Rabid Heart

by Jeremy Wagner

  What an unholy stench from them all. But the intense and collective reek didn’t faze her. Nothing mattered to her, well, she thought, nothing except for the kids. Way to go with her shitty efforts. She’d brought Tyler and Ellen this far only to fail. They deserved better than her, no doubt. She hoped they’d stay put and wait it out. Maybe they’d make it out of here alive. Then what? No, she couldn’t fool herself that the kids would live some happily-ever-after. Not in this terror-world full of Cujos and predators lying in wait.

  “I’m sorry guys.” Rhonda’s voice sounded strange to her. She looked at the undead mob as they shoved and hissed and packed themselves into the suite. Boy, a bottle of Jack would be nice about now. The Cujo in the Jaxson de Ville costume fell forward, pushed from behind by its posse. It lost balance and in seconds, the maggot-laden mascot stumbled off the steps and dropped at Rhonda’s feet. She spat at its oversized Jaguar nose as it rose before her.

  “Fuck it. I’m ready. Do it quick.”

  Her head rocked as a nearby aftershock split the air. An immediate series of intense and bright lightning flashes followed, their brilliance trumping all the megawatt stadium lights and luxury suite fluorescents. For a microsecond, the Cujos before her washed out in thermo-nuclear white before she squeezed her eyes shut.

  Had someone set off fireworks? Rhonda’s ears endured another blast. Maybe a natural gas blowout. But this felt way big. Several blasts shook the luxury suite. Every Cujo inside froze, their bleached-out, unblinking eyes reflecting fire.

  Cujos appeared immobilized by surprise, or perhaps, the insane light blinded them. She turned and stared through the observation glass.

  EverBank Field burned. Rhonda watched a pair of large and smoky fireballs roar upward into the night sky. The stadium roiled and blazed in a cauldron of fire. Goalposts burned and rose from a lake of yellow flame. Any undead on the once-muddy turf below had been turned to fucking cinders. But where had this surprise holocaust come from? Had she hit a button or something?

  Rhonda got her answer when she spotted something she thought she’d never see in the sky again. A jet that looked like an F/A-18 Super Hornet screamed high above. It banked sharply over St. John’s River and came back in low above the stadium to drop another large fire-egg. This bomb took out every single end-zone seat, and the scoreboard. Everything burned away, baptized by fire.

  Mark 77’s. What did Dad and Sarge call them? “Napalm on steroids?”

  Cujos moved behind Rhonda as the jet ripped the night air. Funny, this particular jet looked identical to one of three Super Hornets at Camp Deadnut.

  One of Dad’s flyboys? No way. What the hell was he doin’ down here? Did anyone know she was up in a suite or were they just going to incinerate her ass and the kids, too? The kids...

  She heard a new sound, the distinct, repetitive whup-whup-whup of a helicopter rotor. But not any old helicopter: it sounded like a Black Hawk.

  What a beautiful warbird. It dropped like an elegant dancer and hovered right in front of her, its metal belly illuminated from below as EverBank’s stadium fire raged.

  The chopper cockpit pointed at her and Rhonda figured she was hallucinating. Was her father in there with the pilot? But how? How did he fucking find... ?

  Colonel Kenneth Driscoll produced a slight grin and gave her one curt nod. He raised his right hand in an open-palmed signal of acknowledgment.

  Rhonda’s mouth dropped in surprise. She raised her left arm and placed her palm against glass. Oh, how she wanted her daddy now. Weakened and sick, her fury evaporated as she stared at him. He was so goddamn close... but couldn’t be farther away. She looked at her father and at her reflection in glass, and thought herself a lone seal in an aquarium full of carnivorous polar bears.

  Dad Driscoll waved his hands in excited motions. He yelled words she’d never hear. Again, she caught reflected Cujos, only inches away. They reached for her, and the first to make contact was Jaxson de Ville. She heard and smelled the mascot’s mausoleum hiss as it placed two furry paws around her neck.

  Rhonda held her breath and looked at her father. She wanted to see Daddy one last time. What was he doing? He waved his arms in a frantic display, his expression alarmed. Poor Dad. She imagined his horror as he watched her, his last daughter about to fall beneath an avalanche of rabid undead.

  Rhonda kept her eyes on the cockpit as Jaxson de Ville and his pals grabbed her. Her father was no longer waving his arms. His expression of alarm became an angry snarl and he made a dramatically deliberate gesture as he pointed both of his index fingers straight at Rhonda and then pointed those same fingers downward. With his fingers pointed to the floor, he spoke two, slow and inaudible words Rhonda read on his lips: GET DOWN.

  Rhonda exhaled, and summoned a scream of defiance. She pushed off the glass and jammed both of her elbows into Jaxson-Cujo. Her blows helped loosen paws from around her neck and other unseen claws from her limbs. She spun around on her stronger left leg and hit Jaxson’s arms away before she head-butted its cat-like snout. She may as well have rammed her forehead into a sofa cushion. Rhonda leaned off balance, her wounded leg useless and dead to her. With the last of her strength, she managed to shove Jaxson-Cujo into the undead bunch behind it with enough force to give herself a small amount of room to move.

  She dropped fast. Rolling, she pushed herself under the seats and flattened herself there.

  A metal storm cometh.

  Fury and wrath: in the form of fully-auto M60D 7.62mm machine guns. They roared to life and ripped incalculable bullets into the suite. Rhonda cringed as unholy firepower blew the wall of glass into dust and tore into the animated worm food filling the suite.

  Rhonda remembered being on the other end of these same machine guns, slaying Cujos from the safety and comfort of a chopper. She’d give anything right now to be on the safe side of the trigger. Glass and fleshy debris rained on her from above.

  She opened her eyes and was blinded by Black Hawk spotlights and machine-gun flashes. Cujos fell in droves like putrid mannequins.

  Would her father’s assault ever end? Rhonda covered her ears and watched her surroundings darken as bodies piled around the seats.

  This ceaseless salvo, did it mean new Cujos were flooding in? Of course, she didn’t need eyes to know it. She imagined waves of Cujos, those who escaped EverBank’s deep-fryer of a football field, hurrying here. She pictured herds from parking lots and hallways, all on escalators to the suite. Cujos gravitated toward fire and loud noises, but also, she wondered if somehow, every EverBank Cujo knew fresh meat was on the menu in here.

  Well, Rhonda thought with satisfaction, the undead are eating lead tonight.

  Maybe she still had part of that lucky horseshoe inside her. This heavy artillery and rescue team of Cujo exterminators was an absolute miracle, and she gave thanks. A new tide had turned Rhonda from prey into a possible survivor; though only if she managed to push herself out from under this heap of obliterated Cujos and received proper and direct medical attention.

  Then she remembered the kids. She screamed their names, but only heard her own voice vibrate in her head beneath Dad’s machine gun assault. How could she leave those kids to their own devices in a restroom? She was supposed to be a distraction... to lead danger away from them. But as the Black Hawk blew the luxury suite to hell, she shuddered at thoughts of the young siblings as casualties from friendly fire.

  Wasn’t it bad enough she’d lost Brad? Two fucking times already. If Tyler and Ellen died here, Rhonda knew she’d kill herself. She’d have nothing left to live for. Dad would’ve rescued her for naught. Saved from the Cujos only to fall beneath her own hand.

  “Get me the fuck out of here,” Rhonda wailed, and realized she could hear herself. The gunfire had finally ceased.

  Dad’s chopper hovered nearby, she heard it, though her ears rang. Her wounded leg opened wider, all angry with a red-hot hurt that eclipsed the pain from countless glass cuts across arms and face. The reek of putrefaction was ove
rwhelming.

  Rhonda ignored these unpleasantries. Drunk with sickness, she wriggled to deliver herself from this tangled dead mass. She pressed her hands and arms against a corpse just as someone pulled it away. Bright white light hit her eyes and a familiar face came into view above her.

  “Baby-girl.” Her father grinned at Rhonda. He shook his head and grabbed her right arm firmly. He put her on her feet but her legs gave out. “Whoa. I gotcha.”

  “Dad.” Rhonda swallowed dry. “There’s—”

  Rhonda’s voice petered out into a hoarse whisper. She felt dizzy and winded. Her eyelids fluttered.

  “You just take it easy. Gonna sit you down.” Dad lifted Rhonda and carried her like a bride. He kicked corpses out of his way as he ascended the steps to the luxury suite’s main floor.

  Rhonda’s head hung limp on her dad’s forearm. Her vision spun. She caught sight of Dad’s Black Hawk, hanging in the air, now with yellow nylon swing-lines extended from an open side hatch to the suite. So that’s how he got in here so fast. Rhonda’s vision faded and her eyes rolled into her bobbing head. She snapped to when Dad, with gentle care, laid her backside on the kitchenette countertop.

  Dad turned to three soldiers armed with M16A4 assault rifles. “Keep this room clear!”

  Rhonda watched their blurry figures from where she rested. Each soldier moved through the suite in hunched, cautious strides through a gory, Cujo-littered floor.

  “The... the kids. Ty and—” Rhonda’s soft voice trailed off as she pointed a weak arm toward the restroom door. It looked bad. To her horror, the restroom door and suite walls looked like a target range; perforated with countless bullet holes.

  “What’s that?” Dad leaned an ear toward her face.

  Before Rhonda could answer, the soldier on point yelled, “Hostiles!” An immediate and loud explosion sounded as the soldier unleashed a grenade on Cujos somewhere in the hallway. The other two soldiers ran to join the hallway fracas and immediate gunfire erupted.

  Rhonda reached and grabbed her dad by his collar as he moved with his .45 in hand to cover his three soldiers.

  “Dad!” Rhonda cleared her throat and blinked tears from her eyes. “If you see Brad’s body out there, please, bring him home.”

  Colonel Driscoll nodded with tight lips. He spoke with a sliver of compassion in his voice. “Okay, Rhonda. Will do.”

  “Promise? Please.”

  “I promise. Brad’s coming home and he’ll get a real burial.” He patted Rhonda’s hand. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Wait!” Rhonda tried to sit upright. Frantic now, she almost blacked out. “There’re kids.”

  Colonel Driscoll paused. “What did you say?”

  “Kids.” Rhonda gasped and pointed at the restroom with a shaky finger. “In there.”

  Dad turned toward the bullet-riddled restroom and then faced Rhonda. He barked out to the hallway. “Soldier Sanders! Here, now!”

  Rhonda started to rise and her world spun like a top. One of three soldiers entered the suite and Dad instructed him to open the bathroom door and check it. With a nod, he kicked the door open with a grunt and stuck his M16A4 into the head.

  With rifle pointed inward, the soldier halted. He stepped backward with his mouth open. He shook his head fast and turned to Colonel Driscoll. “Holy shit. Colonel! You better check this out.”

  Rhonda gasped. What was it? Goddamn it, what had they found? Dad walked with a cautious stride. He stopped and stood in the restroom doorway and grabbed his forehead. “Oh my Jesus.” He faced Rhonda and frowned. He shook his square head. “What were you thinkin,’ baby-girl?”

  Rhonda’s universe plummeted into an underworld of despair. It devoured her entire wretched and dying heart. Her father’s grim face and EverBank’s luxury suite all dimmed and disappeared. Her numb head dropped hard on granite and the only mercy she received came from dreadful slumber.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Rhonda reemerged from her black hell to find herself in downtown Levendale of old, in magic days when her North Carolina hometown buzzed as a vibrant and active community.

  Levendale sure felt real as she walked and looked around. Yet, in her subconscious, Rhonda knew her old town wasn’t genuine. She knew she couldn’t be here. How could she be? Levendale was a zombie town. But if she wasn’t there with warm fall sun upon her skin, and with sounds in her ears—like her heels on a downtown sidewalk, then...

  Where am I? Really?

  Rhonda pushed the questions away. She didn’t want to know what reality, or mortality, looked like. For now, she just wanted to remain here, in her beloved town.

  She walked along Main Street with her mother and younger sister. Oh, how she loved them. Rhonda laughed and greeted friends along her way. Poking her head into Sylvia’s Salon, she said hello to the girls and pecked Sylvia’s cheek on her way out.

  Then she found herself all alone.

  “It was all great once.” Rhonda hugged herself in the middle of Main Street. The old thoroughfare now sat empty and dark before her. An October breeze rustled the leaves as her words echoed through a ghost town. She wept.

  In this bygone version of Levendale, Rhonda wiped tears from her eyes and found Brad. She gasped with joy and entered their candlelit living room to find him waiting.

  “C’mere, babe.” Brad pulled her toward him on their couch. Rhonda smelled him. Christ, this felt so real. “I love you, Rhonda. I love you so much.”

  Rhonda put her arms around Brad. Love welled inside her. She looked into Brad’s cupid face and never wanted this to end. Her heart ached, and inside it, she knew a final conclusion to this enchanted moment waited... just beneath the surface.

  Just a little longer. Please.

  Rhonda smiled at Brad and put her hands to his face. “I love you, too, baby. I love you forever.”

  On her last word, Rhonda and Brad kissed, and her flame for him burned hotter than the fever propelling her into this wonderful illusion.

  For a while, and on some far side of truth, Rhonda enjoyed happiness, and then her perfect world turned on its axis.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Okay, now. She’s comin’ round. Rhonda? Y’hear me?”

  In darkness, a familiar voice spoke from above her. Though her eyes were closed, she knew her father spoke to her.

  “Hang on, Doc.” Dad sounded happy. “Rhonda. Open those pretty eyes for me. You’re all good now.”

  Her dream evaporated. She squeezed her already closed eyes shut harder, until star-like dots appeared behind her eyelids. She didn’t want to wake. Only a breath ago, she had been with Brad in a happier place. Memories of his touch lingered in her sore body like residual wetness of rain after a heavy storm. And like rain, or some post-tempest moisture in the air, Rhonda smelled him.

  With a weighty sigh, Rhonda opened her watery eyes and gave up her efforts to disappear.

  Goodbye, Brad. My love.

  She groaned and squinted at the bright lights and silhouetted forms above her face. Where was she? She found herself on a hospital bed with a large pillow under her head. To her left stood Doc Brightmore in a white lab coat. He checked an IV in her left hand. Her father stood to her right in a fresh uniform, his expression anxious.

  “Doc. Crank her up.” Dad didn’t take his eyes off Rhonda. “Be slow with her.”

  “Yes, Colonel.” Doc Brightmore fiddled at the side of her bed and her upper body slowly rose until she sat vertical.

  “We’re back at Fort Rocky I assume?” Rhonda looked from Dad to Doc.

  “Yep. Or, Camp Deadnut if you prefer.” Doc smiled. “I operated on you a few days ago. Got you all cleaned up. You had one helluva nasty wound and a leg full of infection. I’m amazed you were even as mobile as the Colonel said you were. I debrided a lot of dead tissue from you, but I managed to save your leg. You’re stitched up and you’re gonna be sore for a while. But I got ya plenty of painkillers and antibiotics.”

  “Doc did a great job on you, sweeth
eart.” Dad nodded, then turned toward Doc and frowned. “Lucky for him, he’s more valuable to us in Fort Rocky’s infirmary than in the hole. That’s where his sorry ass would’ve stayed for tipping you off about my plans for Brad.”

  Doc Brightmore flushed red and he nervously busied himself around the operating room.

  “Don’t hold him accountable, Dad.” Rhonda cleared her throat. “It was my idea to kidnap Brad and steal the Humvee ’n all. Doc was just—”

  Dad raised a hand, palm out, and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. I know why you did what you did. All is forgiven.”

  “Really?” Rhonda sat forward. “I really fucked up.”

  Doc Brightmore straightened and organized medical utensils on a nearby tray. He looked uncomfortable and gestured toward a door across the room. “I’m just gonna go out by the waiting room. Stock some magazines, maybe.”

  Rhonda and her father followed Doc Brightmore’s hurried exit with their eyes. Dad folded his arms and faced her. “You say you fucked up? I think fucking up is something we’ve all managed to do—and fucking up is how we’ve now all arrived to live in a world of rabid zombies. Your heart is in the right place.”

  My rabid heart...

  “How the hell’d you find me, Dad?”

  He smiled. “We locked in on your GPS chip, the same one that’s installed in every Humvee. We communicated with that chip every mile. Thankfully, even after six months, the satellites are still working up there.”

  Rhonda snorted with sudden laughter and buried her face in her hands. If this didn’t take the piss out of her, nothing did. She stifled her laughter and faced her father. “That figures. Good thing I didn’t ditch that damn thing, huh?”

  “That’s definitely a good thing.” Dad nodded and chuckled. “I sure as hell didn’t wanna squander manpower and burn precious jet fuel chasing ghosts. I got some resistance about this mission. I pulled a real misappropriation of scarce resources for a very personal pursuit to save just one person.”