“What’s that?”
“Jean Cocteau. He was a french poet.”
We heard another blood curdling scream in the distance.
“Well, death does more than walk now. It thinks, it runs, and it wants to eat us.”
Chapter 29
We laid there in the freezing meth lab with only a small LED flashlight to keep the dark at bay.
“What happened with Sara?” Jack asked after sitting in silence for a while.
“She fucked us,” I said matter-of-factly. “She fucked us both.”
“There has to be a mistake.”
“Did you hear her when we were running away? She told Axel that we were the ones he was looking for killing his piece of shit brother.”
There was another long period of silence before Jack spoke again. “She was just scared. She didn’t want us to get hurt.”
“You’re probably right,” I lied. “I’m sure she was just scared and didn’t know what she was doing.”
“We should try to find her.”
“I would love to find her,” I said. Then, I replayed my final moments with her. Seeing her darkness staring back at mine. I clenched my fists, angry at myself for not seeing it before. I pride myself on being the best at seeing people for what they really are. How did I not see her?! I’ve run across my kind before, but I’ve always been able to spot them. Some hide better than others, but none were better than me…Until her.
At one time, I had an office job. It was boring, tedious, and every part of it felt pointless. The one benefit of having the job was that it put me in close proximity with dozens of women that I could and did eventually have sex with.
In the office was a small spindly man named Bob, and he was a monster like me. The biggest difference between us was he didn’t have the charm that flowed so freely from me. His looks were unfortunate, by any standards, but he used them along with a timid meekness to fly under the radar. For all intents and purposes, he looked like the physical embodiment of cancer; he was thin, bald, and constructed like the person who made him didn’t have enough clay to make a full person. But where everybody passed him off as that bald quiet guy from accounting, I saw him for the monster that was inside him. He thrived on pity, and his appearance helped him immensely in that department. He was pathetic looking, and he would always tell sad stories around the office about women mistreating him or how he’s gotten used to living alone with his cat.
Yeah…A cat. A cat is the perfect pet for the antisocial. A cat can exist on its own in your house without you ever having to deal with it. Just make sure there is food there and scoop out its litter box once a week, and you have something that helps you look just a little more human. He told people in the office that he trained the cat to use the toilet, and where everyone saw that as a fun trick he taught his cat, I saw the truth that he didn’t want to scoop the shit out of the box. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to scoop shit either. The other dead giveaway for a sociopath, which he was constantly doing, was the pathetic pleading for pity. Talking about being alone, or about a woman he met on e-harmony who never called him back was just an attempt to garner sympathy from people.
When people pity you, they give you things.
I was fairly certain he got a sympathy fuck from one of the office girls. I could tell because one of them started avoiding him after they went out drinking one night. I had fucked that same girl, but I had an occasional ongoing tryst with her. We would meet once or twice a month for a passionate night of sex, but we agreed to keep it “our private secret.” I actually made her think it was her idea to keep it a secret, but the reality was that I was doing the same thing with four other girls from the office.
The point is, I’ve always been able to see them. Sara somehow flew under the my radar. I wanted to find her and let her know that she fucked up in betraying me. More importantly, I don’t want her to think she beat me. My pride wouldn’t allow that. I have to let her know I survived, and that her attempt to have me killed failed.
As I laid there and waited to fall asleep, I kept seeing her face. She was beautiful. Truly beautiful. Her body was exceptional, and the connection I felt with her…
I shook my head to make the memory of what I thought she was leave me. I was pissed, and I didn’t want to forget my anger. As I drifted off to sleep, I replayed every conversation I had with Sara. She may have fooled me once, but I would find the crack in my brain that allowed her to sneak past and seal it shut so no others could do what she did. Her face was the last thing I thought of before the dreamless dark took over.
Chapter 30
I woke up gently. The morning sun found it’s way through small cracks in the roof that Pete really should have fixed if he cared about energy efficiency. I laid there for a few moments, wrapped up in my blanket, watching dust particles float through the sunbeams like tiny rain drops in reduced gravity. It was relaxing, and I found myself entranced by their movement. I watched intently at the slow simple ballet of specks dancing through the thin slip of light. I followed them as they drifted out of the beams and seemed to vanish as others miraculously appeared above it as they entered the sunbeam.
You can’t see dust unless it’s in the sunlight.
It’s almost as if their entire lives are lived in the tiny sliver of gold that they float through. It’s kind of like us… We become visible to the world the instant we are born. Then, we live our lives until we reach the end of our sunbeam where we vanish forever.
Well…That’s how it used to be. Now it would seem that some of us live on well past the sunbeam.
The zombies live beyond the darkness, and soon there will be no more living people to “dance in the sunlight.”
This disgustingly sappy thought was abruptly ended by the sound heavy tires crushing dead leaves in the street below. I jumped up and pushed back the makeshift vent that Pete used to disperse toxic fumes from cooking methamphetamines into the neighborhood air. I didn’t have the best view, but I could see the back of a pick up truck in the driveway. Two doors opened and slammed shut which caused sleeping Jack to bolt upright with his eyes as wide as saucers.
“What…” he started. I held up my hand to silence him, then I turned my ear closer to the opening. I heard two voices as they walked to the front door. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they had the complaining tone of people being asked to do grunt work. I held up two fingers to tell Jack that there were only two of them, and he silently began stuffing our meager possessions into his back pack and threw the gun bag over his shoulder.
The front door shook as the two men tried to enter, and then I could hear one of the men clearly.
“For fuck’s sake! Who locked the goddamn door?” he asked.
“I wasn’t the last one out, but maybe Axel was worried about someone taking the shit!”
“Who’s gonna take it?” the first man asked as he gave the door a solid kick which sounded like it broke the frame. “Fuckin’ zombies?” He kicked the door again and knocked it almost completely off its hinges. Their voices were clearer now, and we could hear them walking over broken debris.
The second man let out a very red-necky sound when he saw the zombie that Jack shot through the top of its head.
“Whooooooo-Weeee! I don’t remember that one in here! I thought we dragged the rest of ‘em out!”
“Well, maybe one found his way back in, genius.”
“Then who the hell shot it?”
There was a moment of silence as the two tried their best to figure out how a shot zombie could have ended up inside. Then, recognition hit them longer than it should have taken, and we could hear the distinct metallic sound of guns being cocked. Jack took a slow step towards me, and the plywood floor of the attic creaked every so slightly under his massive weight. Even though it was a very quiet squeak, we heard it as an elephant fart in a recording studio. Jack froze, and the look of ‘what do I do?’ blossomed across his face. I held up a hand, telling him to stay where he wa
s. I could hear the men searching room to room, and they had made their way up to the second floor. Jack pulled out a sawed off shotgun and pointed it at the attic door; waiting for the first man’s head to pop up like an unfortunate prairie dog. Rex laid down on the floor doing his best job to stay quiet. It’s amazing how fast he learned to keep quiet when danger was close.
He’s a pretty smart little fucker.
Directly below us, I heard the two disgruntled grunts finish their sweep of the place without checking the one place they actually came to retrieve their bounty. One of them spoke; the sound of relief spilled out in his words.
“No one’s here!”
“What do you think happened?”
“Honestly…I don’t give a shit. Axel wants Petes lab, and he doesn’t even have the goddamned decency to send more people to move the shit?!”
“Well…” The other one started. “Let’s just get it done quick so we can get back.”
“It would go a shit load quicker if he would have gotten his lazy ass here to help. Shit, there’s so goddamned many people in that Home Depot, he could have spared at least a few of ‘em to send with us. This is bullshit work!”
“I’m not sayin’ it’s not. I just wanna get it done.”
“I bet we get screwed in the zoo job too!” the angrier of the two complained. “Jason said when he scouted that place, there were two women for every man! Why is it every time we get some good meat to fuck, I’m getting sloppy twenty fourths?!”
The first man laughed. “If Jason was right, you will get your own bitch after this raid.”
“I goddamned better!” he said. “We are risking our lives so that Axel can get revenge on that chick that scratched up his face!”
“That’s not it at all!” the more sensible asshole said. “That zoo is a fortress, and those people don’t know what they have! High walls, only a couple of entrances that are easily guarded… Plus, I’ve always wanted to try lion meat!”
“Idiot!” the first one said snorting. “Them animals is dead already!”
“I hope not! I kinda wanna try gorilla too!”
“When are we supposed to make a move?”
“Axel says Friday. Sometime early.”
“Great…Now he fucks up my sleep schedule too…”
They both laughed as they pulled the string to the attic door. Jack lined up his shot as the ladder unfolded to the lower level. But before either asshole could even attempt to climb up, we heard the scream of one of the fast movers. It wasn’t just close, it was in the hallway with the assholes.
“Oh, shit!” one shouted. Someone fired a gun, and it echoed into the attic loud enough to make my ears ring. Once the dining stopped, I could hear more screaming, and a wet tearing sound coming from the ladder. Jack and I ran to the opening to get a look, and what we saw was horrifying.
One of the men, well, he looked about sixteen, was face up on the floor with a gaping wound on the side of his throat. He wasn’t dead. He was leaking blood at an alarming rate, and his legs were shaking fast and strong enough to make even the worst palsy case look mild. One hand frantically tried to stem the flow of blood from his neck while the other kept grasping at the wall as though there was something there that could help him. His eyes locked onto mine, and I could see fear in them.
I know what you’re thinking. Of course there was fear. A monster just attacked him in the hallway, and he’s dying. That’s not what I mean. This was an internal fear. This kid was afraid of the things he would never get to do now that his life was draining out of him. He was so young, and he would only age another few seconds at best. His brain was coming to terms with this fact, but his eyes never left mine.
The second man was being held against the ladder by the zombie. His head was facing up into the attic, and his screams were coming out in wet bubbles from his throat as the zombie chewed out his Adam’s apple. This man was in his late thirties, mustached, and balding. His pudgy body was evidence that some people were living well during the apocalypse. As he attempted to scream, blood began to fill his mouth and cover his tobacco stained teeth.
“Sweet Jesus…” Jack whispered.
The zombie shot his gaze upward as if he actually heard the quiet whisper that snuck out from Jack’s lips. His putrid cracked lips pulled back in a sneer, and he thrusted his head towards us as he let out a scream that I could feel in my bones. His scream was cut short by Jack’s shotgun blast, and the zombies face vanished like some gruesome magic trick. One instant there was a screaming rotten face, and the very next, there was a neck with a part of a grey tongue flopping around wildly before the body eventually dropped to the floor.
“Nice shot,” I said, slapping Jack on the shoulder and then turning back to grab my belongings. Rex was sitting up next to my backpack with an eager ‘let’s get the fuck out of here’ look.
“Where do we go now?” Jack asked.
“First,” I said slinging my backpack over my shoulder, “I want to go home to grab some stuff.” Rex let out a chirpy bark of approval. “Then…I want to visit the zoo.”
Chapter 31
We left Pete’s place cautiously. These new zombies we started seeing were not only fast and smart, but they were stealthy too. It really seems unfair. Its like when you see a guy that’s ruggedly good-looking, well built, and rich. It’s not fair. Nobody needs all three to get laid. It’s simply overkill. That was always my problem with Bret Favre. The guy was one of the best quarterbacks of his day, which made him extremely talented in addition to being rich, well built, and good-looking. I was never even a fan of the Green Bay Packers, but I have to admit, every time I saw an interview with him on ESPN, I wanted to punch the flickering image on the screen because it made me realize how unfair life is.
Anyway…
I looked across the street at the house that I lived in for so long, and it looked nothing like the home that I remember. The vinyl siding along the front had melted under the heat of the burning zombies that pressed themselves into it. Luckily for the house, it only looked like they burned through the first half of it. We entered through an opening of the house that didn’t exist before. The way the vinyl melted around the new opening made it resemble the entrance to a carnival fun house. Jack turned every corner gun first, ready to blow a hole in anything that might want to eat us. I walked casually with Rex from room to room to survey the damage. I figured Rex would smell trouble if there was any. I walked into my living room and sat on the couch, staring at the TV I loved so much. It was an eighty inch Sharp Aquos Quattron. EIGHTY diagonal inches of 1080p two hundred and forty hertz glory. It cost me six grand, and I bought it after my divorce. I got it as a reward for living through the failed social experiment that I called a marriage.
Joy used to yell at me for watching so much TV, but the truth was she was just boring to me. I used to be fascinated by her outbursts and rage. The simple things I could do would cause such a captivatingly lopsided response. But after years of watching her condition deteriorate, I got bored. By the end, I would rather watch cartoons or the History Channel than hear her bitch about other women that she worked with.
It’s funny how I was just sitting there on the couch, staring at a blank screen, and somehow the controller was in my hand. Like I went into auto pilot after a long, hard day at work. Rex wasted no time either. He curled up on the seat next to me and closed his eyes. Maybe he was trying to pretend it was a better time. Maybe that’s what I was doing, too. After a few moments, Jack came walking into the room. “It’s all clear.”
“Good.” I said. “Want a beer?”
His eyes lit up as though I asked him if he wanted to have a threesome with Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson. I went to the fridge and opened it, then immediately wished I hadn’t. It was that damn “dead fridge” smell again. The smell made me wish there was a zombie close by to sniff and get this rancid air out of my nostrils. I quickly grabbed a bottle of beer for Jack, and an unopened two liter of Coke for myself. Now, you may reme
mber me telling you that I don’t drink, and that’s still one hundred percent true. I do however keep beer in my fridge for when I have women over who actually like the disgusting smelling drink. I also have a wide variety of flavored vodkas in my freezer. Most of the women I would bring home really liked the whipped cream flavored vodka mixed with Sprite. I’m not sure what it was about that drink in particular, but I made it a point to keep it well stocked.
I handed Jack the beer, and he popped the top and took a long steady pull off of it, then swallowed hard with a grimace. “Ug!” he said. “Nothing like warm beer.”
I twisted off the cap to my two liter to hear the satisfying hiss of carbonation escaping. I chugged as much as I could before the burning in my throat told me to take a break. The fact is, I loved warm soda just as much as I loved cold soda. Temperature didn’t matter to me; it was just another way of getting sweet, sweet sugar into my system.
The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman Page 22