by Jack Hamlyn
She fought right to the last. She was a survivor. She was made of the right stuff, as they say. She managed to get one leg up out of the writhing soup, pressing her foot against the side of the van. I saw what had happened. Her pantleg was gone beneath the knee…as was her skin. Her exposed leg looked like one of those gruesome illustrations from Gray’s Anatomy…it was a limb corded with red muscle and white ligament with hundreds of maggots tunneling into it. It looked like a raw, red rump roast.
“Help me! Help me!” she shouted at us, fighting and thrashing, the slime beat up into an oily froth around her. “GET ME OUT! GET ME OUT! PLEASE DEAR GOD THE PAIN THE PAIN OH IT FUCKING HURTS!”
Then she was pulled away.
Her eyes were mad and glazed by then, but still they looked into my own with an agony and a horror that was beyond comprehension. What she was experiencing had ripped her mind wide open like a boil running with poison. The immense suction claimed her and she slid away, submerging, fighting to the surface only seconds later. Her left eye was gone. It was replaced by a looping clot of worms. Her nose was a skullish hollow. There was no skin from her cheeks on down, just meat tunneled by starving worms. She opened her mouth…her jaws, really, because there was no mouth left…as if to scream and hundreds of worms splashed out like vomit. They were invading her, eating her from within. They must have pushed into any opening they could find—her ass, her vagina, and filled her. That grisly, fleshless mouth ejected a spout of bright red arterial blood and that was it.
She was gone.
We waited there near the edge for a moment or two, long enough to see a white femur bob to the surface and then a basket which was her ribcage, then we turned away and joined the others.
What could be said?
Dear God, what really could be said?
Sandy was still alternately screaming and whining. I wanted to slap her. I had never really felt an overwhelming need to hit a woman before, but at that moment I wanted to slap the little bitch and keep slapping her. I wanted to share some of the pain inside me.
Chris clamped a hand over her mouth, squeezing it shut. Her blue eyes were wide and bright and wet. His hand was popping white at the knuckles like he wanted to crush her face. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” he said in a slow and surprisingly calm voice. His eyes were fixed and deadly. They were no longer the wide and somewhat naïve eyes of a teenage boy. They had aged decades. They were dark and wizened. The eyes of someone who had seen it all and you didn’t dare want to fuck with.
He pulled his hand away.
The imprint of it was etched into Sandy’s face. She looked shocked and speechless. Her lips trembled. Drool ran from her too-perfect California girl mouth. She did not say a word. She was insane. There was no doubt of it. She was struck crazy and she hadn’t even had to watch her sister being eaten.
I wanted to be sick.
I wanted to throw up and keep throwing up. I had been through the wringer. I had seen horror upon horror. I had watched a pack of zombies drag my wife off and had been unable to help. I had seen the blank eyes of the rising dead. I had seen the pulpous faces of mutants. I had waded through corpses and guts and swam in rivers of blood. But none of it, I don’t think, with the possible exception of my wife’s death, so totally floored me like what happened to Charlene. There are psychological scars and there are open, bleeding wounds.
Inside, I was bleeding.
Beyond that, I felt numb. From the neck on down, I felt numb. Just one big hollow. It was like somebody had kicked the guts out of me. I couldn’t feel a fucking thing. Inside my head there was a low humming, a black noise that went on endlessly. I was holding Robin’s hand and gripping Sandy’s knee.
After I don’t know how long, I blinked.
My eyes were stinging and I blinked. I had just been staring without blinking. I had been staring into Robin’s eyes and she had been staring into mine. No emotion was passed between us, but we shared a human moment, I guess. Finally I looked away, but she continued to stare at me and I could feel her eyes on me.
After a time, she said something.
Chris didn’t hear her. Sandy, of course, heard nothing. Her eyes were dazed, drool hanging from the pink blossom of her mouth.
But I heard what she said. “One by one, one by one.”
MAGGOT CITY
I don’t know how long we sat silently like that.
Time had kind of lost solidity.
We sat there and the only sound was the sluicing of the maggot sea. It sounded like jelly slopping into a bowl, pulsating and oozing around us. More skeletons had bobbed to the surface. They moved with a slow, rolling motion from the force of the suction below, turning over and over and over. It was almost cartoonish. Ghastly, but cartoonish. Like something from an old Halloween cartoon with dancing skeletons or something.
“What are we going to do?” Chris finally said.
“We wait it out,” I said to him. “They came up out of the earth and sooner or later they’ll go back down.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because they have to. There were lots of bones in the streets and it’s my guess that these things came up before and devoured people or zombies and went back down again, leaving the bones behind. They’ll do it again.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we’ll think of something else.”
He made a grunting noise. It was guttural sarcasm. He wasn’t believing a word I was saying anymore than I guess I believed it. But it seemed likely. We would just have to wait. The maggot sea had not risen any higher. That was a plus. No, it hadn’t lowered either, but it would. It had to sooner or later. The sun was high in the late afternoon sky. Eventually, I knew, it would dry up the slime and the maggots would be forced back down into the darkness. The unfortunate part of that scenario is that it was autumn now and the sun would go down early, but it would get chilly tonight and as the air cooled that slime would thicken and the maggots would have to struggle in it. If that didn’t happen, then a full day’s exposure to the sun tomorrow would evaporate the sea.
I hoped.
I prayed.
I reached inside Robin’s motorcycle jacket, going for the cigarettes in her shirt pocket that I knew she had. As I did so my hand touched her breast. I could feel it standing firm against her shirt. I got the cigarettes out of there quickly. As I lit one, I saw she had a little smirk on her face. Her eyes were like hot blue crystals. I could feel the heat coming off her. She wanted me to keep on touching her. Had we been alone, I can’t say that I wouldn’t have. My head was not right. I was worn and drained and not thinking clearly. I’m glad Sandy and Chris were there. I don’t think I was necessarily responsible for my actions at that point.
“Getting a little friendly there, aren’t you, Big Steve?” she said, enjoying my embarrassment.
That made me smile and relax.
I had to get my head screwed on tight. These kids were counting on me and I couldn’t let them down by being weak and useless or indulging in mindless lust for a girl less than half my age. The cigarette helped. They’re awful for you and every fool knows that, but never underestimate the addiction of nicotine or how quickly it can clear your head. Coffee has nothing on cigarettes.
After I finished, I opened my ammo bag. There was some food left, but nobody wanted any. There was one bottle of water and we shared it. It was tepid and awful-tasting. Back in the old days, I would have poured it out, but not now. It was valuable. Chris had to pretty much force Sandy to drink some. When she did, she came out of her fugue. She slapped at Chris, telling him not to touch her. Which was something.
Then she started to cry.
That was a good thing, I thought. Her sister had just died a horrible, violent death. It was perfectly normal for her to break down. It was better than her just sitting there with that empty look in her eyes. She cried herself out after about an hour. We all held onto her, but there wasn’t shit we could do for her suffering.
After a time, she s
aid, “Maybe a helicopter will see us.”
Robin and I just looked at each other. I hoped Robin wasn’t going to smart off about the absurdity of that statement and she didn’t.
“I saw it on TV,” Sandy went on. “After hurricanes, they pick people up off roofs.”
“Sure,” Chris said.
“I hope it’s soon.”
“Me, too,” Robin said to her.
We sat there silently for a long time until the sun started heading to the horizon. The shadows were beginning to grow long and still the sea had not receded. By then, Chris was on his feet pacing back and forth. The roof of the delivery van was probably twelve or thirteen feet long, about eight wide. It wasn’t much of an oasis and it was driving him buggy.
“I can’t stand just waiting like this,” he said.
“Just try to relax. Getting keyed-up won’t help.”
“What if they come in the night?” he said to me. “I mean, think about it. What if this maggot river rises and overflows us in the night. Then what?”
“My guess is we’ll be eaten,” Robin said.
Chris glared at her. She had a way of rubbing people the wrong way.
“What I am saying is that it’s bad enough in the day time, but at night it could be real bad. Real, real bad.”
“Tell him to stop,” Sandy said.
“Listen, Chris,” I said, “we need to wait it out. My guess is that by morning they’ll be gone. It’s gonna get cold tonight. They won’t like the cold. It’ll make them sluggish. It’ll make that slime like molasses. Remember, regardless of how they’ve mutated, they’re still essentially just maggots. They’re soft-bodied. They have no protection against the elements. The sun will dry them out, the cold will make it hard for them to move. Just wait it out. Nature’ll take care of them.”
But he wasn’t buying any of that and I knew it.
Maybe he’d been through a lot of shit as we all had and seen a lot of bad things, but he was still a teenage boy. And teenage boys weren’t known for their patience or non-aggressive problem solving. Constant activity came natural to them. Their bodies and mindset stirred-up by all the hormones made them creatures of action. That’s why they filled out football teams and were recruited by the Marines. Action and violence were part of what they were.
“I don’t know why you think you know so much about them, Steve. You don’t know anymore than I do.”
“I’m just guessing.”
“I’m guessing you’re wrong.”
“Sit down, Chris. Quit acting like a fucking punk.”
He was fuming and ready to make a stand. I just sighed. Like there weren’t enough problems without his adolescent macho posturing.
“They’ve been eating, Steve. They’ve been eating good. And when things like them eat, they breed.”
I nodded. “Sure. But we don’t know shit about their life cycle. Maggots turn into flies and other insects when they’re normal. If that’s the case, these things might just hatch or whatever and fly way—”
“Imagine those hungry mothers with wings,” Robin said.
“—or something. Maybe their life cycle is fucked-up. Maybe they don’t breed the way they used to.”
“But they must be breeding somehow. Look at all of them,” he pointed out. The logic of that was irrefutable.
“Maybe they divide,” Robin suggested. “Binary fission. We learned about it in school.”
“Right!” he said. “That means by morning they’re might be twice as many and that would be enough to drown us.”
Thank God for Robin and her mouth. Christ. She was only making matters worse and she knew it. She liked to toy with people and was showing incredible tolerance by leaving Sandy alone. But that didn’t extend to Chris. She didn’t like him. She wanted to fuck with his head.
“They look lower,” Sandy said.
We all looked. They were lower. Yes, the level of the slime had dropped at least a foot. I stood up. They were just over the trunk of the car ahead of us. That was progress.
“See?” I said. “You give it a few more hours and they’ll be gone. The best thing is to wait it out.”
“That is the best thing to do,” Sandy said. “Wait for the helicopter or wait until they dry up. Then we can walk home. I mean, God, it isn’t rocket science.”
“Steve just don’t want to admit he might be wrong.”
“I don’t have a problem admitting when I’m wrong and I don’t have a problem admitting that you might be, too. C’mon, we don’t really know anything.”
“You’re a fucking dick,” Chris said.
He was bristling, getting hot under the collar. He didn’t like how I was running things so he was disputing my leadership like a fucking ape in the jungle trying to be the dominant male.
The stress was too much. “Gimme a cigarette, will ya?” I said to Robin.
“You know where they are.”
I reached inside her jacket and put my hand in her pocket. Of course, she was sticking her chest out. My fingers brushed her hardened nipple. When I looked over at her, she licked the tips of her teeth. I got my cigarette and lit it. This whole situation was becoming a very unfunny absurdist comedy. I had a lusting teenage girl sexually taunting me. I had another that thought helicopters were coming to rescue us. And I had a teenage boy that needed to assert his dominance and maybe kick my ass at the same time. We were like a bunch of baboons wallowing in our own shit.
“So they’ve gone down a little. What’s to say they won’t rise again?”
“Okay, Chris,” I said. “Okay. Obviously you think I’m stupid, so tell me what your big idea is. I know you have one so lay it out.”
He managed to smile. “Look at the cars out here. They’re all stuck together in a big row. It would be easy for us to jump from one to the other. Have you thought of that?”
“Yes, and I dismissed it because it’s suicidal. It’s a good way to die horribly.”
He bristled again, but he kept going. “You hop from car to car, then get onto that tanker truck. See those wires dangling down from the telephone pole? You use that to cross. Hand over hand to that roof sticking out. Then you kick out that window and you’re inside.”
I had considered it. It was really the only way out. But Robin couldn’t do any jumping and I was pretty certain Sandy didn’t have the courage to. The problems were everywhere and I told him so. Okay, you get down onto the hood of the delivery van. The next vehicle was a car. There was about three inches of maggots on its trunk. You’d have to go through them. And you’ve have to repeat the process with the next two cars. Then there was another van, a furniture truck, then the tanker. But say you got that far. Then what? You jumped up, grabbed the dangling lines and hoped like hell they’d hold you while you crossed to the roof?
“You might make it,” I said. “I might make it. But Robin can’t and I’m pretty sure Sandy won’t.”
“Then she can stay right here.”
I nodded. “I see. If there’s people that can’t fit into your little plan, fuck it. Throw ‘em to the worms.”
“I’m going.”
“You can’t.”
“Yes, I can. And you can’t stop me.”
I stood up. “You want to bet I can’t, little boy?”
With me facing him and towering over him by about three inches, he didn’t act so tough.
Robin laughed. “Let him go, Steve. Don’t waste your strength kicking his pussy ass. He’s not worth it. If the worms get him, so what? It’s not like we’re depriving the world of a working brain. If he dies, the gene pool will be that much healthier.”
“Fuck you,” he said.
Robin laughed again.
Well, despite my bluff and blow, I wasn’t about to duke it out with some kid on the rooftop of a van in a sea of maggots.
“Okay,” I said. “Best of luck to you.”
“You’re not going to try with me?”
“No. I’m not about to leave the girls.”
“Sui
t yourself,” he said.
“Don’t!” Sandy said. “Please, Chris! Don’t do it! Don’t go away! I don’t want you to go away!”
I didn’t honestly believe there was any love lost between them and my guess is that, in the old days, they were enemies with Charlene stuck in the middle. But to Sandy, he was necessary. An anchor, a cord that connected her to the old world before her sister had died. She needed that.
Chris just shook his head and climbed up on top of the van’s cab. He placed his feet very carefully.
“I’m going to do it,” he said, as if he was talking himself into it and hoping I’d talk him out of it.
But I wasn’t going to. I’d had it. If he wanted to die, then he was going about it in the right way.
“Have a good trip,” Robin told him. “I’ll send flowers.”
He swore at her and prepared to climb down onto the hood of the van for the short leap to the car ahead. He was young and foolish. In his mind, this was no different than rushing into enemy territory beneath the Friday night lights with a ball tucked under his arm.
I had a really bad feeling that he was about to learn otherwise.
CHRIS
At the top of the cab, Chris pumped himself up as he probably did before the big game. He breathed in and out, he got his heart pumping. He steeled himself and put his eye on the prize. Nothing would stop him and by that point he had firmly talked himself into the same.
He lowered himself down onto the hood of the van.
The maggots squirmed around his boots.
He wasted no time. He leaped onto the trunk of the next car, slipping on the maggots and nearly going on his ass. He balanced at the last possible moment and clambered up onto the roof of the car, out of the maggots. He stomped his boots, killing any that clung to his soles.
He looked back at me with a cocky grin. See, old man, told you so. It’s easy as pie. You sit there with the girls. It’s all you’re good for. I’ll do the man’s work.