Decaying Humanity

by James Barton

  “We can’t take much; we just need the basics to get started. Find a shopping cart so we can get this stuff and go.”

  “Pushing carts, I thought I was done with that part of my life,” I said sarcastically.

  I looked around the area and there were items we could use: sleeping bags, rope, paracord, camping saws and a wood cutting hatchet. There were even some bags of wasabi peanuts left on the shelf. Not my favorite, but then again my tastes had changed recently. I found a cart full of bird food against the wall. At this point I didn’t even bother asking what it was for and just dumped it onto the floor.

  “We are still missing things,” I said.

  “Nails and stuff,” Shay said.

  “Let’s go.”

  “We gotta hurry. You grab those while I get something else really fast. We’ll meet back at the layaway door in two minutes,” Shay instructed.

  “You never split up, that’s one of the first rules,” I said.

  Shay leaned in and kissed me. “I’ll be fine, two minutes is all.”

  She ran off down the dimly lit hallway towards the center of the store. I took a nervous breath as she disappeared from my sight.

  I pushed my cart with the clunky wheel towards the hardware section. I was followed by Harvey and a few of the other zombies. They seemed to follow me in hopes of a fresh meal. I turned the corner and an eerie silence had set upon the store. The sound of gunshots and fighting had dissipated and the only noise was the ker-thump of my shopping cart wheel. I had made it a few steps into the building supplies and a voice came screaming through the PA system.

  “Attention Allmart customers, this is Captain Neves. It has come to my attention that you have failed to uphold your portion of the bargain. The person you were supposed to find has eluded you for weeks and now she has come to you. Not only that, but she is kicking your asses. Our teams will be sweeping the building and we will find Tiffany Mason. I am a very understanding person and if you happen to capture her first, well then, you have just extended our deal. Otherwise we will shoot you like the animals you are.” The PA system threatened before crackling off.

  “Oh, and Tiffany, you are surrounded so I suggest you come with us quietly. We’ll be seeing you soon, honey.”

  I began to panic and my heart was racing. There was a pulling to search for her, but I knew that I would only get more lost. I just needed to grab some nails and a hammer and I could meet up with her. We’d bust through the back door, kill a few soldiers and sneak away … right?

  The sound of shotgun blasts nearby startled me. I turned around to see my entourage of undead splayed out on the floor. Two hunters stood across from me pointing their weapons right at my face.

  “Donchu move or I’ll blow yer head off,” the bearded man said. He was dirty and unkempt, as if he used the apocalypse as an excuse to give up on hygiene.

  “Yeah, clean off,” his friend said. This man was clean shaven and had a buzz cut. He looked like he used to be military or possibly just mimicked their style.

  “Look, we can work this out,” I stalled while trying to think of a way to take them down without losing the top half of my head.

  Gunshots began to ring out from the front again. Only they didn’t sound the same as before. They were in short, controlled bursts from automatic weapons. The two men didn’t seem fazed by the sound and kept their guns trained on my face.

  “We’re gonna turn you in and sit pretty till these biters all die out,” the bearded man said.

  “Yeah, you’re coming with us, cash cow. Don’t try anything or I’ll take you apart and give them the pieces.”

  I could hear shuffling coming from the aisle next to me. The shelving full of nails and screws began to creak slightly. I could see through the slats in the shelving that there was a humanoid figure pressed up against the other side.

  “Hey, don’t worry ‘bout that. We took care of all yer biter friends.”

  “Come on, slowly now. I’d hate to get startled,” the man said while making a hand gesture of buckshot coming out of the muzzle of his gun.

  Throughout this conversation, the sound of gunshots continued to ring out through the store, getting louder and closer every second. Clearly, the Army soldiers were sweeping the store toward us. Time was running out and these men were in my way.

  I had no choice. If I waited any longer the Army would reach me and tear me apart. My only option was to rush these two and pray their buckshot couldn’t penetrate my skull. I took a single deep breath before my desperate bull rush attack.

  A moment before I lunged in to attack, the pain in my back flared up so bad that it brought me to my knees. I couldn’t help but let out a pained howl.

  “What the hell is wrong wit chu?”

  “We ain’t fallin for that,” the other man said.

  Then the shelving began to screech as the metal bent and wobbled on the cheap connectors. The two men spun around as the entire shelving section of building supplies came crashing down on them. The one man fired off a shot towards the shelving before it came crashing on top of them. Standing on the other side of the aisle was Harvey, his arms still outstretched in the pushing position.

  “You saved me again,” I said.

  “Grrungh,” he moaned in response.

  My pain had subsided and I reached around to touch my back and brought back a hand caked in black blood. What the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t have to time to figure it out; I had to make sure that Shay made it out alive.

  Boxes and supplies had scattered all over the floor. I could hear one of the men making injured whimpers. Those shelves had some pretty nasty things on them, but I didn’t think it was enough to kill them. I didn’t stick around to find out, not with the Army firing squad moving our way. I scooped up a box of nails that had landed near my foot. I ran down the aisle a ways and grabbed a hammer.

  “Alright, shopping list complete,” I said to Harvey. “Go to the layaway section, I’ll meet you there.”

  Harvey squinted at me for a second and then wandered off in that direction. I still wasn’t sure how smart he really was, but having him around felt like a blessing. I climbed over the fallen shelving and as it shifted under my weight, one of the men cried out. I jumped off the wreckage and grabbed the shopping cart. I looked down the main row and there were small flashes of light that accompanied the gunshots coming from the side. They were getting really close.

  I pushed my noisy cart towards the layaway section and came around to the electronics section. I was almost there, almost out of this nightmarish place. Then I saw Shay in the center of the aisle, claws drawn and multiple bodies at her feet. All of the bodies at her feet were raiders. She stood there panting, ready to take on the next person she saw.

  “Shay!” I called out.

  She turned around and raised her claw to swing in my direction and then retracted them. I could see her relief as she moved towards me.

  “You took forever, I was afraid … you left me,” she said clearly worried.

  “I told you, you are stuck with me forever.”

  “I’m glad.”

  She came to me and I threw a hug around her and squeezed her tightly.

  “We have to get out of here now, the soldiers are closing fast,” I said. She looked me in the eyes and smiled. She nodded and I began to push the cart towards the back door.

  We walked beside each other towards the layaway exit. Four soldiers rounded the corner about twenty feet from us. I reached for Shay and threw my right arm in front of her and tried to push her back. This time I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t have to think about it, I knew I’d throw myself in front of danger for her. Shay instead threw me back and leapt forward. Damn her super strength.

  She flung herself down the lane at a ridiculous speed, claws drawn and ready to finish it. The soldiers fired their rifles in rapid succession. I got back to my feet and tried to chase after her. Silence seemed to overtake me and the sound I heard was that of a single bullet. The back of Shay�
�s head spit out tiny fragments of skull and brain matter. She fell in a clump on the floor, sliding slightly from her momentum. Her hands instantly changed back to normal. The item she had retrieved earlier spilled from her pocket; a Spanish-to-English dictionary.

  “Oh God, no,” is all I could mutter. My mind felt like it was on fire as the feeling of sadness and rage hit me like a tidal wave. There was a strong nausea that came over me and my body went cold. My legs went weak and I tripped onto the ground next to her. I scooped her into my arms and looked at her face.

  A gunshot hole directly above her left eye had coated her face in blood. Her eyes had already begun to glaze over and her mouth was left agape.

  “No, no, no no,” I whispered as I rocked back and forth with her body in my arms.

  “Stevens, that was her, you idiot,” one of the soldiers said in the distance.

  “Well, she was coming at me,” he responded.

  I stared up at them with a fire in my eyes, but it soon began to dwindle. What was my life without her?

  “Shay, use your healing. We don’t know how this works, you could still come back. Please don’t leave me,” I said while still trying to shield her with my body. “I don’t know what to do without you.”

  My body had ached before, but at this point something inside me was running rampant. The feeling was that of being struck with a baseball bat, hundreds of times. The skin of my back felt like it was being pulled off in burning hot strips.

  “Neves is going to be pissed,” one of the soldiers said.

  “That’s Captain Neves, private,” said a man coming around the opposite side.

  From behind me, the captain approached with a handful of equally armed troops. I held Shay closer and couldn’t help myself from tearing up. We had only been together such a short time, but I had dreamed of our lives after this terrible day. Destiny had brought us together and her blood had made me whole. Now she was being taken from me by these men. The soldiers began to step closer to me and I held her tighter and huddled closer to the shelving. I didn’t even know what I was trying to protect at this point, but the urge to keep her safe never left me.

  “Those scientists can probably get just as much out of her dead. Take her, we are done here,” Neves said.

  “What about him?” one of the soldiers asked.

  “Drop the girl and we won’t hurt you,” Neves ordered.

  A boiling rage began to fill me as I looked into her glossy eyes. We had been robbed. Not just of our life together, or our happy ending, but I never even got to say goodbye. I wanted to tell her so much and now I couldn’t. They stole her from me. I stared up at the captain defiantly.

  “Fine, just shoot him,” Neves said coldly.

  I kissed her on the forehead and held her close. Then the roar of gunshots filled the air. As the bullets drilled into my body and I just kept thinking, keep her safe. Pain, at this point, had lost its novelty. At first, the evolution or mutation had made it almost exciting to encounter pain without harm. Now as bullet after bullet tore through me, the fun had quickly vanished. The pain of seeing her limp in my arms hurt worse than any weapon. I was devastated and couldn’t take it any longer. All I needed to do was pull my head out of the shelving and they would have a clean shot. Then, we could be together.

  I looked at her one last time, hoping that I could take her image with me to the grave. A sense of rage came over me that was so abrupt and powerful that it felt inhuman. Foreign thoughts took over my mind. “Live. Kill.”

  There was a sudden wave of pressure and a loud cracking sound in my head that blurred my vision. The addition of this sudden pain on top of the searing burn of hot lead tearing into me caused me to dig my fingernails into Shay’s skin. I tried to pull back, but something prevented me. I could feel her blood running down my hands. I gasped for air and then stood up screaming at the ceiling in rage, still holding her limply in my arms.

  I felt the bullet slam into my forehead and my vision went dark. I became weightless as I floated through a sea of darkness. There was a whisper and I moved towards it. The voice sung to me clearly.

  “Live. Live together,” it sang.

  All the feeling in my body return and suddenly the pain in my back subsided in one final explosion.

  “What is he!?” screamed one of the soldiers.

  I opened my eyes and the light was blinding. On the ground, by my foot, was the flattened carcass of the bullet. I raised one finger to touch my forehead and there was no hole, no damage whatsoever. A shadow began to creep in front of me; it was something waving about like snakes reaching up for the sky.

  “He’s an alpha too!” the captain shouted and snatched the rifle from one of his troops. He took a shot and it struck me hard in the forehead. It sent my head back only slightly and then a smile stretched across my face as I heard the round plink onto the floor.

  I unleashed an inhuman screech and thin wiry tentacles extended from my back. They flew across the aisle and stabbed through the soldiers nearly fifteen feet away. These monstrous appendages functioned without my input, as even I was surprised at their deadly precision. They drove through the men and exited from their backs. The bloody tips then wrapped around the soldiers and dug into their hands forcing them to drop their weapons. The men behind me screamed in pain and as I turned to them, they too, were being assaulted by the beast inside me.

  The captain surprisingly was the only one untouched by them and he took a few defensive steps backwards. A few additional tentacles wrapped around his feet and tripped him. He lay on his back and struggled to keep his weapon from being snatched away. The soldier beside him was even lifted off his feet a few inches as the beastly threads punctured him. Then there was a dark chorus of groaning as every soldier transformed into the undead in unison.

  “I put a .50 caliber round through the last pack leader I encountered. I underestimated you,” he said smugly.

  He attempted to crawl away from me, but the tentacles held fast. The new zombie soldiers reached and clawed for him, but they were restrained. Whether controlled by my unconscious or something else, this power knew I wanted to deal with him, personally.

  “What is a pack…,” I began before being interrupted.

  “You…” a whisper from my arms said.

  I looked down to see Shay looking up at me. Her wound had completely healed over and her eyes had returned to their previous shine.

  “You’re alive!” I cried out in a shaky voice. “How did you, I mean I thought you…”

  “You finally got your claws,” she said faintly and passed out.

  I laughed tears of joy as I pulled her close and kissed her hair. I looked over to see Harvey standing in the aisle by the exit.

  “Captain, it’s time for us to go home,” I said as I walked up to him. I stood over him as he flailed and struggled to keep the tentacles from constricting his hands and feet.

  “It’s not too late; you could still turn yourself in. Your blood could be the key to human survival,” he pleaded.

  I looked at Shay and smiled as she began to regain consciousness. She opened her eyes, wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me. I put her on her feet and we stood side by side, looking down at the defeated man.

  I didn’t even want to see him anymore. His presence made me sick. He was the terrible example of what humanity stood for. He abused everyone to get what he wanted, what he thought was right. If only he had thought to just ask for a blood sample, we would have gratefully obliged. No, instead they shot up my friends and paid raiders to rape and pillage everyone in the town. He made me wonder, were people even worth saving anymore?

  Harvey approached with a hungry look in his eyes.

  I drew both of my machetes and looked at the captain with disgust.

  “Look at what you have become,” he said and spit in my direction.

  I looked at my two friends standing there in the new silence. We had become something different, but looking around at the uniformed men around us, I w
ondered exactly who was the monster. I thought of the thousands, or more likely, millions of people out there who were gone now … because of people like this man. Men who were willing to murder anyone for what they considered the higher purpose. The same men who had forgotten that humanity had gotten as far as it had, not by putting the species ahead of the individual, but by understanding that every life was worth trying to save. It is the trying to save another, even against unbeatable odds, that makes us human.

  The tentacles began to silently retract into my back. I realized that even with my new senses and strengths, despite my monstrous new abilities … I was still human.

  I turned my gaze back down to his cruel face and said, “Captain, it could have been worse. I could have turned out like you.”

  I dropped both of my machetes to the ground and fell on him in a hungry frenzy. Harvey and Shay joined in and there was a darkness that washed over me like a drug.

  Later, when there was no recognizable remainder of the captain, we silently packed our supplies and proceeded to leave.

  “I thought you died,” I said to Shay as we walked through the desecrated aisles.

  She was quiet for a moment. Then she looked up at me and said, “I think I did. Everything went cold and everything went black. I never felt alone. A force pulled me back, so I could come back to you. Then, all of a sudden, I woke up in your arms. You were killing everyone with those things.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For having a power that saved our lives?”

  “Well, I guess I’m not sorry, then. I was afraid you would think I’m even more of a monster than before,” I said.

  “You aren’t a monster. Monsters hurt innocent people. Remember, that’s what you told me and I think you are right. Plus I mean, tentacles, c’mon, that’s badass.”

  “He called me a pack leader. Did you hear mention of that in the hospital files?”

  “No. Must be a military term, I guess we aren’t the only special ones. That would probably explain why the zombies are drawn to you.”

  “I guess so.”

  “What now?” I asked.