Dark Fiction - Ruptured
By Casey Douglass
(It's horror, so stop now if you don't like gore or sex.)
I’m a lucky son of a
bitch and I don’t mind admitting it. The swarm, when it appeared
and started turning people into fleshy water balloons, sure had good
timing. I was balls deep in a motel whore when things went south, my
aching bones bouncing on the knackered mattress springs of the shitty
bed. Luanne was astride me, wriggling and jiggling as I cupped her
lovely titties. She was a gem, a good fuck, and, now I come to think
of it, didn’t charge me as much as the other drivers. Sometimes she
even let it slide until next time.
‘You’re too cute to
charge honey,’ she’d said once. I’m really not. I’m an ugly
pot-bellied truck driver who’d never get sex if I didn’t pay for
it, and I know it! Shit, I’m getting maudlin now. Where was I?
Oh yeah, she was
fucking my brains out when she yelped and rubbed her arm. ‘Some
dang thing just bit me!’ she pouted.
‘Aw don’t pay it no
heed, just another fan wantin’ a piece of you!’
She giggled and set to
her rocking again. She stopped a few seconds later though, her cheeks
flushing ruby, along with the rest of her face, her neck, holy shit,
her everything.
‘I don’t-’ she
managed before she popped like a water-balloon.
Shit man, it was like
someone had dumped a bucket of slop over me, and thrown a raggedy old
towel on me after! I was covered in Luanne, her gore and burst skin.
I didn’t even scream as it was all in my mouth, my eyes, my hair.
As it turned out, it was lucky I didn’t holler as it meant I heard
the buzzin’.
A lone midgie circled
near the stained ceiling fan, lazy and plump in a really strange way.
It’s body looked wrong, that’s the only way I can really describe
it. Another joined it and they diddled around and around. Shocked as
I was, I remembered Luanne’d been stung, but I was frozen. Well,
another one joined the first two, and before long the room was
infested. I braced myself, waiting for the bite that would likely see
my slop added to the bed, but it never came. I must have passed out
because they were there one minute, gone the next. The light had
changed though, so yeah, I’d passed out.
Along with being ugly,
I’m not a smart man. I don’t mind admitting it. Is what it is. I
did realise that maybe they’d left me alone because they couldn’t
find me though. On account of Luanne’s... erm, remains.
I got up,
feeling the slick stuff slide down my body like day old jello. I
looked out at the dawn through the smoke encrusted curtains and swore
at the view. Blisters of gore were scattered around the parking lot,
flaps of skin and crimson blotting the gravel. I ran to the bathroom
and puked in the bathtub, didn’t have no time for getting to the
toilet.
It was a rough day
after, but I got through it. And the next. And the next. I was
haulin’ food in my trailer when the outbreak happened, so I was set
for a good long time. The radio told me the world had gone to shit,
so I did the best I could. It was grim, but I had a plan and I stuck
to it.
Now I’m sitting
pretty in my tent, miles from anywhere, with enough supplies to last
a good six months by my reckoning. I’ve learned that I’ll do
anything to survive, and survive I will.
I don’t sleep that
good, but I think it’s the tent. You see... using my head, I
collected up the bits of skin left by the popped people, and stitched
them into a three season tent I managed to steal from a sports store
at the mall. I thought that was bad enough, but that didn’t quite
keep me safe until I found I needed to re-wet them with gore each
day. It was lucky I noticed the midges getting closer to the sides
each night as the flesh dried out. I went back to town and used a
carpet cleaner to collect people juice from the ground. The sun had
baked most of it outside but in homes, well, rich pickings. It’s
sitting in big plastic drums at the back of the trailer now, ready to
baste the skin. Uggh. It stinks, but I’d rather struggle sleeping
than turn inside out in the night!
The other thing that
keeps me awake is the buzzing. You can skirt the swarm in the daytime
if you are careful and wrapped up in well-sealed gear, but at night,
it comes down and blankets the ground. I think they come down to the
ground to fuck. The swarm’s getting bigger, much bigger.
Shit, I don’t think
I`ll last long, but I gotta try.
I miss Luanne.
