"Thank you," he said. "If you wouldn't have shown up, there's no telling what he would have done." He freed his legs and stood before looking around the room for his clothes. "My name's Rick," he said.
"We'll have time for that later," Greg said. "Just get outside and wait for us."
Rick nodded, patted Greg on the shoulder, and walked to the door, but he stopped in his tracks as Jim Belter filled the doorway and grinned.
"What do we have here?" Belter asked. "I invite you into my home and this is how you behave?"
Brandon quickly stood before he could untie the other boy's hands. "Belter, have you lost your mind?"
"No," he said, watching them curiously. "I think my mind is clearer now than ever before."
With a strangled cry, Rick ran into Belter with his shoulder, trying to knock him down and clear a path to escape. Instead, he stopped and clutched his stomach as Belter removed a large hunting knife from right above Rick's belly button. He plunged the knife into Rick's flesh a second time and pulled upward in one fluid motion, opening the boy's abdominal cavity. Rick fell to the floor with a grunt as blood bubbled and frothed through his fingers. In the candlelight, Greg saw the shiny red glint of Rick's organs pulsing beneath his hands.
"What are you doing?" Brandon screamed. "You killed him!"
"No, you killed him. I was only planning on scaring them until you had to stick your nose where it doesn't belong."
Greg backed away and slid around the edge of the table, trying to put distance between himself and Belter. Brandon did the same, putting them on opposite sides of the room. Their crazy Phys Ed teacher slid the door closed and slowly walked to the left, forcing them to the right in an attempt to keep the table between them.
"You know," Belter said, "there's only so much a guy can take. I know how shitty kids can be to their teachers, but these three really took that to another level: scratching my car, putting toilet paper in my trees, leaving dog shit on my porch. I didn't do anything to deserve that. I always wanted what was best for my students, but I'm a grown man. I'm not going to sit idly by and let these pricks make a fool of me."
Rick had stopped moving and stared lifelessly at the ceiling. The other two boys were fighting frantically to get out of their restraints, but there was nothing Greg or Brandon could do while Belter wielded his dripping blade.
"My father is the Superintendent, you know? When he retires, I'm the next in line. I have to set an example, let these kids know that I'm not someone who will just turn the other cheek."
"You're crazy," Brandon shouted. "What is this going to solve? Do you think you're just going to get away with this?"
"I think my chances are pretty good," he said. "Who knows if there will be a Ditchburn High come tomorrow morning? This is the perfect time to settle the score."
Belter moved quickly for a guy with a Dad-bod. He slipped behind the boy on the other side of the table and pulled the knife across his throat. Blood sprayed from his neck and splashed the top of the table as he fought to get out of the way, but it only made the blood pump faster through his severed artery. The sock dangling from his mouth turned red as his movements lessened and his head dipped towards the table. Brandon backed into Greg as Belter made his way to the third boy. Greg felt the cold, hard pistol in Brandon's waistband and reached for it, pulling it from his pants and aiming at Belter's smiling mouth.
When he pulled the trigger, nothing happened.
Belter raised the knife over his head and jammed it into the remaining boy's skull with a crunch before storming around the table and coming right at them.
"Shoot him!" Brandon cried.
"It won't work!"
Brandon grabbed the gun from Greg's hand, thumbed the safety, and fired blindly as Belter rounded the table and reached for them. The first bullet went over his head and shattered the window; the second grazed his arm before tearing a hole in the wall behind him. When Brandon squeezed the trigger a third time, the bullet found its mark, opening a bloody hole in Belter's chest. He stumbled back and grabbed for the table as blood stained the front of his shirt. Panting, he backed away and held onto the wall to keep from falling.
"Why did you do that?" He looked at the spreading patch of red and shook his head, puzzled. "You shot me."
"Stay back!" Brandon ordered. "If you move, I'll fucking kill you."
He and Brandon carefully backed away, making sure not to trip over Rick's body on their way to the door. Greg shook his head as his ears rang from the gun blast. He saw Belter's lips moving but couldn't hear a word he said.
"You were good kids," Belter said. "You didn't have... you didn't have to do this."
"You didn't give me a choice," Brandon yelled. "You stay right there. Don't make me kill you."
"Kill me? Why would you kill me? They deserved this! Nothing more than bullies!"
They opened the door and backed into the hall. Brandon never took his eyes off Belter.
"You're insane," Brandon said. "No one deserves this."
"You're going to die out there," Belter said. A bloody bubble formed on his lips as he stood straight and stepped forward.
"Goddammit, stop moving," Brandon said.
Belter lurched forward, screaming like a madman. When Brandon fired, his aim was true. The bullet struck Belter in the face as half his head exploded in a cloud of blood and bone. His teeth rained to the floor like a pocketful of dropped change. He watched Brandon with his good eye and took another step before stumbling into the table and falling on his back. He was dead before he hit the floor.
"We have to go," Greg shouted, still mostly deaf from the gunshots.
Brandon watched blood leak from Belter's head as he lowered the gun and staggered back. Greg caught him before he could fall over and dragged him down the hallway. Once outside, they ran down the alley without looking back. When they stopped, they realized they'd run two blocks in the wrong direction.
The darkness enveloped them.
***
"I killed him," Brandon moaned.
Ten minutes earlier, Greg and Brandon slipped through the open door of Tara's Market on Spruce Street and locked it behind them. They hid behind the counter, away from the market's large plate-glass windows. Greg had been buying candy there since he was ten years old, but it never felt as unfamiliar as it did now, bathed in darkness and cloaked in shades of gray.
"You didn't have a choice," Greg said. His hearing was still compromised but had gotten better since leaving Jim Belter's house behind. He'd seen hundreds of movies where people fired weapons inside confined spaces, but couldn't remember a single one that took into account how loud the sound really was. Greg was worried he'd have permanent damage.
"I killed him," Brandon repeated.
The 9mm lay on the floor between his splayed legs. He looked down at it as if he'd never seen it before.
"You probably saved our lives," Greg said. "I couldn't even fire the fucking thing... if it was up to me, we'd both be dead right now."
It wasn't much of a comfort.
"I couldn't save them. I froze. If I would have remembered the gun sooner, maybe they'd still be here."
"We're still here," Greg said. He reached up and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the counter. He opened it, jammed one in his mouth, and searched for a book of matches.
"You don't smoke," Brandon said.
"Well, I don't see a better time to start," Greg replied. He found matches, struck one, and put it to the end of the cigarette. He inhaled, gagged, and choked out a cloud of gray smoke. His eyes watered as he pounded on his chest. "Okay," he coughed. "I guess it's a good time to quit." He laughed as he ground the cigarette into the floor.
"How does anyone do it?" Brandon asked.
"What? Smoke?"
"No, I mean what Belter did. How can a person act like that? Do they just wait until the world is falling apart so they can act out their darkest fantasies?"
"I don't know," Greg said. "I always thought he was a nice guy. It wouldn't
be the first time I was wrong about someone."
He thought back to earlier that night with Lizzie Gennetti. It felt like a different life, but it had only been a few hours since she was killed. Greg knew she was a stuck-up snob, but not the level of how nasty she really was. He wondered what made a person like Lizzie so delusional and out of touch. Money? A skewed outlook on reality? She legitimately believed she was better than everyone else, but in the end, the slimy blob got her just the same.
Greg hoped it choked on her bitterness.
Brandon nodded knowingly and plucked Greg's thoughts from the air.
"Was Lizzie really that bad?" he asked.
"Worse," Greg replied. "Her good looks are nothing but an illusion. Beneath her perfect hair and perfect skin, she was rotten to the core... like biting into an apple that's been left out too long."
"You still would have taken a bite if she'd let you." Brandon smiled for the first time since leaving his burning house behind.
"Yeah, probably, but I would have gotten a serious case of crotch crickets!"
They exploded with laughter, grabbing onto each other for support. For just a minute, it was easy to forget that the world had gone insane, but when the laughter died, reality crashed back in. Greg sighed and looked at his feet as Brandon reached out for the 9mm and made sure the safety was on. He thumbed it on and off several times, making sure Greg saw where it was and how it worked. Greg nodded and looked away.
"Just in case," Brandon said.
"I know, I know..."
"If I'm not around..."
"No," Greg said sternly. "You're not going anywhere. We're getting out of here together, so stop thinking like that."
"This isn't a movie," Brandon said. "The good guys don't always get to win. Anything can happen, and if it does, I want you to be prepared."
"Fuck being prepared. I just want to get out of this damn town and live to see the sunrise. Is that too much to ask?"
"No, of course not," Brandon said. He stood and tucked the gun into his pants as an explosion rattled the glass in the windows. Greg got to his feet and peeked over the counter as the sky outside grew brighter.
"What the hell was that?" Brandon said.
A terrified scream reached them before a woman ran to the front of the store and pounded on the window. As she did so, liquefied chunks of flesh tore from her hands and left bloody smears on the glass. Greg saw the brown jelly encircle her hands like a pair of mittens as she wailed for someone to help.
"LET ME IN!" she screamed. "Is anyone there?"
"She's going to break the window," Greg whispered.
His fears were allayed as the woman backed away and held her arms in the air. Her hands had been reduced to blackened bones. Someone out of view shouted for her to stop as the loud report of a rifle split the air. A man wearing a t-shirt and baseball cap approached as he slid the bolt and fired another round into her chest. Once she had fallen, he shot her once more for good measure.
Greg and Brandon ducked beneath the counter as two other men joined him. When the slime attacked, there was no amount of ammunition that could stop them from being overtaken. They dropped their weapons and tore at their bodies as smoke drifted from their melting skin. Their frenzied screams grew weaker as they ran off into the night.
Greg watched as the woman's flesh bubbled and ran down the glass like a spilled milkshake.
Brandon gagged and turned away.
"Out the back," he said. Greg followed closely behind.
They tip-toed through the darkness and into the storeroom, passing a small bathroom on the right. A set of bloody clothes sat perched on the toilet where some unfortunate victim had met their end. Their remains formed a shapeless, wet lump on the linoleum floor.
"It crawled up through the toilet," Brandon said. He began laughing, a piercing wild bray that scared Greg half to death. "No need to bury them... just flush!"
"Jesus Christ," Greg shouted. "Get it together before we have company!"
When Greg looked at him, he barely recognized him. His eyes were wild and he was grinning through his tears.
"I can't help it," Brandon said.
"Don't you lose your shit," Greg said.
Brandon pointed at the toilet and said, "Tell that to them."
Greg grabbed Brandon's arm and pulled him through the storeroom, searching for a door into the back alley. Once he found it, he pushed Brandon outside and puked into the weeds. Brandon was still crying.
With no time to waste, Greg wiped his mouth, grabbed Brandon's hand, and ran off into the night.
Chapter 6
By the time they were once again heading in the right direction, they were forced to turn to avoid a bloody fight in the middle of the street. After what had happened with Jim Belter, they had begun avoiding people with the same aversion as they would the brown globs. Once they tried sneaking around the latest roadblock, they were forced to turn again as a row of houses burned furiously. After all the running, they were again facing the opposite direction, just a few blocks from where all this had started.
Greg's arm hurt from having to drag Brandon's dead weight behind him. His friend had said nothing since leaving the market. Greg was beginning to worry that something had snapped in Brandon's brain, and he knew he couldn't go on like this much longer if he wanted to have any energy left for the arduous trek through Thorpe's Woods. When Greg finally dropped Brandon's hand and collapsed to the curb, he found himself behind the Silver Screen Cinema - the place where it all began.
"Jesus Christ, this is stupid," he huffed. "We're going to the one place we don't want to be."
Brandon babbled something as he unzipped his pants and urinated onto a pile of garbage bags. He had the common sense not to just piss in his pants, so Greg assumed his friend was still in there somewhere.
"Brandon," he said. "Are you okay?"
"I'm taking a leak."
"I see that. How do you feel?"
"Like I'm trapped in a nightmare and I can't wake up."
Brandon turned and walked drunkenly to the curb with his penis still dangling from his pants. Greg snickered, turned away, and said, "Dude! Seriously. No one wants to see your junk."
Brandon looked down and grunted as if someone had told him his shoe was untied. He tucked himself back into his pants but didn't bother with the zipper. Greg figured it was a small price to pay for nearly losing one's mind.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Greg asked.
"I don't know... just leave me alone for a second."
"We don't have a second."
As if to prove it, rapid gunfire broke the silence a few blocks away. Greg thought it sounded like it could have been on Grant Street and wondered what had happened to Brandon's intoxicated neighbors. Those who had already died could have filled any one of Ditchburn's three cemeteries.
"Did you ever wonder if maybe we deserved this?" Brandon asked. "What if it isn't Wildflower or aliens... what if it's some kind of divine intervention?"
"What are you talking about?"
"What if one day, God looked down from above and said, 'enough of this shit,' ya know? What if He was looking over all creation and figured now was a good time to start over?"
"That's crazy," Greg said. "Would God just wipe out his entire flock because he didn't like what he sees? Is He that petty? That angry? You can't give us free will and then punish us for taking it."
"I'm not so sure," Brandon said, and for a brief moment, neither was Greg. Was it really so impossible to imagine God - or any deity for that matter - getting tired of what was going on down here? Could this be Day Zero for a new-and-improved Earth?
No, Greg thought. Brandon's just trying to find answers where they don't exist.
"Are you ready to go?" Greg asked.
"Go?" Brandon asked. "Go where? Do you think there's anywhere they won't find us?"
"I don't know, but I'm willing to find out."
Before Greg could stop him, Brandon walked to the back of the theater and open
ed the door.
"Not in there," Greg said harshly. "You really have lost your mind."
When the door thumped shut behind Brandon, Greg stood and had no other choice but to follow.
The corridor leading up to the stage was dark. They walked closely together, holding their breath and watching for any signs of movement. When they stepped into the theater, they stopped.
The large room was bathed in white light from a dozen emergency lamps along the ceiling. A noxious mist had formed near the floor where the aisles ran red with blood and chunks of uneaten flesh and hair. Greg stepped over part of someone's arm and grimaced at the wet stench that hung over the room like a sheet. Most of the seating was covered in gore and the remains of discarded clothing. Greg realized for the first time that whatever the blobs are, they only ate flesh and left everything else behind.
They walked up the center aisle, trying to avoid the sticky leftovers.
"Why would you want to come in here?" Greg asked. "It's a fucking slaughterhouse."
"I want to get a look out front," he replied.
"My God, what for? Didn't you see enough on TV?"
"That's why I want to look," Brandon said. "I want to know if those Wildflower pricks are still out there."
"Why? You can't do anything about it!"
"I still have the gun, don't I?"
"So what? You're going to kill everyone? You're going to square off against trained soldiers?"
"I'll get a few of them," Brandon said. Greg didn't like the grin on his friend's face.
"They'll kill you! Don't you know that? And when they're done with you, they'll kill me! I'm not down with that plan."
"Then stay here," Brandon said. "Go home... or run away for all I care. I have to do this."
Brandon stumbled on a shoe and nearly fell into a pile of pinkish human snot. Greg grabbed him and held him back as he noticed the glistening end of an ankle bone jutting from the top of the sneaker.
"Listen to me, you dumb son of a bitch," Greg said. "We're sticking to the plan. I'm not dying here and neither are you."
Brandon shook off Greg's hand and opened the door into the lobby. Here, the carnage was even worse. A two-foot pile of bloody clothing was stacked in front of the exit where people had tried to escape the chaos. The carpet squished beneath their feet.
Melt Page 7
