by mike Evans
Billy stared directly into the camera. “Because like I said earlier, we aren’t in this for the money, the fame, and the notoriety. It is about God and that is it. James I’ll see you soon, please get Father Michaels up to date and tell him I’ll be right back after I check on Tony.”
James opened the door and slid out, shutting it hard enough to shake the van. Billy watched him until he disappeared inside of the church. He instantly felt alone and hoped that they’d not encounter anything along their travels to the garage. With his good hand, he patted his pocket, pulling out a few emergency placed holy water balls. Morty asked, “Can I ask what that is?”
“Holy water, we had them made. They work so well the church hired a glass blower just for creating these. We get fresh batches often enough. The last thing you want to do is be without holy water or your Bible. A few good prayers don’t hurt either.”
Rod started driving again looking around at the desolate streets, most homes needed repairs, most cars looked like they’d been sitting there for a while. When they pulled up to the garage Billy said, “If I were you I would get back to your news station and think long and hard if you truly want to get the devil’s eye on you? Usually once you do, there’s not a lot that you can do to get it back off you again.”
He didn’t give time for Morty or the others to answer.
Rod spun around into the back seat when he was far enough away that he didn’t need to worry about Billy hearing him. “Morty, for the love of God, can we please, please, please go back to the news station. I don’t think I want to be out here ever again. I might have to apply for a desk job, I am getting way too old for this crap.”
“You don’t want a Pulitzer?” Morty asked nonchalantly.
“Morty, I do, and you know that, but I like to think that our lives are worth more than a stupid award. I know they are a big deal, but I just can’t imagine dealing with one of those things face to face.”
“Hang in there, it sounds like it won’t matter if you are in it or not. If there’s a war going on, what better thing than a front seat for it?” Morty said.
“I think I agree with Rod, Morty, I don’t want to have to deal with it either. Nothing would make me happier than fame, and money…at least what’s left over after you take your good share and credit for anything.”
“Watch it, there’s a lot of men, young and old that would be happy to take your job.”
“Really, well at the risk of the devil, I think that they can have it. You make sure to tell those men what they are getting themselves into by going that route if you think firing me to find out what is going on would deter them.”
“You know what, you two are both ungrateful. Get us back to the studio, this is ridiculous.”
Rod did as told driving a few feet before looking around trying to figure out where to go. He scratched at the dark stubble. “Either of you know where to go?”
Morty pointed forward and a detour sign was set up in the road. A construction worker with a stop sign pointed for them to go right. Rod gave him a thumb up as he rolled up looking at his options and seeing that he really had none.
Chapter 7
Billy waited for them to leave before he entered. He walked into a waiting room, seeing three women sitting in there and a few children by each of their feet smashing Hot Wheels together. “Good day, ladies, is there anyone around here that works?”
“They are all in the shop working. Every time we go in there to ask them when our cars are going to be done they just say twenty more minutes. I swear though every time they hear those doors open we see them running back to our cars.”
He nodded, turning around, he was surprised when he opened the door, true to the lady's word they were hard at work. Billy walked around looking at the cardboard table in the corner. Each of them had a wrench in their hand and were standing around looking at an engine. “Hey, Mr. Holt, how are you doing today?”
“Oh hey, Father Parker, what are you doing here? You got one of the church’s cars that needs to be worked on. We can put it up on the lift today for you. Anything to stay holy with the church, Father. Your brother ain’t here, he had an appointment or something. I figured he would have been back by now though.”
Billy gave a thumb up. He put a hand around the handle to leave when a wrench as long as his arm missed his face by mere inches. The glass exploded from the door’s chain linked window, it only had him to come back toward. Billy shielded his eyes not having any death wishes or need for any other scars on his face from a demon’s backlash.
Billy looked back to confirm what he was pretty sure he already knew and saw Holt staring directly at him smiling and already reaching for another wrench. His son put a hand on his shoulder and he brought the wrench around dead square in his jaw. The boy’s head snapped to the side. Lenny tried to grip for the truck they were working on but passed out from the hit before his muscles could tell his hands to hold onto it. He fell into a clump on the ground where he lay and did not move again.
Holt’s other son Garth wanted to run for his brother, but this man that had done that was not his father. He knew his dad to be tough and short tempered, but never, not once had he ever seen such violence from the man. “Dad, dad, what’s wrong with you?”
Billy yelled, “You need to get out of here, Garth, you need to do it now, there’s something very wrong with your father!”
Garth turned to run, but made it only a mere two feet before stopping. Billy could see it in his body language and knew that he was one of them now, there were two. He opened the door to the lobby ready to lock them in. The three women and their small horde of children were looking at him as he stood in the doorway.
Their eyes all glowed red, and their teeth looked pointed. The two women rushed toward his exit path, but Billy ran with all he could muster tackling the two before the demon’s full power had taken effect. They yelled as he hit them hard enough to send them off balance. One of the pudgy possessed three-year old’s jumped on him clinging to his leg. It tried to hold on tight, but Billy shook it off sending it into a pop machine.
He hated leaving this behind, but it was more than he could currently handle. He pulled the ax off the wall next to the fire extinguisher as he left and pushed out the door. He pulled it shut, letting it slam behind him. The demons who were giving chase slammed into the door. Billy put his shoulder into the door, keeping them from escaping the building. They screamed and moaned on the other side, taunting him as well. Billy looked at the ax and in-between slams into the door stuck it between the handle and the wall securing it tight enough that they couldn’t break through.
The door slammed again and screeching came from the other side. Billy leaned his head against the door, patting the sturdy steel. Thud after thud continued until it went quiet. Billy ran down the street and around the corner to run through the alley.
Chapter 8
Morty and crew
Rod pulled around after the man directed traffic. “I only know how to get back to the station going the other way, Mr. Spencer. This isn’t my normal route regardless of where I am. The Southside has never been real big on my list of places to hang out. I mean there was this one time with this girl Clara, holy hell, you should have seen this chick’s rack, it was enough to bring a tear to-”
“Would you possibly please shut up, Rod,” Morty barked. “I don’t have the patience for this. We can’t be late getting back, I want to start a bidding war among the news stations, and I'm not talking about local, I want to hit everyone up we’ve ever spoken to. We give them a picture that is clear, in focus, and steady of a little girl flying, a priest being taken upstairs, another one leaping out of a window to save a formerly possessed kid and I'm set, goodbye Chicago. I’ll be on to bigger and better places galore.”
“You mean, we’ll be on to bigger and better places, right, Morty?” Nick asked.
“No, I'm pretty sure I said it perfectly accurate the first time, Nick.”
Nick held the camera on his
lap, his finger resting gently on the delete tape button. “You know once in a while it isn’t a bad thing to not treat your crew like scum. You do realize that I got the video, all you did was have us be creepy and follow two priests whom you about made violent earlier. We remove this tape and you lose everything. I'm not an asshole, but far be it from me to let someone take my work, get the world handed to them on a platter and leave Rod and I in the ghetto because of it.”
Morty went to say something, but saw Rod was watching them in the rearview instead of the road in front of them and yelled to the man. “Rod, you need to watch out for those…those…what are those?”
Rod instinctively hit his brakes almost losing control of the van. The rear wheel drive locked up and they skidded to a stop. Morty pushed Nick out of the way, pulling the camera out of his grip. The last thing he wanted him to do was something stupid and losing all of that golden footage. “What in the hell is going on, Rod? What is that going on up there? There must be a few hundred people out in the street. Is there a riot or a strike going on?” Morty inquired.
“Not that I know of. I haven’t really had a chance to check, I’ve been recording shows for you all day and sitting in this stupid van the rest of my day,” Rod explained.
“Just get through here without hurting someone. The last thing we need is to get sued for us running over some poor sucker,” Morty said.
Rod tried to slow down, but when he saw what it was in the streets, he half debated punching the pedal and letting things fall into place the way that they did. The people walking the streets made him do a double take. He thought about them, thinking their eyes had been sunken in until he realized that wasn’t the case whatsoever. These men and women were in their nicest clothes, but their eyes were either completely gone or hanging out of their sockets by what dry ligaments remained. “What is wrong with those people?”
Nick didn’t take the question correctly and slid open the van’s door. The two of them in unison, both screamed, “Don’t open that door!”
The sound coming from the back was of it sliding open. Nick spun around to tell them sorry, unsure what he was supposed to do to help when eight hands reached in gripping his leather jacket and pulling him out of the van headfirst. The group that had pulled him out of there began gripping onto his clothes even tighter. When he fell out of the van his weight took them over. The fact that they were dead took little time to figure out. “Let go of me, let go of me...help…help me…help!!!”
One of the dead who was holding the sides of his jacket would have been close enough to kiss said through a dusty voice, “You will go nowhere, none of you will.”
“You are dead, you are dead, how are you…how are you doing this, how is any of this possible?”
“The bones are dead, but the death that roams them is very much active.”
Nick pulled back an arm to punch it in the face, unsure what it would do, but refused to sit still and let them do whatever it was they had intentions to do. An arm took his wrist not bothering to pull his sleeve back and clenched onto his wrist with all that it had.
The old teeth that had been below ground for a hundred plus years were like rocks. They ripped through his coat and continued until blood wetted its lips. Nick thought that it was the worst pain he had ever felt until another set of teeth came down on his index and middle finger biting until it came off.
He looked over his shoulder at his hand, seeing the blood squirting from his index and gushing from his middle. Tears filled his eyes and he screamed at the top of his lungs. He looked in astonishment at Morty hanging out of the sliding door and not to his amazement, holding the video camera smiling the entire time. Nick could hear him screaming for Rod. “This is gold, this is absolute gold, we got zombies, we got zombies in Chicago!”
Nick, who wasn’t as impressed with the situation at hand tried to look around, but there was a pulling and all he could see was legs. A pair of teeth bit down on his cheek and another on the back of his head, his ear, and his nose. He tried to pull himself free but it didn’t matter which way he tried to move there was pain.
Fresh tears made their way down his face as he screamed for all he was worth for help but his cries only fell on the ears of the dead. Crows sat in the tree cawing at them flapping their wings waiting for the leftovers should they come. When the dead had nothing left to pull from they started making their way to the street. They walked with a purpose chewing on the pieces of Nick that only fell down their neck and out in between their decayed ribs.
The birds circled around the bones in the street. Rod pulled Morty in by his collar. He lost his balance rolling over in the seat. Rod swerved the van pulling the wheel back to the side. “I got it, Morty, I got it, just a little bit longer and we will be good to go. It is an open street ahead of us.”
The crows began to dive into the window. Their skulls smashed on the glass, blood and brains smearing and blocking his vision. Rod jumped, jerking the wheel, but still trying to keep it steady. A thousand crows took their turn crushing their skulls into the glass. Rod turned the wipers on but it only smeared the blood. “Slow down, Rod, what are you doing, you are going to crash the-”
The van hit the curb going up at first and then down. Morty flew into the rear, gripping Rod’s shoulder, but losing it just as fast as he’d had it. Rod turned not thinking about it as he watched his boss and his dress shoes disappearing as he got near the edge of the door. Morty clung to the door with his manicured hands. Had Rod been able to see what was ahead of him, he would have done a hundred things differently.
The first would have been not driving directly into a hundred-year-old oak tree. When the van struck, the sliding door slammed shut with such force that it broke Morty’s spine, nearly cutting him in half. A metallic taste instantly filled his mouth and he spat seeing nothing but blood on the ground beneath him. His toupee hung down in front of his face. He tried to push up from the ground half in, half out and screamed in agony.
He pulled himself half way out yelling for help. Morty tried to shake his head to get his hair piece out of his line of sight. He could just barely see through it, but temporarily felt relieved when he could see feet. In all the delirium of what was happening, he forgot who the owner of the feet belonged to. He tried to rush away, but he’d do nothing fast, but die.
The dead were unable to bend to reach him, one walked over him tripping into the van reaching for the camera and taking it away as it had been directed. The rest fell atop of Morty, dry tongues licked at the fresh blood on his scalp and chin.
Morty screamed for Rod, but no help was coming for him, he cried from the pain but again nothing was there. The crows were no longer cawing, they all were dead. He looked up to the sky becoming a believer in God instantly and hoping that there was one and that he was watching out for him. He tried to think of the sins he’d committed over the years, the laws he’d broken, the privacy of others that he had invaded and a thousand more things atop of that. By the time he was done running through the list, the first of the dead had fallen on him and was biting into his suit coat. Morty yelled, trying to push them off, but for every one of them he was able to fight back five more took its place.
Rod watched Morty in horror. He wanted to pull him back in but wouldn’t stop the van for anyone or thing. He was not going to die because of this lesser human telling him what to do. He’d said it repeatedly how if they didn’t take some of his power away at the television station that he was going to get someone killed. He tried to look for something to reach him, but with the look on the man’s face that made him turn around. The view in front of his was blood soaked and the wipers would do nothing. Rod put his foot to the brake finally ready to give in but it was too late.
The van crashed into the tree doing upwards of thirty or forty miles per hour. Rod didn’t have time to think about it and wasn’t prepared. He tried to brace himself as he heard the crunch, but it happened too quick for anything worthwhile to be planned. Rod flew through the windshie
ld, the glass broke tearing the sides of his face, his arms, and back. He thought his neck was broken but was unsure. He lifted his neck answering that question.
He tried to look around, but all he could see was blood pouring down his face. He screamed for help but they were in a desolate run-down part of town and not many went through it except to get to a different place. Tears began to make their way down his face. When he could finally see something, a horde was almost upon him, trying to reach him, but he was out far enough for making it unable for them to grasp ahold of him because of the rigor mortis in their bones.
Rod smiled, feeling a sigh of relief. He tried to say something to let them know that he would not be a meal, but his jaw didn’t react when he tried to speak. He thought quickly it was broken, but it was better than what happened to the other two. He didn’t know what to do, but figured if he didn’t bleed out he would have the time that he needed to figure it out. A clicking sound came from behind him. He couldn’t turn his head to see what was going on but when the first set of teeth bit into his calf, then his thigh and his butt, he lost track. The lights started to dim, but not before one final bite clenched deep into his neck and pulled hard enough to pull a strip of skin from his neck to the middle of his back, it was the worst pain he’d ever felt just before he passed and joined Morty and Nick.
