***
Becky and Tom were running again, but this time with a clear purpose and a goal to get back to their car as soon as possible. Tom had gotten his second wind, and he didn’t even mind his achy feet or burning calves and thighs. It was all good now. He thought how it would be so much easier to do these runs if there was some imminent danger to him and his sister. He was an athlete now, a track star that had fire lit under his ass and was leaving everyone behind.
Becky was in front of him, though, by at least couple of yards.
They ran by a small field that was cornered by woods from three sides, making it into a little grove of sorts with a score of odd things scattered about. There were drums, or barrels … maybe they were something else entirely, he didn’t know, nor did he care. There was a small overturned tractor trailer, a bathtub and two sets of car seats. And in the middle of all of that, propped up against the trailer, sat a man.
Tom slowed down and looked in the direction of all the junk. Then he finally stopped. There was definitely a man sitting there and from what he could tell, he wore a military drab.
“Beck,” Tom said and saw his sister turn and come to a complete stop.
“What? What are you doing? We gotta go.” She waved him on.
“There is someone there. Look, right over in the middle of all that junk. See him?”
She turned and looked in the direction he was pointing in and nodded. “Yeah, so what?”
Tom paused for a second, thinking if he was seeing this right. “He looks injured.” He wondered if he was one of those that had been firing those shots earlier, one of the rednecks.
“Tom, we have to go,” Becky said impatiently but walked a few steps in his direction. “We really shouldn’t go out of our way to explore and get shot.”
“We’re not going out of our way. I really think he’s hurt,” Tom said and broke into a run toward the injured military man. He heard Becky call out after him, but he continued his sprint.
The closer he got, he finally could see that the man was in fact wounded, as there was a rather bad cut on his neck and it had been bleeding badly. He was propped up against the trailer, with his weapon by his side.
“Hey, man!” Tom said as he came to a stop and took a knee next to the soldier. “You’re hurt … pretty bad. What happened?”
The man slowly turned his head to face Tom and looked at him with dead eyes. “Get away from me,” the man said.
“What? What are you talking about, I came here to help you,” Tom said, still panting from his run. The cut was pretty bad, deep, a large chunk of skin and muscle missing. There was a trail of blood from the wound all the way down his neck that then disappeared under the shirt. The collar was drenched in red.
“You can’t help me. No one can.”
“Tom,” Becky called as she finally caught up and stood next to him. “What’s going on?”
“He’s hurt pretty bad,” Tom said, still studying the man’s wound. He spotted a gas mask a few away from them. It was splattered in blood and gore.
“What happened to you?” Becky asked. “Your cut … it’s bad.”
The soldier didn’t answer at first. He simply stared at them with seemingly unseeing eyes, then at one point touched his wound.
“Name’s Dwight,” he finally said and winced when his finger touched the bloody gash. “And to answer your question, this place happened to me, that’s what.”
“What do you mean?” Tom asked as he scooted to the other side of Dwight and glanced at the bloody gas mask one more time.
“This place is a fucking dump,” Dwight continued as he closed his eyes, then let out a long and painful sigh.
“Yeah, we know it’s a dump, what does that have to do with anything? Also, I don’t know why we’re just standing here when you should clearly be getting some medical help.” Becky’s bitchy side was coming through, Tom thought as he saw the look on her face. When things needed to be done, Becky got them done and in the process, riled everyone up to jump on board and do their job. This was one of those times, but Tom doubted they were going anywhere any time soon.
“I told him already that you can’t help me. The best you could do is to take my gun and put a bullet between my eyes,” Dwight said and pointed at the weapon.
“What? I’m not doing that.” Tom said and looked at his sister, shaking his head.
“And what I mean by a dump,” Dwight said and paused to swallow and lick his lips. He was white in the face, all color drained from it, most likely due to severe blood loss. “I mean it’s a dump for bodies. You’ve heard the stories about Love Canal…”
Both Tom and Becky nodded. Then Becky said, “Yeah, we know, toxic waste, chemical dumps…”
“Yeah that’s just part of it.” Dwight touched his wound again but only briefly, taking his hand off of it as if he had touched hot fire. His face showed how much pain he was in. “The experiments they do in that building over there. It’s crazy, man. This all looks like it’s been cleaned up, but you know nothing of what goes on deep underground. The government is all over it. They’ve been experimenting on the corpses all this time, doing God knows what to them. But they don’t get their soldiers to do the garbage disposal when their experiments fail. They call on guys like me, those without allegiance—”
“Mercenaries?” Tom interrupted in awe. He figured these guys were only in movies: men without a country or something like that, selling their services to the highest bidder.
“Call it whatever you want, sure, mercenaries is name as good as any. The point is … they hire … guys like us to do their dirty work. The military is there just in case of any hiccups or if someone gets out of line. Well … now they’ve done it … their ‘experiments’ are coming to life.”
“What are you talking about?” Becky said and knelt by Dwight’s side.
Dwight sighed and rolled his eyes. “The dead ones, the bodies of the deceased, mostly from this area and those … who have been in contact with those from the area at one point … or another. They do stuff to their bodies … or something … I don’t fucking know.” He paused again and closed his eyes. “God, this shit hurts so bad.”
“Are you saying that these people are coming back to life … like they’re zombies?” It sounded ridiculous, Tom thought, but then again, the government did all kinds of shady shit, so this wasn’t too far-fetched.
Dwight nodded.
“Are you kidding me?” Becky scoffed at this.
“Think what you want … but they got me and now my time’s come. You gotta help me end it,” Dwight said and coughed. It was a heavy, mucus filled cough that came from the bottom of his diaphragm.
“No way, man” Tom protested. “No way. We’re gonna get you help and that’s it.”
“Are you listening to me?” Dwight put a little power to his voice, whatever of it he had left. “It’s too late. One of them got me already, can’t you see? I got whatever virus or bacteria they have. I can feel it in me, it’s just a matter of time … before … I become … one of them.” He coughed again. Sweat formed on his forehead. Tom thought he looked feverish.
There was a moment of silence.
Tom and Becky exchanged looks. He watched Becky’s eyes then shift and start studying what was most likely a dying man. But Tom refused to believe that. There had to be something that they could do for him. He wasn’t just going to shoot him like some kind of animal.
“C’mon,” Dwight said weakly. “You have to. Just pick up the gun … aim at my head and just pull the trigger.”
More silence ensued.
This time, Becky was looking at the ground, then got up and said, “Do it.”
“What?” Tom asked surprised. For a moment, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But then he saw Becky’s face and it said it all. Sure, it sounded harsh, but it was the compassion in her, the rational part that saw that Dwight was beyond any help. Even if all the stuff about zombies he had said was false, he had still suffered heavy bloo
d loss.
But still … shooting him?
Tom hesitated for a long time, looking first at his sister, then at the gun.
“Just pick it up man, help me out here,” Dwight said and ran his tongue over his lower lip. “Damn, I’m so thirsty.”
“I-I can’t do it,” Tom said and shook his head. You couldn’t just ask someone to pull the trigger like that. There was so much wrong with that, he didn’t even know where to begin.
“Tom, he’s hurt,” Becky said, “Do what he wants, please.” She didn’t even look at Dwight. It was hard to look someone in the eyes, knowing you are the last person they will see before darkness took them. Tom looked into his eyes and for a moment almost teared up.
“Damn it,” Tom whispered to himself and ripped a handful of grass from where he was kneeling. He then looked at the gun and finally took it into his hands.
“It’s an M4,” Dwight said, his voice growing weaker by the second. “Easiest gun to use. Aim … put a single bullet right here.” He pointed at his forehead with his index finger.
Tom stood up and inspected the weapon.
“C’mon,” Becky said as she waited a few feet away from him. “Do it and go.” She wasn’t even looking at him or the man he was about to shoot. Sure, he was left with the shittiest detail in his entire life, the most painful and agonizing job he would probably ever have. He finally raised the weapon and looked down the barrel into Dwight’s eyes.
“Do it,” Dwight said, his eyes hypnotic, his voice trembling with the last ounce of energy left in him. “Do … it.”
“God,” Tom groaned and placed his finger on the trigger, but at the last second looked away.
“Ah shit,” he heard Becky say from behind. “Watch out!” she then shouted and picked up the combat knife that was by the man’s side.
He turned around, to see that there were four people crawling and stumbling out of the bushes and walking toward his sister. They were covered in filth, and what most definitely looked like blood, and lots of it.
“Tom!” Becky yelled and walked backward without taking her eyes off them. They were reaching out their arms, trying to grab her. One of them, a woman, was missing half of one arm, from her elbow down. It looked like it had been recently torn off. A man shambling next to her had a giant hole in his stomach, his innards hanging out and dangling at his knees as he walked.
“Holy shit!” Tom said as he pointed the gun at them, but his finger froze, refusing to squeeze the trigger.
“Shoot them in the … head,” Dwight said. “You have to shoot to the head. It’s the … only way to kill them.”
Tom moved the weapon about, targeting one, then switching to another, not firing at anyone.
“Just fire the damn gun!” Dwight said louder.
Tom finally fired off a shot but it only grazed the shoulder of the man that was within an arm’s reach from Becky. She pushed him off and knocked him into the man shambling right behind him. They bumped into each other and continued to pursue her.
“Damn it,” Tom said as he aimed again and took another shot. This time it hit the one closer to him right in the head. The bullet ripped the top part of the woman’s head off. Blood rushed out of her like a fountain before she hit the ground like a damn log. He fired two more shots, blasting the brains of the two closing in fast, leaving only the shambling teen.
“Over here, Tom,” Becky said and ran behind him. There was a teenage girl that was after her. As Becky ran over to hide behind him, she led the girl to him. She was the last one left. She had to be the daughter of the man and the woman he had shot seconds ago, and as far as he could tell, they were dead before he even shot them. Just before she could put her hands on him, he sent the bullet through her eye. The shot was at such close range that half of her head exploded, some of her blood spraying him in the face.
“I think that’s all of them,” Becky said as she walked in the direction the dead came from. “We should get going.”
“Holy shit!” Tom said as he looked at the diseased corpses on the bloody grass. The teenage girl he shot was there on her back, half of her face missing. Chunks of her brain were spread out on the ground, and a pool of blood had begun to form, soaking in the dirt and her greasy blonde hair.
“Aren’t you … forgetting something?” Dwight said and waved his arm in the air, like a kid asking to be picked for a team.
Tom grunted in disapproval and reluctantly walked over to Dwight. He stood in front of him and watched as Dwight pointed at his forehead once again.
This morning had started like any other, Tom thought. He was going on one of the dreaded runs with his sister, and he was probably going to go out tonight, drink, probably get drunk, watch a stupid movie, then get together with Tammy tomorrow and that would have been his uneventful weekend.
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to take this much longer, he turned his head and squeezed the trigger. A deafening blast echoed and when he opened his eyes to see his dark deed, he saw that Dwight wasn’t among the living anymore. There was a decent sized gaping hole just above his right eye, and blood was gushing out of it. The impact had knocked his right eye outward just a little, but not enough to come out of the socket.
“Can’t fuckin’ believe this,” he said to himself and shook his head in disapproval. “Sorry, man.”
He stood there a moment longer until Becky called again.
“Tom, we really have to go before more of them show up. I’m sorry you had to do it, I really am, but if we don’t leave, we’ll both be dead.”
Tom turned and ran without saying another word.
They ran further up the road in complete silence, but just at the point where they were supposed to make a turn on the street that would take them to their car, there was a group of people shambling about.
Becky stopped first, placing her hand on her brother’s chest.
“Shit,” Tom said and clenched his teeth. “This is getting worse by the minute. What the Hell is going on, Beck?”
“You think that’s more of … them?”
Tom took a second to look at this group carefully, and though he couldn’t see if they were dead or not, he knew that a group of people right in the head wouldn’t aimlessly wander in the middle of the road.
“Something’s definitely off about them,” he said and then looked to their right. “I’m not taking any chances, so I suggest we get off this street and just take the woods.”
“I agree,” Becky said and ran off the street.
Tom stood there to glance at the approaching group once more, and he was glad he did. The closer they got, the more he was convinced that they were dead … undead. The two women, furthest in front, were covered in blood. In fact, they were drenched in it from head to toe, as if they had showered in blood, Tom thought, and then without any further hesitation, he ran after Becky.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jack and Jill were about a mile from their car, but that encounter with the dead guy, didn’t help Jill’s anxiety. That mile walk might as well have been ten miles. They were walking down the abandoned street where houses sat on each site what seemed ages ago.
They hadn’t walked too far from the spot where they had dumped the body (twice) before two people, a man and a woman came into their view. They were slowly, very slowly, walking in their direction, and to Jill they seemed as they were walking in place. They wobbled side to side, occasionally lifting their head in the most primitive manner, almost like animals, to look around.
“Oh shit,” Jill said quietly, her voice low and secretive, as if she didn’t want the two down the road to hear her. They were still about a hundred or so yards from them, but you could never be careful enough.
“What in the world is wrong with them?” Jack asked.
“They look—”
“Sick,” he cut Jill off.
“Yeah, I was gonna say dead, but sick is good enough.”
“They don’t look alright at all.”
Jill pushed him to t
he side, closer to the edge of the street and they continued to walk. The noon sun cleared its way through the clouds and broke free, shining bright on the empty street. The light was right into their eyes, so Jill had to make an effort to keep watching the two coming up toward them. The closer they got, the more her fears were confirmed.
They didn’t look well.
The girl’s clothing was torn and bloody, her once perfect blonde hair, now a complete mess, and it wasn’t the good kind. What Jill at first thought were highlights of sorts, was most definitely blood. The man didn’t look any better, actually, he looked worse than the girl. His jaw was dislodged and there was a really deep and nasty cut on the side of his head that had been bleeding at one time, but had since stopped and had turned into a crust. It looked like some crater in the side of a mountain.
When they got within just a few feet of them, Jill held Jack’s arm tighter, clinging to him like a toddler to her parent.
The sick couple groaned and now dragged their feet even faster, outstretching their arms toward them.
“Oh, God, Jack…” was all Jill could say before the girl snarled and flashed her rotten teeth at her. She lunged at Jill with all her might, but Jack pulled her out of the way just in time. The girl missed and stumbled forward, then somehow regained her balance and returned her attention back to her prey.
“Oh God, Jack, shoot her!” Jill said as Jack had already raised the gun and fired.
It only took one shot this time, one well-placed bullet right in the forehead and the girl was down.
“Bull’s-eye,” Jack said as he nearly forgot about the other one.
The man snarled as he went after Jill, drool and blood dripping from his lower lip, but then as if out of nowhere, a woman appeared and tackled him with full force, like a football player. He easily went down and, once on the ground, he didn’t get a chance to struggle. The girl that had tackled him lifted her leg, her knee almost touching her breasts, and then brought it down with all her might, stomping his head like a cockroach. It exploded like a watermelon, spattering the asphalt with blood and chunks of brain and the poor bastard’s skull. One of his eyes popped out of the socket, but was crushed seconds later as the girl brought her foot down a second time, most likely in an effort to make sure that the head was fully destroyed.
Rise of the Dead Page 8
