by Rob Horner
“Or there’s someone conflating the two,” Robbie commented.
“Could be,” Jasmine murmured.
Both liked social media for the ease of communication, but they kept a healthy respect for how readily it could be used to spread disinformation. The most recent example was a spoof piece about a Congresswoman saying she planned to end long-haul trucking as a career. The woman never said the words, but Twitter and Facebook blew up with links to the article and hashtags calling for bodily harm. Even after the author of the article came out and stated it was political satire, it took months for the Twitterverse to back off the elected official.
“Rob,” Jasmine said softly, “this just happened a couple of days ago and there are videos posted everywhere. Sick people dying, then waking up and attacking family members. Bite and scratch marks that start off with red and blue lines popping up all around them, like swollen arteries and veins. But then they turn black, and that person goes crazy.”
“Are they like the Drake challenge videos, maybe?” he asked, referring to a—thankfully—short-lived trend of people jumping out of moving vehicles to perform a choreographed dance to a popular song, all of which they filmed and shared on social media.
Jasmine shook her head. Her face showed shock and disbelief, her eyes glued to the small screen in her hands. “I don’t think so. Look.” She offered the phone to him.
“No time for that right now,” Bert said. “We’re about to pass the high school. Last big group of these things before we get to the Wilds. Keep your eyes open.”
“I’ll show you later,” Jasmine said, replacing the phone in her shorts.
* * * * *
Robbie’s earlier metaphor to a dog pound breakout didn’t do justice to the scene outside Flatwoods High School (home of the Water Buffaloes). Here was an image straight out of a zombie movie, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. Some teenager with a nasty scratch or bite mark—probably surrounded by red, blue, or black lines—showed up to class, then promptly went crazy, attacking everyone. From kid to kid and teacher to teacher, the infection spread. Maybe the initial kid even went to the school nurse, but of course, with his parents already running around outside the drug store half-dressed and all-dead, no one could be reached to pick him up.
In the end, it didn’t matter whether the first attack happened in the school, on the way to it, or at some other time. The whole place was a dead zone now.
The school sat on a gentle rise, with well-manicured lawns sloping down to the street. It had two stories for most of its length, with acres of parking lot surrounding it on all sides. Other structures rose along the perimeter of the parking areas, ancillary buildings, a large gymnasium, and, all the way in the back, a fenced football field. The parking lots were full of cars. To the right were the newer, better maintained vehicles of the faculty, while the left showed the typical hodge-podge of student vehicles, everything from an envy-inspiring Ford Shelby to a late-70’s rust-bucket pickup truck, so faded by time and primer that its make and model couldn’t be ascertained from the back of a moving Jeep.
From street to school building, every inch of green lawn and gray asphalt was covered with the dead and the dying. The only difference between the two was one of mobility. The dying lay still, bleeding out through uncounted bites and scratches, while the dead rose and wandered off, looking for their next meal.
“Holy shit,” Jasmine breathed, and Robbie agreed.
37th Street passed close enough to the building for their vehicle to be noticed, inciting an impromptu chase from the clustered zombies on the south side of the school.
“Don’t slow down,” he hissed. Some of the zombies moved much faster than Romero ever envisioned, more akin to Boyle and Garland’s take on the genre with 28 Days Later. They lunged after the speeding vehicle, breaking into a sprint wherever possible. One pulled ahead of his fellows, skinny white legs flashing beneath his cutoff jean shorts. He looked for all the world like a professional marathon racer having to start with the fourth-round walkers and intent upon catching up to the leaders in the first few minutes of the race.
They aren’t snarling and their eyes aren’t red and bleeding, Robbie noted.
Their facial expressions were bland, almost pleasant. A look at me, I just decided to chase a Jeep face, even the sprinter. It might even be comical if not for the ragged clothes, oozing wounds, and the horrific knowledge of what would happen if one of the runners caught up to them.
In the small clearing left by those who took up the chase, the closed doors to the school were visible.
What if there are people trapped in the school? Robbie wondered, not realizing he’d spoken the words aloud until Bert answered.
“There are. We’ve been getting status reports from someone in their AV club who knows how to work a radio. But they’ve got the doors secured and enough food to last until we can figure out a way to get them out.”
Thankfully, as their road became Buckhead Drive, the sprinter backed off. He was still behind them, still chasing, but unable to match the Jeep’s pace. A full block behind him, the rest of the chasers lost interest, turning to right and left as though they’d forgotten what got them moving.
“If we turn right up here, we’d be heading toward the Wal-Mart,” Bert informed them. “But we ain’t going that way.”
Robbie couldn’t take his eyes off the chasing zombie. Just a normal high school kid, gangly in his short sleeve shirt and shorts, but running like a star track athlete, bony elbows pumping and over-sized sneakers slapping the concrete. He was still falling steadily behind but showed no signs of slowing or giving up the chase.
The Jeep entered a roundabout at slightly less than rollover speed, and Robbie was forced to face forward to make full use of the Oh Shit bars and keep himself in his seat. Bert took the third exit off the circle, followed it for a block, then powered into a full left turn, placing them on Harper Road.
“Okay, that was the worst of it,” the older man said. “We’ll still see a few stragglers, but it should be smooth sailing from here on out to the Wilds.”
Robbie twisted in his seat, but the running zombie was no longer visible behind them. Maybe he’d given up after the turns, or maybe they’d just lost him and he was still running, but in a different direction. Either way, he didn’t like that any of them could move, and certainly not that fast.
“Have you seen anything like that guy?” Robbie asked.
“What guy?”
“The one in the running shorts. I swear it looked like he was almost fast enough to catch us.”
“I’ve seen a few of them run,” Bert answered. “But nothing like what you’re saying. You sure it wasn’t just a case of the ‘Objects in mirror are closer than they appears?’”
Robbie didn’t think so. He spared a last glance at their backtrail but saw nothing alarming. Less than a minute later, Bert slowed for a right turn onto Flatwoods Road, followed by a left onto Highway 43. A mile farther along, as a marquee sign for The Flatwoods Church of Christ came into view on the side of the highway, the Jeep slowed.
“Welcome to The Wilds,” Bert said, angling the vehicle for a right turn behind the church.
* * * * *
The Wilds turned out to be a nickname for The Northwood Wild Run Mobile Home Park, a sprawling community of single- and double-wide trailers, small modular homes, and a campground for visiting trailers and RVs.
Gas, water, sewage, and electric hookups. Check the website for daily, weekly, and monthly rates
“Jesus!” Robbie breathed, drawing Jasmine out of her morbid perusal of Facebook and Twitter postings. His brown eyes were wide and staring, trying to take in everything.
“Largest trailer park in the state,” Bert said proudly and in the same tone of voice that a Crimson Tide fan might boast about their team’s football record for the past several years.
Covering twelve square blocks of rural property on the northern outskirts of Tuscaloosa, “The Wilds” was
a city in miniature, with the rental lots near the highway, an eight-block square of crowded, smaller trailers, and a back end consisting of larger units with acre-size “backyards” and enough upgrades to make a trailer seem a mansion.
“Doesn’t Kid Rock live in a place like this?” Jasmine asked.
“So, I’ve heard,” Bert answered. “But it’s not here.”
She bit back a retort, something like I know not here, reminding herself that a guy like Bert didn’t say things out of meanness. He spoke plain and expected the same, as her grandma used to say. Surprisingly, she found herself liking the cantankerous older man. His politics left a lot to be desired, but she didn’t intend to get into a discussion with him about left versus right or any of the hundreds of things they probably disagreed on.
Thinking about the horde of people gathered outside the high school and the uncountable Facebook and Twitter postings about the dead rising, she figured none of that mattered anymore. What good was a high horse about a political party when there were creatures—zombies—running around ready to bite your neck? If someone like Bert, obviously a conservative Kool-Aid drinker, could help a mixed-race woman like her, even offer a compliment on her looks and knowledge, then who was she to hold his political views against him?
There wasn’t anything anyone could do about the immobile mobile homes, the trailers on cinder blocks which hadn’t seen an axle or tire since being hauled out to The Wilds and installed in place. But someone had been busy among the first two blocks bracketing the road.
It looked like every drivable or towable RV and goose-neck camper had been pulled in close, filling in gaps between the more permanent structures. Driveways, or the suggestion of driveways like gravel paths and double-rutted dirt lanes, were blocked by Winnebagos and Airstreams, an American Coach bus and a slew of Casita Travel Trailers. Rolls of chain link, purchasable in bulk from any outdoor supply store, were in the process of being unrolled by big men in jeans and T-shirts, while others followed behind, stapling and hammering the fencing to the exteriors of the trailers. A couple of men worked a little ahead of the fencers, driving wooden poles into the earth wherever there wasn’t a convenient trailer to attach anything to.
The curved road leading farther into the trailer town passed between the two large blocks of vehicles. Here, the workers had erected a makeshift gate which spanned the expanse of asphalt. Using large bore poles driven into the ground on either side of the street, they’d bolted a long pasture gate so that it could swing out or in, and could be adhered and locked, preventing passage. To ensure no one could climb over or crawl under it, they’d affixed coils of razor wire at the top and bottom.
After seeing some of the wounds on the dead people, Jasmine wasn’t sure how much of a deterrent barbed wire would be. The dead didn’t seem to feel pain or be slowed down by it. But the sharp prongs would snag clothes as well as skin and might keep them back long enough for a few well-placed shots to take care of them.
There was no shortage of people capable of delivering those shots. In the few moments while they waited for Bert to be recognized and the gate opened, Jasmine saw more than two dozen men and women carrying some sort of firearm. A few were barely old enough to be considered teenagers, and certainly wouldn’t be believed if they showed up at a bar with a fake ID. Not that age mattered when the dead walked, she supposed. Not so long as they could hit what they aimed at.
The gate trundled open and Bert drove through. For a man who gave every indication of being a recluse—or at least a wannabe recluse—everyone seemed to know him. The big man waved to kids and adults alike, who returned the greeting with smiles of genuine pleasure. He might not like people, but they liked him. Jasmine could relate; he had a hard exterior, but not just anyone would have invited them into his store and given them their pick out of a weapons stockpile.
Once past the barricade, Bert drove the Jeep slowly up a gravel path, wide enough for two cars to pass abreast, but just barely. If one of the vehicles was a truck, which seemed to be the preferred mode of transportation for the trailer dwellers, they might need to fold their side mirrors in to avoid having them crack against each other. There were trailer homes to each side of the path, separated by small lots for parking, more gravel paths, and whatever additions the owners could think of to make their small piece of Alabama more homey—tiny flower beds, some with a guardian gnome but most without, occasional wicker furniture sets, small wading pools for the kids, even a Playskool setup with a miniature red slide.
Despite that the day was a gorgeous example of late summer, no children splashed in the pools and no retirees lounged in the patio furniture. Instead, industrious men and women climbed over the trailers, hammering wooden boards over windows too small for anyone to ever climb through, and running chain link around the boxy homes to prevent anyone or anything from getting under the vehicles and possibly battering through the raised floors.
The road reached a four-way crossing, where another gravel lane led off to right and left. Trailers marched in orderly rows in both directions; to the right they only extended a couple hundred feet, ending at the newly raised fencing. Owing to a rise in the land, she couldn’t see how far the trailers extended to the left, but she could make out other lanes running off in various directions, a veritable subdivision of easy targets should a tornado decide to attack.
Bert moved through the first crossing, turned left at the second, then cut a right onto one of the connecting roads, always moving deeper into trailer park.
Can it really be a park if it’s this big? Jasmine wondered. It’s more like a trailer village.
“Where’re we going?” Robbie asked.
“Place like this,” Bert answered over his shoulder, “they’re like a…whatchacallit…a subdivision, you know? So, they got an unofficial leader, sort of an HOA president, if you follow. He’s who organized all the defenses you see. Been sending out people the last day, scouts and rescue parties and such.”
“Rescue parties?” Jasmine asked.
“Yup. Lotta people ‘round here have radios…um…CB stuff. Not just here in The Wilds, but all over town. We’re not the HAM capital or anything, but we get a good showing at the conventions. Anyways, if someone calls for help, well, Ed tries to help.”
“That’s who you’re taking us to,” Robbie said, “this Ed.”
“Yup. Figure he can find something useful for you to do.”
Jasmine looked to Robbie only to find him already looking back, a worried expression on his face. Without asking, she could tell what he’d been thinking. This was a fluke. It would blow over. They should be making plans to get home, check on their families and friends. He hadn’t seen what she had on Facebook and Twitter.
This wasn’t something local or even limited to one state. It was much bigger.
And what they wanted to do probably didn’t matter anymore.
She hoped he could accept that.
They’d walked out of a campground and into a fight for survival.
* * * * *
Kimberly Duchess was a woman out of place who knew her difference better than any other.
She didn’t belong among the flesh and blood soldiers of the National Guard, her rescuers who believed they’d pulled a sole survivor from the chaos of a hospital gone mad.
She was become.
They were not.
It was her job to save them, even if they wouldn’t see it that way.
From inside a small tent, she watched them come and go, men hustling one way across the spacious hospital parking lot, women coming the other. They were almost unisex in their camouflage uniforms, except some wore the sleeves on their shirts rolled up in deference to the late summer heat. Even with colorful tattoos decorating their upper arms, she could tell the difference.
She hadn’t been restrained at first, and she’d resisted the urge to change anyone. The little voice in her head said to play along, try to act like she wasn’t become.
But they’d found somethin
g in their search of the hospital, some recording or electronic report which changed how they approached her. She didn’t fight when they came with handcuffs, even managed a passable imitation of human confusion. Perhaps because of that, they treated her gently.
But they still restrained her.
Now, handcuffed to a chair and shaded from the afternoon sun, she listened as they made plans.
They assumed because she was become that she wasn’t capable of understanding them.
They were wrong.
It was the CT which undid her charade.
Something about the images of her brain excited them and made them wary of her.
They wanted to study her.
Let them.
Kim smiled. The voice was still with her.
Let them take you where they want to. Play along. Eventually you’ll meet someone in charge. Make that person become, and you’ll change the course of our future.
There was an almost magical element in the thought voice at the idea of someone in charge. Someone in charge meant a lot to whoever’s thoughts continued to invade Kim’s mind.
Kim trusted the voice. So, if the voice wanted her to play along and meet this person in charge, Kim would do it.
Even if it meant starving.
The soldiers weren’t mean. They attempted to feed her. But she had no use for their food, not even as a means to fuel her body.
Only blood would do.
It didn’t have to be much. Somehow, she understood her body needed far less sustenance than before she became. One bite would do it. It would also change whomever she bit. A double blessing.
But she doubted such an action would end well for her.
The soldiers weren’t mean. But they regarded her with suspicion bordering on fear. More than one fingered a sidearm when they passed or hefted a rifle just a little higher against a chest.
They weren’t mean. But they wouldn’t hesitate to kill her.
And they knew how to do it.
Being become meant a lot of things. Tougher, more resilient. But not indestructible. Her body still depending upon a functioning brain. Her being depended upon a functioning brain.
