Waiting to Die (Book 2): Wasting Away Read online

  Wasting Away

  Richard M. Cochran

  Cover art by Peter Fussey

  Wasting Away

  Richard M. Cochran

  An R. M. Cochran book

  ISBN - 13: 978-1489553843

  ISBN - 10: 1489553843

  Wasting Away copyright © 2013

  by Richard M. Cochran.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  Wasting Away is the second book in the Waiting to Die Series.

  Chapter 1

  There was a distant crash and I turned in time to see them coming through the gates. Violence dripped across their faces. Hundreds thick, the bodies toppled over one another as the chain link split and bulged along the posts. I pulled the weapon from my side and fired into the crowd.

  A ricochet sounded as a stray bullet cast from an overturned car along the front gate. Another round hit with a dense slap and a body fell, becoming swallowed by the horde that overtook it from behind.

  They surged through, twisted limbs groping for traction within the slick footing beneath. They clawed their way over the fallen. I could hear the smears of decayed flesh as it parted from bone and blood and tore from the weight of all the others crashing down from above. There was the crackle of splintering bone and I was off through the junkyard, winding my way through broken wrecks and rusted parts heaped on the ground.

  There was a woman staring at me on the other side of a beige sedan. Her face was a patch of raw meat and exposed gristle. She snarled at me and threw herself through the open door of the wreck. She hit the window on the driver’s side with a dull smack and began to claw along the slick surface, smearing it with rot. I pointed the pistol at the window and sidestepped a grime covered battery that was submerged in the dirt.

  As I came around the front of the car, the corpse slung itself over the dashboard and became wedged within a bulging pleat of broken glass. As the body writhed, waste smeared in circular patterns, leaving reds and browns along the crisscross of spider webs inside. Through a small clearing of windshield, devoid of the frosted lines of shattered glass, I saw a flash of the woman’s face. Dried to a scab that leaked at the edges, only a hint of humanity remained; a pleading look from a starving mouth as her eyes squinted at me through the obstructive cracks.

  I turned in place as a half dozen corpses gathered behind me. My way was blocked by a stack of rusted cars. Jagged metal twisted out of the mass of crushed wreckage. Glass cracked beneath my feet. I lumbered up the first wrung of tainted steel, careful of the shards that could cut me as sure as any creature’s teeth.

  Their hands grazed the cuff of my pants and I pulled my legs up and fired a stray shot into the group. I heard a hiss and looked down as a set of crooked teeth came within inches of my ankle. I held tightly to a jutting portion of car door and fired again, landing a shot between the creature’s eyes.

  Pulling myself higher, I came to the top of the pile and threw my leg over onto the concaved roof of the uppermost car. Bodies wound through the debris below. Hands were held high as the creatures grasped for me. The sick white eyes of the dead pleaded with me to fall.

  Behind me were rows of crushed cars piled on top of one another. At the far end of the yard was a wall made up of stacked cargo containers. I pointed myself in that direction and leapt to another pile of mangled steel.

  My pack thumped across my back as I landed. From the corner of my eye, I saw an arm poke out of the wreckage. I stomped down on its wrist as a head poked up through a bent truck frame. I carefully placed my shot and the corpse’s head snapped back, an enlightened gaze suddenly came over its eyes like all of life’s mysteries had suddenly become clear.

  At the next row I missed my step and my legs fell out underneath me. I hit the ground hard, and the empty water bottles in my pack cracked in response. I had the air knocked out of me and I struggled to catch my breath. All I could see was stars as my vision went white.

  A howling scream sounded out to my left, followed by several more as I shook my head, trying desperately not to lose consciousness.

  A corpse threw itself at me and I twisted under its weight, searching for the pistol I had dropped when I fell. I tried to turn my head to get my bearings, but it was inches from my face and I couldn’t move. My hand clasped something cold and I withdrew it from the dry ground and swung. A dull crack and the corpse’s head spun to the side before it howled and came at me again. I ripped the monster across the face, battering it over and over again with the steel pipe. Every blow released scraps of skin until only a stripped jawbone remained. I tucked my leg under the creature’s waist and held back its gnashing teeth by placing the bar under its chin. It took everything I had to flip the monster over. I straddled the gore beneath me and brought the pipe down over my head. The creature’s skull exploded from the impact, sending fragments of bone and brain out along the dirt.

  A handful of cadavers neared from behind an old Volkswagen as I searched for the pistol. I spotted the gleaming metal a few feet away and launched myself from the body beneath me. I rolled in the dirt and came up with the weapon and turned over on my back. I fired and hit the nearest corpse’s cheek. A spray of rot slapped against the pile of crushed cars I had fell from. I released my breath and aimed. The gun cracked and the creature’s scalp turned to pink mist.

  I was on my feet before the others could get around the wreckage, twisting my way through the maze of junk. A grizzly face met me at the next turn and reached out, catching me by my collar. I tucked the pistol beneath its arm as it pulled me closer and wedged the weapon under its chin. I fired as the cadaver opened its maw. A scatter of teeth unfurled from its scalp and misted in the air.

  I wiped the fallout from my face. Bits of skin and bone clung to my beard as I tried to shake off what I had seen.

  I took off again and made it a few hundred feet when an arm darted out from beneath an old pickup truck. I whirled in place, trying to sidestep it, but it caught the cuff of my pants and I fell, face first into the dirt. Head, shoulders, and a single arm emerged from the undercarriage. A stray rib poked out from where its abdomen should have been. Its tongue lapped out from between a mess of teeth as it pulled itself closer to me. Sitting up, I spread my legs and fired. The creature’s face caved in and an eye came loose and slapped the side of the truck before falling to the ground. I lumbered in the dirt and pulled myself up to my feet. I was panting hard, trying to catch my breath as the group that had been following me emerged from the far side of the pickup.

  I fired the pistol and caught one of the corpses in the shoulder, turning it in place. The others howled as I dropped the clip and fished for another in my jacket pocket. With a click, the clip slid into place and I pulled back the slide, loading a round.

  I tensed my finger on the trigger and shot wildly as I ran. I took a curve to the left and came to a tower of cargo containers. I slid the pistol into the small of my back and ran at the side of the first container. It had been misplaced when it was stacked and I was able to jump up and catch the top support. I pulled myself up and edged my leg along the top. There was only a foot of room before the next container gleaned off at an angle, giving me just enough room to press my chest against the side and shuffle my heels over the edge. At the end there was a small opening and I slid myself through as I heard the dead moan a short distance away.
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  I poked my head through the gap that looked out beyond the wall of containers. A small field greeted me, extending to a set of railroad tracks and a sound barrier wall that I knew promised a neighborhood just beyond.

  I threw my leg over the side and lowered myself down as the dead began to slap the container behind me. There came a mournful howl as I set my feet to firm ground once more. My chest heaved as I struggled to run again. Dust slowly rose from my footfalls. Night tore away the last remnants of day as a bird took flight behind me, its wings beating out a type of freedom only it could know.

  Chapter 2

  Cool winds traced out along the gutters and played at my face, whipping through strained memories I had thought were lost.

  I remembered her face, the subtle lines that grew from worry, from happiness, and finally from death. If it could have gone any other way, I would have accepted my fate and died with her. In a way, the dead are the lucky ones. They never had to watch the world fall apart around them. They didn’t have to look in the eyes of the ones they loved and decide their end. They didn’t have to live with guilt and regret, pain and indecision.

  Along the road, a stray grocery bag drifted in the air, lowering, settling, and taking flight once more. It inflated like a lung, scurried across the street, and became slack. It lay there, motionless in the gutter. It turned and lifted once more when another gust took it along to find a more suitable place to rest.

  I breathed a sigh and wound my way through the trash that littered the street. Candy wrappers and newsprint fluttered by. A spinning water bottle worked its way to nowhere. All the things we left behind to remember us.

  My back ached. Tired, overused muscles tensed as I staggered along. There was a gated community across the street with a block wall surrounding it. In the moonlight, bodies crossed in silhouette. Long, willowy shapes against stone and mortar, pinned against the shadows where light refused to breathe. Bloody bodies swayed beneath dead street lamps, mindless to the world they had created, searching endlessly for someone like me.

  I turned and made my way along the driveway at the end of a row of cookie cutter homes. I wound along a narrow walkway into the back yard through an unlatched gate and crossed the patio to a partially opened window above an empty flower bed.

  I tucked my fingers below the trim and pulled the window open. Hoisting myself up, I crawled through the opening, using the rough stucco to gain traction up the wall. Lonely voices echoed from the street, still searching. Inside, I slipped over the counter and gently placed my feet on the floor. The air was dank, a faint hint of old cooking oil mixed with neglect and age, the scent of weeks and months gone by. It was a smell that the owners would never return to.

  There was a light drumming of feet outside, dragging over the cool asphalt, slipping every other step. I checked the first door that I came to. Inside, a stocked pantry, shelves lined in brimming mason jars, cans of beans and soup, boxes of cereal, and instant meals. I ran my flashlight over every item, a smile widening across my face - a smile for simple pleasures.

  I pulled up the ring on the can and I left the lid on my finger as I drank the contents. I didn’t waste time savoring it. I let it slide down my throat and slurped at the last remnants of syrup when it was all but gone.

  Through a small hallway, I found the living room. I placed my pack on the sofa and let the flashlight wander. A dusty film played in the glow as I let the light drop toward the floor. I had seen the same scene everywhere I had been. Everything aged and left discarded.

  I took a seat next to my pack and watched the dead through grimy windows. They wandered past; troubled, long faces searching in the darkness. I could make out subtle differences in each one – a gash where an eye had once been, a circle of rot, exposing feral teeth above a black gum line, all the sights the night should have taken from my sight.

  I slowly pulled the shades, letting them drift down along the window without notice. I lay back on the sofa and placed my pack beneath my head as a pillow. The faint hymn of unearthly voices cooed me to sleep as I stared off at the ceiling, wondering about coming days.

  In the morning, just after I awoke, I looked through the family’s photo albums. The images made me smile. We’re all the same, really. We all pose the same way when a camera is held to our face. We give our own special look so the photo won’t taint our image; bright smiles and charming glances. We suck in our guts and purse our lips, hoping that in the future, others won’t laugh at who we had been. There was a time when I too had looked that way. There was a time when I cared about appearances.

  I heard the yelping of dogs, fierce and angry. I placed the photo album back on the shelf and returned to the living room. I looked out through the window and watched while a feral pack of dogs attacked a corpse. I watched with quiet eyes as they tore the thing to pieces. I watched as the creature struggled with the strays and flailed its arms as if it were pleading for them to stop. I watched as it writhed on the ground with stumps, torn and disfigured, trying to bite back. No matter how much it protested and tried to defend itself, the animals kept coming until it was no more than pink bone and a voiceless, screaming face. It lasted for hours.

  I wished I could have felt something for it. I wanted to feel guilty for watching idle while it was being eaten. I wanted to feel happiness for its death or hate for what it was, but I couldn’t manage an emotion. Its eyes showed no pain as it was torn apart. The only voice it offered against its finality was a low, sorrowful moan before its tongue was ripped from its mouth.

  Its carcass reminded me of something from the Serengeti, some leftover husk waiting for the vultures to finish it off. Gleaming white bone poked upward, pink along the joints. Rows of ribs were exposed to the morning sun. A gore stained spine below, racked with teeth marks where flesh had parted so slowly. Its head still moved; twitching as it blinked away at the light that burnt its eyes. I wondered what it had become. If it wasn’t a threat any longer, if not the thing of nightmares, what was it?

  I might have remained in that house for weeks, it was hard to tell. There was no calendar to mark my time. I read through the books that lined the shelves. I ate the food that was stored in the pantry and I watched the pack of wild dogs return to tear away at the dead.

  There were times when I would go into the upstairs bedroom and sit on the bed in the child’s room and stare at the toys that were still scattered on the floor as if playtime had never ended. I would consider my own childhood and how I grew into the man that had survived the end. I would think of my wife and the times we spent together. I played with the idea of how I would die out here alone and there wouldn’t be anyone to remember me. If someone else happened to survive, they would come across my remains and pass it by as easily as they would pass any other. I would become an artifact like all the other scattered remains.

  Somehow, I managed to stay quiet in that small house. The dead that wandered outside never knew I was there. I was this invisible, needless thing in a world of death and rot and slowly grinding teeth. In my mind, I was screaming, but no one knew I was there.

  I took to leaving the house more and more, returning at night to the safety of the walls and the familiarity of the family’s possessions. I moved slowly. I kept my breath relaxed. I shuffled past them as if I were one of their own. I was an elusive thing, neither living nor dead. It was as if I were in some type of purgatory saved for special sinners, too foolish to die when the dying was good.

  I gained great distances over the city, searching for a sign that there were still people alive somewhere. At times, I would spend the night in an office building or a convenience store as I made my way deeper into the city’s center. Sometimes, I would spend days out among the dead, hoping to find even the smallest trace of life. But I always returned to the house I had found when I first arrived.

  There was something comforting about coming ‘home’. It might have been the pictures on the wall or the well worn furniture which almost demanded to be used. I wasn’t sure. Al
l that I knew was that I felt pulled back to the house when I was away for too long.

  Somehow, inside, it was like watching from afar. It was as if it were happening somewhere else and I was looking through the screen, safely tucked away behind glass and plaster and delusion.

  Within the view of the window, a corpse wandered by. The simplicity of death wavered over its gaze as crawling things came out from under its skin. The bugs ate away and returned back inside for another bite. Only a few feet from the window, the creature simply sighed and wandered off out of sight.

  That night I fell asleep in the living room again as I counted the bodies that filtered out through the street. I ignored their moans and concentrated on their swaying steps. Their footfalls, tapping along the road and shuffling through the grass, set my mind to ease. As long as they kept moving, they didn’t know I was there, just a few feet away.

  I could hear the house settling in the darkness, a dry crack, a quick pop, and the dead sounding out in return. The minutes were fleeting as I awoke like this every few hours. I would look around the room, making sure I was still alone and adjust the pack under my head. I would stare at the ceiling again, a particular dot that smudged the paint. Eventually, I fell back to sleep.

  I awoke to the first rays of sun filtering through the dirty, smeared window. In a drifting haze, the light caressed my face and touched my eyes. I thought of rolling over and pressing myself tighter to the back of the couch and burying my face in my pack, but I let out a sigh and slowly rose.

  My back was tight, protesting the way I had slept. I twisted while I sat at the edge of the couch and nursed the muscles back into place. I stared out through the window and scowled below the glare at the silhouettes across the street. The shambling forms teetered and swayed, engrossed with their own motions. The mindless things rocked in place and staggered once more on a journey only they could know. For a moment, I wondered what it was that kept them moving. I pondered every step. I cursed them under my breath.