DarkFuse Anthology 4

by Shane Staley

  The girl shook her head. “Not my parents. They love each other.”

  The boy stopped digging and looked at the girl. “No, they don’t.”

  “Yes, they do!” the girl said, suddenly angry.

  The boy shrugged. “Whatever. Well, mine don’t.”

  “Yes, they do! Yes, they do!”

  The boy returned to his digging, scratching at the dirt with his hands, then stopped, sat and looked around. “Where is everyone?” he asked. “Are those almost ready?”

  The girl shook her head. “They have to bake first.”

  “How long does that take?” The boy stood, put his hands on his hips. “I’m hungry, woman!”

  The girl stood. She bent and lifted the tray. “Ten minutes,” she said. She set the tray to the side to bake in the sun.

  “I want one now,” the boy said, reaching for the tray.

  The girl slapped his hand away. “No!”

  The boy looked at the girl, shocked. He lifted his fist, as if to punch the girl, but then dropped it and laughed. “My mom forgot a dog in the oven once,” he said. “By the time she remembered, the alarm was beeping and it was all smoke and black and stuff.”

  The girl laughed too.

  “What should we do now?” the boy asked.

  “We need more cakes,” the girl said.

  “You’re right!” The boy dropped to his knees and began to dig in the hole again, scooping mud into a pile.

  The girl stooped to help.

  “There’s something here,” the boy said. “I found something.” He grunted, straining to pry the object free.

  “What is it?” the girl asked.

  “Something hard...oof...and heavy.” The boy fell backward into a sitting position. “Got it!” He held up something about the size of a softball, dark with mud.

  From his hiding spot in the bushes, Grady’s heart leapt.

  “Give it,” the girl said, and the boy passed her the object. “It’s just a rock.”

  “I know,” the boy said. He sat with his feet dangling into the hole and leaned toward the girl. He shut his mouth and closed his eyes.

  The girl looked at the rock she held, then at the boys head, then back at the rock. She lifted the rock with both hands, and casually brought it down.

  The crack—like breaking pool balls—echoed on the empty street.

  The boy slumped forward.

  The girl lifted the rock above her head, and brought it down; lifted, brought it down. She let the rock tumble from her hands and began to pick and prod the boy’s head with her fingers. Her hands came away slick with blood. She stood, to get a better angle, and plunged her hands down. Her hands came away filled with soft matter. She carried these handfuls over and slapped the offal next to the drying mud cakes on the piece of car fender. She hummed to herself while she played.

  Grady turned, disappointed, and crossed the yard back into the house.

  * * *

  The last horde to pass through would have forced him out of his house if they’d found him. The horde didn’t like anyone who stayed in one place for too long, would probably have ransacked his house and taken him if he hadn’t hidden with both hands clamped over his mouth, watching their feet shuffling by—their moans and their laughter—from the squat basement window.

  But he couldn’t leave—not yet, not before he found what he was looking for.

  As soon as it was dark, he ventured outside again, taking up a stick he’d found that fit his hands perfectly, using it to dredge the loam. He dug furiously, flinging the moist soil that smelled of mold and fungus, the full moon like a sweating fruit above him, the night breeze like malarial breath. He dug and dug, sweat giving his face a glimmering sheen in the pale light. They were here—somewhere—buried in the earth: his soldiers.

  He’d been a child, many years ago, playing alone in the tall grass, home sick from school with a fever, steam still rising from the sticky vomit he’d spewed into the grass. Second Division Bravo Company had been on a search-and-destroy mission, hunting cautiously through the jungle grass. Charlie had been lying in wait to spring an ambush from the next hill. Mud had smeared all over Bravo Company as he’d moved their green plastic bodies up the center of the garden with his fingers, slick and unpleasant, his stomach boiling. He’d run to the corner of the backyard, unable to prevent another spray of acidic mucus from joining the first.

  Unfortunately, his mother had seen him, seen how sick he was, and escorted him inside and straight to bed. The next day he’d looked everywhere, but his soldiers had been gone.

  He’d always known, however, even years later, he could find them when he really wanted to. He’d moved away, grown up, lost contact with his parents. He visited the backyard from time to time, even though there was a young couple living there, taking to the garden on his own search-and-destroy missions. The young couple didn’t like him much; threatened to call the police. One time, the young man had chased him away with a large kitchen knife while his wife watched from the porch, her hands rubbing absently at her swelling belly. Another time, the fence above his head had made an earth-shattering crunch and he’d looked up to see the young man with a hunting rifle pointed at him. He started coming only at night, figuring he’d be harder to spot.

  Now, he was close. He’d torn through the entire yard, trampling the flowers, hurling the uprooted roses over the fence. He was excited, his face hot, his lips swollen and raw; smelling his own breath like crawdad guts left too long in the sun. His stick cracked into something. Yes! He’d finally found them! Oh, to finally feel his soldiers in his hands again, to cleanse them of dirt, to be reacquainted with his army.

  His stick kicked something small loose from the hole he was digging. It flashed in the moonlight. He dropped his digging stick and reached for it, cupping it gingerly. It was a tooth, rectangular and white. He held it up for a moment, then tossed it away, disgusted. He peered into the churned earth: the upper jut of a jawbone leered at him, lined with more teeth.

  God damn it! Now he was forgetting where he’d buried other things. He was working in circles. He snatched his digging stick angrily from where he’d dropped it, brought it up, and then down as hard as he could, blasting the teeth from the jaw.

  * * *

  They were attracted to sound, so he had to be as quiet as possible whenever a few of them staggered by. They could be dangerous, but so many were wounded and worn at this point they were little threat in small groups. Still, he preferred his privacy, even now, to confrontation of any sort.

  He was outside, giving his weary muscles a break from digging, trying not to think too hard about things, when he become aware of a sound he’d been hearing for several minutes. It was little more than a vibration at first, then a rumble, a growing and mournful discord. Stepping out into the middle of the empty street, he shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand and looked. A blackened line appeared and expanded, wriggling, filling the space, coming in his direction.

  The sounds began to individualize as the horde drew closer, mumbled voices, snickering, shouted outbursts. Their faces were set in all manner of violent and insane expressions, some with teeth gnashing, and some with eyes darting. And some with rudimentary weapons, rust-stained shovels, broom handles snapped to points, knives pilfered from ruined kitchens; or they carried rocks or barred their gritty yellowing nails like claws, waving their upraised arms like gangly children waiting to catch the football. And some were missing eyes or teeth, and some grinned idiotically while others expressed melancholy, a resigned numbness as their minds degraded, a willful blindness to the state of their surroundings.

  They had missing arms and gaping wounds that flared red and infected with streaks of dark mucus and hanging flops of skin. They held torn guts closed with their hands or had given up and allowed ropy innards to hang loose, dragging on the ground behind them. They were dressed in all manner of outfits, from floral blouses to surgical scrubs; some wearing spandex workout clothes and some in more formal suits a
nd ties; and some without clothes, ponderous swinging breasts and penises limp and forgotten. They coughed and groaned, and those who could speak called out words of challenge, or let fly those which came most easily to mind--“Shit!” “Cunt!” “Fucking fuck!”--each as loud as he or she could shout. Hundreds filled the street, their collective stench more nauseating the closer they came, wet and gruesome, like gray and veiny stomachs torn open, their contents strewn about beneath the sun.

  “No,” Grady said, and turned to flee.

  He hoped they hadn’t seen him. He dashed desperately around the house and to the back. He went in through the back door and shut it and pushed the dresser he’d rigged into place to block the door since the lock was broken. He ran across the house and did the same with the front door. He could hear them getting close now.

  “Fuck you!”

  “Pray for death!”

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

  He ran down the stairs and to the basement. He closed the door behind him and locked it. He crouched beneath the window, peering up as the horde reached his house. There were bumps and scrapes as some of them brushed the side of the house or used its walls for support. He could see them, mostly their legs, bent and bowed or straight and rigid, in slacks or jeans or shorts; and one with the oil stains of an automobile worker; and one woman with legs bare and gray, her pubis just out of sight; and one with leg muscles filleted and cut away from the bone; and several splattered with blood and with cuts and festering sores. And his eyes watered and he covered his mouth with his hands and his body rocked with silent screams.

  II. FEVER

  His first encounter with The Fever had been at the bus stop almost a year ago.

  Once a month he’d gone into town to collect his check. He’d lived in the woods then, in a tiny shack, all he could afford. He’d had to hike several miles to get to the bus stop and then wait for the bus to come, but his stop downtown was very close to the VA office where the checks were dispersed so it wasn’t that bad.

  He already had the money from his check (cashed at the gas station) tucked safely in his pocket and was waiting for the bus to come, when someone started laughing loudly. People, including Grady, turned to look at the laughing man, but turned away quickly. He was one of the crazies, everyone could tell. He was mumbling to himself, then braying laughter in spittle-flinging bursts.

  Grady was listening to a woman in front of him talking on and on to a man who might have been her boyfriend. The man kept nodding his head, but not saying anything. The woman had an endless stream of things to say, transitioning from her favorite restaurants to different bike trails around town to how to tell if a cantaloupe was ripe without cutting it open. On the other side of the small pavilion that marked the bus stop, a pair of adolescent boys mumbled and snickered and pretended to punch each other.

  The crazy man laughed, but this time he didn’t stop.

  Both of the adolescent boys stared at the crazy man, waiting for him to stop, but the crazy man just kept laughing and laughing. “Hey,” one of them said. “Would you stop that?”

  The crazy man kept laughing.

  “I said shut the fuck up, retard!”

  The crazy man laughed and laughed, looking over at the adolescent boys now.

  The talking woman and her boyfriend pretended like they didn’t notice what was going on and the woman kept talking and talking, the boyfriend nodding along.

  Grady took a few steps back, fading out of the scene.

  The adolescent boy who had been speaking stood with his chest puffed out, angry and trying to look tough. His friend tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Ignore him, man. The bus’ll be here in a sec.”

  The crazy man laughed and laughed.

  “Motherfucker,” the adolescent boy who’d been trying to look tough said, but turned back to his friend.

  Something rigid pushed into Grady’s back and he jumped. He’d run up against the short wooden fence that marked the back of the bus stop. He watched the crazy man, still laughing, cross the concrete platform, pass the bench, and walk up to the adolescent boys.

  The adolescent boys turned to the crazy man. “What the fuck is your problem?” one of them said.

  The crazy man made a casual motion with one arm and the boy who had been trying to look tough made a strange sound, and bent over, falling to his knees. “Hey, what, wait…” the other boy said, looking confused. “Don’t—” But the crazy man plunged the knife into the boy’s throat and there were only gurgling noises.

  The crazy man continued to laugh.

  The talking woman continued to talk and her boyfriend continued to nod, never turning to see what was going on, not a single curious glance.

  The crazy man walked up behind the couple, blood-slicked knife held in front of him, jabbed it into the boyfriend’s back, gave it a twist, and laughed. The boyfriend fell with a grunt.

  The woman turned, finally, her expression one of mild interest, talking about fire and how pretty it was and how fascinating, talking and talking, and faced the crazy man.

  The crazy man brought the knife up. He laughed in the woman’s face even as the woman began to tell him about how scary it was when airplanes banked on takeoff or landing. He drew the knife across her throat.

  The woman sputtered, her words choked with blood. She smiled, and fell.

  Grady jumped the fence and ran. Behind him, through screams of pain, he could hear the crazy man laughing.

  * * *

  Grady pulled the slats on the blinds down with his fingers to peer out the window. The sun was still shining bright, but the day was getting late and it was only a matter of a couple of hours. He didn’t like to go out during the day; he could be seen during the day. If they saw him, if they saw where he lived, they would come for him. He’d be forced to flee and they’d infest the area and it would be very hard to come back. He needed a little more time. He’d learned long ago to lay low until darkness crept into the world.

  But he’d heard something. He’d been sleeping on a mattress in the basement when he’d heard first a screech and then a crash. He’d turned over and gone back to sleep, into troubled, war-torn dreams.

  Now there appeared to be a new car crashed on his street. It looked as if it had been thrown, tumbling over several times, the hood popped, the body dented in, lights smashed. Yet it had come to rest, somehow, on its wheels. There might be people trapped inside; he couldn’t tell, couldn’t see well enough with the glare.

  Grady didn’t like it. He made sure nothing was moving on the street and crept to the front door. He opened it slowly, peered out, closed it carefully behind him, and darted for cover in the bushes. No one was in sight, the road a barren strip of asphalt, leaves mixed with fast-food trash collecting in the gutters, kicked up in small eddies by the warm breeze. He could hear birds calling in the trees, and close by in the underbrush crickets chirping, which was a good sign. It was always good when one could hear the insects.

  He blinked to clear his vision and stared at the car. There was definitely someone still strapped in the driver’s seat, a man by the looks of it, not moving. If there was anyone else in the car, he couldn’t see from here.

  He took a deep breath, and pushed himself between the overgrown bushes and out into the street. He approached the car.

  There was a woman facing upward in the backseat. It looked as if she’d been flung about, her body twisted and crushed, one arm clearly broken, bone protruding, her legs folded under her strangely. A vibrant streak of blood smeared the dashboard in front of the passenger’s seat, then spider-cracked glass where her head had struck the windshield, then a wide spray of crimson across the remaining seats. She had not been wearing her seatbelt. The lower half of her face was gone, her jawbone broken away and missing.

  The man looked a little better, still in his seat, slumped. He had a head wound, blood that had trickled down the front of his face, pooling in one eye then running down his cheek, caking in his beard.
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br />   “Fuck,” Grady said, and both the woman and the man opened their eyes.

  Grady took a step back.

  The woman could barely move, lifting her head, making a few wet, spongy sounds; giving up, falling back.

  The man regarded him with his one good eye, calmly, resignedly.

  Grady stared, frozen in place.

  The man spoke, his voice surprisingly rich and normal. “We didn’t make it, did we?”

  Grady shook his head.

  “You know how I know there’s no life after this?”

  Grady didn’t respond.

  “If there was, I’d be there by now.” The man’s face twisted into a pain-filled grimace.

  On the back seat, below the woman’s twisted legs, something moved. It was a tiny arm, a baby’s arm. It was severed at the shoulder joint, no sign of the rest of the baby.

  The woman coughed more blood, and then was still.

  “This...whatever it is,” the man said. “There’s no escape. What are we supposed to do?”

  Grady couldn’t take his eyes from the tiny arm, flopped over so that its tiny hand seemed to be waving at him.

  “What are we supposed to do?” the man said again, and this time he laughed.

  Grady turned and hurried back to the house.

  The man had The Fever.

  * * *

  That night, he returned to the back yard to dig, but he was nervous because he could hear the man from the crashed car on the other side of the house howling and laughing. The man was still there—had remained there all day—sitting in his car, his dead family sprawled in the seats behind him.

  Grady raised the stick and brought it down, churning the dark soil, the earthy smell cloying in his nose. He lifted his head into the moonlight, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. These times were his favorite, when he felt most alive. Where were they? They had to be here somewhere...