by Deyo, Jason
“Anything but.” Julie looked irritated, and beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. She had to bend over to wrap her large arms around Rod’s small upper body and give him a quick uncomfortable hug. She pulled the scrunchie from her long blond hair, releasing her pony tail and relieving the stress as the hair stopped pulling at her scalp. She wore the classic nurse’s outfit, blue scrubs with white tennis shoes. Just above her right breast, she had a large fresh red stain. “Babe, I really need to take a shower and just lie down for a bit.”
“Ok. You hungry? I could go for some Pizza Pizza right now.” He skipped backwards in front of her. Pizza Pizza was their favorite carry out sub and pizza shop.
From down the hallway Rod’s stepson Drew hollered through his closed bedroom door. “I could go for some Pizza Pizza!”
Eric watched and pictured Rod as a little puppy begging for attention from its master. It didn’t matter what type of attention it was, just as long as he was attended to. Eric laughed at the thought and was about to say hello when Julie bellowed, “God, Rod, get out of my face already.”
Rod shrank back with that warning and stood to the side as she stomped past him. When she closed the door to the bathroom Rod’s eyes got big and he whispered to Eric, “I’m still getting Pizza Pizza.” They laughed under their breath. The bathroom door opened up again and Julie came out wearing a black short-sleeve shirt and some very short blue shorts. It looked as if she had just stepped out of the shower, but the water had never run. She came back and hugged Rodriquez. “Sorry, I just need to lie down.”
“What happened to your arm?” He took her right hand and twisted it slightly, revealing a deep gash and a few light scratches on the back of her forearm.
“This guy scratched me today. He was acting all kinds of bat shit crazy and puking everywhere. We actually had to restrain him.”
“Did he puke on you?” Rod said, then grimaced, referring to the stain on her scrubs.
Julie, seeing the grimace, was not at all amused. “No, some other guy did. I cleaned the scratches; it should be okay.” She started to switch stances and Rod knew she was getting angry. Sweat was dripping from her face and body and her clothes clung to her body. “There were a couple people that came in the emergency room the same way.”
“Why don’t you take a shower?” He rubbed her large right shoulder. “I’ll order some food.”
“I told you I wasn’t hungry!” she barked, and Rod prepared to duck an incoming blow. The punch never came, but Julie scowled as if she was going to hurt him. After the outburst she turned and went into their room.
“Looks like you’re sleeping on the floor.” Eric showed half a smile, but he did not receive the same message from Rod.
“Man, I’ve never seen her like this,” Rodriquez said as he walked to the balcony that overlooked a pond in the back of the third-floor apartment. Eric followed and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Something’s wrong with her.” Rod pondered his statement.
Eric offered the pack to Rod and he took one. Lighting Rod’s smoke, Eric answered, “Must have been a real bad day.”
“Real bad.” The two of them sat on the balcony and listened to the commotion on the street filtered through the trees on the other side of the pond. The sound of brakes and speeding cars filled the streets. This would not have been uncommon for a Friday, but it was eleven at night on a Thursday. Something was going on.
The sound of knocking on the front door broke the silence. Rod inhaled deeply, then flicked his cigarette into the still water of the pond. Leaving Eric on the balcony to finish his smoke, Rod opened the front door. His next door neighbor, Dave, stood on the other side.
Dave was a funny guy who didn’t take life too seriously. He was nineteen and relatively new to the Navy, but was very comfortable in his current position. He had grown up in a small town in New Mexico and swore he would never go back. He stood about six feet tall with a very slim build and long hair that was naturally bunched in an Afro on the top of his head. It was considered to be too long for a person in the military, but he managed to grease it down when he decided to play sailor.
He must have been sleeping, because normally he would have been over Rod’s place drinking or Rod and Eric would have been at his place partying, making jokes about which seagoing service was better. “You have to see this.” He mentioned to the front of the complex.
They lived on the third floor of the apartment complex and were happy with where they were, but everyone was jealous of Dave’s spot. His apartment overlooked the complex’s pool.
Looking over the railing of the balcony that connected the two apartments’ front doors, they could see the entire parking lot. Under the beam of light from one of the street lights was a group of people kneeling over something. They looked as if they were picking at or digging through whatever it was.
“What are they doing?” Eric asked as he leaned on the railing to get a closer look.
David, being the excitable person he was, almost screamed, but it came out as an excited whisper. “Dude, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but they’re fucking eating that redheaded chick.” Then out of nervousness he let out a small laugh.
Rod and Eric stood staring at him like he was a moron for a few seconds before he spoke again. “You know that good-looking redhead that always wears that white bikini?” Dave only knew this because the weekends he didn’t have duty on his ship, he sat on his balcony and watched her swim for hours on end. Neither of them replied, but stared at Dave with the you really are a moron look on their faces.
“That’s her!” he shouted as he pointed to the crowd, and then quickly covered his mouth to hush himself. A single streetlight shone on the group as if it were a spotlight. Now Eric and Rod could make out a carpet of crimson blood that the people knelt in. As they stared, pieces of red flesh swung around and through the hands of the people kneeling over the red-haired woman. Rod’s and Eric’s minds wouldn’t let them comprehend what was actually happening, and they looked back to Dave.
Eric broke their silence, but was rather confused. He expected that at any second a T.V. cameraman was going to jump out and say they were going to be on the next episode of Scare Tactics. “Are you going to do something?”
“Oh my god, are you serious? You haven’t been watching T.V.?”
Eric’s phone rang, and he looked at the screen and saw it was his parents. He answered the phone, but looked to Dave. “Hey.”
Dave waved them into his apartment. His flat-screen T.V. looked like a movie screen in his small living room. On it was an emergency broadcast.
A young brunette woman with the look of controlled worry was warning people to stay indoors, lock their homes, and from this point on not to allow anyone in or out. “Be cautious of people outside, and if anyone you know has been in contact with people from outside your house within the last few hours, quarantine them in a secluded part of your home and wait for the authorities. Do not give shelter to anyone seeking it, including family members if they have been outside.”
Eric’s face was one of shock and awe, as he focused on the T.V. “Okay, alright, are you guys okay?” he asked with his face pressed hard against his phone. “Well, did you lock everything up?” His left hand pressed hard against his left ear and he hunched over as if that were going to turn the volume down on the T.V. “Dad? Hello, Dad?” He looked at his phone, and a message on the screen read network busy.
Rod took his eyes off the screen and looked to Eric. “What did your dad say?”
“He said the same thing the T.V. said. Secure in place. Don’t go outside.”
“Are they okay?”
“Yeah, so far. He’s home, but he’s like seventy years old.” His voice cracked, but he regained his composure.
The sounds of squealing tires were followed by crushing metal, and then car alarms sounded through the house. Dave looked out the front window to see a baby-blue Toyota Celica crashed across the parking lot about twenty feet from the redheaded woman�
�s corpse. Three people were running behind the Celica. The people gorging themselves on the woman all stood up in unison and took flight towards the wrecked car. Under the shine of the street light was a red mass where the woman had once lain. The mass that was there now was nothing more than a small pile of ripped, blood-soaked clothing. Dave thought he could make out what might have been arms or legs, but the bloody clothes and the lack of anything resembling the beautiful red-haired woman made it difficult for him to fathom what had just happened. All that was left of her was a fan of red hair spread evenly on the pavement above the carnage.
Rod looked just in time to see the crazed people attack the Celica. There were a dozen of them; they all hit the car at the same time, and the driver’s-side window shattered. Rod stood there just long enough to see a man being pulled through the window. He was in his mid-thirties and from his apparel dark-blue button-up shirt and long black necktie he must have been rushing home from work. Rod’s thoughts turned to Julie and Drew. She was at the hospital today.
Half-consciously his ears picked up the anchorwoman listing the symptoms to look for when in contact with people from outside your home. “Profuse sweating.” Check, Rod thought to himself as if using a mental clipboard. “Extreme mood swings.” Check. “Fits of violent rage.” Check. “Unusual scratches or bite marks.” Check. “And tight leathery skin with a grayish complexion or skin tone,” the news anchor finished her list. Aha! No grayish complexion.
“I’m going next door to check on Drew,” Rod said as he ran out the front door. Eric was just a few steps behind him when Rod got to his apartment and sent the door flying open. Straight ahead of him, his skinny, pale thirteen-year-old son was standing at the end of the hallway that connected the bedrooms. Drew’s black shirt and shoulder-length black curls blended in with the dark hallway behind him. Rod could just make out Pantera’s band logo on the front of the kid’s shirt. Drew gave him a shocked and confused look.
Rod breathed deep as he felt the anxiety let go for a second. But from the shadows behind Drew, Rod and Eric both saw a mammoth of a figure step out from the bedroom. It wore a black short-sleeve shirt and short blue shorts. Rod looked in sheer terror as Julie’s face emerged from the shadows to reveal tight grayish leathery skin. A sadistically playful voice in Rod’s head said check, and that was followed by a verbal “Fuck!” from Eric.
Julie’s small feet sounded like thunder as they pounded her heavy body toward the thirteen-year-old. Drew turned toward his mother fast and took a step backwards as she fell on top of him. The boy disappeared under his mother’s huge body. Julie’s head flew up and back with a mouth full of curly black hair. She placed her hands on his head and ripped the hair from it. Eric and Rod both jumped on her as she opened her mouth for another bite of her son.
Drew arched his back and turned his head, screaming, his mother’s mouth inches from biting into his cheek. His hands, pushing against Julie’s eyes, were small in comparison to her obese face and gaping mouth.
Eric yanked back on her hair as Rodriquez pressed his small forearm against her throat and pushed his body between the child and Julie. Drew tried to push out from under her, but Julie had both her fists full of black curly hair and pulled his head toward her mouth.
Blond hair pulled free from Julie’s head, leaving large chunks in Eric’s hands and causing him to fall backwards down the hall. He was up in seconds and back on top of the raging woman, trying to pull her head back. Drew’s body was out from under his mother’s, but she had him by the hair and was pulling him back in. Eric pulled his small pocket knife from his back pocket and began sawing through the black hair in one of her hands. He quickly went to work on the other hand. Drew was free, but Julie reached for Rod, who had taken Drew’s place under her.
From behind Julie, Eric grabbed hold of her right wrist and twisted it up and over her right shoulder as much as he could in the confines of the hallway. “Let go, Julie!” Eric screamed. Any normal person would have been in agony and trying to be still to stop the pain, but she pressed forward, pulling Rod into her. Eric felt her arm snap and let go of it in shock. The forearm waved wildly as she used the stump to get closer to her victim.
Rod pushed up on her face and his left thumb accidentally but deeply thrust into her right eye. He tried to pull it out, but his elbow was propped on the floor and with her pushing against it trying to bite him, he could not pull it free. As his thumb penetrated her eye socket, a greasy black fluid leaked over and into the palm of his hand. She didn’t pull back, though, but kept pushing until her face was flush with his palm and his entire thumb was jammed into her eye socket, stopping the leaking fluid.
Eric straddled Julie’s back and grabbed her by her throat and pulled back. As her head pulled away, Rod tried to pull his thumb from her head. She turned her head to bite at the hand that was being pulled free from her eye.
Meanwhile David pulled up on her left arm. “Grab the other arm!” he shouted. Eric let go of her neck and her head jutted forward. Rod screamed in pain as he felt his left thumb bend back and a sharp pain shot through his wrist.
Eric fumbled to grab at her flopping right arm. Her hand twisted and spun as she supported her weight on the stump of her right arm. He finally grabbed her between the upper part of her elbow and her armpit.
“Throw her in the bathroom!” Dave shouted over Rod’s screams and the growl of the beast that had been Julie.
Eric turned to see how far he would have to pull her to get to the bathroom. It was to his right, a few feet behind him. A couple steps back, he felt her weight being shifted to his side as Dave picked her up.
As they lifted her to her feet, she turned her attention to Eric. She snapped at his face as they began to guide her to the door. She lunged at Eric, ripping from Dave’s grip, but Eric was able to sidestep, forcing her to trip and fall face first into the bathroom. She hit her head on the white tub and black blood appeared down the side of the white porcelain. Eric grabbed the doorknob and tried to close the door, but her legs were in the way. She quickly got back to her hands and knees, using the tub to assist her. Dave stepped in next to Eric and kicked her hard in the butt, causing her to fall into the tub. Now that her legs were no longer in the way, a quick pull of the door and she was trapped. The door shook as she beat on it wildly. The sound of her heavy hand beat high on the door, then was followed by a dull thud from her stub. Even crippled, she shook the door, and with her large body smashing against it, they knew it would not be long before the door collapsed.
Rod did not say a word. He just sat with his right arm back to support his weight and his left arm held up in a defensive posture. Looking at his left hand, he realized his thumb had been buried in his wife’s eye. It was covered in a thick liquid that streamed red and white with a black tar that mixed the two. The colors and the surreal memory of the incident hypnotized him for a few moments, but then the searing pain of his broken thumb and sprained left wrist shot him back into reality. The pain was great, but he did not show it. He stood up and started to walk to the kitchen sink.
Drew stood away from the fight with his back leaning against the kitchen bar. He cleared his throat. “We need to go.” He grabbed hold of Rod to shake him out of his shock. Drew looked at him with complete confusion.
Standing over the sink, Rod washed his hands gently so as to not move his thumb. “We need to get out of here,” he mumbled to himself.
Eric moved to the door, grabbing Drew on his way out, and Dave followed. As they passed Rodriquez, Eric hollered to him, “Dude, come on!” He pushed Dave and Drew past him. “I’ll meet you at my Jeep.” He walked to Rod slowly, staring at the stainless-steel sink under his clean hands. “Rod, your son and Dave are going to my car,” Eric said softly, “we need to go with them.”
The banging on the bathroom door ended in a loud crack. Eric looked down the hallway to see a bloody hand hanging out of the door, ripping at the hole it had just made. “Rod, the door is not going to hold much longer. We need to G
O!” Eric started talking quietly and ended up screaming.
Rod stared at the distorted reflection of himself in the stainless-steel curve of the sink. Black and red blood drained into the sink and his distorted reflection looked as if he himself were a crazed person.
Eric, seeing he was not making any connection with his catatonic friend, smacked his partially clean left hand, turning him into a screaming maniac. “Dude, come on!” Eric screamed back, pulling on the collar of his shirt.
As if Rod had been listening the entire time, he ran past Eric and through the front door. Eric ran behind him and turned as he grabbed the door knob. At the moment he turned, Julie’s head broke through the bathroom door. As soon as she looked at him, the front door slammed with no hesitation.
