This Dying World: The End Begins (2 page)

Chapter Two

I knew her from various homeowners’ meetings we had attended.  We would strike up the occasional conversations while others discussed fence heights or sign colors, the kind of subjects that were of monumental importance to the association board.  We would chat about the weather, family, the Chicago Bears.  The liveliest discussion we ever had involved slamming the only Packers fan at the meeting.

The nightmare that stood before me was no longer the woman I knew.

Dull eyes stared into the gloomy living room, clouded over as if a dense fog had gathered behind her irises.  The flesh from the left side of her face had been torn off below the eye.  Visible facial muscles flexed as her teeth gnashed together.  Her blood soaked night gown clung to her body.  Thick clotted blood oozed from the shredded stump of where her forearm should have been.  A trail of dark red droplets tapped on the wooden floor as she moved through my home.  Jagged, broken bone protruding from the torn muscle glistened in the fiery orange glow outside.

Her gaze locked on me, a deep gurgled hiss escaping from her throat.  She came towards me, arms raised and grasping at the air with her single blood stained hand.  I backed away until I almost tripped over the pile of shoes sitting at the base of the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.  The bright television screen cast its light upon the abomination, highlighting her torn, graying flesh.

The room suddenly filled with the shrill blast of the EAS alert system, turning my former neighbor’s attention away from me.  It cocked its head in a quizzical manner as the earlier message repeated itself.

“Beth?” I asked, hoping something of my neighbor still remained inside the mutilated thing standing before me.

The remains of her lips curled back in a snarl, her mangled cheek giving the appearance of a morbid grin.  She began her advance anew, her shambling gait deceptively fast as she halved the distance between us in a matter of seconds.  Predatory eyes scanned over me greedily, her tongue lashing out between her teeth.

“Shit!” Sometimes I need to keep my big mouth shut.

Common Sense: -1.

A light suddenly flipped on in the deep recesses of my terrified mind.  I needed to not be where this thing was heading.  At the time, my mind refused to register what I was seeing, but my body was already in full escape mode by the time my brain got with the program.

Fear can be a great motivator.  Or it can stain underwear.  I’m not sure which category I fell in at that moment, but it would be fair to say I probably needed a change of clothes.

I grabbed shoes and jackets from the coat rack at the base of the stairs, remembering to shove my cell phone into a random coat pocket.  Taking the steps two at a time, I bounded up towards the bedrooms.  I glanced down in time to watch the monster stumble and fall on my daughter’s foot eating triceratops.  She went down face first, her teeth cracking on the hard wood floor.

“Ha!” I taunted in spite of the tumbling in my gut.  It was satisfying to know that even monsters could succumb to the toys of terror.  For once I’d have to thank Katie for not putting her playthings away.

My foot caught on the top step as I continued my escape, sending me toppling forward onto my own face.  Jackets and shoes went flying across the newly carpeted hallway.

As an avid fan of horror films, I really should have seen the fall coming, especially after mocking the Beth thing for falling flat on her face.  It was almost inevitable that I would trip over a step that I had crossed over thousands of times before.  Murphy has a law though, and Murphy is an asshole.

The sound of footsteps resonating from the floor below helped me forget the painful throbbing in my nose.  I started collecting what I had dropped, tossing everything through the open bedroom door at the end of the hall.

I ran inside the room, slamming the door behind me.  I decided to lock the door for good measure.  If the thing coming up the stairs could figure out a sliding glass door, a simple door knob probably wouldn’t be that much of a deterrent.  I just hoped Beth never learned how to pick locks.  I pushed my waist high dresser in front of the door, counting on the added weight to buy us a few more minutes.  It wouldn’t keep a determined person, or thing, out of my room for long though.

Abby stood next to the bed, clutching a barely awake little girl in her arms.  They were bathed in the dim light of a reading lamp.  Her shoulder length dark hair that normally framed her fair skinned face now suffered from an acute case of bed head.  In the short time since we had our exchange she had changed from her loose fitting nightgown into her blue jeans, and a tight black turtle neck sweater which accented her generous features.

Katie still wore her favorite footie pajamas.  She had fallen in love with the them the second she saw the many cupcake prints adorning the green flannel.  Her light brown hair was tied into a rats nest on top of her head in a similar fashion as her mother’s.  Tears rolled from her brown eyes, wetting her rosy cheeks.

“What the hell is going on?” Abby demanded.

“I don’t know.  But we have to go, we’re not safe here.”

Confusion spread across her face as she held our weeping daughter tight.  I went to her, taking her face gently in my hands looking into her brown eyes.

“Look,” I said in as calm and caring a voice as I could. “I don’t know what’s happening.  All hell’s breaking loose outside and there’s nothing on TV to explain it.  Something is in the house.  Something that looks very dangerous.  It was right behind me so I don’t think we have much time.  We need to go, right now!”

Nodding slowly as if processing everything I said, she placed our daughter on the bed and slipped Katie’s shoes on over her footie PJs before moving on to her own.

A cursory glance around my room informed me that I would be making my great escape sans pants, as I had not yet retrieved my laundry from the dryer downstairs.  To make matters worse, I noticed that in my haste I had managed to nab one running shoe and one dress shoe.

“Peachy,” I said sarcastically.  “At least I have a left and a right.”

“We can get out through the windows onto the roof,” Abby said while securing Katie’s coat.  She slipped her own coat on before tossing mine over to me.

“That’s what I was thinking too.  See, great minds and all,” I said smiling at her.  “We can make our way to John’s old place and use his windows to get back in.”

“Why two doors down?” she asked.  “Why not right next door?”

“John’s is abandoned now.  No one is in there to shoot us when we come in.  With what’s happening out there, I don’t think we should take anything for granted.”

“What the hell is going on?”

A sudden and heavy slam against the door cut me off before I could answer.  The hollow core door cracked as it bowed inward as Beth pushed against it.  With a pop, a hand broke through the cheap laminate.  The hand flailed around, grasping at anything it could reach.  After a few moments, it withdrew from the hole, and the room grew silent.

I waited, expecting the next assault to begin any second.  When nothing happened, I looked over at Abby, who wore the same look of shock that must have been on my own face.  She shrugged, shaking her head.  I wasn’t certain, but it looked like she was holding her breath.  Even Katie, who had fully awakened, sat in stunned silence.

I crouched down, peering through the hole Beth had made.  A pair of milky white eyes stared back at me from the darkness.  A deep predatory growl emerged from the other side of the door as soon as our eyes met.  She lunged at the door face first, the wood slicing deep gouges into her already mangled face as she pushed her head through the hole.

“Beth?” Abby asked in disbelief.

The Beth thing snapped its head towards Abby.  The terrible shrill sound she emitted was unlike anything I had heard before from human or animal.  She grew wild at the sight of the two of them.  Its broken teeth clacked as its jaws snapped at them.  Fingernails or jagged bone, I didn’t care to figure out which, dragged across the other side of the door.

“Mommy!” Katie shrieked.  Abby was knocked back as Katie leapt into her mother’s arms.  She shook so violently it made Abby tremble.  She buried her face in Abby’s chest, screaming in unbridled terror.

Thought of escape dissolved as paternal instinct took over.  I had never seen my little girl so terrified.  Neighbor or not, whatever this woman had become would pay dearly for my daughter’s fright.

I went to the side of the bed, flipping a heavy nightstand onto its side.  With a stomp, I relieved the table of one of its four legs.  It was a two foot long, three inch by three inch square block on the top, tapering to a comfortable grip on the bottom.  It was just wide enough to wrap my hand around with a firm grip.  A perfect four cornered club.  It was a much more suitable weapon than the Hello Kitty umbrella of terror.

I swallowed my own fear and walked over to the biting head sticking through my door.  The closer I got the more frantic she grew until I thought she may actually push herself completely through.

Everything happened in slow motion.  Clouded eyes followed my hand as I wound up, swinging my club like I was batting for the outfield.  The heavy table leg connected with the side of her head with bone splintering force.  The shock of the blow sent pain shooting through my right hand.  Beth’s face distorted as her jaw shattered under the blow, spraying blood and sending chips of broken teeth flying.

If she registered pain, she didn’t show it.  Broken bones snapped as she worked her shattered jaws.  Her tongue flicked in and out between pulverized teeth.  The animalistic growls had become gurgles as thickened blood poured from her mouth.

I brought my weapon down in a flurry of frantic blows upon her head.  The top of Beth’s scalp split and stripped away from the bone.  Cracks spider webbed across the exposed bone like a shattered egg shell, until grayish brain matter began to squeeze through the jagged cracks.  One final blow sent wood through the bone, splattering brain outward like rotten ground beef.

Her body slumped, and the woman who was once my neighbor stopped moving.  Silence hung thick in the room, broken only by the sound of my heavy breathing.  My hands were sticky with rapidly drying blood.  Abby held Katie tight, shielding her eyes from the horror.

That’s when the smell hit me.  It was like a sour milk and ripened meat sundae with rotten egg topping, served with a side of ammonia.

Let that roll around in your imagination for a while.

My stomach emptied itself.  My shoes took the bulk of the vomited remains of that night’s dinner, meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  Believe me, it tasted much better going down.

Between the retching, my attention was drawn to the groan of my stairs once again.  I held my breath and peered through the opening above the crushed remains of my former neighbor.  A human shadow cast from the fiery orange light outside swayed back and forth as it climbed.  My eyes watered, suddenly feeling very irritated as I tried to make out what else had invaded my home.

“Probably smoke,” I reasoned.

I wiped away the irritant with my shirt, and looked again.  Through watery eyes, I saw the face of Beth’s teenaged son slowly ascending.  His steps were slow and deliberate.  His eyes clouded with the same paleness his mother had.  The front of his throat had been torn out.  Ribbons of skin and muscle swayed as he moved, drenching his white t-shirt with thick blood.

He held what I could only guess were the remains of his mother’s arm in his grasp.  Small bits of meat still clung to the splintered bone.  He bit down hungrily on the fleshy scraps, his gaze never leaving the door.  His lips smacked as his teeth worked the raw meat.  He swallowed, the chewed flesh falling through the opening in his throat.

“I will never eat a drumstick again,” I said, backing away and looking at Abby.  My stomach felt ready for a new round of vomiting.

“What are you talking about?” she asked less than amused.

“Don’t ask.  Trust me, the less you know the better.”

“Can we just leave now?  Please!?” she wasn’t really asking.  She was close to tears, her face awash in fear and frustration.

“Mommy, I want to leave too!” Katie sobbed.

A heavy crash thundered throughout the house.  I had dropped enough equipment in my line of work to have an idea what it was.  I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I knew my beloved TV had just met its demise.  It also meant more neighbors were coming to visit.  My house was getting a bit too crowded for my comfort level, and I wagered not a single one of them had the decency to bring any cold beer.

Grimy fingers reached through the hole, snapping away strips of wood.  His face appeared as the opening widened.  Lifeless features became desperate need when he saw us.  His arm shot through the door, swiping his clawed hand through the air in our direction.  He pushed harder on the door, indifferent to the fact that he was crawling over his mother’s shattered corpse.

“I guess family doesn’t mean much to zombies,” I said more to myself than anyone else.

That’s when the rust fell away from the gears in my head.  I verbalized without thinking what my mind hadn’t wrapped itself around yet.  I just killed a zombie.  That zombie’s teenaged son is also a zombie, and it’s trying to get into my room to do what zombies do.  Feed.