One by one, the voices died down as the others turned in for the night. I listened as Matt walked the apartment, staring out a window for a couple minutes before moving on to the next. He walked down the stairs, stepping outside for a few minutes before coming back up and creeping into the adjacent apartment.
In the stillness of the early night, I pulled the lantern closer to me and fished the folded page that I had taken from Greyden’s notebook from the still filthy jacket on the floor. Unfolding the paper, I set my mind to memorizing every road and every landmark I had jotted down that day. Every accident we had to bypass, every turn we had made. If a zombie was tap-dancing to show tunes on the side of the road, I wrote it down.
I poured over the page until my eyes ached. I jotted down notes as I remembered details that had not made it on the page the first time around.
“You’re going back there, aren’t you?”
The only reason I did not fill my tighty-whities with a ten pound turd at Matt’s sudden appearance was because I would have to wash them all over again, and I didn’t have time to wait for my boxer briefs to cook again.
“Jesus Christ, dude!” I spat. “I could have shot you!”
“Nope,” he answered, taking a seat on the other side of the room. “You gave your gun to me, remember?”
“You know, I think you guys must have had a pre-apocalypse meeting where you all decided on a schedule to scare the shit out of me.”
“Stop evading. You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
“I can’t leave him like that,” I said after a long pause.
“He’d be pissed if he knew what you’re planning.”
“And yet, he’d do the same for me.”
“Yeah,” Matt exhaled. “Probably.”
“Look,” I started. “I screwed up. I know that. I can’t promise that I won’t do it again. I don’t know who I am or what I am doing anymore. I’ve killed two people already! Everything that I am is dying away. Chris is right, there is a darkness in me, and I feel like I’m losing myself.”
“I get it, dude. I really do. But what do you hope to accomplish getting yourself killed out there? Chris is pissed, no doubt. So is everyone. I would be lying if I said there wasn’t talk of banishing you to the truck and away from everyone until you get your shit straight. But no one wants you to outright leave. If for nothing else, Katie needs her dad.”
“Matt,” I sighed. “I’m doing this for me. I feel like if I leave him there, turned into one of those…things, I’ll lose even more of myself. No matter what everyone says, I know I don’t have the right to be here right now. I need to earn that back, and I can’t leave him out there like he is.”
“Fine,” Matt stood. “Then I’m going too.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Dude, try to stop me.”
“Matt–”
“If you think I’m letting you go alone, you’re wrong!” he interrupted. “He was my friend too!”
“Alright,” I sighed, standing and throwing on my coat. “You’re right. I’m sorry, man. I was being selfish.”
“It’s cool, bro. I’ll just grab some food and smokes.”
“Cool,” I smiled at him. “I’ll be outside.”
“I have the keys,” he eyed me suspiciously.
“I won’t leave without you,” I said waving him off.
Matt stared at me for a few moments longer than he really needed to before disappearing into the now dark apartment. Joe and Chris were in their nightly snoring competition, with Joe taking the lead in the buzz saw category. As I made my way down the stairs, I heard Matt rummaging through the small cache of supplies that had been carried in.
A blast of frigid air assaulted me as I pushed the door open. The day long snowfall had purged the night air of the putrid smell of death. The crisp air smelled of snow and ice, and nothing more. It was a welcome change despite the sub-zero temperatures.
Trudging through the mid-calf deep snow, I made my way over to the pickup truck. I found the trailer had been unlatched, and the windows brushed free of snow.
Matt must have known all along, I thought. Reaching under the bed, I grabbed the magnetic spare key box that Chris kept on every vehicle he owned thanks to his aptitude of locking his keys inside with the motor running.
“Sorry buddy,” I whispered as I looked up to the second floor window. “This is a one man show.”
I hopped behind the wheel before Matt finished his supply search. The engine roared to life on the first try, the powerful V8 engine purring and ready to plow into the snowy night. My eyes caught a glint of something in the darkness next to me as I reached for the gear selector.
ABANDON ALL HOPE.
The letters scratched into my Glock caught the moonlight, the silvery letters standing out against the weapon’s black finish. A box of 50 rounds of .40 caliber ammunition sat next to my pistol.
I smiled, shaking my head as I put the truck in gear. It groaned against the weight of the snow, moving slowly at first until the tires found purchase. I fed it more gas, and the truck’s momentum finally overcame the shimmering blanket on the road.
I looked in the rear view mirror and caught sight of the Beast, its dark black paint like a shadow against the canvas of white. A feeling of dread crept through me when the bus finally faded into the darkness. The thought that I had seen the bus for the last time crawled into the forefront of my mind.
I had no idea how close to the truth I really was.
Chapter 21
My throat tightened as the headlights fell to where I knew Mark had died. Undisturbed snow piled up where we had left him fighting underneath a jumble of feeding dead.
The truck crawled through the snow as it moved ever closer to where I hoped my friend would be. I put the truck in park and killed the engine as soon as the front tire hit the edge of the door that had crushed Mark’s feet.
The air grew still and silent, the temperature in the cabin dropping immediately as the engine died. My fingers were already going numb as I fed rounds into my Glock’s magazine. My hands begged for me to stop as warm blood spread across the bandage that I never let Rosa change.
I never took my eyes off the snowy blanket surrounding me, watching for any signs of movement across the level snow. Two black-eyes died somewhere underneath, and if history repeated itself, there were several undead hidden amongst the snow in the midst of their transformation into more of the screaming dead.
I knew what I was doing was stupid. I’d seen more than my fair share of bad zombie flicks where I would scream at the TV over foolish decisions people made. I’d poured over hundreds of zombie novels, irritated at the main characters for doing exactly what I was doing. Leaving the safety of the group, going off on their own to perform some pointless quest at the risk of their own lives.
The truth was, no matter how many movies or books someone reads or how many “what if” games people play, no one really knows how they will react when the shit really hits the fan. Could a person really predict how they will act when the world is over and almost everyone you knew is either dead or undead?
There’s no way to describe the emotional toll that this takes on a person’s psyche. The mind holds on to moments before the end of the world, where even mundane memories are viewed as happy. Those memories are torture, playing over and over in your head until you feel like your skull wants to crack open. There is a part of you that expects it all to be over, to go back to the way things were. The mind can hardly accept the complete and total loss that is tied to the word apocalypse.
So you hold on to what you have left, like the family and friends that were lucky enough to have survived. Eventually you lose some of them too. That is when you start to lose yourself. You start to do things that make no sense, things that you would never have thought yourself capable of when the world was alive.
In the span of a few weeks, I’ve killed. I’ve been shot. I’ve lost my wife, and turned on my own brother. One of my best friends
died, and we had to leave him behind.
None of this would have made any sense to anyone who might have read these pages before the world ended. I’m willing to bet my last can of soup that every one of you get it now.
So there I was, alone and exposed and sitting in a truck in the middle of nowhere, looking to put one of my best friends to rest. Was it stupid? Oh yeah. Yet, in my heart I knew I would never be able to sleep again if I left Mark out there as one of the undead.
I slapped the magazine into my pistol, the sting in my palms rocketing up my arm until even my shoulder started to ache. I fed the pistol into my holster, hefting my hammer from the seat next to me.
The snow drift where Mark had died began to move the second I flipped on the high beams. I had prayed that the creatures were thorough enough to spare him from coming back as one of those things. Once again, my prayers had gone unanswered.
As I stepped out of the truck and closed the door, the mound moved, snow slipping down the pile until Mark’s badly mangled face appeared. There was barely enough flesh on his face to cover his ghostly white right eye. The left eye socket was barren, save for the snow that had packed into the empty cavity. A small strip of flesh and hair remained on his scalp, the rest had been scraped clean from the stained skull. His jaw hung loosely from torn muscles, his tongue flapping loosely as it hung down from where his mouth should have been.
He couldn’t have bitten me if he’d tried.
Ribbons of red flesh hung from where his throat had been torn away, frozen blood catching the moonlight like tiny red crystals as he wriggled to free himself from his snowy tomb.
I reached into the back of the truck and grabbed a plastic bag that held a promise that I planned to keep. With a deep and shaky breath, I started my trudge through the snow toward the undead thing that was once my friend.
Almost immediately two undead stumbled out of the building. The faded orange of their blood stained prison jumpsuits hung loosely from their emaciated bodies. Ice clung to their ragged black beards, contrasting against the ashen blue of their decaying faces.
They waded out into the snow, stumbling as their unsteady legs plowed through the snowpack. I gripped my hammer tight, the searing pain from my wounds dulled mercifully by the numbing cold.
My hammer struck out in a sideways arc, slamming into the former prisoner closest to me. Its head snapped sideways as the crushing blow destroyed the side of its head with an audible crack. It spun and disappeared below the snow.
The still moving creature lunged at me with one of those awkward off balance reaches they do, sending it face planting into the snow. Its gnarled hands shot out from beneath the glistening powder, thrashing around as it tried to pull itself from its frozen prison.
I stomped through the snow with as much speed as I dared, coming to where the thing fell, and waited. It sat up slowly, poking its head up like a groundhog popping up from its burrow. Like a gory game of whack-a-mole, I brought my hammer down and delivered a glancing blow that only served to remove a strip of flesh from its skull.
I braced myself for the pain I knew would come from a more forceful hammer strike, and brought the tool straight down on its skull. The shock of the impact sent my weapon flying from my hand as my stitches popped. Warm blood flowed from my palm, pooling inside my heavy gloves until it began to seep through the thick material.
With a shudder, the creature tilted to its side, its deformed head gently coming to rest on the snow like a down pillow. The thing sighed as the last bit of air that had been trapped in its lungs slowly escaped like a deflating balloon.
I dug through the snow until I found my hammer, savoring the numbing effects of the frigid cold on my throbbing hands. Securing the weapon to my belt, I slowly approached what remained of one of my best friends.
Mark continued to struggle to free what was left of his body, gurgling as he tried to growl at me through the several bites torn through his windpipe. His single eye tracked my movements as I closed on him, blood tinged froth erupting from the remnants of his mouth. His arms were gone, ripped from his body sometime after he had vanished below the feeding throng. I didn’t know if his legs were intact, and I had no intention of digging into the snow to find out.
“Do you remember when we met?” I asked, leaning on the brick wall next to him. He gurgled, flopping his head toward me as if trying to get his mangled jaw to work again.
“It was at the same party that Abby and I met,” I continued. “I can’t remember everything about that night, but I do remember us sitting on the deck and solving the world’s problems over the last case of beer. Man, we were so full of shit.” I chuckled for a second before my chest tightened.
“I can’t believe this is where it ends,” I said, my breath catching as I spoke. “I can’t believe you’re gone. I mean, you’re Big Mark. How can you be gone? You were supposed to make it to the end of all this! I had this image in my head of you like you started this apocalypse, sitting in your lawn chair with a big ass smile, a stogie, and a beer. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Mark continued to fling himself at me snarling through his damaged jaw. He bounced against the wall like a trapped animal, froth dribbling down his flapping jaw and staining the snow.
“I made a promise to you last night,” I said, pulling two cartons of cheap cigarettes from the plastic bag. “Two cartons for not shooting me. Well, you didn’t shoot me, and I’m not sure why. I’ve given you plenty of reasons over the years, especially over the last few days. Well, you’d be surprised how many people raided stores and left these things laying around.”
I set the cartons next to him, his eyes following my hand as I set the things down in the snow. For a half a second it was as if he had some small recognition of what the boxes represented. Or, it was more likely that my grief addled mind added details that were not there.
I stood upright, drawing my pistol from its holster. I clenched my teeth, fighting back the pain as I fumbled my way through drawing the slide back, blood spreading across my Glock’s grip until it fell in crimson droplets into the snow. The slide snapped forward, delivering a cartridge into the chamber.
I was back in that damn ambulance again, looking into the eyes of someone I cared deeply for. The same surreal feeling enveloped me again as I stared at my friend, holding the weapon in my hand that would end their existence. The cold air burrowed through my clothing, seeming to chill me to my soul as I watched Mark trying his best to kill me.
“Mark,” I began, wiping the vision blurring tears from my eyes. I knelt down beside him, putting my pistol to his temple. “If they actually let you into Heaven, tell Abby that I love her, and let her know how much we all miss her. If they don’t let you in up there, then I’ll probably be seeing you soon down there. I’ll try to bring beer. I love ya, brother.”
I closed my eyes and turned away. In the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, I pulled the trigger.
I killed my friend.
Chapter 22
“Titan’s got a scent,” Murphy whispered. He slid next to Jason, his back leaning against the yellow brick wall of the small truck stop. “Something’s in there.”
Jason craned his neck to peer through the dark windows that wrapped around most of the building. The near black sun-screen coating made it nearly impossible for him to see into the store.
“Probably not many,” Jason whispered as he lowered his head. “Can’t see worth shit through the glass, but there’s a light on in back, so there’s power somehow. Too good to pass up. I think it’s worth the risk.”
“Agreed,” Murphy whispered. “We’re getting nowhere fast without a car, and a cold beer sounds fan-fucking-tastic right about now.”
“Not only that, there might be a HAM radio in there. Maybe you can make contact with some of the people you were chatting with. Intel would be a nice thing to have at present.”
“Maybe,” Murphy replied hesitantly.
Jason didn’t miss the hesitation. A spark of
suspicion ignited as his internal bullshit meter started to ping. He didn’t like when people suddenly acted outside of their normal behavior, especially when they were in a dangerous situation.
“I’m on point,” he whispered, shaking the suspicion from his mind for the time being.
“Copy that,” Murphy whispered. “Titan, heel.”
Jason rose on his haunches, forcing the glass door open just enough to get a clear view into the station’s shop. The foul stench of rot and decay assailed him as warm, dank air rushed out to greet him. His vision blurred as his eyes watered at the gut churning smell.
Jason pulled his face away, taking a couple deep breaths before reengaging. He flipped on his flashlight and breeched the building, sweeping the red beam from left to right across the room. Dust particles danced in the light as they flittered through the air, disturbed by the sudden rush of air from the open door.
The secure cashier’s box sat directly across from him, the area protected by safety glass mounted on the top of the light gray counter and stretching all the way to the white drop ceiling. Inside the human fish bowl, Jason could see various brands of cigarettes and cheap cigars lining the back wall.
In a crouched walk he moved inside, sights trained down his rifle and into the darkness. Shadows stretched across the pine colored floor, cast by the lone bulb still burning from somewhere behind the long aisles.
He moved deeper into the station, waving for Murphy to follow. Murphy slipped in behind him, Titan sticking tight to his side. As Jason rounded a display of Hostess snack cakes he came to a halt, raising his gloved fist, signaling for Murphy and Titan to stop. Jason looked back at his companion, holding up two fingers then pointing around the corner. Murphy nodded, stepping back and vanishing down another aisle with Titan in tow.
This Dying World (Book 2): Abandon All Hope Page 23
