The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman

by Feren, Todd C.

  “So, you want to go to the zoo?” Jack asked casually while taking another swig of beer.

  “Yep.”

  “I think you’re right. We have to warn those people that Axel is going to attack them.”

  “Yep,” I lied. The truth was, I had other reasons for wanting to check out the zoo.

  “How are we gonna get there? Your car looks like it’s in about the same shape as the front of your house.”

  I pulled keys out of my pocket and tossed them to Jack. “I took these from the guys across the street. They don’t need ‘em anymore.” Jack sat on the couch and finished his beer while I walked into the kitchen. I stepped over some burned zombie remains and pushed others out of my way to get to my pantry. I opened it and smiled as I could see my wall of candy was still relatively intact. I grabbed boxes and boxes of Jujyfruits, Hot Tamales, and Red Hots and stuffed them in my bag. Rex bounded towards me the second he heard the rattle of candy in a box. I ripped the top off of the Hot Tamales and poured a handful into my mouth before tossing a few into the air, which Rex gleefully caught. He chomped twice, swallowed, and then jumped up and down for a few more. I gave him a few, and then I shoved a handful of Hot Tamales into my pocket for quick and easy access for myself. Then, I went back into my bedroom to grab a few things.

  My bed was unmade, and the last time I actually laid on it, Sara came in and… What did she do? She manipulated me. She got me to lower my guard, so I wouldn’t see what she was. I remembered the way we touched that night and found myself getting angry with how easily I was duped.

  Was this how normal people felt when I got what I wanted from them?

  Then, I remembered the look on her face when she pushed the button on that smoke detector. The emptiness in her eyes that mirrored my own. The way she was just going to let me die… Suddenly, my skin got hot, and a white flash burned through my brain.

  Oh, I WILL find her, I thought. I will find her, and she will know she didn’t beat me. She didn’t win the coveted “monster of the year” award.

  I grabbed some long sleeve shirts and a few light jackets along with a new pair of jeans and several pairs of brand new socks. I put one pair on right away, and it was like dipping my feet in pure ecstasy. God, how I missed fresh socks. As I was going through my things to see if there was anything else I needed or wanted, I found an old photo album on the shelf of my closet. I grabbed the giant book and opened to the first page to see a picture from my honeymoon with Joy. We were on the beach in Maui, and she had the biggest grin on her face as we sat in the burning sand with crystal blue water behind us. She was the happiest she’d ever been just one day after her dream wedding. My smile was equally as big, but not a single bit as truthful. I remember that moment vividly. I remember calculating how I should smile while on the beach with my new wife. I went page by page through the photo album and saw each staged moment of our marriage. I saw her emotional range being mirrored by my emotional reenactment. The book encompassed our entire marriage.

  Mostly.

  Nobody puts unhappy memories in a photo album. It’s like a book filled with happy moments, but you never get to see the real story. A photo album is like jazz; you try to listen to the notes that aren’t played. For every photo of Joy smiling in that book, I would see her tear streaked face shouting obscenities in a fit of rage. For every vacation picture, I would see her beet red face burning as she threw something across the room. Then, a thought hit me…

  Why didn’t she take this book?

  Why did she leave this tome of her happy memories here with me? Before she died, she implied that she was aware that I couldn’t feel. That I had no emotional range. Did she leave it to me as a reminder of what real happiness was? Or did she leave it because the memories of happiness were more than she could handle? Her final request to me was to pretend we were still married. She wanted me to make her feel happiness once more. Maybe it wasn’t happiness she wanted, maybe it was familiarity. She wanted to die feeling loved, and my impression of love was good enough.

  I walked out of the bedroom and past Jack who was still sitting on the couch.

  “Just one more thing I have to do,” I said as I walked out of the funhouse hole in the front of my home.

  I pushed some burned leaves and tattered clothes out of the way, and I found what I was looking for.

  “Hello, Carl,” I said to his still animated head. Most of his jaw was burned away by the heat of the fire, and the skin around his mouth had bubbled and peeled away from the heat exposing dried muscle, cartilage and sinew. The rest of the skin resembled a burned baseball glove. What remained of his mouth began moving when he sensed my presence. He didn’t really see me because his eyes were simply empty sockets filled with dirt and melted eyeballs. I looked at him for a long moment before deciding to end his existence. I grabbed a piece of wood that looked like it was part of my roof at one point, and shoved it through his head. His skull gave about as much resistance as a tortilla chip. With that one thrust, Carl was no more. Rex watched the entire ordeal with a solemn expression that was almost comical on the small dog. Jack came to the opening and looked out.

  “Ready to go?” he asked while watching the street for any ninja zombies.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out some of the delicious Hot Tamales and popped a handful into my mouth. The flavorful heat warmed my mouth and filled my sinuses with a cinnamon scent that was a small consolation for the horrific smell I was just wading through. I tossed one up, and Rex enthusiastically leapt through the air and snapped the spicy treat up in his jowls.

  “Let’s get to that zoo,” I said.

  Chapter 32

  Driving out of the neighborhood was a surreal experience. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times I’ve driven down that street, but this time, it didn’t feel like my home. It felt more like driving through the set of a disaster movie. Cars were wrapped around trees from panicked, reckless drivers trying to escape the carnage. Doors to homes were either left open as people fled in a hurry or busted off hinges as monsters forced their way in. I saw Francis, a dog who lived in the house at the end of my street, ripped in half and sticking out of the gutter. His paws were stained red like he put up a fight, but the bite marks on his muzzle were the signatures from the true winners in his final battle.

  Rex jumped up on my lap and placed his paws against the driver’s side window and looked at Francis as we passed by. His forehead crumpled and I could see the gears turning in his brain as he tried to make sense of the scene. I turned the corner out onto the main road, and Rex moved so he could see out the sliding rear window of the truck. Even after we were far enough away that there was no possible way for him to see, he looked stoically back towards his fallen brethren. I couldn’t help but think, Did they know each other? Did their paths ever cross?

  I would never know. Maybe he’s never seen the inside of another dog. Maybe he isn’t as desensitized at I am. Jack, on the other hand, never let go of his gun. His knuckles were white, and he looked absolutely terrified.

  “Relax,” I told him. “We’re okay.”

  “I know” he said. “I was just thinking about the other night. The fast, smart ones.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean… Just as I got a grip on what we were actually fighting, now they change the rules.”

  “I know, man.”

  “IT’S NOT FAIR!” he shouted loud enough to vibrate the windows. I could tell his stress meter was well into the red, and he wasn’t able to handle it. I’ve seen people at their breaking point, and that’s when they are at their most uncertain. The last thing I want is this giant man killing himself while I drive down the road.

  “What did you do before this?” I asked, trying to get his mind working again.

  “I was in the Army.”

  “After the war,” I said.

  “I worked at Starbucks.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked.

  “No. They’re a great company. Good b
enefits, and decent pay.”

  “If you had asked me what I thought you did in the world before the zombies, I would’ve put money on MMA fighter or lumberjack.”

  Jack smiled, and I could see his humanity start slipping back into him. “I loved that place,” he said. “The smell of the first brew. The blonde roast. The pastries. Even the mop bucket was kind of comforting.”

  “I go to Starbucks every day. It’s an awesome place.”

  “After I came home, I didn’t think I could live a normal life. Killing people does something to you, ya know?”

  “Yeah,” I said out loud. But the truth is, when I stabbed that redneck who was chasing us, there was something…satisfying about it. He was trying to kill me, and because of his actions, he was dead by my hand. Something about the irony of it made me excited in a small way. I know full well that my “feeling” isn’t a healthy human emotion, but then again, I never claimed to be a healthy human.

  “I was in a really bad place in my life. I walked into Starbucks one morning and ordered a coffee. I sat there with the classified section for three hours and looked at all of these jobs that I was technically qualified for.”

  “What did you want to do?”

  “I was always good with computers. So I looked at all of these jobs for different companies paying a lot of money…But I didn’t want that life. Maybe a part of me didn’t think I deserved that life anymore. I asked the Starbucks manager if they were hiring, and he interviewed me right there. I came in the very next morning to start training.”

  There was a long silence as we continued down the road.

  “I still think you should have given mixed martial arts a try.” I said.

  Jack laughed so hard at that little joke that within moments, he was wiping away tears. I know they were tears that were backed up there due to the stress he was experiencing, but I pretended not to notice.

  Rex turned back around and looked at the two of us, and then looked out the front window and barked so loud I thought my ears were going to bleed. I looked ahead of us, and I couldn’t see anything.

  “What the fuck, Rex?” I asked him with annoyance laced through my words.

  “What the heck is that?” Jack asked while sitting up in his seat and squinting his eyes.

  I slowed the truck down and clicked on my high beams. Then I saw it. It spread across the entire road. The best way to describe it was a stack of dead zombies. Like a wall about three feet high.

  “Can we go around?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I answered. “The ditches on both sides look a little too deep.

  “Can we push it over?”

  “Do you want to get out and push on a wall of dead zombies?”

  “Maybe if you hit them hard enough with the truck you can smash through.”

  I nodded. “But all it takes is one jagged bone to stick in the radiator, and then we are back on foot.”

  I slowly pulled up to the wall and looked around for another way around. “Maybe I can push it over with the truck…slowly.”

  Rex growled low and constant, and I began to wonder if he was even breathing in. Just as the bumper struck the first zombie, I saw something through my peripheral vision. Something whizzed past us through the tree line. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw another something whizz across the street.

  “Shit,” I murmured.

  “What?” Jack asked spinning around looking for the new threat.

  Before I could answer him, a slap on the hood sent a spike of adrenaline through my body and almost made me rip the steering wheel from the console. I turned to look, and saw one bloody and mangled hand coming out of the pile and smearing brown blood across the hood. What followed the hand was something from a nightmare. A grinning zombie pulled himself up into a standing position and looked into the cab directly into my eyes. It was clear to me that this was his trap, and he was pleased as punch that we stopped.

  “Mother fucker,” I said in astonishment. Then, the truck rocked as two more fast zombies lept into the back of the pick up. They weren’t charging us. They were staring at us like they were waiting for something else.

  “What are they doing?” Jack asked with a tremor in his voice.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But we are not waiting to find out.”

  I threw the truck in reverse, and the zombies in the back lost their balance and fell forward. The one in front grabbed a hold of the hood and began to pull himself up while we went backwards. The disgusting smile never left his face. Suddenly, the back window shattered, and two decaying arms reached in for us. I turned to see them, and then I heard a loud bang and an instant crack from the front. I turned back, and Smiling Sam had his face smashed against the window directly in front of me. His head had caused a small crack in the windshield. His eyes never left mine as he smashed his face continually into the same spot of the windshield, expanding the crack with each strike.

  “Fuck this!” I said as I put the truck in first and floored it. The two in the back lost their balance again, and one tumbled out of the back. Smiling Sam didn’t seem phased one bit. He just kept slamming his face into the windshield over and over. The crack now spiderwebbed across the entire window, and it wouldn’t last much longer. He slammed his head in one final time, and a shower of glass rained down on us. Just at that moment, the truck hit the wall of zombies, and we stopped, instantly throwing Smiling Sam from the hood. He tumbled back about twenty five yards and quickly jumped back up to his feet with that smile still spread across his disgusting face.

  When the truck hit the wall, Rex had been thrown from the back of the cab to the floorboard near Jack’s feet. He quickly leapt back up to the seat and put his front paws on the dashboard, and looked out at the threat in front of us. Rex growled with a determination that I had never seen in the small pup. An explosion in my right ear came from Jack shooting the zombie in the truck bed that apparently was about to make his move.

  “A little warning next time?!” I screamed deafly, shaking my head and looking back to Sam.

  “Sorry.” Jack pointed the gun at Sam in front of us, and I nearly hit him.

  “Don’t you fucking fire that in here again.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “This asshole is mine,” I said as I pressed the pedal to the floor. The wheels spun, but the truck didn’t move. “Shit! We’re stuck on something!” Jack cracked his door and looked behind us.

  “Keep your foot on the gas!” he shouted jumping out of the truck.

  I looked ahead, and Sam began running towards us. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Jack behind the truck reaching down for the bumper. I looked forward to see that Sam had halved the distance between us. The back of the truck lifted about six inches, and then dropped to the the street with a loud thud. I had kept gunning the engine, so when the wheels hit the pavement, we took off like a rocket. Sam wasn’t expecting us to be coming so fast, and his expression quickly changed from his familiar smile to shock.

  Now I was the one smiling.

  The truck hit him square in the chest, and he tried to grab the hood. I could see his body bend backwards, and then the truck bounced as he went under. I slammed on the breaks and jumped out of the car. There, behind the truck, was Sam folded in half backwards like an old paperback novel. His arms flailed wildly, and he tried dragging himself away. It may just be self preservation that these new zombies are showing, but it looked more like fear, and I liked that. I got to him and kicked him in the side of the head flipping him over. He hissed at me, and tried to flip himself back over. That’s something I would not let happen. I slammed my foot down on his chest and his spine cracked even more. I held him down and looked up to see Jack running towards me.

  “Give me your gun,” I said stretching my hands out towards him.

  “It’s got a real kick,” He warned.

  “Good.”

  I held the giant gun up, so the zombie could see it. His eyes widened, and he knew my intentions. I took
my time aiming at his head, and his panic grew with each passing second. He didn’t want to die.

  That’s good to know about these new zombies. They fear death. It’s the only weakness I’ve seen in them. The slow moving zombies don’t fear death. They just consume and slowly march forward. The new ones were a much bigger threat, but now there might be a way to keep them at bay.

  I pointed the gun at his head, and waited for him to look into my eyes. When he did, I smiled the same smile he greeted me with. His expression quickly changed from fear to anger, and then I pulled the trigger. His head exploded, and the gun nearly flew from my hands, but I managed to keep a hold of it. I handed it back to Jack, and we walked back towards the truck.