They All Died Screaming

By Kristopher Triana

It's called The Scream...
 
Once you get it, you simply cannot stop screaming. You can't eat or sleep. You slowly go more insane until you can't stand to be alive.

It creates more than a few inconveniences for Chuck. He's chronically unemployed and just wants to hang out with his neighbor, Leslie, the loudmouthed alcoholic everyone else hates. But when The Scream runs rampant at their local bar, they're forced to journey through a city in chaos. Joined by a bitter bartender, a dockside prostitute, a conspiracy theorist, and a homeless man, this group of misfits is thrown together for the apocalypse.
 
When a boy is kidnapped at a shopping mall, a strange man wants his help raising veal and brings him to a rural pig farm. As the boy grows to identify with his captor, the man's flesh begins to rot, and the boy must take on extra work--including going out on his first hunt.

 

Is The Scream a virus? A neurological phenomenon? A biological weapon?  

They All Died Screaming is a plague novel by Splatterpunk Award-Winning author Kristopher Triana. It is a pitch black book about the lowly and downtrodden being the last people on earth.

 

 

Praise for Triana's Work:

"Kristopher Triana is without question one of the very best of the new breed of horror writers." 

- Bryan Smith, author of Depraved

 

"Kristopher Triana pens the most violent, depraved tales with the craft and care of a poet describing a sunset, only the sunset has been eviscerated, and dismembered, and it is screaming."

- Wrath James White, author of The Resurrectionist

 

"Jesus! And I thought I was sick!" 

- Edward Lee, author of Header

 

"Whatever style or mode Triana is writing in, the voice matches it unfailingly... it's a safe bet we'll be seeing his name a lot in the years to come." 

-  Cemetery Dance

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blood Bound Books
• Release date: Oct 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781386244943

Kristopher Triana

Kristopher Triana is the author of The Ruin Season, Body Art, Growing Dark, Full Brutal, Shepherd of the Black Sheep and The Detained. His work has appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including “Year’s Best” collections, and has been published in multiple languages. He’s drawn praise from Publisher’s Weekly, Cemetery Dance, The Horror Fiction Review and The Ginger Nuts of Horror. He lives in Connecticut.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

"I’M TOO DRUNK to dig this goddamned grave."

Still holding the bottle, the man cleared sweat from his brow with his forearm. In his other hand was the shovel he’d barely made a dent in the earth with. The hole was no bigger than a fish tank. The boy gazed into the grainy abyss, frowning. He knew what was coming.

The shovel was tossed to him.

The man snorted. Best get started while there’s still some light.

There was no sunshine here, just the muted glow of another overcast day. They were beneath concrete heavens, toiling in a hell of weeds, poison ivy, and fruitless bramble. The stench of pig feces dominated every other odor, canceling the fresh, spring scent of the woodland on the edge of the farm.

Blowing out a snot rocket, the man stumbled to a tree stump and sat down slowly, holding his lower back. His vertebrae crackled like Jiffy Pop. The boy used to love popcorn. He missed it. He missed a lot of things. Settled, the man took another pull on the whiskey. Some trickled down his chin, and his tongue darted out to lick it up, a frog after a fly. The boy watched him with tired eyes before turning back to the hole where a single worm wiggled at its newfound freedom. He wondered if the man would have killed it if he’d seen it, if the creature was worthy of the man’s mercy, if it met the criteria of his aberrant morality.

Pushing the shovel into the dirt, the boy raised a small clump containing the worm, tossing it aside so it could live. On the ground beside it, the mildewed army bag was a grim reminder of those creatures who’d been far less fortunate.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BITCH WAS SCREAMING.

Something about fucking every one of his friends—well, the friends of whoever she was yelling at. Chuck wasn’t one to eavesdrop, but drunken hollering at three-thirty in the morning was just interesting enough to pull him away from his dog-eared paperback. It was just as well. Scotch had blurred his vision too far to continue reading.

That’s right! the woman across the hall shouted. You think those lowlife scumbags won’t line up to fuck this?

There was a slap. Chuck wondered if the guy had hit her or if she’d smacked her own backside for emphasis. He got out of his Schlitz-stained easy chair, took off his reading glasses, and went to the door. He heard a male voice, but the words were muffled and coming from further down the hall, fading. Chuck opened the door to see the woman in 213, the one he only saw at night, usually carrying a brown bag from Nishant’s package store around the corner. She wore a faded Mötley Crüe t-shirt, sleeves ripped off so low he could see she was braless. Tangled hair, dyed red with dark, brunette roots. She was Chuck’s age, maybe older. On the short side. Curvy. Thin lipped. Her nose turned up slightly, snout-like; all she needed was a pierced septum and she’d be like a skanky warthog.

She raged at her beau as he headed for the stairway. You walk out now, Tony, and you can just keep on fuckin walkin’! Take a long walk off a short dock!

But Tony said nothing, letting his footsteps on the stairs say it for him. One apartment down, another neighbor opened his door, called the woman a psycho cunt and told her to shut the fuck up, then slammed his door closed again. Another neighbor banged on the ceiling from the floor below. The woman’s chest rose and fell in deep, angry breaths. Noticing Chuck standing there, she yelled back at her boyfriend.

Hey, Tony! My neighbor’s out here now! She turned her eyes back to Chuck, still shouting so Tony could hear. Howdy, neighbor! How’d you like to get your dick sucked? Come on in!

Chuck couldn’t help but snicker. He was always up for a blowjob, but figured this lady’s heart wasn’t in it.

I’m gonna let him stick it in my ass too, Tony!

There was the sound of the bottom floor’s door coming open, then the faint glow of streetlights bouncing off the walls of the stairwell. Then nothing at all. Tony had departed. The woman bared her teeth, a junkyard dog at the end of a chain.

She turned to Chuck with a sigh. Wanna drink?

***

Her apartment was even worse than his. The view from the doorway was of dirty dishes piled in the kitchen sink. Chuck stepped inside, and when the door swung closed, the domestic carnage of the living room presented itself. Clothes all over the floor and slung over the backs of chairs. Ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts and joint roaches. The piercing stench of an ignored litter box. Unopened bills on the table stained with the crusty rings of a week’s worth of coffee cups. One of the arms of the outdated, flower-patterned couch had no lining.

Nice place ya got here, he said.

Yeah, right.

The woman sat at the folding card table where a bottle of Evan Williams was whispering Chuck’s name. She had a half-full tumbler of her own, so she took an overturned one and wiped it out with the end of her shirt. Chuck stared at the pale flesh of her exposed midsection and the empty hole of her belly button piercing. Stretch marks lined the divots of her hips, which jutted out of her cutoff jeans like tomahawks. Filling his tumbler to the brim, she slid the glass over as he sat down.

She held out a pack of cigarettes. Smoke?

Sure.

She put two in her mouth, lit them, and then handed him one. It was slightly crushed. Don’t bother askin ‘bout that blowjob.

Wasn’t gonna.

She smirked. Yeah, sure.

I’m too drunk to feel anythin’. Probably wouldn’t stay hard.

Well, I ain’t drunk yet, but I aim to fix that. She shot back the tumbler and smacked her lips. I’m Leslie.

Chuck.

"You say Chuck?"

He nodded. Chuck. Like ground beef. Like vomit.

Well, ain’t you a charming one.

Nope. Just a dirty old man.

Can’t be that old from the looks of ya.

Just turned forty-two.

Yeah, well, I’m forty-fuckin-four. Don’t wanna think of that as old. When’d ya turn forty-two?

Around three hours ago.

She smiled. It’s your fuckin birthday? No shit?

No shit.

Fuck, man. Let’s toast.

She poured herself another and topped his off. They raised the glasses in a swaying salutation.

Leslie said, Happy fuckin birthday.

They slammed back their drinks as if in triumph. Leslie puffed on her Lucky, hot-boxing it, the long turd of ash refusing to drop off. Chuck looked at the spattering of scars on the insides of her arms, some masked by tattoos, others fresh enough to still be scabby. There were a couple of faint scars on her forehead where the flesh met the hairline, and another on her chin. It made him want to see her naked almost as much as her big breasts did, but for different reasons.

So what’re ya doin for the big day? she asked.

Nothin.

Chuck didn’t care to elaborate. He wondered why he’d even told her it was his birthday. He always tried to ignore them.

Birthdays used to mean cake and spankins, she said. Now it’s just another fuckin notch on the lids of our coffins. In a few months, I’ll be forty-five. Halfway to fifty and alone. No family. No real career. Not even a lousy boyfriend now that fuckface walked out.

So it’s really over?

Hell, it was fuckin over with Tony even before tonight. He’s been hintin at seein other people.

Chuck nodded. In my experience, when somebody starts talkin ‘bout leavin, they’re already gone. But to hell with it, there’s more to life than love.

"Love my ass. All I’ve got is a shit job runnin a fuckin cash register and a filthy cat who hides more than he does anythin else. Who’d want to celebrate a birthday when your life’s like that, huh? Be like swimmin in a septic tank."

Chuck scratched at his two days’ growth of beard. Could be worse.

I don’t need cheerin up.

A job’s a job.

Until the store closes, and it’s likely to any day. Nobody fuckin shops anymore, man. They do it all online. Sales bein what they are, the company done froze everyone’s wages. No raises, no Christmas bonuses. I can barely afford this one-bedroom shithole as it is. Half my income goes to the fuckin rent. I’d go be a waitress, but everybody wants young chicks with higher asses. She bounced one breast with her hand. Even these big ol’ titties don’t benefit me as much as they did when I was, like, twenty-two. Y’all men are lucky. Ya don’t age out like us broads.

She puffed until she hit the filter. Chuck noticed her eyes were deep chocolate, the pupils like pinpoints. Not the bright, rainbow eyes of a girl but the hard, truck exhaust eyes of a woman who’d seen too much too often. When those eyes fell upon him, he shifted in his seat and looked down into the swirl of his drink to escape their intensity.

So whadda ya do, Chuck?

He slid the tumbler to her for a refill. Nothin.

She made a pffft sound with her lips. "Whadda ya mean nothin?"

Was workin at an electronics warehouse. Unloadin pallets. But they fired me last week.

Laid off?

Nah. I was drinkin on the job. That and they caught me stealin a hi-def TV.

Clear picture mean that much to you?

Nah. I don’t watch TV. I was gonna pawn it.

She leaned forward. I’m actually charmed by your honesty. It’s rare in a man.

Dishonest enough to steal.

Everyone makes mistakes.

Wasn’t no mistake. Never had a job I didn’t swipe stuff from.

You some kinda klepto?

Nah. I do it on principal.

Leslie snickered.

Chuck continued. I mean, hell, I break my back loadin trucks or scrubbin toilets or whatever, and get paid shit wages to do it. All these jobs nobody wants. I take ’em and what’s my thanks? Minimum wage I can’t live on. The scraps of scraps. So I steal things to make up for it. Fuck ’em.

Leslie reached for her cigarettes. In the moment she looked away, Chuck squeezed the zit on his jaw, releasing its white innards. Clear liquid followed, tailed by a drop of blood. He drew back his finger and looked at the Silly String of pus before wiping it on his jeans.

"You’re not gonna rip me off are ya?" Leslie said.

I don’t steal from people, just big businesses.

Shit, I ain’t got nothin worth stealin no ways. Might as well rob a dumpster.

Chuck rolled his shoulders. So you got no beefs drinkin with a thief?

Not unless you got beefs drinkin with an alcoholic tramp.

He shrugged. Never have before.

Leslie poured him another.

CHAPTER TWO

PANIC SEIZED THE BOY. Though his instincts told him to run and find her, he froze in place. Looking around at the wishing fountain, then back to the arcade behind him, then the Camelot Music and Payless Shoe Store on either side, the mall seemed suddenly bigger. A massive, endless labyrinth he could never find his way through without Mom.

He’d only let go of her hand for a moment to look at the coins in the fountain, thinking if he could gather enough quarters he could play some video games in the arcade. Mom had told him to stay close as she browsed the display windows of Casual Corner, but the boy had gone completely around the fountain, looking for quarters close enough for his short arms to reach. When he’d come around again to where he’d started, his mother was gone.

The boy forced himself to move. He sprinted to Causal Corner, putting his palms on the wood paneling of the exterior as he peered inside, somehow afraid to enter. The racks of women’s clothing created another intimidating maze. He found himself wishing he’d been allowed to bring his Rambo toy machine gun or plastic He-Man sword. Maybe it would have given him courage to imagine he was bigger, stronger, a man instead of a boy. Thinking of his muscle-bound heroes, he took a deep breath and stood up straight, but deflated easily. Still shaking, he entered the store, scanning each woman’s face, praying for his mother’s. Every woman with auburn hair offered hope until she turned around, revealing disappointing faces.

Mom? he called out, barely more than a whisper. He didn’t want these adults looking at him. He didn’t want them to know he was alone. Mom?

Fear pummeled his innards, drying out his mouth, blurring his vision with tears.

It’s all your fault, he thought. You should’ve stayed close like Mom said to!

But he was almost ten now, too embarrassed to walk around holding his mother’s hand. The boy darted out of the store and back into the cool vestibule of the mall, his senses heightened by desperation. He stretched his ears for the sound of her voice but could not break through the chatter of the patrons and droning Muzak. He sniffed for his mother’s perfume, but the recirculated air offered only the smell of hot pretzels from the concession stand and sweet smoke wafting from the cigar shop. He scanned the area again, racing around the wishing fountain, whispering her name, on the verge of sobbing and ashamed to be so.

When backed into something, a hand fell on his shoulder.

Whoa there, son.

The boy turned to see a middle-aged man with slicked-back hair and a smile that revealed small, yellow teeth. There were spaces between each one, like the mouth of a jack-o-lantern, but while this frightened the boy, the man’s security guard uniform offered a surge of relief.

Can’t be runnin ‘round like that in my mall, the guard said. Could slip by this fountain. The water sprinkles out, ya know.

The boy tried to speak but choked on heaving breaths. The man bent down to his level.

Ya okay, kid?

The boy shook his head.

Look lost. Ya lost? Where’s your parents?

The boy whimpered. I can’t find my mom.

The guard smiled, and the boy had to look away from his fish teeth. He squeezed the boy’s shoulder a little too hard.

Thought so, he said. What’s your mama look like?

Um, she’s got red hair and brown eyes. She has on a red coat and—

Yup. That nice redhead—I figured it. Don’t worry, kid, your mama’s waitin for ya at the office buildin! We’ve been lookin all over for you!

The man laughed, the underside of his face flushing pink. His positivity made the boy smile a little. He would have felt bad if he hadn’t, seeing how the man was offering such wonderful news. He was with an adult now, a man of authority there to protect and serve, just like it always said on cop cars, like they talked about on CHiPs. Mom and Dad always told him to find a policeman if ever he was in trouble. Now the boy had been rescued by a hero with a paunch instead of a muscular movie idol.

Come on, the guard said. I’ll drive ya on over.

He offered his hand. It was clammy, as if it had just been washed. He walked the boy away from the fountain and toward the sliding glass doors leading to the parking lot.

Don’t worry now, kid. Everything’s gonna be alright. Gonna be just fine, you’ll see.

Um, sir . . . where we goin?

Like I told ya, your mommy’s in the manager’s office buildin ‘round the other side of the mall. We’ll drive on over to save the long walk through the lot.

They stopped in front of a brown pickup truck with rusty sores and a green replacement door on the passenger’s side. There were no hubcaps, and the windshield had a small spider web of cracks along the bottom. The boy’s brow furrowed when the man opened the door for him. He’d been expecting a slick, white car with mall police or something like that written on it in shiny letters, not this sorry hunk of junk. There was a foul, organic odor to the truck’s interior too. It reminded the boy of the petting zoo Mom and Dad had taken him to, where he’d played in the barn hay and fed the calves and ewes.

Well, come on, the man said. Let’s go to mommy.

The man helped him climb into the cabin and closed the door behind him. The boy had a moment alone to examine the inside of the truck, noting the overflowing ashtray and wet, stained magazines on the floor. Their covers showed pictures of tractors, guns, and men fishing. A rack behind the boy’s head cradled a hunting rifle. His fingers started trembling again. The driver’s door swung open and the man got in, the boy flinching at the thunk of metal on metal as the door slammed shut. He looked all around the parking lot as they drove, uncertain what he was scanning for, uncertain of everything. Neither of them spoke until they’d gone around the back of the building, where there were few cars and no people in sight. The man put the truck in park but kept it running.

Just need my medicine real quick, he said.

He reached across the boy, causing him to push back against his seat, giving the arm a wide berth. Beneath the thick hair, the flesh was discolored with pink blotches. The man opened the glove compartment and retrieved a brown bottle and small rag. When he opened the cap, a sweet, chemical odor filled the cabin as he dabbed some of the clear liquid onto the cloth.

Okay, kid, so—

The man came at the boy in a sweaty lunge, beast-like as he pressed the rag over the boy’s nose and mouth, muffling his shrieks. The boy tried to squirm away, but the man was too powerful and the seat belt kept him in place. Gapped, stained teeth sprinkled spittle across the boy’s brow as he was pushed down, deep into the cushions, deep into the black embrace of a forced sleep.

CHAPTER THREE

SEE, EUGENE SAID, pointing at his phone’s screen. Right, there. All these caller IDs have the number six in them. Just like I told ya.

Chuck put his beer on the bar and leaned closer, having to squint without his reading glasses. Eugene scrolled, showing him all the phone numbers. They all, indeed, had at least one six in them.

So what? Chuck said. There’s only ten numbers to choose from. Six is bound to pop up a lot. It’s just a game of odds.

What? Eugene’s bug eyes went impossibly wider. They were bloodshot tonight, twitchy. Chuck figured it was more a lack of sleep than anything else, though Eugene was a known drug user. "Nah, man, nah. This ain’t no coincidence. This is harassment."

How so?

Eugene shook his head. "Six is the number of the beast, man! Shit, don’t you know that? Six-six-six equals Satan. They’re putting six in each of these numbers on purpose. It’s a threat to my freedom."

Chuck took one long pull from the bottle. He’d need more beer for this conversation, so he motioned to Barman for another. The big bastard waved a finger in acknowledgement while serving his current customer, a skinny blonde Chuck had been ogling out of the corner of his eye. More and more he was drawn to these younger women. Now that he was past forty, he was haunted by the realization he’d probably fucked his last teenager. It made him want one all the more. This one was in her twenties (close enough) and wore a skintight, strapless dress and heels. He wondered if she was one of the hookers from down by the docks. He couldn’t be sure, despite how many of them he’d fucked.

They’re screwing around with my freedom! Eugene said.

How is callin you fuckin with your freedom? I don’t get it.

Don’t get it? Can you be this thick?

The short man was sweaty and his messy hair seemed thinner every day. Chuck wondered if he was plucking them out one by one or if this pending baldness was yet another side effect of years of chomping down on hallucinogenic mushrooms in a misguided effort to expand his mind, an effort that had effectively ruined it.

Chuck, these Satanists are trying to scare me because they know I’m an herbalist. Big Pharma is always trying to stop us from natural living and healing. They hate our earth remedies, our crystals and our—

Big Pharma? I thought it was Satanists.

Eugene’s eyes darted, lost in the holes of his own conspiracy theory. It’s the same thing, really. They’re all tied in—like fucking Nazis, like the fucking billionaires who own this country, the world. The ones leading us into the apoca—

They’re just sales calls, Gene. Everybody gets these automatic robocalls from numbers they don’t know.

Eugene smiled, uglier in smugness. That’s what they’ve got everybody believing.

"No, that’s what they are. If you picked up the phone for once, you’d see that."

Are you kidding? I can’t pick it up! Then they’ll know they’ve got the right number for sure. If they’re not certain it’s me, then they can’t get to me. They can’t get to my family if we stay private and I’m there to protect them.

As usual with Eugene, Chuck could have laughed, and might have if the whole thing wasn’t so pathetic. Eugene’s family wasn’t a wife and kids. He still lived with his mother in the apartment at the end of the hall, four doors down from Chuck. That was his family. But Eugene didn’t see it as his mother taking care of him, even though she was the only one bringing in any real income. He saw it as him taking on the role of man of the house after his father died, that he was the protector and provider, a responsibility passed down to him via the patriarch’s untimely death.