He dry-retched as the rotting organ odor clinging to his hand filled his nostrils. Combined with the equally foul odors soaking his shoes and socks, the overpowering stench of death was too much. Kitch dropped his staff. As he doubled over, he heaved and heaved, but nothing more than yellow saliva slipped across his burning tongue.
Desperate to regain control, his filthy fingers sought his staff. He clawed at his pocket to drag the disinfectant out. Pouring it liberally onto his hand, he cleaned the ichor off on a patch of grass as he checked for cuts or abrasions. Relieved he found none, he then tucked the bottle away. Seconds later, he was moving toward an old tourist castle overlooking St Johns Yacht Harbor and James Island beyond. Situated not too far from the island’s largest retirement village, it was an iconic landmark.
The tourist castle was a regional feature he visited once as a child. Like most Johns Island kids, it was somewhere to visit during the holidays but otherwise ignored by local residents. Built in the latter half of the twenty-third century by a famous war veteran, it was expanded upon many times by successive owners. Proclaimed to be the region’s oldest, self-sustaining tourist attraction, the crenelated sandstone walls were covered in flexiglaz sheet messages left to loved ones, looping over and over again. He stepped closer to look. Many rotated animated 3D messages, pleading for information on the whereabouts of family members. Some were instructions to friends and relatives, setting out paths of travel to meet up at a later date. Governmental posters produced stern looking military types providing instructions on how to protect from the infected, find shelter, and to obey military staff.
There were fewer corpses there and what there were, were less mutilated. The castles permasteel gates remained locked. All inside was eerily quiet. Turning into a thick hedge of wisteria, Kitch peered nervously through the foliage toward the river and James Island. Rising smoke pillars told a tale of mass destruction. The bridge was choked with wandering infected, abandoned public transports and grotesquely bloated corpses.
So far, Kitch had avoided a face-to-face confrontation with the infected. He was under no illusion—sheer weight of numbers would overcome him. It was at that moment that he observed his salvation in the distance. A sixteen-foot permasteel fishing boat sat aground on the lake shore at the St Johns Harbor retirement village. If he could make it to the boat, it would provide a slow but safer journey away from the infected. Between him and that boat, though, roamed several hundred infected killers.
Picking a path through the tangle of vehicles proved problematic. Maintaining a physical barrier of objects between him and any infected meant he could move only where the infected were fewer in number. But that meant through a tangle of vehicles.
Stepping hesitantly away from the hedge, Kitch halted abruptly in gut-wrenching horror as an infected swiped at him with blackened fingernails from which flapped shreds of drying human skin. An older woman clad in a pink and floral-patterned nightgown hissed at him. He fleetingly guessed she was a village retiree before the plague. She opened her mouth and lunged. Such was his shock, Kitch failed to prevent her scrawny fingers locking onto his forearm. Her grey head struck his arm with sufficient force to cause a numbing sensation rising to his shoulder.
Involuntarily, Kitch cried out in terror as the old woman commenced to gnaw manically at his shirt sleeve with surprising speed. The infected might move at a snail’s pace as they traveled, but when they locked onto a victim, their speed increased tenfold. Kitch’s cry at the slobbering, grunting sounds the old woman produced in her attempt to chew his arm off at the elbow had hundreds of sightless infected staggering toward him. When the yowling old woman lifted milk-white eyes to Kitch’s face, hissing, he noted with much relief that she was toothless.
Wrenching his arm away, he took a half pace back and raised his staff. Fear placed all his strength into the blow he struck to the infected woman’s head, snapping it backward with a dull thunk, and yet, she didn’t fall. Staggering, her knees bent but for a moment. With a shake of her head, she regained her balance. Her head canted at an acute angle, she hissed angrily. Black blood, foul-smelling saliva, and chunks bloody phloem sprayed her nightgown. Raising wrinkled hands to claw-like poses, she hissed another stinking spray. As she dog-paddled at empty air, she advanced without any apparent effect from an overhand blow that would have killed most people.
Kitch was in danger of encirclement by dozens of approaching infected retirees. Fear lent him speed, and he climbed atop the nearest abandoned public car. Leaping from roof to roof, he narrowly avoided joining their hissing ranks. The mini battle had drawn so many infected away from the retirement village that Kitch was able to sprint to the boat. He managed to push it into the water onto the safety of the village’s artificial lake.
Lucky for Kitch, he’d grown up in a region whose income was supported by tourism. He had observed fisherman use boats with silent, single cell motors and even old-time bio-fuel motors on many occasions. He was breathing hard, and his hands shook as he thumbed the starter. He watched the nearest infected step into the river after him with fear in his eyes, only to see it disappear beneath the surface. He slipped silently into the deeper water toward James Island.
The boat entered the main channel, propulsion immediately became easier as a sluggish current drew him toward the James Island business center. The bridge crossing the river was choked with vehicles. Clusters of corpses told silent tales of desperate battles, depicting scenes of violence when brave families and friends banded together to escape the infected, only to fall in battle or succumb to the infection and turn upon loved ones. Lines of burned out vehicle shells containing blackened corpses informed Kitch something horrible had gone on there after the grid went down. Apart from the noise squabbling crows made over the abundance of available meat and the occasional distant barking dog, silence reigned supreme. What was once a bustling island suburb was now a ghostly graveyard filled with decaying corpses, domestic animals gone wild, and shambling infected.
Kitch was puzzled. Was he the island’s only survivor? Surely others survived. On the day he was vaccinated, thousands of nineteen-year-olds received the same treatment. What about the eighteen-year-olds, the seventeen-year-olds and so forth? His stomach clenched involuntarily at the thought of any infant’s fate. Kitch steered for Woodland Shore shopping mall, James Islands’ largest.
As its towering, permaglaz shape came into view, odors of Confederate Jasmine and Gardenia came to him across the water, reminding him of better times spent at his grandparents’ home many years ago. Where the sun was not reflected off permaglaz windows covering the mall, he could see in. The infected filled every shop, cafe, and sidewalk. It occurred to Kitch that the infected had lost all but the most basic motor skills. Working a door opening mechanism was beyond what part of their brain remained intact. Moreover, doors into and out of the mall relied upon grid power. When it went down, staff and the public were entombed. If only one person were a carrier, it wouldn’t have been long before the infection spread, and the slaughter began.
Backing up to turn around, Kitch paused. He’d dismissed the place as dangerous and was plotting a mental course for Wappoo Creek and the city center. Over the stink of pluff mud, rotting food, and human flesh, he caught a whiff of meat roasting. Kitch’s shrunken stomach growled in recognition as the breeze turned. Cutting the motor, he strained his senses. Someone was alive and preparing a meal. Dad! His father might have sought refuge with them.
Reversing course, he made for the bank. Kitch’s eyes sought out the highest vantage point. A clock tower commemorating Charleston’s war dead was not the nearest but would prove safer than the high-rise buildings in which many infected walked aimlessly.
Steering under a bridge, he gently nudged the bank before securing the vessel. As his foot hit the shore, it sank into soft pluff mud. Familiar egg-rotten odors had his nose wrinkling. After scrambling up a steep incline on all fours, he cautiously made his way through a deserted car park to the clock tower. Once the
re, he puzzled about how to gain entry. It had one permasteel door at the base, and it appeared locked. Placing his hand flat on the door, he pushed. Miraculously, it swung inward on groaning metal hinges.
Sunlight filtering down a spiral staircase provided excellent vision. The interior at the base was circular and thankfully, deserted. Closing the door, Kitch crept up to the clock faces. The staircase ceased at a maintenance platform. The tower projected four clock faces, permitting Kitch an elevated view in all directions. The popular tourist beach was quiet except for pelicans, seagulls and near naked former beach-going infected. North and South, nothing but destruction and wandering infected greeted his gaze.
Westward stood the shopping mall. The opposite was a reconstruction site meant for a new cultural center, war memorial, and public gardens. It was from within that construction site that Kitch observed thin smoke spirals wafting into the air. Unlike billowing smoke stacks rising from wanton destruction, these were thinner and to him, somehow contrived. Of course—he saw it now. The smokestacks were neatly aligned and of equal consistency.
The construction site was fairly typical for what it was. Eight-foot high walls of black flexiglaz separated the curious public from construction activities. A permasteel barrier set back around eight yards at about waist height ringed the site. The construction area was large by any standards, encompassing not only the old cultural center but also surrounding the municipal park. Elaborate gardens featuring oaks dripping with Spanish moss, dotted with arrays of hydrangeas, camellias, and gardenia displays were being made over to honor aged veterans and the fallen. His dad had often said if weren’t for the previous generations’ sacrifice, they would be living like sixth-century peasants in a Caliphate ruled by a despot who hated them.
He vaguely recalled newscasts depicting the old site coming down featuring glib politicians dedicating new cemetery lawns to a handful of aged returned service personnel standing bravely and uncomplaining under the broiling sun. As he ran his eyes over the mass of infected wandering outside the construction hub, he plotted a safe path to the gate. Kitch wondered what to do when he reached the entry point.
Double gates were secured by something not often seen in the twenty-fourth century—padlocks. Close to the gates, twenty or so slothful infected pressed up against the barrier. Perhaps they sensed the living were inside or smelled food cooking. It was at that moment that Kitch observed a head bobbing along the wall in a straight line. It paused to look down on the infected. Staring intently, he noted movement along all internal safety walls and smiled. The construction site was being patrolled. His only course of action was to draw the infected away long enough to gain entry. A diversion of created noise would permit those inside to see he wasn’t infected.
Whoever was inside had to open the gates immediately. But what if they didn’t? It made sense to seek temporary refuge there. Surely that’s what Dad had done? The inhabitants would not deny him entry, or would they?
He had to risk it. If his dad was inside, he was probably worried about Kitch.
Nodding to himself, Kitch turned to make his way down the stairs. He almost tripped over a maintenance tool bag. Ropes used in the clocks maintenance regime lay nearby. Taking the ropes, he kept one in hand and folded the other into his backpack. He crept downstairs and slipped outside to the nearest ‘bot powered shopping cart.
Crouching, he tied the rope to the guidance-push bar and crept silently forward, stopping only to loop the rope around objects that would serve to pull the cart toward a river bank edged by oaks. Once safely back at the clock tower base, Kitch heaved hand-over-hand as hard as he possibly could on the rope. The sudden force dragged the cart backward. Jerking and clanging, it sped toward the river bank. Striking other carts, their wheels moved them in erratic jigs. Momentum had several of them rushing downhill.
At the first noise, hissing and moaning began. The shambling brain-dead formed a slavering mini-horde, converging on the river. Kitch adopted a sprinter’s pose and waited. Quivering with fear and anticipation, he nervously watched the horde converge. He took off the second the first infected was propelled into the muddy water by the swelling crowd. Pluff mud odor filled the air as a half-dozen infected sank to their ankles in the sticky, smelly mud. Stuck fast, they flailed their arms and moaned.
Taking a deep breath, Kitch made for the construction sites gates. Using his staff like a pole vaulter, he leaped the barrier to pound with the flat of his hand on the padlocked gates. All the time, his neck was craned around watching the infected. Seconds seemed like minutes. When nothing happened, Kitch began to panic. He literally had only minutes before the horde swung back in his direction to investigate his pounding. Relief flooded his senses when he heard chain rattling. When the gate swung inward a fraction, a relieved Kitch required no urging. He stepped inside but froze with his mouth hanging open as someone locked the gate behind him.
Staring belligerently at him stood a semi-circle of filthy, disheveled teenagers clutching makeshift weapons backing the largest human being Kitch had ever set eyes upon. Each youth had painted a band of black charcoal across the flesh above and beneath their eyes. All sported homemade tattoos of dragons and runes on their arms, stomachs, and chests. The big kid had two ravens facing each other on his chest. He spoke in a deep, bass rumble dripping with mockery. His words hurtled Kitch’s stunned mind back to a time of more pain and childhood humiliation than he cared to recall.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Twitchy Kitchy come to visit his old school buds. How y’all doin’ these days, Twitchy?”
Kitch did something he hadn’t done since departing Cannon Ireland Junior High—he stammered as his arms and face twitched. “J-J-Junior...W-W-Watson?”
“Fuck, yeah and in the flesh, you jerky dipshit. Welcome to my Viking fortress, Trelleborg,” Junior grunted with sneering disdain. An evil smile split his grease-stained face at who had dropped in his lap.
Kitch could only gawp in bewilderment at the bizarre sight confronting him. The teenagers wore filthy cut-off jeans or trousers above the knee. The youngest and skinniest appeared no more than thirteen. Blood-stained, greasy and ripped, tattered garments hung from bony bodies like old-time scarecrow rags. Junior wore large, baggy khaki shorts and flip-flops on splayed, hairy feet more resembling bear claws than human appendages.
Clutched in the giant’s massive right paw was a permasteel construction spike. Welded to the head by industrial strength wire were sharpened, permasteel rods. Strands of bloody human hair clung to desiccated clumps of brownish flesh. Flies buzzed persistently around the improvised club. As Kitch opened his mouth to speak, he almost gagged. The wind shifted, bringing him the teenagers’ odor. The breeze presented him with a mixture of acrid wood smoke, dried blood, human perspiration, unwashed hair and bodies, and the stench of decay.
“How, h-h-how d-d-did...” Kitch blurted.
“Kitch,” Junior growled, slapping the weapon’s haft into his open palm. “Y’all best take a deep breath, calm the fuck down and think about what you’re going to say before you speak.” He hefted the club meaningfully to rest on a beefy shoulder. “Keep that shit up, like you did at school, and I’ll kill you myself. Now come and meet my warrior subjects.”
Kitch almost blurted out another question at the word subjects. He knew it meant people ruled by some other authority to whom they owed an allegiance. Rather than pursue the matter, Kitch remained prudently silent. He and Junior had a history tainted with fear, loathing, and years of prolonged mental and physical torture.
Junior Watson was the cruelest human being Kitch had ever encountered. Every school had a bully, some several. Most, unbeknown to teaching staff, operated on different levels of psychological and physical cruelty simultaneously. Back in the day at Junior High, Junior was like a great white shark circling his prey. He collected school bullies like some kids collected stamps. If the bully agreed to become one of Junior’s followers, he left them alone. A refusal saw Junior throwing all his considerable ef
fort, and that of his bully followers, into utterly crushing the refuser, physically and mentally, until the kid left the school. There was no joining his gang after refusal because Junior hated disloyalty.
Kitch watched Junior’s lumbering frame as he followed. Subtlety was not one of Junior’s strong points unless it involved prolonged torture. Given the right victim and circumstances, Junior cunningly employed his enormous strength and size to inflict pain without ever leaving a mark. He then had his gang apply intense psychological pressure to his victims until they cracked. Kitch knew Junior’s favorite school past time was watching, delivering, and reliving stories of his conquests with his cronies.
In less than a heartbeat, Kitch recalled his desperate parents debating his school and health options across the meal table. They had an inkling Junior Watson might be behind Kitch’s issues, but like all parents concerned about such things, they were guessing and quickly moved on to more logical causes. Fact was, they were right the first time. It was Junior Watson and had been so since preschool.
It was no secret Junior’s family turned the brute over to the school at the age of eight—he was a freak of nature in every respect. A throwback, some said out of earshot. By the age of ten, Junior was taller than many adults and weighed as much as some professional footballers. Kitch had heard that by age eleven, Junior had cruelly beaten both his parents into several hospitals’ emergency departments on so many occasions, the staff lost count. He physically and mentally tortured his brothers and sisters so often they feared to close their eyes at night, lest he murder them in their sleep. He slaughtered the family pets in hideous ways, along with any neighbor’s pets he trapped in homemade snares.
Survival_Book 1_And Tomorrow Page 9
