Containment: A Zombie Novel

by Hippsley, B. A.

  “Heat starting up, George.”

  “Ain’t so bad in the trees. I got some news for you.”

  “More cars? We just come by Lloyd’s farm, found a stripped pick up over there.”

  “Nope. I heard some shots over at Dawson’s Pool yesterday. I found some .38 calibre shell cases. Some sort of tent was set up, but they’s all gone now.”

  “Any ideas where?”

  “I done see some hikers this morning, boy and girl headed over to Highway l04. Could be the same folks?”

  Eastman knew that Armstrong was a good ten miles from that point and he also knew the area was a maze. City folk were always getting lost there and with the heat set to soar, they could be in serious trouble.

  “Obliged to you George, I’d best get over there and take a look.”

  Lee melted back into the woods and Eastman and Merka drove off.

  Lee was a troubled man. It wasn’t just the dumpsters spoiling the land, Eastman and Merka would put a stop to all that. This was way more serious. He hated Wal-Mart –‘Yes Sir, no Sir, that’s in aisle four Ma’am’ – it wasn’t right for him. It wasn’t man’s work. What the hell did any of them know about hunting and tracking? ‘Jack’ was the short answer to that one. No, the worst thing, the thing he hated the most was that he didn’t have any options. When the hunting season finished so did the money. He shook his head in frustration. Then he saw tracks just in front of him. Heavy military boot prints, four, maybe even five guys had come this way in the last few days he reckoned. Whatever. He wasn’t looking for dumb grunts; he was looking for game. His keen senses were alert for any sound or movement but… nothing. For the last few days it had been the same. Nothing. It was as if all the animals had left the woods. In his long experience, that only happened if something bad was going down.

  Chapter - Two

  Brent Taylor scanned the sparse woodland in an arc left to right and back again; the less contact with people the better his chances of dodging the authorities. Relaxing from his crouching position behind a rocky outcrop, he spied no unwanted company and stood up. He was a sorry sight. His clothes were dirty and worn but on his back a large rucksack sat with surprising comfort; he’d been used to much heavier loads in Iraq. Longish, scruffy dark brown hair and a rough scraggly beard covered most of his rugged face. He needed a long, long time in a hot tub.

  Soon, he’d need to emerge from the relative security and protection of the woodlands he’d been trekking through over the last few days. To get an accurate reading of his position, he reached into the side pocket of his pack and withdrew a grimy route map of the locality – stolen booty from a few days earlier. Taylor followed the hand-drawn line of his progress with his grimy forefinger and stopped at Highway 104. He let out a self-satisfied grunt, jabbing the point with his finger, as he recorded the miles he’d travelled. Not bad, almost twenty-five miles today. Looking at his desert boots he noticed that these were the cleanest part of his attire, well, apart from the spot of dried blood on the right boot. Pretty good for boots from a dead man, he mused.

  How stupid he’d been to get involved, trying to help out. He’d first tried CPR on the man, but when it was obvious the guy was dead, Taylor had taken the boots. Then the damn cops turned up. Now the cops were looking for him.

  As he reached the end of the tree line, Taylor’s heart sank at the lack of cover in front of him. For as far as the eye could see it was just a long road, dissected by a featureless wilderness and nowhere to hide, nowhere. With no other option, he left the cover of the huge pine trees to continue his journey on the open road.

  He’d gone about four, maybe five miles when he saw a dot in the distance behind him. The vehicle became larger and larger as it got closer to him. Taylor however, had ample time to take cover in the ditch and patiently wait for the Coca-Cola rig to thunder past. Boy, how he could do with some of that now!

  Taylor realised just how thirsty he was and then how little water he had left. His throat was painfully dry and his mouth too parched to spit. He’d intended to fill his canteen at the small creek some miles back when he’d run into some hikers. One of them had shot at him with a damn pistol from the tent. Taylor had lost his canteen and had to run for it. He shut his eyes, rubbing his rough hand several times over his grimy forehead and cringed at how close that had been.

  Taylor had to get more water; consulting the map he tried to locate the nearest water to him. A small river about three miles in the opposite direction should do it, he thought. It would drag him slightly off course and take him off the road, but the surrounding area was covered in trees. Besides, there was no other option; he had to have water. It would make a good pit stop and he could rest for a while. He wanted to be off the road before nightfall.

  Nearing the river, Taylor could hear the soft babbling of the flowing water as it coursed over rocks and through the ravine. As he came into full view of the river it reminded him of that old movie Planet of the Apes, where Charlton Heston finds the waterfall. That’s a damn good idea he thought; he was long overdue for a bath. After Taylor had selected his bathing area, he removed all his clothes and stepped into the sparkling water. The water was so cold it was almost painful, making his whole body judder. It reminded him of when he’d been a kid jumping into the reservoir.

  Sometime later, he removed his clothes from the large rocks he’d used to dry them and got dressed. He’d never get served at a restaurant as he was, but at least he was a good deal cleaner. He hoped the lice had all died from the cold water. Taylor sat down to his makeshift banquet of shoplifted corned beef, cold beans and stale bread, washing them down with some water from his bottle. Raising his arms high above his head in a long, contented stretch, he lay back and contemplated his next course of action.

  Looking at his map, Taylor checked the distance to his target. To his reckoning it was about ten miles or so north from a hick town called Armstrong. His target wasn’t marked on the map – he hardly thought it’d have neon, Vegas style signs on it. More than likely, even the local rednecks hadn’t a clue it was there. But he knew where it was all right. The man he’d killed for that information had also known. All he had to do was find it.

  Taylor’s mind started to drift back to those terrible events two months ago. His jaw clenched at the memory; but he did his best to block out the past. He knew he needed to be focused on the task ahead; he would not allow himself to become distracted now.

  There’d be reference points; all he had to do was use these to work out where the place was. Taylor guessed the time by the position of the sun and its shadows and decided he would clear the road and then camp for the night. He’d gone only a short distance when the screaming started. He was able to detect a male and a female voice. Almost instantly the male voice changed from panic to pain. Taylor had covered only a few more paces when the male voice came to an abrupt stop. By contrast, the female voice rose to hysterical shrieks. Something dreadful was going down.

  He tried his best to banish the screams to that dark area of his mind; the place he kept all the other screams. Determined, he marched on with the harrowing wails ringing in his ears. Instead of the female’s screams getting further away, the awful din was getting closer. He was now aware she was behind him some way back. Taylor turned and saw a young, dark haired female in her mid-twenties with blood on her legs and hands. Her eyes were like huge white flashlights, staring right through him.

  “Stay there, you’re safe now,” he called in his most reassuring tones. “What the hell’s happened here, what’s your name?” The girl just looked blankly at him and pointed to the small ravine from which she’d just come. He knew he’d have to follow her, so he took her hand and she pulled him down the path.

  “Work with me here, where’s your cell phone? You gotta call 911…”

  “They, they attacked… started biting Paul and…” She stopped, unable to continue.

  “What, animals? What?” Taylor demanded.

  “Not animals, I think they were
people.”

  Taylor felt a cold sweat start to develop, that cold type of feeling you get in the gut with bad news.

  “Did you say people?” he said in a slow, low voice.

  “There.”

  Taylor slowly turned from the girl to follow the direction of her quivering, bloodstained finger. He already knew what he’d find because he’d seen it before, but it still filled him with utter revulsion and horror. On the ground, two crouching figures were bent over the torn and mangled body of a man. They were holding large chunks of the man’s flesh and were feeding on it, totally oblivious to Taylor or the girl.

  “Move back, they’re not interested in us,” he said in a soft, low voice, taking her arm to lead her away.

  Seeing one of the ghouls holding the man’s severed hand with his ring still attached, was too much for the girl and she started to scream. Taylor reacted instantly and grabbed her around the shoulders.

  “Shut up! You gotta shut up,” he hissed at her.

  Her voice rose in both pitch and volume, screaming uncontrollably. His warning however, came too late as one of the attackers turned slowly to look at them. Its colourless opaque eyes seemed to stare straight through Taylor. Then it drew its grey lips back to reveal broken and jagged teeth coloured red by its victim’s blood. To Taylor’s horror it started to get up with a jerky stiff motion and shamble towards them making a rasping noise as it moved ever closer.

  These were as mean looking as the ones he’d first come across two months ago, and they had the same bad table manners. Pushing the screaming girl to one side, Taylor aimed a well-directed kick at the thing’s left knee with brutal force. The limb broke easily, the white of the bone protruding out of the trouser leg. The thing fell to one side; unperturbed, it started to crawl towards them.

  ****

  They’d travelled less than five miles when Merka sounded his horn and pointed to a broken gate. It was Parks Department procedure to maintain all its fences. Eastman and Merka stopped their vehicles and walked over to the gate. The land had hardly changed from before the time of the first settlers. Here they could follow the path leading up river from Hinckle Point to Highway 104. Then they heard the screams, anguished screams of terror coming from the direction of Hinckle Point. Both men ran down the narrow lane to the sound of the screams.

  As they rounded the bend, Eastman took in the picture: a roughly dressed man just like a hobo, standing by a female hiker. The girl was hysterical. His first reaction was that the hobo had attacked her, but although she was covered in blood, the man didn’t have a speck on him. Both were standing with their backs to Eastman and Merka – they were staring at something else.

  As Eastman got to where the pair were standing, he saw a second guy covered in blood crawling toward the girl and the hobo. Eastman presumed he was on PCP or the latest happy drug. Matted hair stuck to his head and grey skin clung to his bones. But it was the eyes that struck Eastman. The colourless blobs were dead man’s eyes. He wore some sort of tattered coveralls that looked as if they’d come from a dumpster. Directly behind him was another man, bent over what was left of a dead male.

  To Eastman’s horror, this second man was eating from the body. This was no ‘shoot out’ or bad wreck where Eastman got to scrape the bits up. He’d heard of cannibal murders, insane people that took a perverse pleasure in eating human flesh. This was different. These two were ravenous; tearing at the body like a Coyote with a road kill. It was now obvious that the hobo was protecting her from them and he’d placed himself between the men and the girl. The first man stumbled towards the young woman and the hobo, emitting growls and snarls, his outstretched fingers reduced to bare bones.

  “Stop where you are and stand still!” Eastman shouted, holding one hand in the air, the other on his holster.

  The man took no notice and continued his lumbering advance. These were no ordinary ‘crack heads’. They were sick with something, and it was the type of ‘sick’ you didn’t want to get. Eastman called his instructions several times, but they went unheeded. The man was starting to get too close for comfort. Suddenly, the hobo sprang forward and took the Colt 357 Magnum from Eastman’s open holster and stepped back calling to Merka as he did so.

  “Put the pistol on the ground and step away. Now!”

  Merka looked at Eastman, but he’d no choice other than to do as he was told. The hobo had the drop on him. Both he and Eastman were now at this wild man’s mercy. The hobo looked directly at Eastman and spoke in very deliberate, icy tones.

  “You want to arrest that? You can’t arrest that, dumb ass!”

  In one smooth fluid movement he turned, aimed and fired, hitting the man’s chest, dashing him to the ground. The heavy 357 Magnum round punched a dime-sized hole in the front and then smashed out the back, striking the second man in the arm, breaking his elbow. He hardly seemed to notice as he continued to gnaw on the dead hiker.

  Eastman had been the county police marksman instructor for a long time; he knew the shot had gone through the heart. He watched in disbelief as the first man started to get up. The hobo fired a second shot, hitting the man in the stomach. Eastman saw the bullet go clean through, cutting his spinal cord and embedding itself in a tree. The man bent in two like a plastic drinking straw. Either one of these hits was enough to kill someone. As impossible as it was, Eastman saw the man start to crawl towards them.

  The hobo turned and looked right at Eastman and he knew by this man’s eyes, this guy was used to killing people.

  “This is the only way to deal with these things.”

  The man turned from Eastman and in the same casual way you’d swat a fly, shot the first man through the left eye, stopping him dead. Then with the same detachment, he shot the other man through the back of his head and the dead hiker through the left temple. All were perfect head shots. Eastman knew there was only one round left in the chamber. As he watched the killer walk towards him, all he could think was that he hoped Bill could get the guy before he reloaded.

  The hobo stopped a few feet away from him, then miraculously gave the pistol back to Eastman with the last round unfired. Merka covered him while Eastman cuffed and booked the hobo. He stood and looked at the carnage he’d just caused with a detached manner that unnerved Eastman. This boy was bad news. Eastman was thinking fast, how to move the hobo to the patrol car, when Frank Jorgan and his two boys Larry and Kurt arrived. The Jorgans were local farmers; they lived on one of the many farms outside the town. All three were armed and fired up as they started towards the hobo.

  “You the dirt bag that attacked my wife?” Frank Jorgan growled at the hobo, levelling his shotgun at him.

  “Simmer down Frank, he’s in my custody.”

  “Don’t care, I’m gonna blow his damn head off.”

  Frank Jorgan aimed his Remington shotgun directly at the hobo, but Eastman stood in the line of fire. He’d never been one for rough justice.

  “Okay, Frank, ease off, there’s been enough killing done. Put the weapon down before somebody else dies.”

  Jorgan could see that Eastman was in no mood to argue and lowered his shotgun. As if for the first time Jorgan took in the full extent of the gruesome scene. Eastman could see Jorgan and his boys were riled up. They were a tough bunch but not trouble makers.

  “What you say about Nancy, Frank?”

  “Some creep was on my farm and grabbed Nancy, roughed her up some, but she locked herself in the house, then he left.”

  “She alright?”

  “Yeah,’cept for some scratches.”

  “Did she get a description or something?”

  “Said he was weird looking, kinda poorly. She got spooked real bad.”

  The hobo edged his way forward. “Listen pal, I never attacked your wife. I been here all the time. Was she bitten?”

  “What’s that to do with you?”

  “Look Sheriff, you’ve seen some bizarre things here,” the hobo continued, “those bodies are contaminated; you need to be careful.
Ask yourself, they look normal to you?”

  Eastman could tell the hobo was uptight, maybe even scared. This was not the same man who minutes earlier had executed three men. He was sure this guy was a loon yet, with his own eyes he’d seen someone moving about after they should’ve died. What if these bodies did have something wrong with them? Some sort of disease. This notion worried him, but for now there was police business to deal with.

  “Okay, Bill, Frank go get the vehicles, bring them back here. Then I’ll call in for backup. Larry and Kurt can stay with me.”

  Eastman passed his keys to Jorgan and watched as the two men headed back down the track. He didn’t want to risk this hobo on the narrow track; there was no telling what he’d try. Eastman wanted him in plain view at all times. The girl was shaking but a lot calmer now. The boys were talking to her and had moved her away from the scene. They were about the same age which seemed to help he thought. Eastman viewed his captive with suspicion and curiosity.

  “You! Over by that tree!” Eastman shouted at the hobo, “and don’t even think about giving me any God damn problems.”

  The hobo called over to the brothers, “Did your Ma get bitten? It’s important. If she did then you need to watch her.”

  “Don’t speak to him boys! And you! Just shut up!”

  “Why for Mister?” asked Kurt.

  “If she was, then she’s gonna be crunching on your bones very soon.”

  “I’m gonna bust your filthy mouth!” screamed Kurt running towards the hobo but Eastman quickly stepped in front of him.

  “Easy up there Kurt, he’s just sassing you! He’s not worth it.”

  After a moment or so Kurt calmed down, then Eastman rounded on the hobo.

  “Shut the hell up or next time I’m gonna let them have you.”

  Eastman had the feeling this was going to be a long day. One thing was certain; this man with no name had more questions than answers.