Sons of Sludge (Postmortem Anomalies Book 1)

by Josiah Upton

  Of course, I also have the advantage of increased IQ and self-control, and the money from my seemingly unloving yet financially endowed invisible parents. And in order to suggest such a plan to Gordon would reveal the fact that I am living it, and thereby reveal myself. Maybe Genny can't do what I'm doing, but that's not the point. The point is that this system which Gordon claims to be inescapable is not. Somehow, there must be a way around Genny's containment.

  “Zaul, I know this is very upsetting. I agonize over it day and night. And I know you want to help, but I can't emphasize enough that you mustn't talk to Genny about any of this. Really, I shouldn't have even told you. If she finds out that someone knows about it, it could really stress her out. And overwhelming stress could affect the efficacy of her hormone treatment, and start her Phase II. I need all the time I can get. Do you understand me, son?”

  A picture of Genny's face enters my mind, and I imagine the next time I will see her again. I will fear for her future, but I won't be able to say anything about it. I will want to express sympathy, but I must remain silent. I'm used to masking my symptoms around people, but masking my feelings of concern? Such an act is almost as foreign to me as the concern itself, since I'm only usually worried about me. But if stress might trigger that horrible event from which there is no return, then I will play whatever part is necessary. It will give Gordon more time to research for a cure.

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “Good,” he sighs as he stands up from his chair. “I guess I should get going, it's pretty late. Sorry for arriving uninvited, and for keeping you up. And for yelling at you earlier.” He pauses. “And for breaking down in front of you. I imagine seeing a grown man cry is rather uncomfortable.”

  “Not at all,” I lie. “I'll see you sometime soon. And let me know if you need anymore help moving that biosafety cabinet.”

  “Will do. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  Gordon leaves me in the backyard, and moments later I hear his Jeep rumble to life and take off. I look up into the sky, at the little twinkling lights, and realize just how rarely I see the stars. I'm always locked in the basement at nighttime. I imagine that other Hybrid Reanimates, the ones locked up in containment, don't get to see stars, or clouds or the sun or anything else beyond their walls. What could be done to keep my only friend away from that place? I don't know, but I am certain that I would do anything possible to keep it from happening.

  After gazing at the night sky for a few more minutes, I return back to the basement door, knocking for Gibbs to unlock it. He doesn't. I take a few steps back and see him in the kitchen window, looking out at me. I had forgotten about him, he must have witnessed me and Gordon's discourse. The speaker crackles to life. “Yes, Zaul, I was watching you. And I heard you, too.”

  Chapter 24

  Terror seizes me. I stalk over and press the red button. “How?”

  “The same way you're talking to me now. That isn't the only button that operates the microphone on your end.”

  This means he heard everything: Genny's sickness and my concern, Gordon's crying, and the multiple instances of the word 'friend' being spoken.

  “I specifically told you, more than once, not to engage in social interaction beyond what is necessary, and especially to not form friendships. From what it sounds like, you and this family are getting to be rather close. Is that what you're really doing in Cañon City, seeing this girl?”

  I don't know what to say. I haven't had enough time to formulate a lie, if one could even be made that would refute the cold evidence. “She's just someone from school. We don't even know each other that well.”

  “Not yet, you mean. Her father just told you a secret of hers – how long before you disclose yours, one that is so similar?”

  “I will not tell her that,” I growl.

  “Of course you won't, because you will no longer speak to this girl or her father.” The door clicks, and I open it and step inside, defeated. Once the door is shut and I descend down to the basement floor, I look up the other set of stairs and see his silhouette from the kitchen light behind him. He continues his lecture, calling down to me. “And to make sure of that, you'll be staying down there for the next two weeks.”

  Two weeks of confinement. So much could happen in that amount of time. Genny might be lost. I sprint up the stairs, as fast as my stiff, creaky joints allow me, and collide onto the steel barrier. “You can't do that!” I scream at him.

  “Yes I can!” Gibbs hisses from his wheelchair. “You were down there for four years, another couple of weeks won't kill you.”

  “But, but...” I struggle to find the words, whatever will change his mind. “But what about school?”

  “That won't be a problem. I'll say you went out of town, or were very sick and couldn't get out of bed. If I can counterfeit registration papers with the APA, I can come up with a doctor's note. Once you've learned your lesson, you can go back. And if this happens again, it will be a month.”

  “NO!” I scream, pulling and rattling the steel bars that separate us. “You can't keep me down here!”

  “Why?” he asks, calm as usual. “Why are you so afraid of being away from school? Surely it isn't about getting behind in your studies.” He wheels his chair closer to the bars, cocking his disfigured head. “Do you think that you can do something to save her? You can't. She's as good as dead, Zaul.”

  “Don't you say that about her!” I bark, throwing my small table down the stairs again. It lands with a crash at the bottom. “Don't talk about my friend!”

  “You can't have one!”

  “And why not?!?! What do you know about friends? You're just, you're just...” I hesitate at the edge of saying the words, remembering them from Caesar's lips earlier today. If I say what I'm thinking, he will be hurt. But I'm hurt, and it is his fault. If he is going to snuff out my warmth and light, I won't take it without spitting back. “You're just an old cripple. A lonely old cripple who doesn't have anyone. You're jealous that I'm actually capable of making a friend, and so you take it out on me.”

  Gibbs is silent and frozen, his one eye peering at me from behind his sunglasses. I can't guess what he's feeling or thinking, but I can sense a slight shaking in his wheelchair-bound body, and the smell of his blood pumping faster. This goes on for some time, the two of us looking at each other, and I start to think about the words I just said. I wish could unsay them.

  Then, very slowly, he removes his hat and sunglasses, and lays them on his lap, the bright kitchen light illuminating the severity of his deformities. I have seen each of them, though at different times over the last four years, but not all at once like this. His face, his neck, his mangled limbs – they are a mess. Though he has every reason to hate things like me, and maybe secretly does, he has been the only one to see me through this wretched life, the only one to show me the way. I shouldn't have said those things.

  “I don't believe I've ever told you what happened to me, what made me look like this.”

  “It was a Hybrid attack,” I offer timidly, somewhat afraid to speak.

  “Yes, but that's only a fraction of the story.” He sighs, and returns his sunglasses and hat to their former positions. “You remind me a lot of her.”

  “Who?”

  “The first Hybrid that I cared for, and the only one other than you. She wasn't as smart, but still more than the average Phase II. She learned things quickly, and had a decent amount of self-control, considering her condition. She liked...”

  He pauses, scratching his scarred chin with a finger, recalling the past in his mind. “She liked to do puzzles. And board games. At first I would let her win, but then she actually got pretty good. I think she even beat me once, legitimately. She was advancing much quicker than I expected her to, and soon she became bored with everything in her basement.

  “My wife – at the time – was helping me care for the Hybrid girl. It was good money for us. But we also had a young son of our own. At f
irst we didn't tell him about her, we didn't want him to be scared. But then I thought it would be a good idea to increase her social interaction, so I told him about the situation. He seemed excited to meet her, and I slowly introduced his presence in our training exercises.

  “With time, she became accustomed to my son – his voice, the sight of him and his smell. Soon seeing him was the highlight of her day. When he wasn't around she would always ask about him, wonder where he was. All this took place under my close supervision, with the proper restraints and safety measures in place, and the door to the basement locked securely when my wife and I weren't down there.

  “But one night I hear something, and get out of bed. I go downstairs, and notice the basement door is wide open. As a father, I automatically assume the worst. I run down the basement stairs with a shotgun, expecting to see her devouring my son, but instead I find the two of them quietly playing a board game on the floor. He's even close enough that she can touch him, but she's only interested in playing with her new friend.”

  His voice grows cold at the word, and I'm starting to sense what the point of this story will be.

  “I yell at him to go back up to his room, but he doesn't want to leave. I snatch him from the ground, he's crying, she's growling and reaching out for him. When I push him towards the stairs, I tell him he can never come down there again. This makes her shriek. I make the mistake of turning my back to her, and the length of chain that keeps her to the wall is just long enough that she can grab my arm.”

  Gibbs raises his wrist stump up for me to see. “My hand is the first thing that she starts to chew on. When I try to pull away she grabs my head and claws at my face and neck. Whatever she manages to rip off of me, she eats. I fall forward, trying to crawl away, but she gets a hold of my leg. By the time my wife is downstairs and grabbing the shotgun, it's chewed down to the bone, just under my knee. Most of this I can't even remember, it was told to me after the fact. But the one thing that I can't forget is the shotgun blasts. My wife shoots her once in the chest to get her off me, then once in the head to kill her.

  “In the old days, with the first true Reanimates, a bite from them would lead to infection and death, then reanimation. But with a Hybrid Reanimate bite, you can survive, and live out your years as someone like me. On many days, I wish my wife hadn't stopped her from killing me, or perhaps had aimed lower and shot me first.”

  I take another moment to observe his wounds, now knowing they were the result of a man getting in between a monster and its friend. Am I capable of such savageness? If this barrier weren't here, would I finish the job that Hybrid girl started on Gibbs, just because he's keeping me away from Genny? I tell myself that I'm different, that surely this girl didn't have the training and exercises in restraint that Gibbs has drilled into me. After that event, he must have been more cautious, and so the scenario must not apply to me. But how can I be sure?

  In the same moment of discounting this story as irrelevant to my own, I start to doubt myself. What I did to Dalton, how I screamed and snarled when Gibbs told me I would be confined for two weeks. I have the tendency to act first and think later, if at all. I've learned to deny myself the things that my Prisoner cries for, but when I think of someone hurting Genny, my automatic impulse is to crush and destroy, and I don't think I would be able to hold back. This level of selflessness in a barbaric monster is surprising, but also dangerous. Maybe Gibbs is right.

  “If this happened to you, then why did you agree to take me?”

  He sighs heavily, rubbing his forehead. “Look at me, Zaul. Do you see my wife or my son here? No, they're gone. That incident took everything from me. The only consolation was a lump sum of money I received from the girl's mother for my troubles – even though her daughter was dead, and it was technically my fault. I lived off it for a little while, but realized it wouldn't last forever, and getting a job was impossible as no one wanted to hire an 'old cripple' like myself. My only option was to start doing black market Hybrid Reanimate business again. After all, I had nothing to lose.”

  “And is that when my parents contacted you about me?” I ask with discomfort, still reluctant to speak of them.

  “No. Like I said, your parents had met with me before all this, and I had already agreed to become your caretaker, even before your transformation. And when you transformed and they sent you out here, I promised myself I would never let what happened down in that basement happen again.”

  I look over my shoulder, to the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. “Were you living in this house? Was this the basement you kept her in?”

  “No. After the attack, my wife took me to a doctor within the market, one that specialized in the type of wounds I received. If a hospital were to see my injuries, they would have called the APA immediately. She went back and disposed of the body and the evidence, then burned the house down. It no longer stands today.”

  “And where is your wife now?”

  “I don't know. Somewhere far away, I suppose. She never forgave me for introducing our son to that Hybrid girl, so she took him with her. The mistake I made of thinking she was ready for social interaction ruined everything. It cost me my health, my family, and it killed her in the end. I will not make that same mistake again, Zaul. You can't have a friend, no matter how much you want one. The bond can become too strong, but you won't have the self-control of a human. Your emotions will take over, you'll start compromising, and mistakes will be made. People could get hurt, maybe even die, and everything that we have worked for over the last four years will be wasted. It isn't worth it.”

  Everything he says is true, even if I hate to admit it. My concern for Genny may very well lead me to desperate behavior. If I'm honest with myself, I would kill to protect her, and at that point, what would stop me from feeding on the broken body afterward? And what if I attacked Gordon, gave him the same scars that Gibbs is forced to bear? I would truly be a monster, not only in nature but in action. If I care about Genny, I won't endanger her or her father just because I selfishly need her to justify my existence.

  But will I ever have that light and warmth? Am I forever doomed to walk down the dark corridor, alone? “You said that human social interaction wasn't part of my training yet, and that I'm not ready. Does this mean Genny can be my friend in the future?”

  Gibbs wheels his chair back, turning slowly away from me. “From what I overheard of your conversation with her father, it doesn't sound like she has long. By the time you're ready for a friend, she'll be gone.”

  Chapter 25

  I spend my days down in the basement trying not to think about Genny. The cold truth is that I can no longer see her – not now, nor when my two weeks of confinement is up. Every time I start to miss her, remembering the way she looks and sounds and smells, I force myself to think of Gibbs's mangled body. I force myself to imagine how my emotions might open the cell door for my Prisoner to come lurking out, and the irreparable damage that could follow.

  When the agony over the loss of our friendship – and the inevitable loss of her human life – becomes too much, I try to cope by fantasizing about the day when I am ready for a friend. But I find myself not thinking about potential male friendships, only female ones. And I can only picture females with blonde hair, and dark clothing, with blue eyeshadow and tall, clunky boots. Their imagined faces all look like hers. I try to exchange them with pictures of women from magazines, but that doesn't work either. I get angry, I break a few things.

  I can't identify what exactly I'm feeling, or why all of this is so difficult. I also wonder if Genny's thinking about me, guessing where I am or what I'm doing. The last I saw her, when Gordon yelled at me in his basement, I left her house without a word of explanation, and I've been out of school for over a week. Maybe she doesn't care, and she's forgotten about me. The logical part of me thinks this possibility is a good thing. And my Prisoner is indifferent. But another part starts to ache at the notion. No matter how hard I try, I don't think I will be ab
le to get her out of me.

  * * *

  The day to emerge from my imprisonment finally arrives. After over two weeks of living in the shadows, the time has come to repaint my face with deception again. A few hours later I look just like I did the day Gibbs trapped me down here, except I've put that necklace back in the box I found it in. According to him, I won't need to worry about forming a social identity any time soon.

  I know that if Genny hasn't gotten sick yet, she will be in my first period class, and she might ask me where I've been. This causes my undead heart to thump, and I'm not quite sure how I'll handle it. Gibbs suggested just ignoring her, and she'll grow to resent me, and then the problem will be solved. I don't like this plan, but what else can I do? I deliberately disobeyed his orders and got myself into this mess, so I guess it's my responsibility to clean it up, no matter how difficult.

  When I enter the school doors my Prisoner rouses in his cell violently. I've been away from other humans for long enough that I've forgotten the sensory overload brought on by a multitude of them packed tightly together. I stumble through the mass of hot blood and flesh, almost refusing to breathe, until I arrive at the front office. Like he promised, Gibbs forged a doctor's note to explain my two week absence. Though I actually do have a nasty virus, the one stated in the note is of a completely different variety.

  As I hand the note to the large female at the desk, Vicky Womack saunters out from her office and right up to me, squeezed into yet another tight outfit. Seems I can never escape this woman.

  “Zaul! How are you feeling?” She places her hand on my arm and rubs it warmly. That can't be right. “I haven't seen you in a few weeks.”