The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman

by Feren, Todd C.

  I really didn’t want to leave my house, but fuck it. I’m sure I’ll find some other place to call home. I snuck back to the back door and to where I left my bag only to find Rex sitting next to it with one paw resting on the top.

  “What the fuck?” I whispered. As I went to pick it up, Rex excitedly jumped up and down, but he always landed with one paw on the bag. I quickly grabbed the bag by one of the shoulder straps, and Rex chomped down on the other. I tried to heft the bag, but the dog dug his feet in and pulled with everything he had. “Stop that.” I said as quietly as possible. “Let it go.” This went on for a few moments before I heard someone approaching from the hall. I let go of the bag, and Rex was pulling so hard that when I did, he pulled the whole thing directly on top of him. The bag was twice the size of the small dog, and all I could see was a wagging tail sticking out from under the packed full backpack.

  I turned just in time to see Sara enter the kitchen. Her eyes were full of terror, and she spoke softly.

  “One of them is in the front yard,” she said. Her perfect pale skin looked even paler. “Jack wants you to help him.”

  Great. I thought as I nodded and started making my way towards the front door. I turned back and gave a parting glance to Rex, who had worked his way out from under the bag. If it wasn’t for that fucking dog, I would be gone right now instead of getting ready to face some crazed Cletus. As I approached the door, I could see Jack hunched over so he could peer through the peep hole. He could sense my presence, so he held up a his hand behind him in a ‘Stay right there’ gesture. I could think of a gesture I wanted to give in return.

  “This idiot is actually knocking on doors,” Jack said in a hushed voice.

  “Great,” I said. “When he knocks, just say ‘nobodies home.’”

  “Get ready,” Jack said tensing up.

  “Get ready for what?” I asked. But, before he could answer, he ripped the door open so hard that the rush of air made my ears pop. In the doorway was a slack jawed bumpkin with one hand up in a pre knock position. He looked just as shocked to see the absolute giant that is ‘Jack-off-men’ as I was that Jack actually opened the door.

  “What the…” Tthe yokel started. Before another word could come out of his mouth, Jack grabbed the man’s upraised arm and yanked him inside. He flung the redneck at me with such force that we both slammed into the wall. Luckily, the shock of being literally yanked off of his feet made him drop the gun. The adrenaline in my body made me recover quicker than this good ol’ boy.

  “Grab him,” Jack said turning towards us. I grabbed the squirming man and held him as tight as I could. When I looked up, I saw the large ham sized fist of Jack connecting with Billy-Bob’s chin.

  Let me tell you how chain reactions work. If you punch something using the force of a high speed train, you have to expect that that something is going to suddenly rock back with the same force. Well, behind the bobble head of this piece of shit was my glorious visage.

  This asshole’s mullet hit my face so hard I could instantly smell the metallic copper laced blood inside of my nostrils breaking free. We both flew back into the wall where the dead weight of the unconscious rube brought us both down to the floor. Jack immediately spun back around and looked through the peephole to see if the others wandering around neighborhood noticed the commotion.

  “I don’t think anyone heard…” he said.

  “Oh, thank God,” Sara sighed.

  “Yeah, I’m fine…Thanks,” I said as I pulled myself out from under the sleeping pile of shit. Jack turned around and saw the bright crimson that was leaking from my nose.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No, no. I should have been wearing a helmet. Don’t blame yourself…”

  “What do we do with him?” Sara asked while pointing at the snoring scoundrel. I think Rex had the best idea; as he came running over instantly and lifted his leg to release a steady trickle of puppy urine of the man’s sleeping face.

  “Now, THAT’S a good boy.” I beamed.

  Chapter 14

  I hate wasting duct tape. Duct tape is the single most valuable tool I own. As I watched Jack make circle after circle of tape to bind our new captive to one of my dining room chairs, I cringed at the thought of the layers of skin and hair that would be removed if we ever decided to take this tape off. I bent over and took off my shoes and socks, and then balled up one sock and stuffed it into sleeping beauty’s mouth. Jack circled over about four too many times to keep my filthy sock in its new home.

  Yes, I sacrificed one of my beloved socks. But to be honest, I had already washed that pair twice, so I was done with them.

  Our hostage was starting to stir, and as his eyes opened, I could see confusion turn to realization. He started to struggle until Jack pressed what looked like a sawed off shotgun with a regular gun handle directly into the man’s forehead. I could smell the urine before I could actually see it soak through his dingy blue jeans. He was terrified, and it actually pleased me to see this reaction from him.

  “Are you gonna scream if I take that gag out?” Jack asked, pressing the gun harder against the man’s brain housing. The man shook his head violently, and Jack nodded to me to rip the tape off. I made a small cut in the side of the tape, and ripped it off as fast as I could. I half expected to see bone, but the tape left only a red mark where it was just adhered. I know it was painful. He took a sharp deep breath to let out a scream of anguish, but Jack’s finger tightening on the trigger was more motivation to simply take the pain.

  “What do you want?” Jack asked.

  “Nothin’, sir,” the man lied. “We were just passing through, looking for other survivors. We have a camp with people and doctors. We were just looking to help people.”

  I laughed slightly because this man was the absolute worst liar I have ever seen. His eyes darted towards me as I laughed.

  “I’m telling the truth, mister!” He pleaded with even worse acting than before.

  “Really?” I questioned. “Did you find any other women while you were looking for Axel’s guns? You know he hates sharing.” I used as much information as I possibly could from the little I knew about the group.

  His expression changed from the fake pleading look as he realized we knew more than he had originally thought. “If you know who Axel is, then you know you better cut me loose right now.”

  “And why is that?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me. He turned his gaze to Sara, and his eyes shimmered. “Well, look at you…Fine as fuck!” He licked his lips. “The boys are gonna come crashing through that door any minute to find me. I hope to GOD they don’t accidentally shoot you before I have a go.”

  Sara didn’t react the way I had thought she would. I would have assumed that she would get teary eyed and hide behind Jack. Maybe she would even pass out at the thought of this trash mounting her. Instead, she took one step forward and jumped through the air bringing her foot down hard on the crotch of the revolting ravisher. His mouth opened to scream, but all that came out was a squeal so high pitched that I was sure Rex was the only one who could hear it. Then, from outside, we heard a scream.

  “Jackson!” a voice called out. “JACKSON!” it repeated even louder. I stuffed the dirty sock back into the man’s much dirtier mouth and reapplied the duct tape. Sara was peeking out the window while Jack went back to the peephole. By the time I made it to the window, Sara moved just enough to allow me to see outside. Axel was out there, standing in the center of the street with his filthy jeans and matching jean jacket emblazoned with the rebel flag on the back. He was one of the biggest stereotypes I have ever seen. He called out again. “Jackson!!”

  “I’m assuming that’s you, Jackson?” I said to the bound and gagged man in my front room. He didn’t respond. I’m sure he was still swimming in testicular pain from Sara’s punishing jump stomp.

  Outside, several of the other men came rallying to Axel. We could hear them trying to console their leader.

  �
�It’s okay, Axel,” one said. “We’ll find him.”

  “What fucking house was he checking out?!” Axel screamed.

  “We don’t rightly know,” another man answered. “We all just sorta split up.”

  “Didn’t hear him scream,” a filthy bearded man said. “If he saw a zombie, he would have screamed.”

  Axel fired his gun straight up into the air and screamed. “He’s my baby brother!! We are going to find him!”

  Baby brother. Good to know.

  “YOU FUCKERS HEAR ME?!” He screamed spinning around to all directions.

  “Axel, zombies are coming!” One of the men warned.

  “I don’t give two shits!” he screamed and fired his gun off again. “I WANT them to come!!” He turned back to all of the houses again. “Someone took my baby brother!” he said, showing that he could put two and two together. “YOU HEAR ME?! If I don’t get my baby brother back, I will make sure EVERY MOTHER FUCK’N ZOMBIE IN TOWN KNOWS WE’RE ALL HERE!!! Then I will PERSONALLY kick open every FUCKIN’ door on this street and watch as they PICK YOU APART!!” Dozens of zombies began to turn the corners into the neighborhood. One of Axel’s men fired a shot and brought down a reanimated old woman who was all dressed up for church.

  “There’s too many comin’, Axe!” a terrified redneck said, making his way towards Pete’s house. “We gotta get inside! We’ll find ‘em, Axe! But for right now, there’s too fuckin’ many!”

  Axel bowed his head, and then looked up with a fire in his eyes. “YOU’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!”

  Then, he ran inside Pete’s and slammed the door. I turned to Jackson who began to smile under his gag.

  “Your brother seems nice,” I said. “Do you have a sister?”

  Chapter 15

  That night, we decided it would be best to take turns keeping watch. Jack took first watch of Jackson while I watched the street from the upstairs window. We held these posts for four hours before switching. In another four hours, Sara would wake up and take watch at the window. Jack didn’t want her to have to sit alone with the would be rapist.

  My shift at the window was pretty uneventful. All I saw were dozens of zombies milling about looking for food. I made a little game for myself. I separated the zombies by the colors they were wearing like I would If I was going to do the laundry. Darks and lights. I set up two goals like when I would play football with other children on the street. Mr. Gunderson’s lawn was one goal, and my lawn was the other. Every time a zombie wearing a dark colored shirt wandered into my lawn, it was two points. Light colored shirts in Mr. Gunderson’s lawn were two points for that team. If a light shirt wandered into MY lawn, it would take a point away from the colored shirt team. And the same applies for a dark colored shirt going into the light colored goal. The shambling ghouls without shirts were the wild card players. Real game changers. If a shirtless zombie made his way into your goal, it was negative five points for your team. The game itself was pretty exciting. By the time I had to switch shifts with Jack, the score was Darks one hundred fifteen to Lights one hundred and twenty-five. It was a real nail biter.

  When I got downstairs to Jackson, I didn’t watch him so much as I studied him. What must be going through his mind right now? Then, I saw him start to smile. That was confusing to me. Here he was bound and gagged in my living room. I honestly didn’t really see any way his story could end pleasantly, yet he seemed happy as a clam. So I pulled the gag out of his mouth to find out why he was so chipper.

  “What are you smiling about?” I asked him.

  “Nothing,” he said wryly.

  “Look, I took out your gag. You can either talk to me or enjoy my foot sweat for the next few hours.”

  “Fine.” He took a moment to slowly look at me. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, let’s pretend we had a time machine, and we could go back thirty seconds to when I asked you, ‘What are you smiling about?’”

  “You…All of you.”

  “What makes you smile thinking about all of us.” I asked.

  “That you’re all gonna die, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He started to chuckle.

  “What makes you so sure that we are going to die? I mean, everybody dies…That’s nature, right? So why are you so sure that we are going to die so soon.”

  “My brother won’t quit till he finds me.” Jackson said. “He’s gonna do what he said. He’s gonna kick down every door and kill everyone he finds until he finds me.”

  “And what if we returned you unharmed?” I asked.

  “Don’t matter,” he said with his shit eating grin. “You’re still gonna die, and we’re gonna take turns on that pretty little thing you got up there.”

  “Jack?” I asked. “You want to have sex with that big guy? You better hope his dick isn’t proportionate with the rest of his body because that would be like shoving a rolling pin up your ass.”

  “Not him! I ain’t no faggot! I’m talking about your lady friend.”

  “I knew that. And see? That’s where you really fucked up. Why not lie and say, ‘If’n you let me go, we’ll leave town all peaceful like?’” I said in my best hillbilly accent. “Of course I would know it’s a lie, but at least you would be trying. But, we made this bed together, so it’s best that you did make that threat.”

  “Why?” He asked.

  “Well…” I said as I shoved the sock back into his mouth and reapplied the duct tape. “Because survival is in my nature, and you just told me that even if I let you live, you would try to kill me…Pretty stupid for you to say that.” I went behind the chair and leaned it back on its hind legs. Jackson’s neck tensed with uncertainty as I slowly dragged the chair into my garage and closed the door.

  Since there was no power anywhere, I used my flashlight to show him my face. He looked terrified.

  “You look scared, Jackson. Don’t be. Just relax and know that nothing is any longer in your control. You are going to die, and, I’m not going to lie…it’s probably going to be pretty awful. I just don’t want you to worry about it because it is going to happen, and nothing you do can stop it.” I began walking in circles around him.

  “You see, Jackson. Those people in there? I don’t really care about them. I just met them actually. If you were to come in town and gun them both down, I wouldn’t have given half a shit. Less than that actually. But…You came to my door. Then you threatened me…What am I supposed to do, Jackson? Let you go?” He nodded his head vigorously. “Noooo…” I whispered to him. “You already told me that if I let you go, you would kill me… Let me tell you something about me, Jackson. I’ve never killed anybody. I’m assuming you have… See, I watch people. I see the way they act and react to things. I can almost always tell what someone is going to do before they do it. I’m THAT good at reading people. When you and your friends killed that lady in the streets yesterday…” I stopped and looked directly at him with my hands in the air. “Again, I’m not judging you. I didn’t know her. You knew her. I’m assuming you knew her pretty well. Did you rape that girl?” He didn’t answer, so I assured him again. “Jackson, I know you did, and I’m not judging you for that. The fact is, most humans have something called ‘guilt.’ It comes from something called a ‘conscience.’ Have you heard of those words before?” He nodded. “You laughed when that woman was shot. I know, because I saw it… Now here’s the thing, Jackson. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It’s something I’ve never told another person… I don’t have a conscience either. Not an ounce. So watching you gun down that innocent woman had as much of an effect on me as if I saw it in a movie. It doesn’t affect me one…single… bit. But watching you and your friends laugh… That shows me something special. I’ve lived my life knowing that I was a monster. But I’m kind of like the Grinch. You know who the Grinch is, right?” He nodded slowly. “The Grinch lives alone on Mount Crumpit. He just doesn’t want to be disturbed. But, what did the people of Whoville do? They kept singing and spreading their Christmas
cheer, and he couldn’t escape it. He would open his door, and he just kept hearing…

  ‘Fah who for-aze!

  Dah who dor-aze!

  Welcome Christmas,

  Come this way!’

  Now, the Grinch didn’t want to attack the people of Whoville. He was content sitting in his home on Mount Crumpit. But then he’d open the door, or open the window, ‘Fah who For-aze!’…He couldn’t escape it. So…The grinch did what monsters do. He got rid of the problem. Of course in the story, he learns a valuable lesson, and his heart grows three sizes in a single day. But that’s the bullshit moral of the story. I don’t believe in morality. And guess what? …This is Mount Crumpit…I’m the Grinch, and you are singing a song I never wanted to hear.”

  Jackson started to struggle and panic, so I took his gag off. He didn’t scream, but he did start to sing a different tune. “Please. Just let me go, and I’ll convince my brother to just leave. We won’t mess with you guys, I swear.” I laughed and re-gagged him.