The Last Words

by Marcus Caine

“What was that?” Cassie asked, guess she could hear it even with her ears plugged and head wrapped. Or maybe she felt it.

  We looked at where flames had suddenly roared to life, the plant. The sewage treatment plant.

  “Damn,” I said. The smoke was billowing away from us, for now. “Well, Doctor, you called it.”

  “Yes, unfortunately, I did. It was only a matter of time; gasses building up, sewage still flowing in, and no one there to stop it or vent the gases.”

  “Well, how long do you think we have?”

  “Not long. The fire will spread, there is plenty of fuel there. And the wind could shift again at any time, sending toxic smoke right in our direction.”

  “Shit smoke, great. You know what this means?” I asked the Doctor.

  “Yes, we’ll have to get to the boat. I suppose there is no other way.”

  “We’re going to need vehicles and we’re going to need weapons. Any ideas?” I asked the group.

  We were in the farthest room, down the corridor now, as far from the affected as we could get, those of us still able to come up with a plan; Eric, Dr. Gates, Tim Tom (hey, why not?), Cassie and myself. Luckily, our affected visitors had left, I guess to go see what the explosion was all about, and our own affected had quieted back down a bit.

  Just to be sure, we had a mattress up against the door to keep out sound, because I needed everyone to take out the earplugs and help us figure out what we were going to do.

  “There’s a State Police station right here on the campus, just right over there,” said Cassie. She seemed smart, too bad she had to keep isolated behind the ear plugs all the time.

  “She’s right, it’s not far, just by the entrance gate,” the Doctor added.

  “OK, that’s lucky. That’s our best chance of finding guns and ammunition.”

  “So, how do we get over there? This place is still crawling with chanters,” Eric asked.

  “There are vans down there,” Cassie replied. “They use them to transport prisoners from jails over to the forensic ward. They already have bars on the back windows, so that might help.”

  “You sure do know a lot about the forensic ward and the vans,” Eric sniped.

  “I was in the forensic ward for a while before I was transferred over here.”

  “You were?” He sounded surprised.

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t want to ask so instead I asked, “Why did they send you over here?”

  “Because I was a model fucking patient.”

  I decided to change the subject, “OK, I wonder if we can get some of the bars off these windows too, to cover the front windshield?”

  “Tim Tom was in construction,” the Doctor said.

  I wasn’t real sure how I was going to communicate this but here it went.

  “Can you take these bars,” I pointed, “and cut them off” I moved my hands down, “and weld them to a van?” I made a welding helmet down motion, then pretended to weld, then pretended to drive.

  “OK, I got the taking the windows off part, I think. And were you welding?” he replied.

  “Yes, yes,” shaking my head.

  “But, what else?” he asked.

  “And weld them,” welding motion again, “to a van,” driving steering wheel motion again. I felt like an idiot.

  “Weld them to a car?”

  I made a larger motion with my hands, spreading them.

  “A truck?”

  Close enough. Thumbs up.

  “Um, yeah, sure. No problem. But, are we going to try and get out of here?” I nodded yes. “Holy shit,” was his reply.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  From the journal of Jude Guerrero

  12/25/2012

  The Doctor had remembered the welding tools he’d seen on the truck down where they were building an outbuilding. It was convenient that they were building out there, but pretty damn inconvenient that it was all outside the gate. So, the first part of our plan depended on us being able to get out of this gate and down the stairs, through the chanters, outside the double chain link razor wire fence, past the chanters wandering about outside, get the equipment, then make it back. No problem.

  I went through all the possible scenarios, writing them down to keep them in my mind. We could try a distraction, make a run for it and hope none of the affected saw us. Eric could probably rig another explosion somehow. But would that really get all of them over to the other side of the building?

  I could wait until night falls, try stealth. I’m pretty sure I could even do it, God knows I’ve had to infiltrate buildings in the dead of night without being caught, and that was against an intelligent adversary with guns. But, it was still risky, especially with my memory, I might get trapped somewhere and forget what I’m even doing there. More important, I’m not sure we could wait that long. Who knows when the smoke will come our way? I could only think of one other way to do it.

  “What, no, are you insane?” Cassie yelled. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Really, you, that’s the craziest?”

  “I’m going to have to agree with her on this one, Jude. That is, well, that’s suicide,” the doctor added.

  “No, I really think this will work.”

  “Jude, without you, what will become of us? Honestly, none of us have your training, your background. If you die, there is a good chance we all die.”

  “Bullshit, you can figure out another plan, you can make this work without me. Besides, I’m not going to die.”

  “I’m pretty sure you will,” Eric chimed in.

  “No, I’m telling you, that’s why they don’t attack each other, because they’re chanting. They won’t attack someone else who is chanting.”

  “Jude, I mean, that makes sense to some degree, but, the risk involved, and your theory is untested.”

  “Well then we’ll test it.”

  So we did. Down the hall we went, after everyone but Tim Tom and I had covered their ears.

  As they heard us coming the chorus at the end of the hall piped up, chanting those damn words; …ear rye spider dance… and I started chanting along, using the phrase I had written down for some reason. I’d kept it in my journal with a note that it was there if I ever needed it. Well, now I did.

  So I started chanting, and, as the others watched from a distance so the affected couldn’t see them, the people in the cells settled down, stopped howling at me and banging against the doors, and started chanting with me. Their chants all lined up and they calmed down and we were all chanting in chorus. And they stared at me, their eyes pleading, probably wondering in their demented minds if I was going to let them out, let them out so we could kill the others, now that I was one of them. I couldn’t handle it any more.

  I walked away and we went back to the safe room down the hall.

  “Well, it worked.”

  “I saw,” said the Doctor. “I saw, but I still don’t like this.”

  Truth be told, I didn’t like it either. But it’s what I did, blend in, make my way through a strange land, speaking a foreign tongue, not attracting attention to myself, gathering intelligence, finding a position, or, in this case, grabbing a welding rig.

  I had the phrase in my hand, maybe I could’ve written it in marker on my arm but I didn’t want to risk not being able to get it off and someone seeing it. So here I was looking down at my hand, chanting the phrase that ended the world, over and over again, and getting ready to walk right into a crowd of fucking cannibals.

  The crazies at the gate had wandered off, probably to another floor to look for food. As I got past the gate and made my way down the stairs I only made it down two flights before I got to test the phrase out in the real world. And it was one hell of a test; a group of seven going down the stairs, three carrying pipes, and here I was, with just a knife hidden at the small of my back. Moment of truth.

  “Worm milk chest mouth…” I mumbled, my mouth going dry. They turned to look at me, eyes full of fury. I got lo
uder, “wound sea moth oil…”

  They started chanting louder, in unison, and I had to look down at my paper to get to the same place they were.

  It worked. Holy hell it worked.

  They turned and kept going back downstairs, seemingly sure I was one of them, not food. And I followed them, my new buddies, all of us heading down.

  They went down to the first floor and started heading toward the lobby as I just glided my own little way, heading toward the docks, hoping they wouldn’t notice, and they didn’t.

  I slipped out the dock and waited, looking around for more affected. A couple of loners were wandering around outside the gate so I waited.

  And I didn’t have to wait long, a crashing sound around the other side of the building meant the other part of the plan was in motion — throw shit out the window and make a lot of noise to distract the chanters. That one sounded like the TV. Power was off and there wasn’t anything on anyway.

  I didn’t want any affected to see me unlock the gate, or risk them getting in so I’d set up the distraction for me to get out.

  Now I moved, slowly, pseudo aimlessly, like I’d seen the loner affected earlier, toward the truck with the welding rig on the back, muttering the phrase.

  It wasn’t’ long at all before I was no longer alone. Three others were wandering around and for some reason gravitated toward me. Were they on to me? What did they want? If they were on to me then why were they moving so slow? No, they wandered closer but then just started following me, still a little aimless but definitely trying to keep up with me, still muttering the phrase quietly. What the fuck did they want?

  I didn’t feel like I could risk them seeing me doing something which might seem odd to them so I wandered away from the truck and started going in a large circle. Now there were two more. What the hell was going on? Was I gathering my own pack? I knew I couldn’t keep doing this forever, so I went for it. As nonchalantly as I could under the circumstances, I grabbed the welding rig and helmet and started walking away from the truck, still chanting, trying to be one of them. A couple of them followed suit, grabbing some pipes. Great, I’ve just given them weapons. Then one of them started eyeing me, like he knew something was up.

  I kept walking, not sure how I was going to keep them from following me back to the gate, then I heard another crash and some of them went running to see what it was. I stayed behind, along with the one who was eyeing me and two others. I crept closer to the gate, no real plan in mind yet, and they crept with me, getting closer to me, their heads cocking to the side like animals trying to figure something out. So I said fuck it, I knew how to use one of these from when I was helping my dad build his boat. I turned it on, lit it, and put the flame right in the eyeballers face and holy shit did he scream.

  I blinded the other two as quickly as I could and sprinted for the gate, knowing I had mere seconds. I got the key out, fumbled, cussed, then got it and the lock was open. I got in, closed the gate and locked it back up just as a horde of them was upon the gate, screaming, chanting, already trying to climb the fence and getting caught in the razor wire. I went back inside as soon as I could, hoping they would get away once I was out of sight.

  Now I was inside, but not safe, and not alone. Some of the residents had come to see what the commotion was, and I didn’t even bother trying to trick them. The first ones I burned but then decided to save fuel so I started cutting my way through the crowd before they could figure out what was going on. We were in a hallway which actually gave me an advantage because they couldn’t surround me and only so many could get close to me at a time. But I knew I couldn’t last long like this so I cut my way to the stairs and hightailed it.

  I was lucky, I only had to mow down a couple more on the stairs, but the rest of them were behind me and they were hungry for some SEAL. As I was getting to my floor I started screaming, “Open the gate. Open the gate. Open the gate.”

  And then realized I wasn’t real sure at this point which floor I was on.

  Shit, damn my fucking shit memory. But I found it, saw them with the gate open and rushed in.

  “Close the gate. Close the gate.”

  They did and the pack came crashing into it, spitting and screaming, trying like hell to get in. But the gate held.

  “Well,” I tried to catch my breath, “that sucked.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  From the journal of Jude Guerrero

  12/25/2012

  “Nice,” spoke up Eric. “Way to bring them to us.”

  “Fuck you, Eric. I’ll fucking burn a penis shape in your face.”

  I’m not real sure why I said that, but I would do it. He shut up.

  I gave the rig to Tim Tom. “Here you go. Enjoy.”

  He looked at it. “Oh no, it’s missing a tank. It’s not going to work like this.”

  “What?”

  “Just kidding,” he laughed. “You should see your face.”

  I was stunned for a sec but couldn’t help but grin. “Fuck you, Tim Tom, fuck you.”

  We opened the windows on the side over the vans to see what we had and we did have a van with the back and side windows already barred. Better than that, we had two vans like that and a delivery truck, looks like it was a laundry truck.

  I would say we were lucky but we were trapped in a city full of raving mad murderous cannibals, so lucky isn’t the word I would use.

  We started on the windows, Tim Tom really doing most of the work, me just helping as I could. He just wouldn’t shut about some girl, then another girl, and pizza, and this beer he really liked that he could only find in Boston, and everything else except what was going on around us.

  I also had him cut a bit of pipe for me. It housed electrical wires but the juice was off for good now, so it didn’t matter. I got him to make the end pointy, after a few minutes of trying to explain it, and he asked me what it was for but I knew it was useless to try and tell him, so I just waited to show him.

  I took the long pipe back down the hall to the gate, where my biggest fans were still waiting to tear me apart. They sure don’t give up easy, but I guess what else do they have to do?

  When they saw me coming the chanting got louder and some of it turned into roaring. Then I showed Tim Tom what the pipe was for. You see, my knife couldn’t fit through the grating on the gate, but this little pipe could and they were pushed up to the gate so close, the front ones being pushed from the back, that it was easy to just shove it right into them. As I expected, the first one didn’t seem to give a fuck that I had just shoved a pipe into him. He just kept screaming at me, banging at the gate. So I kept stabbing, and some of them started to bleed out, enough that they stopped chanting.

  And, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as they stopped chanting the others attacked, ripping them apart with their teeth and hands, scratching and clawing and actually eating their fallen comrades.

  “Oh my fuck,” he said from behind me.

  I turned around and tried to shoo Tim Tom away, “Get away, you don’t want to see this. You either.”

  The others were watching, and didn’t need convincing. They started leaving and left me to my grim chore.

  I knew it was going to make a mess, and I knew it would start to stink, but I didn’t plan on being here much longer and we were going to have to get out and down those stairs to work on the van, then get everyone out. I figured since I had such a large crowd gathered I could go ahead and remove some of the obstacles that were going to be in our way.

  It took a while, a long while. They were lined up down the stairway, waiting their turn for slaughter. And, I had to take my time, stab a few then let them bleed out enough that they stopped chanting and the others would tear them up and eat them. And they never seemed to get full. They also never seemed to realize that if they got close, I was going to kill them. I had to let them tear each other up and eat each other, or else the bodies would just pile up and be in the way and we wouldn’t be able to get past them. As it was, it was still g
oing to be a mess.

  It went on a long time. Way too long. When they finally stopped coming there was the biggest, most horrific mess I had ever seen, and I had seen some carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was glad I wouldn’t be able to remember it. I’m not sure why I’m even writing about it.

  When I was done I walked into the main area with the others, covered in blood, and asked, “Does anyone know why I’m killing people?”

  They were stunned. I wish I had been kidding.

  “You mean you forgot why you were killing them?” the Doctor asked.

  “Yes, I knew I had to keep doing it, but I didn’t know why.”

  “My God,” the Doctor said. “Get cleaned up and read your journal.”

  The others were still stunned, looking at me like, like I was one of the monsters out there.

  From the journal of Timothy Lorne

  12/25/2012

  Joe and I tossed the bars out the window so that they would land near the van, but we couldn’t do that to the welding rig so we used sheets to strap that to me, I guess so I would have my hands free to fight if I needed to. He didn’t even need to explain to me what was going on, he just nodded his head like “You ready?” gave me a kitchen knife in a cardboard sheath that he’d fashioned so we could tuck it into our pants, and I grabbed Susie while he got his spear and we were off.

  I knew what he had been doing over at the gate but I still wasn’t prepared for the mess. Holy snike it was a vernal smorgasbord of carnal decorum. It was like, like, nothing I had ever seen, like maybe what the corner of a butcher’s office or a meat processing plant might look like. The area where they throw the leftover shit that’ll be hot dogs that you feed your children on picnics someday. You couldn’t even tell they had been people except the last couple of bodies that I guess he’d killed and there had been no one left to tear them up and eat them.

  He went first and kicked bones and guts and some other stuff to the sides then turned to tell me to follow and made a funny side to side motion with his hands. I didn’t know what he was trying to say until I stepped past the gate and started sliding on the blood of other human beings. Christ, what a holocaust. This was worse than the medical ward in the other building had been, and the fact that they were crazies really didn’t seem to make it any better.