Decay (Book 1): Civilization (13 page)

The sounds of feet and bodies being dragged stopped along with the horrible moans. The silence felt heavy to Jonathan, like he would soon be crushed by it if some noise didn’t stop its brutal assault.

Theory had become a way of life for him, and he theorized once again. This time he had confused them, and he had made a mental note of it. Once the shuffling and moans started up again he looked over the wall. They had gone back to their aimless wandering.

“Hello!” Jonathan shouted once more adding, “Over here!” He was certain they didn’t know what
over here
was, but he said it anyway.

This time he waited for them to turn and look. His eyes met those of the girl in the yellow tank top. She has not seemed to have decomposed much which Jonathan found to be very fascinating. This made him wonder if the effects of his father’s experiments are permanent. Which would mean these people would be capable of roaming the earth for an unforeseeable number of years.

Most of the street had responded to his call, but the girl in the yellow tank top had stepped into his trap first. Jonathan jerked as hard as he could on the snare rope while trying to use only enough force to tighten the rope around her legs without knocking her down. As soon as the rope was tightened he prepared to drop the lasso waiting only long enough for her to hold still for just a moment.

He didn’t want her to have the chance to move and possibly trip as he wasn’t sure if she would be able to stand back up with both legs tied. His moment came and he dropped the lasso perfectly around her chest just in time for her to trip. Her fall managed to tighten the rope working perfectly in Jonathan’s favor.

Throwing himself off of the ladder he ran at a dead sprint to the car which was not all that far away. Overshooting the door by a few feet, he had to turn around and take a few steps back. Once again the car engine fired up, the brake was pressed, the shifter was aligned with the drive gear, and Jonathan released the break allowing the car to move forward under its own power.

Erupting from Jonathan was a combination of cheer and laughter as he saw the body fall over the wall in the rear view mirror. Placing the car in reverse he drove back a few feet to give him slack in the ropes, and he jumped from the car. Reaching the struggling body, he quickly placed a burlap sack over her head that he had gotten from the pantry after emptying the potatoes from it. Then he tightened the ropes around her the best he could.

After zip tying her boney hands behind her back, he dragged her through the yard. She was much lighter than he had expected she would be. Moans drifted eerily from the burlap sack and she twisted her head back and forth. She didn’t seem to be strong, yet Jonathan was nervous of what she could do if she were to wiggle free.

The excited moans and commotion of the dead out on the street could still be heard, yet it was gradually quieting down. Once he made it back to the shed, he tied the girl up by her neck, legs, arms, and even around her waist.

Up close, Jonathan could see that most of her skin was wrinkled and thin. It hung loose from her body in some spots. Her fingers reminded him of his great-grandmother. Chills shot through him as he thought of this woman reaching out to pinch his cheeks when he was just a small child.

“Come over here boy so I can get a look at you.” Her raspy voice would give him goose bumps every time he heard it. Those thin fingers were cold on his face as she squeezed. Never tight enough to hurt, but Jonathan believed that was her intentions. Luckily she didn’t have the strength.

Pushing the memory aside, he returned his focus to the dead girl in front of him. “Time to learn something about you,” he said as he pulled the sack off of her head.

The girl became more violent as she seen him. She let out a low groan and tried to break free of her bindings. Jonathan watched her for over an hour, and never once did she seem to tire. Her groans turned to moans, and the moans to a gurgling choking sound, and then they turned back to groans. Now that he had captured one, he really wasn’t sure where to start his research. He walked through the garage and into the house to watch her from a window. She continued to fight with her body turned in the direction of the door he had disappeared through.

“Fifty-nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds,” he said aloud into a voice recorder as he wrote this down in his leather-bound journal. “It took the subject about an hour to give up her pursuit for me. She now seems to be perfectly content with her situation.”

He continued to watch her through the day. Never once did she seem to show any signs of acknowledging her bindings. She just stood there. Occasionally she would try to move, but after being stopped by the ropes she became docile once more. Throughout the night when Jonathan woke up to check on her she was never asleep, and she never seemed to care that she couldn’t roam about. She just stood there. Emotion was absent, and she seemed to have no essence or individuality.

The sun rose up over the eastern wall that next morning. Jonathan exited the back of the garage, and as he did so his captive began her attempts to reach him. With him he had some freshly cooked sausage links, yet she didn’t regard them in the slightest. He held one up to her face with a fork even going as far as placing it in her mouth. The girl didn’t even attempt to chew it, and the link fell to the ground. It seemed her only goal was to make it to Jonathan.

“Hunger doesn’t drive you?” he questioned her aloud not expecting a response. “So than why do you attack people?”

He had seen them on numerous occasions with what appeared to be human body parts that have been chewed on and eaten. This could not be explained as mere hunger if she would not eat any other food. Fortunately though, he had never seen one attack a living person, but he couldn’t help to wonder what such an attack would tell him; on a scientific level that is.

His father never had the chance to understand why Sam had awoken from death. Jonathan hypothesized that perhaps it was caused by the contact with Greg’s fresh blood cells that were certainly spilled while Brian beat him. He continued to write in his own journal regarding the research he was doing.

Perhaps the chemical needs to attach itself to living cells
, he wrote in his journal.
That wouldn’t explain how these dead have managed for so long without fresh tissue, though.

Dozens of theories were produced by Jonathan in his attempts to understand what was causing this not only to happen, but to continue to happen. He wasn’t sure how long a chemical reaction could last with nothing to feed it. Nothing of it made sense, so he went back to researching his new friend by the shed.

After doing some research in a medical book, he used a small hammer to test the girl’s reflexes in her knees and elbows. She only continued to struggle to reach him. He tested her ability to hear by sneaking around and making noised in different areas of the yard. All of which she reacted to as anyone would.

By sneaking up close to her he gathered enough data to claim that her sense of smell was heightened. This struck him as peculiar since her own body stunk horribly of decay. Her breath had the awful smell of rotten eggs and vomit. Jonathan wasn’t sure how she could smell anything over that.

With a little more research, he ran a series of simple tests. The simplest of these was checking her pulse, which none was found. He checked for a heartbeat using a stethoscope his father had in a medical bag in the basement. No heartbeat could be found either. Using a blood pressure cuff that he also found in the medical bag, he found she had no blood pressure.

Strangely, she was breathing; however, it was almost too slow to notice. Air was pulled in through her nose and exhaled from her mouth. This made sense of her ability to smell him, as well as their ability to make noises, but he doubted that she was actually consuming oxygen from this. He made a note to examine her lungs.

“I’m no doctor,” he read aloud as he wrote in his notes. “But in a clinical sense, this woman is dead. As expected.”

One morning he made the decision to test the pain tolerance that they have. She didn’t seem to be bothered by being dragged over a wall and dropped nine feet. She also didn’t seem to care about being bound to a shed. Jonathan’s curiosity grew as he wondered if there was any way to discourage them.

Jonathan walked out of the garage door and toward the girl by the shed. She made attempts to reach him when she saw him coming. He concluded that they had no memory of anything. The girl always reacted in the same way upon seeing him. Day after day she made attempts to reach him. After he disappeared through the door she would go docile again, as if she forgot he was even there. She also did not seem to understand that she was bound.

In his right hand was a pair of orange handled scissor. He looked down at her feet. She still wore only one battered and dirty shoe. He couldn’t tell if her sock was pink or just stained with blood. Jonathan also wondered what had happened to the other sock and shoe, quickly dismissed the thought, and knelt down beside her.

The scissors were sharp, but it still took plenty of effort to cut through the bone. She gave no indication of feeling any pain. She also didn’t seem to be concerned by the loss of her toe. She continued to wiggle and jerk in her vain attempt to move.

Holding the toe close to his face, Jonathan examined it. The little amount of blood that oozed out of the wound was thick and black, resembling a dark maple syrup. He brought the toe even closer to his face. The smell from the inside was putrid. He took the toe inside to examine it further with a microscope.

As usual, after Jonathan walked out of sight, she sniffed the air gently. Pulling on her chains was useless, but she didn’t know that, and she continued to do it anyway. Just over an hour after Jonathan entered his home, the girl calmed down.

Having successfully extracted a sample of the thick blood Jonathan concluded that there was no cellular activity. He believed that the white blood cells were destroyed by the chemical as it took over the body. The blood stream carried the contamination to the rest of the body, spreading the infection quickly.

From a sample of the flesh he had taken from the toe, he discovered that there was almost no decay in the fresh wound. The external layers of skin rotted, and the blood was thick and clumpy, but Jonathan’s findings led him to believe that if he was to dissect the girl, most of her vital organs and muscle would be in fairly decent condition.

The chemical was supposed to react with the cells in the skin in an attempt to regenerate the damaged tissue. What it appeared to actually do, however, was form a bond with the cells and completely take over the body, using the cells as an initial energy source. From this point on the chemical contaminant becomes self-sustaining. Even though the flesh rots, the cells are being kept alive.

This left him with more questions. With most of the tissue being dead and dry, what was keeping them going, he asked himself. He would need to take a closer look at the muscle tissue. Not needing precision cuts, he grabbed a knife from the counter and heading back outside. The commotion on the streets instantly grabbed his attention.

He ran around to the front yard hoping to be able to see what was going on through the gate, but he was too far away. Running up to the wall next to the gate he propped the ladder back up and climbed to the top. In the distance he could see a man running from a horde of the undead. The man looked tired.

“Over here!” Jonathan shouted, waving his arms. “Over here!” This second yell was enough for the man to notice him.

Jonathan jumped from the ladder and ran to the garage for the rope. He made it back and flung one end over the wall as he climbed back up the ladder. As the man approached Jonathan pointed to the rope. The man grabbed hold and began hoisting himself up, but he was too heavy for Jonathan to hold onto.

“Hold on one sec!” he yelled over the wall. Jonathan tied the rope around his waist and braced himself against the wall with his feet. “Try it now,” he hollered. The weight of the man wasn’t incredible, but it was enough to cause his back and knees to hurt. He walked up the wall two steps in an attempt to increase his leverage.

The brown skin of the man’s hand appeared over the wall, followed shortly by the other hand. As the man pulled his body up to the top of the wall Jonathan’s weight took over. The man fell, his wet body landing on top of Jonathan, who had the air pushed violently from his lungs.

Before he had time to catch his breath, however, he was lifted off ground. The undead on the other side of the wall were pulling on the rope in an attempt to catch their pry. The man stood up next to Jonathan, who was trying to scream but still couldn’t find his breath, and pulled out a pocket knife from his pack. The force of Jonathan falling back to the ground after the rope separated knocked the wind out of him again.

The man waited a moment, trying to catch his own breath before saying, “I’m Guillermo. I’m with others. Are you ok?”

Jonathan lifted his head up off the ground, painfully nodded, and allowed his head to fall back to the soft grass. He was in pain but comfortable. Still catching his breath, Jonathan stared off into the cool blue sky.

Chapter 13

Arms came through the large gate, causing Guillermo to jump to his feet. Most of these arms were missing flesh. Skin, muscle, and veins hung from the bones. Some were missing fingers while other had no hands, just bone and flesh.

The bone in one arm had deep scratches in it from being chewed on. The arm’s dead owner pressed his face into the opening so hard that the skin around his right eye tore away and stuck to the iron gate.

“They cannot get in,” Jonathan said calmly. “My father made sure of that.” He watched them with interest.

“Now that I think of it, I remember when they put this gate in. I was working on a lawn two houses away from here. The Henderson’s lawn,” Guillermo said, pointing slightly west. Jonathan shook his head to confirm he knew the Henderson’s. “People thought it was a bit excessive. Guess they were wrong.”

“My name is Jonathan by the way. Come inside. I will see if there are some clean clothes for you. I mean no offense, sir, but you smell rancid. I may need a change of clothes myself.” He looked down at the slimy water on his own shirt that came from Guillermo falling on top of him. “How long have you been out there?”

“Only an hour or so maybe,” Guillermo said while laughing at the boy’s friendly jab. “I jumped a wall to escape some of the devils that were chasing me. Splash! Fell in a swimming pool that was home to one or two of ‘em for a long time.”

“That’s gross. What about the others? You said there are more of you?” Jonathan led the way through the garage and into the house.

“Yeah. There are two other men, a young lady, and three little kids. Also a man and his wife are living in a house not far from here, but I don’t know if they are going to be with us or not.”

“Well you can clean up, eat, and rest. Are you supposed to signal them or go back for them?” He showed Guillermo to his father’s dresser and closet. “Take whatever will fit.”

“Gracias. I will go back for them and bring them here if that won’t be a problem with your father.” He looked through the nice suits in the closet and tried to find something a little more comfortable. “Will he be ok with me taking one of these outfits?”

“I am not sure where my father is. I doubt he made it, and please, bring your friends. I may need help,” Jonathan said on his way out of the room.

Guillermo showered for the first time in a year. He could never bring himself to waste much of the water he could find, so he only washed the important areas. The clothes he put on were just a little too long and a little too tight. He made modifications to the outfit, and after he dressed he went to find Jonathan. He called for him, but there was no answer. Stepping out of the front of the garage he noticed the horde was settling down at the gate, but he didn’t see Jonathan anywhere.

He turned back to the garage and noticed the door leading out of the back. As he walked through this back door he saw the dead woman standing in the yard. Before turning back to look for a weapon, he heard Jonathan.

“It is alright. She is tied up.” Jonathan stood just feet away, holding what appeared to be a large slice of meat in one hand and a knife in the other. “It is muscle from the dead girl,” he said as he noticed Guillermo’s disgusted, yet confused look.

“Why do you have a dead girl in your back yard? Why do you have her muscle in your hand, if I may ask?” Guillermo seemed slightly disturbed, and he began to worry that his hospitable host may be the cannibal they believed Deacon to be. Feeling he sounded rude, Guillermo said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ask such questions. It is your home.”

“It is not a problem Guillermo. I am doing research. I have to understand them in order to beat them. When do you plan on leaving?”

“Soon, very soon,” Guillermo said hurriedly. “I should go before it gets dark. Then we will make our way back in the morning if the conditions are manageable.”

“That works. I will keep an eye out for you. Maybe I can slide a ladder down to the other side of the wall when I see you coming back. I placed a fresh pack with supplies in the garage. There should be enough food to feed you all for a few days in case you cannot make the trip right away.”

“Gracias again.” Guillermo’s worries began to slip away. “Be careful with that thing.” He nodded to the dead girl. “I’ll have little ones with me, so please be watching.”

The two shook hands before Guillermo walked down the driveway with his new pack. A handgun was sticking out of the side pocket, and he had taken a machete from the garage. He climbed the ladder and looked back to the house, waved at Jonathan once more, took a deep breath, and dropped down over the wall.

Jonathan could not help but smile. He was ecstatic to finally meet someone new. The signs were always there that others survived. The gunshots from the other day came to mind, but now he knew for sure. He pulled another ladder from the shed. This one was much longer, but it would work for when they came back. He laid it down against the wall by the other one. Now it was back to work. He had muscle to examine.

Back inside, he concluded that the muscle was not only still fresh, but it was also very warm. This muscle could have come from a normal living person. He was baffled by how the flesh and blood was as dried up and thick as they were, but the muscle was in such great condition.

The flesh was cold to the touch. He noticed this each time he had to touch the dead girl. All of these findings went into his notes, and the increase in curiosity told him he needed to take a look at the brain.

The gentle breeze blew the smell of the dead girl away from Jonathan as he stood in the backyard staring at her. Her cold skin looked even paler in the sun.
Why didn’t they sunburn?
Jonathan decided to worry about that later. With her movement restricted to the best of his ability, he knew that the only way to study her brain was to remove the top of her skull.

He was not able to find a precision cutting tool, instead he held the cold stainless steel handle of a shiny new hacksaw. Used for cutting through metal, it would easily do the job. Why his father bought most of the things he had was beyond Jonathan. With the smaller ladder brought to where the girl was bound, he prepared to work.

So far he was not enjoying any of the things he has had to do. After all, this girl was once a person just as he was. However, he knew he needed to do this for the sake of his future, and the futures of Guillermo and the other survivors. He had with him a glass plate, and he put on some rubber gloves that made that squeaky stretching sound when he curled his fingers into a fist. The plastic model of the brain from his room sat next to him on top of the ladder.

Jonathan looked down at the girl from his spot on the ladder. He was not really sure what would happen to her as he began removing her brain, but he was sure she would forgive him. After all, the girl she once was probably would have done what she could to find an end to this.

He pressed the sharp, serrated, high-speed steel blade against the girl’s hair on the back of her head. At first, he lightly drew the hacksaw back and forth. Instantly, hair fell to the ground, followed by small chunks of skin and thick black clots of blood. The skin surrounding her skull was easy to work through.

It only took a few good passes before he hit the skull. Applying more force now, Jonathan had to grit his teeth as he listened to the grinding of the steel blade on bone. Slowly, he work his way around the girl as the blade worked its way through her tough skull. Tilting and holding her head as he went about this gruesome act.

After a couple minutes of slow, tedious work he was ready to remove the top of her head. He could hear the bone scrape against itself as he turned the top of the skull to free it up. He gave a gentle pull and the top of her head came free. The yellow tank top girl seemed to have not noticed any of what he was doing, and she didn’t care that the top of her head was now missing from its place.

Her brain was mostly gray and pretty well solid looking. Jonathan expected it to look much more like mush by now. It was, however, covered in what appeared to be dark maroon veins. Only they were more like plant roots, or a creeping vine. They subtly pulsated as they pumped whatever bloody liquid they contained.

Deciding to look past the veins, he was uncertain of what part of the brain to examine. Carefully taking the small vegetable knife, he carved out a piece of the frontal lobe. The dark, viscous liquid pumped out of the veins as he cut through them. This seemed to have no effect on the girl. The piece of brain was moist to the touch and appeared to be healthy. He placed this on the plate.

Opening an anatomy book he had brought out with him, he looked at the different functions of the brain. Some of the blackened blood from his gloved fingers spread across the pages as he flipped through.

The cerebellum seemed to interest him the most. He was curious if the girl would continue on if he was to remove this part of her brain. Jonathan carefully lifted the back part of her brain up to find the cerebellum. She seemed to shake and twitch as he moved this fascinating organ around. Once he was confident he found what he was looking for, he brought the knife in and cut into it to remove a good piece.

This caused the girl to twist and jerk violently. Her spasms brought about choked moans. Than in the matter of seconds, she stopped moving completely. Jonathan was not surprise, but found himself disappointed as he did not want her dead just yet. He was sure the brain was the key to their continued existence. As he stepped back onto the ground he did a quick examination of the girl’s limp body.

Quickly grabbing a knife from inside, Jonathan ran back out, lowered the girl to the ground, and cut her chest open. Inside, her lungs were black, yet they were moist and soft. A terribly putrid smell escaped as he cut one of them open.  A quick glance in her lungs gave him reason to believe that they didn’t absorb any oxygen.

He spent a moment feeling around in the lungs, not really sure of what to look for. There was nothing that stood out to him. After all, he had no real experience with any of this. Deciding that this would be something for another time, Jonathan ran back inside to tend to the brain.

A small lab was set up in his bedroom, but he didn’t have enough equipment to run any serious tests. It was there that he examined the brain fragments and a sample of the thick blood from the large veins under his microscope. The cellular activity was much higher in the cerebellum than it was in the piece from the frontal lobe.

Large traces of a chemical that Jonathan believed to be the one used to reanimate the dead was found in the blood sample, and it was in full control of the body. It kept the brain working in overdrive, sending signals to the muscles. Why it caused them to violently attack people was still unclear to him.

Over the next hour the activity in the brain, along with the reactions from the chemical, ceased. He sat and stared at his samples for an hour after that. Jonathan knew he was smart, yet he wasn’t smart enough to know what to do next. At this time, none of the data he had gathered really helped in any way. Besides, the lack of a sophisticated lab was holding him back.

After cleaning up the lab he had set up for these experiments, he showered. Walking into the kitchen in his pajama bottoms and slippers, Jonathan opened and closed all the cupboards looking for something to eat. Although he kept everything stocked in the kitchen, he just wasn’t sure what he was in the mood for. Finally, he settled on a steak from the freezer and a baked potato to celebrate the occasion of finding other people after all this time.

After his supper he went to sleep, hoping to meet the rest of Guillermo’s group in the next couple of days. He was pretty sure the man had mentioned a young woman. He wondered about her. Hoping she would be his age. There was also the thought that with his luck, she would be hideous.