by Daniel Pyle
The doctor’s movements exposed the sleeves of his old grey sweater. The professor eyed his partner carefully. He rested his hand on the table for balance. “You might want to roll down your sleeves,” he said as he unfastened the last strap, this one holding Shelley’s right leg down.
Hurst looked at his arms, narrowed his eyes, and pursed his lips. “And why is that, exactly?”
“You might get blood on your sweater if you don’t. You don’t want to get blood on your sweater.”
Hurst walked to the opposite side of the table and pulled a reflex hammer from the pocket of his lab coat. “It’s just an old sweater.” He gently tapped the rubber tip of the hammer along Shelley’s ankle, starting just below the stitching that held her foot onto her leg. He moved up along her right calf.
“It may be just an old sweater,” Arturo replied, “but your mother gave it to you.” He stood back and watched as Hurst moved along Shelley’s limbs, testing them carefully and nodding with approval as she twitched.
“My mother’s dead, Westin. She’s not going to care if this sweater gets soiled.”
The professor blustered.
Satisfied with the results of his reflex test, Hurst pulled a small flashlight out from his other pocket and stepped toward Shelley’s head.
“Now, Shelley, I’m just going to check your sight. Are you able to open your eyes for me again?”
“Mm-hmm,” she replied, her voice listless.
Hurst watched as her eyes fluttered. “Excellent. I just want to see if your pupils respond as expected, okay?”
Shelley responded with another mm-hmm and continued to stare, unblinking.
“But, Conrad,” the professor continued, “that sweater is from Barneys of New York. Barneys! Do you really want blood and God knows whatever else all over an expensive, irreplaceable, sweater like that?”
Hurst sighed, biting back a response. After so many years together, he knew how unrelenting Arturo could be when it came to couture. He flashed the light around Shelley’s eyes, delighted to see her pupils dilate and respond appropriately. Straightening, not wanting to risk a fight, he rolled down his sleeves.
Arturo smiled, rather smugly, and slid his left hand under Shelley’s back.
“Let’s lift her.”
Hurst slid his own hand under her right side, and they each grabbed a limp hand.
“On the count of three,” he said. “One…two…three!”
She sat up more easily than they’d expected and kept bending forward. Her forehead slammed into the metal table between her open legs.
Cursing and apologizing, they pulled her back into a sitting position.
Hurst shot Arturo an agitated glance. “Are you okay, Shelley? Did that hurt at all?”
No response.
“Perhaps we didn’t reattach any nerve endings for the head?” the professor suggested. A lump formed on Shelley’s forehead and swelled. “She doesn’t seem to be in any pain.”
Hurst shrugged. “I want to check her blood pressure. Can you hold her? And don’t let her fall again. We want to avoid brain damage if we can.”
Arturo obliged, clenching his jaw.
Hurst pulled the blood pressure cuff off a hook by the Simbulas machine. He slipped the cuff over Shelley’s limp arm and put his stethoscope back on. His brow furrowed with concentration as he listened to Shelley’s pulse. Her rapid heartbeat thundered in his ears, sounding like a speeding racehorse. He released the air from the cuff and frowned as the hand on the pressure gauge spun. “180 over 110,” he whispered.
“What?”
“I said her blood pressure is 180 over 110.”
“Isn’t that bad?” the professor asked, concern in his voice.
Hurst shrugged, removed the cuff, and tucked his stethoscope back into his coat pocket. “I don’t know if it’s bad for her, but it’s definitely bad for someone like you or me.”
Arturo frowned.
“Shelley? Shelley, can you hear me?” Hurst asked, placing his palm on the small of her back and leaning closer to her perfectly stitched ears.
“I hear you,” she croaked. Her voice was hoarse, muffled, like sound through a thin wall.
“How are you feeling right now? Does anything hurt? Are you feeling any pain?” As he talked, Hurst grabbed his otoscope and looked for any leaking fluids in her ear. There were none. He removed the scope and watched as her head swayed.
“No. No pain,” she finally replied.
“Are you feeling anything at all?” he asked.
She twisted her head to the side and gave him a lopsided smile. “I’m hungry. So hungr—”
“Hungry?” the professor interrupted. “You’re hungry! Conrad, get our friend here some food.”
“But—”
“No buts. Get her something to eat.”
“Westin, I don’t think that’s—”
“Go!”
“Fine!” Hurst threw the otoscope onto the table beside Shelley and stomped off toward the kitchen. Before he shoved the door open, he looked back to see his partner leaning close and whispering something to Shelley. Some emotion that felt almost like jealousy surged through him. He kept his gaze on the pair of them for another moment. She looked odd, but he couldn’t pinpoint why, exactly (aside from the Frankensteinian scars, of course). She sat there on the cold, hard slab, naked, her pieced-together body completely hairless, shaved and re-shaved during the many surgeries they’d performed, bald-headed, eyebrow-less. Her legs were sprawled open in front of her, and her arms hung by her sides. With her back hunched and her shoulders slouched, she reminded him of a depressed teenager. The professor continued whispering despite her unresponsiveness, but she just sat there like a life-size doll. Arturo wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
“Westin, I really…I think we should wait.”
Arturo didn’t respond other than to point toward the kitchen door. He continued whispering to the woman in his arms.
“Westin?”
“Just get the damned girl some food!” the professor bellowed and twisted around with a look of impatience.
Hurst sighed and pushed the laboratory door open. Fine! He’d get her some food, but he didn’t have any idea how they were going to feed it to her. She could barely move her jaw to speak, let alone chew solid food. He stomped down the long, dark hallway toward their kitchen and tried to figure out what food could possibly be appropriate to feed her. They hadn’t counted on her being hungry.
“Milkshake?” he muttered to himself and dismissed the idea. There was no way she’d be able to suck on a straw. He flipped on the light and stepped into the kitchen. The dead quiet of the room—a space in the unfinished part of the basement they’d repurposed after the world went to hell—had always disturbed him. He pawed through their stockpiled food, pulled out a can of chili, read the ingredients on the back, and shook his head when he saw the high fat content. She’d need more protein and plenty of carbohydrates to build her strength and muscles. He closed the cabinet door and headed toward the old tan ice box in the corner. It dated back to the late ’40s or early ’50s, the early years of his parents’ marriage. He and Westin had had it restored when they remodeled their kitchen a few years back, and it had continued to run right through Armageddon. He pulled the door open, bent down, and peered at their meager provisions.
Spaghetti?
No. Too acidic.
Tuna fish?
Blech!
Leftover beef stew?
Hmm…that had potential.
He pulled out the small container, lifted the lid, gave the contents a quick sniff, and stuffed the leftovers into the microwave. While he waited for the stew to warm, he grabbed a spoon from the cutlery drawer.
The microwave dinged, and he pulled out the steaming bowl.
This will just have to do, whether Westin likes it or not, he thought as he flipped off the light switch. I doubt she’ll even be able to eat it. She needs a feeding tube before she tries solid food, but what Westin wants,
Westin gets.
He hurried back down the dark hallway. As he approached the laboratory door, he heard an odd sound. He paused for a moment.
Was that a thud? Is he trying to lift her up by himself?
Preparing himself for an argument, he squared his shoulders and kicked open the laboratory door. Nothing could have prepared him for what he found. Hurst’s hands opened, and the plastic bowl of stew hit the floor, splattering his shoes and pants. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged.
There on the floor beside the table, legs folded beneath her and arms hanging at her sides, sat Shelley. A glistening red stain covered her face and chest. Thick blood dripped down her chin. She raised her head and looked at him. In front of Shelley’s knees lay Westin, or what was left of him. His head, fully detached from his neck, sat on the floor beside her hip. His eyes bulged from his skull, hung like rotten grapes on his cheeks. His mouth formed a wide O, and blood ran out of his ears. Little pink bits of what appeared to be brain matter seeped from the top of his cracked skull.
The doctor buckled, gagging on the bile that filled his mouth, trying to un-smell the thick stink of blood, urine, and human waste. Shelley bent over Westin’s neck stump and took a fierce bite of flesh. The sound of sinew snapping echoed through the otherwise quiet room. As she chewed the wet meat, Shelley looked up again. Her eyes narrowed to slits. Blood poured from her mouth as she fed.
Too shocked for words, Hurst just stood there and watched as the monster they had created dug into his partner’s chest cavity like an animal, her once weak jaws finding new strength with each bloody, flesh-filled bite. He felt an instinctive need to run, to get away, but his feet were stuck to the floor. Seconds that felt like an eternity passed before he was finally able to raise his shaking hands to his face. He hid his eyes behind them, but the sound of the reanimated monstrosity devouring the professor continued to torment him. That beast was eating his partner, his lover, his everything. He fell to his knees with a hard thud. His kneecaps smacked against the concrete.
Open your eyes, he thought.
He tried and couldn’t.
The munching and crunching sounds finally stopped, and the room fell silent for a brief moment.
Something shuffled toward him.
He jumped and gave a little scream when a burst of hot breath wafted against his bald head and the sound of panting moved right in front of his face.
He waited for the attack. When it didn’t come, he lifted his eyes and looked up. Shelley, covered in blood, stared down at him. Her lips curled into a genuine smile, then parted to reveal her horribly sharp teeth.
She sat down in front of him, returning his gaze with curiosity. Her breathing slowed to a normal pace. With jerky movements, she lifted her right hand to wipe the blood from her face. With an almost cat-like motion, she then proceeded to lick the hand clean. She met his eyes, stopped, and smiled again.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” she purred.
NAROBRIAN AFTERNOON
* * *
ROBIN MORRIS
The phone rang as Lori carried the basket of laundry in from the garage, stepping carefully because she couldn’t see if Zane and Greg were underfoot. At the same time the dog started barking, a rough, angry bark that was unusual for the part poodle, part who-knows-what mutt that they adopted just before moving out to the middle of nowhere.
She dropped the laundry basket onto the kitchen counter and reached for the phone, only to find the handset missing. Where had she put the thing? It was Steve who never put it back, but maybe she’d taken it into the garage like she sometimes did when she was expecting Steve to call. She wasn’t expecting him to call, though, he’d left in the company van pool as usual that morning and would be back around six.
“Zaaaaaaaaaaane!” Greg shouted from somewhere, his toddler shriek drowning out the sound of the phone for a second. When he quieted down, she was able to follow the ringing to Steve’s favorite living room chair.
“My dinosaur!” Zane shouted, sounding more like a tornado siren than a five-year-old boy.
Where were they?
She grabbed the phone, pressed the talk button, said “Hello,” and turned to find the boys.
“Don’t panic, honey,” Steve said on the phone, “just get out of town.”
“Miiiiiiine!” One of Greg’s favorite words filled the house.
‘”What?” she said. The dog barked, even louder.
“Get in the car, go to a motel,” Steve said. “Are the kids all right?”
She stepped into the kitchen again. “Of course they’re all right. They’re playing with a toy dinosaur.”
Toy dinosaur? she thought. When did they get a toy dinosaur?
“Lori that’s not—” Steve shouted.
The phone went dead. Lori shook it. She tried to call Steve back, but there was no dial tone.
Annoyed, she found her cell phone in her purse. The phone’s screen showed no bars and flashed NO SIGNAL. The tower in the center of town had an antenna that pulled down satellite TV and radio and served as the cell phone tower for the town as well as the only connection to the world. No one was allowed to have their own satellite TV or radios. That made Lori uncomfortable, but very few agreed with her because all these services were free.
Greg walked across the kitchen floor, his diaper dragging behind him, leaving a wet trail behind it. She rushed to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He pointed back at the door to the garage, which was open. “Mine,” he said.
She was always careful to close that door. The garage wasn’t safe with its short stairway and lawn tools hanging on the walls, not to mention the dryer that could seem like a cave to explore and the car the boys might think was a fort to crawl around on. The door was open now. Did she forget to close it when she raced to answer the phone?
The dog barked in the garage. Was Zane in there too?
“You’re all wet, honey,” she said to Greg. His diaper had reached the limit of its absorbent powers and fallen down to the two-year-old’s feet, leaving him naked under his damp Sponge Bob shirt.
She picked him up, leaving the diaper on the floor. His shirt squished against hers. She wanted to check on Zane first. If he was in the garage, who knew what he might be doing in the there. Lori carried Greg through the garage door.
The garage was at least two feet deep in water. The pool came up to the tops of the wheels on the car and poured through the open dryer door.
Had a pipe burst?
No, she could smell salt. Sea water.
Fuffy continued to bark. “Fuffy” because Zane couldn’t say “Fluffy” when they got the dog. Lori wished he would shut up.
Zane said, “Look Mommy I found a dinosaur.” Then he screamed. He was on the stairs, knee deep in water. He held some wriggling thing. It was dark brown, maybe green, with little limbs, a squat head, and a snout full of teeth. Some kind of lizard, but not.
The thing had its mouth around Zane’s arm. Blood dripped down to his elbow. Holding Greg tightly, she leaned over and smacked the creature as hard as she could.
The blow was hard enough to dislodge the lizard. When it dropped off Zane’s arm, she caught it around the neck and pulled it away from him. Zane held out his bleeding arm and wailed.
The lizard thing was strong. It struggled in her grip, managed to pull out of her hand, and fell to the top step.
Fuffy barked, and Zane screeched. Lori suddenly needed a few dozen aspirin.
The lizard stood on two legs.
Lizards don’t stand on two legs. No wonder Zane called it a dinosaur.
Whatever it was, it was another reason to get the hell out of this town.
The lizard turned and ran toward Lori. She kicked it. The toe of her sneaker caught the lizard under its snout and sent the creature sailing across the garage. It slammed into the far wall and fell down behind the washer and dryer.
“Come on,” Lori said to Zane and took him by the hand. He stepped up out of the water, dripping all over the top step.
Fuffy wouldn’t stop barking. He stared into the watery garage.
“Shut up, Fuffy,” Lori said. “It’s gone.” She pulled Zane into the house, into the brighter hallway where she could examine his arm. It wasn’t too bad, just deep scratches. She would wrap it in something, then take him to the hospital. The company hospital of course, free to town residents.
Fuffy yelped. Lori glanced into the garage. Something huge—much bigger than the little lizard, something like a crocodile but uglier—slid back into the water with Fuffy’s little tail sticking out between its jagged teeth. It disappeared without a splash.
Lori slammed the garage door and locked it. So much for the car. Even if the water hadn’t flooded the car’s engine, there was no way she was going back in there after it.
As she backed away from the garage door, water seeped beneath it and ran onto the kitchen floor.
She had to put Greg down so she could grab a kitchen towel and wrap it around Zane’s arm. Greg made an anxious sound and raised his arms, wanting her to pick him up.
She thought about Steve’s call, his warning. Just get out of town, he’d said. But what was happening? Where had the salt water come from, and what did Steve know about it? What the hell was happening out there? She heard more sloshing water under the house and another noise coming from outside. A splashing, pulsing sound. Almost like…waves. But that couldn’t be, could it?
“I need you to be a big boy,” she told Zane. He nodded, his face serious, looking very much like his father. He sniffled a little but seemed to be under control. “We need to get some clothing together and leave the house. Put your favorite clothes in your backpack while I help Greg.”
The house was a single story, one of three models offered to company families when they moved to town. All three models were cheap replicas of Spanish style houses, with tile roofs and fake adobe walls. Mortgages were paid as paycheck deductions. It was simple to get a mortgage in Collins: just be an employee of Collins Research Ltd. The company employed everyone in town.
