Sightless: Chapter One

 

Tristan thinks about that one perfect day, yesterday. Given the situation she is in it seems so far away. Sitting on the floor with her back to the wall and her knees up to her chest she slowly rocks back and forth. Her eyes keep flickering to the cell phone lying on the floor next to her. Useless. Even though she knows it won’t work she picks it up and tries anyway.

 

Hitting the redial button for at least the tenth time in so many minutes she hears the same bland voice telling her that all circuits are currently busy please try your call again later. Frustrated she thinks about throwing the phone against the wall. Curling her small fist around it she almost does, then thinks better of it. The thought of destroying something that might, just might, work again is so against her nature. She gently lays it back down on the floor next to her.

 

Locked in the ladies dressing room of the department store she works in she hears voices outside the door. They don’t know she is in here, and why would they. No one ever pays much attention to Tristan. Again, why would they? She isn’t beautiful or especially talented in any way. Tristan is and always has been the type of girl to fade into the background.

 

She listens to the approaching voices. They are getting closer to her now and she can almost make out what they are saying. She recognizes the voices though. It is Jason the store manager and his best friend Tom, the head of the small electronics department in the store.

 

Everyone knows the only reason Tom got the best paying commission job in the store is because he is best friends with Jason the store manager. He definitely isn’t qualified for the job. His only experience before this job was being a fry jockey at a fast food joint, according to the break room gossip anyway. Tristan doesn’t know if any of this was true but was inclined to believe it.

 

Tristan pushes her hair behind her ears and crawls just a little closer to the dressing room door. She hears them talking again just above a whisper.

 

They must be right outside the door. She puts her hand over her mouth. Fearing hey must hear her breathing, because to her in this small room it sounds like a wind tunnel with every breath she exhales. She holds her breath and counts to ten to calm herself.

 

She doesn’t know why she is so scared of Jason and Tom. She has known Jason for the past two years since she started this job. He has always been nice to her and even remembered to give her a card for her birthday every year. She knows an employee relation is a part of his job but it still makes her feel special to receive that card every year.

 

Tristan reaches back down for her cell phone and checks the time. One O’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. It has been two hours since the end of the world.

 

Tristan almost laughs out loud at that thought, the end of the world. In all actuality it seems no one knows what was going on. As far as she knows no one in the store can get any telephone to work, cell or landline. And the internet is down also.

 

Tristan stares at herself in the dressing room mirror. The same face she always seen stares back at her. Blue eyes a little too small. Blonde hair that she keeps cut short in pixie style. And a cute button nose in the center. She doesn’t think it is a cute button nose, but that is what Kyle tells her.

 

She looks down at her cell phone again at picture of the two of them she keeps as her background image. She doesn’t know why she is so lucky as to have Kyle. He is gorgeous. Everyone tells him so. She thinks he looks a little like the actor Ben Affleck. She has to get out of here and be with him. Kyle is strong and smart and healthy. There is no way that he could be sick.

 

She thinks about the last time she talked to him. Only three hours ago on her break. He told her that he was in bed. He felt like taking a lazy day. She had laughed at that and told him she would see him tonight. Now she doesn’t know when she will see him again, maybe never.

 

She hopes against hope that he is okay. He lives in the city, and if the sick people there are turning into what the sick people here are turning into. Tristan shudders at the thought.

 

She remembers the local news reports she had heard just this morning before leaving for work. About how in the matter of hours all the hospitals in the city began filling up, something about an unknown illness and a possible pandemic. She had thought nothing of it then, thinking that it was another scare like H1N1 or the bird flu. Something so small and irrelevant in the scheme of things but the media hypes it up for lack of a better story.

 

She strains to listen to what Jason and Tom are saying in hushed tones, maybe they are trying to figure a way out of this mess.

 

“We can use the bays. They are all closed right now but we can look out the windows and make sure there is a clear path. Get in the car and drive right the fuck out of here.” Tom says.

 

“That will never work Tom.” Jason whispers. “Everyone here will want to know what we are up to and want to come along and there are only two cars in the bay right now. We have at least 40 associates here and God knows how many customers. Did we get the gate down? Oh God. Tell me someone got the gate down.”

 

“Yeah, it’s down.” Tom replies.” I was by the front when it all went down. I saw… oh man. I saw some scary shit. Getting the gate down was my top priority.”

 

Jason sighs with relief. “Good. Good. Okay Tom this is what we need to do. Now listen up this isn’t a video game. This is real life with real people at stake. We need to get a team together. Mark, we need Mark and Gordon. We need to do a sweep of the store and round up all the… survivors. If there are any… any of those things we need to restrain them somehow. We can get some rope and tools from the auto department. Once we have that done then we can all figure out what to do from there. Sound good to you Tom?”

 

“Yeah, yeah that sounds good to me bro.” Tom says.

 

“Good then let’s get started” Jason says. “You take the east side of the store and I will take the west. We will meet back up at the center. You have your walkie so get a hold of me ASAP if you run into any problems. Now let’s hit up the auto department and get supplies.”

 

Tristan hears them walk away. They are trying to get out of here she thinks. It comforts her to know that she isn’t the only one that is scared. Tom sounded on the edge of a breakdown.

 

She thinks she better get out of this dressing room and head to the center of the store. Better to wait for them there. As she stands up she grabs her cell phone off the floor. Before she puts it back her front pocket she tries one more time to call Kyle. All she gets is that same voice telling her that same tired routine. No worries disembodied voice; I WILL try my call again later. Tristan cracks a smile for the first time in over four hours.

 

She slowly opens the dressing room door.

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Derek pokes his head around the cash wrap at the back of the store casually brushing his long dyed black hair out of eyes. The store is empty, nothing unusual there. In the computer age of electronics, high speed internet and the information super highway books stores are a dying breed.

 

He stays low and crawls toward the door to the backroom. From there he can make his way into the hallways that run through the mall connecting each store on the ground level. Once he gets into the backroom he quietly closes the door and breathes a sigh of relief.

 

Relative safety he thinks. He sits down at the office manager’s desk and pulls his laptop out of his back pack. Once it powers on he hits the Google Chrome button to see if he can find out what is going on.

 

Derek thinks about everything that has happened today. He had been in the front of the store rearranging the magazines when he witnessed firsthand the chaos that ensued outside of his safe room. There had been a young couple holding hands looking at the kiosk set up in front of his store.

 

Trisha the young girl who worked at the kiosk selling candles for the summer to earn money for school caught his eye and winked at him playfully.

 

Girls are always flirting with him. His best friend says it is because he looks like he is in a band. With his black hair and punk style, girls always love a bad boy. Derek is the opposite of a bad boy, though he loves the attention he gets from girls.

 

He had given a small wave back then looked on down the rest of the mall. A figure moving at crippling gait was walking towards the young couple. As the figure got closer he could see the guy was in serious need of medical attention. His arms were covered in oozing sores that were leaving drops of watery blood on the tile floor behind him, but the worst part was his face. He had no eyes. Just black holes were his eyes should have been and blood covered his face like some sort of horrific warrior paint dripping down onto the front of his shirt.

 

Derek had stepped back into store thinking he would call 911. But at that moment he heard Trisha scream. Derek turned to look and he seen that Trisha had went up to the guy, probably to help him. The couple that was at the kiosk had taken off at a sprint towards the exit at center court. But the guy had grabbed Trisha by the hair and was pulling her face towards his.

 

Trisha was screaming for help and slapping at the guys face but he never relented. He kept curling his fingers deeper into her hair pulling Trisha’s face closer to his. At the moment she was close enough the guy bit down into Trisha’s right cheek. Blood poured out of the side of her face. The guy brought his other arm up around Trisha’s head pulling it back exposing her neck. He buried his face in her neck like a lover and Trisha’s screams turned watery and finally stopped all together. Derek had watched all of this, horrified. Trisha’s body was limp in the guy’s arms.

 

It was as if Derek were glued to the spot. He was frozen in terror at the unexpected sight in front of him. He watched as the eyeless man continued to feed on Trisha’s body, ripping flesh away to get at the meat and organs inside.

 

A sound to his left caught his attention and he turned only his head to look. There was another one. This one was woman, but the same in every other aspect. Oozing sores, bloody black sockets were eyes should have been. She was standing to the left of Derek with her head cocked slightly as if listening intently to something he was saying. Derek held his breath and stared at her trying to keep the guy feeding on Trisha in his peripheral vision.

 

The squelching sounds of the man working on Trisha’s body made Derek feel sick to his stomach. He continued to watch the eyeless woman. She was an older lady judging by the clothes she had on, a flower print dress with a lightweight shawl wrapped around her shoulders. He watched her mouth work up and down as if she was chewing a piece of gum, blood leaking out the corners like drool.

 

It felt like an hour went by when it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.

 

One of the dogs at the pet store down the hall started barking. At the sound the eyeless woman gave out a groan and started shuffling off towards the sound. Only Derek’s eyes followed the woman’s progress down the hall. When she was finally out of sight he turned his attention back to the man feeding on Trisha’s body.

 

The man, the flesh eating monster Derek thought, was too interested in his meal to even notice the sound of the dogs barking. That was when Derek took his chance to ease back into the store, careful to be as quiet as possible.

 

Derek shakes his head to clear it of the deranged memory. He doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to think about the possibility that anything that happened was even true. He doesn’t want to think about Trisha and the guilt he feels at doing nothing to save her.

 

He needa to think about what to do now, focus on the future, that’s what his father always says. Where to go from here? But first he has to find out what is going on. He focuses back on the laptop. The page in front of him says the page cannot display the webpage. Most likely causes are you are not connected to the internet. “Damnit.” He whispers as he closes the laptop.

 

“Damnit. Damnit. Damnit. What now?” Derek mumbles to himself.

 

Derek surveys the small break room he is in, a desk, a lot of books, a counter top with a small microwave, and mini fridge, nothing useful like an uzi machine gun or machete laying around.

 

Derek decides that action is his best course. He slowly opens the back door of the store that leads into the hallway. It is quiet and no one is there. He grabs a book off the desk next to the door and places in between the door and the wall to prevent it from locking upon shutting. Just in case he thinks. He turns left and walks down the hallway.

 

Chapter 3

 

Kyle hears the banging on the front door just as he steps out of the shower. What now he thinks. He grabs a towel and wraps it around his trim waist and walks to the front door of his apartment. When he looks through the peephole he sees Lindsey standing there. Still wearing the clothes she had left in not quite thirty minutes ago.

 

“What the hell?” Kyle says as he throws the door open. “We have nothing more to discuss Lindsey, I made my choice.”

 

Lindsey steps into the apartment rolling her eyes. “Even during a crisis you still manage to be a self centered prick.”

 

Kyle stares at her. “What are you on about now? What crisis?” He says to her throwing his hands up.

 

“The crisis outside! Look out the window!” She says throwing her arms up in frustration “There is chaos in the streets. I didn’t know where to go so I came back up here.” She flops onto the couch and crosses her legs.

 

Kyle takes notice of her legs. God help him he can’t stand her but he wants her. Lindsey is seductive, sensual, and sexy as hell. Any man would kill to be with a woman like her for even a night, but not Kyle.

 

He has of course already been with her, multiple times, and until this morning, willing to maintain an affair with her. Kyle has a reputation to uphold. As an up and coming young CEO at the investment bureau he works at he needs an image, an image of family and deep rooted morality.

Tristan gives him that image and he knows it. That is why he proposed yesterday.

 

He thinks Tristan is boring through and through. But her kindness and not to mention family wealth outweighs any cons she may have. She is trusting and naive to boot, which made it easy to keep the affair with Lindsey going this long. But with the proposal, and acceptance he had no choice to put an end to it. There is too much at stake to lose it all over a paltry affair with a dime store stripper from down the street.

 

“Hello! Kyle. I’m talking here. Have you heard anything I’ve been saying?” Lindsey is looking right at him. She notices where his eyes are looking.

 

She uncrosses her legs and runs her hand up the inside of her smooth brown thigh to the hem of her short skirt. “Of course you haven’t been listening. Just like any other man.” She mumbles. She rubs the hand at the hem of her skirt a little further up, just enough so Kyle can see the pink lacy panties underneath. Then she jerks her hand up to her face and snaps her fingers. “Up here Kyle.” She says in a stern voice. “No more fun and games. It is madness outside and you need to focus.”

 

Kyle walks over to the bay window in his living room. From his fifth floor apartment he has a view of the entire street below. He wonders how he hadn’t noticed the noise before now. There is a car alarm going off down the street and police sirens can be heard from blocks over. There are people in the street running in every direction. From this vantage point it does look like madness in the streets. “What in the holy fucking Hell is going on?” He asks.

 

“I told you it’s madness. I really don’t know what is making people act this way but I couldn’t even get to my car. I parked in the garage two blocks over like I always do and about half way there I was attacked by some freak. He was sick, really sick. Anyway… he bit me on the arm.” She holds up her arm to show.

 

There is an ugly looking bruise forming around a circle of teeth marks. “It really hurts.” Lindsey pouts.

 

“Here, let me see it.” Kyle says sitting down on the couch next to her. He holds her arm in his hand and examines the bite. It barely broke the skin but there is a little blood that has already clotted in a few spots. “Let’s get this cleaned up, you know the human mouth carries millions of bacteria.” Kyle says jokingly. “Dirty, dirty.”

 

He leads her to the bathroom where he washes her arm off with antibacterial soap and then cleans it with hydrogen peroxide. After it is cleaned and dried he bandages it with two band aids. “There, all better.” He says kissing both the band aids.

 

Lindsey smiles back at him. Kyle feels a little guilty treating her like this, possibly giving her false hope that he cares for her and that she would continue to be an everlasting presence in his life. It is just too easy to fall back into the routine with Lindsey. They both need a clean break and Lindsey deserves better then he would be able to treat her. She is beautiful and will find some rich doctor to take care of her he thinks.

 

“Kyle.” Lindsey murmurs.

 

“Hmm?” He says, pulled out of his train of thought. He looks at Lindsey again. This time really looks. Her tan pretty face is too pale. Two high points of red flush her cheeks as if she is running a high fever.

 

“I don’t feel so good.” She says.

 

Lindsey doubles over in front of the toilet as if she were about to vomit. She starts coughing violently and clutching her stomach in pain. “Kyle, Kyle, Kyle.” She says his name over and over as if it is a mantra.

 

Kyle grabs her shoulders to guide her into the bedroom. “Lindsey come on, you need to lie down and I’m going to call an ambulance ok? Let’s get you into the bedroom so you can lie down.” Kyle leads her into the bedroom and helps her into the bed for the second time today. For the last time he thinks.

 

After she is in the bed he searches for his phone. Where is it? He spies his pants on the floor of the living room where Lindsey had taken them off of him just hours before. He reaches into the pocket and there is his phone. He pushes the emergency button but all he gets in response is a busy signal.

 

“What the fuck?” He says out loud to himself. He drops the towel he is wearing around his waist and pulls on the pants he has in his hand. He pushes the emergency button again with the same response. There must be something going on with the cell towers he thinks. He walks across the living room to his attached kitchen and picks up his cordless phone from the counter. He presses the button. No dial tone. “What the fuck?” he says again.

 

Kyle walks back into the bedroom to check on Lindsey. She isn’t on the bed where he left her. There is a pool of blood on the pillow where her head had been moments ago and something white is laying in the middle of it. He bends over to see what it is when he is hit from behind.

 

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 14.03.2015

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