Devour: Death & Decay Book 1

by R. L. Blalock

  It was her mother’s purse.

  Liv upended the purse. Its contents scattered across the seat. Some pens, a small notepad, a glasses case, some receipts, along with other odds and ends. No wallet. Liv shook the purse furiously, then jammed her hand in the bag, feeling for anything that might have gotten stuck. Nothing.

  She flung the purse back into the car and her shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “Mom!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Dad!” Either they were here now or they had been here. She had to find them. Screaming might attract the ferals, but she was desperate.

  “Mom! Dad! Are you out there?”

  Nothing but silence returned.

  She stepped away from the car. They had to have gone somewhere. But where? And how would she ever find them?”

  “Mom!” She stepped off the edge of the road and into the grass. “Dad!” The toe of her boot rolled over something and she stumbled.

  An arm.

  It lay palm up between the blades of grass, the fingers curled slightly inward. The opaque, glossy nail polish was chipped. The hand and forearm had been ripped away from the body at the elbow. Tendons and ligaments and ripped muscles trailed raggedly away. Whatever color the arm had been when attached to the body, it had taken on a sickly greenish-gray hue.

  Liv backed away from the appendage, her hand covering her mouth as if to hold in the gasp that threatened to escape. As she backed away, a twinkling on the hand made her stop and lean back in.

  A ring.

  A simple gold band wrapped around the hand’s ring finger. Liv knelt down next to the hand and rolled it over. The top side of the ring was a single, small diamond.

  Liv sucked in a breath as she stared at the hand. The arm was plump with long plump fingers. The fake nails had been manicured but were now dirty and chipped. One finger was missing the nail entirely.

  The hand and the ring had belonged to her mother.

  Tears slid down Liv’s cheek as she reached for the hand. She didn’t want to touch it, but she wanted her mother’s ring. The ring had survived a lot. Thirty years of marriage. Several lost stones. Even being cut off once when her mother had broken her wrist and her hand had swollen up.

  Liv tried not to look as she wrestled the ring off the severed arm. Finally, with a terrible tearing sound, the ring came free.

  Liv opened one eye and then the other. Thin strips of flesh dangled from the ring. She stared at the floppy bits for a moment, unable to comprehend what she was looking at.

  A shrill shriek ripped from her throat as Liv violently shook the ring, dislodging the clinging flesh. Tears streamed down her face and deep, gasping sobs shook her body as Liv looked at the bloodied trinket in her fingers.

  Her hands quivered as she slipped the ring into a plastic bag and dropped it into one of the pockets of the satchel. Liv looked out to the horizon, wondering what had happened to her parents. Where had their infected bodies wandered to? What would have happened to her if they had still been around when she arrived?

  Liv glanced down once more at the hand at her feet. Her mother’s hand. The sight of the purple, stringy muscles, exposed now that they had been stripped of their skin, was more than Liv’s stomach could handle.

  For the second time that day, Liv bent over and retched.

  When her heaving finally stopped, Liv removed her gloves. She wiped her eyes and looked around the deserted highway.

  She had wanted so desperately to know how her friends and family were doing. But now she wasn’t sure that knowing was better. If it meant knowing that they were dead, that they had died horribly, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to know.

  Day 5

  1:06 pm

  A few miles before reaching Troy, Liv turned west off the highway to follow a smaller roadway, State Highway U. The road turned northwest and skirted around the lower edge of Troy. Eventually, it would connect with Highway J, which would take her north towards Highway 47 just on the western edge of Troy. From there, it would be a straight shot to Hawk Ridge and Slag Stead.

  Though it seemed easy enough, her day had only just begun. Since leaving her home, she had walked about seventeen miles, the most ground she had covered in one stretch in the last five days. It was the most she had walked in her entire life. It was a lot easier to move quickly when she didn’t have to stop and hide from the ferals every couple minutes.

  Slag Stead was still about twelve miles away. The distance seemed insurmountable, but she knew that wasn’t so. If she pushed on through the rest of the day, she could reach Slag Stead before dark. She was tired, more tired than she had ever been in her entire life. It was an exhaustion that seeped into the very fiber of her being. But the thought of reaching a safe place before the end of the day compelled her forward.

  The events of the last few days, especially the last twenty-four hours, weighed down heavily upon her. Liv reached into her satchel and her fingers grazed the plastic-covered ring. So many people had died. All the people on the bridge and the highway.

  The Kellner family. Shawn. Corey and Jen. Her parents. And thousands of other whose names she didn’t know and whose faces she had never seen.

  How many more people would die in the next few days? The next few months? How many people that she had cared about would she never see or hear from again?

  Liv took a breath and shook her head to clear it.

  Elli fidgeted on her back. She was asleep, or at least Liv thought she was. The small child hadn’t made a sound in almost an hour. It was getting difficult to tell, though. Elli had become unusually silent over the last few days.

  Liv worried what kind of toll the journey and its dangers were taking on her young mind. She had gotten understandably clingier, always wanting to be held and wailing when Liv left her sight. Her babbling had all but ceased. While the quiet helped them sneak across the land more easily, it still worried Liv.

  They weren’t stopping today to take a nap. To do so would leave them out longer, and Liv wanted to be somewhere safe when they stopped to rest.

  Earlier buildings, mostly houses, had started to appear at the end of long drives far off the side of the road. At first, they were set so far back that Liv almost wasn’t sure if the small gravel roads led to houses or if they were simply old, abandoned country roads. They crept steadily closer to the road as Liv continued forward.

  A cluster of squat rectangular homes rose up on the right. A dozen or so white shoeboxes clustered together like a small village. A few ferals prowled between the houses, darting about as they looked for a meal.

  There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. The trees had all disappeared, leaving only flat, open land around them. Liv crouched low to the ground, willing herself to be invisible. There were only a few ferals, but she didn’t want to fight or run. She was tired. Her journey was almost done but she still had a ways to go.

  A large woman in a flowing cotton nightgown stumbled into the street. Her matted mud-brown hair looked like a crow’s nest and stuck out crazily from her head. The nightgown, which at one time had been the soft blue of a clear sky, was now dirty and stained with blood that had dripped from her chin all the way down to the hem near her calves.

  Liv pressed herself closer to the ground.

  The slight movement caught the woman’s attention. With a shriek, she broke into an awkward run. Her body swayed dangerously with each step as her weight shifted. As Liv stood up, other ferals returned the cry. Liv pulled the mallet from its loop, its weight now familiar and comforting in her hands.

  The woman was approaching faster than what seemed possible. Her lips pulled back in a gruesome snarl. Others ferals fell in line behind her as she followed her howls and headed straight for Liv.

  Liv started into a jog, her mouth set into a grim line beneath the scarf that covered her face. She raised the mallet as they neared. The woman didn’t slow down and neither did Liv. As they came within a few feet of each other, Liv pulled back on the mallet and swung.

  She stru
ck the feral woman in the shoulder. The bones splintered inside her body as she spun to the ground. Liv skidded to a halt and spun. The woman was struggling to right herself with only one arm and kept flopping back to the ground when her shattered shoulder refused to hold her weight.

  Liv raised the mallet again brought it down on the woman’s head with a sickening crunch. She spun back to face the others. Three ferals were barreling down upon her.

  A sneer rose to her lips, one that mimicked the expression of the ferals as they charged towards her.

  The three were spread out into a line. The first one sprinted forward, its movements unhindered by wounds. Liv jogged forward and they met closer to the road. This time as Liv swung the mallet her aim was true. She didn’t even turn to check as its head snapped around at a sickening angle before it fell.

  The second one limped. Its body was riddled with bites and deep craters where hunks of flesh had been ripped from the bone. He shambled and staggered uneasily, his muscles jerking stiffly as they were forced to move forward despite the missing parts.

  She slowed down, allowing the man to take a few extra steps to reach her. The bones in his knee crumbled into pieces under the mallet’s weight and the feral man folded to the ground. With a second blow, she obliterated his head.

  The last one in the line snarled at her as he struggled forward. He hadn’t even crossed the road. His legs had been shredded. In places, the bone was bare, surrounded by torn flesh and ragged muscle.

  Liv grimaced as she looked upon his broken body. Somehow this was worse than the feral that was missing its whole lower half. Instead of being revolting, this creature was a sick tragedy. This pitiable creature still had all its parts, but they were so damaged they no longer worked. Its fingers were bloodied and scraped from pulling itself along. She could easily escape him by simply walking away, but instead she stayed rooted as he slowly drew nearer to her.

  As it reached for the street, Liv took the last few steps forward, swung the mallet, and put an end to the creature. Liv took a few steps back, her eyes glued to the shattered remains of the feral for a moment.

  She turned and headed back down the road. A church ahead stood empty. Or if there were people hiding inside the small, square building, they hadn’t attracted the attention of the ferals.

  The world opened up to the empty countryside once again as Liv trudged forward. The tall, golden grass was only broken by a few trees and the old two-lane road.

  She couldn’t be far from the outer limits of Troy. Though she had only planned to skirt the edges of the city, she could avoid it altogether if she angled west now. However, she wasn’t as familiar with Troy as she had been with O’Fallon and Lake St. Louis. If there was a road that could take her west without coming near Troy, she didn’t know about it. She could have just angled out away from the road and headed in the direction she needed to go. But as unfamiliar as she was with the area, she was afraid that if she got lost she would never be able to find her way back.

  Liv pressed forward slowly, hoping she was far enough west of Troy that the feral population would be slim.

  Day 5

  1:42 pm

  She had barely started into the neighborhood when she spotted a horde. The ferals were clustered around a long stretch of wire fencing that sat nestled among the houses. Enclosed in the fence were a few small yellow buildings and a tall white water tower.

  At least fifty ferals had clustered together at the section of fencing closest to the water tower. Their collective mass had caused the fence to tilt inward dangerously as they pressed against it. There were people inside the fence. There had to be. It was the only reason the ferals would be so intensely fixated on getting inside.

  But Liv hadn’t seen anyone from her position crouched at the corner of a house across the street. With a tired sigh she scanned the street once more and dashed, still crouched, to another house as she began to bypass the horde, giving them a wide berth.

  She supposed it was a good thing for her. With the ferals’ attention focused elsewhere, she could slip by unnoticed.

  Liv stopped once again, scanning her surroundings. She was so close to the farm, perhaps only another hour walking. She yearned to just run. Run until she reached the farm’s sanctuary, where she could finally rest. But it wouldn’t do her any good to get sloppy now.

  She was moving counterclockwise around the tiny fenced-in area. It was the long way around, but it kept her furthest from the ferals.

  As she moved around the horde, the inside of the small enclosure became more visible. On the other side of the fence, three people worked busily to reinforce the sagging fence. Two of the people pushed long metal poles up against the chicken wire. The third person ran along the fence with a knife, spearing the closest zombies in a desperate attempt to thin out the herd.

  Liv’s heart leapt as a woman hefted another long support pole. Her medium-length hazelnut-colored hair was drawn back in a ponytail. Her tanned face was flushed and glistening with sweat as she worked. She stood there for a moment and wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing it with dirt.

  Liv couldn’t be sure. She was too far away. But the woman looked like Jorden.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Liv ducked back behind a house as three quick gunshots split the air. Her heart thundered against her chest. As the echoes died away, Liv peeked around the house and her gaze was drawn back to the woman.

  It had to be Jordan. Their look was too similar. Jordan would have been traveling along the same path.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Another short three round burst echoed and Liv pressed herself against the building once more. When she peeked back around the corner, she couldn’t tell if the gunshots had hit their marks or not. The cluster of ferals was so large that if any had fallen, others would have simply pressed in to take their place.

  The girl ran back to one of the small building and began picking up more of the long metal poles that lay on the ground.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Liv bolted from cover as the first shot rang out, letting the gunfire cover the pounding of her footsteps against the pavement. She angled towards the corner where the girl was gathering more supplies to reinforce the fence. She slammed into the fence at full speed.

  The girl dropped the poles and spun to face Liv with a gasp.

  Liv’s heart sank. It wasn’t Jordan, though the girl bore an uncanny resemblance.

  “I’m sorry I scared you.” Liv’s words were strangled. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “You’re alive?” The girl ran to the fence, gripping the wires tightly in her fingers. “We haven’t seen anyone else since this started.” They stared at each other.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  The ferals were becoming agitated by the noise. Liv stepped away from the fence as the ferals began shaking it violently. The weak metal links rolled like a sea with the force.

  “Please.” The girl’s eyes were wild and desperate as she pressed herself against the fence. “We need your help. If we don’t get the bodies off the fence, then we can’t raise it back up to keep the live ones out.” Her eyes darted to the sagging section of fence. “If you can distract them, we’ll let you in through the gate.” She motioned to a small gate just to the right of the zombie horde.

  “I…” There were a lot of zombies. Liv felt terrible for the people trapped inside. She wanted to help, but it would be incredibly dangerous. She wasn’t sure she wanted to stop either. Her body was more tired and achy than she imagined possible, but she was so close.

  “Look out!” the girl shrieked, horror written across her face.

  Liv whirled around to find a feral charging straight for her from between the houses. Liv quickly slid her mallet free from the holster. As the feral neared, she swung the mallet low, striking its knee. The feral pitched forward and tumbled to the ground. With one more quick swing, she brought the mallet down onto the feral’s head, crushing it.

  A pie
rcing scream brought Liv’s attention to the fence. The horde had taken notice of the commotion.

  “Shit!” Liv’s eyes darted between the ferals and the girl. She wasn’t sure her tired muscles would allow her to outrun the horde if they followed her all the way to Slag Stead, but maybe she could keep the ferals busy and take a break afterward. “Get those bodies off the fence and get ready to open the gate.” The girl nodded and sprinted back to the others working on the fence.

  The first feral rounded the corner of the fence and shrieked. Liv turned and ran. After a few yards, she forcefully slowed her paced. It took all the willpower she had to not run full tilt away from the monsters behind her, but if she was going to be a distraction, then she had to keep the ferals enticed.

  Her knuckles were white as she clutched the mallet. Heavy footsteps neared behind her and Liv chanced a glance over her shoulder. A large feral man in a blood-soaked undershirt reached for her from just a few steps behind.

  Liv lunged forward a few steps then pirouetted around, swinging the mallet. The weapon’s blunt metal head connected with the man’s shoulder, sending him crashing into the fence. With a second quick strike, Liv crushed his head.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  The three zombies that had been leading the horde fell, subsequently tripping those directly behind them. Liv glance around quickly and noticed a figure positioned atop the water tower. It had to be the sniper. With a quick wave, she turned and resumed her forced trot around the fence.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  In Liv’s wake was a trail of motionless bodies. The sniper picked off the ferals that got too close. Even as the footsteps drew nearer, she forced herself not to turn.

  Crack! Crack!

  The three people working inside the fence had pulled the bodies away that weighed the fence down. With the fence free of the weight, they scrambled to push the reinforcing beams securely into place and stand the fence upright again.