Monster Island(44)

Her face remained hidden by the wrappings except for a ragged hole where her mouth had once been.Their final ritual made that-thewpt-r, the “Opening of the Mouth”. It was done with a chisel and a hammer. The cloth around the wound was stained brown and yellow by long-dried fluids.Fucking barbarians, Mael Mag Och muttered. She moved on unsteady feet away from them, hobbling to the arch where she slouched against the weathered sandstone as if reading the hieroglyphs with her body. Gary would have crushed her, smashed her head to pieces if he had found her in a glass case still wrapped so tightly as she had been. Mael Mag Och had seen the animate creature, the humanity, below the bandages.

“What are you?” Gary asked.

A humbleDraoidh.The way Mael Mag Och pronounced it sounded like “Druid”.

“Well, okay, then who are you?” Gary asked.

Well, now, that’s an easy one. I’m the fellow who turns off the lights when the world ends.

David Wellington - Monster Island





Monster Island





Chapter Ten


The undead man stared at my bared hand as if uncertain what it could possibly be. I backed away cautiously but he came right after me, his nose wrinkling in his bluish face. His mouth opened wide and I could see his broken teeth slick with drool and then he pounced, his arms swinging shut like a pincers to grab me around the waist. I tried shaking him off but the hazmat suit limited my mobility. I tried bringing my knee up and caught him directly under the chin but if I connected with enough force to hurt him he showed no sign. His teeth snapped shut on a fold of my suit and he shook his head violently trying to rip it away. I was in danger of falling backwards, which would almost surely mean my death-with the heavy SCBA unit on my back it would take me far too long to get back on my feet. The other two dead men from the dumpster were approaching. If I lost my footing now I would have three of the things pinning me down.

Where the hell was Ayaan? I swiveled at the waist and saw her fumbling with her rifle. She couldn’t seem to bring it to bear, the bulky suit’s shoulders being too thick to let her bring it up to her eye. She could probably shoot from the hip but if she did she’d be as likely to hit me as my attacker. I was on my own until she could figure it out.

My breath made plumes of condensation on the inside of my faceshield, limiting my visibility as I twisted and tore at the undead man clutching my midriff. He held me in a grip of iron as I pried at his arms with my gloved hands. Every time I thought I had a good grip on him a layer of his dead skin would slough off and my hands would slide free. His teeth had failed to puncture the Tyvek of my suit-it was pretty tough stuff-but I knew eventually he would go for my bare hand with his teeth and then it would be over. Even if I got away after being bitten I would be prey for any number of secondary infections. I could still remember the panic in Ifiyah’s glassy eyes as her leg swelled up and her heart began to race.

Desperation forced my fingers deep into the dead man’s armpit and finally I had some leverage. The bones in my hands felt like they would snap as I clawed him away from me, finally breaking his grapple. I lifted one clumsy leg and kicked him off me, his fingers flickering in the air like scuttling claws. He landed on his back and immediately rolled to all fours again, clearly intent on coming for me once more. Then the top of his head exploded in a powdery puff of vaporized grey matter.

I turned, my lungs heaving, and saw Ayaan. She had managed to unzip her suit down to the waist, freeing her arms so she could use her AK-47 freely. As I stood there staring she lifted the weapon again and fired two quick shots, eliminating the pair of dead men that had been coming up right behind me.

Hurriedly we shed ourselves of the now-useless suits. There were more of the dead coming, a loose crowd of them from the west moving as fast as the undead could. The one in front was missing both arms but his jaw worked hungrily as he advanced on us. There were too many of them to fight off-we had to run.

I grabbed Ayaan’s arm and we ran north onto Broadway but they were there, as well, the weakened kind, the kind we had seen licking mold off of stucco walls. Their clothes dangled from their emaciated frames, their withered necks and sparse hair horrible to see. They looked far less pathetic now that we were unprotected. From the south came a dead woman with long black hair in a full bridal gown with a train, her hands covered in blood-stained gloves, her veil back to show us the long sharp teeth exposed by her withered lips. We would have to take our chances, I decided, we would have to gun down the bride and hope there were no more of the dead behind her. I didn’t relish meeting the rest of the wedding party.