by Crae, Edward
“That’s how ya do it, boys,” he said.
As he went back to work, he heard the other two chopping and slicing. The sound was somewhat sickening, but he still had Dan on his mind. He knew he had disappointed the guy by not going with them to look for Toby. He shouldn’t have been so dickish; there probably was a chance the kid was still alive. But Drew was tired. They had been looking for Toby for days, and it was way too cold to be out looking for someone who might be dead.
They couldn’t risk losing anyone over one kid.
He sighed as that thought crossed his mind. That was a shitty way to think. What if Toby was alive and Drew had talked Dan into stopping the search. How would he feel then? Shitty, that’s how.
“What the fuck?” Cliff said, backing away.
“Oh shit,” Jake said. “Isn’t this a fairy tale or something?”
Drew went around the other side to see what was going on. Cliff and Jake were both focused on the abdomen, their eyes wide enough to see from a mile away. When he turned to look, he backed away too.
A large, gloppy sac had spilled out when Cliff sliced open the gut. Inside, were the half-formed bodies of smaller and weirder creatures, writhing and squirming in their amniotic sac.
“Oh my god,” Drew said, backing away as the taste of bile formed in his mouth.
“Are those… coyote pups?” Cliff asked.
Jake bent down to look, evidently not as grossed out as Drew. “I don’t think so,” he said. “They look like… little lizard monkeys.”
Drew crouched near the writhing sack, trying to see through the translucent slime layer. Though the host creature was dead, these things were surely alive, and trying to get out.
“What the fuck do we do with them?” Drew asked.
“Unless you wanna keep a couple,” Jake said. “I say we chop them up and throw ‘em on the barbie.”
“Damn,” Cliff gasped. “That’s just wrong, man. I’ve never seen anything like that. Why the hell would they look like that?”
“Maybe this is a werewolf?” Jake suggested.
Cliff and Drew looked up at him, and he shrugged. “Just trying to help, man.”
Drew stood. “Cut it open,” he told Cliff.
“What?” Cliff said, cocking his eyebrow. “You cut it open.”
Drew shook his head, feeling the urge to puke again.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jake said, crouching down and slicing open the sac.
Clear, snot-like fluid gushed out, glopping onto the gravel. One of the embryonic things wiggled out, landing on its back and squirming as it struggled to get air. Jake was right; it looked like a lizard monkey. It was anthropoid in shape, with a scaly surface, and a short tail that wiggled around. Drew couldn’t take his eyes off of it, no matter how hard he tried.
“Okay,” Cliff said, nodding. “It’s a lizard monkey. What the absolute fuck?”
“I wonder why it’s anthropomorphic,” Jake said.
Cliff gave him a questioning look.
“Primate shaped,” Jake explained. “Military dude. Big words. My bad.”
Cliff chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, whatever the fuck it is, we need to kill it and get it on that bonfire. If Travis sees it he’ll wanna dissect it. We don’t need another alien-skull-crab-monster thing runnin’ around.”
Without a word, Drew began hacking the creatures. He chopped again and again, splattering blood everywhere. Cliff and Jake backed away, and Drew could feel their eyes on him. When all the things were dead and in pieces he stood up, looking back at them with a deadpan look.
“What?” he asked.
Cliff and Jake shrugged.
“I can’t see anything,” Eric said, leaning close to the windshield.
Even though the brights were on, the road ahead blended in with the rest of the landscape. The only sign that anything but forest was there was the lack of trees. They could go off the road at any minute and they wouldn’t even know it. Fortunately, the Jeep was 4WD, and they could probably roll over just about anything.
Dan stood up through the sun roof, scanning the area ahead with his IR scope. Obviously there was nothing to see, but it made him feel better.
“Dan,” Eric called up to him. “Why don’t you get out and shovel the road for me?”
Dan grinned. Eric wasn’t usually one to crack jokes, but that was a good one. “That’s okay,” he said. “Next time we’re at the farm store, we’ll find a plow attachment.”
He swept over to the left, eyeing the smoke column in the distance. They were still several miles away, and from the looks of the road, the mystery heat signature was inaccessible from this direction. They might have to continue on foot. That was bad news, especially considering how heavily the wind was picking up.
He dropped back into the Jeep, leaning up between Eric and Toni. Gena leaned up with him, and they both stared out the windshield.
“It looks like the snow is getting shallower,” Gena said.
Eric nodded. “It is,” he said. “But that doesn’t help much. I keep feeling the tires scraping against the edge of the road. It’s just gravel, but it’s frozen as hard as concrete.”
“Do you know the path this road takes?” Dan asked.
“Not very well. I don’t think it curves to the left. Whatever is out there is probably accessed from another road.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Dan said.
Dan sat back, checking all of his magazines to make sure they were full. He then ran his thumb against the edge of his machete. It was sharp—as sharp as a machete could be. Though he wasn’t expecting much trouble, other than maybe some coyotes—real or mutant—he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Detour ahead,” Eric said, slowing down.
Dan leaned up again, seeing the trunk of a large tree blocking the road. Though shattered, there were still large enough chunks to make things difficult.
“Can you get around them or do we have to get out and clear the road?” Dan asked.
“Let’s see,” Eric replied, cutting the wheel to the right.
He started forward again, slowly inching toward the outside of the nearest log. The right front tire sank down, and Eric stopped and put it in reverse. He backed up, back onto the road, his face scrunched up in frustration.
“Nope,” he said. “I don’t know what’s underneath that snow.”
“This is a four wheel drive, right?” Toni said.
“Yeah, but there could be anything underneath that layer. We have to try and clear the road, or just continue on foot from here.”
“Let’s clear the road,” Dan said. “Those logs don’t look so big. We need to get as close as we possibly can.”
“Hold on,” Eric said, backing up even farther. “Let’s try something.”
Eric pulled back about ten feet, then stopped and shifted into low gear. He went forward, engine growling, until the front tires gripped the fallen trunk. After a few seconds of struggling, the Jeep mounted it, wobbling heavily in all four directions as Eric slowly went over it. He cut the wheel to the right to avoid letting both front tires hit the other side at once. Then the Jeep began to level out as the left front tire clear the trunk.
Another small spinout, and the right front tire was over. Fortunately, the lift on the Jeep’s body was large enough to go over the trunk, and soon the left rear tire got a grip on it. Eric gunned it, spinning out the right tire, but the Jeep lurched forward. Both rear tires cleared the trunk, but the bumper slammed into it with a hard impact.
“Ouch,” Eric said. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”
“Nice job, mountain man,” Toni said, grinning.
Eric continued on down the twisting road. Dan could see the cell tower to the right, and their previous tracks along with it. From here on out, it was unexplored territory, and the Jeep would have to push through unbroken ice as they continued in their intended direction. There was obviously a road there, as the treeless strip went on, but there were also areas where there were ju
st no trees at all.
“Are you sure you don’t remember where this road led?” Dan asked.
“I never went this way,” Eric said. “We always turned right to get back onto the highway. But don’t worry, we’ll make it.”
“This road’s a lot thinner,” Toni said. “It’s probably a service road. I bet there’s a transformer up there somewhere.”
Eric nodded, slowing down as he looked at the terrain ahead. Dan popped up through the sun roof again, waving Gena up. She stood, wrapping her coat around her tighter. Dan stared at the road, seeing that there was a definite raised area where the road should be. Gena saw it, too.
“Look harder, Eric,” Dan said. “I can see the road from up here.”
“Guide me through,” Eric replied. “I can’t see anything but white.”
“Alright. Hold on.”
He raised his rifle to check the area ahead for any signs of life. He could see nothing in the immediate area, but there was still that column of heat in the distance. They were still about a mile away, but their goal was getting closer.
“Keep going straight,” he said. “Then veer left when I tell you. There’s a sharp curve ahead.”
“This wind is insane,” Gena said. “I’ve never been this cold before.”
Dan snickered. “You must be from out of town.”
“Kentucky,” Gena said. “Not too far from here.”
“Well, don’t worry. The sun will come back out eventually.”
He tapped the roof when they approached the curve.
“Yeah I see it,” Eric said. “Kind of a suicide curve.”
As they rounded the bend, Dan raised his rifle again. The road was still dark around the corner, but there was a strange, faint glow coming from underneath the snow at least fifty yards ahead. He turned to Gena, handing her his rifle.
“Check out the ground ahead,” he said.
Gena looked, focusing the eyepiece. Then, she lowered the rifle, looked ahead, and raised it to her eye again.
“What is it?” she asked.
Dan shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said. “There’s no reason there should be any heat signatures. Especially in this freezing cold.”
“The snow and ice can act as an insulator.”
Dan nodded. That was true. “Still, whatever it is, it’s spotty.”
The Jeep went over something large, and Dan and Gena were nudged together as the vehicle lurched.
“What the hell was that?” Dan asked, leaning down into the cab.
“I don’t know,” Eric said. “But it felt like it was the size of a body.”
Dan glanced at Gena, who raised an eyebrow. Nothing was really surprising anymore, but then again if there were a body under the snow, then why hadn’t it been eaten before the storm. Surely out here in the middle of the forest there were scavengers—mutated or otherwise—that would have cleaned up the mess.
Unless…
“Stop,” Dan said.
Eric rolled to a stop, looking at Dan in the rear-view mirror. “What?” he asked.
“I wanna check and make sure.”
Dan got out, stepping down into the deep snow. Gena followed him, and he made his way back along the tracks to where the bump was located. Dan used the butt of his rifle to scrape the flattened snow off of the lump. Underneath was cloth; denim, possibly. He poked it with his foot, feeling that it was soft, not frozen solid as he would expect.
“What is it?” Gena asked.
“I think it is a body,” Dan replied. “But if it is, it should be frozen.”
He flicked on his IR scope, sweeping across the lump. Though there wasn’t much of a heat signature along its length. There was an obvious glob of heat at one end—presumably the head.
“Heat,” he said.
He dug some more, making his way up. When he felt hair, he stopped. “Yep.” He said. “It’s a body alright.”
“It should be ice cold,” Gena said. “Frozen solid.”
Dan stood, scratching his chin. “The head is still generating some heat,” he said. “Not much, but a little.”
He drew his knife then, bending down to place the tip against the head. He jabbed it through, feeling it sink to the hilt.
“Why did you do that?” Gena asked.
Dan shook his head. “Just to make sure, I guess.”
He turned and went back to the Jeep, letting Gena climb in first. “Okay, let’s go,” he said.
“What was it?” Toni asked.
“Corpse. It’s dead now.”
Eric was silent, but glanced at Toni before putting the Jeep in gear. Dan spun around and watched the road behind him, his mind going back to the giant horde of the dead. Once again, he wondered why the corpses had risen. Surely they would have been too decomposed to be of any use. But there they were, walking and drooling, looking for flesh to eat.
Was this corpse one of them? Had it just not woken up yet? If so, what woke them up? It was a mystery. Maybe the comet’s return had prompted some sort of change in the brain. Travis had said that the basic, most primitive areas of the brain were still viable. That would be why it was still generating heat. But if so, then why had the billions and billions of people who had died overnight not been resurrected immediately?
Something had caused them to rise from the dead, but not this one. This one was still dead, but its brain was active. It was almost as if it were… waiting for something.
Chapter Eleven
Jake sat on the floor in front of the couch sharpening his machete. He occasionally glanced up at the monitors, seeing nothing more than the skeletal tower of the windmill and the occasional drifting snow. Behind him, Max was lounged near the arm of the couch, reading some entries in the Apocalypse Compendium.
Travis snored nearby, wrapped up in a sleeping bag behind the couch. Drew was snoozing head down at the table, and Grace was at the other end of the couch, curled up into a little ball of blankets. Cliff was in the storeroom, singing away as he organized the firearms. Fucking military guys.
“Where did you get this diagram of the cesspit?” Max asked him.
“Mother Earth News, I think,” Jake said.
Max grunted. “Never heard of it,” he said. “But I think this could be improved on so we can make it more usable. It looks like it was designed without keeping the ground water in mind.”
“What do you mean?” Jake asked.
“Well first, any liquid that spills into it will simply carry its deposits right into the ground where it’s filtered by the dirt.”
“Right.”
“But I think the well itself could be designed to filter it before it reaches the dirt, thus making it less likely that the ground water will be polluted.”
“So, are you a tree hugger now?”
Max was quiet for a moment, then snickered. “I can honestly say that I have never hugged a tree. But what we have to think about is that we get our water from a well, which gets its water from the ground. The current septic field, I imagine, is somewhere on the opposite side of the building from the well, but it all mixes in eventually. If we need to confine the effluent to a smaller space for safety’s sake, this pit would be a good idea. It just needs some tweaking to make it more efficient.”
“Okay,” Jake said. “How do we tweak it?”
“Yeah,” Grace said, sitting up then. “How do we tweak it?”
“Well, good morning princess,” Jake said smiling. Grace patted him on the head.
“We dig the pit,” Max began. “Six feet, maybe. Then we gather up about fifty pounds of charcoal briquettes, crush those up into a fine powder and mix it with water. We now have a carbon paste. We line the sides of the pit with landscaping cloth, then pour the paste in and let it dry and harden. Boom. Instant carbon filter. On top of that, we add about another foot of fine sand, then top that off with gravel up to about two foot from the top of the pit. The effluent pipe is led into the pit, then we put an elbow on the end of it, fit that into the bottom of a five
gallon bucket with a hole cut out, then set that bucket on top of the gravel. The rest of the space is filled in with more gravel, then the last few inches are filled with top soil and maybe some grass.”
Jake thought for a moment. Though Max had kind of lost him, he could follow for the most part. He liked the idea of making a carbon filter out of pulverized charcoal. That was brilliant. But would that last layer be enough to completely cleanse the water? Should they just continue to use the septic field?
“Why even worry about it?” Grace asked. “Is there something wrong with the current system?”
“Probably not,” Max said. “However, this was an office, not a residence. Whatever is installed was probably not designed for heavy use. There are what, ten of us? With all of us flushing waste down the toilet all day long, a private business type septic system is bound to fail in no time.”
Jake looked over at Grace, who seemed to agree. “You’re a microbiologist,” he said. “Would a carbon filter work?”
Grace nodded. “Of course,” she said. “That’s a great idea.”
“That reminds me,” Max said. “You said you and your escort were heading to Arkansas to study the impact. Are you still planning on going?”
“I’m not sure, Max. There doesn’t really seem to be any point. More fragments are coming, from what I know, and those could hit anywhere.”
“More fragments?” Max said, his face serious.
“A friend of mine who works for the JPL has been tracking the comet. When it neared the sun, it broke into two pieces, and one piece retained an elliptical orbit around Earth. It broke into seven fragments, and they’re all following us around.”
“Seven fragments?” Jake said, thinking of the seven seals of Revelations. It was the preacher in him.
Grace chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking, and I thought it, too. But they might not all hit. Let’s hope not anyway.”
Jake went back to sharpening his blade, drowning out Max and Grace with his own thoughts. It was a rather bizarre coincidence that the comet was in seven fragments, each one possibly bringing with it a different disaster. But then, the third seal spoke of Wormwood. They hadn’t even gotten to the third impact yet, but the comet itself was called Wormwood by the scientists.