Hinnom Magazine Issue 003

by C. P. Dunphey

  I loved to watch her sleep.

  It started out as an over-protective thing. As soon as she fell pregnant I became one of those expectant fathers that freaks whenever his partner stubs their toe or tries to lift so much as a shoebox. It irritated her at first but she soon fell into teasing me about it. Julia was like that. So easy-going. Always poking fun at me but never hurting my feelings.

  I’d had these nightmares that she’d stop breathing in her sleep, so I started waking up all the time to check on her. My eyes would snap open every half hour or so like clockwork and I’d listen for her breathing. Then I’d check on her anyway to make sure it wasn’t my own breath I could hear. Not that there was much doubt. Since she hit her second trimester she started snoring like a trooper.

  After a while the paranoia about her dying in her sleep faded. I kept checking her because it’d become a habit but also just because I liked to see her looking so peaceful. Even with her mouth wide open and a sound like an angry engine coming out of her nose, she still looked beautiful.

  That night though, she was restless. Her face creased with worry in her sleep. Or was it pain? She moaned and grunted and suddenly sat bolt-upright, clutching her swollen belly.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked immediately. Since we started coming closer to the due date, I was constantly on alert for the start of her contractions. I had an emergency bag stowed in the car, ready to go. She thought it was ridiculous; she was still weeks away yet.

  “It hurts,” she said, her teeth gritting, her back bowing forward over her stomach, both arms wrapped around herself. “It hurts a lot.”

  “Is it contractions?” I asked. “Do we need to go to the hospital?”

  “No, I don’t think so—”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when she let out a sharp cry and her legs kicked under the blanket.

  “Okay, we’re going,” I said, leaping from the bed.

  “It’s not contractions,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “I don’t care. If it hurts this much, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  I snap awake with a snort, suddenly aware that I’d been unconscious. In a panic, my senses bombard me with information that might pertain to any immediate danger. My eyes check the corners of the room (clear), the ceiling (clear), the door (still bolted). My ears pick up the dull drumming (just the rain on the roof). My nose picks up a musty smell (just my own unwashed clothes).

  As my breathing slows again I lower the rifle gently. With the momentary panic over, my thoughts return to the dream. We’d heard about the gas, of course. They were just vague reports then, on the nightly news. No-one was really sure what it was, save for that the orange-coloured fog only appeared at night, in random areas around the country, and that it caused massive communication problems with every area it hit. We didn’t know back then that the communication problems were caused by there being no-one left to communicate with.

  Some thought it was a natural phenomenon, some kind of new pollen or even swarms of insects. Others thought it was the result of man-made chemicals interacting with the atmosphere. Of course, the chemtrail crazies thought it was a government conspiracy of one kind or another. Either way, it wasn’t a major worry for us. We lived in a nice suburban neighbourhood. We didn’t think anything could really harm us. It was the same lie everyone tells themselves in that situation. We’re safe. It’ll never happen to us.

  Nobody’s safe. That’s the real lesson I’ve learnt from all this. Life is cruel and nobody’s safe. Not even people as mentally strong and well-prepared as Jack.

  I shoot a look at the external cameras again. The distortion from earlier is gone and I think it was a raindrop smearing the lens but it still makes me uneasy. I can’t see any of Them and I don’t see Jack either. Even now there’s a part of me that clings to the desperate wish to see his hybrid pulling quietly into the car park. He’d painted it matte black and coated the windows in something to take the shine out of the glass. So long as he kept under a certain speed, the petrol engine didn’t kick in and the car was almost silent.

  We’d used it for night runs a bunch of times. They were less active at night and the gas masks he’d taken from wherever-the-hell people got gas masks from protected us from the sinister orange cloud. We still tried to avoid it wherever we could, though. There was no sense chancing fate.

  Sometimes we saw it rolling over a part of the city like a wave of sunset mist. Except that sounds beautiful and this thing was nothing but a mass of ugliness, a foulness, a thick, choking fog that oozed its way over buildings and down streets with an almost palpable malevolence. I couldn’t help but personify it, assigning it traits and calling it names. Evil, I’d designate it. Alien. Malicious. I’d catch myself swearing under my breath when I saw it, not out of fear or awe but out of sheer undiluted hatred.

  Jack would caution me when I spoke that way, interrupting my string of curses with a long stare.

  “All that emotion ain’t gonna get you anywhere but dead,” he’d say. “And I won’t be taken with you. Life’s easier with a partner but don’t think I won’t cut you loose if you can’t keep it together. Keep calm, think logical. The fog ain’t nothing but fog.”

  I’d calm myself down grudgingly and settle back into keeping an eye on the distant cloud.

  Once parts of the electric grid went down and the city was plunged into darkness, Jack became more eager to do our supply runs at night. He was certain the things had no real night-vision.

  “It’s in their behaviour,” he’d say. “They don’t hunt at night because they’re no good at it.”

  I didn’t take much reassurance from that but I’d learned that doing what Jack said kept me alive.

  Funny thing about the colour orange; if there’s no light to shine on it, it just looks black, same as any other colour. So when we were raiding a local food store in the dark, we didn’t see the cloud until it was almost on us.

  I freaked when I saw the darkness seep through the door, a patch of pure night.

  “Masks!” Jack barked, his orders overriding my panic and talking directly to my muscles, which propelled me to grab my mask and slip it on. I also grabbed my gun, as though shooting the gas would do any good. Just holding it made me feel calmer, though. You know things have gone to hell when a thing designed exclusively to kill makes for a good security blanket.

  “Steady,” Jack warned me as the gas rolled closer.

  I could hear my own breathing, amplified and weirdly altered by the filter on the mask. I tried to get it under control but it got faster and faster as the gas rolled right up to us. It was too late to run now. The logical part of my mind told me that the mask would save me, but I’d seen what the gas could do and I was terrified.

  Then it engulfed us and I lost sight of everything else. I closed my eyes tight but it made no difference whether they were open or closed; inside the gas cloud, the darkness was total.

  “Jack?” I called out. I kept my voice low, despite my fear. I didn’t want to attract anything that might be listening.

  No response.

  “Jack?” I called a little louder, straining my ears to hear any sign of him, trying to force my hearing to increase.

  Still nothing.

  He had been standing pretty close when the gas hit but maybe the thickness of the cloud was insulating the sound somehow?

  Carefully I moved, trying to picture the room as it was before it became a pitch black nightmare. Jack had been standing by the shelves, only about ten feet away.

  I reached out one hand and found the shelf. My arm was shaking. I couldn’t help but think about what would happen if I reached out and touched one of Them, something awful and twisted standing so close to me but hidden by the gas.

  I had to force myself to take every single step as I moved along the shelves, sliding my hand over the wood. Even the noise of my glove on the shelf and the sound of my boots creaking sounded incredibly loud. My feet didn’t want to move but I made them.

/>   There was no sign of Jack.

  I don’t know how long I stood there for. Eventually the gas rolled on, like it always does, and the clear air it left behind confirmed that I was alone. I was never sure what happened to Jack. Had he finally cut me loose after realising I was no real use to him? Had he simply up and left me in the orange mist? Or had something taken him? Had one of Them snatched him without a sound, missing me by pure chance?

  I don’t think I’ll ever know.

  The hybrid was still parked outside but Jack had the keys so I had to walk back to the storage centre. It took hours of careful, tense movements to cross a distance of only a few blocks. I hadn’t been so afraid since that museum . . .

  I wake with a start, gunfire from that terrible night ringing in my ears.

  For a moment, I see the dark horror-filled corridors of the museum in front of me as though I’m there before the dream fades and reality takes hold.

  It takes me a heartbeat to realise that the banging hasn’t stopped and another to recognise that it isn’t gunfire at all but something banging hard at the metal roof.

  Frantic, I check the CCTV screens just in time to see one of them lose signal as the ceiling it was attached to caves in under the assault from the outside.

  I grab my go-bag and my gun but don’t head for the exit just yet. I could be running straight into Them if I don’t plan this. Instead I hover in front of the CCTV screens, like an agitated fly eager to escape a glass bottle. I need to know where they are and how many. If it’s just one I might be able to take it down and continue using this place as my base.

  Whatever it is, it’s fast. I can’t catch anything on the cameras but a pale blur, thundering its way along the corridors. It seems to be running blind though, which means it doesn’t necessarily know I’m in here.

  A strange creaking sound makes me turn and what I see makes me raise my gun in panic.

  There are fingers slipping beneath the bottom of the security door, curling up to take hold of the wood. Dozens of them, all along the gap between door and floor, as though a whole group of people are impossibly lying on top of one another in the small corridor beyond. The fingers take firm grip and begin to pull at the wood.

  I’m out of there before it gets through the door but only just. I can hear the wood splintering and a horrible hungry gargling noise behind me as I slam the roof hatch shut. Jack put this escape route into place not long after we moved in. He never bedded down in a place unless he knew he could get out again in a hurry. I’d never had to use it before though.

  Keep calm, keep calm, I have to remind myself. It’s not easy when you know these things are after you. Don’t run blind. Don’t make mistakes.

  I move as quickly as I can across the rain-slick rooftop, glancing over my shoulder constantly for any sign of it. How did it know I was in there? It came straight to the security office once it was inside. No time to think about that now. Get to the ladder, get to the street.

  The rain is still hammering and it drives into my eyes, making it hard to see. Twice my feet almost slip out from under me as I try to strike a balanced pace between quick and quiet but I make it to the ladder that runs down the back wall of the building to the floor.

  For a moment, I think there might be more of Them waiting for me in the dark below. There are no street lights covering the area and I dare not use my torch in case it gives away my position to any others that might be nearby. I don’t have a choice now. There’s no other way off the roof except back the way I came and the thing that broke through my door is bound to follow me up here at any minute.

  I steel myself and start to climb down the ladder.

  I’m not even halfway down when the metal groans. I freeze up, gripping the cold wet rungs for dear life, but it’s too late. There’s nothing I can do as the ladder peels away from the wall except cry out in fear.

  They saw Julia pretty quickly when we got to the hospital.

  One nurse fussed around her in the room while the other asked me questions outside the door. Now we were surrounded by medical staff and high-tech equipment; I was starting to relax. Everything would be okay.

  An emergency announcement over the Tannoy system warned us that the gas was coming but we thought we’d got the window closed in time. I’m still not sure why whatever wisp of the stuff that got into the room affected only her. Maybe she was in a weakened state, what with the pregnancy. Maybe the air currents just took it that way. I didn’t even realise it was the gas at first; I thought it was something wrong with the baby.

  It started with convulsions. Her back arched, her legs kicked out and her arms flailed at her sides. Her eyes rolled back in her head. I was screaming for help even though the nurses were already in the room. They shouted medical jargon back and forth and attended to Julia as I stood there helpless.

  Two doctors rushed in as her throat started to swell up. Within seconds it was like she’d swallowed a tennis ball whole.

  “We’re going to need to intubate!” shouted one of the doctors. “Airway’s obstructed!”

  The nurses were holding her down now, her convulsions were so violent.

  Outside the window, the orange fog looked on.

  Even through her swollen throat, her scream was terrible. There was an awful crunch, like a fistful of walnuts snapping, and blood sprayed across the ceiling.

  A hand reached out from inside her.

  At first, I thought it was the baby. I watched it grow, the arm rising like a tree in one of those sped-up footage pieces from a nature documentary, a long pale limb, adult and fully formed, with a handful of writhing fingers at the end, rising straight from the hole in her chest.

  The doctors and nurses had stopped working on her. We were all frozen in place as more of these limbs tore their way through her torso, reaching up towards the ceiling. Her body rose from the bed almost gracefully, her natural arms and legs hanging limp as more of these aberrant limbs burst from her back, lifting her from the blood-soaked mattress.

  The many hands manoeuvred themselves, passing her weight between them until they’d twisted her around in the air face down. Suddenly her head snapped up to look at one of the doctors. Her expression was twisted into something savage, something hateful. I’d never seen her look like that.

  She gave an inhuman snarl as the limbs propelled her from the bed in a feral pounce and she bore one of the women to the floor, dozens of hands tearing at her, beating her and all the while the thing that had been Julia yelped and howled.

  I was terrified.

  The doctor was dead in seconds, beaten to a bloody pulp. Julia leaped at one of the stunned nurses next. I remember noting numbly that some of the doctor’s hair was still clumped in several of her new hands.

  The nurses scream woke my body into action. I made no conscious decisions but my legs propelled me from the room. I slammed the door behind me and pressed my back hard against it to keep it closed. There were shrieks and cries coming from elsewhere in the building but I didn’t really register them. I became aware of blood on my face and wiped it away, looking down at red fingertips. I wasn’t sure whose it was.

  The door thudded at my back and I let out an unconscious whimper, pressing my weight against it. It banged again, the sound accompanied by a strange gargling whine. She was trying to get out. My wife was a monster, she’d killed everyone in the room and now she was trying to get out. Trying to get me.

  I break the surface of the nightmare-memory with a gasp, lashing out at the past before realising I’d been dreaming. My senses filter in almost one at a time as my breathing gradually slows. I hurt all over. I’m lying on something hard and wet. There is rain in my face and blood in my mouth. My brain is pounding and my hand comes away bloody when I touch the back of my head. The paltry sunlight, strained through layers of grey cloud, is still enough to hurt my eyes.

  For a moment, I’m not sure what had happened but then I remember my attempted escape from the storage centre and the betrayal of the ladder.
/>
  I look up, squinting through the pain, at where the metal had pulled away from the wall. I must have fallen at least twenty feet. How long had I been out for?

  In a panic I check my surroundings, each twist of my neck ringing bells of pain up and down my spine. I had landed in the alleyway behind the storage centre, a thin strip of concrete between the building and the fence, the other side of which was a train yard. Had I really been so lucky as to lie here all night and be overlooked? My watch was broken in the fall so I have no idea of the time but it looks to be at least mid-morning.

  I can’t count on my luck to hold out any longer, though. I need to get out of here as soon as possible and get to new shelter.

  As I try to stand, molten agony pours through my left leg and I collapse, hissing, to the ground. It takes several minutes for the pain to fade again, leaving behind a feeling of deep cavernous hopelessness. A busted leg could mean the end of me. I try to stand again and find that I can put only the slightest amount of weight it—anything more is torture. I can’t outrun Them like this. My only hope is to find shelter and stay put until I’m healed but I don’t even know bad the injury is. Is it just sprained or is this some kind of fracture? Jack would know. I hate him for not being here.

  Worse still, my rifle was damaged in the fall, its barrel severely bent. That just leaves me with the handgun in the shoulder holster under my jacket.

  Stay calm. Think. Plan. They’re just animals and the fog is just fog. They can’t strategise—you can. That’s how you survive.

  I squint up at the clouds, trying to gauge the time of day. My first step to survival is getting somewhere secure as soon as possible.

  I use the bent rifle as a kind of walking stick.

  With my go-bag slung over my shoulder and my pistol drawn and ready in one hand. A part of me just wants to climb inside one of the cargo carriages and pull the doors shut, wait until night when they’re less active. But at night I won’t be able to see as well and finding new shelter will be even harder.