The Him Deep Down Read online

  The Him Deep Down

  A Horror Novelette

  by Chad Lutzke & Terry M. West

  Copyright © 2015 by Chad Lutzke & Terry M. West

  Published by Pleasant Storm Entertainment, Inc.

  http://www.pleasantstorm.com/

  Check out the following author websites:

  http://www.chadlutzke.weebly.com

  http://www.terrymwest.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This tale is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  This is for George A. Romero, who blazed a trail with a horror subgenre that refuses to die. We would also like to thank the following folks for reading an early version of this tale and offering their opinions:

  Mary Bryant Lutzke

  Regina West

  Lexa Cain

  Betty McIntyre

  Donna Marie West

  Kerry EB Black

  Zachary Walters

  Christina Cooper

  Joseph Ramshaw

  Shaun Hupp

  ER Robin Dover

  Dale Herring

  Becky Narron-Heath

  -TMW & CL

  The Him Deep Down now available as an audio-book!

  Andy watched the school bus burn. The children inside didn't scream, even as their flesh was eaten away by the fire. Their small melting hands scraped at the windows. They clawed at the living assembled on the shoulder of the Texas road, oblivious to their impending demise and hopeful to tear into the group. The dead children within the bus, their blackened bones peeking through taut skin, and dull eyes watching the group of survivors, sank into the fire as it blossomed and painted the small windows of the yellow vehicle.

  Andy turned and saw Nikki snuggled up against Tim. Though she was as tough as any of them, she couldn't look at the bus. She had lost two children and it was too much for her. Nikki had the first kid when she was sixteen and the second only two years later. They died in the plague, before she joined up with the unlikely bunch. Tim, the boy scout that he was, took to Nikki immediately.

  Tim was ruggedly handsome, husky and had been a high school quarterback. He still held his varsity jacket, tucked in his backpack like some reminder of the past, though it had been a decade or more since he'd thrown a touchdown pass. Nikki's long dark hair held a single streak of deep red. It contrasted deeply with her pale skin, which was adorned with both metal and ink—a real modern girl. In a different world, she and Tim may have scorned one another. But not here. Not now. There wasn't time for that bullshit.

  "This is obscene, man," Tim complained, Nikki still buried in his chest. "Why did we have to do this?"

  "Didn't seem Christian to leave them like that," Andy said.

  "You ain't a Christian," Tim replied. "And that psycho brother of yours sure as hell ain't one either," Tim continued, motioning toward Steven who stood several yards away.

  "If felt like leaving them damned. In hell," Andy said, stepping a little closer, his eyes glaring back at Tim. "Do you think my brother and I enjoy burning up little kids? Even dead ones?"

  "You tell me," Tim said, looking over Andy's shoulder.

  Andy looked back toward the bus. His brother Steven was waving at the burning kids, mocking them. Andy swallowed hard and turned back, business like, to Tim. "Look, we need better weapons, food, shelter and water. That's what's important."

  "He's right," Nikki muttered, still clutched against Tim. "And can we please get out of here? I can't deal with those poor kids anymore. Please!"

  "Sure, babe," Tim said, pulling Nikki even closer in.

  Andy turned around and was relieved to see his brother was no longer acting like an ass. Steven now quietly watched the bus burn, a red-stained baseball bat perched over his shoulder. There had always been a distance between Andy and his brother, but Steven's post-plague behavior widened the chasm all the more.

  Something had kept Steven unhappy for years. And it was much more than the heavy acne and braces on his crooked teeth, even more awkward now that Steven was in his twenties. Most of his life he'd been considered a bad seed by just about everyone; his own kin included. Andy had hoped his little brother would change. But now he feared Steven favored this dead and violent world over the one he had grown up in. Every one of them was a murderer and a thief. But Andy could see that Steven seemed to almost enjoy it.

  Though Nikki and Tim had been a part of this nomad family for only a few weeks, they must have been able to sense the strife between the brothers. Andy could feel them putting their weight against the wedge whenever Steven strayed ahead, out of earshot. But what did they expect Andy to do? He had promised his momma and daddy that he would protect his little brother; long before the plague came. The way Tim and Nikki pressed him angered him at times. But he couldn't fault them.

  It had been Andy's call to burn the bus. It felt like a mercy killing. There was no telling how long the little monsters had been trapped there. But Steven was watching it for sport. It was a kick to him, a bus full of kids burning up like that. Andy decided to shift them out of there before the dead showed up.

  "Come on," Andy instructed, peeling off his sweaty flannel and tying it off around his waist. "Let's get in the woods before we get company or that damn bus blows up."

  They walked into the woods, and moved fairly confidently into the brush. They had learned months into the plague that the biggest attribute in detecting the dead was their sense of smell. That was always the first sign—the rot. As long as you had a decent sniffer, you could ferret them out. With the exception of the newly deceased, the dead couldn't sneak up on anyone with the stench rolling off of them. Especially in the hotter months, and the hottest, August, was on them. It felt like a smothering jacket they couldn't remove.

  The air smelled clean and held no trace of the exceedingly familiar reek of dead flesh, so Andy and his motley group trudged forward with little fear of stumbling across a mass of the undead.

  Andy was the only one who noticed Steven intermittently looking back toward the bus, as though getting one last glimpse of a trophy he couldn't take with him. Despite the blood relation, Andy felt less comfortable around his own brother than those he'd met only weeks ago.

  "Forget something back there, Steven?" Andy asked with squinted eyes.

  "Nope. All is taken care of."

  The group kept to the inside edge of the forest in order to follow the road, until Tim stopped mid step, held his arm out to halt the others and stood still. He inhaled deeply through his nose, followed by short sniffs. His actions alerted the others that he'd smelled something that hadn't hit them yet. Only seconds later, the stench filled every nostril.

  Nikki covered her mouth, dropped to her knees on the forest floor and began sobbing. "I can't do this," Nikki cried, her voice booming under the circumstances. "My babies! My babies smell like this now. Don't they?" She looked up at Tim through flooded eyes, hoping for reassurance.

  Her breakdown took Tim by surprise, and initially he said nothing; just stared and soaked in what she may be going through. There was no right answer. One conclusion would be unrealistic—a lie. The other would only rip the wound deeper, unmercifully. He wasn't good at this and decided to avoid the question altogether and deal with a different kind of reality.

  "I'm sorry, Nikki, but we need to get away from the road," Tim said, offering two lending hands.

  Stuck in deep reflection,
Nikki heard nothing and remained on the ground. "Baby powder and lotions…and peanut butter. All that peanut butter and jelly in the webs of their fingers after lunch. That's what they should smell like, Tim." Nikki's voice grew in volume. "Not death."

  By now, Andy knew Tim wasn't the best at handling Nikki when this type of thing happened. It wasn't the big guy's fault. He was sympathetic enough, but he was bad with words.

  Nikki was Tim's woman, and Andy generally let Tim deal with these outbursts, even as clumsy as he was with them. But the wind told him that the dead were drawing nearer, so Andy squatted down near Nikki.

  "Nikki, we need to get moving deeper into the woods. Come on, honey," Andy said, in a soft but firm tone. He gently helped Nikki to her feet.

  Nikki stepped away from Andy and wrapped her arms around Tim.

  "I know, Nikki. I know it's hard. I'm sorry," Tim said, as he held her tight. Andy looked on with sympathy and Steven with a blank, dead stare.

  It was the quiet that triggered the episode, not the stench. Even footsteps in a forest were enough to distract wandering thoughts. But when Tim had stopped them there in the woods and they stood silent, taking in the incense of a huddle of corpses, the quiet beat into them. Complete silence acted as a ceaseless tap on the shoulder and a whisper in their ear that essentially they were alone in a hopelessly crippled world. Silence was maddening.

  "Okay, let's head in further," Andy whispered, pointing into the forest.

  Though there were bound to be lone wanderers, the group had found that most of the dead travelled in mobs along the roads. The rationale wasn't clear—familiarity with the terrain? Ease of movement? Or perhaps the roads were simply where they'd found most of their prey.

  The group moved directly into the heart of the woods for a good mile and then turned north, back in their original direction in hopes of popping out of the trees and closer to an actual town.

  "Tim, do you have any of those granola bars left?" Nikki asked.

  "Yeah, you want one?"

  "Please."

  Andy was pleased to see that Nikki had recovered somewhat.

  "Andy, you want one? I've got like four left in here." Tim stopped and took off his backpack.

  "Sure, I'll take one. Steven, you hungry?"

  "No." Steven continued walking while the others stayed back. He spoke to them over his shoulder, "I'll scout up ahead. So have your little snack and I'll just man up and do what has to be done. Like every damn day."

  Tim handed out the granola bars.

  "Don't go too far," Andy advised his brother.

  "That boy pisses ice water," Nikki said, tugging at the wrapper of her granola bar. "He's getting worse. He is going to get us all killed."

  "I think the dead might beat him to it," Andy kidded solemnly.

  "Why are we always stopping when we find rotters pinned down? It's like you are finding distractions for that boy," Nikki said, sinking into the bar when she finished.

  "We gotta thin the herd when we can. It has nothing to do with Steven," Andy insisted.

  "Still, your brother is making this whole thing even more difficult, Andy," Tim said. "Did you see him when we lit that bus up? I swear he was almost smiling. Like it had been the highlight of his week."

  "He nearly got us killed in Decatur," Nikki chimed in, between bites.

  "Okay, whoa. Let's not forget Boyd. If it weren't for Steven you'd have half your neck missing and would be roaming these roads with the rest of 'em."

  "I just feel like he's a liability, man. He's careless, and it's almost like he's getting off on this whole thing. Frankly, he creeps me out," Tim said.

  Andy wanted to tell them to leave it be—that if it was down to them or Steven, he'd side with his brother—even if that might not be 100% truth. But he wanted to build on this group. He knew full well that he and Steven would never make it alone out there.

  "I'll talk to him. He's just young. It's his way of coping. Don't worry about it, okay?" Andy didn't let on that he was just as worried as they were.

  A rustling of leaves alerted the group. They quickly turned to find a pair of the undead surging forth from the brush; their arms reaching to grasp anything that would satisfy their cannibalistic motives. Their deaths had come fairly recently, so the stench hadn't had time to build. Though their skin was pale and their veins now hardened, the flesh still clung healthily to their bones.

  The group was taken by surprise. Andy reached into his boot and pulled a buck knife from a hidden sheath.

  "I got this," he whispered to Tim and Nikki. "It's only two of them."

  The dead men wore gray work uniforms, like that of a mechanic. The two appeared to be related. They shared the same features, and the resemblance still held in the early rot of their faces. Andy shifted toward them, grabbed the bigger of the two by the scruff of his neck and stabbed the thing forcefully in the face. The knife slid off its cheekbone and deep into the socket of its eye. Andy pulled the knife free and the corpse fell heavily to the ground. Its death hold on Andy's shirt brought him down to the ground with it.

  The knife slipped from Andy's hand. He scrambled to stand and was shocked at how swift the other came at him. If he didn't know better, he'd swear the rotter brought vengeance with him.

  Andy abandoned looking for the knife when he saw the thing was so close. He reached up and grabbed the dead man by his throat, using his other hand to push its chin upward. He didn't have to wrestle it for long. Tim hooked the zombie's arms, holding him for Andy. Nikki leaned in, brandishing Andy's found blade, and guided it into its temple with a remorseless strength that always seemed to scare those who unleashed it--to feel such aggression so easily come forth against another human, alive or dead.

  Tim pushed the garbage aside and helped Andy up. "You okay?"

  "Yep," Andy said, a little embarrassed but grateful nonetheless. "Not a scratch. The bastard tripped me up."

  As though she hadn't just savagely driven a knife through the brain of something that once breathed the same air as her, Nikki grabbed a leaf and timidly wiped the thick blood off the blade. She offered the handle to Andy. "You dropped this," she said with a tight grin.

  Steven, who missed the scuffle completely, whistled from up ahead and waved the rest of the group to him. As they approached, a wide fence comprised of handmade spears split the way between them and the woods ahead. Several zombies adhered to the makeshift wall by way of impalement. Most were no longer animated, but a few still moved as though unaware of the hindering of two feet of wood penetrating their bodies.

  Andy noted the fresh blood on Steven's bat. It no doubt matched that of the bashed head that hung limply from one of the impaled bodies; brain matter still dripping from a newly formed crater. For fear of bringing more attention to his brother's instability, Andy said nothing.

  Beyond the fence the land resembled a tree-filled Omaha Beach during World War II, littered with makeshift obstacles—large boulders and doors propped horizontally acted as hurdles. Holes in the ground were spread randomly throughout, many of which still held the undead who'd fallen victim to the traps, their blackened and broken fingers haphazardly pulling at the edges of the earth above them.

  "What do you make of it?" Andy asked.

  Steven loaded his lip with stale chaw. "Somebody's protecting something."

  Tim and Nikki had caught up and were surveying the gruesome fencing.

  "This looks like something a prepper would build," Nikki said.

  "If there is a prepper in there, it'll mean a safe place to rest and get supplies," Tim realized.

  "So we going in?" Steven asked, eagerly, the chaw accenting his braces.

  "Yeah, but we're going to observe first," Andy instructed. "We don't know what kind of people we're dealing with, so we're going to scope it out before we just go charging in. You hear me, Steven?"

  "I got ears, man," Steven replied thickly.

  "Well, so long as you use them we shouldn't have a problem," Andy maintained.

&n
bsp; He turned to Tim and Nikki. "You two watch me and Steven ferret a path. We'll wave you in when we find a safe route around the traps."

  Andy and Steven had grown up in the sticks. Tim and Nikki were city and therefore clumsy in the brush, so they always conceded to Andy and Steven. They may have wanted a more prominent voice in other aspects of this tribe, but they trusted the brothers completely when it came to staying alive in the wild; what path to take, what berry to eat, navigating by the position of the sun. They never argued over these things.

  As Andy and Steven made their way through a gap in the fence and pressed into the forest, it became apparent that the rustic traps and obstacles were not meant for the living. They were all a bit too obvious and nothing set to discourage a human trespasser. Andy paused and looked back at Tim and Nikki.

  He pointed his fingers to his own eyes and then to the ground, motioning for them to follow but to keep their eyes open. In the short seconds it had taken Andy to summon his companions, Steven had nearly disappeared in front of him. Andy moved silently through a congregation of maple trees and ran into Steven, who held up a hand to halt his brother.