Tainted

by T J Christian

  Suddenly, the woman veers sharply to the right and as Chris approaches that same spot, the blessed trail is there before him. He’s able to increase his speed. It’s still muddy and slick, but the trail is mostly devoid of leaves and pine straw, making it a little easier to maintain his footing.

  His mind turns back to the fence. What if they do break through? He and the woman will be trapped between the rotting corpses and the river.

  The river…

  Something about the river clicks in his mind as if flipping a switch.

  Don’t go in the water, Chris. Don’t eat the fish. It’s one of the things his dad told him but never bothered to explain. A plan begins to develop and he hopes he can pull it off—and by pull it off, that means surviving the day without being eaten alive.

  Chapter Six

  A few minutes later, he catches up to the woman. She turns to look at him, eyes wide in disbelief. Her lips part to speak but the sudden distraction causes her to stumble and almost fall. Instinctively, Chris reaches out to steady her but she jerks her arm away.

  “Don’t touch me,” she says, a little too loud for his taste—especially when there’s no telling how many Tainted are behind them. Her voice is not only loud, but tinged with a layer of ice—an undertone that this woman is used to getting what she wants. He recognizes it in those three short words because it’s the same menace he’s heard in his father’s voice many times before.

  There’s a heavy, sopping crash to his right and his head whips around. One of the walking corpses has stumbled over a fallen tree and struggles to regain its footing on the slick forest floor. It rises, only to have its feet give way, spilling it back to the ground. In any other circumstance, Chris might have found the sight comical—however, behind the fallen one, two dozen more approach, their erect bodies swaying in near unison.

  Chris runs faster.

  A minute later, he and the woman slide around a bend in the trail and burst into the clearing lining the Picket Fence’s forest side. Chris runs toward the gate between the female Guardians but the woman in the pink dress draws up short. A terrified gasp escapes her lips as her eyes settle on the impaled corpses before her.

  “It’s okay,” Chris calls out over his shoulder. “They’ll protect you.” He slides into the gate, lifts the latch, and bursts through in one fluid motion. “Hurry,” he calls.

  There’s another crash behind her as another Tainted loses its footing and falls to the ground. The noise sparks the woman into motion and she approaches tentatively. The two female Guardians jerk their heads toward her with loud growls and snapping teeth. Turning sideways, she slides through the narrow gate.

  Chris crosses back over the threshold and shuts the gate behind him, locking the woman inside.

  “What are you doing?”

  “There’s too many of them,” Chris says. “Even if the Guardians can keep them out, they’ll crush the fence.”

  Her brows crinkle together. “Guardians?” she asks.

  “No time to explain.” He points to the line of trees behind her. “Take the trail toward the river…you’ll see my hut.” He begins backing away from her and turns toward the south. “Let me draw them away.” When she doesn’t move, he says, “Go! Don’t let them see you.”

  Without waiting for a response, he turns and sprints out of the clearing, his hand grips the machete’s handle with a white-knuckled ferocity. A semblance of a plan rattles through his mind. The first part of the plan is to get the Tainted’s attention—and the best way to do that is noise.

  Lots of noise.

  * * *

  There’s no trail here, just rough forest. This close to the river, the underbrush is thick. Twigs reach out to grab him, slap painfully at his face, and rip against the thinning fabric of his jeans. To his left, he can hear the rushing river—to his right, the marching army of dead tramps through the trees, unseen but, by the sound, heading directly toward Homestead.

  His destination is just ahead. It was his favorite place to play when he was young—and about as far as his father would let him go on his own. Of course, Chris knew he was never really on his own. His father followed him every time, always sticking to the thickest parts of the forest for concealment, but never straying too far away just in case a Tainted came along to threaten his son.

  It’s now or never.

  He stops before a giant oak, turns his back to the river, and shouts toward the forest. “I’m here! I’m here! Come get me, I’m here.”

  He slaps the machete’s blade against the base of the tree. It’s not very loud but, combined with his voice, he hopes it’s enough to draw the Tainted ones away from Homestead.

  A corpse bursts from the underbrush to his left, startling him. It swipes a hand through the air but Chris ducks away, spins, and brings the blade swooping around in a tight arc. It strikes the corpse above the ear and passes through the skull as if it were a mud-filled balloon. The brain, black as night and soft as melting gelatin, sloshes out of the soft skull and splashes onto the tree.

  As the body falls, another corpse takes its place. Chris sidesteps again and swipes the thing’s back with the flat of his blade. It pitches forward and crashes through the thin line of scrub on the edge of the cliff. Its forward momentum carries it over the edge where is falls the ten feet to the water.

  Climb, Chris. Climb! There’s no denying the panic in his father’s voice.

  Chris climbs—just as he’s done countless times in the past. Shinnying upward, he slings a leg over a limb larger than his own body. Even with the extra effort of climbing, he keeps hollering. Once he’s settled, one leg on either side, he continues beating at the wood with the machete. Looking down from his perch, he realizes it is the only thing between him and the river water below. The way the peninsula juts out and redirects the river, the fastest moving water is a hundred yards away. The water below him does move, but not nearly at the pace of the main current.

  A mob of bodies bursts from the trees, each one in a different stage of decay. Their faces turn upward, looking toward him as they rush forward in an attempt to get him—their blind, single-minded stupidity sends them right over the cliff and into the water below where they float and glide slowly downstream.

  So far, his plan is working brilliantly.

  Until that moment, the river has maintained a constant low roar—a noise that he’s become so used to, he doesn’t even hear it any more. However, now there is another sound coming from the river. It silences him in confusion—and with that sound comes the answer to the question he’s been asking himself for years: Why did his dad repeatedly tell him not to go into the water?

  Now you’ll see, says his dad. Always popping into his head at the most inopportune time.

  He does see then—and he’s glad he never tested his father’s advice.

  Chapter Seven

  The sound is different from the constant drone of the rushing river. It seems to be coming from inside the river—somewhere deep down within its murky depths. It beats like a troop of tympani drums, resonating through the air, through the trees, and deep within his chest. Even though he is no longer screaming for the corpses’ attention, they still mindlessly stumble from the forest and tumble over the cliff. There must be at least a hundred corpses in the river now, and still more come.

  The beating gets louder and Chris can feel the constant throbbing against his ears.

  More Tainted approach—no longer lured by the sound of his voice, but possibly by the new sound. Or maybe a combination of that and the smell of his flesh. He’s still uncertain how their simple brains could fix so pointedly on human flesh.

  More and more of them spill off the cliff and into the river. So many in fact that it’s difficult to make out the difference between one body and the next. He can’t take his eyes off the mass of writhing bodies. The drumming’s intensity increases. Its pounding goes beyond his ears and presses against his brain, his eyes, his temples—almost to the point of making him lose his grip on his
perch. Then it happens—the thing his father warned him about yet never explained.

  The river’s surface explodes. It churns as if instant heat has brought it to its boiling point. Slimy, silvery bodies appear between the floating, living corpses. In the next instant, pools of thick, black liquid begin to spread outward, covering the churning surface with a stinking, inky stain.

  Don’t eat the fish, his father had said. Now he can see why—thousands of fish of different shapes and sizes attack the floating bodies with savage ferocity. They tear through flesh and fabric with a raging hunger.

  From the forest, more stragglers lumber forward. They, like those before them, fall over the edge and plunge into the water below. The swarming fish make quick work of them too. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the churning water settles back to normal and the slapping bodies of fish return to their murky depths to wait for their next meal.

  Chris didn’t realize until now that he’s been holding his breath. The sight was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. He slides down from the tree and stands ready with his machete before him, just in case more corpses are out there. But there are no more. For the moment, the forest has returned to normal.

  As if in defiance to the sudden quiet, a belch of thunder tumbles in the distance.

  Chris turns back to the north and begins making his way back to Homestead—and the woman in the tattered pink dress.

  If she’s still alive, his father says.

  * * *

  The fence is still intact and there are two new additions impaled through their stomachs—besides that, all the other pikes appear to be still secured in the ground. Chris steps up to the first corpse and uses the machete to remove its arms and legs. He makes quick work of the second one as well, then passes through the gate and heads to the hut.

  There’s no sign of the woman. Deep down, he hopes she ran away. He remembers the look she gave him after climbing down from the tree she’d been hiding in and leaving him to the horde of walking corpses. Thinking about it makes his blood boil and he tightens his grip on the machete’s handle.

  The woman sits on a stump with her head in her hands, waiting. Her head jerks up at his approach and she snaps to her feet, as if about to take flight again.

  “It’s just me,” Chris says.

  “What the fuck!” She moves toward him, shoves him, and points toward the trail and the Picket Fence beyond the trees. “What is that? Huh? Why do you have those... those… those things on the fence?”

  Her anger takes him off guard and without realizing he’s doing it, he takes a step away and raises the machete. He points the blade at her chest.

  “Stop it,” he says.

  She takes another step forward but then hesitates. Her eyes flick to the blade with streaks of dark liquid and gray matter still attached. Her glare is furious.

  “What? Are you going to kill me now?”

  Its Chris’s turn to glare and there’s no mistaking the menace in his voice. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Kill her, Chris. She’s bad news. Such a fine time for his dad to make his voice heard—just like usual, more useless information that he already suspects.

  Her brows knit together and it’s her turn to take a step back.

  Chris lowers the blade. “What’s your name?”

  She shrugs. “What’s yours?”

  “Chris,” he says, then falls silent, waiting.

  After a long pause, she finally says, “I’m Remy.”

  “Why did you run away back there?” he asks with a cock of the head. “You nearly got me killed.”

  Her eyes dart from him, to the blade, then back again. Finally, she lowers her face, unable to look him in the eye. “I was trying to lure them away from you.”

  Her voice, so convincing—yet it does not match the look in her eyes.

  Liar. She’s lying, Christopher. Kill her.

  “I don’t believe you,” Chris says, and turns toward his hut.

  Large, fat drops of rain begin to fall. Lightning cuts a vertical line across the sky—immediately followed by a crack of thunder so loud it makes him jump. Already shrouded in gray by the thick canopy of clouds, there’s no telling how much daylight remains. He’d set out earlier to check his traps and the task remains uncompleted—and it appears they will remain that way until morning, unless…

  He ducks inside the hut, grabs his bow and a couple of arrows and then starts back toward the Picket Fence and the forest beyond.

  “What the fuck?” says Remy. “Where are you going, you bastard? You’re not going to fucking leave me here are you?” She stomps her foot for emphasis. “Shit!”

  He turns on her then. Apart from his dad, he’s never met another living human before—and he’s just about decided that he’s glad of that fact. If they’re all like Remy, he doesn’t want to meet any more. What’s more—she has a strange way of talking. She uses words he’s never heard before and it leaves him uneasy.

  As he approaches, she tries to shuffle away but trips and falls hard to the wet ground. Her pink dress slides off one of her shoulders and exposes the deep cleavage between her breasts. She scrambles to her knees and in her bent over position, the neckline falls open and Chris gets his first full-on view of her breasts.

  Although stained with dirt and grime, there’s no mistaking the paleness of flesh surrounding the hard, pink nipples. He stops in his tracks. He can’t help but stare, and something deep within him stirs. Something he’s never felt before—something almost primal.

  Turn away, Chris. Just turn away.

  Heeding his father’s suggestion, Chris turns his back to her and steps away, hoping that she doesn’t notice the embarrassment brought on by the sudden flash of nudity. She notices, however. “Aww… little man’s never seen a pair of tits before?”

  He continues walking, not daring to look back.

  “You hurry back, little man! I’ve got some other natural wonders to show you, too!”

  * * *

  By the time Chris reaches the Picket Fence, he’s at a dead run, pausing only long enough to flip up the gate latch and make sure it is back in place after he passes through. He sprints down the central path, the machete blade leading the way, ready to slash at a moment’s notice. He passes the first trap. It’s still set and lies undisturbed. He moves on to the next one.

  The rain gets heavier. The break in the rain earlier had given Chris’s clothing just enough time to dry out—now he’s thoroughly soaked again.

  The third trap needs to be reset—a mass of footprints cover the area, each indention quickly filling with rainwater. There’s no animal sign, either tracks or remains that might indicate the mob of Tainted had taken his game. It only appears as if the multitude of shuffling feet disturbed the traps as they passed.

  From here, the trail extends into the very area from where the mob of dead had come, so Chris already thinks he knows how those last traps will look. If there had been any game caught, it’d be inedible after they got through with it.

  His thoughts turn to Remy. Who is she? Where did she come from, and how did she end up here?

  Does it really matter, now?

  No, he guesses it doesn’t. One thing he does know however—he doesn’t like her. He saved her life by drawing the Tainted away from Homestead and she didn’t so much as thank him—no indication that she was grateful in any way. He doesn’t need her thanks, though. He just wants her to leave—to keep going to wherever it was she was heading before they ran into each other. Thinking about it now, he should have ignored her cries for help.

  But no, that’s not who he is. He’s not like that. In all his years, the only person he’d known was his dad. Seeing Remy—another human—sparked something inside him that he never knew was there. Yes, if he had it to do all over again, and even knowing so little about her, what he knows is enough—he wouldn't have gone to help. Yet after meeting another person, he doesn’t want to be alone any more. He needs companionship. He needs someone to talk to—eve
n if it is someone he dislikes. He thinks maybe, just maybe, she’ll grow on him. After all, he can’t expect anyone he meets to be exactly like him, can he? This is new territory.

  Then, like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, his memory leaps to his last sight of her. Remy, kneeling on the ground, blazing gray eyes turned up to him, the plunging neckline of her dress falling open to reveal dirt-smeared skin and large breasts capped by tight, pink nipples.

  Chris stops and rubs the soft, blond stubble on his cheek. What’s going on? What’s wrong with me? His heart pounds the inside of his chest and he can feel the beating all the way up to his head, behind the eyes and at his temples. Heat rises in his face and he leans over, hands on knees as if he’s trying to catch his breath.

  His increased heartbeat isn’t all that’s wrong with him—no, there’s something else stirring too. He feels it first in his stomach: a fluttering of wings that makes him light-headed. Then comes the tightness in his britches. The fabric is loose, stretched by years of wear—held up by a thin weave of cotton twine about his waist. Something presses against the fabric now—the fleshy tube between his legs has grown to twice its normal size. It swells and throbs with each heartbeat.

  He falls to his knees and the machete falls to the ground beside him. His hands go to his groin and he presses against the throbbing member in a vain attempt to relieve the pressure and tension. He has no idea what’s happening to him. He loosens the drawstring at his waist and carefully folds the fabric down and over his penis.

  A mixture of pleasure and pain spreads from his groin as he grips his swollen member. He pulls in short gasps of breath as tears well up at the corners of his eyes. The pressure increases exponentially and all he can think to do is add more pressure to his grip—that, and gently massage the shaft. He glances down to see it turning slightly purple. A bead of milky white liquid pools at the end, right at the base of the slit where he makes water.