Chapter 16
Carnage
It was another cool, clear morning when Elvis woke Matt by climbing on him and licking his face. He let the dog out, and peed from the edge of the porch, as he scratched his head and peered towards Millfield. It had taken him hours to get to sleep last night after his encounter with the 'feeders' (as he now thought of them), but that may have been because he was sleeping with the lights on. When he did finally drift off to sleep, it was filled with dreams populated by vicious creatures devouring each other. In another sad and horrific nightmare, a vision of his mother was begging him to take out the garbage, where the garbage was his father’s dead body. The bleakness of that vision still clung to him like burial garment.
After Matt had eaten breakfast and put some clothes on, he sat on the bench to think, while Elvis roamed in the front garden. There would be some very difficult decisions made over the next few days, but before then he needed to find out more about the once-human creatures that appeared to have taken over his town. He didn’t know if there were more feeders than the two he saw attacking each other, but he had to assume that everybody who had gone into hibernation had woken up as an ultra-violent, killing machine, with very few human characteristics remaining. That was logical, surely? The fact that he had only seen two of them the previous night probably meant that they were just beginning to arise from their suspended state. By midnight the whole town could have been crawling with the things! He wondered how far the creatures would move from their 'nests'. Was he safe at the farm? What about their behaviour? Would they develop behaviours like animals, or would they just rage like zombies until they were all wiped out by hunger, violence or sickness? Matt knew that he would need to leave the farm today to try to answer some of these questions. His original plan had been to drive to Carswell, but the more he thought about it, the more he realised it was probably a waste of time. His main priority had to be to make sure that he was safe from the 'feeders', and for that he needed to see them again so that he could fortify the farm based on what he might learn. He needed to go back into town.
As he drove along the road towards Millfield Matt considered the events that had unfolded since yesterday morning. He couldn’t reconcile the idea that he was the only person in the world untouched by the 'feeder virus'. There must be others beyond Millfield, and for his sanity, he would need to find them. However, he wasn’t willing to risk his own safety just yet in a search for survivors. Until he had a better understanding of how this event had affected people, he was going to stay at the farm, and ensure that he had enough resources so that he could continue to look for his parents. First, though, he wanted to learn more about these creatures in town. He locked Elvis in the laundry for the dog’s own safety, but also because he didn’t want any distractions if he had to make a quick retreat from a crazed feeder. He made sure his shotgun was fully loaded, and as an extra precaution had his sharpest bush knife holstered on his belt. In the pockets of his cargo pants he carried spare shells, just in case. He was only taking the gun along for self-defense, though - he had no interest in hunting zombies. All he wanted to do was to gather information to help him understand the situation he was in. The last thing he desired was to have to blast away at one of his friends or relatives with a shotgun. Observe and get out. That was the plan. He climbed into the ute and pulled away from the farm.
Matt slowed as he got closer to town to give himself a better chance of spotting anybody who might have come out of their coma and be wandering around. He also needed to watch for violent feeders like the ones he saw last night. Up ahead something on the side of the road caught his eye. On any other day Matt would have been certain that it was road kill, maybe a roo or a fox. Today, though, he knew there was another very disturbing likelihood. He stopped the car and walked over to the reddish lump on the side of the road. These were not animals. He took a couple of paces off the road and vomited the entire contents of his stomach onto the gravel shoulder. After the events of last night this discovery shouldn’t have been a complete surprise, but the unglamorous reality of the vision before him was a severe shock nonetheless. Once his retching had subsided and he had rinsed his mouth from a warm bottle of water he found on the floor of the truck, Matt forced himself to study the corpse, or what was left of it. Most of the soft tissue had been torn from the skeleton, the ribs were picked almost clean, and most of the face had been chewed off. The only remaining flesh was hanging from the bony frame in stringy flaps or white gristly lumps. Here and there remnants of the victim’s clothes were scattered around as if they had been chewed through to get at the flesh. Matt looked around anxiously, realising that if these creatures were capable of this kind of savagery towards each other, they would think nothing of treating him as mid-morning snack. The road, though, was deserted in all directions. Shaking, pale, and weak in the legs, Matt climbed into his truck, rolled up the windows and locked the doors. For the fourth time in three days he headed back into town.
Like most teenagers, Matt Winton had seen his share of gory horror movies, but that didn't prepare him for the brutal realism of the change that had come over his town in the last forty-eight hours. He drove through the ] streets and counted each body he found. He stopped at eighty-three. There were more, though. He just lost count. Maybe didn’t want to count. Couldn’t bear to know the true figure. The corpses displayed varying degrees of dismemberment. Some were like the one he found on the way in to town, and had been chewed down to gristle and bone, while others had only been half-eaten. Maybe they were getting full, Matt thought, which made him shiver, as he watched the crows and flies feasting on the already decomposing flesh. Within days these scavengers would reduce the corpses to little more than skeletons.
Of all the bodies Matt saw that day, he only recognised two. Mr Croft, a retired English teacher from Millfield High, and Mrs Watson, a nice old lady who had been friends with Matt’s grandparents before they had passed away. Like a few of the other bodies, their destruction was less comprehensive, less ruthless. Their faces were almost untouched by the frenzy of the feeders, while only the softest parts of their torsos had been eaten. Humans weren’t the only casualties of the previous night’s violence, however, and there were also a number of dogs and cats that had been too slow to escape a gruesome end. The saddest part of the whole experience, though, was the skeletons of the children. Tiny, frail piles, dotting the streets here and there like Gothic birdcages. Matt cried and cried.
If the feeders had been creatures of the day, Matt would surely have died that morning. The combination of sorrow, shock and despair would have made him an easy target for the rampant beasts. He had no fight in him. He was broken. The well-adjusted sixteen-year-old boy with a loving family, had no weapon in his emotional arsenal to cope with the sights he had witnessed, so if a feeder had attacked him, he would surely have joined the community of the dead. But he saw none.
Before Matt went home he knew he needed to check a theory that had been festering in the recesses of his subconscious. Deep inside he knew that if he didn’t follow this hunch, he might never have the courage to do so in the future, and if his theory turned out to be correct it might help his quest for survival (although at the moment, he didn’t really care about survival one way or the other). There was one place he needed see again – the cellar of the pub.
Matt’s theory was simple. If these creatures were not roaming around town today then they must be hiding again. He didn’t have any idea why they would need to do that, but it was really beside the point right now. He needed to know what they did, not why they were doing it. He pulled up in front of the pub, and grabbed his shotgun and flashlight. He flicked off the weapon’s safety and stepped out of the car. The only things moving were clouds floating across a perfect blue sky, and trees whispering in the light breeze. Matt opened the door cautiously and walked into the building, with his shotgun held in front of him and his finger on the trigger. Apart for the increased number of flies buzzing around the uneaten meal
s, the scene in the front bar hadn’t changed since he had been there the day before. There was nobody in sight - human or otherwise.
Matt was in mortal danger if his theory about the feeders was wrong, and he would probably not leave the cellar alive. If his theory was correct, however, chances of survival might be improved significantly. It was a risk worth taking, because he had nothing to lose. He went to the cellar door and peered into the darkness below. There was only silence. With his flashlight in one hand and shotgun in the other, he crept quietly down the stairs. He paused at the bottom and listened, but heard nothing. He crept to the spot by the beer kegs where he had seen the unconscious bodies the day before and shone his flashlight into the gloomy recess. His theory was correct. The feeders had returned to their nesting spot.
He counted the hibernating bodies and noticed that the number was less than it had been. Matt couldn’t know for sure, but he was felt there were at least three or four missing. He wondered if they had been killed by other feeders in last night’s bedlam or had simply found a different hiding place. As he shone the flashlight over the group, Matt noticed that they were much dirtier than they been yesterday, and their faces were covered with dried, crusty blood. He could see, too, that some of these feeders had sustained injuries, which were still seeping blood onto the tile floor beneath them. He’d seen enough. He had the information he was seeking and it was time to go home to grieve. He trudged to the car and drove home with thoughts of a bleak and desperate future in his head.