by Damon Novak
Let me tell you somethin’ right here and now: I’m not a believer in real-life monsters, particularly zombies and the like. I’ve loved bein’ scared since I was a little kid, but I was smart; I knew it was all shit created by people who were really good at makin’ up scary stories. I never had nightmares, and if I did dream about the monster movies I watched, I was the hero, slayin’ the shit outta the freaks.
I’d never lost in my dreams, but now I wondered if I’d be able to hold onto that perfect record. I was startin’ to get the hint that somehow, after that fuckin’ black rain, the world had gone batshit after all.
I started to run back toward Dr. Lake’s house when somethin’ impossible caught my eye. I stopped dead in my tracks and stared down at the gutted baby again. Its little hands, missin’ fingers and all, were movin’.
Then its eyes opened; bloodshot and cloudy.
I was goddamned transfixed as I stared down at that thing, looking right into the exposed cavities of its chest and stomach; I registered its ripped open throat in my mind before returning my gaze to its face.
Its mouth was open. It had one small tooth on its bottom gum. I’m sure it woulda growled, but like I said, it didn’t have a throat anymore.
Fear struck me like a sledgehammer, and I knew I’d never get over what I’d seen. It was the same as the bodies in the swamp, torn in half and still alive. Sort of, anyway. The bad kind of alive.
I bent down, raised that empty gun and slammed it into that baby’s head. The skull was softer than I expected as the grip sunk in until it hit asphalt.
I threw up unceremoniously, not even bothering to wipe the vomit from my chin before I stood again, in a daze.
I decided right then that the Indian dude, Wattana, had really done this. I might’ve said this before, but I’m a pretty good judge of character, and that bastard really believed what he’d said in that video. I know it.
I turned and ran back toward the Rover, fighting my gag reflex, which returned every time I envisioned that baby’s twitching corpse. Trying to keep my focus, I looked in all directions, making sure I wasn’t taken by surprise. When I got to the Land Rover, I yanked the driver’s door open and jumped inside. I jammed the key into the ignition and fired it up, dropping it into gear and engaging four-wheel-drive.
I cranked the wheel hard right and jumped the curb, running over banana tits’ wrinkled body in the process. Dr. Lake was standing in her doorway as I slid the Rover right up to the front porch, parking so the driver’s door opened toward her front entry.
“My God!” she huffed as I jumped out of the Rover and ran inside. She closed the door behind me and locked it.
I ran right over to the window and looked out. I could no longer see the carnage on the north end of the street, but several more of the strange-walkin’ people moved toward Dr. Lake’s house.
“There’s a few of ‘em comin’ this way,” I said. “Dr. Lake, if we stay here, we’ll be trapped. We gotta go.”
“What about your brother?”
“He’s shut in the room. I’ve got the truck close enough I can get Clay in there.”
“They must have a curfew order now, if this is widespread,” said the doctor. “Restrictions on moving about the city to prevent spreading of the infection.”
“You got more ammunition?”
“I have more guns, too.”
“Where?”
“In Richard’s safe, in the master bedroom closet. The combination is 21409, which is for Valentine’s Day, 2009. I think it’s when he met his favorite whore nurse.”
“Do me a favor and go check on Clay,” I said. “I’ll go see what’s in the safe. And Dr. Lake?”
“Call me Georgina,” she said. “After what we’ve already been through, I think you’ve earned the right.”
I nodded. “Thanks for savin’ my life, Georgina.” I ran into the bedroom.
Ω
It was no tiny safe. Hell, it wasn’t a tiny closet, to start with. I had to take two turns before I even saw the son-of-a-bitch.
It was a big-ass gun safe. The guy was a doctor, and I hoped like hell he was a gun fanatic, too. I had my share at the house, but I had to get there first.
I punched in the combo on the electronic keypad. The safe beeped, clicked, then I heard the bolts drawing back.
The green light went on, along with the word OPEN on the readout screen. I pulled it open.
I swear, if a light woulda shined down from Heaven and cast a golden glow on that safe, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
Shotguns. Rifles. A selection of handguns to beat the band.
I spotted a small, bullpup tactical shotgun. Light, small, great for defense. Not very effective for skeet and huntin’, but I wasn’t interested in that right now. I picked it up first, my eyes automatically lookin’ for the ammo stock. It was stacked on the very top shelves.
I checked the gun. It didn’t look like it had ever been fired. It was a 12-gauge Kel Tec KSG, and it cost a bundle, I knew. Couple thousand, at least.
Then, in the far-right slot, I saw somethin’ I’d only seen in the NRA magazine I got free with my membership. It was a Standard Manufacturing Company DP12. A double-barrel, pump-action 12-gauge with a 16-round capacity.
That would be travelin’ with us if and when we got the hell out of there. I pulled it out and set it aside.
I reached down and grabbed a Smith & Wesson M&P .45 and stuck it in the back of my pants. It would replace the one the cops had confiscated earlier.
I quickly found the ammo for both weapons and found a large, cotton drawstring sack in the safe, that I loaded up with as many boxes as would fit.
I ran back into the living room and found Georgina next to Clay. She turned to look at me. “He’s out. He feels cold.”
I hurried over and dropped the gun and bag of ammunition. I knelt beside Clay and felt his face. He was cold. I lifted his eyelid.
Just an opaque white. I let the eyelid fall and fell back on my ass.
“What is it?” asked Georgina.
“His … his eyes. They must be … rolled back in his head or somethin’.”
She held out her hand and I took it. She gripped my wrist with her other hand and pulled me up. She was stronger than I’d given her credit for.
“Let me look.”
She did the same as me. I leaned over to look, and suddenly, the eye rolled back, from wherever the hell it had been, down.
It was a cloudy white. It seemed to focus on her as the other eye popped open. His hand shot out and grabbed her hair.
“Clay!” I shouted, and snatched his wrist, yanking it away from her head. I managed to do it, but his clutched fist tore a big clump of her hair from her scalp.
She screamed, and I pulled her back, staggerin’ away from where my brother lay on the couch. Only he wasn’t layin’ there anymore.
He was gettin’ up. He stood and turned toward us, and I saw what I’d seen outside. His face was pale white, and his eyes held no recognition of me – maybe not of anything he saw.
If he saw at all.
His mouth stretched open and he screeched.
“Clay!” I shouted. “Bro, it’s me, Cole! CB!”
He staggered toward us, and I pulled Georgina behind me. “There’s ammo in that bag. Load up your gun. It’s empty.”
She hurried to the door and grabbed the gun from the small table in the entry, then ran into the kitchen.
My hand reached around for the .45 in my pants. I pulled it out and checked it. Empty.
Not that I intended to shoot my oldest brother, even though I pretty much knew what he had become.
One of the crazies outside. Maybe like one of the crazies inside. Maybe just like Tanner.
I left him there, because I didn’t have any choice. He had stopped, and teetered there, as though he didn’t quite have his balance.
That was my chance. I rounded the corner as Georgina spun around, her gun barrel pointed directly at me. I held up my hands and said, �
�It’s just me. Hurry, get the .45 ammo out of there!”
She dumped the bag on the table and slid a box in front of her, opening it and dumping the rounds out on the table. I had the magazine in my hand and put the M&P on the table while I loaded it as fast as I could.
A growl erupted from behind me, and Georgina screamed, “Watch out!”
I instinctively ducked down, and above me, I saw swiping arms, barely missing me. I saw Georgina had ducked beneath the kitchen table and huddled there. I scrambled beneath the same table and popped up on the opposite side of it from Clay, facing him.
I held the gun up, pointed at his face, my hand shaking like a leaf. “Clay, man. You’re sick bro, just got a bug. Get back on the couch and I’ll get you home –”
He came at me, and now a yellowish foam had begun to run from his mouth as he stretched it open wide enough to let out a baleful moan identical to Tanner’s.
“Shoot it!” shouted Georgina. “Cole, he’s just like the ones in the streets!”
Instead, I reached down, grabbed Georgina’s sleeve, and yanked her up, pulling her around the corner, back into the living room.
“Here!” she shouted, turning down a short hallway. She ran into a small bathroom and I followed. She slammed the door once we were safely inside.
We both stood there, breathing hard, hearts pounding together. Something slammed the door.
It was strange. My mind immediately began to think of the sick ones as things, not people. Monsters from the late-night showings of that Tales from the Crypt show I used to watch when I was supposed to be sleepin’.
Then whatever Clay had become impacted it again, and I heard the jamb splinter. Not all the way through, but loud enough to get my full attention.
The noise seemed to trigger something in Tanner, because right then, I heard more loud impacts from across the house.
“We have to kill them!” whispered Georgina. “Your brother, the one on the couch, was cold. He was too cold to be alive. As insane as it seems, this is a medical phenomenon we’ve never seen before. Cole, these people are all dead!”
Tears ran down her face as she told me that, and as a good judge of character, I believed this woman. She was a doctor on top of it. Again, the dead but alive torsos of the Singers came to mind. Those guys were totally dead. Clay hadn’t been, but I couldn’t argue with the thing slammin’ into the damned door.
As the third impact came to the door, I slid down to my butt and leaned against it as my oldest brother continued to slam into the other side. I fought my own fears and sadness, tryin’ like hell to come to grips with what I think I already knew I had to do.
The phone buzzed in my pocket and I reached in and grabbed it. It was another text from Lilly.
My heart settled just a bit. My sister was still alive.
I KILLED PA.
I stared at the words and tears flooded my eyes. I was worried about Lilly; thought she might get hurt if my Pa was like those things in the street, which I fully suspected. Yeah, I suspected it about Tanner, too, but killin’ our own family?
I stared at those three words.
“What is it, Cole?” asked Georgina.
I shook my head and turned the phone so she could see.
Her face went even more pale, and tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Cole,” she whispered. I felt her hand rest on top of mine, then a soft squeeze.
I accepted her comfort for a brief moment, then pulled my hand away and texted back, I KILLED A FEW IN THE STREET WITH HEAD SHOTS SOME DID NOT DIE
Nothing came back. I knew what she waited for.
TANNER IS LIKE THEM. NOW CLAY IS TOO.
As if on cue, the door shook in its frame.
OH, GOD. YOU HAVE TO KILL THEM, CB.
She still used punctuation. I knew she was right, and if the doctor and my assumptions were right, they were both already dead.
COME HOME. I NEED YOU.
Sure, she did. I was the last motherfucker left in her entire family, all in one goddamned day. Her words settled it for me. I typed: COMING
Then, before she could answer, I typed and sent another message: SORRY LILLY
I pushed myself up off the floor, slid the cell phone back in my pocket, and picked the gun up from the floor. Then I reached up and pounded on the inside of the door.
My dead brother responded by slamming into it again. I raised the gun and fired through the door, three times.
I knew how tall my brother was. I’d lived with him long enough. The thump sound came three seconds later. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Clay’s body lay still, crumpled on the floor just outside the bathroom. Georgina stepped around him and walked into the living room, where she sat in a recliner and stared at nothing.
I also stepped over my eldest brother’s body, but on the other side. I dropped down and rolled him over to find a hole in his forehead, another in his right eye, and one in his neck.
I was three for three. My tears rained down onto my dead brother’s destroyed face. I had one more task.
My ears were clogged, and everything seemed muffled. I heard Dr. Lake saying something, but I wasn’t focused enough to listen.
The next thing I knew, I felt hands tugging on my shirt, and I looked up to see Dr. Lake, her mouth open, screaming something at me.
I snapped to the present and jumped up.
“ … he’s almost out!” she cried, when I could finally listen again. Her screams of alarm mingled with the animalistic howls of my strangely transformed brother.
I jumped up and ran into the hall, and saw my brother had nearly escaped, his head and torso laying over the center crosspiece of the door. He’d broken the entire upper panel of the hollow-core door out, and now growled and swiped at the air with frantic movements as he lay high-centered in the middle.
“Tanner, man, don’t!” I screamed, even as I ran toward him, my gun in hand.
Before I reached him, the weakened crosspiece gave way, and the thing that used to be Tanner Baxter dropped straight down to the floor with a thud. As it turned out, he didn’t need any recovery time at all, before he clamored back to his feet and stagger-walked toward me, his eyes white and cloudy, and his teeth snapping like a gator at feedin’ time.
I gritted my teeth, planted my feet, and raised the M&P. When he was just two feet away, I fired. Once, then twice with full awareness, but then it became automatic, as I fired again and again until the hammer fell on nothing. My last two bullets had gone straight into the far wall, because Tanner had already been down. I couldn’t have seen it, though. My eyes were blurred with tears that would not stop.
I fell down to my knees and put my palms flat on the floor, breathing hard, trying to come to grips with how everything had changed so horribly in one single day.
Something slammed into the front door. Hands touched my shoulders, and I whirled around to see Georgina Lake over me, her eyes wet with tears of her own, darting from me to the front door. “If we can get out of here, we need to do it,” she whispered into my ear. “The sun just went down. Maybe getting out of here at night will be best.”
I closed my eyes and nodded. “I need a minute or two,” I said, but the words felt like somebody else’s.
I had to make sure I took what time I needed so I’d make the right decisions. I didn’t want to get us killed, too.
My mind settled on Lilly. I needed to get to her.
I turned to Dr. Lake. “You wanna come with me?”
“I thought you knew … is it okay?”
I nodded. “After what we’ve been through? I’m not sorry we came here.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“Whatever Tan got, he already had. Clay got it from gettin’ bit, I guess. If he didn’t catch it that way, I guess you or I could turn at any second.”
“I’m not sure I heard an answer in there,” said Georgina.
“Sure, you come with me. What I’m sayin’ doc, is that none of this had anything to do
with us bein’ here, at your house. Maybe all three of us’d be dead if we didn’t come.”
“I’ll grab some things. Make sure you have everything you need from the gun safe.”
Ω
CHAPTER SIX
In whatever world we’d been thrown into, I figured she was right to have me dig back into that gun safe and grab some more weapons. I hadn’t dug in very deep before. I was in the middle of some shit the first time.
I found myself cryin’ as I went through that safe. I just kept thinkin’ about my two dead brothers in the other room, but almost worse than that was what they’d become before they died.
I never really gave the death of any of my siblings a thought before; we were all relatively young, and despite what we did for a livin’, and the creatures we did that shit around, I had faith we’d all be just fine. After all, we’d been doin’ it since we were little, and we had it down.
Needless to say, losin’ my two older brothers in a single day took its toll on me. As I sat starin’ into the interior of that safe, I broke down. I plopped down on my ass and tried to cry as quietly as I could.
“Cole?” came the voice behind me. I looked up at Georgina, who, if I’m bein’ honest, looked kinda … well, beautiful. The makeup she had put on was subtle, but effective.
“You headin’ to a party?” I asked, forcin’ a smile and swipin’ away the last of my tears – at least for the moment.
“It’s silly, I know,” she said. “I passed by the mirror and almost scared myself. I figured some makeup might cover up some of what we’ve just gone through. It’s showing on my face, that’s for sure.”
“Well, goal achieved,” I said. “How’m I lookin’?”
She put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. “To be honest, sad,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Cole. I don’t even know how you’re able to do anything.”
“Wish I could say it was easy,” I said. My mind went a thousand different directions then, every single one leadin’ into a dark pit of despair. I finally gathered my thoughts a bit and added, “To be honest, I feel like curlin’ into a goddamned ball and lettin’ the sadness roll over me, but I got my sister to think about. And you. You tried to help us.” I shrugged.