Permanent Ink: Deadwalkers (Zombie Outbreak)

by RWK Clark

  He swung the block down toward the window again, breaking it even more, the glass broke inward, bits of it flying into Kathy’s mouth and hair. Her hands went to her face and came back down with blood on them.

  All at once she remembered: the horn.

  She pushed at it, and it gave a brief honk, so she tried to lean on it. Right then, Brian grabbed his mother by her hair and gave it a yank. She looked up into his yellowed, milky eyes in terror.

  “Yum, Mommy,” he growled, spit flying. “Yum.”

  With a single yank Brian Olson pulled his mother cleanly through her car window and threw her to the hard floor. Her head bounced off it hard, and now dazed, she reached for the spot to rub it. But she never had the chance to do much more.

  Brian straddled her and sat on her midsection. Grabbing her hair once more, he jerked her head back, exposing her neck. Leaning forward, he sunk his teeth into her flesh. Blood shot from her neck and immediately began to pool on the floor beneath her. Kathy’s eyes went wide with shock, and her body went limp.

  Her son sat up, skin and part of a vein hanging from his mouth. He chewed with a sober look on his dead face. As Kathy bled out, her body twitched beneath him, but he took no notice.

  “Yum…”

  Chapter 6

  Michelle and Megan sat in the Intensive Care Unit waiting room, both of them on the edge of their seats. They had been back at Suburban Medical Center for more than a half-hour, and as of yet they had not been permitted to enter Melanie’s room until the doctor had a word with Michelle. Unfortunately, no doctor had approached them, and the mother in her was becoming very impatient indeed.

  According to the nurses at the desk Melanie’s pediatrician, Diana Moss, had been called, and she was currently meeting with Dr. Hilliard regarding Melanie’s condition. While Michelle was no doctor or hospital employee, she thought this was odd; never before when one of the girls had a medical emergency had Dr. Moss been called in for consultation. Usually a report was sent to her, which she would refer to during their follow-up checkup.

  Michelle stood up and began to pace around. Megan glanced up at her mother from her tablet, but quickly looked back down. She was as worried as Michelle. Not because of doctors meeting and such, but only because she had a really bad feeling in her stomach. Nothing seemed right about Mel getting sick, and for some reason, Megan thought that maybe Mel might not… get better.

  “Mrs. Casperson?”

  Michelle and Megan both looked up to the direction the voice was coming from. It was Dr. Hilliard, and beside him stood Dr. Moss. Dr. Moss was smiling, but it didn’t touch her eyes, and both of the Caspersons took note of that fact. They rushed to the doctors to hear the verdict.

  “How’s Mel?” Michelle asked anxiously.

  Dr. Hilliard took her by the arm. “Let’s all sit down, shall we?”

  “I don’t want to sit down,” she said sternly. “How’s Melanie?”

  Dr. Moss reached out and touched Michelle’s arm. “We don’t have to sit if you don’t want to. Michelle, it seems there is an issue with Melanie’s bloodwork, and as of yet we cannot explain it, but we are working on it.”

  “Issue?” she asked. “What kind of issue?”

  Dr. Moss looked up at Hilliard, and he took over. “Something… unidentifiable… has taken up residence in her bloodstream. Now, it isn’t a virus, and it isn’t bacteria, at least not like any we have ever seen. We are working to identify it so we can remedy it faster, and in the meantime we are working on stopping it. The issue is that is seems to be taking over Melanie’s body one organ at a time, and at a very rapid pace.”

  Michelle just looked back and forth between the two physicians, her mouth open and her eyes confused. “So, what is it doing to her organs, then?”

  “Well, that’s the difficult part to explain,” Dr. Moss said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Dr. Hilliard took over once again. “It seems to be shutting them down, but her heart is beating and her body is functioning, even though it should not be. Melanie is alive, Mrs. Casperson, but we have no idea why.”

  “She woke up at one point, Michelle, and she became intensely violent, even biting one of the nurses, Julie Yates, to the point of drawing blood,” Dr. Moss finished.

  As if in a trance, Michelle shuffled over to one of the waiting room chairs and plopped down hard. She simply couldn’t comprehend what they were saying to her. Her daughter was alive, but she should be dead? What the heck did that mean, anyway?

  She felt the comforting hand of Megan stroking her arm and she glanced over at the girl, who looked as confused and worried as she felt.

  “Michelle”

  She looked up to see both doctors sitting across from them. When had they sat down? She didn’t even recall them approaching.

  “Yes?”

  “We need to know if Melanie has come into any kind of contact with anything out of the ordinary in the last week,” Dr. Hilliard explained. “Anything… food, beverages, cleaning supplies, chemicals… anything at all.”

  Michelle tried to think, but her mind was in such a jumble that she could sort out nothing that made any sense. Both of her daughters had done their usual activities, eaten the normal foods, and played their typical games. She just couldn’t pinpoint anything.

  “The pen,” Megan stated matter-of-factly.

  All three adults looked at Megan. The girl looked crazy calm, but her eyes were wide, and the look on her face said ‘Of course!’ Michelle began to nod frantically.

  “What pen, Megan?” Dr. Moss asked.

  The girl sat forward in her chair and began to speak quickly. “Mom bought us a couple of those new Lumiosa pens for school. You know, the ones that write in ink that looks like a hologram? I wouldn’t have thought of it, but after dinner the other night I was reading the back of the package because I wanted to see what the ink was made of…”

  “What did it say?”

  Megan’s face scrunched up, as if she was trying to remember. “There was a warning. Something about ‘Don’t touch the ink until it is dry’. To me it was funny that they made that into a warning, because the only reason it said not to touch it was because it would smear, and that was stupid. No other pen does that, and they all smear.”

  Dr. Hilliard jumped up. “It may be a long shot, but we need one of those pens; where did you purchase it?”

  “Mom took us to Community Rexall here in Thornton,” she replied.

  Michelle nodded vigorously, though she was still in a bit of a daze. “Yes. Community Rexall.”

  Dr. Moss took off running down the hall, and Dr. Hilliard said, “You can see Melanie if you like, but I want you to be prepared, she is not herself. She looks pretty bad, and she is currently strapped down for her own safety and the safety of those around her. I’m afraid I’ll have to insist that you stay at least two feet from her bed at all times, okay?”

  Michelle nodded, and she and Megan followed Dr. Hilliard to Melanie’s room.

  Chapter 7

  Paige Daugherty ambled up the sidewalk to Kathy Olson’s front door. The two of them were supposed to do some grocery shopping and have lunch together, and now it was nearly eleven o’clock. She had gotten no word from her neighbor, which was very unusual. Kathy was one of the most responsible and timely women Paige knew.

  The house seemed deathly quiet. The front door was locked, as usual. What was out of the ordinary, on a breezy, cool day like this Kathy would always have the windows open to let the air inside, but today they were closed. Paige rang the bell a couple of times and waited, then she took note of the newspaper on the stoop.

  “Kathy?” She peeked through the front window, but the shades were drawn. “Kath? It’s Paige. We should get going! Are you okay?”

  She stepped away from the door and decided to walk around the house. Something inside of her felt nervous and uneasy. She thought it was playing out a lot like an episode of ‘Real Crime’, and she didn’t like the taste it left in her mouth.
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  Paige walked around to the side and tried the gate to the privacy fence, but it was locked tight; so much for going to the back door. On tiptoes she tried to peek through the window there, which would have been Kathy’s room, but she just couldn’t reach. Maybe she should get something from the other side to stand on, like the garbage bin.

  She walked around to the other side of the house, crossing the driveway as she went. Along that side of the house she saw no garbage bin, which led her to believe that Kathy had put it into the garage, but the central air unit was there, and it was directly beneath a window.

  Paige climbed up on top of it and looked into the window to see Brian’s room. It was messy, just as any teenage boy’s room would be. The bed was unmade, and a garbage bin sat next to it, as if he had perhaps been sick. She found herself wondering if maybe Kathy had to take Brian to the hospital or something.

  She decided to leave a short note in the front screen door to let Kathy know she had been there, and that she was concerned. She began to fish around in her shoulder bag for a notepad and pen as she walked back to the front door. Paige was just crossing the driveway when something caught her eye.

  Running slowly out from under the garage door was a pool of blood.

  “Oh my…!”

  Now Paige’s heart began to beat out of control. She took her cell phone from her purse and attempted to dial 911, but she was getting no signal. Instead, she began to pound madly on the garage door, screaming both Kathy and Brian’s names as she did so. Within only seconds the garage door began to open slowly on its tracks.

  Paige stopped her screaming and watched as the door lifted. “Kathy?” she said. When the door was high enough she saw that the puddle of blood stood alone; there was no one lying there, hurt or otherwise. What the heck was going on?

  Without a second thought she stepped into the garage and crossed it, taking immediate notice of the broken car window. The next thing she noticed was that the door into the house was wide open, so she headed for it, calling out for her friend and her friend’s son all the while.

  Paige stepped into the kitchen slowly, a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Kathy! It’s Paige! Are you okay?”

  Nothing looked out of the ordinary in the house at all. There were a couple of small messes, and there was a horrible stench that was nearly unbearable, but everything else looked okay. But when she got to the living room and saw the lamp on the floor she knew everything was not okay.

  That was when she heard the shuffling, the uneven, dragging shuffling of feet which sounded as though it was coming from someone who was either drunk or handicapped. Paige spun around and immediately took a sharp breath. Her mind began to race as she processed what she saw.

  There stood Brian; he was standing still, just watching her. Kathy was slowly coming up behind him, and it looked to Paige like her friend was struggling to walk. Both of them looked pale gray, and Brian even had a tear in his cheek that seemed to allow her a complete view of the inside of his mouth. Kathy was missing part of her neck, and her shirt was completely blood soaked, with bits and pieces of what appeared to be tissue on it.

  “Paige,” Kathy gurgled as she reached out for her, making her way to the more than welcome guest.

  “Kathy, oh my gosh!” Paige began to back toward the front door, her hand behind her groping blindly for the knob. When she got hold of it she turned around and tried desperately to open the door, but to no avail. Soon, she turned back around to head for the rear door, but Kathy and Brian were already upon her.

  Paige screamed and cried, clawing at the door, the floor, and at both Kathy and Brian. They had cornered her, and as Brian tore into the flesh of her stomach and Kathy ripped at her nose with her teeth, the last thing in Paige’s mind was, ‘You are both going to go to jail for this’.

  But, not surprisingly, neither of them cared.

  Chapter 8

  While Dr. Diana Moss left Suburban Medical Center to purchase an Aspen Lumiosa, Dr. Hilliard escorted both Michelle and Megan Casperson down the long hallway in Intensive Care to see Melanie. He was filled with apprehension and dread, but the girl was strapped down, and it was imperative that her mother and sister see her. After all, the girl was already dead; every test said so.

  Dr. Hilliard’s fear was based on what had happened earlier. Little Melanie Casperson had been lying on the hospital bed, her eyes closed and her breathing shallow, and nurse Julie Yates had been adjusting the tubing to her saline IV. Suddenly, in front of everyone, the child’s eyes opened, and she had grabbed the woman’s arm and sunk her teeth into it. Blood had literally flown. In all of his years practicing medicine Dr. Hilliard had never really witnessed anything like it.

  The thoughts in his head reminded him to check on Miss Yates’ welfare. He approached the girls’ hospital room with the Caspersons and pushed the thoughts from his mind. Weighing his words carefully, he turned to Michelle.

  “Now Mrs. Casperson, I cannot emphasize enough that you must stay away from her bedside until we are able to figure out exactly what has happened to her and how it can be rectified, do you understand?” Hilliard asked.

  Michelle nodded at him, but she never took her eyes from the door to the room. He knew in his soul that she was only appeasing him with her nodding, and the knowledge nagged at him. He glanced at Megan; she had a very worried look in her eyes, and she kept shifting them to her inattentive mother.

  Hilliard finally grabbed the handle and gave it a yank, opening the door as he did so with his shoulder. Melanie was lying in the bed, small and extremely pale. So pale, in fact, that her skin was a grayish-white, almost giving her the appearance of a corpse. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was ragged. She literally looked like death, but all Michelle saw was her baby girl.

  She began to walk over to her daughter right away, and Dr. Hilliard grabbed her by the arm once again. “Mrs. Casperson, you have to keep back, okay?”

  She looked at him blankly and gave him another nod before continuing. She did stop about two-and-a-half feet from the bed, and both the doctor and Megan saw the tears falling down her mother’s face.

  “Melly?” she said in a light voice, but with a low tone.

  Megan was afraid, and she was afraid to her core. Something inside of her screamed to stay away from her little sister. She felt bad about it in her head, but the voice of her heart was louder, and it was that voice she chose to listen to.

  Her mother stepped forward a couple of inches. “Melanie?”

  Megan reached out, trembling, and took hold of the hem of Dr. Hilliard’s white coat. The man glanced down at the girl and felt a chill go up his spine; she looked petrified, and from what he knew so far, rightly so. For all intents and purposes the sick little girl on the bed was nothing more than a monster, and he knew it.

  “Michelle,” he asked with a bit of trepidation. “Are you going to be okay for a bit? I’m going to go grab the nurse so we can do a vital check on her and go over a tentative treatment plan.”

  She nodded, once again not looking at him or even toward him. Hilliard stepped forward and took her by the arm. “Michelle, I have to know that you will follow the instructions, or I cannot let you visit her.”

  She shot him a look that should have left him on the floor, sore and bleeding. “Of course, doctor,” she almost spat.

  He turned to Megan. “Try to keep her back honey. Okay?”

  The girl gave him a nod and he left the room. He was going to touch base with the nurses about Melanie, but he also wanted to check on Julie Yates. He didn’t know if Melanie’s condition was contagious or not, but it was best to find out sooner than later.

  ∞

  Diana Moss stepped off the elevator, a plastic bag in her hand. Inside was one of the Aspen Lumiosa pens; she was headed to the lab to have some of the ink analyzed, if at all possible. The fact of the matter was that she had no idea what she was looking for, and neither would the lab.

  Her short heels clattered on the cold tile as she
headed toward the hospital laboratory. It was located in the basement, and there was always a constant chill there, but today Diana had a feeling that her goosebumps had more to do with little Melanie Casperson than they did the temperature. She shook it off and continued on.

  When she walked through the main door to the laboratory area the first person she saw was exactly who she was looking for: Roy Fitch. Roy was one of the best lab men in Colorado. She had gone to college with him before transferring to medical school, and the two got along very well. He would make time for her testing, and she knew it, no matter how overwhelmed with work he may be.

  Roy looked up and a large smile came over his face. “Diana! You’re never in the hospital anymore! What brings you?”

  “Hi, Roy,” she replied in a friendly voice. “No, I’m not here much since I opened my practice, but I have a patient here today, and something of an emergency has come up with their case.”

  Roy knit his brow. “What do you mean?”

  She proceeded to explain to him the situation with little Melanie, including with emphasis on how the child seemed to be dead already. “The only thing her family can pinpoint that she came into contact with is ink from a new pen.” Diana pulled the pen out of the bag. “Her sister, Megan, told me that there was a warning on the package, which sounded strange. I went and picked one up, and sure enough, here it is.”

  Diana handed the pen to Roy, and he immediately flipped over the cardboard and scanned it with his eyes. “Warning,” he said, “Do not touch ink when wet; highly smearable. Why would they even put that on there? All ink smears.”

  “I know; it’s almost like a distraction. Like they are trying to cover their butts.” She paused and let her words sink in. “I need you to test the ink for me and tell me what it consists of. I need to know if there is anything in it that could cause the kind of damage we are seeing in Melanie.”

  Roy glanced around at his work station, but only briefly. “Absolutely. I’ll get on it right now.”