by Maxey, Phil
She weaved between abandoned vehicles, the freeway having been packed when the disaster struck, and did her best to ignore the stenches drifting on the chill wind. The creatures were all around her. If not for the distant groan and screeches, she was sure she could feel them. A part of her mind that itched, like her brain was being rubbed with sandpaper. The sensation had been growing over the past few days, and now she couldn’t ignore it. She tried telling herself that maybe it was a good thing. An early warning of impending danger, but she didn’t really believe anything about becoming something other than the old Jess was good.
She peered over the guardrail to the rectangular shapes of rooftops and streets below. They were down there. The remnants of a city. Roaming, aimlessly, searching for any natural organic material still left.
But she was not on the same level as them, being ten or so feet above. Which is why she chose the freeway. A lofty path in the sky to take her all the way back to where everything started, three days earlier.
She passed a pickup, its door open, keys still in the ignition, not even bothering to search the interior. Even if the battery wasn’t flat, she knew the moment she fired up the engine, the things would know a human was amongst them, and then would converge on her, thousands upon thousands with only one intent. To reconstitute her body into something else.
She shivered.
Landon is out there… maybe he’s already found them… Yeah, Sam and Josh are with him and Meg. They’re somewhere, enjoying a meal, somewhere sa—
She crouched behind the nearest vehicle. She was sure she saw something moving up ahead. Grasping the gun, she peered around the hood, letting out a breath on seeing it was merely the rear door of a truck’s trailer swinging in the wind. She stood then walked forward to the rear of the high sided vehicle, switching the flashlight on, pointing it inside.
In a book or a film, what would have been laid out in front of her would have been food, or bottles of water. Instead boxes of diapers, some opened, sat stacked floor to ceiling. She started to giggle.
You can’t have children anymore… you’re not human…
The thought stifled any remaining humor left in her throat, and she turned away, walking again.
I don’t need anymore. I got Sam and Josh… and… Tye.
She thought about the quiet child and smiled. Her family was now four.
Five. Got a new parent as well… or maybe she’s an aunt, yeah she’s a—
Something heavy slid just yards away to her right, making her stagger in the opposite direction, clipping the edge of a sports car and falling awkwardly across its hood to the ground, where she scrambled away, finally kneeling behind the tire of a truck. She froze, frightened to even breathe too hard, but that was happening anyway. She moved a few inches and looked past the tire to where she had just been walking.
A dark mass, which she had mistaken for a car, such was its size, lifted its hulk on top of the sports car she had fallen upon, crumpling the front end.
It knows I’m here…
She looked back the way she had come, along the eight-lane road. The pickup with the keys was down there. One of the dark shapes about a hundred feet away.
The smell of rot filled the air as the sound of metal being split and torn came from just yards away. The thing was dismantling the vehicle, pulling it apart, looking for what it knew was close by, but couldn’t locate.
She slowly stood, keeping low and backed up, trying to see what was behind her. The thing continued its search as plastic and fabric was stretched to breaking point. She turned, walking quickly away.
*****
3:46 a.m.
Jess looked at the silhouette of buildings she knew like the back of her hand. She was about seven blocks from her own. The plan was simple. Get to her apartment. Find another backpack, fill it with anything she could think of, then take her keys, and drive her, and her sedan out of the underground parking garage.
Simple.
But she knew it wouldn’t be.
She had reached the end of the line on the freeway. It had already dipped to ground level and taking it any further would take her closer to apartments that hugged the road. If she got off it now, she could cut across the more industrial areas and walk the railway lines, which mirrored the road and would take her all the way to her own neighborhood.
She walked down a damp muddy slope, doing her best not to slide, and at the bottom lowered herself down the side of a wall, some six-feet high to gravel then walked quickly across a road, moving onto the sandy surface of a building site. She was soon clambering over a chain linked fence, and finally jumped down to the stoney ground that ran along the tracks. To her right the buildings of the downtown area were like jagged teeth against the lighter night sky. As she walked she thought about how just a week earlier she was shopping there, buying Josh’s present.
A dream…
That’s how it felt. That world only existed now in painful memories.
She walked past train car after train car, a seemingly endless convoy of abandoned industrial containers, destined to move no further, then parking lots, some empty, others full of vehicles and finally as she moved deeper into the city, apartment blocks, not so dissimilar to her own.
She had arrived at a station, the platform almost level with the tracks and stepped up onto it. Cranes from half constructed buildings, loomed above and she passed abandoned restaurants, their chairs and tables still full of rotting food, then moved onto the sidewalk, keeping close to the wall, which she occasional felt, to make sure it was still there, such was the darkness that the enclosed area created.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was walking within the underworld, a fossil of what once existed. Except the city wasn’t completely dead. When she passed entrances to garages, apartments or stores she would pick up the faint rasping noises of things lurking within them. She had no doubt if she were fully human, the street would erupt in screeches and her life would be over.
As she turned the final corner to her block, she looked up at the floor of her apartment, sighing in relief then began to look away…
Her head flicked back to the windows.
Impossible…
A light bobbed and weaved within her living room.
Someones alive? In our home?
She looked both ways along the street, having the feeling she was being watched, then not seeing anything moving in the gloom, ran across it, then along the sidewalk to the main entrance and pushed it open. The foyer looked as it had three days earlier. Just as bleak. She listened into the gloom, but there was only the subtle noise of wind outside. She let out a breath then walked to the stairwell, pushing it open then switching on her flashlight.
She slowly slid it across the walls. Yellow dried stains covered them in long streaks, especially below which descended into almost complete darkness. The route to the parking garage. She pointed it upwards. It looked clear.
She walked, quickly but cautiously up the steps, passing landing after landing until she reached her own and pressed her ear against the door. No sound reverberated through the wood, so she pulled it open and swung the light around the small hallway first seeing her neighbors door, then her own.
She suddenly realized she hadn’t got her keys and swore. The janitor would have a master key. His apartment was on the ground floor. She let out a sigh, turned and—
Something moved in her apartment. She whirled back around, focusing the powerful beam on her front door, expecting it to open and something horrific to come flying out. She walked forward, listening, and placed her hand gently on the door’s surface.
It flew open, away from her as she stumbled backwards, raising her light and her gun at the same time. Just as her finger began to press the trigger her eyes caught the brightly lit shape of a man holding a bat.
Her mouth fell open.
“Daryl?”
He looked just as shocked. “Jess?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A seco
nd or two passed before either could find the appropriate words.
“How…” was what Jess came up with.
“I thought you were dead!”
“Back at ya. How are you even here?”
He tried to look past the powerful beam. “Where are Landon and the kids?” She lowered it, allowing him to better see her face. “Oh… I’m sorry.”
“No, they’re alive… it’s just we got—” A sound came from somewhere in the building just as her mind started to do tingling thing again.
“Quick, inside.”
She followed him into her apartment, closing the door behind. He went to speak but she held up her hand, then listened to the door. The strange sensation in her mind faded as quickly as it came on. She nodded. “Okay, I think we’re good.” She looked at him then the mess that had become of her entrance hallway.
“Er… yeah… I’ve been living here.” Her confusion was obvious, so he continued. “When I came back to the city, I tried getting to my own apartment, but there were too many of the things, so I remembered your place… and well, it was unlocked.”
She walked past him, past the photos still hanging on the wall, the mirror, and fell against the chair, then heavily sat in it.
He turned. “I… I got water. Wait.” He rushed away into the living room. “Are you okay? Are you injured?” He shouted from the other room.
A tear ran down her cheek.
He returned and handed her the bottle, which she drank from. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine… just strange being back. I thought I’d never see…”
“Yeah, it was odd for me coming back here.”
She looked up at him. The questions were returning. “How did you get from that town to here? How are you alive?”
He lifted his arms and spun around. “I’m immune, baby!”
“I see…”
“Yeah, but man. I had some close calls getting back. Ran out of gas a few times. Ran into the monsters more than a few times. They kept following me, like they were tracking me or something.”
“Right…”
He looked confused. “Why are you back here? I guess you found the vaccine then?”
She nodded.
“How did you get separated from your family?”
As if waking from a dream, she suddenly stood, moving into her bedroom.
“Okay…” He said watching her opening cupboards. “What are you looking for?”
She pulled out a well-worn backpack. “This.” She turned, looking at the rest of the room then moved to a drawer unit and pulled out underwear. “I’m not staying. I just came back to get some things, then I’m going down to the garage and driving my sedan out of here.”
“Yeah… about that…”
She stopped, holding a bra in her hand. “What?”
“The things like the underground areas. Warmer I guess. Ain’t much chance of you getting to your car.”
She put the bra in the pack then opened another drawer, pulling out some of Landon’s pants. “I’ll be fine.”
“No, you ain’t getting it. There are lots of them down there.” He glanced back at the gun resting near the chair. “And even if you had an army, you couldn’t get your car out of there.”
She let out a breath. Looking straight ahead. “I’ve changed… the thing’s don’t attack me, unless I make it obvious that I’m… human…”
“Uh?”
She moved past him, moving into Sam’s room. “I haven’t time to explain. Just trust me when I say, I can creep past them and get to my car.”
“Well, none of that makes any sense to me, but okay. So you know where to go?”
“East.” She moved into Josh’s room, repeating the procedure from the others. “Close to where I was before.”
“Oh right. Did you see any of those Biochron folks? They saved my… well our asses, but they took Arlene.”
A jolt of remembrance shook Jess, but she ignored it and moved into the living room, passing through it to get to the kitchen. The cupboard doors were still open from when she last ransacked it, but there were still some tins and packets left. She took what she could and piled it into the bag. On turning, she stopped. The dining table was a frozen image from Josh’s birthday dinner. For a moment her brain flitted between memory and dream, making her feel lightheaded.
Daryl appeared in the doorway. “You okay?”
The question brought her back to her surroundings. She avoided looking out of the kitchen window to the apartment across the way, and carried the bag back into the hallway, where she opened a drawer in a unit and grabbed her car keys…
She looked down at a small dust covered photo album, then pulled it out, placing it in her pack and turned to Daryl. “Well, I wish you—”
“Wait.”
“What? I have to go.”
“Why don’t I go with you? I’m immune.”
The idea of company on her trip east hadn’t occurred to her. “You can survive here. Why do you want to go back out there?” She wasn’t sure she wanted a flame traveling with her to attract the moths, but… there was strength in numbers…
“I kinda hate it here. And I’m almost out of food and water, so I was gonna have to take a trip back out, anyway. Hey, might as well, keep going, with you.” He turned and ran into the living room. “Give me a few minutes to pack.”
“Fine… Be quick.”
*****
“Remember, if I don’t come out within ten minutes, then I’m not coming out and you might as well go back up to the apartment…”
Jess and Daryl stared at the void at the bottom of the stairwell. He couldn’t see them, but she could. Hints of movement amongst the dark. She offered him the gun. “Here, this won’t do me any good and it’s better if I’m not tempted to use it.”
He took it cautiously. “Never been much of a gun guy outside of a console game.”
“The safety’s off. Just point and pull the trigger. It’s real loud. I think its got about half of its ammo left. Don’t fire unless you have to.”
He looked the weapon over, not really knowing one end from the other. “Okay… You know, we could find another vehicle?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t see any nearby, and if we go further away we might bump into the things. Anyway, I don’t have time… and I want my own car.” She made sure the pack was secure across her shoulders and started descending. “Be ready when I drive out of the garage.”
“I will.”
She switched off the light, plunging them both into darkness. “Lets do this,” she whispered.
They quickly arrived at the ground floor and he took the exit to the entrance foyer.
She felt for the handrail and peered over it into the void. The urge to switch the flashlight back on was almost too powerful to resist but she knew it would spook whatever was lurking below. Instead, she calmed her breathing and listened while waiting for her eyes to fully adjust.
She placed her boot on the top stair, then moved down, checking with each step for the slightest of changes in sound or smell and slowly both became apparent. As she descended the air grew thick with the smell of rot and her boots crunched something beneath their soles but she continued. Using the handrail as her guide she followed it around and down, until there were no more steps and stood waiting… Something moved to her right. It groaned and creaked as if it were uncoiling. She wanted to run or scream, preferably both, but instead she forced her breathing to be regular and walked forward into—
Something touched her hair and she instinctively ducked. The thing to her right moved again, but she ignored it, creeping forward until she bumped up to where she remembered the door to the garage to be and not wasting any time, reached up, fumbling for the handle which she found and pulled.
Leaning on the cool wet surface she pushed it open, its bottom edge scraping across something on the floor. The thing in the bottom of the stairwell slithered, the noise growing louder. She quickly
stood and slipped through the gap into air so putrid it felt as if it were liquid. She wanted to retch, her mind desperately trying to make her aware of the multiple things moving around her, but which she could only vaguely see in the almost absolute black.
She took a step forward, her boot catching something, which she jumped back from, but it remained clung to her foot, she stumbled back in a panic against the wall, which was soft, causing her to spring forward, this time hitting up against something solid. Her boot was free of whatever had caught hold of it, and she grabbed the stone pillar, its firmness being a rock she could depend on.
Can’t… move… don’t want… to…
Groans echoed through the dark. A chorus which flooded her mind with fear.
Think Jess, the car… where was—
‘Jesssssicca…’
The rasping word was spoken into her ear, just inches away making her scream and run forward, her mind lost now to terror. She blindly ran towards the right side, where her car should be.
‘Jessicccaaa… Jessicccaa…’
Over and over came the sound of inhuman voices speaking her name. She crashed into the back of her sedan, her keys already in her shaking hands and clicked the fob. But instantly she wished she hadn’t for in the split second the headlights flashed she saw a scene only depicted in medieval paintings of hell. Deformed, torn, death hung from walls and covered the floor all around her, amongst creatures which shouldn’t be. In that moment her mind almost gave up, her legs wanting to fail, her heart wanting to explode.
Her hand tensed around the car’s door handle and she pulled it open and jumped inside, pushing the key in the ignition and firing up the engine. She shoved it in reverse and hit the gas. The wheels spun and spun as the darkness just feet from her, swam with hideous things.
“Come on!” she raged. As if hearing her, the wheel caught traction and her sedan jolted back, slamming into something which squealed then roared with hate. The rear window shattered as a claw scythed into it, but it wasn’t enough to stop her from turning the wheel, putting it into drive, and hitting the gas once more, ignoring the things lunging as she steered left, right and left again surging up the slope, clearing the ground before landing back down again in the middle of the street, where she sat, frozen.
