Devour: Death & Decay Book 1

by R. L. Blalock

  The scene on the screen was chaotic. At least three dozen people crushed against the storefronts. The image pulled out to give a wider view of the street. A building a block over was on fire and almost completely obscured by smoke. Small groups of the infected stalked through the streets and around the buildings. A few groups knelt together on the ground, hunching close and jostling each other.

  “It doesn’t seem real.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “How can this actually be happening?”

  Suddenly, the camera zoomed back to the tiny strip mall. The mob of infected that had gathered outside the stores was now flooding in through the broken windows.

  Liv gasped as she watched the creatures push and shove their way past the shards of glass. Lydia clasped her hands together in her lap and hunched forward as she watched the scene.

  The camera shifted focus again, swinging towards the back of the buildings. Three men dashed across the parking lot at an all-out sprint.

  “Oh dear god.” Lydia’s voice trembled as the infected began to pour out the back of the building after them. Every muscle in Liv’s body tensed as she watched the figures running for their lives.

  One of the survivors tripped as he stepped over a curb and crashed to the ground. Liv gasped, her hands flying up to cover her face as she continued to watch through her fingers.

  The infected fell upon the man a second later. His friends paused for a moment, but as the infected surged forward after them, they turned and ran, leaving their friend behind.

  “Mom.” Aaron’s quiet voice made Liv jump. “What’s going on?” He was standing behind them, framed by the hallway, Elli at his side.

  Lydia quickly wiped the tears from her eyes. “Uh…” She tried to collect herself. “It’s alright, honey. Things are just a little bit…crazy right now.”

  Aaron regarded her suspiciously.

  “Honey, I bet Elli would love for you to play games with her on the PlayStation,” Lydia suggested.

  “I don’t think she even knows how to play those games,” Aaron replied, unimpressed by his mother’s suggestion.

  “Maybe you could try and teach her.” Lydia picked up the remote and switched the television away from a pair of distressed newscasters. She quickly shoved two game controllers into his hands. “I’m sure you have something she might have fun with.” Aaron nodded slowly and watched Liv and his mother walk into the kitchen.

  Lydia dropped down onto one of the stools at the island with a sigh. Liv got the sense that there was something Lydia wanted to say, and she took a seat across from her.

  For a few moments, Lydia stared off at some unknown point in the kitchen, her mind a million miles away.

  Finally, she looked to Liv. “I’m sorry for Nate’s behavior.” She rubbed her hands tiredly across her face. “He’s not usually like this. He’s never like this.” Lydia glanced over to the children, her face softening as she watched Aaron patiently try to teach Elli how to hold the controller. “Today has just been hard for him.”

  “Today has been hard for everyone.” Liv nodded. “Everyone processes things differently. Maybe he just needs some time to himself, but I’m sure he’ll come around.” Liv hoped the words were true but she wasn’t so sure. Nate worried her.

  “Nate’s always been a good man. A good father.” Lydia let out another tired sigh. “He never had the best grades in school, but he has a good job in construction. He likes working with his hands.” She smiled for a moment. “I don’t think I could ever imagine him sitting behind a desk or putting on the front he’d have to in the corporate world. He’s too genuine for that.”

  Lydia lost herself in her thoughts. “You’d probably never guess it, but he’s just a big old teddy bear.”

  Liv found her eyes wandering back to the photos that graced the house’s walls: some family portraits, everyone dressed nicely and perfectly positioned. Some of the photos were more candid. One caught Liv’s eye: a younger Nate asleep on the couch with his arms wrapped around an infant Aaron. She had one just like it of Colin and Elli.

  The frown returned to Lydia’s face. “I’m afraid for him.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “He was working construction at Mercy early this morning…” Her words trailed off. Suddenly Lydia shook her head and continued. “He said one person came in with a bite. Then a few more. Then they were just pouring in. The place was packed. One of them must have changed and the place just became a bloodbath.” There was a haunted looked in her eyes.

  “He won’t tell me everything. I’m not sure I want to know, but Nate barely escaped.” Tears filled her eyes. “He was doing alright until the chaos came here.” Lydia twisted her hair around her fingers nervously. “One second everything was fine and then the next…” She shook her head. “There was just so much blood. Watching his coworkers die, his friends, our neighbors, it’s a lot for him. Too much.”

  Liv reached out and took Lydia’s hand as she began to cry. The woman remained strong even as the tears flowed. Careful to keep her whimpers too quiet for the children to hear.

  “It will be OK.” Liv tried to make her voice strong. “Maybe he’ll feel better after some rest. We’re all tired. It’s been…” What kind of day had it been? Unexpected? That was an understatement. Chaotic. To say the least. Terrifying. And then some. “We can try talking to him tomorrow.” She squeezed Lydia’s hand reassuringly. “Nate loves you and Aaron. He’ll do what he has to do to protect you. If he can do that for a stranger”—Liv motioned to herself—“he’d go to hell and back for you.”

  Lydia gave Liv a halfhearted smile. “Nate would do that for anyone.”

  Day 1

  10:38 pm

  Liv and Aaron spent an hour gathering supplies before Lydia finally emerged from the bedroom. He had helped her find hydrogen peroxide to use for disinfecting surfaces, Betadine for disinfecting wounds, a small first-aid kit, a couple of Nate’s heavier handheld tools, some more easily transportable food and flashlights. The power was still on, but there was no guarantee that it would last.

  All the supplies were stacked neatly on the island in the kitchen. Liv had cut two holes through the corners of Elli’s blanket so she could thread the straps of the carrier through it. Hopefully, this would help shield Elli from blood splatter if they got caught again.

  Liv had put a few cans of fruits and vegetables in the diaper bag, and a hefty wrench waited patiently on the nightstand. If she had learned anything today, it was that everything could change in an instant. She wanted to be prepared for the worst, though she hardly knew where to begin.

  Elli had tuckered out around ten o’clock. Lydia and Aaron opted to remain on the couch and watch movies. Nate had never reappeared. Liv and Elli had retired to the spare bedroom. Once she started rubbing her eyes, Elli had fallen asleep quickly. She slept with the peacefulness that only ignorance would allow.

  Sleep, however, eluded Liv. The events of the day kept replaying in her mind. It started out ordinary enough. Wake up, play time outside before it got too hot, relax inside for a little bit, nap time, errands, another nap. Then they had bustled off to have dinner with Colin. Everything after that moment had spiraled out of control.

  Just the thought of Colin brought with it a pang of worry. Liv decided to try to call again before they lay down for bed. She pulled out her phone and called Colin. Again the call rang through to his voicemail. After the beep, it took Liv almost a full minute before she could begin speaking.

  “Colin, where are you?” Tears broke through her words. “I miss you. This doesn’t feel real. Everything is changing so fast and I’m afraid…I’m afraid it will never be the same.” She confessed to the machine. “But I need you.” She paused, attempting to stifle the sobs that rose in her throat. She didn’t want to say the next words, but she didn’t want to waste more of her cell phone battery than she had to. “If you aren’t here by the morning, Elli and I are going to head for the farm. Just meet us there…I love you.” She shut her phone off to preserve what battery life it had l
eft and jammed it underneath her pillow.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks and she hugged Elli tight, taking comfort in the smell of her hair and the softness of her skin. The little bundle of warmth protested the tight squeeze and pushed back against Liv. Against her will, Liv loosened her grip and instead settled for tracing Elli’s eyebrows and jawline lightly with her fingers.

  Liv had always loved Elli’s sleepy face. It was so relaxed and peaceful. Her mouth would hang open slightly, her binky balanced precariously on the edge of her lip. Her long, dark eyelashes contrasted starkly with her pale, smooth skin. Her hair was tussled from a few tosses and turns as she found just the perfect sleeping position. Liv could not imagine a more perfect sight.

  Day 1

  11:02 pm

  Eventually, Liv must have drifted off to sleep because suddenly a deafening blast awoke her. Elli startled and clutched for her as she began to howl.

  They’re in the house, her mind raced. Could she really have been tired enough to sleep through the ruckus as they broke in?

  A scream pierced the air as Liv reached the bedroom door, Elli clutched in one arm. She yanked the door open. As she stepped into the hall, another thunderous crack rang through the house and silenced the scream.

  Aaron lay on the couch, his head cradled in his mother’s lap. Lydia’s arm fell across his shoulder. Her head hung back against the couch, her face pointed up towards the ceiling as her hair cascaded over the back of the couch. The light from the television flickered across her face, allowing Liv to see the gaping hole in the side of her head and the black trail that flowed from it.

  The sight before Liv made her blood run cold. Of all that she had seen today, this was perhaps the most horrific.

  Nate stood behind her. His right hand had fallen to his side, the pistol still gripped tightly. He bent down and gently kissed the top of her head and then Aaron’s.

  Nate looked up at Liv and started towards her. Liv wanted to believe they were just sleeping, that the scene was the tender display of a caring father and loving husband, but she knew it wasn’t true. She spun around and slammed the bedroom door behind her, locking it.

  It had been apparent that Nate was not handling the day’s events well, but she had never thought he would do something like this. She snatched the baby carrier off the desk chair and laid Elli down on the floor to put it on.

  Nate began pounding wildly on the door. “Liv, let me in!”

  She wedged the chair underneath the doorknob, hoping to buy enough time to escape. The carrier took a mere few seconds to secure in her adrenaline-fueled frenzy. Elli kicked and howled as Liv struggled to put her in the carrier.

  “Liv, let me in!” Nate hollered. “You and I have both seen what is happening out there. You know this is what’s best.”

  “No, it’s not!” Her voice was angry as she blinked away tears. “Giving up is never best. You didn’t even give them a choice!” Her arms quivered as she pulled on her shoes and quickly tied them.

  “I gave them a quick death.” His voice broke. “There is nothing waiting out there besides pain, suffering, and a gruesome end. Is that what you want for Elli?”

  Liv clenched her fist, nails biting into the palms of her hands, but didn’t respond. Instead, she jammed the flashlight into the diaper bag and picked up the heavy wrench.

  “Listen to Elli, Liv. How much fear has she felt today? Just in the last few hours? How much uncertainty? The world we knew is gone. If you leave this house now, all you will find is death. You can’t run from it. Wherever you go they will be there waiting for you. Elli will be torn to shreds at their hands…perhaps even by you. Is that what you really want for her?”

  Liv jerked the window open and kicked out the screen. She tossed the diaper bag out first and prayed the open top wouldn’t spill its contents everywhere.

  “No place is safe from them. They will hunt us until we are all one of them!” There was a brief pause. “Just remember,” Nate whispered from behind the door, “I tried to save you.” There was one final blast on the other side of the door, followed by a resounding thud. Liv scrambled out the window and struggled to find the ground as she slid out feet first.

  As she hopped to the ground, she surveyed the surroundings. The infected that milled about the neighborhood had taken notice of the commotion and were moving towards the house. Elli’s wail made them a precise target. Many began to pick up their pace. They grunted and groaned, alerting the others in the area. Liv snatched up the diaper bag, relieved to find that despite the wild throw, it had landed upright and held all of its contents together.

  They were closing in and she had to move fast or be forced back into a house that would be surrounded by dozens of the monsters as they all tried to claw their way in.

  A narrow path opened towards the tree line to Liv’s right and she dashed for the gap. They swiveled quickly and turned to follow her movement. Liv raised the wrench, its weight a small comfort against the hoard that threatened her.

  Without slowing from her sprint, Liv swung as one reached for her. He wore the tattered remains of a business suit. Though at once it had been gray, now it was dark and stained with blood. He snarled and reached for her with dirty, bloodied hands. The swing wasn’t meant to kill—that type of precision would require too much time and energy—but merely to keep them from grabbing her. At the last second, she pulled back on the swing, the darkness heightening her fear of inadvertently injuring the small child between her and them.

  Though the swing went wild, it still managed to strike its target. The impact rocked through her arms like she had hit a brick wall. She tightened her grip on the wrench, afraid that it might be ripped straight from her hands like the shovel. As Liv stumbled and regained her balance, more of them moved to intercept her.

  Ahead, the trees reared up from the ground like dark, jagged teeth in the mouth of a giant. They waited there too.

  Forests and trees had always been a place of peace and serenity to Liv. A place where the worries of the world could be pushed away and replaced by a quiet calm. These trees, however, hid dangers. They offered shelter not just for her but for them as well.

  One of them stepped from the shadowy tree line directly into Liv’s path. He shrieked as he spotted Liv, a sound that jarred Liv to the bone, and broke into an all-out sprint that stopped her in her tracks. He moved so fast.

  Liv wrapped one arm around Elli, as much to protect the child as to comfort her. She backpedaled a few steps and pulled back the wrench for a swing. As he closed the gap between them to a mere few feet, she swung, her aim high. A loud crack rang through the air as the wrench connected to his temple. The man crumpled to the ground in a motionless heap.

  A surge of energy pulsed through her body. They weren’t unstoppable. She could fight back. Maybe she could pull both herself and Elli through this scourge.

  The wave of joy quickly washed away as countless more of them moved in to take his place.

  Liv ducked into the cover of the tree line. Thick though the trees and shrubs were, they would not hide her from the hungry maws of the infected. Elli’s wails alerted every one of them in the area to their location. They swiveled and reached for her, their arms extending out of the trees and bushes like those of phantoms. She bent her head down next to Elli’s ear and sang quietly, her hasty steps automatically falling in time with the song.

  Slowly, Elli’s cries abated, replaced with little gasps and hiccups. The sound tugged at Liv’s heart as she planted a gentle kiss on top of Elli’s head and lightly traced her fingers along Elli’s arm.

  The small child in her arms was amazingly resilient. Whenever Elli fell, instead of crying she would often simply roll over and kick her feet, as if pretending it had been on purpose. Still, Elli’s little fingers were latched onto Liv’s shirt like a vice.

  The day had been a blur of confusion. Liv still struggled to juxtapose the world before her eyes with the world that she had known just yesterday. She couldn’t imagine what Elli th
ought of what was happening. Though Elli seemed to prefer gestures to actual words, time after time, Elli had astounded Liv with her ability to comprehend what was said to her, what was going on around her, or simply how things were supposed to work. She easily carried out commands and grasped concepts that Liv thought would have been outside of her capability. However, the events of today must have been all the more confusing and terrifying to Elli because of her limited knowledge of the world.

  Eventually, Liv came across another road lined with houses. Elli had fallen asleep as she walked and now hung limply in the carrier, only twitching on occasion to grasp for her binky. Liv envied Elli’s ability to sleep. She had passed a few other roads with houses but couldn’t bring herself to stop. Instead, she pushed on forward, her mind refusing to let her rest.

  Nonetheless, her feet ached and with each step her exhausted body cried out for rest. She crouched along the tree line and watched the houses. Nothing stirred on the street except for the leaves that rustled in the breeze.

  Despite the calm appearance, the neighborhood still felt ominous. Too many porch lights remained off. It was too quiet.

  In the middle of the street, a car sat with its driver’s-side door open. Across the street, the front door of a house stood partially open.

  The infected were there. Eerie in their stillness. There were three that Liv could pick out among the dark shapes. None of them had moved. They just stood there, gently shifting from side to side, in the darkened street.

  In the roughly thirty minutes that Liv had watched the street, the infected hadn’t taken a single step. One had sunk to his knees only to fall forward on his face. He didn’t try to rise. Liv had hoped they would move on to somewhere else, but they didn’t show any interest in going anywhere. If she was going to move, she would have to stay low and quiet to avoid attracting their attention.