A Month of Sundays

by Jay Harez

  The effect of the solution on the ghouls was horrendous. Curtis couldn’t understand how they could all be infected or so far gone. Then he reminded himself that he really only had a vague memory of anything that had happened during the past month of his life.

  The ghoul’s skin snapped and sizzled like bacon and a green miasma filled the room as a result of the chemical burns. Curtis watched as the injured literally tore the damaged skin from their bodies and continued to advance. The fog created by the corrosive agents only increased as Sophie saturated every surface she could with the powerful solution.

  Sophie was crying and still screaming curses in Spanish. Her hair was going in all directions and she had the look of a caged animal. She had long since passed the point of being a zealot on a mission. She didn’t care if she died and intended to take as many of those things with her as possible. She was rage incarnate.

  There was a crash from above as the ceiling fell in crushing three of the creatures. Three men fell in a clump and became a writhing mass of white plaster and muscle. The Specialist had the whip around the throat of Tanár. Tanár’s eyes had become opalescent and he struggled to remove the whip. Behind The Specialist, a man with a mangled face was screaming and stabbing The Specialist repeatedly. The Specialist didn’t seem to notice the stabbing or the screaming.

  The remaining children continued to surge toward the table and the upper torsos of the Turners tripping and stumbling over the corpses of their neighbors as they did. Accompanied by their respective parents, aunts, uncles, guardians and grandparents the children formed a living phalanx of bloodlust while making unintelligible guttural noises. The only thing comprehensible about the sounds they made was that they were hungry, angry and they were frustrated. Curtis sensed that whatever was supposed to happen here tonight had been prevented. Which meant the De Gaizas might still be alive. He stopped himself from hoping.

  The space was getting smaller as the surge of bodies continued. Curtis dropped down to one knee and opened fire on the man stabbing The Specialist. He and Tanár were clearly more resistant to the solution than the others. The man with the mangled face finally took notice of Curtis.

  His face was contorted and covered with the same metallic looking scales as Mitts-for-Hands and Tanár. It had the same multiple rows of teeth but he also had pronounced canines in his bottom jaw that stood out like an English Bulldog. It roared in Curtis’s direction and half of the group that was moving toward the table stopped and turned toward Curtis. They moved as one, arms extended mouths and hands covered in blood. Curtis took the opportunity to put one last burst into the mouth of the man with the mangled face – Curtis knew the man was Ghoulish John.

  Curtis was running low on pellets and CO2. He realized that the Turners were standing halfway out of a cellar. Alpha Turner was making every stroke count with his straight razor and Beta Turner was bludgeoning the ones he could with his paint pall gun but it was aluminum and only served as a minor annoyance.

  Sophie was almost out of fluid. Sonny and Jahn…Shit! Curtis hadn’t seen either of them since he had left the front yard. He began to regret having abandoned them to go on this fool’s errand. He began to lapse into hopelessness.

  From the hole in the ceiling made by the brawling trio a steady rain of an ammonia began to cover everyone in the room. It was Jahn and Sonny. They had somehow made it to the second floor with a hose connected to the pump in the rear of Sophie’s Suburban.

  Curtis felt a weight on his back. An older child or small woman was on him screaming as if she were on fire and pounding Curtis with her fists. Curtis launched himself forward like a sprinter and dove headfirst into the deluge from the ceiling. Sonny saw his dilemma and – for a moment - focused the torrent on his attacker. The creature squealed, fell off of Curtis and landed on the pile of stinking bodies.

  Curtis felt a blow on the side of his head. White granulated powder exploded around him and his eyes burned. Jahn dropped through the hole in the ceiling and was now standing where the trio had fallen. Jahn was wielding what looked like a t-shirt cannon and launching compacted packages of salt wrapped in cellophane. He stood atop a pile of bodies and laid down a steady barrage. One of those ’salt grenades’ had struck Curtis in the head. Curtis lurched right and left as his eyes burned and his skin tingled. The goggles and coveralls could only offer so much protection, the transdermal affected humans too.

  The floor was covered with a thick layer of blood, salt water, ammonia, and dissolving corpses. The coating made Curtis’s feet stick and slide at intervals. He heard Sophie screaming but her voice had become raspy. She was exhausted. Curtis’s nostrils burned but the ammonia put the stench of the corroded corpses in perspective.

  Then the fight was over. Curtis dropped to his knees. He had never been more appreciative of silence in his life.

  Smoldering corpses lay everywhere in heaps liquefying where they lay. Some were still moaning but The Specialist was dispatching those with speed.

  Curtis was nauseous. He saw images of all those children with their eyes frozen open in panic and rage. Someone opened a window. Then everyone was opening windows. No one spoke. Curtis noticed the time was a little after four a.m.

  It would be dawn in less than two hours.

  “You earned your pay Specialist,” said Sonny as she looked down at Tanár’s corpse.

  “Someone help me,” instructed Sophie. She was cutting Miguel loose.

  Alpha Turner heaved himself the rest of the way out of the cellar. He reached back and helped Beta Turner climb out. Beta Turner simply slumped there with his legs hanging over the edge of the open trap door. He pulled a flashlight from a pocket of his coveralls, ignited it and pointed it down the hole.

  “Que es seguro salir ahora" he said in Spanish.

  Curtis looked but feared to hope as one by one nine members of the De Gaiza family emerged. They coughed and the younger ones began to wretch from either the ammonia or the site of all the carnage.

  Curtis stepped forward to assist but when the De Gaizas saw him they all began to scream. The older ones grabbed up the young and made for the door at the opposite end of the dining room.

  Beta Turner went after them shouting in Spanish.

  “It’s likely that the last time they saw you you were under the control of Tanár,” Sonny comforted. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Curtis was crushed and angry and frustrated. He kicked Tanár’s corpse only to find he barely left a mark on the reptilian hide. Curtis studied the corpse more closely.

  Tanár had changed during the struggle. It was as if he had shed an outer shell. The body lay there with its teeth clenched. Curtis was sure it had also had the multiple rows of teeth. The area around the mouth was distended and the head looked more like a leathery egg mounted on a tree stump. It was disgusting and the stench in the room was overpowering despite the open windows.

  Alpha and Beta Turner were under each of Miguel’s arms. Curtis thought back ten hours ago to when he was being moved about in the same fashion. Then another smell came to Curtis.

  “What is that smell?” asked Curtis.

  “An accelerant,” said Sonny. She was heading upstairs. Sophie was following the Turners and Miguel toward the front of the house. Jahn was going over the bodies as if he were searching.

  “We have a problem.” Jahn said without stopping his scrutiny of the bodies. “One sister is outside, Tanár is here, where is John and…”

  He was cut off mid-sentence as his feet were swept out from under him. Laboria was standing half-way out of the trap door. She had a grip on one of Jahn’s ankles and was pulling him toward her. He tried to roll over and kick at her head but couldn’t do her any real damage. Curtis was down on his knee again and firing his last pellets at the exposed upper half of her body.

  Sophie had disconnected the tanks from their harness, opened up the containers and poured what remained of the contents directly onto the head of the creature. The creature threw its head back and opened its m
outh. It sounded like a diesel engine being revved to high. Jahn placed the barrel of his ‘salt grenade’ launcher in her mouth and fired.

  For the first time Curtis noticed the width of her mouth. It was almost as if its head was able to split in half. The multiple rows of teeth created an image of a leathery cracked egg with serrated edges.

  Alpha Turner struggled to remove the grasping hand from Jahn’s ankle. The hand had the telltale leathery scales and was slicked with blood and dissolving skin. It took Curtis and Alpha Turner together to pry the fingers free.

  Jahn stood up and looked around.

  “We are still missing one,” he said as if nothing had happened.

  “I have a truck nearby,” boomed The Specialist. He had a grin like a man using opiates. His movements and manner of speech were sharp however. Curtis realized he was euphoric.

  “Yes, release your hounds,” Sonny said from the stairway.

  The Specialist pulled out his phone and left the room. Curtis looked at her quizzically but didn’t give voice to his question.

  “Sometimes you have to use evil to fight evil,” said Sophie. “Let’s go. Five minutes Gardner!” she shouted up the stairs.

  “Copy that,” came Sonny’s voice.

  Everyone made his or her way toward the door at the opposite end of the dining room.

  Curtis decided to follow Sonny upstairs. He stopped at the top and stood in the hallway for a moment. He heard her shuffling around in a room at the far end of the hall.

  “Sonny we don’t have time for you to…” Curtis was speaking before he entered the room. Then he saw Ghoulish John. He had Sonny by the throat and was holding her against a wall. Her feet weren’t touching the ground. She was kicking furiously at him.

  Ghoulish John turned to face Curtis as he entered the room.

  He too seemed to be transformed. More reptilian, more primal his face protruded into something more snout-like. He snarled at Curtis. The fingers of one hand had were fused together into the shape of a trowel made of bone and gristle.

  “Well Lord of Land. We finally have a chance to speak,” Ghoulish John hiss-grunted.

  Curtis thought furiously. Everyone was outside, Miguel needed medical attention. Odds were they wouldn’t set the place on fire with Sonny and himself still inside but…

  “Nothing to say? When you sat at my fathers table all those weeks you had plenty to say, between bites of course,” it snuffled or laughed Curtis couldn’t tell. “Now you have destroyed my family and left me with nothing. What do you have for me to take? Perhaps this high-yellow piece of ass you’ve been going on about? Let me ask you something. Do you think you have stopped us? We are legion. But you know what the quintessential difference between humans and us is? We don’t consume more than we need. We strive for balance. In truth, we serve a valuable purpose, we cull the herd,”

  Sonny’s resistance was decreasing. Curtis could tell she was close to blacking out.

  “We are the more highly evolved. Why should we hide in the dark?” Ghoulish John continued “We seek peaceful coexistence with your kind,” he seemed to be changing again. His eyes were narrowing and turning a milky color. He swiveled his jaw around on its hinges. Small tusks began to protrude from the bottom set of teeth just as they had on Tanár.

  “If you and your little cabal had any sense of the natural order of things you would simply let us be. What are a few illegals more or less anyway?” Ghoulish John asked.

  Curtis had left his empty paint-ball gun downstairs. He considered rushing the creature. But then what? The thing could brush him aside as easily as Curtis could cuff a child into submission.

  “Your father died decades ago,” Curtis said and took a step toward Ghoulish John. “You let your brother be lynched,” another step. “You are not the more highly evolved. All you are is a well-trained draught animal and a traitor to your species,” another step. “But there was one thing I have been meaning to say,” Curtis was within arm’s reach now. “From the very first time I sat at that evil bastards table,”

  Curtis jabbed two of the little darts into Ghoulish Johns eye.

  “I AM NOT THE FUCKING LANDLORD!!!” Curtis screamed.

  Ghoulish John released Sonny. As she dropped to the floor she took the opportunity to roll toward the door.

  Ghoulish John lashed out with both hands. His hands ripped through the paneled walls of the room. With another random slash he snapped one of the posts that made up a four-poster bed. Ghoulish John howled like something from Curtis’s worst nightmares.

  Curtis felt something tugging at his sleeve. It was Sonny. She was coughing and clutching what looked like a carpetbag under her arm. She was pulling him toward the door.

  Smoke was coming up the stairs. Well, Curtis thought, maybe they would set the place on fire with us inside. For the second time in the last twenty-four hours Curtis wondered who these people were. They made it part way down the stairs. Terrible idea. Although the place was soaked with salt-water, the accelerant was winning. The acrid stench was inescapable. Curtis felt his lungs burn as he accidentally inhaled a cloud of ammonia and steam.

  “Lord of Land!” Came a howl from the bedroom. “Lord of Land!”

  Sonny started going back up the stairs. Curtis couldn’t believe it but he followed her anyway. At the top of the stairs instead of turning left she pulled him to the right. She was still coughing and couldn’t speak. Both of their eyes were watering due to the fumes.

  They plunged through and into another room. The lights were on and Sonny shut the door behind them. Were it not for the smell and the screams of Ghoulish John, Curtis would not have imagined that the rest of the house was on fire.

  The room looked like a butcher shop. Several oversized hooks hung suspended from the ceiling. Along the walls various cleavers and bone-saws hung from nails driven into the wall in a precise row parallel to the floor. Curtis remembered being here before.

  The carcass of someone hung suspended near a window. It was partially skinned but Curtis could tell it had been a small child. Its muscle tissue had started to cure and Curtis could see teeth marks.

  “Window,” Sonny rasped and pointed. On the far side of the room was a window. They had only taken a few steps when the door exploded inward behind them.

  “Lord of Land! Did you think that a little scratch would stop me? You and your red-bone cunt are gonna feed me for weeks!”

  Curtis stumbled backwards in terror as Ghoulish John lunged for him. The tusks from his bottom jaw now rose almost to the level of his eyes. He walked, or really crawled like a primate using the shovel like protrusions where his hands had been to pull him along. Sonny had fallen down or collapsed rather. She had finally succumbed to the smoke and Curtis could not think of a way to get to her. When she went down it was against the opposite wall and Ghoulish John was between Sonny and Curtis looking back and forth at the two. Curtis was out of weapons of any sort. All of the knives were on the wall above Sonny on the other side of the room. He fixed his gaze on Sonny’s lifeless body.

  “Perhaps instead of eating her I should breed her. Yes, she would make a fine mother to the next brood,” Ghoulish John said over his shoulder at Curtis and laughed.

  Curtis grabbed one of the hooks from the ceiling. Ghoulish John anticipated the movement and whirled to meet Curtis’s charge. As Curtis approached Ghoulish John stood to his full height. He was only a few inches taller than Curtis but his shoulders had become broader and his egg shaped head seemed to be an extension of the muscles in his neck. Ghoulish John smiled.

  When Curtis was within striking distance he raised the hook above his head. Ghoulish John anticipated the strike and leaned slightly backwards drawing back his right arm. Curtis knew the curved claw could cleave him in two then he would focus his attention on the helpless Sonny. Then Ghoulish John’s arm fell to the floor.

  Ghoulish John turned, too stunned to scream. Sonny was standing behind him holding a large cleaver. Curtis drove the tip of the hook down into the
top of Ghoulish Johns skull with his full weight.

  Sonny was grabbing the carpetbag and making for the window before Ghoulish John’s body reached the floor. Curtis was three feet behind her when she hurled the bag at the window and dove out behind it in an explosion of glass. Sonny hit the tin roof of the covered front porch and slid onto the hood of Sophie’s Suburban. Curtis leapt and managed to trip and somersault onto the roof of the vehicle.

  The Turners were getting Sonny into Jahn’s suburban. Miguel already occupied the second seat of Sophie’s SUV. Once loaded the convoy sped away.

  They had driven almost a mile before the first fire trucks raced past them going toward Tanár’s burning house. The house had gone up like paper once the salt-water had steamed away. There would be no evidence to tell the tale of what happened in that house.

  EPILOGUE

  “So how do these work?” Curtis asked as he studied one of the little darts he had pilfered from the Specialist. Curtis was sitting in a wicker lounge chair on the patio and Sam ‘Beta‘ Turner sat across from him.

  “They’re just modified epi-pens loaded with the same solution as the pellets along with an epoxy on the tip to make them stick,” said Sam ‘Beta’ Turner. “Why are you still carrying that?”

  They were on an island in the Caribbean that Sonny owned in partnership with Jahn. Curtis took a sip of his Hendricks and tonic while he continued to twirl the little dart with his fingers.

  “Hmm,” was all Curtis had to offer.

  They had left that charnel house and gone straight to Bergstrom International Airport. Sonny had handed the Specialist a large envelope, he thanked her and walked away into the night. From a nearby private hangar they had taken one of Sophie and Miguel’s jets to this place. They had all slept through the entire flight including a stop to refuel.