Olden Read online

  OLDEN

  By James Newman

  Cemetery Dance Publications

  Baltimore, MD

  2016

  Copyright © 2016 by James Newman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Cemetery Dance Publications

  132-B Industry Lane, Unit #7

  Forest Hill, MD 21050

  http://www.cemeterydance.com

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN-13: 978-158767-541-6

  Front Cover Artwork © 2016 by

  Digital Design by Dan Hocker

  I.

  They’re pounding at the door again. Jiggling the handle. A wrinkled gray hand shot through with wormy purple veins slips through the gap beneath the door; its fingernails click across the tile like the carapace of a trapped insect.

  The people in Room 123 know they cannot stay here forever. There is no food, only a single bottle of water to go around, and twenty minutes ago the A/C quit for good. On top of its usual odor of medicine and stale sickness, the room now reeks of sour sweat, bodies overwhelmed by the thickening summer heat as well as tension and fear.

  When they do make their escape, they will be able to fight their captors off for a while. Micah has the golf club (his grip on the shiny nine-iron hasn’t abated since he got here, in fact), Alex has the butcher knife (still crusted with the blood of his family), Rachel has a squirt or two left in her can of pepper spray (what she didn’t waste on Larry), and more than once Ronnie has mentioned the Saturday Night Special in her fanny-pack (though she could be bluffing, as none of the others have seen it).

  The ones outside are slow. That should help.

  But there are only six of them, in Room 123.

  The last time they dared to crack the door, assessing the situation, they were outnumbered at least five to one.

  ****

  They can be killed. The ones outside are still human, after all, and this is nothing like the movies.

  But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.

  Hard to keep fighting -to raise your weapon and bash their skulls to jelly – when you recognize the faces glaring back at you.

  You love them.

  And once upon a time, they loved you.

  ****

  They’ve talked about what caused this, the folks in Room 123. They’ve argued about it.

  Was it something in the water? Airborne? That’s what Larry believes. He says it’s the government’s doing (if nothing else, just look at what’s going on with the phones), and anybody who thinks otherwise is a goddamn idiot.

  Anita doesn’t say much at all. She’s Larry’s opposite in every way. But she did quietly speculate when the topic arose that she believes it’s supernatural. The Lord’s final punishment on the wicked, something to that effect (she just bit her lip, started that nervous wrist-rubbing thing she does, when Larry asked her: “If it’s the end of the world, why are you still here? Aren’t all you Bible-thumpers supposed to fly up to Heaven once the trumpet sounds?”)

  Micah, meanwhile, mumbled something about aliens. Humanity as extraterrestrial lab rats, guinea pigs for gray men. The rest of the group snickered when he said it, but Micah never cracked a smile.

  It sounded crazy, sure.

  But what about the last ten hours or so wasn’t fucking crazy?

  ****

  At one point not long after the group first came together, Alex asked the others why no one had come to save them. Maybe Larry’s right, he said, as much as it pained him to consider such a thing.

  If this wasn’t Uncle Sam’s doing, help should have arrived by now. The police… the military… someone should have busted in to rescue them. To set everything right again, and answer all of their questions.

  But that hasn’t happened yet.

  As far as they know, they are alone.

  How big has this thing gotten? How far has it spread?

  Why has no one come?

  ****

  They’re pounding at the door again. Jiggling the handle. Their tongues rasp up and down the threshold, as if seeking the slightest crack which might allow them entry (at least, Larry claims that’s what he hears; he holds his ear to the door, guffaws and urges the others to come check this freaky shit out).

  Even when the ones outside move away from the door for a while, their noises never cease: the shuffling of their shoes as they stalk the hallway… their grunts, moans, and rasping wheezes… and every now and then a series of loud, wet sobs, plaintive wails echoing up and down the corridor as if they suffer all the pain in the world.

  Every second of every hour, they roam the halls outside. Back and forth, back and forth. As if sharing one mind. A single dark purpose. To continue their tireless vigil.

  Whatever it is that drives them… whether it is Larry’s government virus, Micah’s mad scientists from Mars, Anita’s vengeful God, or something else entirely… the six in Room 123 know one thing:

  It is very patient.

  ALEX REESE, 19 (BEFORE)

  It started on a sunny Saturday morning. This morning.

  Mom and Dad had gone out the night before to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary, so I had been given the thankless task of watching my little brother, Jeffrey, as well as listening out for Grandma so our parents could sleep in.

  I’ll never forget certain trivial details of that morning. Like: how it happened in the middle of a commercial for some sugary breakfast cereal, one with an obnoxious cuckoo-bird mascot. Jeffrey was kicked back in Dad’s favorite recliner, munching and slurping on a bowlful of that same cereal. Every few minutes his high-pitched laughter filled the living room, when SpongeBob Squarepants did something hilarious on TV. My patience grew thinner and thinner every time I asked him to keep it down.

  I was trying to concentrate on finishing up a term paper for a class I had been taking at the community college. Wasn’t having much luck with it. I had thought about asking Rachel to drop by for breakfast. Nearly a week had passed since the last time we’d seen one another, and lately I had begun to fear that my high-school sweetheart and I were starting to drift apart. But I knew she would be too tired after pulling her Friday-night twelve, and I’d be lucky to get anything done on my paper with her sitting on the sofa beside me.

  Plus, I didn’t want to disturb Grandma.

  I didn’t know the old woman was already wide-awake until I heard her rattling around in the kitchen.

  Grandma had been staying with us the last few months, ever since she’d had that stroke, fell and hit her head. We knew she would never be the same after that, unfortunately, so Dad had been trying to sell her house. He’d had no luck with it so far, the market the way it is. I knew it was tough on him, dealing with everything he’d had to deal with lately, but Mom wouldn’t think of letting her mother “waste away in some nursing home” (God knows I’d heard plenty of arguments about that topic through our bedroom walls late at night).

  At first I thought it was Mom or Dad, making all that racket in the kitchen. Grandma had a hard time getting out of bed by herself. Not that such a thing had stopped her before, when she got in one of her for-heaven’s-sake-I-may-be-old-but-I’m-not-helpless moods. But it was risky letting the old woman wander around the house by herself without the aid of her cane at least.

  I looked up from my studies, shot my little brother a murderous look. “Hope you’re happy, butthead. The dead can’t sleep when you’re around.”

 
Jeffrey giggled. Showed me a pile of chewed-up cereal on his tongue.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  A few seconds later, I recognized the sound of bedroom slippers shuffling across linoleum. Like the whispers of two people conspiring to do something terrible in the kitchen.

  A dry cough, only slightly louder than her footsteps. Followed by the sound of a drawer opening.

  “Grandma? Is that you? Is everything okay?”

  I didn’t yet rise from my place on the sofa. Not only because, like I said, Grandma hated it when we “babied” her, but also because I really needed to finish my paper.

  It’s weird to think, now, how much I stressed over that assignment. To the point of breaking out in hives, not long after I first started gathering my bibliography. For all I know, there might not even be a college anymore. No professors to pass or fail me….

  As for Grandma, how could I have ever guessed what she was up to in there?

  Never in a million years would I have suspected that my seventy-four-year-old grandmother was rifling through Mom’s silverware drawer for just the right blades to use on her loved ones. Like a surgeon carefully selecting from her shiny repertoire the perfect tools with which to part flesh and take out what does not belong.

  ****

  By the time I burst into their bedroom to see what all the screaming was about, it was too late.

  The walls were painted red with their blood. The blankets tossed about their queen-sized bed were soaked with it. Droplets of it glistened on the ceiling, even, as if someone had thrown handfuls of rubies into the air and somehow they had stuck up there. The carpet was soggy with it. I heard an awful squishing sound beneath my feet as I stepped into the room…

  … and approached what was left of my parents.

  It shouldn’t have been possible. Grandma weighed a hundred-and-five pounds, at most. But Mom and Dad had been fast asleep when she entered the room, undoubtedly groggy when she woke them, perhaps a bit hung-over from the wine they drank on their date the night before.

  Grandma had the element of surprise in her favor. And who could ever expect such a thing to happen?

  They never stood a chance.

  Not a chance against sweet little Grandma and her knives.

  Dad lay on his stomach, his face hidden in a big fluffy pillow. His right arm was raised above his head, his fingers hooked over the headboard; his left hand lay palm-up on the nightstand beside the bed, his knuckles touching the clock radio that on most days would have awakened him with his favorite morning show on 93.3 The Planet. Numerous stab wounds were visible in my father’s back, shoulder, and buttocks, like dozens of wet red lips parted in mid-sentence.

  Mom had died in a sitting position. Her glazed eyes stared up at the ceiling from a face that resembled nothing more than a featureless crimson mask at first glance. Her throat had been sliced so deeply she had nearly been decapitated; from where I stood I could see the stark white grin of her severed windpipe.

  Grandma stood next to Mom, on the opposite side of the room from me. Her frail, liver-spotted arms looked as if she had thrust them into buckets of red paint. Her baby-blue nightgown was now purple. A thick smear of blood across her wrinkled forehead brought the phrase mark of the devil to my mind at that moment.

  At first Grandma didn’t move. She just stood there, staring at me. Her breaths were heavy and hoarse. She had over-exerted herself.

  In each hand she held a butcher knife. From the expensive Mercer Genesis set Dad bought for Mom last Christmas.

  When I finally found my voice, and I started screaming, Grandma dropped the knives.

  She looked down at Mom and Dad, but her expression did not change. She seemed to stare right through their mutilated corpses, as if they weren’t there at all.

  From somewhere behind me, I could hear Jeffrey crying, calling my name. SpongeBob Squarepants babbling on about crabby patties in the other room. Those sounds seemed to come from a million miles away, however; they were muffled by a shrill ringing in my ears.

  “Jesus, Grandma,” I cried. “Jesus… what did you do?”

  She retreated into a far corner of the bedroom then. Squatted. Her gown rose up, exposing her bony legs. I caught a glimpse of her Depends.

  She started sucking her thumb like a scolded toddler.

  I fell to my hands and knees, and added to the death-stench in the room with a geyser of bitter sickness that gushed forth from my stomach, onto the carpet, mixing with my parents’ blood.

  It seemed to last forever.

  As if she’d been politely waiting for me to finish, Grandma did not stand again until I was done…

  And then she came for me.

  She closed the distance between us in five wobbly-legged steps.

  She left the knives where they lay, but her hands curled into claws that were aimed straight for my eyes as she leapt upon me.

  II.

  “We should send loverboy. He’s awful good at runnin’.”

  Alex blushes. Larry laughs. The others groan.

  “I’ll bet you ran track in high school, didn’t ya, loverboy?”

  “Screw you. I told you… all of you… there was nothing I could do.”

  “Yeah. We heard ya. Whatever you say.”

  “Leave him alone, Larry,” says Rachel.

  “And if I don’t? What are you gonna do? Mace me again?”

  “It was pepper spray. And don’t tempt me.”

  “That’s precious. Do you fight all of your boyfriend’s battles for him? Oh, wait. I forgot. If you did, his little brother might still be alive.”

  “You fucking asshole!” Alex yells. He storms across the room, fists clenched.

  “Oh, my goodness!” Anita holds one hand to her chest, steps out of the way.

  “Kick his ass, dawg,” says Micah. “I’ve been waiting for this all day.”

  But Ronnie steps into Alex’s path. She’s tall, muscular. She could break Alex in half if she wanted. But her stance is not threatening. She gently touches his forearm with one tan hand.

  “Whoa. What’s your name again, sweetie?”

  “Alex.”

  “Alex. Please. Ignore the son-of-a-bitch.” She tilts her head toward the door, toward the ones outside. “You wanna get them riled up again? You know it doesn’t take much. We have to keep our voices down. I know it’s not easy, hon, but… try to ignore him?”

  At least a minute passes before Alex is able to calm himself. But finally he nods, backs off.

  Meanwhile, Larry has already lost interest in the confrontation. He makes a farting noise with his mouth, turns his back on the others to takes his place at the door once again.

  Alex approaches Rachel where she stands at the foot of the bed.

  He wraps one skinny arm around her. “Are you okay?”

  “Not really.” She lowers her voice to a whisper she intends for only Alex to hear. But the room is small, crowded. There are no secrets here. “He’s right, Alex. As much as I despise him, he is right. I still can’t believe… I can’t believe you left him. My God… your little brother… he must have never stood a chance….”

  She starts sobbing, pulls away from him. Wipes at her eyes with the collar of her Scooby-Doo scrubs.

  “I didn’t leave him,” Alex insists, and now his eyes are wet too. A tear trickles down his cheek. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t have a choice, Rachel! I fought her off. I ran. I grabbed his arm, and we ran. But when we got outside… there were so many of them. You know the kind of neighborhood I live in. They were everywhere. They came for us. I tried to fight them off, but… there were too many of them. I lost sight of Jeffrey in the crowd. They grabbed him. There was nothing I could do….”

  “But you were brave enough to come here for me. My knight in shining armor.”

  Alex stares down at his shoes. “There was nowhere else to go. I didn’t have anybody else. Mom and Dad were… J-Jeffrey was… God… I told you, Rachel, I had to make sure you were okay.”

 
Rachel glances over at Larry. Almost half a day later, his eyes and nose are still red and swollen from the pepper spray.

  “Well, it’s pretty obvious I can look after myself.”

  “Rachel, I love you. Don’t do this. We need each other.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Alex. This isn’t the time or place to try and fix our relationship.”

  “That’s not what I –”

  “Just leave me alone. For now? Please?”

  He grants her wish. He moves to the side of the bed, behind the IV pole. Sits down hard on his butt, his back against the wall. Holds his head in his hands.

  Larry chuckles, but keeps his ear to the door. “Trouble in paradise.”

  Ronnie approaches Larry. She stands closer to him than necessary, her breasts mere inches from touching his arm. He notices. Of course he does. Any straight man would.

  “What do you say, Larry? Leave the kid alone? We have enough problems, don’t you think? We don’t have to be pals. We don’t even have to like each other. But shouldn’t we all stick together, try to figure out a way to get out of here?”

  “Who are you to tell me what to do?” says Larry.

  “I’m not telling. I’m asking. Personal favor.”

  “Yeah, well… I don’t do favors for dykes.”

  Ronnie bites her bottom lip almost hard enough to draw blood. Shakes her head in disbelief.

  Larry turns to the others before she has a chance to retort. “Look. I don’t give a flying fuck what you losers think about me. I just wanna survive. I wanna get out of here, waste a few of those geeks before they have a chance to waste me, and when all of this blows over I’m gonna sue the living shit out of whoever started this. I couldn’t care less what happens to any of you.”

  On the opposite side of the bed from Alex, Micah occupies the room’s only chair. Across his lap lies the golf club. Sweat stipples his olive brow and the sections of his scalp visible through his cornrows. He holds his injured shoulder through his blood-spattered Polo shirt.