Tacere

An undiagnosed schizophrenic finds himself stuck in the middle of his mental issues and a very defensive lifestyle while the world is taken over by the silent ones.

I

 

Jack sat slouched in a dusty plastic lawn chair, his chin resting on his fists. His thighs ached from the hours of piercing weight of his sharp elbows. With very tired eyes, he looked through the balcony’s old twisted black bars down to the streets below.

He caught sight of a heavy man shuffling along the roads’ yellow center line. Drenched in his own sweat and urine, his deep and heavy breaths echoed through the soiled and vacant streets. Close behind was a crowd of them, sprinting with uncanny speed… Jack thought to himself,

 

“What the hell are you doing outside?”

 

The portly man turned his body to the imminent danger before crying out his last bellow of surrender. His scream was familiar. Low, kind of scratchy, one Jack had heard many times before. The cliché repetitiveness of the scream, however, did not prevent Jack’s heartbeat from doubling in pace.

Another six of them ran into frame from under Jack’s balcony view. Most of them looked alike after coming back. Their skin color diminished yet still remained soft to the touch and often injury free. Their eyes had also lost their color, exhibiting a foggy lens surrounded by inelastic skin.  However, because of the medicine that had diffused in their systems, their posture was exceptionally rigid. Those still unturned, including Jack, referred to them as the Revenant.

Jack watched as one of the revenant’s protruding leg bone slid along the length of its calf with each stride it took toward the surrendering man. The bone was a pale blue-white color that harmonized with the skin. The antibodies in his system had been attempting to heal his leg for hours and were still healing his injury mid-run.

They remained silent as they tackled the man’s fat body down to the pavement and began to beat him to death. More often than not, the only way to hear the revenant coming was to wait for the loud and painful demise of a survivor.

Out of inevitable habit, his body twitched. Jack’s face slid along his clammy palms and as he slid his fingers away, he observed the hair distending from his forearms. His lips tightened. With the nervous constriction of his fists, his knuckles began to whiten rather quickly.

Sliding from his chair, he lazily crawled back inside. The sounds of splatters and gurgles diffused up the building and into the apartment. The ripping of clothes and flesh followed. Jack again thought to himself before more voices joined in. 

 

"There wasn’t that many in that group. Not too bad. Hopefully, most of them scattered away from the city."

 

Jack shuffled over to the end of his unkempt bed and lobbed himself onto the sheets. Not long after, his watch beeped. Enjoying only milliseconds of mediocre leisure, he grunted and sat back up.

 

“Shower time. I mean you could skip a day. Who's going to know?”

“Just get it over with.”

 

“Ugh. Fine,” he mumbled to himself. Shambling to the kitchen, he spun the sinks oxidized knobs and watched the water trickle from the spout. He removed his standard grey shirt and his musty denim jeans. Still stricken with thought, Jack lost himself in a daydream as he rolled a wet bar of soap in his hands.

 

“You gotta get out of here-" It’s time to move. You’re already getting complacent. You’re going to get yourself killed. It’s been four months. You saw what they did to that fat b*****d.”

“Not a bad place though. Haven’t seen one of them come in the building yet.”

“You’re going to die.”

 “Soap up. Let’s get going.”

 

Expelling another groan, Jack grabbed an abrasive beige towel from the pantry, turned closet and dried off his body. He began to move a little quicker, his movements stuttered with anxiety. He returned and sat back on the bed. Then, he slid his feet into his weathered sneakers.

Jack peered at his watch and vocally mimicked the time, “Four twenty-six, and twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen seconds. You have a couple hours of sun yet.”

 Sliding onto the floor, he stretched his arm under the bed and fumbled around before dragging out a black backpack cluttered with squadron patches. As he slung it over his shoulder, he slipped his other hand under the pillow and equipped a pistol. Jack sucked in his famished gut and gently tucked the pistol into his jeans.

He removed a machete off of the table from the dining room. The steel blade reverberated as the machete was slid from atop the hard, oak surface. He wiped the grime away from the amateur engraving on the handle.

 

“Revelation 17:8.”

 

Edging closer to the front entrance, Jack’s head craned towards the tarnished door and the hot pores in his forehead began to open. His eyelashes patted the foggy peephole. He could feel his hot breath rebound off of the door and spill onto his chin.

 

“Nothing out of the ordinary. No one broke the string.”

“No footprints in the sand.”

“I do have good ideas.”

 

Jack exhaled. “Okay-" Good. Good. Good. Okay.”

 

“Stop stalling.”

 

Starting with the top chain, Jack began undoing the locks. The second lock was a slithering little piece of metal. The third lock was a hard-wearing deadbolt. The fourth was a four by four piece of durable wood dropped into a self-made holster chest high on the door.

Finally, he twisted the final lock on the door’s handle. The final snap of the last lock made the hair on Jack’s neck stand on edge. He gripped the handle with one hand, raised the machete with the other, and slowly opened the door.