The Search for the Last Flower – (Part 2)
“You were wrong––we were wrong.” Clarice showed the woman her wiggling infant. “Look, Flaviá, you have a healthy baby boy.”
Flaviá stared at her and then at the infant with a demented and confused expression.
“What’s wrong with her eyes?” Dylan asked, alarmed. “I don’t remember them being yellow like that, and why is she drooling?” He continued to move farther away from her.
“I don’t understand. Her eyes were dark brown. How––” Clarice glanced at the doctor for answers, but he looked as confused as she did.
The doctor sniffed the air. “What is that smell?”
Flaviá snatched the baby from Clarice’s arms.
“Easy Flaviá, you don’t want to––” Clarice’s words were strangled by the horror she witnessed. The tribeswoman took a bite out of her baby’s head. The infant, who had been crying, died instantly.
Clarice screamed and clambered to her feet. She ran to Dylan who was crying out as he watched Flaviá spit bone out of her mouth and continued to extract gray matter from the infant’s skull.
Dr. Johnson jumped to his feet and stood paralyzed, watching the horror scene unfold before his eyes.
Dylan grabbed Clarice’s hand and pulled her toward the door. Dylan pushed and shoved on the door, but it was jammed.
“Open the door!” Clarice screamed, unable to take her eyes off Flaviá.
“I can’t open it!” Dylan continued to ram the door with his body.
“Dr. Johnson, help!” Clarice pounded on the door and sobbed.
Dr. Johnson gawked at the monstrosity before him and couldn’t move. “I smell smoke,” he said under his breath in a flat, dreary tone. “Where’s it coming from?”
Clarice ran to him and pulled on his clothes. “What is wrong with you? We have to go!”
The doctor finally snapped out of his stupor. He hurried to the door and helped Dylan try to open it.
“It’s no use,” Dr. Johnson said. “They’ve barricaded us in here with her.”
“Why would they do that?” Dylan cried, shaking.
“Maybe they blame us for her death?” Clarice trembled as she looked around the room for a way out.
“But she isn’t dead . . .” Dylan’s eyes rolled up, and he slammed his hands against his outer thighs.
Just then, Flaviá rose from the ground. She had devoured the infant almost entirely but she wasn’t done yet. She fixed her wild, vivid yellow eyes on Dr. Johnson. Her long, black hair draped the sides of her face and she walked toward him in an eerie, stiff, twitchy way. Her head hung to one side and appeared to be resting on her shoulder. Blood framed her mouth, gore hung from her teeth, and tainted saliva dripped off her chin.
Dr. Johnson swung his arms in front of him with his palms facing forward. “No! Stay away from me!”
Flaviá grabbed one of his arms and before he could do anything to defend himself, she bit into the flesh of his lower arm. Muscles, tendons, ligaments stretched between her teeth and his arm. He wailed in agony.
She tore off and slurped the tissues into her mouth like spaghetti. He slumped over, holding his severed arm and shrieking. She sunk her teeth into his shoulder. The doctor winced and howled. Blood escaped his wounds in jets. His legs faltered, and he collapsed. Flaviá leapt on him and began eating the flesh off his face as he writhed on the ground, flailing his arms and legs.
Clarice and Dylan were petrified with fear. It seemed an eternity of torture because the doctor would not die. Clarice turned away and retched several times until she vomited all over her shoes. She closed and covered her eyes and pressed her face and body against the door.
Dylan was compelled to watch the monster. She sunk her teeth into the doctor’s lower lip, shaking her head like a rabid animal until she pulled it off, and then she did the same to his upper lip while he continued to groan and squirm. She dug her finger into his eye sockets, yanked his eyeballs out of their orbits, and shoved them into her mouth.
Dylan pressed himself against the mud, stone, and grass wall of the hut. He felt his throat burn with acid erupting from his stomach. His breathing was labored, and his heart beat faster and faster. A warm stream traveled down his leg, wetting his pants. He slid to the floor and broke down in sobs.
Death finally came for the doctor. Flaviá pulled his body to a corner of the hut and continued feasting.
The abrupt silence made Clarice turn around and open her eyes. The hut was filled with smoke. She had not noticed the smoke seeping in because she was too distracted by the walking corpse. Her darting eyes noticed blackened areas on the hut’s walls.
She gasped and began banging on the door again. “Help, please let us out of here!” She fell to her knees, coughing. “The doctor is dead. Please don’t do this!”
Dylan watched her and got off the floor. He looked around and realized why Clarice was in a panic. He began to dig near the wall by the door. Clarice joined him. After they had dug a few inches, flames crept in from the outside.
Dylan’s hand was soaked in a liquid and covered in flames. He wailed and shook his hand. Clarice grabbed soil from the ground and tossed it on his hand. She did this repeatedly until the fire was out. Dylan held his hand out and bawled. Clarice hugged him, but he was too distressed and in too much pain to be consoled. She wept between coughs and wheezes. There was no way out. It seemed they would die this day, either by being eaten alive or by burning to death.
The tribesmen had barricaded the door of the hut where Flavía had died. They had dug a trench around the hut, poured a combustible liquid into the trench, and lit it on fire. The elder had ordered that the hut and everyone inside be burned to ashes. He knew it was the only way to contain the curse of the walking dead.
Copyright © 2014 by Vashti Quiroz-Vega. All rights reserved.
♥ I hope you enjoyed Part 2 of The search for the Last Flower. Tomorrow, Sunday 26th, 2014, I will be posting the 3rd part. So let me know how you liked Part 2 in the comment section below. Your honest feedback is very helpful. Thank you! ♥
