by Sean Platt
Teagan felt dizzy again.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
::Episode 5::
(Fifth Episode Of Season One)
“WELCOME DARKNESS”
Forty-Eight
Luis Torres
Oct. 16
Early morning
New York City
“I have to find them.” Brent said, staring at the thousands of bodies piled in Times Square. “I have to see for myself.”
“There’s too many.” Luis said, “Even if your wife and son are in there, and we have no reason to think they are, we’d be here all day searching. And then we’ll miss the ferry to Black Island. Plus, we’ve still got Comatose Joe waiting in the car.”
“Go without me,” Brent said, walking through rows of stacked corpses, searching for any sign of his family. “I’m staying here.”
“You can’t stay here, those creatures are gonna come back.”
“I don’t care!” Brent said, fighting tears. “Let them. I need to know.”
Luis shook his head, letting out a long sigh and scanning the fog for signs of more creatures.
But it was just them and the dead ... for now. Staring at the bodies, he found it curious none seemed to have suffered injury. Whoever or whatever killed these people, it probably wasn’t the monsters he and Brent had encountered. For one, the creatures would have left the corpses in pieces. And he doubted the bodies would be so neatly stacked.
Whoever did the stacking, Luis was guessing it was humans. And the only people organized and with manpower enough to dispose of bodies in such an orderly manner would be the government. And if it were the government, Luis had to wonder how deeply they were involved in whatever happened. How much did they know?
If he and his group had known of the event before it happened, odds are, someone else did, too. Someone on the inside. Someone prepared. He doubted the government had anything to do with whatever caused the deaths and disappearances of so many people. Even though he knew his government was capable of atrocities over the years, he doubted it would actually kill so many of its own people. Which meant they likely knew something was going to happen, maybe even what, but had no actual part in it. Nor could they prevent it.
So, they did what they could, collected the dead, and organized.
Even though Luis had dreamed of this event and had known many would die, it did nothing to prepare him for the reality or the pain of seeing so many bodies. Staring at the faces of so many dead men, women, and children, many with wide-open and vacant eyes, pierced a part of his heart he’d worked most of his life to harden. Watching Brent move from stack to stack, searching for his family, dug the blade deeper.
“What are you gonna do when we don’t find them?” Luis asked. “These bodies are stacked! Are we gonna start moving people, peeling them off the piles like we’re looking for the TV remote in a pile of clothes in our bedroom?”
“You don’t have to do anything!” Brent snapped, “Just go. I’ll look.”
“And what then?” Luis asked, “What will you do if you do find them? It won’t bring them back, you know.”
Brent stopped his search, and glared at Luis.
“Don’t you want to know?” Brent asked, stepping toward Luis, eyes red. “Don’t you want to know if your daughter is dead or just missing? I mean, if she’s missing, then there’s still hope we can find her, right? Or did you just write her off as gone and you’re ready to move on?”
“I didn’t write her off,” Luis said calmly, letting the accusation slide beneath Brent’s grief.
Brent stepped even closer to Luis, a bit too close, puzzled.
“Really? Then why haven’t we been looking for her? I can’t think of anything besides finding my family, yet you seem like you don’t even want to look for yours.”
Any other person, any other time, Luis would’ve knocked a clown out for talking like that to him. He could feel his nostrils flaring and heart starting to race. He slowed his breathing to counter the growing rage. But it wasn’t enough to calm him completely. Finally, he gave in to his need to snap back.
“Maybe I’m not all tore up because I don’t feel guilty. Because I didn’t ignore my family for years, only to be filled with regret the moment they’re gone. I spent time with them knowing that nothing is forever. Whether it’s cancer or the end of the world, I knew someday the clock would run out. And I lived and loved like my family actually mattered to me.”
Brent’s eyes narrowed, and he took a swing at Luis.
Luis could have easily dodged the punch completely, but moved just far enough that Brent’s punch landed harmlessly on Luis’s right shoulder rather than his jaw. Luis figured it was probably the first time Brent had ever thrown a punch.
“Feel better?” Luis asked, voice still somewhat calm.
Brent stared, face flush with guilt, and turned away.
“Listen, bro,” Luis said, “I know you need resolution, one way or another. I get it. But at the same time, there’s no way you can search through all these bodies before another pack of those uglies comes hunting you down. I would stay and help if I thought it would do any good, but there’s too many for us to take on by ourselves, even if we had a week.”
“I have to know,” Brent said, meeting Luis’s eyes. “If I leave now, I’ll never know for certain.”
“Whether they’re dead or just vanished, the fact is, they’re gone for right now,” Luis said. “Maybe you’ll see them again on this side, or maybe in heaven, but the only thing we have for sure is right now. And right now, there’s nothing we can do to bring them back.”
“Aren’t you even curious to know if your little girl is here?” Brent asked.
“I’ve known for years this day would come. I knew I’d have to let go. It doesn’t make it easier, and I wish like hell it didn’t happen, but I’m not still clinging to straws either. I’m not saying I moved on, but at the same time, I can’t hope for something I know won’t happen. In my dreams, she was gone. And I can’t question the dreams.”
Brent scanned the rows of bodies again, likely adding them in his head. While Manhattan was home to more than two million people, no more than a few thousand bodies could have been stacked in the Square, maybe as many as 100,000. But that left plenty still unaccounted for. For all Luis knew, more bodies were on the next block, or the one after that, or hell, stuffed in buildings and heaped ceiling high in Madison Square Garden, but they couldn’t search all of Manhattan. Not with those monsters scouring the city. Brent was probably realizing what Luis already knew: Their best shot was to find whoever was broadcasting from Black Island and hope others had made it to safety.
“Okay,” Brent said, shoulders hunched in defeat, “Let’s go.”
“It’s gonna be okay,” Luis said, even though he didn’t believe it.
They arrived at the car to find Joe in worse shape than when they left.
Black veins covered his face, and his skin was slick with something slightly thick and wet. His breathing was labored, and eyes still closed. Luis considered feeling for a pulse, but the dark splotches on the guy’s face looked infectious. The only thing that kept Luis from putting the old man on the side of the street and leaving him there was the concern in Brent’s eyes. This wasn’t just Brent’s maintenance man, it was the last person he knew in the world. His only connection to his past, and given how shaken Brent already was, Luis didn’t want to risk pushing him over the edge by severing it.
“You okay, Joe?” Brent asked, as he climbed into the back seat.
No response from Joe.
“We need to get him help,” Luis said as he got in the front seat and keyed the ignition, wanting to get to the ferry as fast as possible so Joe wouldn’t puke, bleed, or die in his car. “Hopefully, they’ll have someone at Black Island.”
“Daddy?” Ben’s voice said, again from Joe’s mouth.
Luis glanced in the rearview and saw Brent’s torment.
“I’m so ... ” Ben’s voice said again,
voice so weak it seemed as if Joe could hardly form a breath much less a word.
“What?” Brent asked leaning forward in his seat to better hear Joe’s murmurs.
Joe’s head rose, but his eyes were still closed. “I’m so ... hrmph ... ” the voice said again, though this time it sounded like a mixture of Ben’s voice and Joe’s.
“What’s he saying?” Brent asked.
“Beats the hell outta me,” Luis said, confused and just wanting the old man out of his car.
Brent leaned closer, and Joe inched forward with great effort, eyes still closed, as if he were unconscious.
“I’m so ... hungry,” Joe said, his voice growing.
“Hungry?” Brent asked.
Luis looked over just as Joe’s eyes shot open, no longer white, but pitch-black. Joe’s mouth opened impossibly wide, the flesh at the corners of his mouth ripped and bled black down his chin. Joe, suddenly alive and energized, thrust forward, grabbing Brent’s head and trying to bring it closer to bite.
Luis slammed on the brakes, causing Joe and Brent, neither of them wearing seat belts, to lurch forward. Brent hit the back of Luis’s seat and snapped back into the back seat. Joe sailed forward, head smacking the front window hard and leaving a red splotch on the bullet-resistant glass.
Joe screamed, an unearthly banshee cry, somewhere between man and monster, then turned to Luis, leaping onto him. Luis’s guns were out of reach, in the back seat. The shotgun on the center console had slid forward and fallen on the floor in front of Joe when Luis hit the brakes. Luis tried to push Joe back against the passenger door. With one hand on Joe’s thin chest, he kept his right hand tightened around Joe’s forehead, struggling to keep Joe’s open mouth from biting him.
“Gimme a gun!” Luis shouted back at Brent, who he could not see in the backseat.
Suddenly, something cracked in Joe’s neck, and he swiveled his head sideways and bit down hard on Luis’s arm.
“Fuck!” Luis screamed, reaching back frantically with his left hand and finding the door handle, pulling it open, then unclicking his seatbelt, and falling backward to give himself enough room to kick at Joe, awkwardly at first, then finally with enough force to push the fucker off him. Hanging half out of the car, Luis kicked hard, pressing both feet into Joe’s chest, trapping him against the passenger door as Brent scrambled in the back seat.
“Gun!” Luis screamed.
Joe’s head shook violently back and forth so fast it was nearly a blur, screaming and clicking the entire time, black spittle flying from it and landing all over Luis and his car. Joe reached down and grabbed hold tight of Luis’ leg, clenching down impossibly hard for an old man.
Luis screamed, sure the thing that was once Joe would rip right through his flesh. With renewed fear and anger, he kicked both his legs up with all the force he could muster, found Joe’s jaw, and kicked it straight back. He kicked again, repeatedly, as hard and fast as he could, bashing Joe’s skull into the window until it was a bloody pulp and his body stopped twitching.
Luis hopped from the car, screaming, adrenaline coursing through him, air stinging his lungs as he gulped deep mouthfuls. Brent climbed from the back seat, gun in hand. Luis grabbed it from him, ran around to the passenger side, opened the door, and yanked Joe’s body out, then threw it to the road, and fired four shots into the corpse.
“Fuuuuuuck!” Luis screamed, wiping at his stinging, bloody arm. The injury was worse than he’d thought, a mouth-sized chunk of flesh torn from his right forearm.
Brent ran to him, “What the hell happened?”
“He was infected,” Luis said. “He was turning into one of those things.”
“Holy shit,” Brent said, staring at Joe’s body, eyes wide in disbelief. It took a moment, but Brent’s eyes soon found Luis’s injury. “What ... ?”
“It bit me,” Luis said, feeling fear for his own life for the first time in decades.
Forty-Nine
Boricio Wolfe
Oct. 18
Somewhere in Alabama
The door whined open, and Boricio smiled.
Testosterone must not have been expecting trouble because he sauntered in like he owned half the South. Two guards were behind him, neither one holding the guns in their holsters.
Stupid shits.
“Now!” Boricio growled.
The door was open just three seconds when the flat of Boricio’s bat was beating the air straight from Testosterone’s lungs. He hit the floor with a throttled wail and both hands curled around his gut. Boricio left him writhing, then turned his gnashing teeth to the other two guards.
Killing the delicate was like popping a zit, and the two flowers in the doorway were just a few seconds from wilting.
The two guards reached for their guns. Boricio swung the bat and broke the knuckles of the first guard before he’d even unfastened his holster. Boricio dropped the bat, grabbed the man by his neck, spun him around, and reached into his holster. Boricio pulled out the guard’s Colt, and shot him once in the chest, followed by a second shot to his head on the way down.
A geyser of blood rained onto Testosterone, who was still thrashing around on the ground, though quickly catching his breath. He opened his mouth as if about to scream for help, and Boricio pressed the Colt hard against his cheekbone.
“Gimme one reason,” Boricio said, shoving the gun so hard into the man’s face it would leave a bruise.
It was one-on-four on the other side of the room. The remaining guard had his gun drawn. “Stand down!” he screamed, waving the gun back and forth at Team Boricio, who surrounded him. Adam and Charlie stood behind the guard while Manny and Jack stood in front of him.
He obviously wasn’t the one who signed the checks, but he might also have been given orders to keep the prisoners alive, since despite his boss licking the concrete and his comrade already growing cold, the guard just stood there with a shaking gun and hollow eyes.
Stupid fucking asshole. That right there is the last dumb-ass decision of your wasted life. Pull the trigger five times and BAM! Ashes to ashes, we all fall down. Maybe you’d manage to get us all, maybe you wouldn’t. But if you don’t pull that trigger in the next two seconds, you’re dead no matter what you get around to doing.
“Stand down!” the guard barked again.
“Shoot him ... ” Testosterone finally found his voice long enough to issue a command. Boricio smacked Testosterone in the head with the butt of the pistol, then stood up.
Boricio flashed the gunman his most winning smile and raised his hands in the air. “Not so fast,” he said. “I can do the math, I surrender.” He kept inching forward. “My hands are up. You got me.”
“Stand down or I will shoot you in the face!”
Boricio stopped, 10 feet from the guard. Would’ve been plenty close if the flunky wasn’t waving a .45, but it was a few feet farther up shit creek than Boricio would’ve liked considering Team Boricio was unarmed and G.I. Joe was just seconds from gathering another round of breath to order them all dead.
“Chill out, man. I said I surrender. Need me to start speaking French so’s I can prove it?” Boricio kneeled, laid the gun on the floor, barrel first, then stood with his hands in the air.
He kicked the gun across the room just past the guard and between Adam and Charlie. “See,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I’m surrendered, just like I told ya.”
The prisoners were all too scared to move.
Boricio heard Testosterone’s heavy breath rising from the floor behind him.
Team Boricio is made up of flash-frozen idiots. If I was standing over there, that fucker’s gun would already be in his mouth. They may as well be playing pocket pool. If you’re on Team Boricio, you best be useful.
Boricio charged toward a surprised Manny, tackling and then spinning him around until Boricio’s eyes were bolted on the flunky with Manny between them.
Boricio hurled Manny into the guard then dove to the ground.
Testosterone was bac
k on his feet, but Boricio had already hit the floor, sweeping the guard’s feet from under him. The guard’s head landed with a loud crack on the concrete. Boricio lifted him by the hair, then sent his head back to the floor with a fatal aftershock, coating the floor in the man’s blood.
“The fuck man!” Manny screamed.
“Tell me I’ve been naughty later,” Boricio growled and blew a kiss, then turned to face Testosterone.
“Not so fast,” Testosterone said, aiming his gun behind Boricio. Predator’s guess said it was at one of the prisoners trying to retrieve a weapon.
“Why don’t you kick that over here instead?” Testosterone said.
The gun slid across the concrete and through Testosterone’s splayed legs, landing just behind him, a few feet from the wall. He smiled and turned his gun to Boricio. “You know,” he said, “We were just on our way in here to deal with you. We were gonna take our sweet, sweet time, have ourselves a little fun.”
Pile of shit wants to motherfucking monologue. Tell me how big and bad he is, and how he’s gonna make me pay. But no shots have been fired, so if they were really planning on taking their sweet, sweet time, and I expect they were, no one else is coming in for a while. I get that gun, it’s game over.
Boricio said, “Easy to be the Grim Reaper’s right hand when you’re waving a loaded gun. And the way you probably toss off all the lonely boys around here, your trigger finger’s probably even faster than that tiny pecker of yours.”
Testosterone laughed, then crossed the floor to the baseball bat, keeping his aim on Boricio. He kneeled, picked up the bat, then slipped his gun back in its holster.
“Bullets wouldn’t be much fun,” he said. “I’d rather beat the loud right out of your mouth. Maybe I’ll celebrate with a shot or two to the kneecap once I’m through. Or maybe … ”