Black Water

by Jon Fore

  He opened the small refrigerator under the counter and drew out a bottle of water to rinse his mouth. Then he headed for the galley, another small room where cooking could be done as needed. In the large freezer, everything seemed covered in frost, as if frozen for years. The cupboards here proved molded and decayed as well. He began to grow angry. This food should have lasted him over a year with a bit of budgeting. Now there was nothing.

  He tore open a wax-coated box of milk, which immediately proved sour even though it was irradiated so as to not contain any bacteria and should have lasted months without even refrigeration. Stan began collecting all of his food stores, searching for anything still good. It all came down to some Twinkies and hard candy. It was not nearly enough to sustain him for any length of time.

  Stan had planned for this eventuality, but it was suppose to be months after the end of the world, not the day after. Something would have survived, some animals or fish or something. He had weapons and fishing gear and knew what was edible and what was not. He would just have to forage and hunt his food, only earlier than he had hoped.

  This lent itself to an excuse to go into town, satisfy his curiosity about the events of last night, and bring back food. The voice on the radio had gone away, so regardless of the ominous fog, there was nothing holding him here inside his little hidey-hole.

  He woofed down two packs of Twinkies, a bottle of water, and gathered an extensive number of firearms, pistols, and rifles with enough ammunition to fight a small war. He even clipped to his tactical vest a few grenades he had purchased on the black market. Once everything hung from him as it needed, he inserted the level-three ballistic plates and belted everything tight.

  After checking the telescope once more, he climbed the ladder to his shelter and checked the small periscope to make sure nothing was waiting for him above. He then lifted the hatch and immediately, a stench of the dead and rotting assailed him. The odor was sweet and rancid, not unlike the milk, but more like bad bacon. It made Stan cough a bit before he climbed from the hole.

  It seemed as though whatever had taken his food stores had gone to work on the corpses piled in the mantrap. The AK was gone, the sandbags turned over and torn. New corpses lay around the hole as if they had fought for the right to invade his shelter. The violence was so awesome that Stan found it all very disturbing regardless of his preparation and training.

  He worked his way among the corpses, torn and battered, ripped and desiccated. Something had torn them apart in a fit of unimaginable rage. After some searching, Stan concluded whoever had torn these bodies apart also had the missing rifle. If it still lived, he could have a bit of a fight on his hands. He chambered a round in his own Vepr assault rifle in anticipation of a shootout.

  He worked his way through the slippery pile of corpses in the mantrap, staining his clothing with the black ilk draining from some of the corpses. When he finally got past the pile, he vomited down the steps of his porch. Cursing himself for the waste of food, he cleaned out his mouth with water from his canteen. He quickly continued toward the town, keeping to the trees so populous near his home, escaping the stench of his house. He practiced his stealth, moving from tree to tree to rock to bush, all in rapid motion, each with a pause.

  The forest was dead, not the leafless dead of late fall, but dead. The trees were dry and twisted as if in agony. The bushes were not much more than a splay of dried sticks bundled tightly by the ground. Stan’s green-based camouflage was out of place in this brown-and-black-colored forest. Desert camouflage would have been more appropriate, he decided when trying to reason what killed an entire forest was too disheartening.

  He stopped to rest a bit, knowing he was close to Grove Street, the only road heading into Shady Dale, the town’s exclusive community for the few well-to-dos living in Black Water. He sat against one of the tortured trees and drew his knees up to rest his head. He sat perfectly still, listening to the deafening silence of a dead forest. Stan knew that man was about to end itself, but the emotional impact of it was almost too much for him to grapple with. He would give anything to talk to someone right now, to end this hermit solitude, even after only one night.

  A rustling came from far up on the hill. Something still lived in this forest, and by the sound of its progress, it hunted still.

  Stan felt a wash of relief. There was still life on this planet. This meant a few things to him: food, companionship if perhaps it were a domesticated pet, a chance that other things still lived as well. He lifted his head and looked up the hill, waiting for the thing to come into view, to see another life going about its business. It seemed small or at least not very heavy by the sound of its footsteps. Since it was obviously hunting, it could be a dog or a fox, possibly one of the small black bears seen occasionally in these parts.

  When its head came into view, fear spiked through Stan’s heart like a stiletto. It was a buck, not a predator…at least by nature. This deer was dark in color and more shade than brown. Its eyes were jet-black orbs of unblinking hatred, if a deer could express such a thing. It stepped into a better view, and Stan could see that it was bloated with testosterone in preparation for the rutting season, but its flesh laid rent and clawed from its body, the muzzle laid bare to the bone by some other creature’s savage bite. Atop its head sat a large rack of antlers, bits of bloody tissue dried there like some revolting decoration.

  This was not a gentle foraging creature, but an animal gone almost rabid, bent to the same murderous rampage as the people of Black Water. It lifted its head and began to rotate its ears, listening intently until it turned toward Stan, its boney mouth hanging open slightly, its eyes soulless and enraged. It released a wicked distortion of a mule deer’s call and lowered its antlers at Stan.

  Stan brought his weapon up in a snap and fired a quick series of three shots. They tore into the death-like shroud of flesh, and the creature stumbled. It then began to charge, its head lowered, and its antlers gleaming with a wet red. Stan fired again, this time shooting round after round until the thing fell, skidding on its chest before coming to rest just before him. It still quivered and jerked, but the deer’s body was ruined, shattered by the many bullets.

  Stan stood and left the thing jerking and kicking in the underbrush. If this were all the forest would bear, there would be very little to eat indeed. No matter what the thing looked like, it bled black liquid and smelled of rotting flesh. Something not even a fire could make edible. The idea of surviving the end of the world just to starve to death was not a pleasing thought.

  He crossed the expected road and entered the forest beyond, continuing his straight-line trek to the town. He thought it should be at least visible by now, but the fog still obscured the buildings below. The ground was becoming slicker, the result of rotting plants and the dark fluid that was once their pulpy internals.

  He stumbled into a parking lot before he actually saw it. He stopped once more and squatted, listening intently for sound. After many moments of hearing nothing, he continued in the direction of the grocer he knew owned this parking lot.

  The building loomed at him from the dark fog, an apparition before it became a discernable structure. He skirted the entrance, not wanting to come in on the most direct route and found the handicap handrails near the ramp leading to the store. Here he stopped again to listen, and as he strained with his ears, his eyes caught sight of the heads impaled and hanging above the frame of the automatic doors. They had some type of large nail driven into their open mouths, each one staring lifelessly and inverted.

  Stan had never felt so revolted in his life. This was not just the taking of a life, nor the expected trophies of some serial killer. These heads hung outside like some proof of triumph, like an ancient king who had just defeated a long-sought enemy. This was proof to any that saw it that someone had ended some six or seven lives and this act deserved some form of recognition.

  The automatic doors opened suddenly, and Stan found himself pointing his rifle at a man in some stat
e-issued orange jumpsuit and a small child held close to a woman, the woman pointing the gapping end of a Glock at him. The little girl screamed, which caused the woman to scream. Stan found himself drowning in a wash of relief and fear at the same moment. He wanted this so much, but was ready to kill them if they decided to strike up a firefight.

  “Whoa, wait, hold on now. Are you a cop or something? Shannon, lower your gun,” the man said nervously.

  Before she could, someone spoke to one side in a deep gravelly voice, the voice of dried vocal chords, the dark ravaged voice of one insane. “Did someone call a cop? I’m a cop!”

  Shannon turned to see a large figure in torn clothing, its face and neck almost completely covered in police badges driven through the skin. Only black eyes and wicked, broken teeth showed as it began to raise a police service revolver at her.

  “I remember you! You’re a great lay, bitch!” it screamed wickedly at her.

  The bum leaned over Ethan’s shoulder. “Funny, you’re the only one without a gun, and you’re the only real psycho here…”

  Chapter 26

  “You sick son-of-a-bitch!” Shannon screamed, and then began firing at the new arrival. The small pistol she carried was extremely loud in the fog, and Kayla began screaming at each shot.

  Ethan grabbed the girl and huddled back into the store with her. Another gun went off, this one firing in an impossibly quick progression. Something began to scream in many voices, a chorus of damned and tortured souls screaming for their ends. The gunfire continued for many rounds, many moments, and many deafening explosions before Shannon ducked back into the doorway crying. The automatic doors tried to close over and again, but reopened after sensing someone there.

  She fumbled in her pockets for another clip, her face a mixture of unbridled rage and vengeance, sorrow, and violation. Her hands shook so violently she could not fit the new magazine into the gun before the gunfire stopped. Ethan reached over and steadied her hands. Shannon screamed and lashed out, striking Ethan along the jaw with the pistol, then screamed again, dropping the gun. She embraced Ethan quickly, almost crushing Kayla. “I’m so sorry, Ethan, I didn’t even see you, I’m sorry… Oh my God! I remembered him! I saw him! I remembered what he did to me! Fuck!”

  Kayla continued to weep softly underneath her, and Ethan lifted Shannon just enough that the young girl could work herself free.

  “You’re bleeding, Ethan, you’re bleeding…” Shannon sobbed.

  “I’m fine, Shannon, really. Give me the gun.”

  Shannon grabbed the gun and handed and handed it to him with the clip before even thinking of it, then grasped Kayla like a teddy bear.

  Ethan slid the clip in and released the breach, slamming it into place. “I’ll be right back; stay here.”

  Ethan rose and eased into the fog. The other man, possibly a police officer by the look of his equipment, was inspecting the bloated badge wearer with his foot.

  “You hurt?” Ethan asked which spun the man around with lightening speed, the gun leveled right at Ethan’s chest. Ethan raised both hands but did not drop the gun. “I’m not your enemy. Is it dead?”

  The man paused a minute before returning to the bloated pile of badges. “Yeah, it took a lot of ammunition, but it is dead. Who are you?”

  “I am Ethan, the woman with me is Shannon, and the girl is Kayla.”

  “You a family?” he asked, still staring at the body.

  “No, we sort of found each other…”

  “Like me, huh?” the man arched an eyebrow at Ethan.

  “Yeah, who are you? Are you a cop?”

  “No. My name is Stan. I live outside of town. Tell you the truth, I did not expect to find anyone alive down here. How did you survive?”

  “I was a prisoner in a hospital, Shannon was beaten unconscious in the streets, and the girl hid in a dumpster all night.”

  “Hospital? Are you nuts or something?”

  “No, not really. I have problems, but I am not insane—at least I don’t think I am. You’re real, right?”

  “Uh, yeah, I’m real,” Stan replied flatly.

  “Then I am still sane.”

  “Is it dead?” Shannon asked as she carried Kayla out of the store.

  “Yeah,” Stan replied flatly. “Is there any food around?”

  “Not really,” Ethan answered as he offered the gun back to Shannon.

  “No, you keep it. I’ll hold onto Kayla. In fact, here…” She offered him the other clip and handful after handful of bullets.

  “Do either of you know what is going on? Was there a chemical spill or something?” Stan asked with his eyebrows arched high on his forehead.

  “You know the Heart House?” Ethan asked.

  “Yeah, up on the top of Black Water Mountain, right?”

  “Right. There was something inside the mountain. I think it’s loose now.”

  “What kind of thing?” Stan asked with incredulousness.

  “Well, monsters, actually…”

  “Oh,” Stan replied, his face frozen in a that-is-why-you-were-in-the-hospital expression.

  “You can believe me or not; up to you. I know what I saw, and this thing here is nothing like what’s up there.”

  “This was just a guy, some sick-o…” Stan began, trying to shore up his own sanity.

  “How many times did you shoot him before he died?” Ethan asked defensively.

  Kayla broke from Shannon’s grasp and ran back into the store. “Kayla, wait!” Shannon shouted as she chased after her.

  “Are you talking something like the boogie man?”

  “No, more like something from a Japanese horror movie, you know, one of those anime things?” Ethan cut back at him.

  “You’re serious about this, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Ethan was becoming irritated at everyone asking that.

  “Well, what’s your next move then, Ethan?”

  “We were looking for food, and then we were going to get the hell out of here.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me. Do you know how far this…I don’t know, thing…how far it has spread?” Again, he held one eyebrow higher than the other.

  “Not a clue.”

  “I listened to my ham radio all night, and no one was talking about it. I am thinking it is just local.”

  “Well, we looked all over for a car, but every one we found was vandalized and looked like it’s been sitting for a long time. The strange thing is that there aren’t many of them about, like people did escape.”

  “That would be good. Maybe they will send help,” Stan hoped aloud.

  Kayla came rushing back from the store carrying a white plastic jug almost too big for her to lift. Shannon came out a short time later with a small first-aid kit.

  “What do you have there, sweetie?” Ethan asked the little girl.

  She unscrewed the top, pulled the small foil cap off, and spilled some on the bloated body. It immediately began to scream and buck. Kayla screamed and ran back to Shannon as a white smoke began to plume from the corpse. Ethan and Stan backed away in unison, like synchronized swimmers in gray fog-like water.

  The thing bucked and screeched in agony as its flesh began to melt away, releasing the badges to surf down and into the parking lot on gore-filled waters.

  “What did she pour on it? What was that, Kayla?”

  “It was bleach, Mr. Ethan. He was dirty and Mom always said bleach cleans best.”

  Ethan looked at Shannon a moment. “Did you know it was going to make all that smoke?” he asked the little girl.

  “Uh-huh,” Kayla said while jerking her head up and down. “He was dirty.”

  Stan approached the corpse slowly. “He’s pretty much gone.”

  “Gone?” Shannon asked.

  “Yeah, sort of a puddle now,” Stan replied.

  Ethan approached and looked down at the thing. It was bits of gooey flesh and white bone in a mixture of blood and clear fluid. “It looks, you know, more human, less diseased.”
/>   “Yeah, I noticed that. Maybe we could use the bleach as a weapon. I really thought that thing was dead.”

  “The girl did not spill much bleach on it,” Ethan mused.

  “Got me. What I do know is it took a mag and a half of nine millimeter ammo and whatever Shannon hit it with to kill it, at least to what we saw before the bleach.”

  “We should at least carry some bleach with us I guess,” Ethan reasoned.

  This decided, both men went back into the store and retrieved a number of jugs of bleach and a couple of large hiking backpacks to carry them.

  Shannon was sitting with Kayla just outside the store, waiting for the men to return. “Now what?” she asked as they approached.

  “I vote we just get out of here,” Stan suggested. “There are two roads leading out of town: one toward Black Water Mountain, the other towards Interstate 79.”

  “I vote away from the mountain,” Ethan voiced.

  “Me, too,” Kayla added.

  “Either way is fine with me,” Stan said as he turned and began walking away.

  “Let’s keep up with him,” Ethan whispered softly. “I don’t think he cares about much more than himself, and he could leave us behind.”

  They caught up to Stan and began walking slowly, cautiously searching the buildings almost completely obscured by the smothering fog for any movement, for any threat, for the source of the sounds now echoing around the town. Somewhere, a creature was gnawing on something wet, another was dragging something, and far in the distance, a voice rose in a single heart-wrenching scream before cutting violently short.

  * * *

  “I don’t want to leave the house. You said I could stay for as long as I like,” Madison whined.

  “Ah, my young girl… but we have found him, the escaped… and now we must collect him and make him one of us.”

  “But I so love it here!” Madison exclaimed as her hands found the more sensitive parts of her body. The gown she wore gave her easy access to these parts just so she could bring herself pleasure whenever desire filled her.