by Russ Watts
“I guess kids don’t have the same hang-ups that we do. They just get on with things.”
Erik approached the door to the clubhouse. It was clearly a back door, probably leading to a kitchen or store-room, but it was as good a place as any to start.
“Erik, before we do this, just let me apologise again. I know I’ve acted like an idiot. It just got to me, what happened back there. I think…” Jonas didn’t explain any further. He didn’t want to, and he hoped Erik wouldn’t push it. “Look, anyway, I couldn’t have gotten this far without you. Seriously, man, I know I owe you.”
Erik patted Jonas on the back. “Forget it, Hamsikker. You just need to concentrate on yourself and Dakota. Talk to her. I can see there’s trouble between you. Whatever it is, sort it out. Family’s more important than anything.”
“I will, but it won’t be easy. She can be so stubborn. She says she needs time to think.”
“I know,” said Erik, “but I also know how forgiving she is, and how much she loves you. I hear her and Pippa talking sometimes, and...well, never mind, just talk to her, okay?”
“What is it?” Jonas could sense Erik was holding something back. “What do you mean you heard her talking? Did she say something to Pippa?”
Erik rested his hand on the door handle and looked down at his feet. “Damn it, Pippa told me not to say anything.”
“Erik Lansky, you’d better tell me what you know.”
Jonas watched as Erik pulled a fresh piece of licorice from his pocket and the big man began chewing on it noisily. He glanced back at the garden, then back to Jonas. “I didn’t tell you this, right?”
Jonas nodded. He feared the worst. Dakota might’ve told Pippa she was leaving him, or maybe she had told them what he had done with Cliff.
Erik rested a big hand on Jonas’s shoulder. “You’re going to be a father, buddy.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Erik grinned. “She hasn’t been able to do a test, but from what I hear, she’s quite certain. Couple of months or so.”
“Wow, I was not expecting that.” Jonas wondered if that was why she had taken it so badly about what he had done to Cliff. Dakota didn’t need a bully right now, or a psycho intent on killing and running headlong into danger. She needed a man, someone to help her. Damn, could she really be pregnant?
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. You all right, Hamsikker?”
Jonas couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I mean, well, yeah. Shit, I’m just...wow. I’ve spent my entire life running away, absolving myself for all the shit that’s happened, but I’m not running anymore. I’m going to talk to Dakota as soon as we’re finished up here. I’ve got a lot of stuff to make up for.” There was a part of him that knew he could never make up for what he’d done, or not done, in the past, but he was sure as hell going to try. That meant Janey too. If Dakota would just come with him to Canada, Janey could help with the baby. Jonas knew absolutely nothing about raising kids, but his sister had three. It was all starting to fit together.
“Look,” said Erik, “we don’t have to do this now, we can…”
“No,” said Jonas. “I’m good. Let’s get inside and get this place sorted out. Maybe then we can find some decent food, and you can get rid of those disgusting licorice rolls. I gotta tell you, they do nothing for your breath.”
“Thanks. You’re pretty ripe yourself, Hamsikker.” Erik pulled on the door handle, and it clicked open. “Ready?”
Jonas raised his axe and gave Erik the nod. As the door opened, Jonas half expected a horde of zombies to rush him. Instead, he was greeted by a blast of cool, fresh air. The room inside was dark, and there were no zombies. There was however, a figure stood in the doorway with a gun pointed right at Jonas’s head.
“Step back, both of you.”
Jonas froze. They had been too blasé about the place being empty. Of course it wasn’t. Somewhere as sweet as this was not just going to fall into their lap. It seemed like for every step forward they took, they were forced to go two steps back. With the gun trained on his head, Jonas thought immediately of Dakota. He couldn’t go like this. He had unfinished business. As the man kept the gun trained on him, he thought that he was unlikely to see Dakota again. He was used to facing death, but it would be so stupid to die now, right when they had nearly made it. He still had to tell Dakota how he felt. He still had to find Janey. He had to look after his child now; there was so much left to do, that he really didn’t want to die today. Jonas contemplated rushing the man. He could probably knock him down, although undoubtedly the man would get a shot off first. Still, it would give Erik time to overpower the stranger. Should he do it, and give Erik a chance to warn the others?
“Step back, or I shoot first and ask questions later,” said the man calmly.
“Okay, okay,” said Erik. He stepped back from the doorway, pulling Jonas back with him.
Jonas knew that Erik had faced armed attackers before, and knew how to deal with them. He would see how it played out. But if things looked like they were turning sour, Jonas had already decided that he was going to take the man on, no matter the consequences. He wasn’t about to let someone else harm Dakota, especially not now.
“You play ball with me, and you’ll find I’m all sweetness and light. Understand?”
The door swung open fully, and the man on the other side stepped through into the sunlight. As the man stepped forward, Jonas got a clearer view of who they were dealing with. The man was dressed in a security guard’s uniform that was slightly too big for him. Jonas could see his eyes sweeping around the grounds, taking in the others who were resting on the lawn.
“Look, we don’t want any trouble, we just need some help,” said Erik. “Can we come in, just for a few minutes, please, just let us rest and…”
“You got any guns?” asked the man.
“We don’t have anything,” Erik said quickly. “Just a lot of bruises.”
“Is that so?”
“Please,” said Jonas sensing the man wasn’t buying it, “we have children with us.”
“So I see. I also see what looks like a couple of guns out there. An old lady is cleaning them if I’m not mistaken.”
“I’m sorry,” said Erik quietly. “I just thought…”
The man shook his head. “We don’t get along with liars. My wife and I take care of this place, and we don’t need a group of murderers and thugs wrecking it.”
“No, no, you don’t understand,” pleaded Jonas. “We’ve been looking for somewhere safe, that’s all. You can take the guns. Take it all. Just please, we need to stay, even if it’s just tonight, and then we’ll be on our way. You can lock us in a room if it makes you feel better, just please, give us a chance.”
The man’s brown eyes flitted from Jonas to Erik and back again. “We had some trouble a couple of days ago with some drifters: a couple who claimed to find this place by chance. A man and a woman showed up right out of the blue, claiming this and that. Said they were from Louisville, but that was a pack of horseshit. Turned out they were nothing but common criminals, out for trouble. Tried to kill me, and my wife.”
“But they’re not here now, right?” asked Erik.
“No sir, I dealt with them. Wasn’t easy, but they won’t be bothering us anymore. Buried ‘em both out front, by the old swing. Now it’s just Mara and me, and we don’t intend to make the same mistake again. I don’t want any more trouble, so you folks had better be on the level. Look, I’m sorry, but I think it’s best you leave.”
“What’s going on, honey?”
Jonas saw a woman appear in the doorway. She held a gun too, but it was low by her side. She was apprehensive, but her posture was not threatening, and Jonas sensed that perhaps she was more open to helping strangers than her husband.
“Mara, get on inside, I’ve got this,” said the man, obviously annoyed at being interrupted. “I was just telling these folk that they need to move on.”
Hidden in the shadows of
the room, Jonas couldn’t see the woman, but he heard her tutting. “Oh come on now, they look harmless enough. Isn’t that a child out there in the vegetable patch? We can help them out, for tonight at least, can’t we, honey? Put your gun down, and stop being such an ass.”
The man sighed, and Jonas could sense his annoyance. They were at the tipping point now. Either the man was going to shoot them, or give in to his wife and let them stay.
“Fine, fine,” said the man lowering his gun, “but you’re to give me all your weapons, and you’ll do exactly what I say while you’re here, understood?”
Erik and Jonas nodded. “Thank you. You won’t regret it,” said Erik.
The man tucked his gun into his belt. “Well, you’d better come on in. Try anything though, and I’ll kick you out. You play ball with me, and you’ll find I’m sweetness and light.” He pulled the cap from his head and held out a hand.
Jonas took it and shook the hand firmly. “Thank you for this. I’m Jonas, and this is Erik.”
“Gabriel,” said Javier smiling. He looked back at Rose in the doorway wearing Mara’s apron, standing there proudly as if she knew how to cook anything but burnt toast. “But you can call me Gabe.”
THE END
Read on for a free sample of Convoy 19: A Zombie Novel
Author’s Note
If you have enjoyed reading ‘Hamsikker,’ look out for the second instalment.
Jeffersontown is real enough, but it’s fair to say I took liberties with the geography of the town, and Kentucky deserves a nod for being such a fantastic setting for a horror novel.
As always, I thank my publisher Severed Press for their continued support. You can check them out at www.severedpress.com. Please consider leaving a review, and visit my website www.russwatts.co, or look at my other titles:
The Afflicted
The Grave
Devouring the Dead
Devouring the Dead 2: Nemesis
The Ocean King
Hamsikker
Prologue
How did we get here?
That is a simple question with too many answers. I’ve been staring at it on my computer monitor for hours, wondering where to begin. My house is very quiet without Melissa and Ruben. It’s difficult to stay focused, and I haven’t slept in days.
It’s a blessing that television and radio have stopped broadcasting. The day-to-day carnage and slaughter that had been dumped into everyone’s houses for months was bad enough, and those horrifying images bear no small level of responsibility for the panic and paranoia that pushed us over the edge. But the talking heads: the pontificating blowhards, raging wall-bangers, and self-righteous assholes that drowned out anyone with a real solution in the pursuit of ratings… that was just too much.
That’s probably not a good place to start. The failure of media to inform the public is a piece of the puzzle, but it isn’t the biggest piece. Their biased finger pointing and brinkmanship helped to drive the political climate, but our leaders still had the ability to make the right choices. Only they didn’t.
How did we get here? This is a country with enough guns to arm every man, woman, and child. The United States military budget is larger than every other country combined. How is it that the dead not only rose from the grave to attack the living, but we also failed to manage that horror to the point that it got the better of us? This is a country that survived small pox, cholera, World War Two…how the living hell did we get here?
The dead rose from the grave to attack the living…that’s the first time I’ve written those words. You’d think that the Secretary of Health and Human Services to the President of the United States of America would have a clear and honest grasp of this crisis, but my staff and I, went to astounding lengths to obfuscate it behind politically correct jargon that had been thoroughly watered down and sanitized for public consumption. “Dissociative Psychotic Fugue”, “Antisocial Analgesia”, “Neurotic Cannibalistic Syndrome”, “Infectious Cotard Disorder.” These are just a few of the ridiculous euphemisms that served no purpose beyond lying to ourselves about what was really happening.
Of course, even we didn’t understand that we were dealing with the living dead initially. Now, months into this disaster, it’s pretty damn clear to everyone. Yet, this is the first time I’ve directly addressed it. Reminds me of what a bunch of dumb cattle we (not just myself, but everyone else who’s supposed to be in charge) really are.
Maybe that’s a good place to start: government. The government failed in so many ways that it’s absurd. I could write a book about it, and it would be equal parts tragedy and comedy.
Let’s start with me. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the University of Texas. What the hell am I doing as Secretary of Health and Human Services? I’ll tell you – I rubbed elbows with a lot of people in the administration’s campaign. I don’t have any real skeletons in my closet and I was rewarded. Jobs were rewarded not for skill or merit, but for political cronyism. Of the ten HHS districts, not one of my directors is a medical doctor, psychologist, or sociologist. They are business people and lawyers. They are men and women who knew the right people and could navigate their way around an office, but when it came to solving real health epidemics or addressing social issues, they may as well have been walking corpses themselves. I never realized there was anything wrong with that…until now. That was simply how the world was run. Brilliant guys like Dr. Henry Damico who had the talent but no connections…they had mid-level desk jobs writing reports to dumb-asses like me…who couldn’t even understand them with a translator.
So, when shit got real, and it was time for HHS to mobilize…there wasn’t any leadership. I take responsibility for that. If you were building a bonfire to burn down the world, a lot of those logs would have my name on them.
I’d be in good company, though. I honestly watched the Secretary of State once ask for demographics on the infected, so that he could determine whether Republicans or Democrats were being hit disproportionately in order to prioritize relief. He literally wanted what few semi-competent staff members he had on hand to stop what they were doing so he could--in essence--allow opposing voters to die while giving aid to supporters. I’ll never forget the President’s response: “That’s a really good idea. That’s a really goddamn good idea.”
About a month ago, I watched a frustrated General try to explain to the Secretary of Defense that the living dead could only be killed by destroying their brain. We were months into this shit-storm and the guy who was managing our rapidly diminishing military resources didn’t even understand how to kill the enemy. The last time I saw him, he was running to his car. When I asked his personal aide what was going on, she said that the marine platoon he had delegated to guard his family’s neighborhood had gone AWOL.
When refugees started flooding in from every corner of the globe under the false assumption that America would manage the crisis better than their home nations, Homeland Security was still looking for terrorists. Plane-loads of Asian and European infected were just pouring into our airports, but as long as they weren’t on the terror list…they were welcomed in with open arms. Months into the shit, when the President finally asked if it would be a good idea to screen air travelers, the Director of Homeland Security hadn’t even thought about how to do it. By the time screenings started, commercial flights had long since been grounded.
It wasn’t just the executive branch that was laden with incompetence. The House and The Senate were just as pitiful. Congress never saw a crisis it didn’t try to exploit, and the zombie apocalypse was no exception. If the parties weren’t already entrenched and oppositional, they were ten-fold now.
“Need emergency funding for relief to metropolitan Chicago? Fuck you, we have to stop the spending somewhere!”
“Cut my irrelevant ear-mark in a bill that gives the military authority to set up refugee centers in American cities? Fuck you! What do I get out of it?”
“This bill makes sense,
but makes the opposing party look good…fuck you. I’ll make up some reason to vote it down.”
Some congressmen courted their base by toeing the line that the entire issue was a religious one. The rapture crowd was a vocal minority, but man, were they vocal. There was news footage of some representatives actually claiming that flesh-eating undead monsters had human rights, and actually floated federal bills that made it illegal to kill them. There were state and local governments that didn’t just put forth bills like that, but actually passed them.
There was no end to the insanity. In the beginning, before we really understood the epidemic, there were some extremists within government that wanted to quarantine every town in the nation, and go door to door looking for infected, shooting them on sight. Draconian policies like this smacked of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and the backlash from the American public was so extreme that the CDC saw incident reporting drop like a stone. Conversely, CDC field agent casualties – a term that I had never before even seen in a report – skyrocketed. The last thing you should tell an American citizen, is that the government is going to come to their home and kill someone they love. We knew the epidemic was spreading, but now, thanks to a couple of career politicians who wanted to look like John Wayne to their constituency, the CDC was blinded and their people were being killed.
When things started getting really bad, representatives went to their home districts so they could put their own face to their voters’ salvation. This is when things got much worse. Every senator and congressmen wanted to be the man or woman who saved The Empire State Building, the Lincoln Memorial, the public library, or some little old lady’s house. Hundreds of established and defensible military perimeters were moved and thinned, quickly became indefensible, and then failed. Hard choices had been made by the few capable people left in leadership. Sadly, those choices were immediately and directly undermined by politicians who didn’t just lack an understanding of the situation, but had a rooted self-interest in exploiting it however they could. These so-called leaders had spent so much time in Washington that they didn’t even know how to stop campaigning when their very survival depended on it. People were dying by the thousands and rising from the grave, and the people with the power to make a difference were worried about their next election. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you’re a high-powered senator or a public school janitor. Your brains taste the same to the zombies. Way too many Americans and far too few politicians found that fact out the hard way.
