by H. R. Romero
The woman’s inspecting the sergeant’s body and says, “Still, son, it’s a choice piece o’meat, and I’m starvin’. Now do the woman too, that’ll be enough to last us for some while. We’ll hang her in the smokehouse for a few days. She’ll taste goo-ood. I’ll go’and fetch Josiah. He can take the others to the holding-pen until we’re ready to process the rest of ’em.”
The woman’s heading toward the double doors so she can get “Josiah,” when an earth-shattering crash as the Flying Fish explodes through the front doors, sending her rag-dolling and sliding headlong across the floor and into a wall. She is unmistakably dead; her cranium caved in on one side, her eye popped out and yo-yoing on the end of the torturous optic nerve.
Rose bounces in the driver’s seat, barely able to control the ambulance. She can only see each time her head bounces high enough to clear the dashboard. The vehicle slides to a halt. “Dr. Valentine get in! Hurry, hurry.”
The giant, surprised by the sound of splintering wood and iron hinges being ripped from solid door casings, galumphs to where the disturbance is coming. Finding the woman dead, he howls in anguish. His face grows beet-red and he clenches his teeth together so forcefully that the cartridge grinds and pops. He spots Rose behind the wheel. He reaches around to his back pocket where he keeps a cleaver, determined to make her pay, in the most horrendous ways he can imagine, for the death of his mother. He yanks the cleaver from his pocket, and charges towards Rose. But, before he can reach her, he crashes to the ground. Connors has kicked his feet from beneath him. The major, seeing that the man is down grabs a meat hook from a nearby wall, reaches around the giant and pulls back, driving it deep into his eye and into his brain. The giant slumps to the floor, a dying gasp, and bloody spittle drools from his mouth.
The other cannibals, caring nothing about the giant or mother, run to the church. The thought of the only fresh meat they’ve had in weeks escaping is foremost on their minds.
Connors has no intention of leaving the sergeant’s body behind. He orders the doctors to get to safety before turning back to retrieve Hollander. There’s an uproar at the front of the building where the doors used to hang. The cannibals can’t get through, the ambulance is acting as a barricade. They are prying and pulling at the doors, but they are locked tight. They’re calling inside; shouts, cries, pleas, and curses. They are calling the names of the giant and his mother.
Shaw’s the first to reach the Flying Fish, he swings the passenger door open, and throws himself, unceremoniously, inside. Dr. Valentine is next to jump in, followed close behind by Connors. She can hear his heavy steps falling hard as if he’s carrying some great weight. She turns to see that the bloody body of the sergeant. It’s slung precariously over his shoulder, wrapped inside ornate drapery. Connors stops to reposition the soldier, so he doesn’t drop him.
Connors is calling out to her, but she can’t hear what he’s saying. Raised voices of angry man-eaters outside are rapidly growing louder. She concentrates on his lips, trying to make out what he is saying. He’s only telling her to hold the door open for him and to help him get Hollander’s body inside. There’s not much time, the cannibals are tearing at the gaping hole, making it bigger by the second. They’ll soon be in.
Connors lays the body down as gently as he can manage, and Dr. Valentine helps hoist the dead man into the ambulance. The passenger seat makes it hard to lift the weight of the body, but Rose helps by pulling at one of the man’s dangling arms.
“They’re in!” cries Dr. Shaw, who’s been watching through the ambulance’s rear doors.
Connors goes to his sidearm, but it’s too late. The first cannibal is nearly on top of him. From inside the ambulance, a rifle emerges from one of the ports and blows the cannibal’s brains from his head. Connors pops off a series of shots that drop four more. He scrambles into the ambulance slamming and securing the door behind him.
The murderous horde pound on the exterior paneling and windows of the vehicle. The glass holds. Soon they’ll make a hole, though, and come through. Connors unceremoniously grabs Dr. Shaw by his shirt and tosses him out of the way. The cowardly man pings like a billiard ball, coming to rest on the floor. Dr. Valentine’s still unloading her weapon on anyone unfortunate or stupid enough to come within range of the porthole.
Connors shouts, instructing Shaw. “Pick up a weapon and kill something or, so help me God, I’ll throw your ass outside, and let them have it as a consolation prize.”
Shaw, taking the threat as genuine, grabs a pistol and empties the entire clip out a porthole. Bodies begin to pile around the wheel wells
Rose vacates the driver’s seat, and Connors slams himself down into it.
“Hang on!” says Connors. He throws the ambulance into reverse and slams the accelerator to the floorboard. Wheels spin and slip as they tear into the dead cannibals under and around them. The smell of burning skin and hot tires floods the church. The flesh of the flesh-eaters caught under the wheels is reduced to particulate matter and rises in a plume of smoky-red mist. The ambulance jerks free, gaining traction and breaches the gaping hole, where the double doors were once hanging before Rose plowed through them like a god damned heroine. They escape from the slaughterhouse, crushing several of the hungry wretches on the way out.
Snipers open fire from the low rooftops of the base, pinging and piercing the Flying Fish. Small pops echo throughout the base, and puffs of smoke vomit from the ends of rifles and pistols.
“Up on the rooftops! Hit the snipers!” says Connors, pointing up at the top of the buildings. “We can’t afford to let them hit the engine or the tires.”
Dr. Valentine and Dr. Shaw dispatch the snipers and return to picking off the cannibals who are still giving chase. Connors has a plan and slows the Flying Fish to a crawl.
“What are you doing?” Why are we slowing down?” says Shaw.
Connors ignores him and continues to tap the breaks slowing even more, not so much as to make the pursuing crowd suspicious, but enough to allow most of the bastards to get closer and group up in a tight cluster.
“Rose, there’s a small, green, thing in my pack. I need you to get it and hand it to me. Don’t do anything else with it. Just hand it to me,” Connors says.
Rose slides to the pack and digs through it carefully, not knowing what dangerous things he might keep inside. A book slides from the pack to the floor. She doesn’t bother with it, no time. “I don’t see it,” she says.
“It’s in there. Look in the side pocket,” says Connors, pulling the steering wheel hard to the right to miss a cannibal who is running from a latrine to give chase.
She unbuckles and lifts the flap on the side. There she finds what Major Connors is asking for; three grenades rest like eggs in a nest. Carefully she takes one out and offers it to him.
“No, I’m driving. You have to do it. When I tell you, pull the pin and throw it into the center of the crowd. Do not drop it. If you drop that in here, they win, we lose. Got it?”
Rose nods. Her mouth is dry. Her sympathetic nervous system kicks into overdrive. Gripping the little egg in her hand makes her palm sweat.
“Swing the door open, and when I tell you, you pull the pin, you throw it, and then you close the doors as fast as you can,” says Connors.
Rose swallows hard. She opens the door and stares, wide-eyed, at the knot of evil humans closing slowly in on them. The ambulance gradually builds speed and pulls slightly ahead of the crowd. Connors shouts for her to toss it. She pulls the pin and rolls the tiny payload to the people; like a mother playing a game of catch with her demented offspring.
It bounces across the ground. The group stops and focuses on the bouncing object as it comes to rest in their midst. Before they realize what it is, it’s too late. The resulting explosion takes out the majority of the group, finishing the job that the apocalypse started. Those surrounding the grenade took the brunt of the blast, allowing Ewing and two others to get away.
Ewing runs as fast as his stun
ted legs will carry him, through an open field, then he stumbles. Something holds tight to his feet, not letting him go. He falls, scrambling, he tries to stand up and run, but he can’t. Then another cannibal falls. Then the third.
“Shaw, hand me the binoculars,” Connors says, pointing to the binocular case.
“What is it?” says Rose.
“Not sure,” says Connors.
Dr. Valentine’s peers through one of the gun ports, but finding it a bad angle, she goes to another to get a better look. “Something’s got them.”
Connors says nothing. Placing the binoculars to his eyes, it takes only a few moments of squinting, and moving them around, and making small adjustments to the focus, before he can get a clear view. “It’s the Turned. It’s Grubs. They’re pulling them down.” The tips of his eyelashes press against the glass lenses. He watches as the last of the cannibals are pulled underground to experience an uncertain, but most assuredly awful death.
Dr. Shaw is covered in sweat and shaking. Rose takes a seat on the floor. She’s shaking too. She feels a lump under her and reaches down, removing the thing she sat on. It’s a book. She sees the lettering and the strange symbols. It’s an ancient manuscript, it’s the book that slid from Major Connors bag when she was looking for the grenade. She reads the cover: Holy Bible. She holds it tightly to her chest. Maybe when things settle down again, if they ever do, she’ll read it. She misses reading The Wizard of Oz.
“We need to get the hell out of this place, right now, Major,” says Shaw.
“We have to bury, Sergeant Hollander, first,” says Dr. Valentine, referring to the private.
Connors nods in agreement. “Not here, not on this soil. He deserves better than to be buried in this cursed place. He goes with us, we’ll bury him somewhere nice, somewhere fitting. And I have my orders. Three crates in warehouse number six.” He looks down at Rose, and says, “Nice driving, kid. We owe you one.”
“You can’t be serious. She’s not a child, Major Connors. She’s a research subject, a demon with baby doll eyes, and quite poss—” Dr. Shaw is interrupted by the major putting a fist in his mouth. The next thing he realizes, he sprawled out on the floor. He finds himself looking eye to eye with Rose, who’s frightened and concerned for Dr. Shaw.
“I swear to you… as I live and breathe. If you show any more cowardly crap for the rest of the trip, I’ll tie you to a tree and ring the dinner bell, do you get me?” says Connors, waiting for an answer that doesn’t come. “I said do you get me?”
Shaw holds his mouth with one hand. Blood seeps from his nose and runs through the spaces between his fingers. He moves his jaw back and forth, examining it for a fracture. He’s foolish and spits blood on Connors boot, so Connors pulls his fist back again to land, no telling how many more hammering punches to the doctor’s face. Shaw flinches, draping his arms over his head to block the incoming punches.
Rose falls on top of Dr. Shaw, trying to save him. “No, please, don’t hurt him. Please, Major Connors, no. He can’t help what he is. He can’t. Just like Nettle couldn’t help it. Just like I can’t help what I am,” says Rose, pleading with Connors. She stays between the two men and protects the doctor with her small body and her hand raised in the air to defend the doctor.
Connors lowers his fist and shakes his head in disgust, not towards Rose, but towards Dr. Shaw. “Sad. She’s braver and more human than you’ll ever be,” he says. “Now pick yourself up and come with me. We’ve got a shipment to pick up.
Shaw stands. He looks down at Rose. He has been humbled by her self-sacrifice. Before he can help it, he says, “Thank you, Rose.”
They buried Sergeant Hollander on a hill, under a big tree, overlooking a little valley. Major Connors said some nice words over the grave, and the group moved onwards to Fort Worth.
Chapter Nineteen
“If you die before you wake, do not cry and do not ache. Nothing is ever yours to keep, so close your eyes and go to sleep.”
-From a childhood Lullaby
Leo Montgomery is overweight; by a whole lot. His fat fingers wrap around a silver, fingerprint-congested, flask, with a regal moose emblazoned on the front. On the back, the engraved words reading: Alaska, God’s Country, arch across the top. He bought the flask for himself, three years ago, when he had traveled to Juneau to embark on a research expedition, to study flora and fauna of the region. He takes a generous swig and places the flask on a large wooden table until the next drink is needed.
Other tables, throughout the room, serve as dissecting tables for multiple specimens; Three Wicked Briars lay throughout Leo’s makeshift laboratory. They rest in various positions; supine, prone, and lateral, depending on the specimens being collected, or the anatomical areas of interest to be studied.
Also taking up residence in the room are a Hobble, and a Grub; a mud-encrusted creature that a drunken and desperate soldier dug out of the ground, and three smaller specimens; all children; each having their skulls cracked open and a leafy creature, soaking in a cloudy preservative, and placed in glass jars, sat beside each child.
Tubes and wires hang suspended from the ceiling, and retractors, which have been duct taped into place, hold open a variable mix of fleshy, leathery, exoskeletal, and endoskeletal structures at strategic points. The human remnants are intermingled with the Turned, in ways too complex to separate. He’s tried to isolate and excise the remaining human-hosts’ parts from that of the invading tissue many times. Knives, chisels, hammers, and hooks, used to open the creatures, and get a good look inside, lay scattered about. He enjoys his work, and it doesn’t bother him in the least that the soldiers here consider him to be somewhat of a mad scientist.
He reviews his notes. Takes another swig, while pulling on yellow dishwashing gloves. He prods, yet, another organ that he can’t identify. Maybe the liver… Grabbing a scalpel, he slices a thin sliver from the organ and places it on a glass slide. Taking time for another swallow of three-year-old scotch, before taking his cane and limping across the room to a microscope. It’s an old one… very old, and hard as anything to focus, but it will do until another one with a bit more power can be scavenged.
Leo wedges the sample under the mounting clips, feeling the slight grind of metal skidding across the thin, fragile glass slide. Bending to the eyepiece, he carefully adjusts the stubborn knob to focus in on what he’s seeing. Finally, the lens lowers into the perfect position, allowing him to observe the cells he’s prepared.
“Hey, Leo, those people from Camp Able are coming in,” says a man, sticking his head into the room. “The colonel says you should get out there on the double.”
“Thanks,” Leo says, not bothering to look up from the eyepiece, to see who it is, but it sounds like Private Bardy. leaning on his cane, he sighs, places his flask into a pocket, and works his way to the front gates.
Leo’s heard they’ve found affected children, something he’s seen more than his fair share of. Fort Worth has its own pockets of affected youth. He’s always interested in getting his hands on another one. The soldiers always bring back dead children. That’s not optimal for his research, and no matter how much he’s complained and begged, they always come back with a bullet hole in them. He needs a live specimen, at just the right age to finalize his work and confirm his theory. He’s so close.
As he limps, he drinks, he never gets a good buzz anymore. It’s a shame there isn’t enough scotch around, he would love to get drunk and forget the world as it has become.
Finally, he arrives at the guard house. An ambulance, looking like its been through hell and back twice, has arrived with the people from Able. The colonel and some of the others are out there, already meeting the new arrivals. Shaking hands and sniffing the woman’s scent. It’s been a long time since anyone has seen a woman around these parts, Leo chuckles to himself, wondering how much scotch it would take for her to help him forget how terrible a place the world has become. Probably a lot more than I have. A whole lot more.
�
��Hello, I’m Leo Montgomery.” Switching his cane from one hand to another, he offers a meaty paw for a shake.
“I’m Major Connors. This is Dr. Merna Valentine, and this…” disgust falls across Connor’s face like he just tasted an unwelcome flavor in his mouth, “…is Dr. Shaw.”
“Good, good, and where’s the creature? I understand you have a living specimen,” says Leo.
“She’s a child, not a creature,” says Dr. Valentine.
“That’s quite enough.” Connors doesn’t want to hear the debate anymore. He’s heard enough from everyone about what the girl is, or what the girl isn’t. If it hadn’t been for her, they’d probably all be hanging on hooks right now.
Leo’s eyes grow as wide as dinner plates and his lower jaw drops when he spots Rose. “Is that…?” He motions to Rose as she’s exiting at the rear of the ambulance. “I’ve never seen a live one before,” says Leo.
“Rose,” says Dr. Valentine, indicating for the girl to come and stand closer to her.
“Yes, this is Rose. We’re hoping you can help us find a…,” Shaw chooses his words carefully. He’s in hot enough water, “…a solution to our uh… our collective problem.”
Rose has never seen a person who’s as large as this man standing before her. He’s looking at her with a funny look on his face, it makes her skin crawl. She has a chill crawling up her spine, and it ends where the little hairs are standing up on the back of her neck.
The colonel and the green men are wandering off. The big man’s discussing his thoughts on how they should proceed, with the doctors. She moves closer to Dr. Valentine’s side, but something odd happens, Dr. Valentine looks down at her and steps away; not much, but it was enough for Rose to notice. Not knowing what to do she just stands where she is, feeling exposed and small.