The sense of disgust that I had had when observing the shells had evolved into curiosity. I kept the campervan creeping ahead, enough to move past the shells and still allow myself a view of the gathering at the passenger door through my window. As I got closer to the car, the shells turned toward me. This slight shift in position allowed me a clear view into the car. The torn and bloody body of what must have been a really tall man lay splayed in the front of the door. I started to look away, but movement in the backseat caught my eye.
I stepped on the brakes and continued to stare into the car. For a moment, I saw nothing and figured that I had imagined the movement. I had begun moving again when the woman moved up from behind the seat and waved frantically. I saw her lips moving but heard nothing through the window. I slowly lowered the dirty window.
“Help me, please!” The woman called in a voice that was not loud enough to be a scream. “Please, don’t go.”
Chapter 7
The van continued to creep forward, and I did not stop it. The image of the woman stayed in my mind. I wondered whether her voice was quiet from the strain of previous screams for help or if she had been too frightened to raise her voice. A piercing scream interrupted my thoughts.
“Help me!”
My foot reflexively stomped down on the brake pedal. I realized the scream had come from the car as the woman had obviously found her voice. I sat there in the van considering my next move. The trapped woman definitely needed help. In the next instant, the image of Christina, Taylor, and Kat filled my head. They had to be my first concern. I had to return to them and protect them. I could not risk their lives on the life of some stranger. For all I knew, the woman in the car might be responsible for the deaths of many others. I did not know her. Who was I to judge her life worthy or unworthy of the risk to those waiting for me to return?
Instinctively, my foot pressed down on the accelerator. The van began creeping forward. In my head, the van travelled down the street far away from the open car and the screaming woman. However, reality did not agree with my head. The van simply inched a block away before coming to a stop in the middle of the street.
I sat there looking out of the windows at my surroundings. The shells at the open car continued to shift back and forth as they tried to get at the woman inside. Otherwise, nothing moved.
After a moment, I slowly opened the car door. Naturally, the hinges creaked and made my heart jump into my throat. I froze and peered out for any new movement. My grip on the baseball bat tightened to the point that my fingers ached. The shells at the car did not give any attention to the sound. After nearly a minute of not seeing anything moving toward me, I eased out of the car and onto the street.
I was no longer able to hear the woman in the car and wondered if the shells had gotten to her. The reaction that I had to this idea did not make me proud. It was a sense of relief and sort of happiness. With her out of the way, there would no longer be the need to risk my life trying to save a complete stranger. Instead, I could be heading back to the store and those for whom I cared. My feet stopped as I considered this possibility. I turned, and my feet had started the walk back when the woman screamed again.
I actually rolled my eyes as I turned back around to face the pair of shells at the car. The things were focused so intently in the interior of the car that they remained unaware of my presence.
“Snooze you lose!” The phrase echoing around my head had been a favorite of Rob Sanchez, a photographer at the newspaper, and his voice said it now.
I crept up on the shells, surprised to make my way within a couple yards of them without being noticed. After standing there and staring at the backs of the shells as they ripped into the tall black body. I actually felt a bit impatient at the lack of attention and started tapping the baseball bat on the pavement.
As soon as the sound rang out, the shells twisted around to face me. The one on the right was a short Asian woman with long black hair. Next to her stood a young man wearing a dark business suit that looked too big for him.
“Help me!” the woman called out. “Please, help—”
“Stay where you and be quiet!” I cut her off. The irritation at having been put in this situation must have been clear in my voice.
The shells appeared to be distracted by having their focus yanked between the black body, the woman inside the car, and me with the baseball bat. The variety of choices seemed to paralyze them. Finally, I ended their indecision by raising the bat and bringing it down on the top of the Asian shell’s head. After a crunch-squish sound, the shell collapsed straight down.
The dark suit shuffled in my direction before I swung the bat and connected with the side of its head right above the ear. A pop rang out, and I dropped the bat as it stung my hands. The shell’s head was knocked to the right and stayed at a strange angle, a rounded indentation in the shape of the bat clear on the side.
The shell stopped for a long time as if trying to understand why its view has suddenly been knocked out of whack. While it wrestled with this question, I managed to find and grab the baseball bat from the gutter where it had rolled.
Whether the shell had found a suitable explanation as to its condition, I will never know. I only know that the shell looked quickly back inside the car at the woman before turning to launch itself at me.
“Look out!”
The warning came from inside the car right as I was swinging the bat. Unfortunately, it caused me to look toward the sound and away from the shell. It caused me to I miss my mark and hit the neck rather than the head.
The shell’s head flopped to the other side and sort of hung there. However, that did not prevent it from continuing to move toward me with outstretched arms.
This time, I took a deep breath and swung for the fences, as they say in baseball. The bat sank into the shell’s temple and opened its skull. The dark suit simply crumbled to the street and formed a pile of blue material. I stared at it for a moment, ready to swing again if needed. There was no need.
I looked around at the street to be sure that there were no more shells lurking. I saw none and leaned into the car.
“Ready to get out of there?” I asked as I looked down at what remained of her companion.
“Are those things are gone?” she asked in a shaky voice. “I really don’t want to come out until they’re all gone.”
I had to chuckle at her response. “Well, they’re all gone for right now. I’m sure they’ll be back though, so we ought to get moving.”
She said something which I did not understand before breaking into sobs. I looked around the street to be sure no shells were approaching and waited for the crying to stop.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffled. “It is not as though Randy and I had ever gotten close, but he seemed a decent man and had worked for me many years.”
I guessed that the Randy to whom she referred was the half-eaten corpse in front of me. I stared at the body for a moment to be sure that it was not going to move before I looked at the woman in the back seat. She looked younger than I had first realized. She must have been around thirty-five, wearing a light brown business suit, and had her dark brown hair tied up in a bun. She sat up very straight in the back seat.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” I asked.
At first, I thought she had started crying again and looked away. A second later, it became clear that the sound was of laughter rather than tears, definitely not joyful laughter but laughter nonetheless.
“I would have to say that I am indeed ready to get out of here,” the woman replied before laughing again. “As I have been for the last thirty-four years.” She looked down, which drew me closer to see precisely what held her interest.
Her eyes stared at a pair of thin, pale legs beneath a gray skirt. After a long minute, she said, “Randy keeps my wheelchair in the trunk.”
I tried to come up with something to say that didn’t sound stupid but failed. Finally, I simply nodded and moved toward the trunk.
&
nbsp; “Excuse me, Sir?” she called.
I immediately changed directions and stuck my head back in the car.
“Yes?”
“The latch to open the trunk is on the floor next to the driver’s seat.” I am sure she must have spent some time practicing this tone of voice. It sounded too perfect to have simply happened. With one sentence, the woman managed to convey her impatience and disdain for me.
“Oh, okay, great, good to know,” I chuckled and headed around to the other side of the car.
I believe I saw her eyes rolling. Whether or not they rolled does not really matter. What does matter is that as I crossed in front of the car, something grabbed my arm. I may have screamed. To be honest, I am not sure.
I looked down at the grill of the car to discover the battered, bloody torso of an old bald man pinned inside right above the bumper. The hand at the end of the one remaining arm had somehow found its way to my wrist. The grip was surprisingly strong and seemed to be getting tighter.
The head on top of the torso tilted slightly to the left as if regarding me in a quizzical manner. The dullness of the eyes made it clear that the ability to be quizzical did not exist within the shell.
I yanked my arm away, trying to free myself. The shell got pulled out of the car’s grill and fell forward to the ground where it landed with a plop and spilled out a collection of blood and wet dark red tubes of flesh. Even with the lightening of its internal load, the shell continued to squirm around in its effort to grab me once again.
I looked down at the wiggling thing near my feet and tried to find some compassion within me. This had, after all, been a normal person sometime in the past. The old man had probably raised a family and perhaps even had a dozen grandchildren who he spoiled at every holiday gathering. I tried to call up images of happy times for the bald old man surrounded by laughing children. I tried, but all I could see was a rancid hunk of flesh that had no business moving.
My foot stomped down on the head until it was nothing but a pile of pinkish mush. I stared down at the mess I had made until the woman called out again.
“Are you coming?” The impatience showed clearly in her tone.
I hurried around the car to the driver’s door. I opened it quickly, lifted a little lever on the floor, and the trunk opened with a plunk. I avoided the glare coming at me from the back seat as I hurried around to the trunk. The lid opened with a creak. Inside was surprisingly clean. Strange the things that stand out in tense situations. I also noticed there were no shells in sight.
I had the wheelchair out and over to the side of the car within a couple of minutes.
The woman had moved closer to the door. She opened it and asked, “Are you sure there are no more of those things around?” The previous arrogance was gone from her voice.
“Looks like we’re clear,” I answered, trying to calm her. “We just need to get you into my van and back to the others.”
“Others?”
“Yes, they’re waiting at a store about a mile away. But the only thing to worry about right now is getting out of here.”
I lifted her into the chair and found her incredibly light. For some reason, her lack of weight worried me. Perhaps my concern came from the notion that anyone so light had no chance of surviving. To tell the truth, I am not sure what I expected her to weigh, but it was certainly more than she did.
She had just gotten settled in the chair when the first of the shells shuffled into view a couple of blocks away. I startled her by suddenly pushing the chair.
“We need to get out of here now!” I had a knack for stating the obvious.
We covered the ground to the van in a short time, and I had her in the passenger side quickly, if not exactly gently. The chair was stuffed into the back of the campervan, and we were on our way. All of this happened before the shells managed to get within a few hundred feet.
“Those things are coming,” my passenger cried.
“We’ll be fine as long as we stay calm,” I answered, trying to keep her from panicking. “They’re slow and not usually too coordinated, so we can get away from them pretty easily.”
“You might be able to easily get away from them,” the woman said as she gestured down to her legs. “But I have these.”
I glanced from the street to her thin, pale legs. “Well, I can’t change that fact, but I can make a promise to you, the same promise I have made to the others. That is, I promise that I will not let those things, shells, get you.”
The bitter laughter filling the van was not the reaction I expected. “You’re going to protect me? Save your promises for someone who needs them.”
It took all of my self-control not to stomp on the brakes. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” I added a chuckle to keep things light.
“I’m not looking for anyone to protect me, okay?” She forced a smile to her face.
I looked at her and then quickly away. The anger quickly rose within me, and her expression did nothing to slow it. “I’m not going to apologize for what I said. If you’re bothered by that, I guess you’re going to have to deal with it.”
Her response came immediately. “So you simply assume because I’m stuck in a wheelchair that I’m a helpless cripple who needs you to swoop in and—”
I could not stop the words from exploding from my mouth. “Assume? Really! The world’s full of corpses walking around trying to kill people!” I paused and took a deep breath to calm down. “Look, lady, I don’t know you at all. I don’t know what you’ve been through. All I know is it’s not safe, so when someone offers help, you ought to take it.” I focused on the street ahead.
She stayed quiet for a minute before saying, “Perhaps I was a bit brusque.”
Unable to keep from laughing, I answered, “Yes, just a bit brusque. Well, I’m Kevin Turner. I don’t even know your name.” I paused, waiting for her to give her name.
The woman was silent as if considering whether or not to respond. As I started to ask again, she said, “Linda Green. My name is Linda Green.” The words of introduction did not come as easily as they should have.
“Okay, Linda Green, nice to meet you,” I chuckled before continuing, “You certainly seemed to be in a bad spot when I found you. So how did you end up on this street in that car?” I asked, pulling the car to the side of the street and turning toward her.
She rolled her eyes in disbelief at the question. Her eyes suddenly grew wide as she looked beyond me to see a trio of shells approaching. “I, uh, can’t we discuss this at a later time in a better place?”
I have done lots of things of which I am not proud, but my sadistic treatment of Linda Green would have to be up at the top of the list. “No, I think I’d like to talk about it right now.” The thud of a shell moving directly into the door shook the car and made Linda jump. A twisted smile made its way to my lips.
A look of confusion flashed across her face but quickly vanished. A slight smile showed itself as she said, “As you wish.” Linda Green did her best to maintain eye contact with me even as another shell began slapping the side of the car. “You want to know more about how I wound up stranded in that car, is that correct?”
It took me a second to react to her surprising response. I have never had what anyone would call a good poker face, and it became that she was calling my bluff.
“That’s right. Before we go any farther, I want to know who you are and how you got into this mess.” I did my best to keep my voice steady as the campervan shook from some pounding.
A slight sparkle showed in her eyes as she answered. “As I said, my name is Linda Green, and I am the director of marketing and communications for CompuLine Industries.” A shell slapped the window near Linda Green’s head, but she showed no reaction and continued speaking. “As to how I found myself in the back of a car surrounded by those, uh, those things, I was on the way to the airport when Randy ran into trouble.” She paused and actually smiled. “I suppose ‘trouble’ is something of an understatement. After all, it
would seem—”
She was interrupted by the appearance of a tall, thin shell which had launched itself onto the hood of the van and struggled to reach the windshield.
“It might be a good time to get out of this place,” she said with a bright smile. “Unless, of course, you would like further details about my experience.”
My bluff had been called, and there was nothing left for me to do but admit that I had lost another game of chicken.
“Okay,” I muttered, stepping down on the gas pedal.
Linda Green got thrown back in her seat, but this did not change the satisfied expression which spread across her face.
The shell on the hood did its best to find something to hold. It struggled and squirmed as it slid across the hood, and finally its fingers wrapped around the windshield wiper in front of me. It must have been my imagination that gave the shell a pleased appearance at having found a little stability. In any case, the stability was fleeting. At the next corner, I yanked the steering wheel to the right and made a sharp turn. The tires squealed a bit, the van tilted slightly, and Linda Green let out a grunt. Amid all of this, the windshield wiper got torn from its place. The previous handhold which seemed to guarantee stability was now loose in the shell’s fingers. It squirmed and struggled some more before sliding off the hood and onto the street.
I stared straight ahead at the street as I asked, “So how is it that you haven’t seen much of the shells before? I mean the damn things are all over the place!”
She took a deep breath as if speaking to me took a great deal of effort. “I see that.”
“That’s it? I see that? I still don’t understand how anyone could have gone so long without coming face-to-face with the shells.”
“Face-to-face with what?” Linda asked.
Now it was my turn to act annoyed. “I call those things shells because…”
“Because they’re shells of their former selves,” she finished smugly.
The Most Uncommon Cold (Book 5): Surviving Beyond the Zombie Apocalypse Page 8
