The Last Words

From the journal of Jude Guerrero 12/25/2012

The Doctor had remembered the welding tools he’d seen on the truck down where they were building an outbuilding. It was convenient that they were building out there, but pretty damn inconvenient that it was all outside the gate. So, the first part of our plan depended on us being able to get out of this gate and down the stairs, through the chanters, outside the double chain link razor wire fence, past the chanters wandering about outside, get the equipment, then make it back. No problem.

I went through all the possible scenarios, writing them down to keep them in my mind. We could try a distraction, make a run for it and hope none of the affected saw us. Eric could probably rig another explosion somehow. But would that really get all of them over to the other side of the building?

I could wait until night falls, try stealth. I’m pretty sure I could even do it, God knows I’ve had to infiltrate buildings in the dead of night without being caught, and that was against an intelligent adversary with guns. But, it was still risky, especially with my memory, I might get trapped somewhere and forget what I’m even doing there. More important, I’m not sure we could wait that long. Who knows when the smoke will come our way? I could only think of one other way to do it.

“What, no, are you insane?” Cassie yelled. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Really, you, that’s the craziest?”

“I’m going to have to agree with her on this one, Jude. That is, well, that’s suicide,” the doctor added.

“No, I really think this will work.”

“Jude, without you, what will become of us? Honestly, none of us have your training, your background. If you die, there is a good chance we all die.”

“Bullshit, you can figure out another plan, you can make this work without me. Besides, I’m not going to die.”

“I’m pretty sure you will,” Eric chimed in.

“No, I’m telling you, that’s why they don’t attack each other, because they’re chanting. They won’t attack someone else who is chanting.”

“Jude, I mean, that makes sense to some degree, but, the risk involved, and your theory is untested.”

“Well then we’ll test it.”

So we did. Down the hall we went, after everyone but Tim Tom and I had covered their ears.

As they heard us coming the chorus at the end of the hall piped up, chanting those damn words; …ear rye spider dance… and I started chanting along, using the phrase I had written down for some reason. I’d kept it in my journal with a note that it was there if I ever needed it. Well, now I did.

So I started chanting, and, as the others watched from a distance so the affected couldn’t see them, the people in the cells settled down, stopped howling at me and banging against the doors, and started chanting with me. Their chants all lined up and they calmed down and we were all chanting in chorus. And they stared at me, their eyes pleading, probably wondering in their demented minds if I was going to let them out, let them out so we could kill the others, now that I was one of them. I couldn’t handle it any more.

I walked away and we went back to the safe room down the hall.

“Well, it worked.”

“I saw,” said the Doctor. “I saw, but I still don’t like this.”

Truth be told, I didn’t like it either. But it’s what I did, blend in, make my way through a strange land, speaking a foreign tongue, not attracting attention to myself, gathering intelligence, finding a position, or, in this case, grabbing a welding rig.

I had the phrase in my hand, maybe I could’ve written it in marker on my arm but I didn’t want to risk not being able to get it off and someone seeing it. So here I was looking down at my hand, chanting the phrase that ended the world, over and over again, and getting ready to walk right into a crowd of fucking cannibals.

The crazies at the gate had wandered off, probably to another floor to look for food. As I got past the gate and made my way down the stairs I only made it down two flights before I got to test the phrase out in the real world. And it was one hell of a test; a group of seven going down the stairs, three carrying pipes, and here I was, with just a knife hidden at the small of my back. Moment of truth.

“Worm milk chest mouth…” I mumbled, my mouth going dry. They turned to look at me, eyes full of fury. I got louder, “wound sea moth oil…”

They started chanting louder, in unison, and I had to look down at my paper to get to the same place they were.

It worked. Holy hell it worked.

They turned and kept going back downstairs, seemingly sure I was one of them, not food. And I followed them, my new buddies, all of us heading down.

They went down to the first floor and started heading toward the lobby as I just glided my own little way, heading toward the docks, hoping they wouldn’t notice, and they didn’t.

I slipped out the dock and waited, looking around for more affected. A couple of loners were wandering around outside the gate so I waited.

And I didn’t have to wait long, a crashing sound around the other side of the building meant the other part of the plan was in motion — throw shit out the window and make a lot of noise to distract the chanters. That one sounded like the TV. Power was off and there wasn’t anything on anyway.

I didn’t want any affected to see me unlock the gate, or risk them getting in so I’d set up the distraction for me to get out.

Now I moved, slowly, pseudo aimlessly, like I’d seen the loner affected earlier, toward the truck with the welding rig on the back, muttering the phrase.

It wasn’t’ long at all before I was no longer alone. Three others were wandering around and for some reason gravitated toward me. Were they on to me? What did they want? If they were on to me then why were they moving so slow? No, they wandered closer but then just started following me, still a little aimless but definitely trying to keep up with me, still muttering the phrase quietly. What the fuck did they want?

I didn’t feel like I could risk them seeing me doing something which might seem odd to them so I wandered away from the truck and started going in a large circle. Now there were two more. What the hell was going on? Was I gathering my own pack? I knew I couldn’t keep doing this forever, so I went for it. As nonchalantly as I could under the circumstances, I grabbed the welding rig and helmet and started walking away from the truck, still chanting, trying to be one of them. A couple of them followed suit, grabbing some pipes. Great, I’ve just given them weapons. Then one of them started eyeing me, like he knew something was up.

I kept walking, not sure how I was going to keep them from following me back to the gate, then I heard another crash and some of them went running to see what it was. I stayed behind, along with the one who was eyeing me and two others. I crept closer to the gate, no real plan in mind yet, and they crept with me, getting closer to me, their heads cocking to the side like animals trying to figure something out. So I said fuck it, I knew how to use one of these from when I was helping my dad build his boat. I turned it on, lit it, and put the flame right in the eyeballers face and holy shit did he scream.

I blinded the other two as quickly as I could and sprinted for the gate, knowing I had mere seconds. I got the key out, fumbled, cussed, then got it and the lock was open. I got in, closed the gate and locked it back up just as a horde of them was upon the gate, screaming, chanting, already trying to climb the fence and getting caught in the razor wire. I went back inside as soon as I could, hoping they would get away once I was out of sight.

Now I was inside, but not safe, and not alone. Some of the residents had come to see what the commotion was, and I didn’t even bother trying to trick them. The first ones I burned but then decided to save fuel so I started cutting my way through the crowd before they could figure out what was going on. We were in a hallway which actually gave me an advantage because they couldn’t surround me and only so many could get close to me at a time. But I knew I couldn’t last long like this so I cut my way to the stairs and hightailed it.

I was lucky, I only had to mow down a couple more on the stairs, but the rest of them were behind me and they were hungry for some SEAL. As I was getting to my floor I started screaming, “Open the gate. Open the gate. Open the gate.”

And then realized I wasn’t real sure at this point which floor I was on.

Shit, damn my fucking shit memory. But I found it, saw them with the gate open and rushed in.

“Close the gate. Close the gate.”

They did and the pack came crashing into it, spitting and screaming, trying like hell to get in. But the gate held.

“Well,” I tried to catch my breath, “that sucked.”