol at the monster’s chest and squeezed the trigger three
times.   It screeched and stumbled
backwards across the porch, falling just short of the stairs.   As Amber shoved her backwards and lurched
forward to slam the door, Heather saw it getting up.  
    And the
others.   There had to be two dozen or
more out there, wandering up and down her street.
    The door slammed
shut just as the thing regained its footing and leapt forward.
    She just shot you in the chest three times
HOW CAN YOU GET UP
    Amber reached
forward and shot the deadbolt closed.   The monster outside screeched again.   Claws scratched at the wood.
    “Amber?   Amber, is that you?   Let me in.”  
    Heather scooted
away from the door on her buttocks until she struck the bottom of the
stairs.   Her lungs struggled to keep pace
with her galloping heart.   The foyer
stank of sulphur and cordite.   Her right
cheek stung where a hot shell casing had bounced off the wall and struck her
face.   None of this compared to the
spinning in her brain.
    Amber stood at the
door, still clutching the pistol with both hands.   Ears ringing, Heather blinked at this strange
figure caught in the moonlight trickling in through the living room windows.
    She just saved your ass, Heather
realized.
    “GO AWAY!”   Amber screamed.
    “Heather?   Open the door.”
    This wasn’t Mike
at all.   Not her husband, not the father
of her child.   This voice on the other
side of the door was sandpaper and dry leaves, desiccated cockroach husks and
castaway snakeskin.   It was
    fangs, I saw fangs in its mouth
    a mockery of her
soulmate.   It assaulted her ears and through
her ears it assaulted her brain, which could not process this.
    “YOU’RE NOT MY
DAD!”   Amber screamed.   She swayed precariously.   Tears ran in her voice, which broke like
Heather’s intellect.   “SO GET THE FUCK
OFF OF MY PORCH!”
    “Let me in,
Amber.   I’ve missed you.”
    “FUCK OFF!”
    Heather struggled
to her knees, then her feet.   She
approached Amber from behind, gently placing her hands over the trembling
Ruger.   Amber released it, turned and
buried her face in Heather’s shoulder, sobbing.   Heather flipped the safety and stuck the weapon in the back of her
jeans.   The still-warm barrel pressed
through her underwear and heated her skin.
    “Why does he look
like that?   Why does he sound like that?”
    Heather looked
over the top of Amber’s head at the front door.   Dark wood stared back at her.   On the other side of it stood something that
could take three bullets to the chest and shake them off.
    And what kind of creature does that?
    “Who are you and
what have you done with Mike?” she demanded.
    “I am Mike.”
    Amber shook
harder.   Heather pulled her in even
closer and held her like a baby.   “No,”
she said, “you’re not.   You’re a
monster.”
    “Don’t you love
me?   It’s cold out here.   It’s getting colder.   Are you going to let me freeze to death?”
    It drew out her
insides with its voice and shredded them before her eyes.   Pain stabbed upwards from her stomach, her
chest.   “Go away!”
    The thing
paused.   In the silence that developed
Heather could have almost believed it had heeded her command, but she felt it
there on the other side of the door, staring into the wood like she herself did
now.   She felt it thinking .   Of what it wanted
to say next.
    No, not thinking.   Ransacking.   Because Mike is dead, Mike is
gone, and this thing is in his body.   It’s rifling through his brain like a burglar.   Searching his memories.
    And finding them.
    “You were going to
leave me,” it said.   “You wanted me to go
away.   But you went away instead.   Do you know what