Waiting to Die (Book 2): Wasting Away Page 6

  I changed my clothes in the middle of the store, selecting a sturdy pair of hiking shoes, cargo pants and a button-up shirt. I grabbed a new pack from the assortment on the shelf and filled it with dehydrated camping rations and packs of emergency survival water. I tossed in a couple pairs of extra socks, a new flint stick, and a first aid kit. I stuffed a couple disposable lighters into one of the outside pockets and spotted a spool of paracord on one of the stock shelves as I turned around. I grabbed a couple of spools and tucked them away in the pack as well.

  A large section of boxes fell behind me, scattering fishing tackle across the floor. I looked up as a creature staggered into view.

  The grey, bloated corpse stumbled through the mess that separated us. It wore a stained blue polo shirt and jeans. A rasping snarl rose from its mouth, releasing scraps of decay from its throat and out onto the assortment of stains on its shirt. I backed away, dropping my pack. The creature lurched forward as I fumbled around for something I could defend myself with. My hand clasped onto something cold and hard as I continued to stare at the corpse. I lifted, swung out and hit the creature just under its jaw. There was a loud crack and the thing was down, clawing at the ground, trying to get up. I held the weapon above me and bludgeoned the thing again. Its head slammed into the floor as it tried to rise. I swung again and again as it continued to move. I didn’t stop until its head snapped away from its body. I held the shirt rack to my side and panted. Blood oozed from the stump, gurgling out thick, acrid filth.

  I tried to calm myself as I stepped back, watching the vile thing twitching its last impulse of undeath. I dropped the rack to the floor. A massive dent along the shaft glistened with thick, brown blood. For a long time I remained quiet, listening for any others. The store fell quiet as my heart slowed. I was alone.

  Over time, I had seen so many of them that I should have become accustomed to it, but the truth was that each new corpse brought exclusive nightmares. Each body was its own terror, its own repulsion. In death, every person had their own gruesome nature, their own individual horror. A lot of it had to do with how they died, or how long they had been dead. Each form of decay was more shocking than the last as time took its toll.

  For me, it was more shocking to see one without the signs of battle, without the dangling scraps of meat and maggot ridden flesh. The manager had been locked up in relative safety since the beginning. His face still showed humanity. When the disaster had started, it was hard to tell the difference between attacker and victim. We all wore the same expression of panic and aggression. It wasn’t until the bodies began to rot that I could tell what they really were, truly know who it was that I was supposed to be fighting.

  I watched through the front display window as the dead began to thin out. My encounter with the manager had attracted a mob, and it took hours for them to calm down and begin to spread out.

  The dead are the most basic form of predator. In a way, it’s as if they hunger for the hunt just as much as they hunger for the flesh. I’ve wondered if it’s the pheromones that are released from fear that set them off, as if they can smell the anxiety, the terror that leaked out through my skin.

  In the back of my mind, I’ve always thought of them as animals. The way they seem to call to one another, the way they hunt and kill in groups, it’s as if they were nothing more than a pack of rabid wolves. Maybe humans sat at the top of the food chain for too long and the dead were destined to rise, destined to thin out the herd. And from the mad city streets through to the rural towns, the dead are winning. They have picked us clean.

  Once they moved on and my heart calmed, I took a jacket from one of the displays on my way out and escaped through the back door that led out into an alleyway. I was out on the streets again, searching for a place to be. Through all of this, that is all that I’ve ever wanted; just a place to exist, a place to call home, a place to rest my head.

  Chapter 9

  Lonely days turned to blackened nights as I trudged across wasted land. I would have wondered if the rest of the world was the same way, but I already knew it was. With how quickly everything changed, I could only assume that even the most secluded places had fallen to this hell. A single bite, a scrape of decaying fingernail across fresh skin and the conversion began. I’ve thought of it over and again as I made my way. It could be a germ, a bacterium, a virus that made us all mad in death, rendered us helpless until we eventually succumb to that most terrible hunger. I’ve considered biological warfare and alien organisms, government cover-ups and terrorist cells bent on global domination. But when it’s all said and done, the only thing that truly mattered was that I was alive and they were dead. Real life rarely gives you the answers you seek and sometimes you just have to be happy you’re still breathing.

  “Government conspiracies, alien organisms, terrorism?” she questioned. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “Not now,” I said. “At the time, I was just searching for answers, trying to find a logical reason why it was all happening. I’ve never believed that my government was always looking out for my best interest. I’ve always thought of myself as a cog in a machine that was too big to fail. If I suddenly broke down, there were others to take my place. If I resisted, I would be replaced. I kept quiet and did my job, working my life away with all the others who were stuck in the same situation.”

  Mary tapped the side of the chair in thought. “I didn’t fit in anywhere,” she said. “No matter what type of job I held, I tended to wear out my welcome in a few months. Looking back at it now, I really put a lot on my husband’s shoulders. All of those jobs were just temporary. I never aimed for a career; I did what I had to do to bring in an income. As far as the government goes, I didn’t look at them as the enemy. I saw them as a nuisance. Every time we turned around, my husband and I were paying new taxes on top of old taxes. With the little that we had, we kept finding new ways to go broke, whether it was paying for the smog check on our cars or another hike at the gas pump. No matter what we did, we couldn’t get ahead.”

  “That’s exactly why I pointed my finger at the system. It had failed us, it had let us down. It let those things take control and rip away at the little we had left. As crazy as conspiracy theories sound, there’s always a little truth hidden between the lines.” I sighed and shook my head slowly. “I don’t know anymore. But whatever this is, it’s not because of them.”

  The military truck had gone farther than I thought. I was over thirty miles from where they had picked me up. I was on autopilot. I walked for as long as I could and when my legs threatened to give out, I would stop somewhere for the night. I don’t think I ever really slept. I just sort of dozed off, always waiting for them to find me.

  There was a base at the edge of a strip of highway. It had been partially converted into an air museum, but on the far side, it had been an active military base.

  Years ago, my wife and I had taken a weekend trip to the mountains and passed this very same base. We had been having some problems and needed to get away for a while. I figured a few days in the woods, camping would do our relationship some good.

  There had been planes for as far as I could see, stretched out along the airstrip. But now, they were gone. I thought of distant wars and unseen enemies. I thought of the dead being blown from the face of the Earth. I thought of massacres and realized none of it was true.

  Splotches of desert camouflage dotted the base, bodies reanimated and left to weather in the sun. The farther I looked, the more of them came into view. Weaponless and ragged, dead soldiers overran every corner of the base. Slack, tired faces, lurching shadows, bent and hungry frames.

  Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore … I shook my head at the thought.

  I walked the perimeter of the fence toward the main gates. My knees became weak when I saw them. Between a set of small towers on either side of the entrance, bodies were strewn. Littered with bullet holes,
they were heaped up on one another. To my right there was a breech in the fence, lonely strips of fabric torn away and left like markers in time along the links, a time of panic and fear.

  “The base was overrun?” Mary questioned.

  I nodded my head slowly.

  “But where had all the bodies come from?” In a moment of realization, she placed her hand over her mouth. “No,” she said.

  “Those people had been alive,” I confessed. “They had been looking for safety. They had searched out the one place they thought was safe and were mowed down. Not a single head shot,” I said. “Not one.”

  “Why would they …” Her voice cracked. A look of realization crossed her face. “But wouldn’t the dead have returned to life?”

  “I’m not sure why they didn’t,” I replied. “Maybe it was too early in the outbreak. Maybe the military had secrets too terrible to imagine. Honestly, I have no idea. At some point, it looked like the dead had gotten through the breach in the fence. Maybe the soldiers were just spooked. I really don’t know. I would hate to think it was friendly fire.”

  “And the soldiers fled when the dead got through?”

  “I think so,” I said. “Along the airstrip, I saw more bodies strewn about. I think the planes must have run them down.”

  “Why wouldn’t they try to help?” she asked. “They could have at least saved a few.”

  “I’m only making assumptions,” I said. “There’s really no way to know for sure. All I can say is that when a soldier is given an order, they follow that order, no questions asked. If whoever was in charge decided that it was a lost cause to help civilians, I can only imagine that’s why so many were killed.”

  “My God,” she breathed. “Why?”

  “It’s a foreign contagion,” I replied. “It’s quick, it’s vicious, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t any way to contain it.”

  “But so many people,” she sighed.

  “I’m not justifying what they did, not by any means. But everything happened so quickly, I’m sure they were as unprepared as we were. At least that’s what I hope it was.”

  As curious as I was, I wasn’t stupid enough to scour the base for answers. I had seen what had happened and there wasn’t anything I could do. I went forward and tried my best not to look back.

  A few miles down the highway, I spotted something. It was a pointless massacre just like all of the other pointless massacres I’ve come across. A fuel tanker, charred black from long dead flames, jackknifed in the center of the road, blocking traffic in both directions. Burned embers, husks of bodies littered the melted asphalt, limbs twisted and brittle, pointing up toward an unforgiving sky like a plea to the gods.

  For miles I could see the fallout. Luggage, camping gear and children’s play things lay strewn out across the fields that stretched to each side of the highway. Random excuses for survival; pictures of loved ones and blood stained blankets left behind when they had no choice but to run. I saw cash, withered and damp, smeared across the weeds and grass, pale reminders of a civilization lost to the old ways. I wondered how many people thought they could buy their way out, how many had emptied safes and mattresses, hoping to afford a way out of perdition?

  In this desolate landscape, there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide amongst the shrubs and flat earth that sprawled out for miles. Here and there, peppered across the barren flats were bones; distant reminders of waste left behind by the dead. If I listened closely, I could hear the cries that mingled so long ago on the twisting wind. I could hear the helpless and the fallen, pleading with emotionless monsters to spare their lives. I could hear fathers protest and mothers beg for redemption. I could hear them die a thousand times over before rising to their feet and killing what remained.

  The weeds rustled against my legs, scraping out my steps as I looked toward a river that divided the field from a sparse cropping of trees. I surveyed the land around me, listening on the wind for those distant cries. I filled my water bottle and drank, repeating the process until my thirst was quenched. I sat on a boulder adjacent to the river and removed my shoes and socks. I dipped my feet into the cold current. A tingle wound its way up along my spine until I became acclimated to the cold. I let the water rush between my toes and smiled at the sensation.

  Ever vigilant, I looked again at my surroundings, watching for movement in the field of grass behind me. A crisp scent was on the air, the smell of autumn grass and dusty soil. I wondered who I had become through all of this. I wondered about my future and my place in the world.

  Slowly, I removed my clothes and folded them atop the boulder where I had been sitting. I laid my pack at the very top of the pile, revealing my nakedness to an all seeing sun and the rushing flow of water beneath me. I waded out into the surge, step by step, allowing the cold to beat against my skin. Lying back, I let my head fall below the rush and welcomed the sensation. It nearly took my breath away as I lay on a bed of sand and pebbles at the bottom of the steady flow.

  A slight crack emitted from the field, a subtle sound as if a foot had taken a misstep. I sat silently in the rush, quietly checking my surroundings.

  Nothing came.

  I dipped my head below the water again, letting it wash through my hair and my beard, letting it take away the grime and the filth from the road, letting it sooth my soul. The tiny hairs upon my face separated and danced in the flow - like fingers conjuring magic.

  There came another crack and I sat up. I knew there was something there, this time I wasn’t mistaken. I saw movement from the grass, the slightest twitch as the blades shifted and swayed before finally parting. A brown face stared at me, eyes wide and teeth barred. Clothes like the rags of a castaway graced its hollow frame. Ribs darted out from in between scraps of cloth and there was a black concave where its guts had been.

  With a fierce, echoing howl, the creature staggered from the field, dragging its nearly fleshless legs. It wore a scowl tempered by rot and leathered skin, tight against its jaw.

  As I stood, there was another that came from the brush, damp with mucus, leaking from its rot. A hiss escaped a gaping wound at its neck, coupled by the gurgling puss from within its throat. And then another emerged, and another until my way back to the highway was blocked.

  I stood on uneasy legs, wavering in the water, wanting for my clothes and pack, resting on the boulder only a few steps away. The dead lumbered toward the edge of the river, seemingly howling my name, grinding their teeth expectantly to my nervous movements.

  As more came from the fields, I backed away. I backed toward the forested side of the river and onto sharp rocks and loose sand, stumbling as I stared at my gear. They were coming from everywhere across the brush and weeds and undergrowth.

  One stepped into the water, releasing its foulness into the river. Another moved in, and the others followed until they were standing only a few feet away from me, making their way through the rapids.

  My soul screamed for my things, yelled for a way to retrieve them as the dead surrounded me. I panicked, my heart pumping out a steady beat of fear and regret, of want and survival. I hissed through gritted teeth and turned. I ran off through the forest as twigs and saplings slapped at my skin, raising welts along my arms and legs. I could hear them struggling through the forest behind me. I could hear their wet, rasping voices as the blur of the woods rushed past me.

  The forest floor cut into the soles of my feet, but I didn’t slow. I kept up my pace, winding through shrubs and brush, past old growth trees, twisted with weather and age. I made my way to a trail that suddenly parted through the trees.

  Panting, I kept up my speed, not daring to slow down for the fear of collapse. I held fast as the sweat poured down my face, stinging my eyes and blurring my vision. What the river had cleansed, the forest gave back, two fold. Dirt clung to me in fine layers that built steadily as I ran. My feet were black with mud, running up toward my shins in caking smears.

  My legs began to give out, stinging with exertion, cram
ping in pain. A burning sensation swelled in my chest as my stomach lurched, causing me to heave. The dry, clenching spasms sent me to my knees, groping the forest floor, wadding up handfuls of rotten leaves and dirt as a trail of spit hung from my lips. I gasped for air and fell to my side, naked and exposed, hugging away the cramps in my gut.

  Splintered leaves hung from my beard. I must have looked like some sort of Wildman, hacking away the final remnants of the civilized man inside. I lay there, gasping for air and tingling from exhaustion. I watched the sky overhead; the clouds parting like tufts of cotton, drifting slowly through the treetops. I could smell the raw patchouli scent of years of soil collected beneath me. Primal images of death and exposure tore at my mind. I saw my death. I saw my inevitable end as I hacked out the last bits of hope through my acrid mouth. I clenched my jaw and rose.

  There was anger in that moment, an evil, hateful emotion that tempted me. I retraced my steps, winding back through the forest from where I had come. Along the way, I picked up a fallen branch. I held it at my side and walked with purpose.

  I smeared away the dust from my eyes, spreading it along my face. I could feel the fire in my eyes, burning with anger. This feeling swelled into rage. It burned from somewhere I had never felt before. It rose through me, threatening to burst.

  Straggling through the brush and new growth, a body emerged. I waited, paused for my heart was still pounding. I breathed deeply, held the branch above my head, and took the first few steps toward the creature. Before it could howl out, I smashed the branch down hard upon its skull. I heard a pop and suction sound come from its eye sockets, bursting the white and grey globes from its head.