Floodwater Zombies

by Sean Thomas Fisher

  Hooper inhaled a long breath and released it. “They already are.”

  “How can any of this be?”

  Hooper watched Rob fight to free his hands from the rope, knowing what would happen if the biker did. “It can’t,” he replied softly, staring at the blood coming out of Rob’s ear.

  “Well, we can’t leave him in here. He’s one of them now.”

  Hooper glanced at a metal door that led to the big blue dumpster out back. “We can’t take a chance on opening any of these doors.”

  Doc nodded to the spiral staircase. “We can take him up to the roof.”

  Hooper followed the nod. “And leave him up there?”

  Doc snorted. “Hell no, we throw him off.”

  Hooper turned back to Rob and carefully stepped over his kicking legs. Rob’s haggard face lunged at the sheriff’s legs, his teeth snapping together so hard that white splinters flew from his mouth.

  Hooper hopped over him and went to the back door, closed one eye and peered out the tiny peephole with his other. Magnified images of the dense tree line behind the bar stared back at him. They were gray and blurry from the rain. Then a man walked by. His head was big and bald with a giant strip of skin missing just above his left ear. And then he was gone. An elderly woman stumbled from the trees, her pink dress snagging on a thorn bush. She jerked free, tearing the dress and staggering towards the back door in bare feet with curled toes. Hooper shifted in his stance.

  “What is it?”

  Hooper held up an open palm, watching the woman creep closer. Weathered cracks lining her skin became clearer with each step she took. Her jaw dangled in the air, exposing a missing front tooth. A Hispanic man in an expensive three-piece suit limped by behind her and quickly disappeared from the domed picture. The woman reached the door and stopped, staring into the peephole like she could see Hooper. He swallowed dryly and shifted again.

  “What the hell is it, Ryan?”

  Hooper shot his hand into the air again and shook it as the old lady took a step back to survey the door with soulless eyes. When she pounded on the door with a sloppy fist, the sheriff stumbled backwards and tripped over Rob’s outstretched legs. Hooper landed on his butt with a thud. Rob pitched forward, his ravenous mouth leading the way. Hooper scrambled just out of range of the chomping teeth.

  “Goddamnit Sheriff, be careful!” Doc said, helping him to his feet. “Last thing we need right now is to lose you, too.”

  Hooper brushed his rear end off and pulled his gun belt up. “I say we leave him here without water for a few hours and see what happens. We may be able to learn something from him.”

  Doc nodded, rubbing his bristly mug. “I worry about the window up front.”

  Hooper glanced to the bar door and turned back to Doc. “You got any guns in here or not?”

  Doc snorted. “Does a bear shit in the woods?” he said, motioning for Hooper to follow him into the office. Doc took a seat in a worn out, high-backed chair on wheels hiding behind a large mahogany desk. “This,” he said, sliding open a lower drawer and pulling out a .357 Magnum revolver tucked inside a black nylon holster. “Is Gladys, and her bite is worse than her bark.” Carefully, he set the silver gun next to an ashtray, overflowing with crumpled cigarette butts, on the desk. His hand went back inside the drawer and came out with a box of bullets.

  “Full?”

  Doc opened the box and showed him. “Half. Sometimes we like to do a little target shooting out back.”

  Hooper took his hat off and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. He slapped the cap back on and sighed.

  Doc opened another drawer and pulled out an old Colt .45 wrapped in an old leather holster with bullets running along the belt. Gently, he set it on a copy of Kourtney’s Women’s Health. “This is Daisy. She belonged to my grandfather. Legend has it he shot Billy the Kidd in the arm with it after a dispute over a poker game.”

  Hooper almost chuckled. “And I bet that was the last thing your grandfather ever did.”

  Doc shook his head and frowned. “No, he went on to open his own furniture store years later.”

  Doc stood at the window with his arms folded across his chest, watching a scaly marine lazily shuffle across the dimly lit parking lot, his disheveled coat laced with medals and moss. For no apparent reason, he abruptly stopped and stared in the direction of Rob’s toppled Harley, the rain pelting his tidy crew cut (which, once and for all, proved that hair does not keep growing after death). Rory willed the man to keep moving and disappear from the window’s frame altogether, but the marine stubbornly refused.

  Lightning flickered, lighting up the inside of the dark bar and making Doc wince. The marine slowly turned his swollen face to the large window and stared at Doc. Doc’s breath hitched as the darkness quickly resumed its place. The bar owner took a couple of ginger steps back as Rory crept up beside him. “You think he can see inside?”

  Doc opened his mouth to answer when the man started limping closer. Tarnished medals, dangling from short ribbons, bounced with each unstable footstep. One award, hanging lower than the rest, fell to the gravel. The man didn’t care and kept coming, his hollow gaze stuck to them like glue. Woody stopped talking and Kourtney pulled Alex closer in the booth they shared with Rachel and Woody. Mick paced up and down the bar, not stopping as he tipped a cold bottle of Budweiser back. He swallowed and wiped his chin with his palm, stealing glances out the window every few seconds and mumbling incoherent thoughts.

  Thunder pealed across a sky that had grown even darker with nightfall. The military man banged into the window and bounced backwards. He studied the glass with vacant eyes. His head tilted to the left. Rachel held her breath, fighting not to scream. She traded a look with Rory while rubbing her arms like it was the middle of January. Rory turned back to the deep gashes lacing the man’s cheeks. It looked like he had recently lost a fight over some fresh meat with a hungry mountain lion. When he opened his mouth to moan, the lone parking light shone through a jagged hole in the side of his face, glinting off white teeth inside.

  Rory couldn’t tell if the marine was staring at them or his own reflection and prayed for the latter.

  Hooper came out of the back, drying his hands on his jeans.

  Mick stopped pacing and looked up. “How is he?”

  Hooper dropped his head and sighed.

  “So it’s true then,” Mick said gravely. “You get bit and…you turn into one of them things.” He nodded towards the marine. “Just like in the goddamn movies.”

  “I’m sorry, Mick. Rob was a good man.”

  Mick dropped his eyes to his beer bottle. A lone tear escaped down his unshaven cheek. “He was my best friend,” he sniffled, picking at the label. “Ain’t got many of them left these days.”

  Hooper placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “We’re going to get out of this,” he said softly.

  Mick snorted and wiped snot from his mustache with the back of his hand. “How? Those fuckin things are all over the place! Can’t drive in this storm and it’s only a matter of time before they find a way inside.”

  Hooper turned to the window, catching a horrid glimpse of the marine as lightning fractured the sky. “It can’t keep raining like this forever, and when it stops we’ll pile in my car and go.”

  Mick took a step closer and stared hard into the sheriff’s eyes, the brim of their hats nearly touching. “And what if, in the meantime, they get in here?”

  Alex’s head flicked around to the window and Kourtney quickly turned his head back around.

  Hooper studied Mick’s heavy expression. “They’re not going to get in here.”

  The marine smashed into the window again and regained his balance. He stood there, a mere shadow of his former self, staring into the bar with indifference smeared across his ghostly face.

  Hooper flashed Mick a thin smile and went to the window.

  “And why does Rory get Rob’s gun?” Mick yelled after him. “He was my friend!”

  Ko
urtney shushed him with a scowl.

  “Because you’ve been drinking,” Hooper said over his shoulder, not taking the time to look back. Woody, Rachel, Alex and Kourtney watched the sheriff walk past their booth and stop next to Rory and Doc.

  “Think he can see in here?”

  Doc ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair and coughed mucus into his fist. “I don’t think so,” he said, clearing his throat. Probably just mesmerized by his own damn reflection.”

  Rory gripped the .38 tighter, his index finger running along the outside of the trigger. “Can he break the window, is the question.”

  Doc squinted, watching the ghoul stare back at them, the rain thankfully drowning out its long moans. “I don’t see how, they can barely move. I mean, it’s not like they can pick up a rock or anything,” he said, pausing to scratch a bushy sideburn. “I think.”

  An old man in a torn suit stumbled into view, hobbling after a wet squirrel that was leisurely hopping across the gravel lot. The marine took no notice and kept his black eyes fixed on the window. The old man’s thin arms reached for the squirrel with the desperation of a man shipwrecked on a deserted island. His wrists were bony and covered in mossy patches.

  “Jesus Christ,” Hooper muttered, resting a hand on the butt of his handgun. “This is the craziest shit I’ve ever seen.”

  Doc snorted. “Tell me about it,” he whispered. “And I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit in my days.”

  A twenty-something blond lady joined in the pursuit, her white dress clinging to her fit frame as she shambled across the parking lot a hair faster than the old man. Like her outfit, she looked fresher than the rest. The wet squirrel took a few more hops before stopping and turning. He sat up on his hind legs and stared at the two things languidly approaching, as if they might have an acorn or two for him. When the stiffs drew closer, the squirrel made an easy decision to skitter across the lot and disappear into the trees. The old man and pretty blond remained steadfast in their chase and faded into the woods.

  “How’s Rob?” Rory asked, not lifting his eyes from the horrors lurking outside.

  “Still dead.”

  “We think,” Doc quickly added.

  Rory snorted. “I can’t believe Myer was right.”

  Hooper shifted in his stance, watching a heavyset man, wearing a black leather jacket over a white button down with a black tie, shamble across the lot with thick legs stuffed into tall black boots. “The rain is just enough to keep them walking, but that’s about it.”

  Rory watched the fat man stop and stare at a telephone pole planted alongside Highway Ten. “They’re definitely not as fast as they were down by the water.”

  The military man looked over to the fallen Harleys again as if the bikes were jarring what was left of his memory, perhaps pulling up visions of he and his wife cruising the hills on a hot July day. He took a step towards them and stumbled, found his balance and continued out of the window’s frame.

  “Craziest shit I’ve ever seen,” Doc said under his breath.

  Rachel released a deep breath and turned to Woody. “He couldn’t see in here,” she whispered.

  “I don’t think he could,” Woody said, his long fingers resting on the shotgun lying across the table. His nervous eyes traveled back and forth from the glass door to the front window. “As long as we don’t turn on any lights, they’ll never know we’re in here.”

  Hooper glanced back at them and nodded. “He’s right. When the rain lets up, we’ll get in my car and get the hell out of here.”

  “You promise, Sheriff?”

  Hooper smiled at Alex. “Of course I promise, A-Man.”

  Kourtney pulled her son closer, as if that would shield him from her next question. “What are they?” she whispered.

  Woody looked into her soft green eyes and spoke flatly. “Zombies.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “But zombies…aren’t real,” she said unconvincingly.

  Woody swallowed hard. “I just read a short story about a zombie attack in Iowa that was based upon a true story.”

  A feeble laugh snuck past Rachel’s lips. “What? What story?”

  “It was called First Zombie. Found it flipping through my Kindle.”

  “Are you serious?” Kourtney asked.

  Woody nodded. “Yeah, the main character encountered the first zombie in a massive uprising, so it’s not like this hasn’t happened before.”

  “Do they want to eat our brains?” Alex asked in a high-pitched voice.

  Kourtney lifted his chin with two fingers until their eyes met. “No, they don’t want to eat our brains.” She turned to the others and tried to smile. “Brains are tough to come by round here anyway, so they’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  Alex rested a hand on his toy gun sitting on the table in front of him, mimicking Woody and his shotgun. “Can’t they break the window?”

  Woody shook his head. “That’s tempered glass, little dude,” he told him, not certain if it was or not. “Nothing’s getting in here, little dude. We just gotta ride this storm out and when the sun comes up tomorrow everything will go back to normal.”

  Alex turned to Rachel and searched her face for authenticity backing up Woody’s claim. “What if the sun doesn’t come back out?” he asked, apparently unimpressed with her body language.

  Kourtney and Doc swapped glances.

  Rachel managed to toss Alex a warm smile. “It will, sweetie. We just have to be brave until then and stick together. Okay?”

  Alex nodded and dropped his eyes back to his cap gun while Kourtney ruffled his hair.

  A bloated silence filled the room, amplifying the thunder and pouring rain slapping the tired bar. The lightning continued to strobe, each time carving an image in their minds that was somehow even more horrific than the one just before it.

  “I still can’t believe they’re gone,” Rachel whispered, fighting back the tears. “Kate and Ashley were my best friends in the entire world. We grew up together.” She paused to sniffle, staring at Alex’s toy gun with blurry eyes. “We just went to a movie together two nights ago and now they’re...” Woody wrapped an arm around her and squeezed. Rachel gave up the battle and let the floodgates drop. Tears streamed down her cheeks and dropped onto the chipped up table. Her finger ran lightly across a long cigarette burn from when smoking inside the bar was still legal. “This can’t be happening.”

  Alex wiped a lone tear from his cheek. “I wanna go home now, mom.”

  Kourtney pulled him tightly against her side, trying not to cry herself. “I know, honey. So do I.”

  Rachel stared at him softly. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to scare you. We’re going to be just fine because the sheriff is here and he’s on our side.”

  Alex turned to Hooper who was already looking at him. Hooper winked at him and flashed Kourtney a thin smile.

  Lightning cracked again, lighting up their worn-out faces and making them squint. The man in the leather coat snapped his head around to the window.

  “Which one do you want?” Doc asked.

  Rory’s eyes dropped to the .357 Magnum in Doc’s left hand and the Colt .45 in his right. “Which one do you want?”

  Doc shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, they’ll both do the trick.”

  Rory grabbed the mammoth .357 and strapped the nylon holster around his waist and right thigh. Doc unrolled the old leather drop-loop gun-belt and fastened it around his waist, letting it hang low on his right side.

  “I wanna a gun, too, Grandpa! I’m gonna be a deputy.”

  Doc tied a leather string around his leg to keep the holster from swinging around. “I thought you might say that, A-Man.” Alex’s face brightened as his grandpa turned to the bar and grabbed a black and chrome BB gun, which resembled a nine-millimeter. The kind a cop might mistake for a real gun during a late-night traffic stop.

  Alex wrinkled his face. “Lucy?” he groaned, wiping away another tear.

  “Here, put it in your holster,” Doc said,
handing him the BB gun.

  Reluctantly, the seven-year-old took it and slid out from the booth. “But I want a real gun,” he whined, slipping it into the old western holster Doc had given him for his sixth birthday.

  Doc knelt down and met Alex’s watery blue eyes. “Lucy is a real gun, squirt. You just have to shoot it more than once.”

  “This gun won’t do anything. I can handle a real gun!”

  “I know you can, Alex, but we only have so many real guns right now. Can you make do for grandpa?”

  Alex lowered his eyes to the BB gun and slowly nodded.

  “Atta boy,” Doc said, standing back up with a crack of his knee. He let out a long sigh and tousled Alex’s hair. “And don’t go shootin your eye out,” Doc said, winking at his grandson.