Transformation

  “Thanks.” He smiled as he took the pill bottle. “I get terrible headaches and my pills help me feel better.”

  “You take your pills and go to sleep, OK. And turn out that light.”

  Wendy left the big guy in his room and went back to the others. Sal, Ron, and Donna joined her in the kitchen along with Francis and Jeff. They were all sitting around a lantern at the table.

  “What now?” Ron asked. He and Donna had barely let go of each other. He was also using her as a crutch. His leg throbbed. He was starving and exhausted. Sal was struggling with old wounds too as well as hunger and fatigue. Weed was seriously injured.

  “We let him fall asleep and leave, for now.” Wendy said. “That’s my idea. We leave and find a place to lay low and be quiet.”

  The structure was coated in a fine layer of the corpse dust and there was blood and bodies everywhere. Plus the place didn’t feel safe, it had been breached, violated.

  Ron agreed. “It’d be nice to eat and sleep. Tend to our wounds.”

  “Ah shit,” Weed barked, then sighed. He looked up, sorrow in his eyes.

  “What is it?” Several people asked.

  “It’s the girl, Ana. I found her body.”

  “What happened?” Donna asked.

  “It was that old cunt… pardon me…”

  “No, cunt’s the right word,” Donna said.

  Most were teary eyed and a few were sobbing as Weed recounted what he’d found when chasing the crazy old bitch.

  They wasted no time and in the dead of night they went to wrap Ana in blankets to move her. When they lifted her she moaned.

  “She’s alive.” Sal and Jeff were trying to move her when her eyes opened, but she didn’t look totally coherent.

  “We need Ron and Donna here, now,” Sal said.

  “I’m the fastest,” Jeff said and stood to leave.

  Ana whispered. Sal lowered his head to her mouth. He looked up smiling.

  “She said for now. You’re the fastest for now.”

  “I get it,” Jeff smiled. “I’ll enjoy it while I can.” He ran to get help and tell the others the good news.

  Once they did what they could do for the wounded, taking extra care with Ana and practically forcing Francis to let his wounds be cleaned and rebound, they left the structure. When they got downstairs they found Eddie’s body. His throat had been cut ear to ear by a very sharp blade. Weed grumbled a mouthful of profanities. Sal was deeply saddened. He barely knew the kid but he would have been a great member of their little family.

  They drove to a building selected by Jeff in a nearby office park and once inside everyone started to let down. Fatigue, injuries, and deprivation had taken their toll and although they tried to catch up with each other they were fading too fast. Everyone who wasn’t asleep within minutes was on the very verge of collapse. Donna thought of how absolutely happy she was that her Ron was with her and he was relatively in good shape.

  She worried about Ana and her blood loss the most. The wound was a long deep slice and she would have to remain immobile for some time until it healed. She knew Lisa would be the most upset about …

  Dona startled everyone when she yelled out.

  “We forgot Lisa! Oh my God we forgot Lisa!”

  Everyone had forgotten about Lisa. She was still in the elevator room on the roof of the parking garage, they hoped. Wendy, Jeff, and Donna were in the best condition and took off immediately to retrieve her.

  §

  Once in the garage, they headed straight to the roof. On the way up, Wendy stopped in on Sherm. He was smiling, eyes closed and flat on his back. She saw the pill bottle on the ground. It was empty. She walked over and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one. He was getting cold. She was sad for the man, but she had no idea how she was going to deal with him in the long run. She wondered if maybe he did this on purpose.

  The three got up to the roof and the safe room’s door was open. They ran over and Lisa was gone.

  “Oh shit.” Wendy looked down. “What the fuck did I just step in?”

  They all focused their lights at her feet. She was standing in a few inches of some gelatinous goo.

  Jeff produced a screwdriver and bent down to probe the mess.

  “What is it?” Donna asked.

  Jeff held up a piece of flesh that looked like it had been cut into a perfect square. Donna took Jeff’s brighter light and looked closer at the mess. It was almost a perfect circle about twenty feet across and they were standing on the edge of it.

  “Wendy, dear, give me your hand.” Donna reached out and took her hand and helped her out of the thick mess. The pool was still widening and although Wendy had stepped out of it once already it had gathered around her feet again.

  Donna led Wendy a few yards away as she talked. Jeff stayed to probe the mess.

  “I think that’s human. I hope it’s not Lisa.”

  “What?” Wendy was scraping her feet vigorously on the concrete to remove the goo.

  “It looks like flesh, human fatty tissues, and… oh god it’s gross.” Donna visibly shuttered. “I’m trying not to puke.”

  Jeff was still bent down and examining the mess.

  “Yeah I see long lengths of veins, all the flesh is cut in to various sizes, but they are all square. And there’s all this long fibrous pink stuff.”

  Jeff stood up and as he did he held up a strand of the pinkish material. He raised his arm and as he stood it stretched like a web from the tip of his screwdriver to various points of the puddle.

  With that Donna vomited, a loud wet splashy sound.

  “Jesus.” Donna spat and cursed.

  Jeff stood. “No bones. No organs. No muscle. Not a lot of blood. I don’t know what to make of it. There are yellowish cubes that look like fat. Maybe?”

  “Shut up,” Donna hissed. She was walking off holding her stomach and grumbling.

  Jeff was confused, Wendy could see it in his face. She knew him well enough to know that he didn’t have a clue what had just happened.

  “All that.” She motioned to the goo. “It’s making her feel sick. You talking about it made her think about it more hence the sidewalk pizza.”

  Jeff winked, smiled, and nodded. He got it. He followed Donna to apologize.

  Wendy walked around the growing puddle. As the goo spread out the puddle thinned. Wendy could see all of the nasty mess. It was all lumpy and twisted. Something glimmered and she bent to look closer. It was too far into the puddle to see clearly.

  Jeff walked up on her.

  “I apologize,” he said flatly.

  “Look.” Wendy pointed out the golden glimmer in the center of the goo.

  “I figure with all your smarts you could come up with a way to get that thing.”

  “Oh yeah sure,” Jeff said and walked straight into the goo. He used a piece of bent of wire to pick up the object. It was a ring. He walked back over to Wendy.

  She was smiling at the kid. Sometimes the smartest thing one could do was the simplest.

  Jeff held up the ring and shone his light on it.

  “It’s a ring, my precious.” Jeff said.

  Wendy thought it odd that Jeff would call her precious. She looked closer at the ring.

  “Oh no.” She stepped back. “That’s Lisa’s.”

  Jeff pointed his light back down at the puddle. They both had the same horrible thought.

  As the sun came up Wendy and Donna looked over the parking lot. Mounds of ash grey powder covered the earth. Wisps were carried on the wind. They wondered what had happened to Lisa. They wondered what was taking Jeff so long.

  “What do you think happened to her?” Wendy asked.

  “I don’t know. I feel awful forgetting about her. There was no body really, so maybe… I don’t think I can forgive myself.”

  They both felt the same and looked for her as much as they could while they waited for Jeff.

  They searched the structure, called for her, but there was no sign of Lisa. They w
ere concerned for her, worried, and losing hope. Lisa was in no shape to take care of herself, if she was alive. They walked around for a while looking for clues.

  Jeff was on the roof in the corner, surrounded by satellite dishes and wires. He was on his laptop again, trying to pick up where he’d left off. He managed to connect to a general communications satellite and was using the open channel to search for others that may be trying to communicate. There was no one. He looked around for a bit and decided to leave it for now.

  He went down a level to meet up with Donna and Wendy.

  “OK. I’m ready to go.” But he wasn’t. He just didn’t know what else he could do at the moment.

  The three companions walked down and left the garage to head back to their new home. It felt bad leaving and not knowing what happened to Lisa and where she might be if she were OK. But it served no purpose to hang around. They hadn’t much hope for her as she was unable to use the ropes, or any other means of getting out of the structure, other than the elevator and that was just as they left it, up high in the dark of the second level.

  With heavy hearts, they left the structure. They would come back to look for Lisa but no one was sure they wanted to move back in, they’d discussed it. Maybe one day they would but for now the survivors decided they needed to stay away. Jeff wasn’t sure he could stay away. All of his stuff was here and it was hard won. Mostly he didn’t feel right leaving the structure without Lisa.

  51.

  Cooper and Rachael rested for a few hours in the airport. Cooper didn‘t want to but they simply had to. They were beyond exhausted. Among all the products in the kiosks in the airport they found things that could reduce their suffering from the corpse dust; eyewashes, nasal sprays, and the like. After they rested, they left.

  In the dead of the night and by the light of a bright moon, they made their way to the structure. The wind had died down and the dust was largely gone so they could walk across the parking lot. They kept an eye out, but there were no other footfalls of invisible creatures around them. It was incredibly quiet.

  As they approached the garage, Cooper felt the emptiness of the place. There seemed to be no one home. He climbed the rope and Rachael followed. They walked around the entire place to make sure no one was home. It was obvious something bad had happened there. There were signs of several vicious fights; pools of blood, bodies of several strangers, and gun casings that shone gold by the beam of his little light. He was worried about his friends and wasn’t sure what to do next.

  Rachael had stuck with Cooper the entire time. She didn’t know the place or the people. With all that had apparently happened here, it was a strong possibility that a stranger might get shot without warning. She watched as Cooper looked all over the parking garage then stopped on the roof and looked out over the city. She finally spoke.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That it’s a good thing my sister didn’t come, but I’m still worried about her.” He turned to face Rachael. “I’m sorry I dragged you all the way up here for this.”

  “You didn’t drag me, I decided to come with you.” She looked into Cooper’s eyes. She saw the worry, the fear, the loss everyone must feel who was still alive. She hugged him and debated about doing more, but before she could, a movement in the darkness across the roof caught her eye. It was just a flash of light in the dark. Whatever it was moved quickly towards them.

  “Did you see that?” She pushed away.

  Cooper turned but whatever Rachael had seen was gone.

  Suddenly a blinding and painful light exploded in the darkness. Both Cooper and Rachael had to close their eyes and turn their heads away. But Cooper knew they were vulnerable and he immediately bent down and grabbed Rachael around the waist and lifted her off her feet and started to run blindly away from the light.

  52.

  Snip.

  “What the…” Ben turned around.

  Dawn was holding one of Ben’s longest dreads in her hand and a pair of scissors in the other. She was smiling apprehensively, waiting to see what he would do.

  Amazingly, crazy, evil, cruel, unstable Ben smiled. “Did you just cut my hair?”

  Dawn smiled nervously as she held the long dread up and waggled it at him. She let it drop to the ground and snip-snipped the scissors at him. “Turn around.”

  Ben turned with a smile and sat in the street. Dawn knelt behind him and started cutting his dreads off one by one. He was ready for the change. It made sense to him because he was putting Willow behind him and this was symbolic. It was she that had started dreading his hair when they first met and it felt right that Dawn was cutting it off.

  Dawn worked for several minutes pulling and snipping. Each dread she snipped off she tossed to the side as if it were a dead animal.

  “Wow! I feel like my head is going to fly off.” Ben was rubbing the uneven short hair on his head. There was a pile of dreads at his feet.

  “Let’s go.” He smiled and took Dawn’s hand.

  “You look so cute.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I hate dreadlocks, especially on white guys. You have such a nice face.”

  Ben’s head felt cold, naked, and too light but he liked having all that heavy hair off his head. He was still surprised at himself for not getting mad at Dawn for just clipping his hair off without even asking, but he just couldn’t get mad at her. He thought it was funny as hell. She was cute. He’d never thought that way about anyone. Willow had been a good companion, a partner in crime, an insatiable fuck demon, but Dawn was his soul mate. He felt a bond with her instantly and it kind of scared him. He had never worried about someone liking him back.

  “Hey, what did you want me to help you with?”

  Dawn stopped and faced Ben.

  “You remembered.” She kissed him long and passionately.

  He pulled away first. “Come on. Let’s get going.”

  Dawn walked him over to where Hope’s body lay. They debated what to do with it and decided to try and bury it. Dawn wept as they lifted her spoiling body into a vehicle they found along the way. They drove around until they found a cemetery.

  The Santa Clara Mission Cemetery was a spacious plot of land with small roads leading between blocks of headstones. There were a few crypts and they found one that looked befitting of Dawn’s beloved sister. It took Ben almost an hour to find and utilize a variety of tools to get the marble slab away from the crypt. He dragged the coffin out and pried it open. He dumped the body on the grass.

  Dawn and Ben heaved Hope’s body into the casket, shut the lid, and shoved it back into the crypt without ceremony. Ben leaned the marble slab across the opening and they left. It was late afternoon.

  They ditched the car as the smell of Hope’s body permeated it. They found a new car and headed north. They were quiet. Dawn was looking out of the passenger side window.

  “I’m kind of glad she’s gone.”

  Ben grunted his acknowledgement.

  “I mean, I loved her but she was a real pain in the ass. Am I wrong for being happy she’s gone?”

  Ben shrugged. He was wondering where they could settle in and party.

  “Well, I did my best with her and I didn’t kill her, so I guess I’m OK.”

  “Sure,” Ben was barely listening. He was hungry.

  Dawn liked that Ben was such a great listener. She wasn’t used to someone who just listened.

  “What did you want my help with?” Dawn asked.

  “Ah, don’t worry about it.”

  “No really. My thing took a lot longer than I thought it would and I said I would help you. So, what is it?”

  Ben was quiet for a moment.

  “It doesn’t feel that important anymore.”

  Dawn lightly punched his arm. “At least tell me.”

  “Just payback for some assholes. But now it doesn’t seem so important. I mean I got you now, and I don’t want to waste time on all that.”

  “What did these assholes do?�
��

  Ben thought of all the shit that transpired from the time he met Rachael, that Cooper dude escaped, and how it all led to him meeting Dawn. He smiled and shook his head.

  “They put us together.” He grabbed her inner thigh and dragged her lithe body across the seat and next to him. He put his arm around her.

  “Maybe if we run into them we can fuck with them or something. I just want to move on with you and leave all this shit behind. We have great times ahead of us.”

  Dawn smiled. That was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard.

  They drove back past the runways and towards the nearest onramp to the highway. They sped up the wrong way up and onto an elevated expressway. The sun was setting. Ben stopped the car and got out. Dawn followed.

  They stood arm in arm and watched as the sun set.

  Ben was looking over the world. He was excited to get on the road with Dawn. This was a rare moment in his life as he wasn’t angry, bored, or high as a kite. He was at peace. As the sun dropped, Ben saw silhouetted on the roof of a large structure, movement. Dawn, his soulmate and fellow predator sensed the subtle shift in his energy and looked in the direction he was alerted to. They were both instinctive hunters and any movement needed to be run down and investigated.

  They looked at each other and smiled. They didn’t even need to speak to know that they were both about to stalk potential prey.

  They walked hand and hand into the gathering darkness towards the movement that tickled their senses and peaked their lusts.

  53.

  Cooper had Rachael slung over his shoulder and was running in the dark away from the light. He needed to put her down soon. He got about twenty feet.

  “Cooper! It’s me!”

  It was Jeff’s voice.

  The light flipped off. The darkness was complete until their eyes adjusted. Cooper called to Rachael in the darkness.

  “Come on, it’s cool.”

  Jeff lit up a less intense lantern. He rushed Cooper to hug him. It was a proper bro hug.