Bloodboots: A Breadcrumbs For The Nasties Short by Steven Novak Page A

just looking for a way to send their kids to college. They didn’t know what they were making, never imaged any of it would actually get used. They certainly never thought the fallout would have the effect it did. It was just science, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, steps on the stairway to something better. They were wrong. Anything capable of killing was used to kill, to win. No matter how awful it was. 

    When I first heard stories of the dead coming back, I didn’t believe a word of it. Even after everything that had happened, it still seemed silly. I changed my mind when I watched a ten year-old kid take a bite out of his mother’s leg. He just bit it, chewed, swallowed, and went back for more. I never forgot the look on her face, confusion mixed with horror, the sad realization of ending. Instead of helping, I ran.

    What would’ve been the point?

    I only survived because of luck. I’d love to tell you there was more to it, but there wasn’t. The bombs didn’t land on my head. It’s as simple as that. When money still meant something I had some, a little. I used it. When I pulled Patrick from his home the place was working with a skeleton crew, volunteers without family of their own, refusing to leave, silly people fighting a hopeless battle. Eventually they’d be forced to leave. They wouldn’t have a choice. The city was crumbling. Little boys were eating their mothers. 

    A month later there wasn’t anything left. 

    I used my connections to get Patrick out of the city before the gimps made it theirs. We wound up at a military outpost, packed into barracks like prisoners, living off rations, side-by-side with the wealthy turned poor. Some of us believed it was only a matter of time before things returned to normal. I was one of them. It seemed reasonable. Things had been bad before. There were wars, and plagues, and all sorts of nastiness. The human race loved to fuck itself. We were good at it. 

    But we always came back. It never ended us. This was just another bump in the road, a detour on the journey to greener pastures. I actually believed I’d see my apartment again, the city, maybe bang a beautiful girl. 

    I was an idiot.

    When delivery of rations to the base began to slow, the mood changed. The men with the guns were more in charge than ever. Suddenly our money didn’t matter. Communications with the outside dwindled. Stories of life beyond the base grew stranger. The dead weren’t just coming back. They were changing. 

    “A god damn monster, fifteen feet tall, covered in fur.”

    “Sons of bitches are draining the blood from people and leaving them on the side of the road.”

    “Tore him to pieces…nothing left.”

    At the time they just seemed like stories, nonsensical ravings of the bored and hysterical. Even in a world of the absurd they seemed absurd. 

    They were also true. 

    Eight months after arriving at the base, it was clear we needed to leave. It wasn’t safe, not for me, especially not for Patrick. The guards had grown sick of us. We were a drain on their resources, extra mouths that needed feeding, pampered-rich and useless, offering nothing in return. We’d overstayed our welcome. 

    Patrick’s situation didn’t make things easier. When my little brother was born, he was dead. The umbilical cord knotted itself, wrapped around his neck while still in the womb. The thing keeping him alive literally choked him to death. They worked on him for seven minutes, pumping air into the lungs of a corpse. He wasn’t supposed to come back. Seven minutes is a long time.

    It wasn’t long enough.

    I resented Patrick growing up. I’m not proud of it. I hated the way people looked at him, the way they looked at me because of him. My brother was a Bertie, one of the first. Berthold’s Syndrome took everything from him. The disease was relatively new at the time. There were always specialists around. Everyone wanted to study him, hook him to machines, make some notes