Eaters

ZERO: RACHEL – CONTINUED

Jan sweat from the inside-out. The guy in the scrubs lifted a foot, mechanically. His arms were out reaching directly for Jan. The mouth opened, but no sound came out of it aside from a gummy squick. His teeth were coated with something dark and shiny.

The gun was steady in Jan’s grip, gleam of the barrel a straight line on the guy’s chest. The wind moaned.

“Shoot straight,” Rick swore under his breath.

The shot snapped through the air, sharp. Definitely a hit, but someone forgot to tell Scrub guy that. He reeled back for a second, absorbing the hit, but unfazed. Whatever he was on, it was serious like gravity was.

Copper taste in his mouth, Jan shot again, and once more. There was blood, but not a lot, underneath the dirty blue cotton. Scrub guy didn’t make a sound. Not a breath.

“Get down, Jan!” Rick yelled.

The target wasn’t that close, but Rick didn’t want to take any more chances. This was gonna be a ratfuck as it was. No need to add friendly fire to his file. He stepped aside to lose the profile shot, planted his feet and drew back.

Three shots. Heart’s on the other side, so aim left. At least one of them should have hit straight on.

And nothing. May as well have been shooting a side of beef. Rick threw the rest of the clip at the guy. He watched as the shots hit and skin rippled, muscle clenched. They were landing, but they weren’t doing a damn thing.

“Jesus, Rick! Get this guy off of me!”

“I’m out! Get away from him!”

Rick was dropping the dead clip and using his free hand to reload. Jan’s face was slick white, sunglasses like bug’s eyes. He slunk back into the cruiser as quickly as he could. Scrub guy was right there, moving deliberately, like he had to think over every step.

Rick put the clip home, but it wasn’t going to do much good. The target was between him and Jan now. No way to take a shot, too much risk involved. Stupid goddamn Jan pulling right into the cruiser. He wasn’t helping anything.

“Hey! Back here you dumbshit!” Rick yelled, hoping to pull the guy away. At least he could out-manuver the guy.
Jan pulled on the door to close it, but he wasn’t fast enough. The guy’s arms snaked out, one on the door frame and one on the cruiser door. Looked like he was going to lose his fingers for a second, but Jan couldn’t seal the deal.

“Rick! Holy shit! Get this guy outta my face!”

Jan’s hysterical words escaped from the cruiser as the guy wrenched on the doors, trying to force them open. The car rocked erratically and Jan tried to worm across the fake leather.

Rick pointed the sidearm down, safety flicked on. He was about to get into a physical situation. No need to get himself shot in the process. With his free hand, he reached around to try and grab one of the guy’s hands, or at the very least get him interested in something other than Jan.

Jan’s voice stopped making sense. The scrub guy leaned in, hand around Jan’s ankle. His jaws opened wide, teeth foul with discolored mucus. Jan’s free foot landed on the jaw, but the guy just took it like nothing. Rick grabbed hold of the guy’s shoulder, but not in time to stop him from biting Jan. Shrieking incomprehensibly, Jan kicked and kicked again.

Rick wrenched at the guy, unable to get a good grip. And there was something wrong about him, a little cool, a little fevered, his skin neither hot nor cold.

“Sonuvabitch! He bit me! Oh God he bit me!” Jan spat in a seemingly single breath.

“Get offa him!”

Rick gave up on grappling with him and instead snapped up his nightstick and let him have it across the ear. There was a sick melon-thud and the guy’s head bounced loosely. Rick was making ready to drop another one when he heard the click of the shotgun being pulled out of its harness.

“Blow you in two you bastard.” Ratchet snap of the pump and Jan had it up and ready.

Rick knew better than to call Jan off. He’d lost it. Discharging a weapon from the inside of the cruiser wasn’t something you did in your right mind. Rick leaped back as best he could, without taking his eyes off the guy.

Scrub guy was watching Rick, eyes slack and jaw fresh with bloody drool. It was like Jan wasn’t there anymore when ten seconds ago, every bit of his strength was going into trying to grab him.

Then the guy turned, wind rippling his clothes and short, unkempt hair. A rope of drool whirled in the breeze before Jan pulled the trigger.

Rick flinched in spite of himself. You see enough cold ones face up and you begin to lose your curiosity about that sort of thing. More so when you drop the hammer on your own. He didn’t need to see the result.

Jan watched the shot tear through skin and meat. At that range, force splintered bone and anything that drove the guy wouldn’t be left standing. Scrub guy slumped into the open door of the cruiser, arm jutting through the shattered safety glass of the passenger window. He hung there for a moment and then fell, face first to the driveway.

There was no motion, not even a twitch.

Rick came to his feet slowly, pistol still drawn on the afternoon’s second body. He spat reflexively, though his mouth was coming up dry. Adrenalin shook his fingers and made him feel like he was made of wet paper.

“Jan? You okay?”

“I’m good. The fucker good and down?”

Rick took a couple steps, still covering the guy. He was full of the big empty.

“Yeah, what’s left of him ain’t getting up. Nobody’s gonna believe this. Hey, how’s the bite?”

Jan pulled himself up in the front seat, looking more than a little lost. “Bite? What are you talking about?”

Rick forced himself to step over the body, noting silently that there was a lot less blood than gunpowder. He tried to reconcile that with the first body they’d found.

“Geez, don’t you remember? That freak was biting your leg and you were screaming like a little bitch.”

Rick got a look at Jan finally. The bite had gone through Jan’s sock, right into the leg, not far above the ankle. There was a bit of blood, but not a lot. Maybe things weren’t that bad, though mark was clearly there, chunk ripped out of the fabric and everything, ridges of the guy’s teeth clearly visible in the skin. Jan himself looked pretty good, unworried, unafraid. Rick had seen the face of shock before, and this was a new one on him.

“I’m good. I’m good.” Jan repeated, just to make sure he was heard the first time. “It’s nothing. We can wrap this one up, right?”

“I think so, partner. Here, why don’t you pass me that shotgun. You’re probably tired of hefting that bad boy, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jan handed it across like it was a sandwich he wasn’t going to finish.

There was a snap of metal, which caused Rick to whirl around as soon as he’d taken hold of the Remington. He was in a bad spot, wounded partner and not able to cover either of them from this position.

“Get inside! Come with me!” came a voice from the front of the AM/PM. The Mexican stood there with a chain in one hand, looking around anxiously.

Rick fumbled around, bringing the shotgun up. His eyes narrowed on the clerk. What was up now?

The Mexican pointed over, past the cruiser.

Coming up from behind was a handful of shuffling figures. The sun was over and behind them, but Rick could clearly make out the rings of blood around their mouths. They all moved slow, but they’d be to the cruiser soon enough.

“Come on, Jan. We better move.”

“I’m good,” Jan intoned.

Posted by Matt M. at 10:52 PM | Permalink

ZERO: RACHEL

The cop’s eyes flicked up, away from the body on the concrete of the service station driveway. “Who the hell is in charge here?” he yelled. He stared back down at the wound, a crusted tear in the neck of some luckless desert nobody. There were a too many of them, drawn by the magnetic pull of Vegas, but somehow never having the strength to get all the way there. They got stuck in towns like this. Too many. Too much. Too much blood, veins emptied into an uneven blob that was already taut and shiny in the heat of early summer.

A pair of ghostlike faces lingered in the window of the AM/PM, between faded ads for chili-dogs and nachos. They watched the body. They’d watched as the DPS cruiser had pulled up, but they did nothing more. Maybe they were the ones who put the call in, maybe they were just there for beer.

Rick pulled himself away, thinking too much that the wound was about the size of a bite, but not an animal bite. He stood up and took a few steps back towards the cruiser. Hard sunlight of midday pounded on the concrete, bleaching the already colorless landscape into unreality. This wasn’t what happened out here. You got chewers who stabbed each other with screwdrivers or flash-fried themselves trying to steal copper out of power lines. Random and uncreative stupidity, that you got. But this was something else entirely.

“Anything else?” he asked of his partner.

Jan was sitting in the car, door open, one foot on the pavement. His sunglasses radiated impassiveness, but he was tense.

“Not on the radio. Just the initial call.” Jan shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t like this.”

“Wish I was back in Vegas.” Rick’s voice was an impatient rasp. He could use some forgetting, some distraction.

“So, we gonna follow the tracks or we gonna talk to the locals?”

“Shit, this is homicide, if not 5150.” Rick used the California code, though he’d never been there. It had become common currency for a criminally insane perp, and that was good enough. “We better take some notes. Call in the stiff.”

“How about you take some notes. I don’t want to find who the hell ever did that. Not without backup.”

“Fine. Chickenshit.” Rick squared himself and walked over to the door of the convenience store. Yeah, a little of home would be nice. He could be off after this, drive down the hill a way and be treated like a king in town. Wrap this dead-end call up and call it a day. Another victory in the war for public safety.

His hand grasped the warm aluminum of the door and he pulled. There was a sick chill clatter and the door barely moved. Locked? What the hell? The irritation snapped Rick to attention and he stared inside the store. He’d seen folks inside before; why the hell was he being locked out?

The glare made it impossible to see inside. Dust and grit coated the glass, sticking to Rick’s hand as he swiped it across the door. Wind whistled, all vowels and no meaning, snapping the polyvinyl pennants like fleeing kites. Somewhere behind him, he heard the squawk of the radio and a click as Jan hung it up.

“We got no backup coming,” Jan’s voice boomed over the wind. “Flipped tanker on the fifteen south of Town, asphalt all over the whole goddamn road. They want it cleared yesterday, you know how they are with that.”

“Fuck it,” Rick growled. So much for going home anytime today. “Some joker locked the door!” he yelled by way of informing Jan of his intentions. Jan sometimes needed his hand held like that. “Thought I saw someone inside, but maybe it was just my eyes.”

TAK TAK TAK. Rick tapped the plate glass with his stick. Something moved in the gloom, behind a rack of chips. Someone pulled towards the door, making motions to another who’d stayed behind. A middle-aged Mexican man came to the door, hesitantly.

“Come on! I don’t have all day here!” Rick yelled, trying to drive his authority right through the locked door.

Hands shaking, the man reached out to the chains he’d wrapped around the inner door handles. “Just…just a minute. I’ll let you…” His words were muffled and distant.

Behind Rick, there was a tired scuff of shoes on concrete.

“Hey! Hey you! Get away from that!” Jan’s bark was a little shrill, a little brittle for cop talk.

Rick snapped around, hand paused over his sidearm. Steady. Could be anything.

Streamers of dust snaked across the stained concrete, like a curtain being drawn aside. Ahead of them was a single staggering figure, walking slow or drunk. His arms, once hanging uselessly, drew up carefully like puppet arms. One of his hands was wounded, a crescent bite mark right behind where the pinky joined his right hand. His scrubs were stained with blood across the right side and more freshly, on his chest, trails of scabs leading down from his mouth and chin.

“Stop! Do not move any closer!” Still shrill, Jan was barking.

It looked like misapplied black lipstick, all that dried blood. He was out of it, completely and totally, eyes fixed on Jan standing in the doorway of the cruiser, his legs apart and weapon drawn.
“Any closer and I will be forced to fire!” The shrillness left Jan’s voice.

Scrub guy took another staggering step over the body. Rick covered the guy, though he was looking at a near profile which made the shot tricky. But at least he wasn’t going to light up the 89 octane.

“Jesus, Jan! The pumps!”

Posted by Matt M. at 06:39 PM | Permalink