The Dead Collection Vol. 1
Dead Haven - Dead Hope - Dead Nation - Dead Coast
Flint Maxwell
Copyright © 2017 by Flint Maxwell
Cover Design © 2019 by Carmen Rodriguez
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions email: [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work.
Contents
Free Story
Dead Haven
Dead Hope
Dead Nation
Dead Coast
Read On
About the Author
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For the wonderful women who raised me, and taught me what it meant to be a man
Dead Haven
Jack Zombie #1
“Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.”
David Bowie
One
I’m in a run-down, mom and pop grocery store two days after my mother died. We’re supposed to bury her tomorrow, and by We I mean Me. I need flowers to put on her casket, and the only place in Woodhaven that has them at a reasonable price is this place called Everson’s Grocery.
The burial is at 9:00 a.m. If everything goes the way it usually does for me, I’ll drink until I pass out, wake up hung-over at 8:50 a.m., clip on a tie, brush my teeth, and put the old woman in the ground with just minutes to spare. So yeah, there won’t be time for flowers tomorrow. Besides, I don’t want to linger in this town longer than I have to.
We didn’t talk much, Mother and I — she always liked my older brother Norm better; God knows why. The rare occasions we did talk, I told her to give up those smokes. Every time. Two packs a day’ll kill you.
No, she didn’t die from lung cancer like I thought she would. She died in a car accident on her way to this very grocery store to, you guessed it, buy a pack of Marlboros.
Go figure.
Deer in the road, Sheriff Doaks said on the phone two days ago. Funniest thing I’d ever seen. Already dead, but not from a car. Something ate it, the deer. A bear, maybe. Thing is, we don’t get bears around here…ever. Oh well, sorry about your mother, Jack. She was a…pleasant woman.
A pleasant woman who suffered an unpleasant death. She’s gone and I’m still here. I was going to call her in a couple weeks on her birthday. I was going to apologize for being a shitty son, make amends. Now she’s dead.
Life is cruel that way, I guess, and it only seems to get worse because whatever was eating the deer found my mom’s totaled car and thought she must’ve looked tastier. It’s safe to say we’ll be having a closed casket memorial service.
The bright white lights of Everson’s Grocery almost blind me. I pass the front counter where the cartons of cigarettes and rolls of scratch-offs sit on display like diamonds for the white trash who shop here, keeping my head and eyes straight in front. Laser focus. One goal in mind. Roses, red roses. In and out. No small talk, no fake condolences. Nothing.
I see the blonde behind the glass out of the corner of my eye as she gives me the look, the look they give outsiders in Woodhaven — home of the Woodchucks.
“Jack?” she says. “Jack Jupiter, is that you?”
I ignore her, keep walking. If I stop, I’m afraid of who will be the owner of that voice. She might be Darla Sterling, the bleach-blonde, head cheerleader who turned me down for the Homecoming Dance freshman year by way of composing an elaborate, new fight song that consisted of “F-U-C-K Y-O-U, J-A-C-K!” and “Hell no, I won’t go!” Clever, I know. Or she might be Britney George who once spread a rumor of me eating out of garbage cans when I was a junior, a rumor that caught like wildfire. Maybe Rochelle Fenway, my personal favorite, whom I vomited on at a bonfire senior year. Two plates of spaghetti and meatballs plus vodka are never a winning combination. I was pulling out whole noodles from my mouth like a clown pulls out those colorful handkerchiefs.
It was never-ending, man.
See, there are too many risks coming back to the place where you grew up, especially a small town where everyone knows everything about each other. What you had for dinner. Who gave you your first handy in the back seat of your mother’s minivan. When you have your morning bowel movement. Who’s cheating on each other.
I knew coming in here would be like walking through a minefield while blindfolded. Small towns have their own gravitational pull about them. It’s charming. It’s safe. It’s warm. People can leave, go off to college, maybe work a big-city job, but they always come back. Ten years after high school, and I didn’t. That’s pretty good, a new Woodhaven record, perhaps. Two states separate me from this godforsaken place, and sometimes I don’t even think that's enough.
I smell fresh roast beef as I silently curse my mom for dying. I’m not sad, not as sad as I should be, I suppose. Maybe it’ll hit me later when I’m half a bottle in and reruns of The Golden Girls play on the fuzzy television the Woodhaven Motel has in room 111. That was her favorite show. I don’t know why I remember this or why it comes to me now. I think if it happens, I’ll just click off the TV. Problem solved.
But I probably won’t.
The butcher with his blood-stained apron and scraggly beard — likely in violation of some or all health codes — gives me the same look as the blonde. I’m not quick enough to play it cool, so I nod my head. His lips part, my name already on the tip of his tongue, and I duck into the candy aisle. Chocolate wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling.
Friggin minefield, I tell you.
And it just gets worse.
The man standing in the aisle beyond the chocolate about twenty feet away from me is Freddy Huber. Former star quarterback of the fierce Woodchucks. Same graduating class as me. My mortal enemy, even if he doesn’t know it. I don’t know how many wedgies I took from this guy, how many Gameboys he knocked out of my hand in elementary school, how much milk he poured on my head or pudding down my back. Too much to count. Then in high school it got worse. Broken noses. Sucker punches. Spitballs in the back of the head in Mr. Berry’s Algebra II class. A constant barrage of gay jokes. Mother jokes, runaway dad jokes — these always hurt worse than his fists. I hate him and myself at the same time.
Because seeing this guy makes me shudder. I’m sweating despite the frozen food being on the other side of the chocolate shelves. He’s got a couple bottles of cold medicine in hand. DayQuil and NyQuil in the throes of a scorching Ohio summer, but I’m not surprised. It seems like everyone is sneezing, coughing, and shuffling around like they’re on the cusp of death since I’ve gotten here. Flu season has come early.
I back away toward the smell of roast beef, clenching my ass as phantom hands pull at my underwear, threatening another atomic wedgie.
“Jack?” Freddy says.
Fuck. Too late.
I could run, but running only makes it worse. I know from experience…a lot of experience.
In three quick strides he’s on me, a large mitt smacking my shoulder hard. “Holy shit! It is you! I thought you died or something. Rumor around town w
as you killed yourself. Man, I felt so bad. All those years of torment, my ex-wife said I probably had a hand in it.” He snorts, very mucus-y. “But she’s a bitch.” He’s smiling as he says all of this as if me dying is the joke of the century.
“Nope, still here,” I say, and sometimes I think that’s both a blessing and a curse. Many vodka bottles have been drained in an attempt to forget all about Freddy Huber’s torment.
Freddy hasn’t lost his quarterback stature. Broad shoulders. Strong jaw. Thick arms. Six feet tall. But now he has a beer belly, and the full head of blonde hair is thinning as we speak. I think about what he’ll look like in another ten years and I start to smile.
“Well, that’s good, man. Really good.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“What you doin’ nowadays? Figured you’d be like a math magician or something,” Freddy says.
“I…work from home.”
“Yeah, doin’ what?”
“I’m a writer.”
Laughter erupts from Freddy, drowning out the slow jazz playing over the loudspeakers. He drops his hand basket. The purple bottle of NyQuil rolls a few feet away.
“A writer? Like for the newspaper?”
“Books, mostly. Short stories here and there. Hardly any money in those.”
When I start talking about writing, it’s hard to stop. Even to this big buffoon.
“So you must be rich as hell, huh?”
I shrug. No, not rich at all.
“What’d you clear last year? Couple million?” He smiles, but his eyes have lost all sense of geniality.
“I don’t know…around seventy-five.”
“Whoo, boy! Seventy-five thousand just from sitting on your ass and makin’ shit up?” I notice his smile disappears. His face darkens like we’re back in the boy’s locker room after gym class, just me and him and a wet towel. “Know what I made last year?” he asks, then turns his head to cough. The lights overhead hit his skin at just the right angle and I begin to realize how sick this guy is. Pasty. Yellow. Sweaty.
I shake my head. I don’t know what he made last year, but I could probably guess. He hasn’t left town so he has to work at the mill on Lite Street or at the government testing facility just outside the city lines. Since Freddy had me do his homework for a large portion of high school, I think it’s safe to say this asshole isn’t working a government job. Hell, he might still be delivering pizzas.
“I made twenty-five breaking my back at the fuckin steel mill.” He jabs a finger at me. Vaguely, behind him, I see a few people watching our friendly, little exchange. “Can you believe that shit? I work sixty hours a week, sweating my balls off, and Jack Jupiter is sitting in an air conditioned office, letting all his dumbass ideas come to life on a computer screen, making more than me. What a crock.” He tries to raise his voice but can’t. All that comes out is a sputtering wheeze, like a dying engine.
“Well, I probably shouldn’t say I’m on track to make double that this year.” I speak with a smile on my face. It feels good to watch his features melt into something akin to a rage soup.
But the fist that comes whistling through the air doesn’t. It clobbers me at what seems like a million miles per hour. I feel something crack. My vision fuzzes like a TV that lost its signal. For a moment, the punch knocks me back to the halls of Woodhaven High ten years ago, hearing the laughter of all Freddy’s football goons and tasting my own blood.
Two
Freddy hasn’t lost any of his strength despite whatever bug he has. I’m never that lucky.
My head spins, eye already swelling shut.
He yells something at me, but I can’t understand it. My ears are ringing. Other people in the store must’ve gathered around because I hear them clamoring. A sea of incoherent babbles.
I push myself up, feeling a drop of blood — or maybe a tear — rolling down my cheek. My hand comes up to feel the spot that got rocked, and I wince.
“ — see if you can write a fuckin book with broken fingers,” Freddy shouts.
I’m dimly aware of him advancing on me. He’s exactly the type of guy who’ll kick you while you’re down — old habits die hard, I guess — so I try to pull myself up, using the shelf of cold medicines and cough drops as hand rungs. It’s not as successful as I need it to be.
Freddy grabs me, pulls all one-hundred and fifty pounds of my body weight off the floor as if I weigh less than half of that.
“Stop it!” I hear someone shout. “Freddy Huber, you get the hell outta of my store or I’m callin the sheriff.”
Then I hear a loud click-click.
Freddy turns his head around, giving me a chance to retaliate, but I can’t. I don’t even think I could stand on my own two feet without help, let alone swing a fist. Doesn’t matter anyway because Freddy drops me.
He puts his hands to his mouth as he stifles a cough, then they go above his head. “Mr. Everson, always a pleasure,” he says through a thick veil of mucus.
“Cut it, Huber,” Mr. Everson says.
I can’t see the man, but I think: Everson’s still alive? The Everson as in Everson’s Grocery? God, he must be ninety-years-old by now.
“Hey, I’m a paying customer.”
“Not no more, Huber. Get the hell outta here. We don’t need this type of crap.”
“But Jupiter started it.”
“Somehow, I highly doubt that. Get out of the store. Next time you want groceries or booze, you can go to Northington. Make a scene there, let them deal with you.”
Freddy slowly backs up, his hands still raised. I shuffle out of his way, my eye almost swollen shut, head still thrumming with fear and a little bit of rage.
“All right, all right, Mr. Everson.” Then he looks down at me with a grin, “This ain’t over, Shakespeare.”
“Out…now!” Everson says.
I realize the old man holds a shotgun and he points it higher, aiming at Freddy’s head. I know Everson won’t shoot, but if he does, I’m in the blast radius.
Thankfully, Freddy shuffles out, laughing and saying, “Wait’ll my dad hears about this!” He points at me. “Next time I see you, Jupiter, I’m gonna eat you alive!”
“Not if I gouge out your eyes, you sorry asshole!” I make a move, but Everson blocks me, still on my hands and knees. To the spectators, it’s probably pathetic, but I like to think it’s valiant. Heroic, maybe.
“Not worth it. Let him go,” Everson says.
I know he’s right, but I’m done getting bullied. It’s not why I came back to this shithole town.
The bells over the front door jingle, signaling his departure — and believe me, you can hear it all the way from the front of the store, it’s that quiet in here. Mr. Everson hands a young bag-boy his weapon and walks over to where I try to pull myself up.
“You good, son?”
“Yeah,” I say.
My one good eye is open as wide as it can be. Everson sees it and smiles.
“Don’t worry, it ain’t loaded. All for show. Ninnies like Huber always fall for the empty shotgun.” Then he pauses and extends a gnarled hand out to help me up. “Listen, you can come in the back and we’ll get that blood cleaned up. Sheriff’s on his way, too, in case you wanna file a report.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m good. Just needed to get some roses.”
“No, no, that’s a nasty cut, son. Needs some peroxide on it. You don’t have to file a report but at least let me fix you up.” Then after a moment’s hesitation, he says, “Say, don’t I know you?”
I rub at the gash under my eye. It’s slick with blood now.
“Yeah, yeah, I know you,” Everson says. “You’re that kid who wound up writing those scary books. I read the one about those monsters in that small, mountain town and the one with them flesh-eating zombies. Boy, I love a good zombie story.”
I nod, smiling. Everson is the last reader I’d expect to have, and probably the only person who loved the zombie book. Not my finest hour, I’ll admit.
&
nbsp; “Ain’t your momma Nadine?”
I nod.
“Rest her soul. Terrible thing that happened to her.” He turns, shaking his head and motioning to me. “Come on back, son.”
Everyone watches us, their eyes lighting up with realization. Yeah, I’m that kid who was utterly forgettable in high school, who got out and made something of himself. To them, I’m like a God. I don’t have stress wrinkles from barely making rent each month. My back isn’t stooped from manual labor. I don’t have the same pair of shoes on that I had on ten years ago. I’m clean, sober, and dare I say…happy?
It’s a sad realization for us both, I’m sure.
And I can’t say no to Everson. So I nod and he puts his arm through mine as if to look like he’s helping me, but he’s so old that I wind up helping him.
Three
The break room isn’t much, and though the store part has recently been renovated to look like it just entered the mid-nineties, the back looks more like the seventies. The floor is checkered black and white, but the white is more of a dingy color, like an old cheese, maybe even a corpse. There’s a microwave on the counter with dried remnants of a nuked burrito leaking from between the closed door. I know it’s a burrito because I smell the beans and cheese. The clock on the wall is shaped like a feline and each time a second goes by the cat’s tail swishes back and forth. I think the eyes are supposed to move, too, but they don’t. Instead, they stare emptily into the far corner of the break room.
“Have a seat,” Everson says. He goes to a cabinet and sorts through old boxes of instant coffee. Behind a Folgers container, he pulls free a black bottle of peroxide. I don’t know why he keeps the peroxide with the coffee, but I don’t get a lot of things in Woodhaven and I lived there for eighteen years. Besides, peroxide is needed, if not for the cuts then for the germs of whatever bug Freddy’s carrying. I really don’t feel like getting my ass kicked and catching the flu.
The Dead Collection Box Set #1: Jack Zombie Books 1-4 Page 1
