Anthony DeCosmo - Disintegration

Shep understood. "You could have removed the implants. They weren’t too far gone."

Reverend Johnny stared at his surgeon’s hands and squeezed them into clenched fists. The boom returned to his voice.

"At that moment of ultimate revelation, I went through a metamorphosis, hallelujah. A holy fire burned within and I found my hands were skilled at not only saving life, but destroying it, too. I took that missionary man…that disciple of The Order…and I crucified him on my front lawn. Since that day, I have but one purpose in my existence: to find and destroy every part of The Order. I have pursued and hurt them all the way from New England. I believe-if I may be so vain-they know and fear me."

The Reverend fixed his eyes on the thinning fire and fell quiet.

Shep patted the man on the shoulder. "I reckon you’re right, Reverend."

– Jon's rescue team left Hickory Run State Park before sunrise. They kept the turnpike on their left flank as they traveled south. However, he wanted to avoid the mile-long Lehigh Valley Tunnel that cut through the Blue Mountains at the border of Lehigh and Carbon counties. It seemed too perfect a den for any manner of nightmare.

Therefore, about an hour after dawn, the caravan turned southwest following Long Run road in hopes of crossing the Lehigh Valley River en route to a country road that-according to the map-would lead them up and across the mountain.

A hush fell over the convoy as they traveled with thick woodland to either side; perfect ambush country. To Jon's ears, the clop-clop of horse hooves and the squeaks of rolling wagon wheels sounded like thunderous bass drums revealing their presence to the world.

Yet no ambush came. No creatures shadowed the convoy. The K9s remained calm in the back of his wagon.

That is when they noticed the sound. Shep first guessed it to be an electrical hum from power lines. Stonewall thought it a waterfall in the distance. Reverend Johnny suggested the steady drone of a big machine.

As Long Run road bent south along the banks of the Lehigh River, Jon halted the convoy for a morning rest. He decided the noise-louder now-came from the north.

Brewer shared Shepherd's steed and, along with Stonewall, went off to investigate while leaving Reverend Johnny in charge of the parked convoy.

They followed a set of railroad tracks running alongside the river. As they moved north, the sound grew into a haunting melody. One so melancholy that, according to Stonewall, "the Devil himself could not stand to live in these parts."

About one and a half miles north of the parked caravan, as the sound rose to the point of filling the air, the three dismounted and climbed a lightly forested hill.

As they neared the top, the noise sharpened to their ears: a wailing. A constant wailing. Not from one creature but from many: a chorus forming a continual cry of despair.

They reached the summit. Stretched before them lay the picturesque town of Jim Thorpe nestled between mountain peaks and named for one of the greatest athletes in history. Before Armageddon, Jim Thorpe had been a tourist attraction of antique shops, bookstores, pubs, and nostalgic train rides.

Except the shops, the stores, the pubs, and the restored railway station now hid beneath a white, stringy veil stretched over the entire town.

The noise came from the human residents of Jim Thorpe as they struggled- thousands of them — wiggling and swaying inside tightly wrapped cocoons. Their collective agony produced the cry of torment traveling the wind for miles.

"Oh my God," Jon stammered.

Stonewall confessed, "I am at a loss."

The devils responsible for this Hell walked on six-legs attached to crystal-white bodies as long as locomotives with one big yellow eye around a black pupil.

Jon stuttered, "I–If these things are feeding on them, w-why are the people alive?"

"Look at them, Sir," Stonewall spoke. "Those are not arachnids. They are something far more… sinister. One gets the distinct impression that their victims are purposely kept alive."

"Kept alive?" Shepherd’s voice never sounded so horrified.

Stonewall removed his hat and held it to his chest. "These vampires may in fact be feeding on their very torment. It seems there is no end to the horrors of our new world."

Jon took a deep breath and tried to steady the tremble in his hands and voice.

"Let’s go."

"Hold on," Shep stopped him. "Ain’t we going to do something?"

"What can we do?"

Shep grit his teeth and said, "Drop a few mortar shells in there. Maybe drive them off."

Jon stared at the living crypt below.

"There’s nothing we can do here. Maybe someday. But not today."

– From the pain came the screams filling his mind. Not from his lips, but far deeper: far more personal. The howling continued even though the actual torture to his body waited for The Order to prepare his next ordeal.

Trevor found tiny lifelines in a memory, or a feeling. For a few precious seconds here and there he could beat back the screams.

Once he summoned the sense of comfort and safety he had found as a little boy in his mother's arms; the soft fabric of one of her sweaters as she hugged her young son provided a tactile connection to that moment. He heard her assuring, "Everything is all right."

Yet her voice and the sensory recollection of her hug faded, replaced by the much more recent feel of swarming bugs digging at his skin…ripping…biting-SCREAMS.

As he lay alone in the chamber in some state several steps removed from sleep, Trevor summoned the sound of running water-a shower, a waterfall, the rhythm of rain on a rooftop-a sound that always gave him a sense of calm.

The calm shattered in the harsh memory of his legs…his torso…sucked into the torture-spider's mouth; a false sensation of bones pulverized and shredded skin.

It may feel as if you’re being eaten, but rest assured that is only a feeling.

Screams again. His mind pulled into madness by the torment of his body.

Through the mental chaos, he reached for another lifeline: for Ashley, but instead grasped more torment in her disappearance from this Earth, and her disappearance from his heart.

Where he should have found fond memories of intimacy, he found an empty shell. Had he ever really loved her? If she were still alive, could she love what Armageddon had made him?

How could anyone love you now? Asked Ashley's voice. You're not human; you're a monster; no different from the aliens you fight.

This lifeline turned into an anchor, driving him deeper into the pool of madness. The bore bugs on his legs; the working of that monstrous maw; the vitriol from Nina.

There. For a second. Another ray of light breaking through the clouds of madness.

Yes, Nina. What have they done to you? Can you still be saved?

He heard her voice now, muffled as if covered or, perhaps, calling from great distance: I'm still in here! No matter what they do, I'll still be here!

"She's just a lonely little girl," he managed to speak aloud the words Lori had used to describe Nina Forest. "Just a lonely little girl."

Like a drowning man at sea, the tide of misery dragged him under again. Screams. A choir of banshees battering down his sanity through the terrible suffering inflicted upon his body: the opposite of mind over matter in a very practical application.

Trevor Stone lay alone, bound in a tempest of insanity.

– As they neared Allentown, the rescue team found it harder to stay hidden as the wilderness dissipated, replaced by crisscrossing highways, shopping centers, office complexes, and other relics of man’s paved civilization.

That afternoon they were caught in the open on Route 145 north of Whitehall by a mob of charging ghouls who fell to a volley of automatic rifle fire. The sounds of battle attracted scavengers resembling flying Octopuses. The things gorged on the dead ghouls.