by Alan Spencer
He was chilled to envision his lover in such a state. “I’m so sorry this happened. Ten years has put toils upon me too. I worked, studied, and tested relentlessly.” He stifled tears. “You have no idea.”
“Why don’t you show me the bunker?"
“I hate that place. There’s nothing down there useful. I spent too long down there to go back. I’d rather be out in the open. I’ll never hide again." He kissed her forehead, trying to veer her from the question. “Your faith in me will be rewarded.”
“It already has.” She turned his head so they were facing each other. “But why did you shut your thoughts off from me? I always wondered why they were locked up so tight.”
She was pestering him for an explanation, and he didn’t like it. It was his business what he did below the earth, and his alone. Nobody could learn of the deeds he'd committed. Great discoveries resulted from great sacrifices, and those of non-scientific minds couldn’t discern necessary sacrifice from murder.
He took in a breath and changed the subject. “It's something that'll take a lot of time to explain. Let’s return to the cider mil, okay? There's still work to do."
She followed him back to the Jeep they stole. The seats were still bloody from when the deputies killed a man trying to escape with his wife and children. On their way to their destination, he hoped Lenora didn’t ask anymore questions about the fallout shelter.
30
The moment Shannon started Caleb’s car, it poured sheets of rain. The torrent obscured visibility, the downpour thick enough she couldn’t see beyond the headlight beams. She was too determined to get home and take a nap to be deterred by a hard drive home. It was strange using another man’s car, she thought, especially someone she hadn’t known more than forty-eight hours. The idea of moving to another place outside of Smithville appealed to her, especially after Chippie’s homicidal meltdown. The sight of the woods and what he said about the town being slaughtered, she feared the man would parade up and down town shooting everyone in sight calling them “communists,” “socialists,” “or blood sucking monsters.” Dale Birchum’s workers weren’t dead, she kept telling herself despite the fact she didn’t want to humor Chippie’s ramblings as Caleb was doing right now.
“I’m calling the police the moment I get home. Chippie’s ass is going to jail.”
She cruised at a guarded thirty miles an hour. The sky was a cross between sea green and gray; a tornado's sky. The wind pushed hard, slowing the car's speed up the hill. Trees wavered above her, jilted by the substantial breezes. Her eyes ached watching the road. After a short time, the shape of the mobile home park formed under the busy veil of pounding rain. Lightening crashed, the darkened sky now daylight for a split second by the electric bolt. She checked the back seat for an umbrella and didn’t find one.
“Caleb probably has one in the trunk. Shit.”
She parked outside her mobile home, deciding a good sprint to the house wouldn’t leave her too drenched. The headlights painted the home, and she caught Travis sitting in a lawn chair. He was soaked through and through with rain. His eyes were focused on nothing. He rose from his chair at the sight of her, suddenly alerted.
“What the hell’s wrong with him? He’ll freeze.”
She hadn't cut the engine yet when her brother approached the car with his shoulders hunched and his arms down at his sides. The drum and pound of rain continued, everything else rendered silent. She was about to roll down the window and call out to him when he leapt onto the hood, his body crumpling the exterior.
Unable to react, rooted in her chair, a single punch was thrown, and his arm crunched through the windshield and reached for her. The extremity bled from numerous gashes and lacerations, but Travis didn’t express pain—only the need to deliver it.
“Christ!”
He seized her hair and tried to send her through the glass, but she planted her feet under the steering column, anchoring herself down. “Let me go, Travis!—Travis, what the hell are you doing? Staaaaaaaaawwp!"
Throat tearing loud, spittle and foam flying, eyes bound to explode from the sockets, he belched, “Blood! Blood! Bloooaaaaaaad!”
The windshield forked after her face was slammed into it again. She scrambled to fight back, but she couldn’t reach through the glass or undo his grip from her hair. Fog steamed the glass where he panted. She panicked when he braced himself to shove her through the glass once again, his head thrown back in a wolfish demonstration of dominance. Reacting to the warning, she struck the gas and meant to reverse the car, but it was still in drive. The Sedan lurched forward, throwing her brother backwards and wedging Travis between a tree and the bumper with the abrupt smashing of sternum and rib cage. It was like the sound of a giant fist cracking its knuckles.
Blood mushroomed and boiled out his lips through the screen of rain. He remained slumped against the hood, deflated. “Oh Jesus!—Travis!”
She rushed to his side, the rain soaking her through instantly. The bumper had crushed his chest. He clawed at the mud to abate the agony. His head rotated in a semi-circle until his swollen gaze glued onto her.
“I-I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he apologized, genuine in the sentiment, as he lost his life ounce by ounce. “A woman, she came from the trees. She jumped down like one of those squirrels, and she turned me into something I’m not.” He screeched, “Look at me!”
She shook her head and wept. “I’m so sorry, Travis. I was scared. An accident, Travis...it was an accident.”
She bent down to hold his hand, but he weakly pushed her back. “Stay away from me. I’m warning you, Shannon, after the woman spat blood into my mouth, blood was all I could think about.” She stayed back a good distance. “I’ve torn the throats of our neighbors. I even killed Dad. I-I ripped his head off with my bare hands.” He held up his hands to his face, disbelieving what he’d said. “The blood, it’s made me so powerful. I watched him die with my own eyes. I deserve this; it’s the only way to stop me.”
She slipped to her knees, the mud squishing under her weight. She shivered in the puddles of ice cold water. The image of Travis removing her father’s head was unimaginable as it was harrowing. He wasn’t lying about his strength; he’d jumped several feet onto the hood and punched a solid circle through the windshield. His face had changed into something monstrous.
He managed to say something else. “I’m glad I’m dying. The killing’s over.”
She managed to ask, “Who’s doing this?”
“There’s dozens of them." His eyes were creeping into the back of his head. “They crave blood. Everyone in the park has been murdered. They’re collecting blood. They’re hording it. I have no idea why. Leave Smithville. Never turn back, or else you’ll end up murdered or changed into a monster, and I don’t know which is worse.”
Her brother convulsed once. Froth and orange spittle gathered at his lips. He produced a final gurgle before his eyes were permanently affixed to the sky. Dead.
She referenced back to Chippie’s warnings about the people who craved blood. He claimed the police were dead by the hands of "monsters". The urge to call the police was overwhelming, so she bounded from Travis and took shelter in the mobile home. Inside, her body crumbled at the sight of blood streaking the walls, staining the carpet fibers, and the furniture in palm-shaped stamps. Rivulets of flesh stuck onto the carpet in the shape of silk worms. She shuttered. Her head was suddenly dizzy and reeling from the smell of recent death.
She retreated to the sink and vomited. The release was answered by two more thrusts. The family she hated was dead. It was her wish to escape them, but not for them to be mutilated.
I never wanted anything bad to happen to them.
She reached for the phone, but there was no dial tone, so she threw it across the room in frustration. “Someone’s cut the lines!”
She peeked through a window shutter. Nobody was outside. The rain let up, but the sun wasn’t coming back anytime soon. The best plan she could muster w
as to dig out the Remington rifle from underneath her father’s bed. She did so and loaded four shells into it. Next, she peeled off her clothes and dried herself. She put on jeans, a sweater, her steel-toed boots, and a poncho. She was hesitant to return outside after Travis had attacked her.
I’m not locking myself in my house. I’m getting the hell out of here.
Then she remembered Caleb.
He was at the cider mill fact checking Chippie’s story.
“Damn it, Caleb.” She struck her fist against the wall. “What am I supposed to do?”
She couldn’t leave him out there alone.
He could be dead already.
You don’t know that.
“He’s your only friend,” she argued with herself, pitting her safety against friendship. “You can’t leave him there. He’ll die."
Shannon tried to tell herself he might not be in danger, but she knew it was a lie.
She scanned the surrounding mobile homes through the window. Whatever Travis had turned into, there were many more like him somewhere out there.
She clicked the safety off of the rifle. “I'm finding him."
Her confidence diminished with each step down the wooden steps. She moved to the Sedan, but an odd rustling disturbed her from a direct getaway.
“Help me." A desperate and wispy voice called from three mobile homes from her. “I can’t move.”
She searched between the mobile homes, determined to find another survivor. “Where are you?”
A whisper, “Please come.”
A titter abbreviated the statement.
She stopped at the snigger, but she was already in view of the one who summoned her. It was Tosha Brundage, her best friend since grade school. She rested in a blue plastic kiddy pool. Her husband, Fred Brundage, was hanging by his feet above her in a tree, his severed head resting on Tosha’s stomach. The neck stump drained and painted Tosha’s body in thick droplets. She playfully opened her mouth to catch the red. She was naked, her breasts and body coated in crimson.
“When it stopped raining, I hung up Fred’s body. I strangled him with my bare hands, and then I popped his head off like one of the Barbie dolls we played with as kids. Remember how we’d change the heads and screw them on different bodies. I always thought it would be cool if real people could do that.”
She went still in shock. “You’re a murderer.”
“Fred deserved it." She pointed at her black eye and the numerous burn and stitch scars along her body. “You remember when I was pregnant? I didn’t tell him about it because I was afraid he’d make me abort it. When he shoved me down the stairs at my friend’s apartment complex during a fight, I lost that child. He also cut me, Shannon. He kept a straight-razor on him at all times; Fred said if I ever threatened to leave, he’d kill himself, but first he’d slit my throat to the bone.”
Tosha’s face bent in joy, the smile crooked and highlighted in crimson. She patted her belly. “I’m with a child again, Shannon. I can finally have a baby, and Fred can’t stop me. I’m six weeks along.”
“But you’ve...you...”
“What?" Her features shifted into a foul template of evil. “I was his punching bag; his fuck-toy. I’d say ripping his head off makes us even.” She rose up to her haunches, poised like a feline about to pounce. “You don’t agree with me, do you? You were always there to lick my wounds clean, talk me through Fred’s shit, and now you’re clamming up. Don’t forget about your abortion. The way your man beat you up. Have you forgotten your own suffering?”
Shannon spoke in gasps, unable to converse beyond her simple observation, “You’re...one...of...them..."
Widening her globe eyes, Tosha snarled to release her disappointment. “Of all people, I thought you’d understand. We used to be best friends. Don’t you remember how we’d experiment before we dated boys? During the winter, we’d hide in Grayson’s empty silo and make out. Tell us each other what feels good. And then we touched each other...”
“What’s wrong with you?” She was embarrassed and confused by the memory. “You’re not yourself. Y-you’re a monster. You’re bathing in Fred's blood!”
“I’m beautiful.” She stretched out her arms, standing up, proud of her nakedness and taking one turn. “All I need is one thing, and nothing else matters. Isn’t that what everybody wants, a carefree life? My concerns are blood, and that is all. I don’t need a man to support me. I’m truly independent for the first time ever.”
“But you’re crazy. You strung up Fred’s body upside down, and you’re covered in his blood. You're a murderer. The police will be after you."
“Not if they want blood too,” she cackled, slurping the fluids from her fingers. “Our problems will be everyone’s problems. We’ll be equals. The rich and poor, there won’t be any difference. Everybody will be fair game.”
“It won’t happen.” She trained the rifle on Tosha. “Stay where you are.”
Tosha was unflinching being at the end of the barrel. “We can be together again. No bullshit. It’ll be like it was as teenagers. Two twelve-packs, maybe a couple of bottles of cheap wine and squatting pissing contests in people’s front yards at night. Those were the fucking days.” She took a step closer. “It’s not murder if everybody’s doing it.”
She aimed to fire a shot into her shoulder when Tosha dropped to the mud, crawling and splashing on all fours with the speed of a charging wolf. Shannon pulled back the trigger in reaction. The shot clapped like a cheap firework that went thuck into the mud two paces from Tosha’s foot. She swung the stock into Tosha’s forehead when she rose up, but a foot kicked her in the chest and sent her spiraling into the mud. The same foot was anchored to her chest, and she squirmed to be free.
“I offered you a choice. The blood they spat down my throat, it’s special. It’s addictive. It makes you crave blood like ecstasy makes you crave sex.” She licked her lips. “You can be one of us, Shannon.”
Her chest was compressed by Tosha’s foot, and she still couldn't breathe; her brain felt like it was compacting against the skull.
“You’ll enjoy it. I want you to be one of us.”
It happened in two seconds, and Shannon was up on both feet again before it was over. The bear trap clamped onto Tosha’s neck, taking a bite. Then, a chain was yanked, and the head was wrenched off crudely with the crunch of bone and the audible opening of arteries. Tosha’s body stood unmoving. The stump coughed blood as high as three feet in generous spurts. Shannon watched the show and all she could do was gasp for the air she craved.
Her savior crawled down from the tree dressed in a dull green poncho. Chippie lugged the bear trap in his right arm with Tosha’s head trapped in its steel jaws. Her eyes twitched and locked onto Shannon, her mouth trying to speak.
“They can die like normal people.” He swung the trap on the chain for two revolutions. “But their inhuman strength makes them that much harder to dispatch.” He scowled at Tosha’s head. “They’re either after your blood or they want to change you into one of them.”
The headless corpse finally keeled over onto the mud with a big splash.
She looked at Chippie with grateful eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
“It’s nothing anybody wants to accept. I followed you because you were the last survivor I knew of besides Caleb, and it might be too late for him. He’s among them, but I’m not sure if they’ve discovered him yet. The creatures are so busy in the cider mill doing God knows what. But we have a battle on our hands. It’s good to have a wingman.”
“What do you mean?” Her nerves were cranked on high; the idea of fighting anymore like Tosha was impossible to register. She faltered when it came time to pull the trigger, and it had nearly cost her her life. “We drive out of here and don’t come back, right?—I mean, after we find Caleb.”
“Not happening.” He opened the bear trap and let Tosha’s head fall free; it clapped into a puddle, bounced twice, and shot down a short incline and floated in a stre
am, bobbing up and down as it drifted to another part of the mobile home park. “Deputy Kiernan and Officer McCullough have created road blocks. More of them stand guard at the quickest ways in and out of town. They can run as stealthy as cheetahs and tear you apart the same. We have to surprise them; blow them out of their holes at night. Lure them into the woods. But we have to go to my house first. That’s the safest place.”
Chippie was her only protector, but she didn’t forget that he was erratic and dangerous. “I’d rather find a way to escape than to fight them.”
“But we have to fight them." His reasoning turned cold. “Can you save yourself alone? Without me, you're dead, and I think you know that.”
The words were a threat as much as a reminder of the truth. Without Caleb or her family or friends, or even the police, she was left to fend for herself.
Chippie picked up her Remington rifle and handed it to her. “Take it. It’s a good weapon to keep until we’re back at my house. Now let's move out."
She accepted the weapon, stepping over Tosha’s body in the process of catching up to possibly the only person still human in Smithville.
31
Dale clutched onto a wooden crate while standing outside the cider mill. He knew he couldn’t plant the box from his son’s room without drawing attention. It was the best plan he could muster, and he was keeping it quiet, even from Annie. From outside the cider mill, the waft of death was so potent it became a moist film on the skin. He had been inside the local slaughterhouse to choose his own cuts before, and the spilled cattle blood’s smell was nothing in comparison to the hundreds of bodies wilting in the open air. The recent rain cooled things off, but the decay and decomposition didn’t wane.