“No,” Gemma said. “I'm not sure. I just know some girls brought something that looked like it with them to our dorm.”
“Let me ask you,” the doctor said slowly, “is it possible that it was something else? Or that the cocaine was tainted with another drug? Did you hear any of the other guests mention bath salts or spice by any chance?”
“I wasn't really paying attention,” Gemma said. “I don't do drugs.”
“Did anyone else here do any of the substance?” The doctor glanced around at them. “Be honest. It's important. Your life could depend on it.”
“Not a chance,” Parker said. “We're not into that shit.”
“What's going on?” Travis asked.
“She's become extremely agitated,” the doctor said. “My guess is that your party favors were spiked. We see it all the time. Dealers cut in cheaper chemicals to make more money, often leaving users unaware of the risk they run of overdosing. I'm still waiting on her blood work but I'd guess she has ingested a bad cocktail of chemicals and so did her new friends.”
“Is that why you sedated her?” Travis asked. “To keep her knocked out so she can recover?”
“No,” the doctor said, looking troubled. “She attacked one of the other patients in her room. We think the high fever caused some kind of delirium, but it seems to have passed for now.”
“She attacked someone?” Travis looked scared as the words left his mouth. He began to gaze around the room again at all of the people waiting to be treated. Several were starting to bleed black oil from the eyes. He wasn't just being paranoid.
“Doc,” Parker interjected. “what's wrong with her? I mean, is she going to be okay?”
“Sure son,” the doctor replied. “We just need to run some more tests. Don't you worry about your little girlfriend.”
Before Travis could reply, a blood curdling scream ripped through the waiting room. They turned to see several armed guards tearing down the hallway after a woman in a white gown drenched in blood. Nothing could have prepared them for what they were about to see. Candy had scarlet fluid dripping from her open mouth. She latched on to an emergency room nurse by the neck and began chewing through her jugular. The woman let out a tea kettle high scream that left sick patients scrambling for the exits. Travis stood rooted to the spot where he stood. The guards drew their guns but didn't dare fire for fear of hitting the nurse. The doctor turned and fled back down the hallway in a fit of cowardice.
“Do something,” Gemma yelled.
“Like what?” Parker was dumbfounded.
Candy pulled her grotesque face away from the wound and bright red arcs of blood shot out like a fountain onto the sterile white floor. Her eyes were now solid black, like two big saucers. A hint of a smile crossed her filth covered lips. Candy turned and began running for the exit doors.
“Stop her,” one of the guards yelled as the other charged after Candy gun drawn.
“Candy no,” Gemma screamed as she took off after them.
“Gemma stop,” Travis yelled as he followed. Parker moved behind them in stunned silence, keys in hand, a dread fear rising up in him. More than anything he just wanted to take off, to run to his truck and drive away as fast as he could without stopping for anyone or anything. It was taking all the willpower he possessed not to do just that.
“Freeze!” The security guard was closing in on Candy as she went for an elderly woman being brought in by wheelchair. Candy opened her mouth as she sprang forward like a wild animal. Travis heard the crack of the gun go off before he saw Candy's head explode. It didn't seem real. The bullet tore the top of her skull off, plastering the screaming elderly woman with blood, puss, and oily black filth from head to toe.
Travis turned to see Gemma collapse to her knees in the parking lot. Sobs racked her body and she began to shiver all over. He raced to her.
“Are you all right? Did you get hit?” It was all he could think to ask. Gemma didn't respond.
“Travis,” Parker said sternly. “Help her up. We're getting out of here.”
“We can't just leave man,” Travis said. “What about the cops?”
“I don't think they are coming,” Parker looked back into the waiting room at the people still inside. They were looking more and more like Candy before her attack.
“We gotta go before someone else gets hurt is all,” Parker screamed. “Now come on!”
Travis took one side and Parker grabbed the other, lifting Gemma's limp body from the asphalt and dragging her back out to the street. Travis stood at the curb with Gemma, who was still not responding, while Parker sprinted off to get the truck. Moments later, he pulled around and they helped her inside. As they pulled out of the parking lot, a loud explosion went off behind them. The right side of the hospital was engulfed in flames, fire licking black stains across the face of the building from out of the broken glass windows. No one said a word on the way back to Thunderdome.
When they arrived, Travis told Gemma he would be taking her back to his room and she didn't argue. She was walking now, but the look of dread and disbelief on her face had not changed.
“What are you gonna do?” Travis stared at Parker.
“I'm gonna go check on Max,” he said.
“Good luck with that,” Travis said turning away.
The sun had not yet risen, and there was a final chill to the air as dawn was approaching. Not a soul was wandering around at that hour and the grounds were eerily quiet as they made their way in from what was surely the worst night of their lives.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The first thing Max did when she got back to her apartment after the Slaughterhouse party was to lock the door and take a hot shower. It had been a long night. First there had been the incident with Parker. What was with that guy? How did he always manage to get up under her skin? If she didn't know any better she'd say she was slightly crushing on him. It seemed absurd to even suggest it. He was a million miles away from the kind of guy she wanted to end up with. He was a dumb jock with a dark secret of some sort hell bent on blowing his one chance at being something by messing with the wrong crowd and experimenting with drugs. She was looking for someone grand, someone smart and clever and good and true, someone loyal -kinda like a straight Neil Patrick Harris.
“Fucking guy is practically a Neanderthal,” she said out loud, suddenly becoming aware of just how sexually attracted she was to him, against her will. The tingling she felt made her feel like her body was betraying her. Maybe that was it, maybe she just needed to bang him to get it out of her system. Sometimes these urges just came over her from someplace deep down and dark.
No! Not gonna happen, she told herself. You're not in high school anymore.
She thought about her friend Jess, the girl with the pink Mohawk she'd brought with her to the party. What a nightmare that had turned into. Jess had definitely been jealous of Parker. First she acted like she might want to hook up with him, and then later she'd thrown a huge scene on the way to get some late night Taco Bell about having feelings for Max and not wanting to share her with the entire Frat house. Max hadn't even had time to respond before Jess had jumped out of the car and ran off down the street. Normally she would have gone after her but she was boxed in by cars so she sat there waiting for Jess to come to her senses and come back. Max parked her Honda and tried to call Jess but her phone lost signal. Eventually she gave up and ate the food herself. She threw the trash out then left, ignoring the little voice in her head that said she should go looking for her drunk friend.
“Fuck her,” Max said out loud as she drove back home to Thunderdome. “If she's going to make a scene like that she is on her own.”
She scrubbed her skin with soap, but didn't feel clean. Images from the party came back to her in bursts and eventually she decided it would probably be best if she didn't ever close her eyes again. They'd gone upstairs at the end of the night and witnessed first hand exactly what it meant to be in a fraternity. Naked coeds were pinned down in almost
every room, with two or more guys taking turns treating them like a spit roast.
These frat pigs are killing it all right, thought Max. Maybe this is the real reason they call it the Slaughterhouse.
Max had skipped over those slutty experimental years for the most part. Sure she'd seduced a teacher in high school, wrecking his marriage and getting him fired, but that singular incident had caused her so much grief she'd never tried anything else. Her mother had pulled her out of school and put her in a private Catholic school after that. Max was fairly certain it's what led her to create her alter ego Asphyxia Stardust.
It's funny how things come out when you try to repress them, she thought, reaching down between her legs. She tried not to think about Parker as she touched herself. It didn't work. Instead she found herself reaching full climax to a hybrid of her former teacher and Parker, the images displacing one another as she sank to the shower floor finally feeling calm.
She toweled off, got dressed in fresh, comfortable clothes and sat on her bed, pulling her computer onto her lap. She opened the browser only to discover the entire network was offline. She checked for wireless signals. Only one was up, COMMAND_CENTER, and it was locked.
“Fucking technology,” she mumbled to herself.
Usually when she couldn't sleep she went to Chatroulette. It paired up anonymous users at random from anywhere in the world. A live feed showed you the other person through their webcam and a side panel allowed you to type in responses, but that wasn't really necessary since either user could clearly hear the other. What had started off as a pretty cool concept quickly degenerated into a troll board crawling with perverts, but every now and then she came across something truly amazing.
One night when she was bored, Max met a teenage girl with a British accent who claimed to be in Tokyo and who was heavy into cosplay as well. She was dressed up like Haruko Haruhara, Max's favorite character from FLCL. They'd talked for six hours. That was the closest she had ever come to loving another woman, despite the vicious rumors that had dogged her since senior year of high school when she chopped her hair short and dyed it black with a purple stripe running down the right side.
Stupid rumors even followed me to Vegas, Max thought as she impatiently clicked the Page Reload button, waiting for any sign of life . . . or, as my mother affectionately refers to Vegas,‘Lost Wages’
Outside, a lawless howl tore through the night. Max froze in fear. She crept to the window and peeked out. What she saw made her audibly gasp. Several men were chasing a girl with blood gushing from a wound in her head.
“Leave her alone!” A large black guy in a cut off t-shirt jumped in the way, holding his hands up. One of the guys pursuing the injured girl sprang out and knocked him over. The rest continued after the girl who was now screaming at the top of her lungs as she ran. Max watched in abject horror as the assailant chewed right into the stomach of the black guy, pulling out a mouthful of steaming intestines. For a brief moment she thought they made eye contact. She turned and sunk to the floor, hands covering her mouth.
Dear God, she thought. They've gone crazy. This is Helter Skelter.
A loud knock at her door made her jump.
“Who is it?” she demanded.
“It's me,” Parker said, his voice muffled by the door. “Let me in.”
She flung the door open. Parker walked in and she looked around before slamming the door shut and locking it behind her. Max flung herself into his arms, clinging to his big frame and refusing to let go. When he finally managed to pry her loose, she stared at him with a look that bordered on admiration.
“Thank God you’re here,” Max said. Her eyes were wild with fear and paranoia. “Sorry for being such a psycho to you before. Thanks for coming to get me.”
“You know what? I really don't get you,” he said, shaking his head. “You are so fucking hot and cold.”
“And you are so brave,” she said, ignoring his invitation to another knock down drag out argument. “Are you bitten? I have a right to know. Don't worry if you are. I won't make you leave. I'll stay with you right up until the end.”
“I was going to warn you that something strange is going on,” he started. “but it sounds like you already know.”
“It's like a bad dream,” she whispered. “What is happening?”
“I wish I knew,” Parker replied. “I'm sorry I was such a dick earlier tonight.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You kinda were. It's okay though. I started it. All you've ever tried to be was nice.”
“I can't believe this shit is really happening,” Parker said, feeling embarrassed by the sudden show of affection.
“Me either,” she said. She took his hand in hers, trying to offer some comfort to make up for her previous behavior. They sat in disbelieving silence for a while, listening to the sounds of screams somewhere off in the distance, unable to form a single sentence as the horror of it all sunk in.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
By the time they got back to Travis's apartment, Gemma was begging Travis not to leave her alone. More than anything she wanted to take a shower to rinse away the horrors she had just witnessed, but was terrified that when she came out he would be gone - even though it was his place. She couldn't handle being by herself--not after watching one of her closest friends turn into a monster out of her worst nightmare, then get shot to death. Travis tried not to show how relieved he was that she didn't want her space. He promised he wasn't going anywhere, and then plopped down on his bed.
Putting his hand under his pillow he felt something sharp. Then he remembered his secret stash. He'd left without cleaning it up! How could he have known she'd be coming back with him? He quickly sat up and pulled the photos out from under the pillow. He gathered them all up and crammed them in the top drawer of his desk, covering them with papers.
You better pray she doesn't have a reason to go through that drawer, he thought. There's no way to explain why you have all these photos of her.
Travis plopped back down on the bed, his heart beating out of his chest. He tried to think of anything else he might need to hide from her before she finished cleaning up. She wouldn't be going through his laptop but he dragged it out from under his mattress and popped it open just in case. Gemma was his desktop background.
Shit, he thought. Better sage the fuck out of this room fast!
Travis set to work cleaning his files up and tidying up the room, making sure he didn't leave an inch unchecked just in case he'd left something she might recognize.
The minute she leaves I'm burning my stash, he promised himself. He meant it too. Something inside him told him he wouldn't need it anymore. He'd finally gotten the real thing.
Gemma locked herself in the bathroom, removed her clothes and turned on the water. She tried not to think of her now-deceased friend. Her head ached at the thought of what had happened and she forced it from her mind.
Shivering from nerves she stepped into the warm shower. It felt good on her skin. She tried to focus only on that, praying she could forget if she just stayed in the moment. If she didn't focus on anything else, the sick feeling at the core of her seemed to fade.
It’s over, she told herself as calmly as she could. Things will go back to normal now. Somehow, they will. In time, I’ll learn to make peace with it all.
She'd have to go to the funeral. She'd have to face Candy's parents, her sister, her old friends. What was she going to tell them? That she took her to the hospital after letting her get do drugs and leave with a stranger to get raped? That she took her to the hospital and stood by as they shot and killed her? How would she explain that Candy was no longer human when it all happened, that she had strips of bloody flesh dangling from her teeth and the eyes of a demon when she died?
Go to a happy place, she told herself. That's all you need is to think of something good and keep your mind there. Think of puppies and rainbows and an endless cupcake bar.
Eventually, she decided that none of her positive thinking
was helping and she decided to pick a spot on the shower wall and just focus on it, driving everything else as far out of her mind as she could.
After a good long while, Gemma emerged from the bathroom looking much calmer.
“You cleaned up,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let's lay down and try to get some sleep.”
“Good idea,” she said, joining him on the bed.
Travis turned on a sound scape machine next to his bed and they listened as whales made deep echoing cries back and forth to each other. She curled up into him. They lay there together without speaking, listening to the whales sing. It was Travis's idea of heaven, even if they'd gone through hell to get to this point.
“Thank you,” she eventually said. “For letting me stay with you, and for not taking me back to my dorm. I don't think I can ever go back there again.”
“I'm really sorry about your friend,” Travis started, but she cut him off, fiercely squeezing his hand.
“I don't . . . ,” her voice trembled, but she regained her composure. “I can't . . . talk about that right now.”
“I understand.”
“Good night.”
A loud crash in the hallway followed by screaming startled them both. Travis jumped up and shut off his noise generating machine.
“What the hell was that?”
Someone outside was yelling. Travis ran to the window and gazed down. The back of the apartments looked like a scene come to life out of one of his wildest and most terrifying dreams. Several freshly zombified residents were feasting on a girl while she screamed for help at the top of her lungs. One of her attackers leaned over and chewed through the girls vocal chords and her cries became a soft gurgling sound as she ceased to fight and fell back dead.
Gemma let out a sharp gasp as she watched from behind him. Travis's eyes scanned over to see two of the zombies moving toward the entrance to his side of the building. He shot out of the room over to the door and opened it.
“Don't!” Gemma screamed in terror.
The Rising Dead Page 13
