Scary ghost stories and stuff (1)

Eaten

Nobody knew when, or how, they came to inhabit this world. It could have been a solar wind or a meteor shower but I won't drone on any further with possible permutations, my time is limited, and one thing is certain, they were already here. Patient Zero was one of two cases reported merely a week ago, somewhere north of Osage county in Pawhuska, near the prairie. It was a place that had already seen its fair share of history and blood soaked into the earth. The perfect breeding ground, if they bred at all. The tall grass was damp and moist near the roots which were sheltered from the searing heat that burnt the tip of the blades. I had no cause for alarm. Did I? Besides, I was some seven-hundred miles away, in Chicago. It transpired that a young couple had been fooling around near the nature reserve. The grass was long enough to sneak through, flatten a private patch and lay staring up at the stars. It is only in hindsight, however brief that was, that we now know the cause of their demise and the tragedy that followed.

It began with an itch. These two kids began scratching at a small patch of reddened skin that burned the back of their necks. It spread, of course, until their bodies where covered in tiny red blisters and the urge to scrape the skin raw was unbearable. They were admitted to Pawhuska Hospital and soon quarantined. Death was not swift. The corpses that remained, a mere twelve hours later, were skeletal. Whether or not they were eaten from the outside in, or inside out, is irrelevant. They were already dead. What is relevant is the way that this mysterious contagion spread but that, yet again, is unknown. Did they crawl out from the motionless mandibles or filter silently into the air, how many were already afflicted, inhabited by these organisms that seemed to consume nothing but the flesh that hung from our bones? Nobody knew, and in truth no one should have stuck around to find out. Suffice to say, the hospital did not survive the admission of these two young patients. The infection, if we should call it that, spread unmanageably. It wasn't long before there were no doctors or medical professionals at all, in the whole state of Oklahoma, as the wave of terror spilled quietly into the surrounding states breathing slowly in all four directions. It danced and drifted through towns and cities on a breeze, leaving behind the bones it had no desire to consume.

It had already reached St. Louis and I was still nearly three-hundred miles away, but I was growing a little concerned. I had every reason to be. I did not know the voracity with which the epidemic grew but I knew it was coming for me and everyone I'd ever loved, though only one of them mattered now. News reporters were more of a hindrance than a help in identifying the cause of the outbreak, the invasion. Speculation arose that it was some mutated form of Ebola or H5N1. Religious enthusiasts described it as a plague, wiping out the evil that had inherited the earth, though I don't recall seeing that typified dishevelled homeless man sporting a billboard adorned with the words 'The end is nigh'. Scientists at the Pentagon had tried to reassure the public that it was containable and that there was no need for panic. All of the resources in the world at our disposal and still, there was no conclusive analysis of a threat that we were too human to comprehend.

Both of my parents had already passed and I, in some way, thanked god that they would not be able to fall victim to what was coming. The thing I had left that mattered in this world was in Milwaukee, Sarah. I had met her last year at the Museum of Contemporary Art, not that I was cultured, and made an ass of myself trying to describe the wrong painting to her. I don't remember which one, but I do remember her eyes; blue and piercing. The kind of eyes that filtered through your soul, the kind that peered through the shadows of darkness and light that reflected within your heart and accepted you just the same. It could have been then that I fell in love with her or the weeks that followed as I clasped her tightly to my chest and felt her blonde hair, flayed gently across my neck liked feathered grass. I had called her earlier that morning. Something was coming and I had no plan, except venturing as far north as possible. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't bothered by heat and I wish I was apprehensive enough to say that venturing north to a more extreme climate was my aim but it was a possibility that some had already considered, at least judging by the traffic. I followed. I jumped in my car, grabbing only my phone and my wallet and set off for Sarah as a haunting dusk hue began to fill the sky.