by Tristan Vick
The elderly man whom Tina had told him about was hunched over a rotund woman’s body and was gorging himself on her neck as she screamed frantically. North could see the lavatory door, but something wasn’t quite right. The door was ajar. The lavatory light flickered on and off. Something was keeping it from shutting all the way. Just then Dan’s arm fell out of the open crack. North recognized it from the cabin attendant uniform.
Captain North raised his pistol, took aim at the old man, and said, “I’m only going to ask you this once. Please step away from the woman and lie down, face first, on the floor.”
North’s command went unheeded, and the old man kept gnawing away at the woman’s flesh. The black man, having cracked open a first aid kit, tied off some gauze he’d wrapped around his wrist. Finishing up, he closed the kit and brought it to North. He leaned over and whispered in a hushed tone, “Captain, if you need me to, I’ll gladly take the crazed old son of a bitch down.”
“I’d be much obliged,” replied North. He didn’t want to shoot anyone, if he could help it.
Handing North the first aid kit, the hulking man said, “The name’s Tyrone Jeremy, but my friends just call me TJ.”
Captain North nodded in confirmation and stepped aside to allow TJ’s six-foot-four frame to pass.
“Nice to meet you, Tyrone.”
TJ marched up to the old man and tugged on his shoulder, but to no avail. The wiry eighty-year-old clung onto the woman’s body with the fury of a wolverine. Turning his head, the old man snarled and growled, but that only enticed TJ to exert more force. TJ grabbed the man by his collar and yanked. Hard. His strength was enough to dislodge the decrepit pain in the ass and get him off the woman.
North sighed in relief as he watched TJ put the old man in a headlock. But before he could relax, the old man snarled and hissed like a rabid dog, kicking and flailing his arms.
“Calm your punk ass down,” TJ asserted, tightening his chokehold.
Possessed with a superhuman strength, the old man grabbed TJ’s muscular forearm and snapped it like a twig. Wailing in pain, TJ shimmied back. He slammed into the back wall of the plane with a thud that knocked him on his ass. Cradling his broken arm, TJ righted himself and sat with his back up against the emergency exit.
Before he could get away, however, the old man staggered forward and grabbed him with bony arthritic fingers. The old man pulled TJ back toward him and sank his decaying yellow teeth into TJ’s shoulder and clamped down with a vicious bite.
“Arrrgh!” TJ growled. “Get this fucker off me!” He twisted and turned, whipping the old man around like a rag doll as he tried to throw off the parasitic geriatric. Darting backward, TJ slammed him into the wall with a crushing blow. Then he did it again. And again. The cabin walls rattled with the force of each impact.
Captain North watched in dismay as TJ tore himself away, flesh peeling from his shoulder in strands like hot melted cheese being pulled off a pizza. North’s mind raced. He hadn’t expected any of this. The rest of the onlookers backed away from the scene, seeing as how things were escalating. Even though they kept their distance, they eagerly awaited what would happen next with equal parts horror and morbid curiosity.
The old man spun around and growled ferociously at North, who held the gun steady on him. “Don’t even think about it, old timer.” North put up his hand to give a final warning, but before he could mutter another word the old man lunged and bit North on the soft spot between his thumb and pointer finger.
“Goddammit!” North cursed as he tore his hand free and shoved the old man back. Pointing the gun at the man, he stated in a clear and commanding voice, “I warned you. One more move and—” but before he could finish the sentence the old man came at him again. Without hesitating, North pulled the trigger and put a bullet between the old man’s spooky white eyes.
“Shit, man!” TJ said as he applied pressure to his shoulder wound and slumped down to the ground.
North tucked the gun into the waistband of his pants and rushed over to the rotund woman, who was lying motionless on the floor. He put his good hand on her neck wound. He felt for a pulse, but it was too late. Her heart had stopped. “Dammit!”
A small hand gently pressed down on North’s shoulder, and he looked up to see Tina standing beside him. She handed him a disinfectant pad and some gauze and tried to offer a comforting smile, but it came off as a look of distress. Kneeling down, she helped him wrap the bite wound on his hand and consoled him. “You did all you could.”
“No,” North said, dissatisfied. “I didn’t act fast enough.”
Tina bit her lip. She didn’t know what else to say. “What do you need me to do, Captain?”
Getting back onto his feet, Captain North looked at her and then looked over at the numerous terror-stricken eyes watching him, listening for what he’d say next.
“Make sure these people are attended to. Get a head count of everyone. Tally up how many have sustained injuries. Try your best to keep everyone calm. I know it won’t be easy, but above all, I need you to keep it together. I’m relying on you, Tina.”
“You can count on me, sir,” Tina said. Then, without even thinking about it, she kissed North on the lips, blushed, and jumped into action. Barking orders, she began handing out small tasks for each of the other flight attendants, glancing back at Captain North now and again to find him constantly gazing at her with a subtle, yet distinguishable grin on his face.
North finally turned and faced the crowd of distressed passengers. In a reassuring voice, he said, “We’ll be landing in Tokyo within the hour. It should all be smooth sailing from here. Please take your seats, and if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call on any of the cabin attendants.”
North looked at TJ and gave him an appreciative nod. TJ nodded back, as if to say it was no skin off his back, even though it literally was.
Ben Ackerson let North back into the cockpit and said, “I heard a gunshot. What the hell happened out there?”
Captain North sat back down in his seat and rubbed his wound, which itched like crazy. As he stared vacantly out the window, he said, “Nothing good, Ben. Nothing good.”
Having latched the door securely, Ackerson took his seat next to the captain and looked at North. The expression on North’s face conveyed the strong feeling that he didn’t want to talk about it right now. Instead, Ackerson simply acknowledged the trauma and said, “You look like you’ve been through hell.”
Still rubbing his hand, North acknowledged as much with a silent and fatigued nod. He stared out the windshield at the wisps of white that streaked across the jet’s nose. It wouldn’t be long before the twinkling lights of the metropolitan skyline of Tokyo would materialize before his eyes and the bright light and dance of colors would fill him with that sensation of hope. It would almost be perfect, if only he could get the damned bite mark on his hand to stop itching.
PART 1
AMERICA
MILITARY OPERATIONS: SECTOR-22
SECRECT UNDERGOUND RESEARCH FACILITY
LAKE ERIE
1
The Beginning of the End
Sector 22, Secret Underground Military Research Facility Beneath Lake Erie
Alyssa Briggs screamed out in protest as the Komatsu LAV, a Japanese military vehicle that looked like the lovechild of the much larger armored Stryker LAV and a Lamborghini, raced out the impregnable steel doors that were closing in on them fast.
Shooting out of the cargo bay area and up into the tunnel to escape the underground military installation, the vehicle hit the steep incline, sparks flying as the bumper scraped the cement ramp. Alyssa strained her neck to look behind them only to see a throng of dark lumbering figures chasing after them. Some slow and stumbling, others fast and furious.
“Rachael! We can’t just leave her here. We have to go back.”
“It’s too late now,” Staff Sergeant Barnes said. “There’s no turning back.” He looked in the rearview mirror in time to see flames l
eap out of the mouth of the cave’s portal. Huge explosions plumed out and grew bigger and bigger. In a daisy chain of massive fireballs, an inferno of fiery bubbles quickly expanded, consuming everything in their wake.
The dark lumbering figures got swallowed up by the bright orange blaze and were instantly burnt up. Their bodies quickly evaporated into ash like paper licked by a flame.
Sergeant Ulysses Noble slid down into the vehicle and shut the cupola hatch behind him. “Hey man,” he said, clearly worried. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we have the motherfucking Death Star exploding all up in here.”
“I’m on it,” Barnes answered, slamming his foot down on the accelerator as hard as he could. The Humvee’s engine roared and its tires screamed up the tunnel as they barely stayed on the cusp of the rising plumes of flame.
Alyssa reached into her pocket and pulled out the purple diary with flower stenciling on the cover. She looked over at Barnes. “This is our story. This is the story of how it all begins and how it ends. Please …” Alyssa’s voice trailed off and she slouched over in her seat.
“No! Goddammit,” Barnes cursed as Alyssa blacked out. He leaned over and shook her shoulder, but it didn’t do any good. He screamed, “Hang in there, kid! Don’t leave us yet.”
The hot sting of Barnes’s slap roused her. Alyssa’s eyes cracked open and she looked around, half in shock. Although she came into the world with a scream, and the rattle of infant lungs, she would go out with a whimper. It wasn’t fair, but the fates were rarely ever fair. They were cruel-hearted bitches.
Nodding off a second time, she couldn’t fend off the impending darkness any longer. As her thoughts fell apart in the blackness she prayed that, when the time came, Barnes would put a bullet between her eyes and just put her out of her misery.
Gradually, the blackness would nibble away at her consciousness until there was nothing left. She’d awaken to an entirely new kind of horror. Her mind’s eye would be taken over by the ruby-lipped mouth of madness. A monster so horrible it wouldn’t even allow death to defeat it. All sense of herself would vanish and she’d become something black and without a soul—something evil. She’d be destined to suffer in an infinite purgatory of living death.
2
Amnesia
Crescent Beach, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada
Whispers of a cool afternoon breeze tickled the leaves of the trees which outlined the entirety of Crescent Beach. The Ontario sky above Lake Erie was overcast with a sheet of uniform gray, and the only sound was the babbling of the dark blue tide as it crawled up onto the shore and then, just as quickly, receded again.
As the water lapped at the shore, a woman’s body unexpectedly washed up onto the beach. A curious raven landed nearby and hobbled up to the body which lay face down in the sand and then pecked at the woman’s black hair. If the raven didn’t know any better, it would have assumed this body fair game, ripe for the picking, but suddenly a hand reached up and brushed the bird aside.
Startled, the bird flew up into the sky, squawked in disappointment and then flew off in search of a less formidable meal.
Rolling onto her back, the woman reached up and touched her sand-speckled cheek. She rubbed the grit between her fingers then let her white arm fall back to the ground. She felt like she had just woken up from a deep sleep and was still waiting for her senses to shake off the last of Morpheus’s spell before getting on with her day.
Suddenly frigid water rushed up around her body, covering her feet, then receded again. The icy water shocked her awake and she sat up. The haze she had been fighting through dissipated and everything came into crystal-clear focus.
Looking around, the woman took in the sights of her immediate surroundings. A row of quiet beach houses ran along the entire shoreline of the beach. She remembered that the name of the beach was Crescent Beach, but for some reason when she tried to recall her own name she couldn’t remember it. She didn’t even know where she was from or how she had come to find herself half-naked, lying face down, on this particular beach. She must have had a reason though. She felt that she was the kind of person that had reasons for doing things—she didn’t feel that she was the sort to just float through the world aimlessly. But what her reason was, whatever the goal may be, and whichever thing she was determined to accomplish—it was on the tip of her brain—she just couldn’t fish it out.
What she did remember though was that she had awoken to a world rife with one’s worst imaginable nightmares come to life. She recalled the monsters, their snapping blood-soaked teeth, their smoke-filled eyes and ashen skin. She remembered being a part of this mescaline nightmare, but what role she played in this terror-stained rendering of reality, she couldn’t recall.
Looking down at herself, she saw that her skin-tight Ponte dress was completely shredded. It was a miracle that it even stayed on her at all since it looked as though she was wrapped up in shoelace strings rather than anything resembling a dress. What remained of the wet cloth that clung to her barely held her breasts in place, especially given the fact that her erect nipples were virtually as hard as diamonds from the cold, and she felt that her girls were threatening to burst free at any given moment.
Deciding it was best to head up to one of the houses to find some proper clothes, she pushed herself up to her feet and then slowly walked up to the white picket fence that demarcated the perimeter of the nearest house. A child’s swing sat in the yard and a clothesline of sun-bleached sheets gently wafted in the breeze.
Making her way past the rickety gate of the run-down picket fence, she walked up to the back entrance of the home, opened the screen door, and checked the handle. It was unlocked. Pushing open the door, she peeked inside, then called out, “Hello? Anybody home?”
There was no answer.
Cautiously she made her way inside the back entrance and into the kitchen area and immediately began searching for canned foods or anything that was edible. She was famished and couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten.
Finding a half-finished jar of green olives in the fridge, the only thing that appeared edible among a host of rotting foods including a block of cheese that was at least seven different colors of fuzz, she quickly cracked open the jar and began greedily devouring the olives. She hated the red pimentos inside, but she was too starved to care about trivial distastes. Food was food.
After finishing off the last olive, she licked her fingers clean and then began wandering through the house. It was eerie being in someone else’s home without having been invited. She felt as though eyes were following her wherever she went. Which was partially true since the whole living room area was full of family photos. Picking up one of the framed photos from a bookshelf, she looked at the family of four. A mother and father, a four-year-old and an infant who looked perfectly content in his mother’s arms. There was the family dog, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi with a docked tail and reddish-orange and white fur standing at the feet of the toddler. She wondered what had become of these people.
After checking the various rooms, she stumbled onto the master bedroom and called out, “Is anyone here?” just out of common courtesy. Not that it mattered, but one could never be too sure.
Opening some doors, she found some women’s underwear, a bra, a pair of Levi’s and a purple t-shirt to complete the ensemble. Luckily, the woman was roughly her same size and, shedding her tattered garments, she put them on. To her surprise the clothes fit near perfectly.
She decided to go find some stationary and a pen and write a thank you letter, just in case anyone ever returned, and headed back out to the living room. Stepping out of the bedroom, she went down the hall and came out in the living area and froze in her tracks. In the middle of the room was the dog from the photo, staring at her curiously with erect ears.
Neither of them knew what to make of the other, but then she decided to say something. “How’d you get in here?”
The corgi’s ears perked up and it happily wagged its little bobbed t
ail. Turning in a quaint little circle, it barked and then ran toward the kitchen.
Following it, the woman trailed it to a side door that led into the garage. There was a doggie-door built into it. The dog barked at her again, as if it was beckoning her to follow, and she did.
Entering the garage, which was shut to the outside, she froze in horror at the scene before her.
The father of the family lay sprawled out on top of the hood of the family sedan—a white Golf Volkswagen dappled with dark red polka dots—gun in his hands and his brains splattered across the windshield. His arms were chewed on rather severely, as if he had almost become someone’s meal.
Locked inside the car was the rest of his family. The mother turned her head and gazed back at her with vacant white eyes. After a moment of trying to sense her, the mother slammed her hand into the glass window, as if she were trying to reach through it to get at the other woman, and chomped her teeth viciously. Her head kept bumping into the window, as if she had forgotten it was there, only to smash her skull into the glass again.
Small muffled moans came from inside the car. God, she thought, the children! The poor little things—what terror and pain they must have endured—never understanding how or why their loving mother, the person charged with their safety, would suddenly turn on them. The thought of it was too much to bear. But something came over her, and it was as if she had to know—she had to see the dreadful gory scene for herself. She had to know what the mother, in her mindless state, had done to her poor children.
Creeping up to the car window, the woman strained her neck, ignoring the white-eyed mother’s clacking teeth and irritable glass thumping. Inching closer to the car window, the tunnel vision began to pull her into the tunnel of darkness, everything in the room fading except for the car in front of her. With the fear building up in her chest, her heart raced and she realized she had been holding her breath the whole time. Suddenly, the corgi barked, and she gasped, taking a huge breath and jumping several feet back away from the car.