Renewal 4 - Down on the River

by Jf Perkins

  The scraping sound gave away the cannibals before Dad or Francine saw them. Even when they did catch a glimpse, the sheer filth of the people, darkened with dried blood and grease and dirt, made excellent camouflage in the dark room. Dad was never sure how many of them were even there. He just grabbed Francine and pulled her out the door. They ran down the hall in the unique bilious terror of being pursued by human monsters. They were skidding to a stop in the front lobby and its glorious daylight before Dad realized that no one was following. He relayed the information to Francine, and they looked at each other in panting silence for a minute. With a sharp glance over her shoulder, she snatched the flashlight out of his hand and stalked back towards the cafeteria. Dad followed her, whispering loudly for her to stop, but she didn’t. He figured that she was offended on some subhuman level, or irrationally blamed the monsters for her husband’s death, and was out to clean house. Dad could only rely on Francine’s direction, since she had the light, and he caught a glimpse of one of the cannibals lurking in the cafeteria entrance. It, no longer a he or she in his mind, was suffering. It was hunched over, panting and coughing wetly, in a way that suggested that lung tissue could plop out of the floor any second. Francine walked right up to the thing, and kicked it square in the crotch. Dad heard a nauseating popping sound, and the thing collapsed. Francine kicked it in the head, and stepped over, heading for the hell pit in the food prep area. Dad followed, noting that the thing was dead from Francine’s attack, and making another mental note to avoid pissing her off.

  Dad said he had heard that certain flashlights made good weapons, and his was apparently one of those. Francine plowed through the prep area whacking anything that moved with four D-cells in an aluminum tube. Dad wanted to help her, but she had turned into her own whirlwind of death, and he was afraid to get close until she stopped her rampage. Dad told me later that he was staggered by her pure savagery, like she was possessed by some primitive goddess of death. She wasted no movement. The flashlight flew almost gracefully from one sickly cannibal head to the next, until they were all down, dead or dying in a red pool of their own tainted fluids.

  When Francine could find nothing else to bludgeon to death, her savage possession ended abruptly. The flashlight was slipping from her fingers when Dad snatched it and ducked under her shoulder to catch her before she joined her victims on the floor. He eventually pulled her out the front door, still feeling her racing heart through their contact. He placed her carefully on the hood of the Dodge, and left her there while he jogged from one car to the next, looking for supplies. He finally found a gas can in the back of an old pickup and a worn coil of garden hose in another. He set about siphoning gasoline into the can. He lucked out finding a hose with a garden sprayer on the end. Once he got the fuel flowing, he could fill the can and release the handle on the sprayer to hold the fuel in the hose until he came back. He started with the bone pile, and doused the bodies in the lobby. He took a side trip into the office and down the hall, where he used an entire can soaking the nightmarish food prep area. He wanted to make sure that horror show was never seen again. After four siphoning breaks, Dad had the school ready to burn. He poured himself a dangerous liquid fuse of sorts with the last of the gas, streaming it all the way out to the first car he could reach.

  He ducked behind the car, preparing to throw a match when he remembered Francine. She could obsess over cannibal killing, but he could obsess over his post-Breakdown engineering projects. He went back to the Dodge, which was probably far enough from the school to be safe, but he wasn’t sure. He tried to convince Francine to take cover, but she didn’t respond. He thought she had dropped back into a catatonic state after the rampage. He spoke to her for about ten seconds before he just grabbed her shirt and pulled her behind the car. He went back up to his own cover and said a small prayer before he lit the match and prepared to toss it on the gasoline.

  The gas ignited on his practice swing. He was lucky he didn’t ignite himself at the same time. The match passed through the fumes and the gasoline bloomed with immediate heat. Dad said he could not believe how fast the gas burned into the school. The front doors erupted in glass, flame, and a last belch of death stench. In seconds, the school was burning in earnest, volatile smoke billowing from the doors, and the sounds of rushing air surrounding him. He stood up when he was fairly certain the explosions were over and watched the school burn with an engineer’s eye.

  He did a double take when he realized that Francine was standing beside him. She was watching the wall of flames calmly and was using one of the tails of her shirt to wipe the gore from his flashlight. When it was clean to her standards, she handed it back to him. He was watching her face as he slid it back into the nylon holster on his belt and waited to see what new surprise she could toss his way.

  “I’ve gone too far,” Francine said, over the roar of the fire. She pulled out her gun.

  Dad was expecting a suicide, I guess, but he was still caught off guard. He backed away a couple of steps, and held up his hands in a stop gesture. She set the gun on the hood of the car.

  “You may need this,” she said. She walked five steps towards the school, stopped, and looked at my dad over her shoulder.

  Dad said he could already see her hair starting to smoke from the intense heat, even that far away. She paused just long enough for Dad to get the message. She was done with this life, and she wouldn’t appreciate any attempt to stop her. Dad said he gave her a shaky nod, and she turned again towards the school. She was burning long before she made it to the doors, but she never altered her stately walk, and she never made a sound.

  Chapter 4 - 6

  Terry had a death grip on the arms of his wicker chair. He had slid forward to perch on the front edge and had pivoted to face Bill, somewhere during the story.

  “Holy crap! That was one crazy old lady.” Terry said.

  “Maybe. Maybe she was just tough,” Bill replied, standing up. He stepped to the edge of the porch and tapped the spent tobacco out of his pipe. “Or maybe, she was just done. There are plenty of reasons to give up on life. I think it’s harder to decide to keep going, but that doesn’t mean that giving up is always wrong. You stay married to one person long enough, you may find out you just can’t function without her.”

  “Yeah, I guess, but it’s hard to see. I mean, she just proved that she could take on a room full of monsters. She might as well have been a Marine herself.”

  “I’ve always seen it as she wanted to set that one thing right before she died, but who knows the answer?” Bill shrugged. “Anyway, we’d better get some sleep. Long day tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Terry said, reverting to his commander relationship with Bill.

  That night, Terry’s dreams were full of fire and dark creatures and old women chasing him with clubs. He didn’t sleep well and knew he would be gritty all day, but he was almost thankful when John stuck his head in the door to wake everyone up.

  Judith and Charlie attempted to feed Bill’s team to an overstuffed state at breakfast, and the boys were happy to cram in every delicious bite. Charlie and Bill were making a final pass at the logistics of the trip based on some radio calls Charlie had made before the men were awake. Everything was set.

  After breakfast, Terry accepted John’s help in preparing his pack for the mission. “We’re not taking the truck?” Terry asked.

  “Nope. Our transportation is courtesy of the state. Should be interesting. It looks good going in. Getting back out may be tricky,” John said, sounding more relaxed than he actually felt.

  “Sounds great,” Terry said with his typical sarcasm.

  “Listen, Terry. The old man likes to lead from the front, and he likes to keep you close. So, my orders to you: watch his back. If he gets in trouble, get him out.”

  “Ok, John. I hope I can do that.”

  “I have a feeling you’ll be fine. Just trust your instincts.”

  “Yes, sir,” Terry said, in all seriousness.

&nbs
p; Once the packs were ready, Terry and the men jumped in the back of a large flatbed GMC truck and settled in for the ride. The packs were heavy with ammunition, light on food, and only a little better than nothing to cushion the bouncing truck. Terry glanced up to see Bill having an animated conversation with an old police captain who was apparently willing to drive them in harm’s way, but not willing to go himself. John was diligently checking their turns on his pre-marked map, and trying to memorize everything in case they needed to find their way back. Terry spent a good deal of his time doing the same. The worked northwest from Murfreesboro, but didn’t seem to be headed directly towards Nashville.

  “We can’t drive in on I-24,” John said, practically shouting over the wind noise. “There is enough traffic that some big pirate communities have formed through Smyrna and Antioch. We’d waste too much time and effort trying to fight through. I-40 is better, but it’s a long way around by usable roads.”

  “Are we taking the back roads?” Terry asked.

  “Even better. We’re sailing down Percy Priest Lake to get to I-40, then taking that to the city, and surface streets from there,” John replied.

  “Oh...Ok,” Terry said, not knowing whether it was a good plan or not. “How are we getting back?”

  “Good question. Depends on what we find when we get there. According to Charlie, we may have to grab one of the police vehicles. In other words, we’ll make it up as we go.”

  “Yeah, I figured. Oh well, not like I could be surprised by anything at this point,” Terry said.

  “I really wish you hadn’t said that,” John answered and stuffed his map into his shirt pocket.

  Shortly, the truck turned into an old parking lot. The pavement was cracked and the local flora was growing aggressively through the old blacktop. A shiny path of flattened vegetation showed that this place got regular use, however, and soon the brownish green water of the Stones River came into view. A bit further and they could see a broad aluminum boat sitting in the water, tied up to the end of its trailer. The whole rig, attached to an old brown pickup, was parked on the boat ramp, waiting for the team to arrive.

  Terry hoisted his pack, snagged his rifle, and jumped down from the truck bed. He was fascinated by the boat, since he had never taken a boat ride before. He absently shook the boat pilot’s hand and went back to examining the details. The boat was much larger than he thought, probably almost twenty-five feet long. There was a shaded area in the back, containing the controls and two metal benches along the sides. Ahead of that, a diesel engine was sheltered in a metal mesh cage with a shallow peaked roof on top. The naked drive shaft went right through the control station, about 8 inches off the floor, and disappeared into a box near the back, along with two smaller rods that Terry guessed were for steering. Ahead of the engine was an aluminum fuel tank, additionally clad on the sides with steel plate. The floor from there to the u-shaped bench around the bow was open, with another steel plate mounted in the middle of the space. A canvas covered bundle was strapped to a pair of hooks welded to the plate. Everything was painted in a brown and green camo pattern, even the canvas awning over the pilot’s wheelhouse.

  The police captain gave them a polite good luck as he wasted no time running back to his office in Murfreesboro. The boat pilot, named Shaun Jackson, was a bit more enthusiastic. He chatted cheerfully, and directed everyone on board, showing where to stow their gear and where to sit. Terry chose a spot on the port side bench where he could keep an eye on what the pilot was doing. Bill automatically sat down just to his right, or aft, as Shaun was explaining boat lingo, and Terry was paying attention. They stowed their rifles in handy racks on either side of the pilot’s control console.

  The pilot pushed the starter and the diesel chugged to life. He directed Jeffry and Rob to throw off the loops of rope holding the boat to the trailer and the concrete dock alongside the ramp. Shaun pushed a lever forward and, with a thump, the drive shaft started to spin. A gurgle of water at the stern announced the next phase of their trip. The boat idled along in the narrow cove, over water that was not quite river, but not lake yet either.

  “Settle in boys. This part’s slow, but not too risky,” Shaun announced. “We just left Jefferson Creek. It’s pretty civilized until we get further down the lake. If I were you, I’d take a nap. Feel free to spread out.”

  John and Jeffry, known for their family ability to sleep anywhere, didn’t waste any time. They went forward, dragged their packs out into the empty area, and built little poncho tents to keep the sun off of them. They were asleep in minutes. Terry was tired after a restless night, but he was too excited to sleep. He talked to Shaun for a while, asking a million questions about the boat, Shaun’s job, and anything else that popped into his head. When it was becoming clear that Shaun was tired of twenty questions, Terry took a seat along the stern and watched the patterns of water tumble out from under the boat. He couldn’t see the propeller, but he could see the rudder moving gently back and forth under Shaun’s experienced hand.

  Bill appeared asleep on the starboard side bench. The rest of the team was piled up around the Hall brothers, napping while the napping was good. Bill opened his eyes and saw Terry sitting by himself at the stern. He caught Terry’s surprised look when he rose to a sitting position and slid over to Terry’s side of the boat.

  “Hey, Mr. Shelton. Couldn’t sleep, huh?”

  “No, sir. This is all too new. My first boat ride.”

  “My first boat ride in a long while...” Bill said.

  Terry looked around at the deepening overcast. “What happens if it rains?”

  “Pretty much the same as if it stays sunny. I wouldn’t mind a little rain myself. It’s getting pretty dry for the crops, plus we may get some cover out of the deal.”

  “So, it’s not dangerous on the boat?”

  “Not really. I guess if the lightning gets bad, it could be.”

  “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t storm.”

  “There’s worse things than storms. Save your hope for them.”

  Chapter 4 - 7

  Dad recovered quickly, but I think it took a long time to shake off the guilt. I think he believed he should have done something to keep Francine alive, but eventually Mom convinced him that it was not his responsibility. At any rate, that’s the good thing about the end of the world. It keeps throwing new stuff at you to keep you from thinking about the old stuff.

  Dad always had recovery option number two. When in doubt, keep busy. He kept us shooting a few rounds a day until he was sure that we were competent with the guns. Then he stopped the regular training to save ammunition and made us pick up all our spent ammo casings on the off chance that we could reload them in the future. More to the point, he had sent Kirk over to invite the Carroll’s to our camp, on their land, for the 4th of July. In order to prepare for the occasion, Dad decided that we needed a picnic table. Of course, that meant more chopping, more cutting, and a new brand of wooden torture. In order to make the table and its benches flat, we learned to split logs into rough planks, and employed a variety of tools to smooth out the broad sides. The end result was the purest definition of rough-hewn, but compared to sitting on round logs, it worked pretty well. Unfortunately, it was all for nothing.

  When George and Martha Carroll came chugging into our campsite, they brought gifts. The most obvious of which was the picnic table strapped to his tractor’s mower deck. Kirk and I smacked our own foreheads, and Dad went from the most dumbfounded expression to maniacal laughter. Dad stepped up to help Mrs. Carroll down from her perch on her husband’s right leg. George unsheathed his cane and hopped to the ground.

  “Thought you might need a table,” George said, “But I should’ve known better.”

  Dad shrugged and smiled while everyone greeted each other.

  “You and your boys do good work, David. That must have taken an hour or two,” George said, running his hand over the rough planks of our latest project. He turned to Kirk and me. “Show me your h
ands, boys.”

  We held our blistered palms up for his inspection.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ll try to to let you know ahead of time, next time,” he said with a smile. George walked back over to the tractor and plucked a cooler off of the mower deck. “Martha, will you do the honors?”

  Martha paused in her rapid conversation with Mom. She opened the big Coleman cooler and lifted out a plastic jug. “Grownups only,” she said, handing a full gallon of George’s finest moonshine to David. “But, I didn’t forget you young’uns either.” She hoisted two round green watermelons out of the cooler and set them on the table. “First of the season,” she said with a proud smile. “And, last but certainly not least...” Martha lifted a huge foil covered platter onto the table and pulled the foil to reveal a mound of pink hamburger patties, ready to cook.

  We all groaned in spontaneous pleasure. We had been living on canned spaghetti for long enough that fresh food of any kind was literally mouthwatering. George snagged a burlap sack off the tractor and threw that on the table as well. It was about twenty ears of fresh corn. What had started as a special day in name only had turned into the best day in at least month. Mom, Martha, and Lucy went to work, taking ownership of their cooking and running us males away, when all we wanted to do was hover around the food.