Shattered

Arm

I looked around at the remains of the neighborhood, and it was only now I understood how much my life had changed in just a week. I couldn't go to school anymore, because the school was probably blown all the way to China or something. Our community couldn't do anything but rebuild.

To my surprise, some stragglers began to escape the wreckage around me. Down the street to my left, a group of three middle-aged men, bearded and unkempt, climbed out a broken window. When they saw Spot and I, they ran over to us and began shouting and talking all at once.

The first man began: "Are you okay?!? We thought we were the only ones left, because we're a group of survivalists, but a kid-- wow! Who else was with you, was there anyone else? We're planning to get people to a shelter, but it won't be easy. I heard from Codename Loggerhead who's down two streets that there's a barricade of people at the neighborhood exit. Oh well, it's worth a try. Wait a minute-- what's your name?"

I paused. I wasn't sure if I could trust these people. But their eyes looked pretty innocent and sincere, so I decided to answer instead of running away. I replied: "I'm Stanley, and this is my dog Spot. When this all started, I was with my grandma and grandpa, but my grandma died and I just lost my Grandpa. I don't know where he went, but I'm really worried. He's not very sane, and he might get buried in rubble or get shot or something."

The second man put a filthy hand on my shoulder. "It's going to be all right, trust me. This is probably your first incident, the last one was about 20 years ago. Any lost persons usually turn up at a local shelter."

I nodded, even though the 'usually' didn't sound encouraging at all. The man continued: "When did you last see your grandpa? We could search for him, or send a group from the shelter."

I pointed towards the slope near the back of the house. "There. I went up the hill, and when I came back, he was gone. I searched the basement and the rubble, but there was nothing." After I said this, the men told me to wait, and they ran down the slope and disappeared behind the house.

Spot began to wander around where we were standing. I didn't stop him. The area looked pretty safe. He sniffed the road and my feet. Then, he began to sniff intently down the road. He inspected everything, from the fancy gated fencing blocking off the front yards to the metal streetlights. I followed, but I made sure we stayed in sight of the house. He sniffed off of the road to a large pile of cardboard boxes on the curb, then started growling at it.

"Spot, calm down. They're just boxes." I tried to pet him to soothe him, but he didn't direct his gaze away from the boxes. He kept barking, and the noise echoed off of the surrounding hills and into the distance. I was starting to get a headache from all the noise. I kicked one of the boxes to see if that would satisfy him. It didn't budge. "Holy crap, these are like bricks. What could possibly be so heavy inside of them?" I began to open the cardboard flaps, and then the smell came. It was a combination of garbage and old soup and Grandpa's shoes. It literally blurred my vision and made me want to pass out. Spot ran back to a safe distance so his little nose wouldn't suffer. Plugging my nose with my left hand, I opened the box with my right to see what was so pungent.

Inside was an arm. A bloody human arm. The fingers were bent in odd positions, and it looked like the forearm part had been cut off with a saw or something. It had a single bullet hole through its wrist, and you could see bone. As soon as I saw the disgusting appendage, I jumped away from it. My thoughts argued inside my head:

"Why was there an arm in there?!?"

"Get away from there! You need to get those men!"

"Something isn't right..."

I ran back to my front yard, where the men were talking and looking around. When they saw me running back, they began all at once: "Where were you? We told you to stay here! You could have gotten hurt!"

I formulated a horrible excuse. "Um... Spot started to run away, and... I had to catch him. By the time I got him, I was out of sight. Yeah, that's what happened." I really didn't want these strangers to be mad at me, because I didn't know if they would kill me or something.

"Well, I guess that's okay. Just... don't run off anymore, at least without telling us." I nodded quickly, then began explaining what I had saw.

"Back there, Spot was growling at something, and I didn't know why. I just supposed he was being like a dog, you know? But, when I opened the box he was growling at, there was an arm! Like, a human arm! And I'm really scared because this place doesn't seem safe anymore."

They just stared. Then, the third man gathered enough courage to stutter out: "An arm? He's right, something doesn't seem right. Let's go." We all started walking towards the boxes together.

When we opened it up, nothing had changed. A gruesome arm still lay silent inside the box. Man #2 picked it up using an old cloth laying around.

Man #1 butted in. "Well, that's great. Problem solved, but where are we going to put that thing?"

Man #2 looked shocked, then held the arm firmly to his chest. "Are you kidding? This is pure protein! You never know when you'll get a meal as great as this!"

And with a crazed look on his face, he snapped one of the fingers off and put it in his mouth.