Quickly, without thinking about it, he grabs it between two fingers and pops it into his mouth, aiming for the back of his tongue so he doesn’t have to taste it. He chokes it down and stands up. He crosses the living room of the house and pulls a cigarette from the mantel. The room is bare. He has used all the furniture as firewood. Soon, he will have to start pulling the floorboards from the upstairs and using them as kindling. He puts the cigarette between his lips and flicks Luke again.
Killing the slags and lighting cigarettes are the things Luke is best at. These are just about the only things Darren has to do. Luke makes him feel like he has an accomplice. He smokes a lot. Smokes and thinks about the way things were.
He thinks about the way things were before and he thinks about the tent down the beach and he holds Luke in his hand, rubbing his thumb up and down the smooth plastic case.
2.
One day, life had been normal. The next day the slags had come and changed everything. Were they airborne? he wonders. He remembers them raining from the sky before scurrying after the people—into homes, into businesses, into schools—everywhere. Theories of war were immediately hatched. Terrorists, the Americans said. Others probably said the slags were a distinctly Western invention, typical of American pomposity and aggression. It only took a few days for absolutely none of that to matter. From what Darren can figure, the slags managed to burrow under one’s skin or enter through various orifices and release some kind of digestive poison, reducing one’s insides to a gray jellyish substance. The slags consumed this substance with glee.
Before the plague, Darren had had a wife and children back in Indiana. The children went first and Darren didn’t like to think about them because thinking about them made him sad. He knows he will never see them again unless heaven isn’t the lie he believes it to be. Thankfully, he didn’t have to watch them die, to be consumed by those hideous things. He had just checked on the two boys, playing in their room, when the storm hit. Darren had looked outside and then said to Lora, his wife, “That’s some weeeird fuckin rain,” thinking nothing more of it. When he went to get the boys for lunch, they were two piles of bones sitting in the midst of their toys and the room was acrawl with the slags. That quickly.
Lora hadn’t lasted much longer. Opening the boys’ door had released them through the house. They were upon him and he rapidly wiped them off. Returning to the living room, he saw them on Lora and then in Lora. Darren remembered her leaning over the kitchen sink a little later, vomiting up blood and he had put his hand on her back, as he always did when she was sick, and he could feel those things wriggling beneath the fabric of her shirt. And then she, too, was gone. Loose skin hanging over bones and then those things collapsing her eyes and crawling from the sockets, making holes from the inside of her skin so they could get out and move on.
He hadn’t known why he had been spared. He was not immune to the burrowing of the slags although they did not seem to cover him with the profusion they covered others. Still, his body was covered with scars where he had to cut inside his skin and dig them out so they didn’t chance upon a major artery. He is apparently immune to their poison or saliva or whatever the hell it is that wastes one’s insides. He traveled from the quiet Indiana suburb to what he is pretty sure is Maryland before finding this house on the beach and deciding he has run out of land and, really, what’s the point of pressing onward? He hasn’t seen another single soul on his journey.
Not after the second wave. The one that got his family.
The first wave was bad enough but it resulted in little more than quarantines in all the major cities and, over a several year stretch, infiltration into the mid-size cities and even smaller towns. But it was manageable. It seemed, after a while, that the humans were even winning, beating back the slags.
And then the second wave hit and destroyed all optimism within only a couple of days.
The slags had consumed the food after consuming the population. There isn’t anything left. Darren is lonely and terrified. Terrified because the slags are getting bigger. Soon, he will have to fear being mauled more than he will have to fear being poisoned. Humans, he knows, are not immune to mauling.
3.
About a half-mile down the flat, rough beach stands a red and white tent. He has always wanted to walk to the tent but he has found himself reluctant to give up on life. He reckons he should have gone when the slags were smaller and more harmless. Now he doesn’t think he will be able to get more than a tenth the distance without being taken down. He is pretty sure the slags are so hungry they are eating themselves. The good news is, with the size increase, there is an overall population decrease.
He stands at the north window of the house and looks toward the tent. He imagines it filled with happy people. Summer people. He imagines friends and laughter, plans hatched in youth, a whole world waiting. Anything but the waste strewn out behind him.
Today is the day, he tells himself. The longer he waits, the bigger and more threatening the slags will become. While the ones that make it into the house are still on the small side, the ones on the outside now resemble something that makes him think of kickballs and melons. Next week it will probably be giant pumpkins. The week after that, he will have to stop thinking about fruits and vegetables and start using adjectives—dwarfish, average, giant...
Yes. If he is going to the tent, it has to be soon. He doesn’t even really know why going to the tent is important. Maybe because it is the only thing besides this house breaking up the monotony of the beach. Without the tent, it would just be sand and ocean, sand and ocean—as far as the eye could see.
He lights another cigarette, not even remembering tossing the previous one out, and turns his attention back to the desolate gray beach. A dirty white bird swoops down toward the coarse sand. Birds are the only signs of any life besides the slags he has seen. Even as the bird swoops down, he thinks, No, you don’t want to do that. But the stupid thing touches down on the beach and a bloated slag rises from the sand, taking the bird down with surprising dexterity. The bird becomes immediately limp, the slag’s mouth clamped down over its neck, not a drop of blood escaping. Soon, two other slags scramble out of the sand nearby and scuttle toward their meal.
He thinks it best to move while at least some of them are distracted. He knows he will have to run just about the entire distance. He drops his cigarette to the floor and stamps on it, flicking one of the baby slags from his skin, grabbing the pistol housing a single bullet and flinging himself through the door, being careful to shut it against the creatures so he will have a place to come back to.
He runs as fast as he can along the beach thinking the tent must be absolutely filled with slags. It is probably like their home or something. And he is running toward it. No. It can’t be their home. He knows he doesn’t really believe that. If that were the case then what would the point of running to it be? He isn’t sure he attaches any type of divine significance to his being what may very well be the last person on earth but he wants to continue living enough to want to believe there is something in that tent.
Midway there, he decides maybe the tent is a doorway to some other world. A world without the slags. A world just like the one he has come from because, despite his disagreements with that world, he has found himself, more and more, thinking of it as a place of near perfection. And however fucked up it was, it seemed that humans had been the cause of most of the really major fuck-ups. But they seemed able to recover from their fuck-ups. Then the slags came. Darren would take the humans back in a heartbeat.
He continues to run, fighting the sand, pressing onward. The sand fills his running shoes. He hates that feeling. Wishes he had just left his shoes off completely.
Yes, he tells himself, the tent is a doorway to another world and those people he has imagined in there... They are people from that world. They came to the tent to have parties and wait for him. Maybe they were transported there. He can practically hear their soft laughter and smell their ex
otic food.
His foot hits something hard and he goes shooting forward, knocked off his feet. He scrambles to his knees before one of the slags plows into his chest, driving him down into the sand. The tiny particles invade his nose and eyes and he can hear and feel the thing’s teeth puncture his leg.
He cries out in pain, looks down at the thing. Twisting around, he casts his glance back toward the tent. More slags, larger slags, come from that direction.
He doesn’t think he is going to make it to the tent today.
Standing up, he knows he should remove the thing from his leg. But that will take too much time. A paranoid part of him says maybe these larger ones also contain a more poisonous venom he isn’t immune to. He dismisses that notion, figuring having his insides liquefied is better than standing here and being mauled by this slag’s cousin. He will drag it back to the house with him and then he will show it why it shouldn’t have fucked with him. The running is a little slower and he is accosted by two more slags. Swinging out the leg that already has the slag attached, he fends them off. They tumble away and begin fighting amongst themselves. If only he could turn all of them against each other.
4.
Finally, he reaches the house, practically throwing himself inside. He is weak with blood loss and pain. The blood, at least, he will be getting back at dinner.
Holding the gun by the barrel, he bashes at the slag’s head and mouth, not really caring that he occasionally slips and bashes himself in the shin. The most important thing is separating himself from this parasite. Once it releases its grip on his leg, Darren pulls Luke from his pocket, flicks it past a couple of sparks until there is flame and then holds the flame to the two gaping holes on his leg, cauterizing them. He clenches his teeth together and grunts, spewing forth every curse he knows.
He looks at the slag on the floor and knows he will have a feast tonight. Maybe it will be the highlight to an otherwise disappointing day. Until he remembers the taste. He can’t imagine that taste magnified to the size of this thing. He almost thinks he would prefer to eat a steaming pile of his own shit.
Eventually, he does eat the giant slag. He eats little bites at a time. They are heinous and he thinks he would rather be dead. Still, long after the thing has rotted, he continues to eat. Luke chars little bite-size pieces, dulling the taste.
Luke gets sick, spitting out little sparks before producing a low flame. Darren is sure to use Luke’s dying breaths to get a nice fire started in the fireplace. He has been lazy about this the past few days. One day, Luke stops producing a flame. Darren figures that is pretty much the death of the lighter. He puts him in the pocket of his stinking jeans. Occasionally, he pulls him out and flicks him, hoping he will kick out a flame, however small.
5.
More and more, Darren holds the gun. It is a hefty little Glock that isn’t really so little. Darren names the gun “Gary.” Gary the Glock, he thinks it has a nice ring to it.
Will he ever use it?
He doesn’t know. He has left one bullet in there for a reason but he continues to hold on to some dying hope.
The slags continue to grow until they become giants. Some of them are nearly as tall as the house and Darren figures any chance he has of escape is over. Even worse, they seem to know he is in the house. They circle hungrily, pressing their sick little snouts to the windows and sniffing. Jesus, he thinks, if you’re going to take me just come in and do it.
He sleeps more and more. Every day seems gray. The ocean is an endless rhythm, lulling him to sleep. He has lost so much weight he can encircle his biceps with his hand.
One morning, he is awakened by the house shaking. He doesn’t know what is going on. He doesn’t really want to know what is going on but he figures it out anyway. The slags are lifting the house from its moorings. At first, he wants to believe they are taking him to the tent. The house and the tent, what a lovely romance, he thinks. But he isn’t going toward the tent. He is going toward the ocean. They walk him out and release the house. Careful to make sure he still has Gary, Darren scrabbles up to the attic, out the window and onto the roof.
It is kind of like a boat. He is a captain, going out to sea. No. It is more like a Viking funeral and he thinks about touching Luke to the shingles to see if they will burst into flame until he remembers Luke is dead.
The lapping waves drag him directionally toward the tent but further out to sea. He looks longingly at the opening of the tent. Yes. He is sure he can see fabulous things inside. At this very moment, he is sure he sees a woman, a beautiful woman with long blond hair, pass through the flaps and stare out at the violent sun bursting over the ocean.
Darren looks at Gary. Sinister Gary. Blessed Gary. Gary with his promises to make all of this go away. Then he looks at the tent.
He dives into the ocean and swims.
6.
He tries to keep the figure on the beach in focus but the waves are choppy and he’s swimming more or less one-handed, trying to keep Gary above the water. He doesn’t think Gary will like water much at all. He desperately plunges his legs into the water, trying to find purchase but he just goes under, sucking the salty water into his mouth. He rises above the water and coughs.
The beach comes back into view. He must be about fifty feet out. If the figure is still there he can’t see her. It’s possible she is covered up by the slags standing on the beach. There are at least ten of them.
Shit.
Darren figures he has two choices. He can either give up where he is and let the sea reclaim him, take him for good. Or he can reach the beach and use the one bullet he has left to shoot himself in the head. Provided Gary will even shoot. The waves take him under again and he bobs to the surface and vomits out the ocean water.
He rolls over onto his back and relaxes. There isn’t really any reason to be in a hurry to reach the beach since it will most likely mean death. Lying on his back and looking up at the blue sky is more relaxing and it feels more productive. With each tug of the waves, he goes shooting toward shore. He looks at his house out in the ocean. He figures there must be slags out here too. They’re everywhere. He’s known that for a very long time. He feels stupid for getting his hopes up.
He tries to stand again and this time, his feet find the rough sand. He turns around and walks toward the beach. Even from here, he can tell the slags are twice as tall as he is. They even have fully formed arms and legs, although they are much thinner than their bodies. Now they are neither slug- nor maggot-like. They are, if anything, more human-like.
He presses Gary to his temple and walks slowly toward the waiting line of slags.
Darren hears a loud sound and he jumps and accidentally squeezes the trigger.
7.
Click.
His body goes immediately slack with... was it relief or fear? Didn’t he want the gun to go off? Didn’t he want the gun to scatter his brains all over the beach so he didn’t have to face indubitable mauling from the slags?
No.
Because he had heard that other shot and once he recovers from nearly wasting himself, he realizes the slag in the middle is missing its head. It staggers out to him, a couple wobbly steps on its too thin legs before plunging into the sand on the beach, some kind of yellowish tinged liquid running from where its neck would be if it were human.
Then there’s another shot and another slag’s head erupts.
And another.
And another.
And Darren knows there’s no point in standing around and waiting for things to get better than this. He digs his feet into the sand and takes off running toward the tent hoping whoever is doing the shooting will cover him if one of the few remaining slags makes a lunge at him.
Running to the right of the slags, they shift and try to run toward him. They were probably quicker as crawlers. Their running is shaky and not very fast.
Another one erupts and then another one and Darren is almost to the tent. He keeps his eyes focused on it. The shooter must be hi
ding just behind the flap of the tent.
The final slag drops to its knees, crouches down, and springs toward him like a snake. He throws himself into the sand, thinking maybe he can crawl the rest of the way. There’s another shot and he knows that slag is dead, as well. He reaches the tent and stands up.
He realizes his beautiful woman is not beautiful at all. She might not even be a woman. She is very large.
“Follow me!” she barks over her shoulder and Darren does.
She is charging toward a fire blazing in the middle of the tent. She looks like a football player in a summer dress. She dives into the fire and Darren swears her hair separates from her head but he doesn’t give himself time to think about it and dives in after her.
8.
The flames engulf him and he thinks maybe he has just done a very stupid thing. But he figures the end result is going to be the same, given his choices. He just wouldn’t have chosen to be burned alive.
But the flames are only momentary and then he’s falling through blackness before landing in ice cold water. For a moment it feels like he loses consciousness and then he feels hands wrapping around his arms and pulling him out of the water. He opens his eyes but everything is a black and orange flickering swirl. He’s standing on his feet and rubbing his eyes and looking around and trying to make sense of it all. He vomits out some water. He’s surrounded by the smell of burning hair and people. Faces. People like him.
He sees the woman he followed into the flames. She isn’t really a woman at all. A man with a large hairy mole on his left cheek. He’s holding the charred wig in his hands, wringing it out. To his left is an extremely thin man with an eyepatch. He’s wearing one of those black military sweaters, the kind with the leather patch on the shoulder. To his left stands a woman who might have been attractive at one time. There are more people behind them. People who are moving closer to the commotion, trying to see who has joined them. The room is long and narrow and cavelike, lit by torches.
Slag Attack Page 9