No Room for the Living

No Room for the Living




I could hear her fingernails scrapping against the hardwood floor in an attempt to save herself from being pulled. I smelled the blood and the decaying flesh that covered her entire body. She fought so hard to get away, even with a fractured wrist, a few broken ribs, and puncture wounds from anything the dead could find nearby to keep her still and then into position.
The heavy footsteps and panting from a drunk man pulled her backward. The fighting, the begging, the screaming, and the thud of a body being penetrated by the bullet of a gun.

I tasted the salty tears that ran down her face, curving at the bridge of her nose and dripping into her frightened mouth as he held her head against the floor and used his knees to pry her legs apart. She screamed he cursed her for fighting back, and then a loud echo of a bullet as the fight ended. She tried so hard to fight him off, but he was too strong. He was another fucker that dropped dead, and then his mind woke up.

I heard it all. And I was seventeen miles away, standing on the roof of an abandoned warehouse.
To tell you more, I have to tell you what happened and who I am. Scratch that- names aren’t important. Not anymore. Now there are just the crazies and whatever the hell normal is. I was a twenty-seven-year-old guy living in a three-bedroom apartment complex on the north side of Heights. And then a strange, unquestionable epidemic swept over the town, causing people to drop dead. Bodies littered the center of the road, in homes, and in vehicles that now littered the town with waste.

No one knows how or why they died. Either no one understands or they’re keeping it a big secret from the citizens.
Doctors seemed dumbfounded, discussing news about the epidemic on all channels. They explained autopsies on the dead showed nothing. They stretched experiments and tests to the limits, coming back with all negatives. Everything tested.

Later that day, after even more deaths, we pronounced the people dead from natural causes. Natural causes. Seventy-eight thousand people? In thirty-four hours? With no reason? No way.

The ones who somehow survived the epidemic went crazy. It was like an airborne disease that made them kill, eat their flesh, and commit suicide, all to escape what was in their head.

For the rest of us, it was different. We didn’t lose our minds. Instead, it was just the opposite. We became something far more than we could explain. We were all changing. Our senses were beyond belief. We found ourselves with powers. Powers of the unknown. We could teleport. Fly. Defy gravity. Change the laws of physics. Shapeshift. Read/change people’s minds.

We became immortal, lost in between worlds, unaffected. We were among the few that watched the town consume itself.
Before nightfall that next morning, there were only fourteen of us left. Fourteen out of a seventy-eight thousand population had survived.

A world gone mad.

I appeared in the apartment in front of the door and walked in like I owned the place. The first thing I noticed was the puddles of blood and nail marks engraved on the floor.

Next to the doorway of the kitchen, she was propped against the wall, her arm tending to the other, but she fell unconscious before she could do anything.

Her lower body was bare, legs spread apart. The drunk man had planned on raping her and from the looks, he had seceded in doing so. A bullet hole was in the short tank top she wore. Blood soaked through her long blonde tangled hair covered half her face, and was tainted with the color of her own fate.

Eyes were blank.

Futher in the kitchen, the sound of ice being dropped into a glass cup and footsteps walked about. I entered. He had poured himself a glass of liquor and sat down at the table with a satisfying grin.

I joined him, unseen and unwelcomed.

“Its assholes like you that makes me want to kill.” I folded my arms on the table.

He paused, the glass in front of his open mouth, and froze. I entered his head, cleared mine, and relaxed to shallow breathing.demanded, darkened. He stared, waiting for my command.

Damn, I love my job.

“Check your pocket. Put the gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Feel the pain that you have caused this innocent girl?” I demanded and then got up from the table.

A gunshot echoed behind me. But no one cared. It was just another day.

Kneeling in front of her, I could feel the power within me ball up in the center of my chest and expel to the palms of my hands. I touched the bullet wound on the right side, just above her breasts. Her body went into a million convulsions.

Her eyes blinked. She gasped. Tan pigments found color on her face and lips. She pulled her hair out of her face and stared momentarily before asking, “Who are you?”

It was like the last thing she remembered had been falling asleep. She knew nothing of what happened to her. Just like the ones I had saved before her.

“Are you alright?” I asked her.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she looked around, not even acknowledging the chest wound, “Where am I?”

She tried to get up, but her body wouldn’t allow it. she grabbed for her chest, the crimson color of her blood smeared across her fingers.

Fear ran through her face cold. I extended my hand to her, and she accepted it.

“Where’s your clothes?”

She pointed toward the door where a pair of green panties, dark wash jeans and boots tossed and scattered about.
I stared into her eyes. The apartment shifted. Time rewound itself.

She was a tenant in the apartment complex just three doors down. The man had gotten his clothes mixed in with hers and had got her to his door, where he then dragged her inside. He played the part. He played it well. She panicked. Her eyes going back and forth in fear and confusion.

“No, please, stay away from me!” she scrabbled against the wall. “You’re one of them!”

“I will not hurt you.” I whisper.

She watched my hand as I touched the bullet wound on her chest. The hole in the tank top she wore bound. She gave me a questioning look and raised her shirt. Beneath it, torn flesh came together. The bullet hole disappeared.

“I don’t understand.” She whispered. “Am I dead?”

“Get dressed and meet me outside the door. As soon as we get out of here, I’ll explain.”

“But I can’t remember anything.”

“I know.” I turned around and walked to the door.

“Now hurry. There isn’t much time.”

She hugged herself and looked as though she was thinking. Her brown eyes met mine with a tear. She nodded in agreement, though I knew she was more confused than convinced of anything I had showed or told her.
After a few minutes of waiting, she stepped out into the lobby, dressed. Her eyes puffed. Her mouth trembled. Fear controlled her face.

“There’s a dead guy in there.” She panted.

“Yeah. I know. There are dead people everywhere. Haven’t you noticed?”

She squinted her eyes at me and breathed.

“I haven’t left my apartment in three days.”

Three days. That’s about the time the epidemic started. But she still should have heard or seen something.
“Then how did you end up here?”

She shrugged her shoulders. I shrugged back. “You don’t remember?”

“No. The last thing I remember was waking up in my bed. It was Tuesday.”

“Well. It’s not Tuesday. And you are in danger.”

“What kind of danger? Will you just tell me what’s going on?”

I shot her a look, “Blondes never seem to amaze me.”

It was her turn to give me a dirty look.

We stared at each other as though we were in a contest. Her long, dirty blonde hair flowed down her shoulders and around her neck. Her blue eyes seemed lost, confused, almost dumbfounded.

That explains a lot and gave my statement a solid background. I shrugged.

“Whatever. Just tell me what the hell happened!” her voice was higher, and louder.

“That man in there forced you inside his apartment, raped you and then shot you. Dead for dead. You can thank me later.”
She hugged herself. Her face squinted together. Tears formed in her eyes. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes. I do.” I leaned into her. The smell of death corrupted my nostrils. I should have been used to that smell, but somehow it always came as a slap in the face. “But first, the safe house and then I’ll tell you what you want to know.” I leaned into her. The smell of death corrupted my nostrils. I should have been used to that smell, but somehow it always came as a slap in the face. “The dead are listening.”

She took a step back against the apartment door, shaking her head as though she was trying to put every piece together all at once and was missing half the puzzle. “Who’s listening? Safe house? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Come,” I extended my hand, “We must go. Now.”

She refused, crossing her arms in front of her chest like a stubborn teenager. The woman was my age, if not just a few years older.

A smile formed on my lips. “Alright. Don’t.” I turned from her, leaving her standing at the door, and walked down the staircase.

“Where are you going?”

I stopped at the step, aggravation settling into my voice. “Constance. I don’t have time for this. It is dark and I must be getting back. Come, if not, stay. It doesn’t make a damn to mist this point.”

“And you’ll tell me what’s going on?” She hesitated like I was the bad guy.

I nodded, turned back around and left the lobby with her chasing after me.

“Hey, how did you know my name is, Constance?”

“Stop asking questions. You’ll know soon enough.”

The night air was a cold slap as we walked through the doors. I turned to her and grabbed her hand. She abided. And in a flash, we were up. We flew above the trees, the dead town, bodies of people I once knew, and some I had never gotten to know.

The sound of her voice brought me back to the here and now, voiding my mind from what disaster was below.
“You can fly?” she asked, her body swaying in the air as she held onto me. “How is this possible?”

“Almost there.” I told her, ignoring the repeated questions.

Her expression was beyond anything I had seen in a very long time. Her eyes were wide, taking in the surroundings she had never seen before with human eyes. She drank in the immortality with pleasure. But what got me was her smile. Her smile, even in a death town full of blood and disgust, seemed relaxing and almost… just almost…. Real.

“Where are we going?” She asked, glancing at me before returning her view back to the different colors below.

“An old abandoned warehouse just out of city limits. It’s neither seen nor accessible to the crazies. Only the immune can see it.”

“Why?”

“Because we can’t have them coming up and chewing our balls off, that’s why.”

“I mean, how can they not see it?”

“Were not dealing with zombies. These things are ten times worse. Shit, you’d wish you were just dealing with something slow and predictable. No, these mother fuckers are fast and strong and they attack in groups.”

“Oh. So they come back to life?”

“Yep. As something worse.”

“What’s worse than that?”

“Yeah, what’s worse than that?”

“Then why didn’t you become one of them?”

“Because I prepared. I knew what was happening.” I paused, ending the conversation. “Infrared lights.”

“What?”

Do you see the colors below us? The green and blue Wait,ts the crazies give off when they move?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the crazies can’t see that light. They only see the color of an uninfected human. Sometimes they see red, depending on how far gone they are.”

“Wait a minute.”

“What?”

“What does seeing red mean?”

“Red is the color of no return.”

“But I saw red.”

“Yeah, but I could save you because you weren’t that far gone yet.”

“You mean I wasn’t dead that long?”

“Your getting it.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, the safe house is blocked with infsee,ed lights that make it invisible. And because it’s so high off its foundation, it’s impossible to reach.”

“You mean it’s floating?”

“Yep.”

I held out a hand and pointed toward the edge of town. “You see the colors?”

“Yea. There, we don’t exist as long as were in the shield by nightfall. The crazies senses are at their strongest.”

“But, it’s like seven o’clock.”

“Yeah, and the crazies are out hunting. The good thing is, we’re too far up in the air for them to jump and well be there in four minutes.”

“Oh. A lot can happen in four minutes.”

The look on her face. That look I knew all too well. All too well. I’ve seen it in their eyes when I had to kill my share of crazies. Could they have gotten smarter… could they have mutated into the humans race and become both dead and somewhat alive?

But she has the colors. No crazy I’ve seen yet could pull off mutating the colors of an uninfected human. Unless I waited too long to bring her back, and she’s not only a survivor of death, entering through the doors of immortality... but now somehow she’s both. Could they have gotten smarter… mutated fast in a short time?

If she was a crazy, she wouldn’t be able to enter the safe house. I tell myself, sure, I was about to uncover what I would have never expected.

She can pretend to see lights, sure, but could she break through an immortal barrier without turning to ash?
I watched her face, her expression, and read her mind as we flew over the tall brick buildings that were no longer in business. She showed no signs of fear.

“Are we there?” she asked with a smile. It was easy to see she was excited. Who is this woman?

“Yep.” I gave a quick answer, landing us both on the roof.

I gave her a quick look before the infrared lights surrounded us, but it wasn’t until the heat hit my face that I could have sworn her eyes flickered with a hint of a gold like color.

And then I felt her grab my arm hard and her teeth tear into my flesh.