Zombie Dust: An Extreme Horror Novel

by Jubilee Savage

  A scream echoed in the hallway, and Sandra looked around nervously. She grabbed the officer's hand again.

  "Please. We have to go. It isn't safe here. These people are infected or something. Please. Let's go to the police station. You can lock me in a cell. I don't care. Take me someplace safe." She gripped his wrist.

  This time, Officer Fitzpatrick didn't shake her hand off his arm. He looked down at her fingers, and then he focused his attention on the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. "Your hand is turning black," he said. "Do you see that?"

  "What?" Sandra looked down at her own hand. She lifted it to her face for a closer look.

  The puncture wound where she had stuck herself with John Doe's dirty needle was a black pinpoint against her creamy white skin, and there were black lines radiating outward in every direction.

  Her fingers were streaked with black as if squid ink had been injected beneath the skin. Her fingernails looked like bruises. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and then she quickly closed it again.

  Other lines crept up along her wrist before fading mid-forearm. She stared dumbfounded at her arm until the officer spoke.

  "You're the medical professional," he said, "but I have a suggestion." He stared down at her with a steely expression. "You're not going to like it, but I assure you it's the only way. If you want to get out of this alive, without a bullet between your eyes, you'll do exactly what I tell you."

  Sandra looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "What is it?" She used the back of her unaffected hand to wipe away the tears.

  "Cut it off," he said. "You're obviously infected." He pointed at her streaked arm. "Cut it off. It's got to go. You have to trust me on this. I know what I'm talking about. You have to cut it off. Cut. It. Off."

  "What?" Sandra looked at him with wide-eyed surprise. "Cut what off?" Her eyes widened further. "My arm? You want me to cut off my arm?"

  "Where's the operating room?" Officer Fitzpatrick asked. "Is that where they keep the scalpels and bone saws and things, or is there a special supply closet?"

  Sandra shook her head.

  "I'm not showing you the operating room, and you're not cutting off my arm. We need to get out of this hospital, and you need to get us to your police car. Listen to me. I'm telling you. You don't know what I've seen tonight."

  The officer grabbed her by the wrist that wasn't stained black. "Wrong. You don't know what I've seen tonight, and you don't know what I've done tonight. So don't try my patience, Sandra."

  He looked at the walls of the corridor. There were signs and arrows to direct patients and visitors to different areas of the hospital from the cafeteria to the gift shop. He didn't see a sign for the operating room.

  "Take me to the operating room. We'll take that arm off at the elbow before that shit spreads, whatever it is. You see what's happening. You know you're infected. There is no other choice. It's time to listen to reason."

  "You are not taking my arm off. You're not a doctor, and even if you were, people just don't go around chopping other people's arms off. What the hell is wrong with you?" Sandra tried to pull her arm out of his grip, but he was too strong.

  "Fine. We'll find a doctor, and we'll have him cut off that arm, but we need to find one fast unless you want to end up like Mr. John Doe. Remember him? He vomited up a pile of black soot and pulled both hands inside out before my partner put him out of his misery with a bullet to the brain."

  "Stop," the nurse said. "Let go of my arm, or I'm calling security."

  The cop laughed. "Go ahead and call security. It will be fun to see how long it takes for them to get here. By the way, do you think the security guards are still alive? Or are they dead? Or are they undead?"

  He threw his head back and laughed loudly at his own joke. "Stop fucking around. Take me to the operating room."

  "No. Let go of my arm. You're hurting me." Sandra resumed her attempt to tug her wrist from his grasp. "Let me go. You can't do this to me. I've done nothing wrong."

  "Where are the doctors? What was that guy's name? He was smug and pompous as fuck, but it seemed like he knew his shit. Dr. Noble Kent, right? Where is he?" He twisted Sandra's arm until she whimpered.

  "No. Stop. You're hurting me. Dr. Kent isn't even a surgeon."

  "You finally realize you need a surgeon. Great. Take me to the operating room, and we'll see if we can find one. Otherwise, Dr. Kent will have to suffice. He doesn't need to be a surgeon; he just has to make sure you don't bleed to death when we take this thing off. Of course, I'm more than happy to take care of business myself."

  "No. Let me go. You're a fucking psychopath. How did they ever let you on the police force?"

  "You'd be surprised," he replied. "Well, no worries. If we can't find a surgeon or a doctor, I'm fully prepared to take care of it myself. I told you that from the beginning. It doesn't seem that complicated. If they could lop arms and legs off left and right on the battlefield during the Civil War, I'm sure I could get this diseased arm off without much trouble in an honest-to-goodness, fully functional hospital."

  "No."

  There was a loud humming sound before the hallway was plunged into total darkness. After mere seconds that felt like hours, the emergency backup generator powered on, and the emergency lights lit the corridor.

  Sandra took advantage of the cop's momentary blindness to yank her wrist free from his hand and run back down the hallway in the same direction she'd come from.

  Officer Fitzpatrick was just about to chase after her when a hand closed around his ankle. He turned around and looked down.

  Chapter Seven

  Father Matthew drove the ambulance all the way back to the rectory where he lived with the sirens blaring. The loud shriek of the sirens made conversation impossible. He didn't even bother to try; he didn't think Audrey was in the mood to talk anyhow.

  The sirens also helped to drown out the thoughts in his head, and that was a blessing. He'd seen too many things that no man should ever see. It would have driven a lesser man mad.

  Audrey hadn't spoken in so long that he couldn't even remember the last time she'd said a word.

  She just sat there quietly, staring through the windshield as if she was a bored housewife taking a ride with her husband of fifteen years instead of a recently minted prostitute with a festering black sore on her leg who'd just witnessed hell break loose at the local hospital emergency room.

  He couldn't blame her if she was too traumatized to speak or show emotion; he was barely holding it together himself.

  Nonetheless, he thought they should probably have a long discussion about the day's events once they were ensconced in the relative safety of the church. He wanted to ask her more about the man who'd done that to the otherwise perfection of her thigh.

  Now and then, the priest looked over at his companion to make sure she was okay, relatively speaking. He thought she was looking a little green around the gills, but he imagined that was to be expected after everything they had seen at the hospital.

  It would have been abnormal if she'd been acting like everything was … normal.

  The last thing he'd seen before driving the stolen ambulance out of the hospital parking lot was the old minivan that contained what appeared to be an entire family of innocents. He wished that he had done more to try to stop them from going inside.

  Deep inside, he thought he should probably turn the ambulance around and go help them, but that would likely result only in getting himself and Audrey killed. He wasn't as concerned for himself as he was for the young woman sitting beside him; he owed it to her to keep her safe.

  What bothered him the most about the scene back at the hospital was knowing that a woman and her children were about to walk into an abattoir.

  He couldn't help but wonder why they were there in the first place. Was one of the children experiencing a stomach ache? Had someone contracted a case of poison ivy? Or was it something far more sinister?

  Was one of them suffering from an unk
nown infection that would turn him or her into a drooling, snarling, bloodthirsty mockery of a human being? He had no way of knowing.

  Father Matthew was surprised that the streets were relatively free of traffic. There weren't even any pedestrians to stop or slow down for, which was a good thing given the difficulty he'd had getting the ambulance rolling again after coming to a complete stop.

  The ambulance didn't handle like his old Camaro, and that was the only experience he'd ever had driving a standard transmission.

  Father Matthew decided that driving a stick shift wasn't really like riding a bicycle. It was indeed possible to forget how to do it, contrary to what some people claimed.

  Every time he switched gears, the vehicle lurched and the clutch squealed in protest. It wasn't exactly the best time for a refresher course. He was just happy that they were still moving in the right direction.

  He pulled into the parking lot of the old church, hoping that his driving skills were sufficient to keep him from sideswiping the cars that were parked in the lot.

  Parking as close to the entrance as possible without consideration for whether or not it was a designated space, he let the ambulance shudder to a halt.

  The sirens were still on. In the time that it took for him to figure out how to turn them off, the sound attracted a small crowd. Several people were making their way toward the ambulance using an ambling gait that Father Matthew didn't like at all.

  There was no doubt in his mind that these people were suffering from the same sickness as the people from the hospital.

  "Come on." He pulled the keys from the ignition of the ambulance and opened the driver's side door. "We have to get inside." He looked over his shoulder at Audrey. "This doesn't look good."

  She looked at him, but she didn't answer. Her face was as lifeless as a mask.

  "Audrey, we have to go." He caught her blank stare and wondered whether she was going into shock. "It's okay. Stay where you are. I'll come get you." He jumped out of the ambulance and ran around to her open window. "It's okay," he said again. "I've got you."

  She barely reacted when he flung open the passenger side door and pulled her into his arms, and he hoped she wasn't feeling ill. Her skin was hot to the touch like she had a fever, and he made a mental note to get her some water and aspirin as soon as they got inside.

  "Can you walk?" Father Matthew asked her. The question reminded him of the conversation they'd had in the church not long ago. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since then.

  She nodded, and he set her down gently. The slow-moving individuals who had been attracted by the now-silent ambulance siren were beginning to disperse.

  While some still seemed to be making slow and steady progress in their direction, others appeared to have gotten distracted.

  He took Audrey's hand. "Let's go," he said. "Please, Audrey. You have to snap out of it."

  They both walked barefoot into the unlocked church. Once inside, Father Matthew slid the bolts on all the doors closed.

  He'd always insisted that the church be open and available to parishioners 24 hours a day, seven days a week; but he thought an exception would be acceptable in this case.

  He led Audrey down the aisle to the wooden door located to the right of the altar. They made their way down the creaking stairs to the basement. Then they crossed the underground tunnel to the rectory.

  Another flight of stairs, and they were in the priest's living quarters once again.

  Father Matthew locked the door behind them and turned to his guest. "I don't know what any of that was about, but I think we should pray." He took both of her hands in his and dropped to his knees, taking her gently down with him.

  He closed his eyes. "Our Father," he began.

  A low growl started low in Audrey's throat, and Father Matthew opened his eyes. "Audrey, what's wrong?"

  She pulled her hands from his, jumped to her feet and lunged at someone or something he couldn't see behind him.

  It was a man. More accurately, it had been a man. Now, it was a bleeding and broken husk of a man with a ruined throat that looked like it had been torn out by wild animals, and it was fighting Audrey for its life.

  The half-dressed girl and the bleeding man wrestled on the floor. They snarled and growled at each other like rabid dogs while Father Matthew looked on helplessly.

  He tried several times to separate them, but he drew back each time afraid of being bitten … or infected. Or both.

  Father Matthew watched in horror as Audrey dug her fingers into the ruins of the man's neck and snapped it like a twig. His body twitched and jolted on the floor, but all the fight had left him.

  She continued to twist and pull until his head left his body in a stream of blood and gore. Then she sat on the floor in the spreading pool of blood and licked her fingers one by one.

  Her little pink tongue lapped the blood off her palms and the fronts of her hands while Father Matthew watched as if in a trance.

  "I think I should go run you a bath," he said. "Wait right here. I'll come get you when it's ready." He scurried toward the bathroom, his feet slipping on the rapidly cooling and congealing blood. With every step he took, he said a prayer.

  In the bathroom, he put the plug in the bathtub and turned the separate knobs for hot and cold water that mixed to the right degree of warmth. He didn't think there was enough water to wash them clean at that point.

  A line from one of Shakespeare's plays went through his head. "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red."

  He shook his head and reminded himself that he ought to be reciting prayers, not lines from Macbeth. While the water ran into the tub, he went into the bedroom, tracking blood with every step.

  Father Matthew opened a cabinet. On the top shelf, there was a box of vials that contained holy water.

  He grabbed the entire box and carried it back into the bathroom without bothering to check on Audrey. If things out there were getting any worse, he didn't really want to know.

  Since she'd already proven herself capable of neutralizing a threat, he figured she would be fine on her own for a few more minutes.

  With the water still running, he uncapped the first vial of holy water and dumped it into the tub. One by one, he emptied all the vials. It wasn't until he was nearly finished that he realized he could have just blessed the entire tub filled with water.

  "You are a priest, after all," he muttered to himself.

  He turned off the flow of water and sighed, thinking there was no way this was going to end well. "Audrey," he called out. "Audrey, your bath is ready." He headed back to the living room.

  By the time he got there, Audrey had already eaten the man's eyes and ripped a hole into his abdomen using only her teeth and bare hands. She had coils of intestines looped around her hands and was swallowing wet bites of the guts when Father Matthew saw what she was doing.

  "Oh my God," he exclaimed. He momentarily felt bad for taking the Lord's name in vain, but he hoped that God would understand. "Audrey, stop."

  Instinctively knowing that she wouldn't hurt him, he grabbed her by both blood-slicked arms and lifted her from the floor. "Please, for the love of God, Audrey. You need to stop."

  Audrey let the loops of intestines fall from her fingers and looked up into the priest's eyes. She didn't make a sound.

  He led her by the hand to the waiting bath and gently removed her blood-soaked garments. She was so stained with crimson that he could barely tell she was naked. It was like she was wearing a bright red catsuit that fit every curve and plane of her body.

  She stepped obediently into the tub and sat down in the steaming water, which immediately turned red.

  The priest poured lavender body wash onto a washcloth and began the laborious process of wiping the blood from the girl's skin. He had to rinse the cloth in the water after nearly every stroke. "I'm sorry," he said. "I think we have to dra
in the tub and start over. Are you okay?"

  Audrey nodded her head. She sat perfectly still as the water drained and didn't make a sound as the priest refilled the tub.

  He washed her hair and rinsed it with a plastic cup until the water streaming from her tresses ran clear. Then he resumed washing her body until every trace of blood from her skin was in the water. "Another round," he said, pulling the plug on the bathtub drain.

  While he waited for the tub to fill, he absentmindedly rubbed her back and shoulders.

  His thoughts were preoccupied with images of the decimated man lying dead and in pieces in another part of the rectory mere yards from where he was merrily scrubbing and rinsing a bloody prostitute who'd somehow lost the ability to speak and gained the ability to tear a man's head off its moorings.

  After many passes with multiple washcloths, Audrey was clean from the waist up.

  "Here." Father Matthew took her by the arm. "Stand up, and I'll rinse off your legs." He helped her to a standing position and winced when he saw that the wound on her leg looked worse than before.

  The bandage had long fallen off, exposing it to the air, exposing it to the elements, exposing it to the dirt and blood of the day's events. Where the bite-sized circular mark had been, there was a crusted mass of black flesh that weeped blood, water and ebony pus down her leg.

  Father Matthew washed the wound again and dried it, taking note of the fact that Audrey's expression didn't change even as he tried to debride the wound with a rough washcloth. He pressed another dry towel to her leg. "Hold this in place while I get the bandages," he instructed her.

  She dutifully held the towel against her skin while he got clean bandages and a roll of surgical tape.

  He considered whether he should treat the area with hydrogen peroxide but decided against it. Only God can save her now.

  He wrapped her leg, taking care to cover every trace of blackened flesh in bandages and tape. If anyone saw her in this condition, he didn't want them to get the wrong idea.

  Father Matthew finished toweling her off with yet another clean towel. "You should get some rest," he said. "Why don't you sleep in my bed while I … do a little cleaning in the other room."