by Joseph Souza
Only a few boxes of ammunition remained, which meant we could only use the rifles in life or death situations. Rick brought the ax up from the basement and handed it to Dar, along with a smooth stone to sharpen the blade. Dar spent a considerable amount of time that day honing the edge until it could split a hair down the middle. She loved her new ax and began to carry it wherever she went.
“You need to practice with it,” Rick said, taking the ax and demonstrating. “If you simply decapitate them, they won’t die. You must notch the blow slightly below the occipital bone so that you knock out the brain stem. Once you do that, the creature will automatically shut down.” He did a light karate chop on the back of Thorn’s emaciated head, directly below the occipital bone. He swung Thorn around and did another chop just under his chin.
“I’m going to teach my child how to kill as soon as it crawls out of the womb,” Dar said, holding the ax up as if to swing. But there wasn’t enough space in the dining room to complete a full cycle.
“You won’t have much room for error, so practice don’t make perfect; not practicing enough will make you dead.”
“I’m going outside to give it a whirl,” Dar said, heading towards the door.
“Are you crazy? Those things will swarm around you. And you’ve got a baby to worry about now,” I said.
“There’s not many of them out there today, and the few that are there are slow as shit. I’ll be able to waste a couple before they even notice me.”
“I forbid you to go out there,” I said, falling back into old habits.
“You forbid me? Dude, are you for real?”
Thorn and Dar laughed. Thorn put his hand on my bony chest and shoved me. I fell back against the wall and bumped my head, staggering to recover. In my enfeebled condition, I couldn’t swat away a fly. My hands were bones, my arms thin as twigs. Dar could blow on me and I’d topple over.
I stood by helplessly and watched her go outside. The dead turned and made directly for her. Dar stretched her arms, squatted, and then took a few practice swings. The first creature approached, a young woman. It moaned and reached out with its stiff, tattered arms. Her decomposing mouth opened and revealed a hive of rotten, yellowing teeth. It began to screech frantically as it stumbled toward her, hungry. Dar did a quick side step, shuffling behind her, and in one motion swung the ax upwards. The blade sliced through the back of her skull and came out the other side. The creature fell dead on the ground, its brain a greenish-gray tint. Staring at it, it reminded me of one of those jellyfishes washed up on shore. Dar ran back inside and shut the door behind her. She had a look on her face as if she were disappointed in herself.
“Damn! I could feel the blade struggling through the skull.”
“That’s because your swing needs to be slightly angled upward. The blade of the ax struck too high on the skull, and had to fight through the bone.”
“What’s the difference? She slayed it,” Thorn said.
“It’s slew,” I corrected.
“Fuck off, mister big shot writer,” Thorn said, pointing a bony finger at me. “I don’t need your goddamn help with grammar.”
“You’ll dull the blade if you keep hitting the occipital bone,” Rick said, pinching the metal blade between his fingers. “Feel it. It’s already losing its edge.”
“You’re right. I need to go out there and try again,” Dar said. “This time I’ll do it right.”
She went outside again and repeated her warm-ups. An obese creature approached, tires of rotting fat ringing his arms, stomach and legs. He lumbered slowly and methodically, his tree trunk arms extended hungrily in the air. Dar feinted one way, then stepped back and swung the ax with all her might. The blade caught a glint of sunlight before slicing through the fat creature’s head. His spongy brain flew out of the skull cavity and landed with a splat against the window. It dripped down the pane, leaving a trail of green ooze in its wake. Dar looked over at us and smiled, two thumbs up. Sweat poured down her pierced, tattooed face. She didn’t have time to rest as a couple more began to approach. She picked up the ax and began to swing repeatedly, cutting off heads until their skulls littered the driveway. After a few minutes of killing, she jogged back inside and collapsed in one of the chairs. She placed her hands over her swelled belly and smiled. The remaining creatures outside inadvertently kicked the heads around in the driveway as they stumbled back and forth, brain matter spilling gelatinously onto the dirt.
“Well done, babe,” Thorn said, greeting her with a high five.
“I could have kept drilling them all day. Did you see me out there?”
“You rocked it, babe. You’re a superstar.”
“If it wasn’t for the seed growing inside me, I would have slain them all day. I can’t get enough of it.”
“Don’t you worry, babe, there’ll be plenty more of these fuckers to kill.”
I lay awake that night in bed, my mind reeling from that ax-wielding horror show she’d put on. Kate slept with her arm over my chest, the kids cuddled between us and at the foot of the bed. I tried hard to concentrate on the tasks that needed to get done before we escaped this hell. Fill the truck with gas. Packing the rifles, the ax and whatever ammo remained. And taking any food we could scrounge up.
The sun began to break through the gauzy curtains. I got up, not having slept, and made my way downstairs and into the dining room. The sky glowed green and sallow. The first thing I noticed was Dar standing outside and wielding the ax. She sliced off a few heads, came inside for a quick break, and then went back outside to slice off a few more. The driveway was now filled with their severed, mush-filled skulls. Thorn stood at the door’s threshold with rifle in hand, cheering her on. Her accuracy with the ax had become so proficient that each swing landed precisely where she aimed it. Thorn clapped his skeletal hands wildly and stuck his fingers in his mouth, whistling. He looked delirious and delusional, mad as all get-out. When he turned sideways, he looked like a magic trick whereby the magician made him disappear into thin air. After ten minutes of cutting off their heads, Dar walked back towards the door, kicking the severed heads out of her way like soccer balls.
“Nice job, babe,” Thorn said, following her like a puppy.
She collapsed in a chair and stared at me, sweat running down her brow. “Why the long face, old man? Weren’t you even watching me out there?”
“Very impressive.”
“You don’t sound like you mean it,” Thorn said, gripping the arms of my chair and putting his face in mine. “Why don’t you say it like you mean it?”
“I don’t say anything I don’t mean.”
“Arrogant asshole. You think you’re so much better than anyone else because you write books!”
He stood up and grumbled. I chalked his rude behavior up to food deprivation and isolation-induced paranoia.
Thorn pulled out a blade and held it against my scrawny throat. “Don’t mess with me, man.”
“Please tell him to remove the knife,” I asked Dar, the sharp blade up against my Adam’s apple. “There’s something important I need to tell the two of you.”
“Let him go,” Dar ordered.
Thorn released me.
“My brother’s playing us for fools. That’s why he won’t let us leave here and go where it’s safe.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Your brother saved our lives,” Dar said.
“Gunner didn’t just walk out of here…Rick killed him.”
“Killed him? Prove it,” Dar said.
“Go up in the attic. His body is hanging from the rafters,” I said. “You remember how depressed Gunner was. Rick convinced him to end his life so he could watch him reawaken.”
“You’re bullshitting. Rick would never betray us like that,” Thorn said.
“Go upstairs and check for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“Go on, Thorn,” Dar ordered.
Thorn ran upstairs. A few minutes later, he came back down with a surprised look on
his face. “He’s right. Gunner’s decomposing body is strung up from the rafters.”
“Of course I’m right. Rick goaded him to turn into one of those monsters so that he could observe the reawakening process. When it was complete, he stuck the knife in Gunner’s neck.”
“Gunner does have a knife wound at the back of his skull,” Thorn said.
“Rick made me go up in the attic and witness him come back to life. It was horrible. Who’s to say that we won’t be next once we outlive our usefulness to him and the supplies dwindle down? We’re running out of food and water, and pretty soon there’ll be no more gas left to drive out of here to safety.”
Dar whispered in Thorn’s ear and then stood. Thorn sat down in the chair next to mine. His eyes appeared wild and savage, and I could see that he wouldn’t hesitate to cut me to ribbons on Dar’s word. The disintegration of our cohesiveness saddened me. We were turning against each other, and I was the biggest Judas of them all, turning against my own brother. Hunger and pain had broken through the safety net of morality, and it was now everyone for themselves. The fact that I was Dar’s father and the grandfather to her unborn child made no difference in this new order. She had her own brood to protect, her own goals to pursue.
“That bastard,” Thorn said, shaking his bony head. “I’m so goddamn hungry I could eat one of those fuckers, especially if we cooked it on the grill. I can’t take much more of this powdered shit, Dar.”
“We don’t have much time left to make a decision,” I said.
“It’s settled. We’ll wait for the right time to leave, and then the four of us will take the kids, whatever food and water there is left, and split in the truck. No one breathes a word of this until the time comes, or I won’t hesitate to shove this ax through your skull. And don’t tell Kate either. That bitch might say something to Rick.”
“I’m glad you can finally see the truth, Dar, because if we stay here much longer, we’ll most certainly die.”
“The truth is what I say it is. Look where your supposed truth got me. All those years lying to me nearly destroyed my life.”
“I’m so sorry for how I’ve hurt you, Dar,” I said. “I swear I won’t say anything to Kate.”
“It’s prophesied that the Diaspora is part of the master plan, and you can write that in your shitty journal. We’ll set forth in a matter of days. Wait for Thorn’s word. He’ll inform you when the time is right.”
Chapter 20
I WONDERED WHY WE HAD TO wait so long to leave. I was starving and desperate for something substantial to eat. Rick never told anyone where he kept his supplies or where the key to the supply room was located. He controlled access to just about everything needed to survive. He controlled every aspect of our lives, and I resented him for it.
Kate came down later that morning, the kids in tow, and joined me at the table. She resembled a bag of bones, and I knew she would not live much longer in that condition. She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, and her movements had the look of someone much older and enfeebled. The kids looked thin, too, but they were much more resilient and better fed than us adults.
I pulled out my notebooks and began to write as I sipped my watered-down coffee. The caffeine went directly to my head and caused me to become almost manic with energy. The caffeine had the effect of keeping my mind off food and my stomach sated, if only temporarily. I’d taken up smoking, too, which also lessened the pains of hunger. I pulled one of Rick’s cigarettes out of the box and lit it, and then began to write nonstop.
When I finally looked up hours later, exhausted and sore from writing, I realized that Rick had joined me at the table. He drew the shades and then stood staring at the barren fields he once tilled, but were now dotted with dead creatures stumbling through the tall grasses and stomping over the harvested plants. He returned to the table, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke out the side of his gaunt cheek. He appeared extremely agitated, and his hand trembled when he brought the cigarette up to his mouth.
“You look upset,” I said.
He laughed nervously and stubbed the butt into the ashtray before pulling out another. “What the hell do you know?”
“I don’t know anything anymore. I’m dying, Rick. We all are. But I still know when my brother has something on his mind.”
“Do you have a minute?”
“I have all day. I have all the time in the world. I have no money, no food or family, no major book deals on the horizon. But I do have time for you, brother.”
“Come on downstairs for a few minutes.”
I got up gingerly and followed him down to the basement. My bones felt brittle, and the muscles in my body had atrophied to the point where I could barely move without much effort or pain. I now understood what it felt like to be ninety years old. Walking down the stairs, I held onto the railing for support. My heart was weakening with each passing day, both figuratively and literally. My lung capacity had diminished significantly, and I frequently found myself panting and out of breath. One of these days, my heart would stop pumping altogether, and I would lie down and die. Suicide began to seem like a viable option. Death did not scare me now, although turning into one of those creatures did. I wondered if my soul would be at rest after we died or whether it would remain in abeyance, held captive by the reawakened brain.
Rick sat down on the stool in his lab and swiveled to face me. The first thing I noticed was that the creature on the cot was no longer there. I sat down across from him and breathed a sigh of relief.
“She’s at rest now, Thom. I placed her body in one of the garbage bags in the other room so that the others wouldn’t see her. My experiments had reached their natural conclusion.”
“We’re all dying, Rick. This plan of yours isn’t working.”
“The authorities will come for us, I can feel it. The government has a vested interest in getting rid of these diseased creatures so that they can prevent this contagion from spreading.”
“So now you’re depending on the government to bail us out? I thought you despised the government.”
“Look, if I could have continued farming my crops and raising livestock like I’d planned, then none of this would have mattered. I could have survived indefinitely. But I can’t, Thom. This thing is way bigger than anyone could have expected.”
“Is that why you called me down here? To tell me about your new plan, which is to wait for the goddamn government to show up? Ha! And I suppose the postman will deliver the mail tomorrow.”
“Don’t condescend to me, Thom, especially after seeing how far we’ve come,” he said, lighting another cigarette. “What I’ve discovered is far more sobering than expected, and fascinating in many ways too.”
I laughed at this assessment. How much worse could it get?
“The computer finally delivered the results that I’ve been waiting for. It took a while, but eventually it matched up the disparate strands of DNA.” He inhaled the cigarette as if on life support.
“And?” I said, leaning forward.
“I made a terrible miscalculation. In my quest to save the world, I ended up being my own worst enemy.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I identified the strand of DNA that is responsible for the reawakening of these brains. It’s a virus known as viral deriiontitus, and it carries with it a toxin so debilitating that it affects the brain chemistry of animals similar to the way it does in mad cow disease. This particular virus transmits chemical senses to the brain via the vagus nerve, which connects directly to the brain stem.”
“But how did it enter the food chain?”
He paused for a moment to suck on the cigarette and then blew the smoke out the side of his mouth. “I put it there. Unintentionally, of course.”
“You put it there? How?”
“As a result of the genetic engineering I’d been performing on my crops. I introduced different DNA strands into them, and by doing so, created a whole new slew of seed stra
ins. The result would have been a technological breakthrough had it worked. It would have completely revolutionized agricultural practices throughout the world. These crops were designed to be resistant to disease and pestilence. Do you understand the ramifications, Thom? No pesticides or toxic chemicals. They would have been hardier in the winter and could have been planted much sooner in the spring. They would also replenish the soil almost immediately, meaning that the farmer would never have to rotate his crops year after year. Climate adaptability. It’s the regeneration of the soil that I believe is causing this phenomenon.”
“Nice job, Rick. You don’t believe in God, but yet you wanted to play at being God. But you’re not Him. You screwed with nature, and now we’re all paying the price.” I stood and paced the small room angrily, my legs rigid and weak. “So tell me, Rick, how did this disease make its way up the food chain?”
“I thought about it all night until it finally hit me. At first, I thought that these animals simply consumed the seeds or vegetable matter that wormed its way into their DNA. But then I remembered that all the animals in this ecosystem have been affected, and it struck me that the virus must have been carried away and spread through pollen spores. The pollen spores lodged inside their intestinal tract, where it enters the bloodstream. This has been a major source of concern in the genetic engineering of certain food types.”
“So all the millions of spores you created got carried up and then inhaled by the local wildlife. And yet we humans weren’t affected until now?”
“I studied it all winter and realized that it doesn’t affect humans in the same manner as it does animals. Other than coming down with an upset stomach, the virus has very little effect on us. It has to be spread through blood transmission. Once the virus enters the bloodstream, it performs two primary functions. It acts swiftly to consume the new host it invades, completely overtaking it and shutting it down. Then it regenerates the brain, which holds the host in a state of suspension until it can throw off its offspring onto another awaiting host. This particular DNA strand has a completely different code programmed into it. It’s almost as if some new law of physics has superimposed these rules into the gene’s software.”
