Rhyce leaned in and whispered to Cross. “Are you sure we can’t go whore them out and make our own double mint commercial. It’s comic gold bro!” Cross just rolled his eyes and shook his head and tugged the brute up the stairs.
They left the boys to their games and soon the minutes turned into hours. As Callen and Tren fought for their lives on the screens in front of them, the world beyond their basement bunker was dying by the second.
(Present)
Callen and Tren finally awoke from their thirty-six hour ‘Halo Binge’. They tried to blink away the sunlight streaming in through a crack in the basement window, creating a kaleidoscope of colors dancing on the floor. Not thinking anything of it, the two boys went to log on to their games only to see that the lights on the modem had gone dark. Their internet connection was gone. Their lifeline severed.
Before they could even begin to process what was going on, their two best friends busted through the door with bats in hand and covered in dried blood. “Whoa, what the hell happened to you guys?” Callen asked.
Cross was first to respond “Please tell me you did not just wake up?”
“Umm…yeah” replied the twins while rubbing the back of their necks.
“Why? What’s going on?” mumbled Tren at the same time Callen shook his head and said “Dude you’re supposed to drink the Jell-O shots, not wear ‘em.”
They looked down at their bloodstained, tattered clothing then back up to the twins with blank expressions sweeping across their faces. Not knowing where to start, they simply lifted and pointed their bats towards the window, signaling them to have a look outside. Callen and Tren crossed the room in just a few strides to the cracked window and yanked their blackout curtain out of the way, coming face to face with the vision their sixty-year-old neighbor’s battered face smashed into the window. His blood seeping through the cracked glass and onto the windowsill.
Both boys jumped back and shouted “Holy…Shit” in twin fashion. “How in the hell did we sleep through that?” the twins whispered.
Appalling as it was, the body of their neighbor lying across their mother’s flowerbed, face planted into the window, was not the most prominent feature of this feast of the eyes that was to behold. It was only the final topping added to the course. Everyone that lived on their street had made their way to their happy little cul-de-sac and converged around them. Bodies lay spread about in starburst fashion in the street and in the yard. They stopped short of the walkway leading up to the front.
Tracks of squashed grass and divots in the dirt trailed behind some twenty or so forms, which laid motionless in their prized yard. Some of these bodies were completely nude but most had some semblance of clothing left on their bodies. The boys recognized some of their neighbors, mostly by their attire. Robes and business suits, familiar dresses and shorts all donned haphazardly, ripped and stained by blood and grass in various places. Green swatches of color pasted in bits here and there denoted as their souvenirs of the trek to the front door. Outstretched hands marked their last efforts of crawling the last few feet of what was once a perfectly sodded yard.
Gunshots and open skulls. Grass stained grey matter and a crimson river-spray marked where the path would have continued were it not stopped so abruptly short. Tren realized all too quickly that the shooter must not have had brought enough ammunition to hold his own. A single corpse laid a few from the corner of the house, his shotgun still entangled in his broken fingers. The fingers laid wrenched aside in a much unnatural fashion. It was set apart from the other bodies by its particular wounds. First, his neck had been ripped wide open at the carotid artery. It was an instinctually deliberate wound. Blood was denied access to the brain, which almost instantaneously incapacitated the shooter. Something took advantage of this and tore uncleanly through his abdomen and made a messy meal of his entrails, even as he took his last breaths.
They look at their friends and spoke in almost a whisper “What’s going on? What about our parents… are they?” They looked into Cross’s eyes and with a simple nod from him, their parents fate was known.
Before the boys had crashed down the door to the basement, Cross noticed the bodies of the couple in the middle of the kitchen. Based on the smell and the flies that were lingering around them they seemed to have been dead for at least a day.
Refusing to wait to see if they were followed, the twins hurried upstairs to see it for themselves. Hearing it and seeing it were two very different concepts for them to grasp but the reality of the situation hit them square in the face. The scene they stumbled upon looked like someone was trying to protect them.
Everything was shoved in front of the basement door in hopes of keeping the danger at bay. All of the windows were shattered. Pieces of glass littered the floor. The wall that once held the only family portrait they had done; was now covered in dirt and smeared with blood. The struggle was evident everywhere they looked. Pushing aside the debris with their feet, they followed the smeared blood trail leading them into the kitchen.
Lying on the middle of the floor was their mom and dad, holding on to one another in a lover’s embrace but with looks of pure horror etched into their faces. At first glance, the cause of death looked like they were strangled from behind, but that was not the case. As soon as they turned them over, they saw that their throats were ripped out.
They say perspective is the key in dealing with any situation. Just take a step back and try to see it from different angle without letting your emotions run rampant. Sounds easy enough, right? It’s not, it’s a bunch of bullshit.
Callen and Tren stared unblinkingly at the bodies of their parents wrapped around each other tightly. No room to try to detangle them from one another’s killer grasp. No room for air. They raked their eyes ever so slowly over each parent, taking in all the evidence that they could without having to brave the act of contorting the limbs and pull them apart. For the stage of rigor mortis was full blown. If the twins were awake more than 12 hours ago, they could have saved them both or just maybe at least one of them. The boys analyzed the scene before them, over and over again, trying to piece the puzzle back together again.
The shattered window in the living room.
The broken glass littering the carpet and wooden floors.
The blocked door to the basement.
The blood trail from the wall, down towards the baseboards, and then stretching across the floor to the kitchen.
Their struggle was evident, but with who?
Their arms and legs were covered in human bite marks, each one with its own streaks of dried blood displayed around them like little red halos. Pieces of flesh were spit across the floor with pools of salvia encircling each chunk, forcing the flesh to retain its small blood supply. Both parents were still wearing the traditional Richards’ family weekend attire; their worn out flannel pajamas. Moms’ green and blue plaid pants were ripped, frayed, and covered in a bloody mud like substance. Her blue tank top had suffered the same fate.
Again. How the fuck did we sleep through this! Both boys thought.
Dads’ race car-themed outfit lost the battle with whatever was clawing at his legs. Make that gnawing. His right leg held cavities a half of a foot in length, leaving the tibia perfectly visible. The left calf fared much better but the knee connected to it had seen better days. The titanium kneecap their dad had replaced last year was hanging on by a few grisly threads of muscle, which originally been stretched to accommodate its entry into the body. The screws that used to hold the plate in place were now lying in a small pool of blood by the fridge. Something’s teeth were embedded into its many threads.
Chunks of hair and scrapes of dry skin were forced under each other’s fingernails. Their mother’s long auburn hair frayed out and tangled just like a poor man’s fishing net. Blood coated the ends of almost every follicle making it look like worn carpet. Her once beautiful dark blonde highlights were no more. Mud was caked onto her scalp, the evidence of her being dragged across the waterl
ogged lawn.
The struggle wasn’t with those strewn across the yard outside. It was here, inside their home. She had come in from the outside like this, changed.
Looking back down to their parents faces, the puzzle was complete. It was between the sweet and caring mother that loved everyone regardless and the man that taught them everything they knew. The man, who clearly had given his own life, had saved his sons from their very own mother.
“Close their eyes. Please,” Cross begged faintly as he wiped the few traitorous tears from his own, traitorous as Cross never cried. Kevin and Marcy Richards were not his and Rhyce’s real parents, but for the past seven years, they were the closest thing to it.
Callen and Tren grabbed kitchen towels from one of the drawers and wrapped their hands in them. Making a makeshift glove to protect themselves with. They reached towards the stiff eyelids of their dead parents and forced them down, forever casting their eyes into absolute darkness. They cracked like eggshells.
“What happened the past two days?” Callen asked aloud. Rhyce shook the reverie from his head and solemnly answered. “That virus thing that’s been on all over the news, it spread. Like, everywhere. I think…The town went fucking crazy in a matter of hours. We were still at that party, remember.” The twins nodded their heads in recollection. “Things were fucking great. Sex and booze and all that shit. Then we passed out and woke up amidst those things fucking leftovers.”
“You know what, just go look outside.” Cross demanded. “You’re not gonna believe this it unless you see it for yourselves.” Pointing to the tangled bodies on the linoleum “This isn’t shit compared to what’s out there.”
The two scrambled to their feet and made their way to the front door. They wrenched it open without any hesitation to assess the battlefield that lay in their front yard. Gagging sounds left their mouths as bile rose in their throats when the putrid smell of human flesh burning in the scorching summer heat hit them like a tidal wave. Their eyes began to burn, then water as they would when cutting into a fresh, ripe onion. Blinking back the tears that distorted their vision, they stumbled back into the house and slammed the door on the nightmare they clearly had not been prepared for. The nightmare was all too fresh and too raw.
***
The hours had escaped them and soon they were standing in the Richards’ backyard observing the flames dance higher and higher, while the crackle and sizzle of burning flesh filled the evening air. The sweat still glistened on their brow while they literally watched the neighborhood go up in smoke. Tren and Callen braced themselves near the edge of the now roaring fire that consumed their mother’s prized rose garden.
A small prayer passed their lips when they tossed the bodies of their still embraced parents into the mounting inferno “May your souls be forever bound and God grant you peace.”
With their backs to the flames, the bellowing of smoke rose in thickness as its blackness engulfed the evening sky. Nevertheless, it did not matter what direction they faced, as the signs of the horror was all around them.
The boys stripped out of their clothes, tossing them swiftly into the flames and turned towards the water faucet in hope that it still worked. They wanted nothing more than to rid themselves of the dirt, the blood, and that god-awful smell of rotten flesh that had embedded itself into their pores.
The roar of the fire behind them created the soundtrack for the boys as they ruthlessly scrubbed every inch of their bodies in hopes of washing away what they had done. Cross was last in rinsing off the grime that covered his hands and started to twist the handle to the right in order to shut off the water only to pause. The silence they had grown accustomed to was broken by the soft humming of something mechanical.
“What the fuck is that?” all four boys chorused.
“Holy shit, is that a fucking scooter?” Cross asked.
“Nah, can’t be. Scooter’s don’t pack that much of a punch in the sound department.” Rhyce piped in.
“Pressure washer, maybe? Anyways. It sounds like it might be coming from Fort Riley. Which we are definitely not going towards.” The twins said together.
“Why not? We need weapons and rations. Shovels, baseball bats, and busted-up ass hockey sticks aren’t going to stop those…things from coming after your throat” Rhyce all but huffed out while shuffling to his bag for his clothes. “We search the houses here man; we live in redneck country. Every prick around here had a gun. And a shitload of them too,” explained Tren.
Not waiting to find out if the noise was coming their way or not, the boys threw on some clean clothes and hauled ass to the truck. Its owner was no longer in need of it, but for the Junction City Boys, it would work just fine. The 2014 Black Dodge Ram Extended Cab was stocked and fully loaded; with their dads and neighbors’ weapons, all the ammo they could find, and three coolers with food and water.
Jumping into the driver’s seat, Rhyce started the engine and glanced to check that everyone was in. Callen was riding shotgun with a solemn look on his face, still transfixed to the smoke and flames rising higher until they reached the surrounding trees. Licking them with such heat they began to smother and bring them in.
Behind him in the open bed of the truck, standing guard was Tren and Cross, both with the same expression as him. It was time to go. They had to survive, and they couldn’t do it here. There was nothing left for them, no one to come home to. Everyone they had ever cared about was burning in the largest bonfire the state of Kansas had ever seen.
Backing out of the driveway, Rhyce looked to his navigator and waited a beat for their next step.
“Head south on 77 towards Herington, stay off the interstate,” Callen ordered Rhyce. Before Rhyce even got a chance to ask why, Tren chimed in from the open window “It’ll probably be the least populated at the moment. Think about it, the interstate will be packed with cars and probably more of…them. Better to stick to the smaller roads. It would be easier to look for more supplies too. Ya know, take the path less chosen.”
Without looking back, they headed out of town, away from the flames, away from lingering smell of death. Not that it would matter anyways.
The unrelenting smell of death and decay would follow them until the end regardless.
(April 20, 2015)
The droplets stamped themselves onto the steel floor, breaking the silence of the dark with their sharp echoes. A small halo where the light was scarcely able to push its way through, marked the ceiling grate above his head. It was the only exit. He had no way of knowing how long he had been down here. The echoes of droplets marked the slow and torturous passing of time. Between the halo of light and the echoes, it was enough to drive any man mad beyond fixing.
Jace was already past insane. He had snapped some three or four days prior. His sanity red-lining for far too long. The bleeding hangnails, the chipped fingertips and the throbbing pain in his wrists: they were all witnesses to his final, desperate attempts of escape from this hellhole. Scaling the walls, he knew, was impossible. There were no handholds of which to speak. He had mapped every reachable inch with his fingertips. There was nothing for him to catch on to near the hatch. There was no way of opening it from his side. Yet the helplessness in the dark created a madness that drove him in his attempts nevertheless.
Sleep came and went. Every few hours, his eyes snapped open. He prayed to greet the daylight. Even wishing it would be some overhead florescent lights flashing by above him. Giving him the sense of hope by moving from point A to point B as he was swept away on a hospital gurney. Instead, he burned time up scratching away at the sleep that had built up in his eyes. Mixed with the blood and sweat, this was no easy feat. When his eyes adjusted once more, he would slowly raise them to his teasing enemy, the halo of light. It never failed to remind him that he was here to stay. Unreachable like God. No one but Death would be coming for him. Honestly, he just wished the bastard would hurry the hell up.
He thought back, and remembered the screams. The first night they dropp
ed him into solitary, the screams were his own. During the second night, the screams were theirs. Magnified they were, in this steel prison, amplifying his terror. The scuffles and yells from above sent him into a panic. On Day two, he had still been suffering from withdrawals. He had not shot up since the hours before his self-surrender to this place. Whatever happened topside combined with his drug-induced sickness sent him skipping over the edge, still grasping for his frayed ends of sanity, which fell away from him all too quickly.
He was calm now. He had long lost count of the days, but he knew that his time was draining rapidly close to that last grain of sand trickling around in the hourglass. His hands only held the faintest trembles. He was not sure if it was because he was finally beating his addiction or from his dwindling strength. Without food or water being sent down, he had wasted away a bit.
No he thought as he watched his fingertips begin the slow tremor that would soon take over his entire body.
He knew he hadn’t beaten it yet. The cravings were still there. If only he could shoot up now. One good last time before the end, he mused. Then none of this would even matter.
Aren’t I the lucky one? Here in my own personal hell. I am dehydrated, starved, jones’n for my heroin. Not that he had ever done any heroin. Havoc had been his drug of choice, and according to his memory he had only shot up the stuff that one time. He allowed himself a small chuckle. Better that I had died up there than to suffer this shit down here. I deserve this, he thought.
He thought back to all the hell he had put his parents through.
First it was the borrowing.
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