House Of Mules (short story)

     Edgar used his knife to carefully cut the tail away from the body and then tossed it over his shoulder. It slid across the tile floor and came to rest near the others. Together, the tails looked like a pile of mismatched discarded feather boas. Edgar paid them no mind, but instead remained focused on preparing the rest of the carcass for dinner. He inserted the tip of his blade into the crotch area and began pulling the knife slowly through the abdomen, splaying it in two. As he reached the neck he suddenly heard a crashing sound coming from somewhere outside. Pulling the knife out, Edgar walked over to the window, leaving a trail of blood droplets across the dining room floor behind him. He peered out, his eyes scanning the lower level of the complex for anything unusual. He noticed a large tree branch had broken beneath the weight of the snow and crashed down part of the fence beneath it. He nervously looked out past the perimeter for any signs of advancement, but saw none. Relieved, he started counting all the traps he set earlier in the week. All fourteen could still be seen barely poking through the top of the ever-deepening snow. This was worrisome. If it continued snowing at the current rate Edgar figured the traps would be buried within a day and half tops. He needed a second story defense plan.

     He returned to the table to finish gutting. Afterwards, he placed all the meat in a ziplok bag and placed it inside a cooler labeled "CATBOX". He slid the cooler beneath the table and then wrapped the bloody fur around the sharpened end of a ten foot wooden spike and secured it into place using a stapler. Satisfied, he propped the finished product against the crook of two walls and decided to go check on the Others. As Edgar made his way down the hall, he stopped to open each bedroom door and peeked in on every occupant. They were all still there, each chained obediently to their post. Jen hadn't moved in several days, he noticed. She was still standing at her window looking out at the brutal snow storm that had entrapped them over a week ago. He closed the door and moved on to the last room where Sergio lived with all his stunning sculptures. He opened the door and gasped and immediately ran over to inspect the broken window and saw Serg dangling from the end of the chain that was still securely fastened to the radiator inside the room. His frozen, lifeless body pressed flatly against the siding approximately halfway down the length of the house, his feet nearly touching the encroaching snow.

     "Fuck," was all Edgar said as he stood there for a moment analyzing the situation. This wasn't good; he was now down a mule. And Sergio was the strongest of all the Others. He left the room and made his way downstairs to the prepper room. He flicked on the light and quickly started taking inventory, recounting the amount of freeze dried food buckets stacked along one wall. It would take at least three sleds. He then tallied up the guns and ammo. Not nearly as much, but the weight alone would require two sleds. He moved on to the stash of miscellaneous survival gear and figured it would also require two sleds. After a few more minutes of silent calculation, Edgar decided he would definitely need seven sleds if he wanted to move the entire supply.

     "I need another mule." He grabbed a S&W .44 magnum and some extra magazines, turned off the light and went back upstairs to retrieve the bait spike he had just created, then suited up in winter weather gear and headed over to his bedroom window. He opened it and dropped the pelt-tipped spear into the snow below. It stuck perfectly straight up, which meant he needed to plan his jump as to not impale himself upon landing, which he did. His body sunk halfway into the snow and after a few minutes of crawling and climbing his way out, he made his way over to where he kept all the snowshoes and attached a set to his feet. He scoped out the perimeter for any signs of danger and when he saw none, began trekking away from the House Of Muse carrying the spear in both hands with the sharp animal skin end out in front. The snow was fairly hard packed and firm across the top and crunched loudly beneath the webbed snowshoes. He figured he could walk half decent without them, but figured it was smarter to have them in case he encountered any soft spots. They were cumbersome but efficient.

     About three blocks down he could see lights on at the house where Jeff and Steph lived. He hadn't seen or talked to them since before the virus and dark winter hit. As he slowly made his way across the cold snow, Edgar became lost in memories of how life used to be before everything went to shit. He smiled as he recalled how Steph would always swing by every few days to check out the latest art being created in each room. Her favorite place to hang was usually Em's room because she loved listening to her play guitar while hearing Sergio sing made-up lyrics one room over. Jeff, on the other hand, didn't appreciate the situation Edgar had created in the neighborhood. To him, the House Of Muse was just a big old home filled with deadbeats and drunks whom had zero ambition in life. But secretly, Steph let it be known that he admitted to adoring some of Ben's paintings and even went as far as saying maybe one day he might make a few bucks off one. 

     As Edgar neared the edge of their property he unholstered his .44, chambered a round, and slid it back into the holster. He grabbed up the spear and made his way closer to the snow drift that nearly covered the entirety of their front door. He pulled a thermal imaging scope from his shoulder bag and did a quick 360 scan of the surroundings. Satisfied, he put it away and began watching their windows trying to gauge the activity inside. He remembered how Jeff made fun of him for being a prepper and a poet; how he used to say "Good job adopting two useless hobbies at once". It never really angered Edgar because he knew most people had no idea what was coming and he also knew even fewer people understood or could appreciate poetry. But now, standing outside his house, Edgar found himself secretly hoping Jeff was now one of the Others. Having stalked long enough, he kicked off his snowshoes and hefted the spear in his dominant arm and gave it a few practice bounces to get the weight just right, then launched it hard at the nearest window. As it crashed through, he quickly climbed up the snow drift and entered into the house.

     Once inside, he grabbed up the spear again and waited. He was in the middle of a hallway which led both ways, so Edgar had to pivot left and right continuously as the sound of footsteps grew loud from both directions. Within twenty seconds of having entered the home, Jeff appeared from the left. He was huffing angrily and carried a baseball bat. 

     "EDGAR?! What the fuck, man?!"

     Edgar locked eyes with him, pointing the spear aggressively toward his torso. He bounced the sharp tip up and down as though wafting the stapled cat skin at his face, but Jeff remained steadfast with a freaked out look glued to his face.

     "Just stay right there where you are, Jeff. Don't even think of moving closer. Where's Steph?" Edgar asked. Just then Steph appeared around the corner from the other direction, walking lazily and without purpose. Edgar quickly turned the spear toward her and held the cat skin out for her to see and smell. No reaction. She instead bumped into the wall smacking her face as she took a few clumsy steps closer toward Edgar.

     "No fucking way; HER?!" Edgar yelled out while looking back at Jeff. "You mean to tell me SHE took it and YOU didn't? I can't even… I can't make sense of this," he said with disgust. Steph continued shuffling her way stupidly down the hall and as she neared Edgar, he flipped the spear around and jabbed her in the tits with the blunt end, knocking her swiftly to the floor. In the same motion, he pulled his .44 magnum out and pointed it blindly at Jeff who was already advancing down the hall at him. "That's close enough, hero. Not one more step," Edgar ordered while turning to face him.

     "Edgar, come on, man. For God's sake what is the meaning of all this?" Jeff pleaded, still clutching the bat the way a bunter would with hands spread ridiculously far apart.

     Edgar glared silently for a moment before speaking.

     "I'm taking her, Jeff. She's coming with me. I was hoping it would be you, honestly. I need more muscle. Em, Jen and Mandy are weak and Sergio is dead, which leaves Ben, Claude and JB. You would've been the better mule, but seeing how you stayed clear and Steph vaxed out, I don't really have a choice now, do I."

     "Edgar, what the hell are you talking about, man? What do you mean a better mule?"

     "Drop the baseball bat, Jeff."

     "Edgar, PLEASE! Just take whatever you want, but please don't do whatever you think you're doing. PLEASE."

     DROP THE BAT, JEFF."

     "Edgar, I'm begging you, ple…"

BAM! BAM! Edgar placed two shots directly into Jeff's chest dropping him where he stood. The baseball bat made a loud clanking sound as it landed next to the dying body and rolled into the wall. He turned back toward Steph and watched as she tried to figure out how to stand up on her own. He stuck the cat pelt in her face once more just to make sure. Pleased with her non reaction, he helped her to her feet and pushed her out the window into the snow below.

     Outside, Edgar tied a rope around Steph's waist and barked the word 'walk' at her while pushing her forcefully and pointing ahead with the spear.

     "WALK, you stupid Other!" he yelled while nudging her shoulder. "WALK!"

     He was right, the crust of the snow was hard enough to support her body weight without breaking, which was a good thing because he hadn't thought to bring along an extra pair of snowshoes. "WALK!" he continued barking as they slowly made their way back to the House Of Muse.

     After securing Steph by chain in Serg's old room and checking in on the other six, Edgar decided it was time to begin digging the tunnel. He couldn't afford to lose another Other. With the amount of snow currently covering the front door, he figured it would take several days to carve out a tunnel. He wasn't looking forward to it, but it would be logistically impossible to transfer the entire survival stash to the second story and then move it through a window and down to the snow below. It needed to be accomplished on the first floor and through the front door. It was the only way. He gathered up all the sleds and stacked them, the rope, and the spare animal pelt spear in the corner and opened up the front door to see an intimidating wall of white standing before him. With a huge sigh, Edgar began digging.

     He dug continuously, hour after hour, until everything hurt. Then he would stop for a break, cook up some meat from the CATBOX cooler and after finishing his meal, he'd then take a bag of rice and a bucket of freeze dried potatoes upstairs to feed the Others. He remembered hearing on the news (before mainstream was finally shut down) how something in the mRNA triggered a starch response in all the jab survivors. Scientists couldn't explain it: the sudden hunger for all things starch. The mainstream joked about it at first, making light of the Irish famine from the 1850's, but when the severity of the situation was finally realized, it was way too late. Those who survived the first round of jabs began eating every potato in sight and when they were gone, they swarmed onto bread like locusts. Then they went for the crackers, pretzels and rice, and by the time the second round of jabs were administered, the damage had been done. The only thing left was flour and cornmeal and the Others began starving by the millions.

     By day two Edgar had already reached the halfway point in his digging. He was moving at a break-neck pace out of fear that he would lose another Other, but also because he had spotted a Third Kind roaming the perimeter after dusk. It had impaled itself against one of the angled spikes while aggressively chewing off the cat pelt with it's gnarled teeth, but after several minutes it managed to wiggle free and disappeared into the darkness. Edgar tried tracking it using his night vision monocular, but lost the trail after being spooked by what he thought was another Third Kind. The situation was becoming dire if multiples were now on the prowl, so Edgar continued digging at an Olympic gold medal pace. By day three and half, the tunnel finally broke through.

     Without wasting any time, Edgar divided up and loaded all of the prepper supplies onto seven individual sleds and fastened everything down. He then went upstairs and began bringing his mules down, one by one, assigning each of them to a sled load. Claude gave him the hardest time by pitching a fit in the staircase. He set his feet in a wide stance and pushed his arms out stubbornly in an attempt to stall his descent, but Edgar simply rapped him really hard across his back to get him moving again. Once all the mules were roped to a sled, Edgar then roped them all to each other and barked at them to "STAY." He went upstairs and took one last look at each room before leaving. He peeked into Jen's room and closed his eyes and pretended to hear the golden melody of her singing one of her sweet songs. He walked through Ben's room and gave all his paintings one last glance. They truly were remarkable. In Mandy's room, her piano, to which she was making extraordinary progress before taking the jab. Claude's room was still littered with stacks of novels that he adored and drew inspiration from in his own creative writing. Same with JB. And in Em's room sat her lonely guitar begging to be strummed one last time so that Sergio in the next room over could sing along while creating his latest sculpture.

     Edgar wiped the tears from his face and closed each door as he made his way back through the house and down to his waiting mules. He looked at them and sighed a breath of great sadness, then grabbed his rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Picking up his spear with one hand, he grabbed the lead rope with the other and started mushing his mules through the tunnel and into the front yard where they would begin their journey out of town and into the heart of the unknown.

     "WALK! WALK! Come on ya oatmeal milk tits, MUSH!" he ordered while walking up and down the row of Others hitting them on their shoulders and necks. They began walking, stupidly at first, trying to figure out how to move as a group. Jen drifted left and bumped into Steph and JB fell flat on his face after tripping over his own rope and sled. Em was looking up at the snow-filled sky when Claude rammed into her. Edgar, still yelling 'walk' and 'mush' and trying to organize his motley crue, failed to notice the group of Third Kinds approaching from the far side of the tree line. The dangerous ones whose jabs had mutated their DNA just enough to tweak them into becoming ravenous meat-eating cannibals. They were hungry. They'd been searching for days. The discovery of Jeff's dead body had brought them within territory, but it wasn't enough to feed all five of them. They were still hungry. And they were coming straight for the House Of Mules.

THE END.