Chapter 7

Liam ran as fast as he could while dragging his bicycle away from the crash site. Screams of terror filled the air as explosions and other ear-piercing sounds noised in the background. The once-tranquil streets of the suburbs were now as chaotic as what Liam had seen in the news. He avoided the graymen, as he call them, and pedaled at the same time. Blood scattered on the sidewalks as mattocks were thrust into the flesh and skulls of civilians.

Liam hastened his work on the pedals until the chains got off the gear, causing him to lose balance and tumble down the cold concrete. He got up and cannonballed on foot, making sharp turns whenever he sees an attacker. He noticed that the greymen's steps were sluggish yet almost twice his. He stumbled to the sidewalk, dodging the incoming van on fire. The slaloming van crushed his bicycle down, making his tongue click. He got up and blinked at a grayman going towards him.

He sprinted to a backyard of a house where a man was ducking behind the concrete railings of its balcony. He sat by them, his knees bent and palms all sweaty. He wiped his oily temples with his shirt and heaved a lengthy sigh.

"Hey, where," the man lowered his voice, "did those genocidal naked monsters?"

"I have the slightest idea, sir," Liam responded, panting. "A chopper fell from the sky, that's all I know."

"Are you hurt?"

"What?"

"You're bleeding." The man pointed to Liam's sleeve with his mouth.

"It isn't mine, I guess." Liam rested his head on his knee.

He shut his eyes close as his ears feasted on the screams of agony from the streets. He felt his eyes getting drowsy, so he lifted his head and soughed as he leaned his head against the cold concrete railing. He wondered how his father was doing. The city sure was in sanguine disorder, he thought. It was either the graymen had already infested the city or they were headed there yet.

Liam looked through the glass door. "Guys, is this your house?"

"No, I was on my morning run when those freaks appeared from the woods," the man said. "How about you?"

"I live in the next neighborhood."

"In the gated subdivisions?"

"Yes."

"I reside in the—"

The man stopped speaking when the door creaked open. An old woman with rectangular glasses appeared from the hairbreadth opening of the doorway.

"Come on in, little men," she whispered with a soft voice.

Liam and the man stared at each other before entering the house. The old woman locked the door and turned to the two. Liam stood in complete darkness and silence.

The lady led them to the living room. "Here, come. You two seem exhausted. Let me get you some water."

Liam just smiled, then looked at the man who was his eyes on him. "What?"

"We're stuck here," the man said before sighing. "Where are you headed now? Can I, if you don't mind, come along?"

Liam's head was like a top on a never-ending spin. He could not think of anything precise to be done. He wanted to go and just hide in their house, but his father was in the city. Maybe Lesley needed his help, but it would not be easy for him to just take off with all the graymen scattered everywhere, sweeping the streets with savagery. He just hoped his father was in good condition in the meantime.

"I'm going to the city, I guess," he replied to the man. "My family is there."

"Really? Because, as obvious as it's been on these past days, the city isn't the best choice to retreat to," the man explained.

"Here, hydrate yourselves." The old woman handed the two a glass of water each. "Are you two alone?"

Liam gulped and nodded. "Thanks, ma'am."

Explosive sounds blew up from the outside, causing Liam to rise. He went by the window and peeked through the curtains. He saw a smoking six-wheeler truck, a grayman thrusting her, as her reproductive organ, mattock into the window of the driver's seat. Blood then covered the interior side of the windows. Liam closed the curtains and settled back down the chair.

"It's Judgment Day already, huh?" the old lady killed off the tense atmosphere.

"Aren't you scared, ma'am?" The man crossed his arms. "You're so chill."

"I've already got nothing to lose, son." The lady pursed her lips. "And I'm diagnosed with leukemia anyway."

The man froze in silence.

Liam stood up. "I'm sorry to hear that, ma'am, really, but do you mind lending me your telephone?"

"Not at all," the lady said.

Liam walked to the telephone and picked it up. He dialed his father's phone number, but the line just kept on ringing. He tried for the last time but again failed to reach his father. He went back by the window and looked outside — mists of smoke filled the air.

He crammed his fists into his pockets before turning to the lady. "Ma'am, do you have something we can use to protect ourselves from, you know, from them?"

"There's a collection of bats in my son's room upstairs," the lady replied.

"Could you at least lend us, please?" Liam requested.

The lady nodded and went upstairs. Liam and the man stayed, in the order given, behind the front and rear doors. The old woman then gave them a wooden baseball bat each. The three roamed the house, window to window, door to door, to keep an eye for the graymen.

Evening fell and the three were still in their positions, their bodies and minds exhausted from the sounds of chaos around them. The surroundings dozed off in hush. The harmony of insectile stridulations resonated through the dark of the night. Liam and the man rested in the living room with the old woman.

"We're fucked," the man spat out in rage. "We'll die here."

"Please don't say that." Liam sat on the couch, gripping the bat in his hands. "There has to be a way. I still need to see my father."

The woman lay motionless on the adjacent couch. "We'll die, we are."

Liam scratched his nape. "Can you two please be optimistic?"

"There's no point, man," the man replied. "Haven't you seen the news?"

The electricity went out as explosions blasted in the distance. Liam tightened his grasp on the baseball bat while moving toward the moonlit corner of the house. He respired in depth before making a small gap between the curtains. He did not see any graymen but the streets of disorderliness. He went back to the two who sat on the carpeted floor around the table and knelt.

"Thank you, ma'am, for the help earlier, but I guess I'm going out now," he spoke up, then turned to the man. "Good luck, sir."

"You take care, son," the lady replied while hugging him.

"See you soon, man, if one of us is still breathing," the man fist-bumped Liam's hand.

Liam nodded at the two, then rose to his feet. He pointed his bat to the ground as he halted by the rear door of the house. He was not even a quarter percent sure if what he was doing was the right thing to do, but he felt that the urge of finding a way to the city was not leaving him anytime soon. He had to see his father again. It was so unlucky for him that when they had, at last, come to terms with each other's presence was when the wall of the world started shattering. He would do anything just to see Lesley, that was what he was a thousand percent certain about. It was now or never.

He did the sign of the cross and puffed out a cloud of breath. before opening the door. He walked over the threshold and shut the door close in the very silence. He got out of the balcony and crouched, a violent blast of chilly air making his body hair rise. He put the bat down and zipped up his jacket. He knotted his shoelaces twice before seizing his bat again. From his position, he saw threads of smoke and small pits of fire strewed across the bloodred road. Body parts were scattered and vehicles were rammed into each other. The winds whistled as dry leaves rustled across the concretes.

He stiffened up his body, then ran to the backyards of the row of two-story buildings. He did it for several minutes until he quite ran out of breath. He panted behind a cut, thick trunk and noticed that he had not seen a grayman for a while since the day dusked. He stared at the woods just a couple of meters. It was thick and the only thing moonlit was the upper layer of the trees. The man had told him the graymen came from the woods, but he did not feel confident about it either. He looked around him and saw the intersection lane ahead.

While still crouching, he scuffed the dewy ground at a slow pace. He stood up and ran at top speed to the other side of the road after hearing multiple distant voices yelling. His foot caught against the tough outgrowth of roots, then he stood in an instant, continuing his run until he entered a random house.

He closed the door and panted. His heart thumped as he put down the bat. Despite the frigid atmosphere, he took the jacket off his wet skin and hung it over his shoulder. He held onto the bat and without enough visual perception, he cleared where he moved forward to with the bat. After the house inspection amid the darkness, he assumed he was alone in the area. He went upstairs and checked the rooms — all empty.

He then went to the room with the balcony and plopped down on the soft bed. His stomach was growling in a rather violent manner, but he ignored the hunger he had been enduring since the onset of high noon. He was trying to stay awake, but as he buried himself under the thick comfortable covers, his eyelids got heavier, putting him into a deep slumber.

A few hours dissipated like vapor when he woke up to a loud piercing sound. He scrammed hunkering down the tiled floor. He leaned his back against the wall and blinked at what was going on outside — two grayman were encircling a snarling Yorkshire terrier. He closed his eyes as the female grayman pierced her mattock into the tiny dog's flesh. His heartbeat raced again as he heard the cry of the last breath of the dog. He did not know what was going to happen in the following hours. The graymen seemed to be hunting every other moving living thing, so the only thing he could come up with was to just shun them in every way possible. He knew that that would work, but as the idea of him entering the city which he was sure had been grayman-infested already, he drooped his shoulders. He knelt when he saw the graymen traipsing away in the direction of their subdivision. He stood up and checked the surroundings through every window of the second story — nothing was moving but the wind-strewed garbage and junk.

He went down the stairs and locked the doors and windows. He went to the bathroom and washed his face with the water stocked in a large cylindrical water container. After cleaning his body, he went to the kitchen. A pungent foul odor entered his nostrils as he opened the fridge. He held his breath as he threw the containers with foamy dishes into the empty freezer, then took the bag of candies and packs of crackers and chips out of the fridge. He then took some empty plastic bottles of soda from the trash can and filled them with water. He knew their subdivisions were already catching fire, so there was no reason for him to go back to their house. His father was not there, anyway. He was not a fan of apocalyptic literature and media, but he was knowledged enough about what to do during times like those in the books and films.

He ran upstairs and, with adequate agility, located a camping backpack. He also found a windbreaker jacket and wore a baseball cap and a pair of hiking boots from cabinet drawers. He then descended the stairs and put the things he had found into the backpack. He slid his arms into the shoulder straps and carried the hefty stuff on his back. He went to the rear door of the house and looked at the framed picture of a family of seven on the wall.

"Thank you for these, guys," he said.

After some seconds of calming down his body and mind, he undid the slide bolt latches and grabbed the bat. He got out of the balcony and dashed across the soft ground to another backyard. He hopped into random buildings that were either abandoned or filled with corpses. He filled his backpack with food and light clothes along the risky journey. He had not seen any graymen still aside from the two earlier in the morning. He had not eaten anything yet, either, trying to find a safer, more elevated spot to repose in.

He was now in the middle of the suburbs and the urban part of Tres Lados, but he was quite not sure if he was heading in the right direction. He was beside lush vegetation when he saw, not from afar, a group of graymen dragging their mattocks in an indolent manner, the contact of the adzes and the road creating piercing sounds that echoed through the silent streets. He was about to get behind a thicket when a pair of hands grabbed him by the waist, causing him to fall to the grassy earth.

"Hey," the owner of the hands said in a deep voice. "Roll towards me . . . now."

Liam was torn between kicking the man in the face or following what he was saying. As a grating sound grew thicker, he clicked his tongue and balled towards the man, lying on his side and facing the person in the beanie.

"Your backpack," the man whispered.

"Shit," Liam replied while moving nearer.

The man uttered a quick grunt and put his arm over Liam's waist, pulling the boy's backpack. They froze in position as the high-pitched tone sound decayed and died out.

The guy in the beanie shook his head. "Please stay still."