Floodwater Zombies

by Sean Thomas Fisher

  FLOODWATER ZOMBIES

  SEAN THOMAS FISHER

  Copyright 2011 by Sean Thomas Fisher

  Bump in the Night Publishing

  Chapter One

  Connor snapped a picture with his Droid RAZR, illuminating Dale’s ashen face in the moonlit darkness. Connor pulled the phone closer and inspected the picture, the screen casting an eerie glow upon the sinister grin cutting into his cheeks. Satisfied with the shot, he clipped the phone back onto his belt and smoothed out his tie, tucked into a lavender button down. He took another casual glance around the darkened lake, catching a burst of lightning as it spider-webbed across the southwestern skyline. His hand returned a lock of brown hair over his receding hairline as he steadied his lanky frame on the Pontoon boat’s railing. “Nice knowin ya, Dale,” he whispered, raising a maroon wingtip into the air and gently nudging the rigid body over the edge. Dale rolled listlessly inside a new gray suit and hit the black water below with a soft splash.

  With unfocused eyes, Connor watched the lake slowly claim the young dentist, who had gone into cardiac arrest last weekend after feeding his secret cocaine habit a little too much dinner. Circular ripples rolled outward, disrupting the water’s glassy reflection of the full moon above as the body quietly sank to the bottom. The old timers claimed Lake Darling reached depths of up to seventy-five feet and had catfish the size of bull sharks lurking along the muddy floor. But Connor didn’t believe a word of it. Regardless, the embalming fluid would ensure that Dale would soon find out.

  A loon cried out from across the lake as Connor wiped sweat from his upper lip. He debated stopping off for a cold one at Doc’s on the way home, envisioning a frosty mug of beer and a quiet table for one. Unfortunately, he still had work ahead of him and Don would have his head on a platter if everything wasn’t ready to go tomorrow.

  When Dale had completely disappeared, Connor pulled a silver Rolex from his black slacks. The blue moonlight jumped off the timepiece as his hand rose up and down, inspecting its impressive weight. Another cold grin slithered across his gaunt face. It might even be worth more than Mrs. Johansen’s diamond necklace. He’d have to make another trip to the pawn shop in Bismarck to find out.

  His phone began vibrating, jerking him from his thoughts. He slipped the watch back into his pocket and pulled the cell from his belt. His face grimaced in the screen’s white glow. He hesitated before sliding the answer icon across the screen. “Hey, Don,” he said, watching the bubbles rise where Dale had literally gone to sleep with the fishes.

  An irritable sigh hissed from the line and snaked down Connor’s ear canal, piercing the drum at its end. “When did you plan on telling me about the scratch in Mr. Walters’ coffin?” Don asked with a forced patience.

  Connor tipped his head back and rolled his eyes, catching a shooting star go streaking across the night sky. He made a quick wish before replying. “Scratch?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Connor!” Don shouted, making Connor wince and crushing his wish at the same time. “Albeit a very easy role for you to pursue,” he said, lowering his voice. “Ricardo already informed me it was YOU who knocked it against Mr. Mirskey’s tombstone while removing it with the crane this afternoon.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Connor muttered, wrinkling his long nose and silently cursing Ricardo.

  “And it will be YOU who will have it shiny as new in time for Mrs. Keller’s funeral tomorrow afternoon. Do we understand one another?”

  Connor dropped his eyes to his shiny dress shoes, reflecting the light from above. “Yeah, I understand.”

  A long pause followed, interrupted by a jumping fish off in the distance. Connor mopped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and tried not to show he was nervous by clearing his throat.

  “Yeah, you understand what?” Don said slowly.

  Connor cleared his throat and immediately regretted it. “Yes, I understand, Mr. Allan.”

  Don took a deep breath and exhaled tiredly as papers ruffled in the background. “Is everything all set with Mr. Walters?”

  Connor glanced back to the bubbles still breaking the water’s surface. “Yep, he’s fish food now.”

  Another bloated pause stormed the line, making Connor’s beating heart sound that much louder in his ears.

  “Connor, I realize the gravity of what we’re doing here, but that doesn’t mean you can’t display a certain degree of…respect.”

  Connor’s hand slipped into his pocket and wrapped around the thick Rolex inside. “Everything went just fine, Mr. Allan.”

  “Ahhh, excellent! And when might we expect your most eagerly awaited return, Mr. Faherty?” he asked mockingly.

  Doc’s Bar & Grill – nestled between the lake and a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway Ten - flashed through Connor’s mind. “Bout an hour.”

  “Marvelous! I look forward to seeing Mr. Keller - and that coffin – looking right as rain in the morning then.”

  “Gotcha, boss.”

  “And Connor?”

  Connor swallowed dryly, wiping more sweat from his upper lip. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t fuck it up,” Don said gravely.

  Connor pulled a long cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket and lit up, bathing his face in an orange glow as his cheeks sucked in. “Don’t worry, I’ll have them both lookin right as rain,” he said, exhaling a tumbling cloud into the darkness. “Hell, I’ve fixed bigger dents than that on my car. You won’t be able to tell the… Hello?” When there was no response he checked the screen and snorted. “Asshole,” he grumbled, shoving the phone back into its holster. “Keep talkin to me like that and I’ll blow the lid off this whole damn thing,” he moaned, getting behind the wheel and firing the pontoon boat up.

  Lightning fractured the black sky behind him, this time closer. He flipped on the front and rear lights and smoothly throttled up, motoring Don’s weekend getaway across the placid lake. The boat sliced through the water like a warm spoon through a tub of frozen chocolate ice cream. A loud clap of thunder erupted, making him flinch. He turned just in time to see another burst of lightning rip through the sky like cracks in a car windshield on a hot summer day. He turned back around and got into the throttle, making the engine whine louder. “People find out what he’s up to and they’ll string his cheap ass up,” he murmured, shaking his head and taking another drag.

  “Bust my balls for a stupid little scratch and I’m doing all the heavy lifting? I don’t think so.” He flicked the cigarette into the lake and stared blankly out over the calm waters ahead. It would be a few more minutes before the marina’s sparse lighting would appear around the bend, giving his mind too much time to think. “I don’t need his shit!” he yelled, producing an echo that bounced off the rolling hillsides framing the lake. Another crack of thunder punctuated his statement and he recoiled again.

  Deep down, no matter how frustrated he became, Connor knew he’d never leave Allan’s Funeral Home. That’s what pissed him off the most. Don had him by the balls. That funeral home was his life and Don knew it. But what Don didn’t know was that the people on those cold, silver slabs were Connor’s friends, his family. And just like a real family, he had pictures of every single one of them. Of course, none in a lavish gold frame like the one of his mother hanging above the ratty couch in his living room. He couldn’t wait to add Dale’s picture to the others, tucked in alphabetized photo albums hiding beneath his king-sized bed. His family was growing and he felt stronger with each addition. Hell, he had more pictures than most people had friends on Facebook. He chuckled, his face glowing red in the dashboard lights. “Fucking Facebook,” he scoffed.

  Tonight, however, his family would have to wait. Tonight, he had his work
cut out for him and would be lucky to get two hours of sleep, if that. Tomorrow was going to be a long day with three services, but the good news was that Annie Dixon was waiting for him in one of the coolers back at the ranch. Annie had always greeted him with a warm smile and pleasant tone whenever he grabbed a burger and a beer at the Longhorn. Her long red hair set off radiant green eyes that always made him blush beneath their weight, no matter how hard he focused on the menu.

  Last week, she had finally dumped her grease monkey boyfriend, Luke Donovan (who was nothing more than a meth head loser in a Michael Myers outfit), and Connor had nearly asked her out. But as usual, he couldn’t pull the trigger and, boy, had he felt the barbs from his family when he returned home later that night. Even sweet old Mrs. Halloran had called him a chicken-shit pussy, saying he couldn’t get laid if he paid for it. Before Connor could prove her picture wrong, a blood clot caused Annie’s brain to hemorrhage four days ago and she never opened those green eyes again.

  He smiled as the marina’s three lights came into view. He had always wondered what Annie looked like naked and tonight he was going to find out. Tonight, his family was going to become stronger than ever. He should stop at Doc’s and pick up something to celebrate with, maybe a fifteen dollar six-pack of PBR. Annie would like that. Plus, it would make the forty-five minute drive back to town go that much quicker.

  Lightning ripped across the sky and for a split second Connor could see all of the lake houses anchored in the tall pines. The thunder that followed came quicker and vibrated the steering wheel in his hand. He pulled out his phone and checked the screen, deciding he had time for a quick one on the way home after all, storm coming or not. Normally, he didn’t like being around people who could talk back, especially drunk ones, but he was dying for a cold brew.

  It hadn’t always been like this. There had been a time when he actually enjoyed the company of the living. In fact, there was even a time when he had almost gotten married. But two and a half weeks before the big day, Cathy had left him for someone else. Someone named Michelle. Said it wasn’t him, it was her. So he ended up getting a cat instead. Balmer was nine years-old now and the only breathing female in his quiet farmhouse on the outskirts of town.

  Sometimes he felt lonely living all alone in the house his parents had left him, and sometimes he felt like others were getting too close. Connor spent a lot of time sipping hot coffee – or cold beer – from his front porch, watching the town of Minot creep ever closer. Cigarette after cigarette, the new outlet malls, snap-together houses, and Chuck E. Cheeses inched closer with an unsettling determination. He figured his father must be rolling over in his grave. Connor snorted and eased up on the throttle as the two dock lights turned his face nearly as pasty as Dale’s.

  After docking Don’s boat in its slip, he tied up and headed down the wooden dock for the golden cargo van with Allan’s Funeral Home scrolled in large curling letters across its side. The parking lot was shrouded in shadows and lonely enough for his mind to begin playing tricks on him. He saw Annie Dixon standing with her head tilted down, just outside the tree line by the van. She watched him through the tops of her hollow eyes as he climbed the steep lot. He couldn’t tell if her face was so pale from the moonlight or the embalming fluid he would be pumping through her veins later on tonight. She raised a bony finger and pointed it at him. He dropped his eyes to the ground and stepped over a fallen ice cream cone, which had surely brought some child to tears earlier in the day. When hen he looked up again Annie was gone. He quickened his pace and chuckled lightly. “Yep, I need a beer.”

  Lightning flashed behind him, sending a jagged bolt straight down into the water, producing a bloodcurdling sizzle upon contact. Connor hunched his shoulders and stumbled forward as a large burst of warm air ruffled his hair from behind. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, regaining his balance and turning to see a patch of bubbling water near the dimly lit dock. He stepped closer, his oily hair hanging limply in his face, and squinted at the wispy smoke trails rising from a round section of simmering water that reminded him of a giant witch’s pot, cooking up neighborhood cats and dogs.

  He swept his hair back into position and watched the smoke vanish into the night sky. “What the hell?” he mumbled, glancing back to the parking lot where a single light cast a yellow hue over a dusty pickup with a beat up trailer that had been there for months. He turned back to the water and scratched his head. “Weird shit, man,” he said under his breath, watching the water settle much quicker than his racing pulse. A few seconds later, the water glassed over again like nothing had ever happened.

  He shrugged and hurriedly turned for the van, not seeing Dale Walters open his blue eyes beneath the murky water. Nor did Connor see the lids pop back on Connie Oberman - the town’s head librarian for the past fifty years. Or Tim Elgin, the high school football coach who suffered a heat stroke last summer when temperatures crossed the one hundred degree mark and he insisted upon practicing anyway.

  Connor didn’t notice any of the people he and Don had dumped in the lake over the years open their eyes because he was already to the van, trying to decide if he should order a cold bottle of Bud or a Jack and Coke when he got to Doc’s.

  Chapter Two

  Rory poured Cocoa Pebbles into a big red bowl and glanced at the clock on the microwave again. He groaned, not believing he had slept to almost noon. Part of him – a big part – had wanted to just keep on sleeping, which was easier than waking up to face the fact that moving back in with his parents wasn’t some bad dream after all. He was just glad his dad was at work and unable to bust his balls in person. His mom he could handle, his dad was another story.

  “You’re just now eating breakfast?” his mom asked in a high voice, waltzing into the kitchen in a sweat-stained red t-shirt, shiny black leggings and running shoes. She snatched a paper towel from a roll hanging beneath a cupboard with glass doors and mopped sweat from her forehead. Her long, blond pony tail swung back and forth as she dabbed at her glistening neck.

  “This is lunch,” he said, pouring skim milk into the bowl too fast and spilling cereal onto the granite countertop.

  “Uh-huh,” she replied flatly, grabbing the coffee pot and emptying the last of the thick brew into a coffee-stained mug.

  “How can you drink that after going for a run?”

  She returned the pot to the burner, where it sizzled, and turned it off. “Keeps me regular. Why pay a hundred bucks for a colonic when you can just drink Starbucks?”

  Rory took a seat at a round table in front of the French doors, catching a brief glimpse of a German Shepherd darting across the grass after a brown squirrel on the other side of the pool. “Okay, that’s way too much info. I’m getting ready to eat here.”

  She leaned against the counter and smiled at him over the steaming mug. Suddenly, the German Shepherd went galloping the opposite direction with three squirrels hot on his tail. “So where are you going to apply for a job today?”

  He grimaced and shut his eyes, escaping into a world of solitary darkness. It was going to be a long summer, probably the longest summer since he broke his ankle playing softball in college.

  She tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind an ear and blew on the black coffee. “We talked about this before you moved back home.”

  “Oh brother,” he said under his breath, quickly stuffing a spoonful of the chocolaty cereal into his mouth before saying something he would later regret.

  “If you don’t like the jobs here, Rory, you shouldn’t have moved back.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Mom? I got laid off. Everyone in the newspaper industry is getting laid off,” he said, his bed head suddenly making him feel vulnerable to attack.

  “Then why do you keep sending resumes out to newspapers?”

  “Because you never know,” he said with his mouth full, nonchalantly smoothing his short brown hair.

  Laura took a ginger sip of the steaming brew and swallowed. “Any word from the Daily News?�
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  He shook his head and kept munching. “Minot’s paper is the probably last place hiring right now.”

  Her eyebrows lifted into her shiny forehead. “I told you not to go for a Journalism degree, didn’t I? That was fifty thousand dollars down the drain.”

  “Yeah well, sometimes ya gotta hit rock bottom to find out who you really are.”

  She laughed sharply. “Well, welcome to it, kiddo! This is your floor.”

  Rory shoved another spoonful into his mouth, deciding it was possible he hadn’t survived a recent car accident and this was his living Hell.

  “Have you talked to Rachel yet?” she asked, further confirming his suspicions.

  “Mom,” he started, pausing to swallow. “I’ve been back for two days.”

  “Well, you should call her. When was the last time you two even talked?”

  He wiped milk from his chin with the sleeve of his black Night of the Living Dead t-shirt and thought back to the last time he had talked to Rachel - really talked to her. He couldn’t believe it had already been three years. It seemed like just yesterday he was sitting in his Honda Accord in his parent’s driveway, ready to pull out of this town forever. “Last chance,” he had said hopingly into his cell phone. In the long silence that followed, he could hear her faint sobs.