In The Season of The Damned (Book One)

by Shannon Allen

  I saw Zen’s face. He looked like he wished he didn’t have a hand in this, and that it would haunt him forever, but so go the things we can’t take back. He went on to talk about how one of the white scientists who worked with him was the first white person to catch it and die. They immediately began working on a cure when the first mice reanimated.

  “Could there be a cure for this virus?”

  “We don’t know,” he said.

  All of this was hard to understand in a way. “So, basically, you’re saying they weaponized vampirism? But it doesn’t quite create vampires, it creates zombies.”

  “Yes, Peter, that is it, the bite DNA had the ingredients to get us where we are now.”

  “Okay, Zen, but where did the vampires originally come from?”

  “We don’t know if they came from elsewhere or they have always been here. Zero Base Laboratory was studying that, but the whole base was lost mysteriously, according to the person I talked with, but I’ll save that one for another time. If you and Ira don’t feel safe here anymore, there’s another location I heard of from a contact, it’s a farmhouse where some people are holding up. I thought I’d run the idea past you guys.”

  “This is our home,” Ira said, “it feels like our only certainty in this world, and if it’s all the same, I’d rather stay here and fight if need be.”

  Just then, we heard something. We all ran to the window, and looking outside, we saw them, what looked like thirty people.

  “What the hell?” Zen said.

  These people had on robes like Klansmen. They had torches, and they were coming right towards us. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ira said.

  “Ira, get the guns,” Zen said, “the shotguns!”

  Ira ran, gathering guns for all of us. She handed me a shotgun, and I readied it. “There’s too many of them, even if they are human.”

  “They would be more dangerous than vampires at this point,” Zen said.

  “Maybe they don’t know we’re here,” Ira said. “Let’s hide in the cellar.”

  Zen helped me out of my chair and pushed the chair down the stairs, and he and Ira both took one of my arms. Zen closed the door behind us, and when we were at the bottom, Zen unscrewed the light, and we all hid behind the spare woodpile.

  After a bit, we heard it, people were moving around upstairs and a girl was screaming, it sounded like she was pleading with them to let her go. We heard a sound like someone wrestling with the cellar door. They opened it, and it seemed as if they may have been looking in, but then they closed it. Then began the most eerie sound I have heard in my life. They were chanting, chanting to Lucifer, you could clearly make that out. The girl was screaming again.

  “We have to help her!” Ira said.

  “Shhhh,” Zen said, “let me think.”

  Then, the door opened again. We could hear the girl. They pushed her down the stairs into the cellar; it sounded like she was weeping in pain. We heard as they latched the cellar. There was walking and then talking outside, and then it was quiet. We waited for what seemed like thirty minutes, listening for sounds other than the woman’s crying. Ira said, “I think they may be gone.”

  Zen screwed the light back in, and that’s when we saw her, bound. Zen said to take off the bag that was over her head. We dusted off the spider webs that were all over us. Zen walked upstairs, pushing the cellar door and listening. He finally rammed into it and it swung open violently. He pushed the shotgun out first and whispered that he saw no one. We uncovered the woman.

  “Who are you?” Ira said.

  “I’m, I’m Cassandra,” the woman said.

  “Who are those people?” I said.

  “They are a cult,” she said. “They are trying to sacrifice me because I left, and for things my mother did to them. We must leave now.”

  I knew she knew what she was talking about; there was urgency in her voice that was frightening. I undid her hands, noticing strange numbers on her arm. Zen came back down, he took my chair upstairs, and then he said we’d better get out of here before they return. They helped me up and then helped the woman up.

  “I feel weird,” she said grabbing at her neck. “I’m so hot.”

  Zen touched her face, “She’s burning up. Peter, get some ice. Ira, get some alcohol. Peter, look out the window and see if they are coming back.” Zen spread the alcohol all over her, and then the ice. “This should relieve the fever,” he said. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

  Zen picked up the woman, but just then I saw them coming, some were running. “Get out the back!” Zen said, and Ira grabbed my chair. I didn’t mind this time, and she quickly started pushing me through the back way, which was not wheelchair equipped, and almost threw me out. The chanting grew louder; it somehow seemed more eerie than before. Before we knew it, they were out the door and on us quickly.

  Zen blew two of them away, whipping blood and guts into the air, and he shot a few more times, moving toward the van. That’s when I saw it, something I can’t explain easily, only that it was large and hooded, with goat horns. It grabbed Zen from behind. I shot at it, missing, but it released Zen. We were almost surrounded by the time Zen made it in. The cult members hanging on the camper were thrown off as we raced down the dirt road. I stared back at the cabin and I saw them, the other hooded figures standing watching. The hooded figures looked at us as if they wished they could catch us as we sped out of view. I watched as the two people Zen had shot began to reanimate. The woman Cassandra was quiet and shaking.

  This was how I met Zen, Cas, and my wife Ira. This only would be the beginning of our journey together; it would cement us as friends, family, and sometimes try those friendships, as we would be the thing we could count on most in this world we inhabited. If you could have zombies, you could have vampires, and if you could have vampires, you could have a cult of witches. That’s me, quoting a book called, “The Wisdom of the Witch,” that I found in Zen’s bag.

  FINAL STORY: CANDICE GRIM

  Candice Grim sat on the train that Sunday, thoughts festering inside of her. She looked around the train to find little antiquated rows of seats, but they looked comfortable to sit. The train staff danced through the aisle back and forth, violently fluffing pillows as the sun and earth shown through the windows and merry droplets of last night’s rain still bounced across the stiff glass. The conductor, Thomas C. Mindew exclaimed, “Two more hours before we reach Chicago, two more hours!” He promoted this with a scruffy, tired voice, Candice gripped her purse. Its contents were the reason she’d taken the trip in the first place. She was returning home, returning to family.

  The last time she’d been this way, things didn’t go so well. She remembered the words of her mom as she dashed through the front, falling face-first onto the outer porch: “Candice, don’t you do this! Don’t do this to me, what am I supposed to do? I’ve chosen you kids all my life. All my life I’ve slaved in a job that barely allowed me to make meals stretch. I’ve tried to hold this family together. I love him, and I can’t give him up, Candice.”

  The words seem to reverberate around the train as Candice glanced up at a guy who had sat across from her. From this purse, Candice would offer her mom the final proof to choose her once and for all.

  “Pardon me, miss,” he said. “What did that conductor say?” He smiled, sounding every bit as Southern as fried chicken and mashed potatoes sopped in gravy. “Two hours to Chicago?”

  “Yes, yes that he did say,” Candice stared at him from beneath her hat.

  “Then that only gives me a little over an hour to impress you,” he grinned cunningly. “I’m Dart Howell.”

  Candice smiled, releasing the tight grip she held on her purse. “Are you from around Chicago way, sir?”

  “No, I originally come from California; I’ve traveled the South. See, I am a salesman.” Right at that moment, Dart grabbed his head.

  “Is this crazy weather we’ve been having doing you a displeasure, sir?” Candice said.
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br />   “No, I’ve had these headaches since I was a boy.” Dart grimaced, sitting back against the comfort of the train’s seat rest.

  “I have some aspirin, would you like an aspirin, sir?”

  “Yes you can give me two if you so please.” Candice, seeing his squelched-up face began to worry now. She saw the sweat beads prickling around his forehead, and dark bags seemed to circle his eyes. She’d paid it no mind before this episode. “Can I get the conductor, sir?”

  Dart lunged forward, grabbing her wrist, and he stared straight into her eyes. She felt a paralyzing fear sweep over her. She couldn’t talk, just a horrible sense of darkness perplexed her.

  “Candice, I know I’m scaring you, I don’t mean to. You must not go there, you have to turn back on this trip. You have to do it. Do it Candice, before it’s too late. Don’t go there! Something’s waiting for you…” How do you know my name Candice asked?

  At that moment, the conductor, Mr. Mindew, marched to the window. He gasped as if in total fear and backed away, stumbling in his retreat. “Did anybody see it? Did you see it?” he pointed to a couple who were sitting, entranced in each other.

  Suddenly, the train began bouncing wildly on the tracks. The day had grown long, its shadow pulled at the sky like a veil being draped over a blushing bride, and there were sparks leaping from the track like the fizz of a Halloween sparkler, all bouncing about in a dimly lit room.

  Candice gasped. “What’s going on?” she called to the conductor. The rest of the train was in a similar state of arousal, and then at that moment the train shanked off the track, throwing all of the carts into a grassy field, The sound was like heaven falling, with the crumbling metal and slurring wheels squeaking for relief.

  Candice lay towards the back of the train cart. Dart Howell was backed into the corner behind her. She was pressed against one of the windows, which were now flat on the fields’ earthy ground. Broken shards of smashed glass were everywhere, and lilies sprung up out of the ground, poking through what once were windows. The train had turned mostly on its side, and a rancid smell of urine spilled from the trains’ toilet as the door lay wide open. There was the distinct smell of smoke in the air.

  The little light that dared enter filled the windows in the middle of the cart, and loud cries filled the cart. The fifteen or so other people onboard must be in terrible trouble. Then it happened, the train began to sway back and forth and the metal sounded like it was being ripped away from castle gates. Then, there was a thump as if something were standing on top of the train, then another thump, and another as if it was walking. The sounds played like vicious melodies, each more horrible and intense than the next.

  A foul odor poured through the train cabin from above, a wild, strong animal scent of urine rot and feces. Through the dimly lit hall, hollow bodies writhed in pain and fear. The voices of a chosen few sang sweet and sorrowful.

  “Get up!” Dart yelled. “You are passing out. Come on, we’ve got to find a way out of here!” They crawled through the urine into the bathroom cart and through a window, and just as they went through the window, they saw it, they saw something they could not explain: a beast that walked like a man, its snout and hair looked like a bear, its shadow cast across the train. Plentiful cries were heard as they made their way across the field in the shadow of the train car, crawling all the way. They were just trying to look ahead and not back, trying to ignore the unforgettable sound of flesh tearing and the screams for mercy. Wicked splinters purged their skin, the wired grass stabbed their knees, and the deep smell of earth filled both of their noses. Candice and Dart saw it in the distance, it sat starkly in the darkness, a hollow ghost, a place to hide, a welcome sight.

  The cabin was cold and dusty, it hid them in it, and they lay shaking on the floor, afraid to stand in front of the windows, on which cobwebs filled and spiders paced, the ripping of metal hung in the unimaginable silence. “There’s a cellar underneath,” Dart exclaimed, “we should go down there.” The cellar door shrieked, gasping for oil. To become more obfuscated seemed like a valiant idea. The steep stairs met their feet as they went slinking into the limp coldness.

  A switch Dart found added a tiny luminescence, and they could make out chairs, newspapers, and a lantern. Dart reached into his pocket. Grabbing a match, he lit the lantern, and the smell of flint livened the room. “Oh no!” Dart’s voice shivered as he shined the light around in the flitting dimness. White bones stretched across the room’s landscape. “It is a den!” he said, turning to look at Candice.

  “What do you mean?” she whispered.

  “This is their nest,” he said, “we need to get out of here.”

  In the land of the too-soons, they were too late. It roared down the stairs, snatching Dart with a bite and throwing him against the wall. A gush of bloody pieces exploded forth, touching every part Candice’s garments.

  She crawled up the stairs, back outside, back into oblivion’s field. Candice felt its jaws pulling her back, snapping and breaking the bones in her legs. She was being dragged through the wetness of her own blood. Pulled onto her back as she came face-to-face with the beast, its eyes shined on her person with the haunting intelligence that it knew it had her. She shivered, feeling the lightness of life drain out of her body, which was engorged in agony.

  Candice awoke, sitting on the train. She sat there with horror still crawling over her, feeling like something was wrong. It didn’t feel like another nightmare, but something deeper. Candice thought of pulling the emergency break to get off. The conductor yelled, “Let’s make a stop in Kentford!” At that stop, Dart Howell got on. Candice was happy to see him back alive.

  “Are you Dart Howell?” she asked, and he said yes, but how do you know my name… “There’s something I have to tell you she said. Candice grabbed his hand and led him off the train at Kentford. Later, they’d hear that the train crashed in a field and all of the people onboard were mauled to death. She never left Dart, and he never left her.

  Thank you for reading In the Season of The Damned!

  Look for the sequel

  In The Season of the Damned Book 2: Zero Base Laboratory.