by Alan Spencer
Dr. Glover pointed west. “Hayden took her beyond that creek. Get after her; I'll distract them as long as I can. I'll follow you eventually. You'll know where I am by the flames."
Boyd didn’t hesitate to run. He didn’t know where he was going. Most of the creatures were attacking Dr. Glover, who stood his ground. He took advantage of the little time given him. Boyd sprinted through an open field. The area uninhabited. The din of the dead was fading. He was out of breath after a quarter of a mile.
Where are you, Cindy?
Boyd treaded through a creek, the water ice cold and shocking him. He completed a sprint up a hill, then back down another hill, and he crossed yet another creek. Tramping through the mud on the other side, he cleared the mess and came upon land. His feet was hitting pavement now. A green-painted building formed in the distance. The sign he read across the top read MESS HALL.
He sharpened his eyes on the background and made out a series of cabins and enclosures. Military quarters, he figured, but why did the place appear to be abandoned if they were running operations here?
If the military couldn’t escape, what makes you think you can?
Boyd rushed into the mess hall, the inside comprised of chairs stacked on wooden tables. Down the center aisle, Boyd spotted a trail of blood. It stopped at the entrance into the kitchen. He forced open the door, and charged into an empty kitchen. Dirty footprints were smeared on the floor. The prints were too big to be Cindy's.
Hayden.
The back door wasn’t closed entirely. Boyd assumed Hayden used it. He used the back exit and was hit by the cold night air yet again. Dim flashes of orange repeated; Dr. Glover was still fighting the dead from afar.
Boyd doubled his pace and searched a nearby cabin. He couldn't see inside, the windows tinted. Giving up, he checked the next cabins, receiving the same success as before. Shifting right, ducking low to remain unseen, he ran up to the series of cinder block walls without a roof. It was a structure of some kind.
Behind the walls, Boyd heard noises.
Time to Clean You Up
Hayden lugged the woman over his shoulder. He had struggled to support her weight in his arms. His mouth had coated over in saliva to the point he had to spit every other minute.
Richard reassured him it was okay.
Mastication is a sure sign of hunger, Hayden. It’s deep-rooted. The body can acclimate itself to ingest more, whether for survival, or for pleasure. The stomach will stretch itself and make itself bigger if you train it over time. And I’ve been thinking, when you digest another person’s body, how does your body break it down? You’re sustaining yourself on the human body’s components, and you’re getting exactly what you need to survive. It’s a beautiful thing. More people should take serious thought into eating human flesh.
The smell of the woman, and the warmth of her body against his own, drove him to consider two things. Nobody knew he was here. The dead corpses at the hospital and Broman could be dead. This place was his again, and here was a woman at his disposal. Brandy was an easy fuck, and her meat suffered for it. He tasted himself in Brandy: sweat, the grime from his hands, even his semen—that infernal tang of snake's venom. It ruined his appetite. Hayden wouldn’t make the same mistake with this new meat.
Hayden darted inside a concrete brick structure without a roof, and once inside, he discovered a series of toilets and a dozen shower heads.
He should clean her, he decided. Hayden grabbed a series of towels from an overhead compartment above a long bench. Then, he placed the woman on the wall under a showerhead. Hayden tugged down her skirt and panties. He was thrilled by her nakedness. She was more than food. She was beauty. She was the promise of culinary and carnal pleasure.
Next, her sweater went up over her head, and he unhooked her wire bra. Her breasts were milky and fat. So round, Hayden couldn't clasp one in a single hand. He tossed the clothes aside and started the shower. Bullets of water trailed down her body. Her hair was a tangled mess. There was shampoo and a bar of soap back where he had gathered the towels.
Hayden rubbed her body down, the suds smelling of lavender. The cold water stirred the woman fully awake. Her eyes shot open. The wide eyes gawked at him in horror and repulsion.
This bitch is going to lose it.
Hayden grabbed the knife from his belt loop when she screamed so loud, it made him nervous. He aimed the blade at her navel.
“You keep screaming, I’ll plunge this into your stomach. I'll fucking gut you. Do you know anybody nearby that can stop your bleeding? Internal bleeding is especially hard to stop without a surgeon."
“W-w-what do you want from me?”
The woman covered her breasts with one arm, the other hand concealing her pubic region. Every inch of her was shivering. “P-please don't hurt me, okay? I, I don't know what you want."
“Tell me your name,” Hayden demanded, cutting her pleas short by squeezing her larynx hard. “Everyone else is dead. Your friends, Broman, and that other asshole, they’re gone. So you’re here with me. So tell me your name.”
“It's Cindy,” she spat. "And I know who you are, Hayden. You're all kinds of fucked up."
He ignored her last statement and focused on her body. “First, dry yourself off before you catch cold. Your clothes are on that bench.”
Cindy didn’t take her eyes off of him as she toweled dry and slipped her clothes back on. Sneering, “What now?”
“We’re going to find a cozy place to hide. We’ll let things blow over. My nerves are worked up, and I’m sure yours are as well.”
“You’re going to kill me. I might as well run back out there with those things, right? You’re not going to lure me into a dark hole, and have your way with me. You’re alone and bored. I can only imagine what else you’d drum up besides cutting me up and eating me. You’re going to have to do it now, whatever it is you plan to do. I won’t go along with anything you say, so fuck you, you disgusting cannibal."
Hayden balked at her incredulousness. “Do you appreciate your life, Cindy?" He turned her around and pressed her back against him so he could train the knife against her neck. "I’m offering you a chance to hold onto your precious little life. I’ll take a piece from you every once-in-a-while. The morsel will be enough to keep me satisfied for short periods of time. I’ll be sparing enough to not kill you. You may never die if you co-operate with me."
“I don’t trust lunatics. My last boyfriend was the same way; I trusted his word, and I woke up in here. Your promises are dog shit to me, freak."
“Fine. Then I’ll kill you!"
He was about to drag the blade across her trachea, when Cindy elbowed him in the gut. The unexpected blow caused acidic bile to shoot up his throat and out his mouth in a pink and yellow mix of gruel. Before he could get himself together, Cindy had escaped.
Hayden caught her shadow disappear behind the corner of another facility half a block’s distance from him. The building was two stories high. The outer walls were painted dark green. She hadn't entered the place; she had ducked around it.
He ran full-speed in pursuit of his delectable damsel. Hayden gained on her fast. So fast, it took only seconds for him to gain on her. He tripped her up. They tangled up together as they crashed into the dirt. Seizing her feet, he crawled up her legs. He clutched her skirt with both hands, his fingers raking up her back. Hayden steadied the knife against her throat once again.
“Don’t move.”
Before she could decide how to react, he struck her head with the blunt end of the knife.
She went still.
Stunned.
“They’ll hear us if you keep crying out. I’ve been in this place for a long time, and you guys came along and ruined everything. I had what I wanted, and now it’s gone. You’re the beginning of getting everything back, Cindy. If you want to die, I can deliver your wish. That restaurant has working power. You saw the corpses in the fridge. I can keep you fresh. All I have to do is break back inside and lock it up again
. That's your future, lady. Leftovers in the freezer. Shit out my ass."
Cindy's eyes were trained on him, in fear.
“Step away from her, Hayden. Your fun is over."
Hayden tensed up with Broman's rifle trained on him. Cindy renewed her efforts to escape, but she stopped when Hayden tightened the knife at her throat.
Hayden gave the warning, “One swipe, and she’ll choke on blood.”
“You do it, and your brains go out of your head. And you know I'm good on my promise."
“And you’ll be a murderer once again. Did Samuel Tyson crunch under your wheels? I ran over a cat once. Shit and guts came out its ass. Did Mr. Tyson’s body do the same? God, your family must hate you. First, you’re a hero for helping to catch me, and then you’re thrown into prison with the likes of me."
“Don’t listen to him, he’s desperate." Cindy was frantic to escape his clutches. “I was unconscious, Boyd, and when I woke up, he was washing me in those showers. This guy’s rubbing-his-shit-on-the-walls crazy."
Hayden scraped the knife under her earlobe and drew blood.
Cindy winced.
“Quiet, you bitch. I was only cleaning your dirty body so I can eat it.”
"Yeah, that sounds nice and sane."
"Shut up!"
“You won't do it, Hayden. I can hold this gun up all night. I’m a very patient man. I’ve been through hell, so push my buttons all you want, I don’t feel it anymore. I don't feel much of anything these days.”
A sudden commotion drew all of their attention. Bodies by the hundreds clamored to reach them over the horizon. A few were still burning, the firelight enough to reveal their staggering numbers. Over five hundred, at least.
“What’s your move, Hayden?”
Hayden laughed. “I look just like them. I’ve had no problem slipping past them. You, on the other hand, are fair game. What’s your move, Broman?”
"What do I have to do to make you let her go?”
“Nothing. I’m taking her with me, end of discussion."
Boyd studied the enclosing dead bodies.
They were ever so close.
“Not much longer before they're in reaching distance of your body. A shame, I had hoped to eat you too. I guess I'll settle for girl flesh."
The wall of dead bodies closed in. Boyd was forced to open fire.
Hayden slipped away, forcing Cindy into the closest building. Opening the doors of a steel-walled structure, what was a box without windows, they vanished from sight.
Boyd was alone to battle the dead.
Fight to Live
It wasn’t worth the time to waste anymore bullets. Boyd raced to enter the building Hayden had fled to with Cindy. Locked. No fucking surprise.
Dr. Glover had been murdered. That's why the dead had caught up with them. The key card was lost. Escape was impossible now. The only thing Boyd had to hold on to was saving Cindy's life.
The beings crowded every corner of the building. Boyd ran back-first into a tree. Throwing together a plan, he slung his rifle over his shoulder and climbed the tree. Boyd shuddered with pain, his clavicle wound bending and puckering as he maneuvered. The tree trunk was thick enough to hold his body weight.
Bodies crashed into each other on the ground, fighting and flailing to reach Boyd.
One of them climbed the tree.
His safety lasted mere seconds.
Boyd worked across a branch and balanced himself across two long overhanging limbs. He had a view of the building where Hayden had taken Cindy. There was a door access from the roof.
It was his last option.
The trunk grew shakier as walked it like a tight rope. Boyd grew closer to the building's roof. One wrong step or a slip, and he’d land into the horde. He’d be helpless and dead in moments.
The tree was jolted as more and more of the dead things climbed after him. They raged, sending out infernal calls only those in hell could translate.
The edge of the roof was one jump away. The branch was too thin at the end to balance any nearer. Boyd saved up the strength to push off, bracing himself, closing his eyes one second, and then gaining the composure and the crazy will to do the impossible the next.
Boyd leaped forward. His arms were outstretched, his hands ready to brace against the edge of the building. The branch under his foot snapped the moment he sprang forward. The connection against the building was awkward and jarring. He fused to let go. Boyd worked up to his elbows, and then hoisted his upper body onto the roof. He landed back-first against the tarmac surface. He released a pent-up breath. The blood rush to his head blotted out the night sky. The bodies swarmed the tree like raving birds. They clutched the branches, many breaking at their force. They couldn’t clear the gap between branch and building. The nearest branch had broke when he had jumped.
He reached for his rifle, but it was gone. He’d dropped it in the shuffle to escape. He grumbled and rose to his feet.
I don't need a gun.
I'll kill him with my bare hands.
From below, rotting faces beckoned to him in throaty jargon. Many in the group were already falling apart. Arms slid from sockets. Eyes drooped from their sockets and threatened to slither out—select individuals already had lost their eyes, what bobbed on long strings of orbital tissue down to their chins—and some had skin worn so thin organs showed through, the rot visible in spread out fungal patches. Many were the beings on the lower rungs of life. They were desperate for the parts they needed, the parts Boyd owned.
Boyd moved to the roof’s exit, done with the pointless standoff. The door opened. The flight of stairs inside winded down until he happened upon a new door that led to the top level. Inside, the room was wide and expansive, filled with numerous stretchers and sink fixtures. The set-up resembling a high school biology class. An overhead water sprayer hung over each stretcher along with carts of surgical tools, shelves jars of embalming fluid, trocar cables, and other oddball steel instruments he didn’t recognize.
The sight that troubled him the most was the empty body bags that littered the floor between the stretchers and the sinks. Boyd unzipped the bags carefully. Nothing was inside. He checked the labels on the body bags. The names didn’t steal his attention; the locations did. They were from areas spread out across the United States, while others were from Europe and the Middle-East.
Crumbles of soil filled one of the empty bags.
They’re corpses taken from graves.
The place was sterile clean. The floors and drains were spotless. The tools and equipment untouched. Boyd imagined military or medical staff, like Dr. Glover, working at corpses among the tables, doing ungodly things.
Boyd rushed to the double doors at the head of the room. He stalked down a set of stairs. Offices filled the next floor. The windows to each of the rooms had been shattered.
He snuck into the first office, scanning the shelves and filing cabinets that were ransacked. Documents of people’s personal information, like career status, criminal offenses, social security numbers, weight, height, and existing relatives were strewn among the tiles. Boyd stopped at what read as a requisition form from a funeral home. It listed the casket number, burial location, and dates of ceremony for hundreds of individuals. And many listed were from Arlington Cemetery.
It didn’t matter what the military or the government promised him in exchange for Hayden alive, Boyd wasn’t going to stay here to be forgotten or executed.
He was going to blow the whistle on this sick and twisted place.
First, Cindy had to be saved.
Boyd was about to step out of the room when the phone rang.
It's Just You and Me Now
Hayden throttled Cindy to the floor. He let her go to lock the entrance door. Right when he slammed the door and secured the lock, fists bashed against the barrier. Cindy stayed face-first on the ground, sucking in breath. She wasn't going anywhere. Hayden scanned the walls for a light switch, and didn’t locate one.
He li
stened for Boyd’s agony to play outside. He was disappointed he didn't hear anything of the sort.
He had to be dead.
Hayden continued his search for a light switch. “Awful dark in here, don’t you think?”
No reply.
The silence was a challenge.
Hayden was running the show, and he had serious decisions to make. Cindy's presence brought about a nervousness in him. The hookers, he used alcohol as a social sedative—nothing new in the history of the human race—but this scenario wasn’t happening in a bar, his apartment, or in an alley; this time, it was a closed off facility in a building that had no obvious purpose or identity. He wasn’t in control of the moment. Cindy was a fighter, and he couldn't bend her will.
Richard's voice took over. Talk her up the best you can, Hayden. Loosen her up, and convince her to drop her defenses. What can you talk about, a common ground? What do you share?
Hayden had an idea.
"You consider me a monster, and by your understanding, I am one. I’m not going to validate myself to you. That’s beneath me. We’re trapped, and we’re going to have to deal with it together."
Cindy was hard to visualize in the dark. She was curled up into a ball with her back against the wall.
Hayden started to wonder if she really would be that hard to break.
He was distracted by a sudden smell. “Do you smell embalming fluid?”
“No,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t know the smell. Not like you would.”
She believed he was playing mind games with her, and he was, but the last question was harmless.
“I wonder what’s in this place.”
“Quit talking to me, you fucking freak."
"The words we use to insult each other, it means nothing. You can cut someone off on the highway, you can flip people off, you cheat on your significant other, and you can hurl words and lies until your tongue dries out into leather, but that’s very base.
"Let me put it out there. I eat flesh because I enjoy it, Cindy. The taste, the effort of butchering my meat, and the chase, it turns me on in many ways. But it’s also my way of cursing humanity. It’s a superior insult. I never fit in anywhere, and this isn’t my sob story. Far from it. But I do hate people in great numbers. We lose our personality in mobs of people, and I struggled for years trying to find my own character. A great man named Richard helped me tap into something so intense that it cast me out of society and put me into prison. But it was ultimately for a greater purpose. So when you called me a freak, know it means very fucking little to me."
