by Crae, Edward
He let his knees go limp and fell out of the tongue’s way, barely escaping the sharp barbs at its end. With his knife hand, he sliced at the tentacle, cutting into the tough flesh several times. The creature writhed and flailed its claws, pulling Cliff toward it. He growled, throwing his feet up against the stalker’s chest, pushing back to avoid being drawn into the reach of those deadly fangs.
Then, the creature’s face was illuminated by a bright light. Through his struggles, Cliff followed the beam of light to its source, laughing as he saw Eric’s shotgun poised to fire.
“Shoot it!” Cliff shouted.
Eric’s shotgun blazed, and Cliff saw the stalker’s face blown apart in the flashlight’s beam. It howled like an angry banshee, releasing its hold on him. Another blast threw the stalker away just as Cliff landed. He recovered quickly, but struggled to get to his feet in the loose dirt. The stalker pounced once more, lashing out with its claws, just missing Cliff’s back as he rolled out of the way. He backstabbed with his knife, feeling it plunge its way through the creature’s back.
One last shotgun blast sounded, and the creature fell to the ground, quivering and gurgling as its life slipped away. Cliff stayed on his hands and knees, trying to catch his breath. Eric stood frozen and wide-eyed, his shotgun still aimed at the stalker.
Breathless, Cliff stood, watching as the stalker’s movements subsided, and it was still. Eric blasted it again, laying open its back, and exposing its foul, gray innards. Cliff approached it slowly; wary of any movements he might see.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Eric asked.
“I just wanna make sure it’s dead,” Cliff said, kicking the body.
It quivered like gelatin, settling down after a few long seconds. Cliff kicked it again, this time pushing it onto its back. The two men both gasped when they saw its face.
“What the fuck?” Cliff growled.
“Oh my god,” Eric said, lowering his shotgun.
Cliff took a closer look. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The remainder of the creature’s head was covered in a sparse layer of wiry, black hair. Its shattered face, half covered in its original human flesh, still bore the large, crooked nose it had in its human form. Even the hazel tint of the eyes was the same.
“It can’t be,” Eric said. “No way.”
“It is,” Cliff said, breathless and shocked beyond compare. “It’s fucking Melanie.”
Eric shook his head, backing away in horror.
“Eric, man,” Cliff said. “We gotta get this thing to your dad.”
Eric stopped, shook his head for a moment, then appeared to regain his senses. He stepped forward again, nodding his head in agreement. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. He’ll want to see this.”
“Do we take the whole thing?”
“I don’t know, man,” Eric said. “I suppose so.”
Another flashlight beam began dancing in the forest. Eric turned his shotgun toward it, allowing its light to identify who it was. The shocked face of Travis appeared. He was carrying a rifle in one hand, and a large flashlight in the other.
“You guys alright, man?” he asked.
Cliff chuckled. Not just at Travis’ expression, but his question as well. Hippies were hilarious even after a traumatic event.
“Take a look,” Eric said, pointing at the stalker.
Travis shined his light over and picked his way through the weeds to see the body. He bent down and shined his light in its face, then shot up quickly.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he snapped. “What the fuck, man?”
He put his flashlight hand on top of his head, staring at Cliff. The beam of his light quivered as his hand trembled.
“It’s her,” Cliff said. “I know it. Eric knows it. And now you know it. Right?”
Travis shook his head and pointed the flashlight back down at the creature’s face. “Man, it’s… oh fuck… seriously? Yeah, man. Yeah. It’s her. Definitely her. Whoah.”
“Dad,” Eric said. “We’ll drag it up to the office for you. You should get back up there and make sure Lena and Toby are alright.”
“Yeah,” Travis said, still shocked and wide-eyed like an acid tripper. “Yeah, man. Alright. Yeah, I wanna take a better look at… whatever, man. Yeah.”
Underneath a bright cluster of battery-operated fluorescent camp lights, the men laid the Melanie-thing’s body on a tarp on top of the cafeteria-type table. They were in the main area of the office building, all of them crowded around to see the mutated body of someone they all hated.
Its appearance was frightening, to say the least. Its skin was off-white, glistening with slime, and translucent enough to see the faint lightning-like dispersion of greenish veins. The limbs were long and thin, with tightly corded musculature, and hardened plates in places where one would wear body armor. The head was about human sized, with the wiry black hair that Melanie had in real life; albeit sparse and matted. Her eyes were still somewhat human-like, only smaller, and deep set behind thicker cheekbones.
Needless to say, no one spoke.
Travis walked around the body, using a ruler to move things around in order to get a closer look at all its parts. Lena and Toby watched with horror, both of their faces frozen in a twisted grimace of disgust. Travis himself was dumbfounded, and his face was blank.
“This,” he said. “Is obviously Melanie. Or, it used to be. Look here, at the upper arm on the left side. You can still the remains of the tattoo she had there. Man… this is unbelievable.”
“How could she have turned?” Lena asked. “Dan shot her dead. And I didn’t see her get bitten. Ever.”
Travis shook his head, folding his arms across his chest. “I don’t know. It must be something else that spreads this mutative state. Obviously the first people to get infected weren’t bitten. They were infected by whatever fell from the sky. Maybe she was, too, but there was some kind of delay.”
“What about that big ass hole Dan put in her chest?” Cliff asked. “Right through her black ass heart.”
Again, Travis was dumbfounded. He was silent, as if contemplating many possibilities. Eric hadn’t said a word, and Toby looked like he was about to shit his pants. Only Lena seemed to be showing some signs of intelligence. She moved around the table next to Travis, cocking her head to get a better angle to look at Melanie’s chest.
She took Travis’ ruler and pointed it directly over her heart. “I can see the faint outline of a scar there,” she said.
Travis leaned in, nodding his head. “Yeah, man. That’s definitely a scar.”
“Dan said he’s run across these lots of times,” Eric said. “Even when they were still in their cocoons.”
Travis looked up. Lena looked at him, too. “Cocoons?” they both said.
Eric looked at Cliff for an explanation. Cliff wasn’t exactly sure about the whole thing, but he heard what he had heard.
He nodded. “That’s what the man said.”
Travis took the ruler back from Lena, using it to pry Melanie’s lips open. Inside were razor sharp fangs an inch long, and translucent. A small amount of grayish slime spilled out as he opened the jaw. From his angle, Cliff couldn’t see what Travis was looking at, but he knew there was a strange, snake-like tongue in there somewhere.
“This almost looks like the mouth of an angler fish,” Travis said. “You know, the ones that live in the really deep parts of the ocean?”
“Like the Marianas Trench?” Toby asked.
Travis pointed the ruler at him. “That’s right, man. The Marianas Trench.”
He leaned in to sniff around over the body, grimaced a bit, then stood up again. “Smells like fish, kinda.”
Cliff chuckled. “She probably smelled like that before.”
He could see Lena roll her eyes.
“This is serious, man,” Travis said. “If this thing can spread without a bite, and without the victim even knowing, then we’re in some serious trouble.”
“She did stay inside a lot,
” Eric suggested. “She hardly ever came out in the last few days.”
“I would think her dog would have known something was up,” Cliff said. “Dogs know that shit.”
“That dog was a worthless piece of shit,” Lena said. “That’s why I shot it. But I do have a question. What did you guys do with her body when you took her away?”
“We threw her in the creek,” Cliff said, shrugging. “She was dead.”
Lena pursed her lips. “That wasn’t good enough,” she said.
“Right, right,” Travis said, wagging the ruler at Cliff and Eric. “From now on, if someone dies, we burn them.”
“Oh shit,” Eric said then.
Everyone looked to him for an answer.
“Mason and his men,” he said, looking at the floor. “We threw them in the creek, too.”
Travis leaned on the table, hanging his head low. Cliff knew what was coming before Travis even said it.
“We have to find and burn their bodies.”
Chapter Nine
Jake’s slumber was interrupted by the sound of glass shattering nearby. He slid off the counter immediately, grabbing his Henry, and looking for Toni. She was still at the front window, but was now standing with her revolvers drawn, and her brow furrowed as she stared out at the street.
“What the fuck was that?” Jake asked, going to her side.
She didn’t answer, but as Jake reached the window, he saw what had transfixed her gaze. Outside, a large number of creatures were spilling onto the street from the alleys and gravel lots. They seemed to be endless, and all going in the same general direction. Jake blinked just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things in the shadows, but they, apparently, were real.
“Oh, that blows,” he said.
Toni backed away. “We need to make sure they don’t detect us.”
Jake nodded, moving back to the first bins of candy. “Where did that glass break?”
“It was one of the shops down the street a ways. They knocked over a lamp post and it shattered the big window in the front of a store.”
Jake crouched down, trying to avoid the beam of moonlight that shined in the window. He watched Toni’s cool and collected demeanor, impressed with her indifference. Though he felt a large amount of fear, she seemed to be thinking of a battle strategy instead of an escape plan.
“Do you think we should sneak out the back door?” Jake asked.
Toni was about to answer when the horde outside suddenly became more vocal. Their growls and groans began to grow louder as they neared, and the whole lot of them sounded like rabid fans at a death metal concert.
Then, more glass shattered outside, followed by the crazed squeals of something other than a corpse. Jake knew that sound, and Toni seemed to as well. They stared at each other as the squealing became more evident, and they were both frozen in place.
Jake cocked his rifle, keeping his eyes on Toni as she pulled back the hammers on her revolvers. The chik chika chik sound was comforting, and he felt his heart ease its pounding as he watched Toni’s expression curl into a smile.
“Got your gear?” she whispered. Jake nodded.
“Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They rose to a creeping position and made their way quietly to the back room. The clerk’s corpse was there, leaning against the wall—still dead, which was a good thing. Jake eyed it as they went by, fully expecting it to stand up and attack again. It didn’t. They went through the archway that led to another small storeroom with a mop sink, but no mop, curiously.
There, the door to the alley stood like a portal to Hell, which was where they were probably about to emerge. Toni pushed it open slowly; just enough to peek through the crack. The sounds of the horde outside echoed in, and Toni gave Jake a hunted look. He shrugged.
“It’s either this way or the front door,” he said.
She pushed it open farther and craned her neck around to look in the other direction. Satisfied, she stood and pushed it open the rest of the way. Jake followed her out, his eyes darting in either direction. He had a brief thought as he looked at his rifle. They would make way too much noise if they had to fire, and that would attract more baddies. Toni had apparently thought the same thing, as she holstered one revolver and drew her knife.
Jake shouldered his Henry and drew his own knife; a sleek little thing he picked up at the gun store. Toni then crept toward the end of the alley, on the same side as the horde’s origin. Jake peered around the corner, seeing the mass of stumbling bodies that moved down the street.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “There’s gotta be a million of them.”
“At least,” Toni replied. “Maybe even a jillion.”
“Or a brazillion.”
Jake grinned. That was a good one. “Alright,” he said. “Which way?”
“We parked on the street,” Toni said. “But that’s out of the question.”
“Damn,” Jake said. “I liked that car, too.”
“We’ll find another one. Come on.”
Toni went right, away from the marching horde. The alley widened a bit here, and it appeared as if it were some kind of pedestrian intersection. There was a wood plank pizza place with an outdoor dining area, and three other buildings.
“Man,” Jake said. “I could go for some pizza.”
“Me too. Let’s get as far away from those assholes as we can, though.”
Jake followed her as she turned left. He took one last look back at the pizza place, feeling his mouth water as he dreamed of biting into a thick, buttery, crispy crust with all the greasy shit that could be piled on it. His stomach growled.
Toni stopped halfway down the narrow alley they chose, turning to look behind them. Somehow, a few of the marchers had wandered into the alley, just missing the two of them by a mere second. Toni sighed, creeping forward. She held out her hand as if she heard something ahead.
Jake squatted, feeling apprehensive as he waited for Toni to give him the signal to move up. He caught himself looking at her ass, and shook his head to clear his thoughts. After a few seconds, Toni quickly turned and gestured for him to move back.
“What is it?” he asked in a harsh whisper.
The hissing and jingling noise that echoed down the alleyway answered his question. He turned and fled back the other way. He knew there were at least two of the deadheads waiting for them, and poised his knife in preparation.
As they emerged by the pizza place again, three of the rotting assholes caught their scent and began to give chase. Jake plowed his knife into the nearest one, grabbing its neck as he impaled it against the brick wall. He withdrew his knife and jammed it into the thing’s skull, dropping it like a sack of shit.
Toni kicked one of the others against a post, and turned to stab the other through the head. Jake rushed to grab the first one, jabbing his knife into its eye before it could reach her, and grabbing it by the skin of its throat. Toni turned back to him just as he hefted the rotting thing over his head and threw it, one-handed—against the nearby brick wall. Its skull shattered, leaving a splatter of blood and brains on the hard surface.
Breathless, he looked to make Toni was alright.
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “You just threw that thing like it was nothin’.”
“It weren’t nuffin’,” he said.
The jingling sound echoed down the alleyway again, prompting them to run back toward the candy store. They would encounter the horde again, but that was better than a galloping beast. They could dodge the dead ones, possibly escaping before the bulk of them realized they had even passed. But the stalker would require bullets, and they couldn’t take that risk.
But it looked like they had to…
The rotters had piled into the alley, blocking off their escape. They stopped, and Toni sighed with frustration. There was only one other way to go; back toward the stalker.
“Shit,” she cursed. “Get your shotgun out. We gotta blow that damn thing’s head off.”
Jake gr
inned, sheathing his knife and unslinging his shot gun. Toni drew her other revolver, and they looked at each other for a moment with their guns ready. Smiling, Toni nodded.
“Custer’s last stand,” she said.
Dan, Drew, and Max crept out of the gun store when the bulk of the horde had passed. A few stragglers remained, but Dan took them down before piling back into the pickup. Just as Drew was about to start the engine, they heard the sound of gunfire. They all froze.
“What the fuck?” Drew said, his face frozen in the appropriate expression.
“That was definitely a .44 Magnum,” Max said. “Two of them, in fact.”
Another, louder gunshot sounded, and Dan turned to Max. “Shotgun?”
Max nodded, “12 gauge autoloader. Probably a Mossberg.”
“Let’s find them!” Dan said.
Drew started the engine. “Are you fucking nuts, man?” he hissed. “We’re clear. We can get the fuck outta here.”
“We can’t leave whoever that is behind,” Dan hissed back.
“Fuck it,” Drew said. “It could be Mason’s other men, or some even bigger assholes!”
“Gentlemen,” Max said from the backseat. “I would suggest you make up your minds quickly. They’re coming.”
Drew slammed the truck in gear, stomping on the gas. “Alright, man,” he said. “We’ll find them.”
He squealed around the corner, going to the right. Max and Dan were both jostled by the bumpy road, and Dan grabbed onto the dashboard.
“Go right again,” he said, listening for the sounds of the gunfire.
Drew screamed around the next corner, flooring it through the next intersection. The gunfire seemed to change locations, sounding from somewhere behind them. Drew slammed on the brakes, and they sat frozen, trying to pinpoint the location.
“Try the alley behind us,” Max said. “To my right.”
Down the block, the bulk of the horde appeared. They came stumbling around the corner, focused now on the extended cab piece of Ford that made the pretty squealing noises. Drew slammed it in reverse, and floored it back, squealing, and screeching as he came to a rolling stop and slammed it into drive.
