chapter 3 the scrape

The smell was like nothing he had ever smelt before. He remembered back to his early college years. One summer while on a hiking trip, he joined volunteer forces to help dig out some lost souls that had fallen victim to a mud slide along the edges of Yellowstone National park in Wyoming.  It was right then when he decided he wanted to help save lives and that fall he switched his major to the medical field. It was also then that he first learned the poignant smell of rotting flesh.  He discovered first hand how it  could make even the strongest stomachs churn, and that was exactly what the smell reminded him of  now. He felt  nausea from inside rising upwards fast. Quickly he covered his mouth with his hand as he  looked around the open cell door. Swallowing hard he fought to keep the contents of his stomach intact. His heart racing as he took in the horrific sight. He felt motionless as he stood in dismay.  Blood splattered a small portion of the walls. His eyes traveled down to the the floor  to  pool of blood.  Next to that laid something that resembled some kind of carcass.  No, wait.  He focussed his unbeleiving eyes, it was a body, a human body.  He stepped closer, inside he trembled with gut wrenching terror.  His mind  fighting to accept the site before him  was in fact real. He wanted  desperately to have this all be a terrible dream, a nightmare that he would somehow be awaken from any moment. What he was seeing made  made no sense to him.  Someones body, lifeless, mangled,  with its abdomen ripped open laid sprawled on the hard cement floor. He looked around the tiny quarters, there seemed to be  no one else in sight.

He was not sure if he had actually heard the movement behind him or just sensed motion.  But then that smell like, he had never known before intensified. He turned in slow motion, gagging as he felt himself smothered in the putrid odor.  A gurgling sound filled his ears as a figure moved towards him. Teeth gnashing as the bloody disfigured body lunged at him.  In fear he backed away quickly.  Awkward clumsy  hands reached out  to claw and grab at him.  Zach kicked a  metal cart towards his intruder. He watched as this monster tripped, falling hard to the concrete floor, its gnarling growl growing as he struggled to grab at him again. Its limbs wildly thrashed around in an attempt to stand again.

He studied the figure momentarily.  He realized this was a young man and not a monsterous beast that was for some reason trying to violently attack him.   He wore a jumpsuit like the kind they had distributed to participants of the study. Only his was torn and caked with blood.  He resembled a young participant of the study Zach had met several days prior.  The young mans color was ashen and pale. His eyes were glazed and almost a glowing amber color. His face twisted without expression, drool and blood spilling from the sides of his deep purple almost black like  lips.

Zach turned his head looking  for an object, something  to hurdle at the hideous figure. Slowly it began to rise.   He placed his hand on a wooden chair lifting it quickly, he swung it at his attacker.  Knocking him down again. Zach watched as a gaping wound opened up on the side of this creatures  head. He stared at the wound for a moment.  There was no blood, just a mass of a deep brown matted tissue slightly exposed.   It tried again to rise slowly.  Zach swung again wildly, knocking  him -this thing, down once more, Then as if something inside Zach snapped he moved closer  to the mad man.  He lifted the chair and swung  again striking it in the head. He heard the skull  crack and the body fall once more.  Again he struck it in the head with the leg of the chair.  The head split and the thing stopped moving. Its teeth gnashed one last time and then nothing.  Zach stood motionless for a few moments. Looking at the human form now laying at his feet.  He trembled in his sweat soaked clothes.  Not sure what to do he turned to look back the other body, which now appeared to him to be a female.  She-what was left of her laid  near the small pool of blood, unmoved. He knelt down at her side to move the hair that covered his face.  He gasped as he realized it was Linda the night nurse.