Body parts lay splattered across the floor. The king bed looked as if someone had been taken apart piece by piece on top of it, with the remains spread from the headboard down to the foot of the mattress.
Ragged piles of bones were strewn across the room. Something that looked like a child’s ribcage lay crushed near a dresser, a trail of viscera leading from it to the back wall, on which an explosion of blood and entrails was displayed.
The room’s disarray and the streaks as though bodies had been dragged, fighting, through it hinted at the struggle that had taken place. There were other horrors as well…lumps of pulped meat, gristle, and cartilage. It was a slaughterhouse.
But that was not the worst of it. Not by far.
Jeff’s eyes focused on a woman’s corpse partially hidden behind the bed. He could see that it had not been long since she was killed. In fact, the smells in the room were fresh; everyone in it had died recently.
The woman’s body had been brutalized to the point where there was barely anything left of her neck or upper torso. Even her skull had been cracked, and her brains, or what remained of them, dripped onto the floor.
Horror blazed through Jeff like an inferno, burning every nerve ending in his body. Her arms were outstretched toward him, her fingers gripping the carpet as if she had been trying to drag herself toward the door. Although the back of her skull was crushed, her eyes remained open, and it appeared as if she were staring at Jeff, a permanent scream frozen on her face.
When the corpse gave a violent twitch, he took an involuntary step back and jammed his fist into his mouth to prevent a scream from bursting from his lips. A small yip still came out as his eyes grew wide in terror.
That was when a man stood up from behind the bed. He had been feasting on the lower half of her body and had been hidden from view. It was hard to understand how he had remained hidden, as big as he was. Strings of his wife’s intestines dangled from his mouth, and a smear of blood covered the bottom half of his face.
The man’s milky eyes widened when he saw Jeff, and he let out a bloodcurdling scream as he charged. He was a blur as he tore across the room. Jeff had never seen someone infected move that fast.
He barely had time to react before the hulking figure crashed into him, driving him back into the hall and down to the floor. Jeff’s breath came out in a huff, and the baseball bat flew clear as his hand slammed into the wall.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Jeff blurted out as the stench hit him just before the tremendous weight of the man came crashing down. The infected man was a giant-three hundred pounds at least. Jeff moved his stinging hand and desperately beat at the ghoul’s face. Its mouth was already plunging toward his shoulder, the cracked and broken teeth on display as the beast ignored his blows. Shifting his assault, Jeff pressed up against its forehead, hoping to keep the teeth at bay. The skin was dry and loose under his hand, and he felt it start to tear away from the man’s scalp. Jeff knew that if he tried to hold on for very long, the flesh from the top of the ogre’s head would slide off the skull and it wouldn’t even notice.
Jeff felt a mammoth hand wrap around his throat and was able to suck in one last breath before his airway began to constrict. The man-mountain’s fingers were trying to dig into the soft flesh there. As he fought to free himself, Jeff knew it would not be long before his throat was ripped out.
He snatched at the monster’s paw with his free hand as panic kicked in. He was still holding the ghoul’s head away but only had a few seconds to work with. He grabbed at the fingers around his throat and tried to pry them free. The skin here was loose as well, and there was no way to get a solid grip. Jeff succeeded only in peeling away layers of flesh as he frantically dug at the digits.
Despite the panicked kicks and the frenetic contortions of his body as he tried to throw the giant off, Jeff made no headway, and spots began to swim before his eyes. All he could do was pray that unconsciousness claimed him before the teeth tore into his flesh.
There was a deafening roar in Jeff’s ears, and the grip around his throat loosened. Some sort of viscous matter dripped onto the hand that had held the monstrosity’s head at bay. It slid down his arm in thick globs. He struggled to breathe as he frantically fought to get the dead weight off of him. Pushing the head aside, Jeff maneuvered away from the hand that had nearly crushed his neck, and desperately sucked in air. Megan’s face swam into view. She was saying something, but he couldn’t hear her. She looked alarmed as she tried to help him move the ton of dead flesh off his body.
It was not until Jeff could refill his lungs that he was able to shift the man’s weight to the side and squirm free. He scuttled down the hall, backpedaling as fast as he could away from the giant carcass. The fluid that had dripped down his arm looked like some sort of swamp mud. Jeff rubbed his arm frantically on the carpet, desperate to get it off his skin.
Megan knelt in front of him and shook him by the shoulders, the revolver still pressed into one hand. She looked as stunned as he felt, and though her mouth was moving, no sound came out. He grabbed her and pulled her close, hugging her. He didn’t know what else to do to get her to stop shaking him.
They held each other for the next few minutes, their hearts finally slowing to a normal rate as they rocked back and forth, eyes closed. Jeff’s breathing returned to normal, though his throat was throbbing and he had to keep his breathing shallow to avoid sharp pains.
It wasn’t until the ringing in Jeff’s ears signified the return of his hearing that it dawned on him that he’d gone deaf. Soon after, he registered the buzzing that was Megan’s voice. After another minute, he was able to comprehend what she had been trying to say to him.
“…thought he had gotten you…sorry I had to do that, but there was…” It was still choppy, but Jeff nodded at her and gave her a shaky smile.
“You did great,” he heard himself say as he leaned against the wall. He closed his eyes in an attempt to get his bearings, but that only made the dizziness worse. A whopper of a headache was also announcing its arrival.
He tried to stand and nearly slid back down the wall. Megan moved in to help, but he waved her off, and he managed to right himself on the second attempt. Looking down at a huge lump of decayed flesh at his feet, Jeff shook his head. None of them had moved that fast before. Other than the fact that its brains were now dripping in thick chunks down the wall, the ghoul looked to be in pretty good shape. Decomposition, which was so common amongst the infected, was limited. In fact, outside of the dry, leathery skin, the man looked almost normal.
Jeff looked at Megan. Despite their little close encounter with the beast, she looked better than when he had left her downstairs. Grinning, he chucked her lightly on the shoulder. She blushed and smiled meekly.
Suddenly, her eyes went wide, as if she had just remembered something. Raising the revolver, she turned to face the master bedroom. “Are there any more of them?”
Megan started toward the door, and Jeff yelled out as he ran ahead of her. “No!”
He blocked her path and, without looking into the room, pulled the door shut. “You don’t want to go in there. Trust me.”
Jeff held out his arms, guarding the door. Megan was startled by his reaction but saw the look on his face and slowly nodded as she lowered the gun. Jeff’s shoulders sagged in relief as he moved back toward her.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized as he put his arm around her shoulder, turning her around. “But there’s nothing in there you need to see.”
Megan looked up at Jeff, but he kept his eyes forward as they moved back down the hall. Less than a minute later, they were outside, climbing back into the van. As they pulled away from the curb, Jeff rubbed gently at his bruised throat, never looking back at the house.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, they found another house. The garage was open, and none of the windows was boarded up, which Jeff hoped indicated that the owners had fled long ago.
A quick but thorough search confirmed that the
house was indeed abandoned. Whoever had lived there had left in a rush, like so many other families that had chosen to head either to one of the emergency shelters hastily set up by the National Guard or to anywhere else where they thought they might escape the ravages of the virus that had burned through the earth’s population in a matter of days.
Jeff pulled the van into the garage. Megan was already inside, searching for anything they could add to their meager food supply.
He stepped out of the vehicle and moved toward the driveway. Scanning the street, he saw nothing that caught his eye except for the sun, which was beginning to set. Houses cast long shadows as the bright yellow orb continued to sink below the horizon. Off in the distance, he could see wisps of smoke curling up to the sky from the smoldering ruins of his house.
Jeff rubbed his eyes. His headache was in full bloom and it felt as if his brain were trying to pound its way out of his skull. In a way, it was a comfort; …a distraction from the real pain he was feeling.
After taking one last look around, he pulled the garage door closed. He wondered if there was any booze in the house, because all he wanted to do was drink until he forgot everything that had happened that day.
Chapter 13
“We need to get going.”
Sunlight trickled in through the drawn curtains, spreading fingers of light across the floor and onto the bed. There had been no alcohol in the house, but he still felt hung over as he ran his tongue over his teeth. His mouth tasted like a baby dragon had peed in it.
Megan was standing at the foot of the bed, wearing a clean sweatshirt and jeans. They were loose on her, but given her near-anorexic condition, Jeff thought they were a pretty good fit. She looked freshly scrubbed, and there was something about her that he could not pinpoint, but she looked sharper, more alert than she had the day before. He nodded and ran his fingers through his tangled hair.
“There are plenty of clothes in the closet that might fit you,” Megan said, and Jeff looked down at his sweatshirt and jeans, in which he had slept. They were in bad shape. Not only were they drenched in sweat, there were dried splatters of blood and smears of dirt all over them. “I put a couple of the bottles of water we found downstairs in the bathroom…” She let the comment hang in the air.
“I know I smell like an outhouse.” Jeff cracked a smile. “I’ll change and clean up.”
A small grin passed over Megan’s lips. “I’m going downstairs to see what else we can take with us.” She paused, looking at her hands and picking at a fingernail. Jeff stared, waiting for her to say whatever was bothering her.
“We are going to leave, right?”
Jeff sighed as he stretched, rubbing the bruise on his neck self-consciously. It was a garish purple but didn’t feel as bad as it looked. He recalled their conversation from the night before and understood why Megan was acting so timidly.
They had argued about leaving immediately. Jeff thought it might be a good idea to stick it out for a few days, while she wanted to figure out a way around the blockade of cars so they could start trying to find other survivors. She suggested checking out the emergency shelters, and when Jeff laughed bitterly, she glared at him until he fumbled over an apology and mumbled an excuse, saying, “You never know” to placate her.
In the end, they agreed to wait until morning to decide. Megan fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, but Jeff was stuck tossing and turning over the next few hours as he tried to figure out what they hell they were going to do.
He nodded, too tired and feeling far too shitty to argue again. Megan’s smile lit up her face.
“Great!” She turned to leave the room. “I’ll see if I can rustle up some breakfast.”
“I’ll take two eggs over easy, three slices of bacon, toast with just a touch of butter…and a gallon of coffee,” Jeff said, staring at the floor between his legs and trying to keep from throwing up on his shoes.
He heard Megan’s laugh as she walked down the hall. It sounded happy. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Five minutes later, he felt well enough to stand and make his way to the bathroom. He saw the bottled water Megan had brought up, along with a bar of soap and some toothpaste. Jeff laughed and stared into the mirror.
It was hard to believe the person looking back at him was Jeffery Blaine. The gray streaks in his scraggly beard and the drawn and haggard expression made him feel a couple of decades older than his thirty-five years. His hair was a tangled, curly mess that hung in greasy clumps around his face.
He flashed a peace sign at the mirror and assumed his best stoner pose. “Dirty fucking hippie,” he mumbled under his breath. If he could just find a pair of Birkenstocks in the closet, it would complete the look.
After stripping off his filthy clothes, Jeff splashed water on his face and body, unconcerned with the mess he was making, since they were leaving anyway.
A few minutes later, after having found a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that fit reasonably well, Jeff felt like a new man. The headache had subsided, and the scent of soap on his skin smelled good. When he walked down the steps, he was actually cheerful.
When he hit the first floor, he spotted Megan sitting at the kitchen table facing away from him.
“Where’s my breakfast, woman?” he demanded, lowering his voice with exaggerated irritation.
When Megan ignored the snarky comment, Jeff shrugged and moved into the kitchen. “I guess I’ll just have to fix it myself.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re already shirking your womanly duties.”
He found no breakfast food in the cabinets, though there were plenty of baking supplies. “Hey, Megan, you could bake me a cake. That might make up for no eggs and bacon laid out for breakfast.”
He smiled and turned to her, wondering why she wasn’t laughing or tossing off a snide riposte. When Jeff saw that she was staring off into space, he moved slowly toward her.
“Hello?” He snapped his fingers and waved his hand in front of her eyes. “Anyone home?” Megan finally looked at him. His demeanor immediately changed from annoyed to concerned.
“Megan?”
“They’re back.” Her voice was subdued.
Jeff stared at her for a moment before moving toward one of the windows at the front of the house. Carefully bending the blinds to peek out, he scanned the street as he heard Megan’s voice drift over to him.
“I wanted to see what the weather was like. I opened the front door and saw one of them. It was about a block away. I don’t think it saw me, but then I saw another moving around across the street. I went to shut the door…and…there was another. I’m not sure, maybe there were more…” Her voice trailed off, the monotone account becoming background noise as Jeff searched the street. He began counting the stiffs he saw on his fingers and had to stop when he realized there were too many.
Megan stared at him as he came walking back to the kitchen. The spark he had seen in her eyes just a little while ago had dimmed, but Jeff could still see both the hope and the fear that had always been there. Any thoughts of renewing their argument about sticking around the neighborhood vanished completely.
Jeff forced a smile to his lips. “Grab everything you can. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Chapter 14
It had been a busy intersection at one time but had fallen silent over the past few weeks. The fires had long since died out, and only charred residue remained. Destruction ran in random patterns-one building wiped out, the one next door left undamaged.
A Dodge Intrepid teetered precariously on a brick wall at the entrance of a convenience mart. Wind made it creak and sway on its perch. The store shelves beyond the wreck were ransacked. A few items remained, but everything of any value had been cleared out.
The Quick-n-Go across the street was in far worse condition. Two of its gas pumps had been sheared off at their bases. The burnt-out husk of the vehicle responsible for the damage had come to a crunching stop at a concrete barrier housing a dumpster on the
back side of the parking lot. One of its tires had blown out before it connected with the pumps as it jumped a ditch, and sparks from the undercarriage had ignited both the pumps and the vehicle’s gas tank. The resulting explosion had sent the corrugated metal roof above crashing down, where it slammed into several cars parked underneath, crushing them and the people inside. Billowing flames from the two squashed pumps caused a chain reaction, and the rest of the pumps had erupted into fireballs as well.
All that remained was a few burnt-out vehicles and bits of human remains baked into the cement. The corpses were seared carrion for scavengers to pick over. The building’s contents were annihilated by the heat and pressure of the explosions. Glass and metal superheated and fused together, and the ceiling tiles collapsed on top of the mess, bubbling as they melted and turned into a black ash that created a fine patina over the entire mess. The outer frame of the building was all that remained standing, and it resembled the charred skeleton of some giant beast.
The drugstore diagonal to the Quick-n-Go was mostly intact, though heaps of trash and blistered vehicles populated its parking lot. The building still looked new. It was made almost entirely of stone with a few faux windows running along its side. Only at the entrance facing the intersection were there any building materials besides granite. The glass doors were shattered, though the surrounding entryway, also made of glass, was still intact. The metal doorframes were bent and pressed inward, and small pebbles of glass lay scattered across the tile floor. The metal racks that once held copies of Auto Trader and real estate magazines were crushed flat on the floor, and shredded paper splattered with bloody footprints was strewn throughout the vestibule.
A ladder truck from the Milfield Fire Department sat in the intersection, along with an Army vehicle known as a deuce and a half. There were also several local township police cruisers and a camouflaged Humvee with a Squad Automatic Weapon mounted on the roof. They had been parked around the exterior of the intersection, forming a barrier to traffic coming from all directions. An ambulance stood sentry inside the jury-rigged stronghold, its rear door hanging open with the remnants of medical supplies scattered on the ground, smashed and useless. The vehicles were all wrecks, torn and shattered. There were dents and scratches, flattened tires and burst gas tanks. Expended cartridges lay scattered across the pavement by the hundreds.
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