New Title 15

by Douglas, P. A.

  More screams could be heard off in the distance.

  The cloud or whatever the hell it was, was moving farther into town. People were dying. There was no doubt about that.

  Everyone inside the store stood in silence for quite some time, stunned. They just watched on as the blackness settled on the lot before them.

  “Thank God that door opens out and not in,” Someone whimpered.

  It took Kyle a moment to realize that it was him who made the remark. He had been the first to break the silence.

  Other than that, no one said a word. How could they? The ungodly hum, of God knows what, would have drowned out anything worth saying at all.

  Everyone just watched and waited.

  * * *

  Several hours passed, but the noise remained.

  On both the inside and out, the storefront was still blacker than ever. People had already started forming opinions. Aliens, the end times, and some even sillier things, but Kyle Tanner… nope, he wasn’t having any of that.

  About ten people in the store stood together talking and stressing. Everyone was yelling back and forth, just trying to keep their voices over the hum outside.. Pretty much the only decent idea anyone had was to tell everyone to shut the hell up, but that hadn’t worked.

  Pulling Ben and Sarah aside, Kyle decided to formulate a plan of his own. The funny thing was this was his first time he had ever talked with Sarah. He had always been too shy and he didn’t look his best either. The orange Cheetos’ stain still covered the front of his shirt. However, that was the least of his worries.

  “Look… It’s obvious that we can’t go outside, but I don’t want to stick around to find out what the hell is going to happen next. You both saw what happened to Mr. Hardy, so I think we need to get out of here.”

  Huddled together alone on the canned vegetable aisle, Ben and Sarah listened.

  “So, what the hell are you proposing as an option, then?” Ben adjusted his glasses and scratched his mustache.

  “Come on, Ben… Ben Love… the techno geek! If any of us are going to pull something out our asses and save the day, it would be you.” Kyle shoved Ben on the shoulder.

  He had to adjust his glasses again.

  “Don’t ask me.” Ben looked to Sarah for an answer.

  Having nothing, she shrugged, clearly stressed the hell out. Her eyes were wide, and her expression was flushed.

  “Well… you’re the ‘mister know it all’, Ben. What in the world could have caused something like this?” Kyle waved his arm toward the front of the store.

  Ben took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes with his index finger and thumb. Kyle could tell that the man was scared shitless. Pushing the geek probably wasn’t helping, but he needed to get his head in the game and figure something out. Kyle knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere without Ben’s help. As sad as that sounded, it was the truth. While Ben was probably surfing popular science blogs on the web and watching the discovery channel, Kyle was busy watching Family Guy, The Springer show, and getting high. He didn’t have a clue as to what the hell was going on.

  “Well…”

  “I’m thinking. Just give me a second.” Ben put his glasses back on and snapped his fingers. “What about Chemical warfare? It has to be that. The way that Mr. Hardy’s skin melted like that. That involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. That type of warfare is distinct from nuclear warfare and biological warfare. But if that’s the case, there’s no telling how long it will be before we can go out in it! And if we did, we would need hazmat suits or something.”

  “You mean like terrorists,” Sarah gasped.

  “Yes… Like terrorists.”

  Sarah started to sway, her knees buckled, and she collapsed.

  “Ahhh…”

  Kyle’s reflexes were pretty quick for a lazy slob. Catching her as she fell, he assisted her to the cold tile floor. Looking around, Kyle himself began to feel dizzy. This was just all too much to take in so fast. He just wanted his smokes and to be on his way like nothing had happened. On impulse, Kyle reached up to his ear, but no cigarette lay in wait. He remembered smoking it when Ben had interrupted his day. He looked down the aisle toward the front of the store. The darkness was still out front, but it looked as if it was starting to thin out. The cloud was moving on, but the noise wasn’t. It remained steady.

  “Ok, Ben. You got a cell phone?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Sweet, I’m going up front for a minute to make sure no one does anything stupid, like open the door. Stay here and see if you can raise anyone and figure out what the hell is going on. Maybe see if help is coming.” Kyle started to step away. “Oh, and Ben…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Keep an eye on her, okay.” His voice was soft and sincere.

  Forcing a smile, Ben waved his phone in the air as Kyle walked away.

  People still bantered theories back and forth and strategized the future. Ignoring them for a moment, Kyle made his way to the cigarettes. With no one watching, he reached over the counter and grabbed a box of Lucky Strikes. Packing it against the side of his hands a few times, he tore the package open.

  “… and as soon as the smoke clears, we are getting the hell out of here.” The big woman that had been checking out in front of Kyle was saying to two other men.

  “I wouldn’t go out there any time soon.” Kyle walked up, lighting a smoke.

  “Hey, you can’t smoke in here!” One of the other cashiers protested.

  Kyle smiled out a cloud of smoke. “So you wouldn’t mind if I stepped out and let that cloud in here then?”

  The cashier folded her arms, giving Kyle and ugly smirk.

  “Like I was saying… I wouldn’t go out there any time soon. I don’t know what the hell is going on out there, but my friend, Ben, is one smart dude. He has reason to believe this was some kind of an attack. One of the best things we can do is sit tight and just wait for help to come. Ben is on the phone right now trying to figure this all out.”

  “The hell with you,” the heavyset woman said. “We are getting out of here.”

  “I don’t think I can let you do that,” Kyle said.

  The sudden thud at the front door startled everyone to silence.

  Mr. Hardy was trying to get in.

  Standing there, mangled and mutilated, the old black man beat against the glass with his skinless fists. His skin was no longer black. In fact, his skin was mostly missing, and his boney body was covered in burst blisters and sores. His eyes had erupted into melted sludge from their sockets on his nearly unrecognizable face. With agitation, he snarled and swayed.

  “Oh, dear God. Mr. Hardy!” A man darted toward the grocery store’s entrance.

  “Don’t open that door!” Kyle shouted.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “How many are out there now?” Sarah whined.

  Looking over his shoulder toward the door, Kyle said, “Three… wait, make that four. There’s one walking up now.”

  Trying to shield Sarah’s vision from the hideous things outside, Kyle cradled her in his arms. A part of him knew that he reeked of sweat, cheese chips, and body odor. He hadn’t showered in days, but Sarah didn’t seem to mind. Silent for the most part, she just lay there quivering in her arms. It had been nearly an hour, and the people trying desperately to break in had to be dead by now. They just had to be. No one could sustain those types of injuries and still be alive. Their flesh had been turned to pulp and their clothing was mush, melted into tissue and the little skin that remained. Along with the very dead, the still mobile Mr. Hardy, was the friend who Kyle had given a Lucky to once or twice a week. Accompanying the two was the man that had been packing his car with groceries. Just as worse for the wear, a woman was walking up to join the three men at the door. It was very clear that they wanted in, but what would happen if they got through that glass door?

  It was just those four bloodied people in the parking lot, no one else.

  The ot
her cashiers and a few men and women in the store, aside from Kyle, Sarah, and Ben, gathered to have a meeting. It was obvious that waiting this thing out was the best option, but one can only wait for so long. Kyle hadn’t eavesdropped much, but what he did catch was silly. These people had no idea what they were doing or what they were going to do. Someone suggested making it to the roof. Others suggested sneaking around back and running on foot. Kyle didn’t care what any of those people did. He sure as hell wasn’t ready to leave the sanctuary of the store.

  Among the arguing and the unorganized meeting, a few people were on their phones trying to locate loved ones. Many came up empty. Straight to voicemail. No returned calls. Kyle feared the worst for those people. Like Kyle and Ben, many of these people lived within walking distance from the grocery store. He couldn’t imagine what they must have been going through.

  One man had gotten through to his wife on the phone. Kyle listened in and the conversation sounded devastating. At least the end of it that he could hear, anyway. Warning his wife about the dark cloud, the man panicked. From what Kyle could tell, she had been at work, on the other side of town. The blackness hadn’t gotten there, yet. Urging his wife to stay indoors, Kyle could tell that the man was at peace knowing that his wife was safe, but their kids had been another story.

  It was hard on Sarah to hear that man break down as he did after not getting through to his kids. Hell, it was hard on all of them.

  Huddled together with Sarah in his arms and Ben at his side, the three stayed out of sight. Being crunched behind the cigarette counter was a tight fit, but it made Kyle feel better. Buying some time until he put together a game plan. Taking his focus away from the noise around them, Kyle heard Ben’s phone begin to make a loud wine.

  Ben yanked the phone away from his ear.

  “Disconnected…” Ben tried the number again.

  Nothing.

  “They’re jamming the signal.”

  “They?”

  Ben sneered, shoving the phone back into his pants.

  “Shit man… what’d they say?” Kyle asked with hope in his voice.

  After Kyle had suggested that Ben make a few phone calls, he had only spoken to one person the entire time. It was hard for Kyle to get a grasp on what the conversation had been about. Ben’s side of the discussion had been umm’s… and oh… I see’s… That hadn’t divulged much to Kyle, except that Ben didn’t like what he was hearing. It was written all over his face.

  “Well…” Ben said, removing his glasses and wiping the lenses on his shirt. “If it’s true, it’s not the best of news…” He put the glasses back on.

  “Come on, Ben. Out with it already!”

  “Ummm…” Ben looked above the countertop at the door.

  The mangled woman had made it to her destination, joining in with the other brutally mutilated people. Her skin was peeled raw, and a meaty layer filled with pus and blood were all that remained. Joining in with the others, she began beating at the door. Blood from her arms and fists smeared the glass. Bits of tissue from her arm stuck to the glass as she pulled away for another round of grunts and hits. Her burned skin reminded him of roasted pig on a spit. The fingers on her hand were stretched and burned rigid.

  Ben choked up and looked away.

  “That was my friend, Greg. He’s up in Colorado.” He cleared his throat. “He said what’s going on here is already all over the National News. About thirty, maybe forty miles tops from here, one of the Chemical Refineries blew this morning. If it’s what I think it is, that can’t be good for any of us…”

  Sarah pulled away from Kyle’s chest, eager to hear what Ben was trying to say.

  “About a month ago I read an online forum. It was talking up the TEX Mobil CO., and how they weren’t actually producing gasoline. Since we are so close to Texas, we have a lot of gas refineries around here. The one they were referring to was in Beaumont, which is close. Close enough that it matches up with the one Greg was talking about.”

  The banging out front was persistent.

  “Most oil and gas refiners,” Ben continued, “pump out like four hundred thousand barrels a day.”

  “And…” Kyle’s eyes were wide with concern.

  “The forum I had been keeping up with said that the Tex Mobil in Beaumont was just a cover up for something military. Chemical Warfare type shit… Which, in reality makes sense, because that plant wasn’t putting out nearly enough oil and gas to meet demand?”

  “No way,” Sarah said.

  Ben ran his fingers across his mustache and nodded.

  “If it is true… the freaking plant exploded or whatever, sending the cloud of junk our way. Then what the hell could have done that to those people out there? Sure as hell ain’t barrels of gas that did that!” Kyle lit another Lucky Strike. “You want one?”

  Sarah accepted, but Ben waved the offer off. Smoke began to rise up from behind the counter, as Kyle and Sarah continued to listen.

  “I don’t know much about chemicals or the military, but that out there… those people trying to get in... You ever hear of Agent Orange or Agent Blue?”

  “Yeah,” Sarah said. “My mom’s oldest brother supposedly got hit with Agent Orange in Vietnam or something. It messed him up pretty bad, my mom said. He died before I met him.”

  “Right, well the chemicals in that stuff can do things like melt the skin if you are exposed to enough of the chemical. But whatever they were cooking up at that plant before it exploded sure as hell was something much worse. Something new!”

  “Oh, yeah, and what makes you so sure about that, Ben? You don’t know everything.”

  “You’re right, Kyle. I don’t, but one thing I do know is this… If my body suddenly burst out into that many fucking blisters, you better believe I am going to be down for the count. No one could still be alive after sustaining that much injury. And if they were still alive, they sure as shit wouldn’t be able to move about! The human body can’t handle that much pain.”

  * * *

  After conferring with a few other people in the store, Kyle realized that the situation was starting to get much worse. All of the phones were down. The landlines in the store office and all of the cell phones were dead. Even with a full battery and four bars, Ben’s phone only made the same high-pitched squeal as everyone else’s.

  Ben had been so busy getting information that he had neglected to inform his friend Greg, of their location and actual circumstances. If this were an explosion from the plant, the best thing to do would be to get away from the blast zone. But how could they? They were trapped inside the damn store. Then there was that hum outside. It hadn’t let up at all. At least the clouds of blackness had subsided to a major degree, or appeared so. It was too hard to tell by now. The sun had gone down, giving way to the night.

  Ben suggested that it was a possibility that the noise was still just pressurized waves from the blast.

  However, even that was questionable.

  Letting his stomach get the best of him, Kyle found himself on the junk food aisle tearing into a bag of greasy pickle chips. He wiped the salt from his fingers with his already heavily stained sleeveless tank top under shirt.

  “You want some, Sarah?” He asked with a mouth full.

  “No thanks,” she said with a scowl of distaste. “You know you have to pay for those!”

  “Oh, come on. Like anyone is going to miss them. I’m not the only one that felt it’s okay to eat.” He waved his hand around at the other people snacking on little things while they waited.

  “He’s right, Sarah. If we’re stuck in here for what appears might be a while… we might as well not starve to death.” Ben grabbed a bag of pretzels from the shelf.

  “Well… I guess you’re right. I am getting a little hungry, my...”

  The sudden crash of shattered glass coming from the front of the store cut Sarah off.

  Someone screamed.

  Kyle dropped the pickle chips to the ground. The bag’s contents lay s
trewn across the aisle’s cold tile floor. Swallowing hard, he feared the worst. They were in. The front door hadn’t held.

  “Help me!” Someone screamed.

  The woman’s voice seemed familiar. As Kyle darted around the corner, the sound of his flip-flops slapped against the tile. Kyle stopped dead in his tracks. Ben bumped into him from behind. Kyle heard him gasp and Sarah started screaming.

  Mr. Hardy and his mutilated friends had found their way into the store. Even without his eyes, Mr. Hardy seemed to know where he was headed. Quickly, he staggered further into the store and the others followed. The front door to the grocery was obliterated. Glass lay across the floor around the doors entryway. A large trail of blood and meaty lumps of tissue and skin lagged behind them. The stench of rot and putrescence filled the storefront causing Kyle’s eyes to begin to water.

  Then he heard her again, that familiar voice.

  “Help me!” It was the obese woman that had been checking out in front of him.

  Kyle had to shift his view to see her. A small display case of magazines and candy kept him from seeing her at first. In fear, she lay on the floor screaming near the front registers. Hardy was heading straight for her!

  Before anyone could step in to assist her or divert the attention of Mr. Hardy, the old black man fell on top of her. She screamed in pain. The sound of popping skin as it sizzled filled the store. Everyone watched in horror as Mr. Hardy’s lacerations, blisters, and sores made contact with the fat woman’s bare skin. As his meaty slop of an arm touched her, her skin burned and began to blister. Pustules of water formed under his dark skin bubbling up like that of a grease fire victim. Continuing to scream, the boils burst on her arms and face. Her skin melted on contact. Her skin began dropping from muscle to the floor. Meat splashed and sloshed as they both thrashed violently on the tile.