Darla bit her lip and stared at the grey sky that glowed a flickering orange in the distance, above the sharp, silhouetted spires of the mansion. She got back on her bike and bumped down the cobblestone streets toward the village, picking up speed, the lightweight black fabric of her dress flowing and jerking in the wind. Cats darted out of her way and wizened farmers slammed worn, wooden doors with her passing.

The closer she came to the blaze, the colder she felt and began to physically tremble. She pulled her bike up to a small store with a freezer box for ice cream and two old, dirty tables out front. A young boy was at one table, drinking a soda, finishing an ice-cream. Hugging herself and trembling she went in to the dark interior of the store where an old woman with shiny beady eyes stared at her intently. Darla stared back, seeing the woman had no nose and her head looked like a shriveled apple with nail-heads for eyes.

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Martin dropped the wooden drawer on the cement floor, releasing a filthy cloud of dust and some dead spiders. The old linens fell out, stained and reeking of mildew. Then a snake poked its head out from between the ratty sheets and tested the air with its tongue. Martin froze, staring at the snake. Then he ran out of the room. The snake came out further and a tiny bare-chested Amazon could be seen riding it, pushing the sheet off as the snake emerged. “Where’d Martin go?” the Amazon demanded with a slightly Southern twang.

“Fuck if I know,” said the snake. “He’ll be back though, probably with a hoe or a baseball bat or something.” The Amazon shook her black mane of hair. “Yeah, but we’ll be long gone, right, Sam?” She chuckled.

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The wind dragged the branches across the corrugated roof- a terrible ripping noise. David stirred in his bed, drenched with sweat. Something sounding like a tin can rattled around outside, stopped, rattled again. Then he heard the trucks arriving, distant purring at first, then louder. He leapt out of bed, heart pounding, and made it into the kitchen before they opened fire on the guard outside. He went deaf from the racket for a second but kept moving, grabbing all the cheap metal knives from the kitchen and dropping them into the pockets of his cargo pants.

Then they were coming in through the back door with dogs, smashing everything around. So he turned and rushed again to the front. They’d already shot Marcie and the guard’s dying body was pumping blood all over the weathered floorboards. He was halfway through the door, like he’d been trying to get back into the house.

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