Under a Blanket of Blue: Tales of the Living Dead (Bits of Flesh Series) Read online

  Under a Blanket of Blue

  First Edition

  Published by E-Volve Books

  Copyright ©2012 Donna Burgess

  Cover illustration copyright © 2012 by Donna Burgess

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  Under a Blanket of Blue

  Sam Clark knew he’d kept her locked in that back bedroom too long when she began to eat chunks of her own face. Pinched off with ragged nails, and when he peered in through the keyhole at her, he could see the hard white flashes of sharp cheekbone stark against her dusky complexion. She had taken her own top lip first off and was now wearing this awful permanent grin. Her speech was odd, like a person who had been loaded with Novocain. Her teeth were stained with her own blood.

  He moved away from the keyhole and sat back down against the door. He cried into his hands. Should have done it when the first symptoms hit.

  At the onset, she’d wanted to argue with him one moment, then the next, she wanted to make up, to make love. He was afraid of her. When he indicated that he did not want to touch her, she scratched his cheek with those ragged nails and called him a weak little fuck.

  Later, she begged him to do it--to put a bullet into her head. He promised he would do it as she slept. But it’s hard to shoot your first love in the head. No matter that she was becoming something from a cheap horror movie. And even harder when it was beginning to appear that he might well be completely alone in the world when Ellie was gone.

  She later asked for the gun, so she could do it herself, but she had been in one of those irrational moods when she’d asked. He was afraid to hand the gun over, lest she put a hole in his head instead.

  Now he sat, a broken man, a weak man, smelling the scent of feces and blood and sickness wafting up from under the door.

  ***

  The beginning of the end did not happen like in the movies. There was no slow spreading, no sense of building dread. No media-generated suspense. This was the blink of an eye. An anticlimax, that was what it was. It was Christmas morning and realizing that there was really nothing there to be excited over. It was a trip to the doctor to check a lump that turned out to be a pimple. Most of the major cities along the eastern seaboard had fallen by the time the first headlines hit the streets.

  He’d seen a segment about it on the evening news. He’d been sitting at Kelsey’s Pub, overlooking the beach, drinking after work. Not that work was all that stressful. That weak thing, again. Four years of college to get paid for teaching little tourist kids to surf. He got paid--not very well, of course--to play on the beach. The television sat virtually ignored above the bar, the anchor’s voice muted out in favor of Buffet on the jukebox. Film footage--it was the end of the world, played out to the strains of “Come Monday.” The guy on the stool next to him stopped gnawing a buffalo wing long enough to comment, “Some government monkey must have dropped a vial.” He snorted bitterly and wiped away greasy orange smear of hot sauce from his chin.

  “Must have,” Sam agreed. Then he thought nothing more of it. He had a dozen sessions lined up for tomorrow. Besides, Maine was a long way from where he sat then. Government mistake or not, things would be back under control in no time.

  He pulled up out front of his place--a little beach cottage rental, just this side of falling in. Katy had locked the door and shut off all the lights, evidentially pissed that he was out so late. He fumbled clumsily with his keys in the dark, half-expecting the cool-leather touch of a snake or a lizard against his bare ankle.

  Inside, he weaved through the dark living room and into the bedroom where he saw that Katy had put the baby there in bed with her. Despite the fact that this was Katy’s little signal to him that the sofa was his spot for the night, he smiled drunkenly as he looked down at his little daughter in the pale moonlight. Then he shrugged and went back out into the living room.

  He found another beer in the fridge and downed it, then passed out to a grainy old science fiction movie.

  It was just before 6:00 a.m. when he heard the screaming. He sprang up, not even awake yet, his heart thudding inside his chest painfully. He stumbled over the cocktail table, fell sprawling and wracking both knees on the floor, and scrambled down the hall to his bedroom.

  He stopped dead at the door.

  Thinking back upon that moment now, as his childhood sweetheart ate the flesh of her own pretty face, he realized that was the precise moment he went a little mad.

  Katy was kneeling on the bed. One of baby Chance’s chubby eighteen month-old legs in each straining fist.

  It took a horrible moment for him to register exactly what he was seeing. Then he saw that part of Chance’s torso was gaping open. The child writhed, howling in agony. Blood gushed from the wound. It was painted Katy’s mouth and up onto her fish-white cheeks like a clown’s smile.

  “Katy?” he croaked. “Katy, what the hell have you done?”

  Katy glared at him through cloudy eyes. Her always perfect blond hair was now a tangled nest.

  “Young meat is tender meat, but you’re next, you drunk motherfucker!” she snarled. Then she tossed the baby to the floor. Chance landed with a terrible thunk and howled even louder, if that was possible.

  Katy slid off the bed and shambled toward Sam. She hiked up her blood-soaked cotton nightie and did a sick parody of seduction. “You know you want it, Sammy. Come and get it.”

  He stepped back, shaking his head. “No.”

  “I’ll bite your little dick right the fuck off.”

  He ran from her then, believing every word she said. He could not recall her ever using that type of language with him. She had never raised her voice to him before, not in their three years of marriage. Not even when he’d deserved it.

  He fled the house, and he was screaming like a child running from the boogieman. “Oh God! Oh God!” and out the door, clearing the front porch steps like a hurdle. He tugged the door of the Wrangler open and tore open the glove box. He kept a loaded .38 in there. He’d bought it after a failed carjacking attempt back when he was in school. He had never fired it.

  Every few seconds, he glanced back toward the house to see if Katy was coming for him. He waited a moment, but she never appeared.

  ***

  Back inside the baby was silent. The entire house was silent, for that matter, except for that dratted leaking faucet he had promised to tighten. He held the gun out in front of him and he could not stop it from shaking. The thing felt too heavy and awkward in his fist.

  He moved slowly through the little house, rubbing at his sleep-blurred eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Katy?”

  Drip. Drip.

  Outside the bedroom and he could smell the patchouli incense Katy burned sometimes. But now it was mingled with a foul stench of waste--vomit or shit. And the metallic air of freshly spilled blood. A lot of it.

  Closer and he could hear Katy. Chewing. Chewing on what? Jesus! Lips smacking wet and loud.

  He screamed again--could not help himself and plunged through the half-closed bedroom door.

  He shot his wife in the face three times before he ever realized he had actually pu
lled the trigger.

  Katy fell back and Chance’s legs dropped from her dead grip. Katy had started in on the baby’s thick, soft thighs. Bone and muscle peeked through, glistening.

  The baby twitched on the floor between the bed and her crib. Then she twisted around to face him, a look of recognition in her clouding blue eyes. Blood was everywhere--on the walls, the bedcovers, the drapes. It pooled on the floor like spilled paint. The twitching worsened and then the baby began to howl again. Sam shot the baby, his lack of experience with the gun causing him to only graze her face. He moved the gun up a fraction of an inch and then he turned away.

  He pulled the trigger again and all was silent except for the drip drip of that fucking faucet. In a breath, his entire world was gone.

  His knees turned to mush and he sank to the floor, too confused to know what to do. Then he pressed the gun to his own head.

  But he was weak. So fucking weak.

  ***

  He fled the island and headed back home to his parent’s place. The drive was perilous thing, the interstate an obstacle course, a scenic tour of horror.

  Here and there vehicles were stalled and he kept expecting to finally reach a stretch that was impassable. Along the way, he spotted a number of the shambling infected along the shoulder of the road. Some chased the Wrangler and others stood and screamed at him as he passed. He drove faster than he should have through the maze of twisted steel, but amazingly he did not wreck.

  There was a big pile-up about fifteen miles from his parent’s place and he managed to maneuver along the shoulder, the needle hovering at a steady five miles per hour for a quarter mile. He thought he’d never get through it. The sun was up and already hot and he could smell death in some of those battered cars. As he crept gingerly past the last of the mess he thought he heard someone crying out for help. He did not dare stop.

  He prayed he could make it back to Holly Hill before needing gas. His parents lived only 60 miles inland, in a tiny rural community. He hoped the sparse population he had always loathed was a good thing after all.

  He found himself dwelling on the events of the morning. He thought he might be in shock. He felt mind-numb and outside of himself watching everything unfold as of he were watching a particularly terrifying flick one moment, and overcome with grief the next.

  He wondered if he might have been able to save the baby. Why hadn’t he tried? Why hadn’t he tried to stop the blood? Tears came again, blurring the road ahead.

  He tried the radio and found static along most of the dial. On AM, there was the faint, manic ramblings of an evangelist and Sam quickly discovered he preferred the static to that.

  He squinted into the midmorning sun and wondered if the entire world was gone now. And if so, why hadn’t he been infected yet? How many others were out there beside the crazy evangelists and himself?

  ***

  Holly Hill was indeed the ghost town he was expecting. He cruised slowly down Main Street, scanning the front of the little shops for any sign of life.

  He turned up Fifth Avenue and passed Tanner’s Hardware. The door stood ajar and he pulled to a stop out front and tried to see inside.

  At the back of the store, he could see movement. He turned off the Jeep and climbed out, taking the .38 and stuffing it into the waist of his jeans. He had been on that street a thousand times but this was the first time he had ever been afraid.

  Cautiously, he approached the door of the old shop, turning slowly to check behind him. He stood in the doorway, the sun pouring in and casting deep shadows along the aisles, and let his eyes adjust.

  “Mr. Tanner?” he called. “You in here?”

  He stepped inside and walked slowly toward the back of the store. The shadowy figure continued to move.

  “It’s Sammy Walker, Mr. Tanner.”

  Down the dusty aisles closer to the back counter he walked. He pulled the gun from his jeans and held it ready. On either side of him were various types of screws, nails, bolts and washers, all in big glass pickle jars. Drill bits followed, then big angry looking saw blades hanging neatly on long pegs. A big proponent of organization was Joe Tanner, almost to the point of obsession.

  Sam could now make out Mr. Tanner’s sloping shoulders and shiny bald head. The man’s back was to him and his movements seemed strange. Jerking and spastic. Sam’s finger danced over the trigger of his gun. He called out again.

  Joe Tanner turned slowly. “Sammy,” he whispered. Sam could see that Mr. Tanner’s left ear and part of his face on that side was missing.

  “See this shit?” he asked. “One of those bastards bit my face. Came right in into my fucking place and bit my face!” He smiled and nodded at Sam. “Came back here, boy. I wanna show you something.”

  Sam took a tentative step closer, but his heart sank as he watched Mr. Tanner’s head jerk spasmodically on his thick neck.

  “You okay?”

  “Hell no. Do I look okay?” Tanner shouted. Then added more calmly, “Can’t get organized lately. Can’t get organized... Like my head’s not working like it was.”

  Sam moved still closer, the gun shaking but ready.

  “Look at this, Sammy,” Tanner said. Then he motioned to a line of jars that sat along the counter. Jars that Sam had not noticed until now. Blood had congealed on the old wood, pooling around the base. It had run under the register and was drying there, thick. Flies buzzed busily here and there. The smell was sickening and Sam tried to breath through his mouth.

  The first of the jars held what first looked like gumballs. But as Sam looked closer, he realized that he was hugely mistaken. Not gumballs but eyeballs. There were a couple of dozen at least, bloodshot and staring, blue ones and brown. Some appeared healthy and others jaundiced.

  The next jar contained what appeared to be tongues, going brown and shriveled.

  Sam did not stick around long enough to look closely at the other two jars. He spun around and took off down the aisle and back toward the front door.

  “Come on back, Sammy,” Mr. Tanner called to him as he ran. “Come on back, you weak little fuck and put me out of my misery! I ain’t man enough to do it myself!”

  ***

  Sam was driving up Cemetery Road away from town when he spotted the girl walking along. She had a deer rifle slung across her narrow back. He recognized that shape immediately and smiling, he skidded to a stop along side her.

  “I’d know that ass anywhere,” he said to her through the open window.

  ***

  It was an amazing thing, finding Ellie out there, alive, heading back to her old homeplace as well.

  Ellie Johnson was his only real girlfriend before Katy, and the first love of his life. She was the girl he would have married if her parents had not been so determined to keep them apart.

  It had been almost five years since he had last seen her, but she had not changed one bit. A green-eyed beauty, high cheekbones and a full, expressive mouth. Her mocha skin was flawless and still unlined.

  They had gone together through most of their high school years and into college. Until her parents decided enough was enough and sent her to France to study art.

  Of course, he knew his own parents were relieved when Ellie went away, though they never allowed him to see it. He knew. All in all it was best for Ellie to end things with him. He was barely sliding by in school and heading to nowheresville fast.

  She rode next him in the Jeep, her rifle across her lap now. Her clothes were dirty. Her curly hair was tangled and wild. He had never seen her looking less than perfect, and again the awareness of the situation was forced home once again.

  “Been to your parents already?” he asked.

  She nodded. “They were gone. All I found was this.” She pulled a folded slip of paper from her jeans. “Says they went up to Charlotte to check on my grandma.” She shrugged. “I doubt they made it,” she said, a bit too matter-of-fact for his taste. It made Sam’s heart ache, although he knew that the Johnson’s never liked him.
/>   “You don’t know that--”

  “What about your family, Sam?” she interrupted. “Your real family. Katy wasn’t it?”

  Sam turned and pretended to look out the side window a moment. He bit his lip and pinched back the hot sting of tears. Saying what had happened would make it real. It would make it final.

  “I can’t talk about that yet,” he whispered.

  Ellie touched his shoulder gently and they drove on in silence until they reached the house where Sam grew up.

  ***

  Going back home for Sam had always been sweet because his mother always ran out to greet him.

  Today, there was nobody to greet him.

  His home was a big farmhouse, over one hundred years old. His parents had restored it with all the modern conveniences they could afford on the modest salaries of an elementary school principal and small town newspaper reporter. White clapboard siding, blanketed along the front porch railing in sweet, fragrant jasmine that was home to more than a few snakes in the summer months. Azaleas lined the base of the house along all sides, bloody reds, pinks like cotton candy, lacey white.

  He had always missed the sweet smell of home as much as anything else. The shrubs, the grass, even the dirt from the recently tilled fields of cropland that surrounded his parents’ land.

  “Anyone here?” he called as he climbed the front steps. Ellie followed, her rifle ready in her hands.

  The house was as silent as a tomb, save for the drip drip of the faucet in the kitchen. It had always dripped, even after the remodel. His mother claimed it was their poltergeist. It only helped remind him of the horrors of the morning back at the beach cottage.

  They moved from room to room, Sam now gripping his own gun and praying he would not have to use it on his own parents. But he knew in his heart that he had already done the most difficult thing he would ever have to do in his life.

  In through the foyer and living room, then the kitchen. It appeared they had only gone out to the market for a loaf of bread or some milk. The downstairs was empty.

  They then moved upstairs, the boards creaky and lonesome under their feet. Sam moved from room to room, growing more relieved with each passing moment. He couldn’t begin to decide what would be worse--finding the half devoured corpses of his parents or his parents coming to devour him. But it was beginning to appear that his parents had fled just as Ellie’s folks had.