Young Writers Society

Mr. Andrew Peters woke with the sun. He glanced at his alarm clock, stretching and yawning. It was 6:57; he had about an hour before he had to be at work. He rolled over to look at the other side of the bed, which was vacant. His wife, Melanie, must have been awake already and making breakfast. He wasn’t surprised, as she usually got up before he did. After showering and donning a gray suit, he bounded down the stairs to meet her.

Mr. Peters was a slightly chubby man with a shoulder-length mane of brown hair and deep set brown eyes. He was clean shaven, had infinite laughter lines, and remarkably white teeth. Mrs. Peters looked very similar to her husband. She had the same, roasted chestnut hair and brown eyes, although her hair was a smidgen shorter and her eyes were wider and close set. She was also a bit chubby, clean shaven, and the proud model of innumerable laughter lines. Her teeth were white, but did not quite reach the brilliance of Mr. Peters’.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Peters worked in a highly classified division of the United Nations, which was rather large for a confidential division. The UN headquarters in New York City alone, where the Peters worked, employed over 500 in that division. The Peters worked in the Flesheater Location Office, of which Mr. Peters was manager and supervisor.

The Peters had no children of their own, but they did have a niece and nephew, daughter and son to David and Amy Corban, Mrs. Peters’ brother and sister-in-law. The Peters had not seen their niece nor her parents in years. They had moved around so often that they were rarely able to visit relatives. It was possible that their niece didn’t even remember their last visit, besides any stories David and Amy had recounted to her. Their nephew, they had never met; he was less than a year old.

Mr. Peters sat down at the breakfast table, which was set with a pair of plates, glasses, and silverware, as well as a stack of napkins and the morning newspaper. Mrs. Peters was busy at the stove, scrambling eggs and frying bacon. She glanced over at her husband as he began perusing the newspaper.

“Anything good?” she asked, doubtfully.

Her husband shook his head and frowned, his brow furrowing. “Have you read the news at all this morning, dear?” he asked.

“No,” she replied.

“Have you heard from David and Amy lately?”

“Not since Christmas,” she shrugged, turning off the stove as she removed the last slice of hot, greasy bacon from the frying pan and slid it onto a large platter, heaped high with bacon and eggs. She took a couple of slices of toast from the toaster and buttered them. Then she carried the platter to the table and set it down in the middle. “Why do you ask?”

Mr. Peters pointed at the page he’d been reading and Mrs. Peters glimpsed the article headline carelessly, only to focus on the article ten seconds later when its meaning finally registered. Her face paled as she saw a picture over Mr. Peters’ shoulder. The headline read “Family of Four Disappears Under Suspicious Circumstances.” Beneath the headline was a picture of the Corbans. David, Amy, Rebecca, and baby Charles smiled at them from the page.

“Andy, you don’t think they were… taken, do you?” asked Mrs. Peters, frightenedly. “That somehow the vultures got wind of the prophecy and went for them?”

“I don’t know. They might have just gone into hiding a a precaution, in case something like that happened in the future. We really have no way of knowing for sure.”

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Peters, still pale, sitting down at the table. “Maybe we should read the article. It might spread some light.”

Mr. Peters straightened his reading glasses, cleared his throat, and began to read.

“Mr. David Corban and his wife Mrs. Amy Corban were last seen Saturday at their home in Fairmount, Indiana with their son, Charles. Ms. Kelsie Glade, neighbor to the Corbans, said she’d seen the couple pulling into their driveway.

“They looked nervous,” Glade remembered. “Usually their so carefree, so I noticed it instantly. An hour later, I went to take out my trash and their car had gone. The next morning I went to see Amy, but no one answered the door.”

Glade further reports that she heard a loud crash and was afraid someone might be hurt. Upon entering the house, she found it ‘ransacked.’ She says, “It looked as if it had just been robbed. I called out for David and Amy, but there was no answer.”

Police were called to the scene at 8:37 a.m. after Glade found a body on the staircase. Those present at the scene report that several insured valuables were missing, including their car, a 2014 Toyota Corolla.

“The body has not been identified yet,” reports Officer Boyd Christiansen, lead detective on the case. “But it’s only a matter of time before we get the DNA test results back from the lab. All we can be certain of at this time is that the body is young and female. It may be the body of Rebecca, the Corbans’ eleven year old daughter.”

Rebecca Corban was reported missing by her school, Glowpeak Academy, at 7;45 on Saturday morning. The Corban family was informed of her disappearance and visited the school that afternoon, said Headmaster Cannon Perkins. The school declines further comment.”

Mr. Peters looked up at his wife. She looked pale and frightened.

“Mel,” he said, “Your brother is probably just fine. Their car is gone and zombies haven’t been known to steal cars. Maybe the body is a zombie. Maybe it found them and they knew they were in danger, so they ran for the hills. They’re probably fine. I’m sure we’ll hear from them soon.”

Mrs. Peters took a deep breath. “You’re right, Andy. They’re probably alright.”

***

Mr. Peters climbed into the driver’s seat of his old Ford pickup truck and Mrs. Peters climbed up into the passenger seat beside him. Their breakfast was short-lived; now they were heading to work. The sky was clear and the sun was bright and shining in their eyes. Mr. Peters was having trouble seeing the road, as the sun reflected off of the tar, but he could see just enough to get them to the office in one piece. The morning was generally uneventful. There was only one call-in of a flesheater sighting, from Kansas, and a probable mention in a newspaper from Eastern Nevada.

The Peters, their colleague Mr. Jonas Robinson, and the office secretary Mrs. Gerda Petrovsky, left the office just before noon for a brief lunch at a sandwich shop a few blocks away. Here they all set their work aside the article the Peters had read earlier in the morning while waiting for their sandwiches.

"Did you see the article about Amy and David this morning, Mr. Peters?" asked Mr. Robinson keenly."Yes I did," said Mr. Peters. "Melanie and I thought there was something strange about it. Amy and David aren't the type of people to just disappear, or the type to leave a dead body lying around in their house.

"So you think the body is a zombie? In the paper they said it might be Rebecca's body," said Mrs. Petrovsky.

“Oh, I do hope nothing's happened to them,” said Mrs. Peters fretfully. “It seems like something… He would do. We all know he's done it before, driven people out of their homes, killed or kidnapped them. Amy and David are well trained and experienced, but once he sees them as a threat, they don't stand a chance. Think about Maliki and Komo Auri’il. They were just as good as Amy and David, but last week they turned up dead. I told Amy she shouldn't have married him. The Corban family has been a target from the beginning.

“The flesheaters seem to be gaining confidence,” said Mrs. Petrovsky thoughtfully. “The attacks have been worse lately and much more often. Today was surprisingly slow, the least busy we’ve been this month.”

“The day isn't over yet, Gerda,” Mr. Robinson reminded her. “We’ve got five hours after lunch.”

At that moment their sandwiches showed up. They sat at a booth in companionable silence. When their lunch break was over, they walked back to the office, each of them lost in thought, all wondering what possibly could have happened to Amy and David Corban.

That afternoon there was just a little activity, although a call from a town just south of Fairmount, Indiana startled the Peters. There had been a zombie sighted earlier that day nearby Fairmount and Mrs. Peters had burst into tears and tried to talk her husband into driving out to make sure her sister was alright, but he finally calmed her down, reminding her that her sister was a level four combatant, fully trained to fight and defeat a host of zombies. Only one had been sighted. She could easily have taken him down, in fact, Mr. Peters himself probably could have taken one measly flesheater. He also reminded her that the Corbans weren't even home. Mrs. Peters stopped crying, but she continued to look morose for the rest of the day.

Arriving at their house at about 5:30 pm, Mr. Peters turned on the evening news and Mrs. Peters started the laundry, then joined her husband in the living room. There were few things going on around the world, and soon attention turned to the missing family and the unknown body in their house. A news reporter was speculating about whether or not all the Corbans were dead when another man came on set and slipped him a piece of paper. The reporter read through the paper quickly, then looked up at the camera, startled.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “We've just received an update on the investigation from Fairmount Police Department. They have now identified the body and it's as we feared. Miss Rebecca Corban passed away around 6:30 on Friday night. The department believes she was the victim of an animal attack, but we cannot be certain. They are not sure as of yet what kind of animal it was, but they suspect it was the Corban’s dog, Frank. We are assuming he was sick and attacked the child violently. The dog is also missing. It is still unknown why the rest of the family has disappeared or where they are now.” The reporter glanced at his watch and said, “That wraps it up. Stay tuned for the weather forecast. Morgan, over to you.”

The reporter smiled once more, then the screen switched to a beautiful blond woman. She too smiled.

“Thank you, Todd,” she said. “Tomorrow we are expecting rain and temperatures in the-”

The rest of Morgan’s weather report was cut off as Mr. Peters pressed a button on the remote control in his hand. The screen went blank and the room went completely silent.

Mrs. Peters continued to stare at the blank screen for several minutes. Fearing that his wife had had a heart attack without him realizing it, Mr. Peters finally spoke.

“If we leave now, we’ll make it there by dawn.”

Mrs. Peters looked at him, shaken from her reverie, and smiled weakly. “If you don't mind,” she said.

After stuffing some food and equipment into a bag, the Peters set off in their Ford Expedition for Fairmount. It would be a long night, but with any luck it would be we'll worth the drive. As Mr. and Mrs. Peters drove out of their dark neighborhood, a man and a woman entered from the opposite end of the street. The man carried a piece of paper and a street map and the woman carried a picnic basket, looking very out of place in the dim twilight.

The man sighed and shook his head at the piece of paper. “Without the last part of the message,” he said, “it's impossible to know which street they live on. We’re on Schofield Street right now, but Schoffer’s Lane is only half a mile south. Both streets have a #1207.”

“Tommy said they’d be home all weekend, and I tend to trust Tommy's research. If they live here, then their car will be in the driveway and we can peak in the window to see if it's really them. If there is no car in the driveway, then its not them and all we have to do is walk to Schoffer's Lane and drop him off.”

The man nodded and looked up at the house numbers. “1203,” he mumbled. “1205, and 1207.” The man smiled in triumph for a moment, but his face fell. The driveway was empty.

“I guess it's not them,” said the woman.

“What if they just went for a quick trip to the grocer’s?” said the man frowning.

If they did, we don't know when they’ll be back. We might as well check the other house.”

The couple walked to the end of the street and turned the corner. It didn't take long for them to arrive at Schoffer's Lane. A few turns later, the couple found themselves on the sidewalk, staring at house #1207 on Schoffer's Lane. The blinds were closed and there was no car in the driveway, but the house had a garage and they could hear a radio playing music inside. The man walked up to the nearest window and pressed his ear against the glass. Muffled but distinct, a noise of clinking glasses rang out and a woman’s deep laughter struck his eardrums.

He breathed a sigh of relief, but still hesitated. “Any there are people here. But how can we know if it's Melanie and Andrew?”

“We just have to have faith in them and in Tommy. And especially in whatever greater being is out there, that he will protect our son and that he brought us to the right place. We can't knock on the door. They’ll try to get us to stay and protect us themselves and it won't work. Too many people have already died for us. We’ll just put them in danger and continue to put Charles in danger. We’ve already lost… so much.”

The woman began to cry. There were tears on her cheeks and more in her eyes and she was almost pleading with her husband. His face softened and his body relaxed. He nodded and gestured toward the door. The woman opened the picnic basket and peered inside. She suddenly began to sob. The man stepped swiftly to the woman’s side and put his arm around her. Closing the basket and gently comforting the woman, the man slid the basket out of her grasp and placed it on the doorstep. The couple walked back down the street several minutes later. The woman was still sobbing and the man was still attempting to soothe her.

From inside #1207 of Schoffer's Lane came the sound of a child’s laughter. A moment sooner, that laughter would have changed the entire future course of events.