by Alan Spencer
Cindy threw open the passenger side door. She heaved the cocktail towards the crowd of the dead. The jar struck one on the head, spreading liquid fire down its body. Blue and white flame encased the first row of them, their bodies slowed by the wave, while others were deterred and frantic to escape burning.
"Good shot!"
Cindy threw the door shut. Boyd sped by the cabins and mess hall. The property spanned for miles in the distance. Boyd was determined to deliver his payload and execute his plan.
Cindy gasped. “Holy shit, look at that! The hospital’s up in flames.”
Boyd was encouraged by the sight. “You see, aren’t you confident we can destroy this place if they don’t let us out? Maybe someone will notice the flames from the outside of the facility?”
“We don’t even know where we are," Cindy said. "You said so yourself that this place was guarded by all kinds of security. And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen any planes fly over this place.”
As if to contradict her, a helicopter flew overhead. It swooped down over the hospital, dropping a thick powder onto the flames.
Cindy couldn't believe it. “I assume that's not the National Guard here to save our asses."
Boyd was overwhelmed by the powers that be. "The bastards really are determined to keep these fucking things alive. But they're dead. Why keep trying to control them? Cut your fucking losses, already."
He drove through a street littered with debris and soot, nearing town center. The place where it all started for him.
“We’re almost there, Cindy. Not too much longer, and maybe we can put this behind us. If this plan doesn't work, then we begin project 'fuck this place up.' We destroy everything in sight. Burn every building. Blow up everything that can be ignited. I don't care. We're going to turn this place into a barren field of ashes."
Cindy didn't respond.
Boyd knew the situation was stinking of shit.
“Fine, we can’t lie to ourselves, Cindy. We're screwed, but I’m sure that fire killed many of those things. We’ll just have to keep at it. Those things can’t breed. We can eradicate them. That's the plan if the Hayden trade-off fails."
Boyd waited for Cindy to agree.
Instead, she screamed.
Hayden At the Attack
Richard spoke to Hayden. Take a bite from her neck. It’s the easiest meat to render. Do it now, Hayden, before she sees you coming!
Hayden lunged out of the backseat. He champed his teeth into the nape of her neck, biting down so hard she screamed in horror. Blood spilled down onto his chin, warm and deserved. The morsel of skin rested on his tongue, his taste buds warm with delight.
The moment was cut short by an elbow to the face. Hayden crashed between the back seats. Cindy was about to stab Hayden. He beat her to the punch. Hayden wrenched the knife from her grip. Cindy kept screaming and screaming.
The car swerved when Boyd ran over a pile of bones in the road. A tire popped. Boyd lost control. The Land Rover careened headfirst into the brick wall of the abandoned post office.
Hayden braced himself for impact. Cindy was thrown forward, striking the back windshield. She was stunned, laying in the back unmoving.
Dead beings were catching up, looming over the hill. The horde would be upon them in moments. Easily hundred at a glance, the blackened faces now burning a phosphorescent red in the glow.
Hayden checked the front seat, knowing the time to escape was now. Boyd was slumped over the wheel, unconscious.
Let the dead assholes disassemble Broman’s body. I'll take what's left of him and fry him up in a skillet.
Cindy stirred, trying to wake. Hayden struck the handle of the knife against the back of her head to knock her out. Then he picked her up over his shoulder, worked his way out of the vehicle, and studied the area. Beams warped and walls crashed; the hospital was starting to crumble. The entire structure would topple any moment.
Watching every avenue around him, the roads and businesses, dead bodies pursued them, limping from the entrance of the bowling alley, and the shattered grocery store fronts. Hands and faces materialized out of the gutters, crawling like flooded out rats. From the residential houses, dead bodies were incoming.
There was only one place to hide.
Hayden fled to the post office. The front door was blocked by a military Jeep, so he crawled through the seats and smashed the glass door to breach the entrance. Next, he dragged Cindy through the opening. The lobby was an open space. The place was ransacked. There was hardly any evidence this was ever a postal building.
He rolled a long table up to the front entrance and wedged it in place, securing it. He peeked through the cracks of the front glass door and spied the dead beings scavenging the streets. More of them were arriving by the second. Soon, they would dominate the area.
I'll enjoy chewing you up and shitting you out, Broman. If those things don't get you, first.
He rushed down a lone hallway, dragging Cindy by under the arms. The mail sorting rooms were unoccupied. He found a row of desks in one of the corners and stopped at a paper cutter. Leaving her on the floor a moment, he unscrewed the cutter from the board with his fingers and carried it like a slicing club.
Hayden moved on to a pair of bathrooms, taking a moment to check himself in the men's mirror. His gray skin mask glistened with blood. His own blood. He noted the clear, sticky fluid where the mask ended and his skin began. His arms shined with decaying skin. He proudly looked on at himself, admiring his work.
Satisfied he still looked like them outside, he returned to the lobby, and he froze.
Where the fuck did Cindy go?
Bad Situation
Boyd’s forehead throbbed from slamming into the steering wheel. It was like a permanent gong going off in his skull. Blood filled his nostrils, and he snorted it out. Awake, he struggled to get a grip on the situation. He didn’t know how long he’d been blacked out. Boyd tried to start the Land Rover, but the engine block was damaged. Radiator fluid spread in a pool underneath the vehicle, drip dripping. Fires roared in many directions. The hospital’s flames spread to the cars in the far off parking lots, everything an increasing inferno. The choppers kept coming and going, attempting to put out the flames. He wasn't sure if they'd succeed, and he didn't have time to watch and find out.
Cindy was missing.
He called out to her, but it was no use.
Hayden had her again.
Human silhouettes idled in every direction of his peripheral. The dead bodies were circling the vehicle. Their bodies were dripping with blood and dead skin, on fire, or smoking, on the verge of going out. Mean faces of death taunted him with their garbling and hungry moans. The dead ogled him, systematically planning how they'd use his body to benefit them. Boyd checked up and down the streets for evidence that Cindy or Hayden had been attacked. There was no fresh blood or pealing screams. Boyd stepped out of the car, his head heavy as a cinder block, and wondered how the fuck he was going to survive this situation.
This was just like the moment he entered the facility, and that dead man who threw knives at him from a distance. They were armed with unconventional weapons. Handfuls of the curb for some, and others, palms bled as they clutched shards of glass. A few lifted street sign poles from the loose road or had torn planks of wood from the siding of houses. He even caught others clutching broken femurs and spines as bludgeons.
Boyd ducked behind the car, dodging a flensing knife that pierced tip-first into the hood of the Land Rover. A chorus of sharpened steel implements clinked against the vehicle. Boyd crawled back into the car when he recalled the embalming fluid inside. He checked his pockets, knowing he was missing an important item.
The lighter.
Boyd scanned the car floor for it, drawing his open palms up and down the carpet desperate to locate it. He looked along the floor, and the lighter was in the back seat where Cindy had dropped it.
A brick shattered through the side door, covering him in a layer
of glass. More knives pinged against the car’s shell like deadly hail. Up against their high numbers, there was nowhere he could go without confronting them.
This would be his final stand against the throng of living death.
From one side, the car was rocked, shoved by four synchronized sources. The shocks kicked out a rusty call, warning him of danger. Another window shattered, this time by a blackened, still smoking skull.
Boyd extended his fingers to claim the lighter from underneath the back seat. Closer and closer, he could almost touch it.
The back tire deflated, and the car slumped to the right. Another brick broke through the driver's window. Boyd shoved himself forward that final inch, he was able to clasp the lighter.
Ducking low, he gathered a jug, and lighting the cloth tip, he threw a door open and launched it onto the nearby street. The glass shattered. The street pulsated with heat. Flames crawled up gangrene legs and ate into torsos. The figures stumbled around confused and horrified at the arching flames. Many were instantly blanketed, their advances halted.
Boyd gasped at one who came in close. The woman hurled a handful of broken glass at him. He turned his back, the bits penetrating the skin along his spine. Every movement was torture, the tiny wounds delivering doses of pain. Boyd wished to pay her back the favor. He lit another jug and heaved it into the dead woman’s face, literally smashing it down upon her skull. The shatter marked a ball of fire melting down her body from top-to-bottom, the tar-black body instantly cooked to a crisp. The bitch was a piece of screaming jerky.
Boyd reached to pluck the glass from his back, but he couldn’t maneuver without upsetting the wounds. No time, he realized, because they were still coming. He spied movement from within the post office. A body was inside, and when he looked closer, he made out Hayden searching through a room. He was alive, and that meant there was a good chance Cindy was the same.
Boyd was cornered, being paces from the post office’s entrance. More of the bodies were spat out from the night.
Only one jug left.
He weighed the glass in his hand, and Boyd lit the rag unsure of where to heave it. He needed time to enter the post office and track down Cindy, then recapture Hayden.
The post office was his only escape.
Boyd smashed the jug underneath the Land Rover. Flames brewed beneath the car. Boyd retreated to the post office. He crawled through a Jeep parked across the two doors and struggled through the front doors, punching and shoving to throw back the table wedged across the opening. After the blockage collapsed, Boyd landed palms-first against the ground. The glass in his back shifted. The unbearable pains were delivered anew.
Something darted from the shadows and swung at him. Missing by a breath, a metal spark flickered up from the tiles with a ting sound. The weapon was the sharp end of a paper cutter, clutched by Hayden.
Boyd distinguished a sneer through the flesh mask. “I’m going to throw you to those things out there! I'm going to cripple you so they can dismantle you that much faster."
“Is Richard still talking to you in your head?” Boyd challenged, backing up enough distance he wouldn't be touched by the weapon without seeing it coming first. "Is he still a father figure to you?"
Nobody had actually found Richard's body, or heard from the man. Many of the investigators questioned if Richard had actually existed. There was a man that lived next-door to Hayden that went missing, but his name wasn't Richard. Speculations were made on the validity of Hayden's statements. Nothing could be proved either way.
Boyd had to play a game of morbid psychology on this cannibal.
“Richard was found, didn’t you know that? His dead body was discovered in a sewer channel blocking up a heap of shit. A ten person crew had to dislodge the human cork. The coroner did a full autopsy. Richard's esophagus was compacted. Do you know what he chocked on, Hayden? A dildo was shoved down his throat. The coroner also found one shoved up his ass."
"No, you're lying! Stop talking about Richard."
"I speak the truth. I've been on the outside longer than you, Hayden. Yes, I know everything. Another part of the story, Richard's genitals were retrieved in his stomach. Think about it. Richard had worked himself up a fine reputation. I’m sure a pimp, or whoever owned these sluts, caught on to what Richard was doing to his whores. Looks like your hero was finished off in fitting style."
Hayden clutched the paper cutter with acid in his words. “That’s not how he died. He didn't die, he's alive! How dare you lie about him?"
“You don’t sound so sure of yourself. Look at your eyes, Hayden. They’re brimming with tears. Did you love the man? I think you’re obsessed with him.” With a man that doesn't exist.
“You’d never understand—fuck you for even trying!”
Hayden lunged at him, the paper cutter slashing at the air. Boyd lowered to his haunches and delivered a fist into the man’s lower abdomen. Hayden folded onto the ground and coughed up Cindy's skin in a gruel of pink vomit.
“One hit, Hayden, and you’re already down. You’ve let yourself go soft, haven’t you? You've fattened up like a little piggy.”
“Do you miss your wife?” Hayden challenged. “I’m sure she’s missing her murderer of a husband. How about your kids? You’ve fucked your children up, Boyd. You can beat the hell out of me, but nothing will ever change that. You won’t escape this place. They wanted me dead, and they put you here to capture me, but the sad thing is you can’t force me out. I’ll slit my fucking wrists before you force me back out there. This is where I want to live, and this is where I’ll die.”
Boyd stared at the man, and realized how much power Hayden owned. Boyd didn't care. Somehow, he had to survive the perimeter.
“I’m not dying because of you, Hayden. This is my chance to take back what was stolen from me, you got that? I may not get it back, but I'll do what I can to fuck up their plans for this place, and to kill as many of those things out there as possible.”
Boyd lifted him up by his hair and delivered a fist to his nose. Mushrooms of blood drained out both nostrils. The fight in the cannibal dissolved.
“If your nose wasn’t broken earlier,” Boyd said, admiring the blood on his knuckles, “it’s broken now.”
Hayden covered his face to stem the red trails leaking free. He eyed Boyd with pure contempt, an odd emotion emoted from a decayed mask. And that's when Hayden suddenly launched to his feet with a burst of unexpected strength and fled to the back mail room. Boyd pursued him, but Hayden escaped out the back exit door.
Then the explosion happened.
KA-BOOM!
The Land Rover exploded.
Boyd’s feet absorbed the concussions. After the explosion ended, Boyd heard a soft voice speak, “Are you out there, Boyd?"
Cindy had hidden in one of the rooms. There she was, safe.
Boyd checked her for injuries. “Did he hurt you?”
Cindy shook her head. "No. I think I'm okay. Where did Hayden go?”
“He escaped out the back exit. Don’t worry, he’s not getting far. There’s too many out there, and they’re everywhere.”
Cindy raked her fingers through her hair, horrified. “But we can’t let him go. You said so yourself, he’s our only collateral.”
“I don’t know what to do about that right now.”
Boyd leaned against the wall. He was attacked by pain at all angles, the glass shifting beneath his skin. Cindy saw the damage. She forced him into the men's restroom. She picked out the glass for him. After that terrible situation was over, they stepped back into the hallway.
Boyd checked the front window. "Hey wait, those things are walking away.”
Cindy couldn't believe it either. “It’s like they see something up ahead."
“It has to be Hayden." Under his breath, "What's he doing now?"
“He’s going to get himself killed. What are we going to do if he dies?"
“Hayden’s survived this a lot longer than we have. He’ll be fine. He�
��s a morbid fuck, but he’s strong. Our options aren’t used up yet. It'll take time if we're going to do this right."
Cindy’s eyes were bloodshot and tired. “I just want to go home.”
“I know, Cindy. We can go back out once those things have cleared some distance from us. Hayden isn’t going far. And if you haven’t noticed, he wants you, Cindy. He’s always cannibalized women. He claims they taste the best. And I’d go out there sooner, but we don’t have weapons. We can’t battle those things and find Hayden at the same time unarmed.”
Cindy leaned her back against the wall, agreeing, “I guess you’re right.”
They rested in silence, grateful for a moment without having to fight.
Soon their peaceful moment ended when they heard machine guns firing.
The Calvary
Hayden escaped the post office. He was slowed by the awful pain in his face. His nose was broken. He wouldn’t be able to snap the bone back into place. It would heal crooked. But it didn’t matter here, he consoled himself, knowing his features were hidden underneath a dead skin mask. Nobody’s ridicule could reach him beyond the concrete walls ever again. This was his place to be a cannibal king.
He ducked behind a blue mailbox for a better view of the dead crowd nearby. The dead beings were alerted by a gathering up the block. He couldn’t tell what it was yet, but there was a large vehicle at the end of the street. Possibly military. The back cab was draped with a green and beige camouflage tarp. The oversized vehicle parked, and out the back, a group of men jumped out and aimed M-16’s into the crowd. Their terrified and alerted faces scrutinized every corner around them. Hayden counted ten of them, whoever they were, soldiers, agents, or goons wearing black vests, their faces vilified by gas masks.
Someone yelled out, “NOW!”
The spatter of gunfire broke out into the crowd of the dead in the streets. Hayden dodged the torrent of gunfire, bending low, the pavement near him pinging and shooting sparks. He was forced to dive behind the broken shell of a nearby Impala.
