This Dying World (Book 2): Abandon All Hope

by James D. Dean

  I’m trying to talk Natalie and Joey into going. There has to be a church or school nearby. They won’t budge though, and Damian is siding with his mom. We only have enough food for a couple days, and Isabel is so sick. We can’t do this alone.

  I’ll finish this later, Isabel is awake.

  ******

  Oh Isabel, daddy is so sorry! Daddy should have gotten help!

  ******

  I don’t know where to begin. Everything was so sudden. It was so fast, I couldn’t stop it.

  I haven’t written anything in a week or more. I couldn’t. I still don’t even know how to put anything into words. I don’t know why I’m even trying. To keep sane? How the hell can anyone stay sane after that?

  Isabel died. I know she died. She wasn’t breathing and her heart stopped. But she came back. We were sitting over her when she reached for Natalie. We were so happy, she was alive! Natalie picked her up and hugged her so tight.

  But she wasn’t alive. I saw her eyes open, but they weren’t hers. They were white, like she had cataracts or something. I knew what she was, but I still couldn’t bring myself to believe my baby girl was one of those things. But before I could get it through my own thick skull, Isabel bit Natalie on the arm.

  Natalie didn’t let go of her. She wouldn’t drop Isabel, even when she bit a hunk of her arm off. Joey tried to pull her away, but Natalie wouldn’t let go.

  Joey got too close. Isabel killed him! My baby girl killed my best friend! She chewed right into his throat! There was so much blood! Natalie let Isabel go, and she started eating Joey!

  I can’t. I just can’t write anymore right now.

  His words dug at my soul as I lifted my eyes from the pages. I glanced down at my sleeping daughter, the firelight dancing across her youthful features as she slept. She had Abby’s face, her full cheeks and soft lines all came from Abby. The only thing she got from me was her love for bacon, PB&Js, and an ever present smart-ass attitude.

  I focused my eyes on the floor, scanning the old dark wood until I found it. The rusty stain spreading across the floor would have gone completely unnoticed in the scant light, unless someone knew to look for it. Mark slept atop it, unaware that he slumbered on the blood of a dead man. Somewhere in that rusty red stain, a man watched his family get destroyed.

  I took a deep breath, and started to read again.

  Natalie is gone. She passed away a few hours after she was bitten. We both knew what was happening to her. She said she felt it changing her. She was in so much pain.

  It’s just me and Damian now. He isn’t speaking to me. I think he blames me for his mom. I know he’s lashing out, but does he realize I lost my wife? My daughter? My best friend?

  I know what I should do, and what I need to do. Every time I look into their faces, I just can’t do it. I see my family, not monsters. So I’m supposed to bash in my daughter’s skull? How the hell can anyone ask a parent to do that?

  I think I’m writing now just to keep myself from losing whatever it is that I have left. They never stop moaning. Except Isabel. I had to gag her as soon as she started screaming.

  That’s not the only thing different with Isabel. Sometime when I was asleep, her eyes changed. They turned black. I’ve never seen anything like it. I swear she can see me in the dark too. Now that I think of it, she didn’t start screaming until her eyes changed.

  Isabel watches me whenever I come into this office to write. She stares at me with those horrible eyes. She’s doing it now. It looks like she’s trying to scream, but I made sure that gag was good and tight. It’s odd. When I put the gag in, she still felt warm, like she still had a fever.

  Natalie’s eyes are white, just like Joey’s. The two of them wander around the old office I barricaded them in. But Isabel just stands in one spot, and the others keep a distance. It’s like they orbit around her. I’ve seen her take a swipe at Natalie when she got within reach.

  Jesus Christ! I’m writing about my family! I just read my notes. I’m analyzing my family! What the hell is wrong with me?

  ******

  Damian! Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you go over there? Why didn’t you just stay away from that room? Mom didn’t mean to bite you!

  You didn’t have to die alone!

  ******

  She keeps staring at me. She can barely see over the plywood, but she’s still staring. The others should have been able to just topple over the barricade, but they won’t get close enough to Isabel to try it. She just stands there, like she’s taunting me.

  Her eyes turned white today. I pulled down some plastic to feel the sun on my face for a few minutes. Her eyes were as white as the others when I checked on her. As soon as I covered the windows again, I watched them turn black.

  She won’t stop staring at me. She took her gag off somehow, but she hasn’t screamed. She’s just staring, like she’s waiting for something.

  I have to do it. I know I do. I have to end this. Today is the day. As soon as I close this book, I’ll give my family peace.

  Those were the last words written in his journal. I closed the notebook, gently setting it down on the floor beside me. I glanced over at the offices, staring at the tiny bloody handprints on the window.

  Greyden’s blood. The blood of a father who’s last moments were spent trying to do what he needed to do for his family. Instead, his family painted the room with him, tearing apart his body and devouring every scrap of meat on his shattered bones.

  “You okay?” Rosa whispered as she sat next to me. She carried the first aid bag she had brought with her from the ambulance, setting it down in front of me. “I saw that you finished reading. I wanted to check on your bandages.”

  “Couldn’t sleep?” I asked.

  “Not with Joe snoring in my ear,” she smiled, taking my hand in hers. Gently, she unwrapped the blood caked bandage from my left hand. “You tore it open again. You have to be careful. The way things are now, an infection can kill you just as fast as those monsters.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “I’ll be more careful.”

  “No you won’t,” she smiled. “But thank you for the lie. Besides, I know you know what can happen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were a paramedic, right?”

  “EMT. How did you know that?”

  “Lexi told me.”

  “And how did she know?”

  “Um, did I get someone in trouble?” Her eyes shot to mine, a shadow of guilt spreading across her face.

  “No, I suppose not. I just don’t talk about those days very much.”

  “Because of that girl?” she asked as she unwound the gauze from my right hand.

  “You know about that too, huh?”

  “I know that’s how you got this scar,” she said, running her finger across the back of my hand. “I know when you’re stressed, you rub the spot raw. Don’t get mad at Lexi, I pressured her to tell me.”

  “I’m not mad,” I said honestly. “It’s just something I try not to think about.”

  “I understand,” she said, turning my right hand over to examine the cut. “Dan, you really tore this one. You need stitches. I have something to numb the area, but not much.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Just sew it up.”

  Rosa dropped her head and sighed. “I hear that stuff all the time. You can be a tough guy, until the needle goes through and you wake everyone up crying like a baby, or you can let me decide what needs to be done medically.”

  I stared at her, looking for any sign that I may get the upper hand in this debate. She crossed her arms and waited for me to make up my mind. I finally relented with a nod, partially because I knew if I didn’t Nurse Ratchet would make sure everything she did hurt just a little bit more. And partially because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that pulling a foreign object through my already tender hand would probably be about as much fun as a water balloon fight using full colostomy bags.

  She dug dee
per into her first aid kid, producing a syringe and small medicine bottle. She plunged the needle through the top, drawing out what I hoped was pain killer.

  “That’s not usually the kind of thing you find in a first aid kit,” I said.

  “I packed this one myself,” she said, tapping the syringe and waiting for the air bubbles to settle. “There were some supplies left in the ambulance narcotics bag.”

  The momentary sting of the needle was quickly replaced with the sweet numbing relief of modern medicine. I tried to push the pain away for so long that I didn’t realize how badly my hands really hurt until the pain subsided. I exhaled deeply, allowing myself to enjoy the short lived relief.

  “Enjoying yourself?” Rosa smiled.

  “Yes, yes I am.” I smiled back. Katie squirmed around in my lap again before settling back down.

  “Sorry,” Rosa whispered.

  “I can bounce golf balls off her head and not wake Katie up,” I said quietly. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Still, I’ll try to make this quick.” Rosa reached into her bag, pulling out a small needle and thread that looked suspiciously like fishing line. She started to clean the mean looking gash on my palm, rubbing the area with isopropyl alcohol before picking up the needle.

  “Did you learn anything from that diary?” she asked as she fed the needle through my skin. The odd sensation of being sewn together started to turn my stomach.

  “Well,” I started, averting my eyes from Rosa’s handiwork. “There were five of them. The dad is in there.” I nodded toward the offices.

  “I see,” she said without looking up. “Who was that downstairs?”

  “Two kids, mom, and a family friend. The dad was the last man standing. He watched his whole family die.”

  Rosa sighed deeply, cutting the line as the last stitch locked into place. The mean looking jagged gash had been sewn together into something that any Frankenstein fan would be proud of. I could tell immediately that I would have an impressive scar to mark the occasion.

  “Your other hand can still be butterflied together,” Rosa said, examining my left hand. She went to work, using the butterfly strips to close the wound before bandaging it back up. She looked up at me, her green eyes sparkling with moisture. “That’s not going to happen to us. We’re going to be okay.”

  “I wish I could be so sure, Rosa. To be honest, I don’t have many happy thoughts about our future.”

  “Well,” she smiled. “We’re okay tonight. Every night we can say that is a win.”

  “We’re in an abandoned building, using a paint can for warmth and sleeping on dusty old floors next to a room that was painted with a man’s insides. If that’s a win then you must have stayed in some really shitty hotels.”

  “Was there anything else in that journal?” she asked. Her smile widened though, so at least she found some humor in my smart-assed comment, even if she was trying to ignore it.

  “Maybe,” I said after some thought. “The little girl had a fever when she changed, and she became a screamer. I’m wondering if there’s a link.”

  “There could be,” Chris said as he sauntered over to us. “How’re the hands?”

  “Rosa told me not to play with them or I could go blind,” I replied.

  “He’ll be okay,” Rosa stifled a laugh. “As long as he takes a few days to heal. No heavy lifting. And no swinging that hammer either.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call it a hammer, but it has been known as–”

  “She means the one on your belt, smart-ass,” Chris interrupted.

  “Spoil sport,” I huffed. “Anyway, you have something to add?”

  “Well, I didn’t think of it much at the time. But Dale’s body was pretty warm. Even after spending time in the slaughter room.”

  “Dale?” I questioned.

  “The guy who gave you a perforated shoulder,” He answered. “Dale Asshole.”

  “S’cuse me?”

  “I asked his name,” Chris shrugged. “Those were his words.”

  “And you call me a smart-ass,” I said. “I read in here that the kid stayed warm even after she changed.”

  “Dale stayed warm for a few days it seemed. I noticed it right after that herd that surrounded my house finally left. He’d turned in the barn where Joe dragged him. He was just a little cooler than a normal person when I hauled his ass into the slaughter room. Definitely warmer than a normal zed. He eventually cooled off, but I always thought he seemed too warm for a dead person stuck outside.”

  “There could be something to that,” Rosa chimed in. “Not everyone got sick at the same time. We were at the end of the major flu outbreak, but there were still people coming into the ER with fevers. Maybe the ones who were most recently infected with the fungus reacted different when their bodies were invaded by that trigger spore.”

  “If the black-eyed screamers are warmer than the rest, is there any way we can use that?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Chris replied a few moments later. “At night, they’re easy to spot. Their eyes are somewhat reflective when you point a light at them. But maybe if we had a FLIR, we could pick them out at a distance.”

  “FLIR?” Rosa asked.

  “Forward looking infrared,” I replied. “Gives a real time image of an object’s heat. It’s what the police use to track someone running away from a helicopter at night. Some rifle scopes have FLIR integrated in. With some of those, we could see them a long way off too.”

  “And if we can shoot them at a distance–” Rosa started.

  “We can knock out the screamers,” I finished her thought. “And if the regular zombies ignore us and attack the fallen screamers–”

  “We’d have one hell of a distraction!” Chris’ eyes suddenly lit up at the idea. “An actual upper hand for a change would be nice.”

  Katie again squirmed in my lap at Chris’ outburst, grunting at the interruption in her sleep. She opened her eyes, giving us all the purest evil eye that only a child can pull off before setting her head back on my chest. Seconds later, she was back into a deep slumber.

  “More than that,” I whispered after I was sure Katie was fully asleep. “Those things look like they’d eat through their own assholes to take a bite out of a dead screamer. I bet if we could collect whatever that goop is in their heads, we could almost use it as a lure.”

  Rosa and Chris silently stared at me, a mix of surprise and disgust painted across their faces.

  “What?”

  “Eat through their own assholes?” Chris replied. “That is a visual I will never get out of my head.”

  “You’re welcome!” I beamed.

  “Okay, I think I’ve heard enough for tonight,” Rosa said as she made her way to her feet. “You think you can do without Dan? He shouldn’t use that hand for a couple days if at all possible.”

  “Yeah, I already thought as much,” Chris said. “Me, Joe, and Matt will take an extra couple hours of watch. But he’ll owe us a full night of sleep or two.”

  “I’ll try to not hurt myself until then,” I said, stifling a yawn.

  “Yeah, right. I’ll be happy if you just get some sleep. Tomorrow we can talk to the rest of the group about your idea of going to the Hill.” Chris stepped away, silently creeping back over to his window. He peeled a small section of plastic away, peering out at the monsters below.

  “Get some rest,” Rosa smiled. “You need to be healthy to look after your little one. She’s a handful.”

  As Rosa walked away, I looked back down at Katie’s sleeping face. I stroked her hair, pulling her close to me. I thought back to the journal, and the man who watched his family succumb to the new world.

  “Katie,” I whispered. “As long as there is life in me, I will protect you.”

  I leaned my head back against the cold bricks, and drifted off into blissful unconsciousness.

  Chapter 16

  Jason leaned against a rock outcropping as he watched the sun slip below the horizon. Glowing embers
floated up from the campfire Murphy was tending. Wood that had dried in the arid desert sun popped and crackled as it was quickly consumed by the building flames. Murphy placed another of the large branches he’d collected atop the fire, the dead wood catching immediately.

  Titan lay at Jason’s feet, his golden fur catching the remaining rays of sunlight. He licked at the oval shaped bite on his hind quarter, the wound already in the early stages of healing. Titan whined, looking over to Jason with sad puppy eyes before he lay his head down on the hard packed ground.

  Jason spent most of the day preoccupied with the men he had left behind. Every time he closed his eyes to try and doze off, Jeffries’ accusing face would appear behind his eyelids. He knew there was nothing he could have done to stop what had happened, but the burden of command was heavy, and he would have to shoulder their deaths until he found his own spot six feet under.

  Murphy had driven the whole day, crossing the California desert and stopping only once at a ransacked gas station. Siphoning fuel and raiding the station turned up a single case of bottled water, a snickers bar, and a full tank with enough fuel to top off two five gallon gas canisters.

  They didn’t stop again until they had pushed through the undead infested town of Blythe and deep into the Arizona desert. As daylight began to wane, Murphy pulled the vehicle off the road and drove into the desert. They shut down, the two men hopping out and stretching the ache from their muscles before setting up camp.

  “What’s for dinner?” Jason asked half-heartedly.

  “Do you really want to know?” Murphy smiled as he set two large rocks on either side of the campfire. He took one of the longer sticks he had gathered, cleaning the bark until it was a nice and smooth skewer.

  “I wouldn’t mind knowing what I am eating,” Jason answered. “You two made enough noise on the other side of this rock killing whatever it is.”