Chapter 10

10: The smell of fried chicken.  Randall Switter was just starting to come down from his adrenalin rush.  After watching Glen disappear, Randy had fled for his life.  Unseen hands had silently pulled him into a dark room.  Those hands belonged to Sam Wine.  Sam was the inhabitant of this apartment.  Apparently, he was cooking up some fried chicken.  It smelled delicious.
  "Randall, were there any others with you?"
  "Yeah, three guys outside and one upstairs.  I think Glen's dead, though."
  "Damn!  I had tried to stop you before you went up, but you ran up there as if your lives depended on it."
  "Yeah, Glen had to use the bathroom."
  "That's a damn shame.  Did you know him well?"
  "No.  We were put together as part of a rescue team to find survivors out here."
  "You two and the other three guys outside?"
  "Yeah.  They're keeping an eye out at the entrance to the building for any zombies."
  "You should go get them.  The zombies don't come here.  This place scares them.  It's haunted."
  "It figures.  I got zombies outside, ghosts inside.  Do you see the irony here?  We're stuck in the middle here with soulless bodies on the one hand and bodiless spirits on the other.  I don't know if I'd rather laugh or piss myself.  I think both."  Sam sat silently as Randy went to the others and told them about what had happened to Glen and then about finding Sam.  They agreed to come inside.
  After a round of introductions, the timer went off on the oven.  "If you'll excuse me for just one moment."  Sam went into the kitchen to check on the chicken.  He came back with a steaming platter full of fried chicken.
  "You know, it's too bad Lowe ain't here with us.  I hear that Chinese people really like fried chicken," said Ben.
  Randy looked confused.  "The Chinese?  I thought that was somebody else that really likes fried chicken."
  Ben nodded.  "Well, that's just a stereotype."
  "That looks like enough chicken for all of us," observed Mickey.
  "Yes, I have been saving it for a special occasion.  Today seemed to be just that day."
  "But you were all by yourself.  Why did you cook so much chicken?  And why is today so special?"
  "Oh well, you see, today is the day that you have come to my house."
  "But you couldn't have known that we were coming and how many of us there'd be."
  "Well that does take some explaining doesn't it?  Why don't we discuss it over dinner?"  Everyone agreed and helped themselves to some tender, juicy thighs and drumsticks.  There was also a fresh pot of coffee.  He prepared each of their coffees to their liking.  As usual, Sam took his with two sugars and a splash of cream.
  "There's no simpler way to put it except to say that I am a psychic."  Everyone at the table looked at each other, then to him.  "I knew you were coming today.  As I told Randy, I tried to keep him and Glen from going up the stairs, but I wasn't fast enough.  I knew Glen was going to die, but I failed to prevent that.  I did prepare enough chicken for him too, but unfortunately, we shall have to dine upon his portion as well."  Ben put down his fifth piece of chicken, suddenly not hungry any more.
  "How do you know you're a psychic?" asked Sauro.
  Sam took a sip of coffee.  "I don't know.  How do you know that you have the sense of smell?"
  Sauro's eyes went wide.  "Because I can smell things."  He swept imaginary crumbs off his lap.
  Sam nodded his head.  "Exactly.  I can sense things that aren't immediately obvious to most people.  I first became aware of this gift when I was seven.  My father was dying of stomach cancer.  Near the end, he asked me to come to the side of his bed to sit and talk to him.  He took my hand and asked how school was that day.  As I recanted the various details of my day, he was asking me questions here and there.  Then his voice seemed to stand up from the bed, walk around my chair and put his hand on my shoulder.  My hand was still holding his as his body lay in the bed.  I finally realized what had happened.  He had died some time during our conversation and his spirit had left his body.  I wept, but he told me to be strong.  We said our goodbyes and then he crossed over to the other side."  Sam used a toothpick to persuade some persistent chicken gristle out from between his teeth.

Chapter 9

9: Out in the desert, the battle raged on between the vampires and the zombies.  A female vampire named Amrita was shoulder to shoulder with her friend, Bufadora.  Every day it seemed as if there were more and more of these things.  Bufadora's fists were as tough as hammers and she smashed them together with a zombie's head between them.  The Scathing seemed to be spreading even beyond the city of Marble Cliffs, Arizona.

  "How is this getting around so fast?  Most of these people don't even have the chip.  Somehow it's gotten everywhere!  This virus must have ways of transmitting that we don't know about."

  Amrita thought back to life on Sypraxus when the Scathing was still rampant.  It had travelled from lake to lake infecting everyone in its path.  "It must have a way of becoming airborne," she postulated while kicking her heel through the face of a zombie.  "Before Dimojyn helped us to reconnect with our spirits, entire lakes were dying."

  "You do have a point, Amrita.  The Scathing travelled from lake to lake without any person being the medium."  Bufadora looked around the desert and noticed tiny flying bugs here and there.  These sand flies were something she hadn't noticed before.  "These little bugs seem to have no fear in landing on us.  We can swat them away, but what if they are carrying the Scathing in their bodies?"

  Amrita looked around at the sand flies.  "You're right.  We don't know for sure one way or the other.  We should bring some back to the hotel to examine them further."  She looked around at the other vampires.  "Bufadora, all of us Collective are immune to the Scathing, but the humans are not.  We should go now to tell the Untaken at the hotel."  Bufadora nodded and the two of them carefully caught a few of the sand flies, then headed off to warn the others to be wary of the flying bugs until more could be found out about them.

Chapter 8

8: A the Wolf Cub Elementary school, Richard Finestra's leadership had turned this small band of survivors into a mob of zombie killers.  Gone were the days of cowering from the Revenant.  As a matter of fact, the Revenant were all welcome to come into the school grounds.  Bring it on.
  The Defectors had also been raiding the nearby houses for supplies.  They occasionally found people hiding in the houses.  If they were cool, alright.  If they resisted, they were taken as prisoners.  Two such prisoners were brought in today.
  Richard looked the two men up and down.  "So, what are your names?"  One of them started to answer, but Richard cut him off.  "I don't really give a shit.  We're just gonna kill you anyway.  All in good time, but for now you can watch the festivities."  Richard brought the two men out to the playground area.  There, all manner of atrocities were being carried out against the Revenant.
  At a wooden bench, a zombie was tied down and a Defector was casually scraping away the skin of her face with a fork from the cafeteria.  He used the back of the fork to scoop out her eyeballs.  Most of her right cheek was missing, but there was very little blood.  On a zombie, wounds don't scab, they dry up or rot.  There's no pus, just maggots, no inflammation, no infection, very little blood.  Their blood either congeals or collects in the legs through gravity and spills out of their bloated veins.
  At the swings, a different zombie was tied to each swing.  Behind each, a Defector stood ready to push the swing.  In front of each was another Defector holding some stabbing tool.  One had a pitchfork, one had a machete and one had a dagger.  The point of the game was to push the zombie into the blade until it stuck.  If the blade came out when the swing went back, they had to keep pushing.
  Several zombies were strung up from the football goal posts.  Wrapped candies had been forced down their throats and people were beating them with baseball bats.  These human pinatas would be battered until they gave up their goodies.  One particularly vicious swing opened the chest cavity of a zombie and candies spilled out.  Several Defectors rushed forward to claim their prizes.
  In the middle of the field, a zombie had each of its limbs tied to the bumper of four different cars.  The Defectors each drove the cars in different directions, ripping the zombie limb from limb.  This game was called wishboning.  You won if the torso was still attached to the appendage tied to your car.
  Both of the prisoners saw all this and were disgusted.  One said so and Richard asked him how it made him feel.  "It makes me sick to my stomach," the man replied.
  Richard grabbed a machete from a nearby Defector.  "Go ahead, puke.  I dare you."  The man wasn't able to resist his body's urge.  He doubled over.  With a quick motion, Richard lopped his head off with the machete.  The stump of his neck spewed forth vomit along with blood.  Unable to support the weight of the body any longer, the legs gave out and the man crumpled to the dirt, landing in his own mess.
  Richard turned to the other man.  "How about you?  Do you feel like puking?"  The other man down at the body and then to Richard.  His eyes went wide and then he fled toward the fence separating the school from the outside world.  Some of the Defectors easily caught him since his hands were tied behind his back and he couldn't get over the fence.  They brought him back to Richard.
  "I'd bet you'd like to be free of those ropes, wouldn't you?" asked Richard.  The man nodded, looking a little pale.  "Turn around and stick your hands out."  The man did as he was told.  Richard raised the machete and chopped off both his hands, right above the ropes.  "There is that better?"  The man screamed and fell to the ground.  "Oh, and in case you ever think of running away again."  Richard chopped off both of the man's feet.  Richard grabbed a tiki torch that was posted by the fence.  He cauterized both arms and one leg.  "You're not going anywhere.  And I don't want you dying too fast.  I want you to think about what you've done."
  The man writhed around in the dirt.  His face was contorted in agony.  He tried to stand up or to move in any way that would get him away, but it was hopeless.  A crowd formed around him to watch his last few minutes of life.  The ground around him was turning into a thick, dark mud.  It got in his mouth, up his nose and into his eyes.  He was face down and he couldn't use his hands to lift himself out of the muck.  He turned his head to the side and vomited.  He had also urinated and defecated himself.  His body was losing fluids at a deadly rate.  It wasn't long before his movements became less frantic.  He was reduced to involuntary twitches which became less and less frequent until they finally ceased.  By then, most of the crowd had already lost interest and had returned to whatever they had been doing.  Recess is everyone's favorite period.

Chapter 7

7: Miles above the Earth, from an abandoned military outpost built by the Collective, a solitary Nocent looked down upon the bright blue orb.  His name was Mar and he had been living at Rue for many years watching and waiting for the arrival of the Nocent for the setting in motion of the Plan.  The outpost was nothing more than a loose cluster of pipes and tanks buried under the surface of Earth's moon.  The entrance to Rue was on the dark side of the moon.  With his body made of liquid, this outpost had been all that Mar needed.  Sypraxians gain their energy from the rays of the sun.
  The observation room was nothing more than a pane of glass at the end of a pipe which protruded out of the ground.  The end of the pipe was flush with the surface of the moon.  Since there's no wind on the moon, no dust would blow onto the glass.  Mar always had a perfectly clear view of the Earth.  Mar could shape his body to be a lens through which he could see incredible distances with complete clarity.  Today, as he looked down, he knew the time was near for him to make his move.  This outpost that his brother, Mendoron had built would no longer be needed.  Mendoron had included an escape pod which was a one-way ticket to Earth.
  Mar had been watching the Defectors and didn't like the way they were dealing with the Revenant.  These foolish humans were unfocused and uncoordinated.  They needed a new leader.  Rend had failed, but the Plan could still work.  Mar could wait no longer.  Today was the day for the Nocent to achieve absolute power.