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

  Finally, he made it to his old room. It hadn’t changed any more than Ellie had. He plopped down on his bed and sighed, then laughed nervously.

  “They haven’t touched a thing, have they? Looks like they were expecting you back,” Ellie commented, stretching out next to him.

  “Then it looks like they were right.”

  ***

  They locked the house well and then returned to Sam’s room. They crashed and slept fitfully. Sam wept in his sleep and Ellie held him and whispered into his ear that things would be all right, though they both knew nothing was ever going to be all right again.

  It was storming when they woke, and well into evening. The darkness of the country was startling after being away for so long.

  Sam climbed from the bed and groped around blindly. “I can’t see a fucking thing,” he muttered.

  Then downstairs there was a sudden THUNK, as if a door slammed. Sam stood stock still a moment and the only sounds were the wind and rain and their frightened breathing.

  Then another THUNK. This one was softer. It was followed by footsteps on the warped floorboards.

  “Oh shit,” Ellie whispered. “What do you think that was?”

  Sam found the flashlight he had taken from the kitchen and suddenly the room was illuminated with a soft yellow glow. “Maybe the wind,” he offered, “blowing a door shut.” Wishful thinking, but Ellie knew better. She picked up her rifle and moved to the door. She opened it an inch or so and peered out into the dark hallway.

  There was a big window at the far end of the hall and when lightning flashed again, she could see the stooped silhouette walking slowly toward them.

  “My God!” Ellie whispered, “I think it might be your father.“

  “What? Really?“ Sam quickly yanked the door open brushed past her. “Dad?”

  “No, Sam. Wait!” Ellie cried, grabbing at his shirt. “You don’t know--”

  “Dad? Where’s Mom? Is she all right?”

  Neil Clark moved closer. He was bent, lumbering, his face shrouded in shadow. Sam opened his arms to embrace his father and as Mr. Clark leaned in toward his son lightning brightened the hallway again. Stark light touched the man’s face only a moment, but that was all Ellie needed. Face as pale as a blank page, dark lifeless eyes that appeared dusted over. Dried blood crusted his lips. His clothes were stiff with gore and Ellie could smell him, the stench of decay, the hot stink of death.

  He bared his teeth and his dirty eyes rolled back into his skull as if he were in ecstasy as he drew his son to him. He was going to sink his dirty teeth into Sam’s neck.

  Then BAM! BAM! Two shots and Neil Clark’s entire head was gone.

  Ellie stepped closer, her rifle still up and still ready. Sam was sprawled on the floor on his ass, as if he had been shot himself.

  “Goddamn! Ellie?”

  Blood misted down, putrid and crimson-black onto Sam’s legs. It splattered the floor, the walls behind them. The smell was of something spoiled.

  Sam sat a moment, staring at the remains of his father. Then he began to tremble violently. Ellie kneeled beside him and cradled his head against her breasts. “Shhh. Sam, we’re going to get through this.” He cried a while and she cried with him, her face buried into his warm hair. She knew Sam was identified by those he loved. He was nothing now.

  They both were nothing now but fresh meat. And the world was starving.

  ***

  Ellie wrapped Mr. Clark in a sheet and comforter from the master bedroom. She had removed the man’s belt and had clinched it tight around the covers. He was as tightly wrapped as a Cuban cigar.

  Sam watched her--emotionless, methodical. She was stronger than he ever realized. She would survive this if she stayed immune. If anything, he was slowing her down, putting her in more danger.

  “Just don’t look at it, Sam,” she told him.

  Together, she and Sam carried Neil Clark down the stairs and out to the back porch. Blood had soaked through the covers where his head should have been, patches like oil on cloth.

  “And don’t think of it as your father. He wasn’t in there. You know he wasn’t.”

  Sam nodded, sick to his stomach. Ellie mentioned burying the body and it first it seemed a good idea. But then Sam wondered if the bright glare from the flashlight, the noise and movement might draw more like his father to the house. They decided to leave him for the night.

  ***

  They found nails in the drawers of Mr. Clark’s workshop at the back of the garage and they nailed the first floor windows closed. They nailed two-by-fours at the base of the doors, making them impossible to open from the outside.

  Exhausted, they crawled into Sam’s small bed. He could not bring himself to use his parent’s room, although the bed was much larger.

  Ellie found several candles downstairs in an emergency pack, and stood them on his dresser, nightstand and along the windowsill. She lit them it they illuminated his old room in wavering orange and yellow.

  Sam crawled across his bed to the shelf that was braced on the wall above his headboard. “I think I may have something here that’s fairly valuable. Unless of course my parents discovered it.” He laughed, remembering that his mother and father did indeed enjoy weed on occasion.

  He thumbed through a stack of old paperbacks. Horror stories--Stephen King, most of them. Little did he know back when he first read them, he would one day be living his own horror story. He chose “The Stand,” his favorite of the bunch--a big fat volume, well read by the look of the split spine. He flipped through the pages slowly.

  “Ah,” he said, smiling. He produced a flattened, crooked joint from the center of the book. “Look at that.” It was a pretty sad looking thing, but it would serve the purpose.

  He fired it up with one of the flickering candles and then took a long hit. Holding breath, he passed it over to Ellie.

  ***

  It wasn’t long before they were pleasantly high. Ellie didn’t know it if was the exhaustion, or just the simple need to have their minds shut down for a while, but she could not remember ever feeling the effects of marijuana so quickly.

  “Remember how we’d huddle by the window and smoke, thinking how clever we were?” She laughed and touched his chest. “You’d always stuff a t-shirt along the bottom of the door so the smell wouldn’t seep out.”

  “I was so afraid my parents would find out,” he told her. “Turns out they had a bigger stash than I did. Old hippies, you know,” he whispered wistfully. Then, sounding shy he added, “You know something? They could hear us in here making love.”

  Ellie felt her face grow warm with embarrassment. “Shut up!”

  “Yep,” Sam went on. Dad told me after we broke up. Said he couldn’t understand it, considering how well we seemed to get on.”

  Ellie thought of Neil Clark again--handsome, a bit flirtatious. Hilarious. Then the image of his stained teeth parting against Sam’s neck, his jaundice-yellow eyes rolling back like the eyes of a feeding shark, invaded her mind. She shook her head quickly, as if that would erase those thoughts from her mind.

  For an instant, lightning brightened the hazy room and she caught Sam staring at her dreamily. He was just as cute as he use to be, she thought. She wondered a moment what if...

  She smiled and breathed out a thin stream of smoke. The smell of the pot disguised the stench of decay left by the mess that had been Sam‘s father.

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter how much noise we make now,” she said.

  “I suppose not,” Sam agreed. He pinched the joint out and left it on the nightstand.

  “For old time’s sake?” he asked.

  “For old time’s sake,” she whispered.

  ***

  Outside the storms continued. In the dancing light from outside, Ellie looked lovely as she began to undress. Sam realized he had forgotten what a true beauty she was.

  He smiled up at her, a bit dazed, a bit stoned. He giggled, unable to help himself.

  “It�
��s been one fucked up twenty-four,” he said.

  She moved over to the bed and he slipped his hands around her waist. He took one of her nipples into his mouth.

  “Mmmm,” she sighed. Then she shoved him back down onto the bed and climbed on top of him.

  Sex was clumsy and out of synch, as if they had never been lovers. At one point Sam called out Katy’s name, then apologized quickly.

  “It’s all right,” Ellie told him. “Neither of us really want to be here, do we?”

  Images of his lost wife and daughter refused to leave his mind’s eye and he wilted. Ellie rolled away with a frustrated little groan.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, pathetically.

  She stretched out next to him and lit the remaining twig of the joint. “It’s no biggie,” she said.

  “Got that right,” he attempted to joke.

  They lay there in silence, looking only at the smoke swirling up and up like thin ghosts. Sam wanted to ask Ellie about her life, but what was the point? Her life was gone, just as his was.

  Guns within reach, they dozed. At one point, they were startled awake by a loud thump. The wind had indeed blown the screen door open this time. It banged angrily back against the house, then closed again.

  “I am so afraid,” Sam whispered.

  “I am too, Sam,” Ellie answered in the dark.

  Hearts pounding and eyes roving the darkness for any moving shape, they waited for dawn’s merciful return.

  ***

  Days passed. The electricity was sporadic and things in the refrigerator began to spoil. The entire house carried that same sickly-sweet smell that had been with Neil Clark. Sam gathered the rotting food into a garbage bag and took it out back, far from the house. Ellie covered him, her rifle poised, a scowl on her face against the bright sun. They saw nothing.

  They buried Sam’s father on the edge of the soybean field beyond the lawn because the earth was easier to turn there. They said a few words and neither of them cried. Tears had run dry days ago, replaced by an odd no-feeling.

  That feeling, that numbness was somehow more frightening than the fear and the sadness.

  Sam found his eyes always drawn to the soft sloping hills at the horizon, watching for shuffling, stooped figures coming to find them.

  He wondered what had happened to his mother, but forced himself to think of other things. The “what-ifs” were too horrible to envision.

  Ellie began to have a cautious sense of safety and she tried to infect him with it. He wanted to humor her, but he knew things could change quickly.

  Supplies held for the most part, but Sam was sick of canned vegetables and fruits. The Clarks considered themselves a frugal pair, and they had visited the shopper’s clubs often. Sam had always teased their overbuying, but now he was certainly glad they had. Especially when he went to the cellar and discovered five cases of imported beer stacked in the cool darkness.

  They passed the time having sex, getting drunk and listening to music. His parents had one hell of a jazz collection and they had a constant loop of Coltrane, Davis, Parker, and an army of others. He had hated that music growing up, but it was comfort now. They slow danced like they were anywhere beside an old farmhouse waiting for the world to end.

  Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday sang them to sleep at night--”Under a Blanket of Blue,” and “Autumn In New York”--their dreamy voices echoing in through a tunnel created by paranoia and alcohol.

  ***

  On the tenth day, the cats began gather. Sam did not notice anything unusual at first--one or two cats slinking around. It was farm country, after all. Cats always hung around and most times his mother or father would end up feeding them. But by dusk, it had grown to something much more than just one or two.

  The mewling, mournful crying was suddenly audible even over the music. “What the hell was that?” Ellie asked.

  Sam switched down the volume and Sarah Vaughn faded into the background for a moment. He peered out the living room window and could not believe what he saw. There were a thousand eyes staring back at him. Reflected silver and ghostly in the moonlight, unblinking. He nearly screamed, then realized it was only cats.

  Only cats.

  “You’re not gonna to believe this,” he said.

  Ellie came over, put her face next to his and looked out.

  They were everywhere, crowding the porch railings. The steps. The rocking chairs and the little side table out there. They paced the lawn, droves of them. Waiting.

  Sam and Ellie could hear light footfalls on the roof even, pawing at the upstairs windows. The crying was like that of infants alone and starving.

  Sam’s father had always kept a big bag of Kitty Chow in the garage, to feed those slinking visitors and he ran out to get it.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ellie wanted to know.

  “We can’t let them starve to death.”

  When he opened the front door, the cats scattered like roaches in the light. He emptied the bag on the front walkway, fifteen pounds at least.

  The cats stampeded back and Sam rushed back into the house, surprised and startled. Ellie slammed the door behind him.

  “So, what happens when they eat that up?” Ellie asked. She had never liked cats, and Sam could see she was not thrilled with a herd of them just outside the door.

  It did not take long to find out what would happen when the food was gone. It was a gruesome scene as they began to tear into one another. The smaller ones went down first, torn apart by the bigger ones. Sam watched the nightmare out the window, his hand nervously rubbing his beard roughened jaw. “I can’t believe I caused this,” he whispered, although in the grand scheme of things, he knew a bunch of cats were insignificant.

  Ellie pulled him away from the window by the hand and then she switched the music back up, even louder than before, to mask the growls and cries outside.

  ***

  He had lost count of the days, but he knew it had been more than a week since the cat incident. It was more the stink of the cat carcasses rotting outside that kept them indoor than the fear of one of the infected paying a visit.

  They grew bored and both began to wonder what if anything was left outside the valley. Food was dwindling down. The beer was nearly gone. Sam longed for the ocean and the sun and began to consider returning to the coast. He would ask Ellie to go with him, he decided. Of course, if she did not want to go there, he would stay with her. The idea of being so totally alone scared the hell out of him.

  Ellie began to show signs of infection on a Tuesday evening, shortly after an ill attempted venture to some of the neighboring houses. Their only encounter with anyone was with a guy they had known back in grade school. Peter. Peter-somebody.

  Pete had always been a bit off and when they discovered him, he was sitting crossed-legged on the floor in a pool of his own waste. The stench was tremendous. It had soaked into his jeans and up the hem of his t-shirt, some caked and dry, some quite fresh. He had devoured his left foot to the bone.

  He seemed to be completely unaware of their presence in the house.

  “Shoot him,” Ellie said.

  “He’s not doing anything, Ellie,” Sam protested. “Let’s just leave him. He’ll be dead soon enough.”

  “He’s dead now. Do it. He knows we‘re here--”

  “You can’t really believe that. He hasn’t even moved.”

  “Look, you go into the kitchen and see if you can find anything we can use. I’ll watch him.”

  Sam shrugged and went to search the cupboards. It was only a few moments it seemed, before he heard a scuffle, then the shots. He jumped, heart thundering, dropping cans of food onto the floor.

  “Ellie!”

  He found her sitting on the floor grasping her calf. Peter-somebody was sprawled on the floor, his rotting brains spilling all over the rug. His legs still twitched slightly.

  “I told you, Sam!”

  “What the hell--”

  “He fucking bit me.”<
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  “Here, let me see.” He took her hand and pulled away. Blood jetted from the ragged wound and he nearly fainted dead away. He took a deep breath and pressed her hand back over it. “I’ll find some gauze or something.”

  “Fucking lot of help that is,” Ellie muttered. “Cut my leg off, Sam. Maybe it’s not in my bloodstream yet.”

  Sam pretended not to hear her and fled to the bathroom in search of a first aid kit.

  She was showing signs of infection before the night was over. Very soon he would be alone again.

  ***

  Now he sat, waiting, back against his bedroom door, Ellie‘s rifle lying on the floor next to him. She had gone crazy an hour ago, tore up his room, then went into a rant about how fucking weak he was. How stunted. How sniveling. She screamed through the door that she had dumped him on her own; not because of the constant prodding from her family. He was weak and most times she only stayed with him because she had pitied him. She cursed him with language saved for sailors and death row inmates. She clawed at the door furiously and he could imagine her nails splintering and peeling back from the ends of her fingers.

  She begged him for death, before things went even further south. He promised over and over again that he would.

  He lied. He’d always been able to spit out a lie as easily as the truth.

  He could smell the death stink coming under the door. He could hear her breath against the wood, almost as if it were on the back of his neck.

  “I’ll break through this fucking door, Sam. I will take you down with me for doing this,” she whispered, wet and slurred. “I will take you down and you will hurt like I hurt right now.”

  Sam reasoned that surely there were others out there that were not infected, but those thoughts quickly turned to the possibility of being the only one left. Was there a reason to go on, if he was to be all alone? Besides, did he actually think he could survive long enough to find others?