by Q J Martin
Was there something wrong with the drink dispenser? Did it dispense some manner of chemical, or a hallucinogen? The whiskey had made him lightheaded, of course, but there was no way that was enough to explain what he had just experienced.
He stood straight back up, his entire naked form on display in the mirror. He suddenly realized how cold he was. He was soaking wet, standing in the middle of the hallway. Whatever had been hallucinogen happening, he was left with no option but to worry about it later. He couldn’t ask anyone for help. They’d think he was insane. He couldn’t call the police. What would he say? He decided to finish his nice , warm shower, then dry off. If he was going crazy, hopefully his visions would wait until a more convenient time.
He started walking back to the bathroom. He felt a chill as a drop of water ran down his spine, following the contour of his back until it reached his leg.
Then it ran back up.
Logan stopped in place. The drop of water felt more like a glob of slime being drug up his back. He heard a slurp. Whatever this mass was split and headed to his two shoulders. There was suddenly a horrid stench in the air that made him want to gag. He willed himself to bend over, to react to the putrid smell, but couldn’t make himself move, not even to heave up the contents of his stomach.
The two cold trails of slime rolled over his shoulders. He looked down and saw a tentacle reaching down over his chest. His heart skipped a beat as he looked at his reflection in the mirror and saw a giant monster, covered in slime, reaching over him with a dozen more tentacles. Its mouth opened right above his head, displaying a hundred razor-sharp teeth. A trail of slobber dripped down and ran through his hair.
He steeled his resolve and turned around slowly, ready to confront whatever the hell it was once and for all. As his vision refocused, he found that the monster wasn’t behind him anymore. It had disappeared. In fact, he wasn’t even standing in the hallway of his house.
He didn’t know where he was. It was dark, not as dark as it had been in the bathroom, but he could still just barely make out the details of the room that he found himself in. There were four walls around him, making the room cube-shaped. There was a window to his left. It was small, no more than two feet squared. A faint light, like that of a full moon, was emanating from the window. It lit the room just enough for him to make out the closed door on the opposite wall.
He walked up to the window. His heart was pounding even harder than it had been before, and it got worse with every step, reaching a crescendo as he cupped his hands against the window, looked through it, and found himself eye-to-eye with a monstrous face.
The face was smooth, featureless, and grey. There were no eyes. No mouth. No ears. No hair. The only thing to even distinguish it as a face was the thin, grotesque mouth that was stretching from one side to the other in a sickening smile.
Its lips pursed together, and it said, “It’s not the end.”
Logan ran to the door. He had no idea where it lead, but it had to be better than whatever he had just seen. He swung it open, and he found himself standing in the middle of downtown Minneapolis. He recognized the buildings all too well. This was where the release of the Cure was held. There was no stage, no barricades, no people. There weren’t even any vehicles. The entire street was deserted, save himself.
He looked back. There was a black box in the middle of the street behind him. It was the room he had come out of. The door was still open. He could see the window on the other side of the room, but the face wasn’t in it anymore. In its place, he saw the street stretching on into the distance.
He took a couple steps to the side, trying to see beyond the building, to see if there was anything, or anyone, there, but it was just as empty as it had been in the other direction.
He saw movement in the corner of his eyes, coming from the room. His gaze darted back, and under the doorframe, he saw that same featureless face. It belonged to a man in a trim, black suit. The mouth was nothing but a line stretching across his face, and as Logan watched, the ends of it curled up in a smile, then continued to curl, again and again.
Logan turned and ran. He ran faster than he ever thought was possible. He ran with all of his might. Finally, he collapsed from pure exhaustion. He looked behind him, and saw the cubed room sitting right there, exactly where it had been before.
The monstrous man opened his mouth and sang. “Don’t push the button. Don’t push the button. Don’t push the button. Don’t push the button.”
Logan rose to his feet and made his best attempt to run again. The road stretched out like taffy in front of him. On the horizon, he could just barely make out the shape of two figures. He kept running, and they actually started to get closer. He reached out for them.
“Hello! Can you help? Please, help!”
They didn’t respond. They just stood there, motionless, like mannequins in a department store. He got closer, and he realized that they were his children. They weren’t his children as he knew them, however. They were older. They looked to be teenagers. Their eyes were solid black, and all at once, their faces adopted the same hideous smile of the man in the box.
“Glenn!” he called out. “Can you hear me? Can you hear me, Glenn?”
The boy shook his head, slowly, up and down, up and down. As Logan watched, the entire area was engulfed in flames, and Glenn’s skin began to boil off his bones. It dripped into a puddle on the ground beneath him.
Roselyn turned her head slowly to the side, looked at her brother, then turned it back just as slowly, returning her gaze to Logan.
“You can’t kill me,” she said, smiling evilly.
She walked right through the flames. They burned her clothes off, but she kept smiling. She rose her hand up and pointed it at Logan. The flames obeyed her command, and they flew right at him. They seemed to move in slow motion.
Logan had enough time to look back at where his son had been. In his place was a fresh skeleton, still standing in the flames.
“He’s not dead. Don’t kill him,” the skeleton said, its jaw rising and falling with every word. “He’s not dead. Don’t kill him.”
The flames enveloped Logan, the heat too much for him to bare. He opened his mouth to scream, but all that came out was a grunt. He took as deep a breath as he could muster, receiving a lung-full of black smoke. He attempted to scream again, but no sound came out.
In front of him, Roselyn opened her mouth, and successfully achieved what had been just out of his reach. She screamed with all her might. Logan burst up and found himself safely in bed.
What the hell? he groaned. He patted down his entire body, trying to make sure that he had actually woken up and wasn’t still dreaming.
He looked at the clock on the side of the bed. It was 0830. Saturday.
He walked up to the mirror, worried about what he might see in its reflection, but he found only himself. His reflection didn’t move on its own, and no monster appeared behind him.
Logan wiped the sleep from his eyes. He contemplated what he would be doing with his day off. Then he heard another blood-curdling scream.
It was coming from outside. He ran to the nightstand, picked up his revolver, and bolted to the front door. He opened it and, thankfully, found himself looking out at his own front yard, just as he had left it.
A decrepit old man was running toward him from across the street. It was Mr. Jameson!
He desperately tried to traverse the distaste between them without his cane, but he failed. He tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground with a sickening crack.
That was when Logan saw the two people chasing after him. They were thin, sickly looking beasts of men, their skin a pale shade of grey. Blood was splattered across the shredded clothes they were wearing, yet they appeared to be unharmed.
They jumped in the air, unnaturally high, and landed on top of Mr. Jameson. Then they sunk their teeth into him.
Chapter VII
“Mr. Jameson!” Logan called out. He pointed the revolver
at those revolting excuses for human beings and didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger. Then he pulled it again.
Each of the two monsters was thrown backwards from off his neighbor. Black liquid spewed from the bullet holes in their chests, right where Logan had been aiming. They twitched for a couple seconds, then were still.
Mr. Jameson groaned as he rolled himself onto his stomach and spit up a glob of blood. Logan ran across the yard and was by his side a second later. Blood was pouring from Mr. Jameson’s wounds. His shoulders and face were covered in scratches, and there was a chunk of flesh missing from his cheek. Logan’s heart sank as he saw the condition this man was in.
Mr. Jameson reached out, pleading with his eyes, if not his words, for Logan’s help. Logan didn’t know what he could do for him at this point. Even moving him presented risks. But he offered his hand anyway.
Then he noticed the scratches on Mr. Jameson’s shoulder. Rather, he noticed the lack there-of. The superficial wounds that covered his upper body were gone. Logan looked to the gash on his cheek, and saw that it was stitching itself back together, and slowly but surely, his face became whole once more. His wrinkles began to disappear. His back straightened out, and he quickly became tall as Logan had never seen him before.
As all this was happening, though, Logan saw his body transforming in other, more sickening ways. Mr. Jameson had already been a lean man, but now his stomach seemed to be shrinking in on itself even more. His eyes sunk back into his sockets. Any fat that had been on his back disappeared until Logan was able to count his backbones through his shirt. All the color seemed to be sucked out of his skin, until it was as grey as a storm cloud.
He was looking more and more like his attackers with every passing second.
“Mr. Jameson, are you ok?” Logan asked him.
Logan put his hand on his shoulder and tried to get his other hand around the man’s waist, but as Mr. Jameson rose to his knees, he heaved over once more and grimaced through clenched teeth.
He looked back up at Logan with pleading eyes. Logan could see a glimpse of youthful vigor within them. Rapidly, though, it transformed into crazed confusion. Logan felt uneasy, and as much as he cared for his neighbor, something in his gut told him that he needed to get out of there right now.
Logan walked backwards toward his house, not risking to take his eyes off of Mr. Jameson.
Mr. Jameson got back on his hands and knees, then in one swift movement, hurled his body upward and landed on his feet.
Logan was frozen for a second at the sight, but then convinced himself to take another step backwards.
Mr. Jameson took a step forward. He stood there contemplating for a second. Then, he growled, a low and guttural sound coming from deep within his throat. He stretched his hands out and ran for Logan.
Logan deflected his clawed fingers. Mr. Jameson reared his arms back and swung at him again. Logan caught both his hands in mid arm and held them at bay. Mr. Jameson had become strong. He was nearly strong enough to overpower Logan. Logan struggled as he snarled and snapped at him, and it was everything Logan could do just to keep the monstrous man from biting a chunk of flesh from his chest, as those two strangers had done moments earlier.
Mr. Jameson reared back and prepared to charge Logan with all his strength. Logan acted as quickly as he could. He fell to his knees just a second before Mr. Jameson would have successfully tackled him. Logan came up under his waist, grabbing it with both hands, then he flipped him over his shoulder. He slammed into the ground behind Logan with a thump.
Logan turned around and found Mr. Jameson laying flat on his back. His arm pointed in a most unnatural direction, but it quickly began to mend itself back into place. He growled. Then Logan heard another growl, and another, coming from somewhere behind him.
He risked a look back and found that the two men he had shot through the chest were no longer laying on the ground where he had left them. Instead, they were on their feet, walking menacingly towards Logan. There wasn’t any sign of injury beneath the bullet holes in their clothing.
Another second, and Logan would have been surrounded. He readied himself and barreled straight into Mr. Jameson, who was now on his feet as well. He picked him up off the ground and just kept running until he slammed his neighbor into the column on his porch. Mr. Jameson’s head flipped back with the sudden deceleration and busted itself open on Logan’s column. He crumpled to the ground.
Logan didn’t bother wasting time to see whether Mr. Jameson would get back up and resume the chase. Logan ran straight inside and slammed the door shut behind him. He locked it right before the other two creatures slammed into it. Their screams and groans blended in with the sound of their fingernails scratching across the door, and their fists pounding against it. Together, it was a truly terrifying cacophony of noise.
Logan took one tentative step away from the door, then another, and another. He was waiting for the slightest indication that it wouldn’t hold. In truth, they could have easily broken through it if they wanted to, if they put their minds to it, but they were no longer capable of addressing an obstacle like that one competently.
Logan tried to wrap his mind around what he had just seen and heard. His dream, the waking dream that he had had just minutes earlier, the dream that had felt so real that he would have described it more as a vision, that was crazy enough. This, what he had witnessed after waking up, was insane.
He could hear the sound of a vehicle approaching from down the road. There was the incessant sound of its horn blaring, followed by a crunch. The newfound silence was suddenly broken by a piercing scream, and the horn began blaring once again.
Logan creeped up to the window and pulled back the curtain just enough to see what was going on. Mrs. Kelly from down the street was in the middle of the road in her SUV. The vehicle was swarmed by at least two dozen grey-skinned monsters. They had busted open the driver’s door. As Logan watched, her lifeless body flopped out of the side of the car and onto the ground in front of him. It was ravaged by those monsters, as if they were a pack of piranhas, until there was nothing left but a skeleton picked clean.
“My God,” Logan gasped. He flattened himself against the wall and covered his mouth, resisting the urge to vomit. She was such a good woman, and she had been attacked for no reason whatsoever, right outside his house, just like Mr. Jameson.
He looked back out and saw that the hoard had dispersed, apparently looking for new prey. Logan wondered what would happen to her children, if they would be able to escape, or if they were dead already.
Then he had a dreadful realization. He ran in front of the holo and commanded it to turn on. The news station came up.
“…warn you that these images are extremely graphic and could disturb some viewers…”
Logan watched the news station with horror as they showed clip after clip, each one the same, yet so terrifyingly different. Each one showed people being hunted down my monsters, being attacked, being torn apart. Yet one clip showed victims being mowed down in a crowded street. Another clip was of a woman being viciously attacked at a bus stop. The next involved a couple walking hand in hand at the park. When the monsters were finished with them, there was nothing left but a bouquet of roses, trampled into the dust.
“…reports of more and more violent acts nationwide have been coming in throughout the night and into the morning…”
Every time a new clip played on the display, Logan watched it with rapt attention. Every time, he expected it to cut away before the attacks, before the deaths. Every time, they just kept broadcasting through the event in its entirety, showing the complete, unedited attacks of these “Infected,” as the news station had taken to calling them.
Logan watched with abject horror as the feed displayed a video of a family of four being ripped from their car, one by one. The children were younger than his own. They transformed in his mind’s eye as he watched the horror unfold. They were no longer strangers, no longer unknown individuals from a
far away city. They were his own children. His children were the ones that were trying to escape in that vehicle. His children were the ones that were covered in blood, kicking and screaming.
Logan felt the hate within him welling up until he just couldn’t take it anymore. He had to release it or it would consume him. He tightened his hand into a fist and brought it down as hard as he could onto the end table by his recliner. It split in half, and the two pieces crumpled to the ground.
“Holo, call Elizabeth!” he yelled at the display. He pulled out his bottle of pills and tossed three into his mouth, swallowing them dry.
The holo switched over to the calling animation, a three-dimensional visualization of each ring as a sound wave flowing through the room. It played over and over again, but there was no response. Finally, the display offered for him to leave a message. He cancelled the call and the news resumed again.
“…intelligence mods have been shown to counteract the effects of the Cure to varying degrees. Police are thus urging anyone who has received the Cure or been in contact with an Infected individual to admit themselves to the nearest healthcare facility to receive an intelligence mod until such time as a more permanent solution becomes available…”
“Holo,” Logan commanded, “activate parents override for Glenn and Roselyn Turner, authorization code Turner-LUFP-4742.”
The display switched back to the call screen, but instead of ringing, it went through a loading procedure. It then projected a view of the apparently empty living room of Elizabeth’s house. Things didn’t look like they were supposed to. The room was in disarray. Cabinet doors were left hanging open, drawers were yanked out and emptied, furniture was upturned.
“Glenn! Roselyn!” Logan called out to the empty room. “Are you there? Elizabeth? Anyone?” Logan paced back and forth across the room, anxiously waiting for some manner of reply. He received none.
He hoped that it wasn’t as bad as it looked. He hoped that the room was in disarray because Elizabeth had to pack their stuff in a hurry and get out of there with the kids. He hoped that they were safely out of town somewhere. Yet even as he tried to convince himself of their safety, he couldn’t help but imagine worse and worse fates befalling his family.
