Dead Seasons: Part Four

[Morris Hospital/Sept. 24th/2234hrs]

Tim stood alone in the Ambulance Dock outside the automatic doors that led into the E. R. check-in area. He paced back and forth along the pockmarked concrete slabs that made up the sidewalk under the area’s canopy. In the time since they’d arrived at the hospital in Nick’s truck it’d started raining again; not the torrential downpour that they drove through earlier, but, instead, a steady, calm trickling of water from the night sky. It was funny to him that calm was the word that came to mind given that he was anything but calm right now. In fact, he was the very fucking antithesis of calm.

What the hell is going on, he thought to himself for possibly the forty-ninth time since the glass doors had slid shut behind him, effectively closing him off from his friends. Sarah had come followed him out after he’d grabbed Ray, but once look at him when he spun on her outside and she’d held up her hands and slowly nodded her head before turning and going back inside.

“I’ll, uh, go get you a glass of water or something,” she had said as she turned her back on him.

“Whatever,” he’d shot back. He hadn’t meant to be so terse with her--he had had a crush on her just as long as Ray had, but had never acted on it because he loved Amy--but he couldn’t control his words. His rationale had checked out about two hours ago when the love of his life had tried to chew a hole in his face.

“This can’t be happening,” he said out loud to the rain. “Amy was dead. She is dead!”

But that didn’t stop the images of her snapping teeth and lashing arms from flooding his brain again. In those brief moments in the Focus, Tim had gotten a good look at Amy. He’d looked into her eyes and hadn’t like what he had seen. Eyes that had once been full of life and love for the world had suddenly gone cold. The life replaced with…what, exactly? There had been something there but he had never seen anything like it in his life. But he would see it every time he closed his own eyes for the rest of his life.

“Hey,” Sarah’s voice called from behind him, nearly causing him to jump out of his own skin. He turned and was going to ask her to leave, but stopped as he saw her, standing there with a Styrofoam cup in one hand and once of those small plastic cups that came with Nyquil in the other. “The nurse thought you might need these.”

She held up the plastic cup and he could see three small white pills in the bottom. He guessed the other hand held the water she’d gone back in for.

“What is it,” he asked, his voice still hoarse but softer than the last time he’d spoken to her.

“Tylenol, I think,” she replied. She must have picked up on his gentler tone because she took several steps toward him, her hands extending to offer both cups. “She didn’t really say. But, when I asked for the water, she said you could probably use them, so I’m guessing it’s something you should probably take, Tim.”

Tim nodded once and then crossed the remaining paces between them, taking the Styrofoam cup and holding his other hand out, palm up, to accept the pills. She understood the action and tipped the plastic cup over his hand, spilling the white tablets into it. Without a word, he tossed the pills into his mouth and downed the water. The liquid was blessedly cold and he was suddenly aware that he had been ridiculously thirsty. He crushed the cup and tossed it haphazardly toward one of those pebble-covered garbage cans with the sand-filled ashtray on top you see anywhere lots of people gather; the cup’s lack of weight caused its trajectory to fall just short of the can. He stared at it for a moment, debating whether or not to pick it up, and decided, fuck it.

“Thank you,” he said, turning back to Sarah.

“How’re you holding up,” she asked, nodding acknowledgement to his gratitude.

He stood silent for a second, a thousand thoughts flying through his head in the time it took his heart to beat twice, the final thought being the image of Amy’s eyes. They’d looked as if someone had injected milk into them. He could still see her pupils and that line of color around them, but the color was gone. No, not gone, exactly…faded. As if her eyes were looking out through the cloud of whatever had taken over her mind.

His silence must have gone on longer than he thought, because Sarah reached out and touched his elbow.

“Tim,” she said, her voice picking up at the end, posing his name as a question.

He shook his head and looked down at her. “I’m fine.”

She didn’t say anything, just looked up at him.

“Really,” he said, reading the unspoken question there. “I mean, you know, as fine as anyone whose girlfriend got shot in the fucking neck and then tried to kill him can be.”

“Tim, we don’t know what happened for sure,” she said, trying to console him. “That cop said they were sending some people back to--”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Sarah?” He didn’t mean to snap at her, he just couldn’t stand here and listen to her bullshit him for the sake of trying to be nice. “I may not be a specialist or whatever, but I’ve played enough videogames and seen enough movies and Discovery Channel shows to know what a fucking bullet wound might look like! And, y’know what? That hole in Amy’s neck spewing blood all over my car was pretty fucking close!”

She took a few startled steps back from him and he sighed. His shoulders sagged with the weight of his reality in the last few hours. How could a trip to Great America with his closest friends turn into something written by George fucking Romero?

And, as if the world had been waiting for that que…

There was a muffled scream and then the sound of breaking glass. Tim followed Sarah’s gaze upward and had just enough time to lock onto the spray of glass and tangle of bodies before he was forced to follow it back down to the ground.

And right on top of Sarah.

The sound was like nothing he’d ever heard before. Sure movies have come a long way in describing something like this, but apparently event the most knowledgeable foley artist was missing something. The closest he could come up with in his own mind would have been someone putting several thawed turkeys in a wet nylon sack and slamming it down onto the concrete. But even that didn’t seem right.

There was a moment of stillness. He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but he was keenly aware of the sound of every piece of glass that hit the pavement; the smack of every drop of blood that hit his face and arms. The world seemed to pause, like some seen in a bad action movie. Then, just when he was beginning to think he might be dreaming this, Cassie’s scream pierced his subconscious and he was reminded, once again, that his world was suddenly starting to suck.

[Morris Hospital/Sept. 24th/2235hrs]

“Oh, what the hell,” Nick yelled as he stepped through the sliding glass doors and caught sight of what it was Cassie was screaming at.

They’d all decided to come outside and see how Tim was doing; and to have a smoke, in his case. What Nick expected to find was a sulking Tim trying his best to ignore Sarah’s attempts to console him. What he saw was something out of a B-List horror flick. A tangle of bodies lying in a bed of glass, more blood than what he imagined should have been there, given the fall, and the kinds of details you always saw in movies but somehow always wrote off as Hollywood exaggeration--bits of bone and meaty chunks of gore.

“Cassie,” Nolan said, placing his arm on her shoulder. “Please stop screaming, babe. We need to--”

“Sarah?!” Ray saw her first. “Oh, my god, no! Sarah!”

Nick’s eyes followed his friend as the taller man pushed through everyone else and ran toward the dog pile of death. It was hard to tell one body from the other at this distance, but, after the initial shock--and the overcoming of his urge to vomit all over Nolan’s back--Nick was able to pick her out among carnage. Though, he suddenly wished he hadn’t.

“Aw, shit,” he was able to get out that much before his gag reflex gave up the fight under this new onslaught of visual assault. However, he was able to twist his head to the side before he heaved and avoided showering Nolan with what little contents his stomach held.

His vomiting lasted long enough that when he was finally under control, he turned to see Ray kneeling next to Sarah’s end of the carnage, trying to push the other bodies off her with one hand while lifting her head in the other. As his hand pulled up on her head, though, it canted at an angle that even Nick knew was impossible, and her neck--swollen to a disturbingly large size--made a sound like bubble wrap being popped under water. It was enough to tell Nick what everyone else must be thinking…

Sarah was dead.

“Oh, Jesus!” Ray was shaking his head and still trying to clear the bodies--there were at least two others, Nick saw now--away from her.

“Oh, man,” Nolan said, under his breath. Then something seemed to click in his head and he spun on his heels and ran back toward the E. R. yelling for help along the way.

“Is…is she dead,” Cassie asked, her hands coming up to cover her mouth.

Nick stepped up beside her, wanting her to know she wasn’t alone in case she felt the need to scream again. “Yes,” he said softly, “she’s dead.”

“What’s happening,” Tim said.

Nick looked up at him, realizing he was standing there for the first time since they’d come out. The man hadn’t moved where he stood in the last few minutes. He must have seen what happened, Nick thought. He must have watched Sarah die.

Tim’s eyes didn’t leave the pile of bodies. Not a single muscle moved, not even to wipe the blood from his face. To Nick he seemed frozen in the moment those people landed on Sarah, but it was quite possible his friend’s mind was still stuck his Focus back on I80, staring down his fiancé as she tried to murder him; even with as her blood poured from the hole in her neck.

“What the fuck is happening,” Tim screamed, nearly at the top of his lungs.

No one answered him, though.

Nick was positive no one could.

[Morris Hospital/Sep. 24th/2236hrs]

Nolan nearly crashed into the Registration Desk, skidding to a halt just inches from the double-paned window with the little white speaker situated in the center. He’d never figured out why the hospital administration had opted for the upgrade to the emergency room check-in area a few years ago; all the upgrades were apparently made in the area of security and Morris wasn’t exactly a high-risk area. He shook the thought away and focused on the immediate needs of the situation and started looking for a nurse and found a completely empty room behind the unnecessary security glass. There wasn’t a single person to be seen.

“What,” he asked aloud. “Hello? Where the hell is everyone?”

We were literally only gone, like, two minutes, he thought angrily, slapping his hands hastily on the glass.

“Hey,” he shouted, “I’ve got a fucking emergency here, people! Put down the sandwich or whatever the hell you’re shoving in your chubby fucking faces!”

He knew he was being a little excessive, but even the rational part of his brain couldn’t argue with the urgency of the moment and the sheer ridiculousness of the sudden lack of a single damn nurse.

“Nolan, calm down, man,” Shaun’s voice pulled his attention from his own reflection in the foremost pane of glass. The younger man was walking toward him from the waiting room area. “What’s going on?”

Nolan spun away from the window, starting in Shaun’s direction but stopping just shy of ten paces from the waiting room proper at the door that lead to the room beyond the glass. His fists came up and started pounding on the heavy wooden door. After a few seconds he grabbed the polished metal handle and shook it in frustration. Locked.

“Fuck!” He kicked the door.

“Dude, what the hell is going on,” Shaun said, his voice rising in agitation.

Nolan suddenly had a thought and spun on his heels and gripped Shaun by either arm. “The cop!”

“Uh, what?”

Nolan shook him once in rising anger. “Fuck, Shaun! The cop you were with like three minutes ago! Where is he?!”

“Dude, you need to calm down.”

“Where is the cop,” Nolan all but screamed.

“Jesus, man,” Shaun exclaimed, stepping back and jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward a hallway junction that led deeper into the hospital. “An orderly came running through here, saw the cop, and told him something about an attack up stairs and they both went flying down the hall. Now stop yelling at me, please.”

“What kind of attack,” Nolan asked, looking over Shaun’s shoulder toward the hallway. He was getting a very uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he’d swallowed a chunk of ice.

“The orderly didn’t say,” Shaun answered. “Seriously, dude, what has you so worked up?”

Nolan didn’t answer him. He couldn’t have if he’d wanted to. He was frozen in place, too scared to move, his whole body locked up like a bird caught in the hypnotic stare of the snake preparing to eat it. Only, he wasn’t a bird, and the thing staring at him from the other side of the waiting room, just inside the hallway junction, sure as hell wasn’t a snake. Nolan wasn’t even sure it was human anymore. It looked human, sure. But he had never seen eyes like that on any human he could think of.

Well, a part of him said, except for those guys on the highway.

But those guys, messed up as they had been, hadn’t looked anywhere near as…off…as this guy. For starters, he was virtually bathed in blood, from head to toe. It poured from a number of wounds on his body--wounds so obviously fatal that Nolan almost laughed because his brain couldn’t think of anything else to do--like water from a crack in a dam, dripping from his fingers and clothes into slowly growing pools on the white tile under his feet. What little of his skin Nolan could see wasn’t any skin tone he recognized and was, instead, a shade somewhere between the yellowy green of mucus and the dull gray of cement. His head was tilted slightly to the side as a result of the fist-sized hole that had been ripped from it, the edges of the wound vibrating slightly as they rubbed together. His mouth hung open and his face was frozen in what Nolan could swear was an expression of stunned surprise bordering on that near-fitful glee that a child might suffer upon seeing that pony she’d been begging for walking around in her back yard. His eyes--that soapy water color--seemed transfixed by Shaun and Nolan.

“Uh,” Shaun said, tilting his head a little, “dude?”

Then it happened.

Seemingly spurred into motion by Shaun’s voice, the thing in the hallway lunged forward with a speed completely unexpected of his condition. He made no sounds other than the wet phwip-phwip of his blood-soaked clothing as he darted toward them. His speed was such that it nearly caught Nolan completely off guard and he barely had time to react.

“Look out,” he yelled as he shoved Shaun backward.

Shaun, still unaware of the creature behind him, was taken by surprise and tripped on the waiting room’s carpet. As he fell backward, he flailed his arms out in desperation and grabbed hold of Nolan’s shirt collar. The forward momentum and instinct-driven nature of Nolan’s push were enough to send the two of them to the ground when Shaun’s weight pulled his shirt taut. A lucky thing, though, as the fall pulled him mostly free of their attacker’s trajectory. He let out a grunt and Shaun swore as the two of them hit the ground.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Shaun shoved Nolan just in time to see the creature, obviously unable to fully control its motor functions and unable to regulate its own speed, stumble through the space the two men had just been and trip over the small office-type garbage can sitting in the nook opposite the check-in station. It still made no noise, even as it slammed bodily into the wall, leaving a massive splatter of blood. Shaun’s eyes snapped as far open as they could possibly go and he pointed straight at the attacker. “Dude! What the fuck?!”

Once again, Shaun’s voice drew the monster’s attention and it flailed and jerked its way to a standing position again where it stopped and stared at them for a second again; that same giddy shock on its sickly pale face. It didn’t way for Shaun to speak this time, however, and jolted forward with that same impossible speed.

“Oh, shit,” Shaun squealed and began to scurry backward across the floor. “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh--”

His back bumped into one of the chairs and stopped him dead in his tracks. The creature was on him in a heartbeat, throwing itself forward in something like a drunken tackle, arms out, mouth open. Shaun screamed with the full force of his lungs and squeezed both eyes shut as he snapped out a kick with all his might. His Chuck T’s white sole slammed into the monster’s jaw so hard that--with the added force of the creature’s opposing motion--it spun its head nearly all the way around; the hole in its neck tearing even further and exposing the glossy white of vertebrae. The creature flopped sideways onto the carpet and started thrashing wildly.

Shaun opened his eyes and looked down at the thing that had just tried to rip him apart. He screamed again and lurched to his feet and made a mad scramble over the set of chairs that had impeded his escape moments earlier; where Nolan now stood. Nolan stepped closer to his friend, finding a need to be within arm’s reach, should that thing make its way to its feet again. Shaun jabbed his finger down at the monster several times and repeated his previous question.

“What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?!”

Nolan looked around the waiting room, eyeing the hallway junction more than once. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m not really looking forward to telling Ray he was right.”

Dead Seasons Part III

[Morris Hospital/Sept. 24th/2205hrs]

“Zombies.”

“What?”

Ray slapped the rectangular button with the faded picture of a bottle of Mountain Dew and, as the whir of the waiting room vending machine’s innards began to fluctuate, turned back toward the carpeted seating area. Nolan and Cassie—the two of them having refused treatment upon arrival; Nolan rather harshly—were sitting opposite where he stood at the soda machine and both were looking at him; their gazes joined by Nick and Sarah’s.

Tim sat silently, his chair separate from the others in the only corner of the open waiting room. Ray always assumed that particular chair was separated from the others as a courtesy for mother’s who might need to nurse. Right now it was being used by a man who had just been attacked by the on again/off again love of his life.

Shaun, who had been the only one of the group in Nick’s truck to have the foresight to call 911 when everyone else was trying to play Rescue Rangers, was still giving his statement to the officers that had been sent to meet them. The two men—bushy gamer and clean-cut cop—were standing just inside the entrance to the Emergency Room, near the big wooden door marked “Triage” in big red block letters.

“Zombies,” Ray said again. He wasn’t sure who had asked him, Nick or Nolan, so he just answered non-committally. The thump-ka-thunk of his Dew bottle dropping from the machine drew his attention once again and he turned away from the group and bent to retrieve the twenty-ounce bottle of caffeinated sugar syrup.

“I heard you the first time, dude.” It was definitely Nolan. “But what the hell are you talking about?”

Bottle in hand, Ray straightened and headed back to his seat beside Sarah’s. As he lowered himself into the chair, he twisted the cap and took an extended swig from the bottle. When he’d gulped down almost half the sugary contents and subsequently caught his breath, Ray turned at met Nolan’s eyes.

“It makes sense,” he said to the group as a whole. When no one replied with anything but a confused look, Ray leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. This all seemed so obvious to him, why didn’t they get it? “C’mon, guys. There isn’t a single one of us who hasn’t seen a zombie movie.”

“Even, Lunchbox, here,” he continued, giving an exaggerated wave in Nick’s direction. “And he hates horror films.”

“You hate horror movies,” Cassie asked, somewhat shocked that a member of this particular group of self-proclaimed geeks was not a fan of the genre.

“What?!” Nick’s round face flushed a little around his blonde goatee. “I startle easily.”

“I had to tell him Jessica Beil had a topless scene to get him to see that shitty Chainsaw Massacre remake with me,” Ray emphasized. “Dude nearly jumped out of his skin every other scene.”

“Hey, fuck off,” Nick said, trying to look hurt. “Don’t you have a point?”

“Right,” Ray agreed. “Zombies. It’s gotta be zombies.”

“Are you fucking retarded,” Nolan laughed. “I mean, I’m the one who took a ride on the Flipping Focus. At what point did you hit your head?”

Cassie elbowed him in the ribs.

“Oh, right, sorry. We took a ride in the Flipping Focus.”

“Seriously,” Sarah asked both Nolan and Cass, “are you feeling okay?”

“We’re fine,” Cassie said gently. “I am curious as to where he’s going with this, though.”

“Thank you,” Ray said as Nolan and Nick shot baffled looks at the younger blonde. He ignored them both and continued. “Look, it’s all right there. I mean, did you see those guys?! Hell, the big fireman-lookin’ guy’s arm looked like it’d been run over with a lawnmower and he just let it dangle like someone stapled a hunk of shredded beef to his shoulder! And what about the guy who jumped Wrobel? That dude was trying to rip Brian’s face off with his bare teeth!”

He paused for a second, his gaze drifting toward Tim for a moment. He felt bad for the guy, really, but this next part had to be mentioned. He knew that everything else was arguable, and he had to admit, even he balked at the idea of a real life zombie attack. But, there was no way they could swat this down. Nolan, Cassie, even Sarah and Nick had seen it with their own eyes.

Hell, her blood was still on half of their clothes.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “What about Amy?”

He never had a chance to move.

Tim was out of his chair and across the small space between them as if he’d been waiting for the words to leave Ray’s lips. He gripped Ray’s shirt in both fists and lifted him partially out of his chair to bring their faces together. Ray stared into the shorter man’s glaring eyes, bloodshot with anger, fear, and unshed tears. His breath was raspy with rage and shame. The two men stared at each other in silence for several heartbeats, the rest of the group seemingly too shocked to react.

“Don’t you ever,” Tim said slowly, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. “You and me go way back, dude. We’ve been through some shit. But if you ever mention her name again, I swear to God I’ll cave your face in. You got that?”

Ray wanted to argue the point. A part of his brain, hidden behind his sense of decency, wanted to point out the facts. Something had blasted through the windshield of the Focus and put a thumb-sized hole in Amy’s neck. Nolan had looked into her glassy eyes—he’d said it was like looking at a porcelain doll—and saw no hint of life. Her fucking blood was all over the car for Christ’s sake! Yet, somehow she’d suddenly attacked Tim. Savagely grabbed and snapped at him.

She’d tried to kill him!

However, he knew when enough was enough. He wasn’t joking about what he thought was going on; a realization as sudden and swift as Tim’s lunge. But he knew now was not the time, or place, to press the matter. He’d never really been afraid of Tim and didn’t really think it would come to blows, but the look in Tim’s eyes had more than just anger in them. He was hurting. Bad. And trying to prove that his fiancé—a woman who’d been laughing and holding his hand less than three hours ago—had been killed and somehow turned into something from a George Romero movie was not the best way to show support.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, bud. I understand. I’m sorry. Really.”

“Ah, fuck your sorry!”

With that, Tim shoved Ray back into the chair. Without another word, he straightened and stormed out of the E. R. waiting room; heading outside through the automatic double doors. Ray watched in silence as Sarah rose from her own seat to follow after him.

“Raaay,” she said, dragging the vowel out slightly in annoyance.

“Well, shit.” There wasn’t much else he could say, really. He had been aware of the risk he was taking when he’d started talking and had known there was a chance of exactly what happened. He was a little ashamed, though, honestly, not much.

“He kinda has a point, dude,” Nolan said softly.

Ray sat back down, setting the plastic bottle on the small wooden table beside the chair. “Yeah,” he said, just as quietly, “I know.”

Shaun picked just that moment to rejoin the group. “You know what?”

“Nothin’.”

[Morris Hospital/Sept. 24th/2228hrs]



Pain. The pain was so severe it was hard to focus on anything else.

“What was his name again,” he heard a voice just beyond the pain. Dull, as if his head were under water.

Another wave of blinding pain seared the edges of his consciousness with white-hot intensity. Jesus Christ! Why did it hurt so bad?

“Brian,” another voice…a girl…answered from the same murky depths beyond the pain. “Or something like that.”

“Brian,” the first voice said, apparently satisfied with the answer. “Brian! I need you to be still for a moment, guy. I can’t get your arm stitched up unless you hold still. You don’t want to be the first guy to bleed to death because of a bite do you?”

He was more than a little sure the voices were talking about him—to him—but he didn’t care. Couldn’t care. All that mattered was the pain.

“Son of a…would someone hold him down so I can get a suture done here?”

It had started in his arm—the bite—but had quickly moved up his arm and consumed his entire body. An army of tiny flames conquering him one muscle at a time and burning everything in its wake. He had forgotten the initial wound before his friends had even gotten him here; forgotten where here was by the time the voices had started. Now there was no here, there was no him.

There was only the pain.

“Forget the needle, Doctor,” a third voice said. “Look!”

There was a moment of silence that he felt as much as he heard. Silence gave the pain his full attention; allowed it to envelope his every sense. So he screamed.

“Shit,” a woman yelled. “He’s crashing!”

“Get a Crash Cart in here, now!”

Suddenly, the pain was gone. For a few seconds there was nothing. Sweet nothing. His lungs emptied all their air and his scream faded and the muscles he couldn’t remember losing control of ceased their constant thrashing. The silence flooded back in slowly and he welcomed it. He was tired…

“Where the hell is that…”

“…coming, but I don’t think…”

“…matter…”

Darkness. Silence and darkness…

Then hunger.

Hunger so acute it drove through the darkness. Brought the lights and the noise…and the pain. The hunger forced his eyes open, drove his muscles to tighten and make the world shift until the noisy things scrambled backward instead of sideways. They were loud. They made the pain scream in his head. He hated them.

But they smelled so good. And though the pain hated them, the hunger wanted them. His muscles tightened again and the world lurched and blurred. The small, soft one directly in front of him didn’t even move and the two of them were on the floor. It screamed and he brought his fists down on its face a few times. Red hot liquid splashed onto the white floor and the hunger roared, driving his head forward.

It screamed again as more of the hot liquid rushed into his mouth…

Dead Seasons: Part II

[Interstate 80/Just Outside Morris, IL/Sept. 24th/????hrs]

“…hol…what the fu…s that?!”

“I…know, man…to the car…sure…they’re okay!”

Something was wet. That, in this moment, was all that Nolan could bring his mind to focus on. Something was wet.

“Jesus fucking Christ…biting that…what the hell…”

Something was wet. And warm. Wet and warm. And on his face. What did he spill on himself? And why were people yelling so loud? His head really fucking hurt and people won’t stop yelling. What was that smell? Did he throw up on himself? That would actually explain the wet and warm.

“Just c’mon, Brian! They…the pavement pretty…ing hard, dude!”

Was that Ray? Why the fuck was he yelling? It was obvious Nolan had a hangover and had gotten sick. Passed out in the bathroom, maybe? He was starting to feel his limbs and he was definitely not in his bed. Was someone sitting on him? What the fuck? Why couldn’t he open his eyes? He wanted to open his eyes, to move at least, and nothing was happening.

And, for the love of God, what the fuck was on his face!

Something like footsteps were suddenly added to the list of things he was slowly gaining awareness of. That and a tremendous amount of pain was beginning to crawl its way up his legs. Why couldn’t he open his damn eyes!?

“Oh, my god!” Yeah, that was Ray alright, and he was all at once way too loud. “Nick, get the fuck over here! Brian, call nine-one-one!”

“What the fuck for?!” There was a pause; Brian must be doing his usual over-dramatic act. Why won’t my fucking eyes open?! “Damn near everyone you’d want is already here! And not doin’ a whole helluva lot!”

Another pause. Just long enough for Nolan to realize that he was most definitely not in the bathroom. Where was he?

“Then stop standing there gawking and get over here and help us!” Ah, that would be Nick. Nick, Ray, Brian…what was missing? Why wouldn’t his eyes open? Where was he? Nick, Ray, Brian…Shaun…Matt…Sarah and Cassie…Tim…Tim and…Tim and Amy.

Tim and Amy. Tim and…Amy. Amy. Amy. Why was Amy so important? He didn’t even like Amy. She gave him the creeps.

Fuck, I hurt! Why won’t my eyes open?! What the fuck happened to Amy?

“Dude, there’s fucking blood everywhere in here!”

Blood. Amy. Blood everywhere. Amy’s blood. Amy’s blood is everywhere.

Nolan felt a hand grab his arm and a wave of intense heat rolled out from the point of contact and shot down his arm and up through his shoulder and across his chest. Suddenly the whole world crashed in all at once and the events leading up to his slowly dawning consciousness flooded into his memory. The drive back from Great America, the argument with Tim, the strange popping sound. Amy’s eyes going wide as blood began to fountain out of her neck. Tim reaching for her and the whole world tipping with the action.

Suddenly Nolan’s eyelids obeyed his command and shot open and he immediately wanted to squeeze them shut again. Not just because the light--even that filtered through the rain clouds which still hung overhead, though had since stopped spewing--sent his head reeling, but because what he saw before him was something he had never in his entire life thought he’d ever see. The whole world was upside down.

“Nick, see if you can get Matt to wake up,” came Ray’s voice as Nolan’s brain worked to make sense of his surroundings. He was still in Tim’s car, that much was certain, but it was like the little Ford Focus had been sent through some kind of nightmare filter. There was glass--and blood--everywhere. From where he lay, Nolan could see past the crushed front seats into the driver’s side where Tim hung from his seatbelt like meat on a hook. The airbag in the steering wheel hung empty from its previously hidden cradle in a disturbing imitation of the driver whom it had saved from certain death and silently explained why Nolan couldn’t see any obvious signs of injury on the driver himself. He was covered in blood but, even in his current mental state, Nolan was sure it wasn’t his blood and the thought sent his eyes unwillingly over to the passenger side…

“A-amy’s…d-dead…” It felt like swallowing gravel, but something in his gut forced the words out; he assumed it was that or empty his stomach.

If it weren’t for the now-constant pain rolling in rhythmic waves through his body--nothing was broken, though…he’d broken several bones and he knew that particular pain quite well--Nolan would have sworn he was having a nightmare. But, now that they were open, he could not force his eyes to shut out what he saw in the front seat of Tim’s upside-down car. He simply stared in shock at Amy.

And Amy stared back.

She shouldn’t have been. He could see that her legs and shoulders--still strapped into the seatbelt, like Tim--were facing the way they should be. However, there she was, staring glassy-eyed at Nolan.

Then Ray’s voice was in his ear. “What was that, buddy?”

“Amy’s dead.” He couldn’t break away from her empty gaze, but he was aware that Ray was working to try and free him from something. “She was shot, before…”

Ray grunted and something heavy that he wasn’t really aware was even on him was lifted away and some of the pain eased a bit and he realized he could breathe fully again. Ray was now talking to someone on the other side of the car. “I think she’s okay. She’s got blood on her, like everyone else, but I don’t think it’s hers.”

With that, Nolan was ripped free of Amy’s dead eyes. Cassie! He must be talking about Cassie! With more effort than should have been required, Nolan turned his head and took in the rest of the car. Nick was on the other side--having managed to pull Matt out and lean him against the doorframe--was trying to gently pull Cassie’s unconscious form off of him. He had her halfway out of the car when she stirred a little and a mournful sound escaped her lips. The sound itself was enough to trigger Nolan’s adrenal glands but the sight of her blood-splattered and torn clothing instantly overrode the pain and he reclaimed control over his own body.

“Get off me.”

“Nolan, dude, I’m not a doctor, but you should probab--”

“Get. The. Fuck. Off. Me.”

That was more than enough. Without another word, Ray backed his way out of the car and Nolan rolled over onto his back then wormed his way out onto the street. From here, he could see that the car had hit the jersey barriers that divided the east and west-bound lanes, rolled over onto its top and had slid--at least 40 feet by the looks of the paint and glass left in their wake--to a stop on the other side of the highway. Nick’s truck was parked sideways across the two lanes, blocking his view of what was further back, but given that everything was being washed by a constantly shifting glow of red and blue, Nolan guessed that they had slid past an ambulance or police car or something of the like. He looked back toward the car and--for reasons he couldn’t put his finger on--worked frantically to locate the rest of his friends. Sarah was on this side of the vehicle with Ray and Shaun; who were working diligently to get Tim free of his nylon meat hook. He could see through to the other side where Nick was crouched over Cassie, Matt still leaning against the other side, though now holding his head in both hands. But no sign of Brian.

“Where’s Brian?”

Sarah squatted down beside him, “He went to see if there was anyone over by the other accident who could come over and help.” Then, as if she thought it was information he should have, she added, "Shaun stayed with Nick's truck in case it needed to be moved."

When he was certain he wasn’t going to fall right back down, Nolan attempted to get to his feet. The pavement was wet and cool against his palms and it felt good. Sarah’s hand came down onto his shoulder and gently eased him back down. Uncontrolled anger flared up in his gut and he stared up at her. “Sarah, I like you. You’re a good friend and I know you’re just concerned for me right now.”

“Yeah, well--”

Nolan didn’t even give her a chance to argue. “But if you try to keep me from standing again, you’re going to be down here beside me. Understand?”

Sarah’s brown eyes went wide for a second and then, after what Nolan figured was a moment of contemplation, she nodded and the hand on his shoulder fell to offer assistance instead of obstruction. He nodded silently and gripped her wrist and allowed her to aide him to his feet. It was quite possibly the most agonizing thing he’d ever done aside from that summer he snapped his leg playing soccer; every muscle in his body screamed in protest as he slowly rose to a complete stand. Then, in one last ditch effort to get him to sit back down, his head made the world spin wildly.

“Whoa,” Sarah said as his knees made as if they were going to give out completely and she was suddenly holding more of his weight that she was ready for. “You really should sit back down, Nolan.”

The vertigo passed and he was able to tell the difference between up and down once more. He regained control of his legs and once again took the natural brunt of his own weight and stepped away from her. “No,” he said, “I’m fine. Where’s Cassie?”

Now on his feet, Nolan was able to get a better picture of the other accident and was actually scared for the first time since he’d realized he was awake. Two ambulances two police cars added their revolving lights to the big red fire engine. All five vehicles were on the other side of the freeway, the fire engine closest to the crashed Hummer that seemed to be the focus of all of this. However, it wasn’t the emergency vehicles or their flashing lights that made his heart jump into his throat. It was the scene playing out before them.

A Hummer had crashed and it was obvious that the emergency personnel had responded to help the driver, but what had happened since they’d arrived was not so obvious. Whatever it was, though, had broken the whole scene down into a frantic bedlam of writhing bodies and flailing arms; the whole thing reminded Nolan of one of those big gang fights you saw in London, the ones that usually involved fans of two rival soccer teams. Just a mass of swinging arms and kicking legs, a whole body running to or from the main pile.

And Brian was headed right for it.

“What the fuck is going on?!” Nolan turned to look at his friends and then back toward Brian. “I really don’t think he should be going…”

But it was too late.

Nolan watched in stunned amazement as the next few seconds unfolded. Brian neared the end of one of the ambulances and looked as if he was just about to call out to someone for help, his hand coming up to his mouth. The yell for help never made it out, though.

As he passed the end of the ambulance, he was savagely tackled by someone who’d been behind the vehicle. The two of them hit the ground so hard, Nolan could hear the smack of Brian’s skull on the pavement.

“Sonuvabitch,” Ray yelled, drawing Nick’s attention.

Both men moved instantly. They were on their feet and scrambling toward Brian and his attacker before the first screams began to tear through the air. Brian was desperately trying to fend off the man--was that a fucking paramedic--who was scrambling to get to him. There was something wrong with what he was seeing. The man didn’t swing at Brian or attempt to do any kind of blunt trauma that one would associate with an attack like this. Instead, it looked to him that the man was trying to bite him.

“What the hell?”

Nick was the first to reach them, throwing a solid kick with his massive foot into the side of the man’s head. Another wet smack and the man was flying sideways off of their friend. He wasn’t down for long, though. Before Ray could reach Brian to help him up, the paramedic was back on the offensive, scrambling to his hands and knees and lunging like an animal at the smaller man. Nick threw another kick at the man, catching him in the shoulder this time, but it didn’t seem to even phase him this time. He kept moving forward, his eyes locked onto Brian like a hungry dog spotting a piece of dropped food. An arm shot out and grabbed Brian by the wrist, pulling it toward his gaping mouth.

Brian let loose with a wailing cry as the man’s teeth came together on his thin forearm. Nick threw another boot, and Ray pulled Brian’s other arm, dragging him away from the crazy paramedic. One more kick, this one catching the man under the chin, sent Brian’s attacker reeling away from him. However, another scream blasted from their friend as a disturbingly large chunk of his arm went with. He fell backward onto the pavement, grabbing at his arm, blood oozing between his fingers.

“Jesus Christ!” That was Sarah, who had started to run across the highway toward them.

Nolan snapped out of his daze and moved as fast as he could to where Cassie was lying on the pavement. He crouched next to her, checking to see if she had any visible broken bones or debilitating injuries. He wasn’t sure what was happening here but he was sure that here was not where they wanted to be.

“Hey, baby,” he said softly, slipping his hand under her head. “Can you move? We need to move. Can you sit up?”

Her eyes lolled for a second then focused on his and, after a moment of silent contemplation, she nodded and, with his help, sat up. She moaned a little but didn’t cry out in pain which, Nolan thought, had to be a good thing; if she’d had any broken bones, she have screamed when she moved. Behind him, Matt was slowly trying to stand. Nolan turned to look at him and saw that his arm was hanging at an odd angle and was already purple and black around the elbow.

“Matt, I think your arm is broken.”

“Unngh,” the other man moaned as he looked down at it. “Fuck, you’re right. Fuck, fuck, shit!”

Nolan helped Cassie rise to her feet and turned to help Matt with his arm. By now, Ray and Nick were running back toward them, Brian between them and Sarah ahead a few steps. “What the hell is going on?!”

Nick and Ray moved passed them and toward Nick’s truck. “I don’t know,” Nick said, “but we’re getting’ the hell outta here! Now!”

Matt bit back a yelp as he bent his arm and cradled it, pulling the lower half of his shirt up with his other hand to use as a sling. Taking the shirt in his mouth, he nodded emphatically and started after them. Sarah went to the other side of the car, where Tim was just now regaining consciousness, moaning unintelligibly. Nolan turned back to Cassie and, slinging her arm over his shoulder, followed Matt.

“I agree whole-fuckin-heartedly, bud,” he said.

They didn’t make it three steps before he heard Tim scream. Thinking he’d been attacked like Brian, Nolan spun, nearly taking both him and Cassie down in the process. What he saw wasn’t a man being attacked or writhing in pain. No, it was far worse. Lying on his side, staring back into the smashed interior of his vehicle, Tim was screaming for his dead girlfriend to get up. To move, blink, something. And Sarah was trying to convince him that this just wasn’t going to happen. That Amy was gone.

She was dead.

“Fuck you,” he yelled at her, shoving her off him and scrambling toward Amy. “Amy, baby, c’mon! We have to get out of here. Wake up, baby!”

Sarah was being as patient as she could. “Tim,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “she’s dead. She’s gone. And we have to go.”

“I’m not leaving her! Get the fuck off me! I’m not lea--”

Sarah leaped back away from Tim instinctively, screaming. Nolan couldn’t see what was happening from his point of view. All he saw was the half of Tim that stuck out from the window of the upside down Focus jerk suddenly and begin to flail about, struggling to get out of the car; gargled screams and curses filtered out the broken windows of the vehicle.

“Holy shit,” Sarah yelled. She regained her composure and darted forward, grabbing Tim by the waist and trying with all the strength her small frame could muster, to pull him free of whatever had him inside. “Nolan, help! She’s got him! She’s hurting him!”

“Who,” Nolan asked, baffled. The only person left in that car was Amy, and, like Sarah said, Amy was dead. “Who has him?”

“Amy! It’s Amy! She’s killing him!”

Nolan let go of Cassie and fell to Sarah’s side, grabbing Tim’s belt. As he yanked, he got a look inside the car. Oh my god! What the fuck is going on, he thought as his eyes once again showed him something that just wasn’t possible.

Still hanging from her seatbelt, Amy was, in fact, attacking Tim. She had him by the collar of his shirt, and was clawing and ripping at his shoulders and face. Her head, still twisted in an impossible way, was all gnawing and gashing, trying her best to sink her teeth into Tim’s face. Tim, for his part, had switched from anguished boyfriend to angry victim and was, with all his might and ability in the cramped compartment of the crushed car, throwing punches and shoving her away. One wild punch connected solidly on the bridge of Amy’s nose and wrenched her head back like a speedbag. Nolan almost lost his lunch again.

“Get her off me,” Tim screamed. “Jesus Christ, get her off!”

Nolan gripped Tim’s belt on either side of his hips and, with Sarah pulling in unison, gave one final wrench and Tim slipped free of the car. He screamed in pain as Amy’s fingernails raked four jagged red lines along his spine. Adrenaline now pumping, Tim immediately got to his feet and began swearing back at the car.

“What the fuck, Amy,” he screamed. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

He turned to Sarah. “What the hell is going on?!”

Nolan opened his mouth, ready to tell Tim that they didn’t know and they were getting the hell out of here with or without him when Cassie screamed. Abandoning all cares and worries for Tim, Nolan snapped his head around. Cassie was standing where he left her, hands over her mouth, eyes wide with fear. Nolan followed her gaze and saw what she was screaming at.

“We need to move,” he said. “Right now!”

There were three of them, the paramedic that had attacked Brian who was now joined by a big fireman and a young police officer. They were just standing there, staring at Cassie. It didn’t take much to know that something was very wrong here. The paramedic was still chewing on the chunk of Brian’s arm, drool mixing with blood on his chin; the fireman’s left arm looked as if he’d shoved it into the business end of a woodchipper and dangled limply at his side; the police officer seemed the most normal, though his gun dangled from his fingers and was washed by a steady stream of blood that seemed to be coming from his sleeve. Nolan had no idea what was happening, but he’d seen enough movies in his life to know that it wasn’t good and they needed get as far away from here as humanly possible.

“Cassie,” he said, not looking away from the three men. “Cassie, babe, don’t worry about them. Get to the truck.”

She didn’t move.

“Cassie!”

She blinked and looked at him. He started slowly toward her, shifting his gaze between her and the staring men. So far they hadn’t moved and he wasn’t sure if they would, but we didn’t want to be surprised like Brian had. “Cassie,” he said, “get to the truck. Now.”

He turned to look back at Tim and Sarah. Tim was still freaking out a little, but had stopped yelling. Sarah had seen the three men and looked at Nolan, nodding, and started for the truck, pulling Tim with her. When they got to him, Nolan fell into step with them, heading toward Cassie and the truck beyond. The whole time, step for step, the men didn’t move. They just stood there, staring at Cassie as if she were the object of their life-long desires; a thought that would normally make him smile and find some way to rub the fact that she was with him in their faces.

Then he reached Cassie, she took two steps toward the truck, and all hell broke loose.

It was almost like her moving was the signal they’d been waiting for, like some visual starter’s gun. All three men shot forward at exactly the same time like horses out of a gate and barreled straight for Cassie. And, despite their various injuries, these men were fast.

Cassie screamed.

“Holy shit,” Tim yelled.

“Get to the damn truck! Go, go, go!” Nolan grabbed Cassie’s arm and began to run.

They didn’t have to go very far, however. In the time it took Nolan and Sarah to free Tim, Nick and Ray had gotten Brian in the truck and started it. Now they barreled toward them, screeching to a stop almost right on top of them. Nick had his window down and was yelling at them to get in while Ray was frantically calling a play-by-play of the oncoming attackers.

“Dude,” the skinny man yelled over Nick’s shoulder, not looking away from the fast-approaching men, “get the fuck in! They looked pissed!”

Nolan was already shoving Cassie and Sarah into the back seat--Shaun was now squeezed between driver and passenger--as Tim hopped into the bed where Matt sat with his back against the cab, trying his damnedest not to scream with every jolt to his arm. Slamming the door, Nolan followed Tim and barely had both feet off the ground before Nick slammed on the gas and the truck lurched forward. Nolan struggled to regain his balance as the truck swerved to get around Tim’s car and, just as he was sitting back on his haunches, something slammed into the passenger’s side, tossing him back onto his side. When he rolled over onto his back, he swore.

The paramedic who had attacked Brian was apparently the faster of the three men and had reached the truck, throwing himself onto the side, grabbing hold and was now trying to pull himself into the back with Tim, Matt and Nolan. His eyes were locked onto Tim--that hungry animal look he’d given Cassie twisting his features--and his mouth hung open, a piece of what had to be Brian’s arm stuck between a few of his teeth.

“Oh, what the fuck,” Tim yelped, scrambling away from the paramedic; if he could have shoved is way into the cab through the back window, Nolan was sure he would have.

Nick had stopped swerving and was not speeding away toward Morris, so Nolan was able to regain his footing. Rising to his knees, he drew his arm back. “Dude,” he yelled over the howling of the wind, “I don’t know what your problem is, but get the fuck off!”

With that, Nolan’s fist shot forward and connected, smashing the snarling paramedic’s nose like a brick. Blood spurted around his fingers and a sharp pain shot up the back of his hand and wrist. The paramedic’s head snapped back and his grip on the wet metal of the truck slipped. By now they had reached at least 70 miles an hour and, when the man’s limp body hit the pavement of the freeway, sending him cartwheeling end-over-end before he slid to a stop, Nolan’s stomach finally gave.

He puked all over the back of the truck bed.

Dead Seasons: Part I

[Interstate 55/Sep. 24th/1805 hrs.]

The rain thudded against the fiberglass-and-metal exterior of the white Ford Explorer Sport Trac with all the furry of an attack from angered gods. Visibility outside the SUV was dangerously low--perhaps 40 feet--but it did nothing to deter Nicholas from keeping his heavy foot firmly pressed against the gas pedal, switching quickly to the brake at what seemed like regular intervals whenever the curtain of falling water was suddenly glowing crimson with the brake lights of the vehicle ahead of them. Several times now he had come inches from slamming hard into the back of the much smaller Ford Focus that traced a black-blurred line before them as they made their way along Interstate 55; the image of his friend Tim jumping up and down in anger at the sight of his precious car smashed like a glossy black beer can caused a smile to push at the corner of his blonde goatee. Once again the rain was filled with red light and Nick’s foot pumped the brake and sent each of his passengers rocking forward in their seats.

“Dammit, dude,” Brian yelped from the forward passenger seat. Nick gazed over to see the man’s wiry frame arced back into the tan material of the seat, his face gaping wide-eyed down at the Panther’s jersey he always wore--he’d had the thing for as long as Nick could remember and, for just as long, it had remained at least two sizes too big--which was now sporting a brown color which blanketed the blue and black. “Half the fucking bottle, man!”

Nick laughed. “Chill out, Brian,” he huffed. “Better that than your blood, y’know?”

“Half the bottle, dude!” It was easy to see that Brian was about to make the rest of the trip home the highpoint of the busted day. If being rained out of a day at Great America wasn’t bad enough--it’s not like the group got together as often as they used to anymore--now he had to sit through the rest of the two-hour trip home dodging Tim’s Focus and listening to Brian bitch about spilled Pepsi.

A headfull of messy black hair suddenly filled the space between Driver and Whiny Co-pilot. After a second of close examination, Ray’s voice made its way out of the bird’s nest of hair. “It’s not that bad, Bri.”

“I spilled half the bottle, Ray.”

“It’ll dry.”

“Half the bottle.”

“I bet’cha it doesn’t even stain, bud.”

Ray’s head once again disappeared into the backseat and, not willing to give up so easily, Brian turned sideways so as to show the front of the jersey to the rest of the passengers in the back with Ray, holding a pinch of fabric from each shoulder seam between the finger and thumb of each hand. “Half. The. Bott--”

Brian’s words were choked off by another yelp as the truck once again lurched and he was jostled forward. Resigning himself to the fact that no one in the world cared about his woes, Brian spun back and, removing the jersey which left him sporting a simple white tee, sank into the chair and did his best not to be annoyed. “I’m going to die young and it’s going to be behind the dash of this fucking truck.”

Nick let loose a laugh he’d been holding back.

“Oh, laugh it up, pal,” Brian bit out. “If you make it out of that fateful crash alive, I swear to God I will fucking haunt you.”

Nick’s laugh was joined with that of the three in the backseat and Brian’s mock rage was fueled.

“I kid you not, asshole. I don’t care if naked, big-tittied angels come down to escort me to the Pearly Gates of my own personal eternity of rampant sex. I will tell them to fuck right off,” he jerked his thumb toward Nick as he continued to speak to his imaginary angles. “I’m gonna spend eternity making this fat bastard wet himself every night.”

Nick’s laugh faded into the ever-present grin that gave him the loveable teddy bear reputation he was known for; well, that and the plush figure Brian was just making fun of. Nick wasn’t fat by standards of disgust, but he’d long since filled out with the help of a well-earned expertise on the various nuances of beer. He was bigger than most of his friends but in a way that was either lovable or intimidating depending on your position on the line of his anger and he was never anything short of comfortable with who he was.

“S’okay, Lunchbox,” Ray piped up from the back, calling Nick by the moniker the taller man had dubbed him with due to his slight resemblance to Kevin Smith’s pulp-classic character Silent Bob. “At least he won’t be wearing that damn jersey.”

Nick laughed again and Brian jerked a different finger toward the backseat. “Fuck you,” he said in his playfully pain-filled voice.

In the rearview, Nick saw Ray grin up at Brian as he put his left arm around the tiny frame of the tan-skinned girl beside him. With a brown-eyed grin of her own, she snuggled against him as he said, “No, thanks, bub. I’ve no need for your scrawny ass with perfection at my fingertips.”

“First of all,” Brian said, “and I mean no offense Sarah, but ‘perfection’ is a matter of subjective opinion.”

Sarah scoffed in mock-insult. “You don’t think I’m perfect, Brian? Why, what ever shall I do? How can I possibly go on living?”

“I don’t see how you haven’t killed yourself already,” Nick teased.

Ray cut in, anticipating the direction of Nick’s joke. “If this is a dig on having seen me naked, tubby…”

“I’m just sayin’, man.” Nick tossed in a shiver of disgust for good measure.

Beside him, Brian was getting annoyed again. “And second,” he all but yelled, “I’ve never understood the whole ‘I wouldn’t fuck you‘ reaction to the phrase fuck you.”

“I don’t follow,” Ray said.

Sarah was the one that answered. “What he means is that the phrase ‘fuck you’ implies that you fuck yourself. Not that you fuck the speaker.”

Now Nick was confused. “That doesn’t make any sense. If ‘fuck you’ means go fuck yourself, then why not just say ‘go fuck yourself’?”

“Yeah,” Ray agreed.

Brian shrugged. “I don’t know, dude. Classic American Laziness being applied to a commonly used turn-of-phrase?”

“I can’t believe you guys are arguing the finer points of ‘fuck you’ versus ‘go fuck yourself’. It’s like being stuck in a never-ending dinner at the Pryor household,” Shaun, the fourth--and unusually quietest--passenger finally chimed in.

A few seconds of silence filled the SUV’s cab as everyone took a second to ponder on the truths of Shaun’s statement. A moment of silence that was, as usual, broken by Ray’s self-proclaimed sharp wit.

“Well,” he said, once again snuggling against Sarah. “Either way you mean it, I’d rather spend the implied activity with my darlin’, here.”

“You’d rather have sex with me than masturbating or packing your friend’s fudge,” Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. “I can’t remember a time when I’ve been more flattered. Thanks, baby.”

Without missing a beat, Ray grinned down at her with pride. “Anytime, babe. That’s just how much I love ya.”

“Yeah, yeah, Captain Ass-hat,” she laughed and then tilted her head up so he could kiss her.

Nick took another glance in the rearview at the two of them and smiled to himself again. He then snatched the pack of Marlboro’s out of the center console and pushed in the lighter, allowing the ceramic coil in the little metal cylinder to heat up while he fished out one of the white deathsticks and popped it between his lips. As if on cue, though, the second the lighter’s black nob popped back out indicating its readiness, Brian’s voice chirped up from the passenger’s seat once more. This time, though, the pitch and tone were altogether different.

“Say, there, pal,” he began, staring at the cigarette between Nick’s lips with the look of an orphan who hadn’t eaten in a week and it was chocolate and not tobacco. “Seeings as how you ruined my jersey, think maybe you could spare one o’ those?”

Nick rolled his eyes as he tossed the box over to his friend, sighing dramatically as he quipped, “I fucking knew I should have made you ride with Tim.”

“But I can’t smoke in Tim’s car.”

“I know.”

[Interstate 80/Just Outside of Morris, IL/Sep. 24th/1855 hrs.]

Brent Black had only been a Grundy County Sheriff for two years and already he’d seen more than his share of messy car accidents along this stretch of interstate and, as he pulled his cruiser onto the rain-slicked shoulder of I80, he could tell that this one was not going to end up on the bottom of that particular list. From his vantage on the opposite side of the highway, he could count two ambulances, three fire engines, the local black-and-white--the first responder--and the vehicle involved. The firefighters were gathered around the vehicle while one set of EMTs hovered around and waited to get to the victim and the other set cleaned up what had to be a second victim; generally, it was Sheriff Black’s experience that when a single car was involved in an accident there was usually something to clean off the road, but it was usually a deer or similar animal and a body bag wasn’t involved.

“Well, fuck,” he sighed, grabbing at his raincoat beside him in the passenger’s seat. “There goes Meatloaf Night.”

He would have to call Bonnie and let her know he was going to miss dinner tonight. But, since the officer who belonged to the black-and-white had seen him and was making his way to him from across the highway, it would have to wait until he’d gotten the initial report. Black swung the door open, shifted the raincoat so that it was ready, and stepped out of the squad car and into his coat in one practiced motion. It didn’t seem to matter, though, as the seemingly fist-sized drops were falling so hard he was soaked before he even made it to a standing position. His annoyance at missing Meatloaf Night skyrocketed into full-blown anger in the time it took the police officer to reach him.

“Sheriff Bla--”

“Johnson,” he barked, half yelling to be heard over the rain and half because he was well and truly wet. “I know full-well that you are not about to stand here and give me your report before you get a traffic vest on and toss some flares down to keep the rest of us from winding up like the driver of that car!”

“Sir! I called for some traffic units, sir!”

“Are they here yet?” Brent took an exaggerated look around; there wasn’t much in the way of traffic right now but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be and it was stupid to stand here in this rain without at least one unit directing passerby around the accident. “The rain’s comin’ down in buckets, so I guess their lights could be washed out in all this shit!”

Even in the rain, Brent could see the twisted look of distaste on Johnson’s face. It was all he could do to keep from smiling when the older man turned and headed back toward his own squad car. Four years ago, Brent Black had tried out for the Morris Police Department and had been washed out. Two years later, his father--a Grundy County Sheriff for Brent’s entire life--retired from the department and pulled some strings to get him as the man to fill his spot. Brent had always played at wanting to get onto a police force without his father’s help but, what the fuck, he deserved a seat either way, right?

Officer Johnson was pulling into position with his car as Brent approached the first EMT; one of the pair on clean-up duty. As Brent approached, the male of the pair was stuffing what looked like a mangled arm into the black plastic bag and, for just a second, Brent thought the arm looked like something had torn a chunk out of it. He was suddenly glad for the rain; soaked to the bone as he was, a good hard rain beat down the smells that normally came with such things.

“Not a whole lot to tell here, Sheriff,” the EMT female of the two said, standing and lifting one end of the bag, the contents shifting in a manner that suggested the body within was not in one piece. Maybe meatloaf wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Why don’t you tell me what there is,” he said, trying to cover his sudden discomfort with bravado.

The male EMT wasn’t fooled for a second but didn’t stop his partner from telling what they knew. “Well, from what we can put together,” apparently she wasn’t fooled either, “it looks as if this guy ran out into the highway and that guy,” she nodded toward the crashed car, “swerved to avoid him.”

“Looks to me as if he failed,” Brent smiled, trying now to back peddle with a little charm.

“Uh, yeah,” said the male EMT. “The driver appears to have clipped the victim as he swerved to avoid him. We’re not exactly sure how, yet, but the victim was cut in half.”

That would explain the odd weight displacement in the body bag. Brent’s stomach dropped again. “Uh, that seems unlikely given that the driver’s crash was less than a hundred feet away from the victim. If he’d hit him with enough force to split the guy in two, the pieces would have been thrown further. And, for that matter, I’m guessing the speed needed to do it would have left a bigger mess for you to mop up.”

The female tossed him a disgusted look at the implication that they were nothing but glorified janitors. The male simply shrugged. “Your guess is as good as ours, sir. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that, aside from the massive head wound and, well, the dismemberment, most of this body’s condition looks to be due to damage sustained well before the accident.”

Not a single bit of what the man said made any sense to Brent. However, he wasn’t going to let either of them know it. “Okay,” he said, waving them toward their ambulance. “I’m sure the county coroner would be very interested in everything you just told me. For now, I’m going to take a look-see at what’s going on with the victim we can save.”

He headed toward the gathering of firefighters crowded around the car, leaving the EMTs to do their jobs. He paused for half a heartbeat as he swore he heard the female call him an asshole, but he couldn’t prove it wasn’t his imagination and the rain and it would solve nothing to call her out on it right now anyway. Trying to prove his manhood to an EMT in the middle of an accident scene would be a surefire way to land him an unshakable reputation around town. Better he just try and buy her a beer next time there was an Emergency and Protection Workers of Grundy County social event.

Besides, he thought, Bonnie’s twice as hot as that bitch. What difference does her stupid opinion make anyway?

Brent sloshed his way to the crash site and got his first real look at the damage. The driver--indiscernible behind the shattered glass and emergency crew trying to get to him/her--was the now not-so-proud owner of what had once been a candy pink Hummer H2. The hideously painted luxury SUV had gone off the road with enough speed to buckle the front end when it had slammed into one of the big luminescent green and white road signs--this one indicating that they were officially “2 Miles to Morris”--and brought the left side of the sign down onto the roof, smashing in the sunroof and showering the driver with shards of tinted glass. Given that the crew was working with diligence and controlled excitement, it was safe to assume that the driver’s airbag had gone off and/or she’d been wearing her seatbelt and that she was showing signs of life.

Well, at least I’ll have something more than D.O.A. to put next to the victims’ names on the report, Brent thought as he reached up to get the attention of the nearest firefighter.

“Hey,” he said, tapping on the shoulder of a thirty-something firefighter. “What’ve we got?”

The man he was speaking to looked every bit the part of a life-long fireman, even in the rain. From his perpetual Five O’clock Shadow hugging the bushy soot-stained mustache and framing his gaunt jaw-line and sharp, bright blue eyes. His neon yellow-and-red helmet hung cock-eyed on his head and made the rest of his gear--resting comfortably on a stocky frame--seem one hundred percent fitting ensemble. There was a look of mild annoyance as he spun to see who was interrupting the rescue effort; of which he was playing no real role in.

“What’ve we got,” he blurted back as if the question itself should have been self-answering.

“What we’ve got, Sheriff, is a one-car accident which has resulted, thus far, in one fatality and, as you can see,” he motioned dramatically toward the ugly Hummer, “my crew and I are workin’ real hard-like to make sure it stays at one fatality.”

That was it. He was wet, irritated and was pretty sure he’d already taken shit from the female EMT. Sheriff Brent Black was not going to be belittled by some redneck smoke-chugger. He reached up and tapped the man’s shoulder again, this time only once, but with much more force.

“What’s your name?”

The man spun around again. This time completely, squaring off with Brent, shoulder for shoulder. His answer was nearly drowned out by the pounding of the rain and the rise-and-fall grinding of the diamond-toothed wheel saw Brent had seen used by rescue teams on more than one of these crashes. “Mark Snyder,” he blurted. “Why’s it you wanna know?”

Brent nearly smiled as he replied. “Just in case this victim dies,” he said, pulling out his notebook and pen and attempting to jot the name down before the rain destroyed the paper. “That way, I’ll be able to put in my report the names of those who actually tried to save her and those who just stood around watching.”

Even in the rain, Brent could see the man’s blue eyes ice over as the remark hit home. His big gloved hands balled into a fist and, for a split second, Brent thought maliciously that he would have an assault charge to go with the accident report. However, before Mr. Snyder could even draw back to prepare for the swing that would end his career as a firefighter, a terrible wrenching sound preceded the sudden silencing of the saw.

“We’re in!” Behind Mark, Brent could see the five or six firemen gathered around the vehicle surge forward in an effort to get to the victim. It was surreal how that many men could move together so smoothly, Brent thought.

Then, suddenly, surreal became the theme of the world.

The man who had been operating the saw passed it off to another who instantly moved in to take it. It absently occurred to Brent that this was the same man who’d called out the claim to getting in. As the saw was passed off, he reached forward and shoved the driver’s side door out of the way and reached into the vehicle to aid the driver. From his point of view behind all the firefighters, Brent could see that the driver was slick with both rain and her own blood and squirming against her seatbelt in shock as her rescuer reached in to help her.

“Ma’am,” said the younger fireman as he struggled past her, “I’m gonna need to get around you to undo your belt and get you--”

His words were literally cut off as the driver lunged forward and sank her teeth into the man’s exposed neck. Acting on instinct, the man jerked back out of the Hummer and actually helped the driver tear a massive piece of his neck away. The pounding of the rain was suddenly overpowered by the agonized scream of the young man as he threw himself back, grabbing at the fountain of blood opened in the space below his right ear. As he hit the mud-covered ground, the scene erupted into shouts of shock and instinctual action.

“YEEEAAAARRGH!”

“What the fuck!?”

“Holy shit, she bit him! The bitch bit Mike!”

“Get out of the way, man! We need to get the bleeding stopped!“ The EMTs hovering on the outside of the scene started shoving their way forward; this one a male and female team as well. What’s that all about, anyway, Brent thought oddly as his brain worked desperately to process what was happening in front of him.

[Interstate 80/Just Outside of Morris, IL/Sep. 24th/1919 hrs.]

“Dude, if you give even one more syllable to the defecation of anything even remotely related to any of the James Bond movies--with the exception of the blasphemous Timothy Dalton Run--it is quite possible that I will pull this car over and beat you to death with your own Mountain Dew bottle.”

Nolan, annoyingly crammed into the backseat of Tim’s Focus--rather spacious for the interior of a compact car, but a compact car nonetheless--rolled his eyes at the back of Tim’s head. He knew the man well enough to know for a fact that the threat was nothing shy of bravado thinly wrapped in off-kilter humor, but even Nolan was reaching the last of his tolerance for the "Themes of Bond" CD that had been looping through its rather short number of tracks for the last two hours.

Besides, Matt had a valid point.

“Don’t get me wrong, Tim,” Matt pushed to argue said point. “I dig the Bond movies, man. Especially the more recent ones. But I gotta be honest, bud, this music’s getting a little old. Just change the damn CD and I won’t be forced to kick your ass when we do stop.”

Knowing both men as well as he did and having his girlfriend, Cassie, crammed between himself and Matt and, thereby, in the line of fire for any objects--specifically the Mountain Dew bottle Tim had mentioned, which now doubled as Matt’s spittoon--Nolan decided to take action before anything was made suddenly airborne. Shifting his weight to roll his knees purposefully across the back of Tim’s seat, Nolan cleared his throat.

“I’m going to have to take Matt’s side on this, Tim,” he said, catching a glimpse of himself in the rearview--damn if he and Cassie didn’t make a fine pair--before locking eyes with Tim through his reflected glasses. “I mean, let’s be honest, man. You have to be obsessed with Bond to truly appreciate this music. With the exception of, maybe, Live and Let Die by Wings, this music is altogether hard to listen to.”

Matt couldn’t help himself, leaning his spike-haired head forward to fully emphasize his victory. “And we’ve been listening to it for two hours!”

Tim let out an exasperated sigh of defeat; it was a rare occasion for Tim to not bend under Nolan’s will. He reached forward and ejected the CD, pulling a new one from the center console behind the gearshift and holding it up for their approval. “Does anyone have a problem with Bon Jovi?”

“I think it makes a subtle commentary about your sexual orientation,” Nolan laughed. “But it’s better than another play-through of Tom Jones singing Thunderball.”

Again, Tim sighed, slipping the new CD into the discslot on his dash and then reaching over and grabbing at the passenger’s hand; the passenger, of course, being Amy, his fiance. “They just don’t appreciate my taste, babe.”

Amy was one of the thinnest women Nolan had ever seen outside one of those commercials with Sally Struthers and was very rarely outspoken without the assistance of a few Millers; especially against Tim. However, occasionally, when the situation was safely in her favor, she would chime in with a differing opinion. “Well,” she said quietly, looking over her glasses at Tim with eyes that reminded Nolan of a doe, “it was getting kinda old.”

Tim pulled his hand away in mock disgust, though Nolan suspected the act came naturally, and blew out an exasperated sigh. “The whole damn world’s against me.” His eyes locked onto Cassie and his best Used Car Salesman smile pulled at his goatee. “Help me out here, Cass.”

“Uh,” Cassie said, her body pressing against Nolan a little more. “I only really liked the last movie, Tim. And I really can’t even remember the song in the beginning of that one.”

“The whole fuckin’ world,” Tim said. Then, after a second, muttered under his breath, “You Know My Name by Chris Cornell.”

Nolan wasn’t sure if it was meant to be heard or if it was just reflex on Tim’s part, but, either way, Matt leapt at it. “Are you fuckin’ serious?! Dude, you are sick. Seek help.”

“What? I can’t help that I’m a Bond fan.”

“Uh, fan, yeah. Sure.”

“Okay, okay. Anyway, you guys wanna stop and grab somethin’ to eat before I drop everyone off at Ray’s?"

Nolan’s stomach had actually been gurgling at him since they’d gotten off of I55 and had thought about asking to stop when they’d passed Minooka--the neighbor-town about ten minutes behind them--but had decided against the thought of more greasy food after the day’s lunch and snack-riddled diet. However, the thought of a group dinner was fairly appealing. He looked at Cassie who, knowing what he was silently asking, nodded approval.

“Well, I’m not sure about fast food,” Nolan said, finally, but if you want to call back to Nick and see if they want to stop at Chili’s or something, we’re down.”

Tim looked through the rearview at Matt. “What about you, dickhead?”

Matt said something witty, Nolan was sure, but he hadn’t been listening. His attention had drifted through the rain-slick windshield and up the highway a ways toward an all-too-familiar red-and-blue flashing that anyone their age should recognize. His curiosity was pushing the standard, “hey, what’s that” up to his mouth when something caught the words in his throat. As they sped toward the lights, which he could now see were taking up the entire road, and Tim started to break, the rhythmic red-and-blue-and-red-and-blue was broken up by another flashing; this one irregular and an orange-white in color. For reasons he couldn’t fathom at the time, Nolan’s heart suddenly leapt into overdrive.

By now, with the help of Amy, Tim had noticed the flashing lights and was slowing down. “Hey,” he said, apparently able to get out the words Nolan had inadvertently swallowed. “What the hell is that?”

“An accident, maybe,” Amy asked, leaning forward in her seat to try and see through the rain.

“Don’t be stupid,” Tim blurted. “If it was just an accident, what’s with the other flashes?”

Amy spun a hurt look toward Tim. “I don’t think it was a stupid ide--”

Her words were cut neatly off by a strange chnk-thukt which was followed by a few heartbeats of stunned silence.

A silence that was devoured by chaos in the time it took Nolan to register Amy had even stopped talking. From where he was, he could only watch as the events of the next few seconds unfolded in a bizarre kind of slow motion he’d only ever experienced with the help of a tightly packed bowl. He wasn’t even sure he was actually seeing it until the reality of it was brought sharply back into focus by that first splash of hot syrup.

Amy’s words were cut off by that strange sound and she simply stared at Tim for what seemed like a handful of heartbeats. Then, just as he was starting to demand she finish her sentence, her doe-eyes went as wide as Nolan had ever seen human eyes open and her hands flew to her throat. Her efforts were too-little-too-late, however, as the hole she was attempting to cover--a hole that Nolan hadn’t even noticed was there until just now--geysered a thick crimson liquid that Nolan could only assume was blood. The syrup--blood, it had to be blood, right?--splattered outward in an indiscriminate fountain, splashing red and hot on Nolan’s face and the world suddenly reverted back into “Normal Play”.

Beside him, Cassie let loose with the full force of her lungs.

“Holy fucking shit!“ Matt, ever the collected participant, threw himself away from Amy’s Life Fountain, now pulsing its contents through bony fingers as Amy made a valiant effort to put a stop to the mess she was making. “What the fuck just happened?!”

Tim had given up on the world as a whole outside of his sloppy passenger the second the first drop had leapt from the hole that had magically appeared in her neck. He was now reaching for her with both hands and it occurred to Nolan seconds before the world went sideways that Tim’s lapse in judgment effectively left the five of them in a car with no driver.

And they were still moving.

Fast.

Even as the thought formed in his head, Nolan was thrown against the door on his side of the car, Cassie pressing against him in a way that was far from pleasant. The sound of Amy’s stomach-wrenching gurgling was momentarily drowned out by the screeching of tires on a wet road and then even that was topped off with what had to be the sound of metal and fiberglass against concrete. Then, with a strange sort of feeling that resembled being submerged in a pool--wow, really?--the world went sideways and everything was suspended there for the faintest of moments.

Then pain.

Then nothing.

Dead Sesons: Prologue

[Morris, IL/Sep. 23rd/2335 hrs.]

”Oh, god! Oh, fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!”

It was all he could get out. His mind screamed for him to do one of a thousand things—call his dad, haul ass to the hospital, open the door and shove her into the mud and pretend nothing happened—but all he could do was sit and swear. Staring down at Heather’s unmoving body, Shane took in all the details at once; her plaid skirt hiked up to her hips displaying the white Hello Kitty panties he’d soiled upon his exit, her white button-down shirt held closed by only one button and pushed to either side so that he could still see her pale breasts beneath the bra he’d pushed up and out of the way, the mark he’d left on her neck which was now turning a deep shade of purple against the rapidly fading color of her skin and, worst of all, her short blonde hair matted to one side and shining a sickening black in the light cast by the dash of his 2006 Mustang.

”Jesus, Heather! Wake up! Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck me!”

That last exclamation brought everything that had happened in the last half-hour flooding back into Shane’s brain like bucket of ice water. And, to his surprise, it snapped him out of his shock and put everything into perspective for him. This wasn’t a problem. Hell, it wasn’t even his fault! Heather did this to herself. Yeah. Everything had been going fine until the stupid bitch actually kneed him in the balls.

Shane sat back in his seat and gripped the steering wheel with both hands and allowed himself a second to calm down and think. The night had started out great. The football game was awesome; the Redskins had won the Homecoming Game against their rivals, the Minooka Indians—how two teams from towns that nearly shared the same land and were comprised of kids who hung out and partied together could be such bitter rivals he’d never figured out, but it was Senior year and they’d kicked the shit out of them so, really, who cared—and Heather had been waiting outside the locker room with a smile and a promise of a celebration. They’d left the high school and stopped at Dave's Dogs before driving out to the spot he’d brought all his girlfriends since he’d started having sex; it was nothing more than an access drive for one of the farmer’s cornfields just south of Equistar, the local chemical plant. They’d finished their dogs and Shane talked about the game while The Plain White Tees played in the background; he knew Heather didn’t really care about football and only pretended to be interested whenever he talked about it but she had great tits for a Junior and she could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch so he let her lack of interest slide.

The second he swallowed the last sip of his coke, Heather was on him like a cat in heat, her breath hot and rapid as she shoved her tongue in his throat and clawed at his back. She’d worn the plaid skirt, Shane was sure, because it had those folds—what did the fags call them…it rhymed with cleats, he knew—that made it easy for her to spread her legs, which she did now; grinding her pussy against the fast-growing bulge in his pants as he worked frustratingly to get those fucking buttons undone. By the time he had them down enough to get at her tits, Heather was already sliding his cock into her. No matter how many times he did this with however many girls he’d get at before he was too old to get it up, Shane would never get tired of that feeling, and Heather was a pro; she knew exactly how to get him going and did that now. As she began rocking her hips against his, Shane had shoved her bra up and those wonderful breasts—the reason he’d agreed to date her in the first place—spilled out and practically begged him to suck on them; and suck he did.

”Fuck me, baby,” she’d moaned. “Jesus Christ, fuck me!”

Never being one to disappoint the ladies, Shane had wrapped his arm around Heather’s waist and rolled her over onto her back in the passenger seat; he wasn’t sure she was comfortable—was pretty sure she couldn’t be—but she wasn’t complaining so why let it slow him down? She curled one leg between the two front seats and slid one onto the dashboard, creating a loud scraping sound that nearly killed his hard-on.

”Holy shit, Heather,” he snapped, “Watch the fucking dash, huh? My dad’ll castrate my ass if you fuck up this car!”

”You don’t start worrying about making me cum, you won’t need it anyway.”

”Oh, yeah, bitch?”

”Yeah, baby.”

And, with that, Shane was off. She’d wanted to be fucked and fucked she got. Shane had given her all he had.

For about forty-five seconds.

Maybe it had been the excitement of the game, or the way she’d come at him, or the fact that they hadn’t fucked in a little over a week—periods were God’s way of letting men know who was in control—but whatever it was, Shane was unable to prevent himself from reaching climax within six thrusts. And, to make matters worse, he hadn’t been ready for it and the surprise caused him to cum before he could get all the way out; he was positive most had been inside, because what little made it onto her panties was barely enough to fill a thimble.

”Ugh-uuungh…fuck!” Shane was never the romantic type.

Heather must have felt him cum, too, because she shot out from under him in a heartbeat. “No, fucking way, Shane! Did you just—“ she reached down and felt herself and the semen now leaking from her. “Oh, shit! What the fuck, Shane?!”

Shane hadn’t really been paying attention to what she was saying. He didn’t care. He had just had a good orgasm and he was still hard—had to be the game—and wanted more. Without saying anything, he started across the car, reaching out and pawing at one of Heather’s tits, his dick in the other hand like a sword—well, a short sword, anyway.

He never made it to her, though. Something shifted in her face as he grabbed at her and the world went white with pain as her knee shot up and struck him in the crotch so hard he could have sworn he heard a popping sound.

”Aaaargh, fuck!”

Even now, Shane couldn’t remember the exact series of events; he didn’t know why she had those marks on her neck. However, what he did remember was the wet smacking sound Heather’s head made when it bounced off the doorframe and thudded to a rest against the door itself. And that’s when the world had gone crazy. He shook her a few times and had even slapped her to try and get her to wake up. But, for all intents and purposes, Heather was as good as gone.

”God dammit,” he yelled, to no one in particular. “There goes my fuckin’ scholarship!”

He forced himself to look at her again. She didn’t look too bad, actually. He could fix this. He could clean her up, call his dad and tell him they’d been in an accident. Yeah. Yeah! He could drive the ‘stang into a pole or tree or something and what the hell? He had full coverage and airbags. He’d be fine. Probably wouldn’t even miss the first playoff game.

”Yeah,” he said aloud. “They’ll even feel sympathetic for me. Man, I’ll get so much pussy it’ll be ridiculous.”

He turned and laughed at her, not sure why he felt like crying. “Hah! It’s your fault this happened and I’m even gonna get a new car. What’ya think of that, bitch?”

He wiped away a stray tear—why the fuck was he crying—and set about the business of cleaning her up; it wouldn’t do to have is gizz all over her panties when the cops came. He sat up a bit in his seat and put his now-limp penis back into his pants and zipped up before reaching into the backseat and grabbing his duffle bag. He always kept workout supplies in the maroon-and-gold bag and that meant there would be a towel he could use. It sucked that he’d have to ruin a perfectly good towel with his cum and the blood of a whore, but what could you do, right?

With towel in hand, Shane tossed the bag back into the seat behind him and leaned over the middle, between Heather’s legs again and paused as his eyes fell once more on those perfect breasts and her still-dripping cunt. Fuck, if it didn’t look like she was just sleeping. He could even still smell the salty-sweet aroma of sweat mixed with the slightly pungent odor of her crotch and he’d be damned if his dick wasn’t starting to get hard again.

”What the hell,” he said as he slid his hand out and over her cooling breast, pinching the nipple between his fingers with a grin. His eyes rolled shut and he felt his heart speed up a little. And his dick was definitely hard again. But, just as he was unconsciously unzipping his pants, not even fully aware that he was probably about to do something he’d never have even joked about doing, something happened that his fragile mind was not even close to prepared for.

Heather moved.

”Aaaah, what the fuck?!”

It had only been a twitch and, if he had ever paid attention to more than Ms. Riely’s tight ass in Biology class, he might have even been able to write if off as nothing more than a muscle spasm caused by a random synapses firing in a dying brain. Or, if he had been in anything even remotely resembling a normal frame of mind, he might have been able to talk himself into believing it was nothing more than his guilt and imagination ganging up on him. However, by the time Shane had realized that he was now on the other side of the car again, his cock still in hand but as limp as a wet noodle, it was too late for him to think anything.

Heather, her head still leaking crimson syrup, sat straight up in the seat and began looking around the car, her eyes—no longer the icy-blue Shane remembered, but a freakish milky white-and-black—not really focusing on anything in particular; like the drunk girl at a party who wakes up from passing out in the center of the room. Even Shane, who was, himself, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, could tell there was something just wrong about the way she looked. But, even though the still-sane part of his mind was screaming for him to get the fuck out of the car, he grasped onto a fleeting hope that she had only been knocked out and would only need a shower and an icepack.

”H-heather?” Shane’s voice was barely louder than the melodic vocals emanating from the speakers. But it was enough. Heather’s unfocused gaze suddenly had something to focus on and focus they did.

On Shane.

In the blink of an eye, Heather went from looking like a confused party girl to an animal—a hungry animal. And, in the time it took Shane to process this analogy, she was across the seats and on top of him again, this time, though, his dick stayed flaccid. Her nails ripped at the skin on his face and then at the back of his neck and shoulders. She was moving so fast and with such ferocity that Shane was hard-pressed to distinguish between her body and his, between the loose clothe of her shirt and the matted mass of her hair, between the cooling fluid of her blood and the now-flowing warmth of his. He screamed as he struggled to push her back, trying to figure out why she would be this pissed about a bumped head and the possibility of an inevitable abortion. His fists connected again and again, at one point he was sure he felt the cartilage in her nose snap, and still she kept coming.

Finally he managed to get a grip on her hair and neck and managed to push back a few inches. However, he was fighting against an incredible—an impossible--amount of strength and she had inflicted enough damage in her initial pounce that he was having a hard time focusing. Already he felt his own strength waning, already she was inching her way toward him, her mouth open in a snarl that was the furthest thing from human a person could get.

”Heather…p-please…I’m sorry…”

Then he felt the patch of hair he had a handful of tear loose and she darted forward with the speed of a starving lion. Shane felt fire in his neck as her teeth came together beneath a mouthful of his flesh and, as she ripped it free and his chest and back were washed with the thick, warm fluid of his own death, Shane’s eyes fell on Heather’s breasts.

Those perfect breasts.

They were the reason he started dating her in the first place…