Decayed:

by Morgana Wray

  There was a pensive spirit that had stricken us all. We remained tight-lipped, as if to honour the dead, or something along those lines.

  Minutes Later, Diane’s Mom came back covered in dirt. She had dug a grave and buried Cyril’s undead wife whom she had been so kind as to shoot in the head. There were vague signs of regret on the muscly woman’s face. It was almost as if she felt that she was somehow in the wrong.

  Black blood dripped off the tips of her fingers, blotching the surface of the sparkling marble floor. Cyril couldn’t have been pleased with that. The floor smelt as if it had been polished recently. The effort that must have gone into making the marble sparkle was astounding. If you looked closely enough at the floor, you could almost make out patterns of your own reflection.

  Even I, was starting to feel for the poor old guy.

  He had lost his last connection to his old life. The rabid thing that he thought was his was wife had been mercilessly put down, and now he had to deal with watching her blood drip all over his recently polished marble floor.

  Yep, that would certainty make anyone go loopy.

  “Did it take a lot to, uh? Did she suffer?” Cyril coughed, leaning forward from his slouched position, with the almost emptied bottle of whisky hanging precariously at the tip of his fingers.

  “It was quick. It was clean. A single bullet to the temple,” Diane’s Mom blurted out the words, wearing the straightest face that she could make. “She is at peace now. Nothing can hurt her anymore. Now, you can grieve as you should have done when she was lost to the plague.”

  “Or maybe I might just save a bullet with my name on it. There can’t be any point living when you’ve lost the only thing that made living make any sense at all. When you get to my age everything is like a bad tape on repeat. Eat, sleep, piss, shit. And that’s when you’re lucky enough to get some fucking bowel movement,” Cyril lamented inconsolably, flinging the whisky bottle against the brick wall in front of him. “What is left for me, huh? What do I have to get up in the morning for, now? I lived for that woman?”

  “Maybe now, you can live for you?” Diane’s Mom turned her back to Cyril, and walked away from his presence.

  He was too hurt and too emotional for any sort of reasonable conversation. He needed to be left to deal with the whirlwind of pain that was racing through his veins. His eyes seemed red with rage. He was angry at Diane’s mom for what she had done. But it felt as if he was angrier at himself for not putting what was left of his wife down when he had the chance.

  I could see the regret in that sagging face of his every time he blinked. He had resulted to smashing up all his photos on the mantelpiece. That didn’t look good. His blood pressure must have been hitting an all time high.

  I quickly ushered Diane out of the room. She didn’t need to see the old man descend into senseless violence against his own belongings. On a level, I supposed it made sense for him to want to destroy everything that reminded him of what he had before it all went to shit.

  Life before the plague of the undead was a mirage. Something in our not so distant past that lingered in our heads like a ghost. The old man had held on to his ghost for way too long and needed to exorcise it from his being.

  “Does that make you feel any better? Smashing up your stuff like that?” I raised my voice, stomping my feet really hard on the floor so that the old man could hear me.

  “Of course it doesn’t! But at least it keeps me from choking the life out of you lot! I needed something to vent my anger on, and my little shrine to her was the next best thing I could take a swing at!” Cyril growled angrily at me.

  The rage in those dark brown eyes could have melted the statue of liberty in one single glance. Yeah the puffing up and down of his chest was rampant. He definitely would soon be hyperventilating if he got any angrier.

  It was hard to believe that a man his age could still manage to kick up a storm when he got pissed off. I would have left the room too if it had been me that shot his undead wife in the head.

  The old man’s hands were bruised. Shards of glass were poking out of his skin. He had cut himself from smashing the glass on the picture frame with his bare hands. The blood rolling down the sides of his hands betrayed his vulnerabilities.

  He wasn’t made of steel. He didn’t have some sort of impervious layer protecting his flesh from injury. He had hurt himself and he bled just like the rest of us.

  Guess he wanted to feel the pain that was bottled up inside on the outside as well. It was a very hard thing that he had to do, letting her go the way he did. I was starting to think that maybe the plaster was ripped off way to quickly. The wound inside the old man certainly didn’t look properly mended yet.

  I could see straight through the hole just by staring him in the face.

  “Hey it is okay to grieve a little. Let out a bit of steam. I’m guessing that is all this is.” I bent low, to look at the shattered pieces of glass strewn across the floor.

  “Don’t be an anus. Don’t try to tell me it is all going to be good, or this is all part of some bigger plan. I really don’t need anyone feeding me their light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel bullshit. Because you’re not that clever and I am certainly not that stupid either.” The old man slapped his bloodied hands against the folds of skin on his forehead.

  “Yeah, you got me there on that one. Guess there is no sugar-coating it with you then. Usually, holding hands tends to make most people feel better.” I nodded my head concurringly. “But then you ain’t most people, are you?”

  “You got that one right! I hate bullshiting!” the old man managed to squeeze out a brief smile on his sorrowful face. “Between us men, you weren’t very smooth about the whole consolation thing. I’ve got hemorrhoids up my ass with more tact than that.”

  Chapter 10

  I had just woken up from sleeping on the floor. My back was aching and I needed something to wet my parched throat. Nobody drank tap water for fear that the water supply was contaminated with the Riser virus. That and the black rain from the nuclear fallout that had leached into most natural water sources made it a death wish to drink water that had not been pre-bottled before the plague hit the world hard. There wasn’t a means to fix the water yet.

  But thankfully there was bottled water in the kitchen. I helped myself to that and downed a few painkillers for the migraine that was gnawing its way through my skull. There was a reverberating pulsing sensation in my brain. You could say I was in no shape to be doing fancy footwork on strictly come dancing.

  An odd noise that came from both sides of the room, made my hands quake. I dropped the glass cup instantly, spilling some water on my bare feet.

  Two men came crashing through the windows, shattering glass and cracking the window frame, as they forced their way through with brutish force. The bigger one had a tooth missing and a short brown beard that made him look like a teenager that had just puberty.

  He was a bear of a man with chubby cheeks, and a clownish grin. This did not make his intentions any less malicious. He kicked aside a table and marched straight towards me. The whole width of him blocked out the light. The cold, stern growl on his chunky face did nothing to ease the tension that was building up inside me.

  My chest felt as if it was going to burst. This was more because I was shocked to wake up to being attacked by a 6 foot monstrosity on two feet.

  Fortunately, I was armed. I always slept with a gun tucked into my belt these days. Guess I did that just in case I found myself in situations that were very much similar to the one I was in, right now.

  I was wrong. I was scared shitless. My brain went fuzzy, and I could barely focus. To put it in simple words, I was finding it hard to get my shit together. The big guy was not going to wait for me to draw up a damn plan to defend myself on the chalkboard. He was getting dangerously close to my person with each big step that he took. I panicked and fired a shot which just grazed him on the shoulder.

  He shrugged off the flesh wound and bolted hastily to
wards me as if he was on some sort of steroids. His head crashed straight into my belly.

  Boy, did that hurt! I almost spat my guts out of my own mouth!

  “I am going to peel off your skin very slowly, and when I am done, I shall use it for a Christmas jumper. You are soft like a mouthy little bitch.” The big guy grinned, as his massive fingers curled around my neck.

  He was slowly but surely draining the life out of me and he was enjoying it. The dubious glint in his eyes gave the impression that he wanted to punish me very slowly before snuffing the life out of me in a very horrifying way.

  I should have been fighting for my life, right?

  But it was not easy to think straight when your brain was being deprived of oxygen. Asphyxiation is definitely not fun. I wasn’t feeling too great. I could barely feel my own toes, let alone grapple with the ogre of a man that was assaulting me while his mate carried on tearing down the place and smashing up stuff, as he searched vigorously for the other occupants of the house.

  “Hey ugly! You want to pick on someone your own size!” Diane’s mom smiled, arching her lips sideways, her eyes daring the big guy to make a move. “Or don’t you have a big enough pair of balls to face a woman.”

  Of course, being a testosterone driven meathead, he took the bait and dropped me very quickly, setting his sights on the woman that dared to cast doubt on his manhood.

  “Slim isn’t scared of no puny whore! Slim will crush you like a bug under his feet!” the bearish man growled. “And please, try not to scream when I cut you in half.”

  He made a quick run for her. They both did. He and his mate were going to double team her. She did not even flinch or move. Not until they were close enough for her to make her move.

  She was swift in the manner in which her legs moved. She wasn’t even armed. Yet, somehow she disarmed the smaller intruder, and tore into his stomach with his own axe, yanking out his intestines with her bare hands.

  The bearish man was incensed. He was so angry that the red in his furious eyes was blinding him to the muscly woman’s end game. He jabbed and swung at her with the blade in his left hand. There were a few narrow misses but he didn’t stand a chance against his opponent’s dexterity.

  In no time, the big guy was out of breath and panting heavily. Diane’s mom knocked him flat on his back with one single punch to the face. She stood over him very quickly, kicking him repeatedly across the face before crushing her knees against his ribcage.

  “Next time, don’t underestimate the resolve of a pissed off female. We really hate being talked to like that by waste of spaces like you.” Diane’s mom grinded her teeth together, as she choked the life out of Slim with the entrails of his disembowelled associate. “Your mother should have taught you to be more polite.”

  The big man’s eyes bulged inside their sockets. I could hear faint squeals escape from his gaping mouth. His tongue hung out, and his hands reached for his attackers face. It was a last ditch attempt to save his own skin. But it was futile. The Amazon of a woman had the superior position and had him pinned down really good.

  With the oxygen draining from his lungs, the big man managed to squeeze out a few scornful words of defiance. “He knows. He knows you’re here. You’ll burn. You’ll all burn.”

  “What is he talking about? Who is he talking about?” I rolled my eyes nervously, still a bit dazed, and unable to move.

  “Bones..” the words slipped almost silently out of Slim’s mouth.

  He soon stopped struggling, as his hands dropped to the ground, and he drew his last breath. There was no more movements. The bearish man was as still as dead wood.

  “Scum!” Diane’s mom spat at the sprawled out corpse of the man she had just strangled, kicking his lifeless body disrespectfully as she sauntered towards me.

  “Need a hand, champ? You don’t look so good!” Diane’s mom grinned, pushing a helping hand towards me.

  I clutched unto her hand and dragged myself up. I was still a bit queasy from my encounter with the big guy. I was never more happy to see someone dead. That guy was a mean son of a bitch and he sorely deserved what he got.

  Diane’s mom certainly didn’t have any regrets for doing what had to be done. She in fact, derived perverse pleasure from doing the deed. She had a crazy glint in those cold blue eyes of hers. They were certainly void of empathy for anyone that wasn’t considered to be a friend or an ally.

  “I am glad you’re on our team. I would certainly hate to be the one to go against you. You are one mean woman,” I laughed jokingly. “How did you know I needed help, anyway?”

  “You wouldn’t last very long with me as an enemy, Mister. As for how I knew you needed help-you weren’t making a sound. I can hear you coming a mile off, and it was out of character for you to have fallen silent all of a sudden.” Diane’s mom rolled her eyes at me suggestively.

  “Bones? Does that name mean anything to you?” I pressed Diane’s mom for an answer.

  “Should it? It’s not as if I go around collecting the calling cards of all the murderous scum in this town, is it?” the feisty muscly woman sighed, and waved her hand dismissively, debunking any ideas that suggested that she had some sort of knowledge of what the man she had just choked to death was talking about.

  Her poker face was impeccable. I couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth, or just damn good at papering over the truth.

  Diane’s mom soon busied herself, relieving the bodies of their belongings, or anything that could be used to mount an offensive against Risers, or people that wanted to forcibly take our precious supplies, or mad men that just wanted a fight for the heck of it.

  Some people were wired to behave that way. We could never be too prepared. There was always something or someone lurking in the corner; on the edges of darkness, just waiting to pounce.

  We were not sheep to be taken unawares and royally fucked in the ass. We were tough meat to be chewed cautiously and not swallowed without repercussions. There was always going to be repercussions for whomever was thick enough to mess with us.

  “Are you going to stand there looking at my ass all day, or are you going to actually make yourself useful?” Diane’s mom shifted her head sideways, to catch a glimpse of me gawking sheepishly at her posterior.

  “Can you blame me? The view is good from here!” I spat out a cheesy flirtatious line.

  “Well, you might just catch an eyeful more of that if we manage to survive the day. There are plenty more where these guys came from. We took out a bunch of them that busted in, right through the front door. The old man cut a few throats with a smashed bottle, and they were armed with rifles. That shit was impressive. He didn’t even break a sweat. He was on them before I could even say watch out.” Diane’s mom droned on about the old man’s skills with a piece of broken glass.

  That kind of made me feel a bit emasculated and a bit smaller than I had felt when she saved my ass from being choked to death.

  “I’m sure that’s all very interesting! But what about Diane? She wasn’t hurt, was she?” I stooped down to her level and looked the warrior woman in the eye.

  “Oh she was fine. She got to see what a shotgun to the face could do to someone trying to take your virginity without asking nicely,” the blue-eyed woman’s face lit up with a mischievous smile. “uh, you’re doing the thing with your eyes again! Didn’t anyone ever tell you it is rude to stare?”

  “I wasn’t staring. I was just lost in thought, that’s all. Although, you are kind of hard not to look at with those biceps and all,” I remarked, pulling a sidearm from the holster on the smaller man’s waist. “You are quite a specimen.”

  “Are you calling me a freak? Are you saying I belong in a circus?” her eyes burned brightly, as she looked crossly over her shoulders at me.

  I didn’t know where to hide my face. The feeling of my balls crawling up my ball sack, back into my body, wasn’t a very comfortable sensation. That woman really put genuine fear of her into me. I did not know what to
say to her at that point in time. She was so domineering, and those eyes certainly were making me edgy.

  “Ease up, will you! I was just yanking your chain! No need to go all silent on me!” Diane’s mom slapped the side of my face playfully.

  “Sure. I wasn’t being weird. I just didn’t know how to answer that. It felt more like a trick question,” I raised my voice louder than hers, subconsciously trying to assert my manhood. “Was that a trick question?”

  “Not unless you were as fucked up in the head as those undead Risers that keep trying to eat our insides,” Diane’s mom brushed off my question with as little stoicism as possible.

  We both headed out of the kitchen, giggling and chuckling at each other’s silly jokes. I had the shorter dead man’s pistol in my left hand. Diane’s mom had Slim’s humongous blade hanging over her shoulder like some sort of prized deer that had been hunted down in an archaic bloodsport.

  We soon made an entry into the living room. The eyes peering at us made us feel slightly unwelcome. Diane was still harbouring some grudges against me for trying to get it on with her mom. As for the old man, fuck knows what his problem was. With a sour face like his, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the guy was probably born on a rainy day.

  “You look like you’ve seen better days old man! Where was Fido when all the fracas went down? Wasn’t she supposed to be on guard or something?” I asked, beaming with sarcastic humour.

  “They shot her full of tranquilizers. Enough to put down a walrus. She didn’t stand a chance. And don’t fucking call her Fido,” the old man shook his fists at me.

  Night fell quickly. It had been a long day. We had spent most of it putting supplies together for a trip. Some dog food was loaded in the back of the Cyril’s Jeep. And mostly guns too. Stacks of them were crammed into tight spaces. When we were done packing, we had more guns than we had food.

  We boarded the only working vehicle we had, and were off to God knows where. All we knew was that it wasn’t safe to remain where we were. Clan boneless had found us. They knew where we were, and were gunning for us.