Bodies Left Behind

Prelude



James sat on the stump of a freshly felled tree, a small campfire to his front and a large stream to his rear. Although he wore a thick leather motorcycle jacket, black wool scarf, tall black leather boots, and thick jeans, he still shivered from the freezing December air. He wouldn’t have enough dry wood to last the night if he built up his fire any larger; he had started off with a nice sized pile of wood but had walked half of it over to a woman busy taking care of a child who was too injured for her to leave and scrounge her own wood. He had been sitting at his fire for an hour before he had noticed her; the fog was so thick here in the Smoky Mountains that even when it was daylight he hadn’t been able to see clearly more than 20 feet in any direction. Now that it was night, his vision was restricted to the ring of light cast by his fire. He felt like the thick canopy of trees above had conspired with the over-abundant moisture in the air to soak up all but the most direct light.

Around his fire sat two others, both women who looked as exhausted and worn-through as he felt. He didn’t yet know either of them; they were refugees like him, most likely recently escaped from Knoxville. Both looked to be in their early twenties and were fit, judging by their figures. He could tell from the brand name clothes and accessories they wore that they both came from well-to-do families. Although they weren’t his type, he would have noticed that they were both attractive had the horror of recent events not completely removed any semblance of libido from his psyche.

One of the women, short and of obvious Asian decent, reached into her backpack and pulled out a bag of store brand jerky and a half package of saltine crackers. “I have food, if you’re hungry.”

James felt the pain in his stomach increase at the sight of food and reached his hand into the offered bag of jerky, pulling out three strips that had bound together. “I’m sorry, I only meant to grab one. You want to pull on it?” he asked, holding out the clump of stuck together meat strips.

“It’s ok, I have a bunch more. Study food, you know? My parents would take me shopping and I would get boxes of it. I filled up my bag when I…you know…left.”

“You’re a student, then?” James asked through a full mouth.

“We both are. I’m Amy and this is Karen,” said the Asian girl, referring to the redhead sitting next to her. “We go to UT.”

“I’m James, by the way. How’d you end up here?”

“Well, we ran from the people trying to eat us,” said Karen, brushing red locks from her face to reveal a swollen bite wound high on her left cheek. After a few seconds she let the hair fall back over her face. “Why don’t you fuck off, James? This isn’t exactly the best time to be picking up chicks.”

“I didn’t…I mean, I wasn’t…you know what? I built this fire you’re sitting at, so if you don’t like me then maybe you should go fuck off,” James responded, his initial frustration at Karen’s words turning to anger. “I don’t think anyone here is enjoying themselves but that doesn’t give you the right to treat people like shit. We're all in this together and if we stay here were all gonna get to know each other real well, so lets start off fresh. Hi, I’m James. Nice to meet you.”

Karen sat still for a few seconds before sighing and shaking James’s offered hand and giving him a faked smile. “Ok, fine. That was rude, you will have to forgive me if I’m a little out of sorts; you know, world ending…everyone dead or psycho. It kinda' messes with a girl. How bout you start story time for us.” Karen pursed her lips into another sarcastic smile before lowering her head and staring at the ground.

“Ok, what do you want to know?”

Amy spoke up when it became obvious Karen was finished talking. “Do you know what happened?”

“I have a guess, but it’s kinda’ crazy. Let me just tell you what happened to me.”

“Got nothing better to do,” said Amy, reaching across the fire to hand James the rest of the jerky she was still holding.







Chapter One

James’s Story



         “Guess I’ll just start at the beginning, then. I was at church when it happened. Well, I guess I wasn’t really at church; I was in the car reading a book while my wife and son were at church. Funny thing, even though I was a self-described agnostic, I just happened to be reading the Bible. Revelation: how ironic is that.

         “Anyway, I was sitting there reading when Angel, my wife, came running out the door shouting ‘James, he’s here,’ pointing back at the church. There were tears just streaming down her face. She stood in the parking about halfway between the car and the church and just kept yelling for me to hurry up. I got out of the car and ran toward her, asking her what was wrong. She didn’t answer me, she just ran back toward the church. Right before she reached the doors, she fell to the ground and began shaking and convulsing, like she was having a seizure or something. She was foaming from her mouth, all white and bloody. At first I thought that she had bitten off her tongue and was choking on it. I was only half-right; a chunk of her tongue was there on the ground next to her head.

         “I tried to call 911 but, of course, I couldn’t get through. I started panicking and yelling for help from the church. When no one came, I couldn’t decide if I should stay with her or go into the church for help. I was freaking out. I just kept trying 911 over and over again. I got her phone from her purse and tried that. I was sure it would get through and I remember being so pissed off when it didn’t that I threw it at the ground and shattered it. A piece of plastic from it flew off it and just stuck into her face, a trickle of blood running down her cheek from where it stabbed her.

         The whole thing seemed like it lasted forever, but I would guess 20, maybe 30 seconds max before she quit thrashing around and jumped up off the ground. I mean, she jumped up fast, just sort of sprang to her feet and stood there staring off toward the church. I asked her if she was OK and went to try and get her to lie back down so she wouldn’t hurt herself falling again. She turned to look at me and growled, backing away from me slowly with her back sort of crouched over. I tried to get her to calm down, to just sit or lie down, but when I moved toward her she screamed and lunged at me. I turned my shoulder to her and tried to duck, thinking she was going to hit me, but she bit down on my shoulder real hard. At first I tried to restrain her, just calm her down, but she didn’t stop. She started hitting and kicking wildly, so I let her go, and she came after me again. I was trying to go easy on her, you know? I was trying to back away from her and I tripped backward over one of those curbs they put in parking spaces. Before I could do anything she was on top of me, choking me with both her hands. I tried to get her off me but it was as if she had somehow doubled her strength. Her wrists felt like steel. I panicked and hit her face, lightly at first but then, when I really started freaking out, real hard. I hit her so hard it felt like I had broken my wrist. She fell off me, knocked out and bleeding pink blood from her ear.

“This time I did run for the church. I threw open the double doors and ran in for help but stopped dead in my tracks when I saw what was going on in there. I can’t even describe it. There was just blood everywhere, you know?  About half of the people were dead and the other half were either playing with the dead bodies and blood or breaking everything. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I forgot about my wife and scanned the room for Jake. That’s my son, Jake. I saw him at the other side of the church, about 50 feet away from me. He had a big gold cross and was hitting an already dead man’s face with it. He just kept hitting him over and over. His arms and face were covered in blood and I remember having the strangest thought that he looked like a crazy monkey.

“No one had noticed me yet and I wanted to keep it that way, but I couldn’t leave him there. I tried calling him in a hushed voice and I did get his attention, but I got everyone else’s attention, too. They all, every one of them, turned and stared at me for a moment. I think some part of me expected them to stop what they were doing, look at me and realize what they had done, but then they all ran at me, screaming in rage. I ran back out the door and they followed, about 20 of them. I ran past the spot of blood where my wife had been; she was gone, and I thank God that I never saw her again. I jumped into my car and turned the key in the ignition just before they surrounded me, howling and screaming and beating on the car. Jake was there with them, at the front of the car. He was banging on the hood with his fists and screaming at me. I sat there paralyzed for a moment, not knowing what to do. There was my 12-year-old son out there with a bunch of murdering psychos and I couldn’t just leave him there, you know? I wondered if he would recognize me, let me help him. He made things easier for me when he climbed up the hood and started banging his fists on the windshield, screaming at me with rage. On his second hit the windshield cracked and I didn’t give him time for a third: I threw it in reverse and drove away from him. I left him there, left him behind, and I didn’t see him again, either…”

James sat starring at the fire, unmoving except for the index finger of his right hand that twitched rapidly back and forth, as if he was typing out Morse code on an invisible machine.

         Karen looked up from the ground at him, genuine concern on her face now. “I’m…I’m sorry about your family.”

         If he heard her, he didn’t show any sign. “I drove to the fire station and there was no one there. The truck and ambulances were all gone, not even a dispatcher left inside. I tried to call 911 again. I kept dialing it, over and over again. After a while, I just sat there. Funny thing is that even though I couldn’t stop thinking about Jake trying to