Night Zero- Second Day

by Rob Horner

  Shouldn’t she be yelling, calling out to the god of the moon or praising the dog lord of Mars, or something? Didn’t all the crazies talk to themselves or to someone no one else could see?

  Was this really what he should be thinking about?

  Jasmine screamed again. “Get this crazy bitch offa me!”

  Robbie reached for an outstretched arm that felt like a bar of solid steel. No way the woman should have a grip like that.

  “Careful, Robbie,” Desiree panted. “She bites.”

  “She did that to you?”

  Desiree swung with her left hand, thunking satisfyingly into the side of the woman’s face. “Yeah, bitch bit me. Bleeding all over my fucking shirt.”

  “Just hit her already, Robbie,” Jazz pleaded. “She’s god-awful strong and I don’t know how much longer I can keep her off me.”

  Jasmine had that part right. Even tugging at the woman’s arm, he didn’t think he was accomplishing much. Her hands were scabrous and filthy, but strong regardless of how they looked.

  Instead of laying into her the way Desiree was—it was okay for a woman to hit another woman, but don’t let a guy do the hitting, uh uh, no way—Robbie moved behind her. Though she was good bit shorter than him, probably no more than five-three or five-four, he only had to stoop a little to run his arms up under hers, bringing his hands together behind her head. This close, her smell was a weapon all by itself. Her hair squelched between his fingers like the slime crap his niece was always playing with.

  He held his breath, laced his fingers, and yanked. Where pulling and pushing laterally hadn’t worked, the irresistible pull upward got the woman’s hands loose.

  As soon as she no longer needed to protect herself, Jasmine hauled off and socked the woman right in the face. “Fucking bitch,” she spat. Her hazel eyes flared with anger and fear, and Robbie had to force down a sudden surge of desire. Damn, she was hot when she was mad.

  “Okay, now that I got her, what do you want me to do with her?” Robbie asked. “And think quick. She stinks.”

  The woman didn’t seem to have much energy now that she was restrained. She pulled forward, like she didn’t understand the concept of a Full Nelson and just expected to be able to keep walking and doing her own crazy lady thing. She didn’t scream or fight and didn’t drop straight down, which was about the only way he knew to defeat the maneuver.

  Jasmine stepped aside, and Robbie got his first good look at what he was holding onto.

  Reflecting at him from the wall-mounted mirror was a face out of a scary movie. The woman’s eyes were sunken and purple; there was blood all over her face, not just in her hair, and most of it looked dry and crusted, little dark flakes falling off every time she moved. Only her mouth was bright red, probably from biting Desiree. The skin of her face was a sallow kind of pale. There were other marks on her cheeks and chin, little abrasions and tears which might have also been teeth marks. Her mouth still worked, opening and closing, like chewing was all she could think about.

  But it was her eyes that sealed the deal.

  Robbie couldn’t explain how he knew, but they were dead eyes. He’d never held anyone as life ended. He didn’t work in a morgue. As far as he knew, he’d never seen a dead person up close before. He went to a great-aunt’s funeral once, but that was way back in 2001, when he was just a kid. He’d been too scared to approach the open coffin, certain the woman would sit up Bela Lugosi-style and grab him, one final treat before being sealed away underground.

  “Shit, she’s all kinds of Stephen King ugly,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, well ugly doesn’t give her the right to bite people just trying to help,” Desiree said.

  Jasmine moved over to her friend, peeking at the hand still held cradled and protected. “This bite’s kind of deep,” she said. Reaching without looking, she snagged a handful towels out of the dispenser and began running water over them. “Let’s get you cleaned up, then we need to take you to an emergency room, maybe see about stitches or something.”

  “Great. Just fucking great!” Desiree moaned. “On top of everything else, right?”

  “I know,” Jasmine replied.

  “Um,” Robbie said, “excuse me. Are we forgetting about the tall, handsome guy in the room, currently holding the crazy hand biter?”

  “Come on, Des,” Jasmine said, leading the smaller woman to the exit. “I’ll hold the door. Just let her go and get out here.”

  Robbie looked around. “Sounds like a great idea,” he said.

  Jazz held the door while Desiree stepped out. “Okay, she’s halfway to the Element. You ready?”

  “More than,” Robbie said. The woman still wasn’t putting up much of a fight. She made a few aborted attempts to step forward but hadn’t done anything else to tax his strength. It seemed cliché to say, but he felt he could do this all day and not break a sweat.

  He pivoted to put his back to the door, then shoved the woman straight ahead. She staggered, making no attempt to arrest her momentum. One of the sinks stopped her when she ran into it with her waist. She didn’t fall, just placed her hands on the sink and stared. It took Robbie a moment to realize the crazy lady had become entranced by her own reflection.

  “Robbie?”

  Part of him wanted to hang back and see what happened next. Would the woman start attacking the mirror?

  Then Jazz reached out, grabbed a piece of his shirt—and a few hundred arm hairs—and yanked.

  “Ow,” he protested. But he followed her out, turning to jog back to the waiting Honda.

  “What the hell was that all about?” he wondered.

  “I don’t know, but Des’s hand looks like shit, like chewed raw hamburger.”

  “Crap. Okay. Any idea where the nearest hospital is?”

  “Nope, but that’s what Google Maps is for,” Jasmine replied.

  Robbie risked a glance at the bathrooms as he climbed behind the wheel of the Element.

  The woman hadn’t come out yet. Maybe she was still staring at herself. Maybe she’d still be there when the police arrived. They had to report the assault if for no other reason than to protect other people. What if the next person to walk in there was a little kid just big enough to go by herself?

  Starting the engine, suddenly afraid, he said, “Call the cops. Get them on the way here.”

  “Already on it,” Jasmine replied. “We can’t let her hurt anyone else.”

  Smiling at their similar thoughts, Robbie pulled away from the rest area.

  Chapter 23

  “9-1-1 isn’t answering,” Jasmine reported.

  “What d’you mean?” Robbie asked. “They put you on hold?”

  With no better plan but find a hospital, Robbie left the rest area and continued east on Interstate 20.

  “No. I mean, no one’s answering the phone. It just rings and rings.”

  “Maybe it’s because we’re not in the city yet,” Desiree offered from the back seat. Robbie met her eyes in the rearview. For a girl who just got bitten by a crazy lady, she was remarkably calm.

  “I guess,” Jasmine said. “I’ll try again in a few minutes.”

  Robbie snagged his own phone from the center console, then handed it to her. “Can you try to pull up the nearest hospital on my GPS?”

  “I don’t know if I need all that,” Desiree said. “I mean, it hurts and it bled pretty bad at first, but I think it’s stopped already.”

  “Nearest hospital is thirty minutes,” Jazz announced. “Nothing right on the Interstate.”

  “What about an Urgent Care?” Robbie offered.

  “That’s a good idea,” Desiree added.

  Jazz slid her finger across the phone. “Looks like there’s a CVS drugstore with a clinic inside it right outside the stadium.”

  “What stadium?” Desiree asked.

  Robbie and Jasmine shared a look. They smiled at each other, a Can you believe she doesn’t know what we’re talking about? kind of smile. Jasmine blew a kiss and Robbie’s sm
ile widened. God, he loved that woman.

  “Roll Tide, baby!” he said exuberantly.

  “I don’t understand,” Desiree responded, but she was smiling as she said it, which made it all right.

  * * * * *

  The GPS led them off I-20 and onto Joe Mallisham Parkway. The Parkway continued onto a street called Boone Boulevard which met US Route 82 outside the Tuscaloosa International Airport in a small suburb called Western Plains. It sucked not knowing the area when you typed in a destination. There were five CVS pharmacies in a twenty-mile radius of the rest area, and though they’d chosen the closest, by distance, it still had them driving for a good twenty minutes.

  Strangely, though, the streets were nearly deserted.

  “Did we miss a holiday?” Jazz asked, which brought a chuckle from Robbie.

  The CVS parking lot was empty, which was definitely not all right.

  The large plate glass windows were smashed, and even from the far end of the lot, as they turned in off the street, Robbie could make out overturned shelves of canned goods and make-up products inside. There were no lights on in the building, so either power had been cut or there was a generalized power outage to the area. It was impossible to know which.

  “It’s been looted,” Jasmine said. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s come to clean up, either.”

  “Did the Tide lose a game, or something?” Robbie joked.

  “Even if they did, people don’t tend to attack the drugstore.”

  From the driver’s side back seat, Desiree let out a small moan, the first sound of complaint she’d made since the attack happened.

  “You all right back there, girlfriend?” Jazz asked, twisting in her seat.

  She spun back almost immediately. “Get us out of here and find a hospital,” she said, and her voice took on a new urgency. “She doesn’t look good.”

  Trusting in her opinion, Robbie flipped the gearshift into Drive and peeled out of the parking lot. “Which way?”

  “North,” Jazz said, “follow the road north. I saw a hospital sign for this exit.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Robbie asked, maneuvering around a two-car nose job that was pulled to the side of the road.

  “She’s laid over and sweating like crazy,” Jazz answered. “It’s weird, because she was just talking to us a few minutes ago. Now, she looks like an old lady with pneumonia.”

  “She’s not coughing.”

  The main road into town had been nearly empty, but the secondary streets made up for the lack. There were more cars parked or stalled along the side of the road than he’d ever seen. A lot of them appeared to be damaged. None of the traffic lights were working, not even the cautionary blinking yellow. It wouldn’t have mattered if they were; for all he could tell, they were the only people out and about. It wasn’t that early.

  “No, but after seeing my Grandma get a bad infection, that’s what she reminds me of.”

  Robbie risked a glance at his girlfriend, who alternated her attention between the road in front and her friend in the back.

  “How’s her hand look?”

  “Can’t tell. She’s got it curled underneath her.” Then, “Can’t you go any faster?”

  Robbie snorted. “Take a look out there, babe. Road’s clogged.”

  It wasn’t just the cars on the sides of the road. Numerous shops to right and left looked to be in the same shape as the drugstore, windows smashed in, merchandise littering the inside and spreading out into the parking lots. Basketballs and footballs littered the street outside a Dick’s Sporting Goods store, making travel difficult. Slowing even further, Robbie curved and straightened as best he could, not wanting one of the balls to lodge under his bumper.

  “What the hell happened?” Jazz asked. “This looks like one of those Iraqi villages.”

  “Don’t know,” Robbie answered. A cold sweat appeared on the back of his neck, starting its slow crawl down his spine. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, feeling for all the world like one of those oldsters straining to see the road and too frightened to go more than ten miles per hour.

  Desiree moaned again, louder. Simple human concern and curiosity made Robbie crane his neck to the right, wanting to see what was happening in the back.

  “Robbie! Look out!” Jazz screamed.

  He smashed the brake pedal even as he whipped his head back around. Granted, they weren’t moving faster than the speed of smell, so it wasn’t enough to even lock the seatbelt against his chest.

  Jasmine’s scream was premature. Robbie wasn’t in any danger of hitting anyone or anything.

  But it was a good thing he didn’t get any closer.

  The street ahead was full of forms, men and women in all manner of clothing milling in the street, some peering into cars, banging fists against shop windows and office doors. Children moved among the group, but they didn’t bounce and dart about. They…milled…the same as their older counterparts.

  “Is she—?”

  The crowd parted, revealing layers like an onion, petals falling away to show new faces and forms previously hidden. One woman, maybe middle thirties, was completely naked, pale arms and legs a stark contrast against the pants, jeans, skirts, pajamas, and suits surrounding her. Strangely, no one paid especial attention to her. She stood slope-shouldered and slack-armed like all the rest, just one of a bunch.

  “Robbie, start backing up,” Jasmine hissed.

  The crowd was twenty yards away, maybe a little more, filling the street at an intersection, the dark traffic light swinging in the breeze above their heads. No cars moved in any direction. No people moved along the sidewalks. If it was an impromptu protest or town gathering, everyone was already in attendance.

  “Robbie…”

  There was something wrong with the tableau even beyond the fact of one woman and her complete nakedness. He couldn’t be sure, with Desiree moaning in the back and Jasmine breathing faster and faster on his right, but there didn’t seem to be any sound. No cries. No exhortations. No rallying speech for one political tribe or the other.

  Moving slowly, though why he felt the need to move slowly was something he didn’t want to think about, Robbie eased a hand over to the driver’s door controls. The press of a button whisked the window down on the Element.

  Breeze.

  The creak of a door.

  A dog barking.

  The tinkle of glass as someone shifted their weight and a piece crunched underfoot.

  But no voices.

  The gathered throng milled and wobbled, shuffled aimlessly back and forth or stood stock still, and no one said a word.

  It was the naked woman in the middle who saw them. In her mindless shuffle dance, she twisted like an acid-washed druggie on a bad trip, and her eyes happened on their idling Honda.

  Jasmine gripped his shoulder. “Robbie. Now. Back up.”

  The woman didn’t raise a hand and point at them. It wasn’t like the scene at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where a converted Donald Sutherland opens his mouth and issues a blood-curdling scream to draw his fellow aliens to the attack. Instead, the woman stepped toward them, moving out of the center of the throng. There was something wrong with her, unnoticed at first because the eye was drawn to breast and hip and dark pubic mound, but obvious when she walked. There was no seductive sway to the hips, no further promise of pleasure first glimpsed in her nudity. Her left hip dropped as the left foot came forward, like something had come undone in her spine. Her entire body shifted to that side in an agony of spastic motion. But if it caused her any pain, she gave no sign. Instead she took another step, right leg moving more naturally, coming to the front and lifting the rest of the body back to a normal height. Then it repeated.

  More than just her strange way of walking, there was blood in her hair and some kind of black stripes running over her chest. Again, these were imperfections not really seen at first, due to distance and the fact that she’d been partially covered by the surrounding people.
But there was no mistaking the red rust running from the center of her scalp and over her face, making all the hair on the left side of her head into a fright wig of sticky strands.

  Jasmine yanked at Robbie’s collar, demanding his attention, but he couldn’t look away.

  At least not until the rest of the gathered people turned as one, like those arrow-shapes of geese flying through the Autumn sky, all wheeling in the same direction at the same time without so much as “Right, turn…Harch!” command from military signal caller. The woman took her first lurching step, and they turned. She took her second, and they started forward behind her. With the window down and the only sound coming from the engine of the SUV, Robbie heard a series of gasps, sharp inhalations and exhalations, agonal but fast, like the torturous breaths of a man dying of lung cancer.

  When the throng moved as one toward the Element, the fog in his head lifted. The strange had become the decidedly terrifying.

  “Robbie, please!”

  With his foot on the brake, he jerked the transmission lever from Drive into Reverse.

  Desiree reached from behind and wrapped an arm around his neck.

  Chapter 24

  Jasmine screamed as Robbie was pulled back. “Desiree? What’re you—?”

  Like a rabid animal, her friend had an arm around Robbie’s neck and was lunging her head forward, small mouth trying to find something to bite but completely flustered and flummoxed by the head rest of the driver’s seat, like she couldn’t figure out it was there and if she wanted to lay a smooch on his ear she was going to have to move her head to the side.

  Jasmine had no intention of letting her.

  With Robbie gurgling and the crowd of people still coming, picking up speed and—

  God, look at them. Every one of them looks sick. The kids have shit all over them and there’s blood everywhere and that guy’s arm is hanging wrong and the other woman is limping and there’s cuts and that one…that one has his throat slit.

  —there was no time to do anything smooth and nice.