by Joseph Souza
“Peace out, motherfucker!”
“Damn!” I said, staring down at the dead moose, a second bullet hole in its skull.
“Get up, Dad. I’ve a feeling that there’ll be plenty more of these dead fuckers waiting for us.”
She held out her hand and helped me up. My entire body pulsed with pain, and it felt like I’d collided with a cement truck. Dar’s face looked horrific. Blood streaked down her forehead and sluiced between her eyes and across her reddened cheeks. She stared coldly at me as she hooked the rifle around her shoulder. Twenty-four hours ago, I feared she might suffer a nervous breakdown requiring medical attention. Now she seemed not only to have accepted this tragic situation, but to have risen to the challenge.
We limped toward the dilapidated house on the knoll, and as we did, I pondered this new threat to our existence. The world had long been headed down this dangerous new path. Global warming, wars, and economic crisis among other things had done us in. It didn’t leave much room for optimism. Our food and water sources had been seriously compromised by industrial toxins and man-made pollutants. Poultry and livestock supplies had for years been bolstered with drugs and were made to suffer in horrible, overcrowded conditions. Wildlife in Africa had been slaughtered to near extinction. Human genocide continued to proliferate in Africa and parts of Asia. Human rights throughout the world had not come to pass, and women were generally treated as second-class citizens. It was no wonder the planet seemed to have flipped some switch and caused the unthinkable to happen.
Dar and I climbed the broken concrete steps that led to the house. The rail had long ago been knocked off its foundation, and it leaned inward at an awkward angle. Weeds and overgrown grass overran the hilly lawn on either side of us. My entire body shivered from the cold and debilitating pain. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in the last hour. I prayed that the people who lived here could help us out, as I didn’t think I could travel much longer in this condition.
Dar reached the door first and rapped against the wood. I clasped a hand to my ribs and winced in pain, praying that someone might answer.
“No one’s home,” I said after a few minutes passed.
“Let’s go inside and see for ourselves.”
She pounded on the door with her fist, and it swung open. Stepping inside, we saw piles of trash heaped near a couple of tattered couches and along the wall. Paint flakes dangled from the ceiling, and the walls were covered in floral wallpaper that looked to have been put up in the forties. An old television set with rabbit ears sat on a collapsed metal stand. Spider webs dangled from every corner of the room, and mold covered portions of the walls. Dead bugs lay trapped inside spider webs, wrapped tight in silky balls of thread. As bad as it looked, I could tell that someone had recently been living inside this house. Dar walked over and switched on the TV set.
“Maybe we can get some news and see if these things are turning up elsewhere.”
“Good idea,” I said, sitting gingerly on the ragged arm of the couch.
She turned the knob until the static formed into a fuzzy picture. It wasn’t the clearest video I’d ever seen, but the sound was good, and we could at least make out what was going on. A male reporter sat at a desk and reported on the events of the day. Underneath him, the caption said that this was a special report. We sat there, stunned by what he was saying.
Most of the world economies were on the verge of collapse. The American dollar had lost much of its value in the world market, and China was now making threatening statements. The American dollars the Chinese held in reserve were now worthless. Riots had ensued throughout the world, especially in many of the big cities in Europe and the United States. The euro had ceased being a valid currency. Russia had instituted martial law, and rumor was circulating that they’d been violently repressing protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Fundamentalist religions, Christianity in particular, were announcing this as a sign of the end of days. Muslim uprisings were threatening Israel, and some of the more moderate Muslim countries like Turkey had seen a dramatic increase in religious Jihadism.
“Think Mom and the little asshole are okay down in Boston?” Dar asked, ripping off a shred of curtain and wrapping it around her forehead.
“The Back Bay’s a pretty safe neighborhood, so I’m praying to God that they’re okay,” I said. “And please don’t refer to Stephen like that. Your brother saved your life that day.”
“Wish he hadn’t.”
“You don’t know how bad he felt about it. We all prayed that you’d make it.”
“What’s praying going to do for anyone? God is a myth perpetrated by the weak and the helpless.”
“You’ve been listening to your uncle Rick for too long.”
“Well, it really doesn’t matter what you or I believe,” she said, shrugging. “And even supposing God exists, God helps those who help themselves, right?”
“You’re making a valid point.”
“Besides, you really think a loving god would allow people to come back to life so they could consume human flesh? Seriously doubt that, dude.”
“I don’t want to get into a theology debate with you, Dar, but suffice to say that there’s a reason why everything happens in this world.”
“Believe what you want, Dad. From here on out, I’m going to believe only in myself. Dar is god. God is Dar.” She picked up the phone and put it to her ear. “Dead, like every other goddamn thing around here. Only this line isn’t coming back to life. Where’s Verizon when you really need them?”
“Very funny.”
“They’re not mentioning anything on TV about these fuckers coming back to life. This shit must only be happening around here. But why northern Maine?”
“Don’t know.” I stood. “Do you see the keys to that truck lying around? Maybe if we can get it started, we can drive it back to the farm.”
“I don’t see them, but if they’re here, I’ll sniff them out.”
I hobbled around the room, tossing things aside, searching for the keys. Dar rifled through the drawers of a table near the front door. After a few minutes, she discovered them inside a pocketbook located in the pantry. One of the keys had the Ford logo stamped on it, the same make as the pickup out in the driveway. We set about to leave when we heard a noise coming from the back of the house. It sounded like a scream.
Dar ran out the back door before I could stop her. I limped behind, clutching my ribs in pain. I pulled open the screen door and searched for her. Behind the house sat a dilapidated barn. Dar stood near the double doors, which were slightly ajar, and waved me over. I made my way down until I stood next to her, hearing a series of moans resonating from within. Dar peeked her head inside the door as I knelt down beneath her and looked inside.
What I saw repulsed me. Three bizarre-looking creatures knelt over two adults and appeared to be pulling organs out of the bodies. The creatures appeared to be children—or were children at one time. But they were children no more. They fought amongst themselves over the heads, which had been ripped from the bodies. They clawed away at every orifice in an attempt to extricate the gray brain matter. Blood was smeared over their mouths and hands. They sucked at the eye sockets and slurped hungrily, screeching in competition for the bloody morsels. They pulled stringy tendons from the neck and chewed as if it were linguine. They pushed and shoved each other for the choicest morsels. I noticed some distinct physical differences between the children. The smallest one had what seemed like feathers covering his body, as well as a tiny set of wings attached to his back. The girl had a round nose like a snout and pointy ears that continually flicked away flies. She made grunting noises as she chomped down on the hair-covered skull bones. The oldest boy looked like an animal too, but nothing in particular that I could identify.
A gust of wind blew at our backs, and the three creatures stood on their hind legs and sniffed the air. Their hands, more like claws, were spattered with blood and brain matter. They turned and looked at us. The one that r
esembled the bird flew a few feet in the air before landing back down on one of the bodies. Each of them also had claws where there should have been feet. They shrieked loudly and began to charge towards the door. Pinkish, spongy jelly clung to their hands and was smeared across their faces. It resembled cranberry sauce.
Dar swung the door open and aimed the rifle at them. “Want a piece of me, you little fuckers?”
Her first shot blasted through the pig child’s head. Gray brain matter sprayed in the air behind it, and it collapsed on a bale of hay. I lifted the rifle but couldn’t locate the flyer. Where had it gone? Dar swung the barrel around and took aim at the nebulous older one.
“I want that feathered bitch,” she shouted.
I took aim despite the spasm in my ribs. “I’ll take out the older one.” I fired and put a bullet through his eye socket, and he fell back dead.
We opened the barn doors. Light filtered inside, illuminating the grisly scene. Dar aimed upwards and fired, but the feathered thing flew higher up into the dark loft, hiding from view. These creatures were mutating and becoming more adaptable to their surroundings. It was starting to make sense now. It suddenly dawned on me that Susan had taken on the DNA of the cow that had bitten her.
“Come on, Dar, let that one go. We need to get in that truck and get back to the house.”
I scurried to the front yard and towards the truck. My ribs felt afire, and the knot on my head pulsed with pain. Dar reached the truck ahead of me. Above us, the flock of birds rocketed back and forth, but they had not yet attacked for some reason. I fumbled with the keys, and as I did, I turned and saw the winged child heading our way. It skipped, flew up, and then scampered on the ground again. I pointed my rifle at it and fired, but missed. Dar took aim from the other side of the truck. She waited until the demon pounced at the last second before firing a round through its translucent skull. Its head exploded, and a fine spray of grayish brain matter misted down upon us. It caused my face to tingle as if pricked with a thousand pins. I walked around the truck and stared down at it lying on the ground, trying to make out what manner of beast this child had turned into. What had once been an angelic-looking seven-year-old boy was now a headless monster with mangled feathers and hands shaped like claws. Its body lay covered in blood and brain matter, and fatty tissues of pink cerebral cortex sat speared like kebobs in its sharp claws.
“That’s some radical shit!” Dar shouted excitedly.
“Get in the truck.”
“Blew its fucking head clear off. So cool!”
“Get in, Dar!”
We climbed inside the truck and shut the doors.
“Uh, Dad?” Dar said, pointing towards the left side of the road.
Four more creatures had appeared. Where had they come from? As soon as they saw us, they began to stumble up the hill in our direction.
“More of them. They’re everywhere.”
“Yes, I can see that.” I stuck the key in the ignition and turned. “Come on, truck. Please start.”
“They’re getting closer. Hurry up, and get this piece of shit moving, Dad.”
“I’m trying. It obviously hasn’t been started in some time.”
The four creatures staggered up and pawed around the side of the truck. One of them, I noticed, had been the redneck at the general store that had dragged Dar into the woods. I heard the rifle go off, and the passenger window shattered. The creature’s head jerked backward, leaking gray goo out onto the dirt.
“Rot in hell, you fucking rapist!” Dar shouted.
“What the hell are you doing? Now they can reach inside and get us.”
“Sorry, but I just couldn’t help myself.”
“Nice shot then.”
She pointed the rifle at each one of the creatures, blowing their heads off. I fiddled with the ignition, pumping the gas pedal like crazy. Finally the engine turned over, and the truck came to life. Dar stuck her head out the window and whooped triumphantly.
“I’ll kill all of you motherfuckers!” she shouted.
“Relax, Dar. Compose yourself.”
“Don’t you dare tell me what to do,” she snapped. “Because I’ll never relax again, you hear? We need to keep killing these things in order to stay alive.”
“Let’s just worry about making it back to the farm.”
“They’ll keep on coming, old man, one after another. Better get used to it.”
“We’ll discuss it when we get back to the house.”
“Your brother was right. Shoot them in the head, and they drop like flies.”
I pressed down on the gas pedal, and the engine stuttered, stalled, and then began to move forward. I decided to let the engine warm up a little more.
“I don’t want to flood the engine and have it die on us in the middle of nowhere.”
“Look out there. More of them are on their way,” she said, pointing at another group of flesh-eaters stumbling onto the property. “Put it in drive, and run their asses over.”
One of the dead picked up a stone and threw it at the truck. It flew through the broken window and knocked loose some jagged pieces of glass attached to the frame. The sharp crystals flew inward, and I covered my face with my arms as they sprayed back into my face. One of the creatures reached through Dar’s broken window and started to grope at her with his rotting hand. Saying a quick prayer, I punched the gas pedal. The transmission wavered for a second and then sprung to life. The truck lurched forward on the dirt driveway, crashing into the lot of them. A couple of the creatures flew into the air. Two others fell under the front end. I heard the sound of skulls cracking under the truck’s tires, snapping like twigs. It was one of the most sickening sounds I’d ever heard. Dar punched the dashboard and shouted happily. Turning onto the main road, I glanced at the dash and noticed an eight-track player with a tape protruding out of it. I pushed it inside in order to drown out the sickening noises reverberating in my head.
Black smoke poured out of the muffler. In the rearview mirror, I could see a few of the creatures stumbling through the thick haze and heading in our direction.
“What is that noise? That’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Tell me about it. I hope I never ever hear the sound of bodies crunching like that again.”
“No, I mean that music. What is that shit?”
“‘Fernando’ by Abba,” I said, smiling halfheartedly. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s repulsive. Please shut that off,” she said, rifling through the loose cassettes on the floor. “Here, stick this one in instead.”
I took out the Abba tape, tossed it out the window, and inserted the other tape. Upon hearing the song, I punched the steering wheel happily. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I steered the truck down the road. Despite my love of jazz, this was one of my favorite songs of all time.
“Now this is more like it. Who’s this guy?”
“The Boss. ‘Born To Run.’”
“Who’s the boss?”
“Bruce Springsteen. Only the greatest rock-and-roller of all time.” I started to sing along.
We sang the refrain to ‘Born to Run’ as the truck sputtered down the lone country road, the two of us bonding in a way I never could have imagined. I looked down and noticed that the gas gauge indicated we were low on fuel. We passed some wobbly creatures stumbling aimlessly along the road. They howled and turned towards us as we passed. Dar stuck her head out the window and gave them the finger, cussing loudly. It was then that I realized we had a good chance of making it back safely, if we could only go a little further. We’d made it this far already and were less than a mile away from the farm.
It felt now as if Dar and I, two tramps like us, were born to run.
Chapter 8
THEN THE TRUCK BEGAN TO SPUTTER. Shit! I stepped on the gas, rocking in my seat and trying to milk a few extra rotations out of it, but realized that this was the end of the line. It slowly glided to a stop on the broken yellow medi
an strip. Dar glanced over at me as the Boss’s voice faded to nothing. Just ahead I saw what looked to be two creatures stumbling in our direction. One of them fell to all fours and began to crawl towards us, its tongue hanging out. Thick strings of saliva hung from its mouth and dripped onto the road. The truck’s engine gasped and exploded one last time before it died. We sat there in the middle of the road, debating what to do next.
“What just happened?” Dar asked.
“We’re out of gas. Grab your rifle because we’re going to have to hoof it the rest of the way back.”
“How did we run out of gas?”
“Wasn’t like there were many gas stations along the way, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Okay, I’m ready to do this.”
“Stay on the yellow line so we can head back together.”
“How about we just follow the yellow brick road? Lions and tigers and fuckers, oh my!”
“Funny, Dar.”
We hopped out of the truck and began to trudge down the center of the road, rifles in hand. The creatures, approaching us from the opposite side, raised their arms and hissed. One of them was a girl in her early twenties, completely naked. The other guy looked to be the same age. I imagined them as a young couple once in love. The girl looked as if she’d been the result of a wolf mating with a human. Fine hairs sprouted from her skin, and her teeth looked long, sharp and yellow. She looked skyward and let out a howl. Dar aimed the rifle and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
“Damn, I’m out of ammo.” Dar grabbed the rifle by the barrel. “There’s more than one way to skin a fucker.”
I took aim, fired—and missed. Dar sauntered over to the snarling beasts and cracked the gun over the wolf girl’s head. It fell back to the pavement, howling in pain. I ran over and took aim at the male heading towards Dar, hoping there was still some ammo left in my rifle. Blood dripped from the man’s yellow teeth as he grabbed hold of Dar and tried to take a bite out of her shoulder. I pulled the trigger and spilled his brains out onto the road. The body toppled over to the side and lay convulsing. I checked the magazine and saw that it was empty.
