by Darst, Matt
Second, they would ensure their bodies are never found should a search party find its way to their remote neck of the woods. “Rescuers aren’t going to investigate a prison for survivors. They will be entombed in their cells forever.”
Ridge considers this for a moment. He likes the second part. “I’ve made a decision,” he says. “We let them live and rot to death and back in the prison.”
“Very good,” Cadavori nods. He beats a hasty retreat. He doesn’t wait for Ridge to change his mind.
**
Wrigley.
They used the word often.
Wrigley.
They would repeat it, like a mantra.
Wrigley. Wrigley. Wrigley.
They would say it especially when they seemed unhappy, displeased.
Wrigley.
It was an ugly word, a word they would yell. A word they would shout like an accusation whenever she wet the carpet or chewed on a shoe.
Wrigley!
But it wasn’t her fault. Usually they would sleep very late into the day. When they did eventually wake, they wore pained expressions and grumbled at each other. They would ignore her, stepping around and over her, the male sometimes giving her a slight kick and sending her scurrying. Then they would debate about whose turn it was to walk her.
Oh, how her small bladder would ache!
And then they would leave again, only to return as the birds started singing, just before the break of dawn. They would smell acrid, like yeast. Then they would inevitably fight, the human female’s shrill voice baiting the male, telling him to “get a job,” calling him “worthless.” When she was really angry, she would say worse, insulting the size of his manhood.
During these moments, the female would call the larger male “Lennie.” His name was Phil, and he would ask why. The woman without a name would say, “Because you’re a big, dumb fucker who has never read a book.” He would ask why again. And she would say, “Because you ask questions like that, you obtuse asshole, that’s why.”
So the puppy called Wrigley would have the occasional accident. She knew it was wrong—they would put her nose in her own urine and smack her about the face with a rolled newspaper—but the pain in her belly was excruciating. She could not help herself but go. She would seek relief behind the couch or a chair, areas she hoped they wouldn’t find.
Besides, the rug smelled of cigarettes and beer and things more foul than a bit of puppy pee. They might not even notice.
Or may be they would. Maybe they’d show her a bit of attention. Maybe hearing that word wasn’t so bad.
Wrigley.
Because she was often left to her own devices. She would explore and tug and pull and chew. Her brain was developing, and she needed sensory input. Everything was new to her. Everything foreign. Without human hands to pet her coat, to rub her belly and scratch her chin, she was left with her mouth as her primary means of tactile stimulation. She had one toy, a stuffed bunny, but she had grown bored with it. So she would chew, gathering information on an object’s density, its elasticity, and, unfortunately, its sturdiness.
This hadn’t been a problem when she was still suckling from her mother and wrestling with her brothers and sisters. They had only taken her from her home and family two weeks before, after she had turned two months old, but it felt like an eternity.
She wondered how long she would have to continue like this.
She didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
One night Phil/Lennie and the female came home early (at least early for them). They were quarreling…again. But this fight was unusual. It was the male who was the aggressor.
“I can’t believe you, you fucking bitch!” He slammed the front door after they entered. It hit with such force that it bounced from of the frame, remaining wide a few inches. Phil left it like that. Part of him wanted to close it again, but it would be like replacing an exclamation point with a question mark.
“Phil, look at me. That guy bit me!”
Phil walked over to her, pulled her hand away from her neck. He roughly tugged her towards him, then spun her under the hallway light. He pushed her chin to the side so he could get a better look.
“Looks like a hickey to me.”
“Phil, he drew blood!” she exclaimed.
“Fine. Looks like a bad hickey.”
Their argument moved into the bathroom. The puppy called Wrigley inched toward the door, watching them from the safety of the hallway. In the back of her maturing mind she wondered if someone was going to feed her.
The female looked into the mirror, craning her head up and to the side for a better view at the purple welt on her throat. Phil started to brush his teeth.
“Motherfucker,” she spat, with a pained sneer.
Phil wanted to ignore her, but couldn’t. He’d never been the one on top, the one with control in their relationship. Heck, any relationship. But now, his chance was here. No more taking his frustration out on the dog.
“Well, I guess you shouldn’t have been making out with that douche bag, huh? Let that be a lesson.”
“Fuck you, Phil, I wasn’t making out with him,” she lied.
“No, fuck you. He had his hand on your tit! He was all over you like some kind of animal!”
He spat toothpaste, and she raised a hand to his shoulder. He brushed it off and stormed towards the bedroom.
“Phil…” She couldn’t muster anything else. She stared at herself in the mirror, and a stranger stared back. She was sweating. She felt weak and sick to her stomach.
She couldn’t believe this was really troubling her so. She had made out with boys behind Phil’s back before. There was the bartender, the cop, and that guy and his buddies in the club. Oh, and Phil’s best friend, Ryan. Hell, she had blown Ryan. Twice.
No, she couldn’t be sick with guilt over this.
It must be the alcohol.
She looked at the mark on her neck again. A bite. A love bite. No, she corrected, a lust bite.
But it was more than that. The puppy called Wrigley knew it. She could smell the infection. She could smell the poison in the female’s bloodstream.
The puppy heard a voice. It was a voice from inside her.
When the humans had taken her from her mother and siblings, she had rushed to her mother’s side and tried to burrow beneath her. Her mother nudged her forth and kissed her, telling her not to be afraid. She told her of a voice that would always be with her, a voice called Instinct.
“Instinct?” she had asked.
Yes. “When I was your age, I was taken from my mother. I was scared, too. But my mother told me that she would always be with me. ‘Although you will be far away,’ she said, ‘I will never leave you. You will hear a voice called Instinct, and when you do, you will know that I am speaking to you, too.’”
The puppy had looked confused, and her mother smiled and continued. “You will hear the voice of Instinct even when there is no body to project it. Instinct is like a ghost in that way, walking with you wherever you go. But don’t fear. Instinct is collective, and when you hear its voice, know that your ancestors—every dog who has come before you, me, my mother, her mother, and so on—are guiding you. My voice will be added to theirs, and I will never leave you.”
Instinct spoke to her now. It said, “Hide, Little One. Hide and wait. I will speak to you again soon.” So the puppy called Wrigley lowered her head and tucked her tail between her legs. She scampered to the safety of the kitchen and laid down next to her stuffed rabbit. She licked the toy, lapping at an area where the stuffing was starting to show.
She hoped the female would continue to forget about her.
But the female didn’t.
The puppy was woken hours later by the deep coppery smell of blood. Somewhere in the apartment a butchering was underway, somewhere down the hallway.
The bedroom.
The scent penetrated the little dog to her core, grabbing her and shaking her senses awake, just as she would shake her
bunny toy. It rattled her, told her to whine and stay put. Fear told her to expose her belly.
But Instinct said otherwise. “Do not listen to Fear,” Instinct whispered. “Go forth and investigate. Go forth and do not be scared. You are a Dog. You are the embodiment of Loyalty, true, but you are more. So much more. You are the very form of Cunning and Intelligence. You were designed by the Gods to survive and add your voice to Ours. You will pass Our voice forward. Do not listen to Fear. You can assume the shape of Rage. You are lightening fast. Your hide is thick. You are Bark and Bite, Claws and Fang. You can be the stuff of nightmares.”
The little dog known as Wrigley stood up. Her head high, she trotted across the linoleum, her little nails clicking. She stopped at the end of the hall and listened.
Slurping. From the master bedroom.
The odor of blood was intense. It made her head reel. It set fire to her senses.
Go forth and investigate.
She moved deliberately down the darkening hallway, toward the bedroom door. It was cracked, and she tried to peer in.
All she could see was the foot of the bed, Phil’s leg dangling over the edge. And the blood. The tan comforter had turned a dark burgundy.
She needed to see more, but the angle wasn’t sufficient. She pressed forward, her little head wedging the door open.
The room was dark, the sounds of gulping growing louder. The rug before her was wet and soiled. The female was on top of Phil. She was naked and hunched over him, her face tucked into his neck. The boxer pushed ahead.
The door creaked.
The female spun, gasping, her eyes like saucers. She looked right, left…then down. She grinned, her teeth full of rot. She purred with satisfaction and stretched her scabbing hands towards the dog.
The female had never tried to pet her before. Yet this was not the clue that made the hair on the puppy’s back stand on end and her muscles tense.
It was the smell. A stink that her forebears had come to know. A stench they learned from failed births, from the carnage of the hunt, from the trenches of war.
Death.
The female leaned toward her, her wet hands getting closer.
The puppy let loose a guttural growl. She foamed and snapped, her back arched.
Then something strange happened. The female paused. Something inside of the ghoul made her hesitate if just for a moment.
But a moment was all the little dog needed. She turned tail and was down the hallway and out the front door before the monster could grasp what was happening…or her.
Monster.
Finally the female had a name.
And the dog called Wrigley shed hers.
**
Peter Sumner watches the creature. It paces outside the McDonald’s in Alsip at dusk. Most of them retreat from the light of the day. This one is out early.
This one doesn’t see him yet. Peter wonders what the hell it’s thinking.
Are the creatures conscious? Peter doesn’t know. He’s not sure he can even define the concept. He’s not sure what consciousness even is.
Is Peter conscious? He thinks so. But he wonders how much of his definition of who he is may be just a by-product of his individual experience.
After all, humans are not aware of most brain activity: heart rate, digestion, breathing, even posture. The brain processes an extreme amount of information, but people only remember those things that receive their full attention (and sometimes they don’t even remember that much). Somehow, humans are able to accomplish a number of tasks without ever being aware. Maybe what humans perceive as consciousness is nothing more than a movie review published after the film’s been seen. And if that’s the case, it may not matter whether or not there’s a “ghost in the machine.”
But Peter feels he has free will. He believes he acts through intent.
Prime example: when he sees a puppy at the base of a dumpster along the side of the golden arches, just 30 feet from the monster, he picks up his bike and rides straight toward it. He speeds down the middle of the street, no effort spent to escape the eyes of the ghoul.
Peter’s anterior cingulate cortex activates. This is the part of the brain associated with free will. This is the portion that fires when someone does something selfless, something stupid. The anterior cingulate cortex is a key difference between Peter and the horror that has stopped pacing the sidewalk and now pursues him.
The invader inside the revenant’s brain has cut off the frontal lobe, essentially lobotomizing the brain front to back. The creature moves with purpose, the desire to feed, but not with free will. In essence, it can do nothing but obey the chemical signals of the invader within. It must chase Peter, it must capture him, it must consume him, just as it dined on its friends and neighbors. It has no choice.
Peter is at the dumpster, but he has scared the puppy. Drawn underneath the container by the promise of old burgers and fries, the brindle boxer shudders, hidden in the shadows.
Peter coos, “Hey, buddy. Here, girl.” The puppy inches forward, crawling army style, still unsure.
The ghoul turns the corner. It looses a guttural growl, gases in its bloated belly gurgling forth passing over its vocal chords.
There’s no time. It will be on him in a moment. Peter looks for a weapon, finds a fifth of vodka left by a wino that finally made the decision his life was more important than the bottle. He picks it up and scampers to his feet.
The thing is almost upon him.
He rushes it.
He takes the bottle, spout first, and slams it into the creature’s blue face, breaking its aquiline nose. It rakes at him with rotting hands, and Peter pulls it by the collar, closer so he can further drive the flask into its demonic mouth. He is so near, he smells the decay, the methane venting forth.
Methane.
He reaches into his pocket, searches frantically. Yes, there!
Out comes the lighter. In a stroke, the flame flickers forth. He brings it to the monster’s face, and shoves himself free, landing on his back as the vodka burns above him.
The revenant is ablaze, yet it feels no pain. It continues to look for him—even though its eyes have boiled and its skin blisters—driven by the invader inside, arms outstretched, groping. It takes a single step forward.
Then, boom.
The methane ignites. The ghoul’s head is blown from his shoulders just before the flames flow further down the thing’s gullet into its chest. A chain reaction, the stomach ignites, detonating and spreading the foul monster across the parking lot.
Peter shields himself. Just like a vampire in the movies, he thinks.
The puppy, terrified, shoots out from the dumpster and into Peter’s lap. It whines and whimpers, and Peter strokes it. “It’s okay, little one. It’s okay.”
He puts the puppy inside his coat, letting it snuggle close. Moments later it is asleep in his warmth.
He strokes her neck. She has no tags. “What am I going to call you, girl? How about Addison? Do you like that? Addison? If not, we can always come up with something better later.”
She licks his hand. Addison it is.
Then he’s on the bike again, the two of them heading south.
**
The prisoners are close to departing. They have packed everything, but will leave their witnesses behind.
“We should beg them to take us with them,” Van says.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Wright corrects.
Even Ian has to ask, “Why?”
“Because they are going to die out there.” She wants to know the direction they are heading, because when they escape—and they will escape—they are going to go in the opposite direction.
They sit quietly for hours, listening to the prisoners below, fearing that they’ve been abandoned forever.
“The good news,” Van says, “is that we won’t have to serve on the front, now.”
“I suppose,” Ian replies, “but I was really looking forward to the future.”
Wright’s
ears perk up.
“The future?” Van asks. “Like what?”
“Like getting married, for one.” Ian looks at Wright, then shies away. “I was looking forward to getting married, and starting a family.”
Van scoffs. “What type of dreams are those?”
Anne interjects, “I think they’re nice dreams. Don’t you, Ms. Wright?”
“Anne,” Wright says smiling, “call me Kari from now on, okay? And, yes, I do think they are nice dreams.” She sits back, pondering Ian and his disclosure.
As evening approaches, the chaplain arrives. He has brought meals for them—last suppers, Wright thinks—and asks them if they’d like to pray with him and share their last requests.
Wright might not make it home, might not even make it out of this cell. She has a notion. It is crazy, reflexive, and totally out of character. But she decides to act on it anyway. She wants to be assigned to a new mission.
Her heart beats heavily in her bosom. “Ian,” she asks, “will you marry me?”
Ian freezes. His face gives Wright second thoughts about this course. “You know, it’s okay if you don’t. I know I’m a little older and—”
“Yes,” Ian nods, a grin stretching across his face. “That sounds great.”
“Holy shit!” Van yells. “Can I be your best man?”