She launched herself forward and I didn’t even get a shot off.
I brought the gun up, yes, but like most people that weren’t used to killing, I hesitated. And that split second of hesitation was all she needed. She threw herself at me, knocking me flat, knocking the gun right out of my hand. I hit the floor and then she was on top of me, pinning me down. Her stench was gagging, sickening: like warm rotting fruit, a fermenting and moist odor. She had her scabby hands around my throat, squeezing the life out of me. My guts heaved. I needed badly to vomit. And it wasn’t just her stink or the rot of her face or the foul slime that dripped from her mouth…it was what she was doing.
Gyrating.
Dry-humping me, rubbing her infested crotch against me with greasy violent gyrations.
“Pretty boy! Pretty boy! Pretty, pretty, pretty boy!” the hag kept saying, ribbons of slime hanging from her mouth. “I’m fucking the pretty boy!”
It was this more than anything that gave me the strength to fight back: pure, unreasoning physical revulsion. I hit her in the face three, four times, her head rocking back each time. And then I clawed at her eyes. Her ulcerated flesh was so soft with rot that my fingers slid right into her cheek and scraped against the skull beneath. And somewhere during the process, I hooked my knee under her and threw her off.
Then I dove for the gun and she scrambled after me on all fours like some obscene, fleshy spider. The Browning in my fist, I let out a savage screaming war cry and pulled the trigger.
The bullet caught her right in the belly and she went down to her knees, pressing scabby hands to the wound. Blood juiced out between her fingers.
“Ohhhhhhhh! Look what you did, pretty boy! Look what you did!”
When she came at me again, I shot her in the head. Brain matter and blood sprayed against the wall in an oily pattern. She hit the floor, mouth still opening and closing like a fish gulping for air. She trembled and flopped around and then jerked into stillness. In death, there was a mucid hissing and something like a gray clotted slime flooded out from between her legs.
Rotting fish. It smelled like rotting fish.
I threw up. The vomit came out in a warm spray and kept coming until I was shuddering with dry heaves. And when it was over I wondered if I hadn’t just been purging my stomach contents, but maybe something more ethereal and necessary like my soul.
Anyway, I backed away from her corpse, into the store, made to run and there were two more: a man and a woman. Both bald. Both foaming at the mouth. Both with sores on their faces and those crazy eyes.
I shot both of them.
Kept shooting even when they were down.
This was my first altercation with the Scabs, as they were known. After that, after what that hideous woman had done to me which I likened almost to rape, I shot those ugly, infected bastards on sight without hesitation.
That was my first taste of blood. I had popped my cherry. It got real easy after that.
There were crazies everywhere. But, oddly enough, good people, too. People that would warn you against dangerous neighborhoods, places where night-things lay in wait, areas where the National Guard would shoot you on sight. One day, being chased by a gang of Scabs, a guy with a long black hillbilly beard came to my aid with a shotgun. He seemed all right. Afterwards, we had soup in his barren basement apartment. He never spoke and would only grunt when I asked him things. There were two shrouded forms stretched out on the floor.
“Those are my daughters,” he finally said. “I killed ‘em. I killed both of ‘em. They was starting to change.”
“Change?”
The guy put black fierce eyes on me. “Into them others. The ones with the glowing eyes. They only come out at night. Better watch yourself.”
I got out of there, thinking the guy was as crazy as the rest. It wasn’t until two days later that I knew he wasn’t. You see, that’s when I saw one of them.
One of the Children.
7
It was getting dark and I was far from home. That alone was trouble. With everything I’d seen by that point, I should have known better. But I lived by scavenging and I had to go where the best pickings were. On the corner of Mahoning Avenue and South Glenellen there was a St. Vinnie’s depot where they stockpiled food for the needy. I had given a guy a. 38 pistol for the information. He was leaving the city, he didn’t care about the food.
So there I was.
I went into the depot by breaking a window in the alley. I slipped through, found the food with no problem. There were no crazies or mutants about so it was easy pickings. I loaded my bag with canned food, boxes of pasta, tins of deviled ham, the works. My sack was full and I was a happy little gutter rat. I had just bought myself a few more weeks of life.
When I came out the sun was going down.
And when the sun goes down, all the night things slink out, all the predators and meat-eaters, headhunters and bone-collectors and bloodsuckers. On the sidewalk was a dog. It was just sitting there. A mangy, dirty golden retriever that was missing half an ear. His coat was crusty with dried blood. He looked up at me, laid back his ears and growled.
I could have shot him.
Maybe if I had instead of playing good Samaritan, I would have been home before the trouble started. But I felt sorry for that dog. He wasn’t rabid. I could see that. Nor did he look infected with anything or mutated. I took a chance. I talked to him in very soothing tones. He calmed down right away. He wagged his tail and made a whining sound in his throat. And those eyes…Jesus…if you’ve ever had a retriever you know how they can look at you with the saddest eyes in creation, arching their eyebrows and looking so human you could cry.
That’s what this fella did.
“It’s okay, boy,” I told him. “I won’t hurt you. Maybe you can come live with me, eh? We can take care of each other.”
He wagged his tail, still watching me. He was a good dog. I was willing to bet he’d been a family pet. Retrievers are great dogs…gentle, easy with kids, incredibly patient and loyal. I knew this old warhound had been of that variety. I got down on my knees by him and made a peace offering: a Slim Jim. One of those processed beef sticks. You know the kind. The dog loved it. He gobbled it right down so I gave him a second and a third and I had a friend for life. I could have cried because I had finally found someone-or something-to care about that I knew would care for me, too. That’s the thing about a dog. You can love men and women, but the human breed is a selfish one and they’ll hurt you if they get the chance. But not a dog. You feed them and care for them and they’ll love you to death, follow you straight into hell without question, and tear the balls off anyone that threatens you. That’s loyalty. Try and find that in a human being. Good luck.
So I had myself a pal.
But it was getting dark. Time to boogie. I walked away down the sidewalk, knowing I had about four blocks to go, but the dog didn’t follow me. He just sat there on the sidewalk looking forlorn, destitute, and unhappy. “Well, come on!” I said, slapping my leg. He bolted after me, rubbing his snout against my leg, leaping around with the sort of pure joy only a dog knows.
We had a few more Slim Jims. I scratched his ears. I chatted with him. Then, as the shadows grew long, we both got very quiet as we stalked through what was very much enemy territory. The dog was hearing things, smelling things, sensing things. I felt more invulnerable than ever with him by my side: nothing can sneak up on a retriever when they’re wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.
About two blocks from my building, the dog stopped.
He perked up his ears…well, one of them anyway…and cocked his head. He began sniffing the ground. He made a low growling sound of alarm in his throat. He had caught wind of something and he did not like it.
I urged him on and there, standing on the sidewalk in a pool of moonlight, was a little girl. She was just a little slip of a thing with pigtails and the filthy remains of a blue jumper. I figured she was maybe eight years old, something like that. The dog went wild, snapping and howling, just beside myself.