The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman

by Feren, Todd C.

  When I looked through the glass, what I saw, instead of a frightened beautiful girl scared by the monster before her, was a reflection of a darkness exactly like mine glaring back at me through her eyes.

  She was just like me.

  She was good. Her disguise was perfect. The inhuman Sara looked back at me through the glass, and her inhumanity poured out. Our two demons silently roared at each other through the glass as we stared with dead soulless eyes into each other’s emptiness. She took a step back away from the door. At first, I thought it was because she saw what I was and for the first time, felt fear. But no. She stepped back to give herself room. She jammed the test button down into the shell like she saw me do at Home Depot. The squeal of the alarm hurt my ears, but I didn’t flinch. I didn’t even blink as she threw it through the window and into the back yard beside me. I looked at her once more to let the image of her betrayal burn into my brain before I turned to leave. I picked up Rex, who seemed frozen by the display he just bore witness to, and started to run. Jack stood there with a perplexed look on his face. “Just run,” I said as I passed him. We were about to exit the neighbors yard when I heard Sara’s voice call out.

  “THE MAN WHO KILLED YOUR BROTHER IS RUNNING THAT WAY!”

  I looked over my shoulder and was able to see her disappear from the window, presumably to make an alternate escape. Her plan was pretty great, actually. We made for an excellent distraction. Bloodthirsty Axel would go after me, giving Sara some running room to make an escape. And I really hoped she got away. If I survived the night, I wanted to get some amount of revenge on her.

  Jack moved amazingly fast for a man of his size. The first privacy fence we got to looked like it was going to be a bit of a chore to go over. Jack lowered his head and struck the fence hard enough to flatten an entire section of it. Rex peered over my shoulder and barked right in my ear. I chanced a glance and could see several figures chasing after us on foot. We made it to the first neighborhood that I thought would be a good chance to lose our pursuers, and immediately lost my sense of direction. Jack kept barreling forward like a bull on the loose. I don’t know where he found the machete, but I would occasionally find a zombie with a chunk of head neatly sliced off in the wake of the big guy. Not only was he moving fast, but he had silently taken down about half a dozen zombies.

  The squealing of tires through the streets around us was enough to let me know there were at least six vehicles searching for us as well as the ones on foot.

  How big was Axel’s group?

  If it wasn’t for the trail of broken fences and smashed zombie skulls, I would never have been able to follow Jack. But, if I could follow him, so could the people chasing us. I could hear gunshots in the distance, and I would occasionally see a patch of dirt fly up in front of me. They were shooting at me! Fuck! My only experience with being shot at in the past involved holding an Xbox controller in my hands. Each time I would hear the loud pop behind me, I would tense with the anticipation of pain. Lucky for me, they were shooting while running, and their aim was for shit. There was still a chance that they would get a lucky one off, so I kept my head low.

  Rex was bouncing up and down in my arms. Why I didn’t throw the fucker in some bushes somewhere was beyond me. The thought just never crossed my mind.

  As I came through a Jack-sized hole in an old wooden fence, I felt a massive hand on my arm that stopped me in my tracks and yanked me to the ground. I looked up to see Jack holding a baseball bat and hiding next to the opening he made. It took one quick look around the yard to see all the toys strewn about to figure out where he found that bat. It was a nice aluminum bat, and it was smaller than regulation, but it looked strong enough.

  “Grab your gun!” He whispered loudly. I reached into my backpack and hoped that Sara didn’t take that as well!

  Fuck, it’s gone!

  I was really hoping I would see that bitch again! As angry as I was in that moment, I still got a flutter in the back of my brain as I thought about her perfect white skin and enticing eyes… It didn’t matter. I would kill her anyway. I dove for the gun bag at Jack’s feet and began digging through it for something I might even remotely know how to use. I pulled out a gun that looked like something Dirty Harry would have used. It was a silver handgun with a long barrel and a black handle. It looked simple enough to use, so I grabbed it, pulled back the hammer, and waited.

  The pursuers were getting closer, and I could hear their heavy footsteps clomping towards us as fast as they could run. Jack waited patiently in his hiding spot and silently tightened his grip on the bat.

  The first redneck came through the gate, and Jack swung for the fences. The aluminum bat caught him across the bridge of his nose with a disgusting “Ting” sound. His death was so quick and sudden that if there really was a hell, this poor bastard would go on for eternity with no idea how he got there.

  The second man slowed when he saw the top of his friends skull pop straight up in the air like a toaster strudel. I pulled the trigger on what I thought was just a hand gun and disintegrated the face and head of the second redneck through the fence. The kick from the gun was a lot more than I had expected. The gun kicked back so hard that my hands flew back into my face and smashed into my nose with enough force to knock me onto my ass. Blood poured freely from my nose, and my head was spinning. Two more men came running in, and unsure of where the threat was, began firing their guns in every direction. This worked in our favor. Jack swung his bat again; this time, he struck the barrel of the gun in the first man’s hand, shattering his fingers. As Jack pounced on his newest target, I stood up and saw two men running right towards me. In reality, it was only one man, but the damn double vision from my recent head trauma made me really uncertain of which one was really coming for me.

  I fired the gun one more time and braced myself for the hard recoil. The gun fired, but I wasn’t even close to hitting the mark. The redneck dove through the air and tackled me into the ground. We rolled around, and between that and my throbbing head, I was completely disoriented. I would occasionally feel pain other than where I had smashed in my own face, and I assumed I wasn’t doing too well in this scuffle. The throbbing and spinning in my head ceased just enough, so that I could see this asshole pull out a knife that was roughly the size of my forearm. His mouth moved, and he smiled slightly. I couldn’t hear a thing because my ears were still ringing, but I’m assuming he said something he thought was clever. All I could think was, Now I’m going to die by the hand of someone who probably owns a VHS copy of every episode of Hee-Haw.

  A fuzzy tan and white blur passed by my eyes and used my chest as a spring board where it clamped onto the bicep of my would be killer. Rex hung there off of the rednecks arm and I could see an impressive amount of blood coming from the wound. How the hell does that small dog cause so much damage? He dropped his knife, and it fell dangerously close to my head before it struck several inches deep into the ground. At that point, the piece of shit grabbed Rex by his throat and flung him carelessly off to the side. I heard a small ‘yelp’ as he struck the ground hard and at a bad angle. By the time the mouth breather turned back to me, I buried the knife hilt deep into his gut. Hie eyes and mouth opened fully to show me his “pure shock” look. His hands reached out and he tried clawing at my face, but a few hard twists of the knife, and he stopped moving completely. He didn’t even scream. He just looked at me in disbelief. I got a knee up to his chest, and pushed him off of me, but I stayed with him as he fell onto his back. My grip on the knife was tight, and I made sure our eyes were locked into each others. This was a different kind of kill. Axel’s brother, Jackson was technically killed by zombies. Sure, I strapped him to a lawnmower and sent him out there, but I didn’t physically end his life. The guy I had just shot in the face never saw me, and I never actually saw his face. He could have been a crazed mannequin running through for all I know. But this guy… I was in his face. I could feel his final breaths on my skin. I could feel his life’s blood pumping
out over my hands and making the handle of the knife slick.

  This was a killing.

  I looked into his eyes, and I saw fear mixed with uncertainty. The fear wasn’t meant for me; I was simply delivering it. The end of his life was at hand, and he would never see anyone he loved ever again. Hell, he would never see anything ever again. Every choice he made in his life led him to this very conclusion, and now he was replaying every one of them to try and see where he went wrong. I pushed the knife upwards to cut further into him, and he didn’t even flinch. He was in shock now. His mouth would occasionally move like he was trying to say something, but it was inconsequential. I didn’t care what he had to say. I wouldn’t be sharing his parting words to anyone. He died tonight because he tried to hurt me. His pupils dilated as his final breath escaped its disgusting domicile. I continued to look into his dead eyes for a few long seconds. I kept imagining that something else was going to happen. I wasn’t expecting to see a soul or a ghost with tiny angel wings flapping up into the air, but the thought struck me…When we die, it’s of little consequence to the rest of the world.

  Then I felt a small paw scratching on my leg. I turned to see Rex sitting by my side with one paw up on my calf. He had a small amount of sadness in his eyes as he looked up at me, and for a moment, everything around him seemed to go out of focus and desaturate. The only thing I could see clearly was the dog and that damn sad look on his face. I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt pretty sick. My stomach was roiling. I stood up, and the world swayed ever so slightly. Rex stood up and never took his eyes off of me. As we walked towards Jack, I noticed that the dog had a pronounced limp. More than likely, he got hurt when the now dead asshole threw him. We made our way to Jack who was just finishing up with another attacker. I couldn’t tell if this one was a zombie or a redneck. It was hard to tell after ten to fifteen swings from that bat. Jack seemed uninjured, but the aluminum bat had definitely seen better days. Jack looked around for any additional threats, and once he concluded that we were temporarily in the clear, he gave me a nod.

  The woods were within view, and we only had one more street to cross before it would be much harder to find us. I scooped up the dog, and we started heading in that direction. When I looked down to check on Rex, his eyes were still locked onto mine. This was the second time he jumped headlong into danger to save me.

  Once we got to safely, I would give him all the Jujyfruits he could eat. We started to jog across the street, and behind me, I could hear Jack telling me I should have used a gun with less of a kick to it. I was going to turn around and say something sarcastic and witty, but I was more distracted by the look Rex was giving me. Why did he look so sad? Was he disappointed that I killed the man who was trying to kill me? Was he finally seeing the monster that I’ve been trying to prove to him I am?

  Rex’s features brightened as a truck with high beams sped around the corner towards us.

  “Shit!” Jack blurted out as he pulled out a gun and began firing directly into the windshield of the pick up. I doubled my pace and made it across the street. As I was just making it to the edge of the woods, I felt a punch in my left shoulder. My arms extended, and Rex dropped to the ground. I turned to face my attacker, and when I turned, I saw Jack about fifteen yards away running towards me, but nobody else was close by. Who the fuck punched me? I thought. Then the throbbing from the punch began to burn. Really burn. The pain was intense, and when I reached back reflexively to stop the pain, my hand was suddenly warm and wet with blood. As I held my bloody fingers to my face, my vision began to tunnel.

  “What?” was all I was able to make out before my knees turned to jello.

  “Jeff! Jeffrey!” Jack was calling my name as he got closer and closer, but his voice seemed to be getting further and further away. Rex barked, and I looked down to see his sad eyes still looking up at me. My vision was rapidly fading, and the world around me began to flicker like a lamp with bad wiring.

  “Rex…” unintentionally came out of my mouth, and the dog was the last thing my eyes focused on before the empty darkness swallowed me up along with the feeling of eternally falling.

  So this is what it feels like to die.

  Chapter 26

  My world was darkness. Unlike in a dream, I was aware of this darkness. Like floating in space between galaxies, I was adrift in a black vacuum where light and sound were completely absent. Was this all that there was after death? Was this limbo? Would I float like this for all eternity?

  I wish I had a board game.

  I tried screaming to see if sound could even exist in this dimension, and the sound that came from my throat was not my own. It sounded more like the croaking moans of the monsters that had become the dominant hunters on the planet I used to live on. I wondered briefly what had happened to me. All I could remember was burning pain followed by more blood than I thought could have been possible for me to produce. Then, I wondered what happened to the dog. Without me, how long could he survive? Who would be there to give him Red Hots and Jujyfruits?

  That’s funny… That I would even have a thought about something that wasn’t me.

  As I drifted through space, I began to feel a sharp pain in my shoulder. I reached to touch it, and then a fire ripped through my body.

  My physical eyes suddenly opened, and I was no longer in my void. I could see the ground passing quickly under me. I was looking down, and there were legs and feet moving fast. They were’t mine. Was I being carried?

  The world slowly drifted away again, and I was placed back into my dark void. The pain in my shoulder dulled, and I floated along in blissful blackness. I always liked being alone, and here, there was nobody to bother me. There were no shitty coworkers shoving pictures of their ugly children in my face. No assholes blocking the intersection when I simply wanted to make a left turn.

  Yeah…I could get used to this. I thought.

  Then, the pain in my shoulder returned, and my face felt numb. My physical eyes opened again, and I was face down on the ground with my cheek wet from the filthy pile of leaves I had been dropped in. I could hear barking, but my eyes were having trouble focusing on any one thing. There were just moving blobs of color everywhere.

  Was I still alive? What the hell was going on around me?

  My eyes finally focused, and I could see Jack standing about five yards away from me. His back was to me, but I could that he was brandishing a pretty big tree branch as a weapon. Jack himself was so enormous that what looked like a tree branch could have actually been an entire tree that he had simply plucked from the ground. As my vision continued to improve, I could see about a dozen or so zombies making their way towards us. The first one lunged, and Jack smashed its skull in with a single blow. I couldn’t see all of the zombies approaching, but it sounded like they were all around us. I couldn’t move my head, so this was the only angle I had of what would be our last stand. Rex popped into view and acknowledged that my eyes were open before spinning around and striking a defensive posture. A streak of hair raised up on its end from the back of his neck all the way down to his thin white tail.

  Right, I thought. Once they chew their way through Paul Bunyan over there, I’m sure this ten pound scrap of dog will be able to finish off the small seemingly unstoppable horde of zombies.

  Vomit filled my mouth and flowed out freely without any help from me. At least if I would have been able to heave, it would have gone further away from me. Now it just simply pooled in front of my mouth and slowly drifted back down to my face. The warmth was refreshing, but the fact that it was vomit made me want to throw up again.

  Jack swung at another zombie, and his branch snapped in half. I could see two zombies grab his arms, and they stumbled back onto the ground.

  This is it. I thought. This is the end.

  As I pondered what death would feel like, I fell back into my dark limbo, leaving the pain of the real world far behind.

  Well, at least I don’t have to be awake for the inevitable meal I’d so
on become. I was thankful for that.

  I hope I taste like shit!

  Of all the ways to finally die, being eaten alive by monsters was not high on my list. I floated back into my vacuum for what felt like forever. Surely they had to have gotten tired of eating Jack by now. Maybe Rex was giving them more of a challenge than I thought.

  I looked down at my hands, and they slowly began to fade away.