Whispers From The Dark

by Bryan Hall

  Instead there was nothing, and it was a disconcerting emptiness that sent a strange sensation through him; one he couldn't put his finger on and couldn't even place as good or bad. It was just…different.

  He walked to the doors and chuckled to himself as they slid open and canned Christmas music – Jingle Bells - drifted out into the entrance foyer.

  His grin disappeared when he spotted the body. He'd been expecting it, of course, but seeing it in front of him was something there was really no way to prepare himself for.

  An old man of at least seventy was lying face down just inside the front entrance. Cody recognized him immediately – the old man had greeted him damn near every time he'd entered the store. Cody immediately panicked and held his breath, struggling to get his jacket off. When he did he wadded it into a ball and held it up over his mouth, his breaths difficult to pull through it.

  He scanned the store. Another body lay on the floor behind the nearest checkout counter, their head and left arm poking out from behind it. Far ahead of him he could see another lying motionless on the floor in front of the electronics section.

  While most seemed to have died in their sleep, these graveyard shift workers had dropped dead at some point in the middle of the night. That had to exclude a virus, didn't it?

  Cody wasn't taking any chances, and he hurried through the store into the pharmacy section of it, grabbing a package of surgical masks from the shelf and slipping one on.

  He wandered back outside, bewildered. In his subconscious, he knew that he should grab some things from the store. But he also realized that here would be plenty of time to take what he wanted later.

  Instead, he needed some time to think. To really think – to process everything that was going on. He returned to his truck and made his way back home, his mind reeling so badly that he completely forgot about the mask until he was back at home cracking open another beer. He slid the mask onto his head and swallowed half the beer in one long gulp then walked back into the living room.

  Cody plopped back into his recliner with his beer and took another sip, considering all of the implications of what was happening. Everyone, it seemed was gone. Except for him, of course. There wasn't a chance in hell that he'd ever be able to figure out why, either. And the more that he thought about it the more he realized that he honestly didn't give much of a shit.

  By the time he rose to get his next beer, he was smiling.

  ***

  When Cody made it home Pecker was sitting in the driveway, wagging his tail in a silent greeting. The only friend Cody had ever had, Pecker had simply shown up three weeks ago and never left. He had no clue where the German Sheppard had come from, but the companionship it provided made him wonder why in the hell he had waited until the apocalypse to get a dog. There were dozens of dogs and cats roaming the town, and Cody usually made it a point to dump a few bags of food out onto the Wal-Mart parking lot whenever he was there. He'd even taken pity on all of the town's doomed prisoners and freed them whenever he saw one of them struggling to escape. They didn't deserve to starve to death, after all.

  “Hey good boy,” Cody said as he climbed out of the truck, rubbing the dog’s head.

  He checked the fuel levels on the generators and started them. Then he stripped naked before going into the house, fearful that the stink of the burnt corpses would permeate the house.

  The end of the world had been good for Cody, and a hell of a lot easier to deal with than movies made it seem. The electrical grid had indeed died a week after Thanksgiving, but generators were an easy alternative, especially since he'd stockpiled so much gas. Cody was even becoming moderately sure that he could rig up a generator to power up a filling station so that the pumps would work again if it came to it, letting him keep getting fuel as needed.

  He'd loaded up the biggest generator Lowe's had, then two more just like it. He'd had to figure out how to use the forklift in order to lift the heavy bastards onto the truck by himself, and had nearly killed himself unloading the first one before he decided just to leave the others in the truck and park it on the lawn near the house, running them from there. It wasn't like there was a shortage of vehicles waiting for him to choose from, after all.

  Once he'd taken care of his power situation Cody had set about making himself comfortable. There was no point letting all of mankind's technology go to waste, he figured.

  He'd returned to the Wal-Mart and nearly cleaned out its electronics section that day, making two trips in a full-size pickup and hauling back a massive flat screen television for the bedroom and for the living room of his new house along with new Blu-Ray players, X-Boxes, PlayStations, and one of every game and movie in the store. He'd never been taken with MP3 players, so he snagged a good sound system with a CD player along with all of the good CDs the store stocked.

  The beer department had been next, and Cody had even been sure to salvage as much meat and frozen seafood as he could, storing them in a pair of deep freezers he'd moved with another truck and left hooked to a generator full time. One day the meat would run out, he knew, and he'd be stuck with canned foods from there on out. Until then, however, there was no point not enjoying steak and lobster as much as possible.

  After that, he'd paid a visit to the beer store. Then the liquor store. He had a bar that would have made him drool before the end came, all for his enjoyment. He'd taken a special liking to the eighteen year old Glenfiddich.

  Cody scarcely had time to pour himself a glass of the scotch when the rain began to fall, pounding like thunder on the metal roof. It was the first rain since last year. He hurried out the door and onto the covered porch.

  It was pouring; a heavy monsoon-like shower. But something was wrong with the rain.

  The water was dark brown. It looked like it was filled with rust.

  And it stunk, too; a moldy, musky smell that was laced with the scent of the dead bodies. For some reason it reminded Cody of his father right before he'd died, wasting away in a hospital room that stank of death no matter how many antiseptic chemicals were poured on the floors.

  Cody frowned and scanned the yard. He returned to the living room and put on one of the surgical masks, then went back onto the porch. “Pecker! Come here, good boy!”

  He whistled and waited.

  The dog was nowhere to be seen. The porch was only a few feet from the ground, and had no door or even a railing. Pecker could have easily walked onto it and been in the dry.

  His first instinct was that the smoke from the fire had made the rain look and smell that way. But it hadn’t rained since last year, since before everyone else died in their sleep. Who was to say that whatever happened to them wasn’t connected to the rain? Cody decided that option was more likely. It was easier on his conscience as well.

  He called for Pecker again, then went to the back door and tried. After ten minutes, Cody gave up and sat down in the recliner, worried. The DVD he’d popped in did nothing to get his mind off the stinking, filthy rain or the dog that was outside in it.

  Every fifteen minutes he went to the porch, calling to no avail for Pecker.

  At a quarter after midnight, the rain stopped. Cody threw a large log into the wood stove, walked outside and turned off the generators. The house plunged into darkness as he called for Pecker one last time and stood silent, listening for the dog.

  Finally, he headed for bed.

  Cody dreamed that he found Pecker. The dog was lying dead in the woods, soaking wet and rotting and stinking just like all the people who once walked the earth.

  ***

  The sounds of barking and snarling woke him. Cody jumped out of bed and ran to the front door, peering out the window beside it.

  Pecker had come home. But instantly Cody wished he hadn‘t.

  Large patches of fur were missing from his body; the naked skin below was raw and festered with sores that oozed grey pus. Here and there large swollen tumors protruded from his body like malformed limbs. Black foam, streaked with red, frothe
d at the dog’s mouth. What looked like dried blood was caked around his eyes, forming a dark paste that nearly matted them shut.

  Pecker was pacing back and forth on the porch, snarling. After every few steps he would face the house and bark menacingly, the black foam flying from his mouth and landing on the porch.

  “Jesus,” Cody whispered in horror.

  At the sound of his voice the dog stopped his restless pacing and whirled towards the window, charging towards it and barking, teeth bared.

  Cody fell backwards onto the floor as Pecker jumped onto his hind legs, front paws landing on the window and smearing it with the foam he had been walking through. The dog stared through the window, snarling at Cody and barking with rabid fury. Miraculously, the glass didn’t shatter. Cody pulled himself up and ran into the bedroom, grabbing the shotgun he kept by the bed. He’d taken dozens of weapons and countless boxes of ammo from the stores around town, doubting that he would ever need them but figuring it was a good idea just in case.

  He sat on the bed and checked the gun to make sure it was loaded.

  He was sick to his stomach, not from last night’s liquor or from fear, but from the guilt creeping up inside of him.

  The rain had done this to the dog, Cody knew. There could be no other explanation. And what if the smoke from his macabre funeral pyre had changed the rain into the stinking brown stuff it was last night? If that was the case, it meant that he had turned the only friend he’d ever known into a monster.

  “Shoulda buried them,” he said to the gun. “Coulda used a backhoe and just buried them but I had to fucking burn them.” Tears welled up, but Cody fought them back; crying wouldn’t solve this.

  Outside, Pecker howled. There was pain in the howl, coloring the rage just slightly. It may have been barely perceptible, but it was pain all the same. How the hell could the poor thing not be in agony?

  He had to be put out of his misery.

  Cody slipped on some clothes and made his way through the kitchen to the back door. The dog would be on him in an instant if he tried to go out the front door, and shooting through the window would mean a repair job or moving to another house. It was winter, after all.

  His only chance was to sneak around the house and surprise Pecker on the porch. But sneaking up on a dog wasn’t going to be easy.

  Cody turned the knob slowly, inch by inch, until he heard it click. Then he opened the door, listening for any sign that Pecker had left the front porch. The dog continued its display of menace, its sounds showing no sign that it had heard him.

  He stepped out into the morning air, much colder today than yesterday. The sun was out in full force and Cody had to squint against its rays. The ground was inundated with the rust-colored rain, each time his feet met earth they made a quiet squishing noise. He prayed Pecker wouldn’t hear it.

  Cody made his way around the corner to the side of the house, his steps slow and methodical.

  Suddenly, the dog stopped barking.

  Cody froze, holding his breath. His finger trembled on the trigger of the gun. He waited, expecting the dog to round the corner of the house like a hellhound charging at him, seeking revenge for what he had done.

  Pecker resumed his barking, as suddenly as he had stopped it. He was still on the porch.

  It took Cody a full five minutes to make the fifty-foot walk down the length of the house. He stopped a few feet from the corner, staring at the edge of the porch. Between the barks, he could hear Pecker’s toenails clicking on the wood.

  Cody gripped the gun tightly and steeled his nerves.

  The barking intensified and Pecker’s footsteps turned to thunder. Before Cody even realized what was happening the dog exploded off the porch and into the yard. Pecker landed on the wet ground, turning to face Cody as he did. The inundated earth gave way and the dog slipped at it landed, falling on its side and sliding for a few feet before regaining its footing.

  Pecker charged towards Cody, gnashing teeth and snarling with rage.

  Cody flung the gun upwards and pulled the trigger.

  The blast tore most of the dog’s head and left shoulder apart, knocking it backwards. It fell into a bloody heap on the wet ground.

  Cody’s heartbeat pounded a rapid drumbeat in his head, his body shaking from the adrenaline of what had happened.

  He stared at Pecker's lifeless body and leaned against the house's wall, unable to fight back his tears.

  In the distance, he could hear the approaching sound of dogs, an army of rabid barks and howls charging towards him, no doubt drawn to the sound of the gunshot.

  Cody listened to them and realized that he had never felt more alone in his entire life.

  DIRT DON'T HURT

  By the time Todd awoke, he was buried up to his neck with the foul smelling dirt. He tried to move, but the weight made it impossible. Besides that, he was pretty sure he felt a rope around his wrists. He looked around, his mind crawling out from underneath a fog. He was in a small room, about the size of his living room. The walls were made of stone, and the entire place was filled with dirt, him buried in one corner with only his head exposed. A steep staircase led up to a trapdoor. In the opposite corner, another head protruded from the earth, hanging limply to one side. It was aging, but not rotted. The flesh was sick yellow and the short black hair hung in clumps, just reaching the tops of the head's closed eyes.

  Panic gripped him as tightly as the dirt and he screamed, his voice echoing off the stone walls. A few moments later and he calmed himself somewhat. Then he tried to figure out just what the hell was happening to him.

  The last thing he remembered was the bar, and the girl.

  A pretty blond thing who said her name was Mary.

  They’d danced for a couple of hours, had several drinks, and then…

  And then everything went blank.

  He knew he could hold his alcohol; someone must have drugged him.

  The trapdoor opened and Mary made her way down the stairs, using both hands to carry a five gallon bucket.

  She struggled with the weight of it as she approached him. “God made dirt and dirt don’t hurt,” she said.

  “What?” Todd screamed. “Let me out of here.”

  Mary was silent.

  “What the hell is this?”

  She smiled. “Dirt.”

  “I know that, goddamn it! Why am I buried in the shit?”

  “God made dirt, dirt don’t hurt,” Mary said. She looked surprised that he didn’t know that fact.

  “What?”

  Mary lifted the bucket and dumped the dirt inside onto Todd’s head.

  He shook his head, gagging and spitting to keep the dirt out of his mouth. It stunk of something dead; a rotting animal or something worse.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” He screamed at her. He could taste the stink of the dirt as he spoke, resting in the back of his throat.

  “God made dirt and dirt don’t hurt,” Mary repeated, and then turned and left, disappearing up the stairs and closing the door.

  Todd saw movement from the far corner of the room. The other head was twitching.

  A moment later and the head exploded like a piñata, no blood from its split cavity. Instead it birthed forth hundreds of huge insects Todd had never seen before. They were each the size of a cell phone, bright red in color. Their segmented bodies looked like ants, only more round. Instead of two horizontal pinchers, the insects’ mouths were oversized mandibles, gnashing up and down as the charged across the earthen floor towards him, burrowing into the ground as they did. They left small furrows in the dirt as they approached steadily.

  As the bugs rushed towards him, Todd knew that Mary was right. It really wasn’t the dirt that was going to hurt. Not at all.

  THROWING STONES

  Paul stepped onto the deck, taking a deep breath of the mountain air and washing it down with a sip of his scotch. He’d only been in the house for one week, but he knew throughout every muscle and fiber in his body that he’d made
the right choice in moving to the country after the divorce. It wasn’t just that he was far from Carla and that prick she’d left him for, either. As soon as he’d gotten away from the concrete hell of Atlanta, his creativity had renewed itself. He’d already written four new songs--good ones, too-- and even recorded a rough demo of one.

  The sun was disappearing behind the mountains in the distance, and already the sounds of crickets and frogs filled the air. Paul walked to the deck railing and started to take another sip of whiskey when something caught his eye.

  He leaned over the railing, trying in vain to make out what it was. The second-floor deck looked out onto a gargantuan lawn that stretched out almost three hundred feet from the front of the house, finally giving way to the narrow gravel road that made a two mile loop through the woods before returning to the main highway. On all other sides, the two story farmhouse was surrounded by deep forests.

  A small pale pillar rose up out of the ground just where the lawn met gravel, a few feet from Paul’s driveway. He’d never seen it before, and couldn’t make out exactly what it was from such a long distance. Frowning, he left the deck and made his way through the house, past the hallways of still unpacked moving boxes and out into the yard.

  Hurrying against the dimming light, he reached the road nearly out of breath.

  Five stones, each a couple of inches thick and about the diameter of a CD, were stacked atop one another. Paul stared at the pillar for a moment and then looked up and down the empty road. The rocks were smooth and glossy, polished by eons in a creek or river. But the nearest water was Turtle Creek, three miles from his home.

  “What the hell?” He whispered.