Revelations - 02 (2 page)

The steady pattering of large raindrops droned, occasionally interrupted by the low rumble of thunder. For the first time since the nightmare had begun, Peter King slept. Dreamless.



Garrett yawned, stood, and stretched. He glanced at the figure curled up in a tight ball on the floor in the corner. His glance turned into a stare. There it was! The slight rise and fall that indicated breathing.

He would not have been surprised if that had ended up not being the case. The last few days had been the most excitement he’d encountered in quite some time. That something so small could fight so viciously had been a surprise.

Yes, this one was a real fighter.

Just remembering the most recent activities of last night had something stirring in the pit of his stomach. He absentmindedly stuffed one hand down his pants, withdrew it, and breathed in
that
smell. Her smell.

Garrett dug through the dwindling food supply. He would need more. Soon. Water was a different story. There was an abundance. During his second day in his new home, he had made his new plaything walk him around the huge grounds. It was during this outing that he noticed a large truck up on the curb of one of the bordering streets. The logo on its side read “Glacier”. There were dozens—if not over a hundred—giant, five-gallon plastic jugs of water.

There were very few zombies nearby, so he’d quickly secured the shivering creature to a tree and retrieved three of the heavy containers before finally attracting enough attention to have to call it quits. Then, he’d taken pleasure in making his plaything carry them back to the house.

That had been quite an event. It had refused, so he dealt a series of backhands that drew blood. The sight of blood streaming bright red from both nostrils had sparked a flare of excitement. He’d simply shoved his pants down to his knees and satisfied his desire.

Garrett crossed the room, thoughts of eating gone. He grabbed a handful of hair and yanked the curled up body from where it lay.



Kirsten still felt a burning on one cheek where the carpet had worn it raw. She could still hear
his
heavy breathing. The attack had ended a few minutes ago and he was still panting like a dog.

The piece of clothesline that bound her wrists had cut into the flesh a little during this most recent attack. It was starting to sting. Then there was the pain
down there
. He seemed not to care which place he shoved himself in, and both were raw and excruciatingly sore. Tears filled her eyes at the realization that she had to pee. It would feel like fire, and Kirsten could try her best not to, but she would probably cry.

Kirsten hated crying. Especially since that terrible man seemed to enjoy it so much. But, she was learning. If she asked for food or water, he would hit her and then usually eat or drink right in front of her. If she kept her mouth shut, eventually he would toss something her way. As for the attacks…she had no idea.

He just came at her whenever. And the things he did. She suppressed a shiver. There was no way she would give him the satisfaction of seeing just how repulsed she was.

In the few days—had it only been a few?...it seemed like forever—the worst was what he made her do with her mouth. She’d wanted to bite, but he’d held that huge knife against her throat. As it was, he’d cut her right at the end anyway. If she could be sure that she would hurt him bad enough so that he died too…

Then there was his drinking. She knew that his regular consumption of alcohol might lead him to making a mistake. Perhaps not tying her up as well some night. If she got free, she would run. It didn’t matter where to, just so long as it was away from this terrible, mean, smelly man.

She couldn’t hold it anymore. The momentary feeling of relief was quickly replaced by a terrible burning as urine rushed from her bladder and washed down her thighs. Tears filled her eyes, but Kirsten bit down on the inside of her mouth and refused to cry. Mercifully, it finally ended, leaving just a steady sting, but the worst of the burning subsided.

Her breathing slowly began to return to normal, the need to hold it in order to suppress crying lessening. Then she heard him. He was coming back. She steeled herself for whatever was coming this time. Then she felt the stream of warm fluid begin streaming across her back.

Kirsten kept her eyes closed and refused to cry.



Dr. Reginald Cox rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Sitting up, he glanced over at the digital wall display: four-thirteen. If only he had a window to tell him whether it was morning or afternoon. Not that it really mattered any longer. It had been weeks since this nightmare began. He’d been yanked from his house by governmental thugs and shoved into this bunker.

He’d had two co-workers, but one ate a bullet in the stainless steel shower stall of his private quarters. His body was still there as far as Reginald knew. The other had run an unauthorized self-experiment. Oh well, at least he’d yielded some solid info.

Slipping his feet into a pair of black Docksiders, he walked over to his locker and pulled out a clean lab jacket. Only two left…he’d need to do laundry today. Maybe after lunch. A stop in his tiny bathroom to brush his teeth and urinate, and Reginald was ready to go.

He opened his door and peered out into the bright whiteness of the single corridor. There was nothing to guarantee that one of the subjects didn’t break free in the night…or whatever it was. The hallway was empty. Directly across was Dr. Fletcher’s room with a body rotting in its shower. Another closed door was to his left. Dr. Fox’s room. Empty. To the right, at the end of the hall was the door to the lab.

Of course there were the iron rungs bolted to the wall at the far end of where the hall terminated to his left. He’d climbed up once and opened the steel hatch. A small, fenced-in blacktop lot was his reward. The hatch could only be opened from inside and was apparently flush with the ground when shut. Also, it was inside a small, ten-by-ten concrete bunker. There were slits on all four sides with treated, shatterproof, two-inch glass windows. On one wall was another hatch. It was shut, and Reginald figured it was just like the one that led below.

He’d looked outside. Best guess was he was on some military base. The hundreds of walking dead pressed against the fences outside that surrounded the paved lot all wore uniforms. Unless somebody came for him, he wouldn’t be exiting that way.

Reginald patted his chest to ensure his key was hanging around his neck, he pulled the door shut, wincing at the finality of the lock clicking. The hum of the fluorescents sounded so loud after the almost complete silence of his room. He opened the lab door with more than just a little trepidation.

The stench that rolled out caused him to gag. The huge, multi-bayed room was a nightmare of sights, sounds, and of course, smells. Cages of all sizes were everywhere. A huge dry-erase board pulled his focus away from the “lab of horrors” as Dr. Fletcher had always referred to it. On it were the lists of which animals showed no signs of infection but carried the virus, those who showed no signs of carrying it at all despite all efforts to infect, and the list of those who turned out just like humans. So far, that was the shortest list. It only had one word underneath the header: Dogs.

“Good morning, Dr. Fox.” Reginald nodded to his former co-worker who stood chained to the wall at the far end of the room. The pathetic creature that had once been the too-brilliant-for-his-own-good Dr. Fox emitted a low moan. At its feet, the orange tabby sat cleaning itself.

Reginald shuddered as he drew close enough for a better look. Fox’s leg showed signs of some recent activity.

“Morris!” Reginald barked and stomped loudly with one foot while waving his hands in a shooing motion. “Get away from Dr. Fox.” The cat rose and stalked away, swishing its tail in apparent annoyance.

Opening the drawer, Reginald withdrew his journal, some clean observation pamphlets, and a case of prepped syringes. Crossing to the long, curtained wall, he took a deep breath and pulled the drawstring.

“Good morning, men,” he said into the small intercom mounted on the wall next to the long, Plexiglas window.



Her name had been Jenifer. That ceased to matter two weeks ago. Bitten on the leg, she’d managed to hide it from the three men who had helped her escape the ruins of Atlantis. She’d closed herself in her cabin and fallen asleep shortly after their boat had sailed out of the once beautiful harbor

What awoke a half-dozen hours later was no longer Jen-ifer. The face leaning over her meant nothing. She lunged forward, and her teeth clamped down on the throat. Her first kill. Her first experience with the
warmth
. They stumbled from the bed with the squirming of the body in her grasp mimicking a lewd parody of a lover’s embrace and landed with a painless thud on the carpeted cabin floor. It had taken almost fifteen minutes for the Jenifer-zombie to free itself from the mess of blankets, sheets, and comforter.

The gentle rocking did nothing to help the thing stay on its feet. Its eyes no longer saw color, but rather varying degrees of heat. This cabin was like a blank screen except for one round hole at about eye level and a tall rectangle directly opposite.

After pawing at the circle with no results for over an hour, Jenifer-zombie staggered to the outlined rectangle, paying no attention to the creature beside her that sometimes followed and sometimes wandered into a corner by itself. Random fumbling eventually allowed one dead hand to catch on the door latch and open it.

Moving down the narrow corridor, it spied another source of warmth. The coldness at the Jenifer-zombie’s core erupted and pulsed to every extremity. That source called. It would satisfy. Jenifer-zombie stumbled towards the source. It began to move just as she leaned in to satiate the growing hunger that the coldness seemed to amplify. If any of the mind or memory remained—which it didn’t—the movement of the heat source would have reminded her of tracers.

The creature that had once been Jenifer closed in on those hypnotic swaths of heat…then the sounds began. It didn’t identify them as screams, merely an annoyance that flooded the senses of the miniscule part of the brain that still functioned. It fell on the source, immune to the punches, kicks, screams or pleas.

Teeth tore into flesh and hands plunged into the softest spots of the body. Blood and warm meat filled it with a brief flush of contentment that was “forgotten” as soon as it subsided in a matter of seconds. As it tore and ate, a sensation distracted it. A dull thrum vibrated every part of the Jenifer-zombie in contact with the cabin’s carpeted floor. Easily drawn to the most recent sensation, it stood just as a new source burst into view. It tried to escape, but the slowly fading tracers acted like breadcrumbs, leading the Jenifer-zombie to a door.

It couldn’t “smell,” or “see.” Yet the tracers ended at the tall outline of another rectangle. It felt the vibrations in its dead feet as the source on the other side of that closed door scurried about. Occasionally, the source would yell things that made no sense and didn’t matter. Then, as the Jenifer-zombie scratched, clawed and tried in vain to chew through the barrier, there were a series of loud noises that rattled around in its head. Jenifer-zombie felt nothing as bullets tore through its body. It never flinched as holes exploded next to its head. No pain registered as fingernails broke or tore away. It continued to scratch and claw because the tracers led here and this warmth existed within that would push out the searing inner-cold…even if just for a minute.

For several unnoticed days….it continued.



“Margaret!” Juan called from the second-story window that had once been the master bedroom of this plantation-style home.

Margaret shouldered her rifle and shielded her eyes with one hand. “What?”

“The interior is totally cleared.” He glanced over his shoulder at the two figures he’d covered with the bedspread from the four-poster that dominated the center of the enormous room. “Tell Mackenzie I’ve got seven for the pile.”

“Okee-dokee,” Margaret answered. She went around to the empty Olympic-sized pool that was surrounded by a gorgeous oak deck.

Mackenzie was nudging a blanket-wrapped and bound corpse into the huge concrete basin. There were already over two dozen such bundles heaped in a pile at the deep end. They were of all shapes and sizes. It was Mackenzie who insisted they wrap the bodies. She’d said she couldn’t stand the idea of staring at a pile of corpses. The wrappings made her feel better.

“Juan’s got seven more,” Margaret called. “Then, I think, we’re done for today.”

“We finally gonna call this area clear?” Mackenzie wiped her forehead with the back of her arm, wondering for the hundredth time today if it was just sweat or if something had splashed her. She glanced at her sleeve…nothing but sweat.

“He didn’t say.”

“Didn’t say what?” Juan’s voice made Margaret jump.

“Dammit, Juan!” She spun and leveled her sternest gaze on the big man who had his hands full pushing a wheelbarrow stacked with wrapped and bound corpses.

“Sorry.” Juan dropped his eyes to the patch of ground in front of the wheelbarrow and pushed past.

“Are we done for today, Juan?” Mackenzie moved aside as Juan rolled up and unceremoniously dumped the bodies.

“Yeah.” He faced the two women who now stood elbow to elbow, arms folded across their chests. He was getting used to just how alike their mannerisms were. “I want to check my map and plan the next day’s objective.

“When did you become General Patton?” Margaret snickered as she handed the lit torch to Mackenzie.

“Who?” Juan asked as he pulled his leather gloves off and tossed them onto the burn pile.