Badlands Trilogy (Novella): Redemption In the Badlands

by Jarrett, Brian J.

  Dan studies his father’s eyes, but the sadness that one might expect in the eyes of a person who’s father had recently crossed over into the Great Beyond just isn’t there.

  ‘Your grandmother found him,’ Dan’s father says.

  His mother and father exchange a glance.

  And there it is. They didn’t say she pushed him, but they know it. Everyone knows it.

  They speak no more of the man after that day. Their family shame becomes their family secret.

  But God forgives. Adult Dan knows this like he knows the sky is blue and water is wet. All one has to do is ask. And mean it, of course. That’s the rub, isn’t it? Not everyone who claims they’re sorry truly means it. But it’s not Adult Dan’s job to identify the sincere. It’s his job to point them toward the light and hope for the best.

  But seventeen-year-old Dan Owens doesn’t know if God exists. His father tells him He does; Hallelujah and praise Jesus, He lives! Amen and hail Mary and a yabba-dabba-doo for good measure. His father often preaches about the dangers of eternal damnation. God knows (as well as the congregation) that Reverend Harold Owens loves the fire and brimstone. This fiery sermon gets buts in seats, as his father always says. They pay the rent.

  And although Reverend Owens will surely preach to one person, he much prefers preaching to a hundred or more of the faithful.

  Now seventeen-year-old Dan Owens is standing outside the funeral home, transported there in the strange way dreams have. One minute he’s standing in the living room of his boyhood home, the next he’s watching the funeral home’s front door with trepidation.

  Dan doesn’t see dead bodies very often, but this isn’t his first funeral. His mother’s parents are already dead; in their graves before Dan makes it out of ninth grade. ‘Sad,’ his mother says, ‘that they won’t get to see you graduate.’ Dan also feels this is sad.

  “Let’s get this over with,” a voice says from behind him. A hand pats Dan on the back. He turns to see his cousin, Phil standing beside him. Phil doesn’t go by Phil. Never has. Everyone calls him Rooster. Dan never asks how or why he got the nickname. For Dan, it might as well be his cousin’s given name. “Let’s put this old bastard in the ground.”

  Dan is shocked at Rooster’s irreverent speech, then thinks better of it. His cousin has always spoken his mind. What’s more surprising is seeing him in a suit.

  Dan nods, searching for words, but he comes up empty.

  He walks into the funeral home, feeling a little better now that Rooster is there. They’re not best-friends-forever, but he and Rooster talk sometimes. Adult Dan will always wonder what happened to Rooster in the days after the superbug had finished its relay across the world.

  Down deep, he knows what happened. He just doesn’t know how it happened. Probably better that way.

  Seventeen-year-old Dan steps into the funeral home. He’s read somewhere that funeral homes are a relatively new thing. In the old days, back when women had litters of children in hopes that half of them might live beyond the age of five, bodies were viewed at home. In the living room, Dan seems to remember, and that strikes him as ironic.

  But funerals are for the living, after all. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, yabba-dabba-doo.

  An old woman steps up to Dan and places his hand in hers. It’s cold. Her fingers gnarled like claws. Her lips are wrinkled, a smudge of lipstick stains one of her teeth. Dan wonders if the teeth are real.

  “He was a good man,” the old woman says. She has kind eyes; hazy and dark blue, set within a mask of drooping skin. Dan doesn’t recognize her. He doesn’t recognize a lot of the distant relatives, but they somehow know him. “He’s in a better place now.”

  Dan nods, although he’s pretty sure this woman is wrong about everything.

  The mysterious relative leaves, no doubt confident that Dan recognized her. As certain as she is that the dearly departed was a good man who’s in a better place now.

  Dan follows Rooster toward a pew after realizing that his cousin had been waiting for him. Waiting far enough away from the mystery relative to avoid getting caught up in a similar exchange of pleasantries. Rooster has always been savvy like that.

  Dan’s father performs the service. It’s thankfully short, and the Reverend Harold Owens keeps the fire and brimstone to an absolute minimum. Despite the surreality of the entire scene, Dan is impressed at his father’s oration skills. The guy can talk, for sure.

  When all that could be said has been said (most of it pleasant-sounding lies), Dan and Rooster are led to the front by an overly-respectful funeral director with a receding hairline and a salt-and-pepper mustache. There the two of them join the Reverend and a handful of other relatives, some known and unknown to Dan. They lift the casket and carry it out of the funeral home, placing it in the back of a hearse that will transport it to a ‘final resting place.’ But Dan knows it’s nothing more than a euphemism for a hole in the ground.

  Dan is surprised by how light the coffin is. He expected it to be much heavier. As the driver closes the back door of the murder-black hearse, Dan is glad that he volunteered to be a pallbearer. He feels like it’s a man’s job to do the dirty work.

  As the procession parades through town, Dan rides in the back seat of his parents’ car. The funeral director places a little flag labeled ‘Funeral’ on the hood of their vehicle. It’s mounted on a small magnetic flag post.

  They get to be first in line. Amen, hail Mary, yabba-dabba-doo.

  They drive to the graveyard in silence. Or at least Dan thinks they’re driving to the cemetery. Instead, they pull up in front of Reverend Harold Owens’ church, a building that Dan knows very well. His father’s version of ‘the office.’

  The car comes to a stop, and he tears his gaze away from the church. He glances toward the driver’s seat.

  It’s empty.

  His father is gone. So is his mother.

  He gets out of the car and steps onto the curb. None of the other cars from the funeral procession are anywhere to be seen. He looks around and finds that no one is on the streets. An eerie silence hangs in the air like a cloud, broken only by the occasional sound of a few birds singing in the distance.

  And the calling of a crow, roosted high upon the steeple of his father’s church. It watches them with eyes as black as the hearse.

  Dan closes his eyes. When he opens them, he’s standing in front of the door. He reaches for the door knob and notices the beginning of age spots on his hands. He’s no longer seventeen-year-old Dan. He’s now adult Dan; a year shy of his fortieth birthday.

  He opens the door and steps inside.

  The place is packed. ‘To the gills,’ as his mother likes to say. He looks around and sees frightened faces. A baby cries from somewhere in the crowd. Several babies, actually. Women are crying. Men are shouting.

  The Reverend Harold Owens stands at the pulpit, Bible in hand. He looks to Dan like a character in a horror movie.

  “The day of reckoning is upon us!” the Reverend proclaims. His voice carries over the over the commotion. “Repent!”

  He’s really walloping the fire and brimstone today, Dan thinks.

  A window crashes and the glass explodes into thousand of shards as a man comes hurtling through. He lands on the floor with a meaty thud, bleeding from a dozen lacerations.

  Dan thinks the man is dead.

  But then he gets up.

  Now the man doesn’t look like a man anymore.

  Now he looks like a monster.

  The bleeding man opens his mouth and shrieks. The sound is worse than a thousand fingernails on a chalkboard. A woman screams. Another woman shields a young child with her body.

  A parishioner emerges from the crowd and tries to fight the bloody man. He gets his throat torn out for his effort.

  As the dead parishioner drops to the floor, another flash of movement from the window grabs Dan’s attention. This time it’s a woman. She’s wearing a dress, the kind with straps and a halter top. One of her str
aps is broken, exposing her left breast. She doesn’t mind. She hops up on the window sill.

  She also doesn’t mind that broken glass shards have punctured the soles of her bare feet like knives.

  She leaps from the window sill, pouncing onto the floor and landing on all fours.

  She surveys the room, looking for prey with wild eyes.

  “Repent!” the Reverend Owens is yelling from the pulpit now. His eyes are as wild as the woman’s. He’s now pounding his fist on the pulpit. “Repent now while there’s still time!”

  Dan turns to Rooster.

  His cousin’s eyes now possess that same savage insanity. Blood runs from his lips as he snarls at Dan, bearing bloody teeth.

  Dan takes a step back.

  Rooster leaps.

  Dan tries to scream, but when he opens his mouth no sound escapes.

  Chapter Six

  As the dream faded away and Dan opened his eyes, the morning sun shone through the dirty windows of the former teachers’ lounge of the defunct school he now called home. He came awake slowly. Bad dreams never sent a person sitting bolt upright, sweat beading on their foreheads as they panted with fear. For Dan, the dreams simply vanished, leaving behind a sense of vague dread like a bad taste in his mouth.

  He took a deep breath. The stench of the carriers in the nearby football arena hung in the air. Even though he kept the windows closed, it could only dampen the smell. It was at least bearable this way. Outside was another story entirely. Along with their smell, the carriers’ screams drifted into the room, hushed only slightly by the tightly closed windows.

  They never stopped screaming.

  Sometimes, usually late at night, Dan wondered if they might be driving him just a little bit mad.

  He glanced over at the couch and saw his new guest was still sleeping. He watched her for a few moments until he confirmed the rise and fall of her chest. He looked away; any longer made him feel a little bit creepy.

  He couldn’t deny that he found it difficult to turn away.

  He stood, his ankles cracking loudly in the quiet room. He stretched, listening to the familiar sound of his back cracking. His forty-three-year-old body was a concert of popping and cracking these days. After a long night’s sleep, he sounded like a bowl of Rice Crispies in the morning. At least he didn’t have arthritis. Not yet, at least.

  He glanced once more at his guest before heading toward the bathroom down the hall. He did his business, making a mental note to empty out the chamber pot later today. The flushing toilet might be one of the things he missed most about the old world. That and movies. And Big Macs.

  He missed a lot from the old world. At least he still had his books.

  He zipped up his pants and took a glance in the mirror, attempting to fix his bed head as much as possible. It occurred to him as he stared back at himself in the streaked mirror that his beard had become increasingly grayer around the chin. The hair on the sides of his head had followed suit. Crow’s feet spread out from his eyes, more noticeable as he squinted.

  It also occurred to him that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at himself in that mirror. Today, however, it seemed to matter.

  He left the bathroom behind and made his way back to the lounge. He needed to get another pill down Lilly, along with some more water. He couldn’t help but hope that she’d wake up later today. He could do with some conversation, even if it was about the weather. Hell, anything would be better than talking to himself—or the carriers.

  He stepped back into the room and looked over at the couch.

  Empty.

  “Lilly?” he said.

  Then he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head before everything went black.

  Chapter Seven

  Boyd Cunningham got out of a dirty white panel van, closing the door behind him. He hiked up his pants, fastening his belt before moseying over to the fire with the rest of the crew.

  Aaron Coolidge, a.k.a. Dogpile, stood quickly. He tossed the stick he’d been burning into the fire. “My turn.”

  Boyd shook his head as he took a seat beside the fire. “She’s dead, amigo.”

  “What the fuck, Boyd? You killed her?”

  “No, you fuckin’ dingbat. Eventually, these bitches just wear out.”

  Dogpile frowned. “You fuckin’ killed her. I know you did.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Boyd said. He glanced at Patel, also sitting beside the fire. “Probably got some kinda fucking disease from the Indian.”

  “You can suck my Indian dick,” Patel said. “I was born and raised in Texas, motherfucker. Hell, I’m more American than you are.”

  “You’re sure she’s dead?” Tony asked, silencing the banter. He sat beside a massive house of a man known only as Moose. Moose had the body of a professional wrestler with the intellect of a grade schooler.

  And he was deadly loyal to their leader, Tony.

  “Yes, sir,” Boyd said, the bravado absent from his voice.

  Tony frowned. “Did you killer her?”

  “No, sir. I swear she just stopped breathing on her own.”

  Tony regarded him for several long seconds without a word. “Is she still warm?”

  Boyd shrugged. “I guess so.”

  Tony nodded. He stood, motioning to Moose. “Come on.”

  Moose followed along obediently.

  Boyd watched as their leader made his way over to the van and opened the back door. He stepped inside. Moose closed the door behind him, standing guard outside with his arms folded.

  The van began to rock.

  “Jesus Christ,” Boyd said, quiet enough for Moose not to hear. “What a sick fuck.”

  “Banging a corpse,” Dogpile said. “That’s a first.” The fifth member of their outfit, Dogpile had gotten his nickname when Tony and the others stumbled upon him. He’d been shooting feral dogs, stacking them up into a massive pile to eat later.

  “Necrophilia,” Boyd said.

  Dogpile’s brow furrowed. “Necro-what?”

  “Sex with dead people,” Boyd explained. “That’s the word for it.”

  “I thought it was called necrophagia,” Patel said.

  “That’s the word for eating dead bodies,” Boyd said. “Also the name of a death metal band.”

  “That’s called cannibalism,” Dogpile said.

  “Synonyms,” Boyd said.

  Dogpile looked confused. “I don’t get it.”

  “Jesus, Dogpile. Sometimes I think you’re as retarded as Moose.”

  Dogpile frowned but kept his mouth shut.

  Patel eyed the big man behind the van suspiciously. “He’s as loyal as he is stupid.”

  “Like a pit bull, that one is,” Dogpile said. “Never leaves Tony’s side. If he did for just five minutes, I’d—”

  “Shut up with that talk,” Boyd said. “If he hears you, we’re all as good as dead.”

  “I’m not scared of Tony,” Dogpile said. “Sawed off little fuck.”

  “You better be scared of him,” Patel said. “You remember what he did to the bitch in the van’s boyfriend don’t you?”

  Boyd remembered what Tony had done to the boyfriend. Not that he gave a shit what Tony did to some asshole, but he sure as shit didn’t want it done to him.

  Boyd shot Dogpile a harsh look. “Just keep your yap shut. We’ll get our chance, provided you don’t fuck it up.”

  “I ain’t gonna fuck it up,” Dogpile said.

  They went silent, burning sticks in the crackling fire. Eventually, the van stopped rocking. Tony hopped out, fastening his belt before making his way back over to the fire. Moose followed behind his master like a faithful puppy.

  “Put her out for the carriers tonight,” Tony said to the group. “I want to see the if we can spot any of the special ones.”

  “You sure that’s a good idea, boss?” Dogpile said.

  Tony’s face went sour. “I want to see the white ones. So yeah, it’s a good idea.”

  “Sure thing, Tony,
” Boyd said, talking over Dogpile. Stupid fuck was gonna get them killed. “I’ll put her out.”

  Tony shook his head. “Moose will do it. He likes to watch too.”

  Later that night, after Moose had retrieved the dead girl’s body and tied it to a stake he’d driven into the ground, the group watched from the relative safety of the van. It didn’t take long before the carriers caught the scent of the body. She was already ripe after being used as a cum dumpster for the past two weeks, so Boyd wasn’t surprised to see the scavengers arrive on the scene.

  They tore into the girl’s bruised and battered naked body, ripping the flesh away as she lay there in the firelight, eyes open and staring at nothing at all.

  Tony watched with wide-eyed interest. He loved this kind of shit.

  A few minutes after the carriers arrived and had begun to fill their bellies, a shriek sounded from somewhere in the distance. It was different than the others, more aggressive. More animalistic.

  Tony’s face lit up with anticipation.

  Boyd felt his skin crawl.

  The carriers scattered quickly into the night, leaving behind the half-eaten corpse. Her head had lolled to one side, and she stared straight at the van now with one remaining eye. The other eye and half of her cheek had been torn away.

  “There they are!” Tony said, pointing. “See ‘em?”

  Boyd saw them, all right.

  The white carriers.

  They’d heard stories of the creatures from a few people they’d met in their travels (Tony didn’t kill everyone they met). But then Dogpile had been the first to notice them. Boyd hadn’t believed him at first (Dogpile was such a fucking liar sometimes), but after catching a few glimpses for himself, he began to believe.

  At first, he’d seen only flashes in dim light. But now, with bait placed to draw them out of the shadows, he couldn’t refute their existence. A group of four of the beasts slinked into the campsite, their blue veins visible beneath their translucent skin. Long claws grew from their massive hands. Muscles rippled under their pale skin.

  Their faces, though…that was the worst part. Eyes so black you could get lost in them. Boyd shivered. Suddenly the thin walls of the panel van seemed as if they might as well be made of paper.