Storm Orphans: The Beginning (4 page)

“Run, damnit!” he
screamed. “Go!”

The curse word is what broke Jenny’s paralysis. Her father had never cursed at her. She broke into a run, dodging between the cars and making a diagonal approach for the nearest intersect
ion. She looked back once to check if her father was following, but all she could see were the monsters attacking him. They’d surrounded him and were trying to haul him to the ground as they had her mother. She almost turned back when she heard her father scream in agony, but then she saw that one of the things had broken off its attack and was now chasing after her.

Jenny
cried hysterically and ran as hard as she could. She was faster that the Afflicted, a flabby middle-aged female with stocky legs that caused it to shamble more than run, but she was tired and trembling with fear. She stumbled twice, skinning both knees on the pavement, and losing her cane the second time she fell, but each time she got up and kept going. She stumbled down a side street, the stores and wrecked cars giving way to weedy lots and a crumbling parking deck.

As Jenny looked for some
place to hide, she spotted a drainage ditch that led up to and under the road just ahead. The ground on either side of the pavement was swampy and a culvert was set beneath the road, allowing water to flow under the pavement rather than flood over it. The circular tunnel wasn’t more than 18 inches in diameter, but it was more than wide enough for a skinny 12-year-old girl to squeeze into.

She went feet first, inching her way backward inside the steel waterway so that she could still see daylight in front of her as well as if her attacker tried to follow.
There was a good two inches of water in the tunnel and it quickly soaked both Jenny and the stuffed animal she still clung to, but she barely noticed. She was terrified. Once she was safely tucked a good five feet away from the opening, she stopped and waited. Her heart was pounding inside her narrow chest and tears still flowed down her face as she mourned the death of her parents.

A minute later, the Afflicted’s horrible bloated and bruised face appeared at the end of the culvert. It hissed menacingly as it looked inside the dark tunnel for its prey. It spotted Jenny and tried to follow after her, but it was too fat to jam its way inside. The monster howled in rage and kept trying to force its shoulders into the pipe, but all it managed to do
was rip its blouse and bloody the pale flesh beneath.

Jenny wasn’t sure how long the monster kept at it, but eventually, it tired of the task and wandered off in search of an easier meal.

Jenny stayed in her spot until she had to pee so badly she was afraid she was going to go in her pants. If she’d seen or heard any sign of the Afflicted, she’d have done just that, but it seemed the creature had left long ago so she slowly inched her away back out of the culvert and looked around. She was alone. There was no sign of the monsters or even one of the noisy crows. Jenny wiped her eyes then did her best to wipe off her stuffed bunny as well before she pulled down her shorts and squatted to urinate in the ditch.

Relieved of one problem, Jenny
considered the larger one. All she wanted to do was sit down and cry over the loss of her parents, but she knew this wasn’t the place. She needed shelter and she had to be quick about it. The monsters that had attacked them had seemingly come out of nowhere. There was no telling when or where she might run into another one and now she had no one to help protect her.

Jenny considered trying to make her way back to the apartment, but the thought of staying there knowing her parents were dead brought on another bout of sobbing. She didn’t think she could do it and it was probably too far to travel alone anyway.  With no particular destination in mind, she set out down the road in the opposite direction from whence she came. Her immediate goal was to put as much distance between herself and the abominations that had killed her parents as possible.

Although she didn’t realize it, Jenny was wandering toward the highway. After taking a couple turns through the lonely streets full of their abandoned buildings and wrecked vehicles, she saw a motel in the distance. She hadn’t stayed in a motel since she was a young girl. Vague memories of a trip to Disney World with her parents filled her head and she sniffled as a single fresh tear ran down her dirt-streaked face. This motel didn’t look anything like the impressive high-rise she’d stayed in on that long-ago vacation, but it looked better than her current alternatives. She quickly made her way up the street, her feet sore but her mind set. As she reached the motel’s entrance, she looked up at its neon sign, four of its five letters still lit in bright pink color, and breathed a small sigh of relief. In a world where nearly everything looked like death, she thought this place looked like it might just be home.

The End

Author’s Note

I hope you enjoyed this short sneak peek into the back story of two characters featured in my debut novel of the zombie apocalypse, Storm Orphans. If you did, please consider purchasing that book online at Amazon.com and write a quick review of this novelette while you’re at it. Help spread the word!

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