Variance - Book 1, Issue #6

     The cellar’s light fixture was an old-fashioned incandescent that took Captain Blake only a few seconds to find after he felt the fraying yellow string tickle the side of his face.  Once the room was illuminated they saw the horror they had previously only smelt.  Three bodies, all neatly stacked, lay rotting in the corner of the room.  A woman, no more than thirty-five, and two small children, ten and twelve, were the victims.  The woman’s decomposition was the worst of them.  Maggots had claimed the left side of her face and her cheek hung over her lower jaw like a thinly cut piece of steak.  The children didn’t look nearly as bad.  Their faces were cold and grey, but their eyes were closed in such a way that they looked surprisingly peaceful.

     “Mary and Joseph!”  Captain Blake removed a black handkerchief from his back pocket and covered his mouth and nose.

     “Everybody upstairs,” Martin said.

     There was no protest.

     Martin came up a few minutes after the rest.  He told them the three had died of shotgun wounds to the chest, most likely, the old man’s shotgun.

     “Did he know them?” Annie asked.  

     “I don’t know,” replied Martin.  “I guess it doesn’t matter.”  It did matter, but no one wanted to admit such a chilling reality.  Maybe they were unlucky souls who stumbled onto the cottage.  Maybe they had turned to Variants.  Or maybe the old timer had just gone mad.

     “What should we do with them?” Annie asked.

     “We ain’t doing nothin’ with ‘em,” Captain Blake answered. 

     “We can’t just leave them down there,” she protested.

     “Honey, if we stopped and buried every poor soul we came across we’d be as dead as him,” said Lara, pointing to the old man’s body.

     Annie looked down and saw the old man’s chest cavity had been caved in, his right rib section lay next to him.  His abdomen had been completely hollowed out, the organs carelessly discarded near his feet.  Annie’s eyes floated over the grisliness and she turned her head and heaved.  There was no food or water in her system, only pockets of air that painfully lurched up her esophagus and dropped to the floor.  It was a wretched, cruel feeling that consumed every ounce of her.  “What did that to him?”

     “The Variants, honey,” Captain Blake muttered.  “It’s always the Variants.”

     “Somebody get him out of here,” he said, pointing to the old man.

     “I’ll do it.”  Enrique was staring solemnly at the body, his bottom lip quivering in a state of shock.  He didn’t say a word as he gathered up what was left of the old man and carried him down to the cellar.

     Lara crossed to the other side of the room where Captain Blake was preparing a fire.  She handed him some kindle and they spoke in murmurs as the flame grew before their eyes.

     Martin knelt beside Annie whose dry heaves had finally settled to staggered whimpers.  She stared off into one of the corners of the cottage, her gaze a mad combination of disconnect and vacancy.  Anyone observing her would have thought she was on the verge of hysteria—and, in truth, she probably was.  

     “Let me take a look at you,” Martin said taking the bottom of her chin in his hands.  He held one of her eyelids open and saw a large, dilated pupil staring back at him, a haunting island of black surrounded by a thin, pale green ring.

     “You have hazel eyes,” he remarked.

     “Yes,” she said quietly, “always have had.”

     He smiled, pleased she was responding.

     “What are you, a doctor or something?” she asked.

     “Something.”

     “Something?”

     “Neurologist,” he said.  “Well…I guess I was a neurologist.”  He put his fingers on her pulse, silently counting the beats.

     “Please,” she said, lowering his hand away from her neck.  “I need to know what’s going on.”

Martin sighed.  “There’s a lot to cover.”

     “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

     He sighed again.  “Then let’s start with our cast of characters:” That’s Lara Holliday.”  He pointed toward Lara, but her eyes were fixed on the fire.  “And the pleasant curmudgeon next to her is Richard Blake.”

     “Captain Richard Blake,” the curmudgeon corrected.  “Retired, of course.”

     “Of course,” Martin said, “and downstairs is Enrique Valenzuela.”

     “And you?” Annie asked.

     “My name’s Martin…Martin Knight.”

     “Doctor Martin Knight,” she corrected, a restrained smile finding its way onto her lips.

Martin nodded pleasantly.  “And we, Miss Walker, are part of the three percent of humans who haven’t been affected by whatever those things are out there.”

     “The Variants?”

     He nodded, his features sullen.

     “Why do you call them Variants?” 

     “Because, as far as we can tell, they’re human.”  He paused, letting it sink in.  But her reaction showed neither acceptance nor confusion.  “Or at least a slight variation of them,” he continued.  “We were only able to study them for a few days, to understand their variance, but it wasn’t enough time.  We were overrun and had to abandon the hospital.  They had brought me in to study the brain and spine variations, but I couldn’t find any.  We also monitored its trait behaviors.  At first they exhibited intense rage, and possessed minimal speech and motor skills, but, as the days wore on, they began to talk, and act, like us.  They adapted at an incredible rate.  It would be like an ape had evolved into man in a matter of hours.”

     “But they’re human?”

     “Super humans,” Enrique interjected.  He trudged up the cellar steps, his shirt and pants covered in a dense layer of blood and gore.  “They’re unlike anything you’ve seen before.  Their speed, their strength…it’s unbelievable.”

     “So they’re like zombies?” Annie asked.  She heard Captain Blake and Lara share a laugh and she immediately resented them.

     “No, not exactly,” Martin said evenly.  “Zombies are the living dead, as in, they’re here by some supernatural force.  Variants breathe like us, they eat like us, and their circulatory and nervous systems are identical to ours.  They have tremendous communication and organization skills.  Frankly, there’s nothing even remotely supernatural about them.“

     “But that old man was hollowed out,” Annie said, shuddering at the thought.

     “His organs weren’t taken or harvested,” he said.  “They were only discarded.”

     “Basically they just rip ya to shreds,” Captain Blake said.  He removed a worn corncob pipe from his bag and packed the bowl with a handful of thick tobacco leaves.

     “The Variants possess only behavioral differences, their lack of morality and remorse the two most notable.”

     Enrique sat down next to Martin, crossing his legs and staring up at the doctor as if he were telling some fireside ghost story.  Annie noticed his hands were trembling.  

     “Things started slow--as they usually do during an epidemic.  I think all of us had seen it coming, though nobody wanted to admit it.  People were getting shot in movie theaters and stabbed in line at the Post Office.  It was ugly.  And then all at once, the world just quit functioning.”

     “Normally, that is,” Lara said.   

     “It didn’t affect everyone the same.  While some turned into these maniacs, others went into cardiac arrest, or had seizures, or quit breathing.  It was as if their bodies couldn’t adapt at the rate their brain wanted to.  So while some became these monsters—the monsters that did that to the other man—others simply perished.  And then there are those of us who…well…well, we hope are still human.”

     “Hope?”

     “We’re still not sure what any of us are.”

     “But we’re gonna fight until we find out,” Captain Blake said, exhaling a steady stream of smoke.

     “And take down every last Variant that we can.”  Lara grinned and Captain Blake, and he returned the smile as he took another drag off the pipe.

     “I remember,” said Annie, and the others exchanged looks in such a fury she barely noticed it had happened. “I remember people dying in the streets.  The National Guard…I remember the National Guard.  And then…” but her words trailed away as the memory struggled in her mind.

     “It’s all right,” said Martin, though his words rang untrue.

     Nobody said anything for a long while.  The fire popped and crackled and Annie could feel its warmth on her back.  Lara stoked at it, her gaze mesmerized by the soothing orange glow.

     “Mrs. Walker--”  

     “Miss,” she interrupted.

     “I’m sorry?”

     “It’s Miss Walker, not Mrs.”

     He sighed, but said nothing to acknowledge an interest.  “Miss Walker, I’m afraid it’s our turn to posit a few questions.”  

     She first looked at Enrique, whose eyes, normally kind and amiable, were now accusatory and untrusting.  Annie noticed the others shared the same sentiment. 

     “What kind of questions?”

     “What’s the last thing you remember?”  The question was so staggeringly simple she hesitated to answer. 

     “I was going to mail my son’s birthday card,” the words escaped from her mouth.  “That’s when it started…I mean truly started…It was bad, and I think I noticed before…like you said…but didn’t want to admit the world had gone mad.  But I needed to mail that birthday card…You see…I haven’t seen my son in several months and…I wasn’t really sure what to say…so…” Her words were clunky and fragmented, so she stopped in frustration.

     Martin nodded, but she couldn’t tell if he understood or not.  “And when’s your son’s birthday?”

     “May 28^th.”

     The others exchanged a grave look.  Then, all at once, their eyes fell on her.

     “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

     “Miss Walker, to be honest, for a person to buried under that amount of rubble—the rubble we found you under—and emerge with only superficial injuries is a miracle in and of itself.  But, to answer your question, we’re looking at you like this because this event we speak of—The Rise of the Variants—happened over four months ago.”

     Annie stared back at him with disbelieving eyes. 

     “Now how is it, Miss Walker, that a woman of your size and stature could be buried, without food or water, for that amount of time, and come out seemingly unharmed?”

     “It certainly is peculiar,” Lara added.

     “Are you saying I’m one of them?” she asked incredulously. 

     “We’re not saying anything,” Martin told her.  “We’re just trying to figure out what’s going on.”

     “I’m not one of them!” she cried.  “I can’t be!”

     They were sitting around her like a tribunal deciding her fate.  The fire flickered against their faces and the once-pleasant glow suddenly turned harsh and ominous.

     “I couldn’t be one of them…right?”

     Still, nobody answered.  

     “Right?” Annie asked, though, now even she was unsure.

     “Of course not,” Martin finally replied.  But she could tell the others didn’t share his opinion.             “Don’t worry, we’ll know more tomorrow.”

     “What’s tomorrow?”

     “Last we heard there was a FEMA camp near downtown Chicago,” Captain Blake said.  “Figure if we can get down there, we won’t be in such a hot pickle.”

     “And maybe there will be other survivors,” Enrique said helplessly.

     “We should get some rest,” said Martin.

     They silently accepted his suggestion and moved about the room in preparation for sleep.  There was a standard blue cot in the corner of the cottage.  The fabric was worn and frayed.  Lara staggered over and fell back on the thin layer of blue.  She would be asleep in a matter of seconds.

     Enrique wandered over to a small closet adjacent to the cot and rifled through its contents.  He removed a green flannel shirt that was two sizes too small for him.  When he put it on, the bottom of his belly danced below the hem.  He took a vacant spot on the floor and curled up, blanketless.

     “I’ll take first watch,” Captain Blake said.  He picked up the old man’s shotgun and threw it over his shoulder.

     “Here,” Annie heard Martin say.  She turned to him.  “This belongs to you.”  Annie looked down and saw her son’s birthday card in his hands.  The boy with the football shaped head smiled up at her as the fireworks erupted behind him.  “We found it shortly before we found you.  I figured you’d like to have it back.”  He crossed behind her and took a seat in front of the fire.  

     “Did you read it?” she asked.

     At first, he didn’t respond.  He sat in front of the fire’s light, transfixed.  She considered asking him again, but then he said, “No.  I didn’t read it.”

     “Thank you.”

     He nodded, but never turned to look at her.

     Annie brought her knees to her chest, clutching the four month old clothes draped across her body.  Outside, she heard the rain intensify, battering the side of the house in shallow musical notes.  She listened to them as long as she could, and then sleep took her.

Hollister - A Short Series, Part 3 of 3

     Julie was on the floor, her entire body shaking.  She was a blathering mess.  “What’s happening?” were the first words I could understand.  “Why are they doing this?” finally followed after several heaving sobs.

     “I don’t know.”

     And then I remembered the bathroom window.  It was the only other way out of the bar, and it led to alley.  

     Maybe we could make it to the police station on foot, I thought, without much hope of success.

     I helped Julie to her feet and led her to the bathroom.  She never asked where we were going, her mind and body were limp, resigned.  But when I pushed open the door, her scream ripped through my eardrums.  Hanging from the bathroom stall was Donald Morse.  His eyes had been gouged out.  His tongue had turned a dark shade of lavender and had slipped out of his mouth.  I tried to put my hand over Julie’s mouth, but she was frantic.  The men in flannel would be listening…

     “I need to get out of here!”  She slapped my forearms until I let go.

     “Julie, you can’t!”

     “Fuck you!”  she hissed.  Julie pulled up the bathroom window and I felt the cruel winter cold again. 

     “Julie, wait!”
     But she was already halfway out, her legs flailing as she went.  

     My mind was spinning.  If they had gotten in the bathroom window, I thought…

     I heard a strange muffling sound followed by a thick whack, like the sound of somebody swatting a laundry bag with the end of a broom handle.  I heard a grunt and saw Julie’s leg muscles seize and then relax.  Her body slumped forward, her legs gave one last agonizing twitch, and then she was still.

     “Julie?”

     No response.

     The wind howled.  I could see dusty snow settling on the back of Julie’s cardigan.

     “Julie?”

     Still, no response.

     I had nearly reached her when she was suddenly thrust back inside.  She fell back against the bathroom stall near Donald Morse’s lifeless feet.  Sticking out of the bottom of her chin was the two sided scythe, the other end of it protruding from her open mouth.  

     A hand grabbed my wrist.  I looked down and saw a leather glove clasped around it.  Through the broken window I saw the man in the green flannel staring at me with his faceless face.  I tried to pull away, but his grip was too great.  He extended his other arm, brandishing a hunting knife.  He slid the blade across my forearm and I let out an uninhibited howl of pain.  I gave a desperate yank and the man’s grip released.  I stumbled out the bathroom door just as the man in green climbed through the bathroom window and into the bar.

     A chill ran up my spine as my impending end was knocking at my door.

     I leapt over the bar just as I heard the bathroom door push open.

     I crouched down and heard the soft click of the man’s boots cross to the other side of the bar.  His breathing was steady and unwavering, which made it all the more terrifying.  He checked the lock on the front door, opened it, then closed it.  For the briefest moment I had the foolish hope that he had left, but then I heard his boots again.

     There was a full bottle of Wild Turkey to my left.  I pulled it from the bottom shelf and clutched the neck in my right hand.

     The boots stopped.

     I waited.

     The scythe rained down, striking me in the right shoulder.  The man in green tugged at it and I felt my muscle tissue twist and tear. 

     I threw myself back and felt the blade dislodge.  Blood poured out of me so fast I felt the glorious urge to pass out, to succumb to the inevitably of death, but I willed myself to my feet, the bottle of bourbon still in my hand.

     The man in green stared at me across the bar, the unconscious man between us.  He was a sleeping child, naïve to the horrors and brutality of the world surrounding him.

My knuckles turned white.  I held the bottle like a baseball bat.

     The man in green turned the blade upward and slashed toward me.  It grazed past my neck, brushing over my beard.  I thrust the bottle as hard as I could and stuck him between the slits.  The heavy aroma of booze filled the air.  Blood seeped through the pillowcase as the man in green stumbled backward.  I reached into my pocket and removed my ex-father-in-law’s Zippo.  I lit the wick and tossed it at him.  The pillowcase ignited immediately.  The man in green slapped helplessly at the flames as they worked down his body and across his flannel.  He ran around the bar, blind and foolish, before collapsing on the floor.

     I jumped over the bar and grabbed the scythe.  It felt clumsy in my hands, almost silly.

The man in green held up his hand for me to stop, begging me, pleading with those terrible slits for eyes.  He was as vulnerable as we all had been.  It felt good watching him struggle, the flames licking him like an insatiable devil.  The pillowcase was red and fiery and consumed by death.  And I loved it...

     I drove the scythe down and struck the man through the temple.  His body seized, convulsed, and then was still.  

     My legs gave out.  I dropped to the floor in a heap.  My body shook.  The man continued to smolder.  I could smell his burning flesh and singed hair.

     Eventually, my breathing slowed and my thoughts turned to earlier.  I thought of Mickey.  I thought of Mike drinking wine.  I thought of Donald grousing about the Twins.  I thought of the terror in Julie’s eyes.  “There were three of them!” she had screamed.  I thought of the man in red, stuck in the grill of Mickey’s truck.  I thought of the smoldering man, the scythe still firmly in his head.  

     There were three of them!

     The words were in my head, but nothing seemed to process.

     There were three of them!

     And then the man Mickey and I had set on the bar top suddenly sat up, moving as if he had just woken from a long hibernation.  He turned his head toward mine, his eyes wide and maniacal.  I noticed what I hadn’t noticed before: the man was dressed in flannel, dark black and grey checkers.

     He smiled at me...

     The man in the black flannel stepped down from the bar and made his way across the bar.  He was casual in his steps (I think that frightened me most).

     I placed a hand over my wound and tried to stand, but my legs had given up for the night…maybe even forever.

     The man in black knelt down, still smiling.  “Hello,” he said in a way that was almost cordial.

     I breathed slowly.

     “Do you know who I am?”

     I shook my head.

     The smile grew wider. 

     I said nothing.

     “The town is dead,” he said.  “Don’t bother going back.”

     “Back?”

     “Yes.  Back.”

     “Are you going to kill me?”

     He shook his head.  “You need to tell the others I’m coming.”

     “Who?”

     His grin doubled.  “Goodbye,” he said abruptly.  The man in black stood and headed for the front door.

     “Where are you going?” I cried helplessly.

     “To the next town,” he said placidly.

     And then the man in black turned on his heels, the way a drill sergeant might move, and disappeared into the cold and dark of Hollister.

Hollister - A Short Series, Part 2 of 3

     We were immediately met by the cold.  A cascade of snow swept up from the sidewalk and buried itself in my beard.  I looked up the street and saw Mickey’s Chevy resting comfortably at the curb.  It was a beat up thing, well over 200,000 miles.  The base of the frame was rusted, matching the truck’s already copper tone.  It was ugly, but sturdier than just about any vehicle on the road. 

     Julie was surprisingly swift.  She pulled open the cab door, climbed in, and held out her arms to receive Mike.  We slid him in.

     “Keep the towel on his neck,” I said.

     She clamped her hands around the towel.  Mike’s lips had gone purple and his breathing grew shallow.

     I rounded the truck and jumped into the passenger seat.  

     Mickey placed the key in the starter and turned.  And, like something out of a bad dream, the engine clicked and whirred, but didn’t start.  He tried again.  Nothing.

     “What’s the problem?”  I asked, hearing my voice crack like a twelve year old.

     “I don’t know.”

     I scanned the streets.  There were no men with masks.  There was no flannel.  There were no sets of bloody tools.  But, still, I was terrified.

     Mickey threw open his door and was gone before I had a chance to call him back.  I saw him lift the hood and then he was gone from my sight.  I could hear him fiddling around and then he called:          “Try it now!”

     I turned the key and the engine coughed to life.  Even over the roar of the engine I could hear Mickey’s laughter, pure elation.

     “C’mon!” I called.

     Mickey lowered the hood and I heard the smallest gasp emit from Julie’s lips.  It was as if her entire body contracted in one instant and she was frozen in horror.  Standing behind Mickey, no more than a foot away, was the man exactly as she had described him.  He was very large, towering over a 6’2” Mickey.  He wore bright red flannel and had a pillowcase with two slits for eyes covering his face.  In his left hand was a knife so large I guessed it must have weighed close to ten pounds.  

     I tried to point, but my muscles refused to cooperate.  

     Julie screamed.

     Mickey didn’t have a chance to turn, and, in a way, I’m thankful.  He escaped the terror of what was to come.  He didn’t have the chance to let his bowels drop or bladder release.  It was as quick as it could have been.  The man with the red flannel jabbed the knife into the side of Mickey’s neck.  I saw the pointed end of the blade break through to the other side and a brilliant display of blood rained down on the truck’s windshield.  

     Mickey staggered to his right, one hand on the hood of his truck.  He grabbed at the knife, confused, before he finally toppled over and was gone from my view.

     The man in red stared at us longingly, cocking his head, as if inviting us to play. 

     I jumped over to the driver’s seat.

     He reached for the latch under the hood.

     I threw the truck into first.

     He lifted the hood and reached inside the engine.

     I stepped on the gas and the truck lurched forward.

     He grabbed the front grate.  The truck took off, but he kept his hand inside the engine.

     I swerved to the right, narrowly avoiding a nearby station wagon.  I shifted into second gear, but the truck lost traction.  We fishtailed to the left.  The wheel spun out of my hands and I thought the truck was ready to tip.

     The man in red tore a cable from the engine and the truck began to sputter.  We were losing speed.  The man in red was hanging on, but I could see his hand start to slip.  I pumped the gas, but the truck was dying.  The truck straightened out, sputtered again, and then it finally died.  The truck veered for a telephone pole.

     “Get down!” I cried.

     I didn’t turn back to see if Julie listened, my eyes were fixed on the man in red.  He turned to look behind him, to see his looming fate, but before he had a chance the truck struck the pole, sandwiching him in between.  His body spasmed, his head rolled to the side, and then slumped forward onto the hood.

     I pushed open the driver’s side door, jumped out, and pulled open the back cab.  

     “Mike’s not breathing!” Julie cried. 

     “We have to move.”

     “Get up, Mike, get up!”

     But Mike was unmoving.  His skin was as white as the falling snow and his body was terribly still.

     “I can’t leave him!” 

     The night was incredibly dark, but from the warmth of the streetlights reflecting off the snow, I saw him.  He came on slow, almost plodding.  He was only an outline, but then he became incredibly clear.  The second man in flannel, this one dressed in green, was approaching us.  He was wielding something that looked like a double sided scythe and had that same pillowcase mask draped over his face.  His slits were narrower, long running lines that ran north to south and were barely visible through the storm.

     “Julie, we have to go!  He’s coming!” 

     She looked out the back window, saw the man in green, and screamed an impossible scream.  

     I grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her from the cab. The man in green continued toward us, walking with slow, but deliberate steps. “Hurry!” I told her.  The bar was in sight.  Light streamed out of the front door window, a beacon of hope.

     “We’re almost there!”

     But so was the man in green.  He trudged toward us, phosphorescent light reflecting off his scythe as it cut through the snow.

     I grabbed hold of the handle, threw open the door, and pushed Julie inside.  I felt a brief tug from the other side of the door handle.  I pulled back and threw the latch.  My breath had fogged up the porthole shaped window and I quickly wiped the fog away.  Staring back at me through his two slits was the man in green.  He tilted his head to the side as if inspecting every inch of me.  And then, like a casual window shopper, he turned away from the window and headed off down the street.

Hollister - A Short Series - Part 1 of 3

     Winter had come on fast--as it usually does in northern Minnesota--chasing away autumn in a cruel and careless fashion.  The town of Hollister was cloaked in a dense layer of unforgiving white, the wind chill a nip below zero.  It was only November and already I knew we were in for a gruesome winter.

     The bar windows rattled.  Its patrons—for the most part—had left shortly before 11:00 p.m.  Most had exited with the same mundane excuse (“Gotta get home to the family” or “Gotta let out the dog.”).  Me?  I had no family and no dog.  I did have an ex-wife: a classless woman who left me her father’s vintage Zippo lighter and a pair of ice cube trays in the divorce.  Since then, my nights were empty remembrances of too many whiskeys.

     There are many secrets in a bar.  But there are also many lies...

     I had been occupying the stool farthest from the door for the better part of the day, my only entertainment coming when I’d flick the Zippo and extinguish the flame.  

     Mickey Riley, the owner, was a good enough bloke who never seemed to pay me much bother.  Typically, I was quiet, watching the tube with little interest, happy to drown whatever sorrows my 40% could handle.  I caused very little trouble, never raised my voice, and always paid my tab.

     In the far corner were Julie and Mike Daggert, drinking from the same bottle of red wine and staring at each other with the same love lost expression they undoubtedly shared on their wedding day.

     At the other end of the bar was Donald Morse.  He, too, was quiet, much quieter than me.  He would always nurse the same beer for hours on end and pay wordlessly before going home to the same nothingness I, too, was bound to meet.

     Hollister, itself, is beyond quaint: the population is just shy of 300 (and I would wholeheartedly challenge that census).  There is a post office, a city hall, two bars, a school, and a few offices occupying a dilapidated strip mall on the edge of town.  Mickey’s Bar is on the main drag.  Not much happens in Hollister and most of us like it that way

     “Can you turn the game on?” Donald Morse called to Mickey.

     Mickey switched to the Twins/Angels game.  Twins were down 4-0.  I watched a four-pitch walk then returned my attention to my Scotch.  I twirled the glass in my palm, considered taking a sip, then pushed it to the side.

     “Done?” Mickey asked.

     “No.”

     Mike Daggert walked drunkenly to the bar.  I had lost count, but I believe he and Julie had polished off three bottles of Merlot.  “Colorrrr me upppp,” he said, slapping a wad of bills on the counter.

     “You all right, Mike?” Mickey asked.

     “Right as r-r-rain.” Mike motioned to the wad of bills.  Mickey scooped them up, returned with a few singles (to which Mike waved them off), and returned to his table to claim his wife.  “Well, my dear...”  Mike extended an arm, which Julie took graciously, and he led her toward the exit.  “Mickey, my good man, thank you for a lovely evening.”  Mike gave him a tip of the cap and they disappeared out the door.

     I would see Mike Daggert only once after that.  His skin would be very pallid—almost fragile—and there would be a rich panic in his eyes.  Maybe it would be because of all the blood.  He would surrender to his injuries and die in the back of Mickey’s pickup truck.  

     “Drink, Donald?” I called to the end of the bar.

     He nodded.

     “Couple of whiskeys.”

     Mickey grabbed a bottle of Dewar’s and poured two glasses.

     “Really coming down out there,” Mickey mumbled.

     I glanced out one of the windows and saw a sheet of white snow.

     “Yeah,” I affirmed.  I finished the Dewar’s.

     For anyone who has ever lived in a snowy environment, they know how it sounds when the driver lays on the brakes.  You can hear the struggle of the car rather than the tires.  It lurches through the snow and ice, the engine emitting a sad sort of grunt.  Then there’s the sound snow spewing up from the spinning tires.  And on this particular night, I heard these sounds followed by a deafening crash, a cacophony of broken glass and twisted metal.  Whoever was in that vehicle had been taken by the blind and unjust force of Minnesota Winter.

     We all shared the same worrisome glance before rushing out the door to Main Street.

     I saw a cloud of smoke and a small fire, but the damage to the Ford F-150 hadn’t been as great as the sound implied.  The truck was wrapped around one of the streetlights, but only the tail-bed.  The cabin of the truck was intact with only a few superficial damages. 

     “Call 911!” Mickey shouted to Donald.

     Donald retreated inside.

     “C’mon.”  Mickey was already across the street.

     I followed him wordlessly, feeling the callous winter cold against my ears.  

     The side-window was cracked, the driver’s head slumped against it.

     Mickey tapped on the glass.  “You all right in there?”

     No response.

     “Hey!”

     Silence.

     “Let me.”  I stepped forward and pulled open the door.  The man fell out, dumping himself into my arms, 260-pounds of pure muscle.  An absolute beast.  The top half of him nearly sent me flat on my ass.

     “Let’s get him inside.”  I pulled him from the vehicle and Mickey grabbed hold of his legs.  We trudged back to the bar through the unplowed snow.  I felt the thickness of it soaking through my shoes and regretted leaving my snow boots at home.

     We crashed through the front door.  The man was still limp, lying in our arms like a bale of hay.

     “Put him up here.”  Mickey led the body to the bar and with a couple of giant heaves we managed to set him on the bar top.  The man’s head lolled to the side and the tip of his tongue flopped out of his mouth like a sleeping dog.

     “Is he dead?” I asked.

     “No.”

     “Is he bleeding?”

     Mickey looked him over, shook his head.  “No.”

     “So he’s just knocked out?”

     “Maybe.”  But there was skepticism in his voice.  I could tell the man troubled Mickey, but I don’t think either of us knew why.

     “Ya ever seen this guy before?” Mickey asked.

     “No.  You?”

     “No.”

     We heard an incessant beeping and turned toward the end of the bar.  The rotary’s receiver was off the hook.  

     “Where the hell is Donald?”

     I shrugged.  “Call the police.”

     Mickey rounded the bar and dialed.  “Nobody’s answering,” he said after a while.

     “How is that possible?”

     Mickey shook his head solemnly.  There was graveness to his expression and his skin had suddenly turned a nasty shade of grey.  

     “You all right, Mickey?”

     “Yes,” he said quietly.

     What happened next I’ve run over in my mind several times since, but it’s difficult to decipher much beyond a blur of panic and pulsing adrenaline.  It would be several minutes before clarity would return, but it would be clarity achieved in a world that had suddenly gone mad.  I believe I heard the screaming first.  It was a woman’s scream, high-pitched and brittle.  But that’s about all I remember of the scream.  

     I glanced up at the front door, the screams growing more amplified.  The door burst open and I saw Julie and Mike Daggert.  They were scared, their last bits of drunkenness gone.   

     “Help!” Julie screamed.  “Help us!”

     Julie had an arm under Mike’s armpit, but was struggling under his weight.  Mike’s skin was ghastly white.  His entire right side was bathed in a thick layer of red.  His hand was clasped around his throat, blood seeping between clutched fingers.

     Mickey and I grabbed hold of him.  We laid him on the floor and he let out a soft groan; a small spurt of blood shot out from between his index and middle fingers catching me in the chest.

     “Do something!” Julie screamed.

     My legs wobbled and my tongue went dry.  I squashed the urge to vomit, but only just.  I pulled Mike’s hand away from his neck and saw a large gash running from his jaw-line to his clavicle.  It was fantastically deep.

     “Towels!”

     Mickey reached over the bar and threw me a handful of tea towels.  I clasped them against Mike’s neck.  It helped, but only barely.

     “Call the police!” Julie screamed.

     “There was no answer,” said Mickey.

     “That can’t be.”

     “We’ve tried twice.”

     “There out there!” Julie cried, on the verge of hysterics.

     I looked up and saw the horror lining her eyes.  “Who’s out there?”

     “We were walking to the car...and then they came out of nowhere.”

     “Who?”

     “These people...they were...wearing masks.”

     “What kind of masks?”

     “I don’t know...like pillowcases.  They had them wrapped around their heads.  And they...were all wearing flannel.  There were three of them...”  Her voice trailed away.  She started to cry.  “They had these tools...like modified knives or something.  And they...stabbed Mike.  They just stabbed him...”  Her sobs were heaving; these little obnoxious grunts, and I felt silly for being annoyed.

     “And then what?”

     “One of the men told me to run,” she said.  “And then he laughed...they all laughed.  I got Mike to his feet...I could hear them following us.  Oh, Jesus!  Oh, Christ!”

     “Mickey, check outside.”

     Mickey ran to the windows.  He cocked his head from side to side, peering through the thick snowfall.  “I don’t see anything.”

     “Are you sure?”

     He gazed around again.  “There’s nobody out there.”

     “We need to get him to the hospital.”

     “We can’t go out there!” Julie insisted. 

     “It’s going to be all right,” I told her, though I did a terrible job at being convincing. 

     “They’re gonna kill us.”

     “My truck is out front,” said Mickey.  “No more than twenty steps.  We can throw him in the back and be at the hospital in five.”

     Julie nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks in long rivers of salt.

     “Help me get him up.”

     Mickey grabbed Mike’s ankles.  “What about him?” he asked.

     Julie looked at the man on the bar top, noticing him for the first time, but she asked no questions, and I was thankful for that.

     “We’ll send an ambulance once we get to the hospital,” I said.  “Julie, when we get outside, open the back of the cab and help us get him in; Mickey and I will sit up front.”

     She nodded, but her eyes never left the floor.

     We unlatched the front door and pushed outside… 

Variance - Book 1, Issue #5

Potawatomi Woods, Wheeling, IL

Four months after The Rise

     A group of survivors raced across the desolate terrain, not bothering to stop for what seemed like days.  Their legs were tired and their throats dry, but they pressed on.  They had passed through abandoned town after abandoned town, picking up food and clean water whenever they could.  But they afforded themselves very few rests, running on fumes for quite some time.

     Illinois had been just as desolate as Minnesota and Wisconsin, and when they came to a preserve just outside Chicago, things were no different.  It was completely deserted, not even the occasional caw of a crow could be heard amongst the eerie ripples of wind and rattling dead leaves.  They had fled for the city, desperate for hope, for a savior, for anything.  They had fled for safety, but the Variants followed.  And they were not far off.

     “Hey, Lara—check this out!”  Enrique Valenzuala’s words stuttered against his trembling breath.  Enrique was short, stout and Mexican, and ever since he was a little boy, he had been self-conscious of all three.  His mother preached sermon after sermon about being proud of their heritage, but he did everything he could to divorce himself from it.  In one mortifying incident, his mother slapped the Chalupa out of Enrique’s hand after his ultimate defiance: skipping Sunday supper for a quick trip to Taco Bell.  He never forgot the look in her eye, and it was the only clear memory of her his mind could muster.

     “We ain’t got time for this, Enrique.”  Lara stopped next to Enrique, though her voice was calm and maintained.

     Enrique’s stomach grumbled as he bent down to retrieve a Hallmark card fluttering in the wind.  The card was the only definable object that protruded from a mound of wreckage of what used to be a slew of temporary shacks or huts.  Now, however, they were leveled into nothingness.  How the destruction had come about was a mystery to them, but they had seen enough wreckage over the past four months to know not to ask any questions.  On the cover of the card was a cartoon boy with a football-shaped head.  He held a green birthday cake while fireworks exploded behind him.  In the upper right hand corner of the card was a peculiar splotch of brown, something that looked like a grease stain, but was most likely dried blood.

     “What did I just say?” Lara yelled.  “We can’t stop, Enrique!” 

     Lara Holliday was thin and pale, and her blonde hair only accentuated those traits.  Her face was soiled with dirt and her breath smelled of Spam and canned chipotles.  At her sides were dual .357 Magnums fastened securely in their holsters.

     Enrique ignored her (as he usually did) and freed the birthday card from the wreckage.  “Holy fuck!” he cried, stumbling backward and falling onto the pile of tattered shingles and blistered wood.

     “What is it?”

     “A hand!  There’s a goddamn hand under there!”

     “What the hell’s going on?  Why’d you stop?” a gruff voice came from behind them.  “Enrique, quit fuckin’ around.”

     “Captain, get over here!  You gotta see this,” Enrique said to the older gentleman approaching them.

     Captain Richard Blake was old in age, but youthful in personality.  His grey stubble had turned a vibrant shade of white over the last few weeks, and he exhibited a thick head of magnificent silver hair.  If it weren’t for two tours in Vietnam and a brief stint in Desert Storm, Captain Blake would look ageless. 

     “What is it?” Captain Blake asked, the annoyance in his voice transitioning to curiosity.

     All Enrique could do was point.  At the edge of the rubble, protruding from a layer of shingles, was a woman’s hand.  It was limp and motionless, an abandoned relic of what used to be.  The nails were caked with dirt and a thin layer of dust had settled across the skin making the hand look hollow and waxy.

     “Hell!  I reckon that’s the strangest thang I seen all week,” Captain Blake remarked.

     This was true.  True, until the fingers moved, however.

     “Strike the last,” he corrected himself.

     Enrique nearly toppled over.  Lara held back a gasp.  The hand flexed, moving stiffly after waking from a deep sleep.

     “What do we do?” Enrique croaked.

     “What do you reckon we do?  Get her the hell outta there!”

     Enrique began to dig, heaving up splintered wood and crumbled trusses with marked ease. 

     “Where’s the Doc?” Lara asked.  She stepped behind Captain Blake and stared off into the clearing.  It was empty, and painfully quiet, until a deafening scream ripped across the preserve and throttled their eardrums.  It was a blitzing scream layered into a nightmarish harmony. 

     “Is that them?” Enrique asked.  A terrified look flashed in his eyes.  He had momentarily stopped digging, trembling with fear.  “That can’t be them, can it?”

     “Doc!”  Captain Blake shouted toward the clearing.

     Two hundred yards behind them, a man emerged from the tree line.  He was running, a visible sense of urgency in his steps.

     “Martin, what is it?” Lara asked

     “They’re coming,” was all he said.

     Captain Blake stepped forward, the first to voice his pessimism.  “That ain’t possible, Doc, we still got an hour a daylight lef’!”

     Doctor Martin Knight was dressed handsomely in black slacks and a white button down.  Both articles of clothing were a bit dingy and dust-stained, but, otherwise, in perfect condition.  When he finally reached them his breaths were heavy and plodding, and his shirt was rich with perspiration.  He stepped to Enrique who was still knee deep rubble.  “What the hell are you doing?”

     “Check this out, Doc!  There’s a god damn woman under here!”

     Another scream split across the preserve, this one more intense than the last. 

     “They’re gettin’ closer, Doc,” Captain Blake said, the southern twang in his voice suddenly more pronounced.

     “Pull her up!” Martin said.  He crouched down, helping Enrique sift through the debris.

     “Are you crazy?  They’re almost on us!”  Lara’s protest was warranted, yet ignored.

     Enrique lifted the last fragment of wood and cast it aside.  He and Martin peered into the crater and saw the face of middle-aged woman within the hollow.  Apart from a minor scratch on her cheek and a small bruise on her forehead, she appeared to be in reasonably good condition.

     Enrique reached into the crater and the woman’s eyes suddenly opened.  He jumped back, a small scream escaping from his lips.  “Holy fuck shit!” 

     The woman opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.

     Another scream in the distance.  A rumbling.  They were very near…

     Martin and Enrique reached under the woman’s arms and pulled her up.  Her hair was littered with soot and grime, and her fingernails were cracked and brittle.  Her eyes darted back and forth between the four, unsure of what to do or say.  Understandably so.

     “Are you all right?” Martin asked hastily.

     The woman could only blink at them. 

     “What’s your name?”

     Another scream tore across the preserve.

     “Can you understand me?”

     The woman blinked again, but, this time, she seemed to grasp some semblance of comprehension.

     “What’s your name?” Martin repeated.

     “Annie,” the woman’s voice croaked.  “Annie Walker.”

     Martin took her by the shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes.  “Mrs. Walker, I’m afraid I don’t have time to explain what’s about to happen.  All I can tell you is that we’re going to have to run; run as fast as we can.  I don’t want you to look back and I don’t want you to ask any questions.  All I want you to do is run.  Do you understand me?”

     There was a blatant look of pandemonium in her eyes.  She didn’t answer.  She gaped in awe at the shotguns in Captain Blake and Enrique’s hands, the Magnums stuck against Lara’s thighs, and the rifle strapped across Martin’s back.

     “Mrs. Walker!” Martin snapped.  “Do you understand?”

     “Yes…” she mumbled.  “Yes, I understand.”  Though, truthfully, she didn’t.

     A final piercing scream and they all turned to face the tree line.  In the distance, a hundred bodies emerged from the wood, their features indistinguishable from the survivors’ distance.  The figures were lined up in a meticulous row, like an army in attack position.

     “What is that?” Annie asked.

     “The Variants,” Captain Blake said cocking his shotgun in an absurd moment of surrealism.

     “The what?” Annie asked. 

     “Jesus, honey, what’d Martin just say?” Lara barked.  “No fucking questions!”

     Martin interlocked his fingers with Annie’s and the five were off and running.  “Get to that cluster of trees!” Martin shouted, pointing to a broad acreage of firry pines.  Their trunks were as thick as Cadillacs and their branches were low and dense.  

     Their feet pounded on the dry grass, but the sound was drowned out by the pursuing Variants.

     The survivors reached the tree line and traversed their way through the crowded wood.  Annie glanced up at the tall pines as Martin pulled her along, his pace quickening.

     “There!  Up ahead!”  The four followed as Lara made a slight left on a faux trail and emerged into another clearing, this one twice the size of the last.  It was open, exposed.

     They were sitting ducks.

     On the far end of the clearing stood a small cottage, recently built considering the glimmering shingles and unfinished wood.  Its unnatural location looked like a bizarre construct haphazardly placed inside an Edward Hopper painting.

     “Get to the cottage!” Martin shouted, now leading the way.  Annie was close behind him, her hand still firmly clasped in his.

     They hustled up the porch steps and tried the front door.

     Locked.  Quack, quack, went the sitting ducks.

     “Enrique!”  Martin called him to the door.

     Enrique knelt down and removed a lock-pick set from his back pocket.  Within seconds the pick took and the latch lifted.  He pushed the door open and a shotgun blast landed next to his head, the sound piercing his ears.  Wood exploded off the frame, unhinging the door.  Splinters skipped into Enrique’s cheek, but he avoided the shell’s BBs.  He toppled backward, gun in hand, and instinctively fired a shot into the house.  A soft groan was audible from just inside the doorway."  Shit!  Oh shit!”  Enrique was on his feet and the first one inside.

     “Get inside!” Captain Blake ordered,

     Lara and Martin looked back at the pines wavering in the breeze.  At the edge of the clearing, four-dozen bodies emerged from the wooded darkness.

     “Come on!”  Martin grabbed Lara by her tank top and yanked her inside. 

     “I’m sorry man, I’m so sorry.”  Enrique was sobbing over the body of an older gentleman.  By the look of his wrinkled skin and fragile bones he couldn’t have been younger than seventy-five.  A single gunshot wound stood out on his tattered white t-shirt.  His chest was expanding and contracting with such difficulty Martin was sure the BBs had lodged in his lungs.  Enrique had the old man’s head propped up on his thigh and was applying pressure to the wound as best he could.

     “Lara, secure the door!”  Martin knelt down next to the old man.

     Lara grabbed hold of a stained, blue couch, spun it around, and wedged it against the unhinged door.  She toppled a nearby dresser onto the sofa, the drawers regurgitating out as she did.  Inside the drawers were articles of clothing, both male and female, both young and old.

     Martin lifted Enrique’s hand from the wound and saw a deep hole three inches above his floating rib.  The blood was fantastically dark and seemed unusually thick for an unclotted wound.   “How you holding up?” he asked the old man.

     “He shot me,” the old man coughed.  His teeth were stained with blood.  “The son of a bitch shot me.”

     “I didn’t mean to, man, I’m sorry.”  Enrique wiped the tears from his eyes.

     “Enrique, go help Lara.” 

     He left reluctantly, his sobs continuing to fill the small cottage.

     “They’re coming, aren’t they?  The Variants?” the old man asked.  He mustered a defeated laugh, then coughed again.  Blood ran out the side of his mouth and collected on the unfinished wood floor.  “Those goddamn Variants.  I thought I’d be able to stay here forever.  Goddamned fool, that’s what I was.”  His breaths were becoming shorter and more constricted.  

     Outside the sunlight was diminishing and the remaining rays projected the Variants’ shadows against the cottage walls.  They were long and daunting and stretched like something out of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

     Lara peered through the cottage’s lone window.  “Jesus, they’re everywhere.”

     “Listen…”  The old man’s voice was now barely a whisper.  “Under the rug…there’s a door…you can hide down there…until…”  His words trailed away and his eyes fluttered.

     “Lara, check under the rug.”

     Lara snatched up a Moroccan rug exposing a small door cut in the floorboards.  She pulled it open and the fantastic stench of death wafted up at her.  Lara recoiled, dropping the door with a thud.

     “Shhh!” Captain Blake hissed.

     “It smells down there!”

     “Just go,” Martin told them.

     Enrique and Lara were already in the cellar by the time Captain Blake had led Annie down.  Martin put his hands under the old man’s armpits and dragged him toward the door in the floor.

     “Let go a me,” said the old man

     The front door shook suddenly.  The couch blocking the door slid forward.  The Variants would be inside soon.

     “We have to get downstairs,” Martin pleaded.

     “Let ‘em come!  I ain’t scared!”  The madness in the old man’s eyes was dreadful.

     Martin tried again to slide him to the cellar door, but the old man continued to struggle.

     The dresser on the worn blue couch rattled.  Hands were reaching inside.  It wouldn’t hold much longer.

     The old man reached for his shotgun.  Martin tried to intervene but the old man knocked him away.  Martin fell back, tumbling through the cellar opening before landing six feet below the cottage floor.  The air rushed from Martin’s lungs and he gasped for a breath.

     Upstairs they heard the couch slide another foot, its legs skidding across the brittle wood.  

Captain Blake jumped up, grabbed hold of the door in the floor, and slammed it shut, enveloping them in darkness.

     Martin heaved in his first true breath and the rich smell of decomposition ran up his nostrils.  It was a familiar scent, something he had grown accustomed to during his semester of Gross Anatomy.  Only this smell was of rotting corpses.  No special care was taken, no embalming fluid had been used, no preservation of any kind.  There had  only been the summer’s heat to keep death’s company.

     The front door exploded open sending the dresser clattering to the floor.  Martin pictured the poor old man above him, staring in awe as the Variants hogged his doorway, paralyzed by fear and pain.  “You filthy Variants!” he heard the old man yell.  “Get outta my house!”  

     There was the unmistakable crack of a shotgun blast exploding out of the barrel followed by the futile attempt of the old man trying to reload.  Footsteps thundered into the house.  Tearing flesh and crunching bone was all they could hear from the cellar before the old man gurgled a final breath and was no more.

     Martin’s eyes adjusted to the cellar’s darkness and he glanced over to see Captain Blake covering Annie’s mouth with his hand.  Tears were streaking down her face and settling on his wedding band, but Captain Blake seemed not to notice.

     Lara hung from the cellar door, using every ounce of her thin frame to hold it shut.  

     The Variants lumbered around upstairs, pacing and breathing with ghostly depth.  Then the footsteps turned and made their way out of the house.

     They waited several minutes before anyone spoke.  When Lara did, she said, “At least it wasn’t as bad as last time.”

     Annie broke down in an uncontrollable wave of sobs.  It was the only sound any of them made until the rain mercifully came and drowned everything out.