She’d hung up.
He took a long breath, then set his phone aside and put his attention back on the city street he had ventured upon.
A tumbleweed blew across the road, the only sign of movement other than his car. Where was everybody? He heard the announcement the night before, the order from the President that people stay within their homes and wait for help to arrive, but he hadn’t seen many that had listened to it. The odds that a whole city was doing just that seemed slim, yet there were no signs of destruction or death, and the world around him was silent, as if he’d just wandered onto the set of the Last Man on Earth.
Had they ever disclosed what had happened to wipe out the Earth’s population in that show? And wasn’t the name inappropriate as other survivors began to show up?
He shook his head, it wasn’t really relevant, and his woolgathering had made him pass an empty Chevron without a moment’s thought. Well, there’d be another gas station along the way, surely, and hopefully it would look just as abandoned as that one had been.
He thought he saw people peering at him through the shades of a nearby building, but when he did a double take they were gone. He was starting to see things as well. His wife was right, the paranoia was not helping one bit. Yet, it might just save his life all the same.
There was a green common area on the right side of the road, a large route sixty-six sign on the sidewalk before it, and he knew that he had ventured into the center of town, the first signs of life finally revealing themselves.
There was a gas station on the opposite side of the road next to a U-Haul and A&W, the price of gas a bit high, but that was normal for a town of this size. He put his blinker on out of habit and pulled in, pulling up next to the pump on the right, eyes on the other three vehicles fueling themselves up, their occupants eyeing him suspiciously as he killed the engine.
They were suspicious of him? Had they gotten a good look in the mirror?
The Sheriff standing next to his squad car eyed him briefly, then turned his attention back on the other two, his brown moustache way too big for the thin face the man had. He had a cap upon his head, had short brown hair, a shotgun was within reaching distance on the hood of his car; his tense stance making it clear that he was ready for the world to go to shit with just one word.
It wasn’t the cop that looked out of place, it was the couple standing next to their motorcycles on the other side of the pumps.
The woman had long brown hair pulled back in a pony tail and was wearing a black rubber suit that appeared to be better used in the ocean rather than the desert. She had a flak jacket on and there was a sword strapped to her waist, as well as a serious looking rifle leaning against the side of the bike at her side, easily reachable when needed.
He saw her hand twitch towards it as he opened the door, and he smiled and waved his hand in greeting. “Not looking for trouble. Just need gas, same as you.”
“You’re going to have to go inside and start the pump, it’s not taking cards,” the woman’s partner stated, the chemistry between the two hard to mistake for anything else. The man was dressed in an identical set of gear, his square jaw working as stood up and gave him his full attention. He’d been messing with something around his ankles and with the way the man shifted from one foot to the other, it had to be an injury of some sort.
“I will, thanks,” he offered, giving a nod and starting towards the store’s interior.
The bell went off, but no one came out from the back to greet him. Nothing looked out of place, no reason obvious as to why it was unlocked and abandoned, so he walked around the register and looked at the monitors above the cash register. Hitting the pump he was on, he watched it light up and knew that he was good for gas.
Unable to help himself, his eyes dropped to the cartons of cigarettes below and he snatched up a few before heading back around and outside. If they weren’t worried about locking the doors, then they weren’t concerned with what went missing, right?
His eyes fell on the Sheriff and he panicked. He had just been caught shoplifting.
The man laughed and waved him off. “Think there are bigger things in the world to be worried about at the moment.”
“You’re telling me,” he replied. “Are you guys from around here?”
He had taken the pump from its holster and begun the process of filling the tank as he stepped clear of the back bumper and lit a cigarette. Yes, he knew that it was dangerous to smoke so close to the pumps, but somehow it seemed less dangerous with the world of shit that had been raining down on him over the last couple of days.
“No, we’re just passing through,” the Sheriff told him. “You?”
“Same. Heading to Show Low, got my family waiting on me. Kind of odd though, isn’t it? It’s like everyone just up and left. I thought I saw a few people looking at me from the stores I passed, but I might have been wrong. I don’t know, I’ve been running for so long, I might just be seeing things,” he told them, unnecessarily rambling.
It’d been awhile since he’d talked to some normal folks and it felt good to just shoot the shit rather than scrambling to survive for once.
“No, you’re not seeing things,” the woman responded, clicking the pump off and taking it out of her motorcycle’s gas tank. “People are taking shelter and keeping out of sight, whether due to the announcement last night or the news of the bombardment of Flagstaff from fleeing refugees, your guess is as good as mine.”
“You’d think they’d be hitting the road, trying to find somewhere remote to wait it out,” he offered, watching as the price of gas sped forth, suddenly grateful it wasn’t going on his card; if that mattered anymore. SUV’s were nice, but were pricey to drive around in.
“And go where?” the gimpy man asked, holstering his pump as well. “Doesn’t get much smaller than this here, and it’s their home turf. Snowflake, Show Low, Springerville, they are all of comparable sizes, and if they were any smaller, they’d just be a few farms and a Dollar Store like that one over there.”
He didn’t have to look, he’d seen a glimpse of the sign and knew what the man was referring to. “Hasn’t stopped any of the other places I have passed through from fleeing along the roads. At least, before I got to the forty that is. You are the first people I’ve seen since I left Lupton, and even then, there were only a few cars and maybe a few pedestrians wandering about. It’s like this part of Arizona has totally emptied out, but I know that can’t be true. There really isn’t anywhere else to go. My neighbor in Show Low fled Flagstaff, my wife and kids came up from Phoenix, and the road east is fucked; I should know.”
“That bad?” the woman asked, not overly sympathetic but obviously curious.
“Nearly been taken out by the undead a few times and missed a bullet in the head from a soldier’s rifle by the merest of seconds. Denver has gone to shit, Durango was on its way there, and Farmington is toast. Whatever this is, it’s spreading like wildfire. Even the Stand took much longer to kill the world than this thing apparently is. I just don’t get it. How could it be everywhere at once?”
“My life for you!” the Sheriff squealed in a high-pitched voice, making him laugh.
The woman sent the cop a dirty look, then turned back and shrugged, “I don’t know, but I don’t think it matters. The fact is, it is, and we must all do what we can to survive. You hear from Todd yet? Have they heard from Paul?” she asked, changing subjects and speaking to the other man that had just straddled his motorcycle.
The man shook his head, “not yet. I was going to call him when we got closer to Springerville, get an update. Hey John, you almost done over there? The clock is ticking.”
“Not all of us have small tanks,” the Sheriff snarked, obviously making an innuendo to something else, which the other man just rolled his eyes to and looked back in the woman’s direction.
“Ros, I’m sure they’re fine. They have trouble operating simple computers, much less smartphones. They probably just forgot to charge them. Either they’ve alrea
dy left, or they’ve been taking a nap in some stranger’s house. Paul and Christine never really believed any of this could happen, so they won’t be so eager to get back on the road if they have a chance to pull off for a while,” the man in black told her.
He had been so caught up in the exchange that he had dismissed what his ears were telling him, but as the woman scowled and shifted her attention east, he recognized that there was something other than the four of them about, and it was steadily drawing closer to where they were. “I hear it too,” he told her, hurriedly going back to his SUV and opening the door. He reached inside and withdrew the pistol, holding it tightly as he used his dumb hand to stop the pump and hang it back up. “We should get out of here.”
“What’s that?” the Sheriff asked. “What’s going on?”
The soft pattering was growing louder, like a marathon that was about to cross paths along their predestined route to the finish line. His stomach twisted in his gut; there were no marathons right now; none being run by the living anyway. “It’s been nice talking to you folks, but I think it’s time I get back on the road.”
“No time for that. It’s too late,” the woman said as she drew her sword and stepped free of her bike. “They’d be all over you before you even threw it in gear. Prepare to defend yourself.”
He turned towards the clamoring of feet, already knowing what he’d see but not believing it all the same, and instantly felt like throwing up.
A loud shotgun blast echoed from the rear and a corpse fell, but that didn’t deter the thirty or so others that had latched their attention on them, the claws and teeth working as they ran their way; the hunt was on.
Looked like his luck had just run out after all.
Chapter 12
I
The others were rushing for the store as the group of undead tore after them, the Sheriff getting there just ahead of him, his shotgun firing and making his ears ring. The taller man was holding the door open, his gun up, only holding back until he and the woman cleared the line of fire. The woman in question grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pushed him through the doorway, his arms pinwheeling as he tried to keep his balance. He thrust his hands out and caught the edge of the counter, candy bars falling off the racks with the force of his impact.
The other rifle began firing as Ros swung around, sheathed her sword, and brought her own weapon up. It was more of a defensive posture as she held her fire, letting the glass window protect them for as long as it would last. “Matt, you’re exposed out there. Pull back and let’s brace the door.”
“No can do,” the tall man responded, his gun firing in short bursts, his stance making it look obvious that he had served in the armed forces at some point. “They will burst through the glass like it’s water, there’s too many of them. That shit only works in movies!”
He had his gun in hand, but he didn’t raise it, afraid that his twitchiness might cause it to go off and hit an unintended target, like the woman standing before the window looking at the twenty or so zombies barreling past the pumps and within yards of the store.
“Now we know why everyone has been hiding inside,” he remarked under his breath, moving to the left and trying to get a clear line of sight. The Sheriff was still standing at the edge of the open door, the man she had called Matt at his side, the closed-door barring anything other than trying to shoot through the glass.
“John, get inside,” Matt commanded, raising his rifle as the other man ducked and dodged through the doorway. Then the rifle came back down, fired two more bursts, and then he followed suit.
Ros flipped the lock on the door as Matt swung it shut and he shook his head.
“Won’t work,” he told them. “You have to flip the switches on the top and bottom to latch the one door in place. If they pull on it hard enough, it’ll just swing back open.”
“Don’t think they can figure that out for themselves,” Ros replied, moving to the right, the four of them standing there facing the front of the store, the first of the undead slamming into the glass doors seconds later, the window splintering with the impact. “Guess you were right.”
“Isn’t that always the case?” Matt grinned.
“Not the time,” Ros remarked as she began to fire at the head pushing its way through the broken glass, flesh pealing like it was being put through a shredder. It didn’t help that other bodies were pushing at it from behind, all of them pressing against each other as they tried to force themselves through the door, the scent of fresh meat driving them into a frenzy. It was gruesome as fuck and resembled something out of a Saw movie.
The metal on the doors began to bend, the glass to completely break and fall away, the arms of the undead thrusting through the doors heedless of the shards of glass tearing away at their flesh.
Matt threw aside a mag, slammed in another, cycled a round into place, and went back to firing at the undead. John had finished loading the shotgun and was shifting to the left as a few stragglers began slamming into that window instead.
“Wait for them to break through, don’t make it easy for them,” Ros said between shots.
He had an idea. He had no reason to believe it would work, it might leave him exposed and end up getting him killed but doing nothing could easily do the same. He turned and ran for the backroom of the store, knowing that there would be an emergency exit around there. No way the fire marshal would let them get away without one.
The others must have thought he was bolting, but he neither had time to explain nor the will to try and talk them into it. It was insane, he knew that, and didn’t need to have it pointed out by everyone else as well.
Dodging around the corner, he saw the emergency door and winced at the thought of the alarm that would begin to blare the instant he opened it. However, it wasn’t like the gunfire wasn’t drawing enough attention as it was. He shoved his gun into his waistband, pushed open the door and paused to check to make sure the area was clear before dashing through the opening and made for the western side of the store, away from the direction the small horde had come from.
The gunfire was sounding muffled, but it was consistent, the occasional shotgun blast intermixed just to break up the monotony. Like the strike of a bass drum underneath the rattle of the snares. It was comforting, however, it meant they were still fighting; he still had time.
He nearly tripped as his foot tagged a stack of milk crates, his hand shooting out to brace against the wall, his wrist flaring with pain. “Fuck!” Ignoring it the best he could, he rounded the corner and saw the pumps ahead, the tail end of John’s squad car barely visible but still there. That was okay, he didn’t need the car, he wasn’t bailing, no matter what they might think he was doing. He had no true concept of what he was about, just a vague idea, an insane one, and it was more than likely going to lead to his death than a reprieve for the others, but he wasn’t about to stand around and get eaten either.
He paused at the corner of the building and looked to the right, heart hammering at the thought of a zombie being right there, ready to take a bite out of him the instant he moved forward. Luckily for him, they had been drawn to the front of the store, a few more charging down the street and heading for the mass of corpses piling up on the store sidewalk.
Waiting until the last one dove into the others, shoving the mass forward even more, he ran for the pump he had been using to fuel his SUV and noticed that the nozzle was lying next to the rear tire, he had never hung it up properly, cutting it off. Rushing forward, he swept the handle up, held onto the back of the SUV as he got a good grip on it, then checked to make sure that he hadn’t been noticed by the raging undead.
No one knew he was there, even those inside, and suddenly he realized that it might be an issue. They were firing at the undead, unaware that he was on the other side of the mob, and he may catch a spare bullet for his trouble. Well, it was the chance he took by not including them in his plans, so he would just have to hope for the best—or give up and get in the car
, drive the fuck out of there as fast as he could, leaving them to whatever fate had in store for them; his conscience wouldn’t allow that.
He took his lighter out of his pocket, flicked it, and depressed the trigger on the nozzle at the same time, the fuel spurting forward catching instantly, turning the hose into a flame thrower, his hand getting singed in the process. Stepping around the back of the SUV, he went as far as the hose would let him and depressed the trigger all the way, increasing the strength of flame the hose was producing. Lowering it, he aimed it at the back of the thriving horde, who had had begun to scramble over corpses, several bodies half-hanging out of the doors as they tried to crawl into the store.
Using his offhand, he pulled the gun from his waistband, fumbled at the handle, then got it in hand as he brought it around, his thumb kicking off the safety switch. Aiming as carefully as he could, he kept his gun angled downward and squeezed off a few rounds into the rear of the horde.
Yelling wouldn’t catch their attention, but between the flames and the gunfire, they finally realized he was there. He wasn’t able to get far, the hose only stretched so much, but with the racket he was making, those at the rear pulled away from the others and turned his way. Heedless of the flames, they ran at him, and he used the ignited fuel to scorch their bodies, the maid and mechanic stumbling beneath the onslaught before finally striking the ground, their flesh pealing away, the stench of burnt meat assailing him and causing him to puke. He couldn’t bend over without shifting his aim, so it struck his chest before splattering the ground at his feet.
He ignored it.
Breathing through his mouth, he continued to move the flames back and forth, assailing those at the rear of the pack and catching another as they ran at him. This one got a few feet closer, but the flames did enough damage to the creature’s body that it gave out on them, forcing them to the ground to writhe around with their charcoaled mates.
He couldn’t keep track of times, but he knew that only a minute or two passed since he’d started roasting the undead, his arm starting to tire from the sudden exertion. The gunfire had begun to become more sporadic, but as to whether that was from lack of ammunition, less shooters, or fewer of the enemy to fire upon, he couldn’t know. His world was fire, heat, and the swirling of orange and bright yellow flame.
The Rotting Souls Series (Book 5): Charon's Vengeance Page 13
