Death Valley 01

Death Valley 01

     The desert sun blazed onto the desolate landscape.  Swanny wandered in and out of what lacked any word to describe it.  He tripped and staggered through the golden sand, left footprints in what he saw as carpet.  Swanny looks to the sun, saw every color in the rainbow, and it left him reeling.  His mouth was dry, he had been breathing through his mouth for the past few hours.  He mumbled to himself, as the colors danced in front of his eyes.  He needed water.  Only now was Swanny sure of the importance of that liquid.

     “This is one hell of a trip,” Swanny mumbled to himself.  “I need to go to that reservation more often.”  He was on a spiritual journey.  Swanny was a Native White American, he left much to be desired in the looks department.  Sun burnt eyes a crazy grey color that spoke volumes in a language that no one understood.  Average in height, with black hair, mangled and tangled under the desert sun.

     Swanny (his real name wasn’t really Swanny, but everyone called him that) crested a dune, and the whole of the Mojave opened up in front of him.  He needed water.  But he was too excited and high to have any forethought about this trip.  He wandered into the desert after drinking a foul tasting hallucinogenic liquid.  The desert sun beat down upon him like a scornful lover. 

     Thirsty, Swanny thought, over and over in his head until the only thing that they sky reminded him of was the ocean.  He fell down the side of the dune, tumbling through the sand.  Particles of sand filtered the sunlight gold and blue.  Swanny hit the bottom of the dune with a heavy squish.  He opened his eyes and found he was ankle deep in a pool of dark black-blue sludge.

     “Water!” he screamed with joy, and started shoveling the stuff into his mouth.  After a few shovelfuls of this sludge, Swanny felt more disoriented than his original state.  The lightheadedness caused him to fall face down in the muck.  The bubbles around his head slowly died.

     The sun was low on the horizon in the town of Dusty Shades, “The biggest small town in the Mojave!”  The shop keeper, Gary, had just closed up his general store/gas station/bookstore.  He looked toward the sunset, and saw a black dot shamble toward town.  He squinted to see it better, but couldn’t see what it was.  He shrugged his shoulders and went about his business.

     Later that night Gary was awakened by a bloodcurdling scream.  He leaped out of his single bed, grabbed his revolver and headed toward the epicenter of the noise.  When Gary reached the road, he was shocked.  Mrs. Wordswoth was spread-eagled on the road.  Her neck bitten out and blood still erupted all around her like a geyser.  Gary looked around and saw the figure of a man, who was shambling farther into town.  The figure became illuminated by the lights of houses turned on to investigate the scream.  It was a man, but this man was covered in what appeared to be lint with his mouth gone, replaced by a huge black bulbous boil.  Gary ran closer, but kept his distance, this man was dangerous, he could tell.  He killed Mrs. Wordsworth, he didn’t know how, but he was the only culprit. 

     The man moaned, loudly at the lights being turned on in the night.  Gary, who was always a cautious man, slowly cocked his pistol.  A crowd formed around the edges of the road.  Murmurs circulated about this figure that had killed Mrs. Wordsworth.  Gary carefully took aim at the figure.  But a split second before he took the shot, Gary heard a faint “look out!” coming from the crowd.  He turned around.  Mrs. Wordsworth was at most a foot away from his face.  She looked different.  Her eyes were dead, her face was blank, and her mouth was open.  A black-blue boil was beginning to protrude from her jaw.  She uttered a moan as her arms encircled Gary.  Her jaw closed around his jugular, he tried to scream but his gun fired and it drowned out any other sound.  The bullet flew into an onlooker in the crowd.  They all screamed, and dispersed into the night.  Utter chaos erupted in the biggest small town in the Mojave. 

     There was only one survivor.

     This man, who went by the name of Brennon, fought off the creatures with any weapon he could find.  In only two hours, the entire town was infected.  Brennon fought off what he could, and burned the rest.  When dawn broke, he climbed into his car and drove west, toward Los Angeles.  Brennon had to tell the world what happened in Dusty Shades.  It was his home town, and his family had all died in whatever the hell that was.  This was early in the November of 1999.

    

     It was now the 12^th of December in the same year. 

     In that same desert, in the middle of godforsaken nowhere.  Dr. Mathis was sent to investigate what had happened in Dusty Shades by the CDC.  He was a forensic pathologist, very overqualified for the job.  The morning sun painted the sky purple to his back.  Dr. Mathis drove his Ford F-150 into the burnt remains of the town.  He got out of the car in the center of the main road.  Burnt and decayed bodies littered the street, some with heads, and some without.  Mathis bent down to investigate one of the bodies.  It was thin, almost as if it had been starved and slightly singed.  He reached his gloved hand toward the body, and turned it over.  What he saw made him jump back.  The mouth was open, and the jaw was hanging by a thread of flesh.  In its place, a growth like a boil protruded from the jaw line. 

     “What the,” Mathis pondered under his breath.  He reached into his kitbag and pulled out a Petri dish to collect a sample from the growth.  When he touched it with his scalpel, however, it collapsed in on itself, releasing a cloud of dust.  Mathis jumped back off his haunches and onto the ground.  He narrowly escaped the dark blue-black dust.  He put on his mask for good measure, and after it settled he attempted to collect another sample.  But the bodies seemed to disintegrate on touch. 

     Frustrated, he looked for more bodies.  The entire town was of this same disintegrating matter, he looked farther out of town for more bodies.  He followed the main road, through ash and blood and dust.  He kept his head down and his mask on.  When the burnt sand ended, Mathis saw that a trail of black-blue footprints started.  He followed them, farther into the Mojave. 

     The sun was high in the sky.  Mathis kept with the footprints until he came to a pool, with the footprints leading out of it.  This dark blue-black sludge bubbled in anticipation of him.

     “I have to get a sample of this,” he said to himself, and bent down to collect a sample.  The pool released puffs of blue-black dust with each bubble.

     “Freeze!” a muffled voice yelled behind him.  He heard the cocking of a firearm.

     Dr. Mathis whirled around, and saw the man who yelled at him.  It was someone in desert camouflage, who wore a full-faced gasmask.  The man was pointing an AK-47 at him.  Dr. Mathis froze.

     “What are you doing?  This is a quarantined area,” the man waved his gun at him, but it returned to the spot between the doctor’s eyes.

     “I—I’m with the CDC.  My name is Dr. William Mathis,” his hands raised slowly, a gesture of peace.

     “Another doctor, eh?  Keep your hands up and come with me,” the soldier’s gun lowered, but he still had his finger on the trigger.  The grunt slowly turned around and his footsteps tore lightly into the sand, he left a trail of black-blue footprints.

     Dr. Mathis was stunned and puzzled.  He didn’t think that there was anything left living in the desert.  The town itself was tribute to that.  He followed the soldier, half with curiosity and half out of fear.  He avoided stepping in the black-blue lint that the soldier left behind.  After ten minutes of walking, they arrived at a small shed.  Mathis hadn’t seen this shed.  It was painted with the same desert camouflage that the soldier was wearing.  This had bad idea written all over it.  I wish I had been transferred to Atlanta.  At least there they don’t have crazy people waving guns at me.  The doctor thought as he stepped through the door, into the darkness of the shed.  His eyes took a while to adjust to the light.  There was nothing in the shed except for a large manhole.  The soldier motioned with his gun toward it, and then lifted it.

     “Down the rabbit hole we go,” Mathis said under his breath.  The air that emanated from the hole was rancid.  It was a mixture of spoiled milk, dirt, and fungus.  Yep, this had bad idea written all over it.

     After they descended the ladder into the cave, the soldier and Dr. Mathis stood at the entrance to a dark tunnel.  The soldier turned on his flashlight, and lit the path ahead of them.  He kept his light on the cave ahead, but never let it fall to the ground.  Mathis could barely make out shapes on the floor of the cave.  Part of him didn’t want to know what was there, the other part was deathly curious.

     “What is this place, and what is on the ground?”

     The soldier said nothing, but continued on until they both arrived at a large steel door.  There was a consol in front of the door with a keypad on it.  The soldier typed in a code.  There was an alarm and flashing lights all around them.  Mathis was taken aback by the sounds after the long silence.  Then he heard the sound of the steel door squealing open.  That rancid smell was getting worse.

     “God, man, what is that smell?” Mathis covered his nose.

     The soldier just grunted a laugh, and continued on.  He stepped through the metal door, and flipped a switch.  Dr. Mathis followed hastily.  He snuck a glance back toward the cave.  As the door closed behind him, the light from the door illuminated the figures on the floor of the cave.  Bodies, piles of them, the same black-blue corpses from Dusty Shades littered the floor like discarded tissues.

     A pit formed in the stomach of Dr. Mathis.  He said shakily, “Jesus, what the hell is this place?”

     The grunt moved along silently.  They arrived at another door, the lights turning on and off as they walked, following them with the saving light from an incandescent bulb.  They reached a door at the end of the hallway into a dark room.  The soldier stopped before the door, and motioned for Mathis to go through.  He stayed behind, and the door squeaked shut behind Mathis.

     Mathis couldn’t see, he uttered a shaky, “hello?” and was answered by darkened silence.

     “Ah, who are you?  And what were you doing in my laboratory?” a voice echoed through the dark.  A light flicked on, illuminating a sunken, wrinkled face.  The face was sitting behind a small metal desk, the lamp played games with Mathis’ head.

     “Uh, my name is Dr. William Mathis, I’m with the CDC.  I was sent here to investigate what happened at Dusty Shades.  And a man with a gun forced me to come here.”
     The man hit his hand on the desk.  The hollow metallic scream echoed through the dark room.  Mathis jumped, and put up his hands.

     “My apologies, doctor.  I knew they knew, I just didn’t realize how fast they would respond to that outbreak,” the man looked sad.  His eyes were in shadow, leaning forward on the desk.

     “Outbreak, what do you mean?  And who are you?”

     The man slammed his hand on the desk again, “damn drug nuts running wild!  My funding cut, my men hungry, and no one cares!  What the hell has this world come to?”  He trailed off, and put his head in his hands.  After a minute of silence, he picked back up, “My work is so important.  It’s all I have.  I am Dr. Clarke Kilborne.  And this—this place is going to be the death of me.  The death of everyone!  We have the largest collection of fungi in the world!  And they cut my funding?  All because some damn hippie drinks the waste.”  He trailed off to incomprehensible mumbles.

     “Okay,” Mathis walked closer to the desk.  “So what you’re saying is that outbreak as you call it was your fault?  What did you release?”

     “My fault?  My fault!  No, that drug nut that fell in the waste pool.  It’s his damn fault!”  Kilborne slammed his fist on the desk, harder than the previous strikes.  The lamp on his desk toppled over the desk.  It fell on the floor, and illuminated the wall behind him.  The entire wall was covered in a cluster of blue-black bulbs.  They pulsated as if the light woke them up.

     “What the fuck is that?  For God’s sake, what is that?”  Dr. Mathis stepped back, his heart full of fear.  The pit in his stomach became a void, endless and black, his mind raced with the monsters no one dared to imagine.

     “That?” Dr. Kilborne said with a maniacal chuckle.  “Those.  Those are my children.  Those are the newest of my creations.  Those are the final version.  Those are the ticket to the freedom of the human race!  No more will we be stricken with hunger, with sickness or death.  This is evolution!”

     Mathis’ head began to swim.  He took in extra air, but his throat was invaded by something.  He coughed and wheezed.  He fell onto his knees, but still couldn’t get any air.  It was as if something was attempting to climb out of his lungs.

     The madman laughed even louder, “having fun, doctor?  Like I said, soon the human race will evolve.  In exactly one week’s time, we as a race will reach a whole new tier of perfection!  Alas, you doctor will not have the good fortune of seeing human perfection.  You have already been infected with my failed prototype.  You will die.  But my children will spread, on December the 19^th; my children will invade the atmosphere infecting everyone on earth!”

     Mathis knew this man was mad.  But he couldn’t voice it, the thing trying to escape his lungs burst out of his mouth, dislocating his jaw.  Mathis’ air was blocked by a black-blue boil.  The same kind he found on the bodies in Dusty Shades.  His eyes closed, he slipped into death.

     Dr. Kilborne un-holstered his gun, and put a bullet through the head of Dr. Mathis.  “After the spores are released,” he turned around to admire his work.  “We shall truly live.”

     The mad doctor stood quietly there for a while.  He felt something grab his ankle.  He whipped around, to find the undead corpse of Dr. Mathis reaching out toward him, with one hand already around the bare skin of his ankle.  Dr. Kilborne screamed.  He knew that just one touch could spread the infection.  This was his creation.  Why was it trying to kill him?  This wasn’t right!  The doctor fired randomly at the creature. 

     He knew he would turn very soon.  He put the gun to his head, and pulled the trigger.  Click. 

     “Shit!”  The doctor screamed.  He broke free of Mathis, and ran to his computer.  He frantically slammed the keys, attempting to start the bunker’s self-destruction protocol.  The bunker’s alarm system blared, “ten seconds to self-destruction.”

The corpse of Dr. Mathis pulled Kilborne off of his chair and onto the floor, the doctor screamed until he couldn’t anymore.  The undead corpse of Mathis tore Kilborne’s jaw off of his skull and shoved his fungus covered hand down his throat.  Dr. Kilborne died with a scream bubbling through his throat.

Kilborne’s men attempted to run from the bunker.  The squad of seven men scrambled to the ladder in the cave.  They stumbled over body after body.  But the ladder had collapsed.  The men tore off their gasmasks and fell to their knees.

The cleansing fire ripped through the air, igniting what was left of the soldiers, Dr. Mathis, and Dr. Kilborne.  All that was left was the silent black-blue pool of waste.  Bubbles jumped excitedly at the fire erupting from the desert shack just yards away.  The sun shone through the black-blue smoke, the sun set on the flames in the desert.

The black-blue pool still waits silently bubbling in the Mojave.