Devour: Death & Decay Book 1

by R. L. Blalock

  Jen and Liv simply stared back at him.

  “What? I don’t know about you, but I do that shit every day.” Corey shrugged.

  Finally, Liv broke down and chuckled at his absurd claim. “Come on. Let’s just do this.”

  Highway K, in actuality a busy four-lane road with a suicide lane separating the two opposing sides, was densely packed with stationary cars. Most of the long, straight road was dotted with small strip malls and any large store or fast-food restaurant one could want. Corey had found a place for them to cross between these heavily peppered buildings. The road was still crowded with cars, and the infected had still been numerous, but at least they had all been clustered around the road, rather than spreading out among the surrounding houses.

  Unlike crossing Old Highway 94, this crossing went smoothly. Liv didn’t dare to hope that it was the start of better luck to come. That would be asking for a lot. For now, she just relished the idea that something had been easy.

  Day 3

  12:46 pm

  Though they had only walked just shy of two miles, the distance had taken them roughly three hours to cross. After crossing Highway K, they had passed through a few short rows of houses until they reached Schote Creek. The thin thread of water could barely be considered a creek, but its lazy, meandering path was set away from the houses and businesses and gave them a route.

  Eventually, the creek crossed Weldon Springs Road and they had turned north to follow it. The tall oaks, shrubs, and grass had been broken up by houses. Some of them were older. Some were brand-new developments. This mile-long stretch of road is where their progress had slowed.

  Despite the fact that it was smaller, the only traffic coming from those who lived in the housing developments, the road was a minefield of infected. Many times they had to stop and wait for a pack to wander away from their hiding place among the thick brush. Several times, Corey had silently dashed forward with a burst of violent energy, burying his small screwdriver into the skull of one of the infected.

  By noon, they had slowed down even further as they searched for a place to stop. Earlier that morning, they had discussed how they would handle Elli’s sleeping patterns. They had thought about lulling her asleep and continuing to walk. This wouldn’t work. Instead, they decided to hold her usual schedule and stop midday for naps. This way, when they did travel she would be well rested and, hopefully, more cooperative.

  Now, they were crouched in some shrubs outside of a house on Westfield Crossing, a street past where Weldon Springs Road split into two and backed onto a small forest. The street was quiet. From where they sat, they couldn’t see any of the infected.

  That didn’t mean they weren’t lurking just out of sight.

  With weapons in hand, they finally made the dash to the front door. Corey, having taken his usual spot in the lead, reached the door first. After waiting for a split second for Liv and Jen, he twisted the knob. Almost surprisingly, the latch clicked and the door opened just a crack.

  Perhaps it wasn’t too surprising. The neighborhood seemed nice enough, and though Liv had always locked her doors when she was gone, many times she left them unlocked when she was home. Maybe that meant that someone was here.

  Liv suddenly began to rethink their plan.

  It was too late. Corey had pushed the door open further and was taking the first few tentative steps inside.

  Beams of midday sun pierced the dark interior of the house through the closed blinds. Corey stepped forward as he glanced around the semi-dark interior of the room. A few steps later, Liv crossed the threshold followed closely by Jen.

  “Stop.” Corey threw his hand out in front of Liv, who froze in place. “Wait here a minute.” Corey’s eyes narrowed as he stalked forward.

  As Liv’s eyes adjusted to the interior, she was finally able to see what Corey had seen. In the kitchen, a lumpy mass lay in a discarded heap on the floor. Liv adjusted her grip on the mallet as she shifted nervously.

  The more her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, the more the form took shape. An arm stretched out from the pile, fingers curled slightly at the end. A tangle of curly, fire-red hair cascaded away from the woman’s face in dark waves.

  Her eyes were open. Unblinking. Unmoving. Focused on some imaginary point on the ceiling.

  Red painted her lips and chin. It trailed down her neck to her bare chest, the dark, vibrant color a stark contrast to the unnatural pallor of her skin.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Their attention snapped to the hallway as a loud voice resonated through the house. “And what the hell do you think you are doing in my house?”

  A man stood in the hallway, unsteadily leaning against the wall. He held a blanket to his waist revealing sinewy muscles along his arms and chest. His short, coal-black hair was a mess of spikes.

  He took a long drink from a large bottle clasped in the hand not holding the blanket. “I asked you a question.” His words were slurred a bit.

  Corey shifted slightly, placing himself between the man and Jen and Liv. The subtle movement didn’t go unnoticed by the stranger. “You.” He pointed the bottle at Corey. “You are no fun. And ruuuuude.” He swayed a bit. “And none of you are very chatty.” He scrutinized them once more. “You all look like you could use a nice strong drink. Care to join me?”

  The man pushed himself off the wall and took a couple unsteady steps forward.

  “We were looking for someplace to rest,” Liv said. “My daughter needs a nap.”

  The man squinted. “She can’t possibly be your daughter.” He motioned to Jen.

  Jen snorted a laugh. As if on cue, Elli chimed in, “Mama!”

  The man jumped. “What the hell was that?”

  Liv slowly removed the bungee cord from the sled and pulled it up over her head so the man could see Elli. He nodded. “You are stupid.” He paused to take another drink. “Or brave.” He shrugged as if the distinction didn’t matter.

  Liv crossed her arms across her chest. “Oh, yeah. What am I supposed to do? Hole up in some house and drink myself into a stupor until the infected break down the door and eat us both?”

  The man simply shrugged. “It’s your funeral. I’m just choosing to enjoy what time I have left.”

  He shouldered past Corey as he moved towards the kitchen. The instant his foot touched the vinyl flooring, it slid for a fraction of a second before he regained his balance. There was blood all over, smeared around as though there had been a struggle before the woman had died.

  Liv’s eyes fell once again to the woman and her unblinking stare. She was naked. One arm stretched out towards them, as if she was reaching for them. The other was wrapped around her body as if to preserve a bit of modesty in her final moments. Blood pooled around her head, blending with the red of her hair.

  “What happened to her?” Liv’s quiet words rang through the uncomfortable silence.

  The man glanced dismissively down at the body not far from his feet. “We hadn’t seen one of those things for a few days.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course, we hadn’t. We haven’t left the house, hardly left the fucking bedroom. She thought it might have all blown over. So she decided to take a stroll outside. One of those freaks”—the word came out of his mouth like acid—“clamped down on her neck. I hardly got her back inside before she changed.” He took another long drink.

  “She thought it had blown over?” Jen asked in disbelief.

  “I didn’t have her here because she was smart.” The man shrugged. “In retrospect, that might have been something to think about.”

  They all fell into an awkward silence. He clearly didn’t care about the dead woman. Apologies about her passing hardly seemed called for, but it seemed wrong to continue to talk over her body as though it weren’t there.

  The man slipped again as he shifted to lean against the counter. His foot stuck out from under the blanket as he righted himself on the blood-slick floor. The bottom of the blanket he held clutched around his waist had become soiled as he had
dragged it through the mess. Sticky fluid covered the foot that stuck out from the blanket.

  But the blood on his feet didn’t come from the floor. A long, dark line of blood trailed down his leg to slick his feet.

  Liv took an inadvertent step back as she shifted to bring the mallet up and ready. “What happened to your leg?”

  Corey immediately tensed and Jen stepped forward to place herself in front of Liv.

  The man looked down at the leg that protruded from the blanket. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

  “Were you bitten?”

  Liv found herself looking closer at the man. At first, she had just thought he was drunk. Now, considering the way he swayed and the slight sheen of sweat that covered his skin, he looked sickly.

  The man’s head hung. “You don’t have to stay here,” he finally growled as he gripped the counter tight.

  “Answer the question.” Corey’s voice was dangerous. “Were you bitten?”

  His eyes narrowed as the man and Corey stared each other down. Finally, the man’s shoulders slumped and he sighed. “An hour ago.” He pulled the blanket back a bit more to reveal a nasty semicircular wound on his calf. It was deep but didn’t bleed freely. Delicate black tendrils reached out across the skin of his calf from the wound, encompassing his leg. Liv, Corey, and Jen took a step back at the confirming sight of the wound. “She came back as I turned to grab a towel for her neck and took a chunk out of my leg before I knew she was even moving.”

  “Holy shit!” Corey took a few steps closer to Liv and Jen. “We should leave right now. We’ll find somewhere else to stop.” He glanced at Liv out of the corner of his eye.

  “Please.” Desperation filled the man’s eyes. “Don’t go.” His voice was suddenly quiet and pleading, all the bravado gone. “Just stay for a while. Just until…”

  “So that you’ll have a nice little snack once you come back.” Corey let out a harsh laugh that contained no mirth. “I don’t think so.”

  “Corey,” Jen reprimanded softly.

  The man made no move towards them, but his eyes begged them to stay.

  Jen motioned to Liv and they huddled in close to speak among themselves, with Corey placing himself so he could easily see the man.

  “We are not staying,” he growled.

  “I don’t think he wants to hurt us. I think he is just scared.” Jen swallowed a lump in her throat. “Who wouldn’t be?”

  “He may not want to hurt us now, but the instant he changes, he won’t think twice about peeling us open like a Lunchable.” The imagery turned Liv’s stomach.

  “I have handcuffs,” Liv said, pulling the small metal pieces out of the pocket of her satchel. “What if we cuffed him to something? Like maybe to the bed or to a chair. That way when he changes we don’t have to worry about him jumping up and trying to eat us.”

  “That would work.” Jen’s eyes lit up hopefully. Corey looked between them skeptically. He didn’t like it.

  “I’ll do it,” the man said to them and they jumped. “Y’all might be quiet, but the house is dead silent and even a whisper carries. If it would make you feel more comfortable to handcuff me to something, then I’ll do it.”

  Corey’s fingers danced along the handle of his ax as he looked between Liv and Jen and the man. “Do you really think this is smart? With Elli?”

  Liv shifted a little. No. Liv didn’t want Elli anywhere near the infected. But how could they leave him here, to die alone? “If we keep him cuffed, keep Elli in another room, there shouldn’t be any danger. Even if—”

  “When,” the man injected loudly. “Not if. When.”

  “Even when he changes”—Liv didn’t like the phrase—“he shouldn’t be a threat.”

  “We can’t just leave him here,” Jen said firmly.

  “And we need someplace to stay,” Liv added. “A lot of the houses are empty but we might always find something worse at the next place.”

  Corey looked between Liv and Jen, seeming to hope that they would suddenly be struck with some common sense. Finally, he sighed when neither showed a sudden change of heart. “Nobody goes near him without me around. Not to his bedside. Not in the same room. Don’t even look at him without me nearby.”

  Liv smiled. She hadn’t known Corey for more than twenty-four hours, but she already liked him. Since they had left that morning he had taken on the role of their protector. Not just of Jen but of Liv and Elli as well. He seemed to think it was his job to keep them all safe. He tried to seem cold and distant, but his concern gave away the truth.

  Jen and Liv nodded and Liv dropped the handcuffs, along with the keys, into Corey’s outstretched hand.

  Day 3

  2:03 pm

  While Corey got the man settled in bed, Liv put Elli to sleep in the bedroom next door. Jen had decided to stay in the room and take a nap while Liv looked over the man.

  Liv hunched over the man’s leg, the black-and-white scarf tied over her mouth and nose, as she inspected the man’s wound. For a bite wound, it looked amazingly good. The human mouth was teaming with bacteria, and bites of any kind had a tendency to fester. But his wound looked days old, not hours.

  While the man was clearly sick, his skin pale and sweaty, the wound looked healthy. The only thing that belied infection was the fine black lines that crept across his skin from the wound. The black lines were his veins. Presumably, they had been necrotized by whatever infection had been causing people to turn into deranged monsters.

  Liv had only seen the lines on the police officer. In all honesty, though, she hadn’t tried to get close enough to the other infected to look. The wounds had simply been ragged masses of flesh.

  Shawn’s wound—he had introduced himself as Shawn Lynch once they had settled in—looked to be healing and quickly.

  “You said the girl changed about an hour ago?” Liv asked.

  “Yes.” Shawn had put on a pair of shorts before Corey had handcuffed him to the bed’s wooden headboard.

  “And she infected you moments after her own infection and subsequent change?” Liv cringed at her own formality.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Shawn stared at her dumbly. “What do you mean, ‘Are you sure?’ I’m pretty sure I remember being bitten. It’s not exactly something that happens every day. Or, at least, not under these circumstances.”

  Liv rolled her eyes and turned his leg a bit to look at the wound from a different angle. The yellow kitchen gloves on her hands were bulky as she gripped his calf.

  “How much have you been drinking over the past couple days?”

  “I really have no idea.” Five glass bottles—three empty and two more close to the bottom—stood on the nightstand next to the bed. “Those weren’t there three days ago.”

  “Are you sure your concept of time hasn’t gotten muddled? Maybe it’s been a couple days since you were bitten? Maybe you were bitten by”—Liv tried to think of some other explanation—“a dog or some other animal?”

  “Are you joking?” He was clearly getting frustrated again. “I drink a lot. I can drink a lot before I feel any kind of effect. All that”—he nodded back towards the kitchen—“shit was pretty damn sobering. I figured being bitten by one of those freaks couldn’t be any good so I didn’t want to stay sober. I know what happened. It wasn’t a dog or a raccoon. It was her. And it happened about an hour ago. Why does that seem so crazy? You’ve seen them. You wouldn’t be all packed up for the apocalypse if you hadn’t seen them.”

  Liv sat back and resisted the urge to rub her face. “Your wound is scabbed over. Entirely. That might happen quickly with a small cut, but such a deep gash I would think it would still be bleeding.”

  “That’s good, right?” For a moment, his face became painfully hopeful.

  “I honestly have no idea. I mean people heal at different rates, but…” She wracked her brain for an explanation. “If you’re infected with whatever is causing people to go nuts, and by this”—her fingers ho
vered over the black webbing—“I’d say you are, then I would expect this wound to be festering. I would think it would show at least some redness or heat or maybe some puss.”

  “So what does that mean?” The words were tentative, as if he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer.

  “Well, I can give you a guess, but that’s all it is, a guess. I have no idea what’s doing this, and I have never in my life seen anything like what is happening to people—”

  “Lady, if anyone ever saw this before, I’m pretty sure that they’re all dead now and that is why we’re all screwed.”

  “Just keep that in mind.” Liv took a breath. “When you’re sick, you get a fever because your body is trying to fry the virus.” He nodded. Most adults realized this. “But, there are some diseases that actually use the fever to spread further through your body. Perhaps the reason everything seems normal is because the virus is busy moving elsewhere in your body.”

  “You have got to be kidding me?”

  “It’s just an idea. Like I said, I really have no idea what is going I on. I can just guess based on the behavior of bacteria and viruses that I know about.” Liv let out a long sigh. There were too many questions. Too much unknown. Too many possibilities.

  “Did you disinfect the wound after you were bitten?” she finally asked.

  “I poured some alcohol on it. I didn’t really know what else to do.”

  “I’ll clean it again. I don’t know if it will help, but I don’t know what else to do.” Her voice was resigned.

  Shawn nodded and relaxed back against the pillow. “I appreciate it. And I’m sorry.” He frowned as he thought, and Liv waited for him to continue before making a move to leave. “About earlier. About being a jerk.”

  “You weren’t just a jerk. You were a grade-A asshole,” Corey chimed in. He had been so silent up to that point that Liv, having forgotten he was there, jumped at his words.

  “I suppose that’s a fair enough statement.” Corey seemed taken aback. He had expected to rile Shawn with the comment.