by Phil Maxey
Jess got to her feet and walked over to the stack of scuffed boxes. One of them was a fantasy game, with dragons and knights. Her eyes lit up. “Can I play that one?”
Bill smiled. “Anyone you want.”
Jess carefully pulled the game from the pile, opened it, and placed it on the sofa then started arranging the pieces.
Marina watched her daughter do something normal for the first time in weeks and felt her eyes moisten.
Evan appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “All the stuff is in Jim’s pickup.” He spotted Jess looking at one of the plastic dragon pieces. “Hey, you played Dragons of the Blue Sun before?” She shook her head. “Okay cool, I’ll show you… If you’re both staying for a while?” He looked at Marina, who smiled then looked at Bill.
He smiled. “Yes! Stay, I’ll cook us up some stew!”
Evan pulled a face at Jess, making her giggle. “We eat a lot of stew.”
“Where’s your mom and dad?” said Jess.
Evan froze his positioning of the board game pieces on the flat square piece of cardboard.
“Jess, never mind about that,” said Marina across the room.
Evan continued setting up the game.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Joel, Jim, and Reg stood in Reg’s barn. At their feet sat a partially raised open hatch, with concrete stairs which led under the ground.
Reg looked agitated. His eyes flicked between Joel and Jim, finally resting on Jim. “You sure this isn’t any kind of official business?”
Jim shook his head. “We don’t care what you got down there, Reg. In fact, we are glad for whatever you do have down there.”
Reg looked at Joel.
“I’m just here for the explosives. Anything else down there is your business.”
Reg accepted Joel’s words, and led him down concrete steps into the bunker. They stepped out into a good-sized room, with a low ceiling, packed with a few rows of freestanding shelves.
Joel looked at the rows and automatic rifles, and other crates which he was sure were ex-army supplies, but resisted saying anything.
Reg walked to the back of the room and opened a large old chest freezer. “I keep all the TNT in here.”
Joel joined him and looked down at what looked like rectangular slabs of stone-colored clay. Briefly, the lawman in him wondered if Reg had a license to hold onto such materials then kicked the thought from his mind. He reached in and picked up one of the slim flat slabs. “Just three of these should be enough. One for each entrance.” He smiled. “Thanks.” He carefully put them back down in the container.
Reg nodded. “Well, you know, happy to help.”
Joel looked back at the weapons. “If you can spare anything else, we can keep it at the school. Actually, if you want, you can be in charge of the munitions at the school?”
Reg looked surprised. “Yeah, if that’s what you want.”
Joel patted Reg on the shoulder. “It is.” Joel went to smile, but a rush of hunger spiked inside him.
“Wow, you really got some grip there, buddy,” said Reg.
As if waking from a dream, Joel looked at his hand holding Reg’s shoulder, and pulled it away. He forced a smile, then quickly looked around the room, trying to change the subject. “Got anything we can transport this stuff in?”
After a short while, they were back up top. Joel was glad to be outside of the confined space, his heartbeat started to slow back down, despite the small crate of high-explosives he was holding.
“I’ll go and rescue Jim, Mary’s probably got the family photos out by now.”
Joel smiled as Reg jogged across the yard in front of the barn, to the old, but perfectly maintained, wooden farmhouse.
Joel looked at the orange hues of the setting sun outside and took deep breaths to control his breathing.
Hungry…
He placed the container of TNT on the straw-covered floor and reached out to a wooden post.
Breathe in… breathe out… I got this… Concentrate on the task at hand.
“Everything alright?” said Jim.
Joel turned around with a smile. “Yeah, just getting tired.”
Jim picked up some of the guns and rifles on the floor. “Let’s get these into the pickup and get them to the school.”
Joel nodded.
Soon the truck was loaded, and they were both waving at Reg and Mary as they drove from their farm.
Joel watched as the sun dipped below the distant mountains, plunging the town of Bellweather into shadow.
It wasn’t long before they were at the school. Some other vehicles were already there.
As Joel went to get out, Jim’s radio came alive with Marina’s voice.
“Go ahead, Marina, Joel’s here with me. Over.”
“Bill said we can stay here the night, so that’s where we will be. Over.”
Jim laughed to himself. “Sounds good. Over.”
“What’s funny?” said Joel.
Jim laughed again. “By the morning, she will be well versed in every conspiracy theory from presidential assassinations to is the moon real.”
Joel smiled, looking at the block-like building standing tall in the early evening light. “It was the craziness that made us human.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Jim, getting out.
After an hour, they, along with others, were sitting on seats in the school’s gym, eating. In the center of the basketball court were neatly arranged rows of supplies. Blankets, cans of food, water containers, cardboard boxes full of packets and candles, all sat alongside large locked weapon containers.
Jim put an empty packet of chips down and drunk from a soda can. “If we don’t start growing our own crops, no one’s going to have any teeth left.”
Kelly laughed. “For some of us, it’s already too late.” She lifted her top lip showing a number of fillings.
Joel seemed lost in his own world.
“What’s on your mind?” said Jim.
“Nothing much.” He continued eating the tasteless breakfast bar. He knew Jim didn’t buy his response. He had spent the last twenty minutes thinking about sinking his teeth into Kelly’s arm. He scrunched up the wrapper, dropped it to the floor, then got to his feet.
He looked at Kelly. “You said you were going to show me the livestock? Any cattle, that kind of thing?”
Kelly finished her water bottle, then stood. “Yeah, but its dark?”
Joel saw Jim looked confused. “Just want to see what the situation is with possible milk and meat stocks.”
Jim nodded. “Yeah, but we can do it in the morning.”
Joel started to back away. “I’d much prefer to do it now.” He bent down and picked up an M4 that was leaned up against one of the weapons containers. “Won’t take long.”
Kelly took a deep breath. “Okay.”
*****
Kelly’s grandmother’s pickup bumped up and down over a dusty deserted road.
“This takes us to what used to be the Altons farm. We found them both dead, umm a husband and wife, a few weeks back. They had a good head of cattle which we are trying to keep alive, but each time we come out, there are less and less,” she said to Joel next to her.
“How many are there now?”
“About forty, I think.”
Joel looked out into the darkness, he could hear the heartbeat of the animals.
“Hopefully, the numbers the same.” He already knew it wasn’t. From the overlapping thundering noises his ears were picking up, he figured there were about twenty-five. He felt guilty he was going to have to take another.
The pickup’s headlights stopped at a metal gate. She went to get out.
Joel raised his hand. “Wait, I’ll do it.” He got out, enjoying the brief coolness the night air afforded him, opened the gate and Kelly drove through. After closing the gate behind them, they were again on a rocky road for a few more minutes. In the distance, Joel could see the dark outline of a house at the edge of the large field
they were driving across. Some of the cattle were already stirring.
Joel’s heart was beating so loud in his ears, he wondered if Kelly could hear it.
Need to feed.
“Stop!”
Kelly slammed on the brakes, and they both fell forward then back. “What is it?”
Joel just said the first thing that came to mind. “I think I saw some of the scourge in the field, umm, on the other side. We don’t want them taking anymore cattle. Wait here, keep the Glock ready, and lock the doors. This shouldn’t take long.”
“Err… Okay.”
Kelly seemed too shocked to understand what was actually happening. Joel was glad for that. He needed to get out of the pickup. The sound of her heartbeat and the smell of thick blood flowing through her arteries was starting to make his head swim.
He forced a quick smile for her, then got out, closing the door behind him. He scanned the landscape. The field rose a little, then fell away a hundred yards away, providing cover for what he was going to have to do.
He started running across the field, although not too fast as to raise any suspicions from the pickup’s driver. Soon the ground started to dip, and he looked back to the narrow dirt track. He couldn’t see the pickup.
Good.
He could feel the thirst inside him wanting to be let out.
As his heart boomed in his brain, he looked around at the closest animal he could find. One of the innocent cattle was grazing only tens of yards away.
That one.
He staggered forward, the relief washing over him, that finally he could allow his true nature to take form, when a scream pierced the night.
What?
The streets of LA, with the dead, dying, and those that were feeding, filled his mind.
He spun around, not being sure what was real and what was something else. The scream rang out again.
Real.
He looked back to the creature, tantalizingly close.
I just need to feed…
More screaming, punctuated by gun fire.
Joel looked into the stars above him and let out a guttural roar in frustration. Turning, he surged forward, covering his previous distance in a matter of seconds until the pickup came into view. He skidded to a stop. A four-legged creature, that looked like something hell had spawned, was on the hood of the pickup with its front claw pushed through the windscreen.
It screeched and growled as another gunshot boomed into the night, tearing through the creature, which it ignored and kept trying to get at its prey.
Despite the burning hunger inside him, he hesitated, looking at the crazed manic monster trying to understand what it was. Kelly’s screams freed him from his inaction, and he sprinted forward and leaped at the creature, slamming into it. He and the vision of teeth and claws tumbled through the air landing on the hard desert ground. The thing immediately rolled back onto its feet and slashed across his chest, but rage was the only feeling that Joel’s mind contained, and he lunged at the creature, grabbing it by its shoulder and neck and as it struggled to be free, he plunged his elongated teeth into it.
The warm blood flowed down his throat as the thing’s desperate fight for survival gave way to acceptance, then death.
After some seconds of absorbing the creatures very essence, he threw it to the side.
His heartbeat started to slow, and his own thoughts started to replace the single one of hunger.
As he sat in the pickup’s headlights, he heard a click, and looked up at Kelly pointing her gun at him.
“What the fuck are you?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Logical thought and reason flooded back into Joel’s mind as Kelly’s gun waved just a few yards from him. He could probably take it from her before she realized he wasn’t kneeled on the ground anymore, but he knew that wasn’t the way to play things.
“I’m not like the others.”
Kelly shifted from foot to foot. “Like hell you’re not! I saw your eyes, they were black! And the way you… you killed that thing, with your… your front teeth were like a…” She was starting to hyperventilate.
Joel looked up at her, just able to see her face against the glare, and smiled. “Breathe, Kelly. Slow and deep breaths.”
She took a gulp of air and slowed her breathing.
“Do you think you can lower the gun. I’m no threat to you.”
“Just tell me what you are!”
“Okay, I was attacked, right back at the start of all this madness. I didn’t know… nobody knew what was happening, and then I changed—”
“You mean you died! You’re one of them!”
“No… let me talk. I changed, but I didn’t become like the others. I fed on animals.”
“So, you’ve never killed a human?”
Joel looked down. “I have killed a human—” Kelly’s arm that was beginning to sag, raised again. “— But it was self-defense. I don’t need to kill anyone.” He was lying, but he didn’t want to die in the middle of this field.
“Then what the hell was—” A thought struck her. “— Is that why we’re out here? You wanted to lure me all the way out here, to kill me?” The handgun jerked with each word from her mouth.
“Not for you, for the cattle! I wanted to feed on one of them! But then I heard your screams and shots, and well… I came back to help!”
She stood silent, shaking her head, as if a conversation was playing out in her mind.
He raised both his hands and stood. “I’m not a threat to you…” He took a step forward. “Are you hurt?”
“No…” She looked unsure, but also didn’t want to move her eyes from the man in front of her. “I don’t know. I think I’m okay.”
Joel looked down at the large beast on the ground next to him. He kneeled next to it, examining its serpentine head and torso that was part fur and part scales.
“What is that thing?” she asked.
Joel shook his head. “I have no idea…” He looked at the thing’s feet which were paw-like but with much larger claws. “I think it might be a mountain lion, or was…” He stood back up. “We should take it back, maybe Anna can figure it out.”
He looked back at the woman who was still holding him hostage. “Shoot me, or help me get this thing in the back.” He knew he would sense her heart rate increase before she pulled the trigger and there was no danger of him being shot, but he wanted this standoff to be over.
“How do I know you won’t eat me?”
“Why didn’t I do it already? I’ve had multiple chances to kill you, and did I?”
“No…”
“You helping?” He looked from her to the absolute black around them. “I don’t want to be out here if there’s more of these things in these hills.”
She lowered the gun, and gingerly walked towards him.
“Good.”
He kneeled and slid his hands under the head and shoulders of the beast. Kelly put her gun back in its holster, and grabbed the rear, then they both shuffled to the back, with Joel taking most of the weight, then tossed it in the truck’s bed.
She stood awkwardly, looking at the tears in his blood splattered shirt. “Are you hurt…”
“I was, but not anymore. I heal pretty quick.”
She shook her head in confusion. “I don’t understand how you’re not like those things, that you’re not—”
“A monster?”
“Yeah.”
He sighed. “That makes two of us. I’m kind of figuring this stuff out as I go along.” He paused. “What are you going to tell the others? Because I would prefer to keep this between us for now.”
She looked away. “I don’t know if I can do that… what if you go nuts again and attack someone? That will be on me.”
“I promise you that won’t happen.” Another lie, but he sold it convincingly.
She briefly sucked in her bottom lip.
“If it helps, I won’t stay at the hotel anymore, I’ll find somewhere else.”
&
nbsp; She nodded. “Okay, if you do that, then for now I won’t tell anyone. But the first sign that you have hurt someone, I’m shouting it from the rooftops.”
He nodded. “Deal.”
*****
Joel and Anna looked down at the creature on the autopsy table, lit by the bright florescent light above them. She was dressed in a blue and white surgical gown, mask, and white gloves, whereas he just had the mask.
She tapped a button on her phone. “This is Dr. Anna Faraday. The time is five minutes past midnight, on the nineteenth of September, 2018. I am conducting an autopsy on what appears to be, or originally was, an adult female puma concolor, otherwise known as a mountain line or cougar. It’s bone structure, and exterior cutaneous layer has seemingly changed. I presume through infection of the scourge virus. Therefore, confirming that some animals are changed, like humans, although I have not seen this amount of transformation in humans… yet.”
Joel looked at the animal on the table, which was also part something else and wondered if the same would eventually happen to him.
She sensed Joel’s discomfort despite his emotionless expression. “Everything alright?”
“Yes. Continue.”
She looked closely across the body, eventually stopping near the neck area. She spoke into her phone again. “There are two large puncture holes in its neck, no doubt from another that has been infected by the scourge.”
She then took a scalpel and felt for a patch of skin that wasn’t covered in scales and made a large incision. A strong smell of sulphur poured out of the large wound, making both of them start to feel queasy.
“That’s not normal,” said Anna, gripping the side of the table.
“There’s nothing normal about any of this,” said Joel.
She continued with the cut, branching off into a Y shape, then peeled back the skin and cut into the muscle. Once there was a big enough opening, she started to reach inside.
Her expression changed to one of confusion. “Hmm…”
Joel moved closer. “What?”
“I’m not finding what I should be inside this animal, no liver, kidneys, and what appears to be hardly any stomach.” She pulled her hand out.