by Aaron Dries
A gurgle split the air. Snapping. The hairs on Woods’ arms, unwilling dancers to sounds she didn’t want to hear.
Close. Too close.
It was coming from right there.
Woods felt every muscle in her body grow tense, focused on the sensation. The fear was in the marrow she longed to keep. Clenching her jaw, she took two steps backwards, her shoes squelching against something wet—an intestine popped under her heel, splattering shit. The stink was raw. Her exhale was soft but determined; Woods had no desire to die today.
Crunch. Schlop.
The boy snapped its head around the corner, dead eyes honing in. Its smile was so wide it almost extended off the sides of his—its—face, like a child’s crayon drawing, the kind her sons used to make and that she’d bring into her office and plaster across the walls. She watched it lurch further into view, blood and licks of hair glossing its body. A wet mess fell from its hand, forgotten in its desire for something new.
Something from within her. A part of her. Something ripped from Woods’ body.
No, she said to herself. It’s mine. Always.
Woods snapped to and sprinted towards the entrance to the building. Doors opened on her left, on her right, the peekaboo faces of the infected men and women emerging from the dark of their rooms to scream at her.
“Run!”
“It’s going to get you!”
“FASTER!”
She rounded the final corner and saw daylight at the end of the red—she could see through the two glass doors at the lobby leading to the street. Outside. Possible safety. In the mix of this light she saw the mob swarming. They were still waving their placards, only now in addition to their number there were members of her staff there, too. She had trained them well; that was their evacuation point in the event of an emergency. The ‘unlikely event’, as it had always been phrased, on account of things like that never happened in places like this.
Woods heard the bone eater coming after her.
She kept on running, doors slamming shut on either side as she went—thump, thump, thump, thump. Despite this, she could still hear them cheering for her, banging against their walls in the hope of successfully making a distraction. Even though it wasn’t working she loved them all for trying.
Woods propelled herself further, arms swinging hard and fast.
The corridor seemed to stretch out in front of her, yanked away like pulled taffy, shrinking the exit down to a pin-sized vanishing point ahead. Only ‘ahead’ didn’t quite fit right. That suggested her destination—her survival—was within reach. This wasn’t the case. Woods had coursed this stretch of well-worn linoleum a thousand times over and never once had it seemed so long. So far away. She was learning now how fear made all things malleable. It melted the strong to make them weak. It warped walls and time alike, heaving them to their absolute limit.
Feet slamming. Her panting, her screams. The light grew brighter.
It was with her, reaching out to snatch at her hair. She didn’t dare look back, but caught sidelong glimmers of its white skin reflected in the port windows of the doors as she sprinted on. Woods screamed when it mewled, the heat of its breath on her neck.
(fee-fi-fo-fum)
She was close to the first glass door. Faces turned in her direction. They pointed. Signs dipped. Steam-bursts from the O’s of their mouths at the sight of her running towards them. Towards her dead end.
Because in order to get through the first door into the antechamber Woods would have to stop to either swipe her pass (which was sitting on the desk in her office) or punch in the manual code. That would take a few seconds, plus a handful more for those old pneumatic doors to grind open. The bone eater—no, he’s a boy—the smiler—he’s a boy, goddamnit—the fucking zombie—there I said it!—would be on her in no time at all.
He was that fast.
Woods had never expected it to end this way. She thought she would live to see her boys have children of their own, to see the world evolve into a better version of itself. People said she was a Grade A bitch, and Woods wouldn’t deny that, but nothing gained was forged without fire. And God help her, she was a full-time burner. Always had been. Like Mama Metcalf, Woods thought the few remaining good people on this planet deserved better than this.
She saw it now.
I’ll die against the glass door, fumbling at the keypad. Slaughtered in view of my staff and the spiteful crowd of protesters who come here day after day like flies on shit. The zombie will rip out my spine and eat my marrow. And then what will all those people say? Well, I know that only too well.
See. I told you so.
“DROP!” came a voice from her right. So quick and well measured, a shadow sidestepped into the hall from where it had been hiding in the room just before the door into the reception area.
***
The black woman dove to the floor at Geraldine Leonard’s feet, revealing the blur of teeth and claws at her back. This locomotive of hunger pummeled at her now, faster than any of the outlawed clichés she’d grown up with as a child from movies and literature had led her to believe. Her mind struggled to comprehend its viciousness. Logic kept her firm, kept her legs locked in the A-frame position, kept her eyes sharp.
Rationality came to her rescue. The creature was just a reanimated corpse, and one of the many things Geraldine had over the creature were the reflexes of the living. That, and the crazy old woman’s gun.
A crown of a different kind.
There was no time for Geraldine to offer up a prayer. Not even a quick one. But as far as she was concerned, she’d banked up enough amens in her lifetime to last her a while.
There was a job that had to be done and an ugly one at that. That was why she was here. That was why she hadn’t killed herself long ago, in spite of the sin. She was a Crowner, and in some ways always had been. It was all she had left.
Geraldine pulled the trigger.
***
Betty Hopkins was by her husband’s side near the front of the crowd watching the action play out within the hospice. Back at college she had, of all things, been a drama major—her aspirations of being an actress crushed under Tim’s thumb. Now it was as though she were watching herself up there in this impromptu theatre. Betty was always running, just like the woman behind the glass doors. The only difference was when Betty ran she never seemed to move anywhere.
And the blur at her back? She didn’t like to overthink as to what—or who—that was.
The staff closest to the building screamed. They scattered down the steps in their direction. Betty felt Tim pushing against her, easing her out of the way. The sign that he’d given her earlier, the words, KILL ALL BONE EATERS—THE NEW BIBLE: VERSE 1 scrawled across it, slipped from her hand.
A gunshot rang out from the foyer.
Betty glanced up, the crowd around her breaking apart, leaving her alone at the foot of the building’s steps. A creature that in many ways reminded her of her son flung against the first interior glass door, chest first. Its exploded shoulder was on full display for them to see like a living specimen in a jar.
No.
The thing up there didn’t just look like her son. Good God in heaven—it was her son. Of this she was sure. A mother knows, even mothers who never wanted to be mothers in the first place.
Before she had a chance to wonder how all this could be happening or why, a shadow materialized from the red glare behind the thing that used to be her Robby. He spun around then, his bleached skin shimmering in the winter sunlight. Betty told herself that her son hadn’t seen her, though on some level she suspected he had, and not known who she was.
It’s okay, Robby. I don’t know who I am, either.
Another gunshot on the stage, another blaze of light. Robby’s head detonated against the door in a mosaic of brains and cracked glass.
Betty dropped to her knees, all sensation in her body gone now. The curtain closed, draining all color from the day. She looked around for her husband and foun
d him in the crowd once more, his face almost indistinguishable from those of the others—except for the I’VE GOT MOXIE cap. What was it about a common cause that made everyone look like everyone else? Hatred devolved people somehow, she thought. Made them legion. She saw them standing there, still and silent, and none more so than her husband himself.
“See Tim,” Betty Hopkins said. “You all got what you wanted.”
THE CHOICES MOTHERS MAKE
Lucette was finally sleeping.
Emily sat by the girl’s bed, listening to her labored breathing. It was so deep it made the bedsprings squeak. All about them were bundles of soiled tissues, cotton buds, a half empty bottle of gin, red bath towels that had been drenched red. The prior afternoon and the night that followed had been its own kind of slaughter, not so different from that which she’d witnessed at work. Emotional destruction.
These had been the most difficult hours of Emily’s existence.
She patted her daughter’s sizzling forehead, trying not to look at the bandages wrapped around the lower part of her face. The wet fabric sloshed inwards and outwards with every one of her daughter’s desperate intakes of air. This detail broke Emily’s heart because it made it all seem too real. And it was real, despite the way the hours since leaving the hospice had blurred together, like those fitful times when dreaming and waking mingled. A blur of wishing versus truth, giving up versus the fear of giving up. There had been so much screaming, especially in the dark. The girl had been hysterical, her pain coming in waves, and fearful that the noise would attract neighbors, Emily had no choice but to silence her.
Yet another bruise on her kewpie-doll face.
The clouds that had brought so much snow lately had broken, and early-morning sunlight poured through the window, liquid gold. This did nothing to temper the darkness of Emily’s mood, however. In fact, the light almost seemed to be God’s way of mocking her.
No. Not God. That prick doesn’t exist.
Whatever doubts she’d had over this before were confirmed now. The scar of this was only too real.
She’d been holding back the tears since they’d left the hospice the previous day, trying to be strong so as not to upset Lucette any further, but now that she was out cold, Emily slumped to the floor, drew her forehead to her knees, and gave in. These convulsions wracked. She still hadn’t changed out of her scrubs, which were splattered with drying blood. Only she hardly noticed this. Snot mixed with the red in a medley of bodily fluids. It felt good to let go.
The crying juiced her of the prior night’s memories. They slipped through her fingers in the shape of tears to patter the floorboards between her knees. It was the great purge, and the venom of what had happened had no choice but to come out.
Holding a pillow over the side of Lucette’s head as she thrashed against the dining room table. Pouring gin over her lipless mouth to sterilize the wound. “Christ, fuck, lie still!”
Watching her girl loll between consciousness and unconsciousness. The way her eyelids jittered this way and that with the terror of her first night fever. They would only get worse as the infection incubated.
Tying Lucette to the bed with scarves so she couldn’t hurt herself. Struggling to make the knots tight enough, cautious of cutting off circulation to those small hands.
Blood absorbed into the fibers of towels, blooming like daisy-chain flowers growing up through Chicago snow.
Begging for Lucette to be quiet, locking her in her room with all the toys that Mama Metcalf had bought for her at Christmas. Emily sitting against the door as her daughter scratched at the wood behind her, moaning. Moaning. Moaning. Emily lifting her head to see a rat scurry through the kitchen. It scuttled away and into a hole she’d never seen before. It was there, under the sink cupboard. Emily longed to shrink herself down to the size of a thimble, just like Alice in her world of Cheshire cats and looking glasses. Then, and only then, would Emily crawl inside that dark warren in the wood. Perhaps the rat that would not die, would eat her until she was dead, and maybe that would be a good thing.
The quietness from Lucette’s room. Emily wondering if the girl had slipped away.
Leading Lucette into the bathroom and peeling off her soiled clothes. Bathing her skin in soapy water. Holding her as three words kept running through her head: keep her safe, keep her safe, keep her safe. Whilst all around them the shadows in the bathroom turned into hands that stretched out to snatch away the only thing Emily had left.
To take that which had been claimed.
“Don’t leave me,” Emily had said. “I don’t know how to be alone.”
The same stitching that had bound Emily to her husband was the same as the one linking her to her daughter. It was fraying before her eyes.
Sitting by the window and watching the night outside. Praying that dawn would come; afraid that dawn would come. Wondering if anyone had noticed that the world had devoured them, and if they had, wondering if those people gave a shit.
Looking at the knives in the kitchen drawer.
Emily wasn’t sure how long she stayed like this, but the ringing of her cell phone penetrated through. She stood, dizzy, and hurried from the room, not wanting the ringing to rouse the sleeping girl. In the hallway, she pulled the cell from her pocket and stared at the screen.
It was Woods.
Emily was surprised the call hadn’t come sooner. But with all the commotion and confusion at the hospice, there had doubtlessly been more pressing matters to which the administrator had to attend. It didn’t occur to Emily until later that seeing her boss’s name on the incoming call display meant two things: One, that Woods was alive, and two, someone had noticed that she’d been devoured.
Someone did give a shit.
The ringing droned on. Like the bandaged rasp of her daughter’s breathing, answering would only make this situation more real. There was so much more hurt to be experienced and the first lashing would no doubt come from the voice on the other end of the line. Emily told herself to be brave, and wished that the dead had a way of crossing phone wires like they sometimes did in the movies, and that when she answered it would not be Woods talking. It would be Mama Metcalf telling one of her obtuse asides. Or maybe her own mother, that southern lilt like cold water on a scalding burn.
Taking a deep breath, Emily slid her finger across the screen and held the phone to her ear. It was hot. “Hello,” she said, astonished by how steady and normal she sounded considering the circumstances.
The same could not be said for Woods. “Emily, thank God. Where the hell are you?”
“I’m at home.”
The rat was peering out of its burrow at her again.
“Why’d you leave, girl?”
“I did what had to be done. Just like you said. I grabbed Lucette and went.”
“I understand that, truly I can. You probably did the right thing. Everything went—” Emily listened to the crackling phone line as Woods searched for the appropriate word. “Sour.”
“I’m sorry I left,” Emily said. “I know protocol in situations like that is total lockdown. To not leave.”
“You’re safe. That’s what matters. But the police are going to want to question you. If you don’t come in today they’ll come to you. The Ministry will be here, too. We need to follow their advice on how to proceed. I’m in way over my head.”
Emily found herself fumbling for an excuse to stay out of it. “I really didn’t see much. By the time I got to the courtyard Mykel had already subdued the woman who—
Killed Mama Metcalf.
She couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words aloud. With everything else that had happened, and her concern for Lucette, she hadn’t spent much time dealing with the fact that her friend was dead. It was too much to take at once; Emily would have to push this aside to be dealt with later.
Assuming, of course, that the knife in the kitchen drawer remained in its place.
Snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug.
“It doesn’t matter h
ow much you did or didn’t see,” Woods was saying. “This is how it goes. Bring Lucette, too.”
“She was terrified by the whole thing. I’ve only just got her down now. Our night was fucking awful. It’ll have to wait, okay?”
“Well, I don’t know if it can. Because of what happened with Robby, everyone in the facility has to have a thorough physical examination to ensure there’s no threat of contamination.”
“Lucette wasn’t anywhere near the FSU,” Emily lied.
“Em’, help me to help you. Both of you.” Another stretch of silence, broken by a couple of half-stifled sobs. “I need you here. Please. You’re the best I’ve got. You always were.”
Emily disconnected the call and turned her phone off.
There came more scurrying from the kitchen. Tiny teeth chewed through something rotten, something damp.
The warmth of gin dribbling down Emily’s throat was followed by a clunk as the bottle drummed the floor. A line of small sugar ants marched across the kitchen tabletop. “Hello,” she said, crushing them under her thumb. “Hello. Hello.”
Five tabs of Aspirin in the palm of her hand. Bitterness as she ground them between her teeth. They didn’t stay down long. Her vomit was green.
The pipes behind the walls groaned as she showered. Bloodied water swirled between her toes. Emily giggled because she thought it looked too red. As though it were fake.
Dressing herself. Cold sunshine on her face whilst she brushed the knots from her hair. Ouch.
Time didn’t exist in the apartment anymore. The clocks didn’t tick.
She saw Robby scuttling across the floor when she blinked. Covered her eyes. Removed her hands. She saw Lucette scuttling across the floor now, bald and hungering bones.
That whisper again: Keep her safe. Keep her safe. Keep her safe.
Emily returned to the kitchen. The rat was gone but the knives were still there.
She stood inside the doorway to Lucette’s room. The girl lay on her back, one arm thrown over her eyes. The scene might have been picturesque, a moment to capture for the photo album, were it not for the fact that her mouth was bound in blood-encrusted bandages.
