by Mark Gordon
Chapter 59
The Caged Feeders
“Let’s just shoot them and get out of here!” exclaimed Bonnie.
Dylan didn’t respond, but instead peered into the metal cage where the two creatures were sleeping.
Sally squeezed his hand, “Please Dylan, I don’t want to be this close! They’re dangerous! Let’s go!”
He snatched his hand away from hers and snarled, “I am not leaving here until I’ve killed those things!”
Sally moved away, surprised and upset by his outburst.
Bonnie had been watching the exchange, and now tried to calm Dylan’s mood. "Okay. That’s fine. Let’s kill them. But can we do it quickly please. I need to find Gabby. We’re so close now!”
Dylan turned around and gave the two women a confused look, as if just noticing them for the first time.
“What?” he asked.
“I said, let’s get out of here. Hurry up and shoot them so we can go find Gabby.”
“Oh. Sure.”
Sally spoke, “Dylan, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Yeah I guess so. It’s just that we have these things in captivity and seems like a waste to just kill them.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” asked Bonnie, incredulously. “A waste? Who cares? What do you want to do? Keep one as a pet?”
Dylan looked at Bonnie, who was staring him down, hands on hips. He still seemed confused, but continued, “No, of course not. I just feel like we could learn something about them while they’re alive. Maybe we could wait until they wake up and follow them. We could maybe track them to their lair and wipe out thousands of them at once.”
Bonnie snorted then replied, as if she were explaining something to a small child. “Okay Dylan honey, listen carefully. I know you’re really upset about losing your daughter. As a mother I understand that, and my heart aches for you, but my daughter’s still alive, and I need to get to her. Also, if we open that cage and wait for those things to wake up tonight, they’ll most likely attack us and we’ll have to shoot them anyway. So why don’t we just shoot them now, while they’re asleep, and we can study their dead bodies really quickly. Then we can go find Gabby. What do you say?”
For a moment Sally thought that Dylan was going to explode, as he held his breath and stared at Bonnie. Instead he smiled and said, “You’re right. That’s what we should do - kill them, then go find Gabby.”
Sally breathed a huge sigh of relief as Dylan picked up his gun that had been leaning against the outside of the cage. She was concerned, though, that his moods seemed to change so quickly lately. There was an anger that seemed to be bubbling away under the surface and that scared her. She knew that he was suffering intensely from the death of his daughter, but that was little comfort to her in moments when he seemed barely able to control his fury.
“They might wake up remember?” said Sally, Dylan smashed the lock.
“Yeah. I’ll be ready for them this time,” he said, as he opened the gate.
Dylan stepped into the enclosure and stood still. There was no movement from inside the dark kennel, where the creatures were lying, but he could see that Bonnie and Sally were anxious nonetheless. He moved forward. He was standing only a metre or so from the chest-high opening, and noticed that the stench from the beasts was much stronger here. He trained the gun into the darkness and crouched down as he took another pace forward. As he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he listened for any sound that might indicate that the zombies had woken up. He heard nothing. After a minute or so, Dylan was able to make out the vague shapes of the creatures on the floor. He marvelled at how pale they had become; almost like corpses. They were become much thinner now than an average human. They were changing somehow, and as he studied the creatures, he almost forgot why he was there. It was only when Bonnie hissed at him from outside the cage, that he snapped back to reality and pointed his gun at the closest beast. That’s right, he thought absently, they need to be killed. This time, unlike the warehouse, there was no drama. Dylan shot a bullet into the head of the first zombie, and as the other one roused from its hibernation, he fired accurately and without hesitation, thereby releasing the creature from the hell of its own pointless existence.
A couple of minutes later the three travellers stood in the long grass, beneath a brilliant blue sky with the corpses of two zombies at their feet. Dylan had dragged them out from their lair unceremoniously while Sally and Bonnie watched on in disgust. They had expected to see some changes in the creatures, but were surprised by the pace of the transformation. The most obvious variation was their skin colour, which had changed from soft and human into something much more rugged and heavily textured.
“That’s crazy,” exclaimed Sally. “How do you go from human skin to whatever that is in such a short time?”
“I don’t know,” answered Dylan, “But it looks tough, doesn’t it? Almost like leather.”
“Yeah,” added Bonnie. “And what about those fingernails? They’re scary! They’re becoming like lizard claws or something.”
“They’re not human any more are they?” asked Sally.
“No. And you know what else?” Dylan added. “They’re really cold. When I pulled them out of the cage their ankles weren’t warm at all. They felt as cold as snakes. Touch one.”
“No thanks!” said Bonnie, “But that’s scary news all the same.”
“Why?” asked Sally.
“Because it means their whole physiology is changing. They’re evolving. Quickly.”
“Bullshit! That’s not possible surely,” Dylan challenged.
Bonnie smiled, “I think anything’s possible now, don’t you?”
