Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay Read online

  He crawled up next to a small slab wall, looking out across the destruction. Scattered across the space, lay the remains of countless dead. The outlandish storm had killed a dozen infected freaks by shattering their skulls against hard surfaces. Picturing them swirling around in the hurricane winds until their brains spattered gave Abraham no pleasure. It should have, but it didn’t.

  The creatures that survived near the school house were clustered together in tight-knit groups. The freaks came out at night without Red Dead damming the sky, but when the Red Mother shined, they were much more active. In reality it appeared only the daylight limited them to the dark spaces. The dark clawing clouds sweeping across the sky promised a second storm. Still, he knew there wasn’t enough rain in the world to wash away the stink of the dead. Abraham smirked, knowing he preferred the hurricane wind to the crimson light.

  Behind him several blocks back, toward the garage, the echo of gunfire continued. “They got what they deserved,” he said back to Hunter, Emme, and Jeffery. The shouts of the dead corpses fighting the mechanics rang like a spiritual cult during a solar eclipse. The sound brought a rattle to his nerves. He only hoped the two enemies would cancel each other out. Otherwise, all of them would suffer a fate worse than death. Still, he found it curious how the infected at the front of the school didn’t seem to care. It was like they were stunned.

  The risk of death swirled about in every direction. Nevertheless, he kept his wits determined—almost empowered. “We will survive,” Abraham whispered. He watched the way the streams of rain washed clumps of mold and flesh down the slopes of the high school. As a tracker, he wondered if the storm had helped spread the spores.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine hundreds of diseased mutants cluttering the halls of the building. Abraham wanted to believe Sam was alive. His mind was focused on the facts and that left him worried. “Through the school is our only chance.” Abraham had talked his way around the fear. “We get Sam, and then we get out of this damn city.”

  His grandchildren were too stunned to argue.

  The sky erupted in a beautiful flash of darkened light. “The storm isn’t over,” he suggested, wondering if the armies of heaven were marching to judge the foul planet. “The school is the only thing strong enough to provide us with shelter.”

  “Sam has to be dead,” Hunter said.

  Abraham pretended to be strong. It was all he could muster for his grandson. “Don’t give up on me now.” Abraham feared his grandson was right. Yet, he had to try to save her. Deep down in his mind, the deciding point was the shelter. If a second storm as powerful as the first hammered the town again, the brick would be the only thing keeping them safe.

  “Why don’t we head for the Blazer now?” Hunter asked. The words came out fumbled and weak.

  “Because the storm will pick up that vehicle and toss it fifty miles in the opposite direction on the open road. Not to mention the mounds of enemies in that direction. Don’t be afraid.”

  Hunter reached up and wiped at the smudge of dirt on his forehead. And then patted off a few splinters clung to his denim coat. “The school house belongs to the dead. We’re walking into a grave of infected.”

  “Don’t be a bitch,” Emme said to her brother.

  Hunter’s mouth fell open, and then he turned back to Abraham.

  “Don’t talk like that, Emme,” Abraham said, trying his best not to laugh. In the middle of a nightmare, Abraham found his little granddaughter humorous.

  Frustrated, Hunter pushed through Abraham and rushed for the shattered front doors. He was a ball of passion like his father. Abraham watched as Hunter sprinted between the hedges. His grandson kept his focus up as he traveled by the stunned infected freaks huddled together singing their same old song. The random screams and moans didn’t startle him.

  Abraham believed the storm must have stunned their senses and he must have been right because they didn’t pay Hunter any attention.

  “Hunter,” he mouthed, but it was useless. The boy had disappeared into the school. Abraham looked back to Emme, and sighed. “Are you happy?”

  “I’m not saying sorry,” she muttered, touching the peculiar boy’s hand. Jeffery hadn’t said a word since Abraham saved his life. He only stared up at him with big, ringed eyes. “Hunter needs to get his shit together,” she added, crossing her arms.

  Abraham groaned and forced his old aching body up and toward the front doors. He followed his grandson’s path between the hedges and entered the dark school. His heart rate increased with each careful step. Inside, Abraham crept through the damaged lobby toward the sound of soft steps. The high school was in shambles. Beads of water fell through the fractured roof in a variety of locations. A hundred desks were stacked in one of the congested halls serving as a barricade. He swerved around them and through them, his throat tightening at the copious spores and dust orbiting the air. This must be another hive.

  “Hunter,” Abraham whispered, yet the boy continued ahead at an alarming pace. He never believed Hunter was a ticking time bomb; he always imagined it would be Emme that stormed off in the face of danger. Reality clawed at him in his moments of doubt.

  The building was immense, the size of an old mall Abraham used to visit as a child. The walls were swollen with water damage and the tile a mix of blood and growth. Bloated, watermelon-sized clusters of white and orange pulsated in the high corners. In a way, the hollow made him feel like he was traveling underground, only the roots were soft vines of alien decay. He twisted and turned through the halls, trying to keep pace with his grandson.

  An emergency light slipped through one of the cracked walls, illuminating the shadow of Hunter shifting ahead. His grandson clustered up next to a muddled desk. Then and there, the light shimmered and an infected freak flickered into view.

  Abraham gasped, watching his grandson shuffle farther under the worn table. The infected didn’t sense him. Abraham slid ahead, ready to fight. As he neared his grandson, his ankle got stuck in a cord of vines weaved around the metal legs of a warped desk.

  The creature sniffed the clotted air. The dead man’s face hung in chucks of flesh and gore. The thing’s dress shirt was buttoned up to his blooming plague-ridden neck. In the red illumination of the flickering emergency light, he saw the dead man wore a name tag. Mr. Peterson.

  Then the freak staggered into an open classroom. Still, Hunter took off farther down the hall before Abraham could free his ankle. Shit, he thought as he skirted around a large bookshelf tipped between the saturated walls.

  Abraham’s sore eyes were able to read a few of the legible signs amongst the walls. Hunter was heading for the maintenance bay and must have remembered it connected through the gym. His grandson was trying to play hero. The only problem was heroes didn’t live long in their dying world. All at once, he realized Hunter was doing this for Sam. His grandson would never admit his feelings for Sam. Hunter was a cautious boy when it came to girls. Maybe his grandson felt sorry, yet the butterflies in his eyes sung a different tale. Maybe in a different world, he thought, feeling sorry for his grandson.

  Abraham touched Emme and then she touched Jeffery, each checking to make sure everyone was still together. At that moment, Abraham exploded off the floor, picking up speed. The degeneration of the alien fungus hit him in waves of nauseating pain. The air was too thin, and laced in spores. He pulled up his shirt over his mouth and then did the same for sweet little Emme. His granddaughter huffed out a surprised little breath that might have been the beginning of a scream. Jeffery didn’t seem to mind the orbit of infected flakes.

  Abraham had several theories about the spores, but he still didn’t know enough about this infection and its process. The spores were copious and clouded. He thought it best to avoid swallowing them. It reminded him of watching a swarm of bugs darken the air around his front porch light. The alien microorganisms, thick and potent, stung his eyes. Ahead, the sound of Hunter’s sneakers faded into the gymnasium. He was getting close and picked up the p
ace.

  A quick shadow moved across the basketball court toward the end of the gym. That had to be Hunter. Then Abraham’s eyes fixed on an immense square shape emerging from behind the bleachers. The horrific sight made it hard to think as his mouth stretch wide.

  His blood pressure surged and his heart beat with resolution. He saw a bulky abomination, well over twelve feet and in the shape of a hearty meatloaf. Its swollen face looked like a sea urchin—every inch moving and pulsing of its own accord. The thick pelt of the beast resembled the insides of a man, and a droopy maw laced in teeth was the color of smashed black berries. The thing was dressed in slabs of flesh and bone, boiled with sores of yellow, green, and brown. And the thing was only about twenty feet away.

  “Run!” he shouted, feeling the brisk air of Emme and her pet as they followed Hunter toward another set of double doors. Never taking his eyes off the slithering tub of lard, Abraham ran.

  Something fumed in that pile of guts. At that point, a buzzing sound from hell tore out its purple maw. Abraham froze for a second in fear and surprise. However, he fought against the mental paralysis and forced his body to move toward the doors. He reached out a hand and swatted at a dripping film of jelly as he entered the short hall. Abraham felt like a frightened child running from the boogie man. He pressed his back to the frame of the double doors as they slammed shut behind him.

  “We can’t go back that way,” he said, holding his chest.

  At the far end of the hall, Emme’s flashlight shone about the spread of blood and gore. A dozen infected freaks were dead and soiled the ground at least an inch deep in plasma and decay. He saw Hunter heaving a sullied ladder up and placing it next to an exposed vent. At the end of the short hall was a reinforced metal door. “Is it locked?”

  Hunter nodded trying to be brave. “Emme, you have to climb through and open the door from the other side.”

  “Not a problem.” A quick smile oozed over Emme’s shaded features. Her eyes swallowed the ladder and then the dark vent. It came as no surprise when her little friend, Jeffery, followed.

  The loud clap of flesh against the metal double doors between Abraham and the gym brought an awful flavor to his dry mouth. “Did you see that thing?” he asked Hunter.

  Hunter swallowed hard. “No, but I sensed it.”

  Then, the teeth of the unknown abomination in the gym scraped across the sealed entrance. Abraham hurried away, feeling the humid breath seep through the cracks in the damaged walls. “Hurry up, Emme,” he said, pointing with his pistol. “It looked like grandma’s meatloaf.”

  “Meatloaf, it seems we have a name for it.” Hunter placed his soggy spine against the inaccessible door to the maintenance bay and tried the handle again. It was still locked. “I’m sorry,” he spat, wiping his runny nose with his rough sleeve. “I shouldn’t have run off.”

  “You led us to the right place. If we live through this, I won’t have any hard feelings.” Abraham reached up and ruffled Hunter’s messy tangle of hair.

  A loud bang reverberated from the gym, followed by the thing pounding against the double doors, shaking the crippled foundation. Panic exploded in his chest. Abrahams’s eyes gleamed as one of the double doors tore from the frame with a thunderous clap.

  In a smooth, sucking motion, the thing devoured the entrance like a supernatural monster. The meatloaf’s terrible maw splintered every piece of debris in a nauseating, slurping sound of chaos. The abomination lowered its blocked-shaped frame and hissed. Its maw unhinged and opened up like a snake getting ready to swallow a man. Its bloated slabs of revolting flesh and bone stuffed into the hall in a hurry.

  Muzzle flashes lit up the dim space as Abraham emptied his pistol. Hunter fired the rifle as fast as he could. Neither had damaged the monster. The only thing they managed was to send the abomination into a rage. It jeered and squeezed as it inched farther down the short hallway. It was like being trapped between two walls, only one had teeth.

  “Well aren’t you pretty?” Abraham croaked, inserting a fresh magazine into the gun. The thing was halfway through the short hall. The thuds of its powerful block frame tearing parts of the drywall were queer on his ears.

  Desperate, he fired till empty again and then holstered the worthless pistol, regretting leaving the big guns in the Blazer. “Get back,” he said. Abraham squeezed his eyes shut as he whipped out his trusty hammer, poking his tongue into cheek. Nobody was hurt, but he knew it was only a matter of time. He tried to remember his wife’s face, but couldn’t. All he saw was his grandson getting torn to piece in the fast-approaching demonic maw of the abomination. Not on my watch.

  Hunter pressed against the locked door, fumbling another bullet into the chamber. There was no were else to go or hide.

  “Stay behind me,” Abraham ordered, taking two steps forward. Life wasn’t fair, but he would be torn to shreds if it gave his grandson a chance. “Fuck you and your red bitch mother.” He stood with his chin raised toward the advancing abomination, his angry eyes boiling in a crimson hate.

  Hunter fired his rifle again. This time he aimed for the sloping roof. Part of the ceiling caved in, trapping the monster in a sudden mess of debris.

  Abraham had never been so proud.

  The stuck freak responded with an ear bleeding sound that was sure to peel paint. At that moment, a small swarm of bees, no locust, no something he’d never seen on God’s green earth came boiling out like missiles. The swarm burned forward, attacking sections of his heavy coat and jeans. Abraham ogled the freak with rebellious intent as he swatted at the outlandish bugs. He never saw anything like them, not even in his dreams.

  Then, Hunter stumbled forward. His grandson must have been under some sort of trance. For whatever reasoning’s raging in his mind, he must have felt compelled to prove himself worthy of courage. This shocked Abraham. He reacted with a quick hand across Hunter’s chest. “Stay back!” The look in his grandson’s eyes was one tainted in hypnosis. He didn’t have any proof other than the lost gaze in his grandson’s eyes.

  “Let me die,” Hunter screamed. Hunter was no longer thinking of his own accord. It was as if the abomination was willing him forward. His grandson struggled to get through him, ready to run into the unhinged jaws of the beast.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Abraham asked, holding him back

  “Hey!” someone screamed from behind. It was Emme.

  Abraham pushed and shoved his enthralled grandson through the open maintenance door and followed. A gang of the bugs managed to slip inside the maintenance bay before the door was secured. This was a problem.

  ***

  A boom of thunder ricocheted through the ruins. The monsoon hammered against what was left of the structure. Jeffery howled and howled as he killed off the remaining bugs that resembled a dragon fly only bigger. The boy paced back and forth and resisted Emme’s verbal commands to quiet down. The bugs really upset him.

  The air shifted between cold and hot. It had iced the sweat dripping down Abraham’s crumpled face. “This boy’s a nightmare,” Abraham snapped. Sure Jeffery walked on two legs most of the time, with real blood pumping through his veins. However, the boy’s mind was long expired. Whatever Jeffery had experienced would be a feast for a psychologist, but for a group of nobodies trying to survive, it was nothing more than the calling card of death. “Shut him up before I do!”

  Emme pulled Jeffery into her lap and ran a finger through the tangle of his mane. “I’m sorry,” she said. He could tell she was exhausted and frustrated. “He needs to heal.”

  “Healing,” Abraham bellowed. “Life has become a festering wound. There is no healing!” If there was an abyss worse than what the world had become, he didn’t want to know it. He slid his sweat stained back down the wall and closed his eyes. What have I got us into?

  The thing, the terrible abomination had slithered out of the collapsed hall. At least that’s the way it sounded. However, to Abraham that meant it was searching for another way into the mainten
ance bay.

  For the moment, the wild boy simmered down. “I… Sorry,” he muttered. It was the first time the boy really spoke.

  “We should be safe in here until dawn,” Hunter said, out of breath.

  Abraham didn’t understand whatever darkness came over Hunter. It was like a mind suck from the beast compelled Hunter to attack. It must have been drawing him forward only to tear him to pieces. This was something he didn’t understand.

  Emme held her flashlight out in front of her, pointing toward a snapping sound. The wind ramped up as a sharp piece of metal thrashed against the side of one of the big roll down doors. Something swirling in the storm tore a huge gash in the garage styled door. Together they watched with nervous anticipation for several minutes. Would the dead attempt to use the hole?

  Nothing came. Then, a cracking sound erupted outside the door.

  Abraham shivered from head to toe, his imagination running wild. Nothing in the dying world was easy. What could it be? More of Bob’s men? Maybe it was Sam?

  Instead, standing in the shadows, Bob Hatchet was drenched in cords of volley. His bandaged stump dripped in a mixture of water and blood. His footsteps echoed on the cold, hard ground.

  “Did you think you were safe?” Bob asked, his teeth chattering loud as a hammer on a nail. He regarded the ebony-skinned girl huddled up near him.

  Abraham felt stupid for not noticing Sam. He shot to his feet, ready to face his old comrade. A flick of Emme’s wrist brought the flashlight down a little, exposing the petrified face of Sam Downs. She was his prisoner now. Bob wrapped his bleeding stump around the damaged girl, biting at his lower lip.

  “Caring has made you weak. Still, this beautiful black girl is young, sassy, and full of life and laughter. You remember a Russian girl like that? You remember what I did to her?”

  Abraham couldn’t find the words to speak. I did this to Sam.