Dead Of Winter (The Rift Book II) (22 page)

Chapter 10

Portrait of the Damned

i

Once upon a time there was a man named Justin Holcomb. He was what one might call a conflicted soul. He loved his wife yet constantly ignored her, wanted to make something better of his life yet rarely lifted a finger, considered himself a loyal friend and yet, on more than one occasion, turned on those very friends during rough situations to save his own hide. In other words, he was a living, breathing human being, full of doubt, self-hatred, and insecurity.

This man was now lost, abandoned, and forgotten, a lone sardine in an ocean filled with sharks. His life and love, his personality and desires, were trapped in the deep recesses of a twisted mind. He still thought of his life often but those thoughts never reached the surface. He existed in a prison of rage and torment, always screaming, always in pain, always peering out from behind imaginary bars, those views he’d once held as absolute but a speck on a piece of paper the size of the earth, itself.

The thing that Justin had become very rarely heard the pleadings that arose from its former self. Most of the time it plodded along, single-minded in its goals; the need to spread its rage, feed its hunger, prove servitude to the master. However, there were fleeting moments, such as the one it found itself in presently, where the old visage of Justin Holcombe bubbled to the surface and, if only for the briefest time, the monster became a bleak shadow of the man it had once been.

The creature had a rope around its waist. It moved with a sluggish, strained gait, the cart it towed behind a load that caused its crooked spine to creak. Its bare feet slipped on the muddy slope it climbed. The rain had been constant over the past few weeks though that was a conclusion this being had no concept of. It only knew it had to perform the task at hand, because that was what it had been instructed to do.

When it reached the top of the rise it gazed over the lip of a large pit. This pit had once been a granite quarry. Now, just like everything else in the world, it was something else, something darker. Decomposing bodies filled the trench, too many to count. They were flayed, hollowed, and torn apart, a sea of arms and legs that seemed to flail about in search of rescue. The air buzzed with carrion insects, finishing the circle of creation, helping the helpless dead become one with the land once more. The stink of rot emanating from this valley of death could be smelled for miles. To things such as the former Justin Holcombe and its companion it was the scent of victory. For this creature and those of its multitude of brethren, the concept of death and loss was no longer something to scrunch its nose and turn away from. It had become the sign of a life to come, a harbinger of absolute conquest.

The creature turned to its partner and barked. The other unfastened the ropes that bound them. Together they waddled to the rear of the carriage and shoved it to the edge of the crater. Then they lifted the corner of the cart and dumped its contents onto the heap of flesh below.

More bodies added to the mass burial mound. Heads, torsos, and limbs slid off the cart and plummeted through the stifling air, landing with a sequence of wet thumps. Another day, another load of carnage delivered. With the job done, one turned to the other. They communicated through grunts and growls. The beast that had not been Justin Holcombe in its past life (in fact, its former name was Brent) gathered up the ropes, cast them onto the blood-drenched cart, and lugged the carriage back down the slope, leaving its cohort alone.

When the other disappeared from sight the monster gazed off into the distance. A slight hiccup of nausea echoed in its gut. It placed a clawed hand against its bare belly and massaged the knotted remnants of an old wound. The sight of so many corpses caused a near-insatiable hunger to rear its head once more. Its stomach rumbled. It licked the blood off its hands, uttered a guttural whimper, and turned away. There would be food available once it rejoined the others. The master always made sure of that. Knowledge of this fact caused the grumbling to cease.

It slipped and slid down the muddy road, fast and efficient despite the conditions. With a hunched gait and elongated arms, it was able to traverse harsh terrain with relative ease. The agility of its new form was astounding, though notions such as
astounding
or
incredible
never came to mind. To what passed for its thoughts, the state of its ever-changing body was as constant as the anger boiling within.

Despite its dexterity the creature arrived at a spot it could not easily negotiate. Its curled feet skated on a patch of slick moss and it tumbled, rolling off the side of the road and plummeting twenty feet until it landed, face-first, in a mucky stream. It bellowed and rose from the water as if performing a push-up, grunted, and stared down.

The twisted visage of a man stared back. This man was bald, with creased and tangled flesh. His eyes were sunken and almost invisible, hidden beneath a brow that extended like a ledge from his rutted forehead. His nose had withered away, leaving twin, hollow notches separated by a thin membrane of rubbery cartilage. His lips were also gone, and in their place more rope-like skin had grown. The teeth that protruded from a lower jaw that was much too big for his face were large and serrated. One of these teeth poked into the hollowed nose when he closed his mouth.

At the sight of the monstrosity he’d become, the old Justin rose to the surface. He hollered in agony, knowing this was his own face. Terror held him in place, allowed him to stay on the surface.

What happened to me?
his
echo shrieked.

He clawed at his cheeks, digging even deeper grooves into his flesh with long, calcified nails. Contaminated blood dripped into his mouth. Its taste threw his body into spasms. He slapped at the water, causing his reflection to dissipate and reappear. His feet moved with purpose, trying to gain traction, and he slipped again, this time falling backward. He landed with a thump and cracked his skull on a rock. For Justin, the
real
Justin, everything grew hazy.

Don’t go away!
he
bellowed silently.
Don’t disappear! You’re real! You’re here! You’re –

Just like that he was gone again. In his place the new conscience reappeared, as unaware of the intrusion as an elephant would be of a dust mite. It licked the blood from the open sores on its face and listened for the siren call of its purpose, which entered its brain on a vibrating wavelength of infection. The call answered, the creature rose to its feet and scaled the mud-caked hill until it reached the road once more.

As it descended, moving much slower this time, its thoughts, of which there were few in the first place, were empty. Static filled its ears, deafening it to the pathetic, mouse-like sound of the original Justin Holcomb, who moaned from his isolated portion of its brain, begging to be set free.

ii

His kingdom spread out before him, a ruined wasteland of scorched houses and gouged administrative buildings. The bridge over the
Savannah River
hung in the distance like a limp branch. Severed suspension cables drooped below the structure, causing it to sag in the middle. It wouldn’t be able to support another automobile again without some major restructuring.

For Sam this wasn’t a problem, for it had been more than two months since he’d seen a working automobile other than those he kept in his own stables. As far as he was concerned, the sooner they ceased to exist, the better.

He stood on his high perch and watched intently those below him while rain pelted his back. This wretched landscape had once been the Savannah College of Art and Design. In days now relegated to history, students would march these sidewalks, heading for class, heading for a future. There was no future any longer. A new form of humanity had taken up residence, a form that owed its existence to Sam and Sam alone. Pride filled him at the thought of this, made him smile. I
did this
, he thought.
It was me, all me.

A chorus of wretched whimpers reached his ears. He turned his eyes north, in the direction of the dirt knoll that served as the central hub of the Town of the Dead. A cage had been constructed from the hollowed-out remains of a two-story apartment building. Inside this cage were the causes of the whimpering; hundreds of people,
normal, uninfected
people, packed in like sardines and covered with grime and their own excrement. They were pressed flesh-against-flesh with their neighbors. There was no food for them, no shelter from the elements, and no relief from the horror of their existences. Their bodies were thin and frail from malnutrition. Most would die in a matter of weeks if left alone.

Sam snickered. Dying in that way, he presumed, would be a welcome occurrence for the lot of them given the alternative.

A chorus of grunts and snarls emerged. He flicked his eyes toward the sound. He saw a legion of his children and shivered with excitement. They ambled down the street like a pack of wolves. It was an ever-changing mass of flesh. No single entity stayed in the lead for long, yanked back by their brothers and sisters and made to suffer, through claws and teeth, for the indignity of their hunger.

The throng drew near to the cage. Those within the prison screamed. They crammed their bodies into the rear corner, every bit as fluid a heap as those approaching. Some tried to wedge their way between the makeshift bars of steel and wood, only to have their lives squeezed from them by the pressing horde of frightened people. He heard the sound of snapping bone underneath the cries, prayers, and pleas for mercy. At this his smile grew all the wider.

The onrushing swarm of his children ceased their violent dance once they arrived at the gate. They swayed in place, unconscious of each others’ movements. Two figures stepped forward. These were the strongest of the bunch, the oldest. One lifted the heavy bar lodged across the gate and the other pushed it open. They stepped through.

The people, all those people, stepped up their struggles. One even grew the balls to throw a stone at the advancing creatures. The rock bounced off the forehead of the one on the right. The monstrosity dropped to a knee, cradled its head in its malformed hands, and bellowed. The other one turned to its sister and paused. The crowd, seemingly given confidence by the loner’s act of defiance, quieted down a notch.

For a moment Sam felt panic. It was entirely possible that one day the cattle would understand when they had a numbers advantage. There were only two of his children in the cage, after all, and hundreds of them. If the mood so struck them they could overwhelm their captors and become a royal pain in Sam’s ass. He rocked forward on his haunches and gritted his teeth.

The beast that had been hit dropped its hands to the ground and bore down. It leapt at the crowd and grabbed the nearest person, a young man whose ethnicity could not be discerned due to the grime covering him. Claws tore into the young man’s throat and blood erupted in a geyser. The beast grabbed his hair with its free hand and tugged. The head came off the body with a sickening pop. The beast tossed the head into the crowd.

The mass was thrown into a panic yet again. They performed the same useless act as before, trying to squeeze their way out of the cage. His two children gathered themselves, snatched a pair of struggling and kicking survivors apiece from the pack, and dragged them out of the pen.

Once outside, with the gate closed, the four humans were tossed in front of the still-swaying horde. They looked like scared rats, down on all fours, shaking. Their eyes darted this way and that. Yet none of his children made a move. It wasn’t until one of the prisoners, a woman, started to rise, that the pack descended upon them. A mist of blood filled the air.

Satisfied that a potential crisis had been averted, Sam turned away from the frenzy. He strode away from his perch, away from the city, heading in the direction of a horizon bathed in gray. Behind him the sounds of the massacre slowly died away. The feeding ended quickly as it always did.

As he walked north on an abandoned and littered highway, Sam’s thoughts wandered. He felt strange. In an unusual act of personal insolence he tried to access the feelings of his former self. He could hear the cries, but just barely. They were so far away now, slowly digested by the corruption in his brain.
This is what you wanted
, he thought.
This is what you need.
He nodded. But still a vague and unappreciated sense of longing filled him. He feared that losing the impression of familiarity would cause him to come unhinged. Somewhere in his brain the aspect of humanity that would never leave until this whole ordeal was finally over told him to tread carefully. He brought up his hands and rubbed his temples. He felt like a ship guided by rudders aimed in opposite directions.