Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

my other hand and I used it to push him up off of me just a bit. It was all I could manage, but it’s all I needed. It moved him enough to shift his legs and give me room to maneuver my knee.
    I sent it soundly up into his crotch, using every ounce of strength I had left in my body to bring the pain, paralyzing him enough to give me time to get away.
    He grunted with the impact, his breath wheezing out in one long gasp. I felt his muscles go stiff as his body curled inward. I pushed him away with my one free hand, rolling his body over enough to wiggle out from under him and move away.
    I was nearly free when I felt his hand close around my wrist. I was on my back and the small knife I had used to poke his side was in that hand. I reached over with my other one and jabbed my fingers into his eyes as hard as a I could.
    He screamed and let me go, throwing his hand up to his face. I sat up and made a move to stand and his hand came back again, waving blindly, trying to grab onto some part of me.
    I didn’t think about it, I just did it. I closed my hand hard around the knife and fell towards him, off balance, just wanting to stop him from moving and keeping me from leaving.
    I felt the knife sink into his neck, only stopping when it reached his spine.
    Blood spurted out all over the both of us. His hand went to the handle of the knife that I’d let go, and I crab walked on my hands and feet back away from him, running into the stinking corpse of a kid with both legs missing.
    I screamed and flipped over onto my hands and feet, running a few steps like a dog on four legs, trying to get away from him and the carnage. I tripped over his head and went down on my stomach again, crawling forward desperately, becoming unhinged at the idea of his blood all over me and being trapped inside this building with the dead and dying.
    “Go!” yelled Julio. “Get out!”
    The sound of a hawk’s shriek came through the open door and filled my ears; and for the life of me, I couldn’t tell if it were human-made or Nina.
    I scrambled on hands and knees to the door. I heard a noise behind me and turned, getting up on my feet. I screamed when I saw the hideous creature coming for me.
    Dave was standing, the knife sticking out of his neck, his entire jersey soaked in his blood. He took two steps towards me, sounds gurgling out of his mouth, blood squirting to the side with every beat and pulse of his heart.
    In all the madness, I heard a voice rising above it. Above the sounds of my own ragged breath in my ears and above the gross sounds of Dave’s life leaving his body with every second.
    It was the sound of Julio, dictating the last soccer play of his life.
    “The crowd is on its feet,” he said, his voice stronger than mine ever could have been. “He’s lining himself up with the goal. There’s no one in his way. Nothing can stop him now …”
    I ran to the doorway, drawn by the vision I saw there. Trip with his arms out to grab me. He reached in and pulled me out of the pool house, dragging me through the tall crab grasses that used to be a well-manicured lawn, towards the small door almost hidden in the side of the wall. I stumbled and tripped my way there, falling while he caught me over and over. My arm was still bleeding and the red from the wound mixed with the monster’s crimson gore.
    I’m not sure if I imagined it or not, but I swear as I passed around the back of the pool house, I heard the words, “He shoots! He scores! Gooooaaaallllllll!” coming out of its door before the building exploded from the inside, showering the pool deck with glass and body parts.
    I made it though the door in the wall and saw Peter standing outside it next to Winky before I stumbled, fainting on my way down to the hard, weed-covered ground.
    ***
    I woke up at the truck which was now pulled over on the west side of the canner house, just next to the wall of shrubs Winky, Jason, and I had hidden in earlier. Peter had slapped me in the face and was apologizing profusely. My scattered brain disregarded him, registering instead the booming sounds coming from what was probably the front part of the canner place, judging from their volume and the smoke I saw rising up over the rooftop. They reminded me of the fourth of July with their sporadic percussions.
    “I’m so sorry I had to do that, but you have to wake up,” he said, obviously stressed out.
    I held my hand up, unable to do it for longer than a few seconds because I felt so