Word Count: 2479
Infected In The Bayou
Deep in the woods stands a small church littered with the usual Wednesday night crowd of dedicated worshipers. The pastor stands in the front preaching to his flock, as if it were any other Wednesday service. He takes out a handkerchief and wipes the sweat off from his shining, bald, head. The church is dimly lit and most of its small pews are barely filled, but the Pastor delivers the service as though he is preaching to hundreds of people. The Pastor, in mid-sentence discussing the goodness of Christ, he notices a small girl he knows as Crystal slowly enter the building. She holds the door to the church wide open with one hand, her dark hair covering her face mysteriously. The rain behind her sounding like millions hands clapping.
The pastor leans forward and greets the girl cautiously, " Why hello, Crystal. Did you come alone, where are your parents?" The little girl stands there in her flowered dress, soaked from the pouring rain. She does not respond with either words or a gesture. The Pastor clears his throat and asks another question, " Are you all right my dear?" This time he gets a response from the little girl, though it its not what he expects at all. He is startled when Crystals starts giggling softly, each giggle growing louder and louder until it reaches full blown hysterical laughter. By now the whole church has their eye on her, wondering what has overcome this quiet little girl. With closer examination the Pastor notices blood on the upper half of her blouse.
Crystal takes a few unsteady steps forward and lets the heavy door slam behind her, muffling the sound of the rain. People in the pews start to lean toward her to try to get a glimpse of her face. Her hair and clothes are dripping wet, with a mixture of rain, thick blood, and sweat. Still laughing hysterically she takes one step closer to the man of God. With each step, Crystal begins to laugh louder, each footprint she makes stained red with deluded blood. She appears to have no wounds from which she has bled. The pastor still leaning forward reaches out his hand to her.
"Are- are you all right, little miss? Come here and tell me what's the matter," asks the Pastor, a little shaken up at this point. The girl takes one final step toward him, until she is at arms length from the Pastor. Laughing so loud that her voice cracks with a high pitch yelp, she tilts her head up to reveal a menacing grin stained with blood. Her eyes are bloodshot and filled with furious anger. Her hands clench and relax repeatedly as if having a temper tantrum with the desire to destroy everything in sight. With a sudden ferocity she leaps for the Pastor, grabbing his hand, and pulling him toward her. He stumbles over the podium and comes face to face with this little monster. She leans closer and forces their noses to touch. The Pastor's face is that of a terrified old man, and as Crystal stares him directly in the eye, he sees not the face of a sweet little girl, but that of a demon.
The Pastor’s knees have now begun to tremble with a fear he has never experienced in his life, he dares not make a sound as if he was standing in a Lions' den. Her grip is tighter than any man's and her stare cold, vacant, and empty as space. The crowd has drawn back in terror and surprise. Stunned by sweet little Crystal being so hostile towards the Pastor she has known all her life. Lightning strikes near the church unleashing a thunderous boom as if it were her cue.
With her nails digging into his arm, she begins choking. After several seconds of coughing she opens her mouth and vomits all over the Pastor's face. The vomit is full of meat and thick with blood. It has a stench unlike any other smell he had experienced and the Pastor himself vomits all over his robe. The pastor falls back as her nails dig into him scratching his hand. The pastor screams with absolute horror and tries to clear his eyes. Crystal turns her attention to the crowd and lets out a primal howl. She grabs a fat woman wearing a big straw hat in the front row, and bites her throat, the blood gushes out profusely into the air. She lets go of the woman and immediately jumps over the pew to an old man who is trying desperately to get up and out of the church. Crystal grabs him with one hand and his cane with the other. She tears the cane away and smashes his wife with it the wake of her yanking motion. She pushes the old man down, dropping the cane, to punch him repeatedly in the face and throat.
The pastor then begins to go into convulsions on the floor, his eyes rolling back into his head as he continues vomiting all over himself. People are now trying to flee as quickly as they can and get out into the rain, meanwhile, the little girl continues on her rampage, brutally killing five others, unable to break free of her grasp. Her current victim is a little infant no older then eight months old. She smashes him up and down as if he were a doll. The pastor has stopped convulsing just as she finishes up with the unfortunate babe. He stands up and hisses like a rattlesnake warning its prey. They both run towards the door, the cynical child in front and the decrepit old man following close behind. Yanking the doors open to reveal the tremendous rainstorm, one could barely see the thick bayou. Cars and trucks are parked to the left and the right, and everyone that was previously in the church is now scrambling for their life, trying desperately to make it to their vehicles before the little girl and the Pastor can grab them.
The pastor sprints towards a blue pickup truck where a fat driver and his two young children sit. The man slams the door shut, locking it. "Pastor Rasterik, what are you doin'?!" yells the man with a thick Cajun accent. The man does not get a reply, only a fist coming towards his window. The glass shatters, imploding all over the man. The Pastor, who’s hand is now a bloody pulp, reaches in and grabs the mans collar. The children scream in terror, crying as they watch their beloved Pastor attack their father. "Get out children! Run! Run-Ru-" the man is cut off by the Pastor biting face, tearing a large chunk off with a slow, painful rip. The last thing the children heard from their father was a loud and horrific scream followed by a thick, bloody gurgle.
Meanwhile, the car that Crystal has focused on has gotten away. The driver, a single mother of three, breathes a sigh of relief. She is safe- at least for now. Crystal turns her attention to two children, a boy in overalls with red hair and his twin sister wearing a dress much like Crystal's, she shudders and thanks God that neither of them were hurt.
Back at the church, another one of Crystal’s victims emerges from the church doors. Covered in blood and yearning for the taste of flesh, he runs at the children of the father who was maimed by the Pastor. They run into the woods as fast as they can. Running and crying, they can hear the desperate cries of the other churchgoers and the animal like screams of the rabid people behind them.
"What's going on, Jake?" asks Jenny as she jumps over a log and splashes into a giant puddle. The water so deep that it hit her right below the kneecaps, the deep water does not slow either her or her brother.
"I dunno, Jenny, but let's keep goin'!" replies Jake as he stumbles over a root and lands face first into the mud. "Don't stop Jenny, I'm right behind you!" He quickly gets up and is once again at full speed, not allowing the monsters a chance to catch up to him and his beloved little sister.
They run and they run, just as their father had insisted before his untimely death. Weaving in and out of trees, the creatures behind them slowly gaining on them. In the distance they can see the general store. They see a dim light and hope that the store is still open. The rain begins to pour down with more force and Jenny can barely see Jake, running two feet away from her. She can feel her heart pounding; slamming into her chest. Tears start flowing down her face as she quietly mourns the loss of her father, but it is unnoticeable to Jake due to the rain. Without realizing it, in her grief she has slowed and allowed Crystal to gain on her and grab her long pony-tailed hair.
With a thunderous might Jenny is yanked off her feet. The back of her head fills with a burning sensation. She lays, shocked, on her back in a puddle of mud. Her eyes go fuzzy and she can barely breathe with all the water in her face. There is more tugging at her hair as the stronger-than-life Crystal drags her through the mud and right beside her is another infected man. Jenny starts to scream, but her brother is already there ready to do anything to save his sister. He has a log in his hands and swings it at Crystal's face. It knocks her jaw clear out of place, blood spewing out of her mouth as she falls momentarily to the ground.
"Get up! Get up!" hollers Jake as he pulls Jenny to a standing position. Though slightly dazed, they both press on. Jake drops the log and they begin to run at a full sprint once again. The store is now within reach and they see that it is indeed still open. They breathe a sigh of relief and hurriedly scramble through the door.
Alerted by the bell on the door jingling to signal the arrival of customers, the clerk looks around the corner, and seeing the two children, greets them. "Hey Jenny, hey Jake. Church get out early today?" He then gets a better look at the children, drenched and crying, Jenny’s hair a tangled mess mixed with what appears to be blood. "My God! What has happened to you two?!" He runs around the counter and kneels before children, "Jesus Christ, what happened? Where's your father?" Jenny replies, trying to catch her breath, "Daddy's... I think Daddy's dead," she wipes the blood from her nose and takes her wet dress and tries to wipe the tears from her face and begins to sob uncontrollably.
"That's ridiculous, if your Daddy's dead then who is that at the door?" The bell to the door has once again jingled, and their bloody father has walked in. Part of his neck is torn open with an eye partially out of its socket. "Holy Shit! What the Hell happened, Bill?!"
"Mr. Garrison, I- I don't think it's Dad..." says Jake as he grabs his sister's hand, pulling her towards the backroom. They run in and peer through the small window watching the exchange between Mr. Garrison and the man they once called Daddy.
" Bill? Bill. Bill! " Mister Garrison walks up to the children’s father, trying to see what has happened. To his surprise the man lunges at him. Mr. Garrison, a slender, quick man, tries to dodge past this rabid beast and run for the backroom, but to escape the well-built father proves to be impossible. He is immediately tackled and Bill smashes in Mr. Garrison's face with at least a dozen rapid punches. Two more people, one Crystal and the other the man she had infected come into the store. Her jaw dangles as if hanging by a thread, searching and smelling the children’s fear. She instinctively knows the children are somewhere nearby. Seemingly unfazed by her lack of the bottom half of her mouth, she knows the children are hiding in the back room. She and the two men who she arrived with run to the backroom door, leaving Mr. Garrison in a puddle of blood, bones, and brains.
Behind the back door the children have pushed a desk and and office chair as a barricade against these vicious beasts. They look around and realize there is nowhere to go except the cooler, which is straight ahead of them. Jake looks around and grabs a sweatshirt that is hanging off the back of the office chair. He looks at his sister and hands her the coat, " Put this on, we're goin' into the fridge."
They walk into the cooler, and immediately can see their breath. Jake grabs all of the soda and milk containers and places them in front of the door making another barricade. He piles them as high as he can reach, realizing that if the larger men outside broke through the first barricade, this one wouldn’t be much harder to break through. He places the crates three containers thick against the door hoping that will be enough, then he and Jenny both run to the corner looking for cover. They hide behind a stack of milk crates, an obvious place, but it would have to do.
Not too long after they have reached the cooler, they hear a loud rumble come from the other room, they know immediately that the first barricade has been broken. Suddenly they see their father's face through the double layered plastic window within the cooler door. He begins to thrash and punch at the door and soon the window is covered with pulpy blood. The weak barricade slowly crumbles, delaying the inevitable. With one strong push there is three infected beings standing in front of the two young children. Their father takes two steps forward leaving a small gap between them. After a slight pause, the other two moves in, pausing as if they are enjoying the suspenseful moment, delaying the children’s demise for self-satisfaction.
Jake stands tall and yells, "No! No Dad don't!" This breaks their trance and infuriates the small riot. This small act of bravery leads to his gruesome and painful demise. While the men are distracted with Jake, Jenny quickly slips out of one of the cooler doors between the soda racks. She is all alone as she runs out of the store anxious to find someone, anyone, who can help her. She sees several more monsters running her way and knows she has a long night ahead of her, running into the unknown.
That is Crystal as she enters the Church in the first paragraph. I had a strong visual image for her pictured, so I went on and drew it.
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