by Lee Deadkeys
“I know this is stupid, but since we hadn’t seen any of them in a few days, I kinda hoped they’d died or, I don’t know, gone back to their planet,” Jess said, disappointed.
“What, like aliens?” Sam scoffed. “Because I’m wondering where they parked the mothership.”
“I dunno, high orbit?” Jess said and kicked at a lone shoe on the sidewalk. Frank tensed and looked around nervously for its bloated owner.
Sam chuckled humorlessly, began to speak and stopped. “Christ, I was going to say something smartass about your alien theory, but you know what? After the shit I’ve seen, it’s as good a possibility as anything else. And a fuck of a lot better than being trapped in actual Hell… didn’t like that one at all.”
Jess frowned, “Actual Hell is still on the table.”
“Oh great, and here I thought—” Sam started as Mason clamped on hand on his bicep and forced him to stop. Mason was staring up the road, his body slightly crouched. Everyone stopped, each looking around wildly.
“Didn’t you shut the door?” Mason said quietly and Frank noticed that they had reached the house. The door stood wide open, gaping at them as the last of the dim dusk light illuminated the first few feet of the living room. The all took a step back as a large swollen shadow moved slowly past the opening and disappeared into the kitchen.
Mason and Frank approached the door slowly while Jessica and Sam hunkered near the corner of the garage; everyone with guns at the ready.
Something fragile crashed inside and Mason felt his finger twitch toward the trigger. He looked at Frank’s pale face and then over his shoulder to Jess and Sam. Jess gestured for them to come back, he motioned to Frank who nodded slowly and they both withdrew quietly.
Jess pulled them around the corner of the house. “We can’t shoot it, remember, or the thing will pop.” She looked around nervously. “We need to find something to throw over it. Then we can blast it back to Hell.”
“Throw over it? That means getting close to it, like way close,” Sam said, looking dubious.
“Not if we rush it, get the jump on it. We’ll tackle it, beat it down and then someone can shoot it before it gets its feet,” Jess said with conviction. “I don’t see another way. We need those guns in there.” As if to punctuate this, a scream rose from the direction they’d recently come from, followed by a gunshot and another scream a moment later. Sam looked back to them, “Yeah, maybe you’re right. But what do we use to cover it, a blanket?”
“No, we’d have to go in the house for that,” Mason said and thought a moment. “I’ve got a great big tarp in the garage. That would work, right?” They all nodded and Mason went around to the side door and let himself in.
Mason cursed silently every time the tarp crinkled and popped. Funny how we never notice all the noise in the world until the world has been hammered silent. The tarp was new and folded like a roadmap. Just pulling it from the shelf and laying it out made him cringe.
Halfway through, he realized there would be no sneaking up on anything other than a dead man with this blue noise-maker. He looked around again, his eyes settling on a thick old packing quilt. It would have to do.
Back at the door, Mason and Frank stood with the quilt spread between them like a seine. It was heavier than the tarp and more awkward, but he stopped himself from second-guessing his choice. Too late to go back now, too late for second chances.
The thing in the house had gone quiet. Sam and Jess stood with their guns drawn, ready to follow the other two and back them up. The hastily concocted plan was simple; trap the thing, blast it, grab gear and beat feet.
Mason silently mouthed, One, Two, Three and kicked the door fully open with his foot. They moved as one and stopped together a few feet through the doorway as their eyes adjusted to the dim light. A flicker of movement from the kitchen, the thing had been waiting, crouched in the darkened part of the room near the fridge.
It moved with startling speed, overturning the table and a chair as it rushed at them. Mason and Frank raised the thick quilt over their heads and closed the distance.
Frank cussed as his foot tangled in the dragging fabric. He stumbled forward, each clumsy step pulling the quilt further underfoot. He had a single frenzied thought—why doesn’t anything ever go as planned—before his treacherous feet tore the quilt from his hands.
The massive infected slammed into Frank, knocking the air from his lungs as he was thrown to the floor. His vision blurred and darkened to pinpoints.
“Dad!” Jess screamed, as Mason yelled, “Frank!”
Frank groaned and strained for breath as the huge infected loomed over his helpless body. He blinked, trying to clear his vision as he waited for the thing to puke that contagious filth onto his upturned face. His heart thudded twice. The shadowy form standing over him made no threatening move. It stood there, motionless as stone, its hands clenched into tight fists, breathing rapidly.
The handful of seconds that passed seemed like hours. Frank felt the tension from the others, sensed the guns trained on the infected, trigger fingers itchy but cautious. Knowing that if they shot it now and it exploded, he would surely be soaked in that writhing black tar. And then, well, someone would have to do it, shoot him before those worms burrowed in and he became one of those mindless monsters. Don’t let it be Jess, she’s been through enough.
“Jess?” it said, arms dropping to its sides, defeated. Frank felt his blood go cold. Why is an infected speaking my daughter’s name? he thought, the pieces refusing to come together.
Jess gasped, “Oh my God… Ox?”, and then it finally clicked.
Frank closed his eyes and let his head thump against the floor; this end of the world business was not an old man’s game.
“I thought you guys were those things… I thought you all were dead.” Ox said, his voice a low tremor.
“We thought you were one of those things too,” Jess said and went to his side.
“Oh shit, Frank. Are you ok?” Ox offered him a hand up but Frank waved it off.
“I think I’m just going to lie here awhile and wait for my heart to stop fibrillating.”
“What are you doing here, Ox? I thought you were in Nevada.” Jess said, her voice a strained tangle of relief and perplexity.
“I was,” he said. “I… I was there…” Ox leaned forward, hands on knees as if he were about to be sick. “Jess… I had to kill my mom.”
Frank sat up. He could hear Ox breathing heavily, panting, on the brink of hyperventilating. Trying to keep himself under control, Frank thought. Trying not to lose it right here.
Jess pressed a trembling fist to her mouth, her words muffled against it, “Oh my God, Ox. I’m so…” Her words trailed off as she dropped her hand from her mouth and reached for Ox, rubbing his stooped back. “What happened?”
He uncurled at the waist and stood, shoulders curved forward as he covered his face with large hands. “Mom, she turned.” He let his arms fall.
Jess surprised Frank by hugging Ox’s thick arm, her face pressed against his bicep. He didn’t see this side of her often, this open unashamed empathy, this evidence of their longstanding friendship. And once again he was glad she’d had Ox to lean on after Jacob’s death. God knows he’d been useless to her then, too busy being consumed by his own grief.
Frank shook his head, this was not the time. Getting slowly to his feet he went to Mason’s near-depleted liquor cabinet and found a bottle of Jack Daniels that had been pushed behind some mixers. He returned to the group with five plastic cups laced between his fingers.
Mason guided Ox and Jess to the couch, settled them down and then moved to the door, re-securing it the best he could. Sam retrieved one of the chairs from the kitchen, tested it to make sure it hadn’t been too damaged when the big man rushed them, and fell onto it.
Frank filled a cup and handed it to a dazed-eyed Ox, “When you’re ready, can you tell us what happened, son?”
Ox nodded and emptied the cup, holding it out to be
refilled. He settled back into the couch. Jess sat close beside him, an arm wrapped around her knees as she took a gulp from her cup.
Mason lit a lantern and set it on a small table by the couch. The pale light crept across the room, illuminating the small group. Frank looked them over. The first thing he noticed in that slow transition from shadow was how dirty everyone was; streaked faces, torn clothes, matted hair. Of them all, Ox appeared to have fared the worst. His once crisp blue eyes were sunk in bruised purple sockets. Spots of blood covered his clothing, some of it due to obvious injuries but many others unknown. But beyond his ragged exterior he seemed… emptied, dispirited in a way that Frank found familiar and troubling. The man bore the crushed characteristic of someone who has suffered great loss. I had to kill my mom, he’d said. Frank’s throat felt tight, a strangled ache of emotion that he swallowed down and tried to refocused his attention back on Ox.
“You’ve really been through Hell, haven’t you son?” Frank said, clearing his throat to mask the tremor there. “Up to telling us what happened?”
Ox nodded slowly but for a time he just stared straight ahead, his expression vacant and far away.
“There was a box, in mom’s shed, like the one in your storage unit. It… I knew something was wrong….” His hands shook as he raised the cup. “There were rats, people acting weird in town. My mom was sick or something. I should have known right at first, I should have….”
Jess lowered her head to her drawn up knees, a small shudder causing the whisky to slosh.
“It’s ok, Ox, take your time,” Mason said as he moved to the arm of the couch to comfort Jess.
Ox shook his head sharply and groaned, “Christ, I just don’t know how to say it other than… she turned. Like in some fucking zombie movie but, worse… like way, way worse.
“She just kept coming at me. I tried to push her away, but she was so strong. That black smoke was rolling out of the shed, coming out her nostrils and her mouth… swirling in the whites of her eyes… I pushed her, hard, she fell, her head hit the….” Ox leaned forward and grabbed the bottle from Frank. He took three long pulls and let out a choked chuckle. “I mean, what the fuck? I can’t do this, it’s time for commercial break or something… something….”
“I’m sorry, Ox, sorry I wasn’t there for you,” Jess said with her head still down. Frank thought she might be crying and wished he could do something for her, for everyone, to take all this hurt away.
Ox looked at her, his eyes damp and a small upturn to the corner of his mouth, “You’re here now. All of you.” He looked at Frank and Mason in turn. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d found you all dead. Even you…” He looked at Sam who nodded sheepishly. “And um, who the hell are you?”
“Name’s Sam, Sam Story,” he leaned forward and extended a hand. “I’ve heard all about you. Met up with your friends here, oh, about a hundred years ago. We’ve been trying to get out of the city for days.”
“I had some trouble with those things a few miles back. Saw a door open and heard some noise, went to see if anyone was home and got rushed by six or so of them. Some old man was there, told me we had to run and I did. When I looked back to see if he was behind me, well, I don’t really want to think about that.” Ox said and offered the rest of the bottle around. “When I got here, saw that the door had been forced and all the guns and gear where here, I feared the worst.” He shook his head slowly.
From outside, they heard far off screams followed by a few gunshots and then more screams. Everyone perked up, listening for how close the threat was. But without the buffering noise of a thriving, active society, if was anybody’s guess. “Ox,” Frank said, “we need to see to those wounds and then we need to decide what our next move is. Do we stay here one more night or try to move out in the dark?”
“I’m done in, Frank,” Ox said as he roughed his hands over his face. “I’d be no good to you all without some sleep.”
They all nodded and began to make camp in the middle of the living room. Mason pushed the couch out of the way and used it to bar the door, while the others pulled mattresses from the bedrooms and spread them around the large living room.
Within minutes they drifted off, one by one, each lost and alone with their nightmares.
The Next Day
Mason’s House
Frank rose and gingerly stepped over the sprawl of bodies. He noted with some amusement the position of his daughter, who lay neatly spooned against Mason, all except one leg which was extended out toward Ox, who had wrapped his arms around her foot and cradled it under his chin like a cherished Teddy. Sam was still asleep on the couch, his fists clenched and legs twitching slightly in his dream.
Frank stretched, yawning silently, feeling all the places on his tired old body that ached from the bruising he’d taken when Ox tackled him the night before. He wondered if a younger man would feel this frail. Like a truck hit me, he chuckled. And then backed over me to apologize. Age was an evil enemy that set about emasculating a man before finally tiring of the game and mercifully ending it.
Frank thought that going out fighting wasn’t as bad a way to go as some of his friends had in recent years. After all, he’d just floored by a guy half his age and twice his size and, aside from the soreness in a few spots, came out relatively unscathed. If he were to die today he would do it fighting beside these people who he had come to care deeply about, fighting for the life of his daughter, fighting for something, and not crapping in his pants and raving like some of his friends had as they met their undignified ends.
And who knew? He might live through this nightmare and be there when his grandchildren were born. Assuming of course that this nightmare would end, and it must, all nightmares do, at some point.
He made his way to the kitchen sink, wishing painfully for coffee but knowing his longing was pointless.
The room darkened suddenly and Frank froze, his back to the small kitchen window. There was a noise from outside, a sound like a dry squeegee moving over glass. He turned slowly, suddenly feeling very old. At the window was what he assumed used to be a woman. She was completely naked and covered in grime and gore, her bare stomach protruding out past what he thought possible. Like so many they had seen, she had been at her face and neck with her nails. One eye was nothing more than a bloody hole and her mouth had been torn at the corner so severely that it exposed a few broken teeth. She paused in her swaying abruptly, her upper torso heaved and a moment later the lower window was covered in an oily black substance, squirming with large black worms.
This was followed by loud and grotesque gaseous noises erupting from her ruined mouth. Frank felt his gorge rise as he watched the writhing mess slide down the glass and willed himself not to vomit. He broke out in a cold sweat, his own stomach protesting loudly to turn away or suffer the inevitable sympathy-puke. Frank closed his eyes, feeling foolish and weak but knowing that he would be sick himself if he did not.
He sensed the room brighten slightly and risked a peek. The woman was gone, the filthy window the only evidence she had been there.
“It’s gone,” Ox whispered from the archway, startling Frank. “My God, what is happening? Those things in them are bigger.”
Frank let out the breath he’d been holding, “I really don’t know, son. And I’m not entirely sure if I really want to know.” Frank nodded toward the living room and lowered his voice. “Let’s not mention this to the others. No reason to alarm everyone first thing.”
Ox shuddered and nodded, “Fine by me.”
“Is everyone up?” Frank asked.
“Almost. Jess kicked the hell out of me and jabbed Mason in the eye with her elbow.” Ox chuckled softly. “She needs to change her socks.”
“I heard that,” Jess said, stumbling sleepily into the kitchen. “And you need to brush your teeth, dude.” She punched Ox on the arm as she passed.
Ox gently pushed her in the back, “Yeah, my breath stinks like Jess-feet.”
“Hard
y, har, har,” Jess said and pumped her middle finger in the air.
“Jessica!”
“Sorry Dad, it’s the only language these unwashed masses understand.”
Sam coughed and entered the kitchen. “We should get moving soon. These things are changing, and I think we should get to that cabin, ASAP.”
“Yeah, about that,” Jess said, “We need another vehicle. Preferably a 4x4 truck, but a truck none the less.”
“You’re probably right,” Mason said, joining the group. “Going to be crowded in that jeep, especially once we load up all the gear. With all the abandoned vehicles we saw yesterday, I don’t think we’ll need to go more than a couple miles before we find something. I don’t need to say this but I will.”
Mason looked around the small group, “It stands to reason that it won’t be a cakewalk getting out of the city. I think we need to prepare mentally for what we might find out there. We need to remember one thing and agree on it now before we set out…we leave no one behind, and we don’t hesitate to put down any of those things that try to stop or infect us. Jess was right all along, things have changed. Our survival depends on adaptation.”
He looked at each in turn and in turn each gave a nod.
“All right then, let’s load up and get the hell out of Dodge.”
They came upon the big block Dodge while weaving through a cluster of vehicles at the edge of the subdivision. The keys to the Dodge sat in the ignition like an invitation. It was an older model 4x4 with a bench seat running from door to door and a catch-all console bungee-strapped in the middle. Ox turned the key and the truck roared to life with a powerful growl.
“I’m driving this one,” Jess said as she rubbed her hands together.
“Sorry, kiddo, but this beast is mine,” Frank said, his own greedy grin forming. Jess started to protest but Ox nudged her in the side. “Let your old man have this one. After he told me what you two did to his truck, I’d say he deserves this.”
Jess abruptly ceased her covetous hand rubbing and sighed in defeat, “All right, fine, this time.