Dead Beginnings (Vol. 2)

by Alex Apostol

  How much pain could a person endure before they couldn’t take it any longer? He was sure whatever that man felt was more than he himself could handle. But the old man wouldn’t give up. His frail, wrinkled arms pawed at the group of carnivores devouring him. He clenched his fists and hurled them at their shoulders, but it was useless.

  There was no saving him. Lee was certain of that. The only question was how would he get around them to get out of the building?

  The thought of abandoning the nearest exit to find another made his heart race even more. As he stood, trying desperately to make the right decision that would save his life, footsteps grew louder behind him. He whipped around, his fists clenched and raised in defense.

  Another nurse, Heidi Birkoff, was headed for him, her stiff legs moving as fast as they could. Her once beautiful blonde hair was soaked through and stained red as if she had bathed in the blood of her victims. Black bile oozed from between her teeth as she gnashed them together maniacally. It dripped down her chin and onto the floor.

  “Heidi, please, stop,” Lee begged. “I don’t want to hurt you. I know you can hear me, Heidi, please!”

  If there was any consciousness left inside the thirty-three-year-old nurse, she wasn’t showing signs of it. Relentlessly, she moved forward, her arms outstretched and her fingers swiping at the air in front of her, hoping to latch onto any living thing unfortunate enough to get in her way.

  Lee wanted to close his eyes and wish away the scene unfolding in front of him, but he knew if he did it would mean his death. Instead, he balled up his fists. His arms tensed at his side. He stared forward, waiting patiently for Heidi to come to him.

  The closer she got, the more eagerly she moved. Her pace quickened to form a lopsided jog. Lee noticed a piece of sharp bone sticking out from the ankle that dragged behind her. Heidi’s mouth wrenched open as she closed in.

  Lee kicked out his leg to meet her forcefully in the gut. The nurse was thrown back. A sickening crack echoed as her head met the hard floor. She struggled to right herself, but couldn’t. Against his better judgement, Lee walked over and looked down at the pathetic creature who had once given him a homemade card on his birthday.

  His breaths became shallow. His eyes glossed over with the oncome of fresh tears. Heidi clawed at the air above her, snapping her jaw and straining her neck to get to the fresh, warm meat that hovered over her.

  She was a monster come to life.

  With the cry, Lee raised his foot high and brought it down on her head. In the movies, they show blood shooting out from all sides and brain spilling onto the floor, but all Lee heard was the crack of Heidi’s skull as it caved in from the force of his foot.

  Tears streaked his face as she stared down at the unmoving mess that was once a happy, thoughtful, sweet, and caring woman. There was no going back from what he had just done. It didn’t matter what she was now. She was once a human being and he had just crushed the life from her in a matter of seconds.

  The urge to crumble overwhelmed him. His legs shook as he forced them to stand tall under the weight of his massive body. His hands shook violently. How could he have done that? How could he kill someone? His job was to save people! The voices in his head screamed. His knees trembled as they prepared to buckle.

  “No!” he yelled aloud. He couldn’t give up now. He was so close to getting out the hell unraveling around him and getting home to his wife. He had to protect her and his child.

  Another monstrous beings came for Lee as he stood staring, unable to look away from the damage he’d caused, the life he’d taken. It grabbed ahold of his arm from behind and pulled toward its mouth. Lee felt hot breath beat against his skin as the thing groaned. He swung around and hit it in the side of the head with his iron-like fist. Then he swiped the thing’s legs out from under it with his own, but its grip still remained on his arm, threatening to drag him down as well.

  What was once a young man, possibly a patient who came in to be treated for something as small as the flu, looked up at Lee with an unquenchable thirst in his eyes, a hunger that would never be suppressed, and an urge that could never be satisfied. It strained its neck relentlessly, trying to get its teeth around Lee’s arm, until multiple veins burst in its eyes and they turned bright red. Still, it kept on.

  Suddenly, warm blood splattered Lee face and shirt. The tight grip on his arm fell away.

  “This way!” a man shouted, waving Lee on with a fire extinguisher.

  The bottom of the metal barrel was dented from where he’d bashed in the skull of the thing attacking Lee. They ran for the exit together. Without stopping, they charged the group still devouring what was left of the old man on the entry mat. Lee kicked his leg without a second thought and sent the ravenous teenage boy flying backward down the hall.

  He charged forward to the promise of safety, the man who saved him by his side, clutching the bloodied extinguisher to his chest.

  VII.

  The parking lot wasn’t in any better shape than inside the hospital. Dozens of bodies laid sprawled out on the hot pavement, surrounded by pools of fresh blood. Most lay still in the peacefulness of death, while others stirred and tried to stand back on their feet, a new hunger behind their vacant eyes.

  “My car’s this way!” Lee shouted.

  His legs were almost twice as long as the man who’d saved him, carrying him further and further ahead. He didn’t stop until he reached his burgundy Honda, his chest heaving gulps of the thick, hot air. There was screaming all around as he fumbled in his pockets for his keys.

  He glanced quickly over his shoulder. The man with the extinguisher was almost to him, just another twenty feet to go and they would both be safely contained in the confines of the little car. Lee pressed the unlock button on the key-fob and hurried into the driver’s seat.

  A sickening scream echoed. Lee snapped his head to look out the window. The man he waited for lay flat on his stomach on the ground, the extinguisher rolling out of reach from his hands. One of the sick had been lying on the ground, hidden between the parked cars. It gnawed at his Achilles tendon viciously as the man screamed all the while. His fingers dug into the blacktop as he tried to pull himself away, but the creature wouldn’t relinquish its hold.

  Lee was close enough to see just how hard the man was fighting for his life. A distant part of his mind shouted for him to get out of the car and help, but the muscles in his body wouldn’t listen. He sat frozen, watching the blood spill. The man dug so hard into the ground, Lee saw the whites of scratch marked etched into the blacktop.

  But the thing that had him was stronger. It gave a final yank to shove more flesh into its mouth. Several of the man’s fingernails snapped clean off and stuck up out of the pavement like tiny tombstones. The monstrous being climbed ontop of him and sank its teeth into the side of his torso.

  It was all too much for Lee. His eyes squeezed shut. Terrible cries for help circled around the parking lot as he sat petrified, trying to will it all away. If he hushed his breathing, he could hear the clacking of teeth as the beings closed in on their wounded prey.

  “I have to get out of here,” he said quietly to himself, his eyes still shut. “I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here.”

  Suddenly, he was surrounded by an eerie silence.

  Reluctant to open his eyes fully, he allowed one to peek through a crack in his lid. The man who’d helped him was sprawled out, his ribs bent fully back and sticking straight up in the air, his chest a hollowed out hole. Whatever ate his insides had moved on once he was cleared out. Lee couldn’t find a single sign of movement. Now was the time to leave.

  He shoved his keys into the ignition and started the car. The engine rumbled to life. Had it always been so loud? he wondered with a cringe. Luckily, the things seemed to have moved on, leaving behind the wreckage of truly dead scattered about. He stepped on the gas and backed up quicker than he intended.

  Thud!

  Lee whipped hi
s head around to find one of the bloodied cannibals crawling onto the trunk of his car. It pawed at the rear window, leaving rusty streaks that blocked his view.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Lee shouted, his old-world Catholic upbringing escaping his lips unintentionally.

  He put the car in drive and shot forward without another thought. With a flick of his eyes, he checked the rearview mirror to make sure the thing wasn’t still clinging on. He saw a body roll across the pavement and smack into the tire of a parked car.

  Something inside Lee Hickey wanted to smile in that moment, cheer aloud for making it out of Hell alive, but he couldn’t bring himself to give in to it. Heidi’s smashed face flashed in his mind. He swerved the wheel to avoid hitting another car as he merged onto the highway to head back home. A loud honk cleared away the horrifying image of his destroyed friend.

  Going ninety miles an hour, Lee raced down the two lane highway toward the lakeside town of Chesterton, where his pregnant wife was waiting for him.

  I hope, he couldn’t help thinking. The minute he did, his breath failed to leave his lungs. It stayed there like a fireball caught in his chest. She had to be alive. There was no other alternative. Anna and his child had to be safe inside the house, alive.

  Along the side of the road, cars sat running with their doors wide open. People scrambled across the grassy ditch to get away from the monsters that chased them. Quickly, the people ran, fell, got back up, looked over their shoulders, tripped again, scrambled to get back up, and all the while the ravenous horde closed in on them slowly, without faltering, charging forward like an army of undead.

  Lee heard his mother’s voice as the family fell for a third time and were finally caught by their predators.

  It’s the end of the world, son. The Rapture. God has called us all to Heaven above, invited us into Paradise, and here you are…left behind, alone and scared, staring down a gruesome death, all because you turned your back on your religion and abandoned your family.

  Lee shook his head to scatter the voice in his head. Could she be right? Could he be staring down the barrel of the shotgun that would end the world? Had the dead risen to consume the sinners? Every rational part of Lee’s mind screamed she was wrong. There was no way any of it could be true. The flu everyone had been worried about had finally hit. The fever damaged the brains of the sick and they were acting irrationally, downright fucking crazy, because of it. That’s all it was. Someone was going to fix it. They had to fix it.

  He pulled up to his two-story blue house and jumped out of the car without turning it off or closing the door. His legs carried him up the steps of the porch and through the partially opened front door. It wasn’t until he was inside the quiet house that he realized the door hadn’t been locked as it should have been. He froze in the entryway.

  VIII.

  The house was as still and silent as a warm summer night, the only sound a buzzing from the bee hovering by Lee’s ear. He swatted it away. A hot breeze blew through the open doorway, hitting him across his sweat-soaked back. The sudden cooling sent a chill up his spine and goosebumps down his arms. His cotton scrubs clung to his damp body as he took deep breaths, eyes staring forward, wild and wide. Dread sat in the pit of his stomach. It was too quiet, too calm. Something wasn’t right.

  “Anna?!” he finally called out when he found his voice. “Anna, sweetheart, where are you! Answer me! Anna?!”

  He charged into the living room, but found it empty. His large hand slammed against the swinging door as he fell through into the kitchen, but she wasn’t there either.

  “Upstairs!” he said aloud as he moved forward and around to the stairway.

  His feet pounded on each step as he took them two at a time. The bedroom door sat open a crack. A warm glow spilled out onto the hardwood floor. The heavy weight of impending heartache lifted from his shoulders as he neared the top of the stairs. Anna was home, she was safe…but then why hadn’t she answered him?

  When he reached the top, momentum propelled him forward and through the door. His knees hit the floor as he braced himself with his hands. Slowly, he stood up.

  “Anna?” He knew she wouldn’t reply, but he couldn’t stop calling out to her. “Anna!”

  The bedside lamp lay overturned on the nightstand, the sheets and covered ripped from their luxurious Queen-size bed. Pieces of clothing scattered the floor like dead leaves on the ground, but Anna was nowhere to be found. Lee stood rooted by the doorway, too afraid to take in a single breath. If he breathed, then that would make the day real, and there was no way everything he’d been through could be real.

  That was it. He had to be dreaming again. It was just another one of his horrible nightmares. He closed his eyes. If he waited, he would wake up and Anna would be by his side, fast asleep and holding her stomach. He would rest his head by the small bulge that was his growing daughter and listen for the small patter of her heartbeat.

  When he opened his eyes again everything looked the same. Downstairs, the front door creaked. The sound echoed up the stairway to Lee. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He didn’t dare turn around to see what it was. If it was one of the sick, he didn’t want to alert them to his presence. If they thought the house was empty, they might go away.

  His mind focused intensively on the situation at hand as he stood there waiting for something to happen. These sick people seemed to act on impulse, something in their brain telling them to attack healthy humans. Their only desire was to eat warm flesh and fresh organs. Did they even have thoughts? Could they feel anything anymore? Was there any chance of curing them, saving them and everyone else?

  Another image of Heidi’s smashed in skull flashed before his eyes. He jerked back, hitting his shoulder on the door frame. Several creaks and a long, dull groan came from below. Then a loud thud.

  Lee couldn’t take it anymore. He had to turn around and see what was going on. He envisioned his pregnant wife as a bloodied walking corpse and had to fight to keep tears from welling up. His eyes finally fell on the being at the bottom of the stairs. He let out a slow sigh.

  The bloodied body of Mrs. Higgins, an elderly widow who lived next door, tried to walk forward, but fell once her shins hit the first step. Her sagging arms stretched outward, nails digging into the wooden step above her head. She tried to pull herself up, but the muscles in her arms were too depleted to get her anywhere. But she kept trying, over and over again.

  All the fear Lee had for the disfigured, horrible creature vanished. She was sick. She needed help and that was what he was good at he reminded himself.

  He stood at the top of the stairs with his hands on his hips, looking down at the pitiful Mrs. Higgins. Conflicting thoughts ravaged his mind. Sadness welled up inside him as he realized that whatever she was now, the old woman would never be the same again. He would never walk down the driveway to get the morning paper and hear her shaky voice calling out to him, asking him how his wife was. She would never shuffle back into her house in her fuzzy pink slippers and robe, sit down all by herself at her grand dining room table for eight and read the Lifestyle’s section of the Chicago Tribune. Her life was over. This thing had killed her.

  Lee went back into the bedroom and dug through the closet. He grabbed a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a plain dark green t-shirt. Quickly, he changed out of his scrubs and into the fresh clothes. The sounds of Mrs. Higgins trying to claw her way up faded into the background as he folded his scrubs neatly on the bed. Who knew if he would ever get to wear them again?

  He shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. This wasn’t it. With a deep breath, he pushed the thought from his mind. There was only one thing that pushed him forward—finding Anna. She was the reason he fought so hard to make it out of that hospital alive.

  Suddenly, he remembered the conversation he had with her on the phone before Kelly died at her desk. Anna had said she was going to her parent’s house!

  He rushed down the stairs, kicking Mrs. Higgins out o
f the way before running out the door.

  IX.

  Lee Hickey drove as fast as his Honda would allow down the winding road of Highway Twelve. Anna’s parents lived in a lakefront home between Chesterton and Michigan City. It was normally a fifteen to twenty minute drive depending on traffic. But today, Lee didn’t care about breaking the law. He swerved around moving cars, and even a three-car accident blocking half the road. On any other day he would have stopped to see if anyone needed help, but this wasn’t any other day.

  It’s the end of the world, and you and your wife are going to Hell, his mother’s voice rang out.

  He stepped harder on the gas. Within ten minutes, he had arrived at his in-laws’. The moment he saw his wife’s silver SUV parked perfectly in their driveway, he breathed freely again. Nothing looked out of place outside the three-story home. The breeze from Lake Michigan rustled the bushes in the front, the door was shut when he reached it, even the sand trail leading around back was undisturbed.

  Everything was exactly as it should be.

  When he tried the door, it was locked. Somehow, Anna had convinced her parents to give Lee a spare key only last year. He pulled it out and unlocked the door.

  The strong scent of cinnamon apple pie greeted him. The lights in the entryway and living room were on, giving the place a serene, warm glow. Anna’s parents may not like Lee, but he had to admit they were the only other people he would entrust with his wife’s safety. They loved her more than anything. If it really was the end of days, he was glad they were there to make sure she survived to see him again.

  He moved forward past the stairs and the formal sitting room. Down the hall, he saw light radiating from inside the kitchen. The familiar sound of shuffling pots echoed out to him. He couldn’t contain the smile spreading across his face. All he wanted to do was take his wife in his arms, hold her close to him, kiss her stomach, and tell her he would never leave her again.