by Weeks, TJ
I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal and felt the shift of the truck like going over a speed bump while driving over the little girl’s body. The man that was raking his fingers down my window turned a three-hundred and sixty degree spin from me pulling off. The ass end of the truck shot right to left before gaining control from its hydroplane. I swerved around the vehicles in the middle of the road as I made my turn off. Looking in the rearview I could see the little girl rising from the street and her skin was hanging from her torso. I am glad we didn’t get out to help her right away.
Pulling into town we could see flashing lights from many cop cars, fire trucks and ambulances. None of them were moving though. I slowly crept passed one of the ambulances and it looked like a horror show took place inside of it. There was even blood trickling from the ceiling and the gurney that only held a bloody head of some poor bastard. Maybe I was seeing things with all the chaos going on, but it looked as if the head was opening and closing its mouth.
“What the fuck is going on?” Gizmo asked as if I’d have an answer to calm his curiosity.
I shrugged my shoulders and just shot my eyes from left to right trying to cope with everything I was seeing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“HEY TJ, want to make us official?” Howard called out from behind us.
“What are you talking about?” I responded.
“The Horror Squad. You know, from the rooftop.” He established.
I turned to look at him to get a clearer picture at what was on his mind. “Spirit Halloween”, was the sign he was standing by.
I’ve always had obsession with collecting masks, so I was hooked to the idea right off the bat.
“Oh fuck yeah!” Gizmo called out.
“Boys will be boys.” Rachel stated with an eye roll.
We all turned our direction and walked into the double doors of the Spirit Halloween store closing and locking them after we entered.
Everyone started snatching costumes from the shelves. Gizmo grabbed a Leatherface costume, Justin grabbed a Jason Voorhees costume, Steven grabbed a Michael Myers costume, Howard grabbed a Pinhead costume, Donald grabbed a Hannibal Lector costume which suited him from his earlier outburst, Rachel thumbed through a few, but didn't get anything. It wasn’t necessary horror, but I grabbed a Heath Ledger version of the Joker costume and even shoved a Harley Quinn costume in my bag for my wife.
“You don’t find this as...gay?” Rachel questioned.
I slid the mask over my head and started looking around. I felt like a whole different person. I thought for a moment that we all may be going crazy, but it felt good…it felt real good. I turned toward Rachel and tilted my head to the side. “Why so serious?”
She almost fell backwards trying to take a quick step back noticing the creepy change that had just set in motion. “You guys are fucked up.”
“Let’s redecorate the place.” I stated in fun before everyone started kicking shelves over, hatcheting the boring masks and pretty much just destroying the place.
We walked out of the store like a true team of psychos that had lost all reality of ourselves, but for the first time, there was no fear left in our souls.
We were almost out of the city limits when we caught a sign that stated it fixed and repaired small engines.
“Hold on a second.” Gizmo stated as he ran inside.
All we heard was the distinct sound of a motor start up. A small amount of smoke fled the building before Gizmo. He walked out with a chainsaw that he had started waving over his head just like in the movies. Some rotters heard the saw and started walking out of the small wooded area that surrounded the building. I was the first to make a move by angling my head side to side getting a good kill sight and plowing my machete into one of their skulls and then using my foot at the same time to kick its chest to redirect my blade back out of it. The rest of the squad jumped in except Rachel, she kept her distance.
Gizmo ripped through a pair of legs of the Rotter he came across before laying the saw into its forehead and stomping his foot on its sternum and crushing its chest cavity.
Rachel stood there watching in complete fear. She wasn’t excited about the craziness of the group, but was more than sure she’d be safe from all zombies with this group. They were definitely setting an example to not be fucked with as they massacred each of the zombies.
The chainsaw came to a halt as the last rotter fell and we continued walking toward our destination.
“What the fuck!” I stated aloud.
“What?” Rachel questioned.
“The goddamn truck is gone.” I replied.
“Are you fucking kidding me? That was my favorite truck. I spent a lot of time working on that.” Justin stated.
“Well looks like we’re walking.” I informed everyone.
“Why can’t we just take another vehicle?” Donald questioned.
“We syphoned the gas from all the vehicles on our way here, genius.” Gizmo replied as he took a step in the right direction.
“Looks like we’re not making it home tonight after all.” Steven stated the obvious.
I looked at him while shaking my head before walking away thinking that such stupidity didn’t deserve a reply.
Cars lined the streets sitting empty on gas and useless to us. We had to figure out a place to go since dark would be up soon. I was not looking forward to the walk home, but getting back alive was the most important.
I was at a loss at this point. I just started walking toward home, gazing down the road trying to figure out a plan of some sort. I wanted to go home, or the home that we had created. I was sure that we had been careful, but now this meant that there were more of us out there, I was sure that the rotters didn’t jump in and take off with our truck.
GHOST HOUSE
I PULLED into Gizmo’s parents’ house and could already see his nephew hanging out of a broken window with the glass lacerated into his chest and a pool of blood streaming down the side of the house.
“Christopher!” Gizmo called out while jumping out of the truck before I could even come to a complete stop.
I threw the truck into park and jumped out after him. “He’s dead.”
Gizmo started to tear up as he brushed his hand across the top of his nephew’s head.
The door was cracked, so we walked in trying to be as quiet as possible. I readied my gun just in case, since from the look of the town, there was no telling what we may be walking into. We slowly walked into each room to find each one empty, but appeared there had been a struggle in all of them.
WHILE WE’RE AWAY
THE NEXT morning Shianne was up before everyone, she had already gathered the kids and taken them to eat. Tina and Kris burst out of their doors at the same time.
“Are your kids gone?” Kris asked.
“Yeah, are your kids gone?” Tina asked.
“Okay, Shianne must have taken them, cause she’s gone as well.” Kris sighed with relief.
“Awesome, I am going to take a shower and go get coffee.” Tina stated.
“Me too, minus your nasty ass coffee.” Kris laughed heading back in to grab clothes.
Both were able to take a long shower that they desperately needed. Tina stepped out with her naturally curly hair wet and bouncing around as she tried to gather it and pin it back from her face. Kris ran a brush through her dark straight hair and left it to dry. Both slid on a pair of jeans and t-shirts and headed out, stopping by their rooms and throwing their dirty clothes inside.
They popped open the doors to the cafeteria and the group sat at a table on the back all laughing and giggling while eating some eggs and bacon. Shianne peered up and smiled.
“Hope I didn’t worry anyone by sneaking all the kiddos out. Figured you both could use the sleep.” She told them.
Kris and Tina both smiled in acceptance of her nice gesture.
Milissa brought coffee rather quickly to Tina, surprised that she was there so late this morning. Tina tried to give an
other smile and took the coffee graciously. Kris sat down and directed the ones that weren’t done to eat since they had to get to the plant to help out.
“If you want to go meet Lisa, I am sure that she has something she can have you do.” Kris told Shianne stealing a piece of bacon.
Shianne nodded with her mouth full.
The group headed over to the plant and went through the heavy steel door that read ‘Employees Only’, being Friday, the others tagged along ready to help out.
Lisa stood mere feet away watching two men up on a tall ladder with tools fixing something.
“Lisa, this is my daughter.” Kris called to her.
Lisa turned to her with a confused look. “Daughter?” She questioned.
“It is my oldest daughter, she was living in Colorado and made it here yesterday.” Kris smiled. “She needs a job, you got anything?”
“Well, hell yeah. There is always shit to do around here.” She smiled. “I’ll take her and get her someone to hang with to show her the ropes, as for the kids, I have some cleaning I need done, if that is okay with you.”
“Whatever you need, Tina stayed behind to finish her coffee.” Kris laughed.
“Well, if she is only on her first cup, probably a good idea.” Lisa smiled knowing Tina’s fuck mornings attitude.
Lisa took the younger ones by the hand and instructed the others to follow. Kris watched as she removed her cowgirl hat from her long blonde hair and placed it on Sidnie’s head as she did every Friday that she came there.
Kris went back to the cafeteria and began to help the girls clean up from breakfast. Once Tina finished her coffee, she began to help clean as well.
After the cafeteria was clean and Bobbi and Chelley were able to go get some rest for their night shift, Kris and Tina headed to Karen’s station to help stock anything that needed to be stocked.
Everyone was always envious of Karen since she was always dressed the nicest through this apocalyptic time. She was shorter than both Kris and Tina and skinny, which we all envied, she always wore the cutest t-shirts and jean combo and heels with every outfit. Not many of them were able to gather make-up before they left, but apparently Karen had made the time to do so. She always had just enough on to look awesome.
After their time at inventory and helping out in the fields pulling a few weeds, The twosome made their way back to the school to clean up any laundry and get it at least in the washer to be hung up later and dry overnight and then over to pick up the little ones from the plant.
As they walked in, Tina and Kris could smell a smell that they had not smelled before. Smoke covered throughout the building and Lisa ran towards the door with the children in tow, rushing to get them out of the building.
“What the hell happened?” Kris asked as she guided everyone out of the door.
“We have a generator on fire. Get them out of here, we have to get the fire out before the whole place goes up!” Lisa screamed.
Kris and Tina ran outside and sent them to the classrooms to stay safe as they made their way back in to help. The two grabbed a fire extinguisher each from the wall as they passed them and pulled the pin. They headed to where the crew was gathered around and started to help. The white dust flew through the air and flames died a bit with the amount of people that were there to extinguish the fire. Finally out with a last splash of water from a bucket, the crew was able to back off and wipe the sweat and cool down a bit.
“Good job everyone!” Lisa hollered.
Kris saw Shianne across the aisle with the water running from a hose she had been using to spray at the fire. She smiled at her daughter, happy that she was there to help.
“We are down one generator. It shorted out and caught on fire.” Lisa told Kris.
“Can we make it on what we got?” Kris asked.
“Yeah, I got the guys already hooking everything up to the other ones.” Lisa explained.
“Alright, what can we do to help?” Kris asked.
“I got this, hell that is what your hubby put me here for!” Lisa laughed.
“Holler if you need us, we are here. Good job Lisa.” Kris stated.
Kris and Tina waved to Shianne and told all the other workers good job as they left out and headed to check on their children.
“Everyone okay?” Karen asked running up to Tina and Kris.
“Yep, Lisa handled it like a boss. A generator shorted out. They have it under control now. We are just short a generator, but Lisa knows best on that aspect of shit and says that it should be fine. So we will leave it to her.” Kris told Karen. “Everything good with you, do you need any more help?” She asked.
“No, we have more than enough food for everyone to last quite some time and everything is in order.” She happily reported. “I think whatever the guys bring back will be plenty to be able to have them stay awhile and get things settled here.”
“Awesome, I’m glad. I guess we need to head back and maybe check on the crops and see if we are going to be able to have some greatness for food inventory.” Kris stated to Tina.
Tina agreed and left the always well-dressed Karen to her inventory.
They made their way to the fields and walked through the rows of plants that were sprouting now that all of the weeds had been pulled. All of them were marked with little plastic pieces with names of each vegetable on them at the beginning of each row. Both walked down and said hello to everyone and loved that there was something growing in each row.
“About another week and those will be ready to go. We have so much of the squash and tomatoes that they should be able to make something awesome if they know what to do with just those two things.” A large man laughed. “We do have cucumbers, potatoes, okra and a couple of rows of onions coming up that we can get to them by next week.”
Kris nodded, impressed with the outcome of the garden and how much that the guys would not have to look for.
FAMILY MATTERS
WE WERE about to give up when we faintly heard a rattling sound coming from the back yard. Gizmo caught a faster pace headed out to the back. I slowly followed while still looking back with the rifle to ensure nothing was following since I was starting to get an eerie feeling we were not alone.
Gizmo screamed about the time I stepped backwards to the door. When I turned and looked, his mother was on her back on the ground and his dad was in the midst of taking a bite out of her. I noticed her foot shaking from her nerves still twitching. His dad turned his head now looking at both of us. His eyes were glazed in white film with a blood shot tint over laying them. He let out a moan and started to stand up.
CLICK, CLICK sounded as I chambered a round.
“NO….” BANG! Gizmo tried to stop me as I pulled the trigger.
“What the fuck man! That’s my goddamn parents!” He screamed at me as he grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back into the side of the house.
“They’re not your parents anymore.” I tried to explain as I could barely explain it to myself.
He loosened his grip on my shirt and I pushed him to the side.
CLICK, CLICK….BANG! I fired off another round as his mom was now trying to get on her feet.
His eyes widened and he slid down the wall and in almost a fetal position. “What’s going on?”
“We need to get back…NOW!” I responded.
CHAPTER NINE
“DID ANYONE remember seeing a place to make camp on the way here?” I questioned
“Well fuck no, we weren’t expecting to hike it back.” Gizmo stated.
“I think there was a train station about ten miles back, but we’ll have to veer off the road and get on the tracks.” Rachel answered.
“That’s what we’re doing then.” I commanded as I slipped my mask off since I was starting to burn up.
The rest of the squad started pulling their masks off as well. We were drenched in sweat from the hike we had already made and now knowing we had to make up approximately sixty miles to reach home wasn’t looking good.<
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I took the first step off the road and into the thick of the woods while everyone followed me. Dark was only about an hour from meeting us.
We reached the night about the same time we felt the crunch of the rocks under our feet to know we had found the tracks. We could hear moans calling out from the woods around us, but couldn’t see where they were coming from. We were much too beat to take on much, so we quickened our pace down the tracks until we saw a silhouette of a train. I started running my hands across its cargo trying to find a door. I could feel thick brush slapping my legs or at least that’s all I could hope that it was. Finally I found a door and I slid it open and struck my lighter to guide the rest of the guys. I counted as they jumped in and then followed and slammed the door closed to immediately hear slapping on the outside.
“Close call.” Steven stated.
“Too close. We need to sleep and move as early as possible.” I stated.
“Do you really think those rotters are just going to make us a path in the morning?” Gizmo sarcastically stated.
“No…I don’t, but we damn sure can’t see right now.” I answered.
“And you expect us to sleep while they’re slapping the side of the cart and barely being able to breathe?” He followed up with.
I struck my lighter once again and started looking around and could see a small trap door above us with a wheel lock. “Give me a boost.”
Justin and Howard boosted me up and I turned the wheel until I heard the door unlock and pushed it open. Instantly felt a gust of wind shoot down.
“There’s your air.” I replied.
“Do you think we can get out that way?” Donald asked.
“I think that’s our only way out.” I replied.
I laid down on my bag and stared up through the door and at the stars. I used to climb up on the roof of my parents’ house and stare at the stars all the time. It was the only time that I could really just lose myself and gather my thoughts on life itself.
