The Last Words

by Marcus Caine

  I stopped shooting and sit down, leaning back against the cool concrete wall. Tim Tom sat next to me.

  “Well, now what?” he asked.

  I shrugged, I wasn’t sure. The others would be waiting for us to come back for them, so we could all leave together after I handed out the weapons. What were they going to do now? Could they see the crowd at the station?

  We waited, quietly, just watching the affected trying to get through, yelling and moaning and chanting, but not in unison, I guess all of their concentration was on us.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  From the journal of Cassandra Morgan

  12/25/2012

  Everyone went to the window and seemed real fucking wound up so I figured I should find out what the hell was going on. I took my ear plugs out carefully, the chanters down the hall were being quiet so I asked the Doc what the deal was.

  “We heard gunshots.”

  “Good, so they got the guns.”

  “Yes, but they’ve stopped. And the van hasn’t moved yet.”

  “Well, maybe they took care of a few and are loading stuff.”

  “You should take a look.”

  I looked out and there was a fuck load of nutters around the van and around the station.

  “Oh shit.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Well, we gotta go help them.”

  “How? How are we going to help them?”

  “I don’t know, but we gotta do something.”

  “Right now, I think all we can do is wait and see. If they don’t come back, then I think it’s safe to assume they are lost.”

  Fuck this. I can’t believe he’s talking like this.

  From the journal of Dr. Montgomery Gates

  12/25/2012

  Of course I wanted to help, but what could we do now but wait? This was not a group of warriors, we had nothing to fight with. At this point I wasn’t quite sure what we were going to do. All we can do is wait.

  As the others kept checking the window for any sign of Jude and Timothy I busied myself with observing the affected and working back through the literature I had acquired, trying to find more — more clues, more ways to possibly fight this. I had to, I had to keep my mind occupied somehow.

  No signs of recovery yet, they all appear to be near catatonic, chanting the phrase still, at least until they hear or see me, then they are screaming it again. But, I am at least getting better at observing without being observed, even if there is very little to observe. What do the words mean? It seems like such a nonsensical phrase, all nouns, no sentence structure or grammar. Rye dance, moth oil. Do the words themselves have some intrinsic meaning? Is it the combination of phonemes that triggers something deep in the reptilian part of the brain? No, it appears to work in other languages, so it couldn’t be the sounds. It must be the meanings of the words, perhaps the images that they generate when heard. Of course, I can’t study it without reading it in its entirety. I am sure I’ve already been exposed, and am now only getting by due to my lack of sleep. Maybe if I go without sleep for long enough? Perhaps that is what the ancients did; stay up drinking and having orgies and the lack of sleep kept them from being permanently affected. Again, a rather difficult theory to test.

  Maybe if I slipped Eric a tranquilizer to see if he succumbs after sleeping. Although, I can’t be completely sure he’s even been exposed. Given enough time I might be able to test this theory, and if something has happened to Jude and Timothy then we will have plenty of time, as I don’t see another way for us to get out of here. We have enough food for a few days at most, and there might still be some in the kitchen, but unless some authority, some savior appears, unless the tide turns or the effects eventually wear off, we will die here.

  From the journal of Timothy Lorne

  12/25/2012

  We tried to keep busy, loading up all the weapons so we would be ready, you know, when we figured out what we were going to do. Joe showed me how, it was pretty easy. I’d used a shotgun before, when I was a kid. My dad had taken me duck hunting, once, but he got drunk and was never invited out again. He did that, a lot.

  But the loading only kept us busy so long. Then it was up to me to try and talk to Joe, keep him up to date, keep him remembering. I talked about the boat, where we would go. How we could fish and collect rainwater and go down to the Bahamas where no one was infected and the women were beautiful and everything would be great.

  We had already been in here at least an hour I guess, maybe longer, it had seemed like forever, and I wasn’t sure how he was holding up. Every once in a while he would just stare at the nutters, with his brow furrowed like he was trying to figure something out. Plus, it was really hard for me to talk over all the noise they were making. God damn those things do make a racket.

  Every once in a while one would try to squeeze through, even though you could hear bones popping and it had to hurt like a muddy fucker. So I would take ’em out with sweet Suzie, you know, to save ammo. We had a decent amount but I was guessing Joe decided not to shoot our way out cuz we wouldn’t have enough left to get us to the boat.

  Joe had pointed the boat out to me back in the hospital and I thought it was a swell idea, even though I’m not real crazy about the water. Now you think growing up around the Massachusetts coast and all I would love it but I had just never learned to swim, wasn’t interested, that’s all. But I just had to keep from falling off the boat, that’s all, until we get wherever we were going.

  I’m sure they had a plan for where to take it, maybe an island somewhere where we’d be safe. Course I couldn’t understand what they were saying so I didn’t know the rest of the plan once we get to the boat, but it made sense, an island. Or maybe to find a bigger boat and cross the ocean, see if the Europeans are doing OK and not affected. I wasn’t sure, some of the people on the news looked foreign, so I didn’t know for sure, if they would be OK. Didn’t really want to cross the ocean anyway, just find a nice island with bananas and coconuts and stuff and live there, like Gilligan’s Island.

  Joe started eyeing me, looking confused and a little irritated.

  He tried talking to me and I tried telling him I couldn’t understand him. He pointed to his lips, not sure what that meant. Then he looked at the crazies, and he pointed at them and started yelling something at me.

  It looked like he was asking a question.

  “I have no idea what you’re saying Joe, I have brain damage.”

  He was quiet for a while so I tried talking to him.

  “I have brain damage Joe, and so do you, so your memory is messed up. Everyone has gone nuts but us, not sure why, but those people ain’t people no more. They’ve gone crazy, they want to kill us and eat us. The rest of our people are back in the hospital waiting for us. Joe?”

  He just stared at the crazies, blank. Then he looked at me and suddenly he was pissed. Was he infected? Was he gone? I hadn’t seen it coming.

  He jumped and grabbed me by the collar and slammed me against the wall. Damn he was strong. And he started yelling something and pointed at himself, I think he was saying his name wasn’t Joe.

  “I know your name’s not Joe, but I don’t know what it is because I can’t understand you. I can’t understand anyone. I’m sorry, I have brain damage.”

  He pushed me and let go. Then just sat down and stared at the infected, looking more hopeless than I had ever seen anyone look.

  “Joe?”

  He grabbed a gun and pointed it at me and yelled something. I knew what someone yelling shut up looked like, I had seen it plenty of times before. I shut up.

  Ah, then he noticed the guns.

  From the journal of Dr. Montgomery Gates

  12/25/2012

  There was a black dog in the corner, broad chest and red mouth, staring at me, just staring, then it smiled, a rye smile, it smiled and winked and lunged and I jerked awake.

  I had been sitting up, so I couldn’t have been out longer than a second or two. I had just taken more uppers so
I couldn’t take any more right now, but the lack of sleep was getting to me. The lack of sleep and the waiting. Waiting for some sign from Jude. Waiting for them to get back to rescue us. I tried to keep busy again, reading through what I had, but that was hard so I watched the affected, pacing back and forth from cell to cell to stay alert. If the phrase didn’t get me, this not sleeping just might. Just might drive me insane.

  I started writing down what we would need to do, in case I wasn’t around later to help. Cassie or Eric would have to handle things as best they could. There might be more food in the kitchen, then maybe in the other buildings. Water was still running but we should still keep filling up our supplies. I didn’t have much else. I left instructions for the tranquilizers in case they wanted to put the affected in our cells down. Told them how much to use in their food to knock them out, and how much more if they wanted to kill them. It was more merciful than letting them die from dehydration, though I’m not sure they really feel anything. Of course I didn’t say it, but if things get too bad, they can always use it on themselves. Is that what it would come to, for them, for me? Is this how the world ends? How many others are left? A few brain damaged individuals? Some insomniacs? Some drug addicts who haven’t slept in days? Or would they be dead by now anyway? Wouldn’t we be if we weren’t safe in here behind bars? While they were out there, attracted to us, the unaffected, like moths to a flame? Perhaps some untouched lost tribes in the Amazon, perhaps they would be the root of a new civilization. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

  I suppose nature would take over. Our buildings would collapse. Elk running through the streets, hunted by tigers and bears and wolves. Wolves. Black wolves. In the corner. Staring at me.

  Fuck. I was almost out again. I maybe have to risk more uppers soon, better to have a heart attack than fall asleep and succumb to the phrase. The phrase.

  From the journal of Timothy Lorne

  12/25/2012

  He started crying. OK, not crying, but there were tears in his eyes. He was still staring at them, and they were still yelling at us, wanting to get in, to get us. And then he got on his, on his damned knees, and put his hands together, and I knew he was praying. I didn’t know he was religious, and maybe he wasn’t before this, but something like this, I suppose it could bring it out in you. Or the other way around, I suppose it could really make you hate God, to see the things we’ve seen. Maybe he even thought he was in hell. I couldn’t blame him, trapped in here, blood and gore all over the floors and bars, insane mutilated blood covered freaks trying to get in at us from all sides. If this wasn’t hell, what was? Maybe this is where it came from, a sickness from hell. Or maybe some sort of hell speak, that’s why the schizo’s ears were covered, why I wasn’t affected, ’cause I couldn’t understand. And Joe couldn’t remember. But what about the Doctor and Ponch and the others? I don’t know, but maybe that’s it, a demon language that drives people insane. Like when those people in little small town church’s start talking crazy and roll around on the ground.

  I remember seeing it, when we visited family when I was a kid. My dad’s brother, my dad had come from Alabama, my dad’s brother had taken us to church, and I was just a young kid. The preacher was something else. I had actually liked it, I had never been to church before. The preacher was loud and fun, and people would get up and praise Jesus, and put their hands up, and I thought this was amazing, this was the real deal. But my dad, he looked disgusted. And things just kept building up and then people came to the front and the preacher, he would lay his hands on them, and then they would start speaking gibberish, and their eyes would roll up in their heads and they would start writhing on the floor. And my uncle went up, and started talking nonsense, and his eyes went white and he was on the floor, this big bear of a man, writhing like he was possessed, like worms were under his skin, and I was scared, real scared. And I begged my dad, I wanted to leave so bad, I was so scared. And then he was disgusted with me. But he went outside with me, I think he wanted the excuse anyway. He told me to man the fuck up, he said that a lot. He said they were just crazy, the people in there, not to be scared of them, they were just crazy. Religion, he said, was a mind virus. He had read that somewhere, a mind virus.

  Later, when my uncle came out and we went back to his house, dad was watching TV and my uncle asked me what I thought about all that. I said it scared me. He said not to be scared, speaking in tongues, it was a sign that the Holy Spirit was present, that the Spirit had possessed them. That they were speaking the language of the angels, that that was what I had heard.

  Well, what if the demons had a language too? What if that’s what everyone was speaking, why it was making them crazy, ’cause it was demon speak?

  Joe was still praying, begging, I guess begging to get out of hell, and I just couldn’t’ take it anymore. I took two of the handguns and walked right up to the bars and starting shooting, aiming carefully, aiming right at their faces. And more stepped up, more got shot, and more stepped up, and more brains were blown out all over the others. And they didn’t care, some of them even ate it, and ate the fallen, and more were shot, until I had cleared just enough out of that one spot that I thought I had a chance, and I dropped the guns and lunged for it.

  It was just barely out of my reach. I pushed myself through the bars as hard and far and fast as I could and got a finger on it and pulled it a little closer, another stretch and I moved it a little closer, and then I had it. And they had me. Steel like grips on my arm, and burning pain from them biting, biting hard and deep. What if I was wrong? What if it was like the movies and it was passed by being bitten? But it probably would’ matter, they were going to tear my arm off and I was going to bleed to death here in this cell anyway.

  And then something went boom and all I could hear was ringing, but I felt another boom and another, close enough I didn’t have to hear it, and something was pulling me hard, pulling me away from them.

  Joe. Joe pulled me to the other wall and started tearing his already pretty torn shirt and wrapping it around my arm above the bites. He was trying to stop the bleeding. It was tight, but my arm wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Hell I could still move my fingers. And it was still in them, my arm still had a vice grip on it. Joe’s journal.

  I handed it to him and thanked him and grabbed his arm and pointed to the words on it and to his journal. I knew the writing on there was something to remind him, I had seen the Doctor point to it and to his journal. And then I passed out.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  From the journal of Jude Guerrero

  12/25/2012

  I was reading my journal, remembering the only way I knew how. I had treated Tim Toms wounds while he was out, using our shirts to wrap them and stop the bleeding. Wasn’t’ much more I could do right now. Then I started reading, catching up. Ignoring the demons, the affected. I had started to think of them as demons in the last hour or so, while my memory was going and I was trying to make sense of what was going on and I couldn’t. At first I thought maybe this was an Iraqi prison, and these other prisoners were just insane. Maybe they were experimenting on them and had given them something or driven them crazy. Or maybe this was some kind of mind game, brainwashing, like sleep deprivation or something, and they were trying to make me insane. Break me so I would talk. Then I realized how grotesque they were, and started thinking they were demons. And I was in hell. In hell because I had never believed. Had never believed in a God. And for a while there I did, I believed, and I begged for mercy, begged for forgiveness. And, hell, maybe I still do. For how long, who knows? Can you have religion when you can’t remember being religious? Could a soul be saved that didn’t remember its own sins?

  I was reading, and then writing, and thinking about these things I had no place pondering upon under these circumstances, when I heard something. It sounded like an engine. I noticed a few of the affected in the back had left, to go see what it was. I wasn’t at the point in my journal where I knew if anyone else was left. And then I h
eard a siren, a loud fucking siren, and more of the affected went to see what the ruckus was.

  And then the wall fucking moved behind me. They must have come in quick because I had barely heard the engine before it hit the wall. When it hit some of the wackos must have been in the way because brains and blood came squirting through the barred window on the wall above us. Then the truck pulled forward and backed in again, hitting the wall and crushing a few more affected.

  Tim Tom was up by this time, “The delivery van!”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. Then the back door slid up and open and there was a tall guy with glasses — he looked like shit.

  “Doctor!” yelled Tim Tom.

  “My God,” the doctor said, “you’re both still alive.”

  This must be Dr. Gates, he was in my journal.

  “Well, it took you long enough,” I said jovially because I really didn’t know how long it had taken them.

  “Sorry, we thought you were probably dead until we heard the gunshots about 40 minutes ago.”

  Tim Tom looked at me and shrugged. That’s right, the journal had said he wouldn’t understand us.

  “It was Tim Tom,” I told the Doctor, “he was getting the journal for me.”