Chapter 14: The Others

Bruno Smaltz was a mild-mannered individual. Married, family of four and a college professor. He wasn’t what you would call special, a family man who enjoyed teaching world history and loved his wife and children

Never in a million years did he think one day he would wake up and eat his family.

*****

The rain came as it often did, but it didn’t stop the likes of those who once had a name, a job, a family. All the Bill’s, Harold’s, Anna’s, Diane’s, and millions of others who walked mindlessly, aimlessly in search of nourishment in order to survive the hellish nightmare into which they were plunged. Try as they might, they couldn’t hold onto the vestiges of their past lives without being consumed in the moment to feed.

And yet, there was a realization they were becoming the new breed of what was left of humanity dawning, and they were, at times, when the incessant need to feed didn’t grab hold of them, there were the sentients forming, creating new alliances. Alliances hell-bent on reducing their numbers; why, that part they didn’t understand, but one thing was almost certain when in the bowels of their distorted brains, they were like anyone else—they wanted to live.

One among them, for lack of a better word, is known as Brun. The tallest and largest of the dead walkers. He was the most logical of the over thousand smaller groups, numbering hundreds, and he knew to survive, what humans who remained and the sentients in control of what he deemed “his kind,” would have to attack harder, faster, where eventually, the thoughts he could almost clearly see would happen, and then there would be no one left to tell him or “his kind” what they could or could not do.

Mankind turned into a new breed of animal far deadlier than any animal still left alive on the planet, and Brua would see to it that it remained so.

He would watch, sometimes laugh with a guttural vomit, as scattered scores of groups would cluster upon a rotting corpse and feast on what they could, be it a hand, finger, or brains. There was no taste, no sensation of fulfillment, only the need to feed a belly that never seemed to fill.

Other times, they would come across an unsuspecting “live body,” and the shrieks and guttural cries of happy madness would fill a void like never before heard as the “live body” would scream and scream out their death throes. Begging, pleading to be left alone, to only later, rise from the ashes, mind altered forever, and become what it once feared.

As time passed (and time wasn’t a conceptual thing for them), Brun was slowly being reeducated because of Margo, and even Charon, and then there is the one called Cory who seems the most dangerous but—he has been forming and creating plans on how to attack on a better plane, their next victims. They were starting to learn and “think” on their own. What was once random is now becoming a matter of choice.

Brun’s rationale was that they no longer needed Margo, Charon, or Cory to lead them, guide them. They had vestiges of these thoughts even when Elana first commanded them. Now, they are becoming independent with only Brun to lead them. They were all beginning to think as one.

Once, where all speech was guttural in nature is slowly being replaced with understandable words, though sentences spoken are still somewhat broken apart, they can be understood. Yet, when the thirst, the rage, to attack a fresh victim takes hold of them (and that remains often), their deadened souls take control, and all thoughts of logical thought disappear. And Brun had to make certain they maintained that spirit of crazed desires. It was the only thing that stood between a continued life or their permanent death.

It made no difference to one or a group that their numbers were slowly diminishing. They followed Brun’s orders when they came, and they followed their own needs when the moment struck.

But there was one thing Brun knew that no one else, humans, sentients, or otherwise would know—or admit. There was only one way to end the madness that perverted the world.

Brun mused over a cure scientists felt they were closing in on to eradicate or reverse what he and those like him became. He would grunt out twisted laughter knowing science would fail. There was only one real cure. Everything must die.

Armageddon was approaching. Its name is Brun.

Image by: Kim Sung Hwan https://kimsunghwan.artstation.com/projects/EoW3q