Skin on My Skin (23 page)
Authors: John Burks
“We have to go,” I whispered, pulling away from the scene of carnage outside. “We have to run while we have the chance.”
“My babies,” Jenna said softly. “They came for me. They came to kill me. They want me dead for…”
“Stop it,” I ordered. We weren’t going to get out of this alive with Jenna acting crazy. Crazier, I guess. I pulled her by the hand and led her through the ruins of my father’s homemade containment unit and out the back door. Outside I could hear the soldier’s screams more clearly and, even distorted as they were by the suit speakers, it chilled me. The monsters were leaving none alive.
We hadn’t made it a block away when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the figures leaping through the buildings around us. The creatures jumped from telephone pole to telephone pole like a squirrel might between tree branches. Their strength was uncanny. The one called Brian sprang from a nearby rooftop, shattering it in a cloud of shingle and wood as he leapt, landing right in front of us.
I came to a sliding stop and brought the rifle up to my shoulder, aiming for the thing’s head.
“No,” Jenna whispered, physically pushing the rifle barrel down. “He’s my son.”
“Mommy,” the creature said sadly. Its voice was primal and untrained. I could tell the word felt uncomfortable on the things tongue.
Another beast came down beside it and leapt at Jenna as if to rend her limb from limb. Brian caught it by the ankle and spun it out into the ruins. It landed like a bomb in the house next to us. My hands trembled on the rifle and despite Jenna stopping me I still wanted to shoot the thing in the face.
“My sweet Brian,” Jenna said, stepping up to the beast child, rubbing his cheek. “Mommy is so, so sorry.”
The creature’s already twisted face was a mix of emotion and rage. I had no idea how the thing knew we’d been the ones to set the fire, but by the look spread across its face, I knew that it did.
“Mommy?” the thing said again, as if its entire vocabulary consisted of just that one, single word, charged with emotion and tone to mean different things.
“I didn’t want you to suffer at his hands,” she said. “Grandfather is not a kind man and…”
“Mommy!” the thing blared, angrily.
Its cohorts began to arrive, surrounding both their apparent leader and Jenna and I. The other’s anger was not nearly as complex and confused as Brian’s. I knew that the monster leader, a child really, was the only thing keeping them from ripping us apart just as they had the soldiers.
“My baby. This world… it’s…”
There wasn’t really anything she could say. I should have realized it at the time we set the fire, but she sounded just like my father when he tried to kill me.
I lowered the rifle to the ground, letting it slip away. I took Jenna’s hand. “We have to go.”
“Mommy,” the thing growled, looking at me. It pointed to the south, away from the city.
The implication was clear. It wanted us to leave and I had no idea how Brian, the apparent leader of the group of feral plague monsters could keep his cohorts in check. I kept a death lock on Jenna’s hand and lead her down the alleyway formed by the mutated children. I did my dead level best not to make eye contact. There was so much hatred there, a murderous rage boiling just beneath the surface. These beasts wanted nothing more than to destroy us and, quite honestly, I didn’t blame them.
As we left I finally realized the monster children, with Brian as their leader, were my family. In a way, and in literal sense in a lot of cases I was sure, those children were my brothers and sisters.
My father had made us all monsters.
We walked without looking back and we didn’t stop for anything. Jenna didn’t say anything the entire way and, at that point, I was okay with that. I’d have liked nothing better than to be back in the Penthouse, away from my father and my twisted siblings, but I knew that was never going to happen. When we finally made our way across the old bridge into New Jersey, I knew then I’d never go back to the home I’d made for myself in the dying old city. I stopped and turned, taking it in, in all its decaying glory one last time as the sun began to set.
Jenna didn’t look back. I didn’t blame her. Not that it was a competition, but as survivor stories went hers was much worse.
We found the other surviving Touchers just where they said they’d be. The park across from the old sporting goods store might have been nice, fifteen years ago, but now the playground equipment was overgrown with weeds. The old sports store across the street had been looted long ago, but the remaining dozen men and women had managed a reasonable amount of gear. It was a start, anyway. I had better gear back at the old penthouse but there was no way we were going back into the city of monsters to get it. I was going to have to show them how to scavenge for real in the future, I guess.
And then I laughed. The future… it wasn’t something I’d ever thought about before. The idea of there actually being one appealed to me on some basic level.
“What took you so long?” Frank asked, coming and sweeping up Jenna in his arms.
I paused, wondering what Jenna might say to the man. Would she tell him about the beasts we’d left in the city? Would she tell him about her son and his new tribe? I waited for her to respond, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked at me, winked, and then stroked my cheek like we were old lovers.
“We got caught up in the moment,” Jenna said softly. Her lie was so complete I almost believed her. I wanted to believe her. “We had to celebrate.”
“Fine time for that,” Frank grunted. “We need to get moving. Henry has found an old bus he thinks might be serviceable and enough fuel to go for a little bit. Where are we going, anyway?”
“Florida,” Jenna replied without any hesitation. “I always wanted to go there.”
Frank nodded and joined the other Touchers who were gathering. Jenna went to join them and I stopped her, grabbing her hand.
“What?” she asked, annoyed with me.
“You aren’t going to tell them?”
“About?”
“The kids back there. Your kids.”
“I don’t think there’s any reason to tell them that, is there? Why ruin the trip?” Jenna asked and, for a moment, I wondered if she’d gone on and lost her grip on sanity. She had a faraway look in her eyes. We’d seen so much in the last couple of hours, and even before that. I knew that if she was slipping, I’d only helped contribute to the situation. I hadn’t helped her when she needed it the most.
“I won’t say anything right now,” I told her. “But you have to answer one thing for me.”
“What?”
“Can they breed?” I asked, images of a dead city filled with even deadlier monsters hard to get out of my head.
“I don’t know… why?” Jenna asked, though she didn’t really want to know the answer to that. I got the impression, from her tone, she didn’t actually want me asking. I didn’t want to know either and was stuck with the vision I’d have of New York inhabited with Brian’s offspring.
But we weren’t in New York anymore and we were going to head south, to Florida. What was left in that dead city was more than welcome to die along with it. We were, for the moment, safe. And if my father was to believed, the human race wasn’t doomed and the secret to unlocking our salvation was tucked safely away in my own blood. I didn’t know whether to believe the man or not. He had, after all, murdered a planet.
There would be time for all of that later, I thought, falling in behind the Touchers as they headed south, away from New York.
A new day was dawning and, for the first time, I had a little hope about it.
John is a transplanted Texan and currently mayor of Hooker Island, Oklahoma. He is a fourth generation oilfield worker, occasional drunk, and epic doer of mostly useless stuff. He is aspiring to be an aspiring writer while doing a bit of Redneck Gardening on the side. He is married to the most fabulous woman on the planet and has five mostly evil children.
He writes what he likes to read, which is a bit of everything.
Two Moon Dawn - The Witch and the Werewolf
Cassandra Kent only wanted spend humanity’s last night in her lover’s embrace, watching as the world killing comet known as Wormwood slammed into the Earth, obliterating life as we know it. For one night she wanted to be free of her over protective mother, free to finally do what she wanted.
Fate though, doesn’t always cooperate with one’s desires. Fate, sometimes, is a real bitch.
Cassandra learns two important things on that, the last night of the old world. The first is that not only are werewolves real, but her mother’s people, the witches, have been hunting them for generations. For hundreds of years the witches have been the only force keeping the werewolves from overrunning the world and turning man into a primary food source. With the coming of Wormwood, though, the scales have tipped. Mankind will no longer be the dominant species on the planet.
Cassandra just barely escapes into the post apocalyptic wastelands around Houston, Texas as the pack slaughters her mother. As she runs her mothers’s last words ring in her ears. In order to save the human survivors from the werewolves she must find and kill the first werwolf, ending his control over the world’s packs.
Kill the alpha, save the world.
But in order to do that, though, she’s going to have to learn exactly what it means to be a witch and master her newfound powers. And she soon learns that the worst monsters, in the ruins, aren’t always the werewolves.
Flesh Worn Stone - Book One of The Game
(Free at Most major Retailers)
Steven Alexander has what he considers the perfect life. With a good job, a loving wife, and happy and healthy sons, he has little to complain about. In a flash that life is ripped away and he is thrust into a world of violence and slavery beginning with a brutal home invasion. His sons are murdered in front of him and he and his wife Rebecca are then kidnapped, drugged, and taken to an uncharted tropical island where they awake on a pristine beach in the company of five strangers.
The island is a playground of horror and the kidnapped are forced to participate in the Game, a modern-day rendition of the Coliseum of ancient Rome, where they must compete in acts of murder, rape, and self-mutilation for the amusement of an unseen wealthy elite. Contestants must survive the Game five times to earn their freedom from the island. Losers become the evening meal.
Steven struggles to survive in a world where violence is not only accepted but cheered. He fights to hold on to his wife in a community where cannibalism is survival, brutality is affection, and living another day is at the expense of his own soul. Survival comes with a price, however, and he soon learns that not only are not all of the players in the Game are not only willing participants, but they’ve paid a steep price for the opportunity.
Bone Splintered Asphalt - Book Two of The Game
Surviving the Game was only the beginning of the nightmare…
Steven Alexander escaped the brutality of the Game, a modern-day rendition of the Coliseum of ancient Rome, where contestants must compete in acts of murder, rape, and self-mutilation for the amusement of an unseen wealthy elite. Contestants must survive the Game five times to earn their freedom. Losers become the evening meal. He escaped without winning, a feat unheard of in the five hundred year history of the Game.
Steven lost everything to the Court, the ancient group that runs the Game. His sons were murdered in front of him. His wife disappeared into the debauchery of the Game. His old life was ripped away leaving him with no choice but to run, all the while trying to protect the innocent young girl, Mia, who he rescued from the Game.
But how do you run from a worldwide organization that controls the police, the media, and politicians high and low? How do you find help among people who will do anything to become part of the Game? The Court will stop at nothing to protect the secrets of the Game and they want Steven back at any cost leaving him with only one choice… sweet, simple revenge.
Blood Stained Mahogany - Book Three of The Game
Mia Alexander was born into a life of slavery, a daughter of the Cave home to the Game, one of the most brutal sporting events conceived. The Game is a playground of horror and the people of the Cave, both those born there, those kidnapped and taken there, and those who volunteer for the debauchery, participate in a modern-day rendition of the coliseum of ancient Rome. They must compete in acts of murder, rape, and self-mutilation for the amusement of an unseen, wealthy elite. Contestants must survive the Game five times to earn not just their freedom from the Game, but a promised life of luxury. Losers become the evening meal.
Mia struggles to stay a child in a world where violence is not only accepted but cheered, where cannibalism is survival, brutality is affection, and living another day is at the expense of his own soul. She envisions nothing for her life except attempting the Game, never knowing there is anything else but the Cave. When she’s abruptly taken from the Game, taken from her mother and everything she knows, she is introduced to a world where, for the briefest of movements, she tastes true freedom.
