by James Dean
“Wilson,” Paige said.
Wilson left the bedroom and entered the living room. Paige knelt by the bedspread that covered the front window. He wore latex gloves and held a notebook in his hand. “Our friend out there was on the bath salts it seems.” He turned a page in the book with the tip of his pen. “Then he thought zombies had taken over the country. Saw walking dead everywhere. This—that dead woman in there’s house—was where he was hiding from monsters. Us? We were the zombies he saw when he looked out the window. Guy was stoned out of his mind. High as fucking kite.”
Wilson shook his head. He opened his mouth, but closed it again. There was nothing he could think to say.
"We've just got a series of reports of assaults breaking out on the east side," a cop said from the nearby hall. "People biting people."
"What?" Wilson asked.
"It's going to be one of those days," Paige said, and sighed.
ABOUT PHILLIP TOMASSO
Tomasso is an award winning, Amazon Best Selling author of over 20 novels and 2 novellas. Prolific, he has published novels for young readers, suspense enthusiasts, legal thrillers, and most recently focusing more and more on horror.
He and his oldest son (also named Phillip Tomasso), co-authored YOUNG BLOOD, released in February 2015. Blood River, and The Vaccination Trilogy have topped Amazon Best Selling charts more than once.
AWARDS:
PRESERVATION: Winner, 1st Place Best Book 2014 (The Bookie Monster)
ADVERSE IMPACT: Winner, 1st Place Bloody Dagger Award (All About Murder - 2004)
JOHNNY BLADE: Winner, 1st Place Bloody Dagger Award (All About Murder - 2003)
Tomasso works full time as a Fire/EMS Dispatcher for 911, Tomasso dedicates his time to continually working on new writing projects, and his three children.
Be sure to visit his website: www.philliptomasso.com
Stay Here Until I Come Back For You
Jay Wilburn
It was the last thing his mother said to him and then she closed the door. Her footsteps retreated up the stairs. They had a rule about not hiding in basements, but the storage room was basically that. Dylan waited to hear them tear into her, but her footsteps faded into silence with no sound of attack. They might have gotten her outside, but he didn’t have to hear it.
She closed the door before she realized that the lever lock latched on the outside, trapping him inside and before he noticed the body in the corner.
Dylan threw his shoulder into the metal face of the door and groaned with pain and fear. The wall crackled and dust spilled from the exposed boards and supports of the high ceiling. Despite the world falling apart, the door held.
Dylan turned his back on the door and braced his shoulders as he watched the crusty boot sticking out from behind the crates. The body had not moved since he had been there including the racket of throwing himself into the door to bruise his arm and shoulder. That was a good sign. Still, he had not trusted bodies since the dead ones started getting up and moving around on their own. Even after they fell down, he still didn’t trust them.
He wasn’t sure how there were still boxes in here. Scavengers had cleaned out most everything worth stealing in cities and towns. This storage area looked untouched except for the dust and spiderwebs.
Dylan crossed the room through an aisle between pallets. Light glowed dusty from small squares of wire laced glass high on the concrete wall to his left. If he found something that could reach, he might be able to break one. They were probably knee high at street level. He wouldn’t be able to cut the wire though, so he would just let the hungry monsters outside know where he was. They would then be gathered outside if his mother came back … when she came back.
They always went together. Why did she do this now? He was fifteen and she hadn’t left him alone since the day the dead rose a year ago. Why do it now that he was older, stronger, and could watch her back? Why now? Why here?
He turned his eyes away from the dirty windows and to the boot. It looked different. It had moved while he was looking away. Dylan reached for his knife and found the empty sheath. He hissed out a curse that his mother no longer bothered scolding him about any longer.
She had given up on keeping his mouth clean and had settled on just keeping him alive in a dead world. He had left his knife on his plate next to the fire when they ran from the horde that must have seen their firelight. He had kept the fire low the way he was taught, but not low enough.
Now he didn’t have a knife. Maybe he couldn’t take care of himself after all.
The boot was still again. Maybe it was just a different angle because he was closer. Dylan swung wide and stood with his back to a crate between the feet.
If the eyes weren’t sunken into the dark skull, they would have been staring up at him from the twisted angle of the neck. The pale lids were shriveled and tight over the empty pits of the sockets.
A noose squeezed the skin of the throat in a dry pucker. The weave of thick rope snaked up into the air from the body over one of the supports. The other end dropped back to the ground in a discarded coil a few feet from the body. The rope didn't appear broken or frayed. It just lay there near pipes on the back wall. The knot had come untied.
Dylan looked around for a chair and decided that the man had jumped from the crates. “Opted out.” Dylan’s voice echoed back at him.
Had he changed after he died? He might have tied a bad knot or the body might have started kicking and wriggling after it was supposed to be dead. If he was moving around post mortem, he would have dragged the loose rope out of the rafters after he fell. Unless he landed badly and busted his head open on the floor.
Dylan looked over at a stack of black, plastic trash bags tied off and piled near the pipes and body. A few open cans and clear plastic bags lay scattered near the trash pile. White mold grew thick over the bags and around a muddy film near one of the drains.
“You tried to wait it out?” Dylan asked the body. “Locked yourself in with your supplies and then ran out of food and hope? Did your mother lock you in here? At least you were smart enough to bring supplies.”
Dylan shivered as he looked back at the door and then down at the body again. The blue coveralls clung to the skeletal frame. He knelt by the body. It smelled like a dead cat they had found trapped in a garage one time.
Dylan felt around the empty belt loops. The body was stony hard underneath. He felt the knobs of both hipbones, but the pockets of the uniform were empty.
Dylan rolled the dead man up on his right side. The back of the skull presented whole and intact though the hair was matted and the same fuzzy white mold from the trash and the drain clung to the flesh. He gagged, but forced his breakfast to stay down. Something on the body cracked and then cracked again like dry kindling.
No tools. No keys. No weapon. Aside from the sharp edge of the lid of a can, this guy had left Dylan nothing. There had to be a can opener. He let the body go and allowed it to flop hard to its back on the concrete again.
One last disrespect.
Something metal clinked. Dylan looked the corpse up and down. It had been near the leg. Dylan whispered, “The mystery can opener, I presume, my good man.”
He grunted and lifted the body again, but stared as his brain tried to process. A metal fork jabbed prongs first through the material of the pant leg into the meaty portion of the left calf.
“You fell on something, dude.”
Dylan took hold of the handle and pulled. The calf muscle felt loose and spongy, bowing away from the bone, but did not want to give. He gritted his teeth and pulled harder. The fork broke free and the leg gave a weak fart noise like air had gotten introduced and released again from the mummified flesh.
He let the body fall and staggered away, feeling his insides go loose from the sensation of the dead body stirring from the struggle with the fork. Blackened goo clung to the prongs and Dylan groaned. He wiped the fork off on the coveralls until it came mostly clean.
Dylan to
ok the fork to the closest crate. He fed it under the edge of the lid and started to pry. The wood came loose easily and Dylan realized the nails had been pulled free before. He glanced at the body and back at the crate. He lifted the lid slowly to see stacks of clear, plastic packaging. Each flat bag contained a round, rubber ring and a printed warning not to put the plastic bag over one’s head nor was anyone supposed to swallow it.
He sounded out the label, “Hemorrhoid Ring?” He checked four more creates. All the lids were pre-pried and all were filled to the brim with more of the same rings.
Dylan sighed and said, “What a pain in the ass, huh? Bet you had the same idea and felt the same disappointment I feel now. It’s enough to make a person want to kill himself, am I right?”
He thought maybe he could collect the nails of the crates and use them. He could scrape through the wooden wall facing the stairs. Dylan stared for a moment and remembered the sheet metal on the other side when his mother led him down. He could break of the boards and maybe attack the ceiling – collapse the whole thing in. He could stack ass rings until he could reach the windows or the ceiling. He could wait for his mother to come back too.
“She said she would.” He let the statement hang in the air for a moment. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. The other guy in the room had cashed out a long time ago. “At least he’s not still moving and trying to eat me. There’s always that.”
Dylan crossed the room to the metal door again. He pried at the chamber for the inside of the handle. It was a solid piece and had no seams. Nothing was going to give. He lifted his foot and kicked at it twice. The impacts echoed through the building, but the backing over the outside latch did not give. They didn’t even dent.
The hinges had screws. The notches went all the way across the head though. Those were a hybrid screw that could take either tool, but Dylan had neither. He tried to twist them with his fingers until the pads were red and irritated.
He tried to use the fork, but bent the prong. Dylan flipped the fork over and used the edge of the handle. His hand ached, but the screw broke from the surface and made an eighth of a turn. He shifted the handle into the next notch and fought it for another eighth. It wasn’t remotely loose yet, but he was turning it.
Dylan paused to count. There were three hinges. Four screws on each side. If he took out just the ones on the door, that might be enough to force it out of the frame. That was twelve screws to remove.
“She might still come back,” he whispered. He continued to turn the screw with the handle of the fork bit by bit. After an hour or maybe two, the screw was turning easier. He got quarter turns each time instead of eighths. Dylan tried to move it by hand again, but couldn’t grip the sharp edges enough to turn it. The screw head was still nearly flush to the hinge and door.
He turned for another period of time using the fork handle. The light from the sun was changing. He had no watch or way to judge time while inside. Dylan looked back at the rope over the rafters.
“I could use your noose to create some sort of sundial.” He knew it was April first. He only knew that because his mother had told him. She kept track of that sort of thing or tried to at least.
He checked the screw again. Still flush. He was just spinning it in the hole. Dylan struck it with the fork and tried to pry. No luck. He tried a different screw. Couldn’t budge it. The third on this hinge moved an eighth of a turn with the stubbornness of the first. He cast the fork aside with a clatter. The screws were in some sort of anti-removal system. They weren’t going to come free of the door ever.
Dylan bounced the back of his head off the door with hollow thumps. He paused and heard motion. The ceiling crackled with slow steps. He was tempted to yell out for help, but bit his lip to hold the words in. His mother already knew where he was. Anyone else wandering around up there would tear him apart, if they got in here. He watched the ceiling and listened to the slow steps. There were a lot of them. If they stumbled onto the stairs leading down to this storage room, he’d be trapped in a whole new way. He’d be the second one to die down in the butt ring room.
Maybe his mother was outside waiting for a chance to get back inside. She might distract them and lead them out. If they got on her trail, they would stick to it until they caught her. It was smartest to wait. She was smart, but she might panic knowing they were in here with her son.
Dylan waited silently for her to come back long into the darkness and then he fell asleep against the door.
*****
He woke up in full light. He wasn’t sure if it was morning or afternoon. He had slumped over to his side in the night and opened his eyes to see the gunky prongs of the fork less than an inch from his eye. He scrambled up and away from it. It was lucky to have not fallen on it in the night in his sleep. He could have lost the eye. Might have died of an infection long before he starved to death.
“Nearly made the same mistake as the dead dufus over there.” His voice grew thin at the end of his sentence. Dylan rubbed his eyes with dirty hands and swallowed on a dry throat. His voice came scratchy. “I’ll die of thirst long before I starve.”
He braced himself on the door as he climbed to his feet. The drain in the floor was packed with filth. The dead man had probably used it to evacuate his wastes until it was clogged. The pipes he used to tie off his noose would be bone dry even if Dylan used all his energy to knock one loose from the wall. He needed to get outside to find food and water.
His mother loved him. If she hadn’t come back after a day, something was wrong. He needed to figure out an escape plan on his own. He felt tears sting at his eyes, but he fought them back. He could not afford to spare the liquid for tears.
“You lied to me, Margaret.”
His mother hated it when he used her real name. She thought it was disrespectful. She had let up on cussing, but using her first name was still a bridge too far. Dylan lifted his boot and kicked the door three times with the boom of thunder through the building above.
“Keep your promises, Maggie.”
A shadow crossed over the windows on one wall. Someone was outside. Dylan froze, staring at the door. He had forgotten about them in his anger and grogginess. More footsteps upstairs. They were following the noise. Searching again. If they had already been inside when he kicked the door, he would be done for.
Dylan backed away from the door and crouched in the corner – a different corner from the body. They wandered around upstairs for a long time. Maybe she was still outside, watching and waiting for an opportunity. They were still in the area and she was waiting for them to go. He had just drawn them back into the building again.
Dylan folded his arms over his bent knees and rested his forehead.
He dozed in and out all day. He woke up in pitch blackness. His back hurt and he couldn’t go back to sleep. He was hungry and thirsty. Everything hurt inside and out. Dylan did cry then, but he didn’t fall back to sleep.
The light grew slowly and he stood up wearily. Each step was a torture on his joints and muscles. If he didn’t get out soon, he would be as good as dead once the door did open.
Still, footsteps upstairs. He stared at the ceiling in anger. Were they parking in the building or maybe this was their new spot to wander aimlessly forever until Dylan was dead and mummified too.
It was April third now, if Margaret’s personal calendar was accurate. There was no way he could make it a week. His time was running down no matter what calendar he used.
Those damn footsteps continued upstairs. If they heard him, they would come for him. Dylan stared up until he saw spots.
He blinked and walked back to the body. He wasn’t sure if he was strong enough anymore, but he pulled the rope anyway. The body lifted stiff off the floor by the noose looped over the rafter. Dylan gritted his yellow teeth and leaned back, pulling the body up higher. His starved muscles shook as he fed the end of the rope around the pipes and tied it off again. The arms and legs stuck out at odd angles as the body turned in th
e air.
Dylan’s voice broke on each word. “Give them something to chew on.”
He walked back to the door and took a deep breath. He had originally pictured this plan with him yelling, but he had no voice left to give. He lifted his foot and kicked the door with a roll of thunder. The footsteps above him stopped as Dylan staggered. He centered himself and kicked the door again and again.
He heard the footsteps on the stairs and Dylan stepped back. There were more of them than he thought. He ran to one of the other aisles and squatted behind a crate. He tried to control his breathing.
Hands and fingernails on the door. Dylan’s skin crawled.
The handle popped and the door swung open. They scraped their way inside. The silence that followed was deafening. Dylan squeezed his eyes shut. They moved up the center aisle toward the hanging body. There were so many of them. They were big. He was so hungry that he could smell the fresh meat from their recent meals on their breath.
“This guy hasn’t kicked anything in a long time.”
“Yeah, he kicked it a while back, huh?”
“Was he turned? He could have been turned while he was up there.”
“How have we not found this place before? We need to see what’s in these boxes.”
Dylan heard one of the lids crash to the floor. Plastic crinkled.
“What the hell are these?”
Dylan turned slowly and peered around the corner of the crate. The door hung open by maybe a foot and a half. One of them was still close, but had his back to the door. The scavenger was still closer to it than Dylan was and he didn’t know who might still be outside on the stairs.
“Keep that door open. It latches on the outside. We’ll be trapped in here.”
Dylan rolled his eyes and the motion made his head hurt.
