by Greg Dragon
“He’s biting me!” Winn sounded terrified. “Please, Ev!”
She clung to the sapling.
“Hiding again, Vermin?” Grand Nessy asked.
Evaney didn’t want the last thing she ever heard to be Grand Nessy’s long-dead, nasty voice. “Winn, I love you!”
Her words gave him hope, or he found new strength. Winn began to climb using her body for support and his feet for leverage. He grabbed her shirt, and fabric cut into her skin. The tree loosened and dirt rolled into her face. She slid back another inch.
Winn howled. His fingers gripped her belt. Something clawed her leg and then her boot slipped off. Her foot ached, no, it bit into her foot. A burning mass shot up her leg before her ankle twisted. She yelped and one hand let go.
Winn saved her life. He found traction and pushed her butt up until both hands grasped the sapling. Her torso inched up the incline. More violent rumbles shook rocks loose.
Evaney screamed as Winn grabbed hold again. His boots kicked against the rock wall trying to find a toehold. She hung on as the tree roots loosened. This was it.
As poison from the ankle bite reacted with adrenalin in her veins, she burned from the inside out. A primitive and familiar instinct took control. She lost her love, her humanity, her pledge to never hurt another. She kicked Winn’s head to break his death grip.
His fingers raked her body, trying to dodge her foot. “Don’t panic.”
Evaney stomped his head. “I can’t die underground!”
“Ev!”
Frantic, she kicked him without pause. Winn fell, screaming, “Ev!”
As soon as his weight lifted, grief overcame her. “I’m sorry,” she shouted as wild animals fought over first bite. Growls and snarls made her peek at them. A glimpse. She blinked in shock. Fright rippled through her body.
Rocks cut into her flesh as she frantically inched herself up the ledge. She jabbed fingertips into any void to pull to safety. The ice ax gave support for her uninjured foot. The pack below broke into a fight. She couldn’t let herself cry. Tears revealed weakness. “Winn?”
One howled.
Evaney refused to look again, refused to confirm they were real, and understood she had been crippled for a reason. She crawled away, dragging her bleeding foot.
Her skin burned and itched, and her throat tightened, forcing her to wheeze. She began to hallucinate about packs of—what were they? Evaney slid headfirst down the hill and sharp rocks cut into exposed skin. Bruised fingers couldn’t slow her descent, and her injured foot slammed into a large rock. She rolled. Pain blinded her and then red and green stars danced in her vision.
Evaney came to a stop on her belly and puked. She turned on her side. A huge gold moon climbed in the darkening sky. Fear of being eaten alive kept her heart twittering in her chest. She rubbed her engagement ring. “Don’t think about Winn,” she said to herself. “Keep moving.”
She crawled across unstable ground. The Land Rover gleamed radioactive white under the moonlight. She grinned and allowed herself to believe she might escape. Behind her came running sounds, and chills bubbled up her spine. No, she couldn’t be eaten alive, not after surviving Grand Nessy.
Evaney ignored the pain and scrambled over the last ten feet. She bit her lip and pulled herself up on one foot. She swayed and her vision darkened. The beast in her, the same one that kicked Winn, forced her to hop to the door and get inside the vehicle. Panting, she yanked on the sun visor and the keys fell into her lap. She cranked the engine and hot air blasted her face.
One rabid monster ran straight into the driver’s door. Evaney screamed. Another one tried to scramble up the back. Both pounded and pushed until the Land Rover began to rock.
Evaney glanced at him and cringed. Man, monster, it. She willed herself not to move and to blend into the seat. It smelled her fear and licked the window glass.
She punched the gas pedal and swerved back on the narrow country road. Her final hint of doom was the pinpoint gleam of a red laser light before a projectile shattered both windshields. She jerked the steering wheel to the right. Evaney’s last thought before the Land Rover crashed off the mountainside was freedom. For the first time in her life, she felt free of Grand Nessy. Totally free.
Wilbur
Five years later.
“Insanity begins with a hum!”
Thunder ricocheted overhead and vibrated the windows. Wilbur Jenkins jerked his head up from spell-checking his American poets essay. Was that Mary Stinson, the night nurse, shouting in the hall?
“Help me! Please help me!” Mary screamed, pounding on his door. “I woke her.”
“It’s a storm, not the apocalypse,” Wilbur muttered, saving his work and closing his laptop. He checked the time, 1:00 a.m., before opening his bedroom door. Mary had run back to the east wing of the Bridgeport, Connecticut mansion where Evaney Harwood, their comatose patient, resided. People don’t wake from five-year comas, but Mary was competent and reserved, so he figured something drastic happened.
Could it be true? Miss Harwood woke during a wild October storm after lightning split the two-hundred-year-old sycamore tree near her sickroom? Same as Frankenstein got juiced?
Grinning now, Wilbur decided to stay in his pajamas and tugged on a robe before checking on Mary. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed behind the curtains as he left his bedroom. He yawned and crossed the long hallway connecting the west staff wing to the sick ward.
Wilbur broke into a jog, and a wave of rustling sounds followed him from the ceiling. It sounded as if rats scurried to keep pace. He glanced up and his bladder signaled distension. Chill bumps tripped up his spine. When strange sounds occurred, spooky events followed at Harwood House. He sprinted to Evaney’s sterile white room and crashed through the double doors.
Before his mother died in a crack house, Wilbur nursed her through withdrawal pains, fights with her dealer, and self mutilations. He’d never seen anyone on the verge of a psychotic killing spree. Mary’s nostrils flared and her body trembled with nervous energy. She clutched a Bible in her left hand and a blade over her head with the right. Her chilling expression resembled a death mask he’d noticed in Smithsonian magazine.
She screamed, “The Hum destroys!”
The straight razor caught light like a weak camera flash before its descent. He lunged forward, caught her wrist, and blocked the cold-blooded strike into Evaney Harwood’s exposed neck. Mary cursed him and kicked him in his junk. Pain and nausea bent him over, and he released his grip on her arm. Groaning, he blocked another strike from the straight razor. After that, subduing Mary was harder than catching smoke. He dwarfed her in size and strength, but she scratched, clawed, and teeth-snapped with the vigor of the possessed.
“Let her drink your blood!” Mary shrieked.
He underestimated the older woman’s uncanny strength, and he freaked when she hacked into her own wrist. Arterial blood spray splattered Evaney’s face and smeared his vision. A warm mist settled on his skin, and the sticky blood felt creepy as it soaked into his pores. His hands slipped off Mary’s crimson-slick arms when he spat out the salty taste. Next thing he knew, Mary slashed her other wrist. The room turned cranberry red.
“Get out of my head!”
“Let me help you. Stop fighting.” Wilbur knocked the razor from her hand and grabbed Mary in a bear hug.
Mary shook so hard he thought she was having a seizure. Between grunts she panted. Evaney’s loud lip smacking broke the tension.
In the two years of his live-in employment, Miss Harwood never made a sound. He glanced over at her. Her white-spotted tongue licked the blood droplets around her mouth. The sight chilled him. One side of his brain tried to rationalize her behavior as a reflex. The other side visualized vampires and zombies. Even crazy Mary calmed. They witnessed Evaney Harwood re-awaken as if she had been in suspended animation instead of a coma.
“Watch out, evil is contagious,” Mary said before her legs sagged.
Wilbur eased her to the floor with her
back against the wall. She needed tourniquets to stop the hemorrhaging. He ripped towels apart with ease due to the adrenalin pumping through his blood. He tied pressure bandages to both wrists and held Mary’s hands over her head to slow blood loss. Wilbur wished he hadn’t left his cell phone in his room. The landline was fifteen feet away on the wall.
Evaney grunted, and her body slapped down on the black and white marble floor. Rattled, Wilbur dropped Mary’s arms and turned.
Somehow, Evaney had pulled herself over the metal side rails and fell to the floor. Like an animal tracking scent, she grunted and snuffled until her nose found pools of Mary’s blood. She lapped the congealing fluid into her mouth. Her low, throaty growls of dining pleasure sent his heart into convulsions.
Wilbur screamed, flinging his back flat against the wall beside Mary. His heart slammed against his ribs as if it wanted to breach. Every superstitious belief he’d ever listened to echoed in his head. He crossed himself even though he wasn’t Catholic.
Mary’s blood seeped around her right wrist dressing and droplets oozed to the floor. Evaney responded to the bloody drips as though they were dinner bells. Wilbur rubbed his eyes. He suspected he was hallucinating from a combination of energy drinks and sugar high consumed while pulling an all-nighter for midterms. His mind couldn’t accept what his eyes saw…Miss Harwood slithering across the floor with her head up and hunting for blood. She latched on to Mary’s wrist. The night nurse fainted and slumped over on her right side.
Wilbur bolted out so fast he tripped over a rolling blood pressure monitor and skidded across the slick, bloody floor. Terrified, he scrambled up and raced down the wide staircase. When good sense returned midway, he grabbed the banister and stopped. Panting and sobbing, he prayed for forgiveness at leaving Mary defenseless. Worse, he couldn’t go back.
Evaney climbed out of bed.
Mary needs help.
She might die.
Couldn’t be real…couldn’t be.
He flubbed his frantic recitation of The Lord’s Prayer. He got stuck on the words Deliver us from evil. Slowly his panting subsided, and he gathered his courage in one deep breath. Wilbur ran back to save Mary. He found Evaney curled around Mary’s plump body. She sucked on Mary’s left wrist with a gusto that put newborns to shame. The eerie sucking noises caused his stomach to roll with nausea.
Wilbur dropped beside the pair and jabbed his finger into Evaney’s eye. She released Mary’s wrist, but raised her head and hissed at him. And then, his mind either disconnected or played a trick on him. He wasn’t sure which. He felt warm and relaxed, like he did after sex. His mind couldn’t focus on Mary’s pale and weakened condition. He helped Miss Harwood rest after her exertion.
He picked Evaney up and put her in bed. She fell back into the usual position. Instead of checking Mary’s pulse or helping her, he called 911. Hands shaking, he wet washcloths and cleaned Mary’s blood from Evaney’s face and mouth. He changed her gown and the top linens. Last, he rinsed out the washcloths. He figured he was having an out-of-body experience. It seemed as if he hovered over his body watching himself cover up what she did.
Wilbur couldn’t explain his actions. He didn’t understand how he could touch Evaney Harwood after what he’d seen, yet he did. This must be shock. His mind forgot details like people do after horrible accidents.
He reinforced Mary’s wrist bandages, and her charcoal eyes fluttered open. She whispered, “The Hum speaks to you. Better answer it.”
The low buzzing sound he’d been hearing on and off for weeks suddenly raised several decibels. Frightened, he left Mary alone with Evaney to wake the house staff before the paramedics arrived.
Rett
The house shook.
Rett Franklin jerked up from sleep as thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. Every muscle tensed waiting for the emergency storm signal. Cloudland attracted tornadoes as trees did lightning. He checked the time. Midnight. He sat up and pulled on jeans and a tee-shirt. Heart thumping, he waited for the final seconds to count down. Emergency sirens remained silent. He fell back on the bed and wiped sweat from his brow.
He couldn’t tolerate living in Cloudland, Alabama much longer. Rett stumbled into the bathroom to splash his face. He couldn’t shake a sense of doom. Jerking up the bathroom window, he listened for the emergency siren. All quiet.
Rett looked in the bathroom mirror and behind his haggard face saw his empty bed. He had fallen in love with Cloudland at the same time he fell in love with a local girl, Jenna Delaney.
Cloudland sat tucked on the western brow of Lookout Mountain. The quaint town was perfectly situated between protected state and national parks linked in the Forever Wild campaign. The landscape varied between low-lying hills, sweeping, wide valleys, and rugged mountainsides. Compared to hot, dry Texas, Cloudland was paradise. He got hired by the Cloudland Power Company, married Jenna, and they had four kids—well, now three. In the last ten years, Cloudland’s size had tripled. Young families moved in.
More shakes.
He checked his watch and ignored his irregular heartbeats. Rett reopened the window and thunder rang in his ears while he waited for the countdown. Again, no emergency alarm squealed. He locked the window. If another shake came, he planned to move the kids to the hallway. Jenna could stay on the sofa dreaming of her affair with Michael Thomas, the local florist, for all he cared. Rett punched the mirror, cracking it.
Bad luck.
He didn’t find out three minor fault lines intersected underneath Cloudland until after he married. Locals called the chronic shakes “swarms.” To his surprise, they never showed up on the USGS maps. Residents, old and new, accepted the swarms like people on the coast accepted the threat of hurricanes. Then, last week a power crew saw a yellow gas erupt from the ground. Luckily, a hard wind dissipated the gas in the opposite direction. The crew fled and notified management. Power company officials looked up gas emissions from earthquakes and discovered the killer hydrogen sulfate. People were worried and had started asking questions.
Flameion, the biggest employer in Cloudland and a pharmaceutical company, hired a team of geologists to take readings. The swarms surprised them. They left monitoring equipment but found no signs of hydrogen sulfate emissions. No one died, but Rett refused to raise his kids over a hellhole belching death. If weird gas came up from underground again, the town might not be so lucky. His kids came first. Overhead the storm raged, but the swarms ceased.
Rett almost went to check on Jenna, but stopped himself. He couldn’t face the lying woman she’d become. Jenna was gorgeous, with thick, chocolate-brown hair and spring-green eyes in a heart-shaped face. He fell for her looks and grew to love her heart. How could he hold the family together without her? Rett hoped—no, prayed—she would end the affair before he did something stupid.
Dream on, sucker.
Since Kimmy, their youngest daughter, died in August from an allergic reaction, he had lost his heart and his soul. He couldn’t get over Jenna’s callous behavior. The day after the funeral she went for a spa treatment and returned with a sprayed-on tan. He couldn’t go on like this. He pulled off his tee-shirt as tree limbs scratched against the window. Rett unzipped his jeans, hoping to sleep.
“Daddy!”
Eddie Jean?
A heart-freezing scream followed. He grabbed his lucky bat signed by Hank Aaron and hightailed it down the hall to sixteen-year-old Eddie Jean’s room. He kicked in the locked door. Hefting the bat, he rushed inside and stopped.
His mind couldn’t connect with what his eyes saw. Lightning highlighted a gruesome scene.
Blood everywhere. On the bed, the walls, and, God help him, on the ceiling. Swarm Sickness popped into his head. Some people went crazy during longer swarms, and local doctors called their symptoms “Acute Swarm Sickness.”
“Get off her!”
Jenna rose from Eddie Jean’s bed and growled at him. Her lovely face looked feral and bloodstained when he hit the light. She’s stark naked. Rett
blinked, shocked. Jenna was on all fours, acting like a dog. Her arms were covered with bites. Eddie Jean jerked her left leg. Jenna had tied it down with a belt. Everything switched into slow motion.
She snarled at me.
Eddie Jean’s hands dripped blood. He couldn’t club Jenna. Could he?
Jenna sensed his hesitation. She licked her bloody mouth and cackled. The hairs on his body bristled. She resembled a wild thing flushed from the woods. God help us.
Eddie Jean lunged half off the bed. Jenna sank her teeth into Eddie Jean’s calf.
“Daddy!”
No father could ignore those words. Adrenalin pumping, he grabbed Jenna by the hair. It took all his strength to yank her off their daughter. He slung her to the floor. She crashed against a dresser, and Eddie Jean’s soccer ball bounced across the room. Jenna got to her feet, weaving her curvaceous body back and forth like a cobra. She snapped her bloody teeth.
He reacted as his old man had taught him. Rett thrust the bat into her gut bayonet style, and then whacked the side of her head. Jenna dropped to the floor, panting.
“Daddy’s here.” Rett lifted Eddie Jean back on the bed and worked on the knot, wishing he had a knife. He freed her leg.
Jenna got up and launched herself, landing on the bed and sliding to the other side. Eddie Jean squealed and dropped to the floor. Jenna leaned over to rake her claws at Eddie Jean’s face.
Pulse pounding, Rett grabbed her foot. He pulled Jenna back and heaved her across the bed and to the floor. Her fingernails scratched the hardwood floor for traction. She charged. Rett used his body, her speed, and the bat to take her legs out from under her. He stabbed the bat into her gut again. She belched and collapsed.
Rett grabbed a purse from the dresser. He flipped Jenna over and pressed his knee into her back. He used the long shoulder strap to tie her hands behind her in the same quick motion used to subdue calves on the ranch. Then he shook off a pillowcase and tied her legs. He wiped his slick hands on the bed linens. Jenna’s body burned with fever.