Tortures of the Damned

by Hunter Shea

  Alexiana saw the color return to Daniel’s face and his shoulders slump. She understood, and her heart ached for the poor man. He wasn’t a trained soldier. He worked with computers, raised a family the best he could, and took them to church every Sunday.

  While Elizabeth patched up her son, Alexiana sat with Gabby and Miguel, stroking their hair as they looked on. No one said a word.

  Thunder rumbled as fat raindrops pelted the stained-glass windows. Aside from the lantern next to Max, the rest of the tavern had grown dark.

  67

  Gabriela wanted to hug Max after her mother put his bandages on, but thought better of it. Hugs from her big brother didn’t come often, especially the last couple of years. Now he was too cool for anything like that, especially with Gabby.

  I bet he wouldn’t mind hugging Myrna Castro . . . a lot, she thought. Myrna lived two blocks from their house and had been in Max’s class since they were in second grade. He’d had a crush on her forever. There was a time when he used to talk to Gabby about things like that.

  Why did boys have to get so stupid when they got older?

  The adults didn’t say much, other than her father announcing that they would spend the night in the tavern. She didn’t like the idea. It smelled weird and there were too many odd shadows cast on the walls from the lanterns. At least the benches in the booths were comfortable.

  Her mother was sitting at the bar with her father, Buck, and Alexiana. She tugged on her mother’s shirt.

  “Can I give the policeman some water?” Gabby asked.

  Rey, Dakota, and Max were already asleep, and Miguel was playing with some bottle caps he’d found. She needed something to do. After everything that had happened that day, she was too wound up to just sit and watch her little brother flick bottle caps around.

  “Only if he’s awake,” her mother said. “He’s sick and needs his sleep. Here, you can take this bottle.”

  Her mother kissed her forehead and returned to the hushed grown-up conversation. A gust of wind hammered the rain against the windows. It sounded like it was coming down hard enough to break the glass.

  When it rained before, those rats had come, chasing them out of the shelter. Rourke’s wasn’t half as safe and secure as Buck’s shelter. What would they do if the rats came out again and knew they were hiding in here?

  Her heart quickened at the thought and for a moment, she felt like crying.

  There was no reason to cry, though. Not now. Not just because she let her mind take her to a scary place.

  No. The rats couldn’t know they were here. It’s not like they were super-smart. The last time, they’d followed her dad and Buck into the shelter. This time, everyone was inside, safe, and dry.

  What she wouldn’t give for her iPod right now. Just an hour to tune out the rain, to close her eyes and pretend she was back home in her room and it was a normal day after school, waiting for her father to come home and dinner to be on the table. To forget that Rey, Dakota, and the policeman were so sick, and Max was hurt, and that they needed guns and grenades just to walk down the same streets where she went shopping with her mother or skipped down when they were home to parades and fairs.

  She walked to the other side of the bar where they’d set up the policeman. A blanket was pulled up to his chin. She tiptoed beside him, clutching the bottle of water.

  His mouth hung open, but he wasn’t snoring like her dad did every morning. The light from the lantern only lit up one side of his face. His skin was so pale, he looked like a mannequin.

  A blinding bolt of lightning, followed by a great clap of thunder, startled her. She dropped the water bottle right on the policeman’s chest.

  Oh no, Mom said not to wake him up!

  But the bottle only rolled off him, tumbling across the floor and stopping at her feet. He hadn’t so much as moved a muscle.

  Bending slowly, carefully, she leaned as close as she could to his open mouth without actually coming in contact with him. Holding her hair up with one hand and turning her head to the side, she tried to calm her breathing and listened.

  No sounds came from his mouth.

  She waited, moving so close her ear touched his cold lips. She should at least feel the warm breath of his exhalations against her ear.

  Gabby quickly pulled away, scooting back from the policeman.

  He wasn’t breathing. Her ear had touched a dead man!

  “Daddy!”

  68

  Buck looked on while Elizabeth checked the cop.

  We never even got his name. I know it was on the ID, but we never got far enough to read it or ask him.

  She held his wrist with one hand and pressed her fingers to the side of his neck with the other.

  “Is he gone?” Alexiana asked.

  Elizabeth nodded, gently laying his arm down.

  “I don’t want to stay here tonight,” Gabby said from the other side of the bar. She was perched on her knees atop a bar stool, peering over at them. Buck could just make out the top of Miguel’s head next to her.

  “Why don’t you kids sit with your brothers,” Buck said. Max and Rey were awake now, keeping away from the body so the littler kids would feel safe with them.

  Gabby and Miguel’s heads ducked out of sight.

  “What should we do with him?” Elizabeth asked. “We can’t just leave him here.”

  That was true. Buck couldn’t blame Gabby. What child would want to sleep in the same room, a bar no less, with a dead man? The storm wasn’t letting up at all, and they didn’t have a shovel, so burying him out back wasn’t an option.

  Daniel said, “What about the kitchen? They have to have a walk-in fridge or freezer. Buck and I can take him down there. Once we close the door, he’ll also be safe from any scavengers roaming around.”

  Tilting his hat back, Buck said, “It’s the closest thing he’s going to get to a burial. Alexiana, hand me that tablecloth over there, will you? We’ll wrap him up as best we can and carry him downstairs.”

  With all four of them helping roll the man to his side so they could slip the tablecloth beneath him, they made fast work of getting him ready for transport. He was surprisingly light. Buck guessed the man hadn’t eaten for a good long while as the sickness took its toll.

  Daniel took the lead down the stairs, bearing the brunt of the dead weight. They smacked the body against the steps a few times, cringing each time, but made it down without any disasters.

  Daniel stopped at the final step and laid the body down. He called up the stairs. “Elizabeth, can you bring down a flashlight and the shotgun?”

  Buck tensed. “You hear something?”

  “We’re going to a basement where there’s a kitchen. If there are any rats around, I want to be armed.”

  Buck said, “Good point. I know I’m wiped out when I’m missing something important as that.”

  Elizabeth scooted around the shrouded body and handed a Maglite and the shotgun to her husband. He swept the beam across the entire kitchen before giving the all clear, handing the flashlight back to her.

  With Elizabeth standing to the side providing much-needed light, they huffed and puffed their way to the back of the kitchen where the walk-in sat. The pungent aroma of spoiled food was strong enough to make their eyes water. They quickly placed the body in the center of the walk-in and closed the door tight.

  “Might as well look for food while we’re down here,” Buck said. “We need to keep up our strength.” Especially if I’m going to be hauling any more bodies, he thought. His legs felt like rubber and his lungs burned.

  They stuck to the canned goods. Elizabeth found a manual can opener. They carried their haul upstairs, setting everything in a line on the bar. Daniel had even remembered to bring up spoons and forks. Alexiana went back down with Elizabeth to fetch some bowls.

  Everyone ate at the bar, even Rey and Dakota, both of them coughing as much as they chewed. Buck noticed how Gabby kept flicking glances at the spot where the cop had died. He st
abbed a fork into the peach she was about to eat. She shot him a quizzical look.

  “I call dibs,” he said, smiling.

  “You can’t call dibs on food in my bowl,” she said.

  He popped the peach in his mouth. “You want it back?” A dribble of juice rolled down his chin.

  Gabby gave a short laugh, then plucked a pear from his bowl. They went back and forth for the rest of the meal, stealing each other’s food and laughing.

  “There’s no safe base in dibs,” Buck said, noting how she had stopped looking across the room. “You’ve just been schooled, little girl.”

  Gabby plucked the last morsel in his bowl—a sliced carrot—and crammed it in her mouth.

  “I win,” she said, showing him her empty bowl.

  Everyone laughed, giving her a small round of applause while Buck tipped his hat to her.

  When they were done, Elizabeth did the best she could turning the booths into beds with the sheets and blankets they had stuffed in the shopping carts. Daniel found a bottle of Corona behind the cash register. He popped it open with a foamy hiss, took a long sip, and handed it to Buck.

  Buck took a pull of the warm, skunky beer and offered it to Alexiana.

  “You know we have to leave here tomorrow,” he said.

  “Let’s hope the rain stops,” Daniel said, staring at the front door.

  Buck imagined the bodies of all the dogs outside, their gore being washed by the lashing rain. Maggots would have a field day. The stench would be unbearable in a day or two.

  Even if it rained enough to resurrect Noah, they had to get moving.

  69

  Dakota woke up the next day feeling better than she had in a week. For the first time, she didn’t feel like shutting her eyes and going right back to sleep. Maybe that medicine Elizabeth had given her was working.

  “Can I have another one of those pills?” she asked as everyone packed up to leave.

  “Sure. Take it with this,” Elizabeth said, giving her three Tylenol, as well.

  “I want to walk for a while,” she said.

  When Elizabeth returned with a concerned look, she added, “I need to walk. I’ll feel less miserable.” And less like a burden, she neglected to add.

  Rey stretched, swallowing the last mouthful of white potatoes he’d had for breakfast. “Me, too. I gotta move my legs.”

  Elizabeth felt his forehead, then pressed her lips to his pale flesh. “Your fever is down a bit.”

  “If you get tired, you can ride my bike,” Miguel said, beaming at his big brother.

  Dakota’s heart melted. Miguel obviously idolized his oldest brother. Rey’s illness had probably worried him more than everything else that had happened. Seeing him up and wanting to walk was lifting two spirits for the price of one.

  Buck opened the door and went outside with Daniel, shotguns drawn. They came back inside and he said, “We’re good. Sun looks like it might come out, too.”

  Rey and Dakota asked to push the carts. They acted like walkers for them, helping to keep them from falling forward should their weakened legs give out. The sight of the dead dogs, flies buzzing like static on a blaring radio, made Dakota’s stomach roll. She was happy to put them behind her.

  Because there were so many cars in the road, they kept to the sidewalk, passing the Irish-themed dollar store, garage, and McNulty’s Pub. Dakota never understood the meaning of “deafening silence” until now. There should be people and moving cars everywhere. The only things moving besides their party were the front and back pages of a newspaper flipping over itself in the cooling wind.

  “It doesn’t even feel like summer anymore,” Gabby said, pedaling her bike close to her mother.

  “Must be all the clouds keeping the sun out,” Buck said.

  Dakota steered her cart around a skateboard. I wonder where the kid is who left it here. Is he already dead? Or is he sick, holed up somewhere, waiting for someone to save him?

  The thought made her turn to Rey. He looked as if he’d aged fifteen years. His clothes hung off his already-slender frame.

  “Thank you,” she said to him.

  “For what?” he replied, slowly pushing his cart.

  “For saving me. If you hadn’t come into the race office, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”

  He bowed his head. “Yeah, but we got sick just the same.”

  She thought about the cop in the bar. Maybe, thanks to Elizabeth, they wouldn’t share the same fate.

  “But we’re still here. And for the first time in a long while, I feel like I’m part of a family.” Before he could say anything, she leaned over and kissed his cheek. Despite being dreadfully sick, he blushed.

  Miguel rode his bike between their carts and announced, “Mommy, Dakota kissed Rey.”

  Rey shook his head, embarrassed.

  Dakota was getting tired, but she would be damned if she was going to crawl into her cart and ask Buck or Daniel to take the wheel.

  Just walk and enjoy the moment. I don’t think there will be many good ones ahead.

  70

  While Buck and Alexiana took the lead as they slowly made their way down McLean Avenue, Daniel and Elizabeth covered their group’s rear. Daniel wanted to make sure his kids were in their sight at all times.

  “This is so strange,” Elizabeth said. She gripped a Beretta in her right hand, barrel pointed at the ground. “I keep feeling like we’re in a bad dream. How many times have I driven down this road? Hundreds? A thousand? The trip from our house to here would take a few minutes, yet here we are on day two.”

  Daniel paused, thinking he’d heard something move beside the deli to his left. His muscles tensed as he kept one eye on Miguel on his bike and the other on the deli, its front door open, leading to darkness within.

  First the horses Rey witnessed go berserk at the track, then the rats and now dogs. Unlike the people, the animals were alive and thriving, but something had altered their behavior. Was it rabies? Could a terrorist infect an entire city with rabies through some kind of chemical weapon? Or had they infected the water supply?

  If it was rabies and they didn’t find professional medical help soon, all but Miguel were the walking dead. Only he had escaped the rats’ bites as they fled the bomb shelter.

  Seeing that the deli was clear, he turned to Elizabeth. “I can’t believe it myself. I can’t shake this feeling that everywhere we go will be like this. I’ve never felt so cut off, so completely alone.”

  Gabby rode a circle around them, her face grim. Daniel reached out to touch the fleeting ends of her hair. She pedaled next to Max. They said something to one another but he couldn’t make out the words.

  “If it wasn’t for Rey, Dakota, and the bites we all got, I’d say we should find a secure place, forage for everything we need, and hole up until the cavalry arrives,” he said, kicking aside an empty soda bottle.

  “Those are more than enough reasons to keep going,” Elizabeth said, nudging his side. “I think I know what day today is.”

  “You got me. I lost track a while ago.”

  “Care to take a guess?”

  “I don’t know. Wednesday?”

  “Not just that. The date.”

  “Now that’s asking too much. I mean how—”

  She met his gaze with a sad, quivering smile.

  “Happy anniversary,” she said.

  Daniel leaned close and kissed her, savoring her soft lips and the taste of her. “That reminds me, I have reservations at Bolo in the city tonight,” he said.

  “I’ve been wanting to go there for years. You think the reservation still stands?”

  “If Manhattan is anything like this, I think they can squeeze us in. Of course, I can’t guarantee the food will be fresh.”

  He startled her when he dashed off to a little park at the corner of McLean and Central Avenue. Spotting a cluster of red and purple flowers—he was no horticulturist and had no idea what kind they were—he pulled them up and brought them over to
his wife.

  “Happy anniversary,” he said.

  She bent close to smell them.

  “Be careful,” he said. “No telling what’s on them. Could be remnants of the stuff that made everyone sick.”

  She took a long sniff anyway. “With all the rain, they’re clean. Thank you, Daniel.”

  Elizabeth was an image of opposing factions—a gun in one hand, flowers in the other. Was it wrong to be slightly turned on? No, it was never wrong to have the hots for your wife, especially after two decades of marriage. For all he knew, they were the oldest married couple in all of Yonkers.

  They followed the downward turn of McLean and came to a light. About a dozen cars were lined up on either side. They still hadn’t seen a soul, not even someone peeking from one of the surrounding apartment buildings. However, there had been a disturbing number of dried red stains on the concrete and asphalt, along with bits of shredded clothing and an odd shoe or two. All were signs of a struggle, or slaughter, with little else to show.

  Buck turned to them. “You wanna keep following McLean, or skirt Tibbetts Park?”

  “We should go past Tibbetts,” Daniel said. “From there we can either follow Yonkers Avenue to St. Joseph’s Hospital or take the Saw Mill Parkway to St. John’s.”

  “Tibbetts it is,” Buck said. “But not until Rey and Dakota get back in the carts. You both look like you could use the rest.”

  They made feeble replies, but their eyes flashed with an eagerness to get off their feet.

  “We’ll push,” Daniel said.

  “Can you hold these for me?” Elizabeth asked Dakota.

  “They’re so pretty,” Dakota said. “Kind of makes me wish I had a husband to be with me for the end of the world.”

  They pushed on, the sunlight diffusing through the trees within the park that lined Midland Avenue.

  Daniel considered himself a lucky man. His family was still together for a reason. They would find help.

  It was just a matter of time.

  71