Opening the door to his motel room, Markus took a deep breath as he stood in the sunlight. Having changed out of his overalls into a recently cleaned pair of jeans and a T-shirt, he took a deep breath as he looked out over the wheat fields that stretched out across the street from the motel. It looked nice but when he looked down, he saw the skeleton lizard looking at him. It was still sitting in the back of the truck from when he told it to sit there shortly after it had done the impossible and came back from the dead.

Just looking at the thing sent shivers down his spine. It had the flat-looking head of an alligator which by itself wasn't all that terrifying, it only looked that when it looked at him dead on. Maybe it was its eyes that were little more than small flickering flames that never looked away or perhaps the fact that it towered over, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that it listened to him and that was it.

He made his way down the stairs adjacent to his room and to his truck. Even though the lizard was pretty huge, it somehow wasn't weighing down the bed of the truck. Markus stared at it, wondering how that worked before shaking his head and sliding into the driver's seat.

As Markus settled into the driver’s seat, the leather creaking under his weight, he adjusted his rearview mirror before twisting the keys. He felt the engine rumble, and before long, they were pulling out of the motel parking lot and cruising down the road toward Ruston.

Rumbling down the road, the truck was very quiet. Markus had tried to flip through the radio but all he was met with was static. The few times there was no static, it was only the public warning station repeating itself ad nauseum. He had hoped it would have told him something like what was going on only for it to tell him that “He needs to lock his doors and stay inside”, like that did Mary and John any good.

Speaking of Mary and John, Markus’s eyes drifted to the locket sitting in the passenger seat. He still wasn't sure why he had reached in and grabbed it off their skeletons, He didn't have a need for the thing. While he had contemplated leaving the thing at the motel, he decided against it last minute. At the very least, it helped him to remember the couple and at most, he could trade it. Looking away from the locket, his eyes focused on the farmhouses passing by them.

For the most part, the farmhouses they passed looked relatively okay. Some were damaged but that wasn't all that surprising, the farmers in these didn't care about damages all that much. As long as they had a roof over them and a place to put their cattle, they probably wouldn't have cared if their house was two seconds away from collapsing.

While those houses looked fine, others weren't as lucky. Some houses he passed were burning, black clouds of smoke drifting far into the sky. One house was little more than a massive bonfire as the flames roared above. Markus looked at the towering flame his eyes looking away from the four figures swaying from the tree next to it.

He gripped the steering wheel harder as he drove by, his knuckles turning white and forcing him to keep his focus on the road ahead. What was going on? He thought as they passed by another house, this one completely intact. It looked nice, all things considered. Whoever lived there had painted the outside walls yellow and in front of it, a large garden bloomed in the sun. As he looked at the house though, a sudden noise from in front of him caught his attention.

Markus's heart skipped a beat as he saw wisps of black smoke coming from underneath the hood, followed soon after by a series of coughs and jerks as the engine began to sputter.

"No, no, no," he said, his eyes darting between the dashboard and the road ahead. He pressed down on the gas pedal, willing the truck to keep going, but the engine sputtered again, louder this time, sending a jolt of panic through him.

"Come on, not now," he urged, his grip on the steering wheel tightening even more. The truck lurched forward in fits and starts, each sputter louder and more disjointed than the last. Markus’s mind raced. Was it the fuel? Is something wrong with the engine? He had no time to think it through as the truck gave one final, shuddering gasp before the engine died completely. The vehicle coasted to a stop just outside the yellow house, the silence that followed almost deafening.

For a moment, he just sat there, stunned. Of all the times it decided to give out on him, it chose now? Really? He watched as streams of black smoke poured out from under the hood before he felt his face turn hot. he slammed his hands against the steering wheel, the sound of his fists echoing in the stillness. "Damn it!" he yelled, the tension of the past hours finally spilling over. “Damm it, Damm it, Damm it, Damm it!!!”

He pounded the wheel a few more times, denting it a little, before he finally stopped. His breathing came out in ragged breaths as he looked at the engine before putting his head on the wheel.

“Ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuccccccccckkkkkkkk…” he thought, not really sure of what to do now. Without the truck, he was more or less stuck. From where he assumed he was, he hadn't taken this road before, he guessed it would take him hours before he reached Ruston. Had shit not been hitting the fan, he might have walked it since he had done it before years prior. When he first started as a traveling doctor, he had been forced to walk from Jena to Olla after his car broke down. He still remembered almost damm near collapsing on his patient's doorstep before they carried him inside.

With no other choice, Markus got out of the truck and popped open the lid. The engine was still warm, tendrils of steam rising from somewhere deep within the machinery. He stared at the tangle of metal and wires, but it might as well have been a foreign language. He wasn’t a mechanic, and whatever had caused the engine to die wasn’t immediately obvious to him.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Markus ran a hand through his hair, feeling the sweat starting to bead on his forehead. The situation was getting worse by the minute, and standing on the side of the road wasn’t going to fix anything. He glanced around, the yellow house sitting on the other side of the yard.

If he was being honest, just being outside of the truck unnerved him greatly. The quiet of the place was nerve-wracking as there were no signs of life. He couldn't hear any birds chirping or any animals making noises—just the rustle of leaves in the breeze. It reminded him of Mary and John’s house and god forbid another lizard jumps out and tries to eat him.

Sighing, Markus wiped his hands on his jeans and closed the hood. Though he was loath to do it, he knew he had to go to the house and see if he could use anything to try and continue his journey. Without much of a choice, he began to walk towards the house but not before turning to the skeleton lizard still sitting in the truck bed.

“If shit hits the fan, come get me,” he said as he pointed at himself a couple of times. The lizard’s blank stare didn’t offer any reassurance, but Markus tried to convince himself that the creature somehow understood, even if it didn’t show it.

As he walked to the house, the true scope of how quiet it was became apparent. Besides the wind, there was almost no sound whatsoever besides his shoes crackling on the grass with every step. By the time he reached the front porch, he was practically shaking with how unnerved he was. He prayed to god as he gripped the door handle and pushed it open. For the briefest of seconds, he thought he was about to see another lizard staring him down before running at him but instead what he saw was somehow worse.

From what he could guess, the family of the house as well as a few other people, farm hands maybe if he had to go by their clothes, had gathered into the living room for something. While there, something went down as the room was wrecked. Shattered furniture lay strewn across the floor, and the walls bore deep gashes as though something had raked its claws against them. Maybe the bodies in the room looked no better as they were covered in scratches and missing pieces of their flesh.

“Ah hell…” Markus thought as he pushed over one of the bodies, a young man with just the faintest trimming of a beard on his face. Whatever it was that got him had bored a hole through his chest, enough so that he could see through it and look at the floor below. At the very least, his death looked instant judging by the look of surprise etched on his face. As he did, something heavy clattered onto the floor beside him, breaking the silence.

Startled, Markus looked down to see a handgun that had slipped from the waistband of the young man’s pants. The cold metal gleamed dully in the dim light as Markus leaned over and picked it up. He was surprised to see that it was a Beretta 92FS. With a practiced hand, he ejected the magazine and looked at it, finding it full. The young man must have bought it not too long ago, probably for home defense but looking around, it looked as though he didn't even get to pull it out before he died. Looking at the other corpses after he gently rolled the young man over, an idea went through Markus’s head.

For the next ten minutes, he went around and inspected each body, scavenging whatever he could find on them. By the time he was done Markus had found a mix of firearms—another handgun, a Glock 17, with a full magazine tucked into a farmer’s jacket; a Remington 870 shotgun, still slung across a broad-shouldered man who might have been the head of the household; and even a small .38 revolver in the pocket of an older woman. Unlike the others, it looked as though she died of a heart attack since he couldn't find any markings or wounds on her.

By the time he was done, he had an arsenal of sorts—small, but enough to give him a fighting chance if whatever had done this came back. As he stood amidst the wreckage, making sure that everything was positioned and stored right, he turned and began to make his way to the door before something upstairs banged. He jumped, pulling out the Beretta and pointing it to the stairs as sweat began to pour down his face. It was a gunshot alright but who fired it?

With careful steps, he made his way up the stairs, making sure to keep his beretta pointed in front of him at all times. his finger resting lightly on the trigger, ready to shoot at a moment's notice.

The upstairs closely resembled Mary and Johns house with many rooms laid out in front of each other in a long hallway with the master bedroom being at the end of the hallway. As he walked by the rooms, each door was slightly cracked open just enough for him to peak inside. For the most part, each room was empty besides beds and maybe drawers. It was only when he neared the master room that he began to hear breathing.

It was faint, but unmistakable, the rhythmic rise and fall of someone, or something, drawing breath on the other side of the door. The sound was fast, almost desperate, as whoever or whatever it was struggled to breathe. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

Markus’s heart pounded in his chest as he raised the Beretta, his grip tightening on the handle. The familiar weight of the gun was comforting, but it did little to ease the dread building inside him. He inched closer to the door, careful not to make any noise, his ears straining to catch any other sounds from within. As he stood in front of the door, using one hand to open it while the other held the Beretta at the ready, he silently prayed to god as he opened the door.

The master bedroom was dimly lit, the curtains half-drawn, casting long shadows across the floor. The once elegant furnishings were now in disarray, much like the rest of the house, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. In the center of the room, just barely visible in the shadows, was the source of the breathing.

A woman was lying on the floor, blood pooling underneath her, staining the hardwood with a dark, spreading stain. Her chest rose and fell with shallow, labored breaths, the sound ragged and weak. Beside her, a revolver lay on the floor, its barrel glinting dully in the dim light. She seemed barely conscious, not noticing him enter the room until he was kneeling right beside her.

“Ma’am, stay with me,” he said firmly, his voice calm but urgent. “I’m a doctor. I’m going to do everything I can to help you.”

The woman’s eyes flickered toward him, clouded with pain and fear. Her breathing was shallow, each exhale a struggle. She tried to speak, but the effort only produced a weak, gurgling sound.

“Don’t try to talk,” he said gently, his voice soothing. “Just stay with me. Focus on breathing.” Markus worked quickly, his hands moving with practiced precision. He tore a strip of fabric from a nearby curtain and pressed it against the wound, trying to staunch the flow of blood. The bleeding was severe, but he had to try

Even as the blood continued to pour from the wound, Markus never stopped trying, his focus entirely on saving the woman in front of him. His hands moved with urgency, pressing the makeshift bandage against her wound with firm but gentle pressure, trying to slow the inevitable.

But as he worked, the woman’s breathing grew more labored, her strength fading fast. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, she reached up and grabbed Markus by the collar, her grip surprisingly strong despite her condition. She pulled him close, her eyes wide with desperation.

For a moment, their faces were inches apart, and Markus could see the terror in her eyes, mingled with a grim determination. She struggled to speak, her voice barely a whisper, raspy and broken.

“You... have to... leave,” she gasped, her breath hot against his ear. “It’s... still here...”

As those final words left her lips, her grip on his collar weakened, and she slumped back onto the floor, her eyes going blank as the life drained out of her. Markus watched, helpless, as the light in her eyes extinguished, leaving him alone in the silent room with the weight of her warning hanging in the air.

His heart raced, panic already clawing at his chest. He pushed himself to his feet, his mind screaming at him to run, to get out of this house as fast as he could. But just as he turned to head for the door, he barely had time to process the being that slammed into him…