Zombies & Other Unpleasant Things
Page 28
Henry was sliding his unconscious son through the smashed back window of the vehicle saying, “Help Edwin, first. He’s hurt more than the rest of us.”
Guiteriz nodded and started for the rear of the SUV and heard the little girl saying, “A wolf tore up his arm. Please, you’ve got to help my little brother.”
He caught a glimpse of the little boy’s unconscious face and tried to squeeze into the narrow area where Edwin was. The sheriff’s stomach was too large to pass by the big rocks and he was about to call for someone skinnier to come help when his radio came to life. It was Captain Lopez shouting, “Run sheriff. Get out of there now! Run damn it!”
Guiteriz’s hand was so close to reaching the boy he almost ignored the warning. Stretching harder he brushed his fingers on the little boy’s leg but just couldn’t grab a hold. There was a loud cracking sound and the ground shuddered as if a giant had stomped down somewhere very close by.
Lopez’s frantic voice screamed over the radio, “There’s no time! Run!”
The sheriff had known Lopez for a very long time and didn’t pause to ask why. Instead, he shouted to Henry, “Stay here! I’m going to get help!” before turning and running. There was another tremendous cracking and crashing sound coming from the hillside behind him that went on for a few seconds before an incredibly powerful dull boom shook the ground with enough force to knock the sheriff off his feet.
An earthquake was the only unlikely thing that Guiteriz could think of as he tumbled and rolled through the rocks and sand until slamming into one of the canyon walls.
Dust filled the air and the sheriff coughed so hard he could see spots flashing behind his tightly closed eyes. Barely able to breathe, he lifted his undershirt up over his face to filter out the worst of the dust.
The radio crackled and he could hear Lopez shouting, “Does anyone see the sheriff!? Oh shit! Did he get clear!? Back those fucking helicopters out of here now, before more of the mountain comes crashing down, damn it!”
“I’m okay,” Guiteriz managed to say in a choked voice into his radio then coughed again before asking, “What the hell is going on?”
Lopez didn’t explain, he only asked, “There wasn’t anyone else in that SUV was there?”
The sheriff stood up unsteadily and stared back through the dust from the direction he’d come. Part of a tire that had burst like a balloon was sticking out from under a mammoth irregularly shaped rust colored boulder. The huge stone was taking up roughly twice the area where the SUV had been less than a minute earlier.
Guiteriz saw deputies running back from the hillside out of the corner of his eye as he crossed silently back over to where the car had been.
He spotted part of the barrel of his utterly destroyed Remington rifle sticking out from under the titanic boulder. Running to the far end of the boulder, where he’d briefly been earlier, Guiteriz was sickened and yet also given a small glimmer of hope.
The entire rear of the SUV was buried under the edge of the stone, but the overhanging boulders which had prevented him from reaching Edwin earlier had miraculously protected him from being crushed along with the rest of his family. One of the boy’s lower legs was apparently under the rock but his eyes were open and he was coughing.
“DeMarco, get your skinny ass in there!” The sheriff yelled to the thinnest deputy present while pointing at the narrow gap in the rocks.
Deputy DeMarco dropped down to his hands and knees and began squirming under the overhanging rock. The sheriff propped his flashlight so that the small space where Edwin was trapped had some light.
Bo was brought over to one of the department’s cruisers and looked up the hillside then over at what remained of another patrol vehicle that had been flattened as if it had been inside a car compactor used at some junkyards.
“How?” Bo managed to ask in a small voice as he stared down where the SUV had been moments before.
The deputy that had been a medic and had patched up Bo’s bullet hole shrugged and said, “I don’t know for sure. Maybe the helicopters blew some of the smaller rocks loose, up higher on the ridge and then the bigger ones gave way without them being there. Until finally the top of the mountain lost enough support that it just broke loose and rolled down. Good thing we got you out of there when we did.”
Bo was trembling but nodded before leaning back against the remaining squad car. “There wasn’t anyone in that thing, was there?” He asked pointing at what remained of the flattened cruiser.
“Nope, that was mine and DeMarco’s,” the deputy said while staring down at the mammoth boulder below. “I just hope there wasn’t anyone in that SUV.”
Bo felt sick as he remembered the children crying for help when he’d first arrived.
“The boy’s stuck in here like a rat in a trap, sheriff. I’m trying to dig down under the rock but the ground’s mighty hard,” DeMarco reported from his narrow workspace of overhanging boulders.
“Do you think there’s any way the others in the car could be alive?” Guiteriz asked, though he already knew the answer.
DeMarco called back, “No sir,” and sniffled as he continued digging under the boy’s trapped leg at the tough soil with his knife.
The sheriff thought DeMarco was about to cry until the deputy said, “There’s gasoline soaking into the dirt. And it’s starting to trickle into the hole I’m digging. If I keep going the blade could hit a rock and make a spark. What should I do?”
“STOP DIGGING!” The sheriff screamed then slightly less loudly he asked, “Can you pull the kid out?”
There was a scrabbling sound under the rock overhang and a long sustained grunt. “Yeah! His leg and foot are fucked up but he’s free.”
Guiteriz got down on his hands and knees and looked into the narrow space. He could see the boy’s small body being shoved toward the opening and started to reach in.
A second later the boy disappeared from view and DeMarco yelled, “Shit! God damn it, kid, stop that! I’m trying to help you!”
Savage growls and more screams came from inside the rocky enclosure. The sheriff quickly scooted back from the hole and yelled, “DeMarco! DeMarco, can you hear me!?”
Only more screams and yells drifted from the hole. Guiteriz backed up even more and drew his sidearm. Another deputy came up beside him and asked, “What’s going on, sheriff?”
“Something fucking horrible, now, go get those CDC fucks in their haz mat suits back over here and do it now.”
A few minutes later, Edwin emerged from the hole. The six year old boy was coated in so much blood it looked like he had no skin remaining on his small body. (They found out later nearly all of it belonged to Deputy DeMarco)
A CDC agent wearing a haz mat suit threw a net over Edwin and quickly got the boy aboard an ATV. The sheriff watched with no expression on his face as the boy was driven toward a temporary helipad outside the canyon. He had no idea where Edwin was being taken and at that moment didn’t much care, as long as it was far away from Albuquerque.
Captain Lopez handed the sheriff what he’d radioed for while they had awaited DeMarco’s appearance. Guiteriz nodded and squatted down a safe distance from the boulder so he could shine his flashlight into the narrow gap in the rocks where DeMarco had gone. His voice sounded tired and any thoughts of being a hero, like The Rifleman, were completely gone as he called out, “DeMarco? Come on out of there.”
There was movement in the gap. It was a slow process and Guiteriz felt more nauseated and sick to the stomach than afraid as what once had been one of his deputies inched its way out of the hole. For a moment he had a flash of hope when DeMarco’s left arm reached out of the gap and looked fairly normal, but then what was left of his head appeared. It looked like the deputy had been chewed on until nearly every inch of skin had been removed. Parts of his gray and crimson skull reflected the flashlight beam and Guiteriz could smell gasoline fumes in the air.
“I’m so sorry, son,” The sheriff said before moving upwind and shooting the de
puty in his exposed skull. When the thing stopped moving Guiteriz lit the road flare and tossed it at the undead thing that used to be DeMarco.
The body had been soaking in gasoline since before Edwin emerged and quickly burst into flames.
Captain Lopez had the canyon searched completely by the deputies as members of the CDC dressed in hazardous material suits bagged up the wolf wrestler, or at least the pieces of him large enough to find at any rate.
The large wolf that had its spine snapped couldn’t be found and it was assumed to be under the titanic boulder that had crushed the SUV.
Lopez was asked what should be done about the crushed car by one of the deputies as he stared at mammoth stone. He shook his head and only looked back and forth between the sheriff and the stars shining overhead. When the deputy who had asked remained standing and obviously wanting an answer, the captain finally sighed and said, “We’ll worry about that later. You and the boys leave me one of the cruisers and go continue checking the perimeter. We don’t need any other… trailer trash getting out and…” he paused to look at the burst tire remnants of the SUV poking out from under an edge of the boulder before continuing, “causing trouble.”
When everyone had left except Lopez and the sheriff, the captain opened his backpack and pulled out a medium sized silver flask containing twelve year old scotch. He removed the cap and took a sip.
The sheriff hadn’t moved from where he’d been standing at the front edge of the titanic boulder for the last thirty minutes.
Captain Lopez almost leaned back against the stone but caught himself and stopped. If there were dead people under there it would be like sitting on a tombstone. Instead, he sat down cross legged on the ground and whispered, “Boss? Have a drink. You’ll feel better.”
The sheriff lowered his head and stared blearily over at his old friend. He didn’t speak for a long time then slowly lifted up what he’d been holding. It was something he’d found and used to subdue the ICE agent. He had taken it off Dudley before he was hauled off by the CDC agents; a long eared dust coated smiling bunny that was once called Mr. Cuddles.
###