Marin's Dale

XIV

Paul needed a drink. More than ever.

His fingers were shaking, and he couldn't stop them. His mouth was parched, his skin was hot, his facial hair was plastered to his slimy flesh like something from the sewers.

He still couldn't fathom it. His mind, his rational mind, knew what had happened. His eyes had seen it. His nose had smelled it, and now he felt it, suffused with his flesh and clothes. The red gunk, the boiling, messy gunk that had flowed through those pipelines,that had blown through virtually every manhole in sight—that gunk was not gunk.

That gunk was human. It was the remains... of humans. Mutilated, dissolved, humans. Paul stared outside the truck. All the pipelines, the tunnels, the canals—it had all flooded with this human waste. The treatment plants were certainly not working. And the aqueducts, that pumped water from Moonshire Lake, were no longer pumping water.

Paul's mind was racing. Marin's Dale was empty. The people who had fled must have gone to Moonshire Lake, thinking it was a place of refuge. But Paul now knew the truth. Moonshire Lake was not a safe haven from the impossible horror that had afflicted this quiet town.

Moonshire Lake was its source.

Paul needed a drink more than ever. He had spent years fighting the desire to break-down, and every time he fought he won. It was a battle he used to lose, but he hadn't lost in almost 29 years. But today, right now, he could feel that winning streak slipping away. It would be too easy. The liquor stores were open and unmanned. Heck, he could waltz right into a house if he wanted to.

Paul forced himself to breathe. He stared ahead to the handsome cottage before him, his house, where he spent time with his beloved wife Darla, playing chess and drinking iced tea and talking about this and that. On his off days they found simple ways to enjoy each other's company.

His wife's car was not in the driveway, and Paul couldn't' get ahold of her—or anybody. He had stolen a nearby vehicle to get here. After that mini earthquake had rendered his truck inoperable, Paul had no choice. He supposed it wasn't stealing when the town and its vehicles were all abandoned, but something about it still didn't sit right. He wasn't a thief, he was a good man.

Paul needed a drink. No, no—he didn't. He'd be completely fine without one. He didn't need a drink or a smoke or anything else aside from a good meal and a tall glass of water. Paul held his head high. And his wife was fine. Darla—like his daughter—was a fighter. She would be waiting for Paul out of town.

She was probably driving as far as she could till she found the proper authorities. She'd alert them of what had happened in Marin's Dale, and all would be well. This whole fiasco would be wiped clean like a bad dream from a chalkboard.

Paul looked around himself. He hardly had the strength to listen to that one small voice within, the dark, dangerous voice. The voice that told him that things might never return to normal, that his wife could be dead or lost like so many others—that this, this... virus settled on Marin's Dale might have spread far and wide.

There was no telling who was affected and who was not. The town of Moonshire had barely a thousand people, and beyond that... there wasn't another population center for 70-80 miles.

Paul moved closer to the house, beneath the scalding sun and killing heat. And that's when he realized that the small girl, like his daughter all those years ago, with those inhuman eyes and absent voice, was gone. Where she had gone, Paul could not remember. When she had gone, he could not remember.

For the first time in 28 years, Paul was losing his mind.

                ###

"What the hell did you do!?"