Xenia, After

by Joe Schlegel

  She wheezed and gripped her stomach protectively. And she twisted into a fetal curl.

  He wrapped a muddy extension cord around her neck, found among the trash around them.

  Then he pulled it tight.

  David stood up tall to his full, towering height and partially pulled Lily up by her throat.

  He kicked at her shoulder until she rolled onto her stomach.

  Then he pressed his foot into the small of her back.

  And he pulled tighter. His large biceps bulged from the effort.

  Lily arched backward, bent nearly to her spine’s breaking point.

  She frantically, numbly swatted to break free. But her awkward flailing failed to land a single strike on her unexpected attacker.

  Her futile struggles continued for several more moments than David expected. The fight to stay alive clutched to her consciousness with the whites of its knuckles.

  Yet she eventually fell still.

  He held her up a short while longer, her back bent nearly in two, her head dangled limply from her slumped shoulders.

  Gradually, he lowered her body to the concrete.

  David gripped her hands, and he dragged her deep into a narrow alcove tucked between two buildings. Enclosed by brick at the end, garbage carpeted the ground.

  He tossed her small frame into the trash, then spread it around to hide her corpse from view.

  “The rats can have you, demon,” he sneered as he turned and left the alcove.

  Inside a sizable garage, a deteriorated one heard the shrieks from the nearby round building. It flailed wilder, excited by the frenzied commotion that echoed across the transportation department’s small lot.

  Several more chained prisoners recoiled fearfully.

  It pulled against its single-legged shackle. Its putrid flesh slipped easily atop the decayed muscles beneath it. Dark fluids seeped and oozed from unhealed lacerations, and its eyes yellowed and browned and nearly enveloped its wide pupils.

  Its decrepit foot broke off with a dull, sickened snap.

  And it stumbled away from the wall, free to eat.

  The weight on its stub caused its decayed features to wince. Yet still, it marched to the nearest prisoner.

  He desperately kicked at it, but the weight of his chains diminished his strikes.

  It caught his leg.

  And it craned down to bite his shin.

  Its blood-caked teeth shredded the flesh from the bone.

  The prisoner frantically kicked at it again. He wailed from agony and dread.

  He managed to knock it loose.

  It stumbled onto its fresh, bloody stub, then toppled sideways and collapsed.

  As it eyed another prisoner, it pushed itself back up greedily.

  And it charged despite its stub.

  The doomed prisoner pressed himself against the wall. He cried.

  It lunged for his neck.

  13.

  The D.O.T. Nightmare

  Maddox spied intruders from an office window.

  Still shirtless and sloppy, he scurried to the back exit. His bulbous gut bounced.

  He picked up his Remington shotgun by the door, barreled out, and raised it to aim.

  “What the hell are you coons doing on my property?”

  Iggy threw his hands up in startled surrender, “Whoa man, we’re just checking out a noise!”

  “What kind of noise?” Maddox peered at the trio overtop his shotgun, skeptical and suspicious.

  “Might have been one of them. That’s what we’re here to find out—”

  “Bullshit! You wouldn’t creep closer to that! That’s suicide! Why are you really here?”

  Mohammad reasoned soothingly, “Three of us, one of them, that’s all we had in mind. We can take it out easily, and there’s one less to worry about.”

  “That sounds a little more truthful, but you mean three of you versus one of me, right?”

  Anika, startled to look upon the loaded Remington 870, shouted, “Dude, this isn’t about you! We didn’t even know you were here until you came out swinging a shotgun!”

  Maddox scanned their terror-twisted faces, and a grim idea settled itself into his thoughts. He smirked maliciously, “Just an innocent misunderstanding, huh? You want to check my property so bad? Fine, let’s go check some shit out.”

  He walked closer to them but kept the Remington trained at the trio. His bulbous belly jiggled with every step. And he checked up and down the short, visible stretch of Detroit Street.

  “There’s no need for the gun,” Anika protested flatly.

  “You think I’m going to give up my only defense? Not when I’m outnumbered by some rifle-wearing, snooping animals. That’s goddamn retarded. I don’t know where you get off thinking I’m that foolish.”

  “This isn’t necessary.”

  “Neither was trespassing. Yet here you three are, armed and ready for action.”

  Mohammad retreated several steps. “Then we’ll leave, to hell with it. We only thought we were doing the community a favor. This isn’t worth this bullshit, anyway.”

  “It’s too late for all that.” Maddox motioned deeper into the transportation department’s lot with the shotgun barrel, “Get walking.”

  The students led to the nearest structure, a sizable garage with several overhead doors barricaded until they were nearly unpassable. An inhuman shriek echoed from within, louder as they inched closer. It demanded fresh meat and warm blood.

  More shrieks echoed from further into the compound. The screeches and babbles from the far corner of the compound enticed the ones within the garage. A choir of rabid beasts rose louder and louder.

  Iggy approached an unsealed garage door.

  “Not that one,” Maddox barked, his concerned attention lulled away by the distant commotion. “Find out what’s going on back there.”

  Reluctantly, the students crept deeper into the compound.

  The shrieks and babbles rose to riotous levels all around them.

  Anika, Iggy, and Mohammad stood shoulder to shoulder. Each step found them subtly yet definitively further apart from another.

  “This is bird shot, not a slug,” Maddox growled. “One of you is about to be the reason the other two get shot in their backs. I won’t stop firing until their dead. Walk closer together, or I start spraying.”

  They obediently bunched up again.

  Several yards from the door to the large, round building on their right, they halted.

  “Open it up,” Maddox ordered.

  Iggy released the lock.

  He opened the door wide enough for the morning to illuminate the round interior.

  Two of them, freshly turned, scrambled at the end of their chained shackles for the breakfast that so suddenly appeared in their doorway. Their flesh only recently began the putrefaction and discoloration which so readily marked the infection.

  Oliver huddled away from two dead bodies which collapsed within the length of his chain.

  He cried out desperately, “HELP ME!!”

  The students gasped.

  Loose from its manacles, one of them charged the doorway.

  Maddox stumbled backward and aimed sloppily into the building.

  He fired his shotgun.

  Iggy received most of the bird shot to the back of his head and shoulders. He crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

  Maddox cocked the shotgun again.

  He squinted into the round room.

  Seven jumped. She reactively pivoted toward the intersection of Prugh and Detroit.

  The shotgun blast echoed from just over the shallow ridge.

  She quickly snapped her head back to William, concern and trepidation flooded her delicate features. The twin set of matching polo shirts rang ominously.

  He stared intently yet fearfully at Rhea. The scar over his left eye flushed deep red.

  Wesley inquired, “What happened to her leg?”

  Only then did Seven notice a gash along her calf. A narrow trickle
of blood ran down to her sock.

  She crouched down, “Sweetheart, you didn’t feel that? Was that from when I lifted you through the window?”

  Rhea shrugged her shoulders apprehensively as her mother brushed the bangs from her forehead. Her troubled, unsure gaze transfixed back to William.

  She stared into his menacing veneer.

  “You never know how dirty a piece of glass can be,” Wesley cautioned.

  Seven rose, and she politely dismissed, “I’ll dress it when we get back into town, it’ll be fine.”

  “There’s only so much you can sterilize against...”

  She stepped directly in front of Rhea.

  With a dangerous gravel in her voice, she warned, “Stop looking at my daughter,”

  14.

  Surviving the Nightmare

  Anika yanked Mohammad sideways from the doorway.

  Maddox aimed the Remington into the round building.

  He fired.

  It absorbed the brunt of the bird shot. Injured, it still charged toward breakfast.

  Maddox fired again.

  Its head ripped, shredded, and ruptured backward, torn up by the pellets that launched from the end of the barrel. The freshly turned corpse flopped to the dirty concrete. Blood splashed nearly to Iggy’s body.

  Oliver pushed himself harder against the wall, and his chains rattled as he trembled. He sobbed at the sight of his shotgun-wielding tormentor.

  Maddox glanced sideways—

  Anika and Mohammad sprinted back toward the garage.

  He cocked the shotgun, spun from the round building, and aimed at the retreating students’ backs.

  And he fired.

  Bird shot kicked up dust from the gravel lot, dented a door of the nearest work truck, and slammed into the office building just in the background. But every pellet strayed wide of its targets.

  They rounded the corner of the garage.

  Mohammad pivoted quickly around, swung the rifle from his back, and he aimed at the edge of the building.

  Maddox huffed around the turn in desperate chase. The corner of the garage unveiled the waiting students.

  He halted, surprised to face the duo so suddenly.

  Then he raised his shotgun—

  Mohammad squeezed the trigger.

  Several rounds pierced through Maddox’s exposed chest.

  Maddox tumbled shirtless to the ground. Blood poured and mixed with the gravel and dirt.

  The shrieks from within the sizable garage grew desperate. Pounding and kicking and pulling against their restraints, the walls swayed and threatened to buckle.

  Anika and Iggy edged away from it fearfully.

  Chains snapped and rattled. Free from their shackles, they surged to the door.

  Several more scrambled from around the corner, greedily attracted to the sounds of chaos and havoc.

  The students rushed to the office building. They sprinted through the unlocked back door, where Maddox first appeared with his shotgun.

  Anika spun to lock up behind them.

  As she slid the bolt into place, they pounded and kicked at the door.

  She scurried away and collapsed weakly, fearfully in the middle of the room.

  The shrieks caused her hands to tremble. Tears streaked down her cheeks. She covered her mouth with her fingers as she fought the mounting hysterics, and she clenched her eyes. But in the darkness behind her eyelids, she involuntarily replayed Iggy’s abrupt death.

  All the carnage...

  Mohammad peered around a corner.

  And he checked down a hallway.

  He heard whimpering just below their caterwauls and thrashing.

  Nervously closer, he crept to a closed office door. He placed his ear to it.

  The whimpering emanated from the other side of the lightweight wood.

  Mohammad reached for the knob.

  He twisted it slowly, quietly... cautiously.

  The door opened wide enough to slide his face into the room.

  Instead of office furniture, only a bed filled the tiny room. And Iggy recognized another female student restrained to its posts with thick layers of duct tape.

  Hanna lay in her own sweat, her hair matted from squirming and from tears. She hadn’t bathed in weeks. The dull shine of jaded shock clouded her eyes.

  She gasped, horrified that her tormenter had returned to her room.

  When she locked gaze with Mohammad instead, her jaw slackened slightly. Then she dissolved into relieved sobs.

  Hanna whimpered, “Help me.”

  Mohammad rushed to the bed. He removed a pocket knife and sliced through the duct tape, careful to remain safely clear from her skin.

  He maniacally peeled back several layers of tape to get to the layers beneath them.

  Fervently, he freed one of her hands.

  Hanna pulled it into her body, stiff and sore. Her face twisted from pain yet undeniable relief.

  They beat and pounded on the walls, and they shook the structure. And they screeched and babbled, desperate to enter the offices and feast. Their chorus provided a sickening overture.

  Mohammad worked on her other arm. He carved the blade of the knife into the bedframe, and it sliced clean and efficiently through the adhesive.

  Her other arm withdrew from the bed post. She tucked it in stiffly toward her body.

  He bumbled for the tape that tethered her feet.

  Hanna gasped hoarsely, “I can get that in a few moments. Go help the other girls.”

  Mohammad paused his frantic cutting. His face paled with trepidation.

  “How many are there?”

  “I don’t know, definitely a few.” She coughed roughly. “They’re nearby; I’ve heard them.”

  He handed his pocket knife to Hanna, then ran from the room.

  Down the hallway, he found Anika still huddled on the floor, dazed and nearly despondent from remorse.

  She muttered, with shock widening her eyes, “Iggy is dead... No warning at all...”

  “There are more survivors in here,” Mohammad blurted. “Hanna is tied up! She said there are more girls!”

  Anika gasped. Her tear-matted eyelashes blinked rapidly from the jarring, soul-crushing news. “My sister...?” She scrambled to her feet, “That’s been weeks ago...”

  She followed Mohammad as he barreled toward a closed room, but she stopped at the first open doorway. Hanna, her older sister by only a year and a month, struggled weakly to grip a pocket knife. Her face twisted into emotional agony, and her legs wobbled.

  Anika processed the scene with wide, horrified eyes. Larger tears streaked down her cheeks.

  Then she rushed to the bed. She pried the knife away and cut into the duct tape with more strength than her sister mustered.

  But Hanna protested hoarsely, “Go help the others! Someone might be in worse shape than me.”

  She coughed. It reverberated deep within her chest.

  Still, Anika voraciously attacked her sister’s adhesive restraints.

  “They may need you, go!”

  One ankle finally escaped the layers of tape.

  Anika croaked, “I thought you were...”

  “We’ll all be in a lot of shit if Maddox comes back! The other girls need out of here, too!”

  Despite the tears, she smiled and shook her head defiantly. “That nasty piece of shit is coyote food now.”

  Hanna teared up again, yet joy lifted the weight from her fragile, tender limbs. She sobbed harder, “Are you sure?”

  “Mohammad pulled the trigger just moments ago.”

  Anika looked to the room’s doorway. The sounds of them refused to fade. They knew that food hid inside, just out of reach.

  “I can’t outrun them,” Hanna fought to control her sobs, “I can’t outpedal them. The others can’t be in any better shape, either. If they get in here, we’re worse off than with Maddox.”

  Blanket in hand, Mohammad rushed back into the room. He tossed it to cascade overtop Hanna’s frai
l, malnourished, naked body.

  “There are five other girls,” he reported darkly.

  Anika’s tragic expression slipped further into gloom and dismay, “Are they all black...?”

  “No, there’s a white girl and a Latino in here, too.”

  “There have been more,” Hanna sobbed harder, and larger tears traced down her cheeks. “So many more...”

  They all listened to their racket from the back door, interspersed with grunts as Anika carved into the duct tape.

  Anika tugged the other leg free, then pivoted to Mohammad. “We need to bring help.”

  “No shit! One of the women is completely unresponsive, blankly awake and catatonic! Hanna, can you look after them when we leave?”

  She nodded and dutifully, stiffly scooted herself sideways from the bed.

  “We have to lure them away from the building,” Anika fretted. “Or at least enough of them to keep from breaking through the walls.”

  Mohammad dismissed, “If they catch us on the roof, they’ll surround the whole building trying to find a way up. And then we’ll never make it to our bikes.”

  They screamed and babbled from the back door.

  It echoed down the hallway to them.

  And Mohammad realized, “They aren’t swarming the front. I say we stroll right out to the street, get their attention as we bolt. But we have to do this now.”

  Anika nodded and silently joined the plan.

  She hugged her sister tenderly, careful of Hanna’s aches and sore muscles. “We’ll be back,” she adjusted the blanket over her shoulders. “I’m coming back for you. You’re going to be okay, okay?”

  Hanna managed a proud, weak smile. “I know you will be. But hurry, please.”

  Mohammad and Anika dashed from Hanna’s room.

  Down the hallway, they eyed the back door. It shook and shimmied as they pounded and kicked to get in and feast.

  Then they turned to the front door.

  Anika drew in a long, deep breath.

  She exhaled nervously and checked Mohammad’s expression.

  He winked at her and allowed a playful, devious smirk to tug at his lips.

  Anika managed a fragile grin. It faded quickly.

  She reached out and unlocked the front door. Then she gradually opened it.