Rabid Heart

by Jeremy Wagner

  “You did good.” Rhonda smiled at Brad. Cujo or not, he had prevailed and that piece of shit Roy was in Hell. She didn’t know what she’d do if it had gone the other way.

  “Gotta get you cleaned up quick. Kids are gonna be comin’.”

  Brad didn’t reply. He sat and waited for her to do her thing.

  Rhonda groaned and worked Brad’s bloody shirt off of him. She turned it inside-out and using the back of the shirt and her own spit, she wiped Brad’s face and hands clean, as best she could.

  When she had finished, Rhonda tossed the shirt and bloody whiskers to the wind. She shut Brad’s door and leaned against it as hard pain owned her leg.

  Time to get the kids and pile everyone in and hit the road for Florida. A vacation. Stick to the original gameplan. She felt an urge to laugh but fatigue and pain kicked and killed the impulse. Somewhere in her mind she heard her father’s voice asking her what the hell she was doing.

  “I don’t know, Dad.” Rhonda’s words traveled into night and dropped on I-95 where Colonel Driscoll wouldn’t hear them.

  Rhonda called over to the kids. “C’mon, guys. Roy’s dead and we gotta get out of here.” She felt a greater determination to get to Florida, into warmer weather. Maybe she’d take them all and live on an island. She caught herself on this thought.

  I’ve gone cuckoo. Thinking I got me a ready-made family.

  “What happened to that bad man? Roy?” Tyler‘s tired voice was fearful.

  Rhonda thought about the faceless lump lying next to the Humvee. “He’s dead, I said.”

  “You mean dead? By-bye forever?” Tyler’s voice sounded hopeful.

  “Yes, Ty.”

  “Good.” Tyler looked at Rhonda in darkness. “Where we goin’?”

  “Florida. Where it’s way warm and sunny.” Rhonda crossed her arms and massaged them. The night and the things in it chilled her flesh. Her eyes followed the exit ramp’s grade and she looked below. Fire ate it all and shat everything to embers. She watched, transfixed and fantasized. Wouldn’t it be nice to be down there? To warm herself next to the blaze? Huge flames danced and invited her in. Maybe she and Brad and both kids could go down there and rest...

  ... while the world turned to cinders.

  Shapes of the curious walking dead emerged from dark of night and moved before bright fires below, snapping Rhonda back to reality. They needed to move.

  Pronto.

  “Can you carry me to Florida?” Ellen tugged at Rhonda’s hand.

  Rhonda smiled and put a gentle hand to Ellen’s sweet and soiled face. “Sweetie, I can’t carry you to Florida. I can’t even carry you to our new ride on account of my leg.” She moaned as she put weight from her cane on to her bad leg by accident. “We’re gonna just get in my car here. Then we’ll take off.”

  Ellen sniffled. Her voice carried an exhausted child’s tone. “I’m tired. Tired of everything.”

  “I know, sweetie.” Rhonda put her left arm around Ellen’s shoulder and rubbed her. “We all need a good sleep. I promise, when we get to my wheels, you can both sleep and by tomorrow, we’ll be in a better place. We’ll find breakfast and get cleaned up.”

  “Can I have Skittles for breakfast?” Ellen looked at Rhonda hopefully. “Mom and Dad wouldn’t mind.”

  “Yeah, and I can eat cookies.” Tyler waved bags of junk food.

  Thoughts of Tyler and Ellen left behind and orphaned on this planet terror broke her heart. Rhonda’s breath quavered. “You guys can have whatever the fuck... I mean, whatever the heck you want.”

  When had they last eaten anything decent? What had they been forced to eat? She made a mental note to ask them about it sometime.

  Tyler and Ellen blurted out excited cries. Rhonda suddenly feared their squeals might draw attention from the fire-mesmerized undead below.

  Oh, shit.

  Her fears were validated when dozens of Cujos looked away from the giant blaze and turned curiously toward them. Rhonda didn’t like this one bit.

  Slowly, a cluster of Cujos moved away from the fiery display below and began making their way toward the exit ramp. Rhonda watched their backlit numbers move on the nighttime incline, and she heard them, louder with each step, closer and closer. They sounded like steam pipes.

  On a normal day, she’d take on gangs of Cujos with her M4, or just her .45 and her Ka-Bar knife. But nothing about this shitty day and night was normal. She’d been abducted and stabbed with a dirty knife. She felt sick and weak. Her knife, and M4 with six 30-round magazines waited in her Humvee and she had Tyler and Ellen to protect.

  Rhonda turned to both kids. “Move your little asses into the car. Now. We got company.”

  Tyler and Ellen looked at Rhonda. Their twilight features changed from quizzical to terror-stricken when they followed her gaze to the scores of nightmares coming toward them.

  The kids shrieked, hustling to the Humvee, where Rhonda ushered the siblings into the front passenger seat and buckled them in together. She made her bad leg cooperate and hurried to her driver’s door. She tossed her cane in between the front seats and climbed in.

  Rhonda fumbled for the keys and got the car started. In the headlights, Roy’s reanimated corpse stood and Rhonda and the kids screamed at the same time. Roy’s egg-colored eyes met Rhonda’s. He hissed from a hole where his face had been.

  “Nothing stays dead for long.” Rhonda revved the gas and her leg screamed. How would she accelerate and brake without full use of her right leg? Fuck it, she’d deal with it.

  Behind Roy, the first few Cujos crossed in front of her beams, leading an undead throng onto the highway. Rhonda shifted into drive as the rotten group followed, materializing from the darkness like specters. Every tattered horror made straight for them. No doubt her Humvee’s bright headlights attracted them like mosquitoes to a bug-zapper.

  “Go, go, go! They’re so close! So yucky!” Ellen pogoed with frantic energy and hit her brother while she stared with giant eyes through the shattered windshield.

  “Owww! Ellie! Quit hittin’ me.” Tyler grabbed Ellen’s small arm and turned to Rhonda. “Get us outta here, please!”

  “I’m on it.” Rhonda stomped the gas pedal and swallowed a huge bolt for her effort. “Sit back!”

  The siblings pushed into their shared seat while Rhonda rolled over zombie-Roy and one Cujo after another. The animated carrion made it easy; they moved into Rhonda’s lane and came at her head-on. Undead, rotten, and rabid, every Cujo she struck added mangled to their character flaws as three-tons plus of unstoppable US armor crushed them.

  They finally reached a clear and open southbound highway ahead. “Ewwww! That was gross.” Ellen sat forward and peered around her brother. She smiled at Rhonda in the cab’s dim light. “Gross, but it was good what you did.”

  “Yeah, that was cool.” Tyler spoke with new enthusiasm. “Kinda like Grand Theft Auto meets Left 4 Dead.”

  Rhonda half-smiled. Her pain combined with a new, jacked-up rush as they fled. But her rush didn’t last long and weariness set in after a few miles. How much longer could she drive like this? Maybe 30 minutes? Tops?

  “Rrrrnnndaahh.”

  Rhonda heard Brad’s voice in darkness behind her. Uh, oh. She grimaced. Damn it, she’d forgotten about that problem.

  “What was that?” Tyler bolted upward. He tried frantically to turn around but his seatbelt restrained him.

  “Yeah. What?” Ellen looked uneasy.

  Rhonda sighed and glanced at them. “That, my dears, is my fiancé. His name’s Brad. You can meet him tomorrow. He’s tired.”

  “Hi Brad.” Ellen reclined and closed her eyes. “I’m tired, too.”

  Tyler also relaxed and put his arms around his little sister. He yawned. “Fiancé? Cool.”

  In minutes, Tyler and Ellen fell fast asleep in their seat while Rhonda drove south with great care.

  Rhonda looked in her rearview mirror. Brad’s static silhouette sat in darkness behind her. She drove and wondered what
was at work here. Fate? She certainly knew that if she hadn’t found Brad and fled Camp Deadnut, then she would’ve never found these poor kids. The things she did for love, the thing she knew she’d done out of her crazy impulses, had brought her to this place and time.

  He’s cool to the touch but he’s hot. He’s kinda dead and he’s all mine.

  Rhonda laughed at herself then grimaced as her leg pulsated with pain. She glanced around at the kids and Brad, and in the dim light, she frowned at her bad leg oozing more blood through her bandages.

  Fear seized her. She shook her head, knowing she wasn’t fooling herself. She got herself into one bad fuckup after another in just a short time out here, jeopardizing her grand plans and her life. And with two kids and a Cujo she loved all under her watch, keeping her neck intact was more paramount than ever.

  Rhonda knew her neck could get cut tomorrow—from ear to ear. Anything good or bad was possible out in these feral lands, and the way she looked at it, odds were that the bad was going to keep on coming her way.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Several miles down the road, and with her gas tank nearly empty, Rhonda thanked the god of fuel stops when she encountered an on/off exit with a mom-and-pop gas station.

  Tyler and Ellen weren’t wearing suitable attire for fall weather. Poor kids. They had woken a few times and complained about how cold they were. October’s frigid night air blew into a Humvee open to the elements. Rhonda hoped she’d find jackets or maybe sweaters at another store somewhere along their route. At this little gas station, she didn’t find jackets or sweaters. She did, however, find some dirty moving blankets. She covered Tyler and Ellen and left the kids to sleep.

  The station only had two disused gas pumps and they sat dead and dry as tombstones. Just as Rhonda was beginning to despair, she located a 55 gallon drum of gas behind the station, fitted with a hand pump-lid. She located a gas can and filled the Humvee’s tank in several painful, leg-tearing trips. She strapped a full can of gas in the rear cargo area.

  Exhausted, she sat in the driver’s seat for a moment while her leg throbbed. Finally, after some time, she forced herself to drive again.

  Onward to Florida.

  Rhonda lasted another 45 minutes before she had to stop. The smashed windshield was affecting her vision and speed. Her eyelids threatened to shut every quarter mile.

  A Coca-Cola billboard erected in a field off to her right caught Rhonda’s attention. She slowed and steered through a ditch and through tall and withered field grass. She pulled behind the billboard and parked in a patch of tall weeds. It looked good enough to conceal their vehicle. Confident, she killed the lights and engine and fell asleep within seconds.

  * * *

  “Zombieeeee! Rhonda, wake up!”

  Rhonda heard the voice through deep slumber.

  “Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!”

  Little hands shook Rhonda’s shoulder. She woke and jumped in her seat. Her knees smacked hard into the steering wheel and fresh pain jolted her wounded right leg. “Fuck! What? What is it?”

  Tyler and Ellen huddled together, unbuckled, and stared with wide eyes between Rhonda and the backseat.

  “There’s a zombie behind you.” Ellen pointed with her chin while her hands clasped tight to her chest. “C-c-cujo. Look at his eyes.”

  “He’s wearin’ a seatbelt.” Tyler sounded panicked and bewildered.

  Click it or ticket, she thought, blearily. “Chill out, guys. That’s Brad. My fiancé. Remember?”

  “No.” Both kids spoke together.

  Rhonda directed her face to the siblings with a lazy turn. “Tell ya what. Let’s all get out of the car and stretch. We should take a potty break, anyways, before heading out again.”

  They stared at Brad and didn’t move. Ellen broke her gaze to look at Rhonda. “Why’s his name, Brad?”

  “That’s the name his parents gave him.” Rhonda exited the car. “C’mon.”

  “He had parents?” Tyler wore a skeptical expression. His eyes darted from Brad to Rhonda and to Brad again.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “We had parents once.” Ellen gazed at her feet. She shrugged and followed Tyler outside.

  Rhonda grabbed the keys and shut her door. What could she possibly say to that? Tyler seemed to handle it well, but Rhonda wondered what demons might loiter inside him. How could Rhonda help them cope with everything? She hoped Florida would help them all heal.

  “C’mon, sweetie. We’ll do our business over here.” Rhonda waved toward some tall grass on the billboard’s other side. She hobbled through weeds and glanced at Tyler. “If ya gotta go, do it now on the other side of the Humvee. We’re hittin’ the road soon.”

  Tyler stood behind the Humvee. He nodded. “What about your dead boyfriend?”

  “My fiancé, you mean. What about him?”

  “Doesn’t he have to... you know?”

  “Pee?” Rhonda didn’t want to think about it. She shrugged. “Don’t think he does that.”

  Tyler tilted his head. “Huh.” He walked around the Humvee to relieve himself in private.

  When Rhonda and Ellen finished, Rhonda helped the little girl adjust her makeshift Junior Girl Scout sash. A package of Skittles appeared in Ellen’s small grip. She ripped open the package and chewed on a handful of candy.

  “Think I’ll get more badges like you promised?” Ellen looked at Rhonda.

  “Absolutely.” Rhonda limped along and placed a hand on Ellen’s head. “We have miles to go and things to see. Nothin’ but a lot of time ahead to earn lots of merit badges.”

  “Okay. I like that.” Ellen looked at Rhonda with concern. “Your leg’s bloody and drippy wet. It smells funny.”

  Rhonda knew her leg had worsened; noxious now, fucked good and proper from little Randy’s filthy knife. She’d better hope they ran into a pharmacy soon, or she’d have more than a bad smell to worry about No use freaking out the kids. “You and Ty ever been to Florida?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, there’s lots of sun and water and fun.”

  “And Cujos?”

  These kids were smart. No way she’d fool them into delusions of a nice family trip to Disneyland. Surely Florida hosted its own bipedal horrors. “Maybe. Ain’t nothin’ we can’t handle.”

  Ellen looked at her solemnly and stuffed another handful of Skittles in her mouth.

  Rhonda knew it was time to address the “Brad situation.” She gathered the kids by Brad’s open door. He stared at them as he sat shirtless, buckled in, and well-behaved with a thin string of drool dangling from the corner of his mouth.

  “Brad he’s different, guys. I know it sounds crazy, but he’s not like other Cujos. He’s not aggressive unless he’s threatened, or unless I’m threatened.” Rhonda looked at the kids as they studied Brad, wondering if they were buying her explanation about why she was rolling with a zombie. “But I want you to keep some distance from him, okay? I don’t want you scared of him, but I’d hate to see you... um, y’know, get drool on you.”

  The kids took a step back. Ellen looked up at Rhonda. “So he’s your boyfriend?”

  “Well, technically, he’s my fiancé.”

  “So you’re gonna get married?” Tyler started to laugh. “You’ll be Mrs. Cujo.”

  “Good one, Ty. Not gonna happen. There was a time—”

  “But you love him, right?” Ellen blurted.

  Rhonda paused. She looked at Brad, the ghoul, but remembering him from the life before, when things were normal and they were mad in love-lust for each other. Her devotion hadn’t changed. “Yeah. I sure do.”

  “We’re good.” Ellen handed the Skittles bag to her brother.

  “We’re good.” Tyler concurred and tipped his head back and emptied the bag into his mouth. He tossed the crumpled bag to the ground.

  “Pick that up.” Rhonda pointed to the Skittles bag. “We don’t shit in our nest, Ty.”

  Tyler gave a Rhonda a quizzical look before stuffing the ba
g in his pants pocket.

  * * *

  Rhonda got both kids buckled in. She was impressed with how sound their minds and attitudes were. She hoped to keep them that way. She checked on Brad. Nice. He seemed content and passive. She limped to her driver’s side door. God, every step caused her grief. How long could she take this? The tainted matter that glazed her seat scared her. Her bandages were soaked through and she had to agree with Ellen, her leg did smell funny for sure, funny like month-old deli meat left in a refrigerator drawer, not quite rotten, but nowhere near edible.

  Rhonda sucked in a groan. Behind the wheel, she wanted to roar. Dizziness blasted her. Spots and stars popped in front of her eyes. Would she faint or hurl? One or the other might make her feel better.

  “Are you okay?”

  Tyler’s voice cut through Rhonda’s lightheaded spell. Her eyes fluttered and she turned toward him. “Yeah. Just having a moment.”

  “Rrrrnnndaahh.” Brad’s voice sounded from the backseat with seemed like actual distress.

  “You need a doctor, lady.” Ellen blinked.

  “Yeah? Well, you need some real food, kid. Skittles aren’t going to cut it. And it’s Rhonda, remember? No lady here.”

  “Rhonda.” Ellen nodded.

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll come across a hospital soon, and I’ll take care of my stinky leg. We’ll all get cleaned up and get what we need.” Rhonda winced, and her crippled leg screamed as she steered the Humvee back toward the highway, bouncing across a hard field and through another ditch. Electric zaps of agony bit her with every bump. Rhonda hoped it was true.

  “Are we there yet?” Tyler fidgeted in his seat.

  Rhonda released an exasperated breath. Christ, these kids must’ve asked the old question some two dozen times within the last hour. “C’mon, guys. I know it’s really slow going, but I’m doing my best. I already told you we’ve got another day or more of driving ahead of us. With this smashed windshield, the going’s slower than... heck. Just enjoy the ride. Look for some tunes to play or somethin’.”