Decaying Humanity

by James Barton

  “What? You should have got me.” There was a faint humming sound coming from somewhere and I looked around trying to identify it.

  That sound got louder and louder and it finally registered. It was the sound of a truck engine. “Truck!” I yelled at him

  He turned his head, saw the vehicle and hesitated on which direction to go. The truck turned on its lights and purposely swerved to hit Desmond as he ducked away too late. The red truck slammed into him, going easily over 30 mph. There was a loud crunch as it sent Desmond hurdling through the air. A white truck pulled up beside the first one. From what I could see, they were full of people. I ducked behind the pallet gate and began to panic. I grabbed at my belt and realized that I had left the pistol on the nightstand beside Shay. The only thing I had were the two machetes, which were always on my belt. I wanted to jump out and do some ninja attacks, but unlike Peter, I was not a ninja.

  There was the sound of doors opening and multiple voices.

  “I got one,” said a gruff voice.

  “These are the bastards that killed Tommy. See, there is his truck over there,” another voice said. I put my head down in shame. How could I have left it in the open like that?

  “Is he alive?” one of the voices asked.

  “Yeah, look at ‘em, it’s a wonder our airbags didn’t go off.”

  My brain started a war with itself like always. One side kept telling me, “You have to save him.” While the other side told me, “You have no weapons and there are at least six armed men a good distance from you. Don’t bring a machete to a gunfight.”

  “Put him in the truck, we need more scarecrows anyways,” one voice instructed.

  What the hell was a scarecrow? I’m not a coward; my choice to hang back was merely tactical. I had to keep telling myself that as I slipped through the shadows around the pool and back to the front door.

  “Desmond, I swear I will save you.”

  “Light ‘em up, we’re done with these motellers.”

  I was almost at the door when their two spotlights kicked on. What was it with these people and their spotlights? Except, I soon learned that light ‘em up, had nothing to do with spotlights as they proceeded to unload their weapons in my direction. I dove inside and slammed the door behind me. Bullets were whizzing everywhere and I could hear them cracking through the studs in the wall. I dropped to the floor and yelled, “Raiders!” as loud as I could. It was doubtful that anyone needed my announcement, but it still seemed mandatory. I started to crawl towards Shay’s room to get the pistol and defend her.

  Pablo was shouting what I could only imagine were obscenities from his room. He came out of his room rolling a wooden table that had been plated with sheets of metal. It looked like metal he found off the ice machine and other random things. He propped it near his window and squatted behind it, gripping the rifle. The table-shield was large enough for everyone to fit behind and he motioned for me to join him. “Not yet!” I shouted.

  I continued to crawl towards Shay’s room and she came out of the room staying low to the ground. She held the pistol and fired it three times out the hole in the window. These boards on the window were meant to keep zombies from crawling in; they wouldn’t stop bullets. Tiny pillars of light were shining through the multitude of holes in the wall. Their gunshots were relentlessly tearing and penetrating our walls. Some even punched through to the wall behind me. The volume was tremendous and I felt as though I would go deaf.

  “Shay get behind the … Pablo shield,” I said to her as she sent two more shots out the window.

  “Not yet. Where is Peter?” she yelled through the crash of gunfire and splintering wood.

  We were firing completely blind into the light. They had us pinned down. I just kept thinking about the sniper across the street. Three shots man, that’s all I’m asking for. Our neighbors offered no help and I realized we were alone. The lifeguards had left the beach.

  “I’m going for Peter,” I said.

  “Where is Dez?” Shay asked firing the remaining rounds from her clip.

  “They took him,” I yelled back.

  Shay’s face immediately turned sullen and her eyes seemed to grow darker. Her face contorted into a sneer I hadn’t seen before. She slammed a fresh magazine in and began firing madly out the window.

  “Peter! Stay down, get under the bed. Peter!” I cried out. There he stood in the doorway holding his pillow tightly. “Peter, get down!”

  “They’re in the courtyard!” Shay shouted.

  Peter looked at me with pure terror in his eyes. A bullet cut through the window blowing glass shards all over me and punching through a wooden stud in the wall behind me. It sent splinters spiraling onto the floor. Peter was standing there unmoving, a wet spot forming in his superhero pajamas.

  “GET DOWN!” I screamed as loud as I could.

  “I’m scared,” Peter said clenching his pillow.

  Then in an instant, there were white tufts of stuffing floating across the room. The stuffing danced between the beams of light that needled the hallway. There Peter stood, clutching the exploded pillow, red soaked fuzz balls falling onto the floor like snow. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed on the floor, the pillow falling to the side. The wound, God it wasn’t even a wound, it was just a crater. He must have been hit with a high caliber slug, because his poor little body was devastated.

  “PETER, NOOO!” I screamed as the realization set in.

  Shay bolted over and fell at his feet. She just kept repeating no, over and over under her breath. My heroic urge finally kicked in and I felt a stupid power wash over me. That power came from accepting that we were all going to die in a hail of bullets. That realization sent me over the edge.

  I reached for Shay’s pistol. As I did, her voice, repeating the word no, grew hoarse and terrifying. I removed the pistol from her grip, but as she turned her head towards me, I caught a glimpse of something monstrous. It was dark and I couldn’t make out the exact features, but her face had contorted into something inhuman. I could only turn my focus back to our attackers, all the while asking myself, “What the hell was that?”

  I braced myself in the window frame and started shooting at the men moving across the courtyard. Shay put her hand on my shoulder and threw me back as if I were weightless. I flew off my feet and into the sheetrock behind me. I created a sizable dent into the wall and fell to the floor somewhat dazed. Shay launched herself through the window like a rocket, effortlessly shattering the remaining glass and boards into confetti. There was a brief pause in the shooting and then it started again. There was screaming, squealing tires, and gunshots ringing out in a haunting chorus.

  I started to drag myself to the window. The sound of gunfire disappeared completely and there was an eerie silence that followed. I got on all fours and began to pick myself up when something pulled at my shoe. I darted my eyes back to see Peter grabbing my shoe and chewing at the air. “Please don’t make me do this,” I thought to myself. I kicked at his small head, knocking his grip lose. His blond hair was stuck, matted to his face as he loosed a high pitched moan. I took the machete in my hand, sighed sadly and swung down at the top of his head. Shay had been right, we all turn in death.

  The screams had died down and I dragged myself to the front door. Pablo was paralyzed in fear behind his shield. His rifle was rattling up against the table and he continued to pull the trigger despite the weapon being out of ammo. I put my hand on his shoulder for a second before stepping outside to see one of the vehicle-mounted spotlights hanging loosely from its mount. The other truck hadn’t made it very far. The door had been ripped off of its hinges and blood and body parts littered the road. Centered in the courtyard was a creature with long sharp fingers, digging into a dead man’s head like his skull was a candy bowl. I froze in place. The creature surrounded by shattered bodies was wearing little black shorts and a bloody white undershirt. I took a step forward and whimpered her name, “Shay?”

  The mon
ster spun around to look at me with blood-red eyes and a protruding jaw. I was terrified, but underneath that horrible beast I could still see her. Her veins ran black under her skin. Within seconds they began to fade and she started to transform back into her old self.

  “Shay, it’s me. Everything is going to be okay.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Her hands cracked and bent as they returned to their original dainty form. She uttered a short cry of pain and looked down at her bloody hands. In her lap was the desecrated corpse of a middle aged man. Her head dropped down and she began crying quietly in the darkness.

  I stepped out of the doorframe and called out to her. “Shay, come inside. I’ve got you now.” Then I heard nervous mutterings, coming from behind me. I spun around just as a shorter man in a green T-shirt and jeans fired a pistol into my chest.

  One, two, three the bullets tore through me. I could feel the air escaping my lungs. I jerked the trigger on my pistol as I dropped to one knee. For a moment we exchanged bullets and soon he dropped his gun and fell against the wall of the motel. I struggled to breath and a warm river of blood ran down my chest. I started to see bright sparkling orbs that danced across my vision.

  Pablo came around the door and put the rifle to the injured man’s head and with one thundering shot, sent his brains sailing out the back of his skull.

  “Pablo, I, ugh, Shay, where is she?” I tried to mutter as I lost my balance and fell onto my back. I instinctively touched at the gunshot wounds and then held my fingers in front of my face. They were painted red with my own blood. My head grew hot and everything started to spin. The urge to vomit came on strong.

  “Shay! Shay! Help!” Pablo yelled out.

  I started to black out and felt a firm slap across my face. “Don’t you dare die,” Shay screamed as she held me up with both hands. Tears were streaming down her face.

  “I don’t want to. I’d miss you too much.”

  Shay looked around frantically in the dark and then Pablo ran up to her with the medical kit. I chuckled hoarsely at the attempt and smiled weakly. “I don’t think bandages are going to … cut it this time.”

  “You just hang in there, I’m going to save you,” she said while rooting through the kit.

  The edges of my vision had gone black and the darkness started to creep in on me. I kept her in the center of my vision as everything else began to fade away. “Shay, I want to tell you…”

  “Shut up!” she screamed. “Where is it? Where is it?” she said to herself flinging supplies out.

  “I love you,” I struggled to say. Shay locked eyes with me and she wiped the tears from her face.

  “I love you more,” she said.

  Pablo reached down and picked up something in a white paper wrapper. He jumped up excitedly and handed it to Shay. She tore open the package and pulled out the clean unused syringe. I battled to keep my eyes open, but I could feel my body shutting down as each breath of air became harder and harder. She slid the needle into her own arm and pulled out a line of blood.

  “Wait … what?” I started.

  She injected the needle right into my left arm. It felt like hot shards of glass coursing through my veins. The pain snapped me back into focus. She took a second injection and put it into my other arm. Despite the pain, exhaustion was still setting in and my eyelids felt as though they were a hundred pounds. My eyes fluttered shut and she stabbed me in the chest with a needle full of her blood. “You can’t leave me alone,” she screamed.

  “I wanted us … to be together … forever,” I whispered.

  “We will, I promise, we will.” She wrapped her arms around me and just held me. I felt like if there was ever a time to die, this would be it.

  “I’m sorry, please don’t hate me,” she said softly.

  I questioned her words as my eyes slid shut. What felt like only a second later, my entire body seized up. It was the most pain I had ever felt in my life. Every single part of my body strained and locked up. My eyes felt like they were going to explode out of my head. I vomited for an amount of time that made me think I would suffocate. I gasped for air between each violent fit and then a second wave of intense pain washed over me. My vision had cut out, leaving me blindly floating in a sea of agony. Through the waves of pain I could feel her embrace and hear reassuring words. I lost count after the thirteenth time I seized up. My heart was going to explode, I just knew it.

  Then the seizures just stopped. My vision came back and the sun was already sitting on the horizon. Shay squeezed me even tighter as I blinked with confusion. She pulled back a little and smiled at me through the dark circles under her eyes.

  I started to sit up and then turned away from her, vomiting hard one last time. Beside me was an unbelievably large puddle of bloody vomit. I finally found the strength to sit up and did so with her help. I looked at my chest and it was absolutely drenched in blood. I put my fingers through the holes in my shirt and ran it across my smooth skin. There were no wounds. I took a giant breath of air without any struggle. I was completely baffled. She gave me a worried look, like a child who was waiting to be scolded for breaking her mother’s favorite vase.

  I fumbled my words, trying to find the right question. “Who, I mean what, are you?” I asked.

  There was a long pause before she broke into an embarrassed smile.

  “I’m Tiffany Mason.”

  Chapter 10: Tiffany Mason

  Hello, my name is Tiffany Mason and I have cancer. Or, at least I did a few months ago. Now, I’m not sure what I have, but I know it isn’t cancer any longer.

  I used to work down at the music store in Freeport, NC. They were having a rough time ever since music became digital, and morally acceptable to steal. We were going out of business and everyone knew it. I had gone to college, but that didn’t work out, so I dropped out and starting working at this average paying job. It wasn’t much, but all I had to do was run a cash register and listen to music all day. The years I worked at the music store I always knew I was supposed to do something important, but until I could figure out what it was, being a cashier was just fine. I was perfectly happy with the way everything was going … that was until I went to the doctor for a checkup.

  The doctor ran some tests and soon told me I had cancer. I can tell you that hearing news like that feels like falling. As he told me about the difficult road of chemo treatments I could barely comprehend his words. His last words stuck into me like a knife, “…Although, some patients elect to skip treatments and focus on enjoying the time they have.” Was he giving me the option to lie down and die?

  Well let me tell you, I wanted to live. I didn’t have anything amazing keeping me here, but that just made me want to fight harder. I never had very many friends; apparently I was too nerdy to be cool, and not nerdy enough to fit in with that crowd. There was, of course, the occasional guy of varying popularity that would offer me a date. I never accepted, because the last thing I wanted was for my first time to be a pity lay or someone else’s bet.

  High school was difficult for me because I couldn’t find a challenge, academically. I graduated at the top of my class, but with zero friends on my Facespace page. I received a scholarship to med school and my parents basically packed my bags for me.

  My parents were never abusive, not physically. They never got along and I think that if it weren’t for me they would have split up long ago. Nothing I ever did was good enough for them. When I dropped out of med school, because I couldn’t take the blood, they basically disowned me. They called me all manner of names, ungrateful bitch, was the one that stuck with me. I earned the scholarship and I took out the student loans for the dorms and expenses. I got the job to pay for myself. How was I ungrateful? What exactly was I supposed to be so grateful for anyways?

  Anyways, sorry about that, I get sidetracked easily. The cancer was very aggressive, as the doctors would put it. Aggressive seemed to be an understatement for a disease that was killing me from the inside out. I went through the chemo and
it made me terribly sick. I lost all my hair and couldn’t stop vomiting. It was embarrassing and I had to stop working. So, I found myself forced to move back in with my parents.

  My mother had signed up for a bundle deal at the local video store that let you swap out movies all summer long for one flat price. It worked out great, because if it was more than $25 she would have told me to stare at the wall for entertainment. I ended up spending every day watching movies. Some people went through the stages of death—acceptance, anger, and all that jazz. For me, I went through the genres of movies. I started with comedy, but it never made me feel better. All the scenes were ridiculous and reminded me of places that I would probably never see. I went through drama, history, romance, and action. Then I stumbled onto a blossoming new genre, zombies. They were so numerous; they practically created their own genre. All zombie movies were about fighting against an infection. The infection was real, it was hungry and it was right in front of me. I wished that my infection was a physical creature that stood between me and death. That it was a monster I could battle for my survival, not some sickness that didn’t fight fair.

  I watched every single zombie movie in the store. I knew this for a fact because I made a checklist in alphabetical order; I told you I was a nerd. They all had this dark, twisted theme to them. It seemed that in most of them, the survivors, well, they all died. For me it was morbidly comforting, knowing that no matter how hard we all fought, the infection always won.

  I grew sicker as the days went by and soon I struggled to even walk. I simply couldn’t keep down food and I was hopeless. The doctors had told me that the chemo wasn’t working and I should just get some rest. I wasn’t an idiot, I knew that meant go home and wait for death.

  A couple days went by and a man in a grey suit came to the house and spoke to my father. I could make out bits and pieces of their conversation. He sounded more like a salesman than a government official. He was trying to get my father to convince me to sign up for experimental treatments. There were new cures being developed and they had done wonders on animals. The whole thing sounded very under the table, black ops kind of stuff. He told my father that if I signed up, we would all be paid very handsomely. I touched my bald head, pulled myself up and walked into the room. My dad wasn’t trying to figure out if he wanted to sell me, he was trying to figure out how to.