The last to show herself was the lone customer in the store when Thad had prudently locked the doors from the horrible nightmare that raged all around in the parking lot. Her name was Beth, and she was in her late 30’s, early 40’s, shoulder length auburn hair, green-hazel eyes, and a heart shaped face. She was attractive but there was something else about her; I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. I knew her somehow but I had never laid eyes on her before, at least not in this lifetime. Anyway, there was no time to solve mysteries. With four extra hands the loading of the truck went exceedingly smooth. I made sure that we also did a thorough raid on the pharmaceuticals. You never knew when you were going to need a Percocet or two, errr, I mean penicillin.
The truck was stuffed as full as it could get but the grocery store was still brimming with supplies. I would have liked to go unload this shipment and come back but it was already beginning to darken, and I had not the least desire to be out here any longer. We could come back tomorrow, zombies willing. I climbed back into the truck. Thad was in the process of getting in on the other side. When I stared ahead through the windshield, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Standing not more than one hundred feet away was THE zombie woman and she was holding something. I was having a difficult time discerning what it was when she held it above her head.
“Oh Christ!” I opened my door and evacuated my guts.
Thad had just adjusted himself in the seat before he had looked. “Oh Dear Father in Heaven!”
More power to Thad, he didn’t get nauseous, but then again he didn’t know the person that head used to belong to.
“Dad!” Travis yelled, “That zombie has Spindler!”
I jumped down off the truck. I wanted to run up to her and scream ‘What are you doing,’ and ‘Why are you following us?’ My gaze kept returning to the head in her up stretched arm. Eyes rolled up so only the whites showed, tongue lolling out like a dog on a hot summer’s day. Ragged flesh around the neck showed the numerous bite marks it had taken to separate the head from the body. There was at least six inches of blindingly white spine that hung down past the ropes of skin and vein. She dropped the head and even from this distance we heard the sound, mostly because I think all of us were holding our breaths. The skull cracked with an audible ‘pop’ and as luck would have it, Spindler’s head, of course, rolled to a stop upside down, looking at us. I looked back up to her face, my mouth hanging open like a giant Venus flytrap. She nodded once and turned to walk back through the alleyway.
I shouted at her. “What does that mean?” not expecting any reply. “Is that what you’re going to do to us?” And then it dawned on me. “Is that your brand of payback for us not killing you?”
She had been watching the exchange with Durgan. She had seen Spindler turn tail and run. I was scared all the way down to my meat and potatoes. This involved a much higher brain activity than ‘Must Eat Brains.’ She was displaying signs of justice, albeit a Thailand version, but a form of justice all the same. It took all of my control not to run to her and demand an answer. She had helped, of that I was sure. Spindler was a spineless little piece of shit but he wouldn’t blindly run into a lone zombie. No, he was cornered, or more likely I thought, herded into a trap. The little pecker left me in the lurch and I had fully intended on busting his nose when I saw him back at Little Turtle, but I never would have wished on him what had happened. Big Tiny started to walk towards the end of the store to the alleyway that buttressed between the grocery store and a bar.
“B.T. I wouldn’t do that,” I told him.
“I know YOU wouldn’t,” he said condescendingly.
“Go ahead. But I’m sure she has friends. LOTS of friends,” I said as nonchalantly as possible.
His step faltered a beat but he kept steadily onwards. Without turning back he asked, “How many friends do you think she has?” a minute quaver in his voice.
“At least a dozen or so. How many do you think you could kill with that tire iron before they overtake you?” I challenged.
His pace slowed but he didn’t want to let up now that he was committed. I had to find him an out so he could save face, especially in front of the women.
“B.T., I’m sure you could take out the zombies, but it’s getting dark and I want to get this truck home and unloaded before midnight,” I temporized.
Even from seventy feet I could see the relaxation in his shoulders. “Yeah, you’re right man, I am tired. Stupid zombies.” He chucked his tire iron and turned to come back. The bar clanged and slid to the foot of the alleyway not more than five feet away from the woman zombie and a couple hundred of her closest friends. Evil oozed from the mouth of that darkness and I was happy to be leaving. As powerful as the déjà vu had been upon seeing Beth, so too was the feeling that we had just averted a major disaster. It would have been easier to use the whole parking lot to turn the truck around but I didn’t want to be anywhere near the alleyway in case I stalled, which was a viable possibility. The truck ride home wasn’t nearly as stomach-turning as my previous attempt. Either I was getting better or I was too distracted to care, although Thad was looking a little green, but that could have been from our encounter moments before. I waited by the bus gate, waiting for them to open it.
“Any zombies with you?” Jed’s familiar voice rang out.
“Open this gate, old man, before I ram this truck through that stupid bus,” I responded.
Jed waved the bus to move and the sliding wall retracted. Smiling a little, the old bastard was having a great time busting my balls. Great, just what I needed. And then the more I thought about it, I think he was right, but I wasn’t going to let him know.
Damn it! I stalled the truck halfway through the entrance.
“Nice driving, Tex!” Jed shouted.
“Shut up you old fart!” I yelled, fresh sweat busting out on my forehead.
“Should I just put up a neon sign that says ‘OPEN?’” he yelled back.
Now he was laughing and I was so flustered I flooded the damn engine. The guards were looking up and down the street, they were nervous. We hadn’t had this large a breach since the night it all went down. I was finally able to get it started and all the way in. The bus almost slammed into my rear end in their haste to get the gate closed. I pulled the rig up to the clubhouse for the off-loading and I hopped down. Jed bustled over, beaming at our haul, including the four newcomers. However, he was a little put off when he noticed our returning party was one fewer than the departing one.
“Spindler?” he asked.
I shook my head subtly. There must have been something to the look in my eye because he didn’t press the issue. I had other things on my mind to contend with, the strange zombie woman being at the forefront. I would wait for tonight to speculate on that though. I quickly gave Jed an account of our run-in with Durgan and then waved one of the Little Turtle women over, Joann Orefice. She was the unofficial official welcome wagon.
“Hey Joann, we’ve got four newbies,” I began
“Three,” Thad stated firmly.
I looked his way. My eyebrows arched up as if to say ‘really?’
“Look,” he said. “She might not be the nicest person in the world but she’s family and she’s all I’ve got left. Don’t worry, I know where she lives.” He headed off into the twilight.
From zombies to Mrs. Deneaux, I was weighing the choices.
“Three then,” I finished.
Joann moved closer towards our small group. “Ohmigod.” She stopped short. “What is that smell?”
“I’m leaving, I’m leaving,” I said, this was preferable to an explanation. But before I left I had to ask one question. “Beth, have we ever met before?”
She said ‘no’ half a beat too quick. Great, now I would spend half the night in a fruitless attempt to try to figure out where I knew her from.
Joann smiled and the two women began to talk animatedly. When B.T. stepped from behind the tractor-trailer, Joann looked up with a worrisome expressio
n across her face.
I laughed a little. “Don’t worry, he’s harmless,” I yelled back as I added extra speed to my step to get the hell out of there.
I could hear Big Tiny growl behind me.
CHAPTER 10
Journal Entry - 10
I opened the front door to our home. Tommy was waiting by the door.
“Hey Tommy, how you doing bud?” I said, smiling at him. It was impossible not to, with his giant grin to match.
“Hey Mr. T, how you doing? Everything go all right?” he asked expectantly.
I had no wish to recap the horrific events of the day with Tommy, and he didn’t need to know either way. This was all just small talk anyway. I knew what he was fishing for.
“Yeah not so bad, bud,” I said as I pulled off my small rucksack. I thought for a second he was going to start dancing on his tippy-toes. That alone would have made the trip worthwhile.
“Hey Tommy, I found these while we were getting ready to leave,” I said nonchalantly as I tossed him a Yoo-Hoo and a Butterfinger. In all reality it was the first two items I had sought out.
“Thanks Mr. T!” he said as he wrapped his arms around me. It was a hug of the innocent, something that was going to be sorely missed in this brave new reality.
“Please call me Mike, Tommy.” I pleaded.
“Okay Mr. T,” he answered as he took a bite of his Butterfinger right next to my ear.
The noise was loud enough to startle Henry, who had been sleeping on the couch. The same couch I wasn’t allowed on if I even looked dirty.
I waited for Tommy to finish his Yoo-Hoo which he was gleefully slugging away on before I asked him a question that had been bothering me the better part of the day.
“Tommy,” I said. He looked up. “Do you have family?”
The merriment in his eyes clouded over in distress with the swiftness of a storm at 14,000 feet. I was sorry I had asked. If I had known the pain I was going to put the boy through I would have left it alone.
“My parents are dead, Mr. T,” he said solemnly.
With the finality and certainty with which he had answered I was wrongly under the impression that it had happened years ago in some tragic fashion, like a car accident or a building fire. I didn’t press. I had all the answer I wanted even though it wasn’t the right one.
But Tommy continued. “I sent a message and I haven’t heard anything back.”
I stared hard at him for a second straining to bring my thoughts back in focus, and then I let out a small whoosh through my teeth.
“Tommy that’s all right,” I said happily. “Cell phones are not working, they probably just didn’t get your message.”
I felt hopeful. I couldn’t stand the thought of this big happy-go-lucky kid being depressed. That would be like the sun wearing a veil. Tommy stared at me like I was going nuts.
“I don’t have a cell phone, Mr. T. I kept losing them so Mom said to save my money.”
I had a dozen questions I wanted to ask him but Tommy fixed all of his attention on his Butterfinger, as if to say in a passive aggressive manner that he was done discussing the matter. When I saw the sunshine come back into his eyes, I let it go. I walked into the kitchen, shaking my head a bit trying to get a grasp on the conversation Tommy and I had just had. I chalked up our miscommunication on intellectual lack. Mine, not his. I figured while I was heading this way I might as well get a kiss from Tracy.
“Get out of here,” she begged. “I could smell you coming! You’re going to make the food spoil.” And then she flicked a noodle at me.
“Yeah it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye,” I said dejectedly as I turned around to head upstairs and take a shower.
I took a shower hot enough to melt skin, well maybe only on a wax figurine, but it was still plenty hot. I toweled off and changed into some clothes that weren’t going to need to be destroyed. I caught the aroma of dinner cooking and it smelled heavenly, but the pull of my bed was stronger. You know how people say that they were asleep before they hit the pillow? I never believed a word of it, at least until tonight when it happened to me. Right behind sleep came the nightmares. I dreamed of my daughter (not Nicole, of course it was the woman in the field). She was wearing the tattered blue dress from the little girl at Wal-Mart. She was running to greet me. I had been away but couldn’t remember where I’d been. As she approached her mouth began to grow disproportionately to her size, and lined in the gigantic maw were razor sharp teeth. She kept getting closer. I wanted to scream but it was frozen in my throat. Spindler walked up beside me and asked, ‘Do you want me to cut her head off?’ I was shocked. He was holding a sword. I was nodding yes but mouthing ‘No…she’s my daughter.’
‘Wimp,’ he said as he walked away, twirling the blade in the air. I couldn’t peel my eyes away as I watched the blade twist faster and faster catching and reflecting the sunlight. (Weren’t we just inside?) The blade had ascended as far as it was going to go and began its long graceful descent. I shouted to Spindler, ‘Get out of the way!’
I distracted him long enough for the blade to do its work. I watched his head roll on the floor, trying to ascertain how so sharp of an instrument could leave such a jagged edge. I looked up at my daughter, who was not my daughter. She was right in front of me. Her breath was noxious as she stood eye to eye with me, although I knew she was at least a half-foot shorter than I was. Her arms reached out to grab my hands. I was frozen. I accepted her cold embrace.
‘Do you want to play?’
Nothing was frozen this time, I awoke screaming, but my distress was covered up by the sound of small arms fire.
Justin was halfway up the stairs when I got to the bedroom doorway.
“You get your brother and keep watch on the house,” I said to Justin. “And tell Brendon to get his boots on, me and him are going out to see what’s going on.” Justin was about to say something and I had a gist of what it was going to be. “No,” I shook my head. “You and Travis have had enough excitement for the day and I need to know your mom, sister and Tommy are safe.”
That soothed him but it didn’t appease him. Rifle fire was still chattering away, something was even more amiss than you would normally derive from gunfire at night. Nobody had sounded the alarm. Jed was going to have someone’s ass for this lack of discipline. Then I heard a sound that was almost as nightmarish as the nightmare I had just woken from. It was undeniably the sound of a machine gun, something that none of us besides me had access to in this complex, and I was holding mine.
“Shit!” I yelled. “Everyone but Brendon upstairs. It’s a raid! If anyone comes in this house without announcing themselves, you shoot first! You got that, boys? I’ll lock up on the way out. No one is getting in without making a lot of noise.”
Quasi-intelligent zombies were one issue to deal with, determined humans with weapons were another. The ‘brrrrpppp’ of the machineguns went off again. I could hear screaming and the sounds of confusion coming from the direction of the clubhouse. Well, it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to tell where to look for stuff to raid, with that giant semi sitting out there. And then it hit me, I knew without a shadow of a doubt Durgan and his merry band of insane idiots were behind this. The machine gun I was hearing must be that menacing looking Gatling gun Durgan had been toting. Obviously it wasn’t for show as I had hoped.
Brendon and I were halfway to the clubhouse when we came across our first victim. I didn’t know him well but he was at all the meetings, usually in the back, I think his name was Bob or Hank, Ted maybe. Oh, who gives a crap, his neck looked like it was cut with a machete. Whoever had done this was incredibly strong and had been trying to sneak in silently. ‘Damn Durgan, I’m going to blow his head off,’ I thought viciously.
As we crept in closer we could hear the moans of the wounded, some crying out for their moms. I knew from my previous combat tours that those would be the ones that wouldn’t make it through the night.
Durgan’s Gatling gun lit
up the sky like a Christmas tree on ‘roids, it was impossible not to find him. He was about forty feet away from me and looking in the other direction, so when I stepped out from behind my tree I didn’t expect him to wheel on me with such precision. I watched in hyper-slow-motion as the barrels began their circular route. Bullets began to blaze, first into the grass next to the tree I had been hiding behind, and then into the tree Brendon was cuddling like it was his long lost lover. I heard the discernible sound of the tree snapping; it was coming down but for the life of me I couldn’t remember how big it was and if it would crush me should it hit me. The only thing that saved me was my Marine Corps training; the moment I stepped from behind that tree I had started firing.
My bullets found their mark a moment before Durgan’s had. It wasn’t a head shot but it was just as effective. I had sheared his right leg off right above the knee. Blood gushed from the wound as he went down hard.
‘The bigger they are the harder they fall.’ Is there any chance I could get a CAT scan in this post apocalyptic world, FOCUS!’ My introspection and celebration were short-lived as I felt the buzz of hot lead incredibly close to my head. Brendon began to pop off rounds with his .380 but with an effective range of about twenty-five feet, odds were we were in more trouble than our opposition. My clip was empty and I wasn’t even sure of much more than our assailant’s general direction. I pulled Brendon down behind the small fallen pine tree. The branches wouldn’t do much to stop a bullet but it kept our positions concealed.
“Brendon, I only brought one magazine and it’s gone,” I told him. The look on his face was a Kodak moment.