THE CASTLE

The Castle was an old building that sat on the outer edge of downtown, my boss had told me it was our next job. It was built around the 1840s or 50s by the look of it, large granite blocks four feet by four feet stacked two high made up the retaining wall around the lot the building was on. The building itself was made from the same granite blocks and was four stories tall. In its previous lives it had been the town library, bank, brothel, boarding house, and finally a glass blowing factory until finally falling into disrepair during the last rescission. Their was only one way into the place now after the city made the owners close up all but one of the stairways coming up from the streets and all the windows on the lower two levels with concrete cinder blocks. I had the keys to the large steel door and the keys to the lock for the fence that we put in behind the loading dock after it was sold and we got the contract to turn it into office space. It was a secure shelter and would be a good place to ride this whole end of the world shit out. The new owners called it the Castle Building. It was still standing 160 years after it was built and was solid as a mountain and would probably be standing after we were all gone, especially with the country going down the crapper as fast as it was.

I hopped into my old jeep and hoped that nobody was already there in there as our little convoy pulled out of the driveway. I had my revolver in hand as we drove thru the streets that were littered with bodies, some were half eaten, some were moaning loudly, some looked like they had just laid down and gone to sleep and were dreaming peacefully except they weren’t sleeping and they were anything but peaceful. I was quickly reminded of that when one of the bodies sat up and ran at the jeep and started to claw and scratch at the window .Thru the window I stared at the face of this thing and couldn’t believe who it was, my girlfriend from freshman year !I was in shock as I stared at what once was a beautiful face, her fiery red hair and high cheekbones made her ocean blue eyes all the more dramatic, her perfect straight nose drew your eyes down to a smile that could melt the heart of serial killer. But that was all gone all the parts were still there but the soul was gone I could see that in her eyes, eyes that were quickly turning lifeless and gray. I didn’t hear the shot that tore her face off but I saw what was left, her nose and upper jaw were gone, her right eye was mush and her left eye was held in place by a small piece of her left cheekbone. She didn’t stop trying to get in though she was still clawing at the window, her fingers breaking backwards in the process. The second shot tore what was left of her head off her body completely. The headless body just stood there frozen in rage it’s hands inches away from the door. I lowered the window and I reached out to touch her hand it felt cold and dead , but it slowly closed around my hand and held me softly. I could feel the heat around my eyes building up and I knew that I was about to cry. Jose’s footsteps stopped my tears and when I let go of her hand the body fell to the street with a thud.


I got out of the jeep and told Jose who she was .SORRY MAN he said to me, SORRY FOR WHAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW HER I say , SORRY I DIDN’T GET HER WITH THE FIRST SHOT MY SIGHTS MUST BE A LITTLE OFF. He smirks to let me know he’s kidding and I flip him off to let him know I know. ARE YOU TWO GOING TO MAKE OUT NOW OR ARE WE FUCKING MOVING THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! Howie shouts out from his truck. We both get back into our vehicles and continued another twenty uneventful minutes to the dead end street where the castle is located. We drove to the loading dock in the rear of the building, and I quickly opened the padlock on the fence and we all drove in and locked the fence. We decided to leave Howie’s truck right behind the fence to stop anyone from trying to ram their way in. We started to unload the supplies we had and I told Yvette to make a list of supplies we had on hand and what we needed after we were done.


As I flipped the light switch by the door I prayed the lights would come on. They didn’t but after flipping the switch ten or twelve times I remembered that we had pulled the fuse’s in the panel in the basement because the wiring wasn’t up to code and needed to be replaced, but I knew that it wouldn’t hurt to have the old fuses in for a few days. I didn’t think the power grid would be up for much longer and I already had a plan to have power throughout the building running through my head anyway. As I grabbed a flashlight from one of Jose’s bags I told the others about the lights and that I was going to the basement to put in the fuses. Howie asked me if I needed help and I declined after all I knew the place was empty…..