(Book 2)What Remains (28 page)

I hopped the counter to the narrow isle behind
that backed up to a wall shelf of controlled substances. On the
other side the first thing I did was check my watch. In
seventy-five seconds I needed to call Sarah, which I intended do
from the counter to keep noise from reaching outside. I craned my
neck over to make sure Maddox was at his post; he was, so I got to
work.

As I scanned the drug names I would have killed
to have a pharmacist there, or Google. I smirked thinking about how
many times after the world ended I found myself longing for a
Google search. I kept it simple by looking for the medicine names I
recognized in tablet form, anything else was assumed to have gone
bad. Ciprofloxacin, Augmentin, Amoxicillin, Percocet, anything that
looked familiar from my injury-ridden past. Two of each, at least,
went into the bag. I didn’t stop until I could barely zip the thing
up.

When I slung it onto my back, I just about fell
over from the suddenly uneven weight that was added to my frame. It
was a good haul. My feet cleared the counter again then crunched
down on more grains of rice. It struck me as odd, odd enough that I
murmured, “Rice… of all things.”

I moved the flashlight beam along the dirty
floor to see that the grains were everywhere. Specks of white
dotted around every floor tile then grew more abundant closer to
the corner opposite to the pharmacy. I crouched to investigate, and
discovered the abominable truth. It was not grains of rice, it was
maggots
.

The vile revelation shocked me so much that it
sent me reeling back into a shelf. My bulging pack knocked a row of
boxed macaroni and cheese over like dominoes. I looked up at the
skylight to see that the white dots even reached the ceiling, the
walls, and a support column near the center.

I didn’t want to know. Wherever they came from,
I didn’t want to know. However, I
had
to know. Curiosity was
destined to become my Achilles heel. I slowly stepped towards the
corner, every inch bringing another gag. Beneath my boot there was
a slew of tiny pops as the horrible decomposers flattened in
droves.

The flashlight beam revealed a wide aisle of
greeting cards then a single lane past it backing up to the wall.
There were so many of them radiating outward that I imagined seeing
every surface pulsing from the squirming mass. I couldn’t bring
myself to keep the light on one spot long enough to see if they
were even moving. The temperature was warm enough for them to live
but not warm enough for them to thrive. It all indicated that this
expanse of fly larvae probably began its spread a week before I
came across them.

Tears streamed from my eyes as the rotting smell
thickened. In twenty seconds I needed to check in. Maddox’s shadow
was still in place at the door. If my curiosity insisted on
punishing me then this was the time to do it. I crossed my right
arm, Kukri and all, over my face to shelter it from the fetid air.
My left hand trembled, directing the flashlight past the end of the
wall of get well cards.

I froze. The beam from the tiny flashlight shone
on a pale mound of flesh. I vomited up what was left of my
heart-shaped PB&J sandwich then tried to focus beyond the tears
that clogged my vision. Another item was added to the arsenal of
sights that was certain to haunt my subconscious for all the days
to come. It dawned on me that the maggots didn’t originate from one
decomposing body. There were seven of them. What was worse than
their number was the fact they were stripped of their clothing.
Seven naked bodies piled up like a repulsive offering to the
insects.

“
What the fuck
…” I said out loud as my
mind processed the scene.

“Daddy? Are you okay?” Maddox asked in a loud
whisper from the door. “Do you need my help?”

“
NO!
” I barked back, nearly choking on
the bile in my throat. “Don’t come inside! I’m radioing in now.
We’re done here.”

The transmit button was compressed for half a
second when my body seized from yet another loathsome realization.
“The bodies aren’t big enough.” I said quietly, unable to find the
divide between my thoughts and voice. “They’re just kids.” My mind
became a cyclonic mess trying to justify what I’d come to know. If
Sarah tried to talk back to after the mic-click then I was too
catatonic to respond.

It felt like the scraps of my soul had been torn
away. Seeing such evil, such malevolence, hollowed out the inkling
of hope that remained in me. We are what remained of the rapture;
bearing witness to the pharmacy tomb convinced me of that. If a
human really did this then maybe the Reaper virus didn’t bring
about the apocalypse - it forced a sanctified cleansing.

A shuffle of feet at the door broke my trance.
Mere seconds had passed between my brief radio attempt and the
unknown disturbance, yet it felt like I’d been frozen in my
thoughts for hours. I spun to face the back entrance, seeing the
unobstructed rectangular glow of the open door.

My heart stopped. Maddox wasn’t in the doorway
where he was supposed to be. “Maddox!” I yelled, not caring one bit
about the volume of my voice. No response. I sprinted to the door
kicking all sorts of spilled products out of the way.

“
MADDOX! I’m coming, Monkey. Just answer me,
PLEASE!
”

The brightness of the outdoors flashed over me
with an unanticipated jolt of pain. I fell to all fours, completely
disoriented from the knock I had apparently taken. My left hand
rubbed a throbbing spot on the back of my head then returned with a
shine of blood saturating my glove. Nothing made sense; I had been
struck on the head and my son was gone. This was worse than any
night terror.

“MADDOX!” I shouted, my vision blurry. An
adjacent shadow materialized as focus returned. I strained to
process what I saw, and then it was so clear. My stomach sank and
confused rage boiled up.

Maddox was there, frozen in place because of the
man, the
uninfected
man, who was holding him. A skinny,
bizarre looking, stranger had my son plastered against his right
side with a hand over his mouth. His left hand clutched a dirty
baseball bat, the same item I assumed was used against the back of
my head. Maddox’s eyes were wide as he struggled to breathe past
the over-sized ski glove that blocked everything up to his nose. No
expression was on the man’s face; he stared at me, unblinking, like
his next move was yet to be decided.

I rose unsteadily to my feet. “Let him go.”

The only change was a minuscule cock of his
head, as if I was a riddle that had been posed.

Worried that my curt demand would escalate
things, I tried to ease up and reason with him. “I’m sorry. Really,
I am. We didn’t think anyone was here. I’ll leave the backpack of
supplies. Just let him go and you’ll never see us again. You have
my word.”

He remained expressionless then broke his
silence with a single word. “Supplies?”

Unconsciously, my posture changed to the
offensive. The desperation in the eyes of my son pushed any
nauseating pain far away. My grip tightened on the Kukri enough
that I’m surprised the wooden grips didn’t crack. “On my back. The
bag is full of things I took from your stockpile inside. Take it.
All I want is my kid. Then we can walk away from this… all of us
can walk away.”

An attack plan materialized inside my mind while
I continued the futile attempt at negotiation. Ire seethed inside
me. This bastard had seconds to comply before I was going to rip
his throat out. Each second he held my son captive was another
second I planned to make him suffer.

“You saw my stockpile?” A sneer started to show
on his otherwise emotionless face.

This wasn’t a negotiation; he was toying with
me. I nodded to answer his question then leaped forward. His
baseball bat countered my bladed swing midair. It cracked against
my forearm where my makeshift bite-armor was laced on. White-hot
pain surged through me and I collapsed into a patch of snow that
had been sheltered from melting by the dumpster shadow. Due to the
bulging bag attached to my back I rolled immediately to my side.
The impact also broke my grip with the Kukri sending it a few feet
away in snow that was dotted with my blood. I pawed at the
direction it fell knowing that my son’s life depended on me
skewering the blade through this monster.

Maddox’s muffled scream was loud enough to be
heard past the nylon glove that covered his mouth. I fought to stay
awake through the seething pain and my palpitating heartbeat that
had me on the verge of blacking out. When I tried get up the
bastard kicked my legs out from under me. He looked unsteady for a
split second as Maddox fiercely resisted.

“You have fight in you, kid,” he said snidely.
“I haven’t seen that in at least a week.”

“
LET HIM GO!
” I screamed. It took
strength that I barely possessed to keep myself from going
unconscious. “
TOUCH HIM AND I CUT YOU IN HALF!
”

He let out a high-pitch, unsettling giggle.
“Time to go inside before the dead ones hear us. It’s not good to
make this much noise outside. Say goodbye to your noisy dad.” He
dragged Maddox towards me with the baseball bat raised to
shoulder-level.

My hand slapped at the snow for the Kukri, or
anything that I might use against him. “Don’t do thi—”

A gunshot cut off my begging and a new voice
entered the chaos.

“Get away from them!” Sarah screamed. She stood
ten feet away, just past the dumpster we’d passed to get to the
door. A wisp of smoke came from rifle she held parallel to the
ground, pointed at the three of us.

The horrible man sounded flustered, the first
time I’d detected any variance in his tone. “This must be Mom. Kid,
I’m glad you’re here but your parents are making me angry.”

“You have three seconds to get away from them or
I will fucking kill you,” Sarah said evenly.

Again he let out a bizarre giggle. “Kill me? Now
how are you going to do that, bitch?”

I growled after the harsh words were directed at
the woman I love, all the while clawing blindly for my weapon. He
kicked me in the face, splitting the mostly healed gash on my
forehead that I’d received in those first days when I fought my way
out of the city. Sarah took two steps towards us with the rifle
aimed.

He seemed delighted by her hostile reaction. “So
you’re going to shoot me while I’m holding your precious boy
between us? If you had what it takes to actually kill me, why
didn’t you do it with that first shot? I could piss on you from
here, yet you couldn’t hit me with a bullet. Any bitch that gives a
warning shot doesn’t have what it takes to pull the trigger while a
person is in the sights. Now go away before I slice you up along
with your husband here. The two of you aren’t worthy of my
talents.”

A muzzle flash came at the same moment a spray
of red burst from the right side of his head. Maddox broke free and
jumped to the spot where I struggled on the ground. The bastard
bent over bellowing an angry scream from his crooked lips. Blood
flowed over his gloved hand that clutched the spot. He pulled the
hand away to see the result of his injury. When his head wasn’t
shielded I saw that his ear was gone.

“I have you, Daddy” Maddox said. “We have to
run. Please.”

The man looked at his blood-soaked glove and
stopped yelling. A sinister smile replaced his painful wince. He
straightened his back, took a deep wheezing breath, and shifted to
face us on the ground. I saw him move past Maddox’s fuzzy head. We
struggled together until I was nearly back on my feet.

I don’t think he’d made it an inch in our
direction before another blast echoed off the brick wall. A spot
off-center on his left knee popped with an eruption of fibers and
crimson mist. He dropped to his other knee not making a sound. The
only sound came from the two infected people that appeared from the
far tree line, no doubt drawn by the commotion. It looked like an
undead man and a boy around Maddox’s size. Both of them moaned with
hungry excitement as they hobbled closer.

“Go boys! Back to the truck! Maddox, help Daddy
get there. I’ll be right behind you.” Sarah instructed.

Blood pooled at the stranger’s feet, yet he
still somehow stood back up. I saw him so clearly as Maddox pushed
me to a point of mobility. His position was close enough that if we
walked towards safety he could reach for us. Sarah pulled the
trigger again, shattering his other knee. Ridiculously defiant, the
bastard fell to his decimated kneecaps.

Sarah sprinted at him, landing the rifle stock
against his cheek. Properly motivated at last, he fell to his back.
The baseball bat he’d hit me with loudly rolled away. One of the
approaching creatures growled with delight. She stepped to the arm
that had held Maddox captive, placed her tall boot on his fingers
and shifted her weight downward, releasing a sound like compressed
bubble wrap.

Another giggle. After having been shot three
times and getting his fingers crushed under a boot, the sick fuck
giggled
. Sarah lowered the barrel of the rifle against the
wrist that protruded from beneath her foot. She looked at us with a
fierce glare, which told us to run, so we did to the best of our
ability. The moment we were clear I heard the gun discharge
again.

Maddox scooped his machete off the ground,
keeping me on my feet as we passed the dumpster. When we moved to
round the corner I glanced back to check on Sarah to make sure the
dead hadn’t reached her seeing they were still a few seconds away.
She had moved to the other side, it looked like she’d stepped on
his other hand. She was saying something, though I couldn’t tell
what it was over my own sounds of distress.

We passed to the side with the truck in sight. A
final gunshot resonated throughout the open area. At the truck
Maddox hollered for his sister. “Calise! Open up, it’s us!” He left
me at the tailgate. A flash of a pink sleeve appeared in the
cracked driver’s side door. They jumped inside then the rear door
opened. Sarah returned and 522 took off with her at the wheel. I
fought the urge to sleep as both kids wept, refusing to let go of
my midsection.