by Tim Curran
FUCKING YOUR WIFE! FUCKING HER! FUCKING HER! FUCKING HER!”
And for one insane moment there, Mitch almost did. God help him, but he almost put the gun on his best friend and murdered him. A man he would never have raised a hand against in a sane moment. But he knew better. For light broke through the darkness that webbed his thoughts. Broke through with a stunning clarity and he saw Miriam for what she was…a thing, a wraith, a corruption that lived on filth and lies and hatred.
“Fuck…you,” he said and pulled the trigger of the Remington.
Twenty-gauge buckshot hit her and a split second later, Tommy fired. Then they were both shooting, buckshot biting into Miriam, knocking her back and forth, smashing her into the walls as she tried to launch herself down at them. She rose and descended like a diving bell, spraying fluid and tissue, screaming in a dozen waterlogged voices. And then, as if the helium had been bled from her, she came down. And came down hard, thudding into the steps. Then she was tumbling down and they could hear her fragile bones snapping and snapping. She landed at their feet in a fleshy, broken heap, bones thrusting out from her, worms coming out her throat and scalp like the snakes of Medusa.
They jumped back.
“Dead,” Tommy said, like he didn’t believe it.
She lay there a moment, bleeding that black goo and slithering with worms. Then her head craned up at them and she was grinning, more worms in her mouth. Black juice ran from her lips, looking like dirty transmission fluid. “Think you’ve won a great battle, do you? Think you effing sonsofbitches have put old Miriam Blake down and there’ll she’ll stay! Wrong! You’ve not won nor stilled me! You can stop me, but you won’t stop the other! The other that has come through to eat the guts out of this fucking city bite by bite!”
They kept backing away and Miriam started coming after them.
It was revolting to see. She was broken-up, shattered, infested by those looping red worms, but she was coming. Maybe her spine had broken because she could not stand. Instead, she wriggled, she crept. Like a slug she came forward with a lurching motion, raising up her ass like an angleworm and lowering it, pushing herself forward, making moist popping sounds. Her jaws opened and closed like they wanted to bite something. She left a slimy, bloody trail in her wake.
They both opened up on her again until what was left was ripped and torn and perforated, her neck broken and head twisted off to the side.
“Salt her,” Mitch said.
Tommy took out the bag and threw handful after handful at her.
It worked right away. Miriam thumped on the floor, screaming and screaming. Steam and moisture boiled out of her. She vomited a gout of that black blood onto the stairs. Her flesh yellowed, threaded out with fingers of dry rot, went brown and flaking. Her eyes filmed over and sank into her skull. She hissed and steamed and shuddered and then went still. All those worms twisting and writhing, trying to get free, then blackening and sinking into the desiccated, smoking mass that looked like a winter-dead tree.
That was it.
Mitch took Tommy by the arm and they staggered out of the door together into the rain. They both went down on their knees in the wet grass, water puddling around them.
After a time, Tommy found his voice. “They ain’t just zombies, Mitch. I been thinking on this awhile. They got power or something. They get in your head and hypnotize you or something. Like they know what scares you.”
“You saying she wasn’t floating down the stairs in there?”
Tommy shook his head. “She was. Oh, shit yes, she sure was.” He swallowed. “But in general, I mean. They can play head games with you, you know? Get in your mind and make you feel things and think things that aren’t true.”
Mitch looked at him. “I didn’t believe it, Tommy. I knew she was just lying the way those things do. I knew you and Lily would never…well, you know. Get together.”
“No way.” Tommy breathed in and out real slow. “She was in your head, though, wasn’t she? Miriam? For a minute there you almost believed her. I saw it in your eyes. They were just mad, crazy.”
“Yeah. She got in my head. But she wasn’t strong enough to make me believe crap like that. I know…knew my wife. And I know you, pal. You’re a complete asshole, but you’re loyal and trustworthy.”
“Hey, thanks, Mitch. That was real nice. It touches me, you know?”
Mitch smiled thinly. “Let’s go out to that base and see what the hell this is all about.”
12
As they approached Fort Providence, Mitch watched the rain falling, the roads flooding, and he couldn’t seem to remember what it was like to be dry or warm. How long had this been going on and how much longer could it possibly last? This was life in the Asian monsoon season and it would drive people mad. He was sure of it. You couldn’t sit there day after day and watch the water rising and feel it against your face and down your back without your mind coming unhinged.
Something had to give.
It just had to. Mitch was not honestly sure how he was feeling now. Too many emotions, too much guilt and horror and frustration over all this. Lily was gone and he knew it beyond a doubt. Something else was out there, maybe, living in her skin. But the Lily he’d known was dead. The pain he was feeling over that was immense, but he’d forced himself to lock it away. He would grieve later.
And Chrissy?
Mitch did not know.
Wanda could only tell him that she was alive. She was too worn out and beaten now to do any more of her “conjuring”, as she called it. She had told Tommy and he that, yes, Chrissy was alive and that, no, Harry Teal was no danger to anyone except maybe himself. Mitch badly wanted to push her about Chrissy, but she was just done in. She had come to life and made a fine farm breakfast for all concerned, but she was old and tired now. Very much feeling her age. About all she could say was that “there are others who don’t like me nosing into their business, others whose minds are very strong and very terrible.”
Which didn’t tell him much.
He’d had the feeling that going into that mannequin factory was important. But, looking back, he couldn’t see the importance of any of it. For what had come of it? They’d found Harry Teal and that had been about it. Was that what he’d been feeling? The need to find Harry that might somehow bring him to Chrissy? Christ, it seemed absurd…
Deke Ericksen was also at Wanda’s now, had come there during the night. He’d been looking high and low for Chrissy. And like Mitch himself, nothing would dissuade him that she was alive and that they would find her.
Tommy kept driving.
They were well out of Witcham now, staying off the main highway and taking the back roads towards the Army base. He seemed refreshed after his sleep. They’d all closed their eyes at dawn and had not woken until nearly 12:30 in the afternoon. Not good, in Mitch’s eyes. They’d needed the sleep, but he’d hated to waste the daylight…or what there was of it.
Tommy knew the Black River Valley about as well as a man could. Having hunted and fished the valley all his life, he knew just about every county bypass and gravel road there was. He took them on a very circuitous route, trying to stay to the high roads because all the low-lying areas were simple impassable. Mitch was glad he was driving, because it all seemed like a monotonous run of trees and fields and farmhouses to him. Not roads running through them, but rivers and creeks and streams interconnecting and forming great mires and pools. Water, water, everywhere.
Harry was smoking a cigarette, watching the windshield wipers arc back and forth. “So you boys think you’ll find answers at that base.”
“Yes,” Mitch told him. “In fact, we’re sure of it.”
Harry nodded, looked thoughtful as he pulled off his coffin nail. “Place is high security, least that’s what they said at Slayhoke.”
“It is,” Mitch said.
“And you think you can just walk right in there?”
“We’re gonna try.”
Harry just sat there, smoking. His hair was da
rk and bristly, a mustache of the same color reaching down to his jawline. But neither of which were as dark as his eyes at that moment. “We been hearing stories about the base. Funny sorts of stories.”
Mitch looked at him.
“Sure, crazy shit. But after you told me that business about the yellow rains and all that, figure you might want to hear this…even though it’s probably bullshit.”
“Tell us,” Tommy said, the truck splashing through a dip. “We’re like toadstools: we thrive on bullshit.”
Harry shook his head. “The cons and some of the guards, they been saying how the Army is shipping back corpses from Iraq. Doing things with ‘em. Nobody knows what exactly. Just experiments or something. Crazy, eh?”
“Yeah,” Mitch said, his throat very dry suddenly. “Crazy.”
13
The road leading to Fort Providence Military Reservation, as it was known, was long and winding and set with lots of signs that did their best to warn you away from what it was. Things like: U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING and NO UNATHORIZED VEHICLES BEYOND THIS POINT. There were no less than three checkpoints with barriers to keep you out. But, interestingly enough, all those barriers were wide open and all those checkpoints unmanned. There was a good two feet of water, if not more, flooding the road, but Mitch was thinking that it would have taken a lot more than deep water to get those guards out of their shacks. Something had happened here. Something bad. Something possibly catastrophic and ugly. Maybe he did not know that to be fact, but he felt it in his guts and that was enough.
This is insane, he thought, us driving right into a high security joint like this. A week ago, two weeks ago, they’d have forced us off the road and put us in irons. But today we’re driving right in.
After they passed the third checkpoint, the road veered sharply to the left and the heavily wooded countryside suddenly opened up. There were red STOP signs and more guard shacks. Mitch was just betting there were tire traps on the road, metal spikes that would spring up with the touch of a button to snare an unwanted vehicle. Of course, you couldn’t tell under all the water. Tommy kept the truck moving very slowly, expecting just about anything.
“I don’t want to burst your bubble,” Harry said, “but this is a felony, you know. I knew a guy who broke into a Navy supply depot in Chicago. He didn’t even get a chance to steal anything. And now he’s doing fifteen years in Leavenworth. Just thought I’d mention that.”
“You know lots of good people,” Tommy said. “I suppose we could turn around, call it quits right now. What do you think, Mitch?”
“Drive.”
Tommy did.
Mitch knew he was nervous. Who wouldn’t be? Maybe Mitch himself was prone to some funny feelings from time to time, but you didn’t need to be psychic to feel the vibes rolling off this place. The atmosphere was blighted and grim and forbidding. Back in Witcham it was bad, of course. Like an open grave or casket filled with seething, spoiled meat. That sense lessened the farther you got away from the city limits. But here, it was different. There was not just a feeling of death and degeneration, but something worse. Something violated and spiritually depraved scratching around inside your skull. You could almost smell the misery and horror and utter madness of this place.
Mitch put a cigarette between his lips and his fingers were shaking so badly he nearly dropped it.
A sign came into view. It was white with black lettering. FORT PROVIDENCE MILITARY RESERVATION, it said, and beneath that, UNITED STATES ARMY MEDICAL COMMAND. And, beneath that, ABSOLUTELY NO
ADMITTANCE! USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED!
“Shit,” Tommy said.
Shit, was right.
Mitch had the feeling had this been any ordinary day they would have been gunned down, bagged, and shipped out. And there was something very unpleasant about broaching a place where your government hid all its dirty secrets. Yeah, maybe your tax dollars funded places like this, but that didn’t mean Uncle Sam wouldn’t slice your nose off for sticking it where it did not belong.
One last sign warned them: THIS IS A HIGH SECURITY FEDERAL INSTALLATION. Beneath that it said, HAVE ID BADGE READY. YOU ARE UNDER
VIDEO SURVELLAINCE. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.
Fort Providence was right ahead of them now. The road topped a hill and in the distance, through the curtain of rain, you could see the base itself?some old brick buildings surrounded by metal Quonset huts and garages, everything connected by enclosed walkways. Lots of high antennas and radar dishes. A power station. Parking lots, a few far-flung hangars and runways, an air traffic control tower. And then atop a low series of hills that looked artificial, a sparkling white compound with wings fanning out from it. This is what caught the eye. Because the far left quadrant was utterly destroyed. It looked like God had gotten bored and picked it up, slammed it back down in a tumble of matchsticks and then set it afire. Just blackened ruins now.
“Must have been one hell of a fuel tank,” Tommy said.
“That’s what they were saying, eh?” Harry said to them. “That a fuel tank went up or something?”
“That’s what they said.”
“A lot of damage. Maybe…maybe it was blown on purpose.”
They came to the main gates and they were wide open. The base was surrounded by not one, but three high chainlink fences which were electrified, if the signs could be believed and Mitch figured they could. They were topped by barbwire, cameras and motion detectors set out everywhere. You would have had a hell of a time sneaking in here unannounced.
“Nobody around,” Harry said.
And that was true. Lots of cars with U.S. government plates, trucks and half-tons, a few Hummers…but no people. The place was like a cemetery, a ghost town. Whatever had taken this place, it had left nothing living behind. Unless there were people hiding in those buildings…but Mitch doubted it. Maybe the chain of command had broken down, but the sort of guys who guarded a place like this would have been extremely vigilant, extremely well-trained, and extremely ambitious when it came to dealing with intruders. No, there was no one left.
“You smell that?” Tommy said.
There was a sharp, acrid odor blowing in through his cracked window. A chemical smell.
“That yellow rain smelled like that,” Mitch said.
“Let’s just speculate here a minute,” Tommy said. “They’re working on some crazy shit here. Something goes wrong and there’s an explosion. That explosion throws God knows what up into the air and it comes down in the rain. Something that makes the dead wake up and something else that comes down as that yellow rain. You following me here?”
“Yeah,” Mitch said.
“Okay, we just got hit by a few patches of that yellow rain in Witcham…but what about here at ground zero?”
“It might have been real bad,” Harry said.
The rain started really pouring down again in gray sheets and they couldn’t see much. Mitch thought he saw a few figures moving off into the gloom, but he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure of a lot of things. Maybe that rain was a good thing, maybe it helped to cover up things you just didn’t want to be looking at. Maybe. It kept coming down and the windshield wipers just couldn’t keep up with it. Tommy slowed the truck, visibility down to maybe fifteen or twenty feet at best.
They started seeing bodies floating in the water.
Mostly soldiers, but some civilians as well. They were all bloated up and reduced to a mush like they’d been full of oatmeal. It was like that…their bodies had been reduced to a slushy, semi-liquid slop. Globs and streamers of the stuff floated around in the water, the driving rain breaking them apart into a slimy goo. They passed a Hummer and a soldier was hanging out the door. He looked almost melted, his flesh hanging off the skeleton beneath like plastic that had superheated, then cooled. They saw another vehicle with two men in it melted together. Another soldier was stuck to the side of a truck…adhered to it by his flesh which had gone gummy and gluey.
“They g
ot caught in the rain,” Tommy said.
He pulled the truck to a stop suddenly, everyone jerking forward in their seats. Something ran right out in front of the truck and quick. It looked like a naked woman swollen to obscene proportions and bleached white. One that had been carrying another in her arms. Except that hadn’t been the case at all…that other woman had been growing from her chest.
“Another freak,” Harry said. “Like at that mannequin place.”
Tommy got the truck rolling again and there was one terrifying moment in which the tires just spun. But they caught and onward went the truck. They were making for the white building on the hill. That was where they needed to go and nobody had to tell Tommy that.
They started climbing the hill and another mutant dragged itself across the road. It was half-crawling and half-swimming. It was either a dog that looked like a rat or a rat as big as a dog with something like trailing, fleshy ropes behind it.
“Boy, my nerves are going to hell,” Tommy admitted. “This is worse than the dummy factory, this is just plain?”
Something hit the roof of the truck.
Something big.
Tommy let out a little gasp and Mitch and Harry just tensed right up. Whatever was up there, it was heavy, the roof popping with metallic sounds as it moved around like it was trying to get comfortable. Tommy had slowed, but now he sped up a bit, not really knowing what else he could do. It was too dangerous with all the vehicles and what not around to try any fancy TV sort of maneuvering.
“Just keep us moving,” Mitch said, his voice dry and cracked like he’d been chewing on salted peanuts and needed something to wet his whistle. He brought up his Remington auto-loader, but mainly to have a weapon in his hands. He wasn’t about to play hero and shoot through the roof; he could just about imagine all those pellets bouncing off the roof and tearing into them.
More popping sounds and then something else that rose above the constant murmur of the falling rain: a squealing, almost mewling sort of sound that made everyone tense, brought out the gooseflesh at the backs of their necks. It was quiet up there after that and they had no true way of knowing whether their guest was still present or had gone elsewhere. Which put them in an awkward position, for sooner or later they would have to get out and the idea of that was frightening to say the least. Mitch just hoped it was gone, because although it sounded like something from a bad movie, he was firmly of the school that there were certain things sane eyes should not see.