by Max Danzig
“Let's try to see how responsive they are. We should see if they can tell us anything.” Rachel said.
“What about her?” Peter asked, pointing at one of the nearest moving forms. “What about that one there?”
The group stood together in silence and watched the painful progress of the pitiful creature. The woman wore a long black coat that hung limp off one shoulder, exposing a now dirty and blood stained white blouse. Her black slacks were dirty, and she wore no shoes. She swayed and staggered as if drunk when she walked. A mass of long brown hair hung in a tangle down her back as her head lolled side to side as she walked. Her arms hung listless at her sides, and she dragged her cut and scraped feet unfeeling along the ground.
“What are we going to do with her?” Ann said, her voice shaking.
“Do you want to get closer and take a look at her out here?” Steve asked.
Peter shook his head. “No,” he said, “let's get her inside.”
“Wait, you’re kidding right? Back in there?” Steve exclaimed, gesturing at the community center behind them.
“Yes, in there,” Peter replied. “Is that a problem?” His voice remained calm.
It annoyed Steve because he wasn't as calm as Peter appeared, and hoped the others shared his mounting fear and unease.
“Not to me,” said Rachel. “Try convincing the others though.”
“I think we should get her indoors and try to make her comfortable. We'll get more out of her if we can get her to relax.” Peter said.
“Are you sure about this?” Ann said, rubbing and twisting her hands together.
Peter thought for a moment then nodded. “I'm sure,” he said, sounding confident. “What about the rest of you?”
Silence.
After a few awkward seconds passed Steve spoke.
“Shit, let's do it. We'll never get anything done just standing around here.”
That was all Peter needed to hear. He strode up behind the woman, reached out and put his hand on her shoulder with the coat still on it. The shuffling form of the woman stopped moving.
Rachel jogged the last few steps and moved round to stand in front of the woman. Rachel looked into the woman's vacant, cloudy eyes. The skin on her face was a blotchy gray stretched over protruding cheeks. Although she was sure the woman couldn't see her or was even aware she was there, Rachel still tried to hide her mounting revulsion. There was a deep gash on the side of woman's face along her right ear and lower jaw. The dark blood, now dried to a black crust, had flowed freely from the wound and drenched the front of her once white blouse and business suit.
“We want to help you,” she said softly.
Still no reaction.
Peter gripped the woman's shoulder a little tighter and shuffled closer.
“Come on,” he whispered, “let's get you inside.”
Steve and Ann watched the others with a morbid fascination.
“What the hell is happening?” Ann asked, her voice becoming weaker and more unsteady each time she spoke.
“I have no idea,” Steve admitted. “I wish I knew.”
He surveyed the bleak scene around them. Not all the bodies had moved. There were a few still laying where they had fallen.
“Steve,” Peter shouted.
“What?” he started, turning back to face the others.
“Give us a hand. Could you get hold of her legs?”
Steve nodded and walked over towards Rachel and Peter. He crouched down and grabbed the woman's slender ankles, one in each hand, and, as Peter pulled back on her shoulders, he lifted her feet. She was surprisingly light and didn't react to being moved.
The two men scuttled back to the community center, followed by Rachel and Ann. As they approached the doorway, the survivors, who had been watching intently, realized what was happening and scattered like children frightened by the boogeyman.
Chapter 16
The Second Mutation
“What the hell are you doing?” Eddie stammered as Steve and Peter barged past him. “What the fuck are you doing bringing that in here?”
Peter didn't answer. He was too busy directing the others. “Everyone, group around her,” he said. “Make a circle and block her in.”
Ann and Rachel joined in and drew closer as did another two women whose names Peter did not know. Eddie, Jim Burke, and Mike Fordham also joined the circle. Steve lowered the woman's feet to the ground, so she was standing upright again. He took a couple of steps back so he was level with the others. Once something resembling a circle formed, Peter let go.
For a second, the corpse woman did nothing. Then, with a lurch she moved towards Ann who yelped as her face twisted in horror. She raised her hands in a defensive manner to prevent the woman from getting too close. As soon as the corpse woman made contact with Ann's outstretched hands, the woman turned and staggered towards another survivor, causing panicked shouts and screams through the room.
“Don’t freak out,” Peter said, “Keep her in the circle. She’s not going to do anything. She’s disoriented, and I don’t think she can see well.”
The survivors kept the circle together and lightly pushed the woman away when she staggered to one of them. This continued every time it reached the edge of the circle. As the woman stumbled towards Peter, he allowed himself to look deep into her face. He found himself transfixed looking at the pathetic creature in front of him.
Peter wondered how she might have looked a few days earlier. He might have found her attractive, but today her dead gaze, and drawn, discolored skin dissipated any beauty or serenity her face had known. There was an unnatural oily sheen to her exposed flesh. Peter also noticed her skin had a slick greenish tint to it. The dark circles under her cold eyes emphasized the prominent ridges of her eye sockets. Her mouth hung slack making a large, dark hole showing red tinged teeth. A thick string of pink gelatinous saliva hung off her chin. He pushed her away.
The corpse woman turned staggering towards Steve. Unable to control or coordinate her own movements, she tripped over her own clumsy feet and half-fell, half-lurched towards him. He recoiled in revulsion and pushed her to the ground, feeling a cold sweat form on his forehead as the wretched, diseased creature scrambled back up onto its feet.
“Can she hear us?” Ann wondered. She hadn't meant to ask the question, she'd just been thinking out loud.
“I don't know,” Peter answered.
“She probably can,” Rachel said.
“Why do you say that?” Ann asked.
Rachel shrugged her shoulders. “It's something about the way she reacts.”
Jason watching with consternation from a corner of the room edged closer and closer to the circle of survivors. “But she doesn't react,” he stammered, joining the circle.
“I know,” Rachel continued. “That's what I mean. She's walking and moving around, but I don't think she knows why or how.”
“It's instinct,” Steve said.
“That's what I'm thinking,” Rachel agreed. “She can hear us, but she doesn't know what the noises we make means anymore. I bet she's still capable of speaking, but she can't remember how.”
“But she reacts when you touch her,” Mike Fordham prattled.
“No, she doesn't. When she hits a barrier, she turns away and goes in another direction. I bet she'd keep walking in one direction forever if there wasn't anything in her way.” Steve said.
“Jesus, look at her,” Ann mumbled. “Just look at the poor thing. How many people like this are wandering around out there?”
“Did you check her pulse?” Peter whispered to Rachel who was standing next to him.
“Sort of,” she replied, her voice low.
“What's that supposed to mean?” he whispered, annoyed by her vagueness.
“I couldn't find one,” she answered.
“So what are you saying?”
Rachel glanced across at her and shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know,” she admitted.
“Get it out of here,” Fo
rdham hissed backing out of the circle towards a doorway a safe distance away.
Peter looked around the circle and noticed the others either looked at the ground or at him. Sensing it was up to him to make the next move. He took a step forward to grab the corpse woman and take her outside. She staggered in the opposite direction towards Jim Burke and Eddie. Jim raised his hands to ward off the corpse woman and so did Eddie as a reflex.
Peter noticed Eddie had a fresh bandage on his right thumb, with a spot of blood seeping through the gauze. As Jim gave the corpse woman a slight push, Eddie used his right hand to guide her away from them.
The corpse woman took a half step then stopped. She turned her head in Eddie’s direction and looked at him with her dead fish eyes and uttered an inhuman guttural moan. Everyone in the room gasped.
For the first time, the corpse woman moved with purpose and direction back towards Eddie. He lifted his hands again to push the corpse woman away. Also for the first time, the corpse woman used her hands with purpose when she grabbed Eddie’s bandaged right hand in the bony clutches of her ice cold hands.
Eddie tried pulling his hand away, but the effort just pulled the woman closer to him as she continued to clasp onto his hand. Without warning her head snapped forward, and she bit down on the fleshy part of Eddie’s hand and palm. He let out an immediate howl of pain and shock.
“She’s biting me, OWWW! She’s fucking biting me,” he bellowed as he struggled to get her off him, as everyone stood rooted to their spots not moving. “Ahhgg, get off me you stupid bitch. GET OFF ME!”
Eddie punched the corpse woman on the side of her head. Her head rocked to one side, but she continued to gnaw at Eddie’s hand. Eddie howled again, “Get the fuck off me. Somebody help me,” he screamed and punched the woman in the head again. Each of his punches was punctuated with a word, “GET—THE—FUCK—OFF!”
Eddie mashed his fist into the temple of the corpse woman and she released his hand and fell to the floor. Eddie backed away cradling his wounded right hand against his chest. “That, that thing bit me. It fucking bit me,” he said his eyes wild, spittle flying from his mouth.
His eyes brimmed with tears looking at the bruised and bleeding bite marks on his palm and back of his hand. Mike and Jason stepped into the circle.
“Are you happy now?” Jason said glaring at Peter. “Are you fucking satisfied Peter? You bring that thing, that abomination in here and it doesn’t attack one of you idiots who brought it in here. No! It attacks one of us who never wanted it here in the first place. Get that fucking monster out of here right now!”
Eyes downcast, Peter said nothing. He stepped forward and grabbed the corpse woman’s arm and hauled her to her feet. The thing made moaning noises and pulled towards Eddie’s direction uttering a hissing noise as she did so. Peter took a firmer hold of the corpse woman’s arm, but she resisted his grip. Mike Ford and Jason came up and grabbed the creature’s arms away from Peter and dragged it across the floor down the hallway and to the front door.
They half dragged, half walked her down the front stairs out to the parking lot and dumped her in a heap on the ground.
“Now get the fuck out of here.” Mike Ford said, giving the creature’s thigh a light kick.
They turned and walked back to the community center. As they entered the building, Jason turned and saw the corpse woman stand up and begin walking towards him. He ducked inside, closed the door and locked it. Jason heard the creature moaning as it started up the front steps. He was halfway down the hall when the corpse woman started pawing at the door. Everyone in the community center heard the muffled moans of the corpse woman, and the thuds of her hands against the door.
“What the fuck just happened?” Jason said to Peter.
“That fucking freak bit me. Why did she bite me and nobody else?” Eddie also said to Peter.
Everyone stopped talking and listened to the ominous sound of the corpse woman slapping her hands against the door. Eddie looked down the hall to the front door frowning. He stormed down the hall taking long strides. He unlocked the front door and opened it. The corpse woman tried attacking him again, but this time Eddie was ready for it. He punched her in the head again and with both hands shoved her hard off the top stair, shouting “Go away!”
The corpse woman flew off the top stair from the force of his shove. Her head impacted the bottom step with a wet crack and she lay still never to get up again. The corpse woman was finally, truly dead.
Chapter 17
The horror of the outbreak affected each of the survivors differently. Steve spent most of the afternoon trying to catch up on sleep and to forget what happened outside.
As the sun sank below the horizon he climbed out of the community center skylight, which he discovered the previous evening, and stood alone on the small flat roof.
At first, the air was pure and refreshing; he swallowed several deep, calming breaths before the smells of death and burning buildings returned to him on the cool breeze. There was a sudden unexpected noise behind him and he spun around to see Peter struggling to climb through the small skylight.
“Did I make you jump?” he asked as he dragged himself out onto the roof. “Sorry, dude, I didn't mean to. I was looking for you, and saw you disappear up here and...”
Steve shook his head and looked away, disappointed that his little sanctuary was no longer his secret. In the community center, private space was at a premium. Everyone only had a few square feet of space each. Almost every move any person made indoors could be seen by everyone else. Steve hated it and he'd been looking forward to getting out onto the roof and spending time alone. The small square roof was the only place he could go to be alone with his thoughts and cry with no one else seeing. It was stupid. Almost everyone else was dead, but he still worried what the few remaining people might think of him. The effects of years of conditioning by society would take more than a few days to fade away.
“That’s okay,” he sighed as the other man approached. “I came out here to get away for a while.”
“Do you want me to go back inside?” Peter asked, sensing he was in the way. “If you want me to go, then I'll...”
Steve shook his head again. “No, it's fine.”
Peter was glad to hear he wasn't intruding although not entirely convinced he was welcome. He walked across and sat next to Steve at the edge of the roof.
“What in the hell happened?” Peter asked his voice so low Steve hardly heard what he said.
“I don’t know man,” Steve mumbled.
“I just can’t believe how fast this all happened,” Peter mumbled. “A few days ago everything was normal, but now...”
“I know,” Steve sighed. “I know.”
The two men sat in silence for a while and surveyed the surrounding devastation. No matter how long and how hard either of them stared, they still couldn't accept that corpses simply got up and started moving. How could this nightmare be happening?
“Almost makes you envy them, doesn't it?” Steve muttered.
“Who?”
“The bodies lying on the ground. The ones that haven't moved. I can't help thinking how much easier it would have been to be...”
“That's a pretty stupid thing to say.” Peter spat.
“Is it?” Steve snapped back.
In the heavy silence that followed, Steve mulled over his words. Damn, how resigned he sounded. But why shouldn't he be? His life was turned upside down and inside out and he'd lost everything. Not just his family, but his home, his way of life. He lost everything.
He pictured Sarah and his Mom, lying together in the bathroom at home, causing his anguish to deepen. But were they still there? Were they affected by this new change? The thought of his mom and sister wandering through the dark streets alone was too much to bear. He tried unsuccessfully to hide the tears streaming down his tired face.
“Come on,” Peter whispered, attempting to reassure him, but knowing there was no way he could.
�
�I'm okay,” Steve sniffed, but it was obvious he wasn’t.
“Sure?” the other man pressed.
Steve looked into his face and forced himself to smile for a fraction of a second. “No,” he admitted. “No, man, I'm not all right...” Unable to say another word, he sobbed openly.
“Me neither,” Peter admitted, wiping tears of fear and pain from his own eyes.
The two men sat on the edge of the roof, their feet dangling over the side of the building, not talking. After a while, Peter stretched, yawned, and ran his fingers through his dirty, matted brown hair. He'd have paid anything to take a hot shower followed by a night in a comfortable bed. Or even an uncomfortable bed. Anything's better than a hard floor in a cold wooden building.
“You know what we need?” he asked.
“I can think of hundreds of things I need,” Steve answered.
“Forget about all the practical stuff for a minute. Forget all the things we should have like warmth, safety, security, and answers to a million questions. Do you know what I need more than anything right now?”
Steve shrugged his shoulders. “No, what?”
Peter paused, lay back on the asphalt shingle and put his hands behind his head. “I need to get absolutely shit-faced wasted. I need to drink so much fucking booze I can't remember my own name.”
“There's a convenience store up the street,” Steve said, half-smiling and pointing across the main road. “Wanna take a walk?”
He glanced down at Peter who was shaking his head. “No,” he replied.
Another long silence followed.
“Jesus, check out that guy,” Steve said, minutes later. Peter sat up.
“Who?” he asked.
“That one over there,” he said, nodding at a solitary figure in the distance tripping and stumbling along the edge of the main road. The shadowy creature had once been a man, about six foot tall and between twenty-five and thirty. It was walking awkwardly with one foot on the curb and the other in the gutter.