by Kirk Withrow
With her rational mind unwilling to participate in her appalling plan, Ava no longer felt burdened by the fear that nearly crippled her moments before. Now, she moved on pure instinct and desire—the desire to reunite with her father. Like a cat advancing on its unsuspecting prey, she silently climbed down the side of the boulder. Unaware that their quarry had departed, the infected monsters continued to scratch and claw at the rock as though their efforts might eventually be rewarded with the tasty morsel they steadfastly pursued.
Abetted by the shadows blossoming in the fading light, Ava moved guardedly, sliding smoothly through the underbrush like a serpent through the grass. Even to the attentive eye, she looked like little more than a gentle breeze rustling through the foliage as she moved. Taking it on faith that what Jim told her about the abilities of the festering paste was true, she hoped she would be all but invisible to the depraved creatures as long as she kept her movements slow, and her sound to a minimum.
As she rounded the front of the boulder, Ava’s heart rate quickened when she realized she was less than twenty-five yards away from the infected horde. She did not dare look in their direction, instead focusing only on her destination as she fought to stifle any thoughts of the horrors they promised. With rising panic, Ava discovered she could no longer see her father in the distance. While she hoped this was merely the result of her loss of elevation, she worried she might already be too late. The thought nearly forced her into a dead sprint, and while her body did not increase in speed, her mind raced ahead at a million miles per minute.
Losing focus, Ava took a careless step and cringed when the sharp crack of a twig resonated like a gunshot across the short distance to the horde. She stopped abruptly, but the damage was done. Several of the infected on the group’s periphery had already shifted their attention and were moving in her direction. She stood, rooted to the spot, praying for a miracle as she watched her chance to reunite with her father slip away before her very eyes. With awkward steps, the three infected things drew steadily closer.
When she stared into their vacant eyes, crisscrossed with thin, dark lines like tiny oil pipelines, she saw no hint of recognition of anything at all. Ava did not think they saw her; in fact, she was certain they did not. She could almost feel them staring straight through her as though trying to focus on something an infinite distance away.
Despite her desperate pleas to a higher power, the infected continued their heedless advance in the direction of the sound that had tripped an alarm in their reptilian brains. She had to get out of their path if she were to have any chance of escape, but she needed to do so with the utmost care in order to avoid drawing any further attention. It was almost as though an array of sensors controlled them, and she had merely been the most recent trigger. If she could slip away slowly and quietly, she imagined they would continue walking indefinitely—at least until something else redirected their attention.
Ava gazed longingly toward the place where her father had been standing. Seeing no one, she felt her anxiety rising. Was he ever even there, or was I seeing things? Maybe I’ve finally gone crazy. Once again, she tried to focus on the immediate problem despite the horror it entailed; a task made easier by the low, guttural rasps of the approaching creatures. The terrifying sound was more like that of air being forced through a ragged hole than any actual human vocalization. With the closest of the infected only ten feet away and showing no sign of changing trajectory, she knew she had to act.
Torn between reuniting with her father and ensuring her own survival, Ava turned abruptly, planting her right foot in a small hole obscured by the dense undergrowth as she did. Before she could stop herself, she let out a short cry of pain as she fell to the ground. Although barely audible and impossibly brief, the tiny shriek was enough to garner the attention of most of the infected still scrabbling at the rock face. Realizing the danger she was in, Ava leapt to her feet, ignoring the pain in her right ankle. Although it hurt immensely, she could bear weight on it, and she knew that any pain in her ankle was nothing compared to what she would experience if the horde caught her.
Despite the fact that her situation had gone from bad to worse, she kept glancing to her right as she ran, hoping for any indication that her father was still there. Having finally seen him after so many weeks, the fact that she was running away from him was soul-crushing. With her mind dulled by the pain and her attention focused on searching the horizon for her father, Ava failed to notice the rotting leg lying in her path as she fled.
For the second time in as many minutes, Ava found herself nearly horizontal in the air. She crashed to the ground with a hard thud that forced all of the air from her lungs. Unable to draw a breath, panic tightened around her throat like a vice. For an instant she wondered if one of the infected had fallen upon her, the deathly grip around her neck that of its skeletal fingers. Eyes wild with oxygen deprivation, she glanced in every direction, sure she would see death incarnate any second.
At first her rattled brain could not rectify all of the sensory input it received. She heard an untold number of ghastly moans, thick with ravenous desire, coming from behind her. Yet, the embodiment of those sounds stood less than ten feet in front of her. Maybe it’s an auditory illusion from the sound reverberating off the rock face. Or maybe I got turned around in the fall. When she saw the thing that had brought her to the ground, everything came back into focus at once. Staring in horror at the moldering leg, her head shot up as she became cognizant of the danger closing in on her from every direction.
Mind and vision clearing, she saw at least six shadowy figures ahead of her on the path she had been following. As she had put some distance between herself and the pursuing horde, the group in front of her was far closer. Even so, the sounds of the larger horde behind her drowned out their inarticulate moans. The two closest infected took notice of her immediately. The first appeared to have been a fairly unattractive female even before the infection. It had short, curly, black hair and somehow still wore glasses on its ruined face. Fair portions of both cheeks were missing, highlighting its porcine nose in an obscene way. The miserable thing scraped and clawed at the ground in tireless pursuit, unfazed by the fact that one of its legs had been amputated at the hip. As Ava stared at the sinewy mess trailing behind its disarticulated stump, she got the distinct impression that she recognized the person the thing used to be, although she could not place her.
Wasting no more time on the matter, Ava vaulted to her feet, once again poised to run. Before she took the first step, however, the second infected thing shambled into view, and the sight of it was more horrible than anything Ava had seen. Standing before her on unsteady legs was the squalid form of what had been a beautiful child—now a grotesque and mocking caricature of innocence lost. The little girl was likely no older than ten at the time of infection. Clothes threadbare and skin mottled, Ava wondered if she looked much different than the thing in front of her. A backpack, no less tattered than hers, still hung loosely from its shoulders. Like its owner’s gaping maw, the unzipped main compartment hung open widely as though waiting to be filled with schoolwork that would never be completed. Despite its ghoulish exterior and obvious hellish intent, Ava wanted to believe she saw something good flicker somewhere in its unholy depths, as if trying rise up and escape but only managing to ripple the surface.
Crestfallen, Ava could not bear to destroy the infected child, and she realized her only option was to flee the unimaginable nightmare sprawling around her. She tried to maneuver around the ghastly, one-legged abomination as it bared its filthy, broken teeth with a feral snarl. Before she knew what she was doing, Ava took a running step and swung her left leg with such force that the thing’s miserable head snapped back sharply before lolling unnaturally to the side. She felt the sickening crumple of facial bones beneath her foot, followed by the collapsing crunch of cervical vertebrae pushed far beyond their intended range of motion. For a brief moment, the thing’s reaching fingers flexed into a depraved claw bef
ore going slack, its unmoving digits still buried deeply in the dirt. It stared at her with lifeless eyes, completely void of the insatiable yearning they held moments ago. Ava saw something in those dying eyes, some expression just hazy enough to be unreadable. Anger? Gratitude? Relief? Maybe it was nothing at all…
In the time it took Ava to dispatch the crawler, the infected child took a couple of uncoordinated, sidelong steps that put it directly in her path. Picking up speed once again, Ava parried the child’s outstretched arms, batting them to the side with ease. The rotational force off-balanced the little monster, sending it to the ground. As she rushed past, Ava’s blood went cold as the collective moans of the two hordes behind her converged and intensified.
Panic rising in waves within her heaving chest, she ran as fast as her tired and battered body allowed. To her right, she saw shapes, dark and malicious, dancing among the trees in her peripheral vision. Although she wanted to believe they were merely the first shadows of night playing a cruel trick on her frightened brain, she knew that was not the case. Shadows don’t reach out for you! They don’t call for you! Despite the pain in her ankle, Ava willed her legs to pump harder with everything her weary mind could muster, even as she felt death’s icy talons drawing steadily closer.
Vision blurring and ears roaring, Ava felt the overwhelming disorientation of sensory deprivation and oxygen starvation. Never in her short life had she been pushed to such extremes, and she found the sensation to be oddly surreal. Simultaneously merciful and cruel, she could no longer clearly see or hear the ungodly horrors that she knew lurked all around her. Having run full tilt for several minutes, Ava had depleted all of her reserves—her tank was bone dry.
As she slowed, the noise of the wind rushing past her abated, leaving only the sounds of her gasping lungs and the turbulent whoosh of blood flowing through her ears in its place. Exhausted, she stumbled and dropped to her knees. Struggling to slow her pulse and breathing, she wondered if her heart and lungs would explode before the infected reached her. Her head sagged in defeat as she waited for death to finish what it started nearly a month ago. As she wondered which of death’s minions would take her, she heard a sound so faint it was difficult to discern whether it was a quiet thought from within her head or an actual sound from outside. Focusing despite her imminent demise, she thought she heard a soft, angelic voice coming from somewhere to her left.
Ava regarded the incongruous sound with the hopeful skepticism of a water-starved desert traveller eyeing an oasis in the middle of the barren wasteland. At first, she remained rooted to the spot; afraid the tenuous auditory mirage might vanish completely with even the slightest disturbance. Despite feeling as though all was truly lost, she heard the beautiful voice once again.
“Hey! Over here!” the mysterious voice called.
Turning in the direction of the sound, Ava saw nothing but the nondescript landscape of the wooded area.
“Hey, girl! Over here! Hurry! They are nearly on top of you. Get up!” the voice cried in exasperation.
This time it sounded hollow, echoing as though it came from inside a barrel. Still unsure of its origin but spurred on by the frantic pleading, Ava climbed to her feet. As she did, she noticed a brief flicker of movement near the ground about fifteen yards away. Squinting through the inky darkness, Ava saw the frenzied movements of flailing arms trying desperately to attract her attention. Redoubling her efforts, her straining eyes discerned a circular opening approximately two feet in diameter, but she could make out no further details. In the back of her mind, she wondered if it might be one of the infected, trapped and flailing randomly in an effort to dislodge itself.
Seeing no other option, she forced the thought down and started in the direction of the opening. Drawing closer, Ava heard the voice once again.
“Hurry up! You’re going to get us both killed!” the voice exclaimed with unveiled frustration.
Finally confident she was not simply climbing out of the furnace and into the fire, Ava hastened to the spot.
Poking her head out and peering from side to side as though trying to figure out who just rang the doorbell, the squalid girl grabbed Ava’s arm and unceremoniously jerked her into the drainage culvert.
Worming through the narrow passage on hands and knees, Ava couldn’t help but feel as though she might be crawling into her own coffin. The sound of the two girls scuffling through the metal drain sounded deafeningly loud, and Ava prayed the acoustics of the pipe were such that they kept most of the noise inside. With every movement, pain shot through her knees as they landed on every rock and ridge inside the corrugated pipe. Ava wanted to ask the girl in front of her how much farther they had to go, but she could not spare the air required for speech. After what seemed like an eternity, Ava felt a slight gust of cool air on her face as she saw the girl in front of her disappear. At that moment, she could not recall having felt anything so wonderful in her entire life.
With one last great push, Ava flopped out of the pipe and onto the ground on the other side. Although she had no idea if she was out of danger, she no longer possessed the strength to do anything about it either way. Panting in exhaustion, Ava looked up to find a dirty figure looming over her, silhouetted ominously in the moonlight. Leaning in, its filthy hand reached for her as it opened its mouth.
“My God! You smell like absolute shit! Were you bitten?” the figure said, recoiling as though she just realized she was about to pet a cobra.
From her cowering position on the ground, Ava shook her head tentatively from side to side.
“My name is Annalee. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
8
September 26, 2015
Gaston County, NC
The world slowly drifted into focus in intermittent, blurry waves: pain and unimaginably bright light, smoke and the hiss of scalding hot water, warmth and the smell of burning plastic. With each successive blink, Connor’s bruised and battered brain received more sensory input, affording him a view of a world unlike anything he had known. What he saw when consciousness finally found him was an unrecognizable world of absolute chaos. The smoke filling the truck’s cab and the steam billowing from under the hood made the scene all the more surreal. His mind drifted back to the image of the mutilated woman just before his truck had annihilated her. Panicked, he whipped his neck around searching for the horrible monster but it was nowhere to be seen. Instead an intense, white-hot pain greeted him as the muscles in his neck protested the sudden movement. Holy shit! I need to get out of this truck before I die of smoke inhalation.
Barely able to return his head to center, Connor slumped forward as waves of pain radiated through his pinned torso. He felt the pressure of the vehicle accordioned upon his chest as viscous warmth oozed down his face. The truck’s rearview mirror hung limply at an odd angle, showing him a long, jagged gash extending across his forehead. Every breath was a bittersweet victory of life-sustaining air laced with searing agony.
Connor’s attention waxed and waned with the tide of his anguish, and he gradually became aware of movement outside the truck. Through the smoke and shattered glass, he could not discern who or what was there. Maybe it’s the paramedics…or her. Please don’t let it be her! The moment the first bloody hand slapped against the spider-webbed glass of the driver’s side window, he knew that whatever was outside his wrecked truck harbored no altruistic intentions.
With renewed effort, Connor struggled to free himself as pain lancinated through his body. Somehow he knew the excruciating pain was nothing compared to the pain he would feel if he did not get away from whatever was trying to get in. He managed to wriggle free in slow, throbbing increments before falling across the front seat of the truck. As he moved his traumatized legs, Connor knew the fact that they had not been completely crushed was a miracle. Thank God for good ol’ American steel!
The banging and scratching against the windows intensified in response to his grunts of pain. He watched as the first pieces of the broken driver’
s window gave way under the barrage. More and more tiny shards rained down upon his legs until he heard a sharp pop as the entire windowpane gave way, showering him with a million miniscule fragments of glass.
Connor opened his eyes to see a monster nearly as horrible as the woman that had caused the accident. A low, strained sound like that of a man who just had the wind knocked out of him emanated from the thing’s slack jaw. Wan skin surrounded its wide-open nasal cavities; the cartilage of its nose missing, making it look rather like The Swamp Thing. Connor saw its hand swat the air where the window had been several more times, as though it did not yet understand that the glass had shattered. He watched as its movement shifted awkwardly from banging to reaching, with some chimera of the two in between. Connor thought it looked like the guy suffered from some sort of disorder that gave him only partial control of his own musculoskeletal system.
His reflection on the matter was cut short as the reaching hand closed around his leg. As if finally accepting he was not dreaming, Connor lashed out with a violent kick that sent electric shocks of pain through his entire body, smashing the thing’s outstretched arm against the closed door. There was a sickening crack like a dry branch being snapped over one’s knee as the arm was crushed underfoot. When the merciless fireworks of agony faded in his eyes, Connor saw that the thing was already reaching for him, heedless of its splintered arm that flopped uselessly to the side. It had managed to squeeze its head as well as its other arm through the narrow opening. With shocked disbelief, Connor realized that what should have been a fight-ending injury had no apparent impact on the guy clawing his way into the cab of his truck. Holy shit! I don’t think he even made a sound when his arm shattered! What the hell is wrong with this guy?
Whatever it was, Connor knew he wanted no part of it. Ignoring the pain, he launched several more equally powerful kicks that landed directly on the thing’s face. Each successive blow was rewarded with a satisfying crunch akin to that of someone eating potato chips. When he pulled his foot back, he saw that the thing’s midface was completely caved in, and its lower jaw looked as though it had been shoved through his spine. To his horror, Connor watched as the thing persisted in its attempt to crawl into the truck with him. The damn thing didn’t even flinch with those kicks!