The Gristle & Bone Series (Book 1): The Flayed & The Dying

by Roach, Aaron

  It was then that Gabe truly pitied the man. Not so much for his story about the neighbor boy, but because of the revelation that Bishop was now truly alone. No wife, and now, no son.

  Gabe, at least, still had Molly and Riley.

  “I saw the groaners first,” replied Gabe after a few moments. “I’d just come out of the woods near my cabin. I’d killed this big beautiful deer, the one we’ve all been eating over the past week. I’d gotten into my truck, started driving, when I saw this man just standing in the middle of the road, wide-eyed and pale. I swear to God Bishop, I thought it was a ghoul or ghost or something,” he chuckled. “That probably would’ve been better. Ghosts aren’t supposed to be able to hurt you, right? Anyways, when I got home, the kids were gone, out playing in the woods behind the cabin like they always did. I went after them, to bring them back home before…

  “Anyways, I found them surrounded by groaners, and Jacob was there, protecting Riley,” He felt a lump in his throat, but swallowed it and continued. “I didn’t see a skeletal until we were on our way back. The thing dropped out of the trees and landed on me, probably not unlike what happened with your neighbor boy. Before I knew it, the thing was stabbing at me with the broken points of its arms. Thankfully, Jacob was there, and killed the creature before it could finish the job.”

  Bishop let out a low whistle. “What do you think they are?”

  “I don’t know. Some sort of infection maybe? Demons? Who knows? It doesn’t matter what they are, Bishop. The only thing that is important is that the more people become infected by them, the less of us there are to fight them.”

  A rustling noise to their right cut their conversation short and had them scurrying into the woods on the other side of the road. They hid behind a massive tree and peered around the edge, watching for the source of the noise to reveal itself. A few seconds later, a small army of groaners came shuffling from the forest to stand on the road where they had just been walking. The sound of more movement, this time overhead, brought their attention upward to a skeletal slinking through the canopy of leaves like a sloth. It stopped above the dead and began emitting noises, chirping and clicking, like a raven cracking a nut against a gravestone. As it trilled, the groaners shuffled and moved into a boxlike formation.

  “What the hell is going on?” Bishop whispered, his voice on the edge of panic. Before Gabe could find an answer, hundreds more dead came stumbling out of the trees, with more skeletals climbing across the canopy branches above them, piping their broken, macabre songs. The new groaners joined the others in the formation, like some unholy legion from ancient times.

  Next to Gabe, Bishop trembled. “We need to leave,” he said softly.

  Gabe shook his head. They couldn’t risk moving, not with the dead so close. Instead he raised a finger to his mouth and hoped Bishop would shut up.

  Then, further up the road, a massive skeletal appeared. It dropped from the trees and landed on the asphalt at the head of the army. It brought itself upright to stand on two feet and announced its presence with a roar. At its arrival, the skeletals in the trees shrieked and called out to one another like jungle birds.

  As Gabe and Bishop watched, another skeletal leapt down from the forest canopy to land near the first. It bellowed a challenge which the larger thing answered with a roar of its own. The monsters charged at each other, and the collision of their skulls sounded off like a gunshot. The beasts went to tearing and ripping, stabbing with broken appendages, sidestepping and charging again, until eventually the smaller of the two was beaten, its legs snapped in half. As it tried to crawl away, the larger skeletal approached from behind and placed a massive bony foot on the thing’s head. The standing beast grunted before crushing his opponent’s cranium into fragments against the asphalt.

  The canopy-bound skeletals shrieked their approval at the outcome of the contest, and the massive skeletal roared again. It was then that Gabe noticed that other than its size, the victor also had two protrusions growing from its forehead, like the horns of an ibex. Even as he watched, the protrusions seemed to grow longer, thicker.

  “He’s their leader,” Gabe whispered as realization struck. “They’re like wolves; they have a hierarchy, with challengers for the top position. Watch the other skeletals, look how they defer to Ibex-Face over there.”

  The smaller skeletals were indeed watching the larger beast with what Gabe imagined to be a mixture of fear and awe. From their branches, they seemed to both lean in and shirk away as their leader walked through the ranks of groaners beneath them.

  “Then what the hell are the groaners?” asked Bishop.

  “I don’t know. Maybe there is no explanation for them.”

  The shrieking and trilling of the skeletals slowly increased and the undead horde began to move, heading in the direction of the two men. Gabe and Bishop pushed their backs up against the tree and froze as the creatures dispersed into the forest around them.

  They waited there in silence for several terrified minutes as the dead walked past, unaware of their presence, to disappear into the brush. They were finally alone again and about to leave, when something on the ground caught Gabe’s eye. He knelt and picked it up, rubbing it between his fingers.

  Deer scat.

  This is where he had seen that buck on their way to town. He inspected the ground, recognizing the faint evidence of a game trail, before smiling up at Bishop.

  “I hope the others aren’t sick of deer.”

  -57-

  Inside the housing unit, the four friends spoke in low whispers so as not to be overheard by Kat and Sophia’s bunkmates.

  “They’ve already found six bodies, all young women,” said Ward, almost in a whisper. He paused before continuing and looked over at Sophia, “You sure you want to hear all this, Soph?”

  Sophia gave a single, firm nod of the head, “I’m not a baby. I can handle it.”

  “Alright, if you say so…All of the victims had been sexually assaulted; some before, some after their deaths. One girl went missing on her way back from the mess hall, another disappeared in broad daylight while she was taking a walk, and at least one of them was taken in the middle of the night, stolen from her bed while she slept. Then yesterday, two families came forward to report a wife and a sister missing. It’s not as if they were taken by the dead, mind you. But from here, within the camp.”

  “There are tens of thousands of people here,” said Kat. “How do they expect to find one lone killer?”

  “That’s the thing,” replied Litz “there are reports of rape and assault happening daily. It’s just nature; you get enough displaced people in one location, bad guys thrive. But the person who is taking these girls, he’s a different caliber of bad guy and we don’t know where to start. It’s the army that’s running this place, not police or detectives. Hell, we barely have enough food to feed everyone, let alone the resources to conduct a full-on homicide investigation.”

  “Right,” agreed Ward, “but whoever is doing this is going to keep doing it until they’re stopped. The brass thinks maybe the killer is getting outside somehow, and that’s where he’s taking his victims. Our unit’s been assigned to patrol the perimeter tomorrow to see if we can find anything.” He sighed, not relishing the idea of leaving the protection of the camp again.

  “Outside?” asked Sophia. “Why would the killer risk going out there with the dead?”

  “That’s the other thing,” said Ward. “There have been fewer and fewer sightings of the dead, skeletals and groaners alike. Maybe the killer thinks he can risk it. Hell, when we were on that supply run this morning, there weren’t any skeletals or walkers to speak of. It’s like what happened with Boston. Those fleeing the city were saying the dead were everywhere, but by the time we arrived, they had all disappeared. At first, anyway. We went all morning without seeing a single one and then suddenly they were there, everywhere, like a forest of bodies.”

  “Yeah, and we walked into that forest like fools,” said Litz so
urly.

  “I remember,” Kat replied. “It was the same with me and Sophia. On the first day, the streets were overrun with the creeps. All day and night, they were there. When we woke up the next morning though, they were all gone. At least, for a little bit.”

  “Yeah, well, it looks like it’s happening again,” said Ward. “Command is trying to figure out where they are going, and where they’ll pop up next. The problem is, the woods out there are too dense to get a visual on anything from the sky, and the bastards don’t have a heat signature or anything we can track.”

  With that, the adults sipped their beer in silence while Sophia drank her soda. “I have to pee,” she said after a few moments.

  “I’ll come with you,” Kat said. “It’s dark out and I don’t want you walking out there alone.”

  “I’ll be fine, Kat.” Sophia answered stubbornly, but the older girl was already rising to her feet.

  “No arguing. You heard Ward and Litz. There’s a killer out there.”

  Sophia huffed, but didn’t argue further. The soldiers rose with them and the group walked outside, where they parted ways.

  “You boys be careful on that perimeter patrol tomorrow,” Kat called after them.

  “You too,” answered Ward. “Don’t go anywhere alone.”

  “Hold on,” Litz said after they’d walked a dozen paces. “You ready, Soph?”

  Sophia smiled at him in the dark, “Yup!”

  Litz cocked his shoulder back and threw his empty beer bottle high in the air where its spinning form caught the moonlight. Sophia whipped the slingshot from her back pocket, loaded it, and shattered the thing before it hit the ground.

  The soldiers laughed, impressed. “You two will be alright.”

  -58-

  Don slunk through the small cut in the fence and walked across the clearing into the forest on the other side. He walked a mile into the night, covering the ground quickly, keeping his hands up protectively to push away the branches that reached and clawed at him.

  In the week and a half since arriving at the camp, he’d spent hours hiking the surrounding mountains and forests, exploring his newfound freedom and shedding his old self like a snake outgrowing skin. He’d snared rabbits and squirrels in traps, watching them choke before skinning and roasting them over small campfires. He foraged for berries and drank water from streams and when the days were warm, he’d strip down to nothing and walk the forests nude, like Adam in the Garden of Eden.

  No, not Adam.

  Like a God.

  Don walked until he came to a clearing and heard groaning ahead. There, he saw the forms of Larry, Moe and Curly, his three stooges. The three groaners were at the mouth of the shelter he’d built, on their hands and knees trying to crawl inside to get to his girls.

  His Delilahs.

  As Don walked into the clearing, he could hear the girls crying out in fear as his three pets reached at them from the entrance. His Delilahs were unbound, yet unable to escape past the groaners. Likewise, the groaners couldn’t reach their prey only an arm’s length away, due to the leashes that bound them to nearby trees.

  A perfect balance.

  Don came up behind the three groaners who shifted out of his way like repelled magnets. They whined as if his very presence was painful, and he smiled at the power he wielded over them.

  “Good boys.”

  Don, silhouetted against the moonlight, stopped at the entrance to the shelter. It was a basic structure: a teepee consisting of several long logs leaned up against a central tree, and with brush and smaller branches piled against the leaning logs to form walls and a single entrance.

  “Hello,” Don grinned, and the Delilahs stilled into a fearful silence. “Now, now, girls, no need to be rude. I said, ‘Hello.’”

  The brunette whimpered first, so Don chose her.

  When it was done, he dragged the brunette’s body out into the moonlight by her ankle so that the other girl was left alone in the dark, sobbing softly. “Keep an eye on her, Larry. Moe, Curly, you two behave yourselves. I’ll be back tomorrow,” Don called cheerfully over his shoulder as he walked into the trees, pulling the brunette along the forest floor.

  Twenty minutes later Don was back at camp, having left the girl’s body lying in the grass around the latrines. As he sauntered happily away, he wondered, not for the first time, why he felt the need to bring his victims back to camp.

  How else would the people know my work?

  The sound of conversation nearby forced Don to slink behind a corner before he could be seen. He recognized the speakers’ voices as they passed. He peered around the edge and saw them, the two from the helicopter - the child, the one who had accused him of cowardice, and that bitch, the one who had struck him.

  Don bared his teeth at the memory.

  The two walked within feet of the dead girl without ever noticing her, and Don’s snarl turned into an easy smile. The oblivious ones were always the easiest to take. The younger of the two went into the latrine while the older waited outside, peering upward at the stars. When the younger one came out a few moments later the two walked away, talking happily, and Don couldn’t help but share in their cheer.

  I’ve found them at last.

  -59-

  Molly wrung her hands, trying to hide the worry from her expression. Little Brother was at her feet, tugging at her shoelaces while Riley stood in front of her, asking where her father was.

  “He’ll be back soon, baby.”

  The others from the raiding party had returned hours ago and the news they’d brought back wasn’t good. The supply run had been a failure. They had returned to the cave with almost no provisions and worse, they were three men short. Nathan had been killed, Bishop was probably dead, and Gabe, her sweet Gabe, was somewhere out there alone. Those who returned said they hadn’t seen Gabe since before the ambush. An ambush! On armed soldiers! If she had known that the supply run would have led to such foolishness, she wouldn’t have encouraged Gabe to go along with Bishop’s plan.

  Still, none of the raiding party could report seeing Gabe die, so there was a chance that he could still be alive.

  “Dad will be home soon, baby,” she repeated, though she wasn’t sure if the words were meant for her daughter or herself.

  Nearby, Andy, James, and Lou sat around a fire in deep conversation.

  “We don’t have enough rations for everybody,” she overheard James say.

  “Maybe we can draw straws,” said Andy.

  “No, we risked our lives for that food and we should get a say on who gets a share of the rations,” said Lou. “And I say that it should be divided up between those who participated in the supply run. If the others wanted a share, they should have volunteered to go, like the rest of us.”

  Molly felt her anger rising. There were others in the cave who could not have gone on the supply run even if they had wanted to. Like Lucy, the sweet elderly lady with no living relatives who had cared for Riley when she was too grief-stricken to do so herself after losing Jacob. And Huck, the ex-firefighter who’d been in a car accident years ago and was bound to a wheelchair. They, along with the others in the group, shouldn’t be punished for not having volunteered. She marched over to the chatting men, planted herself in front of Lou, and told him as much.

  Lou looked her up and down and shrugged. “Not our problem, Mrs. Sullivan.”

  “How dare you,” she accused. “Those people deserve to eat just as much as you do. Don’t you forget, Lou, it’s been my family’s rations you all have been eating these past ten days. We came here prepared with our own provisions, yet we provided that food for you, all of you, without hesitation.”

  Lou had a reputation in town for being a bully, and Molly understood why when the man stood up and met her angry glare with cold eyes. “That was your call, Molly. You made the choice to share your food. Your food, your call. But that?” He pointed at the box of apples and dried pasta sitting on the ground behind him, “That’s my food. I went an
d got that myself, and I’m making a decision to eat my food, as is my right. If you don’t like it, then try and stop me.” He raised his chin and looked down his nose at her as he finished.

  Bully or no bully, Molly had her own reputation to uphold. She hocked and spat at the man’s feet and when he glanced down at the gob, she balled her hand into a fist and clocked him in the side of the head. He went down in a daze before collecting his wits and throwing himself at her in a roaring attempt at a tackle.

  Thankfully, Andy and James were there before he could get to her, holding him back as he shouted curses at her.

  Behind her, Molly heard Riley cry out before Little Brother suddenly appeared, running between her legs, growling and snapping at Lou’s ankles. Lou looked down at the pup, smiled evilly, and kicked him hard across the cavern floor. Little Brother bounced over the ground like a flat stone across a pond, squealing and crying out before he came to a stop on the other side of the cave.

  “You prick!” Molly snapped before rushing over to the pup. Riley was also there, her eyes filling with tears as she picked up the whimpering animal. It yelped, and Molly saw that its front leg had been broken.

  “When my dad gets back, he’s going to kick your ass!” Riley shouted back at Lou.