Just Another Black Friday

 
Greetings, Loyal Readers!

The following story came about after I did some independent investigation about our current financial quandary and then watched one too many scary Black Friday videos.  I hope that it's not too "real".

-D

***

Every muscle in Lynn's body was as taut as an iron cable.  She knew that if she dropped her guard for even so much as a second she'd probably be crushed.  The last time she was in a crowd this frenetic was at a Foo Fighters concert back in 1997.  She'd made the mistake of venturing into the mosh pit during a boisterous rendition of "Monkey Wrench" and barely escaped with her cranium intact.  But that was a long, long time ago when people risked life and limb for something so frivolous a cause as entertainment.

Standing in that nebulous lineup for the past five hours, Lynn realized that she'd been in similar situations plenty of times before and all of them were self-inflicted.  Indeed, she'd stood outside of a Wal-Mart, Best Buy or Target store on countless occasions on the eve of Thanksgiving or early the following morning.  Instead of being at home, warm and cozy with her family and friends she'd often be found languishing in an outdoor queue and willfully risking exposure.  All of this for the privilege of participating in an organized stampede and then getting into a shoving match with a complete stranger over a competitively priced Kindle Fire Tablet, Logitech Webcam or a leather iPad case.

'What an idiot,' she thought to herself as she braced her foot against the glass door.

She looked up and caught a glimpse of fear in the eyes of the blue-vested minimum wage junkie just inside.  She imagined that from his perspective the throng barricaded behind the door must have bore a striking resemblance to the shuffling, brain-dead ghouls in George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead.  Here they stood, pawing at the doors of a retail store, desperately trying to gain ingress to a place they were irrationally compelled to gravitate towards since it "meant so much to them in life".

Lynn was jolted from her mental reverie as some very large and very strong people crushed into her from behind.  She battled a wave of claustrophobia as her own clenched fists dug into her torso.  She had to keep her arms gathered up around her chest in order to protect her ribs from getting crushed, otherwise she'd have the air squeezed out of her like a rat in a python's grip.  She could only imagine the purple and greenish bruises that were starting to appear just underneath her breasts.

She dared to reach down and make sure that her satchel was still closed and oriented in such a way that she could keep an eye on its precious contents.  She knew that if it had been left slung across her back it would probably be completely empty by now.  For the tenth time she unzipped it a crack just to silence that irrational voice in her head which insisted that if her money was out of sight it had probably been stolen.  Mercifully, the significant chunk of her life savings was still present and accounted for.  This was good since the stores had stopped taking credit cards weeks ago.

The odd sight of her money stuffed loosely into what could pass for a bank robber's sack made her think of a story Mr. Peavey, her High School History teacher had told her ages ago.  Lynn hated most of her subjects but liked History because she never thought of it as a bunch of disparate fact and dates, but as a series of stories.  And Mr. Peavey was very good at telling stories.

'After World War I the Allies decided to punish Germany's aggression by, essentially, invoicing them for the entire war.  In order to pay these impossible debts, Germany was forced to print its own currency hand over fist, resulting in what's now known as hyper-inflation.  Well, as you can imagine it didn't take very long before the Papiermark was about as plentiful and subsequently as valuable as Monopoly money.  Can you imagine... pushing a wheelbarrow filled with cash down to the market just to buy a loaf of bread?'

Inflation.  Debt.  Fiscal Cliff.  Every recent warning that Lynn heard through osmosis had since fallen on deaf ears.  'Probably because I didn't hear it from Mr. Peavey', she mused.

When the jittery employee standing just behind the threshold began to fumble with a comically over-sized key ring the crowd took this as an omen and surged.  Lynn winced as a three-hundred pound man avalanched into her, smudging her cheek into the glass.  Just before her face had a chance to go through it she managed to slide her arms down to the metal door handle that was pressing into her mid drift and shove back violently.  It was the only way to win a modicum of space for herself and, more importantly, the microscopic passenger resting somewhere inside her belly.

Directly behind her right shoulder someone angrily shouted:

"Calm the fuck down!  Push one of my kids again and I will stab one of you motherfuckers!"

The threat was so loud that the skittish store employee jumped back from the door as if tasered and then dropped his keys.  The crowd instantly took this as a sign of weakness and began to shout and pound on the glass.  Lynn immediately felt her innards turn to ice.  Things were already starting to fall apart and the doors weren't even open yet.      

"Stand back! Move back!" screamed the store clerk as he bent down to recover the keys, his eyes never leaving the roiling crowd.  Absently, Lynn wondered if he was the only person to show up for work today and if he regretted that decision.

Then, from out of nowhere, she heard someone bellow:

"Out of the way!  Get the fuck out of the way!"

She glanced up to see the crowd part like the Red Sea off to her left.  Three heavy-set men and a wiry, unkempt woman were running towards the glass doors holding a newspaper dispenser above their heads.  In response to this odd sight Lynn was instantly teleported back to that Foo Fighters mosh pit.  At any moment she expected to get kicked in the head by a Doc Marten-wearing crowd surfer.  Just as quickly she was distracted by a fleeting glimpse of the stale newspaper headline inside the box as it sailed overhead towards the door.  It read:

"BAILOUT STRATEGIES FAIL TO RESUSCITATE MARKETS: INVESTMENTS AND VALUE OF DOLLAR PLUMMET"

The concrete base of the newspaper machine went through the glass window without a hint of resistance.  Lynn flinched as it crashed into a vacant-looking shelf and then slammed violently to the floor with a loud BANG.  She stood there for a moment, stunned, as the reservoir of humanity immediately began to pour through the improvised breach like fluid lanced from an abscessed wound.

Lynn cursed herself for taking a moment to absorb what has happening.  By the time she got inside, a huge chunk of the crowd had already begun to ransack the store.  She also saw that the door's defeated guardian was lying off to the side nursing an angry-looking head wound.  She paused for a moment to make sure that he was alright before snatching up a wayward basket and charging into the fray.

She hurried past the racks still laden with night lights, spa kits, cameras, Blu-Rays, shower heads and designer fragrances.  All of this was landfill now.  Instead, Lynn sprinted through the nearly-vacant grocery, pharmacy and hardware sections, snatching up cans of tomato soup, bottles of Advil, toilet paper, batteries and several jugs of water.  By the time she was done the plastic handle of her basket was bowed from the weight. 

During her mad rush, she spied a furtive-looking employee hastily assembling a pallet filled with bread.  Unfortunately, by the time she got there, the plastic trays had almost been picked clean.  Lynn was forced to engage in a brief altercation with a panicked-looking Asian man after he tried to snatch a multi grain loaf right out of her basket.  After blasting him with several choice epithets he seemed to experience a moment of clarity, gave her a knowing look that suggested penitence and then turned back towards the empty pallet.

With spurts of violence breaking out everywhere, Lynn decided that it was time to leave.  En route she noticed a display shelf stocked with pads and instinctively made a bee line towards them.  Just before she got there she bumped into a pair of store employees who were attempting to wrestle a customer to the floor like a pair of ice hockey referees.  The jolt gave her pause for thought and it finally dawned on her that probably didn't need them anymore.

She flirted with the idea of grabbing a few packs for the distant future but decided against it after another hooligan appeared from out of nowhere, grabbed one of the store employees and whipped him into a shelf filled with razor blades.  Lynn thought the better of it, turned away and began to sprint stop-start towards the exit, hoping to extricate herself from the store with both her spoils and savings intact.  Unfortunately, it was not to be.

As she approached the battered front doors she quickly realized that the keymaster had plenty of reinforcements after all.  A phalanx of about ten or twelve employees blocked the exit, armed with what appeared to be the entire sporting goods, hardware and hunting sections of the store.  A supervisor distinguished herself from the line up, shifted a primed crossbow to her off-hand and then repeatedly stabbed a finger towards the few manned cash registers that were already beginning to back up.

By the time all of her acquisitions were accounted for, Lynn was forced to leave behind a pack of batteries.  Although it was heart-rending to turn over such a disproportionate amount of cash, she also knew that it had to be done.  What other choice did she have?

To add to her annoyance, the store had run out of bags, so Lynn stuffed as much as she could into her now-empty satchel and then carried the two jugs of water out in either hand.  Her spirits were instantly buoyed as soon as she left the oppressive atmosphere of the besieged store.  A quick glance at her watch revealed that she was also making better time then expected and she humored the possibility of cobbling together a humble repast for her husband before he got home.

It would have been great to have Bryan by her side today but she also knew that this just wasn't feasible.  Indeed, it was encouraging to know that at least one of them still had a job to go to.  Although his pay had been severely slashed by what his supervisors now grudgingly referred to as "austerity measures" and he was usually gone anywhere from sixty to eighty hours a week, his work was still a Godsend.  Without it, she knew that there'd be no way to stay afloat financially with a kid to feed and another on the way.      

Lynn came to a sudden halt as she rounded the corner and found herself staring at a small cadre of lean-looking young men, several of whom appeared to be holding baseball bats.  She immediately broke eye contact with them, put her head down and resumed her course.  As she felt their collective eyes pawing at her and heard their coarse laughter, she started to double-time her way towards the parking lot at the back of the store.

As she started down the dirt trail which eventually led to their apartment building one of Mr. Peavey's follow-up lectures popped into her head:

'Eventually the Weimar Republic tipped into economic anarchy.  Hate crimes, violent uprisings and widespread thuggery became the order of the day.  The situation became so toxic that it eventually gave rise to one of the most degenerate regimes in human history.'

Through the haze of her mounting fear, Lynn absently wondered if humanity was on the cusp of eclipsing that level of barbarism.  Just behind her she heard the sound of several pairs of boots sliding down the gravel path.

And that's when she dropped the water, shrugged off her bag and began to run.

EPIC DOC

        
EPIC PREDICTION
  

 
WE FAIL (AS HUMAN BEINGS)
   

     

"The End of Days" - Part II of V

Greetings Fans of the Macabre!

Here's Part Two of my zombie story...

WARNING: Due to scenes of violence and mild language reader discretion is advised! 

The End of Days

TWO
 
The front doors of the hospital exploded as Jessica ran towards the closest building: the hanger near the airfield where she landed in town only a week ago. She was sure that one of the engineers there would be able to help her. They could explain, make sense out of everything...

Heartened by the sight of the open doors, she rounded the corner, nearly losing the use of her ankle in the process. She ventured into the darkness, ducking under the wing of the fire-engine-red crop duster housed there.

“Hello?” she cried. “Is anyone here?”

She froze in place, listening intently for a reply. At first she was encouraged by the sound of movement and breathing. She tried to silence her own panting to focus on the source. Suddenly she felt as if she’d been stabbed in the stomach with an icicle. The sounds were coming from behind her.

Jessica whipped around and screamed as she saw two crippled silhouettes emerge from the corners of the hangar. Before she could consider her best method of flight, something emerged from under the plane and grabbed her leg.

Her screams came anew. Thinking reflexively, she pulled herself free. Filthy nails tore through the hose she was wearing on her legs and pulled off small divots of flesh. Off balance, Jessica tumbled back into the embrace of one of the mechanics.

Or what was once one of the mechanics.

Her head was seized and she could feel putrefying claws breach the skin on her cheek. At once, she was transformed into a creature of instinct, a dervish of flailing limbs and ear-piercing shrieks. She broke away, spun in the direction of the doors and barreled towards the promise of deliverance. She could barely see her potential attackers blocking her passage through a haze of tears.

Fueled by pure adrenaline, Jessica plowed through the two fiends standing there and burst out of the hanger. Now hysterical, she fled, not caring about her course. She just knew she was getting further and further away from those things.

As she ran she wished she could jettison the smell of the grave all over her: the musty earth, the corrupted flesh, the stench of something meant for inside turned out.

She kept running, feeling hot tears spread out over her face as if she were standing in a wind tunnel.

***

His eyes sealed in concentration, Father Paul continued to recite prayers of protection even as the sound of atrophied feet dragging across the wet earth came closer and closer. He knew that the shambling bodies closing in on him were only one small manifestation of the evil at work. He had to finish, for fear that the dark pall descending on the town would consume all.

‘May God guard and protect my senses so that misfortunes may not overcome us. In the name of God the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen!’

Feeling drained by the effort, but content that he’d stemmed the tide for the time being, the priest thought about his next move. A clarion scream from the hanger building came like an answer to his thoughts. He started off towards that path, wary of the shambling horrors bearing down on him.

He didn’t have far to go before he spied a woman in white coming towards him out of the darkness. At first he was relieved since the girl was moving fast, so he knew at once it wasn’t one of the ghouls. Then his thoughts flashed to fear since she was running as if the Devil himself was hot on her heels.

She was also headed straight towards him, head down and oblivious to what was in her path.

“Miss, MISS!!!” Father Paul bellowed, but the woman was undaunted. He braced himself as she tried to halt her flight all too late.

They collided. He tried to steady her but she was berserk with terror, pounding on his chest, batting his arms away as he tried to reach out to her.

“Miss! It’s alright now! I’m not one of them, please stop!”

His mannered authority cut though Jessica’s red panic.

“Oh my God,” she said between wracking breaths. “I’m so sorry. Oh, thank God you’re here. You have to help me.”

“I will endeavor to try, my child,” he replied in a tone that seemed to reassure her. “But first you have to calm down. Tell me what’s happening.”

She managed to look directly at the priest for the first time after spending several moments doubled up from fatigue.

“I have no idea what’s going on. The whole north end of town is swarming with these...things. Do you know...do you know what’s going on? Who are all those lunatics?”

The priest put a hand on Jessica’s shoulder. She seemed to be regaining her composure but he was disconcerted that he might be losing his own.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, my dear, but I’m afraid they’re...us. Back from a place best not discussed.”

The nurse laughed involuntarily.

“Well, if that’s the case I’m not even going to ask my next question,” she said, dabbing at the blood on her cheek.

A sound like a gunshot caused her to flinch.

“What the hell is going on in this town?” she demanded. “It feels like the end of the world.”

Father Paul was silent for a moment and it was enough to cause the panic to start to rise again in the eyes of his company. He couldn’t deny it; things were much worse this time. Despair fell upon him like a pall. The Almighty might be there in the end to set things to rights, but what if there was nothing left to salvage?

A chorus of rattling groans close by broke the priest out of his daze.

“I’m afraid we’ve already overstayed our welcome. You need to seek shelter...”

“No argument from me,” came the girl’s terse reply. “Problem is, I just moved here...I have no idea where to go.”

“I’m sorry, my child. I make it a point to know everyone in my congregation but I haven’t met you before...I’m Father Paul.”

She accepted the priest’s hand as he offered it. She was reminded of her grandfather’s handshake and it fortified her somewhat.

“My name’s Jessie...er, Jessica. I certainly hope it isn’t always like this around here.”

“Oh, certainly not,” the priest said. A world-weary smile lit his face but it was gone as quickly as it came.

“Something like this hasn’t happened in at least twenty years.”

Father Paul picked a direction, at random it seemed, and began to walk off. Struck by how distant the priest appeared to be, Jessica lingered for a moment but rushed to catch up, unwilling to let any mortal company venture too far away from her.

***

Still afflicted by his adrenaline palsy, Bobby put the gun on the ground for fear of setting it off by mistake. He buried his head in his hands and was shocked as to how wet his hair felt. It was as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on him. His brain repeated a mantra of shock:

‘What the Hell is going on? What the Hell is going on? What the Hell is going on? What the Hell is going on?’

A snapping branch caused him to jump. He fumbled for the gun and was on his feet at once, sweeping the weapon back and forth in all directions. He paused and held his breath, hoping the intruder would betray his approach.

“WHO’S THERE!?”

All he heard was the exhalation of the wind and the sound of bare, skeletal tree branches clacking together. He whipped about face when another snapping sound came from behind. The woods here weren’t thick, but it was pitch dark and his eyes were filling in blanks.

But then he saw it, shambling out from around one of the thick oak trunks, it’s twisted frame looking for a moment as if one of the smaller trees had come to horrible life. He let the moonlight play across the thing’s face to identify the tell-tale dead eyes set in mortar-hued flesh. The absence of recognition save as a source of food. It was enough to convince Bobby to act again.

The revolver went off with surprising ease this time. Even with the kick back and the plume of gunpowder, he knew at once his quick sight down the barrel was true. The creature twisted and fell to the damp earth where it rightfully belonged.

Before the boy had a chance to be ill again, he heard a dreadful coughing sound coming from behind him. He turned and spied a gaunt figure just outside the boundary of the woods, emerging from the cornfield. It was stumbling, like the others, limbs swinging in front, head lolling to one side. He felt disgust as he raised the pistol, anxious to annihilate yet another abomination.

After the shot, his relief quickly gave way to doubt. He’d inspected his first two kills and could tell at once that he’d spared the world something monstrous, something unearthed. Something expelled from its resting place like a splinter from flesh.

He had to be sure this time as well.

Bobby crept closer, weapon at the ready. He could tell at once that it was a woman this time and felt an instinctive twinge of guilt. What if he’d been too hasty?

He bent down to inspect the corpse but knew at once that it wasn’t necessary. The smell of putrefaction was overwhelming, like something turned inside out and then left to bake in the sun for days. He shot back up again without looking and thumped unto something with give.

The boy turned around to look into eyes that were vacant. He was distracted momentarily by the sight of its jaw hanging askew. It fumbled out towards him, blind, anxious claws pawing at his neck, raking his skin. It exhaled, like a phlegmy, excited hiss of triumph.

Reflexively, Bobby brought his forearm up to bat away the gangrenous limbs and then shoved, taking care to avoid the skewed jaws snapping open and shut in front of him. The thing stumbled back a few paces, just enough for the teenager to raise his pistol and fire again.

He braced himself for the discharge and what was sure to be a rain of gore at this close range, but the hammer just snapped and was silent.

It was too late to remember that he’d only found three bullets in his father’s lock box.

***

Harmony’s strategy proved sound. Claustrophobic and eerie to anyone else, the cornfield was womb-like to the young farm girl. She knew how easy it was to find the clearest row and she knew when to pause to listen for odd noises. The wind was picking up so the corn rustled like dry rain, but the sound of something crashing through the field would be very distinct. She adjusted her path accordingly and the things following her were none the wiser.

Her original plan was to cut across the rows and emerge close to the park, but the undeniable sound of yelling then gunfire put her off that course. Instead she came out next to the power plant and ducked behind the big generators up front, keeping well out of sight from the trigger-happy lunatic who seemed to be shooting up half the countryside.

For a split second she mused that the plant night watchman would probably spot her creeping around in the shadows and do the job himself.

The amusement was fleeting and sudden, hot tears began to leap from her eyes. She stifled the wracking sobs that threatened to seize her and kept moving.

Although the person in the park wasn’t very discriminating, they had the right idea. The axe she still carried would be fine in a close-quarters melee but she wanted to make sure that it didn’t come to that. After composing herself for a moment she tore off towards the gun shop, hoping that her quick movements would disqualify her as one of those “things.”

Any what exactly had she concluded were those “things” anyway? Maniacs? Drug-addicts?

‘Walking corpses,’ her fevered brain told her.

Harmony thought this ridiculous as she approached the gun shop, keeping low so the bright lights inside wouldn’t reveal her approach. She had to live a under a rock just a bit bigger not to know that zombies were experiencing a major revival in movies and such. Were some chemically-spun lunatics just taking this a bit too far?

To her considerable discomfort, she noticed that one of the double doors to the gun shop hung open a bit. Harmony edged closer and peeked inside, squinting at the harsh fluorescent flood of light inside. She looked at the bright tile of the floor and though how institutionalized the shop looked. Of course, in a place like Styler the gun shop was an institution.

Harmony winced as the door creaked open. She crept inside, holding her axe at the ready, silently baiting anything lurking inside to challenge her. The farm girl had plenty of practice cutting cords of wood over the years and she could quarter and stack anything who dared to cross her in record time.

Before she could re-enforce her resolve any further, her world flew out of sorts. A figure sprung up from the counter just opposite of the door like some maniacal jack-in-the-box and screamed an unintelligible warning.

And just as she’d always expected, the experience of being on the business end of a double-barreled shotgun was proving to be far from reassuring.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART III

"The End of Days" - Part I of V

Hi, Folks.


For the next few days I'm likely to be AFK.  The last time I did that there were no updates at all, and in retrospect, that's a bit of a cheat.  Sooooooo, instead of offering nothing, I'm gonna post up a short story I did a little while back.


A bit of a lead in to what your about to read: I have a bit of a fetish for zombies.  I don't know why but ever since I saw George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" when I was a (relatively) innocent thirteen year old, I've just been fascinated by the Walking Dead. 


This short story is inspired by that seminal film and all the subsequent zombie fiction that's followed.  I hope you like it...

WARNING: Due to scenes of violence and mild language reader discretion is advised!

The End of Days

ONE

On days like this Father Paul Guinn wished he hadn’t answered a calling that required him to have a belief in all things spiritual. Especially on this, what anyone would have to consider the END OF DAYS.

As he finished the rosary and blessed himself he looked up to the image on the cross and an odd thought struck him. Resurrection was supposed to be miraculous; a symbol of triumph over death. His dreams over the past few nights, the recent signs he’d witnessed, and the news from earlier convinced him that what was to come was anything but a triumph. It was an abomination against the natural order of things.

Surely there could be no other higher power with sway over life and death?

For many of his brethren, the coming crisis would surely shatter their faith. ‘How could God let this happen under his watch?’ they’ll cry.

For Father Paul, however, what was about to transpire would only serve to harden his resolve. This was proof positive that the spiritual world did, in fact, exist. He knew God wasn’t responsible for the coming trials, but he was also positive that He would certainly be there to provide comfort when things were restored to normal.

Father Paul stood up, walked over to the altar and took a small pewter crucifix from its resting place. He kissed it gently and placed it within his breast pocket. Even strengthened, the emerging sound of pounding on the walls and the breathy exhalations from the things gathering outside was unnerving.

Again he told himself that God would be there to give solace when everything was set to rights. He just prayed that there would be enough of His servants up to this task.

With that, he redoubled his resolve, strode down the aisle, passed through the heavy wooden doors and into the maelstrom.

***

Harmony’s door creaked open and she sat up in a start. Reflexively, the portal was pulled too a bit, leaving a small wedge of light from the kitchen that stretched across the floor.

“Sorry, darlin’”, said the silhouette in the doorway. “I was just checkin’ on ya. I thought you were asleep.”

Harmony blew a sigh of relief.

“Naw, not yet,” she replied. “I think I’m in for a long night.”

Her father considered this. Just knowing that someone was concerned for her seemed to drive some of the dark thoughts from her mind.

“Well, don’t you worry. I’m just in the next room here. Get some sleep, we got a busy day tomorrow.”

She smiled and settled down again.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, wincing at her own childish reference. “G'night.”

“G’night, darlin’. Sleep well, alright?”

The door creaked shut and the catch fell into place. Despite the comforting sounds of activity coming from the living room, she still felt strangely isolated. Just as soon and Harmony’s head hit the pillow, she knew she wasn’t going to sleep a wink.

Normally exhausted from what her father called “an honest day’s work”, the news she’d heard earlier was enough to chill her blood and ensure she’d toss and turn for most of the night. She didn’t know what was more upsetting: the news of a tragic death in town or the fact that her father seemed so affected by it.

She felt terrible for her poor dad and suspected that he must feel like the harbinger of doom. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Either the crops were blighted, the coming winter would be lean, her mother wasn’t well, and now this: a violent death happening just up the road from them.

She didn’t know much about Ed Munroe, only that he was Mandy’s father. There’d been rumors going around for ages that Ed was a drunk and he neglected his family. Harmony didn’t put much credence in rumors since she and her family had been the victim of more than their fair share of hearsay. But it was impossible to deny that something terrible had happened earlier and as news started to come out it was unlikely to get better.

Another sudden sound gave her a start. This time it was from behind her, above her head. It sounded like a faint drumming noise then a squeak. A few months ago her father caught some boys from school trying to peek through her window and she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to put up with that again.

“Daddy!” she shouted, hoping to scare away the interloper. “I think someone’s at my window again!”

A coughing noise from the living room distracted her. The light under her door was suddenly extinguished by darkness. A shadow from the window played across the side of her face and was gone. Slowly she twisted around in her bed and drew herself up. Just as her eyes cleared the edge of the sill a bloodied, decrepit palm slammed into the glass, nearly breaking through.

Harmony screamed and sprang from the bed, landing nearly half way across the floor of her room in the process. She dressed hastily and grabbed a small flashlight off her dresser just as the glass in her window gave way. She stood there aghast for a moment as a gnarled paw fumbled over the edge of the window frame, coming down on top of a particularly jagged remnant of glass. Harmony watched in horror as the clear dagger pierced through the top of the intruder’s hand. Oblivious to the injury, another arm shot through what was left of the damaged window.

Harmony jumped back again, bringing up against the door. She fumbled with the handle, tore it open and promptly slipped on something spilled on the floor just outside.

Her flashlight beam washed down upon the sight of her father lying on the floor. Open, bloodied and defiled by something hunched over him. Her wavering beam of light moved instinctively towards the sound of contented chewing.

Her brain took a gruesome inventory: two bloodied hands, a matted tangle of blackened hair, blue-gray flesh and milky, eager eyes that looked up from its horrible repast. Despite the cloudy eyes, Harmony recognized a distinct look of joy.

The joy of future prospects.

Harmony screamed, making a noise she thought herself incapable of. She tore towards the front door and burst from the house pausing at the tree stump in the front yard. Without effort she pulled free the axe buried there like the sword from the stone and raced on to the only place she thought to be safe anymore.

***

Regardless of how many graveyard shifts she’d served as a nurse over the years, Jessica knew she’d never get used to the intrinsic eerie quality of being alone in a hospital in the dead of night. Although anyone could see that the facility here in Styler was practically a day spa compared to the creepy asylum she used to work in up in Ravenswood, she still couldn’t keep the morbid thoughts at bay.

She chastised herself as she grabbed a clipboard bearing the same checklist she’d completed for the past four nights since she started at the hospital. Why did she find this place so creepy? After all, the hospital was brand new, nothing like that near-medieval asylum she'd presided over for far too long.

She set off down the hall to begin her rounds, measuring her footfalls as she went. Despite her hesitation, the bare stone floors and cold walls echoed the slightest sound. Each one of her steps sounded conspicuous. The muted lights on the vacant crash carts and wheelchairs cast odd shadows around her. Then her mind’s eye betrayed her and she had a flash of the man from earlier...

The body the sheriff brought in was reeking of alcohol and mangled from some horrible accident. After the son came to identify the body it was very late, and all Doc Mullins seemed willing to do was pronounce the obvious and go home.

‘Poor Ed,’ Jessica overheard the Sheriff say. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell him to quit drinking and take care of his kids over the years. Some higher power got to him by the looks of it.’

‘What a mess,’ Doc Mullins muttered back. ‘I’ll do an autopsy first thing tomorrow morning. I assume you’ll be bringing the detective in for this?’

‘Hate to agree, but I have to,’ the law man replied, sounding weary. ‘Do you think all this happened before or after?’

The doctor ripped off his blood-stained gloves, dropped them in the trash and pushed his glasses back onto his face with the back of his hand.

‘For this town’s sake, we better hope it was after.’

Over the years Jessica had seen the human body distorted in many surreal forms. That didn’t bother her. What was lingering in her mind’s eye was the odd nature of the clearly fatal wounds and the stark look of rigor-fear on the man’s face.

Had the victim actually been partially eaten?

As she hurried towards the morgue, a part of her was tempted to dart in, roll out the slab and have a second look, but instead she resolved to double-time right on by. She rounded the corner and promptly slid to a dead stop.

The very same body she’d been thinking about mere seconds ago was standing upright in the hallway, the door to the morgue still held open against a twisted leg. Reacting to Jessica’s pleasant arrival, the thing turned in a pivot, looked at her with glazed eyes and gurgled what sounded like a death rattle.

Jessica felt as if the mechanism in her brain that allowed her to scream burnt out at that moment. She was distracted momentarily by the sound of her clipboard rattling to the floor.

***

Bobby paused for a moment, suddenly seized by paranoia about the gun going off by mistake. He decided to err on the side of caution and stuff the revolver in the back of his pants instead. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he shot himself before he had a chance to be the big hero?

Before he took his father’s gun from the closet, he’d debated back and forth whether or not to load it. He knew for sure he could whip Todd in a simple brawl, but the little punk might still be armed.  He’d killed Mandy’s step-dad earlier and he probably wasn’t above doing it again.

The bad-blood between Todd and Ed had been brewing for quite some time. Rumor had it that Ed had gotten drunk earlier, beat Mandy up pretty bad and Todd had responded to her call. With a pistol.
Three other kids already told him that Todd pulled the trigger. But with his father being the Sheriff, what would be the point reporting it? If he could just get the little bastard to confess even the Sheriff couldn’t deny that justice had to be done.

Todd would go away for a long time. Leaving Mandy alone...

The teenager put his head down and continued his strident trek across the park at the center of town. His sneakers were almost wet from the rain that had doused the grass earlier in the evening and it was cold enough on this October night for him to see his breath. He knew that Sheriff Cooper would probably still be at the station filling out a stack of paperwork. With some luck, he’d find his rival alone and catch him by surprise.

Seeing someone approach, Bobby adjusted his stride a bit so as not to look so hell-bent. He cursed under his breath as the figure seemed to recognize him and lurch in his direction. The thought that there might be a new candidate for the role of town drunk amused him, but it was Saturday night, so it could be any one of his countless friends.

Idly he wondered why he couldn’t see the man’s breath. This trivial thought evaporated when he realized that the approaching figure appeared to be carrying the remains of a human arm. In a flash, the appendage was discarded and the thing was upon him.

Instantly, Bobby was on the football field. The same instincts that had allowed him to avoid a blitz at the line of scrimmage countless times before kicked in. He straight-armed the encroaching tackler and was reviled as the flesh he made contact with gave way into something wet and cold. He screamed, pulled his hand free and then scrambled out of the pocket.

Unlike being at the ten-yard line on the school field, Bobby quickly realized he had a unique line of defense against this particular linebacker. He reached into the small of his back and produced his father’s pistol.

“Alright, freak!” he bellowed. “Don’t come any closer!”

With a sickening gurgle, the thing shambled forward. The teenager was almost relieved to be done with the courtesy warning phase and squeezed the trigger at point-blank range.

The man’s head vaporized like an over-ripe pumpkin.

For a moment Bobby could only stand there and shiver, despite the fact that he felt he was burning up under his varsity jacket. The miasma of stench, violated flesh and his last action all conspired to make him ill.

As he slowly came to his senses the thought dawned on him that it might not just be old Ed’s last night on earth... 

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II