Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 12 *End Arc*

I had somehow managed to get a call out to my son. The landline in the kitchen still worked, and I was able to dial and talk without any part of it trying to merge with me. He had picked up on the third ring.

“Mom, where are you!” He sounded panicked.

“Bea and Richard’s,” I choked out. “They’re both… they both…”

I could barely speak. The sobs threatened to overtake me again every time I opened my mouth.

“Mom?” His voice was calmer now, but no less concerned. “Mom, what happened? Why are you at Aunt Bea’s house?”

“David, I just need you to pick me up. Okay? I’ll be sitting outside. I just need… please come and get me. Okay?” I spoke quickly, knowing that if I took too long, I would break down on the phone. I couldn’t cry again. I didn’t have the energy.

He promised to be right there.

I left the kitchen and made my way to the front porch. Slowly I lowered myself onto the cement steps. I sat there, my mind feeling empty and my body feeling weak. Only one thought kept repeating in my head, over and over again.

This is just the beginning.

Was I really ready to fight this fight? Could I? I had no idea. All I knew was that I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t let what happened to Bea and Richard happen to me, or to my son.

I had to fight. 

To Be Continued in... 

Eye See You: Mutation

Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 11

I reached down, pulling the wire from my ankle, and with a fierce tug, yanked it from Richard’s body. It writhed and wriggled in my palm, the electricity slowly fading from it now that it was separated from its power source. I gripped harder, and in seconds it went limp.

I grabbed the tall reading lamp next to the bed and raised it over my head. Sometime in my brain had snapped, and I was running on complete fear. I raised the base of the lamp over my head, the metal of the lamp glinting in the dim light that came in through the drawn windows, and I swung.

The base of the lamp collided with Richard’s grotesque, rotting skull. The weight of the blow instantly collapsed his face, sending a cloud of rotted bone dust into the air. I swung again, the lamp slamming into his open chest cavity, crushing whatever electronics had invaded his body. I swung again and again, my mind stuck in a violent loop.

That thing, that Virus, had stolen so much from me, and I was not going to sit back and let it take my life, too. It had to pay.

When my energy finally gave out, I dropped the lamp to the floor. It hit the hard wood with a clatter. I stood over the bed, panting. My eyes took in the damage I had done. Richard looked barely human. His already rotten body had been reduced to piles of thin, leather skin, blackened blood and bone dust.

I fell to my knees and I began to cry. 

Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 10

I glanced towards Richard.

His body was limp. Did I see his hand twitch? No, that was just my mind playing tricks on me. He was dead. There wasn’t enough left of him to do much of anything if that Virus thing took over. He was dead and…

I saw it again. His hand twitched. Then there was the groan.

I stood up straight, my eyes locked on the corpse of my best friend’s husband. He was watching me. His dead, shriveled eyes were locked on me, and when I took a step towards the door they followed me.

No, not again. I couldn’t do this again.

“You must,” he croaked. “You must go through instillation.”

His death smile grew.

One of the wires that had been whipping around in the hollowed out cavity of his torso had snaked its way out of his body and had made its way across the floor. I hadn’t noticed it until it had wrapped itself around my ankle.

I felt the tip of the wire jab into my skin.

“No!” I screamed as loud as I could as I felt the wire start to burrow its way into my flesh.

I was not going to die like this! 

Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 9

The house seemed to buzz with electricity around me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even bring myself to cry. I just sat there, the shock washing over me. My best friend was dead. I had killed her.

No. Someone else had killed her. That thing that had taken my husband had killed her. I had just disposed of the monster that had taken control of her body. There was no Bea left in that thing I had killed. There was only… what had my son called it?

There was only Virus.

I started to stand, but froze when I heard a groan coming from the bed. 

Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 8

Bea’s body jerked hard, and her head snapped back. A pocket of flesh above her right breast burst, releasing a stream of rotting, black blood and yellow pus.

I kept my finger on the button, and pushed the Taser harder. She jerked again, and this time her left eye exploded. She was shaking violently, the electrical current from my Taser overloading her pace maker.

I could feel hot tears running down my cheeks. I was killing my best friend.

No, I reminded myself. Whatever was in the electronics, in the… the Digital Void, had killed my best friend. I was just taking out one of its drones. Bea was no longer in there, not the Bea that I knew. Not the Bea that I had loved like a sister, not the Bea that had been the Maiden of Honor at my wedding, not the Bea that… that…

I screamed, thrusting my hand forward again. The Taser smashed into the pace maker and pushed it back, into her chest cavity. Her body, with the sudden overload of electricity, lit up. Her flesh was glowing hot and orange, and her remaining eye exploded.

Then, the power ran out on my Taser, and Bea dropped to the ground. 

Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 7

I pulled my Taser out of my bag, and held it in front of me. Bea just laughed.

“Sweetie, a little shock isn’t going to do much to me.” She motioned towards the twisted hunk of technology in her chest. “Electricity is part of me now.”

Then, without warning, she let out a high pitched howl and rushed at me, her arms outstretched. She moved quickly for her age, her aching hip and bad knees no longer an issue.

No longer an issue because she was no longer alive.

I thrust the Taser forward, and the two metal prongs at the top made contact with her pace maker. I held down the button, and prayed to God it worked.

Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 6

Richard lay on the bed, his chest and stomach ripped open. Wires whipped around in the hollowed out cavity that had once been his torso. The bed was soaked in blood and dark bits of his insides that had splattered out.

His face, though. His face was what really horrified me. His eyes were open, his mouth slack, but still, somehow, he was smiling. He lay there, a literal shell of a human being, and he was smiling.

My scream finally caught in my throat, and I stumbled away from the bed, my back crashing into the wall.

“What did you do?” I looked at Bea.

Bea stood in the doorway, her hand to her mouth. She was making a ‘tsk tsk’ sound. “Ever since the upgrade he’s just been lying there like a total log. I don’t think it took. Do you? I mean, I know he’s old, but we both are, and I took mine just fine.”

“Upgrade?” I inched farther away from her.

“Of course, Loni!” She laughed, turning her full attention to me. “Oh… you haven’t gone through installation yet. My dear, it isn’t that bad. I promise you. Mine went just fine.” She pulled away her sweater, exposing her white, wrinkled chest to me.

Her breasts hung low, and her nipples looked as if they had rotted off.  Purple veins seemed to spark and glow along them, the rest of the flesh was an unhealthy greyish green. The veins led towards the center of her chest, towards the small device that had broken through her skin. Tiny hooks of metal and wires burrowed their way into her flesh.

It was her pace maker. 

Eye See You: Mothers Day pt. 5

I had been the first person Richard had talked to when he was about to propose to Bea. I had been the one who had told him to go for it. I thought he was perfect for her. I thought they were perfect together.

He had looked so happy then. His eyes had lit up when I had responded positively. He hugged me, and he thanked me, and he asked me to be there when he did it.

“It would only be right,” he had said. “You’re like her sister.”

Bea and Richard.

They had been the couple I had looked up to. They had been the ones that had always been there at every family party, at every tragedy.

Tragedy…

Tragedy…

Oh god. 

Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 4

I gave the door a single knock and waited. I normally never knocked, but today I had to be careful. I didn’t want to walk into… whatever was going on. I couldn’t take that shock.

Their door opened, and Bea poked her head out. She was smiling and wide eyed. It wasn’t a natural smile. It felt… plastic.

“Loni!” Her voice was too chipper. “Come on in.”

I followed her in the house, carefully reaching into my purse and wrapping my hand around my Taser.

It wasn’t just the attitude that was giving me pause. It was her clothes. She had on a floor length house dress and a heavy wool sweater. It had to be nearly seventy outside, and she didn’t have the air on in the house, and yet she wasn’t sweating.

“So,” I said, “you were saying that Richard was acting odd.”

“Oh yes.” She didn’t turn towards me when she spoke. “He just seems so… down. He hasn’t moved all morning. Just lying in bed. Won’t even talk to me.”

She led me towards the back of the house, towards the bedroom she shared with Richard.

“What do you want me to do?” I slowed my steps, building up a larger distance between the two of us.

She stopped in front of the door. “I was just thinking that maybe a little company might help perk him up.”

She gave the bedroom door a gentle push and it slowly creaked open.

I started screaming, and I feared I would never stop.

Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 3

I pulled into Bea’s driveway, keeping my eyes out for any of those phone freaks that I had seen at the diner. I wasn’t as young as I use to be, and while I might be able to outrun one or two of them, I doubt I could successful fight any of them off.

Grabbing my purse, and double checking to make sure I had my mace and my Taser, I got out of the car and started towards the side door.

For some reason an old saying of my mother’s flashed through my mind.

“Company uses the front door. Friends use the side door.”

I smiled. I don’t think, in all the years I had known her, I ever walked in through Bea’s front door.

I paused. Had. “I had know her”, past tense.

She was still alive. She was still alive, and I would walk into her kitchen, and Richard would just be grumpy, and maybe have a cold. They would both be fine, and this little house, with those sweet and amazing people that I have known for my entire adult life, would be inside, safe and sound.

I wanted to believe that so bad, but the ever growing silence around me made my doubts grow.

Eye See You: Mother's Day pt. 2

Bea was one of my oldest friends. I had gone to high school with her. We had spent prom night hanging out in her dad’s rec room when neither of us had gotten dates. She had stood up in my wedding, and I stood up in hers.

The short version was, there was history.

I had seen Bea and Richard at the funeral, and both of them had seemed fine. There was something in the way Bea was talking, though. I didn’t think it was just Richard who was a little off. There was something off at the Rolland house, and I needed to figure out what it was.

More importantly, I needed to fix it. I have already lost enough important people in my life, and the way things were going, there was a good chance I would lose more. I couldn’t just sit idly by and let that happen.

I turned off the highway, taking the exit ramp slow. I couldn’t do much good if I flipped my car, now could I?

Bea’s house was only a few blocks off the highway, and I took the side streets slowly, taking in my surroundings.

Usually there were kids playing in the yards, or at least people mowing their lawns or talking to their neighbors. Today, though… Today the neighborhood was completely silent.

It made me uneasy.  It made me feel like I was about to walk into a trap.

I probably was, the more I thought about it, but I couldn’t risk Bea’s life because I was scared.

She needed my help.