“Me too.” She said. I took her over to the bed and laid her down. “Everything is going to be alright. We’re together.” I kissed her cheek and the salty fluid on them stung my dry lips. “Do you remember when we first met?”
“You brought me flowers.” She nodded.
“I saw you in that store folding clothes and hanging jeans, and you looked so unhappy. I wanted to see the pretty girl smile.”
She closed her eyes and smiled as the memories came flooding back. “You walked right in and gave them to me, and do you remember what you said?”
Of course I remember it, I thought. It was a script I had used on many women before.
“I said, ‘I was trying to think of a way of making you even more beautiful, so I got these flowers. But instead, you’ve just made the flowers look hideous compared to how beautiful you really are.’”
“I was swept off my feet.”
I crawled into the bed with her, and she draped her arm and one leg over me like when we first started being intimate. When we first started dating, we slept wrapped up in each other’s arms. It wasn’t something I liked doing, because I get hot and uncomfortable when there is another human being draped over me, but I allowed it early on in our relationship because I knew it was something that she liked. But as time moved on, I gave myself more and more room on ‘my side’ of the bed. Eventually, we slept with about three feet between us and with no physical contact whatsoever.
And so now we laid there in each other’s arms, and I could feel the heat of her fever against my skin. “I love you Joy.” I said in a very serious tone. “I know you think I was incapable of loving you, but that’s just not true.”
She looked up at me like I was finally opening up. But that’s what she wanted, right? So I continued.
“I was incapable of showing you how much I loved you. I was scared of letting you know how weak I really am inside. It became easier for me to avoid you because I knew I wasn’t giving you what you wanted.”
“All I wanted was you,” she cried.
“I’m here now,” I said. “We’re together again.”
“I love you.” She gently kissed me on my lips and closed her eyes reliving the happiness of our earlier experiences.
“I love you too, Joy,” I said softly. Then, I pulled the trigger of the gun I had pointed at her skull from under the pillow. Her life, her memories, and her pain were now over.
Chapter 23
My ears were ringing from the gunshot, and my hand felt like I had just punched a brick wall. Everything that was my ex wife was scattered across her pillow and stretched across half the room to her closet.
I know that I’m not human. I know I lack the connection that makes an event like this tragic, but…
I wasn’t happy with what I had just done. I had a feeling. Not an emotion, that would be impossible. No, this was more like food poisoning. My stomach ached with a dull pain, and I felt feverish and slightly light headed. I stood up and walked towards the door, leaving the mess I made behind me.
The realization that I had made a mess of Joy’s life dawned on me in a way I hadn’t thought of before. My experiment in human behaviors that I called ‘marriage’ left their scar on her life. For that, I was responsible, but who’s to say the damage I did to her emotionally didn’t make her stronger in the long run? Either way, I’m incapable of feeling remorse for anything that I’ve done, so all that’s left is to keep moving forward.
My stomach was getting worse. It came on so suddenly. I’ve never had appendicitis, could this be it? With no hospitals, a simple thing like an inflamed appendix could be a death sentence. Please, let it just be the shitty MRE meatloaf I ate.
When I opened the bedroom door, fresh air rushed in, and I felt somewhat better just from that. I looked down and saw Rex sitting there with his head down, but his eyes stared up at me. He looked at me with sad eyes, and I never would have thought that a dumb animal could feel anything. I tried to remember, did he actually eat any of the meatloaf too? I took a step out, and then I could feel his small paw reach out and touch the top of my shoe. I stopped to look at the dog, and he continued to look at me with sorrow filled eyes.
Now, I don’t know why I did this, but I bent over and scooped up the small dog and took him with me. Jack and Sara both watched with tears in their eyes as I came down the stairs. The pain in my stomach lightened a little, and I sat down on the couch with Rex who curled up into a tight ball on my lap. He closed his eyes and didn’t move. He didn’t snore like he usually does when he sleeps, he was just laying there.
“Are you okay?” Sara asked me with tears starting to trickle down her face.
“I’m fine,” I said, leaning my head back.
“Jeff…I can’t even imagine…”
“I’m fine, really…I’m just tired.” I looked down and saw that my hand was stroking Rex’s fur. I really must be tired because I wasn’t even aware I was doing it.
“Can you think of any place to go next?” Jack asked.
“Let’s just talk about it in the morning.” As my hand continued to defy my brain and pet the dog, I could feel the pain in my stomach going away.
The meatloaf seems to be settling.
Chapter 24
I awoke at around three a.m. It’s funny that anyone is still keeping track of time anymore. It’s not like there were any pressing engagements or business dinners anymore. I got up and slid out from under Rex. He was now snoring that deep snore that I had gotten kind of used to hearing. My stomach was feeling fine. It must have been the meatloaf.
Definitely the meatloaf…
Normally, I don’t sleep much, so the fact that I fell asleep so early meant that now that I would be up for the rest of the night and day. I wandered into Joy’s kitchen and reflexively opened the refrigerator to see what was in there.
Have you ever been in a huge power outage that lasts for more than a couple days? Let me tell you, opening a refrigerator that has been without power for months was the equivalent of opening up a zombie’s ass hole and having him fart in your mouth. The smell that came out of that thing was enough to get my stomach churning into pre-vomit mode. I slammed the door shut and gasped for any clean air I could find. Once I had control of my regurgitation reflexes, I grabbed my backpack and sat down at the kitchen table. After fumbling around inside of it for a few minutes, I got the tasty treats I was looking for; oh, how I love Skittles.
“You ever hear of vegetables?” Sara asked, entering the room and scaring the bejeezus out of me.
“You mean like old people in wheelchairs?”
“Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about.” She laughed softly. “You know, there are no more dentist’s offices open. If you give yourself a cavity, it’s really gonna suck.”
“I agree. But it would suck a hell of a lot worse to eat a vegetable.”
“Oh! So you DO know what vegetables are.” She sat down next to me, took me by the hand, and then changed her tone completely. “I can only imagine what you are feeling right now…”
“Sara, it’s okay. I’m fine.”
“Well, it’s not every day you shoot someone you once cared about in the head.”
“Actually, in this word we live in now, it’s probably more common than you can imagine.”
“You have a point,” she said. Then we sat quietly for a few minutes before I broke the silence.
“So I have to ask you…” I started. “What was the other night about?” I could tell she knew exactly what I was talking about because her skin turned just a slightly more pink than her usual porcelain white.
“Well, I was scared, and you did something to make me feel safe again.”
“So it was a ‘thank you?’”
“No. Not like that,” she insisted. “I don’t know. Maybe it was me reaching out to another human being to feel some sort of warmth in an otherwise dead world.” I almost corrected her calling me a ‘human being,’ but decided it would be best to just let her continue
. “I like you,” she said blushing even more. “Well, I think I like you. We just met, and who knows how much time any of us have here before…” Her words trailed off, but we both knew the certain end she was referring to.
“I think I like you too,” I said smiling. She inched closer to me. Her head turned ever so slightly, and her eyes slowly began to close.
I know what to do here, I told the monstrous part of my brain that over analyzed every action people make. As her lips approached mine I started to get that comfortable ‘connection’ feeling that I did the night we had sex. A tingle in my gut that I had never felt. Was it nerves?
Our lips were a mere millimeter apart, and then I felt a sharp pain in my left testicle. As my body convulsed in agony, I looked down to see Rex attempting to claw his way onto my lap, and my left ball was the unfortunate first rung of his ascent. My hands moved like lightning to get the dog off of my precious cargo, but Sara was even faster. She had the dog off my delicate dangly bits and safely out of my reach before I could even get close.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah… Just tender.”
“I’ll be gentle.”
“Well…Not that tender…”
We went in for our second attempt at a kiss, and Rex began to make a guttural sound of great displeasure. His low grumble got slightly louder in volume the closer we got. As our lips nearly touched, Rex’s groan got exponentially louder, and when we turned to look, his lips were pulled back into a menacing snarl I never would have thought possible from the tiny pup.
“Take it easy, Rex,” I said in a soft but authoritative tone.
“It’s okay, little guy.” Sara moved away slightly to show the dog she wasn’t trying to hurt me, and when she moved, his gaze didn’t follow her. He was still snarling straight ahead. He wasn’t growling at us; he was growling at the kitchen window. Actually, something on the other side of the kitchen window.
Sara and I both moved back, and the fur on Rex’s spine stood up and made him look porcupine-ish as he inched closer to the window. I reached for my gun, but realized It was in the living room along with anything else that might be of help. All I could think of was a decomposed zombie face pressed up against the window, trying to figure out where the food was. I motioned to Sara to stay quiet in hopes that it would pass. Then, the creature outside did something I’ve never known a zombie to do before; it knocked three times on the glass.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sara and I looked at each other, and then I grabbed Rex and pulled him back to try and quiet him. His small wiry body squirmed in my grip, but I didn’t give him the slightest chance of escaping. I handed the pup off to Sara and began to approach the closed curtain. Apparently, my testicles grew several sizes that day. I was like a perverted version of the Grinch. If you understand that reference, well done. For the rest of you; fuck off.
I approached the curtain cautiously, and reached out for anything that might be a weapon. My hands found something on the counter, and I gripped it by the handle and squeezed with everything I had. It wasn’t until I actually made it to the window that I saw my weapon of choice was a spatula. Unless whatever was knocking on this window was a delicious pancake, I was going to be shit out of luck.
The best defense is fast offense… That’s what I kept telling myself as I reached out for the curtain. If I could catch whatever was knocking on the window off guard, I might be able to gain the upper hand. I pulled back the curtain as fast as I could, and there, pressed up against the glass, was the dirt and sweat covered face of the redneck brigade’s self appointed leader: Axel.
Come to think of it, I don’t know if he was self appointed or not. Lawless inbred bandits might actually have elections to determine who gets to kiss their sister first. I really had no idea. I didn’t have time to actually think of how a hillbilly electoral collage would work before Axel pulled his face into a disgusting sneer.
“Well, hello there…”
Chapter 25
“Nice to see you folks,” Axel said while tapping his pistol against the window.
How did he find us? I thought. How was he able to track us? How could he be here?!
“What do you want?” I asked with my hands up.
Axel looked around the kitchen from the other side of the window. “Well, for starters, I want you to let me and my friends in. We will look around your house, and take anything our little band of survivors needs…” His eyes looked up and down Sara’s body. “…Or wants.” He added.
“Then what?” I asked, waiting for him to mention the pound of flesh he wanted for my creative killing of his inbred brother.
“Once we get what we can use, we will be on our way. We’ll leave you folks alone.”
Well, for starters, that was a lie. I’m pretty sure anyone who would let this group in would wind up dead and raped, and possibly in that order. But the most important tidbit of information I gathered from this exchange was that he had absolutely no idea who we were or what I had done. It was just dumb luck that he found us. Either that or he is making sure to rape and pillage every square section of town, and we were bound to meet up anyway.
“So if we let you in, you will let us live?” I asked in a slightly louder voice so that Jack might actually hear it and get the idea that we needed some help.
“Sure, sure,” Axel oozed. He wasn’t a very convincing liar, and it didn’t take my superior people-reading ability to see he wanted everything from us. His eyes kept darting over to Sara, who he eyed up and down like a delicious honey glazed ham in a butcher shop’s window. Sara was scared and disgusted, and she kept shifting her weight from foot to foot nervously.
“And if we don’t let you in?” I asked.
“Make no mistake, friend…” He said with his filth breath fogging the window. “We are coming in, and we are taking what we want. It can be easy, or we can make it difficult, and believe me…You don’t want difficult.”
At that moment, the kitchen door burst into splinters as Jack kicked it in. I nearly shit my pants.
“Get away from the window!” Jack demanded holding an assault rifle that looked like a toy in his ridiculously oversized arms. Not enough like a toy to fool Axel, however, because he quickly faded away from the window with a grin on his face that looked like something from a horror movie.
“How did he find us?”
“He didn’t,” I said. Then, seeing the look of confusion on Jack’s face made me realize I had to explain it further. “He doesn’t know we are who we are. He thinks we are just some random people who live here.”
“We have to get out of here,” Sara chimed in.
“Ya think?” I asked more sarcastically than I had intended. “Grab only what we need, and we can run out the back.” In an instant, we were in the living room and grabbing our things. Sara was pulling things out of my bag and throwing them onto the floor. Rex barked frantically at her.
“What are you doing?!”
“Just trying to lighten our load.” She said flushed with fear.
“Don’t worry about that, I’ll get it. Grab your stuff and lets go!”
The backyard wasn’t fenced in, and it would only be a matter of seconds before Axel’s crew would try and surround the house. “If we head straight through those yards, there are a few neighborhoods with winding roads and dead ends…”
“Don’t call them dead ends,” Sara pleaded.
“Fine. Cul de sacs. We can lose them in there and try to make it back to the woods.”
Joy’s back door was a heavy wooden door that was actually nicer than the front. There was a small window in the top part of the door that gave us a clear view of our goal. I double checked and didn’t see anyone circling around to our location just yet. This was our only moment. Jack looked at me and I gave him a quick nod to let him know I was ready. He was first out, and I was close behind. We were about ten silent steps away, and I could feel Rex turning and running back to the door that I heard close louder than it should have. I turned t
o see Rex scratching at the door and Sara on the inside looking out. I ran back to see what was wrong, and as I approached the door I could see something in her hand. The small round plastic object that she had taken from my bag.
“What are you doing with the smoke alarm?” I whispered through the glass. She didn’t answer. She slowly moved her thumb over to the test button that sets it off. “Sara…” I said in a voice that hinted at my darkness inside. She was terrified, and I told myself she didn’t know what she was doing. I needed her to be afraid of me, so she would listen. So I instantly dropped the curtain of my human persona to let her glimpse the monster behind the mask. The muscles around my eyes relaxed and the empty void of my inhumanity was able to spill freely out of them. I looked up, so that Sara could see what she truly needed to fear…me.
The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman Page 19