“Yeah,” said Charlene, “Lawrence is the one in charge.”
“Nope,” Lawrence shook his head. “I said it’s a bit of a democracy, Charlene.”
“You seem to be the one making the decisions in this house, dude.” Charlene wouldn’t shut up.
“Charlene, I would like you to not continue talking.” Lawrence had come up with new ways to politely tell Charlene to shut up. “Please.”
“May I speak to you in private, Lawrence?” said Richard. “Just for a moment, if it’s okay.”
“Sure,” Lawrence nodded. “We can go upstairs.”
Richard handed his pistol over to Therese, stood up, and removed the backpack he carried. He set it on the floor at his wife’s feet. “Joni,” he called to his child, “come here, sweetie.” Joni, with her face red and eyelids worn, came over to her father and hugged him at the waist. The two shared a strong resemblance in their doe-eyes. “I love you,” Richard kissed the top of Joni’s head. “I love you, Joni.”
Lawrence got up from the couch and stuffed his gun in the back brim of his jeans. He did so unhurriedly, as to give Richard a few seconds with his daughter. “Come on, Richard, follow me.”
As Lawrence and Richard ascended the stairs, a thud came to the front door. Lawrence, alarmed, paused and looked back. Therese and Joni yelped. Another thud came, a deep, gurgling moan behind the door followed.
“Don’t worry.” Sonya said to Therese and Joni. “They can’t get in.”
It was true the dead couldn’t get in. Lawrence had examined the door and its hinges back when they were in the process of fortifying the house.
Thud…Thud…Thud… It continued.
The sound was one of the dead attempting to use its body as a battering ram. It had happened a few times before. It wasn’t going to work, but the mindless corpse wasn’t aware of that. The thing would likely do it for hours, maybe even a few days. There wasn’t any fear in the faces of Lawrence’s housemate, only sadness, a sense of despair, as though all were reminded that they could become that mindless thing bashing itself against the door.
Lawrence brought Richard to the master bedroom. There was sunlight in the room. There wasn’t a need to reinforce the windows on the top floor. The dead couldn’t climb the walls outside the house, let alone, find some really tall ladder, carry it, and set it under a second story window.
Richard took a seat at the corner of the king-sized bed. “You look like a smart guy, Lawrence.”
“Really? Do I?” Lawrence was a little overenthusiastic with his reply, mainly because many people he knew thought he was a stoner…which he wasn’t.
“Yeah…Sure…What’s your theory on everything? What do you think caused all this?” He seemed to ask in a casual manner, as if making small talk.
“Well…” Lawrence scratched the top of his head. He did have a theory. “Um…I speculate that this was all some form of scientific experiment, some radical, scientific experiment, funded by some eccentric multibillionaire trying to find the secret to immortality. Haven’t you noticed—well, of course you’ve noticed—that those things don’t die, not from starvation, not from dehydration. They don’t sleep, or tire, or ever wear down. They’ll keep running and running, probably until their legs break off. They don’t feel pain. They’re almost superhuman. They’re almost like vampires, but instead of having to destroy the heart, you have to destroy the brain, and instead of them drinking blood, they eat flesh. They’re like feral, retarded vampires.” Lawrence realized he was rambling and pacing back and forth, and felt he might’ve strayed from the subject by mentioning vampires. He might’ve even sounded juvenile to Richard. “So, yeah, that’s my theory, a crazy multibillionaire with a radical, scientific experiment. So what’s yours?”
“I, I don’t know.” Richard shrugged. “Terrorism, maybe. Forgive my lack of imagination. But I won’t shit on your theory. It does make sense.”
“Thanks,” Lawrence said with much appreciation. “I was afraid you’d think I was a stoner, you know, the kind who thinks they’re on the same level as Einstein.”
“No, certainly not.” Richard smiled. “Look, I’m sorry that I didn’t have much to contribute when coming here.” His eyes went to the floor. He did seem genuinely ashamed.
Lawrence remembered the contributions Miles and his family made when they had begged Kyle and Ally to take them in. Anyone still lingering about Revel Street at the time noticed the thick wooden boards that shielded the windows. Miles, Helena, and France came in with several plastic bags of food, canned and dry foods of course. They had also brought a vast amount of water bottles, candles, batteries, medicines, and some hygiene products. Even Kasey, Kyle’s next-door neighbor, had contributed significantly. After Lawrence, Kyle, and Sonya rescued Kasey from her husband Darren, who had turned, Kyle invited her to stay with them. Kasey wasn’t as prepared as Miles and family, but she offered up anything they could carry out of her house. They had stripped her house of food and first aid materials, took blankets, towels, pots and pans, kitchen knives, books, CD players, DVDs (for when they still had electricity), anything they could grab and move off quickly with.
“I know everyone is glad we opened the door.” Lawrence felt confident speaking for everyone. Richard and his family were decent enough.
“Thank you,” Richard replied, with a small yet gracious smile. “I’d like to know what your story is. You seemed to have had good foresight. This house looks well prepared for an army of those things.” Lawrence found it funny that Richard also called them “those things.”
“Can I know your story after?”
“Of course.”
“May I get you some water?” Lawrence still noticed the exhaustion in Richard, in his quiet panting and constant sweating. Richard appeared feverish.
“No need.”
“All right. Just let me know if I can get you anything.”
Richard nodded.
“Well,” Lawrence began, “before all this, we lived here with Kyle, an old friend of mine, and Ally, you know the girl who was in the dining room, the one with long black hair with blonde, highlighted tips and some other red streaks going on?”
“Yes, the one who was with Joni? A sweet girl that Ally is.”
“Yes,” Lawrence continued, “she and Kyle were considerably our landlords. Me, that Hispanic girl Sonya (he couldn’t remember what Sonya was, he just knew she had some kind of South American heritage), Tristan, the guy carrying a…medieval sword, and Charlene, that one Asian girl, all lived here as boarders.” Kyle and Sonya had the master bedroom, Ally and Charlene had shared the downstairs room, while Lawrence and Tristan had their own rooms. There were five bedrooms in the house. The spare room was for mutual friends who would spend the night. Now, that room was storage for all the additional junk they’d hoarded for their long-term survival. “On the news, we started hearing about, psychotic men breaking into people’s homes, smashing windows and so forth, biting people on the streets, and you probably know the rest. The news said it was the start of an epidemic. They said it spread through bodily fluids and wasn’t airborne. I’m sure a lot of people were happy to hear that, thinking it wouldn’t spread so aggressively. They were wrong, and I was wrong. Now it began somewhere in Europe or Asia—I don’t recall, but as soon as I heard it hit the East Coast, I convinced my housemates that we needed to prepare.” Lawrence didn’t feel he was self-horn-tooting, it was solely his idea to prepare, and it had taken him a while to convince Kyle to do so. Once Kyle followed, Sonya and Ally followed, and shortly after, Ally’s best friend Charlene went along with it, as did Ally’s longtime admirer (more like ogler) Tristan. “With our savings, everything we had, we bought food, water, any kind of medicine we could get a hold of, a bunch of other survival equipment, and loads and loads of lumber to secure the downstairs windows. You probably knew how quickly it spread from the East Coast.”
“Yes,” said Richard. “Less than a month, I believe.”
“Yeah, it was fast.” L
awrence pondered for a moment and continued. “Later, Miles, the older man with the glasses and beard, his wife Helena, and his daughter Francine came from a few streets over. Helena is the slim woman, who kind of looks snooty, but she’s not, she’s a good woman. Francine is the young one here, the one who sort of looks pissed off—yeah, her face just looks like that. The three of them joined us a few weeks after we converted this place to a fort. Then Kasey came. Kasey’s the black woman. She joined us after her husband turned. My friend Kyle, he had also turned. We lost him.”
“We lost someone, too,” said Richard. His gaze left Lawrence and turned to the window. There was an empty look in his eyes. “My younger daughter. She was five. She turned.”
Lawrence swallowed hard. The thought of a young girl, a baby almost, becoming one of those things instantly made him ill. The thought seemed to squeeze his stomach and cause him lightheadedness. “How long did it take her to turn?” He regretted asking the question, wishing he had said something sympathetic.
“Two days.”
As Lawrence recalled, Kasey said it took her husband nearly a day after the bite, and for Kyle, it was a few minutes. It might’ve varied from person to person, like the start of puberty.
“I’m sorry, Richard.”
“What were you before all this began?” Richard asked. It was off the subject. Perhaps he wanted to change the subject. “What did you do for a living?”
“I was a custodian.” Part of Lawrence wished he were living those days again. Clearing urinals of chewed gum and pubic hairs and scrubbing vomit from stainless steel drinking fountains wasn’t all bad, compared to now. It was better than being confined in a house for months, unsure if you’d live another few months, better than having loved ones victimized by dead, cannibalistic maniacs or become dead, cannibalistic maniacs themselves. The only real fear as a custodian was what was beyond the stall door when the overpowering stench of shit was in the air.
“I was a fireman.” Richard smiled, absently, as though lost in reminiscence. “I’ve saved lives. My girls were so proud of me.”
“Let’s hear your story now, Richard.”
Richard used his sleeve to rid his face of sweat. “There’s no time.”
“Richard, there’s nothing but time. Maybe I could learn a few things from your experience out there. I think you owe us that much.”
“There’s no time. I can use that glass of water now.” He wiped his face again. For a second, his eyes rolled back. “It’d be a bad idea to stay here, Lawrence. You can’t stay in here forever.”
Lawrence grabbed the pistol from his pants brim, and without a thought, he aimed, pulled the trigger, and blasted a hole in Richard’s head.
2
Turning Point
Lawrence
Three months ago, Lawrence and Kyle had snuck out the house after midnight.
It was Kyle’s idea to head to the end of Revel Street to Ian David’s house. Kyle believed that the dead things were less aggressive at night. It wasn’t an assumption Lawrence agreed with.
Kyle’s plan came to him after viewing the neighborhood from the upstairs window. Ian, dressed to the nines, always so debonair in his suits and ties, was squatted down across the street, gorging on a dead cat.
Ian David was a lawyer. To Kyle and Lawrence, he was an acquaintance who they had frequently encountered in parties. Ian always dressed in suits and always proudly said some Italian name when one complimented his attire. Ian probably slept in suits, for all Lawrence knew, probably showered in his suits, and probably fucked coked-up hookers and furry animals in his suits. No one liked the guy. He’d talk about his career and lifestyle to anyone who had ears, but no one cared. No one cared that he owned a five-bedroom house on Revel Street. No one cared about his expensive cologne, because it smelled like citrus fruits melting in a barrel of acid.
Once, at a lounge, a drunk and apprehensive Ian David confided in Kyle, Lawrence, and Tristan. Ian had been buying their rounds that night, and the three thought it’d be courteous to listen to his bullshit.
“They’re after me,” Ian had said. “I’m afraid they’ll find me soon. I had to buy three guns last month. I keep one in the kitchen, one in my office, and one under my bed. I shouldn’t have to live like this. Maybe I’ll move to another state.”
Lawrence didn’t know Ian’s situation, but he felt scared for the guy. Maybe Ian was a paranoid druggy or had fucked with the wrong people.
That didn’t matter anymore. Ian David was somewhat dead now and literally eating pussy across the street.
Kyle wanted to acquire the three guns from Ian’s house, seeing that Ian didn’t have use for them, but most of the housemates were against the plan. Sonya had said, “It’s not worth it, the guns might not even be there.” Ally and Kasey had strongly agreed. Ally pleaded with Kyle to forget the idea. The only ones on Kyle’s side were Lawrence and Miles.
And so, Kyle and Lawrence went against the majority and left the house once everyone slept. Lawrence brought along an axe, and Kyle’s weapon, a hammer with a scissor blade tied to the head with twine. They traveled stealthily and swiftly down the street, though they heard several moans echo in the darkness, they encountered no predicaments with the dead. That was luck. They reached Ian David’s house where there was no need to break a window. The front door was unlocked. More luck.
With small keychain flashlights, they rummaged through kitchen cupboards and cabinets, taking whatever food and stuffing them into their packs. No sign of a gun.
Next, they searched the downstairs room, which was presumably the office. The pistol was in the first place Lawrence looked, in the computer desk cabinet. Kyle and Lawrence rejoiced with a fist bump and an exchange of brotherly shoulder punching.
They immediately moved upstairs to the largest room at the end of the hall. Kyle opened the door and scanned the room slowly with his keychain light. Lawrence never forgot how Kyle’s jaw slowly dropped when his light stopped on the face of a young boy kneeling upon the bed, greedily cramming slimy, shapeless pulps into his mouth. Dark red globs trickled down the kid’s cheeks and chin. Beneath the boy was another boy, laid out with torso opened from pelvis to chest, insides mangled and organs unrecognizable. What added much horror to the sight was that the boys, both predator and prey, had identical faces (the dreadful ending of these preteen brothers still troubled Lawrence’s sleep).
The living dead twin, Brother-eater, spotted Kyle and sprang to his feet, dropped whatever parts of his twin he was holding, and leapt at Kyle.
Kyle screamed and blindly swung his crude weapon. The scissor blade caught Brother-eater’s chin. Brother-eater dropped to the carpet. Kyle let out a frustrated cry and swung his modified hammer downward on the dead thing’s head…again…and a third time. The dimness of the room spared Lawrence from the sight of gore, but the sound of a skull shattering was enough to make him want to retch up his dinner of cocktail sausages and green beans, but he kept it in.
“Fuck,” Kyle quietly hissed. “Let’s find the gun and get the fuck out of here.”
Lawrence could only mouth the word “okay” as his throat fought back the insides of his stomach.
Kyle re-shined his light, dropped to his knees, and began his search under the bed.
Lawrence searched the drawers of the dresser.
Kyle got to his feet. “It’s not under there.” He went for the closet and opened the sliding door. He yelped, alarmingly. A full scream followed, and then a dull thud.
“Kyle?” Lawrence shouted. He looked up from his drawer search and aimed his light at the closet.
Kyle was on the floor against the bed, his right hand grasping his left shoulder. Another dead thing stood within a row of hanging suit coats, chained and bound from its shoulders to its knees. This one was an older boy who resembled the twins. It growled and shook its head in a rapid side to side motion, snapping bites at the air. Fresh blood was on its lips.
“No.” Lawrence threw down his keychain light to get tw
o hands gripped on the axe. What came after was a blur. It was like passing out after countless swigs of hard liquor and awakening on the bathroom floor the next day. All he remembered was the brief thought Kyle is done. When he regained awareness, his hands were sticky on the axe handle and the suit coats before him were sopping with blood.
“It got me, Lawrence.” Kyle rose from the floor and rested upon the edge of the bed. He sat where moonlight shined in through the window, and Lawrence saw that Kyle wasn’t terrified nor worried, just blank and defeated. “It got me. I’m already dead.”
Lawrence only stared at his friend. He knew Kyle was right.
“Kasey said it took Darren about a day, but…” Kyle trailed off. He examined the blood on his right palm. “I’m already starting to feel it. It’s fucking cold, but I’m sweating like shit right now. It’s fucking cold.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s fucking cold.”
Lawrence drew Ian’s office gun from his belt. “Do you need me to do it?”
“Not with that,” Kyle gestured to the axe. “Use that instead. A gunshot will alert those things outside. A bunch of them will come after you.”
“I can’t do that. Gun’s quicker, more accurate.”
“I know, but you have to make it back to the house. Please make it back.” Kyle’s eyes rolled back, pupils disappeared behind his upper eyelids. He let out a muffled moan, which sounded like a suppressed cry of pain. “Please protect Ally. Please don’t let anything happen to Ally. Tell Sonya I’m sorry.”
Lawrence nodded. He accepted defeat as Kyle did. Crying for him would be pointless. “I will.”
“Make it quick,” Kyle closed his eyes and lowered his head. “And please don’t botch the fucking thing, because I’ll feel it.” He abruptly cried out and clutched himself tightly, as though to warm himself from a sudden chill. The cry became a familiar, inhuman growl. His head lifted and his eyes sprang open.
Lawrence chose the gun. He aimed and fired. Gun’s quicker, more accurate.
Flesh Ravenous (Book 1) Page 2
