by Alan Spencer
He became her crutch, and she leaned against him for support. He soothed her as she limped on her good ankle. “We’ve survived this long. Hang in there.”
He studied the house next door to the cider mill, but it too had caught on fire.
“Why are you so worried?” There was a sizeable gash on the back of her head he didn’t notice before. He figured she was suffering from a mild concussion. “They’re dead, right?”
“I’m not so sure our problem has gone away just yet. Maybe I’m wrong, but let’s play it safe.”
The talk of danger broke her from her confused state. “What makes you say that?”
“There weren’t that many bodies inside the mill, Shannon. I counted twelve skeletons. There was nearly a hundred people hours ago. And think, why didn’t they attack us if someone survived?”
“Maybe whoever’s alive didn’t see us.”
He immediately disbelieved her notion. “Impossible.”
“Where do we go now?” She scanned up and down the road. There were no vehicles they could use. The truck at the back of the cider mill suffered extensive fire damage. She clutched her head, moaning and struck by weakness, and she buckled back to the ground. “I can’t walk anymore.”
She landed on all fours, weeping. “You won’t leave me, please don’t leave me. I won’t make it without you. I can’t.”
She clutched onto his chest, her beady eyes begging for mercy. “You’re all that’s left in my life. Everybody I know is dead."
Tears rolled down his cheeks at the overwhelming sensation of helplessness and empathy for her. He hugged her. Then they kissed. The ensuing kisses were tender and well spent. Breaking off, he rested his face against hers, and they bawled together.
“We can’t stay here.”
Shannon agreed. “I’m starting to feel better, but I can’t move very fast.”
“We’ll walk. Forward progress is good progress.”
They struggled together down the path, Caleb balancing her. Shannon’s frantic mood had calmed. The scenery proved to be safe. Nothing charged after them or skulked in the distance. “It’s been hours we’ve been under. Whoever survived cut their losses and made a run for it, maybe.”
He caught a darting figure in the road. An animal, possibly, but it returned, and this time, it was the shape of a man. The figure edged out from behind a cluster of trees, approaching them with caution. The man had enlarged jawbreaker white eyes. A slit mouth. His face was broken into tubes of circulating blood.
She arched her brow, pointing at the odd man. “My God, it’s Dale Birchum.”
“You mean the guy who owns the cider mill?” He was terrified and confused at once. “Why isn’t he charging at us? He looks just as afraid as we are.”
She guessed, “It's because he's alone.” She raised her voice, addressing Mr. Birchum. “What do you want from us? I don't want trouble. You don't want trouble. It's that easy.”
The man didn’t reply. He cocked his head to the side and ogled at them. Ravaging words soon came. “You’re the only ones left alive not like us.”
Not like us.
Caleb took it as a threat.
“What do you want from us?"
“I may not want you at all.”
Caleb whispered in her ear. “I want you to hide until either help arrives, or I come back. I'll keep this fucker busy. He's clearly playing games."
Panicked, she dug her hands deeper into his arm. “But what if you don’t come back?”
“GO!” He pushed her from the path, forcing her to decide. "There's no choice—no time!"
She was kick-started, screaming and hobbling through the woods, choosing a random path. With her gone, he only had adrenalin with him. The brave machismo moment was spent, and now he was forced to size up the man in the path.
He begged for an alternative to the inevitable fight. “Can’t you let us go? We're out of here, I promise. You can do what you want, and we'll leave you be."
Dale frowned, and because the expression came from a monster, it could've indicated a half a dozen sentiments.
The beast shook his head. “You obviously don’t want to be like us, and I don’t want you to be like us either. Can’t let you go.”
Caleb bought time. “How did this happen to you? Why do you want to be them? You’ll murder for the rest of your life. You’ll hide in the night and murder like they did. You want to be a desperate creature the rest of your life? Did you see that wishing well? They hid there for many years, Dale. Is that the life you always wanted, being a goddamn hermit?"
“Blood is all I need. All I have to do is pick my victims carefully in the future. I’ve pumped the blood from the pit inside the mill. I have drums and drums of the good stuff. I can be a hermit; I can be anything I choose."
He lost his breath. “You took a lot of the dead bodies, didn’t you? Look at you, you're covered in blood."
“I'll be stacking up their pieces like cordwood, there's so many corpses. They were so easy to kill."
“So you're alone?”
“It’s not your concern. This town can’t have witnesses. I’ll hide when the police finally come. You saw the underground fall out shelter; it’s perfect for hiding. It’s stocked with electricity, booze, and blood—so much blood." He sniffed the air, those slit eyes exploding open and concentrating on Caleb. "Your blood!"
Then the man lurched after him.
Caleb fled into the woods, trying to match his enemy's wildcat stealth, but it wasn’t long before the bloodthirsty cretin caught up with him.
49
Annie stood at the bottom of the well collecting what Dale had tossed down: cross-sections of faces, torsos locked in the act of coitus, arms, legs, hands, feet, and entrails leaking and dribbling across her body, many of the pieces still smoldering hot from their burning. Blood collected at her feet, her toes magenta. The smell intoxicated her, and giving in to its charms, she sucked the crimson trails from the stump of a hand, shoving each finger in her mouth with a raucous sucking noise. Satisfied with the taste, she kept stacking the corpses in the hallway inside the bunker. Dale had rigged a PVC pipe to collect what the water pump was suctioning from the pit hours ago. The pipe transporting the precious load from the mill filled a metal basin that could store hundreds of gallons. The basin was crudely built with cast iron and bolts, the basin itself hidden behind a series of wooden casks. The iron and meat aroma carried thick in every room, and it would lull her into sleep and greet her in the morning for many days, if not many years.
The joyous moment was halted when the descending corpses stopped being dropped.
She craned her neck upwards. “Is that it?”
Dale called down to her, “The pump’s sucked everything from that pit, but what was in the stock tanks were used up in the orgy.”
“You should’ve blown them up sooner.”
“There's still enough blood to last, don't you worry. I’ll come down and help you drain those bodies.”
She waited for him climb down. “Hey, where did you go?”
“Quiet down there.”
Annie crouched low, staying hidden.
“I need to check something out.”
“What is it?”
“There’s someone out there. I hear them. I smell them."
She was instantly frustrated. “Find them and bring them here alive.”
“That’d be too much work. We’d have to feed them, and you know they wouldn’t last long, not with us having as much fun as we did killing everyone else in this town.”
He bolted from the well, done with his explanations. She walked into the bunker and retrieved the jungle-sized blade from the wall. She began the process of hacking up the bodies without Dale, and half-way through her task, she slipped in the blood that had pooled on the tiles. Dripping crimson, soaked through in the red, the smells, the luxurious colors, the tastes she had yet to indulge, Annie was suddenly consumed by a ravenous hunger she couldn't stop, and she slaked her thirst for go
re without relent...
50
Shannon limped through the woods, her ankle panging with every step. She didn't care; it was escape from a horrible death. Gaining speed as well as the hope for survival, she arrived at the apple tree nursery. She couldn’t stave the dread that Caleb was already dead. Her first plan was to locate a phone, but there wasn't one for miles with Dale Birchum's house burned down. Then she had a better idea. She could hit the main road in the hopes of flagging down a car for help.
She hiked up the cobblestone path, closing in on the wishing well. Shannon retreated from the landmark the moment she discovered the blood spattered on the rocks and the pieces of flesh and bone littering the ground around it. This wasn't a place to make out or throw coins into anymore. It was a butcher's block, surplus-style.
Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch!
Hearing the banshee screech reverberate up from the well, the earth rumbled from the pressure of sound, her feet absorbing the tectonic-strong movements. New roars and screams echoed from below, muffled yet stinging her ears, so cloying, so animal-like. She cupped her ears and limped from the spot, knowing if she stayed here, she'd surely die.
She cut through the woods hoping to come upon the main road when something else took her by complete surprise.
51
Caleb ran through the trees, their bodies coming closer together the longer he fled. Teaming against him, it seemed. Clinging onto any hope of survival, he kept telling himself the monster was still far enough behind him he could evade him. The dangling bear traps from tree limbs bore the reminder that this was a minefield. Any wrong step, and he’d be dead.
He slowed his pace to check for tripwires or suspicious piles of leaves.
Why can’t the asshole behind me step in a trap?
He slid down a short hill, greased by a patch of mud, and he clawed at clumps of earth to regain his standing position and retreated yet again.
Chippie’s house would be in the distance. He doubled his speed, though each breath was an intake of needles. He was soaked up to his knees crossing Rush Creek, fording the frothy current and nearly taken down by its speed.
On the other side of the creek, he sped up when the darting figure formed in his peripheral vision. Jogging as fast as he possibly could, he passed the lone apple tree in the woods where "Johnny Appleseed’s" body was buried. Caleb rushed down the path to the house, needing protection. He pictured the largest machine gun—an M-80—and emptying it into Dale’s head.
He caught an opening in the woods and viewed where the house used to be. His body sank, his legs threatening to drop him where he stood. The house was replaced by blackened ruins. Nothing left.
It’s gone—it’s fucking gone.
Dale’s steps resounded close by, honing in on him. A short sprint’s distance from him now, Caleb strayed from the path and hurled himself into more woods at the risk of sending himself to his death along the trip trap path.
He feared for Shannon’s life. How long would she wait for him? Where would she go if this was the end for him?
God, if you let me live through this, I’ll take her so far away from this place. I’ll be good to her. I swear it.
That’s when the ground caved in underfoot. A hole surrounded by loose dirt sent him tumbling onto all fours. He pulled a tendon, and his foot refused to support him. Vulnerable, he caught his breath and waited on the ground for the man to catch up to him.
Dale calmly arrived. He picked an apple off a tree and abruptly smashed it in his hands, turning it into sauce. “Blood’s ruined my taste for food.” The man flicked the sweet remains from his palm. “But you’ll never know the pleasures I’ve experienced. My taste buds aren’t the only part of my body that’s changed. Hell, I’ve made love to a girl who’s barely twenty, and I’ve had ten orgasms in one sitting. I was growing old, but now I'm vital."
“Would you just kill me? I don’t want to hear about my killer overcoming life’s hurdles."
Through extensive stretches of pain, lost breath, and witnessing masses of people mauled during the outcome of an inhuman bloodbath, he wasn’t afraid of the old man. He would go out insulting the beast.
“You’re a mutant. I hope your blood supply runs out and you starve. Or you’ll glutton yourself like the others and burst. I could’ve warned them, but I didn’t. I watched them kill themselves. How will you know when too much is too much, huh? Think about that every time you drink it. Let it ruin your appetite.”
“Shut your mouth, boy!"
“You’re a parasite. How can anybody truly love you as you are? Sure, you might have fellow ogres and ogresses who share the love of blood, but love for each other, tender love, it can’t happen for you. How about your family?—did you have one? Or did you mash them like you’re going to mash me?”
He'd touched a nerve. Dale’s mouth wriggled and his eyes closed—though the eyelids were see-through from being stretched so thin—fighting an emotion. “That part of my life is over. It wasn’t my choice. I didn’t harm them; it wasn't me who killed them. They’re gone now, and that’s all I can say.”
“And you’re fine with that, huh? You enjoy being a murderer? Is that all you have to say on that matter?”
Without warning, Caleb was scooped up from the ground. One hand on his shoulder, the other firm around his neck, he was heaved like a discus.
“My family was dead before I was ever changed!”
He bounced twice before being stopped by a tree; his entirety absorbed the shock. The monster ogled over him, thinking about how to dispatch him, pleased by the many choices he mentally drummed up.
“I could pluck the eyes from your head and suck the blood from your brains, or how about slitting your neck and letting you hang for awhile? I’ll collect the blood and have a real party later with my new girl. Or I could simply rip that head off of yours and end your miserable life, but that would be too fast, too easy.”
Caleb combed the ground for a stone, a sharp stick, anything for protection. He managed to lift himself up by grabbing hold of the tree. Then he froze, absorbed by panic but also experiencing a revelation.
Chippie, you crazy bastard.
The tree behind him had opened, revealing a square slot. He dug inside of it, removing a Beretta handgun.
No time to check the safety or aim, he opened fire.
Two of the bullets went wide, but the last struck Dale in the center of his forehead, carving out a red concave Cyclops's eye. The monster was thrown back by the blast, slammed into a set of trees six yards out. The exit wound gushed a stream of blood as thick as hydrant spray. Every ounce of crimson fired out the hole at impossibly high pressures. The tide was a rushing, exploding torrent breaking trees from their roots, tearing off bark, and snapping their bodies in half.
Dale convulsed and suffered spasms right before his body suddenly imploded into itself like an empty aluminum can being crushed by a giant hand. The blood in him was forced out at once, his head bursting from the neck with a hermetic pop. The projectile was hurled into the trees above him, spinning so fast, it vanished into the sky. The rest of him dissolved, and before a minute passed, nothing remained of Dale except red puddles and broken shards of bone.
He escaped the mess, staying on the path to avoid anymore of Chippie’s traps. After a long trek back, he returned to the cider mill carrying the Beretta. He didn’t encounter anymore of the creatures.
Late morning had turned to early afternoon. The distant whir of sirens could be made out. He rolled his eyes. “Now they arrive.”
The rescue didn’t matter without Shannon. He had no way of finding her. Run to safety, he'd told her, and standing in the nursery, he had no concept of what that meant anymore, especially when the new set of monstrous peals exploded in the air.
He had no chance to react.
The thing was upon him instantly.
52
Detective Niles Grier stood like a statue outside the Smithville Police Station. A tactical unit had swept the interior
and deemed it safe to enter. No hostages. No bomb threats. No poison or hazardous materials leaks. The mystery of the small town’s fate remained elusive to him. He entered the reception area to alleviate the questions brewing in his mind. Dried blood tracks and spastic circles of red colored the tiles in bizarre patterns. Chairs were strewn and rendered into pieces. The glass window at the front desk had been smashed through; the human skin embedded in the groves were at least twenty-four hours old.
And we have yet to find a single body.
The detective walked into the offices that were left untouched except for the drag of blood down the center aisle. He followed the red path that carried to a steel doorway.
He didn’t have to arrange for the keys to be located; the door had been practically ripped from the hinges. The detective scanned the prison cells. They were each forcefully breached, the bars twisted back as if by hand.
Impossible.
Officer Steve Askin entered the scene, breaking the detective from his shock. Askin was assigned to patrol Smithville’s city limits, and now he’d returned with a report. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“Did you find who did this?” Grier asked, staring at the bloody cots behind the iron bars. “It couldn’t have been one person. No way in hell."
The chatter in the other room increased as the returning officers greeted those on the scene. Grier slammed the door behind him to block them out and to better hear the officer's news.
Askin's eyes were hidden in the deep gulfs of his sockets, overwhelmed by the information he was about to give. “We didn’t find a single body anywhere."
“Who called in the report?”
“A truck driver named Richie Masconi. He parked at a rest stop and heard screaming in the woods. He phoned it in.”
“So who do you think killed everybody?"
“Terrorists would’ve blown up the entire town and spray painted some political hoopla on the walls or forced a news conference. The prison break theory is shot down; the cells are slathered in blood, and it appears the convicts are dead. I called the sanitarium in Stadium, Kansas, and all the heads are accounted for. No APB’s out for any criminals near Smithville either.”