Blood Men: A Thriller

We climb out of the car. I turn a three-sixty looking for somebody, anybody, but there is nobody. I grab Sam’s bag and carry it tightly.

We move onto the edge of the property. The dry grass crunches underfoot. I hunker down and pull on the hat and the gardening gloves and take a knife out, then move closer to the house. There are no lights on inside. None of the houses in the street have any Christmas lights. Santa doesn’t even know this place exists. Kingsly’s house is government subsidized, maybe sixty years old, made from wood siding that hasn’t seen fresh paint in all that time. The guttering is covered in dark mould and sags in places where it’s all cracked and busted. There are clumps of grass growing out of it. There is a run-down car parked up the driveway, another one on the lawn, and if you combined all the bits that worked you’d have a car that probably wouldn’t get you anywhere. I slowly approach the house and try to peer in through the windows. I can’t see a damn thing.

I head easily around the side of the house, walking slowly, careful in case there are dogs here, but so far nothing has barked at me. I thought a neighborhood like this would have a thousand dogs. Maybe the virus got them.

I look through the back windows and get the same result. The back door is locked. I don’t know how to get inside. I guess knocking on the door is the way to go.

No it’s not. We don’t know how many people are inside. We don’t know who will answer. It’s easier than that. Just follow my lead.

There aren’t many places in the backyard to hide, but I find a gap in a mangle of hedge that’s overgrown in the corner. We move toward it, searching the ground for something to throw. I take aim and fire a stone hard up onto the roof. It thumps heavily, and I duck in behind the hedge, the branches scratching at me and snagging my clothes. I stay absolutely still. Nothing happens. I throw a second stone twenty seconds later.

A light comes on inside the house. Just one light in a bedroom. Could mean the other bedrooms are empty. Could mean the others are better sleepers. A few moments later I can hear the front door open. Twenty seconds after that it closes, and not long after that the back door opens. A man, silhouetted by the hallway light, steps into the backyard. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and nothing on top. Tattoos that probably have violent stories behind them climb up his body from under the waistband. He’s skinny and tall and looks like he’s spent too many years in jail and the rest of them on drugs. He takes a customary glance over the backyard, shrugs for his own benefit, then goes back inside. I wait until the lights go off, then I wait another few minutes, then I throw a third stone, same speed, same place, same kind of sound.

The light comes on much quicker this time. Still just the one light. Front door. Nothing. Then back door. He walks out into the yard.

“Fuck is out there?” he asks, and he probably asked the same thing out the front and got the same answer, but he’s probably thinking he’s talking to a cat or a possum.

We don’t answer him. He doesn’t walk far, stays near the door, wondering if the sound was an animal, or a pinecone falling from somewhere. Only difference between this time and the last time is this time he’s carrying a flashlight. He’s not using it as a flashlight, though, he’s using it as a weapon. It’s not even switched on. It’s black and steel and about the length of his forearm and I figure if he had a better weapon he would have brought it out here. Nobody brings a flashlight to a gunfight. He heads back inside. The light goes off. Silence.

We give it ten minutes this time. Long enough for him to think the sound isn’t coming back. Long enough that he might be falling asleep again.

This time the lights don’t come on. The front door doesn’t open. Only the back door, and it’s fired open quickly and he storms outside, the meat of the flashlight slapping into the palm of his hand. He’s dressed this time, black jeans, black top, black everything.

“Who’s out there?” he yells. “That you, Reece? This ain’t funny.”