The Rotten Series (Book 1): Infection

by Lewis, M. Lauryl

  “I know. It’s just that I’m so scared.”

  “I guarantee you’re not the only one,” he reassured me.

  He pulled on the blanket, covering himself. Left in only my underthings after taking my clothes off, I was glad to be wrapped in the bed sheet.

  “I thought you left me,” I said very quietly.

  “What?” he asked, his tone exasperated yet semi-humored.

  “When I woke up earlier and you were gone. I thought you weren’t coming back.” I allowed new tears to fall.

  “No. I won’t do that to you, Flower. I promise.”

  He used a thumb to wipe a tear from my cheek. “Fuck,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d thought that.”

  “Can you do me a favor?” I asked, needing to change the subject to avoid falling apart.

  “Of course. Name it.”

  “Can you just…hold me till I fall asleep?”

  It was something he’d done twice now, and while it felt childish to ask such a favor, I did find comfort in his arms. He inched closer and wrapped an arm around me. I nestled my head near his chest and took a shuddering breath inward. He found the back of my head and stroked my hair soothingly. His breathing deepened, and his breath was warm on the top of my head, where his chin rested. We remained like that for several minutes.

  “Poppy?” he whispered very quietly, as if checking to see if I was asleep.

  “Hmm?”

  He remained quiet as if thinking. “Nothing.”

  I leaned my head back to look up at him. The arm that remained draped over me tensed. I brought a hand to his chest.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He shifted slightly and propped himself on his elbow. “Probably bad timing.”

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  He answered by leaning down, and when I felt his breath on my cheek I tensed. He paused before placing his lips upon mine. The kiss was light. Gentle. As my body responded, relaxing, he took the cue and deepened the kiss. His hand fell to my side, where he lightly rested it on top of the sheet.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, breaking from the kiss. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  I turned slightly onto my back and reached up with both hands. I found his face and held him gently. His beard stubble was soft. He leaned down and resumed the kiss, which I softly returned. It was tender and caring and made me feel safe but mixed in was sorrow and fear. He ended the moment by lying on his back and pulling me to his side. We both adjusted the blanket and I relaxed with my head on his chest while he held me close.

  “I know that was terrible timing,” he whispered. “I’m sorry if it was unwelcome.”

  “It wasn’t,” I answered.

  “Good. I know we just met, and it’s been hell ever since.”

  I yawned. He kissed my temple and rested his hand on my shoulder.

  ***

  The sound of a struggle woke us both. Wood splintering, glass breaking, and one of the men in the living room cussing while the other yelled.

  “I can’t see!” someone shouted.

  “Fuck, Bray, just grab your gun and walk toward my voice!”

  Ellis and I both bolted out of bed. Snarling sounded, along with a guttural moan.

  “You have to shoot it in the head!” yelled Matt. His voice was strained and near panic.

  “Poppy, light the candle,” said Ellis. “Hurry!”

  “Fucking God damnit!”

  “Where is she?” yelled Braylen.

  “I have her fucking under me. She’s so fucking small but I can’t hold her much longer. Christ!”

  I felt my way through the bedroom until I found the table that held the candle and lighter. The flashlight would be quicker but was in the other room by the exit hatch. Despite my hands shaking, I found the lighter and I managed to srike it with the first try. The dim glow barely reached into the next room, so I picked the candle up and reluctantly joined the chaos in the other room.

  Braylen was already beside Matt, who was holding down the gray and mottled naked body of Janet. In death, she had soiled herself and the smell of blood, piss, and feces filled the room. Matt looked like a wild man, his face twisted as if in pain with blood streaking his face and beard. Braylen was desperately trying to work his pistol into the struggle to aim at her head. Ellis held an arm out, encouraging me to stay back.

  “Don’t shoot her!” I said loud enough to be heard over Matt’s grunting and the corpse’s groans and snapping jaws. “It’s too loud! You can’t shoot!”

  Ellis rushed to the men and knelt down, so he was head-to-head with Matt. He reached under Matt, his arms dangerously close to the dead girl’s gnashing mouth, and gripped Janet’s now-tangled hair. It proved an effective way to keep her head still and allowed Matt the chance to shift his weight so that his knees held her shoulders down, freeing his hands.

  “Give me the pistol,” he grumbled to Braylen.

  “Poppy’s right. Shooting’s gonna be too loud,” argued Ellis.

  “I’m not gonna shoot,” said Matt.

  Braylen handed him the pistol. Matt took it and stared at Janet’s eyes, which looked back at him blankly. He brought the stock of the gun up and proceeded to beat her head with it. Each blow produced a splatter of blood, and he continued with the death-strikes until her face was unrecognizable as being human and her body stilled. Even then, he lifted the bloodied pistol and struck her pulverized head two more times. Finally, Braylen gently grabbed his wrist to let him know he was done.

  “She’s dead, bro. You can stop.”

  Matt’s breathing was labored, his face covered in blood and likely other bodily bits of gore. He looked like a mad man. Ellis had let go of Janet’s hair when it became clear that she was no longer a danger. Like Matt, his breathing was labored. Aside from their breathing, the room was quiet.

  “Why did she come back?” I asked.

  Ellis looked at me quizzically before looking back at Matt.

  “She wasn’t sick. At least nothing that showed,” I elaborated.

  “It’s a good question,” said Braylen.

  “It’s got to be everyone,” said Ellis.

  “What?” asked Matt.

  “Everyone. It’s got to be affecting everyone. The sick. The dead. Fuck me…”

  “We should have destroyed her brain,” I whispered. “You know, to keep her from coming back. That’s what they do in the movies.”

  “That sounds crazy, but I think you’re on to something,” admitted Matt.

  Ellis and Matt both stood.

  “We need to leave,” added Braylen, stating the obvious.

  “It stinks like crap in here. And blood,” I said quietly.

  “Matt, she didn’t bite you, did she?” asked Braylen, who was staring at a wound on Matt’s forearm.

  “That? No. That’s from the fucking kitchen table we smashed.”

  “We saw someone get bit. They looked fine the morning it happened, but by midafternoon they got clammy and shaky all over. About an hour later they stopped breathing and a few minutes later they were just like her,” Braylen said, gesturing toward Janet’s body.

  “I’m gonna get dressed,” I said. I left the candle on the coffee table and returned to the bedroom. While the candlelight barely reached the bank of drawers in the wall, I managed to fumble through the remaining clothes and found a sweatshirt and pair of pajama pants that were much too large, but do-able with the tie at the waist. I left the sheet I’d been wrapped in on the floor and slipped my tennis shoes on. Vaguely aware that the three men were conversating around Janet’s body, I rejoined the in the living room.

  “We’re going to head northeast,” Ellis said once he saw me.

  “What’s northeast?” I asked.

  “There’s a neighborhood Matt knows of about two miles from here. We can be there in half an hour and hope to find shelter,” he continued.

  “And hopefully no more of these monsters,” added Braylen.

  “You gu
ys ready to go?” I asked.

  “I need to clean up,” said Matt, sounding exhausted.

  “Me too,” added Ellis as he looked at his wristwatch. “Sunrise is in about twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll be ready,” I said.

  I grabbed our bug-out bags and once again checked through them while I waited for the bloodied men to clean up. Braylen did the same with his pack, as well as Matt’s. I watched him quietly wipe down the pistol Matt had used to pummel Janet’s face; he looked sad.

  “I felt really bad for her,” he said, breaking a long silence.

  I looked up. “Janet?”

  He nodded. “She seemed really messed up. I mean from what’s happening. She must have just seen too much…”

  “I suppose so. I guess we’ll never know,” I said absently.

  “How’s your ankle?”

  “Better. I’ll be fine.”

  “Let us know if our pace is too fast, okay?”

  “I will.”

  We returned to silence and waited until Matt and Ellis were both ready to leave. As they got ready to open the hatch, I retrieved the sheet from the bedroom floor and used it to cover Janet’s body. As soon as it touched her missing face, it wicked still-wet blood into a growing irregular oval of crimson and brown. I silently said a prayer, turned, and joined the men at the hatch. I was the last to exit the building. I didn’t look back.

  Chapter Twelve

  Two miles easily turned to four before we saw signs of anything that resembled housing. The trek was uneven ground through forest that ran alongside a freeway. The only potential shelter we came across was a gas station, which was still smoldering from being on fire. Vehicles were unusually sporadic. The few we came across were wrecked, and we all agreed trying to travel in one would leave us in the open and vulnerable. We stayed in the cover of the trees and only stopped twice to rest, and then only for a couple of minutes. My ankle hurt the entire way, but I refused to complain.

  “That’s not the one I was thinking of, but it may work,” said Matt as he came to a stop.

  We all stopped and followed his gaze to the freeway.

  “What are we looking at?” I asked.

  “See the concrete sound barrier? You can see two rooftops just above it. They wouldn’t have put the wall up if it wasn’t residential,” explained Braylen.

  “How do we get over it?” I asked.

  “Let’s start by just getting to it. We’ll find a way around,” said Ellis.

  “We’ll cross the freeway one at a time. Once you get across, take cover behind the delivery truck to the north,” instructed Matt.

  “I’ll go first,” offered Braylen. “I’ll make sure it’s clear and signal you once I know it’s good.”

  “I’ll go next,” I said.

  “No offense, but with that ankle one of us should probably stay with you,” said Matt. “Are you two okay crossing together? I’ll go second in case Braylen needs a hand.”

  “Yeah, we’ll be fine,” answered Ellis.

  Matt took his jacket off and splayed it out across a short fence that was topped in barbed wire.

  “See ya on the other side,” said Braylen, who proceeded to carefully climb over the fence before sprinting across the closest two lanes, pausing only to jump the crossover blocks at the median.

  “As soon as he’s behind that truck I’m heading over to help,” instructed Matt.

  We watched until Braylen made it across the far two lanes and ducked behind the truck. Once he waved for us to proceed, Matt sprang into action and ran the same path his friend had only moments before. Taller than Braylen, he was slightly faster.

  “Once he’s across, we go,” said Ellis.

  “I can’t run that fast,” I exclaimed, suddenly nervous.

  “We’ll be fine. There’s no signs of anyone watching and I don’t hear a struggle from their direction,” he said. “Ready?”

  I nodded. Before we took our first step toward the freeway, growling behind us made the hairs on my arms stand on end. The noise was accompanied by the nose-biting smell of rotten things and mothballs. We both turned around quickly. A lone woman stood staring at us, her face contorted and her eyes staring blankly. Her shirt was torn down the front, revealing her thin torso complete with a large gash across her right side; exposed rib bones made the scene even more gruesome and my stomach sank. Her dishwater-blonde hair was tangled, part of it hiding her left eye and cheek.

  As she took a fumbling step forward, Ellis and I each took a step back. The woman opened her jaws wide, releasing a stench-filled groan.

  “Stay back,” he warned the woman.

  She responded by snarling and reaching forward with a single arm; the other hung limply at her side as if dislocated at the shoulder. Her teeth gnashed together menacingly as she stumbled forward again.

  “Back,” said Ellis, more firmly.

  “She can’t understand you.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice low and strained.

  The woman continued forward, and a loop of her bowels protruded from the bottom of the wound across her ribcage.

  “I can shoot it,” I said, already preparing my pistol.

  “Too loud.”

  We continued to back up blindly, not taking our eyes from the advancing monstrosity.

  “Should we run?” I asked.

  “It might follow us.”

  “I’m shooting it,” I said, aiming my pistol.

  Ellis put an arm up to stop me.

  “It’s slow. Let me grab a rock and hit it in the head.”

  “I don’t want you getting that close,” I mumbled.

  “I’ll be careful,” was all he said as he stepped to the side.

  The creature seemed confused by the sudden distance between me and Ellis. It wavered for a moment as if not sure if it should pursue me or him. I looked at Ellis, who was busy looking for a rock. Waving my arms, I whistled softly hoping to distract the bloody woman; it worked. She headed straight toward me. I did my best to lead her away from Ellis, which would allow him to come up behind her with his make-shift weapon.

  I was on the ground before I had time to react. I hadn’t bargained on my foot catching on a root as I stepped backward. The fall left me vulnerable, and only a few feet from the woman and her protruding bowels and snapping jaws. I used my arms and legs to scoot back, but she was faster. She fell forward onto me. The chill of her body was startling, and her weight pressing down on me was more than I would have expected. She clawed at my shirt as her face neared my chest. I used both of my palms to push at her shoulder, doing my best to keep her from making any further contact. Her damp hair hung limply, annoyingly framing part of my face and obscuring my vision.

  “Sonofabitch!” I groaned through clenched jaws.

  I knew her teeth were close by the stench and cold air that came from her mouth. My own grunts of frustration mixed with her snarling as I tried to keep her back. The attack ended when Ellis split the back of her head open with a sharp rock. The monster fell on top of me, her head landing on the ground precariously close to my own. I turned my head as I scrambled to get out from underneath her. Dead, clouded eyes stared back at me. Her jaws were still, and I saw no signs of life. I continued to slide out from under her, kicking my legs free. Ellis quickly made his way behind me and grabbed under my arms, pulling me up.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice filled with anxiety and a touch of dread. “Did it hurt you?”

  “N...no. I don’t think so.” I was more shaken than I thought and could hear it in my own voice.

  “Let me look you over,” he said. “There’s blood on your arm.”

  I looked down. The fluid was a dark brown, not the bright red of fresh blood.

  “It’s hers,” I said quickly.

  “You sure?” he asked skeptically.

  “Yeah. It’s old blood…see it’s brown?”

  He grunted some sort of acknowledgement as he slowly walked around me, looking for any signs of injury.<
br />
  “Ellis,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m okay. We need to go.”

  He came full circle and looked me in the eyes, nodding. The smell of the dead woman was making me feel sick. I leaned over, retched, and vomited bile. I looked over to the side of the freeway, where Matt’s jacket still covered the barbed wire. He took hold of my hand and we walked briskly toward the roadway.

  “I’ll go over first since I have two good feet.”

  He swung one leg over, and then the other, making it look easy. I didn’t have time to contemplate navigating the fence; the sounds of the dead approaching overshadowed my actions. Before I knew it, Ellis and I were doing our best to run across the freeway. The concrete barrier at the median was a minor obstacle, but by the time we made it over the dead were already to the fence we had crossed.

  “They’ll follow us,” I huffed, slightly out of breath.

  “They’re getting stuck in the wire. Let’s just go – quickly.”

  The median itself was full of weeds and Scotch Broom shrubs. It slowed us down, and we looked back to see the first of several of the dead spilling over the fence, which had collapsed under their weight. What moments before had been a few bodies stuck in the barbed wire had grown. The group snarled and groaned as they shambled toward us. Off on one side two of them stood watching. They almost looked alive, but the cloudiness of their gaze was apparent even from a distance.

  “C’mon,” urged Ellis.

  He pulled on my arm and we picked up our pace to get to the next concrete barrier, which he hoisted me over easily. Matt and Braylen met us in the middle of the two lanes, where Matt scooped me into his arms. I held on tight while Matt ran. Within seconds we were at the top of a roadside hill that intersected with the top of the wall. A chain link panel attached to more barbed-wire topped fence, beyond which was a half-full storm pond. Luckily the chain link panel was not topped with barbs and only stood about six feet tall.

  “Bro, we gotta go over,” said Braylen.

  Matt set me down as Braylen began to climb the chain link. Ellis climbed next, not waiting for Braylen to set foot on the narrow strip of concrete on the other side.