by Lee Deadkeys
Jess opened her mouth to speak but Angel held up a hand to quiet her. “We will meet up as soon as this is over, I promise.”
They said their goodbyes as the Guardsmen watched indifferently. Angel was crying, as was Jessica. They hugged until Frank moved in to urge Jess away. His eyes were moist, but he managed to remain composed.
Sergeant West saw to it that Angel was made as comfortable as possible, returned to the group and marked the location of the cabin on his map.
“You’re welcome to head our way if you’re so inclined,” Frank said as Sergeant West stowed the map in a side pocket. “The cabin hasn’t been used in almost a year, but if I know my father, he’d have left the placed stocked for a decade or more.”
“I’ll see that the young lady is taken care of, you have my word,” West said and turned to walk away.
“Be seeing you,” Frank said with certainty as he watched the APC rumble up the street and out of sight.
Fatigue washed over him as soon as he reentered Mason’s house. With the issue of Angel’s medical needs and safety transferred to a responsible party, the four of them had time to acknowledge their own exhausted and battered bodies. The medic had been generous with his supplies and each of them attended to their wounds. Mason tended to Jess’s arm with clean bandages and powerful antibiotic cream.
The drapes over the windows were closed tightly and the warmth and darkness whispered to each of them in turn, sleep. They stretched, yawned and groaned around the living room before finally trudging off to bed; Mason and Jess in his bed, Frank and Sam in the second room. Following Mason’s instructions, Sam pulled a thin twin mattress from under the double bed Frank lay on, pulled an extra blanket from the foot of the other bed and collapsed. Within minutes, each was wrapped in their own coma-like sleep, still as the dead. Day turned to night and back again. They seldom stirred except to kick out or whimper in a fit of dream. Time bled out around them, its importance dulled like memory.
Day: Unknown
Mason’s House
A painful need to urinate eventually roused Frank from his stupor. His body felt stiff and heavy as if he’d been in a motionless state for days. Time seemed to have passed in a slow trickle and he wondered briefly how long he’d been asleep. Throwing back the covers, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, narrowly avoiding stepping on Sam.
Sam’s body lay sprawled across the mattress in a twisted heap, as if he’d fallen from a great distance and splattered. Frank bent closer, studying the man’s chest for signs of breathing and jerked back with a start as a violent snore erupted from Sam’s open mouth. Frank whispered a curse as several drops of urine escaped and quickly headed for the small bathroom down the hall.
Instinctively, Frank flipped the light switch up, squinting in anticipation of the bright light. The bathroom remained dark and he flipped the switch rapidly a few more times before he remembered. Dim light from the hallway filtered in enough to make out the toilet, Frank sighed and relieved himself with the door open.
Frank turned the tap on, got a trickle followed by a long hiss of air and quickly turned it off. He stood silently over the sink, a terrifying thought gnawing at the back of his mind. How long have I been asleep? Weeks, months? He shook his head, roughed his damp hand over his stubbly cheeks and left the bathroom.
In the kitchen, he found a six-pack of soda on the floor of the pantry, pulled one free and drank deeply. It was quite possibly the best thing he’d ever tasted.
“Mornin’. God, I feel like I’ve been asleep for years,” Jess said, entering the kitchen. Her hair was tousled badly and Frank thought she looked absolutely adorable. She smiled at him as he offered her a can and then froze, her hand outstretched. “I haven’t, have I? Been asleep for years, I mean.”
“I don’t think so dear, but I know how you feel.” Frank chuckled, urging her to take the can. Jess smiled again, took the can and drank until it was empty.
“Man, I had to piss like a racehorse when I got up. Almost didn’t make it to the ladies’ room,” she said and rummaged through the pantry, pulled out some cereal and munched it straight from the box. “Water is out, too. You sure we haven’t been asleep for years?”
Frank frowned, “I’m sure, Jess. Please stop asking that, it kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
She shrugged, “Bet it’s been a few days anyway.” Setting the box of cereal on the table, she unwrapped a fruit bar and devoured it in three bites. “Seriously Dad, how long do you figure we’ve been out?”
Frank could think of no way to answer that question. He raised his hands in a don’t-have-a-clue gesture, picked up the box of cereal and realized he was starving.
“Morning good people,” Sam said as he entered the kitchen. “God, I slept like the dead. Feels like years.”
Jess laughed, “We aren’t supposed to say that. Creeps the old man out.” Frank tossed a piece of cereal at her and smiled.
“So this is where everyone is,” Mason said as he stretched in the entryway. “Everyone sleep well? I sure did, feels like—”
Frank threw a whole handful of cereal at him, “Years, yes we know.”
Everyone but a confused-looking Mason burst out laughing.
“All right you’ve had your fun, people, but I think we should make some plans for our next move,” Mason said and kissed Jess on the head.
“Water’s out, power too,” Jess said. “There should be a gallon or so in the toilet tanks unless someone flushed when they got up?”
Sam raised his hand sheepishly. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Jess shrugged, “I didn’t think to fill up the tub either, or the sinks. This end-of-the-world shit is tougher than I thought.”
“There’ll be some in the water heater too,” Frank said. “We’ve got enough to see us across a couple days if we ration.”
Jess shook her head, “I think the sooner we head to the cabin the better. We load up what we have and head out today.”
“I tend to agree with Frank on this one,” Mason said. “We have no idea what’s out there, what the roads look like… and the sun will be down in a few hours. I’d hate to get stuck out there in the dark and mobbed by those things. Let’s hang out here for a few days, rest, get our strength up. I’ll head back over to Mr. Broaden’s and have a look at his supplies too.”
After a moment, Jess nodded, “Just a few days, right, and then the cabin? We can use this time to scout the neighborhood, see what’s going on out there.”
“Then it’s decided, we have a plan,” Frank said and passed around the box of cereal.
At first light, the plan fell apart.
* * *
Mason stood in front of the door while Frank and Jess peered out the window.
“Looks clear,” Jess said. “Actually, it looks like a ghost town out there.”
Mason moved a kitchen chair someone had jammed under the battered doorknob the night before. He checked for the tenth time to make certain that he had the right key for the Cherokee’s ignition grasped firmly in his left hand and forced the door open.
The SUV sat where he’d left it, one tire resting on the sidewalk. The vehicle seemed much farther away with a lot of open ground between it and the safety of the house. Mason steadied his nerves, pulled the Glock from its holster and sprinted across the lawn.
The Jeep turned over instantly, and before a minute had passed, he was backing the vehicle up to the house. Jessica and Frank clambered in; Sam stood looking from the house to the vehicle. Mason powered down the window. “Come on Sam, what are you waiting for?”
“Should I lock it?”
Jess leaned out the door and replied, “No, just pull it closed, we might need to get inside in a hurry.”
With some effort, Sam got the door closed and then jumped in the back.
The roads were clogged with wrecked and abandoned vehicles, more so the farther they went out of the neighborhood. More than a few times, Mason had to drive over a curb or across a lawn and cussed hims
elf for not going the route already cleared by the APC. He kept his eyes peeled for anything that moved, be it normal or infected. When they came to a major cross street and saw that the way was choked with vehicles and debris, Sam whistled and Mason fought off an urge to bang his head against the steering wheel.
“What’s with all the clothes everywhere?” Jess asked, leaning forward between the seats. Mason pulled his eyes from the vehicle graveyard and looked at the smaller picture. It wasn’t only clothing he noticed, but also shoes, purses, bras and boxer shorts, cell phones and a couple watches. It was as if everyone had stripped naked of every human habit.
“Sick! Someone lost their teeth,” Sam said, pointing to a big green Cadillac.
Mason sat up and scanned the area. On the road near the open driver’s side door was an upper plate of false teeth. Mason shuddered, picturing a demon chewing his way up from Hell.
“What the hell is going on now?” Jess said. “The infected were wearing clothes every time we’ve seen them. It’s like they poofed right out of their skivvies. Christ, how long were we asleep?”
“Something has changed,” Frank said from the backseat, his voice low and strange. It made Mason’s skin crawl.
“Changed? Like how?” Sam asked, turning his head toward Frank.
“Look at the clothes, the watch,” Frank replied in the same tone. “The clothes are torn, shredded like something burst out of them. That watch, and that one over there, the clasps are sprung.”
“This is fucking madness,” Jess said and fell back against the seat. “I say screw the supplies, let’s go back and load up the guns, ammo and whatever we can find at your house and get our asses to the cabin. We can check some houses on the way for stuff. It took us over half an hour to drive here. Who knows how long it will take to get to the cabin?”
“The broad has a point, man. I still don’t understand why we left the rest of the guns and shit at your place,” Sam said.
“Like I said back at the house, if we run into cops or more soldiers, they might try to take our guns,” Jess said. “If they get a couple of them, that’s still better than all of them, and a hell of a lot better than a shootout.”
“Shut up you two and let me think,” Mason said. He scanned the area, taking in the big picture once again. He reasoned that the roads would be worse the farther into the city they got, and the infected would probably head to the populated area. He wasn’t a fan of zombie movies but Jess had forced him to watch enough of them to know that the recently reanimated always went to areas with people. While these weren’t technically the walking dead and were indeed alive, it made a strange sort of sense that they would also go where a fresh crop of hosts awaited.
Mason put the Cherokee in reverse, turned around on a lawn and headed back to his house. “Screw this, we’ll check out a few houses on the way and then make for the cabin.”
Halfway back to the house, Mason maneuvered the Jeep around a wrecked pickup truck, its front end accordioned against a light pole. Two more vehicles sat smashed against parked cars on either side of the narrow street. He was checking his side mirror for clearance when he saw a teenage girl sprint from between two houses. He hit the brake and leaned out the window. The girl had stopped in the middle of the street, her face twisted into such horror that Mason wasn’t sure if she was infected or not.
“HELP HER!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Mason threw the Jeep into Park and jumped out, the others scrambling out a second after.
“Run to us!” Jess yelled, her gun pointed in the direction where the girl had come.
“She’s sick!” The girl yelled and looked behind her. “And the baby…!”
As if on cue, something truly awful shambled out from between the houses. Mason’s eyes refused to recognize that the thing had once been human, his mind went on lockdown and the only thing working was fear-driven instinct.
The creature lumbered toward the frozen girl. Mason’s eyes quickly dissected the thing into groups his brain could reassemble into a whole; two arms, two legs, and a human head topping it off. Anatomically, the thing was human-female, but all other similarities ended there.
The body of the creature was so bloated, its stomach so distended, that it appeared it would burst on contact with even the bluntest pressure. Its naked skin was the yellow-green of an old bruise with large plum colored splotches scattered across its torso and abdomen. From between the creature’s legs trailed a black rope attached to a small bundle.
Not wanting to make the terrible connection, he tore his eyes from the bundle, from the delicate shape of it, from the horrible realization that the thing was dragging an expelled fetus by an umbilical cord. He groaned aloud, knowing it was too late for the seen to be unseen, knowing the image would forever be inked on his soul.
A blur from his left broke his trance and he leveled his weapon in that direction. A middle-aged man with a shotgun ran toward the teenage girl. Mason looked at the girl again, shocked at how very close the female infected was to her now and aware that none of his group had moved any closer either.
The man with the shotgun closed the distance quickly, and at the sight of the shotgun leveled at the infected woman, the girl dropped to her knees, pleading for him not to shoot.
Mason took a step forward, gun lowered, hand stretched out, wanting to warn the man against using the shotgun. Unable to articulate why he thought this was such a bad idea, he took another step forward. Closer now, he took in the smooth, almost shiny surface of the infected woman’s discolored skin and suddenly realized what he didn’t like. The skin was taut, filled to near bursting, a grotesque human water balloon.
“Don’t shoot it!” Mason yelled a half a second before the shotgun blast filled his ears.
The thing exploded. A great spray of black tar-like globs showered the ground, the girl, and the man with the shotgun. A large tissue-laced blob splattered inches from the toe of Mason’s boot. He took a step back. The small puddle writhed with life, a twisting clot of ugly eel-like creatures roiling within the sticky goop.
Terrible earsplitting screams tore his focus from the squirming pool. The teenage girl and the man clawed and tore at their mucus-covered faces. Jess jogged to them, stopping about three feet from them as Frank grabbed her violently away.
Mason watched as the eelish creatures invaded the eyes, nose and wide, screaming mouths of the two. Sam was backing away, Frank followed, dragging a reluctant Jess along.
“They’re about to turn, make tracks, people!” Sam shouted over the screams. Mason ran backward a few steps, keeping an eye on the two black and bloody people until they abruptly stopped all movement. They knelt there, on the gore-splattered grass, as if in silent supplication to an old and cruel god. The girl opened her mouth, a deep, birthing-pain moan rising from her.
The sound stopped Mason cold. She and the man began to twitch and tic as something wormed around under their skin. Mason raised his weapon and fired twice. The old god may ignore their plea but he would not, could not. His aim was true as each fell dead with one shot each to the head.
“Damn it all,” he whispered. The skin of their bodies still danced a creepy jig, but this eventually began to slow. The black, blood-laced substance oozed from their orifices and onto the grass.
The large worm-like monsters rolled over one another, frantically searching for a warm living body. They grew sluggish and still within moments until they finally began to melt into one indistinguishable mass. Mason holstered his weapon and ran to catch up with his group.
Frank no longer had to drag his daughter but held her gently by the arm as a comfort, a comfort to her or him, he wasn’t sure and didn’t really care.
Mason jogged up beside him and fell in to step, head down and dejected.
“You did a kindness for those two back there, son,” Frank said.
Mason shrugged, “I guess. But how many more kindnesses are we going to have to perform?”
“I know, son, it’s hard. We should remember
that—”
“Frank,” Mason said, his tone sharp. He took a deep cleansing breath and continued, “I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t need to talk about it. It’s done, OK? It is what it is.”
Frank nodded but said nothing. After a moment, Mason looked up at the sky. “Where has the day gone?”
Frank examined the red-tinted clouds. “Time seems to move differently now, doesn’t it?”
“That’s because we’re in Hell. Bring on eternity,” Jess said and snorted a bitter laugh. Frank frowned at her but didn’t reply. Truth be told, he wasn’t completely certain she was wrong.
“Time,” Mason said with a sad shake of his head. “I’m still wearing my watch. It hasn’t worked for a while, and yet….”
“And yet, it’s a comfort. The feel of it.” Frank finished.
“Speak for yourself,” Sam shuddered and rubbed at his bare wrist. “I ditched mine back at the hospital.”
The others studied their wrists.
“Why?” Jess asked.
Sam chuckled, “Because it was creeping me the fuck out.” He looked at them. “Come on, you can’t really say they’re broken, or just stopped, right? They are keeping time, it’s just not our time.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jess unclasped her watch and held it to her ear. It ticked once and fell silent.
Sam seemed embarrassed. “I don’t know… it’s hard to explain. I guess I meant that time has changed. Like the infected, they’ve definitely changed.”
Everyone nodded in agreement except Jess who still had her watch pressed to her ear. Finally, it ticked off another second. She shivered slightly and let it fall to the ground, grinding it underfoot before moving on.