Drifters

by Santos, J. A.

I look around as the words started pouring from inside black caverns at every four feet from the round space.

  “Please help this is not what I wanted.”

  “O, the hunger.”

  “Please I need something to eat.”

  “My god what is this I need to eat anything”

  And I turned around to the first one that spoke. Marino, his blacken eyes full of the hunger I knew too well. He was walking in slow steps looking around; he was the first to actually lay eyes on us. Max had turned him and now he was maddened by the hunger and I would have to deal with him. I wondered how many? Then I remembered his words ‘the other group is in danger if Alex is still at large.’ He did not mean for Alex to turn the other group he was going to always. I was right Alex did not turn the other group alone, and he was the one with the mind control, not Alex, he also was the one to be able to turn another in hours, not Alex. Everything was now making some sense, although as small a piece it did.

  “You were part of it?”

  “No, you got it wrong; Alex was also a pawn, a naïve soul to a vengeance only I could deliver.”

  “Why? I have nothing against you, even last night as I recalled you felt something.” I said in hopes of bringing him out of this mad revenge he wanted.

  “Don’t you see? It was all part of the plan, with some extra quirks, I might add.” He said over the microphone and I waited as more appeared around. Jeremy was in no condition to fight so I had to deliver the first blow. I ran to Marino’s side and whispered to his ear “I am sorry to have doubted you,” and he upped his head, his eyes locking with mines.

  “It was always my duty to kill the monster you are and now you are going to do it. Please do it, I want no more harm to befall you. I always loved you.”

  With his last words I understood what he had done. He never wanted revenge, he wanted to make me free of this, that’s why he created her; the woman with the black hair. I grabbed him by the cheeks and landed a kiss on his lips, first time in more than 12 years I could actually do it. I grabbed his neck and I pulled. I pulled with sorrow as tears started to streak down from my eyes. “Marino I love you too,” I said as his head burst from his shoulders, blood splattered all over me, my lover’s blood. I dived into his head clenching my hand; destroying his only way of consciousness left. Marino was no more and I focused to the others that were coming out, landing eyes on Jeremy still on the floor trying to recover from his bounds and his wounds.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The world has many monsters lurking in the shadows, as other stayed in plain sight. I have met some during my travels. Creatures that like me, feed on humans. Max has been all this time working his revenge from the shadows. He was waiting to make his move, and when he did, it was so disturbing not even in a movie someone with evil intent could compare. He is a smart man and I have to commend his resolve for what he wanted to do, but I cannot let him win.

  Around me dead people appeared, all turned and the hunger strong in them. Growling hissing talking about the ravishing emptiness they were having in their stomachs, one had been turned so many days ago that his body already had started to putrefy. White larvae squirming in his body as his smell of uncooked meat left to rot in the sun filled the air. Jeremy held his hands to his nostrils as that one came closer to him. I ran as fast as my body could hold and jammed my fist to the base of his neck making a hole, my hand grabbing his spine and I yanked hard breaking his spinal cord and stopping the nerve messages from the brain. The body slumped to the floor, his eyes still moving saying ‘please, do it’ just as Marino had said earlier. I landed my foot to his head and brownish blood splatter to the floor like a dropped can of paint. I grabbed Jeremy and helped him stand. His feet were trembling, but not from fear, but from the sickness that had befallen him. I looked to him with my eyes wide and back at the ones coming for a meal, then back at Max smiling in his chair.

  “My dear God!” I said in disbelief. “Max what you have done is unthinkable.”

  From the metallic doors the other group that were looking for their lost friends were coming out slow and steady, they were all turned and Jeremy was sick with a bite on his arm.

  “Forget about me sweet Sara, I have harmed you so much already it is time to end this stupid chase.”

  “That is done, Marino is no more.” I said and started to back away as much as possible from the ones walking toward us. Jeremy hanging to me with one arm around my neck he looked at me with tender eyes putting a hand to my cheek.

  “Listen sweet Sara, you will always be my daughter first and I was wrong all those years back, I am going to die anyway, and do you remember what I told at the hotel when I got to see you again.” And I did, he had said he did not have much time.

  My eyes started to water as the idea of what he wanted, or was going to do so I could escape was tearing at my feelings making a black hole crash unto its own.

  “Don’t.” was the only word that came from my mouth as the tears flowed harder now.

  “Shh, sweet Sara, see you in heaven,” he said giving me a peck on the cheek as he had done so many times, years ago. Every time he said goodnight at the lab, he would give a small peck on the cheek and say ‘see you in heaven’. He broke from my grasps, limping forward screaming, “You want food? Then come for it you bastards!”

  My tears flowed down like a broken dam and I watched as the group of twenty all lunged forward at him, his screams of pain were something I would never get out of my brain. I looked back at the glass wall and saw Max with a big smile.

  “Now that’s more like it.” He said and I understood what he wanted to say. The monster, Sara Garber was out, and running towards him as he stood fast and both our bodies clashed on the transparent wall shattering the only division between his safety and my rampage. Our bodies entangling in a mess of broken glass and mangled body, our fist clashing every second like swords did in medieval times. I thought the only extra Max had was his immortality but he was also as strong as me and my only thought was the suppressant the cocktail Marino had concocted to supposedly suppresses the hunger, but the thing turn us in to even worst monsters.

  “Miss Sara, are you even trying?” He said as he stepped back looking at me still with that wry smile on his face. How I hated that smile now. A smile I liked last night now taunts me to a horrible end. I will deal to him the same fate, letting everyone I cared around die was something it won’t go unpunished

  “You are going to die today,” I said to him as the Sara Garber he wanted to meet was rising from within and I wanted her to stop coming, I wanted to see his end I wanted to deal the death blow. “You will,” said a deep voice inside my head as I felt being pushed away, but still I could see through my own eyes as Max’s face contorts in fear to a sight in front of him. One I could not see.

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  It has never been about me. It has never been of them, all this has been Max own twisted sense of revenge. The only way to get at the only person he knew nothing about. In this black hole I sit now, the monster I really am stares at him as her growls are deeper and more menacing. My voice turned deeper and I knew whatever Max was seeing was terrifying him or making him more wondrous of myself. I never have thought, as the hunger took over, I would be able to see what ever happened to those I could not succumb to a righteous right. Now here I am watching, as if I was sitting in a leaving room watching a TV show I desperately wanted to see no matter what.

  “You have made the biggest mistake of you supposedly immortal life.”

  “O, really how so?”

  “You get to meet me.” And as the last word ‘me’ was utter by another Sara Garber, deep growling, the lioness rushed forward hitting straight at his lower jaw, unhinging it from its upper clasp. She moved it to the right as she hit him again straight in the chest hard that I heard the bones crack under the force of her hit. I felt the smile on her face branded as she knew Max now was almost beaten, all she needed was to unhinge his brain from his back and all this
would be over.

  Max stumbled back when the others whom had feasted on Jeremy rushed to Sara’s side attacking her, the hunger relentlessly tugging at their brains and just wanting some flesh inside. They tugged at her hair as one bit her left arm. She screames as the others tried to push her to the ground. I looked at Jeremy’s carcass now just a shamble of twisted bones and flesh. The anger continues to grow as monster Sara grabbed one of them from its face and clenching her fist, she destroyed the creature Max had created. And I noticed it was the man who gave us the map.

  The others looked at her, her face turned reddish brown from the blood that spilled on it, red clots of decaying blood streaking her face and the smile on her was bigger.

  I could sense everything, every spit of blood that landed on my other persona. Her hair sticks to it as another tried to bite again. She stomped his head off her feet now as red as her face, another tried to push down and the only thing that came to her mind is hungry Sara. What would she do now there were too many at once? I asked myself.

  Hungry Sara kicked, stomped, threw fists, and tore open rib cages with her bare hands putting them inside and squirming through a cold body to get to the brain, killing them all, destroying those undead as if swatting flies from her face. Each and every one of those things fell to the floor limbed and all but one stood from the pile of bodies, Max, now grasping his lower jaw still looking at Hungry Sara with aw or fear from all the blood that covered her body.

  “That was just spectacular, Miss Sara.” he said as if he was a child watching monster trucks with its mother. I know, strange thing to say, but it was the only thing that came to me as I sit on this black corner of my mind, and the hunger drives my crafted body to deal with Max.

  “You are really the monster I envision in canyon Diablo Miss Sara, this is going to be so exquisite; your execution.” He said as his face turned from aw to anger, his brow arching down ward, his moth tightening on an evil grin as he moved fast to the left and hungry Sara chased after him. ‘He has a plan’, I found myself screaming from the back of my head, but no one was listening. Hungry Sara chased him as far as the chair was when we first started the confrontation, the floor filled with broken glass as he jumped over it grabbing something from its back. She stopped as he rose with two injections. I knew exactly what they were. One was Marino’s cocktail, the other one was Jeremy’s real suppressant.

  “Come let’s end this, shall we.” He said as he rushed forward, straight to Hungry Sara; the injection pointing forward as if it was a knife. She dodged left as he moved the needle on an upward motion stabbing her left arm and I felt that bluish liquid start flowing in my body, in her body now. Sara Garber the monster was thrown down, back to the crevices of her head, I moved forward and now in control again the hunger suppressed.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Under estimating Max was my fifth mistake. All this had all but proven my inability to understand humans and their ideas or more over the complete notion of such words as human beings. They are creatures of destruction and Max was one of the worst, Human and Hunger the wretched sickness that had consume my entire life and my entire family back at the island where Jeremy had found me.

  The suppressant was a fast acting mix; it only took seconds to be drawn forward from where the hungry Sara had put me. That corner of my mind where all was dark. I was at the floor as the switched had made me stumble to the ground, losing footing from the uneven ground. Max lingers over me as he was laughing; the black from his eyes returning those sunken black eyes with vain protruding from each corner of his eye socket, looked at me, his meal.

  I put my hands to the ground as I tried to stand and defend myself from what he was going to do, but was too weak. Or so I made him believe so, the hunger was suppressed but I was not defenseless, under me a metal rod he did not see.

  “Do you think I did not have another way to beat you? You really are stupid you know that” he said as my face turned looking at his blackened eyes.

  My body sticky from all the blood and my hair is a red mess over a red mess. I looked at him as he just stared at me. I wonder how he would carry the deed he wanted.

  “This is going to be so joyful for me, the monster that made me beaten, on the ground as my mouth closes around her heart.” He said and drew forward bending his knees and arching his spine forward. I swiftly turned holding the metal rod forward and as he opened his mouth the rod went straight in and outside the back of his skull.

  He slumps forward, his body limb over me. This is over he is dead the rod had severed the connection right above the neck. There was no way he would come back. Yet I did not know to what extent his extra worked. Was it regenerative did he just put his body back together or he just returned with its same old nasty habit of calling me Miss Sara? I just hoped it was all over, now where’s the other needle he had?

  I stood as the relentless twitching of Max body started.

  As max stood from the floor, the needle in his chest, he grabs the metal rod sticking from his mouth and pulled it out of the way.

  “You bitch!” he said in a gurgling voice, blood oozing to his vocal cords making the words sound foreign. I turned and ran right; I know I am not a match for him while the suppressant was at work. He jumped and landed a few feet away growling like a mad dog with red foam on his mouth from the blood and saliva mixing as he tried to speak again.

  “You have gone far away, your time ends now.”

  “So you say.” He said. Same gurgling, same red foam floating around his mouth, but something was strangely wrong in the sounds of his voice; as if worried.

  “So I know.” I said and turned again. I had to do something fast without the hungers extra Max would be over me in a few minutes.

  I kept moving around left and right as Max fallowed crouched like a cat chasing a mouse. He growled as he got closer to me, if heart pumping is the equivalent to feeling fear I was so glad I had no heartbeat. I ran around back to where the chair was and the broken glass at the floor all that was about to happened was something not even me could comprehend. I bent grabbing a fist full of glass.

  “What, you already giving up?” he said as he opened his mouth for a bite and I shoved the pieces of glass down his throat as he bites my arm and as if jumping a battery of a car, monster Sara came back with a bigger thirst for his end. Sara the monster, the one he wanted to see and was so desperately trying to kill now had him where she wanted. He let go of her arm where he was biting as her smile broaden to a sinister glee.

  “You will never win, Max, not with what you have done.” The deeper voice of myself said as it drove me back to that corner of my mind again letting me see what was about to happen.

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  I woke to the rumbling of a truck. I was lying on the red dirt road I walked earlier in the day with my doppelganger and her husband. I wondered where they were and if they knew what really was going to happen there. The truck rumbled again and my only thought was the sound of freedom, the sound of everlasting relaxation from now on. It was over, Max was gone. Not goanna lie, I remember everything my other self-did to him, but I want to forget such horror. I may be a monster by itself, but what she did was nothing far from a horror movie. There have been moments in my past where I had to let the huger take over as I did in the abandoned mill to take Alex down, but never have I witness what she was capable of. I turned in to a mad woman tearing with my bare hands into his body, laughing as his eyes turned blank, and the blood splattering on the floor, as on walls of the circular arena as well as on my body. I felt my mouth opening wide to every mouthful of Max entrails and his last return to the living world. I knew that if I or she let the brain intact he would return more with the hunger claiming more lives and hungrier for revenge, I saw as she looked in to his eyes, I sensing the smile of her as she said to him, ‘you wanted Sara the drifter and you had here, you wanted Sara the monster and you have me.’ The end of Max could not have been more appropriate more than forty victims overall and do
ne by one man who wanted to blame me for what others did to him. Yet he was right if I had not existed they would not have created him or Alex to take revenge, no, it wasn’t revenge; Marino wanted all but take revenge, he wanted to find a cure, and he did. He did found one, my doppelganger was proof. Why Jeremy did never told me unless he did not know. Why Marino acted so righteous to his actual plan, what did he have to prove? Why not come for me in the first place?

  The truck that woke me was from a farmer, he said his name was Gerald. He said the farm was west from where we were and where he found me. He said he was looking for lost cattle until he came upon a red hair woman unconscious. He asked if I needed help he would gladly bring me to his house so I could rest and get better. You got to love farmers they are always the best for assistance when you are alone stranded and with nowhere to go in a place you don’t know.

  “Hey missies are you okay.” He said as I stumbled backwards as I stood and got dizzy.

  “Yes, I don’t….” I said as I sat on the floor again and looked at myself, my clothes stained from the red dirt, but not blood soaked as before. Where did I found water to clean myself?

  “Last night drizzle was something wasn’t it not?” Gerald said as that explains the mud and dirt in my clothes. I could still see some patches of blood, but the mud and dirt stuck to my clothes was hiding it. I put a hand to my head as to remember, but the images of Alex, Max, Jeremy, and my Marino were so vivid I had to scream, and I did, hard and strong. I did not screamed from fear, but to realization that those I really loved were no more.

  The farmer moved back as I relentlessly wanted him not to be near me. I felt as if I was slipping again to the dark crevices of my mind, but I just stumbled forward and blacked out, as the last of the memories were taken away by the monster inside me, the hunger satisfied and laughing at me.