The Last Bastion (Book 1): The Last Bastion

by Callahan, K. W.

  Victor looked around him, confused and afraid. It was almost as if he was in a dream – no, a nightmare. He’d been wandering the streets for hours, lost and alone. He was still himself. He was still having his own thoughts. But it was like being an observer trapped inside his own body. It was as though something else was controlling him, as if his mind had been placed inside a robot body – like he was a modern-day Frankenstein or something. He was having impulses that were not his own, instincts and fears that were almost primeval, and cravings that no civilized human should have.

  Worse yet, he was having trouble remembering things. The sensations coursing through him were so frightening, they were nearly debilitating.

  Victor had woken up that morning not knowing what day it was, not remembering where he was, not knowing where he worked or what he did for a living. For a brief moment, he hadn’t even known who he was. It was absolutely terrifying. No matter how hard he concentrated and tried to remember, nothing came to him.

  It’d taken him over ten minutes, lying there in bed, in a place unknown to him, to piece it all back together. After about an hour, he’d gathered himself enough to go to work – at least he thought he had. But on his way, he’d forgotten how to get there. He’d driven all over the city, completely lost. At times, he hadn’t even known what city he was in. Then, he’d suddenly remember that he was in Chicago, but he’d have no idea what part. He’d recognize street names, but they didn’t register with a location. Or he’d see a building or a park that looked familiar, but he couldn’t pair it with an exact spot in his quickly fading mental map of the city. And at one point in his vehicular tour around the Chicago area, he’d finally remembered where he worked, but not where it was located or how to get there.

  Finally, frustrated and distraught, he’d pulled over and parked his truck. He’d gotten out to take a walk and get some fresh air. He hoped that this would clear his head and maybe he would see something that would help him get his bearings. But all this attempt at clarity did was confuse him further. Now he couldn’t remember where he’d parked and had no idea how to get home. He didn’t even know where home was.

  All he knew was that his hand was killing him, he was burning up inside, his head felt like it was going to explode at any second, and he had what had to be the worst toothache in the history of toothaches. Added to all this was that Victor was starving. He hadn’t eaten all day. There was a hunger inside him like he’d never known, an almost insatiable desire for meat – fresh meat.

  A woman passed him on the street. Victor eyed her lustily, but not because he was sexually attracted to her. Rather, he found himself overwhelmed with the intense desire to bite her – but not just bite her, to taste her, to consume her.

  But what kind of thoughts were these? A person wasn’t food. What was wrong with him? Something inside him, something from a dark, new, unknown place, was overruling this commonsense observation. And it told him that a person was food. A person was flesh, meat – fresh, warm, juicy, flavorful, bloody meat.

  Victor shook his head as he forced his gaze away from the woman and out toward the street at the vehicles whizzing past. Maybe he should go to the hospital. But what if they found something wrong with him? They might want to keep him, to study him, do weird shit to him, and run all sorts of tests on him. They might even find something wrong with his brain. Then what? They’d want to send him to one of those institutions with a bunch of crazy people. But he wasn’t crazy.

  “Just the flu…or somethin’,” he muttered aloud to himself.

  “Sorry?” a man passing Victor slowed and gave him a confused look.

  “Nothin’…nothin’ man,” Victor shook his head. Then he stopped and turned around. The man kept walking. “Actually, could you tell me what time it is?” Victor called after him, walking back toward the man who had paused to dig his cell phone from his pocket.

  The man had removed his glove to check his phone, and in the process, revealed a fat, fleshy hand that instantly caught Victor’s attention. Like a teenage boy peeping through a hole in the girl’s locker room wall, Victor couldn’t avert his hungry eyes.

  “Almost seven,” the guy said.

  Victor continued to stare.

  “You hear me?” the man asked Victor.

  Victor grabbed the man’s hand, yanking it toward him.

  “What the…” the man started.

  But Victor had already pulled the man’s hand up toward his face while bending at the same time, cramming the side of the hand into his mouth and chomping down viciously. As Victor felt his teeth sink into the soft flesh at the base of the man’s thumb, the man let out a horrific scream. At the same time, Victor could hear a crunching sort of noise and then terrible pain radiate through his mouth. The shock of the pain caused Victor to pull away as the man jerked his hand free and scrambled away down the sidewalk, disappearing into the darkness.

  Victor stood, breathing hard, wondering what had just happened. He couldn’t understand why he had bitten the man. He really hadn’t wanted to, but something had told him to do it, some impulse he couldn’t control.

  Victor could taste blood, and he felt chunks of something hard in his mouth. He ran his tongue across his teeth and found several of them broken. He spit the chunks of teeth out of his mouth and onto the snow. The saliva that came out was thick and red, and Victor wasn’t sure if the blood mixed into it was his or the man’s.

  He found the thought of what he’d just done disgusting; it revolted him, but that taste – there was something about it. He had to have more. It wasn’t just a craving; it was a need – a voracious need to feed, to satisfy a hunger that was radiating from inside him.

  “No…what am I doing?” Victor shook his head as his reasoning kicked in. “I can’t just go around biting hunks out of people.”

  A young woman, a beautifully voluptuous, busty, sumptuous looking woman came swaying toward him. She wore black tights that pressed against her fleshy form, making her ample bits even more enticing.

  Victor averted his eyes and began walking, hooking a quick left down a dark alley to avoid temptation. He hoped that this would help turn his attention away from the instinctual whims tearing at him from the unknown depths of some dark place within.

  He gritted his teeth and felt more chunks break off in the process.

  “What the fuck?” he moved the pieces around in his mouth with his tongue, collecting them at the front of his mouth before spitting them out into his hand. There were at least six or seven tiny chunks of white.

  He ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, feeling for more bits and then across his shattered teeth. “Ah!” he pulled his tongue back as it reached the front of his mouth. The front four teeth of both top and bottom rows were still there, but they were pointy, jagged, and sharp as shit. And they felt longer. They were almost like little razor blades.

  “What the fuck?” Victor breathed, tossing his handful of teeth shards onto the ground. “I’m becoming a fuckin’ vampire or somethin’?”

  Movement from the corner of his eye startled him, tearing him from his thoughts.

  He scanned the alley. There were several large Dumpsters, some snow-covered bags of trash, and a couple empty cardboard boxes. Suddenly several of the boxes shifted slightly. Victor realized they weren’t empty at all – someone was inside them.

  Victor suddenly had hope. Maybe a homeless person would be more willing to help him. They understood what it was like to be alone and afraid. Maybe they could help him find his way home or at least tell him where he was.

  He walked cautiously over to the pile of boxes, not wanting to frighten the person or people inside.

  “Hello?” he called.

  There was more rustling from inside the boxes but no answer.

  “Hel…hello?” Victor called again, louder this time. “Someone in there?” he swallowed, tasting blood again and liking it. “I…I think I need help.”

  Actually, Victor knew he needed help, but he was having a
hard time reasoning all this. And that part of him that was still a strong, independent, stubborn man, who found it difficult asking for help, was still struggling with this whole situation.

  Victor stood staring at the boxes, waiting in silence. He stepped closer and nudged the box closest to him with a foot.

  “Ermph,” a muffled sound came from inside.

  “Please,” Victor said again. “Can you just talk to me? I’m…I’m lost, and I’m not sure where…where I…”

  He left the sentence unfinished. He didn’t know how to finish it. There were so many possibilities. Where he was, where he had parked his vehicle, where he lived, where he worked, where he could get help, where he could find food – they all worked.

  A moment later, a body part, wrapped in dirty cloth of some sort, emerged. The smell that issued from inside the box was overpowering. Victor’s senses informed him that based on prior experience, the smell should be perceived as revolting. Yet in his current state, he had to admit that he found it oddly appealing.

  Victor soon realized that the body part exiting the box was an arm wrapped in multiple layers of clothing. The outer layer appeared to be a thick wool coat. Then a fur-capped head emerged, followed by a hunched form that rose slowly to reveal an adult male.

  “What you want?” the homeless person growled in a gravely, almost indecipherable voice.

  Victor suddenly found himself unsure of how to answer. What exactly did he want? He wasn’t sure himself. “I…I…well, I…”

  “You got a dollar?” the man from the box asked.

  “I…uh…” Victor shook his head, confused by the question. What in the hell was a dollar? Victor couldn’t even conceive of what the man was asking. But why? He recognized the word. He knew that the question should be a simple one to answer, but he couldn’t.

  “How ‘bout a cigarette?” the box man continued undeterred, holding a bare hand out toward Victor in hopes of acquiring the requested item.

  The sight of the exposed flesh sent Victor into an uncontrollable frenzy. It was as though someone had hit the “self destruct” button inside him. He grabbed the homeless man’s hand and sank his teeth into it. The row of razor-sharp teeth now lining the front of his mouth slid easily, almost instantly through the hand’s skin. Like a butcher slicing off a piece of ham at the deli, Victor pulled away, drawing the flesh from the man’s hand with him as he did so.

  The homeless man howled in a combination of surprised shock and pain, clutching at his hand and staggering backward.

  Victor greedily gulped down the meat in his mouth, not even pausing to chew it. What he was doing terrified him, yet somehow it satisfied him too. He couldn’t resist. It felt wrong, but at the same time, so right. And the taste was oh so good – like the best steak he’d ever enjoyed, even though the thought of cooked meat now disgusted him.

  The homeless man looked up from his bleeding hand at Victor in horror, backing away. “What da hell’s wrong with you?! You crazy!” he cried.

  The man pulled a heavy scarf from his neck and wrapped it around his hand.

  “You…you get da hell away from me!” the homeless man backed away from Victor and down the alley, continuing to wrap his hand as he went.

  Victor stood, almost dazed from the deliciousness of the flesh he’d just consumed. But he went from pleasantly contented at his little snack to instantly wanting more. There was a ravenous desire to fill his belly with meat.

  Victor flew at the homeless man, catching him roughly by the bundle of rags in which he was shrouded. He knocked the man roughly back and down onto the alley’s cold pavement. Victor was instantly on top of him with surprising energy and a ferocious strength he hadn’t known was there. He grabbed the man’s shaggy head of hair and knocked his head back hard against the ground, rendering the man unconscious. Then he ripped the rags away from around the man’s neck and drove his sets of razor-sharp teeth into the softness of the skin there. He ripped hunks away so that blood spurted, spraying across Victor’s face, getting in his eyes, and into his mouth. The taste was amazing, like human ambrosia. Victor tore, chomped, ripped, chewed, and slurped his way into the homeless man’s neck, eating his flesh, drinking his blood, and consuming as much as he could as quickly as he could.

  Suddenly there were noises from behind him. Victor was so focused on his meal that he almost didn’t hear the words being spoken.

  “What…what are you doing? Carl? You okay, Carl?”

  Victor lurched up and away from his feast, seeing the other man who had crawled from inside the same boxes from which his current meal had emerged.

  Victor jumped up, invigorated by the consumption of fresh meat, and ran toward this newcomer. He could hear sirens approaching in the distance. And while he couldn’t remember exactly what the sirens were, or what they meant, he somehow knew that he needed to flee.

  He ran toward the other homeless man and flung himself at the stationary target who stood unaware of the danger Victor posed.

  Victor hit the man, taking him down like he’d done the other. But this time, he only bit the man once, on the face, taking a huge chunk out of his cheek, swallowing it as the man screamed in pained surprise. Then Victor jumped up, looking around him like a wild-eyed animal.

  Screeching sirens and red and blue lights reflected in the distance near where Victor had entered the alley. The sights and sounds drove Victor in the opposite direction. While he had no idea where he was going, he knew he had to get away from those lights. He scurried off down the alley in the opposite direction, leaving one man dead and another terrified and bleeding behind him.

  At the end of the alley, he paused, his head darting back and forth like a wild animal looking to escape a pursuing predator. He looked up at the sky, back down at the ground, as if confused by what he was seeing, and then he turned and disappeared into the blackness of night.

  Chapter 7

  Josh Justak stood, hands on hips in front of his house. It was probably the last weekend he’d have for prepping his yard before winter conditions made it impossible. Most of his work, which centered on giving the grass one final cut, was already done. He just had to cut Ms. Mary’s lawn, and he’d be finished.

  Ms. Mary’s lawn was smaller than his own, and with her garden and berry bushes taking up most of the backyard, it meant he really only had to cut the front. It was a fifteen-minute task that he’d been doing for so long that Ms. Mary had sold her lawnmower in a community garage sale several summers ago. Josh looked at it as an investment in jam, which was how Ms. Mary paid him. Plus, it was just the neighborly thing to do. And Josh had to admit, after sitting behind a desk all week, a few extra minutes of exercise pushing a lawnmower wasn’t the worst thing in the world for him to be doing.

  After he was done, he took a minute to find Ms. Mary out in her garage.

  “Hi, Ms. Mary!” he called as he wandered up to the open front garage door.

  “Hello, Mr. Josh,” Ms. Mary called back pleasantly. “Thank you as always for doing my lawn!”

  “No problem,” Josh wandered over to where she was hanging some of her yard tools on one wall of the garage. Several rows of shelving were set beside this. They were lined with various containers of canned and dried foods.

  Josh perused the assorted goods. “Our extra supplies seem to be coming along well,” he nodded.

  “Michael helped,” Ms. Mary explained. “He went out last week and bought a bunch of groceries on his own. Mostly camping type stuff…corned beef hash, baked beans, packs of hot dogs for the freezer…that sort of stuff,” she shrugged.

  Josh nodded, “That’s nice. He didn’t have to, but it certainly helps beef things up,” he walked along slowly, inspecting the shelves and the supplies they held. “It’ll be good for cookouts come next spring and summer,” he picked up and inspected several pre-packaged packets of pasta and rice dishes. “When are we going to start divvying stuff up?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ms. Mary walked over to where Josh stood and took
off her gardening gloves. “I think the plan is to get a couple months’ worth of supplies on hand first and then start piecing it out to everyone as we get extras or stuff starts approaching its ‘use-by’ date.”

  “Sounds good,” Josh nodded as he walked over to Ms. Mary’s big freezer, unlocked it, and lifted its lid to peer inside. “This looks like it’s filling up nicely.”

  “A lot of it is vegetables I froze this summer,” Ms. Mary admitted. “But we’ve been getting a nice stockpile of meats too. Mostly hamburger, pork roasts and hams.”

  “Mmm,” Josh smiled. “That’ll be good come this winter. Nothing better than a big pork roast, dumplings, sour kraut, maybe some broccoli casserole,” he rubbed his belly and smiled. “I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.”

  Walking past the freezer, Josh pointed at another shelving unit, separate from the others. It was lined with rows and rows of glass jars sporting contents in an array of colors.

  “What are all these jars?” Josh asked.

  “Oh,” Ms. Mary smiled. “Those are my canned and pickled items. In addition to my jams…”

  “Mmm…your jams,” Josh groaned, tilting his head back in delight.

  “Yes, I know you love my jams,” Ms. Mary came over to rest her head on Josh’s shoulder momentarily.

  Ms. Mary was almost like a mother to Josh.

  “So in addition to those, I have tomatoes, peaches, green beans, rhubarb, asparagus, strawberry and blueberry preserves, carrots, and pickles.”

  “Wow! How do you know how to do all that?” Josh shook his head in amazement.

  “I read lots of books,” Ms. Mary said. “My mother and my grandparents always had gardens. Over time, you just tend to pick a lot of this kind of stuff up. If you’re interested in it, you read about it, you try different things, and through a lot of trial and error, you eventually get good at it. Believe me, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes and had to throw a lot of things out over the years. But eventually, you get a system down, and once you perfect your techniques, you make notes of them so you don’t forget,” she tapped the side of her head. “And voila, one day, you’ve got your own cannery!” she laughed.