Darlings of Decay Read online

  They looked dead. If they weren’t, some sort of nerve disease cut their ability to feel. Some of them had no limbs, no insides, eyes.

  Yes, a nightmare he had many times. Every time his wife made him watch a movie, whether scary or lame, he had nightmares about them. The big man’s insides shuddered with disgust as his mind raced to comprehend what was happening. He couldn’t help but stare at them, watching them, taking relief in the fact that he was safe from them for the time being.

  The call of the platoon sergeant, yelling out, “Orders are in. Do it.”

  Jack knew what that meant.

  They were just waiting for the shoot to kill order.

  Specialist Carlson chuckled outward before blasting one single shot into the forehead of one of them.

  Rapid fire rang out and Jack raised his weapon.

  Be smart, he thought, you’ve seen enough movies. Just like Carlson, you know where to hit. Jack didn’t waste time. He performed head shots and that was it.

  “Quit wasting ammo,” A soldier yelled out. “They aren’t going down unless you aim for the head. Aim for the head!”

  How right that was. Those who randomly shot only caused the creatures to jolt a few times and keep on in their pursuit. A single shot to the head ended it.

  There were hundreds upon hundreds, and maybe thirty soldiers to do the job. Jack knew there were plenty of troops to take them all out, as long as they shot carefully and with precision.

  Jack’s big concern wasn’t in ending the current situation; it was more so on the fact was this it? Or God forbid, were there more out there. Even scarier, if there were, they certainly weren’t behind barbed wire fences.

  CHAPTER TEN

  May 7th

  Hans was grateful he was seated in the back of the plane and that the person seated next to him had one too many cocktails before boarding. The overweight man snored loudly as he slept curled to the window, his hard outward breaths caused condensation against the pane of glass. It covered up the sound of regurgitation.

  Pretty soon, Hans thought, he would stop throwing up. He didn’t drink much, and the amount that spewed forth from his mouth was less and less with each upheaval. He kept his mouth buried to the bag and closed it quickly as to cover the smell. A smell that wasn’t normal.

  After vomiting, he hid the bag, cleared his throat, sat back and pulled the blanket higher. He was cold.

  Feeling as if he could sleep, he closed his eyes.

  “Sir, are you ok?” The gentle voice of Marian asked. He gazed upward to the stewardess, a woman considered ‘older’ for a stewardess. She offered a comforting smile.

  “Air sickness. I suffer terribly from it.”

  “You should have taken something.”

  “I just did,” Hans said. “Hopefully it’ll knock me out for the flight.”

  “If you need anything,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  “Thank you.”

  Another smile, and Marian turned, walking up the aisle, checking on passengers as she moved by them.

  Almost half way through the flight, Hans counted down the hours. Sleep would make them pass by faster, and with that thought, feeling pretty lousy, Hans tried to sleep.

  <><><><>

  Two soldiers were injured. One pretty severely in the camp cleansing. Saul directed those two soldiers, along with the boy and the two already transported to Washington, to be moved to Atlanta where a special quarantine and research center was being set up.

  Number one priority was to stop the virus. If infected, they had to figure out how to stop it. The bacterium wasted away the person, then regenerated the cells without regenerating brain cells. Making them into moving monsters.

  At least in Atlanta they could contain them, detain them, and hopefully try to cure them if not learn from them.

  Col. Manning added one more specific to Saul’s directive.

  Not wanting to chance something happening during transport, any soldier fatally injured, would be spared the torment of a regenerated death.

  Regenerated death. Saul couldn’t believe that was what they were dealing with. Never in all of his imagination did he think he would be dealing with the walking dead.

  But they weren’t really dead. They couldn’t be. Not if they were moving and acting.

  He finished the phone call, and leaned back in his chair.

  Before he released the grip on his phone, he placed one more call.

  “Saul? Saul I didn’t think I’d hear from you,” Irma said concerned.

  “I’m on a plane so we may not have great reception.”

  “A plane.”

  “On my way back to Atlanta.”

  She breathed heavily and the ‘hiss’ of it carried over the line. “Thank God. Thank God. Everything must be fine then. You’re coming home.”

  “Actually, Irma,” Saul paused. He wasn’t going to say much, not at all. He couldn’t. Not on a government phone, but he knew if he said the right words, the right way, that would tell Irma enough. “Actually they are about as strange as strange could be.”

  He ended the call, bringing the phone to his lips in thought.

  A clearing of the throat drew him from that moment and Saul turned around.

  Steven stood before him. He had been in the back of the plane with the infected that they were bringing back to the states. He looked drawn, something wasn’t right.

  “Captain? Are you okay?”

  “I heard you mention the word ‘strange’”

  Saul nodded. “I was speaking to my wife.”

  “It’s about to get stranger.”

  “I don’t understand,” Saul said.

  “Neither do I. But that boy, Juan?”

  “Did he get violent?”

  “No, Sir.” Steven shook his head. “He’s crying.”

  <><><><>

  Medication that rendered a person semi comatose was shipped immediately to the site in Peru before scouting teams were sent out. Platoon leaders were each given ample injections of it.

  The orders were simple. If a soldier became injured through bite or scratch of an infected, they were to immediately turn themselves into whoever was in charge, and receive the injection.

  Slowing the cardio functions slowed the virus, enabling more time to be cured.

  Jack scoffed at that, so did Specialist. Carlson. Relying solely on movie information, both conveyed to each other that they didn’t think anything could stop a zombie transformation. However that was fiction. It was never dealt with in ‘real life’.

  Or was it?

  “How do we know?” Specialist Carlson asked Jack as they moved through a wooded area.

  “True.”

  “I mean, it could have happened before. And it was contained. You just never know. Plus, we do have cool technology with medicine.”

  “True.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Jack was busted. He gave a smile to Carlson. “Trying to get a signal.” He held up his phone.

  “Yeah, well, you just spoke to your wife.”

  “I know, sorry.”

  “Please keep focused. We’re up front, we don’t need something jumping out at us.”

  Jack nodded. He was searching for a signal because he had to abruptly end his talk with Lil. He wanted to tell her so much. He was certain she knew he was worried. Telling her, “If I don’t come back” … said a lot. But he had to end his call and he did so without letting her know what was happening. He wanted to.

  Jack figured out a coded way to do so, he prepared a simple text. One that couldn’t come back negatively to him as if he let secret information out, and one his wife would understand with a little thought and know exactly what was happening. .

  But he couldn’t get a signal to send it out. The text sat in his phone in the ‘outbox’ folder.

  Specialist Carlson said something else. Jack didn’t understand. “What was that?” Jack asked.

  “I said,” Carlson looked back. “I think the
re’s a village about two more miles from …”

  He stopped. Jack was only two feet behind him. Carlson stopped and didn’t move.

  “Hold up,” Jack called out, lifting hand. “Carlson?”

  “It broke the perimeter.” Carlson whispered. “I was hoping they contained it. But it broke.”

  “What do you mean?” Jack asked, then received his answer. Joining Carlson he saw the reason for his concern. A goat with a stick protruded through his mouth lay there. The goat’s fur was half off, its ribcage exposed, the flesh appeared to have been torn, and the body had already entered into a putrefaction stage.

  Jack gagged and covered his mouth.

  “See what I mean?” Carlson said. “Something ate it alive. Then it came back. Someone had to kill it.”

  Jack swallowed the lump and turned around. “Keep your eyes open. We may have infected in these woods.”

  For a while, Jack thought his worry and his wanted to forewarn his wife was premature. Until he saw that goat. Carlson was right it either broke the perimeter or was beyond the perimeter long before the virus was discovered to be deadly.

  Mid stare at the goat, and whispering questions of the men, a ‘bleep’ caught Jack’s attention. He didn’t need to look. He knew what it meant. He had caught the scope of a signal and his message had been sent. Now he hoped she would figure it out.

  <><><><>

  Despite the fact that Jack told her to get it all together, Lil couldn’t bring herself to dig up his military papers that he had in the event of his death.

  That told her something was wrong, but not as much as Jack calling her three times in the middle of the night to say he loved her and she had to know that in case he didn’t come back.

  She asked him three times what was going on, he said he couldn’t tell her. He would figure out a way to tell her more.

  That she understood.

  The last conversation was twenty-nine seconds long and Jack said to her, ‘You of all people are more prepared than anyone I know.’

  Prepared. What was Lil prepared for? Jack’s death? No, it couldn’t be that.

  She went on the internet and looked up Peru. The place Jack had gone. The news talked about a meteor causing mass hysteria illness. Maybe Jack went down to help restore peace. But a conspiracy site said it was more, it was illness out of control. Lil thrived on reading, watching and learning about end of the world scenarios. To her, that was what she was most prepared for.

  Was Jack trying to tell her a virus was about to wipe man into extinction.

  Just as she had that thought, in the midst of trying to find more internet information on the Peru illness, she heard the beep of her phone.

  She lifted it.

  Jack sent a text? Was that his way of saying what was going on?

  She clicked on read and drew more into confusion.

  It wasn’t much. It was three letters. Three letters that added more to her mystery. What was Jack trying to tell her with the text, ‘WWZ’

  Immediately, still in front of the computer, she typed the three letters into the search engine.

  Lil wanted to kick herself when the results returned. She of all people should have recognized the three letters without a second thought, without confusion.

  Jack had to be mistaken. But of all people, Jack wouldn’t joke and would be the last to admit to what he was witnessing.

  If Jack was meaning in his text to refer to zombies, then that was what jack believed he was dealing with.

  On that, Lil got up, locked all the doors and sought out her shotgun.

  <><><><>

  Saul wasn’t expecting the midflight phone call. He was just leaning back, reviewing documentation when the call came. He feared the worst. It had to be bad news. “This is Dr. Klein, what can I do for you, Col. Manning.” Saul asked.

  “We’ve located Dr. Riesman.”

  Saul exhaled. “Great. Where is he?”

  “Are you ready? About three hours outside of Berlin, thirty-thousand feet above the ground.”

  Saul sprang forward. “You’re joking, right?”

  “I wish I wasn’t.”

  It took Saul aback. He had to grasp a moment and reason. Hans on a plane. There was no way he was infected. He knew better. He needed to be sure. Saul ended his call with Col. Manning, both men agreeing to use their resources to get in touch with that plane.

  <><><><>

  Marian hoped she’d get fifteen minutes of sleep without interruption. No such luck. She was summoned to the Captain’s cabin moments after she closed her eyes. She was in charge of their needs, but wished for once they’d call upon someone younger it was quite a hall there. Especially if they wanted something.

  He didn’t want coffee, he wanted something else. “Have some sort of VIP in hiding on the plane,” the Captain said.

  “How do we know?” Marian asked.

  “US Government contacted us. Passenger in 65B. Familiar?”

  “Yes,” Marian nodded.

  “Well, they want us to check on him. Report back, then move him up to first class.”

  “He’s probably sleeping. He was airsick. We have only another half hour of the flight.”

  “I know. But, this is important. Could you go check on him and move him? His name is Dr. Riesman.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Marian smiled, but it was forced. She didn’t feel like walking all the way down the steps then to the back of the plane. Row 65 was the last row.

  But she did.

  The main cabin was dark; the aisle lights were dim but give enough light for her to walk. She’d smile to the few passengers who were still awake, but most of them were sleeping.

  She hated to disturb Dr. Riesman; After all, he had taken that medication.

  Reaching into her apron pocket, she pulled out a small flash light.

  Row 57 she heard something. It was a wet sound, squishing.

  It grew louder as she hit row 62.

  At Row 63, she heard a heavy, gurgling. A breathing that didn’t sound right.

  Had he taken a turn for the worse? The odd sounds grew louder.

  She arrived at row 64 and couldn’t see Dr. Riesman’s head. Perhaps he had gone to the rest room. Another step, a raise of the flashlight, Marian softly called “Dr. Riesman.”

  The beam hit the empty seat of ‘65B’ only for a split second. Into the light, Hans raised his head with a snarl. His mouth opened wide, showing his teeth and blood along with saliva poured out. His eyes flared a deadly blank look.

  Fear had consumed her so much, that she couldn’t get a productive scream.

  Hans shook his head like an animal, shucking remains from his mouth.

  The flashlight tippled from her grip as her hand shot to her mouth and backed up when she watched Hans returned to devouring the man in ‘65 A’.

  Marion was frozen in fear and in shock. She wanted to scream, warn the sleeping passengers. She hadn’t a clue what to do. So she ran. She ran as fast as she could through the plane and up to the Captain’s cabin. “You need a gun.”

  “Marion, what’s wrong?” The Captain spoke calming, standing as he did.

  “A gun. A gun!” Marion screamed, and then broke into hysterics. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  “Marion.” With a firm grip to her and a slight jolt, the Captain vied for her attention. “What is going on? Calm down.”

  Marion cried out. A bone chilling scream, followed by sobs.

  “Greg, I’ll be back.” The Captain moved to the door.

  “Do you want me to go?” Greg asked.

  “No. I’ll see what the problem is. In the meantime, notify Berlin and alert them that we may have a situation.”

  As the Captain began to leave, Marion dove for him, holding on, begging and sobbing ‘please don’t go back there’ repeatedly.

  The Captain pulled her from him, pulled the cabin door closed and walked out.

  Marion dropped to the floor.

  Greg’s radioing to Berlin was mere background nois
e as Marion weakly reached up and locked the door.

  The cockpit was safe and secure.

  No one could get in there. They would be fine until they landed and that would be long.

  Something told Marion that the Captain wouldn’t be back.

  She was right.

  <><><><>

  They arrived at a small village just after dawn. Chickens danced about in the orange hue of morning, people moved, but not slowly. They radioed in to let command know their position. Jack’s patrol was on foot, a vehicle would meet them there.

  The woods didn’t bring anymore incidents. That was good. Jack believed he did overreact and that, really, there was no way it extended into the village. Another animal could have eaten that goat.

  “Spread out, knock on doors,” The platoon sergeant ordered. “Try your best to convey that we are looking for people who are ill.”

  Jack nodded his agreement; he was paired off with Specialist Carlson. The village houses lined a dirt road; he and Carlson were instructed to start at the last one.

  They had just happened upon the home when the door opened and an old woman, maybe eighty emerged. She dropped her bucket when she saw Jack and Carlson, started rambling fast and insidiously in her native language as she ran to them, grabbing them.

  Her face tear streaked her arms dirty.

  As Jack tried to speak with her, he noticed her arms. Dirt? Blood. “Ma’am? Slow down. What is wrong?”

  The door opened again and another woman emerged. High in the air she held sickle by its broken handle. Middle aged, thin. Her eyes widened, she lowered the sickle and she genuinely looked relieved to see them. She hurried to the old woman, pulling her from Jack.

  “Come,” the woman beckoned. “Come.” She waved her arm and led Jack and Carlson around the small house.

  The woman stopped and merely extended her arm to what looked like a small chicken shack. “Husband.”

  Jack asked. “Your husband is in there?”

  She nodded. “Husband” She pointed with the sickle.

  Jack glanced at Carlson and both men took a step.

  The younger of the women, reached out, stopping Jack.