Containment by Sean Schubert Page A

I’ve lost any sense of time without my daily and weekly schedules. I think we were only there for a couple of days but, hell, we could’ve been there for a week for all I know. I know that I spent most of the first day sleeping and then eating and then sleeping again. I use the term “sleeping” very loosely. I think I spent as much time staring at the ceiling as actually sleeping. Every time I closed my eyes I either saw Joan with that filthy, greasy piece of shit on top of her or that poor young cop at the school as his head was gnawed from his shoulders. When I did sleep, it was because my eyes just refused to stay open any longer. I’d like to say that I felt rested after I got back up, but the truth was far from that.”
    “Art was there, and me, Eric, another guy named Vic, and an older woman named Nancy. It was in the middle of the afternoon when we heard this horrible moaning outside. There were three of those things in the road outside. I guess Vic had had enough so he ran out with a baseball bat to...I guess take them on. He did alright too. He hit the first one on the side of the head and the thing just fell down. It didn’t get back up either. It just crumpled down and was done. The next one he hit in the chest and that one fell too. He started to square off with the last one but they were too close to one another for him to swing the bat. He jabbed at it with the end of the bat to put a little space between the two of them. He had just about gotten enough room when the one that he’d hit in the chest grabbed his leg and tripped him up. Vic fell over backward but kept fighting. From his back, he hit the one lying next to him with the bat again, but the thing just rolled over on top of him. The other one grabbed one of his kicking feet and started to chew on his ankle. What none of us could see was that there were some more of those things coming up the road and as Vic screamed louder and those things moaned deeper, the ones coming started to move faster. They weren’t necessarily running, but they were moving at a good trot. And now they knew where we were hiding. We ran into the backyard but there was another one of those things out there. It grabbed Eric and was trying to get a good angle to bite Eric’s neck or shoulder. Max wasn’t having any of it. He jumped onto the thing’s back and started to bite and claw at the thing. That was enough for Eric to break free. By then, Art had picked up a shovel and hit the thing in the head with the blade. He just split the thing’s head in half.
    “Eric was okay and we were just about to make a run for it when Max started to yelp. He cried and moaned like I’d never heard a dog do before. It was terrible. The dog retreated into the corner of the yard and started to vomit. It looked like it was mainly blood that was coming up but I didn’t really get close enough to check. I was already following Art and Nancy over the fence. Eric was still with him though. He tried to soothe the dog but poor Max was beyond consolable. And then he just got quiet. He was lying on his belly with his snout buried under him. Eric was rubbing Max’s shoulders, and that’s when Max turned on him. Max let out this deep growl and snapped at Eric. He moved away from the dog, and tried to talk to him. He was speaking as softly and as tenderly as he could, but Max continued to growl. The dog shook his head like he was trying to lose a ringing in his ear or something, but he didn’t make any move to attack. Eric just kept talking and was still talking when Max got real quiet and then lunged at him. Eric was caught completely off guard. The dog tried to bite Eric’s face but Eric fought him off, but Max was able to latch onto his wrist. He tore into him, using his teeth like a saw. Eric’s flesh was just flayed open, and then Max stopped and backed away. He shook his head again. I think he was trying to fight it, ya know? Max started to whimper again as he struggled. Eric didn’t