“Hold her head and pinch her nose,” said Max.
“What is this, a Disney movie?”
“Just do it!”
John complied, and Max carefully stuffed the bottle in Piper’s mouth. She choked and coughed as liquor came out of her nose and her eyes shot wide open. Max held on, making sure that she swallowed it before releasing her. Piper turned and puked on the floor, crying and dripping snot.
“This is the cure,” said Max. “You’ve got to try and drink some more.”
“No more,” she said in a withered and battered voice that made Max’s heart ache.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and grabbed her chin and pushed more liquor on her.
“No more!” she cried, slapping the bottle away and sending it crashing to the floor.
Max held her as she cried, stroking her back and trying to soothe her. He wondered how much she remembered, and he prayed to god that it wasn’t much. She suddenly went limp in his arms, and Max looked at her, shaking her gently. “Piper?”
She was dead weight in his arms. He brought her face to his ear and listened. She was breathing, but raggedly.
“Is there a doctor here?” he called out, noticing the people in the dining room watching the ordeal.
“Go get the doctor!” Ned ordered the group, and two men ran off into the kitchen. Ned walked over to Max and touched two fingers to Piper’s wrists. “She’s got a good pulse.”
Max held her close, whispering in her ear. “Hold on, Pipes. Hold on just a little longer. Help is on the way…”
A few frantic heartbeats later, a man in blue jeans and a denim shirt rushed into the dining room with a big leather bag. It was Max’s doctor, the man who had told him he was going to die.
“Doc, you’ve got to help her.”
Doctor Weinstein offered Max a sympathetic smile and put his stethoscope in his ears before placing the chest-piece against Piper’s upper breast.
“How long ago did you administer the…medicine?”
“Fifteen minutes ago on the deck. More again a few minutes ago.”
“Did she speak?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll administer some antibiotics. Her breathing is steady, and listen…”
Max listened. Piper was snoring softly.
“She’s just drunk, I imagine. But that wrist is going to have to be dealt with.”
“Should we bring her somewhere?” said Max.
“No, I’ll operate on her here.” The doctor glanced around at the crowd. “Clear the damned room. And somebody get me some boiling water and clean linens.”
“Operate on her?” said Max.
Weinstein nodded grimly. “She has gangrene, Max. I have to remove the hand.”
“Amputate? Jesus, Doc.”
“I’m sorry, but if I don’t, it’s just going to spread, and she’ll die.”
Max nodded, tears filling his eyes. He stroked Piper’s hair and fell into a chair. “I’m sorry, Pipes. I’m sorry I didn’t come home…”
Doctor Weinstein performed the surgery right there in the dining room, and Max held Piper’s good hand the entire time. The doctor had given her a heavy dose of drugs to keep her out during the horrid affair. Due to a lack of equipment, he had been forced to use a hacksaw to do the dirty deed. He cut off Piper’s arm just below the elbow, six inches away from the dead and rotting skin. He did so in such a way that there was a fold of skin left to stitch together once the wound had been treated.
Two hours after he began, Doctor Weinstein collected his tools and stood from the stool.
“Is she going to be alright?” Max asked.
“I daresay that she will. I’ll keep an eye on her all night. But you should get some sleep. If today was any indication, we’re going to need you at your best tomorrow.”
Max hardly registered the doctor’s words. He stared at Piper’s bruised face, and his stomach lurched. She looked so small there on the table covered in white sheets, so fragile.
The doctor put a hand on Max’s shoulder. “Get some rest, son.”
Max nodded, though he had no intention of sleeping. He plopped himself down in his chair and held Piper’s hand, watching her chest slowly rise and fall.
Ned came into the dining room a few minutes later and offered Max a respectful nod. “She looks better.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, thanks to you. And thanks to you, hundreds more are alive, and a lot of them children. Maybe you’re not such a dick after all, Sheriff.”
Max laughed weakly. “I knew you were still pissed about the arrest.”
“When a woman comes at you with a knife, you’ve got a right to sock her in the mouth,” said Ned, reminding Max of what had led him to Ned’s residence three years prior on a night much like tonight, sans screamers.
“I agree, that’s why I arrested you both.”
“She got off scot-free. I spent a month in jail and lost custody of my kids.”
“That wasn’t me, Ned. That was the judge.”
Ned nodded, blinking heavily. “Ah, it’s all in the past anyway.”
They passed a silent moment, watching Piper.
“It’s quiet,” said Max at length. “I take it the screamers aren’t giving us any more trouble.”
“No, they’re…it’s probably best if you see for yourself.” Ned walked to the window facing the lake and peeled back the curtain, waiting for Max.
He joined Ned at the window, and the big man handed him a pair of binoculars. Max aimed them at the deck of Mirror Lake Inn. There was a mass of bodies there. He zoomed in, playing with the binoculars until the image became clear.
“Jesus Christ,” he said breathlessly. “What the hell are they doing?”
A group of at least a hundred screamers were stacked on top of each other in a cockeyed version of a human pyramid. The base had to be twenty feet wide, and the highest screamers in the pile topped at least fifty feet.
“I don’t know what they’re up to,” said Ned. “But you see them vine-like things holding them all together?”
“Yeah, what is it?” Max glanced at Ned, and the big man shrugged.
“Beats the hell out of me.”
Max handed the binoculars back to him, shaking his head.
“Where’s your deputy, Sheriff?” Ned asked.
“He…” The vision of Stefan being dragged through the broken window flashed in Max’s mind. “They took him. I couldn’t save them both.”
“So, you saved your wife?” Ned gave an ironic little chuckle that made Max want to smash his face.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Max returned to Piper’s bedside and sat back down and closed his eyes.
“Wake me up if the world ends.”
“Max?”
He snapped awake and grabbed Piper’s hand, blinking through the sandman’s crusty gift and wiping at his eyes. “Piper?”
“Max…water.”
He grabbed the glass of water that he had ready on the table and helped bring it to her lips as he tilted her head. She drank greedily, emptying half the glass before nodding. She gasped, her bloodshot eyes searching the room.
“My hand,” she said, glancing down.
Max moved closer, blocking her view of the bandaged stump. “Doc had to take it. You would have died. It’s alright though, you’re safe now.”
“What are you talking about? It’s still there, it hurts…my fingers hurt so bad.”
She tried to pull her arm up, and she cried out in pain when it hit Max’s back. He moved out of her way, partially jumping from her sudden curse of pain.
“Baby, you shouldn’t look…”
Piper ignored him and tried to bring her hand to her face. Her eyes widened, and she looked down. Tears filled her eyes, and she slowly laid her head and her arm back to the table.
“This has got to be a hangover from hell,” she whispered.
Max smiled, catching a laugh in his nose. But he was nearly delirious, and a laugh st
arted in his gut that refused to go away. Piper scowled at him, but then she too began to chuckle. Max dove into her, kissing her lips, her face, her neck. He held her close, and their laughter turned to tears of sorrow.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come home,” he said, releasing her. “Piper, do you remember that I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday?”
Her eyes suddenly widened with recognition, and her nostrils flared as she tried to stifle more laughter.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, but that only made her burst into laughter.
“I’m sorry,” she said, waving with her good hand. “Go on, what did you want to tell me?”
Max chocked it up to the booze and painkillers. Piper wasn’t herself. None of them were. “Doc gave me some bad news.”
Piper snickered, but quickly recovered. “What news? What is it? Tell me.”
“Babe, I’ve…I’ve got cancer.”
Piper burst out laughing, and Max shook his head, not understanding. She must have been more messed up than he thought.
“Oh, my. I’m sorry, Max.”
“It’s alright. I’ve come to terms with it. I think…”
“No,” said Piper. “I’m not sorry you are sick, I’m sorry that I played this trick on you.”
“Trick?” Max didn’t understand. Was she delirious? Did she think she had played a trick being a screamer? Did she think it had all been a gag?
Had it been a gag?
“I paid Doctor Weinstein to lie to you. Oh man, I got you good.”
Realization hit Max like a bag of bricks, and a slow smile spread across his face. “It was a prank? I don’t have cancer?”
Piper nodded, tears flowing. Her face stretched in a beautiful smile.
“Oh, oh you wait. You just wait.” Max kissed her lips softly, lingering there for a good long time.
Doomsday Sheriff
Day 2
Michael James Ploof
Chapter 1
A New Death Dawns
The new day brought with it pain.
Max awoke sitting slumped in an awkward position. He sat up in his chair with a groan and looked to Piper. Dark circles ringed her eyes, her lips were terribly chapped and cracked, and her hand was still missing, but she was alive. She slept like a baby, softly snoring.
When the smell of coffee hit him, Max felt like a traitor for wanting to go get some, but he cut himself some slack. Piper was safe, she was doing well, and he needed to shit. He followed the smell through the dining room and pushed the doors open, finding nearly fifty very quiet people standing around a long line of tables littered with coffee warmers and baskets of bread and muffins. Max was smart enough to know they were being quiet for a reason, and so he softly walked to the tables and made his coffee, avoiding the terrified stares of those who had been turned, who greatly outnumbered the defenders from the night before. Max noticed that the hockey players stayed to one side of the tables (hell, they even had their own), and the ex-screamers stayed to their side.
Max took up the space between the two groups, refusing to play along with the weird high school clique
“Mornin’, Sheriff. How’s the wife?” said John as he joined Max.
“She’s doing well. Thanks for asking.”
“It’s been on my mind. Been on all our minds.”
“What’s with the segregation?” said Max, nodding toward the two groups.
John shrugged. “Ned wanted you to meet him upstairs when you woke up. He’s up in the widow’s peak.”
“Alright. Should I be concerned about this?” Max eyed the two groups again.
“I don’t know, man. People are worried that the others are…shit, you know how they feel.”
Max nodded, though he didn’t want to admit it. He still had a faint connection to the collective, and he hadn’t been fully taken over. What did these men and women still see? Worse yet, what did the space mother still see through them? He shuddered to think of Piper still being used by the alien invaders, those slugs from the deep dark of space.
He left the people to their worries and took the stairs to the widow’s peak. Ned was there in the small room, looking through a telescope. When Max approached, the big man glanced at him with a strange look. He hadn’t slept, that much was clear, but his bloodshot eyes gave away more than that. Ned was afraid.
“What’s got you so rattled, Ned?”
“Take a look,” said Ned. He cleared his throat and got to his feet.
Max settled in on the instrument and let his eye focus on the image across the lake.
The blood drained from his face. The human pyramid was now completely covered in dark brown vines, which glistened wet in the sunlight. The only flesh to be seen was the closed-eyed faces of hundreds of men and women. He spotted other patches between the vines, and he recoiled from what he saw: arms and legs, torsos and necks, and even faces were merging beneath the dark cocoon. The skin glistened like melting wax, merging the horde into one colossal beast.
“That doesn’t look good,” said Max, rubbing his eyes. “You still smoke?”
Ned produced a pack of Camel non-filters and a zippo. “I thought you quit,” he said, handing Max the pack.
Max peeled a fine Turkish cigarette from the pack and ran it under his nose, enjoying the scent of the blend. “I did,” he said. “But I recently found out I don’t have cancer, and figured I might as well celebrate.”
Ned lit Max’s cigarette, and the sheriff took a long pull and sucked it in, savoring the familiar burn and expansion. He didn’t enjoy so much the head rush that followed.
He flicked the ash.
“So, Ned, what you reckon that is out there?”
“You’d know better than me,” said Ned, lighting his own smoke.
“Humor me.”
Ned let out a cloud of blue smoke and looked to the far shore. “Best way I can explain what I think they’re up to is…well…imagine Voltron, except he’s made up of five hundred human bodies all fused into one. That’s what I think them worms got them doing.”
“You think all those people are screwed?”
Ned shrugged and glanced at Max. “Would you want to be saved after that? Hell, they’re all deformed by now. Best thing to do for them is to put them down.”
“You think this thing is global?” Max asked.
“I don’t know.” The big man shrugged again and scratched his beard. “But there weren’t any planes in the sky yesterday. No emergency radio transmissions, and trust me, I had men on it since the afternoon.”
“I was thinking the same thing. It being worldwide, I mean. And I figure that around twenty percent of the population might have been drunk last night.”
“You think it was that many?” said Ned. “You know, not every country drinks like us Americans.” Ned chuckled. “Or should I say ‘Mericans?”
“That’s true. But this meteor shower was hyped up big time. I imagine that at least twenty percent of ‘Mericans were toasted last night.”
“Yeah, maybe, and probably more than half of them got turned by the screamers yesterday. We’re the only group I know of, and we were less than fifty before we saved the others.”
Max didn’t want to admit it, but Ned was right: humanity was screwed.
“We’ve got to deal with that monstrosity before it does whatever the hell it’s going to do,” said Max.
“I doubt that’s the only one,” Ned warned.
“Well then, we’ll deal with that when we come to it. First things first. We’ve got to burn that thing to the ground.”
Chapter 2
Come on Baby, Light my Fire
Piper was awake when Max returned to the dining room. The doctor was there as well, checking her vitals and bandages. He offered Max a nod, which Max didn’t return. Instead he marched up to the doctor and poked his chest.
“What’s this business about you lying about my cancer?”
“It was all her idea,” said Weinstein as he put up his hands defensively.
Max scowled at him.
“She gave me a grand, cash. How could I resist?”
Max didn’t let up.
“She said she was going to tell you that night, I swear. Piper, tell him.”
She only giggled groggily.
“I’m just messing with you, doc,” said Max, slapping him on the shoulder a little hard, but still playfully.
Weinstein rubbed his shoulder, shaking his head. “You kids are two peas in a pod, you know that?”
“How’s she doing, doc?”
“Yeah, doc, how am I doing?” said Piper, serious now.
Doctor Weinstein regained his composure. “You’re doing well. Your wounds are clean; I don’t think you have a blood infection. How do you feel?”
Piper shrugged. “Like I was infected by a space worm and turned into a zombie, and then got drunk off my ass and had half my arm removed. Translation, I’m fucking peachy.”
She grinned at Max like a mad puppet, and he studied her pensively.
“I filled her in on your theory,” said the doctor. “She insisted.”
“I remember everything now, Max.”
“Everything?” he said, inwardly cringing.
“Everything. I killed people. The worm…it…it spoke to me. It made me.”
“Piper, you don’t have to talk—”
“The queen, I spoke with her as well. She wanted me to begin the second phase. She wanted us to merge.”
“Merge?” said Ned, whom Max realized had been listening from the shadows. He crept slowly into the light cast by the crack in the curtains.
Piper swallowed hard and nodded. Her eyes stared at someone or something far away. “It has begun, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Max whispered.
“You’ve got to stop it. If the children are allowed to breed…”
“Breed?” said Ned. “I thought they were merging into some kind of colossal beast.”
“No…” Piper looked to Max with fear welling in her eyes. “What they will become is so much worse. You don’t understand. You’ve got to destroy it!”
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