Devour: Death & Decay Book 1 (6 page)

Day 1
11:02 pm

Eventually, Liv must have drifted off to sleep because suddenly a deafening blast awoke her. Elli startled and clutched for her as she began to howl.

They’re in the house
, her mind raced. Could she really have been tired enough to sleep through the ruckus as they broke in?

A scream pierced the air as Liv reached the bedroom door, Elli clutched in one arm. She yanked the door open. As she stepped into the hall, another thunderous crack rang through the house and silenced the scream.

Aaron lay on the couch, his head cradled in his mother’s lap. Lydia’s arm fell across his shoulder. Her head hung back against the couch, her face pointed up towards the ceiling as her hair cascaded over the back of the couch. The light from the television flickered across her face, allowing Liv to see the gaping hole in the side of her head and the black trail that flowed from it.

The sight before Liv made her blood run cold. Of all that she had seen today, this was perhaps the most horrific.

Nate stood behind her. His right hand had fallen to his side, the pistol still gripped tightly. He bent down and gently kissed the top of her head and then Aaron’s.

Nate looked up at Liv and started towards her. Liv wanted to believe they were just sleeping, that the scene was the tender display of a caring father and loving husband, but she knew it wasn’t true. She spun around and slammed the bedroom door behind her, locking it.

It had been apparent that Nate was not handling the day’s events well, but she had never thought he would do something like this. She snatched the baby carrier off the desk chair and laid Elli down on the floor to put it on.

Nate began pounding wildly on the door. “Liv, let me in!”

She wedged the chair underneath the doorknob, hoping to buy enough time to escape. The carrier took a mere few seconds to secure in her adrenaline-fueled frenzy. Elli kicked and howled as Liv struggled to put her in the carrier.

“Liv, let me in!” Nate hollered. “You and I have both seen what is happening out there. You know this is what’s best.”

“No, it’s not!” Her voice was angry as she blinked away tears. “Giving up is never best. You didn’t even give them a choice!” Her arms quivered as she pulled on her shoes and quickly tied them.

“I gave them a quick death.” His voice broke. “There is nothing waiting out there besides pain, suffering, and a gruesome end. Is that what you want for Elli?”

Liv clenched her fist, nails biting into the palms of her hands, but didn’t respond. Instead, she jammed the flashlight into the diaper bag and picked up the heavy wrench.

“Listen to Elli, Liv. How much fear has she felt today? Just in the last few hours? How much uncertainty? The world we knew is gone. If you leave this house now, all you will find is death. You can’t run from it. Wherever you go they will be there waiting for you. Elli will be torn to shreds at their hands…perhaps even by you. Is that what you really want for her?”

Liv jerked the window open and kicked out the screen. She tossed the diaper bag out first and prayed the open top wouldn’t spill its contents everywhere.

“No place is safe from them. They will hunt us until we are all one of them!” There was a brief pause. “Just remember,” Nate whispered from behind the door, “I tried to save you.” There was one final blast on the other side of the door, followed by a resounding thud. Liv scrambled out the window and struggled to find the ground as she slid out feet first.

As she hopped to the ground, she surveyed the surroundings. The infected that milled about the neighborhood had taken notice of the commotion and were moving towards the house. Elli’s wail made them a precise target. Many began to pick up their pace. They grunted and groaned, alerting the others in the area. Liv snatched up the diaper bag, relieved to find that despite the wild throw, it had landed upright and held all of its contents together.

They were closing in and she had to move fast or be forced back into a house that would be surrounded by dozens of the monsters as they all tried to claw their way in.

A narrow path opened towards the tree line to Liv’s right and she dashed for the gap. They swiveled quickly and turned to follow her movement. Liv raised the wrench, its weight a small comfort against the hoard that threatened her.

Without slowing from her sprint, Liv swung as one reached for her. He wore the tattered remains of a business suit. Though at once it had been gray, now it was dark and stained with blood. He snarled and reached for her with dirty, bloodied hands. The swing wasn’t meant to kill—that type of precision would require too much time and energy—but merely to keep them from grabbing her. At the last second, she pulled back on the swing, the darkness heightening her fear of inadvertently injuring the small child between her and them.

Though the swing went wild, it still managed to strike its target. The impact rocked through her arms like she had hit a brick wall. She tightened her grip on the wrench, afraid that it might be ripped straight from her hands like the shovel. As Liv stumbled and regained her balance, more of them moved to intercept her.

Ahead, the trees reared up from the ground like dark, jagged teeth in the mouth of a giant. They waited there too.

Forests and trees had always been a place of peace and serenity to Liv. A place where the worries of the world could be pushed away and replaced by a quiet calm. These trees, however, hid dangers. They offered shelter not just for her but for them as well.

One of them stepped from the shadowy tree line directly into Liv’s path. He shrieked as he spotted Liv, a sound that jarred Liv to the bone, and broke into an all-out sprint that stopped her in her tracks. He moved so fast.

Liv wrapped one arm around Elli, as much to protect the child as to comfort her. She backpedaled a few steps and pulled back the wrench for a swing. As he closed the gap between them to a mere few feet, she swung, her aim high. A loud crack rang through the air as the wrench connected to his temple. The man crumpled to the ground in a motionless heap.

A surge of energy pulsed through her body. They weren’t unstoppable. She could fight back. Maybe she could pull both herself and Elli through this scourge.

The wave of joy quickly washed away as countless more of them moved in to take his place.

Liv ducked into the cover of the tree line. Thick though the trees and shrubs were, they would not hide her from the hungry maws of the infected. Elli’s wails alerted every one of them in the area to their location. They swiveled and reached for her, their arms extending out of the trees and bushes like those of phantoms. She bent her head down next to Elli’s ear and sang quietly, her hasty steps automatically falling in time with the song.

Slowly, Elli’s cries abated, replaced with little gasps and hiccups. The sound tugged at Liv’s heart as she planted a gentle kiss on top of Elli’s head and lightly traced her fingers along Elli’s arm.

The small child in her arms was amazingly resilient. Whenever Elli fell, instead of crying she would often simply roll over and kick her feet, as if pretending it had been on purpose. Still, Elli’s little fingers were latched onto Liv’s shirt like a vice.

The day had been a blur of confusion. Liv still struggled to juxtapose the world before her eyes with the world that she had known just yesterday. She couldn’t imagine what Elli thought of what was happening. Though Elli seemed to prefer gestures to actual words, time after time, Elli had astounded Liv with her ability to comprehend what was said to her, what was going on around her, or simply how things were supposed to work. She easily carried out commands and grasped concepts that Liv thought would have been outside of her capability. However, the events of today must have been all the more confusing and terrifying to Elli because of her limited knowledge of the world.

Eventually, Liv came across another road lined with houses. Elli had fallen asleep as she walked and now hung limply in the carrier, only twitching on occasion to grasp for her binky. Liv envied Elli’s ability to sleep. She had passed a few other roads with houses but couldn’t bring herself to stop. Instead, she pushed on forward, her mind refusing to let her rest.

Nonetheless, her feet ached and with each step her exhausted body cried out for rest. She crouched along the tree line and watched the houses. Nothing stirred on the street except for the leaves that rustled in the breeze.

Despite the calm appearance, the neighborhood still felt ominous. Too many porch lights remained off. It was too quiet.

In the middle of the street, a car sat with its driver’s-side door open. Across the street, the front door of a house stood partially open.

The infected were there. Eerie in their stillness. There were three that Liv could pick out among the dark shapes. None of them had moved. They just stood there, gently shifting from side to side, in the darkened street.

In the roughly thirty minutes that Liv had watched the street, the infected hadn’t taken a single step. One had sunk to his knees only to fall forward on his face. He didn’t try to rise. Liv had hoped they would move on to somewhere else, but they didn’t show any interest in going anywhere. If she was going to move, she would have to stay low and quiet to avoid attracting their attention.

Liv pulled the flashlight from the diaper bag and scanned the street one last time for any more of the infected. In the hush that had fallen, her footsteps sounded like firecrackers as she hurried across the street. Any minute now, the infected would hear her. Their terrible scream would break the night’s silence and then they would run right for her.

She stopped on the porch in front of the open door. Nervously, she looked around for the attack. To her surprise, the infected still stood where she had last seen them. Not one had moved a muscle. Liv exhaled a sigh of relief and turned back to the house.

The front of the house was gorgeous. The two-story brick façade was pristine. Windows dotted the front, including two large bay windows. The residents had been in the process of ripping out the honeysuckle vines that crept up the porch front and had started to invade the roof. A good portion of the plant still clung to the railing, but piles of dead vines sat piled on the ground. Two small trees guarded either corner of the porch.

The home was large. Liv was sure in another circumstance she would have been envious. Right now, though, she wanted nothing more than to be in her own modest home, in her own bed, secluded from the world.

Darkness seeped out of the open front door as though it were reaching for Liv. She didn’t want to go inside, but more than anything she didn’t want to stay out here. Not with the infected lurching about in the shadows. Liv didn’t know how to pick a lock, and breaking a window would leave an open entryway for any of them to crawl through. Something had happened at this home, but it was Liv’s best option for a silent entry. The halogen glow cast by the flashlight shone brightly in the living room as she gently nudged open the door.

Liv’s eyes quickly darted to the darkened corners of the room as she entered, trying to spot any danger before it spotted her. The living room was like any other: sofas and chairs arranged so that the center was open, all facing a television on the opposite side.

For a moment, Liv debated whether to close the door behind her. If there were any of them in the house, the closed door would pose an obstacle to her escape, but closing the door would mean the infected outside couldn’t follow her into the house. One last look at the outside world settled the question. She wanted as much between her and the outside world as possible.

Movement reverberated through the ceiling from upstairs. Liv swept the flashlight over the open floor plan, which allowed her to see the living room, kitchen, and dining room. Empty. The footsteps moved quickly across the floor until they reached the top of the stairs. Her stomach churned as she clutched the wrench to her chest, her fingers nearly turning white from the tightness of her grip. She braced herself, taking a few steps back to give herself space.

Instead of one of them, though, a mass of gold, curly fur careened down the stairs. For a moment, Liv was unsure how to handle the dog. Perhaps whatever was infecting humans could infect animals as well. As he approached her, though, his tail wagged lazily from side to side and his fur was unmarred by any wounds he would have received if he had been attacked by the infected.

The golden retriever ran up and sniffed around her legs and feet, his tail in perpetual motion. “Hi there, pretty boy.” She held out her hand for him to sniff before rubbing his head. He seemed friendly and his presence in the house was a relief. Since he was running around the house, whatever had been in the house was probably gone.

The first floor, which held the living room, master bedroom, kitchen, and an extra bathroom, was empty. As Liv headed for the stairs to investigate the upstairs, she paused. There was a door in the living room she had dismissed as a coat closet. Just above the knob, a red smear stood out against the white frame.

Liv’s chest tightened as she reached for the knob, her handing shaking, and yanked open the door. Inside was a pitch-black cavernous garage. A quick sweep with the flashlight revealed nothing unusual. She flipped on the light. The half of the right wall was a workbench littered with small tools and other small handyman’s knickknacks. On the rest of the wall hung larger tools like rakes, shovels, and a leaf blower. The left wall consisted entirely of shelves that held neatly organized boxes. Squarely in the center sat a large, silver sedan.

Over the usual smells of dust and dirt, the garage smelled like iron. A glossy black pool glimmered from under the back fender of the sedan. Liv shuffled forward slowly, her fingers clenching and unclenching around the handle of her wrench. Next to the rear driver’s-side door a bloody and bent golf club lay discarded on the garage floor. Beyond it, large puddles of blood with dried edges speckled the cement floor. Other smaller droplets covered the side of the car and the floor.

Liv’s heart raced as she approached the end of the car. Just past the bumper, a man lay motionless in a crumpled heap. She could only guess that it was a man by the physique because his head and face were an unrecognizable gory mess.