The Risen: Remnants (4 page)

“I thought she wore a prom dress?” Nope,
that
was my last inch.

My feet cannot bring me to the door fast enough. I can feel my tongue mounting an attack and I know once the first shot is fired the battle will stream forth unrelenting. Genny trails behind me, silent and angry with the woman herself. Our backs are a wall of uncaring that glares at her with our retreat.

“Wait,” Ginjer calls out carefully. “I don’t want to stay alone. Can we stay with you? Just for tonight?”

I want to say no. I want to scream no. All of me does except for this one small shred of humanity that flickers within as her weakness is so well displayed before me.

I sigh, already regretting the words before I say them. “One night. Tomorrow you have to help us explore a store or you can go hungry
.” Perhaps her heels will feed her
. It is a rude thought, but I smile with it just the same.

“We can do that! Can’t we boy?” Ginjer playfully asks the dog as if it holds an opinion for anything. If he did, he may be more concerned with the bows in his hair.

Genny sighs, sharing a look with me that we have become accustomed to with Ginjer. A look that says we are both baffled by the woman and her actions.

Holding the door open in the fashion that she expects, Genny and I wait as we watch her sway past, exiting before us. We prepare to share another look when her screaming starts. Its high pitch wail sets us to motion, forgetting how very angry we were in the moments past.

This is why they are monsters. Only something spawned from Hell in its most evil of corners could stand before me looking like this. The female that I had beaten with the glass vase stands wrestling Mintzy from the arms of Ginjer. Her fingers are wrapped tightly around the dog’s collar, stretching the dog’s neck and choking the air from its body. Half of her face is missing from the damage I have caused her. The flesh is jagged, sprinkling blood with each tug that lurches her body. The eye on the side of her face that I attacked hangs loose from its socket, rolling up and down her cheekbone with the motion of a marble on a string. Her lip is torn and it lays flayed, exposing her once white teeth. Her red hair blends into a darker shade with her blood caught in its strands and the sight of her paralyzes me with fear.

“Beth!” Ginjer screams for my help, but all I can do is stand here, blocking Genny and shaking my head with no words forming on my lips. Not even Genny, with her aspirations to save the world, is trying to guilt me into action with condescendingly strained words. She stares with wide eyes as we watch the tug-of-war.

With a sharp popping sound, Mintzy’s neck breaks from the strain on his body and his legs go still and limp. Ginjer recoils as if she has been punched, dropping her half of the dog. It is quickly set upon by the female, tearing into fur and flesh with greedy hands. She rakes the meat of the dog into her gaping mouth leaving the blood to pour and pool on the stone porch around her. It steams in the night air, casting an illusion of Mintzy’s soul escaping from the tattered form of his body. The three of us are fear-struck, silent and repulsed in a weaving combination of emotions as we watch the female devour the dog with finger sucking satisfaction. With a steady resolve, Ginjer pulls from the waistband of her slacks the pistol I was worried about earlier. The sound of the shot bounces off the surrounding crypts before rippling through the cemetery around us. The female now rests face down into her prize. She is truly dead this time and it’s something that I, and nature, had failed to accomplish before. I guess I forgot to reset the safety after all.

Chapter
5

G
injer was silent for the rest of the dragging night. She didn’t cry over Mintzy or wail with exaggerated memories of the dog. I almost wished she had. The woman was as silent as the fog and just as thick with depression. A voice I have tried to avoid for so many years, I now found myself secretly wishing it would speak if for no other reason than to break the suffocating tension surrounding us.

Genny was also more reserved than normal. I know she was searching her soul for the right words to say to bring comfort to Ginjer. There are no words to encompass the grief that these days keep holding for us. We have suffered deaths by the facts of old age, tragic accidents, or debilitating illnesses before now. Now death wears the faces of real monsters delivering real horrors. There are no words to take that suffering away.

I dreaded bringing Ginjer along today. The store I have scouted with hopes for supplies I already knew would gain me complaints from Genny. Now it may be the final buttons for Ginjer’s sanity. I don’t know if I have the courage to push them. Before Mintzy’s death last night, I would have danced across them.

“If you want to stay here, Ginjer,” I say to gain her attention, “we would understand.” My voice sounds overly large in the crypt. It is the first voice to echo against these walls since we closed the door last night sealing us in the unspoken depression.

“No. I want to come. I don’t want to sit in here. I would have to clean it. I understand it is what it is, but you could at least organize it if you are going to live here.” It is hard to feel sorry for someone that always finds a way to degrade you.

Genny beams a huge smile at me with wide eyes trying to remind me of the tragedy that happened last night. My own returned smile is not as polite or as tragic. I’m starting to feel like dancing again.

“If you think that is best.” I put a little tune to my voice as I have taught myself with this response to her comments. It is my equivalent of a “fuck you, too”.

I toss Genny the keys to our Honda so that I may focus on the many empty bags I carry. I hope when we return they will be filled with food. We are running desperately low. Of course, “food” being a very liberal word for what we may find.

Loading the car has become a well-rehearsed chore. Automatically we scan the area around it, looking for any signs of tampering or loitering. We double-check the seats to be certain it is empty and peer into the space below it also. The image of the hand sneaking out from underneath, that every horror movie has conjured at least once, always fills my head as I stand near the car loading the trunk. It is the same reason I had to check every stall before settling on one in a public restroom. Horror movies told me to.

The longest part of leaving our new “neighborhood” is the trip around the crypts and to some resemblance of an actual road. We park the car behind the long rows, hoping to keep it hidden and never directly behind our actual crypt. I try to rotate where we park to avoid tire tracks or other obvious signs for someone to notice. I never take the same path out either for the same reasons. Genny loves to make paranoia jokes over my actions, but monsters come in many forms these days and my paranoia is what may just keep us safe.

The road to town becomes worse to see with each venture back into where population once dominated. What once granted the memories of a war scene now resembles an apocalypse. The cars and roads gain the layers of the seasons with amber colored leaves and smudged dirt. The cars are lanes deep from the traffic jam that resulted in the panic to escape and the debris from the open windows and doors freckles the area. The corpses left sitting or slumped in their cars now rot from decay. Some shows signs of animal scavenging with exposed bones or discarded limbs. At least, I like to tell myself it is all from animals and not from worse things that could be waiting.

It is hard to see our town like this. Memories of smiles and sunny days conflict with the images our eyes hold. Genny sinks lower in her seat with each cluster of death we come across as her own memories are invaded.

Our town was a small, close-knit population. It was a type of place where young kids were safe to play in the many parks that were placed in neighborhoods. Libraries and locally-owned burger joints were the popular hangouts for teens. Our coffee shops were small business not generic chains and the women would gather around farmers’ markets to gossip rather than large retail stores. Our high school football games brought in people from miles around. You would’ve thought the pro-leagues played at our high schools for as much attention as our kids received. “Small Town Hero” was not just a slogan here. It was once a birthright.

The draw back with such a small town is the supply for demands. Hurricanes were prepared for at the first sight of the circling mass on the news, not when the long, stringy lines of forecasted maps brought it our way. Cold and flu season’s needs were stocked the day after the first freeze. When real disasters struck, it was our neighbors that we each turned to for help, rounding out what was lacking in exchange for promising to do the same for another. It was an unspoken vow. When your neighbors become what you are hiding from, there is no help and the “Small Town Heroes” are always the first to fall.

We run the risk of being spotted if we travel too closely to town. The major stores already have been destroyed, leaving the main streets resembling something from a war-torn country. Streets are normally filled with the conquerors, standing still like storefront mannequins, keeping watch over their victories. Tragedies bring out the true nature of a person. So far, all I have encountered from our noble town people is panic and hate. Neither makes for a good traveling partner.

Here on the backside of town, the roads are less horrific. A few mangled vehicles stand stationary, left where they collided against trees or other vehicles. Thankfully, they are empty of their owners’ remains. It is almost peaceful here and it is sad that as I pass through the wreckage of people’s lives I can think that.

Pulling the car around to the back of the store’s parking lot, I wait with the engine running. Holding my breath, I struggle with my panic as I strain to notice any movements that will signal we have been followed. Genny’s and Ginjer’s heads pivot, staring out the windows on their sides as they too scan the area around us. With only silence and the songs of birds still playing from the trees, we exit the car sending out silent prayers for our safety.

Please Lord, don’t let my daughter see me die today.
I chant mentally, hoping someone up there is still listening and all of this is not a form of a recreation for them like some twisted style of stress relief.

Footsteps fall in behind me and I mentally pull my big girl panties on. I will need them when they discover where we are “shopping”. I can already mentally hear the moaning from each of them, but for different reasons. I am about to push the comfort level for them both to the extreme.

Genny hands me the crowbar, with which I have become quite resourceful, when we reach the back metal door. Normally, I would try to peek into any windows to gain a better idea of what is waiting for us. Sometimes I will break one to see if it stirs any response before I allow us to enter. Today any such action will alert the two behind me to where we are. I am trying to avoid that melt down for as long as possible.

The door gives with a popping and a metallic moan. My senses are so heightened with my nervousness that the door may as well have screamed with pain. Crouching low, I stare into the darkness, letting my eyes adjust before fully entering. What I see makes me wish I had listened to the better half of my brain and avoided this place.

The painted walls are lined in a “L” pattern with metal cages stacked two high around a tiled floor. Different sizes of pillows with prints of cartoon bones are placed on the floor along the opposite wall. Leashes of various brightly colored materials are attached to the silver locks that slide into place and keep their visitors secure.

Black vacant eyes stare at me in various shapes and sizes from behind the bars. The smell of their dead bodies rushes to me like an ocean’s wave and it buckles my knees with its strength. I choke and sputter with as much distress as if the wave was water shoved down my lungs instead of the scent of so many rotting dogs that were left behind in the desperation to flee.

The smell of their waste rolls into the scent of their deaths inventing layers of destruction to my senses. My eyes water with the acidic foulness and my sorrow over the sight. My stomach clenches, threatening to lose the meager meal it holds from breakfast. The muscles in my body feel loose leaving me unsteady and unsure if I want to signal for those outside to follow me. It would be simple for me to run in the doggie daycare/pet store and grab the items I am hoping they have, sparing them from seeing this.

“Mom, what is that smell?” At least it would be if Genny wasn’t always one step directly behind me. I watch as the revulsion sweeps over her. Her eyes dart from cage to cage seeing the discarded contents left within them. She takes note of the few cages where the doors appear to be chewed and bent with attempted escapes. I can see her heart breaking on her face and mine echoes her emotions.

“Tell Ginjer to stay outside. We don’t need her to see this.” I let my voice hold the smallest thread of volume, but it is enough. I listen as Genny gives the duty of keeping an eye out to the woman. It allows her to think she is doing us a favor by staying outside verses us doing her one by keeping her out. Of course, she is flattered by our appreciation of her skills and wonders why it has taken us so long to see them. To all of this I just shake my head as their voices float back into the room.

With a spare chewed shoe that was left by the door, we prop it open just wide enough to allow us to hear if our names are called. Genny, keeping her eyes down, follows in my wake without asking any questions. The bags make rustling noises in the too silent space, hampering my straining ears to hear the slightest twitch of a warning. The sound of buzzing flies as we creep deeper into the room forces me to swallow against my stomach’s rebellion. Genny begins to dry heave behind me as the room begins to overtake her.

I offer her an escape from this torment. “Do you want to wait outside?”

Her pony tail swishes rapidly back and forth with her negative response to my question. She isn’t brave enough to test her voice. Who am I to argue with her?

The door for the storage room is a basic wooden style lacking a lock. The knob seems to turn agonizingly slow in my nervous hand. Genny’s gagging only adds to the imagined hours it takes to open the door. The smell that greets us in this room isn’t any better.

At first, the plastic bins on their shelving units send a flutter of hope through my body. With any luck, they will be filled with cans of food and bottles of water. With karma being what she is, they may be filled with squeaky toys and shampoo. When nothing jumps out at us or makes any noise alerting us that we are not alone, I open the door fully and motion for Genny to go past me.

“What are we looking for?” With the dead animals out of sight, her coloring is slowly starting to return.

“Food,” I say to her and instantly regret it.

Her jaw drops with exaggerated teen angst. “You can’t be serious? You want us to eat dog food?”

“Some of this stuff is better prepared than anything I could have ever cooked for you before any of this started. Don’t think of it as “dog food” think of it as… “stew”.” I try to offer her any mental help I can give her to overcome this imagined insult. Unfortunately the reality is that food is becoming harder to find, but if the bins along the back wall of the room mean anything, this “stew” isn’t.

Seven bins sit labeled, hinting at their contents and finally I feel as if our luck might be changing. Unzipping the first of our bags, I quickly rip open the lid of a bin with my excitement. What I see is better than pots of gold. It is filled with tall round cans that shine under my flashlight with their colorful paper wrapping boasting about the minerals and vitamins held within. Can after can of beef, chicken, turkey, and even some seafood variations are tossed into bags with mixed reactions. The last three bins contain bottles of water for the clients that prefer their animals not drink from the tap. Which always amuses me since dogs will drink from a toilet if left to their own devices. This may not be the gourmet meals of dried jerky and fruit-rollups she has become used to the last few days, but I know once she gets past the idea of what it is, the battle will be won.

“Mom,” Genny’s voice holds the tremble of fear and it pulls me out of my mental victory. My eyes follow where she is staring and my heart drops into the pit of my stomach before returning to sit in my throat with a nauseating bounce.

At the edge of the shelving unit, tucked back into a far corner, sits a woman, slumped and brittle. Her blonde hair hangs loose around her face, blanketing her features. She wears pastel scrubs with embroidered cartoon dogs dancing around the name of the business. One foot sits bare of a shoe, the delicate, high-gloss mauve toenails reflect the light from our flashlights. I guess that answers as to why one shoe was left by the door.