Jessica shook her head.
“I’ll get it! Just hang in there! Quit being such a bitch!”
Her heart felt like it had fallen into her stomach and was beginning to travel through her digestive system. Soon it would be nothing more than a pile of shit. None of it was worth it to her. Even his bare, chiseled chest wasn’t going to save him this time. Her eyes watered. She cleared them with a finger, smearing blue mascara under her eyes.
Is that all I am to him? A bitch?
“Don’t cry, goddamnit! You’re going to be happy!” He walked over and placed his arms on her shoulders. “I love you. You know that.”
Not this time.
“Get away from me!” She pushed him aside and walked over to the door when a police car stopped and flared its red lights in the drive way.
Oh shit, Rick thought. They know about the speakers.
The cop stepped out of the car and offered a friendly smile as he approached them. Jessica stood by the doorway into the house and tried to keep her tears back.
“You guys hear about the quarantine yet?” the cop said in a heavy Mexican accent.
“What are you talking about?” Rick asked.
“Everyone needs to remain indoors from here on out. I’m going to have to ask you to close your garage and go inside.”
“What? Why?”
“The town has been put under quarantine, and we need all citizens to remain indoors until the situation is taken care of.”
Rick’s eye brows crinkled in the middle of his forehead. “Why are we under quarantine?”
“Can’t tell you that, sir. But I need you to go inside.”
“You know what I think?” Rick walked toward him and stared into his eyes.
“Rick, no,” Jessica said.
“You shut the fuck up!” he shouted.
“Sir, please,” the cop said.
“I think you’re full of shit.”
Fucking idiot, Jessica thought. He had done some pretty stupid things before, and Jessica had even joined in on them, but this was the worst.
“Sir, am I going to have to place you under arrest?” The cop never broke eye contact. “I know it’s hard to understand, but that’s all the information I can give you right now. If I said anything else I could get in trouble.”
“You know what you can do?” Rick nodded. “You can shove this up your ass!” He brought his fist around toward the cop’s head, but it was a clumsy shot. The officer grabbed his arm in mid air and brought it around to Rick’s back. He screamed as the cop put pressure on it.
“I’m placing you under arrest for assaulting an officer, sir. Anything you say can and will be used against you–”
“Fuck you!” Rick spat. The cop brought his other arm down and placed the cuffs on him.
Jessica walked inside the house and locked the doors.
* * * * *
“You’re a real fucking prick! You know that?” Rick swung around vigorously as Lopez carried him over his shoulder into the sheriff’s office.
“Shut up, kid. I’m doing this for your own good. If those army guys caught you out there they’d put one through you.”
“I’ll put one up your ass if you don’t let me go!”
Lopez tried not to laugh but he couldn’t help it.
“Fuck you man!”
He dropped him on the ground and slammed his back against the bars of the holding cell.
“You going to go in there like a good boy or am I going to have to leave the cuffs on?”
Rick was about to spit in his face but he stopped for a moment and caught his breath.
I can get out of this, he thought.
“What’s it going to be kid?”
The imprints of bars were being pressed into his back. Rick didn’t care. He wasn’t going in that goddamn cell.
“I’ll be a good guy.”
Lopez slid open the cell door the and moved him over in front of it.
“Turn around then.”
He did. Lopez unlocked the cuffs and gave him a shove into the cell, but Rick resisted and ran halfway across the office before Lopez tackled him from behind. The kid was fucking strong.
“Punk kid! You’re going in.”
He looked back over his shoulder for the cuffs and saw them on the floor about ten feet behind. A quick punch landed on Lopez’s jaw, clicking his teeth together and catching his tongue. Rick kneed him in the crotch and scrambled to his feet.
“Kid!” Lopez spat out a wad of blood after as he shouted. “Don’t go out there, hombre. It could be nasty out there!”
“Fuck you!”
Rick was out the door and in the middle of Washington Avenue when he stopped, almost falling over. There was a woman –he didn’t know who– staring at him. Something was wrong with her though. Her skin was a dull gray and her eyes were red. There was a swollen wound on her left arm oozing blood and puss.
“Ma’am?” Rick backed up. He tried to stop panting but couldn’t.
She smiled, revealing a mouth full of black teeth. “Join us honey.”
Rick spun around and ran for the police station, but the instant his back was to her he felt a claw dig into it. He tumbled to his knees and looked up. The woman stood over him, showing off the bloody piece of skin dangling from her yellow finger nail.
“You’re with us now.”
Lopez sprinted out onto the street and raised his pistol at Rick and then began screaming at the woman.
“Go home! We’re under quarantine ma’am. Everyone has to be indoors!”
“We want your flesh Mr. Lopez.”
He took a step back and moved the gun from Rick to the lady.
“What is wrong with you?” he whispered.
She took a few steps toward him, grinning and letting a stream of saliva seep onto the ground.
“Shoot her, dumbass!” Rick screamed.
She hissed and darted toward Lopez. Before he could pull the trigger she had already tackled him and sent the gun skittering across the pavement.
“I’m going to eat you alive,” she whispered.
Rick took a couple of steps toward them, but stopped. Lopez was on the ground screaming while the flesh was being pulled from his face. Blood flooded onto the concrete as the woman shoved the skin from his head into her mouth. Lopez’s head resembled a drawing Rick had seen in a biology text book. He could see the tendons on Lopez's cheek bones and the muscles around his jaw. It was too bloody to see anything else. Lopez was still alive, though. And his screams filled the night. Rick found himself getting sick, and he wanted to look away, but couldn’t. The lady smiled as she ate. Rick couldn’t help him (he may not have anyway), but he couldn’t run. The screams were all around him and trapped him in place. Then there was the sound of Lopez's shirt ripping. She had gone to work on the cop's chest, ripping it open and shoving skin into her mouth. Rick could see hints of Lopez's chest muscles as well as his rib cage. And he could hear the heart beating. The lady’s mouth was covered with Lopez’s blood. Lopez was still screaming.
The woman stood up and Rick smiled at her.
10
Lisa walked into the living room of what appeared to be an empty house. Normally at this time of day she found her mother lounging in front of the television, watching her nightly sitcoms. Sandy could sit and watch those things for hours upon end. She even watched the reruns on the local channels when they came on in the late afternoons. That was, of course, if she wasn’t already occupied with a romance novel. Those things made Lisa want to puke.
Puking is something you’re good at, isn’t it honey? She smirked at the stray thought.
“Mom, you around?” She sat down on the couch, and didn’t care that her mother didn’t answer. She was thinking mostly about Russ.
You’re infatuated, honey.
There were definitely feelings for him brewing inside of her chest. It wasn’t just because of the surreal aura that seemed to encompass her when he was near. He listened to her. He spoke to her without his eyes gazing up a
nd down her body. She carried on a good conversation with another human being, whose only difference was that oddity between his legs.
Then it hit her. It was the quarantine. The goddamn quarantine. He was there to protect her from something –whatever had caused it. But why did she feel this? Was God just letting her know to stay close to him? She had never really believed in God. Rock and Roll and horror novels floated her boat more than anything else. God would only help the faithful, right?
The doorbell rang. It was Justin Maddox.
She opened the door and was greeted by the reek of marijuana.
“What do you want, Justin?” she sighed.
“Something’s wrong.” His entire body was quivering like a lost dog caught out in the cold. Lisa didn’t know if it was from the drugs or the helicopters or whatever, but she didn’t want him around when he was on drugs.
“You’re stoned,” she said. “Get out of here.” She began to close the door but Justin pushed it back and walked in the house.
“Get out of here!”
“Listen! Just listen to me!” He paced over to the couch and took a seat, resting his elbows on his knees. “My parents are gone.”
“So you came here?”
“I have nowhere else to go.”
"You're popular! You have lots of dumbass friends."
"Yes, but key word dumbass. I need to be around someone smarter than them."
Lisa took a seat on the opposite side of the sectional, which wrapped around and covered two walls. Justin peered up at her, and he couldn’t explain any more than that. His entire mind was shot by what he saw at his home. The bedroom window was broken, and blood stained the carpet.
“I think my parents are dead,” he whimpered.
Lisa didn’t know what to say. Her mother was missing and it obviously concerned her, but she wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be.
“Where’s Mrs. –your mom.”
Lisa swallowed, hard. “I just got home and she’s not here.”
“I’d be a bit concerned if I were you,” he said. “I found my parents’ bedroom window broken out, and there was blood all over the carpet. It was everywhere. I don’t know what could have happened.”
“Did you call the cops?”
“The phones aren’t working.”
“What?” Lisa flipped her cell phone out of her pocket. NO SERVICE was blinking across the blue screen.
“The land lines don’t work either.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
She turned on the television hoping for some sort of news report and cringed when it erupted in static.
“TV too,” Justin said. He was trying to hold back his tears but he wasn’t doing a very good job. Lisa was partially disgusted by him and partially sympathetic. His parents were probably dead, but since he had arrived the entire room smelled like pot.
But your mom’s missing too. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?
Her mother was probably…she didn’t know. She just didn’t know. She could have been asleep in her bedroom, but there was no way she could have slept through the helicopter. It had flown right over the house.
“I think I’m going to go check the bedroom for my mom,” she said.
“Save yourself the disappointment, Lisa. She would have known you were here. Something’s happening. This town isn’t normal anymore.”
“No shit! It’s under quarantine.” Lisa was moderately offended by his remark. It was almost as if he had told her that her mother was already dead. She wouldn’t accept that for an answer. It had happened to her father a few years before. She wouldn’t be able to live with both of them gone.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
She walked over to the bottom of the staircase and froze. She could see her mother’s face, but it wasn’t normal. It was dark gray and there was blood around her smiling lips.
Mommy’s here honey. Mommy’s up here. Bring Justin. Something was different about her voice. It essentially sounded the same, but the tone or pitch wasn’t quite right.
Justin turned and looked at her. He was a bit confused as to why she was just standing there. There was a crease in her forehead and her eyes were watering.
Mommy’s here. Come on up. And don’t forget the throw up the sandwich you ate at Roy’s, honey.
Everything in her vision swirled. She could feel the sandwich crawling up to the back of her mouth.
Throw it up, honey.
Justin got up off the couch. Lisa fell to one knee and clutched her stomach with both hands. Her face was ghastly.
“You ok, Lisa?”
She didn’t hear him. Vomit exploded out of her mouth.
Lisa watched as it turned to blood in front of her eyes. Thick red crimson liquid with chunks of her sandwich flooded onto the floor. She tried to scream, but it was reduced to a gurgle.
THROW IT UP HONEY! THROW THAT SHIT UP!
“Shut–” she tried to scream.
“Lisa?” Justin ran over to her. She was on the floor twitching, rolling around in her own vomit. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “What’s wrong? Get up!” He slapped the side of her face.
She was still. Her chest moved slowly, up and down up and down. Her eyes were open but scared.
“Lisa?”
She blinked with recognition. “What the hell?”
“You went crazy,” Justin said.
She sat up, panting. “I was throwing up blood.”
“I didn’t see any blood. I just saw you power ralph.”
She pulled herself to her feet. “I need to take a shower.”
“I’d be happy to join you,” he winked at her.
“Dream on.” Lisa slowly walked up the stairs and into the bathroom.
* * * * *
When he walked in the door his mother was nowhere to be seen. All of the lights were out, and the house seemed to be empty. Normally the lights were all on, and the television was going, maybe even the radio. At night his father would fall asleep in front of the television more often than not. But none of the appliances were on that evening. Not even the air conditioner as far as Russ could tell. Sweat trickled down his face and onto his shirt.
“Mom, you in here?”
He took a few steps inside and saw that there was a puddle of blood on the kitchen floor. There was even the horrid smell of decomposition. He coughed once and nearly lost his dinner.
“Jesus.” Russ took a step back. He didn’t know if he wanted to go in that kitchen or not. If he found his mother’s body, he would probably lose it. The day had been odd enough. It started with the dream, then the theft of his speakers, then the rare contact with a woman, and finally the helicopter. Now there was a puddle of blood in his kitchen.
You’re momma’s dead.
“No,” he whimpered.
Go see for yourself.
He shook his head and the water in his eyes overflowed onto his cheeks. “She isn’t dead.”
Go look, Russ.
He took a couple of steps into the kitchen and found nothing but the puddle of blood. There was a sudden urge to run, get outside and go for help. But there was the chance that this could be a dream. He could wake up, his speakers would still be there, he would have never made contact with Lisa Kelly, and there would be no helicopter flying around in the sky.
This isn’t a dream, Russ.
“Shut up!”
“Russ!” someone shouted from behind him. He was afraid to turn around and look. It was a feminine voice, and the smell of her perfume was a reminder of his dream.
“No Jessica.” He didn’t turn around.
“Look at me, sexy.”
Russ closed his eyes. None of this is real, he thought. I’m dreaming.
“Maybe if I kill your fucking bitch girlfriend you’ll look!”
Russ spun around. Jessica was standing naked with one hand on her vagina and the other on a knife that was lodged in Lisa’s back and going through her stomach. Lisa’s eyes watered as she struggled to b
reathe. Russ fell to his knees.
“That’s right, Russ.”
He could hear Lisa’s ribs cracking. She was going to fall to the floor soon and die. He couldn’t stop staring at her eyes. They were full of pain.
“You bitch,” Russ said.
“Do you want me now, asshole?” Jessica took a step toward him. Lisa screamed and an explosion of blood flew out of her mouth. Russ scooted back, now fully crying.
“Go away!” He got up from the floor and charged her. When he ran into her nothing happened. It was as if he had just run through air. He turned around and she was gone, but the blood was still on the floor.
“What the fuck?” he screamed it as loud as he possibly could.
I have to get out of here, he thought. He walked through the kitchen and carefully stepped over the pool of blood. The only place he could think of going was Lisa’s. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and sighed. NO SERVICE was proudly mocking him on the screen.
He bolted out the back door, climbing fences until he arrived in Lisa's backyard.
11
"So what are we fighting again?" Lt. Evan Brown sat on a rolling chair in the trailer, staring out the window. His men were receiving some sort of briefing from Agent Hawking outside. Johnson was sitting patiently on a stool writing a few notes down at his desk.
“That’s right,” he said, recalling that this was Brown’s first paranormal mission. Brown was used to doing drug raids in Columbia mostly. He was a former Seal. Brown did well at that and eventually became a Lieutenant. They hand picked him for this mission because of the leadership he demonstrated.
The Paranormal Military Division had been in operation since the Roswell incident back in the late forties, and of course it was top secret. Not too many people had even heard of them until they entered the division themselves, and only the best were accepted.
“Anyone explained that by coming here you have just joined the PMD, Lieutenant?” Johnson asked.
“PMD?”
“Paranormal Military Division.”
“Oh yeah, Agent Hawking was saying something about that.” He sat back in his chair, trying to calm himself. He knew that they were going after something not of this planet, and it gave him the jitters. “I had no idea that you guys existed. It’s rumor among the Seals, but I never bought into it.”
Super Zombies from Outer-Space Page 5
