by Ben Stevens
‘You know what?’ said Sammy, in an almost measured tone. ‘I kind of respect you. That don’t mean I’m not gonna have fun with you; but you ain’t acting like those rabbits I caught before. That nigger woman, I mean – and others back when I was riding with the gang I later burnt up, for disrespecting me with that tattoo. They all screamed and cried and begged for mercy and all that shit – but you...’
Parker just kept digging, eyes fixed on the ground. He sensed annoyance growing in the hog. Another hard slug of whiskey. Then Sammy began to walk over towards him.
‘You better start talking,’ warned the hog. ‘Don’t think you can do that silent-type shit with me, buddy. ‘Cause, believe me, you’ll be screaming good and loud soon enough. Just like that woman did. Only, I don’t think I’m going to be fucking you...’
The ravens were again beating their wings in Parker’s mind. Impossible to remain wholly dispassionate; not with the filth which kept pouring out of this hog’s mouth.
Sammy grunted, apparently satisfied for now with what he’d just said, and went back to slugging at his bottle. Time passed. Parker was sweating freely, the pile of earth growing beside him. Digging what was intended as his grave in the shadow of some great big steel structure with its several open, concrete floors.
After a while Parker was stood nearly waist-deep in the hole. He sensed that Sammy would soon declare that Parker had dug enough. And then he – Parker – would have no more cause to hold this spade...
Think quick – you gonna do something, it’s gotta be now...
A piece of scrap-metal suddenly showed itself, there by Parker’s left foot. Parker struck the blade deliberately into the metal. It rang with a loud clang.
‘’The hell?’ muttered Parker, bending down as though to take a closer look.
Sammy, who couldn’t see into the grave from where he was standing, immediately walked over to take a look, his curiosity piqued.
‘What you got there, nigger?’ he demanded, stopping within a foot of the edge of the grave.
Now.
Parker’s right hand was holding the handle of the spade, his left hand gripping the shaft.
And Sammy was now standing to Parker’s right.
Parker struck, swinging the spade clear out of the trench, the metal blade smashing into the hog’s right knee in just a fraction of a second longer than it takes to blink.
Still, as Sammy emitted a scream of pain, the blast of his shotgun nearly blew out Parker’s left ear. But temporary deafness meant nothing to the former school janitor, as he scrambled out of what had been intended as his grave and again picked up the spade as Sammy writhed on the ground, clutching his smashed kneecap, his shotgun lying where he’d dropped it the split-second after it had been discharged.
He’d dropped that bottle of whiskey, too. The remains of its contents now pouring slowly into the earth.
The ravens were no longer flocking just within Parker’s mind. They also existed in the sky above, gathering above the hog lying on the ground and the man stood beside him holding the spade.
Parker briefly raised his eyes up at the birds, the edges of his vision strangely fuzzy and blurred. Something taking him over; almost controlling him. Primeval, vengeful, entirely without any vestige of forgiveness or pity...
‘Please, man,’ whimpered the hog, staring up at Parker and perhaps seeing the blackness in Parker’s eyes.
Parker raised the spade with both hands and then brought it down. Hard. Again and again. The ravens flapping their wings both in his mind and in the blue hazy sky above. Deaf to the screams; hardly even seeing the blood spurting up unto his already bloody and rat-bitten trousers...
Again. And Again. Parker yelling incoherently at the same time as the hog screamed...
When it was all over Parker left the hacked-up corpse to the creatures circling above. Walked over to the grave occupied by a woman he’d never met or know, but now wanted to cry his eyes out over the way she’d died...
There was only one thing he could do for her. Not that he was or had ever been particularly religious; but maybe she had been and in any case – exactly what harm could it do now?
There were tools lying around, just like the spade with which Parker had first dug his own grave – or rather, what Sammy had intended would be Parker’s own grave – and then used to despatch the hog.
The blade biting into that denim and leather clad body, again and again. First slicing off the fingers of the hands desperately held up in a futile attempt to ward off the blows. Finally almost severing the head from the body, before Parker’s rage had sufficiently subsided for him to stagger back from the body with what had almost been a sob...
...Yes, plenty of tools all round. A saw (rusty, but it would do), a hammer, and some nails. Also lengths of wood stacked up. Parker pulled one of these lengths out of a pile, and sawed part of it off. This he then sawed into two unequal lengths, before nailing these together in the shape of a cross.
He then stuck this on top of the grave occupied by the woman the hog had tortured and violated before murdering.
‘I’m sorry you had to suffer,’ said Parker quietly, as the first tears spilled from his eyes. ‘I’m truly sorry, honey.’
He felt as though he had to do something more. Then he realized. Struggled to think of the words at first – to remember the whole thing – then he began –
‘Our Father, who art in Heaven...’
...When he finished, he stayed silent for a few moments, his head bowed. There was nothing more he could do: he walked away from this grave. And left the remains of this hog named Sammy to some of the ravens that had somehow escaped from his mind to circle in the sky.
No way was he taking the time and effort required to get that fucker buried.
Some days passed. Parker got himself a new outfit from another clothing store with the by-now familiar, long-since smashed windows. Slept fitfully, wherever he deemed to be safest. But nowhere was completely safe; he knew this already. The weather still warm, the sky mostly blue...
...Parker now found himself walking along a long road that had the ocean gently lapping on one side. A beach of golden sand. Parker wanted to swim in the blue, sun-sparkling water but figured this might leave him vulnerable in case a bunch of things – or hogs – should suddenly show themselves.
Parker thought he was sort of heading in the right direction. That is, that he’d now turned tail and so was finally starting on the long, long journey back to his tiny home town and –
Carrie?
But he couldn’t quite be certain. Needed to check a map. Parker took notice of the beachfront property on the side of the road opposite from the beach. Towering, luxurious apartment blocks. All gleaming white, palm trees outside. No doubt any one of these beachfront apartments had cost more than Parker would have earned in a lifetime.
Parker figured he’d probably find some kind of map-book in one of these apartments. Either way he was tired and wanted to rest somewhere high up and luxurious. Maybe there’d be a bottle of wine in one of those apartments and he could enjoy a glass while staring down at the ocean...
He walked towards the spacious lobby. Huge glass doors smashed. (No surprise there, he thought.) Inside were marbled walls and floor, two small dead palm trees either side of two elevators. An empty reception desk made from some dark and expensive wood, gold lettering on the front of it giving the name of this building – Ocean Heights.
‘That’s original,’ muttered Parker dryly.
On one side of the elevators was a door marked Fire Escape. Parker opened it and began ascending the flights of stairs leading upwards. There were twenty-one floors, and he was soon out of breath. But still, he was determined to reach the top. The penthouse suite.
Finally he was there. Opened the door at the top of the stairs and exited into a small, thickly carpeted lobby with a window. There was the ocean, far below him. And the door of the penthouse apartment was ajar.
Parker entered. There was the
familiar, sickly-sweet smell and Parker almost made to leave before a curious expression crossed his face. For some reason suddenly appearing almost as though memorized, Parker walked along the hallway of the sumptuous apartment.
Various doors half-open either side. The sickly-sweet smell seemed to emanate most strongly from one in particular. Parker walked past it without hesitating. Into a large, dining-area-cum-living-room, with wall-to-ceiling windows giving a multi-million dollar view of the ocean and the city. A massive widescreen television, biggest Parker had ever seen. A glass-topped coffee table and various statues positioned on wall-shelves and such.
In fact, collecting statues appeared to have been something of a hobby for whoever had lived here. Parker guessed from the high-heels lying on the thick white rug by the luxurious sofa that it had been the same, beautiful young woman who was in many of the framed photos that were also on the shelves with the statues. And also on the front-cover of the internationally famous, ‘fashion and style’ magazine that was lying on the top of the slightly dusty coffee table.
Parker thought he’d seen this woman before. Maybe adorning one of those types of magazines which Carrie had brought from time-to-time. Some might have begrudged this beautiful young woman her wealth and success, acquired purely because of her looks, but not Parker. He just hoped that she’d been able to enjoy the money and good times while it had all lasted.
There was a bottle of something fancy on the marble breakfast bar. A corkscrew and a glass beside it. Seemed as though the occupant – or someone – had been planning on having a drink right before whatever had happened.
A loud pop as Parker opened the bottle. He’d been deliberately making noise, coughing as he walked around, clinking the neck of the bottle against the glass as he poured. And now he heard a groan coming from the hallway leading towards the front door.
Parker walked over and picked up a large statue of a classical nude. It had been carved from some sort of green stone. Jade? Really, Parker had no idea. But he wouldn’t be using his gun to deal with this thing; about that he was certain.
In she entered.
‘Hey,’ greeted Parker, almost laconically.
It was her. Parker still saw the beauty beneath the boils and such. Ragged blonde hair that had once been so glossy and beautiful. Then he remembered the night-watchman called George and felt almost disgusted with himself. But then, he was hardly planning to sexually assault this thing.
But he did have something he needed to do with her.
She hissed at him, the eyes red-flecked and hungry. She appeared to have transformed into a thing ‘naturally’, as it were. That was, there was no obvious sign that she’d first been attacked by a thing (or thing-s) first. The usual subtle signs, thought Parker – half a face missing, a limb chewed off, exposed intestines...
Shit like that.
As the thing got near him, Parker suddenly dealt it a blow to the head with the large green statue of the classical nude. He didn’t strike as hard as he would have done, had he actually meant to kill this former model. But still it was a hard blow and the thing’s eyes rolled up in her head before she fell backwards onto the floor, where she lay still.
Quickly, Parker dragged her over to one of the polished metal chairs that were around the large, glass-topped coffee table. Then he realized what he had to do first; he left the thing lying by the chair while he pulled down one of the cream-colored curtains on one side of the wall-to-ceiling window. He got scissors from a drawer in the kitchen and cut this curtain into thick strips. Working quickly, sweating slightly, scared that at any moment the thing would start to groan and come to...
But she didn’t and so Parker was able to drag her onto the chair and use the strips of curtain to tie her in place. He then got a cloth from the kitchen, wet it slightly with some water from one of the bottles in his rucksack, and almost tenderly cleaned the bloody area on the thing’s forehead where it had been struck with that statue.
Then he dragged over a chair and put it opposite hers. Almost close. He got his glass of red from the marble breakfast bar before he sat down. He sipped his drink, watching the thing, waiting for her to wake up.
There was something he had to do.
To know...
Book 3
‘...Do it tonight,’ whispered Carrie, sweat forming on her brow as she tensed herself against the pain that was steadily consuming her body along with the evil-looking purple boils. She was lying on the bed in the room she shared with Parker, who was stood looking helplessly down at her.
‘Carrie...’ he whispered, tears coursing down his cheeks. He’d tried not to cry, but it was just hopeless. His wife was dying; they’d thought that they were both resistant to the plague and yet, finally, she’d sickened.
‘...You must have given me only temporary immunity, in your semen,’ Carrie had told him a short while earlier. ‘You’re the real survivor here...’
‘I’ll fall asleep and... I won’t know,’ said Carrie now. ‘Just... do it before I... turn, John – promise me that.’
Parker turned his head almost violently away, a sob escaping him. He’d tried to contain his emotion if only out of respect for Carrie’s formidable bravery, but...
Here was his wife instructing him to kill her by putting a bullet into her brain before she turned into a thing and he didn’t have it fucking in him to do such a thing.
Shit, he thought suddenly – spitefully, irrationally, emotionally....
If you want death so bad, why don’t you be the one to kill yourself...? Why the hell has it got to be me pulls the trigger on my wife – my best friend? Were our situations reversed, I’d just take me the gun and go take a long walk out somewhere – you get what I’m saying...?
‘I promise,’ said Parker finally, his voice flat and dead as he turned back to face his wife. ‘I’ll sit here, and...’
And sit he did. As the light faded outside and a low lamp shone on one of the bedside tables. He’d procured what pain medication he could from the surrounding stores and such (most of it had been bulk-bought in panic shortly before this town had been hit by the virus, but still Parker had managed to find a few packets of pills), but occasionally Carrie couldn’t help but cry out with the pain wracking her body and...
And soon those boils would be over almost every square inch of her body and she would be totally consumed with fever and pain. Her skin would begin to turn yellow, and tighten. Then it would start to tear, just like stretched tissue paper. And Carrie would scream until her lungs seemed fit to burst, as her internal organs also began haemorrhaging and she started to bleed from every orifice in her body...
And then she would die.
And then perhaps rise again.
Unless Parker put a bullet through her skull soon after she lapsed into sleep or unconsciousness or whatever the hell it was that at least briefly silenced her awful cries...
Finally Carrie’s breathing became steady and she whimpered only occasionally. Her eyes were closed; Parker wiped her face and brow with a damp cloth and she did not stir. He had the gun in his jacket pocket (he’d gotten used to always wearing that light jacket indoors as well as out, so that although his gun wasn’t immediately conspicuous he still had it within easy reach), and the time was now...
Now.
With tortuous slowness, Parker pulled the gun from out of his pocket. It was as though the pistol weighed half a ton.
‘I can’t do this,’ he murmured.
I can’t fucking do this...
But still Carrie lay on the bed, and still the gun lay in his hands. He’d shot the school principal; had shot a number of other things since. But they had been things – Parker had made himself get toughened up to that fact real fast. Couldn’t allow yourself a moment’s hesitation or weakness, sentimentality or whatever the hell you wished to call it when dealing with things.
You shot ‘em, and then (if possible) you got ‘em decently buried. That was it; end of story. You or them – that’s all there wa
s to it.
But this now was still human; this now was his wife, goddamn it…!
Parker emitted another sob, and dropped his gun onto the carpet so that he could put his head in his hands. They’d made it… they’d both survived the plague…
Why now – now – did Carrie have to sicken…?
It made not the least bit of sense. Why hadn’t it been before, when most of the rest of the world had been busy getting sick and dying…?
Parker leant down to pick up the gun. He had to shoot his wife… had to… had to…
I can’t do it!
The words reverberated inside his mind. There was no way. To actually point the barrel of his gun at her temple and then pull the trigger and hear the bang as her brains exited onto the pillow beside her head…?
Dear Christ in Heaven – to do such a thing would drive him instantly to utter insanity!
...Hi. My name’s John Parker, and last night I shot my wife through the head. How are you doing? Pretty nice weather we’re having...
...The gun again lay cradled in his hands in his lap. He’d plenty of ammunition, boxes of bullets given to him courtesy of Hank, the owner of the gun-store who was perhaps now staggering around the basement-cum-survival den below his shop, having become a thing himself...
Parker had soon proved to be a pretty good shot. Seems he just had a natural talent for it. Not that he wasted ammunition by actually practicing his shooting, but he found it much easier to shoot a thing when it was still as far away as possible (but still obviously headed in his and Carrie’s direction) – and he could.
Shot one just the other day from several hundred yards away, and only when he went to bury it – he at least did that for those creatures he killed – did he realize that it was old Reg from the car-yard, still wearing his oil-splattered overalls and with his scraggly, tobacco-stained moustache...
...Carrie’s chest was rising, slowly, unsteadily. Parker had thought he’d seen the ominous red ‘flecks’ in her eyes just before she’d finally, mercifully, fallen unconscious...