Machines of the Dead 2 (5 page)

Chapter 8

The ugly man called Scars came down the stairs. He visited often, eyeing the women in the cage with delight as he licked his cracked lips and rubbed his crotch, but he never assaulted them, at least not in the basement. The women were nothing more than chickens in a pen waiting to be taken, never to be seen again.

Scars held a gun in one hand as he unlocked the cage. It was time for another woman to leave. Jill Hannigan, along with everyone else, backed away. The man grinned and pointed. “You,” he said. “Come here.” She shook her head and begged him to choose someone else. He stared at her with utter hatred, then told her he wasn’t going to tell her twice.

The captives had seen the results of what happened when a person didn’t obey. The last woman was yanked out of the cage and taken away by force, punched and kicked. The next day Scars came to the basement with a bucket and pulled out her severed head, holding it by the blood-matted hair. “This is what happens when you disobey.” The women and men, including Jill, screamed.   

She couldn’t believe how quickly her life had changed. The virus, or whatever it was, had spread so rapidly. Everyone in her household—mother, father and brother—were dead.

She had been hiding out in the house with them, keeping quiet and fighting off anyone that tried to come inside. She was lucky, she thought at the time. So many people were dying or dead, families ripped apart, literally. Jill’s house had a large storage closet in the basement, filled with canned and jarred foods. But eventually supplies were needed. Her brother had gone out and gotten bitten. The idiot hadn’t told anyone, but half a day later
, he showed signs of the sickness, the same symptoms the news talked about, when there
was
news. His skin paled, his bones showed in places they normally didn’t, and he had a high fever. Knowing he was a dead man, she and her family spent every second with him. It was the most painful thing she had ever done. She held back tears when she was with him, but always bawled when she left the room.  

“We can’t let him suffer like this,” Jill’s dad said to her and her mother. “We’ve seen too many people die like this. There’s no coming back from it. He’s almost dead . . . and then he’ll come back and he won’t be our Brian.” Tears glistened on their cheeks as they decided. “I’ll make it quick,” he said, then picked up his rifle and left them in the downstairs living room.

Jill and her mother sat together, crying and shaking, waiting to hear the shot. It seemed to be taking forever, and then BOOM! They both jumped and squeezed each other tightly, their tears running together. When Jill’s father didn’t come down, she grew concerned. She told her mother to stay where she was and went to check on her father.

He was standing in the hallway leading to the bedrooms, holding his forearm. Jill saw the blood leaking between his fingers. His face was pale, in shock. “I couldn’t do it,” he said. “I just couldn’t do it. Not until he turned . . .”

Jill did an about face and went back downstairs.

Later that night when her mother was sleeping, her father woke Jill. “I need you to come with me,” he whispered. They went upstairs to her brother’s room, his body having been removed. The bed was stained with gore where her father had blown her brother’s brains out.

“I need you to kill me,” he said, holding out a small revolver. “Before I turn.”

She shook her head rapidly. “No, no, no.” Even as she did this, she knew her father was a goner. People who were bitten didn’t recover. 

“I’m dead. It’s just a matter of time. I’m sweating. My bones ache. I don’t want to hurt you or your mother.”

“I can’t,” she said through tears.

“You have to.” Her father swayed and sat on the bed. “I don’t know how much time I have left. You aren’t killing me; you’re saving me. I’d do it myself, but I want to go to heaven.”

Jill wasn’t very religious. She believed in
something
, some force that was responsible for everything, but not like her father who was brought up Catholic. He only went to church on Christmas and Easter, but held onto the things he was taught as a child. Suicide was a sin and would keep him out of Heaven. Jill felt anger building within herself. How could he ask his little girl to do this? To kill him? Would she be committing a sin? In his eyes, she might be, but in hers, she wasn’t.

“Please,” he begged, holding out the gun in a shaky hand.

Her insides grew cold. She went numb. The man before her was still her father, but not completely. He was half monster now, soon to become a full-fledged monster, and one that would crave her flesh. She was the last thing between saving herself and her mother. By tonight, her dad would be a member of the undead.

“Don’t you want to say goodbye to Mom?” she asked.

“She won’t be able to deal with it. Just tell her I love her.” He paused, then looked Jill in the eyes. “I love you.” He looked away. “Now do it.”

Jill knew how to use a gun. Her father had shown her. Having a gun in the house, he felt his children, once they hit the age of twelve, should know firearm safety. She cocked the hammer, then pointed the gun at her Dad’s head.

He glanced at her. “Not like that,” he said. “You need to be closer.” He reached out, grabbed her hands and placed the barrel of the gun against his temple. “Squeeze, but don’t look.”

Her breathing was shallow. She felt light-headed. This was it. She was going to kill her dad. No, she couldn’t think of it like that. She was saving people, and ending her dad’s misery. She was an angel, doing the tough work that angels did.

“I love you, Dad,” she said, then squeezed the trigger. The gun roared. She closed her eyes just as her father’s head jerked away. She barely heard the impact of his body hitting the mattress, then the thud of his corpse hitting the floor. She stood there, waiting. She didn’t hear anything. No cry for help. No pleading. No sign that he was still alive. She opened one eye. Her dad was face down on the carpet, the side of his head where the bullet had exited was staring at her. She closed her eyes and turned away, but it was too late. She saw the pulpous, gory hole—the damaged she’d caused. She would never forget it.

She walked into the hallway, fell to her knees and wept.

“Jill!” her mother was calling. “Jill!”

Jill looked up, wiped her face. What the hell was the lady doing yelling like that? She raced down the stairs to the living room.

“What happened?” her mother asked.

“Dad was bit. He wanted me to kill him so he could get into Heaven. So I did.” She had no idea why she came straight out with it. But she did. And now that it was out, she felt better. No pussy-footing about anything.

Her mother stared at her, as if she didn’t understand what she had just heard. Then she said, “Oh, okay. Well, getting into Heaven
is
important.”

When Manhattan was originally quarantined, Jill’s mother hadn’t taken the news well. They had no family or friends there, but the event itself was shocking to everyone. Some took it in stride as best they could, others flipped out. Her mother was one of the ones that didn’t take it so well. She had a breakdown, hadn’t been the same since. Jill almost thought it comical that the one member of her family that was the least able to handle what was going on was the one to survive.

She sat next to her mother and held her. “We need each other now more than ever. We’re going to get through this. I promise.”

“I know, dear. We’ll be fine.”

Jill was awoken that night by a gunshot. She looked around and didn’t see her mother. The revolver was gone. Fearing the worst, she searched the house, ending up in her brother’s room, not wanting to go there, saving it as the last place she looked. Her mother lay next to her father, a bullet hole in her head.

She spun to leave, feeling the contents of her stomach needing release, when she heard a moan. Turning
back around, she saw her mother. Her eyes were open, her jaw moving slightly.

Jill’s knees gave and she sank to the floor. Her mother was still alive. Jill pulled herself up and tiptoed to her mother’s side. One pupil was blown; blood trickled from her ears and nose. She was trying to talk, the words unintelligible. The gun lay next to her head in a pool of blood. Jill picked it up, ignoring the warm fluid. She was angry again. Angry at the world, at her stupid father for being weak, and angry
with her stupid mother for being weaker. Leaving their deaths in her hands. For a moment, just a moment, she thought about letting her mother suffer. Show her how stupid she’d been. But then Jill raised the gun and fired a shot into her mother’s eye. She didn’t look away. She needed to watch, to make sure she’d never do such a thing. Ending her own life wasn’t an option.

After that, she packed up a few things, loaded her father’s rifle, leaving the revolver in the pool of blood, and headed out into the world, hoping to find some friends, or at least people she knew.

All she found was trouble.

Men from the prison had captured her and taken her to a house up on the mountain. She’d managed to shoot one in the arm, but that was all. She was stripped of her clothing and brought before a huge, grotesque man. He called himself Cannibal. The guy eyed her up and down as he licked his thin lips. She thought she was going to be raped, but was instead given her clothes and locked in a cage in the basement along with a number of other people.

Women came and went. A few men were brought to the basement also, but kept separate from the women. She and the other prisoners were well-fed and allowed to bathe. No one knew what happened to the ones that were taken away. It was assumed they were raped and killed.

It took Jill a couple of weeks, but eventually she realized that the heavier-set females were the ones being taken away first. She was naturally thin, muscled from her years of running track and swimming. Maybe she would be one of the lucky ones.

The guards that came to check on the captives never laid a hand on them, at least not in the basement. They said things like, “He likes his women with meat on their bones,” or “Cannibal will like you, sweetie.” It didn’t take long before Jill had an idea of what was going on. The guy’s name was Cannibal. Coincidence? She thought not. The women were given lots of food, fattened up so he could eat them? No, no way. She was being ridiculous. The scumbag guards would never put up with that, or would they?

In the meantime, she kept her spirits high, looked for any chance to escape
, and ate enough to stay energized.

Chapter 9

Cannibal sat on his throne, a chair constructed from the bones and flesh of his victims. The room had been some kind of office, having a computer desk, bookshelf and lounge chair. It was just off the living room area, the chimney there heating one of the walls in his room nicely. Cannibal made the place his, the one room where he could be himself and strike fear in the people that entered it.

He was clearly the leader. The men he had led to the mansion respected and feared him. He maintained a sense of normalcy outside of his room, wanting the men to feel safe. His way of life was not even close to what passed for normal, even among murderers, rapists and thieves. Before he’d been arrested, his victims feared him, the terror on their faces supplying him satisfaction that sex brought to most people. Here, in the mansion, the men had the same looks on their faces as his victims used to. Fear and respect worked on the inside, as well as the outside, especially in this new world. He was their leader, and though his ways were different, they would follow him. He had led them out of the chaos and into a home, a place where grand things were possible. 

As long as he had his food supply, Cannibal was satisfied. He would eat
his
men if he had to, but preferred having them as soldiers. And speaking of food, his supply in the basement was running low, and with how things were these days, he didn’t know how much longer he’d have the kind of fare he needed.

Before he was imprisoned, he’d had to be careful. Like all serial killers, he had to remain hidden behind a great big lie, an illusion. Create an
alter ego for the public’s viewing pleasure. Minding his business, never playing music too loudly, saying hello to his neighbors and washing his car on a Sunday in the driveway of his neatly, bush-trimmed home. And when he went out to fulfill his innate needs—to kill and eat—the law was ever vigilant with his kind. Cameras were everywhere. Forensics improved everyday. Remaining free and out of prison required skill and patience.

The voices, the demons, had told him he would be rewarded for his killing and eating of his fellow man. He kept on killing for years, obeying the voices until one day he was arrested, tried, and sentenced. The voices continued to speak to him, telling him to keep the faith, and that one day he would be free to consume all that he desired.

A few years after his incarceration, he heard the news, then saw it with his own eyes; the dead had come back to life. The demons told him they were his children, doing what he had already been doing. They were mindless soldiers of Hell. They would never back down or show fear and their numbers were endless. It was Cannibal’s destiny to control them, but it would take time and effort on his part to complete the task. He needed to consume more flesh, and after he had been freed from prison, he saw that the voices had been correct. Now there was nothing to stop him from gaining the power of the undead, except for the undead themselves. He didn’t quite understand how he was supposed to eat all that he desired if his children were devouring his cattle, but that was okay, because all was going according to plan. He’d let fate take its course. 

He reached out and picked up the charred arm on the table, then brought it to his mouth and began to tear the flesh away. He hoped soon to be able to eat the flesh raw, transforming into the zombie father his children needed. Once under his control, the world would be his.

A knock came at the door.

“Enter,” he said.

He knew how much his men hated reporting to him. It wasn’t just that they feared him, but disliked the odor of cooked flesh and watching him eat it.

“We have confirmation that the three new arrivals have already left Cliff House,” the man named Freak said.

Cannibal grinned, pieces of flesh stuck in his teeth. He had a stockpile of weapons, but the more the better. It was reported that these three had military grade weapons; weapons that would greatly help him tip the scales in his favor. The people of Cliff House would soon fall to him, this he had no doubt, then more food could be added to his pen. 

“Do everything possible to take them alive,” Cannibal said, pointing the severed arm at Freak. “I need more flesh.”

“Yes, Cannibal,” the man said, then hurried out of the room.

Cannibal tore another piece of meat from the arm. Today would be a good day, he thought. A very good day.