He worked his way through the slippery pile of corpses in the mantrap, staining his clothing with the black ilk draining from some of the corpses. When he finally got past the pile, he vomited down the steps of his porch. Cursing himself for the waste of food, he cleaned out his mouth with water from his canteen. He quickly continued toward the town, keeping to the trees so populous near his home, escaping the stench of his house. He practiced his stealth, moving from tree to tree to rock to bush, all in rapid motion, each with a pause.
The forest was dead, not the leafless dead of late fall, but dead. The trees were dry and twisted as if in agony. The bushes were not much more than a splay of dried sticks bundled tightly by the ground. Stan’s green-based camouflage was out of place in this brown-and-black-colored forest. Desert camouflage would have been more appropriate, he decided when trying to reason what killed an entire forest was too disheartening.
He stopped to rest a bit, knowing he was close to Grove Street, the only road heading into Shady Dale, the town’s exclusive community for the few well-to-dos living in Black Water. He sat against one of the tortured trees and drew his knees up to rest his head. He sat perfectly still, listening to the deafening silence of a dead forest. Stan knew that man was about to end itself, but the emotional impact of it was almost too much for him to grapple with. He would give anything to talk to someone right now, to end this hermit solitude, even after only one night.
A rustling came from far up on the hill. Something still lived in this forest, and by the sound of its progress, it hunted still.
Stan felt a wash of relief. There was still life on this planet. This meant a few things to him: food, companionship if perhaps it were a domesticated pet, a chance that other things still lived as well. He lifted his head and looked up the hill, waiting for the thing to come into view, to see another life going about its business. It seemed small or at least not very heavy by the sound of its footsteps. Since it was obviously hunting, it could be a dog or a fox, possibly one of the small black bears seen occasionally in these parts.
When its head came into view, fear spiked through Stan’s heart like a stiletto. It was a buck, not a predator…at least by nature. This deer was dark in color and more shade than brown. Its eyes were jet-black orbs of unblinking hatred, if a deer could express such a thing. It stepped into a better view, and Stan could see that it was bloated with testosterone in preparation for the rutting season, but its flesh laid rent and clawed from its body, the muzzle laid bare to the bone by some other creature’s savage bite. Atop its head sat a large rack of antlers, bits of bloody tissue dried there like some revolting decoration.
This was not a gentle foraging creature, but an animal gone almost rabid, bent to the same murderous rampage as the people of Black Water. It lifted its head and began to rotate its ears, listening intently until it turned toward Stan, its boney mouth hanging open slightly, its eyes soulless and enraged. It released a wicked distortion of a mule deer’s call and lowered its antlers at Stan.
Stan brought his weapon up in a snap and fired a quick series of three shots. They tore into the death-like shroud of flesh, and the creature stumbled. It then began to charge, its head lowered, and its antlers gleaming with a wet red. Stan fired again, this time shooting round after round until the thing fell, skidding on its chest before coming to rest just before him. It still quivered and jerked, but the deer’s body was ruined, shattered by the many bullets.
Stan stood and left the thing jerking and kicking in the underbrush. If this were all the forest would bear, there would be very little to eat indeed. No matter what the thing looked like, it bled black liquid and smelled of rotting flesh. Something not even a fire could make edible. The idea of surviving the end of the world just to starve to death was not a pleasing thought.
He crossed the expected road and entered the forest beyond, continuing his straight-line trek to the town. He thought it should be at least visible by now, but the fog still obscured the buildings below. The ground was becoming slicker, the result of rotting plants and the dark fluid that was once their pulpy internals.
He stumbled into a parking lot before he actually saw it. He stopped once more and squatted, listening intently for sound. After many moments of hearing nothing, he continued in the direction of the grocer he knew owned this parking lot.
The building loomed at him from the dark fog, an apparition before it became a discernable structure. He skirted the entrance, not wanting to come in on the most direct route and found the handicap handrails near the ramp leading to the store. Here he stopped again to listen, and as he strained with his ears, his eyes caught sight of the heads impaled and hanging above the frame of the automatic doors. They had some type of large nail driven into their open mouths, each one staring lifelessly and inverted.
Stan had never felt so revolted in his life. This was not just the taking of a life, nor the expected trophies of some serial killer. These heads hung outside like some proof of triumph, like an ancient king who had just defeated a long-sought enemy. This was proof to any that saw it that someone had ended some six or seven lives and this act deserved some form of recognition.
The automatic doors opened suddenly, and Stan found himself pointing his rifle at a man in some state-issued orange jumpsuit and a small child held close to a woman, the woman pointing the gapping end of a Glock at him. The little girl screamed, which caused the woman to scream. Stan found himself drowning in a wash of relief and fear at the same moment. He wanted this so much, but was ready to kill them if they decided to strike up a firefight.
“Whoa, wait, hold on now. Are you a cop or something? Shannon, lower your gun,” the man said nervously.
Before she could, someone spoke to one side in a deep gravelly voice, the voice of dried vocal chords, the dark ravaged voice of one insane. “Did someone call a cop? I’m a cop!”
Shannon turned to see a large figure in torn clothing, its face and neck almost completely covered in police badges driven through the skin. Only black eyes and wicked, broken teeth showed as it began to raise a police service revolver at her.
“I remember you! You’re a great lay, bitch!” it screamed wickedly at her.
The bum leaned over Ethan’s shoulder. “Funny, you’re the only one without a gun, and you’re the only real psycho here…”
Chapter 26
“You sick son-of-a-bitch!” Shannon screamed, and then began firing at the new arrival. The small pistol she carried was extremely loud in the fog, and Kayla began screaming at each shot.
Ethan grabbed the girl and huddled back into the store with her. Another gun went off, this one firing in an impossibly quick progression. Something began to scream in many voices, a chorus of damned and tortured souls screaming for their ends. The gunfire continued for many rounds, many moments, and many deafening explosions before Shannon ducked back into the doorway crying. The automatic doors tried to close over and again, but reopened after sensing someone there.
She fumbled in her pockets for another clip, her face a mixture of unbridled rage and vengeance, sorrow, and violation. Her hands shook so violently she could not fit the new magazine into the gun before the gunfire stopped. Ethan reached over and steadied her hands. Shannon screamed and lashed out, striking Ethan along the jaw with the pistol, then screamed again, dropping the gun. She embraced Ethan quickly, almost crushing Kayla. “I’m so sorry, Ethan, I didn’t even see you, I’m sorry… Oh my God! I remembered him! I saw him! I remembered what he did to me! Fuck!”