Revelations - 02 (25 page)

Trotting along the side of the big, expensive looking house, Garrett noticed it was all closed up. Glancing at some of the windows, he realized that they were boarded up from the inside. Perhaps there were
others
inside. Could he find something even better than food? The possibility made his pulse quicken and certain parts of him stir.

Rounding the corner, he climbed a small set of stairs that led to a covered back porch. There was a black square of plastic at the bottom of the door, a pet entrance. Garrett pushed it with his big toe, but something solid was blocking it from the other side. He tried the door, not surprised to discover it locked.

Bracing his shoulder against the door, Garrett pushed, testing the sturdiness of the frame. It was strong, but not impossible. The only problem was that, by breaking it in, he would lose any chance of surprise. He’d have to be ready to kill immediately. Having recently found a sturdy bladed machete in one of the groundkeepers’ sheds, he was actually anxious to use it.

One good thrust with his shoulder opened the door. Garrett laughed just a little at the illusion of security these rich people had lived behind. He peeked inside and discovered a kitchen. It was pristinely clean. Not simply tidy, no, this kitchen had been scrubbed and polished. Even with a light coating of dust, there remained a chemical smell, like bleach and something else.

Stepping in, Garrett pulled the kitchen door closed behind himself. There were three closed doors and an open arch-way. It was gloomy and dark because of all the windows having been boarded up. Garrett listened carefully for sounds of any movement.

Nothing.

He walked through the arch into an enormous dining room. A long table with high-backed chairs was decked with immaculately placed settings and a long-dead floral centerpiece that had blackened flowers of all sorts sprawled around the dry, muck-coated crystal vase. Garrett could barely see into the next room due to the imposed darkness. He walked over to the hastily nailed up sheet of plywood and tugged. It took a couple of pulls, but eventually he tore it free with only a modest amount of screeching as the nails ripped from where they’d been pounded into the wall and sill.

Sunlight poured in, chasing darkness away, or at least into small shadowy pools in the corners. Garrett walked back into the expansive kitchen and began opening cupboards and drawers. All he found were useless china settings and indescribable utensils. He considered the three closed doors and decided on the one beside the largest refrigerator he’d ever seen in his life.

The doorknob turned and revealed a walk-in pantry. It was a jackpot on his first try! He scanned the shelves, mouth already watering at some of the possibilities. His eyes stopped on a can of pears. What would his Toy do for such a luxury? He moved to the second door and opened it. Nothing but cleaning supplies. Garrett approached the third door and noticed the hint of the sickly sweet smell of death mixed with the sharp stench of shit. Cocking back his weapon, Garrett yanked open the door and leaped back in anticipation of the monster that would come stumbling back. Instead, in the inky darkness of what had been a giant linen closet, a boy hung from the sturdy piping that ran in a neat, parallel manner across the ceiling. Garrett scowled and shut the door.

He decided to give the house a walkthrough to see if there might be anything else worth taking. He was already certain that he would need to make a couple of trips just to empty out the pantry. He crept deeper into the interior, noticing once again that smell of death drifting down a large staircase that led to the well-lit-by-the-sun upper level.

Halfway up, Garrett paused. There it was again, a squeak of a loose floorboard. Something upstairs was moving. It had to be one of
them
. Well, now he’d get to use his newly acquired weapon.

Heedless of the noise he made, Garrett hurried up the rest of the stairs. There was a large, open room with long couches arranged facing in to a wall-mounted flat-screen television that was the size of the living room window of his mom’s house. There were two hallways leading off from this room. There were several windows up here, most with the curtains open wide to allow in torrents of sunlight.

Garrett walked to one that looked out front. He was less than pleased to notice that a few of those filthy creatures had followed him and were staggering up the long driveway or simply standing at the fence, apparently too stupid to walk along it to the open driveway entrance.

Squeak
.

Garrett spun, the silence making it difficult to tell just how far away he was from the source of the sound. However, he only had to stand there for a moment before it came again. It was behind a door along the wall to his left. Creeping slowly, Garrett approached the door. The smell grew stronger, quickly confirming that there was indeed death on the other side of that door.

Breathing through his mouth, Garrett took in one more deep inhale. He closed his hand on the knob, turning it as slowly as possible to minimize his noise. Carefully and slowly he opened the door. The wave of stench rolled out in an almost tangible, physical sheet that coated him with its vile nastiness. For the first time in a while, Garrett gagged.

His eyes blinked at the slight stinging sensation. He wanted to pretend what he was seeing didn’t bother him, but the still human part of him cringed nonetheless. The squeak sounded again. It hadn’t been a loose floorboard after all.



Kirsten winced for probably the hundredth time. The blue-grey hand swiped at her, missing by a handful of inches, but seemed to be only a fraction of a millimeter. She tried to be careful, but a few times she’d jerked enough to cause the line around her throat to tighten.

Glancing up, she noticed that the sun was clearing the houses and trees now, bringing its full power to bear on her skin.
Well,
she thought,
at least it will dry the rivulets of slobber running down my front
.

Her eyes scanned the growing crowd on the other side of the gated entrance. It had at least doubled in size since she’d been tied to the wooden post. There’d been some concern on her part that so many of those things pressing towards her would somehow enable them to eventually reach her. That fear had subsided eventually, but she still couldn’t help the wincing when one of those thing’s hands would swing through the air wildly, fingers extended fully instead of clawed or curled like they were already grasping her. That’s when the hands seemed so close that she could not will herself to keep from reacting.

She tried closing her eyes a few times. That had only made it worse. The sudden breeze from one of those swiping hands was made far worse by not being able to see. So, she was, in a matter of speaking, stuck.

Her eyes drifted down towards the ground, drawn by a sudden movement and that horrid sound that was almost like a hungry baby crying for its mommy. A face pressed against the bars, its eyes milky and shot with the tell-tale black of death, its mouth open wide showing grey gums and stain-flecked broken teeth. He couldn’t have been any older than ten. Kirsten did her best not to feel sad, but this was becoming more and more impossible. She thought that by now she would’ve become immune to the visual tragedy of violent death. Certainly she’d seen enough of it. Well, then why wasn’t she…what was the word?

Desensitized.

You poor thing
, she thought. She’d actually started to voice that sentiment, forgetting, albeit only momentarily, about the clothesline cutting into the corners of her mouth and keeping her tongue forced into the back of it.

Kirsten studied the wretched thing. All of the lower lip was gone, allowing for her to get an even better look at its putrid, dead mouth. There were bites taken out of both arms, which she could see clearly as the thing clawed at the cement ground in an attempt to reach her. She realized what it was that was so beyond the norm and had her upset. It wasn’t the child-zombie, she’d seen plenty of those. It was the fact that it had squirmed its way to the front, and now lay sprawled underfoot of the gathered mob. Her eyes had been staring at it, but her mind was just now allowing Kirsten to process that. She could see the small body bending and bucking under boots as well as bare feet. She could hear ribs snapping and popping over those moans, groans, and cries. There were sharp pieces jutting out from the creature’s skin.

Kirsten could no longer help it. This one pitiful thing had managed to do something with no real effort that The Big Man had to work hard to accomplish.

Kirsten cried.



“Doctor?” the weak, raspy sound of Jane’s voice woke him with a start. The woman’s eyes were bright and clear; she’d been awake for awhile.

“Please, call me Reginald.” He sat up rubbing the sleep from his own still-tired eyes.

“Reginald,” Jane said after clearing her throat a few times, “can I have more juice?”

“Absolutely.” He practically launched himself out of the chair he’d been sleeping in for who knows how long. “Apple again?” Jane nodded.

He hurried over to the cabinet and fetched a pair of the green boxes. When he turned around, he was surprised to see Jane sitting up with her legs dangling over the edge of the bed. The blue-green scrubs top she was wearing was several sizes too big for her nearly emaciated frame and hung down from one shoulder, exposing all of one small, partially shriveled breast. Still, it was one of the first real breasts not belonging to a corpse or cadaver in nearly three years that Reginald had seen. Before he could tear his eyes away, a noticeable stirring had already begun below his waist. In an instant, an awkward situation was jutting from the front of his loose fitting bottoms.

He brought his eyes up as his free hand went down to hurriedly shift things to a less conspicuous position. His eyes met Jane’s and it was as if his face had suddenly been thrust into a blast furnace. His hand froze, and an overwhelming feeling of shame swept over him.

Jane’s braying laughter cut him off. She howled long and loud, flecks of spittle arcing through the air, catching the fluorescent light and sparkling like prismatic diamonds. She pulled one leg up and rested her chin on it, locking eyes on Reginald until he shyly looked away.

“So, we the last man and woman alive or somethin’?”

“That is a possibility,” Reginald sighed in relief, finally on to a subject he could converse comfortably about. “There has been no outside contact since my colleagues—my late colleagues—and I were brought to this facility.”

“So how did I end up here?” Jane slid off the bed, testing the steadiness of her legs before finally committing her full weight.

“You and the others were already in place when I arrived.” Reginald dropped his gaze to the floor once again.

“So-o,” Jane drew the word out, and took her first tentative step, still uncertain about her legs ability to support her, “I was supposed to be like a lab rat?”

“Umm…well…” Reginald felt like his mouth was shrinking as his tongue swelled to ten times its normal size.

“Don’t sweat it, Reggie,” Jane snorted. “I’ve seen worse things happen on the streets.”

She had managed to cross the room and now stood in front of the trembling doctor. She draped one hand on each shoulder and leaned in close. “Did you save me from the lab, Reggie?”

“So we have one thing in common,” Jane smirked, looking around at her surroundings. “Are we in some secret cave or underground hideout or somethin’?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Reginald nodded. “Remember those pictures on the monitors?” Jane nodded. “Well, that’s from a camera at the top of the bunker that sits above the entrance to this facility.” Jane’s face paled a bit. “Oh, no! There’s no need to worry. We’re quite safe in here.”

“But what about getting out?”

“I’m afraid that is unlikely at best.”

“So,” Jane walked back over to the bed and flopped down on it, her face a clear picture of her disappointment. “It’s just the two of us…forever.”

“I’m sorry, Jane,” Reginald nodded.

“Yeah,” the woman’s head snapped up and glared, “about the whole ‘Jane’ thing…my name is Lucy Grimes.”



The hot, humid summer afternoon would have made the hardest Southerner seek the comfort of shade or air-conditioning. However, the crowd of Southerners gathered at the entrance of the old church that had stood for years as one of Charleston’s noted landmarks felt none of the discomfort. In the rear of the crowd Jenifer-zombie stood, tottering back and forth, swaying with the surge of the mob’s ebb and flow.

Those in the front of the pack pounded relentlessly, but with minimal effect, on the huge wooden doors. The sounds of yells and screams had no meaning beyond serving as a beacon advertising that
food
was near. The never-ending desire to feed was now the only impulse driving Jenifer-zombie. None of the few impressions that had flickered briefly in those first couple of days remained. There was no concept of hot, cold, light or dark…all that existed was one constant signal.

Feed.

As the day dimmed and the hot summer afternoon shifted to sultry summer night, more creatures like Jenifer-zombie gathered, drawn by the sound. Sound meant food. None of these creatures would remember how often they’d been drawn to a sound and not discovered food. Even as they gathered in numbers, some in the rear would hear a new sound: a window breaking, a metal can being blown over and rolling a few feet. That would be all they needed to turn in a new direction and wander off…past the window or empty can now laying up against the curb.