The Killer Kind

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

But the screams of the people killed by the Kind, could be heard light years away. Echoing in the depths of the darkness, in between the stars. Floating for future generations to find.

Ten years ago, people had dreamt of a better future. Flying cars, self-driving vehicles, better healthcare, and mental health support. Historical events such as Trump taking over the White House in 2016, Biden winning the presidency in 2020, and the nation at war with white supremacist domestic terrorists, all seemed like specks of memories now. Completely unlike the reality we are living in, in 2035.

The past was all recorded on the internet in movies and thousands of social media accounts that now belonged to people who were among the Kind. You could scroll through thousands of faces, with glimpses of their lives lived mostly in urban neighborhoods that housed families of dozens of people. Smiling in front of sparkling Christmas trees. Women giving advice on beauty with tutorials and hair products. Tiktok’s of junior high kids dancing to impress a crush, or to demonstrate dominance in the teenage monarchy.

Tiktok had gone dormant now. Nothing new has been posted for years. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all the same. Nothing new. Time had stopped. The COVID-19 pandemic was nothing compared to what came after. Nothing. We thought being locked in our houses for months on end was hell. In truth, it was far from it. I was thirteen when my parents were consumed by the Kind, and I was left to survive on my own. I was lucky to have been found by Courtney, a former marine, who was among the first to notice something was deeply wrong when the news started reporting people walking out of restaurants and bars with blood shot eyes and strange, limp like walks. She found me hiding in a dumpster, traumatized by the screams of people who were being attacked, bitten, and then consumed. She took me home and raised me the best way she could. She wasn’t my mom, but she was the closest thing I had to one.

When the pathogen started spreading, Courtney seemed to intuitively know what to do. She kept tabs on the research being done by some of the only researchers left in the world who weren’t infected, how the pathogen evolved from algae particles in water, and caused severe behavioral changes in humans similar to animals with rabies. They’d consume the water. Then they’d develop bloodshot eyes. Then they’d drool. And then, they’d slowly lose their mind, hungry for flesh and fresh blood. It was incredibly contagious, except when it was soaked up by tree roots and plants, which seemed to purify the pathogen from the water, or through natural evaporation, because it didn’t show up in rain. She started to build our treehouse within a grove of redwood trees, hidden by the canopy, spacious enough to keep us from going mad with cabin fever. High enough that the kind couldn’t reach us. She set up solar panels for electricity gathered from scrap yards and abandoned electronic stores, and giant tubs among the treetops for gathering rainwater. Plants were grown in water gardens. We grew all our vegetables in wooden canals of water, because grabbing soil was too risky, took too much time, and could potentially have the pathogen in it. We avoided going down below as much as possible.

Flesh Hounds, scavenging creatures as large as dire wolves and about as vicious too, came crawling out of the earth through cracks near volcanic trenches in the year 2028. They crawled the earth’s crust like mites within the human scalp. People thought, because of how they looked, that they were a threat to humans. That is, until they started feeding on the Kind. People discovered over time that these predators only craved rotting flesh. They ate the dead walking and spared many of our lives. They were a new modern, sacred creature that we used to our advantage, those of us who were smart enough to survive. Those of us who built our houses in the trees knew to build them above the ground where packs of Flesh Hounds gathered to breed, and hunt, and thrive. Those of us who knew the importance of flesh hounds knew they would keep us safe, as long as we stayed out of their way. And you never left the forests into the cities. Ever.