Thresholds - Chapter 2

Clementine

The most precious cargo in the world was securely fastened into her harness as the propellers whirred to life. A tall, immaculately-besuited man sat beside the enchanting young woman with golden skin, blonde curls, and the key to saving humanity in her veins. Duncan, CEO of Daedulus Pharmaceuticals, shouted over the din to the dark-skinned woman outside, “We’ll take good care of Allison, Mrs. Carter!”

Clementine’s eyes went to her beautiful granddaughter’s face at the mention of her name, but for a split second, she could have sworn she saw Duncan’s chin quiver oddly. When she turned her attention back to him, he looked completely normal and leaned out toward her.

“So sorry we couldn’t bring you along,” he shouted.

Clem nodded toward the two gun-clad guards in the opposing seats, “You have a full house!”

“It’s not that,” he yelled back with a jittery smile, “I just didn’t want to!”

Duncan shut the door in her face and lowered the mic on his headset, “Let’s fly!”

It took a long moment before Clem fully registered two things:

First, this man just kidnapped her grandchild... and she’d let him. Second, he was turning into one of the ravenous creatures Allison’s blood could apparently cure.

After standing in shock for what seemed an eternity, Clementine helplessly lunged herself at the rapidly ascending craft, screaming.

Her first husband berated her for being too analytical, like a man, but it was the one trait he couldn’t beat out of her. Before the helicopter was out of sight, she was already running as fast as her stiff knees would carry her toward the dilapidated old barn beyond her ramshackle farmhouse.

She slid the huge, creaky door wide and yanked up the hidden edge of a straw-covered rug in order to open the wooden door it was attached to. Gingerly, Clem lowered herself into the darkness, rung by rung, until her foot met the compacted clay floor. The faint light from above partially lit a rickety table next to the ladder. She reached past her rifle and grabbed the only other item occupying the surface.

Once she was back above ground, Clementine surveyed the small brown paper box. A dried marigold was wrapped in the twine that kept the parcel closed, and “Emergencies ONLY!” was written on top in marker.

When the box arrived on her doorstep a few months ago, the handwriting and now-withered flower informed her that the suspicious delivery was from Allison’s mother, Blaire. She’d immediately spirited the package to the barn cellar before the girl could see it but hadn’t felt the need to retrieve it until this moment.

She ripped through the string and pulled out an old-timey bulb perfume bottle with an accompanying letter.

Sorry to come and go; I just can’t face her yet. Especially not now. I’m still trying to get to the bottom of it all, but I’ve finally made a breakthrough. The prevailing theory is that the pepsies eat living meat for protein, but I believe they’re really trying to replenish fat!

See how skinny they become over the course of a single day? I’ve studied their brains extensively, and they don’t even have myelination, the layer of fat sheathing our neurons. This explains their lack of impulse cont…

The big green light on the wall began to blink.

Oh shit, Clem thought.

Frank

When pepsies were nothing more than sporadic news reports of strange murders and insanely strong junkies, Blaire left a large box of battery-powered sensors that triggered remote warning lights whenever a laser connection was broken. Clem and Allison placed the little gray units between pairs of fruit trees that circled the property, which is why the golden flower on the package could have only come from her daughter-in-law. Blaire crossed the perimeter without activating the silent alarm system and cut one of the marigolds Clementine plants alongside her tomatoes.

Not knowing what the bottle of liquid did, Clem hoped it would mask her scent since there was no time to close the sizeable rolling barn door. She stuffed the letter in the pocket of her favorite floral apron and desperately pumped the bulb, misting the air profusely as she backed toward the cellar. Retreating through the hatch, she closed the door softly, so the hay-strewn floor appeared undisturbed.

Clementine dropped the atomizer into her smock, grabbed the gun, and sprinted to the hurricane doors across the unlit space. The exit was recessed with stairs leading up to the closed doors from inside. She’d added tiny windows, allowing her to see from the house on the left to the barn door entrance at her far right.

She hadn’t completed two calming breaths before the first handful of desiccated, skeletal maniacs came into view. The group stopped to study the orbital impression made by the departing helicopter with psychotic, bloodshot eyes, giving the rest of the pepsies opportunity to catch up.

Altogether, there were roughly 25 of different heights and states of undress, but all with perpetually gnashing jaws.

They must have followed that blasted chopper, Clem realized.

Almost as one, the pack raised their heads, unblinking, dry eyes following the path she’d taken to the old barn. They took off in the direction of the open door, and she quietly chambered a round, debating whether to make a stand or use it on herself.

As the horde approached at breakneck speed, a massive black creature entered her field of vision from the right and crashed into the pepsies, scattering them like bowling pins.

FRANK THE TANK!!! Clementine almost yelled aloud, pumping her fist. The unstoppable force that was her Holstein bull had rounded the side of the barn and killed about a dozen of the monsters in one fell swoop. His massive bulk belied incredible agility as he spun around and careened through the quickly recovering group of remaining pepsies.

Another half dozen were snapped like twigs in the salvo. Still, the elation Clem felt began to evaporate as the unscathed pepsies that remained anticipated Frank’s next assault, throwing themselves onto his back when he passed.

A tall male wrapped his arms around Frank’s neck and squeezed mightily as another seven effortlessly bit and clawed through hide ten times thicker than human skin. The bull’s pain-filled bellow was cut short as he choked, but he continued to endure several minutes of silent agony with each small chunk they ripped away.

Clementine knew he was finally gone when the pepsies stopped eating all at once. They did not consume dead flesh. All eight resumed their race to the barn as if they hadn’t just feasted on a 2,000 pound animal like a school of piranha.

Poor, poor thing, Clem bemoaned. You were a jerk, but you didn’t deserve to go like that, sweetheart.

Seeing precisely what “like that” meant, Clementine turned her rifle around, placed the barrel on her heart. She tried to build courage, but the thought of her darling, unsuspecting child out there with that unscrupulous man made her lower the weapon. Besides, there were only eight of them now, and she was a crack shot.

I can do this. Frank’s sacrifice will not be in vain. There would have been so many more without him. I can do this.

She aimed the gun at the hatch and waited for it to slam open. The pepsies were crazy, but they were smart and had incredibly heightened senses. They hunted single-mindedly and relentlessly… so why were they so quiet now?

Clem checked the hurricane door windows and was surprised to see two females standing just outside the barn door at the periphery of her vision. Through the smudged glass, they appeared to have stopped in their tracks and were swaying gently. What’s more, despite matted hair and Frank’s blood coating their mouths and chests, they looked almost… normal.

Returning to the ladder, Clem climbed up and listened a long while before lifting the door a few millimeters. Just as she’d suspected, the other six had made their way into the barn and were just standing there, gently rocking. All eight looked extremely thin, but not like walking sacks of bones they resembled minutes earlier.

Oh my goodness, she thought, Blaire’s cured them!

Slowly emerging from the opening in the floor, Clem crept toward the man closest to her. He was filthy, but the blood all over the tattered remains of his gray suit had dried long ago. This was Frank’s strangler. Inching closer, until she stood directly in front of the pale man, his dilated green eyes slowly met hers as his lips began making repeated movements, wholly unlike the compulsory chomping motion of a pepsie.

She leaned in closer to hear what he was raspily whispering.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Hugh

After they all came to, seven of them vomited up the hair and viscera they’d just consumed. Then, like a shepherd with a cluster of meek little lambs, Clementine led them to a water trough and gave them each a moth-eaten horse blanket to wrap around themselves as they huddled together.

“What are your names?” Clem asked in a soothing tone.

They looked from one to another and seemed to collectively appoint the man who’d suffocated her favorite cantankerous pet. He spoke with a gravelly voice, “Hugh.”

“Hello, Hugh. I’m so glad you’ve come back to us,” Clementine beamed. She tried to radiate as much love and acceptance as she could. These people, like everyone on Earth, had been dosed with Eupepsid. This provided a dying world with a second chance by giving everyone the ability to manually slow down their metabolisms for food conservation. Unfortunately, a fair percentage of people sped their biological processes up for vanity’s sake. After approximately a decade of overtaxing their bodies, these people reached a point of no return that changed a regular person into what became known as a pepsie practically overnight.

Clem shifted her gaze to a petite, brown-skinned Indian woman to Hugh’s left, but she was staring back blankly with her mouth agape. Her face, then entire body, began to shudder and twitch more and more violently until she was flailing on the hay with blood spraying from her nose, mouth, and ears. In the next instance, the others’ gawking faces suffered the same contractions. Six more convulsed, bled from every orifice, then went still.

Hugh looked at Clementine with abject terror in his eyes before they, too, dulled into lifeless dark pits. As he began to shake and hemorrhage, blood trickled from his tear ducts as though he were crying. Minutes later, he lay dead atop his brothers and sisters in carnage.

Clem tried to employ her analytical mind in her purely traumatized state, trying franticly to focus on the actions she could perform. She pulled the tarp from her old manually-driven solar car, carefully moved the featherlight corpses outside, pushed the vehicle out into the sun, and discarded her soiled apron.

Unable to do anything more, the weight of it all came crashing down on her. She pulled out Blaire’s letter with shaky hands to try and find any answer for this torment. Picking up where she left off:

...might explain their lack of impulse control and why they don’t eat each other since all the fat in their bodies is metabolized.

The solution enclosed retrains Eupepsid’s viral delivery mechanism to redirect all energy consumption to adipose production, particularly within neural pathways. Unfortunately, I haven’t successfully stopped the process, so the fat continues to layer on the neurons until it overtakes the brain altogether. Only use this as a last resort! I’ll keep working to find a real solution... one that doesn’t involve my daughter.

The tears cascaded down her face reading proof that it would have assuredly been more humane to try and shoot her way through the pepsies. Bawling like a child, Clem climbed into the car and sped toward Daedalus Pharmaceuticals to save the only person she could help now: Allison.