by TW Brown
At least a dozen cats lounged about. Seeing them allowed my nose to now detect the bitter smell of ammonia that lingered under the already unpleasant stench unique to the undead. A couple were over by the zombie and, as I watched, one of them leaned over and began to worry at a tattered chunk of organ that protruded under the ruined ribcage.
“This…there can’t…” Todd started to stammer and stutter.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. All of the horror we were seeing had caused my mind to miss one important detail.
“This looks to be somewhat recent,” Alex whispered as her mind obviously came to the same conclusion that I had just a few second ago.
I spun, my hand going for my pistol. Guns were a last-ditch response, but if there was a living person in this house, I wasn’t going to take any chances. With my Beretta in hand, a finger coiled around the trigger, I gestured to the stairs.
I didn’t wait for the other two and headed for the stairs, quickly putting my back against the wall as I began my ascent. I reached the first landing and paused. I strained to hear anything other than the sounds of the chained zombie child. I glanced back and saw that Alex was two steps below me and had her own handgun at the ready. I also noticed that Todd was still standing by the archway still staring in on that awful scene.
I opened my mouth to say something, but the moan I heard upstairs and the fact that I doubted it would do any good caused me to just return my focus where it needed to be. I took the rest of the stairs slowly, reaching the upper floor where the stench of undeath and cat urine was even stronger.
There were three archways that led into the upper level as well as one recessed doorway at the far end. I moved to the first arch and peeked in. This was a long corridor with a pair of doors on either side. All of the doors were open, so I started down the hall, my back pressed against the wall.
The first door opened to what amounted to a small video arcade. There were four pinball machines against one wall as well as five upright video games. The windows had blackout curtains, and I noticed the track lighting overhead. There were also two massive televisions mounted on one wall.
The next room was a living room. On the far side, large windows and massive glass doors opened up to a huge deck that I was willing to wager gave an amazing view of Mount Hood. There were two doors on the wall to the left and another damn archway.
We ventured in and I gave the air a sniff. I could still smell the foul mix, but it was a shade fainter than back on the main landing. We could check the area out more later if time permitted, but right now, I needed to find whatever was in this house with us.
I backed out and ducked into the other doorways in this hall to discover a bathroom and a gym. Neither of them had any signs of movement.
Moving back to the main landing, I ventured to the next archway and peered inside. This one opened into some sort of upstairs kitchen. This was yet another location that merited looking into once we got to the bottom of the issue at hand, but across the way, another door waited. I heard the moan drift on the stillness, and I knew I would find what I was looking for through that doorway.
I checked back over my shoulder and Alex gave a curt nod. That could’ve meant she heard it or that she was ready; in either case, I made my way to that doorway. Each step closer ensured me I was going the correct direction to find the source as the smell grew stronger to the point that my eyes began to water, and I had to swallow hard to keep the bile rising in my throat from escaping.
I wasn’t sure what I would find, but I prepared myself for it to be bad. Still, when I reached that doorway, I had to force myself to peer into the room, and it took a few mental slaps across the face to go those last couple of feet. Either Alex was feeling it as well, or she’d suddenly become uncharacteristically patient, because she didn’t say a word during those several seconds that I stood without moving.
At last, I poked my head around the entry to the room and took a peek inside. A lone figure stood in the corner. It made no movement, and I almost thought that it might be a trick of light and shadow making something innocuous like a coat rack look like a person. The soft moan ended that speculation.
Only, that wasn’t what had most of my attention. This was a bedroom. It had a balcony that, if my mental compass was working, looked out toward the mountain. The glass-paned double-doors had been destroyed. It seriously looked as if somebody had taken a baseball bat to them. On the covered deck were several cats. Most of them were lounging, but a few heads popped up and regarded me with predatory gleams in their eyes.
The bed was a nest of still more of the felines. I’d never seen so many cats in one place. And when my flashlight swept the room, I got chills at all the greenish orbs reflecting light back at me. I also could make out a larger lump in the bed that I couldn’t identify at first. When I stepped into the room, a few of the cats stood like they were preparing to meet a challenge.
I suddenly felt like we were in the wrong place. There was something going on here that went beyond my comprehension. Something had drawn all these cats, and now, this was their lair. I was the intruder…and they were not afraid.
The figure in the corner shifted and finally turned. My flashlight revealed what had been a man in perhaps his late thirties. The only visible injury was a small bite on his left forearm. He obviously saw me and started to advance. He only managed a single step before he appeared to jerk to a halt.
I scanned him with my flashlight and discovered that he’d somehow gotten his leg tangled in a mess of electrical cords. That was when I spotted a floor lamp that had been knocked over and gotten wedged behind a heavy wooden nightstand. The zombie was basically “chained” in place.
With the threat of the zombie neutralized for the most part, I edged a bit closer to the bed. A voice in my head told me not to. I drew close enough to see, and wished that I’d listened to that voice.
“What in the ever-loving fuck?” Alex said from beside me. “None of this makes any sense. What was going on here? What twisted crap did we stumble across?”
“No idea, and I doubt we would ever be able to guess with any accuracy.”
I stared at the mess in the bed that had once been another child. This one had been picked clean except for the bits that still clung to the skull. Mostly clumps of hair, but even that had been savaged by this pack of cats. I had to at least assume the cats had fed from the child. The really creepy part—besides the obvious, of course—was that it was now impossible to tell if the child had been a boy or girl.
Then the skull moved. I didn’t know if it had been bumped by a cat or what, but that was enough to scare me and make me jump back. I tripped over a wad of clothing on the floor and would’ve landed on my ass if Alex hadn’t been there to catch me. She helped me regain my balance and then stepped back out of the doorway where we’d entered.
“I think we need to grab what we can and get out of here. None of this feels right.” She shot me a look and waited for me to respond.
“I think that is a good idea,” I agreed as I turned and backed out of the room.
Normally I wouldn’t leave a zombie at my heels, but I simply did not want to venture any further into that room. This was wrong on so many levels that it gave me a dirty feeling all the way to my core. I felt like I’d seen something that would leave an ugly scar on my very soul.
I made the decision to skip over looking around upstairs. I had to seriously consider if I even wanted to search the lower level. After all, there were a couple of other houses nearby that we could scavenge. Maybe it would just be best to leave this one.
By the time I was halfway down the stairs, I was even contemplating setting the place on fire. I was mulling that thought when I realized I didn’t see Todd where he’d been standing when Alex and I had gone upstairs.
“Where’s the idiot?” Alex asked as she reached the landing where I had stopped as I asked myself the same question.
Our answer came in the form of a scream.
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br /> 11
“Dammit, Todd!”
I broke into a run, making a beeline for that room with the zombie child chained to the wall. Todd had ventured in and, from the looks of things, resumed his attack on the cats. There were several feline bodies chopped up into mounds of blood-soaked fur that looked black in the gloom. When my flashlight passed over the bodies, the scarlet jumped out in an almost 3-D effect.
The young man was in the corner just a few feet from what was left of that pathetic zombie child that had been serving as the main course for who knows how many cats that had made this once opulent home into their personal den. Arrayed out around Todd, several cats were either pacing back and forth, or crouched as if preparing to launch themselves at the idiot.
“Dammit, Todd!” I snapped. “What the hell have you done?”
“I just wanted them to leave the kid alone!” Todd wailed. “They keep eating him.”
I glanced around the room and took in the carnage. I wasn’t sure I bought his story. Many of the carcasses were in the middle of the room, nowhere near the zombie child.
“Why couldn’t you have just stayed with us?” Alex spat as she stepped into the archway beside me and took in the scene. I don’t think she was quite prepared for what she saw because her anger deflated before she finished her reprimand. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I agreed with that sentiment. I think I remember reading something about how one trait often seen in serial killers was the torture and abuse of animals. Of course, maybe I’d read it on the internet…so how accurate would that have been?
“You need to get out of there,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice calm. We would deal with the overall problem once we got back to the others. I wanted to talk to his sister and see if she might have answers…or even a clue about her brother.
“Don’t you think I tried?” Todd shot back.
He took a step towards us and several of the cats moved as if making an effort to block him. I thought that seemed a little odd, but then, this was the zombie apocalypse. These cats had been on their own for a few months. Had that been all the time it took for them to revert to a more undomesticated nature?
“You are just going to have to make a run for it,” I said.
“They won’t let me,” Todd whined.
“They’re cats!” Alex snarled, finding her voice again. “Obviously you got into the room. Just make a run for it.”
“I did.” His voice hitched and held a nasally quality that suggested he was on the verge of tears. “One of them jumped on me and scratched my face.” He pointed to his cheek.
I shone my flashlight on him and thought I could see a set of scratches, but he was all the way across the room and I was still wearing my goggles. The thing was, with the behavior being exhibited by the cats, I wasn’t about to wade into that room. As far as I was concerned, he’d gotten himself into this problem. He could get himself out of it.
Todd glanced around, and I guess he was trying to pick the best route for escape. Finally, he made a move to his left. Sure enough, several of the cats drifted that direction as if to block him.
In a flash, he took one more over-exaggerated step to his left and then bolted to the right. He got maybe three steps before the first cat launched itself at him. It caught his leg and dug into the coarse denim material with all four paws. Todd yelped again as the feline looked to bite into his calf with its many pointy and sharp teeth.
He swatted down with the blade in his hand, but another had already launched and was scrabbling to get itself anchored to his pack. Again Todd yowled as this one bit his ear.
Without thinking, I had taken a few steps back, as had Alex. I quickly told myself that it was to give him room to exit through the archway, but deep down, I was certain that I was scared and acting out of self-preservation.
Todd was only a few yards from the arch, and I saw at least five cats clinging to him. It reminded me of this nature show where I’d seen these lionesses trying to bring down a giraffe.
Finally, he burst into the foyer. I was already moving for the front door, all thoughts of looting this place gone. Alex shot past me as I opened it, and I barely got out before Todd staggered and stumbled out, tripping off the single step and landing hard on the river rock walkway that led to the entrance.
Unfortunately for one of the cats, he landed with all his weight and I heard a cringe-inducing snap of multiple bones along with another shrieking mewl that drowned out Todd’s own blubbering and frantic cries. As if some unheard signal sounded, or maybe it was because of the screeching from one of their own, the cats that had been riding the Todd Express all disembarked, pulling themselves free and dashing away. No surprise, they all darted back inside the house through the still-open front door.
Todd continued to thrash around on the ground, swatting at himself. I was almost certain he was going to chop into his own flesh with the machete that he obviously had forgotten that he held. It was that reason I maintained a good distance from him until he gradually realized that the cats were gone.
He rolled over, pushed himself to his feet, and spied the body of the cat he’d fallen on. Its broken form was still twitching and making an awful sound that was part whine and part meow? He kicked the creature and then stomped on it.
“Todd!” I barked, closing the distance between us and grabbing him by the shoulders to yank him away from the now lifeless body.
He spun to face me, and I staggered back several steps, my weapon coming around and between us before I even realized that I’d done it. A chill swept over me, and I knew that if I could see the flesh of my arms, they would be pebbled from the severe goose bumps.
“What the…” Alex started, but when Todd’s head craned around in her direction, the words faded and she brandished her own machete.
“What?” Todd yelped, his eyes going wide at our displays of frightened surprise.
“Did you get close to that zombie child?” I asked, my voice sounding strangled as I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“No!” he exclaimed, instantly shoving up the sleeves to his jacket, revealing arms free of any sign of injury.
“Your eyes,” I whispered, giving a slight nod of my head.
“What about them?” he asked cautiously.
“The tracers,” Alex answered.
Todd looked confused for a moment before the light came on and he appeared to understand. He began patting at his body frantically, his expression crumbling from the madness that possessed him just moments before to one of absolute fear.
“N-n-no!” he stammered. “I haven’t been bitten. I swear to God.”
Now that I was over the initial shock of the black tracers that were stark against the whites of his eyes, I gave Todd my own visual exam and found that I didn’t see anything either. Well, except for…
“The cats,” I breathed. As if that reminded me we’d left the front door open to what was basically a lair for who knew how many of the animals. I spun to look back at the house.
Two cats sat in the still-open front door. One, an orange tabby, the other a mostly white one with a black splotch of fur on its right side, stared back at me like…well, like a cat. They made no attempt to move, and the orange one took that moment to splay its legs wide and begin tongue-bathing its nether regions.
“What about the cats?” Alex stepped over to me and gave me a nudge when I guess I just stood there for a moment saying nothing as this new possibility sank in.
“Okay, I am only guessing here, let’s make that clear,” I started. “The cats are feeding on the undead. We know for a fact that they are nibbling on the children, we all saw that. Add in what we saw inside.” I made gesture with my arm to indicate the house. “It might be possible that cats are not only immune to whatever this is that is causing the zombie thing, but they might also be carrying the virus or pathogen.”
Okay, I don’t actually know the difference—if there is one—between a virus or a pathogen, but I think I was
making my point.
“So…” Alex started, letting that word draw out as she considered my words. “You think that those little kitty scratches infected the kid?”
Todd let out a groan, and I had to admit, there had been absolutely no tact in Alex’s statement. She was speaking as if the young man wasn’t standing just a few feet away.
He spun around, and then took off towards the house. At first, I thought that he was going to rush back in and start hacking up more cats. He veered slightly and came to a stop in front of one of the gigantic windows. He leaned close, his hands going to his face, prying his own eyelids open as wide as possible. A second later, he let loose a wail of despair and dropped to his knees. His sobs carried easily in the quiet.
Alex leaned close and whispered, “You want me to take him down now?”
“What?” I spun on the woman and saw that her normally bright, sparkling eyes were flat and empty. My God, she was already preparing herself for killing the boy. “No! Of course not.”
“You do understand—” she began, but I cut her off.
“I understand plenty.” My voice came out harsh, but she didn’t even bat an eye. “And I also understand that we are going to take him back to his sister.”
“Why?” Alex countered. “You think you want her last memory of her brother to be seeing him like this? Let me tell you something, Evan. We’d be doing her a huge favor. She never has to know what he looks like as the infection spreads, she never has to see him turn, and she never has to put a bullet in his skull.”
It wasn’t that everything she was saying didn’t make perfect sense, but she was so matter-of-fact about the issue of ending Todd Burns’ life that it gave me still more chills to match the set that seeing those black tracers had already provided. This had gone badly so fast that I was having a little trouble catching up.