End of Days (Book 1): End of Days, Part 1

by Castle, W. A

  “Why do you want us to take your son sweetheart?” Momma walked over to Janet and placed a hand on Janet’s forehead. “Are you okay?”

  Janet’s eyes fill with tears and they spill over. She’s soon a sobbing mess. I take a look around as far as my eyes can see around the house while momma tries to coax Janet into explaining herself.

  “Please, I trust you guys enough to look after my baby. Thank you both so much for coming, I was afraid I couldn’t hold it off for much longer.” Janet took in a shuddering breath. I was beginning to get annoyed at Janet’s ominous answers. Then a shrill cry erupted through the silence. I jumped looking for where the sound was coming from. Janet hurriedly walked towards the back of the house looking panicked. Momma and I followed her to a room right off the living room. It was a baby’s nursery. Janet rushed to Diego still in his crib; as soon as she picked him up he stopped his crying. But that’s when I saw it, a huge festering bite mark on the back of Janet’s neck. A look to momma said she saw it too.

  “Janet, where is Marcos?” Momma asked in a hushed whisper. Janet turned to face us, clutching Diego to her chest. Her usual tanned complexion was ghostly pale. The white of her eyes was tinted a light pink and I could notice her irises seemed to be feathering out to the browns of her eye.

  “We ran out of baby formula, and ever since all of this happened I have stopped producing milk. I was so worried he would starve.” Janet paused to kiss Diego’s head, “So, Marcos went out to get some formula,” Janet’s voice broke, “He made it back with the supplies… but he was bitten.” She cried softly into Diego’s baby blanket.

  I didn’t know what to say or how to approach to ask her what else happened. So I let momma take lead.

  “And how did you get bit, sweetheart?” Momma’s voice was soft as if she were talking to a child.

  “At first Marcos was okay. The area around his bite was swollen and red but I thought treating the wound would keep it from getting infected. Everything seemed to be okay for a while, but soon after he got a really bad fever, it came on so suddenly and that night… he… just lost his mind. I left Diego in the room with him to bring back some ice to help bring down his fever. When I came back he was hovering over Diego making these strange noises. He turned on me when I neared him and, he attacked me.” Janet pauses to readjust Diego in her arms, “I tried to get him away from Diego, but he lounged towards him, Diego was crying so hard, so I turned to protect him and Marcos, he bit the back of my neck. I got away, I don’t know how but I did.” Janet’s eyes were wide and wild looking now.

  “W-why do you want us to take Diego, Janet?” Momma asked slowly.

  “This is going to sound crazy, Sue-Anne,” Janet tells momma, “But I feel something in my brain. And- I keep losing track of time. Just like Marcos did in the beginning. I didn’t believe him when he told tell me something in his head was making him lose his mind… but now… This morning I woke up with a fever and I can feel it consuming me. I get these thoughts in my head…” Janet pauses to look down at Diego who is tugging on a few strands of her hair, “I’m afraid I’m going to end up just like Marcos and I will end up hurting my baby. Right before I flagged you two I had lost a few hours, I don’t know what I did for all that time. I got so scared I just had to get you here to get Diego away from me.” Janet ended with a whisper looking at momma and I in a silent plead to concede to what she is asking of us.

  I stood in silence not knowing what to say. My brain felt as if it was short-circuiting with all the information it was just bombarded with and not knowing what to do with the bits of knowledge it was accumulating about how did virus operated. I was digesting this, trying to wrap my head around the fact that Janet was giving us her baby, and the fact that Janet was turning into one of them. I looked up at Janet trying to find…something … but as I stared at her I noticed that her left eye twitched. Not the muscles around her eye but her eyeball itself. She seemed not to be aware of this. The twitches were fast circuits and far in between.

  Before I could open my mouth to say something about it there was a loud screech outside of the room. Momma pushed past me and headed to the hall, there were louds bangs and more screeching. Momma came rushing back into the room.

  “Janet, did you put Marcos down?” Momma looked panicked.

  “I-I locked him in the bedroom. Its fine, he hasn’t been able to get out.” Janet rocked Diego in her arms to keep him from fussing too much. My eyes widened. There was a fucking flesh eater just a few feet away? I turned to look at Janet in shock.

  There was another loud bang and the sound of wood splintering. Fuck! I grabbed momma and pulled her with me as I ran out to the living room. “We’re leaving!”

  “No, please! Take Diego with you!” Janet sobbed as she trailed after us. Momma halted and pulled me to a stop, wrenching her arm from my grip. As soon as I looked at her I knew what was about to happen. And I was torn at how I felt about it.

  Momma ran to where Janet had stopped and slowly nodded her head. Janet’s shoulders visibly sagged and she let out a loud, relieved sigh. All I could do was shake my head. Momma leaned down and slowly replaced Janet’s arms around Diego with her own.

  “Thank you.” Janet managed to whisper before the sound of the door crashing down rang through the house and then the silence was broken by heavy footsteps and growling. Marcos had gotten out.

  “Come on!” I yelled as cold panic started to spread through my chest. I reached for the door as soon as momma and Janet started running in my direction. I slowly pulled open the door and looked all around the cul-de-sac before sprinting down the stairs.

  We had made it to the middle of the street when I looked back over my shoulder and saw Marcos…flesh eater Marcos… sauntering down the steps and breaking into a run with its (his?) arms stretched out to us. I slowed down just enough to push momma in front of me and kept running after her. Marcos was too damn close and I knew he was going to get one of us before we made up to my porch.

  I accidentally made eye contact with Janet, who was running right beside me and I knew she was thinking the same thing. She gave me a tight lipped smile and stopped running. In the moment, I stopped too but she yelled at me to keep running. In the next second Janet threw herself at Marcos and tried to fight him off. Caught up in the frenzy, I tripped over my own two feet. I landed rough, not catching myself in time and scrapping my chin against the asphalt, I grimaced when I could taste blood in my mouth. I got up quickly and could only stare as Janet was being bitten over and over by the man who used to be her husband.

  Her shrieks echoed all throughout the street. My eyes shifted to the open street and I could see other flesh eaters making their way towards the ruckus. I turned to look towards my house and saw that momma was standing by the door yelling at me to run, I couldn’t hear her words I could only see her hand movements and her mouth moving. I took in the fact that Diego was still in her arms. When Janet’s shrieks abruptly cut off, my head snapped back to her and Marcos. My torn conscience had prevented me from running away and leaving Janet behind but now I was realizing just how much of an idiot I was.

  Janet dropped to the floor and started convulsing. I had seen this before with the other woman, my eyes widened and I was shaken out of my daze and I booked it towards the steps of my house but stopped right before actually stepping on them.

  “Close the door!” I yelled at momma and growled when she hesitated to close the door after she’d stepped into the house. I needed to take Janet and Marcos out. If Marcos could break through the door that had kept him locked in, certainly he and Janet could break through the door that was keeping them out. Truth was, I didn’t want to take Diego in, or at least I was hesitant to. (Damn I could barely deal with myself). I didn’t know what momma and I were going to do with a four month old baby. But now that he was under our care I wasn’t going to put him in danger by leading his momma and daddy back to him. (As weirdly put as that was.)

  I had dropped the knife when I tripped over my feet
so now I was scrambling to reach for it before Janet transitioned into a full blown flesh eater; Marcos was standing above her, distracted by her movements. He looked like he was unsure whether the woman underneath him was ‘chow’ or a ‘comrade’. I took the momentary reprieve to lunge for my knife and I reached for the stainless meat fork that lay next to it. I crouched down low as I tried to advance towards Marcos. Janet was beginning to stir on the ground, emitting gut wrenching growls. It was a relatively chilly summer night but it didn’t stop me from breaking into a sweat. My legs were shaky but it was kind of late to retreat now. In the back of my head I hoped that one of the neighbors would be brave enough and be willing to come out and help me take these flesh eaters out.

  It didn’t escape my notice that the stragglers were coming out from in between the houses. More and more kept coming out. Maybe these were slower since they hadn’t eaten in a few days, I tried to rationalize. The fresher they are the stronger and faster they are? It felt wrong thinking about such things, but I felt it was important to learn as much about these damned things as I could, even if I was just only making up these crazy theories about them.

  Marcos lost interest in Janet once she transitioned and I felt I was in this fucked up flesh eater versus girl western standoff. Zoom in on the eye twitches and in the finger clenches hovering over pistols and cue cowboy music. Only instead of pistols I held a butcher knife and a meat fork. Yehaaw bitches!

  Without thinking it twice I charged at Marcos and pretended he was a bull and I the matador. I ran around him before I struck in the meat fork into him, I was aiming for his throat but in the heat of the moment it ended up deep on his cheek. Fucking hell. He charged at me but just as he got his arms around me I swung my arm with all my force and brought down the butcher knife to his temple. I pulled it out with a grunt and swung again driving it into his eye. I danced back to keep from getting crushed underneath him as he fell with a loud thud. My heart was thumping so hard in my chest I was afraid I would pass out. My vision darkened around the edges but I shook my head to clear it.

  When I heard a growl right behind me I shrieked and swung my arm back as I turned around to face it. Yep, I ended up bitch slapping a growler. I pulled my arm back in panic and scrambled back to get away from it. It was relatively slow, and didn’t give much of a chase. I reached down to pull out the knife from Marco’s eye (gross!) and the meat fork from his cheek.

  Armed again, I stalked towards the growler and swung the knife towards its head. My heart fluttered when it looked me right in the eye and for a millisecond I second guessed my actions. But the knife dug into its skull with a crunch and the growler fell to the floor. As I followed it down to get the knife out I felt someone dig their fingers into my side. Even through the layers of a shirt and a sweater I could feel their nails digging into me. My heart dropped down to my stomach and then it came back up to my throat.

  I threw myself on top of the dead growler and twisted away from whatever (or whomever) had grabbed unto my sweater. Fucking Janet. I scowled and raised the meat fork but Janet slapped my hand away and bent to reach me. Behind her I saw a figure running full speed towards us. Just as I was thinking I was royally fucked I noticed that whoever was running towards us had a football helmet on along with the protective padding of the football uniform, but instead of a football, in (his? Her?) hands he had a bat up ready to swing. My eyes widened as he swung into Janet’s head sending her flying a few feet to the side.

  “Hey.” The man, now that he was a few feet from me I could see he was a man, panted the greeting and extended an arm out to help me up. Hesitantly I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet.

  “Thanks, I didn’t even hear her come up behind me.” I panted. (Going on a murderous flesh eater streak took a lot of energy from you. Although… it’s not really murder is it?). He replied with just a curt nod and took off in a brisk walk past me. I turned and saw him take out another flesh eater that was coming to join the party. I scanned the area with a quick sweep of the eyes and saw the stragglers were sort of just standing on the sidelines looking at us. Goosebumps broke out on my arms; those things sure had odd behaviors…

  Hearing momma coming down the steps made me turn away from the man using the baseball bat with deadly precision as he smashed in the flesh eater’s skull.

  “What are you doing momma, get back inside!” I don’t bother whispering at this point.

  “Diego is safe, babe.” Momma swings her cleaver and gives me a look I don’t know how to decipher. “Let’s kick some flesh eater ass.” Momma takes off towards where one of the stragglers is swaying from side to side. Momma turns to look at me with a raised eyebrow as in saying: What the hell is wrong with them? I raise my shoulders up to my ears.

  Taking her cue, I pick up my weapons again and look around for a target to sink my blades into. (I never thought I’d ever be thinking these thoughts and not consider throwing myself into the loony bin. Hell, maybe I was crazy and all of this was part of my mental meltdown hallucination.) I was a bit shaken at how this was now how our future was going to be like. Killing and death; and fear-

  Before I could finish my inner monologue a shriek pierced the air. My head snapped towards the sound and my mouth fell open and my eyes bulged when I saw Janet standing, staring at me with those crazy eyes, the eye tick was gone though, there’s that at least. I grimace at my moment of apathy towards these people who had lost themselves to this sickness. But it was pretty hard to feel empathy towards them when they were trying to rip you apart and fit you into their bellies.

  Janet followed my movements with her deformed eyes. She let out another shriek and as if the sound snapped them from their stupor three of the stragglers broke free from the invisible barrier that they had been behind all this time. Did… did Janet command them to attack?(!) I gasped and went on offense. I pushed the fastest of the three that were staggering towards me back until it fell onto its back and I lunged and drove the knife all the way to the hilt into one of the other stragglers eye. The man in the football gear ran to stand beside me and took out the other straggler with an impressive swing of the bat. The one I had knocked back managed to get up again and this time growled as it stalked towards me. It bared its teeth and let out a deep growl. My stomach heaved when I saw its bloody teeth with pieces of meat stuck between its teeth.

  It broke into a run and I stood in place until it was a few feet away from me and at the last minute I jumped to the side and pushed it forward. It stumbled and went tumbling down face first. It writhed until it was sitting up. Without thinking twice I went down and stabbed the meat fork with a growl of my own all the way into its eye. It lifted its arms and held to my upper arms with a death grip. I yanked the fork from its eye and dry heaved as it brought out the growlers eye with it.

  I let out a quiet shriek as I swung the fork around to dislodge the eyeball. Then I stabbed it again, this time throwing my weight in and knocking the growler unto its back and pushed the fork until it wouldn’t go in any further and its hands dropped from my arms.

  I looked around trying to locate momma. Once I saw she had her shit handled I turned back around. I stepped on the dead straggler’s chest and pulled out my knife, leaving the fork where it was. Janet shrieked again and the remaining of the stragglers came forward. I was utterly spent and my arms and legs felt weak. I had and itch at the back of my head that told me I needed to take out Jane before this got worse. Deciding to follow my gut I looked around the scattered tables and grills and trash scattered on the ground searching for a larger weapon. Janet wasn’t like the rest of the flesh eaters. This much was obvious.

  Catching football man’s gaze I ran towards him. “We need to take out that one first.” I pointed at Janet who was now crouching on her haunches watching us with predatory eyes. He followed my finger with his eyes; he nodded without asking any questions, “Okay.”

  “Okay.” I said after him. “Let’s do this.” Taking a deep breath I held my knife ready to attack. Football
man and I-, “Hey wait, what’s your name?” I asked. I was tired of referring to him as football man in my head.

  “Trevor.” He grinned and switched the bat to his left hand to shake my hand.

  “Maddie.” I returned the grin and shook his hand.

  He then ran and threw the bat down against the head of one of the flesh eaters that had snuck alarmingly close to where we were standing. The skull cracked but it didn’t even slow the fucker down. The flesh eater growled baring its teeth and snapping its teeth together as if it was already biting into Trevor. Trevor ran around the flesh eater, getting behind it and hammered the bat into the flesh eaters skull until all that was left of its head was a mush smeared on the concrete. I flinched at the sight before me.

  I sneaked behind one of the flesh eaters’ who was making its way towards Trevor. Trevor was now busy dealing with two growlers at the same time. I stepped on an empty fireworks container and cursed when the sounds gave me away. The flesh eater snapped its head back and sauntered towards me; in an instant it had its hands around my throat. I panicked when I realized I couldn’t breathe (at all!) I threw a wild punch. The flesh eater was a woman, maybe before she turned she could have been a beautiful girl but now her face was encrusted with dried blood and reds of her eyes looked like they were bulging around the irises and there were chucks of her face missing.

  Suddenly the woman’s left eye began to twitch rapidly. A shudder took over the flesh eater’s body and she seemed to sway back and forth (Moving me along with her by the neck as she swayed). My eyes widened in recognition of what was happening. Darkness was wavering at the corners of my sight as I dug my fingers into her shoulders to keep her at arm’s length. The woman blinked a few times and then let out a scream. A horrible, horrible scream. She locked her eyes with mine and I could read every thought and emotion that was running through her mind. I know, I thought as I looked into her eyes.