Wormwood Dawn (Episode II) (5 page)

Jake grinned. “That’s cool. Not a good thing that they were scoping her out, though. They might have reported back during the fight.”

Dan sipped his whiskey, chasing it down with a gulp of beer. “Well, if they come around again, we’ll either fight them off or die trying. Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Do you guys have enough food to last?”

“We have tons of canned food, a freezer out on the deck that’s more like a refrigerator now, and some dry stuff. Plenty of stuff left around the smaller towns if we need it.”

“Learn how to garden,” Jake said. “If there’s a library around, get some how-to books. This network isn’t going to last much longer, I can guarantee that. If you can find solar equipment, I would recommend using it. If you don’t know how to hook it up, there are a few PDFs here on the bulletin board. Look for them and learn some shit.”

Dan nodded. “Where are you, anyway? Are you in the station’s viewing area?”

“Not really,” he said. “I’m up in Valparaiso. There’s a small gathering of us here, down inside the armory. The National Guard is here to keep us
safe.
” He made air quotes. “But food is getting low, and I obviously eat a lot.”

Dan grinned. “Well, it’s time to ration your appetite, buddy,” he said.

“Don’t forget to do that, yourself,” Jake replied. “No more fine dining. From now on, it’s just fuel. I’ve lost about thirty pounds, believe it or not.”

“Well, what do you know about this virus, or whatever it is?”

Jake shook his head. “There are doctors here with us, but they’re clueless, too. The only thing they’ve said is that they don’t know what it is. It’s like a virus and a fungus all rolled into one neat little alien package.”

“Do you think these things are actually zombies?”

“Undead? Probably not. But then, that was never really in the description of the old zombie monsters. That was just a thing started by Tom Savini and George Romero. What we have here are some kind of mutants, all developing at different rates. I’m thinking they’ll all eventually evolve into the same thing; whatever that is. They say the virus thing is mutating, too. It’s becoming more contagious. You can get it through bites now, even if you were immune to it before.”

“It’s all going to shit,” Dan said, sipping his beer again.

“In Biblical proportions. If you believe in that sort of thing.”

“Do you?”

Jake shook his head, slowly this time, as if hesitant. “I used to. I’m not sure what I believe anymore.”

The video started freezing and becoming jerky. Jake was talking, but then stopped to wait until the video came back. “The network is acting up,” he said. “We should prolly cut it off for a while.”

“Alright, man,” Dan said. “If you’re ever this way, look me up.”

“With what?” Jake said, holding his hands up, grinning.

Dan gave him the address—just in case.

“Cool,” Jake said. “I might do that, if I can get out of here. Later on, brutha.”

He held his fist in the air. Dan did the same. The video box closed.

“Well, Pauli,” Dan said. “If we get a new visitor, maybe he’ll have a little girl dog you can climb on.”

Pauli panted, staring up at him like a happy little goblin. Dan shut off the laptop, and then went out to cut the generator. He stood outside for a while, smoking a cigarette and sipping his whiskey and beer, enjoying the peace and quiet before lying down for the night. Despite the coming rain, and the possibility of a zombie horde descending on his house, it was a beautiful night. Even a few crickets were chirping.

At least, he
hoped
they were crickets.

  A gunshot jolted Dan from his sleep. He bolted upright in his bed, his heart pounding in his ears. He quickly hopped to the floor, rushing to the kitchen, nearly tripping over Pauli. The sliding deck door was open, and he crept over. Drew was outside holding a rifle; its barrel smoking as he held it up post fire.

“What the fuck?” Dan whispered.

Drew turned, waving him over and pointing off into the woods. “I saw one of those green things,” he said. “A floater.”

Dan peered into the gloom, seeing a faint, green glow off in the distance. It was sputtering and growing dimmer by the second.

“Jesus, man,” he said. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” Drew said, leaning the rifle up against the OSB wall. “I couldn’t think of anything to do. It looked like it was coming this way.”

Dan kept staring at it until the glow faded completely. Whatever it was, it was dead now… or destroyed… whichever made more sense.

“What do you think it is?” Drew asked.

Dan shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Let me get my boots on and we’ll check it out.”

He went inside and sat on the couch, pulling on his boots while Pauli watched him anxiously. He was unusually shaky, and his eyes looked sad or worried. Who knows? He was a dog.

“It’s alright, boy,” he said. Pauli wagged his stubby tail.

Dan grabbed his 870p, his Glock, and his coat, meeting Drew outside on the porch. Drew held a flashlight and had one of the SPAS-12 shotguns slung over his shoulder. For some reason, he had a can of Lysol in his free hand.

“Kills mold,” he said, holding up the can.

“Stay quiet,” Dan said. “We’ll sneak up and see what the hell it is.”

“I think I already made our presence known,” Drew replied as they crossed the creek.

The woods were still dark. Dan checked his watch. It was 6:21. It would be an hour before the sun came up.

“Maybe we should wait until sunup,” he said.

“It could be gone by then.”

Drew was probably right. But, still, the prospect of approaching something weird in total darkness wasn’t high on Dan’s list of fun things to do. Nevertheless, they trudged on.

A strange smell hung in the air as they got closer to the object. It was a moldy, organic smell; almost like rotting mushrooms. Drew looked at Dan with a disgusted face, his lips curled out as if he was about to puke.

“That smells fuckin’ gross,” he whispered. “What the hell is it?”

Dan grabbed his arm, and they stopped for a moment, listening to the sounds of the forest. There was a slight hissing sound, like a balloon letting out air through a slow leak. Maybe the floating object was still deflating.

“I smell methane, too,” Dan said. “Like fart gas, or sewer gas—something.”

Drew shined the flashlight forward, moving it side to side in search of his target. Lying on the ground, between two fallen trees, was a wrinkly, wet-looking sack. It glowed faintly in green, and pulsated with life. Veins covered its translucent surface, appearing as black lightning bolts against the inner glow.

“Holy egg sacs, Batman,” Dan said. “It’s a fucking spore pod or something.”

A faint pop sounded, followed by a small puff of dust from the thing’s surface. The dust swirled in the flashlight’s beam, settling in the area around the object.

“That’s not good,” Drew said. “We should probably stay away from it.”

“The gas smell must be methane,” Dan said. “It’s lighter than air. It would make the thing float if it was light enough.”

“Great,” Drew said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Wait,” Dan said. “Throw that can of Lysol on it.”

Drew stared at him for a second, then shined the flashlight on the can. “Hmm,” he said. “Kills 99.99% of germs and viruses.”

He shook the can vigorously, and tossed it near the spore sac. It bounced once before splatting against the wet, collapsed membrane. Dan pulled out his Glock, aiming for it with one eye.

“Stand back,” he said.

He fired, and the can exploded, spewing its contents into the area around them. The object did nothing, but the whole area began filling with the pleasant scent of
Fresh Meadow
. They waited for the hissing of the can to stop, watching the fog of Lysol settle like a death shroud.

“What are we waiting for?” Drew asked.

“I wanna get a closer look,” Dan said. “But we should wait for a minute for the Lysol to work.”

“How do we know it’s even going to do anything?”

Dan shrugged. “99.9%, man.”

“Of
Earth
germs,” Drew said.

“Well, then, hold your nose,” Dan said, creeping forward.

He could hear Drew sigh behind him, but footsteps followed.

Drew shined the light on the disgusting pile of floater remains. It no longer pulsed, and the faint glow had finally died out. The smell of mold and gas was gone; replaced by the artificial scent of the germ killing spray. The sack lay still, except for the faint movement of its gradual collapse.

It was the strangest thing either of them had ever seen. It looked like a balloon with four rib-like supports running up its sides. They met at its bottom, formed together in a nipple-like structure of disgusting, jiggly flesh. Something like an umbilical cord stretch from the junction, running for few feet, and ending in a tightly balled blob of flesh; presumably some kind of weight.

“Weird,” Dan said. “That weight probably keeps it from floating too high into the sky.”

Drew pulled out his phone, snapping a few quick pictures. “We should upload these to the bulletin board,” he said. “Maybe someone could give us an idea of what the fuck it is.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a spore sack or something,” Dan said. :That’s what the forum said, anyway.”

“Yeah, but where do they come from?”

Dan shook his head, highly disturbed. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I don’t really wanna know. Let’s get those pics uploaded and see what Strahd71 says.”

“Is that who you were talking to last night?” Drew asked as they left the scene.

“Yeah. He seems like a cool guy. He said he’s in Valpo with some other people in a National Guard armory.”

Drew grunted. “Poor fucker,” he said. “They’ve probably got that place locked down pretty good.”

Dan stopped as he heard the sound of crunching gravel from the road. Drew paused, craning his head to listen, mouthing the word
shit.
Headlights and a bright search light appeared through the trees. The searchlight swept from side to side, slowly and smoothly, as if mounted to a mechanical swivel.

They stayed crouched, peering through the bare underbrush, as a black Humvee came into view in front of the house. It slowed, and the searchlight settled on the house.

“Thank God the power is out,” Dan said.

Drew nodded. “Yeah, but I hope that fucking dog doesn’t bark.”

Dan didn’t think of that. If the occupants of the Humvee got out and approached the house, Pauli would likely bark it up, alerting the men to their presence. He suddenly regretted bringing him home.

As they sat in silence, Dan’s heart pounded again. He started shaking; his nerves snowballing as they usually did when he was anxious. He could feel a panic attack coming on; a big one.

“Calm down, man,” Drew said, obviously noticing his demeanor.

Dan swallowed, taking a few deep breaths. He felt like Bigfoot was stalking up to them from behind, and would bash the shit out of both of them anytime now. But then, the Humvee continued forward, sweeping its light from side to side as it turned the corner.

Dan sighed in relief. “Fuck,” he said.

“That was close,” Drew said.

They continued to the house, Dan’s heart and breathing slowing to a normal pace. His only thought was guzzling a beer and doing a few shots to calm his nerves. It was not the solution, he knew, but it was the only idea he had at the moment.

“I wonder if they were looking for us, specifically,” Drew said, “or if they were just scoping the area.”

“They might have been looking for the other squad,” Dan replied. “The ones we killed.”

Drew took another look around before stepping onto the porch. “We need to make an entrance in the back,” he said. “Something that we can get through, but the crazies can’t.”

As Drew entered the house, Dan looked around at the property; nervously thinking of how unsecured it really was. They were sitting ducks, it seemed, with no protection from military-types. Sure, they could fight off mindless shufflers and such, but actual humans were much smarter, and could easily penetrate their defenses.

But, there was really nothing they could do about it. Securing the grounds would only make their presence obvious to anyone who saw it; anyone who happened to drive by.

Dan hooked Drew’s phone up to the laptop, downloading the photos to his desktop folder. He double-clicked one of them, and the two stared at the photo, disgusted and reviled at what they saw.

“Man,” Drew said. “It’s so alien looking. Like one of those facehuggers from…
Alien.
”

“Spore sack,” Dan said. “Definitely a spore sack.”

He unhooked Drew’s phone, hooking his back up to open the connection to the bulletin board. “You need to hook up and root your phone,” he said as he typed out the bulletin board’s IP address.

The forum was there, as usual, but no new videos. He clicked
new post
and waited for the dialog box to pop up. When it did, he clicked the upload button and selected the photos. After what seemed like an hour, the upload finished, and Dan clicked the description box.

These are close up photos of a floater that we shot and tracked. It looks to me like a spore sack or something. Once the membrane was ruptured and we got closer to it, there was the smell of mold and methane gas. There were tiny puffs of dust that I assume were spore clouds or something. I think it is dead, or non-working now. We threw a can of Lysol at it and shot it. It seemed like the logical thing to do since it smelled like mold.

Please let us know what you think.

“Very eloquent,” Drew said. “You fucking Hunter S. Thompson, you.”

“We’ll see if anyone responds,” Dan replied, clicking the
post
button.

He got up and grabbed a beer from outside, cracking it open and sitting back down at the table. Drew pulled out his one-hitter, quietly puffing his breakfast as Dan drank his. They laughed.

“What a couple of outstanding fellas we are, eh?” Drew joked.

Dan grinned, scrolling down the list of posts. There was a new one posted by someone named
JewGodMoses.
Dan clicked it.

I just saw something strange outside my fourth floor window. I’ve been staying in my apartment building in B-town, only going out at night. But now, I don’t even wanna go out at night after seeing this. It was something that was climbing the building across the street. I ain't sure what it was, but that shit was sick. It was all long and skinny, like a two-legged spider with long arms. It was climbing like it was nothing, looking in the windows and sticking its arm through a few of them. I couldn’t really make out any details, only its outline. It was black and blurry, like one of them shadow things people been talkin bout.

I was scared shitless, no joke. This nigga was quakin.

“Oh man,” Dan said. “That’s fuckin’ creepy.”

“Here’s another,” Dan said.

I went to a gas station nearby to siphon some gas from the pumps for my truck. While it was pumping, I went into the garage to see if there was any oil or anything else I could use, and I saw a huge cocoon mounted on the ceiling. It was white, glossy, and shaking. I could see things moving inside it, like it was full of little babies or something. I had left my gun in the truck, so couldn’t shoot it, and didn’t want to go back in.

What do you think it is?

Dan clicked the
reply
button, typing:
How big was it?

He would have to check back later.

“Big cocoon, eh?” Drew said. “I wonder what kind of animal or whatever would make one that big.”

Dan shook his head. “We don’t know how big it was,” he said. “Could have been man-sized. If you were scared enough, even something that size would seem huge.”

Drew nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Let me know if anyone replies. I need some food.”

“I’m hooking the generator up to the well pump,” Dan said. “I think we should wash anything off that we collected from that floater.”

“Alright,” Drew said, pulling a can from the cupboard, “but we’re taking turns.”