He glanced back at the girls, and his theory became a little less likely. If the only people who survived were those with alcohol in their systems, did that mean that Perry had given them spirits? He thought to ask, but just then three deer appeared in the middle of the road. Max hit the brakes in time, and the Bronco stopped. The deer stood there, staring at him, and for a moment he felt a spiritual connection to the animals.
A group of screamers suddenly erupted from the forest and slammed into the truck. The deer bolted, Stefan and the girls screamed, and Max hit the gas. He ran over two screamers in hiking gear, the truck jostling as the spinning tires tore into flesh and left them mangled in the rearview. One of the screamers clung to the back window, pressing his face against the glass like a drunk college kid trying to get a laugh. Max swerved back and forth, hit the brakes and then accelerated, but he couldn’t shake the screamer. The girls continued to shriek as Stefan held them tight and covered their heads.
“Hold on,” he told them all as the screamer climbed up onto the roof. He hit the brakes hard, sending the thrashing and hissing beast flying. It hit the road and tumbled ten feet before popping back up like a demented jack in the box. Max pushed the gas, and the Bronco lurched forward in four-wheel drive, slamming into the screamer and sending it flailing over the hood to land in the road behind them.
“It’s okay,” Stefan told the whimpering girls. “Samurai’s got you.”
Max drove through town on his way to the radio station, and he found the streets eerily quiet. It looked as though the screamers had rampaged through town since earlier that morning, but they were gone now, likely having spread out through the village and taken to the woods. No bodies littered the streets, however, which hinted at resurrection.
He pulled up Alan’s driveway and noticed that two more vehicles were parked outside.
“More survivors,” he said to Stefan. “Thank God.”
“I don’t think God showed up to work today, boss,” said Stefan.
“Come on, let’s get the girls inside.”
Max guarded over them with the shotgun as Stefan carried the two girls. He knocked on the big steel door, which immediately opened. Alan Jones greeted them, looking ashen.
“We’re got a problem, Sheriff.”
Max followed Stefan into the station and glanced at the sitting area, where everyone looked tense. “What’s going on?”
“Over here,” said Alan.
Max followed their wary eyes to the couch he was approaching. When he saw what was on it, he stopped dead.
“She was bitten,” said the woman kneeling by the body.
The young woman lying on the couch looked to be in her early twenties, though it was hard to be sure. Her face was bloated and milky white. She wore black leggings and fuzzy white boots, along with a red turtle neck and cream vest. Someone had bound her wrists and ankles, and a screamer had taken a bite out of the woman’s cheek.
“When?” said Max.
“A few minutes ago,” said Alan, hiking up his pants. “A screamer followed the last car up the drive, got her as they were coming in.”
“Everyone get back,” said Max, pulling his sidearm and pointing it at the woman’s head.
A young man of about twenty-two got in front of the gun. “That’s my girlfriend—you can’t shoot her!”
“Just get back!” said Max.
“Come on,” said Stefan, getting between the woman on the couch and the onlookers. “Back it up.”
“Susie!” the young man yelled.
She answered him with a primal scream that should have torn her throat out. She howled and wailed like a siren, forcing everyone to cover their ears.
“Somebody make her stop!” one of the women screamed.
“Susie! Susie!” her boyfriend cried.
Stefan fell on Susie with a pillow to muffle her screams, but Max knew the damage had been done. In the distance, a similar sound reached them.
“She’s calling the others!” said Alan. He pulled his own sidearm. “Kill her!”
“Put the gun down,” said Max, keeping his gun aimed at the floor.
More screams erupted outside, and everyone glanced at the door. Beneath the pillow, Susie was still shrieking. Stefan pulled his sidearm and moved the pillow before pistol-whipping the screamer. Susie kept at it, even after Stefan hit her again. He looked to Max.
“Somebody get me some liquor!” said Max.
The young man and women looked at him like he was crazy.
“Alan! Liquor!”
The stout DJ jolted alert and hurried off to the makeshift kitchen area, coming back with a bottle of vodka.
“Hold her steady,” Max told Stefan, uncorking the bottle.
Stefan held her face, and Max poured the vodka in her mouth, getting most of it on her face and neck. But some of it definitely got down.
“What are you doing?” Susie’s boyfriend pleaded.
Max waited, watching Susie closely. A bang on the door snapped his head in that direction, and he looked to Alan. “If you’ve got defenses, now’s the time.”
Alan nodded determinedly and hurried off, picking out a few strong men.
Susie had stopped screaming, and Max’s heart skipped a beat, clutched by hope. Her breathing slowed, and her eyes began to clear. Then she suddenly opened her mouth and arched her back in a silent scream. What came out wasn’t words, however, it was a slug the size of a leech.
“Jesus Christ!” said Stefan, reeling back.
“It’s a space worm!” another man cried.
The thing slithered over her chin, fell to her chest, and continued with surprising speed across her shoulder before falling to the floor. Max stepped forward and stomped down on it.
Outside, a chorus of demonic voices screeched.
“Susie?” said her boyfriend. “It’s me, Nathan”.
Everyone turned to regard the two, wincing as he got close to her.
“Susie?” He glanced back at Max. “She’s not breathing, she’s not moving…”
Stefan put his head to her chest and, looking dismayed, began performing CPR.
“We’ve got company!” said Alan, right before a dozen fists began pounding on the front door.
Chapter 10
Zombie Karaoke
The pounding on the door increased until it was shaking the entire structure, loosening old dust to rain down on them slowly, like the sparkling alien worm spores from the night before.
Alan Jones cocked a shotgun and offered everyone a grim glare. “Everyone stay calm. This structure was built to withstand worse than them.”
The stomping of many feet sounded against the metal walls and even the roof. Max could just imagine the screamers climbing over one another to get up to the roof. He shivered and looked back at Stefan and Susie.
Stefan was pumping on her chest, then plugging her nose and breathing for her before pumping once more. Max thought that his deputy’s efforts would be fruitless, but Susie suddenly gasped, and she came to screaming.
“Susie!” her boyfriend fawned as he fell on her.
Stefan stepped back, wiping his forehead with the back of his studded glove.
“Susie? How do you feel?” Max asked.
“How do you think she feels?” said Nathan.
“Hey, peckerhead, I didn’t ask you,” said Max.
The kid made a pucker-lipped face and hugged Susie.
“I feel…like I just woke up from a nightmare,” she said, shaking.
He looked at the hole in her cheek, trying not to grimace. “Other than that…do you feel normal?”
“I guess…” Her voice trailed off, and she began crying.
Max glanced at Stefan, and his deputy offered him a warm smile.
There was hope for Piper.
“Go to hell!” Alan screamed and kicked the door.
The horde only pounded harder and screamed louder.
“I think they’re angry enough without your help,” said Stefan.
“I say we open the doors and finish ‘em off,” said Alan.
Max frowned at the worked-up man. “We just cured someone. They can all be cured. We can’t kill them.”
“What you gonna do? Get the whole world drunk?”
“If I have to,” said Max. When he saw that Alan wasn’t taking him seriously, he grabbed the man’s shotgun and pressed it and Alan up against the wall. On the other side, the screamers pounded, no doubt reverberating in Alan’s ribs. His face went ashen. “I’m the law around here, and what I say goes, got it?”
“There ain’t no world no more. There ain’t no country left, and there ain’t no law,” said Alan with unbridled spite.
“We don’t know that. And even if it’s true, that don’t mean there can’t still be order.”
“In the brave new world,” said Alan with a smirk, “the man with the biggest gun is king.”
Max smiled back, grabbed Alan by the balls hard enough to get his attention, and grinned. “Then you lose.”
Alan abashedly glanced at the females in the room and pushed the sheriff away weakly.
“Alright, listen up,” said Max. “My deputy, Stefan, is in charge of this group until I get back.”
“Where are you going?” one of the women asked.
“To create a distraction. They came because of Susie’s terrible karaoke, so I’ll grab another one and make them sing, and then lead the horde away.”
The woman, a blonde who looked a little too old for this crowd, made a subtle, beautiful feminine gesture. It was hard to place: a twinkle in her eye, a cock of her hip, and a girlish, sidelong glance. “Oh. Well…be careful, Sheriff. Come back to us soon.”
“I’ll do that.” He slapped Alan on the back. “You’re coming with me.”
“What? But this is my place.”
“That’s exactly why you should come with me and save it.”
Alan glanced around at the young men and women drowning him with expectant looks. “Right you are!” he said, laying on a hearty layer of gusto as he pulled up his pants one side at a time like only a chubby man can.
“Number one,” Max said to Stefan. “The bridge is yours.” He turned to Alan, who looked on expectantly. “You’ve got a back door or escape hatch…right?”
“Uh, oh, yeah, of course. It’s in the back.”
“Oh.” Max addressed the whole group. “While you are all praying for your lives in here, try and come up with a plan to get the town drunk. It’s the only way to save ‘em.”
Alan led him to the trapdoor, which was in the DJ booth. The stout man looked quite pleased with himself as he explained to Max how he had installed it himself. He removed a piece of rug that sat just inside the room and pulled open a trapdoor. A ladder led down into the darkness, reminding Max of Laing and Hein’s dungeon.
“After you,” said Max.
Alan nodded, pulled up his pants, and groaned himself down the ladder. A light came on in the gloom, and Max followed. The tunnel was tight, and when Max pulled the door back into place, it got that much smaller.
“Just this way, about twenty feet,” Alan whispered, hunching down and waddling through the passage.
Max had to duck down a lot more than Alan, but he shouldered through the tunnel easy enough. His mind wasn’t on the discomfort or the claustrophobia that might have otherwise plagued him, it was on what they might be walking into.
“Where’s this lead?” he asked Alan.
“To a shed out back.”
They continued through the tunnel slowly, like little mice creeping past a sleeping cat. The ground reverberated with the pounding of the screamers assailing the radio station. Dust and dirt floated down on them as they crept.
Alan stopped, aimed his flashlight at a ladder and another trapdoor, and put his finger to his lips. Max nodded and pointed his gun up at the door. Alan climbed onto the ladder cautiously. He waited there at the top before slowly pulling the trapdoor open. He took a few steadying breaths and popped his head and flashlight up into the dark, quickly turning left and right. Max waited for him to be sucked up into the darkness by some sinister beast out of a horror movie, but Alan glanced down and offered Max a thumbs-up.
They went up through the hole, and Max crouched down in the dark, noticing the thin line of light in front of them. He assumed it was the shed door. Alan proved him right when he crept to the door and peeked out.
A small groan escaped him.
Max peeked through the crack and saw why: at least a hundred screamers were gathered on and around the radio station. There was no clear way through them that Max could see. The back of the building took the entire view.
“This was a bad idea,” Alan whispered, and he turned back toward the trapdoor.
Max grabbed his arm. “We’ve got to do it, so there’s no point pissing and moaning about it.”
Alan rubbed his left arm, looking like a little kid who had to pee.
“Look, man, this shit is scary, but sometimes you’ve just got to man up.”
Alan seemed slightly offended by the statement, and he stood a little taller, raising his chin proudly. “Sorry. I had a moment.”
Max offered him an understanding nod. “There another way out of here?”
“No, just this door.”
Max glanced around, daring to use his flashlight for a moment to get his bearings. The light flashed over an old bicycle, a broken rocking chair, a chainsaw, oil can, and a workbench full of random tools, nuts and bolts, screwed and bent nails. An old Coke sign hung beside a dartboard. In the corner were two gas cans and a weed wacker. On another shelf he spotted a couple of flares.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Max. He grabbed the flares and a gas can. “These screamers are like animals, right? Well, maybe they respond to fire like animals do.”
“It’s worth a shot,” said Alan. “You go ahead and try and scare them with fire, and I’ll watch your back from in here.”
“You’re my hero, Alan.” Max grabbed a jar off the workbench and carefully emptied out the old nuts and screws before filling it halfway with gas.
“Don’t be burning my place down,” Alan whispered. His eyes darted from Max to the door.
Max brought the jar and the flare to the door and peeked out. The screamers all had their backs to the shed, and they seemed obsessed with getting in the station. He wondered if he and Alan could just walk by them without so much as a boo!
To the right of the door sat a pile of wood, unstacked and half covered by snow. It was far enough away that Max didn’t think it would catch anything on fire, but the distance would make it that much harder to light.
The doors were thin wood hung on two hinges each, and Max prayed they didn’t squeak as he slowly opened them. When there was a six-inch gap in the outward swinging doors, Max studied the screamers—they didn’t seem to have noticed. He noticed a handful of children among the infected, and his heart ached.
Max swung out his arm quickly, tossing the contents of the jar up into the air. Some of the gas landed on the wood, and Max hoped that it was enough. He glanced back at Alan, making sure he still had his shit together. Alan was antsy, but he looked ready.
“Here goes nothing,” said Max as he lit the flare and tossed it onto the wood pile.
At first nothing happened. The flare blazed and sputtered sparks, but the gas didn’t light; he had missed. A few of the screamers turned toward the bright flare, and their milky eyes widened. Max pulled the door closed slowly, noticing through the crack that one of the screamers had seen him. But the creature’s gaze went from the shed door to the flare, looking mystified.
The screamers began to walk toward the wood pile like a pack of curious apes seeing fire for the first time. Suddenly the gas caught. There was a loud whoosh and a flash of light, and the screamers reeled back like scared cavemen.
“Now’s the time, let’s go,” said Max. He grabbed Alan’s coat and pulled him through the door. They made a beeline to the left side of the radio station, passing awes
truck screamers slowly lurching toward the fire. They noticed Max and Alan, but they seemed drugged by the brilliant light, hypnotized by it. Like lethargic spring houseflies just waking up from winter, they staggered toward the flames, heads lolled to the side and faces blank.
Everything went smoothly until Max and Alan turned the corner of the station and came face to face with those screamers who couldn’t see the fire. Max met the eyes of the closest screamer, a woman who might have been a hottie yesterday, but now looked haggard and possessed. A moment later the woman cried out and charged toward him. The second flare sparked to life, and Max thrust it out in front of him. The screamer skidded to a stop and reeled back, slipping on an icy patch. Other screamers had begun to charge, and they too stopped abruptly and gazed upon the blinding tip of the flare with wonderment. Max thrust it out toward the group, who reeled back drunkenly.
“Come on,” Max told Alan, and he parted the crowd with the flare as a stark-white Alan trained his shotgun on them, protecting the rear.
Max continued toward his Bronco, feeling as though he were wading through shallow waters teeming with sharks. He thought that at any moment, the spell might be broken, and the horde would descend upon them and tear them apart. But their infatuation with the flare continued, even as Max carefully backed into the Bronco behind Alan as he scurried across the truck to the passenger seat.
The Bronco came to life with a roar that seemed to snap the screamers out of it for a moment. They growled and leered at Max, who now held the flare out the window. He put the truck in reverse and threw the flare into the snow. It landed butt down, and the screamers fought each other to get a closer look. Max peeled out, whipping the truck around and popping it in drive.
Doomsday Sheriff [Day 1] Page 5
