Worst fears confirmed.
They came at dawn. I was drinking instant coffee, watching the sun bleed red over the mountains, when I heard them. Why does it look like blood now? Footsteps on gravel. Too many footsteps. A group of lunatics…I can't call them people anymore…tried to invade my home. Six of them. Seven. I lost count.
Their eyes were wrong. Empty. Like looking into a doll's face. Pupils dilated despite the harsh morning sun. They moved in unison, like a group of fish swimming together, and when I shouted at them to get off my property, they smiled. All of them. The same smile.
The smile from the visions. The grinning skull smile. Teeth too white. Too many teeth.
The first one through the door: middle-aged man in a bathrobe. Carrying a meat cleaver. He didn't say anything. Just raised the cleaver and came at me like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I shot him in the chest. The 9mm bucked in my hand. He stumbled. Kept coming. Second shot to the head.
Then the others. They didn't run. Didn't hesitate. Just kept coming through the door one after another like a conveyor belt of death. I killed them all. Had to. No choice. Self-defense. Clear case of self-defense.
Between shots, I heard it again. That voice. Louder now. Almost gleeful.
Yes. YES. More. Kill them all.
I tell myself it's the adrenaline. The blood pounding in my ears. Nothing more.
The bodies are cooling in my driveway. I searched them. Found nothing useful except a shotgun, a Remington 870, pump-action, which one of them was carrying. Added it to my arsenal. Also found car keys. Took the best vehicle, an old sedan, still had half a tank of gas.
Must get to the Truckstop on Route 89. The Sheriff's station is just beyond it. Someone there has to be sane. Someone has to see what I see-the wrongness creeping through Paradise like rot through wood.
I keep replaying the attack in my head. The way they moved. The way they smiled. Were they sick? Drugged? Part of some cult?
As I drive, I see something in the rearview mirror. Just for a second. A figure in the back seat. Tall. Dark. Grinning. I swerve, look back.
Nothing there.
Eyes playing tricks. Need to focus.
But even as I write this, my hand is shaking. Not from fear—from the creeping certainty that I'm alone in this. That whatever disease or madness has taken Paradise, it's already too late to stop it.
Afraid only God can help me now. If He's even watching…if He ever was.
Or if something else is watching instead.