by Alan Spencer
Beth cupped her shoulder blade where the crazed lunatic had stabbed her twice with a garden trowel. She smashed the creature’s face in with a rock, and it crawled away mewling in agony. It left behind shards of skull and brain matter, yet it had survived.
Heightening her senses, Beth heard figures skulk about behind trees. They were close enough she could distinguish them through the darkness.
Beth continued to move southwards, ratcheting up her speed. They were corralling her, it seemed, when they suddenly were coming at all corners to box her in. She was a rat lured into a trap, and any moment, the metal bar would snap down and break her neck. Showers with naked women who’d hidden razor blades in the soap were easier to combat up against the strange people in the woods she didn’t understand or could kill.
She weaved through trees to escape the encroaching enemies, but she turned her ankle underneath a loose rock. Heads bobbed in the darkness, coming closer.
The moment the trap would snap was soon.
Beth cried out when one leapt down from a tree branch. It was a woman. Her dress was split in two down the middle to reveal a line of stitches vertically down her belly. The dead woman stumbled after her. Her face glommed loose from the bones, the face bound to come off at any moment. In her haste to reach Beth, the skin flopped onto the ground like a mask. Infuriated by the loss, the woman pounded her fists against the back of Beth’s head, knocking her down. Two more dead people anchored her still, twisting her arms behind her back. Beth gagged at the stink of pungent flesh. They were so rotten, pieces of them stuck onto her back like rubber glue.
The shadows of many dominated her. The faces she caught in her peripheral were fastened by staples, nails, stitches, and screws. Everybody was a piece of crude handiwork.
They were scarier than corpses, maniacal in any light.
The rattle of shifting metal closed in. Two forms barreled towards her with fence wire. Beth thrashed to save herself, to no success. She wrapped up within the wire, and trapped. In the distance, she made out a porch light. Maybe somebody could help her.
She managed a scream. “Heeeeeeeelp!”
A knife was jammed into her stomach, stuck to the hilt. The blade exited her back and punctured the ground. A razor sliced her forehead next. The blade traced the outline of her face. The cutter was the same woman, the dead bitch with a black skeleton face. The cutting edge worked through the fence grates to uproot the skin from her cheeks. Beth's prison smock was torn open. A pair of scissors snipped her bra off, her breasts exposed. A K-Bar knife sawed the circumference of her tits and uprooted them from the chest, reaping the fatty rewards. Two scalpels lobbed out her eyes. Her tongue was yanked free by gangrene hands. Another sliced open Beth's wrists, sawing through them with box cutters.
Her dismantling continued, Beth blind and helpless to her dissection. The second before Beth’s final breath, her midsection was torn open and sorted out among the takers.
Boyd's Memories
“Involuntary manslaughter?—I was trying to apprehend him, and you damn well know that.”
“You smashed him, is what you did. Did you see the body? Samuel Tyson was in two pieces. We had four witnesses on the scene, and one of them is a city councilman. She was horrified.”
“So what if she saw it happen? It doesn't make it manslaughter.”
Boyd had been checked into the hospital and stayed there for one day for observation. Now, Detective Gary Finley was escorting him out of his room in cuffs and putting him under arrest.
Boyd kept explaining himself. “Did you see my wife, and my kids? Tyson was going to murder them. We’ve been looking for this bastard for months. He’s killed nine people, maybe more. I couldn’t just let him get away.”
Detective Finley tried to feign support. “It’s bullshit how it's all going down, but it’s the law, and it's my job, Boyd.”
“It’s a city councilman being upset. It's bureaucracy."
“No, Boyd, it’s the law.”
“It wasn’t murder or manslaughter. I’m not a bad man. I arrest these assholes. I’m not one of them.”
“I know it, but you’re under arrest, regardless. Emotions and morality aside, Samuel Tyson’s dead. You have to account for your actions, Boyd. He has a family. He had a life too, and now he’s dead.”
Boyd had known the detective for four years, and the man was a jokester, and a professional when it counted. Finley was never unnatural or stiff, like he was now. Something wasn't right about the detective. Someone had forced him to take up with the wrong side. Boyd knew his allies were drying up by the minute.
“I guess I have to call a lawyer. Imagine what this will put my wife and kids through. I thought I was doing the right thing. I wanted to save lives. I didn’t mean to run over him, I swear. I was trying to stop the killing."
The detective stopped before the door where two other officers waited to transport Boyd. “There’s media crawling out there. Let’s put this blanket over you, so we can hide your face, and we’ll get you into the squad car. Vultures are swooping down for their story. You know how it goes.”
“No, I don’t know how it goes. God, none of this has gone the way it was supposed to go. I wanted Tyson arrested, not dead. I’m not a criminal.”
Finley disagreed. “Well, the media think you are, as does the DA. So that makes you a bad guy, no matter how you spin it. Come on, let's move. Nobody's going to hear you out. Not with so many people from the news on top of you."
Boyd knew the detective was right.
There was nothing he could do to save himself.
Retreat
Bypassing a terrible memory and facing a harsher predicament, Boyd returned to the situation at hand.
“I can’t keep going much longer,” Boyd spoke without breath. “I’m bleeding too much.”
Cindy checked him over. “How did it bite you?”
“A dead bitch dug their fucking teeth into my clavicle.” He lowered to his knees and leaned against a tree. “Listen, you should leave me. I’m only going to get you killed.”
Cindy wasn't convinced. “I’m not going to be alone in this. We can find something to bandage you up. I’m sure there’s an end to these woods. There's somewhere we can hide. We can’t turn back. They’ll be waiting for us. I'm sticking it out with you. I don't care what you say."
One mode of reasoning kept Boyd going.
Cindy pointed ahead of them at a point deeper in the woods, “Hey, look at that!”
Ahead, through the collection of trees, a house materialized. Behind it, was a large lake. It was the color of an oil slick in the night. There was no starlight to make it glimmer. A white picket fence around the property was half gone. Boyd imagined the dead things using them as bludgeons or false legs.
"Let's find out if anyone's home," Boyd said. "Keep your eyes open."
Together, they hurried up the steps and tried the door. It came right open, and what was inside was a surprise to Boyd. No pictures hung on the living room walls. There was only basic furniture and appliances. Boyd eyed the floor for blood and found none. He inspected the kitchen and the two bedrooms. Nothing.
It was no one’s house, as far as Boyd was concerned.
“I’ll check the bathroom for a first aid kit,” Cindy said, searching down the hallway. “At least I can wash the wound clean with water, if nothing else.”
Boyd peered out the backyard window. More woods were behind them. How many miles would it take before they arrived at another place to hide?—or at worst, a concrete wall.
The way was clear, so Boyd rested his M-16 against the wall. The emptiness of the room was like a bad omen. Something awful had happened within the house. He couldn't put his finger on it.
“The place is ready for condemning." Cindy rejoined him in the living room. “Sorry, I didn’t find anything in the bathroom. Everything’s missing. There's no plumbing either.”
“I’m starting to feel a little better,” Boyd said. “The bleeding has slowed. It didn
’t help to have my heart rate shooting through the roof earlier.”
Boyd peered outside into the backyard. He couldn't shake the feeling something bad was going to happen at any moment. Stacks of chopped wood lined the outside wall, but there wasn’t a fireplace in the living room. Three steel barrels were positioned outside next to a compost bin.
“I don’t think we have much time before it gets crazy again," Boyd said. "I want to check the basement, and then the backyard. Someone lived here. There has to be a sign of the fact somewhere. I want to know who they were. Maybe it'll give us more clues about what this place really is."
“Are you sure you want to go into the basement?” Cindy narrowed her eyes at the cellar door. “Maybe we can walk now and get a head start. Forget the house. I can't imagine anything too useful downstairs."
“I have to understand what’s going on. This place wasn’t cleaned out for nothing. Why would the house be here if it didn’t mean anything?”
He approached the basement door. “You can check the windows for anything heading this way. I won’t be long. Just call out at the first sign they're coming."
Cindy handed him her Glock. “Take this, I’ll guard the window with the M-16. And be careful. I don’t want to be left alone too long. You die, and I might as well consider myself the same.”
Boyd opened the door and met a set of wooden stairs. There was no light switch, so he walked down the steps carefully, and listened hard. Nothing moved.
It wasn’t sound that caused his body to lock.
The tang of bleach alerted him.
His feet carried him down to the concrete floor. Boyd reached up and pulled the chain of the overhead light bulb. The contents of the room were painted in a harsh amber hue.
A startle erupted from his throat.
The room wasn’t empty.
Shackles were riveted into the walls and floor. He counted two dozen sets. The drain in the center of the room was rusted over. A garden hose lay coiled up in the corner. Bleach and a mop and bucket were stowed at the foot of the stairs. The strangest items waited on the far wall. Boyd counted eight of them.
Orange barrels.
They were hermetically sealed. A crowbar rested against the wall beside them.
He had to know what were inside the barrels.
Cindy didn’t raise alarm from upstairs, so he assumed it was safe to investigate. Boyd picked up the crowbar and pried the lid from one of the barrels.
The pop signaled what he’d immediately regret. Putrescence emanated up to his face. He couldn’t breathe. The malodorous stench burned his sinuses ammonia-strong. The scent induced tears.
The barrel shifted within, sloshing liquid over the sides of the rim. The contents were alive. Pockets of air burst and burped. Boyd listened to steps, what sounded like clopping in deep mud, from within the barrel.
Boyd backed away.
The barrel tipped itself over.
The floor was coated in brackish-fluids. An incoming tide rushed in at him. An assortment of dismembered limbs and gallons and gallons of blood flowed. There was movement everywhere on the floor: hands clawing at the air, tongues writhing and trying to speak, necks spurting blood, legs thrashing, eyes rolling along the ground like marbles—two of the red-dyed orbs glared up at him and locked onto Boyd!—and a torso was flopping around and losing its organs, unleashing rotten giblets.
The blood drained from his face, and Boyd leaned against the wall to collect his bearings. Then, he rushed upstairs fleeing from the hideous sight.
Cindy arrived at the top of the stairway. She recoiled from the smell, her face aghast. “It reeks. What the fuck’s down there?”
Boyd guided her from the doorway, wishing to have nothing to do with the house anymore.
“Don’t worry about it. You don't want to know, trust me."
The command was simple, and Cindy understood him. She still wanted to know the source of the awful smell.
“Okay, whatever you say, but at least tell me what’s down there.”
Boyd checked that she still carried the M-16, then he forced her outside through the back door.
“First, let’s leave. I can’t take the smell. We’re finding a way out of this nightmare. These dead people are aware and living, like we are. They deserve to be put to rest. Whatever life they used to live, it’s now been desecrated.”
“I really do want to know what was down there. I have a right to know, so tell me."
Boyd stepped down from the back porch and onto the grass, and together, their feet crunched over bits of bones, many of which were near ash. A barrel was positioned at the end of the cement porch, and Cindy looked inside of it.
“There’s a human skeleton inside. Jesus, it's smoldered. It's like a homemade crematorium."
The light from the windows shed enough illumination that Boyd spotted the outline of three figures creeping into the house.
“Now we have no choice but to keep going.”
They hid deeper into the woods. They crossed a wooden fence barrier and faced an onslaught of what could be miles more of woods. It was impossible to tell how far they’d have to go to reach another safe hideaway.
Boyd collapsed, out-of-breath.
Cindy took the opportunity to find an answer to her previous question.
“What was in that basement?”
Boyd evened his breath. “You want to know? It's up to you. There were more of those barrels. Inside were severed human pieces. They moved inside and flailed around as if trying to put themselves back together. A pair of eyes stared back at me, Cindy. How’s that fucking possible? Doesn’t it take the brain to send nerve impulses for the body parts to move?"
Cindy tightened her grip over the M-16. “This isn’t any reality I’ve experienced before, but it’s what I’ve been seeing, Boyd. Our minds aren’t at fault. This is really happening, and it can kill us. We have to keep moving.”
They trudged on for what felt like a half hour before the woods cleared. They doubled their pace up a hill. When they reached the top, Boyd couldn’t believe his eyes.
Hayden's House Adventure
Hayden watched the two of them exit the house. Their faces were plagued by a horrible sight. When they were gone, he stepped up to barrels placed in the back yard. The burned remains of bones were heaped inside.
Somebody had some fun, didn't they?
He rushed into the house, and was quickly disappointed that it was empty. He scanned the refrigerator for food, and the cupboards for booze.
Not a goddamn thing here.
A smell drew him into a hallway and down the basement steps. At the bottom, a light glowed. Hayden paused at the fifth stair. A severed hand crawled up the steps finger-by-finger. The image of the woman he’d cut into pieces today formed in his mind, and the way her eyes glared at him through the plastic-wrap in the freezer. Without the body, the limbs still harbored life; a will to survive.
"Get the fuck out of my way."
He kicked the hand aside.
It flopped down onto the concrete floor with a splat.
Completing the stairs, blood pooled on the floor a quarter of an inch high.
Stepping into the blood, Hayden squashed an eyeball underfoot. Taking more steps and shaking off the sticky mess on his shoe, he stared at many pairs of arms and legs intermingled in one corner. They were rubbing against each other socket-to-socket. A midsection wedged itself into the corner of the wall as if blocking the opening of its abdomen. Intestines and innards were loose on the ground, a tell-tale trail of pink meat leading to the torso.
Hayden checked underneath the stairs and discovered a row of seven barrels, the eighth left strewn on the floor empty.
“So that’s where you came from, huh?”
He rushed to the barrels urged by a burning need to open them. He picked up the crimson-stained crowbar and wedged the tops from each of the barrels. Hermetic pops followed the masses of blood and body parts flowing. The syrup-thick mess was near ankle high by the ti
me he was finished.
Pieces from at least twenty bodies pulsated in the red thick. Hands and feet attempted to connect themselves by grinding at the stumps. The way the parts were severed interested him. The cuts were clean and perfectly executed. Someone had time to dismember the bodies and store them into the barrels, but who?
The clop, thunk, clop, thunk from upstairs drew alarm. Gathering shadows played at the top of the stairs. The front door opened and closed repeatedly with a wild clatter. Windows were smashed through as more of them trespassed. He’d wasted too much time down here, and now they would soon be upon him.
You’re too confident, Hayden. Brandy warped your judgment. Sex and meat don’t mix. You didn’t shave the bones like I told you to; you jammed them down a garbage disposal at your brother’s restaurant. That’s how you got caught. You got sloppy. Sloppy as that bitch's grungy pussy. And now you’re trapped alone with these things in a basement. That wasn’t smart, Hayden. The only person you should blame is yourself.
“It wasn’t smart, Richard,” he barked at no one. “Not at all. I know—I know—I know—I fucking God-damn know!”
Hayden, caught up in his emotions, had nowhere to escape. The basement was a trap. The stairs were the only exit, and he’d have to face the attackers head-on.
Thinking fast, he crouched underneath the stairs. Figures trudged down the steps, their rotten meat legs visible through the slits of the wooden steps. Hayden clutched onto the crowbar next to his foot, ready to fight.
The basement filled up with their bodies, and they bumbled about the room bending down and sorting through the pieces like customers at a yard sale. They pushed and shoved through each other for better access to the finer selections.