Euphoria-Z Page 2

  But their scheme to depopulate the planet didn’t happen as planned. The groups and individuals they had inoculated became infected when exposed to the virus, and many were killed in the ensuing chaos. And the virus didn’t behave as planned either. The infected didn’t actually die after the initial euphoria drove them all together, by design for easier cleanup—they went into a coma. Their brains underwent some sort of change that brought them back. When they returned, they were altered. The human had died, but a monster had been born. And all that monster wanted to do was eat.

  But these nine powerful men, who played God by murdering billions with just a few phone calls, were still just men. They too were infected and suffered the same fate as their victims.

  The present, Monterey, California

  “Fuck!” The wiry, gray-haired old man felt his eyes go wide with surprise, but he quickly got his shit together. Jasper scowled; now he was very pissed off. He might stoop and shuffle when he walked, but he didn’t take any shit.

  Some big fat bastard was bear-hugging him from behind. He could see white mountains of wet flab before his eyes, and he smelled vomit. He felt a massive wet belly and man tits pressing against his back. Large folds of cold wet flesh engulfed him, and he shuddered at the sensation.

  He hated hugs, especially from men, and hugs from big fat sweaty bastards were absolutely unacceptable. He carried his best spiked hammer, an old-school Craftsman from back in the day, before the gooks were making them. He was just itching to use it. The fat bastard was yelling something in his ear.

  “I love you! I love you, man!”

  “Ahhh, geez!” Jasper twisted out of the flabby cocoon and took a few steps back. What he saw disgusted him. It was a giant fat kid, a head taller than himself, who looked like a giant baby, all hairless and soft. The kid was smiling like an idiot, and that made Jasper even more pissed off. Food smeared the kid’s face and ran down his chins in greasy streams between his man tits and over his belly. All Jasper could think was that all that shit was all over his back. Now he would have to burn his shirt and take a long, hot shower.

  The kid wore nothing but baggy white underwear soaked in sweat. Jasper shuddered at the clammy coldness on his back. His flannel shirt clung to him and felt like a cold, wet bathing suit.

  “I love you, man!” The big fat kid smiled as he came at him for another hug.

  “Ahhhh! Fuck you!” Despite his advanced age, Jasper moved with an efficiency and force that spoke of his many years as a carpenter. He brought the spiked hammer down on the kid’s skull, and it collapsed inward with little resistance. He liked the sensation of cracking a head but hated wasting the time to do it.

  The kid dropped to the concrete like a wet sack. He was still smiling, which made cracking his skull less enjoyable. Jasper wished he could bash every asshole around with his trusty hammer. He looked around to make sure another shithead wasn’t looking for a hug.

  A woman came at him, hooting so loud he could hear it over the crowd, waving her tits at him. He took her out too, with an easy smack between the eyes. He had enough of this shit. He cracked a few more skulls for fun, but he got bored. It was always the same: an easy tap to the skull and the moron dropped, still smiling.

  The streets were crammed with people, and they were all acting crazy. Jasper just wanted to get home. It seemed everyone was congregating downtown, streaming in from the surrounding neighborhoods. People were walking in large groups, arm in arm, naked and clothed, dancing, running, and hugging. It all made Jasper sick, just god-awful sick.

  He tried to go all the way downtown and almost got caught up in the crowd. People were pushing and jamming each other into doors until they cracked open. He heard the crash of large plate-glass windows, but no one reacted. In fact, he saw people just getting pushed through the windows in a wave. He could tell that people were getting seriously injured and killed, and he just wanted to get the hell out of there.

  He left at the right time. The press of the massive crowd smashed and suffocated, ground and trampled, and killed many—and the party continued to grow. No one screamed in panic or pain. No one yelled for help or dialed 911. And no one stopped to offer assistance, an apology, or true human interaction of any kind. Everyone was bent on doing exactly what they wanted to do, and what anyone else wanted didn’t matter to them in the slightest.

  In any place where people gathered for a good time, the crowds were thick. The mall was packed, but the hospital was empty. The wharf was so full that hundreds fell into the icy waters of the bay. The office parks and businesses were dark and silent. Some groups formed parties on random streets for one reason or another.

  A large majority of the city was empty, devoid of people. Most left their homes and walked away, leaving doors unlocked and often wide open. They would join a group and wander away.

  There were still a few souls hiding indoors who were anything but euphoric. They watched with fear and horror the goings-on outside their windows. Jasper had been one of these, but he needed his goddamned pills and had to drive through all this crazy shit to get them. Of course, when he got to the damn pharmacy it was closed. He had tried to call ahead, but no one answered the phone. He was pissed. He wanted nothing to do with this crazy shit. He didn’t want to see any of it and certainly didn’t want to walk through it. He saw quite a few people doing things he had only seen in his buddies’ dirty magazines. But there was one thing every single person was doing: smiling like a retard with a lollipop—every single one.

  At first, he thought all the outlandish behavior was confined to idiots, kids, and queers. It had to be some new drug to get them this nuts, he thought. But too many people were acting bonkers, too many people who just didn’t fit the behavior.

  He walked as quickly as he was able away from the crowd and back to his car. He’d seen some shit in his day, but in the last few the world had descended into pandemonium. There were reports that almost everyone around the world was walking away from their jobs, no matter how critical. Everything was grinding to a halt. Transportation, communication—private or military, trivial or critical—everything was just going belly up. Jasper had known this day was coming ever since the blacks were allowed to vote.

  And the crooks in Washington didn’t know anything. They said it was an unknown virus and creatively named it Euphoria-Z. Z because they didn’t know what it was, only what it did. And their advice? Stay indoors and away from crowds, bunch of geniuses.

  Jasper had never expected he would need to kill people, not since the war, but in the last few days he had been forced to. The streets were crazy, and he wouldn’t even be outside if he hadn’t needed his pills. He felt as if he were the only sane person for miles. He looked at his feet and wondered, only briefly, if something were wrong with him? No, couldn’t be, he thought. None of this was right. The world had gone crazy.

  For Jasper, it had all started a few days ago when he was trying to watch television. His friends and neighbors had started coming around, looking for a hug or sex, but he turned them all away. It had only been a few days since his first kill, but it felt like weeks. He’d killed so many since then. Many of the faces were a blur, but he would never forget that first kill.

  Jasper remembered the pounding that had shaken the front window and how pissed he’d been because whoever was doing the pounding wouldn’t let up. He’d expected to see some jackass kid and drew in a sharp breath when a young, attractive neighbor was standing on his porch, nude, wanting to “screw like a dog.” He shut the door in her face.

  Jasper heard the door click—it had been opened. He’d forgotten to flip the deadbolt. The nude neighbor was coming in his house. He threw his body against it to stop her from entering and felt it stop short of the frame. He heard a muffled crack. When he backed off, he almost puked when he saw her fingers. She continued to advance, hands up, still trying to seduce him. Daggers of jagged white bone tore through swollen flesh as her fingers bent at impossible angles. Blood ran down her arm and landed in b
ig droplets on the floor. She was oblivious. Injuries like that should have had her screaming in pain and panic. She should have been going into shock.

  His initial reaction was to help her, but she was pushing in on him. He stumbled back as she advanced, but retained his footing. She was coming into his house, and that pissed him off. He shoved her with both hands and she flew backward, striking her head on the concrete steps. She stopped moving.

  At first he tried to call someone to get help, formulating his story about an accidental slip and fall. No one answered any number he called. He checked and saw she was dead, so he dragged her onto his neighbor’s lawn. The asshole kept putting his garbage cans in Jasper’s driveway, and Jasper wanted to see how he liked a corpse in his yard.

  He chuckled at the memory as he ambled down the street, dodging sweaty, grinning assholes. He didn’t get his pills, but he did get to crack a few skulls. That was when he got punched in the face. A muscle-bound young man hit him so hard that he bounced off a wall and fell to the ground. He lay sprawled on the sidewalk unconscious for hours, and no one noticed.

  §

  Knives of red-hot pain split Jasper’s jaw. Now he was conscious, and to deal with the pain he balled his fists so tight his nails cut into his palms. He groaned, stifling a scream. The impact had cracked and dislocated his jaw, and all he could feel was intense pain. His head was sideways, and he choked on coppery blood as it filled his mouth. He groaned and whimpered as he spat it out, along with several teeth. He hadn’t felt like crying for decades, not even during the war when he was terrified on the battlefield.

  The concrete was cold and rough, and he lay on it as people walked and danced past him. A passerby tripped on his foot and landed on him. The pain was so intense that he passed out again.

  §

  Later, Jasper still lay on cold concrete. It was close to freezing outside. He drifted in and out of consciousness as the party raged around him. But after a while he stretched and felt his jaw. Son of a gun, it was broke but good. His jaw was almost completely snapped in half at the chin. He felt around his jaw and it had been pushed into his mouth. He felt the other half of his jaw jutting out from his face at a drastic angle. He could feel the teeth and bone protruding from his chin.

  He smiled, feeling his jaw scrape the roof of his mouth. He thought about the young man who had done this. What a rabble-rouser he was! Ha! It was just like being in the service, when he and his buddies were always giving beat downs to strangers—just for fun. What a beat down he had just gotten from that young fellow. He stood, feeling quite happy and cheerful, and went to look for the young man who slugged him. He wanted to shake his hand and give him a hug, and then maybe they could mix it up again. He was sure he would get the best of him this time.

  Jasper wandered off, happier than he had ever been, dancing a little jig. A car slammed into him as he crossed the street, throwing him several feet into the air. He hit the ground hard and rolled over and over, shattering his body. His limbs were askew. Jagged white daggers of bone ripped through cloth and skin. Blood poured from his body and pooled on the street beneath him. He tried to stand, but all he could move was his head. He tried harder, wishing he could keep on dancing. The pool of blood grew larger, and Jasper finally laid his head down. He never stopped smiling for the remaining moments of his life.

  1.

  The old man just appeared in his headlights, and he couldn’t avoid hitting him. He crumpled over the front of the car, his head smacking on the hood with a loud boom, and he flew a surprisingly far distance. He hit the ground and rolled even farther.

  By the time Cooper slammed on the brakes, it was way too late. The car screeched to a halt as the old man’s body came to rest on the rough asphalt yards in front of him.

  Cooper was sick to his stomach as he watched the old man in the beam of his headlights. He was sure the old guy was infected, but he had still hit a human being. It had an unexpected emotional impact. His engine idled as he sat, unsure what he should do, and the seconds ticked by. He suppressed the urge to cry and resisted his instincts, which were to get out and rush to the man’s side. He would have done this immediately if not for the orgy of infected people around his car.

  Cooper felt the car rocking, heard the faint squeak of the suspension. He reached up to the rearview mirror and stopped the graduation cap tassel from swinging, then decided to tear it down. The car was bucking harder as the crowd grew thicker and pressed against it.

  Another large group was crossing the street in front of him, heading toward downtown. The old man lifted his head and dropped it back down before the crowd blocked him entirely from view. The old man was just looking around, not thrashing in pain or showing any emotion other than joy.

  Good, he was infected, Cooper thought, glad to know that he didn’t suffer. The old man had stopped moving, which meant he had to be dead. The only thing that stopped an infected person from moving was an injury that made it physically impossible—or death. There was nothing he could do.

  Cooper was shifting into drive when a body landed on his hood. A naked woman was pressing her ample breasts against the windshield. She was beautiful, but only interesting for a split second. Several of her ribs had punctured her skin and jutted from her body. Cooper watched her breasts flattened against the window. She gyrated from side to side, but what held Cooper’s attention were the ribs as they raked the glass like giant broken fingers. Fresh blood flowed from the injury, and she smeared the glass with it. It hurt just to look at. He was trying to think of a gentle way to get her off his car when movement from the passenger window got his attention. A man, oddly clothed in jeans and a T-shirt, just stared at him with a creepy smile.

  A hard jolt took Cooper’s attention back to the hood. A nude, gawky teenager had mounted the gyrating woman. He had blood pouring from his mouth, his bottom lip had been bitten off, and part of his scalp was missing. He smiled, and it seemed he was trying to penetrate the woman in some manner. She was still smiling and gyrating.

  Cooper looked back at the man outside the passenger window, and his heart thumped hard with shock as he stared at the barrel of a large pistol aimed right at his face. Over the laughter, the screams of pleasure, and the crowd’s racket, he heard a horrifying clack as the hammer hit an empty chamber. The man pulled the trigger again, but Cooper was already tearing away. He turned hard to throw the woman and teen twosome from his car. He felt an attitude shift—a reality of the new world sunk in, and his heart hardened. Fuck everybody else, he thought. I almost died.

  He raced home and locked himself in. Usually cool and confident, he was rattled, as any sane and uninfected person would be. He had a hard time sitting still. The adrenaline still coursed through his veins. He grabbed the chin-up bar in the door to his room and did as many pull-ups as he could to burn the tension away. His arms ached, swollen from the exercise, but he still felt worked up. He’d gotten used to using exercise to work off tension or anxiety all through high school. He loved being in shape more than the sports and had never stopped working out, as many of his friends had. As a result, they had gotten fat and slow while he continued to build muscle and endurance. But they were mostly forced into team sports, whereas he wanted to be active.

  He lay back on a small weight bench and lifted the weight carefully, not wanting to injure himself or make too much noise. He lifted a small amount, enough to feel it in his chest. He could never bulk up, always looking thin even when his muscles were rock hard and he could out lift most people, even the steroid-enhanced ones. He eased the bar back on the rack and sat up.

  He looked at his trophies and certificates briefly, then turned away. It all felt like a life far in the past, even though it had only been a few weeks since he graduated. He pushed the thick yearbook off his desk. He wasn’t angry; he just had to stop thinking about the past. None of it mattered anymore. Once the world skidded to a halt, it was the survival skills he had learned as an Eagle Scout that were important now and not the patches and ribb
ons he had earned. Just as the strength and endurance he built up in track and swimming were more important than the trophies.

  He took a shower while he still could, as all the services were shutting down. The hot water felt good. It relaxed him. He rubbed the thick stubble on his face and decided to skip shaving—he had no reason to. He walked about the house again, unable to sit still for long.

  The large house was like a museum with its high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. The glass made him feel vulnerable. Even with all the shutters closed and curtains drawn, glass felt weak compared to brick or stone. He took another walk around, peeking outside. There were a lot of people on his usually quiet street. It was a massive party—an orgy—madness.

  From his house he could see most of Monterey, as it was on the peak of a 900-foot hill in the center of the Monterey peninsula. A forest spread across half of the giant hill, and his house backed up to it. He planned to use that route if he needed to make an escape.

  He’d already tried to get to San Jose, but the roads were blocked, dangerous, and the other drivers were insane. He couldn’t even get gas. His plan now was to stay put, but he was still very worried about his sister. They were very close, and he had to try to get to her.

  His sister lived in San Jose in a large apartment complex, and he hadn’t spoken to her in several days. Things had been bad in San Jose days before Monterey was even affected. They were both worried about what she should do. He wanted her to come to Monterey, but both of them were worried about her getting stuck on the highway. When he called back to talk to her, the line was dead.

  Even after things were already at their worst around the world, Monterey was still behind the curve of events. By the time the infection reached the city, Cooper was up to speed on it and determined to not get infected. He listened to the emergency broadcast system, not the mainstream media in any of its forms, and knew that this was a virus. He felt foolish even trying to go to work a few days ago.