by Jason Offutt
Nikki ran a hand through her thick, black hair and exhaled loudly. “Yeah. That’s all he’s been talking about. Crazy shit. Apparently, this woman can read minds and suck a dick like nobody’s business.”
Terry laughed. Doug mouthed “no” toward him.
“But that’s not the problem. It’s his leg.” Nikki took the beer from Terry’s hand and drank. “I’ve done all I can, but his wound’s infected. There’s a pink line running from under the bandage up toward his crotch. If we let this go much longer, he’s going to die.” She gave the beer back to Terry, walked past him and grabbed a beer of her own. “I don’t know this guy, and I don’t want to know this guy, but I also don’t want to be the one responsible when his fever spikes at 105, he shits his pants, and dies.”
Doug sat on a box next to Terry.
“We going to town?” Terry asked.
Doug looked at Nikki, her face too pale, too tired. “Yeah.” He stood and stepped toward her. He hadn’t realized how young Nikki was until now. Twenty-one, twenty-two maybe. The Piper had crept in and fucked up her life, now he was going to do it, too. Doug grabbed her shoulders gently and looked into her soft brown eyes.
“I know you found something special here, and you can stay, if you want. But we have to go. I don’t want to let that man die any more than you do. We might get the medicine he needs and pull back into the driveway tonight, all smiles and Herman’s fever broken, and sit out the rest of the apocalypse in Barton getting drunk and playing Scrabble. Then again, we might not. When we leave, we have to pack like we’re not coming back.”
Tears welled in Nikki’s eyes. “I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered, not for the first time. “I’m coming with you.”
They loaded Doug’s pickup last, Doug and Terry carried a mattress from one of the spare bedrooms and bungeed it to the bed of the truck. They carried Herman Munster out next, the man’s fever rendered his face bright pink.
“No, no, no,” he said, sobbing as Doug and Terry laid him on the mattress, his face wet with tears and snot. Nikki wiped Herman Munster’s face with a towel and crawled into the bed of the truck with him.
Terry started to say something, but Nikki shook her head. “You can’t leave this man back here. In his state, if he tried to stand he’d fall onto the highway. Somebody’s got to stay back here and take care of him. I don’t think it’s too far to Allenville, anyway.”
The look of concern on Terry’s face drew a smile on Nikki’s. “You just hold onto something tight, okay?” he said. She nodded and Terry climbed behind the wheel of Doug’s pickup, Arnold sat next to him.
Doug pulled the H3 out of the garage, stopped and punched the button on the garage door opener, the door closing slowly behind them, shut off the only comfort they’d had since the end of the world came.
“I have a feeling we’re not coming back,” he said to Jenna. She patted his hand and nodded slowly.
“It’s for the best,” she said. “We were running out of toilet paper.”
Doug grinned and shook his head. She kept surprising him; he liked that.
The occasional car on the roadside didn’t remind Doug most people were gone; it was something subtler; something a person not used to rural highways wouldn’t notice. But he did. No road-kill. Usually a deer, or at least a possum or raccoon would lie in a bloody lump along a rural highway like U.S. 71, flies swarming over the corpse like it was a family reunion. He looked in the rear-view mirror; Terry drove slower than usual, probably because Nikki was in the back of the truck. He’d seen the way Terry looked at Nikki, like an awkward teenager too scared to talk to the cute girl who sat next to him in history class. He thought he’d seen it when she looked at him, too, but he wasn’t sure. Guys are pretty stupid about things like that.
“We’re getting close,” Jenna said, pointing at a road sign – ‘Allenville: 6 miles.’
Something was wrong in the Hummer, Doug just couldn’t tell what. A tension, like before a football game was all Doug could compare it to. Jenna felt it, too; he could tell by the way she sat, and the fact that’s the first thing she’d said since they pulled off the rural blacktop from Barton and onto the highway.
“You okay?”
Jenna’s smile was fake. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Bullshit.
Five minutes later Doug pulled the Hummer to a slow stop just outside the city limits; the university town spread out before him, signs for Applebee’s, Holiday Inn Express, and Taco Bell lined the way down Main Street, the tower from what looked like the courthouse gave him the finger. He got out and walked back to the pickup. Jenna opened her door and followed him.
“What’s up, bossman?” Terry asked, leaning out the open window.
“Just making sure we have a game plan,” Doug said. “You armed?” Terry lifted a M27 machine gun, Arnold a Winchester shotgun. Doug nodded. “Good. Can’t be too careful.” He tried a grin and wasn’t sure he achieved one. “Now this is a strafing run. Go in, find a pharmacy, get antibiotics and get out. Right?”
Terry nodded.
Arnold turned his head mechanically toward Doug. "We’re cool, we’re badasses, blah, blah, blah."
Terry forced a laugh and slapped Arnold lightly on the chest.
“Did you put any of that beer on ice before we left?” Doug asked.
Terry shoved a thumb behind him. “Back there.” Doug nodded and stepped to the back of the pickup.
Jenna took his place in the window. “Is he acting weird, or is it just me?”
“Just nerves, babe,” Terry said. “Just nerves.”
The back of the truck dipped under Doug’s weight as he stepped on the bumper and pulled himself into the bed that was crowded with a mattress, cases of beer, and a bright red Coleman cooler. Doug reached into the cooler and grabbed a beer chilled with the Marsten’s ice. He shut the white lid and sat down.
“Hey,” Nikki said, sitting next to the bungeed mattress.
Doug nodded. “Hey.” Herman Munster groaned. “He all right?”
Nikki shook her head. “No. Not at all.”
“We plan to fix that in a few minutes.” He paused for a moment and cracked open the beer, the can cold in his hand. “Are you all right?”
Her lips pursed and she looked at him hard. A 22-year-old girl shouldn’t have a look like that, he thought. This world has done bad things to everybody.
“No, I’m not,” she said. “And how about you? Do you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“The air. It’s like the air’s heavier than it should be, thicker. Herman Munster’s been mumbling about it in his sleep, about this Devil woman. About Hell.” She motioned to the cooler; Doug stood, pulled out a cold Budweiser and handed it to her. “Aren’t you worried, too?” she asked.
“Not a bit,” Doug said, reaching behind him. He pulled a .9mm pistol from his belt and handed it to her before hopping out of the back of the truck. His boots scraped on dirt as they hit the pavement. He looked back up at her, the gun rested uncomfortably in her hand. “Not a bit.”
As they pulled into Allenville, the town looked like a zombie movie without the zombies. There had been walking dead in Allenville, but by the black greasy spots that dotted the landscape, those had dropped and been consumed by the devil mushrooms long ago. Grass grew through cracks in parking lots, dark businesses looked ominous. A fire truck sat next to a Burger King in the parking lot of a Budget Barn grocery store; a pile of burned human remains before it a black lump on the gray asphalt. An RV rested in a corner of the lot across from a Taco Bell.
“There’s a pharmacy,” Jenna said, the marquee under a nondescript oval Carter’s Pharmacy sign read ‘Father’s Day cards 1/2 off.’ Doug pulled the H3 to a stop in front of the red brick building. Terry pulled in next to him. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” Jenna asked as Doug reached for the door handle. He pulled his hand back.
“It’s either this or what?” he asked softly, turning toward Jenna. “Let that poor guy
die? Everybody’s scared shitless. Hell, I’m nervous, too. But at what? Bullshit from the head of a guy with a raging fever.” He pulled a shotgun out of the back seat. “Are you with me?” Jenna nodded and they stepped out of the Hummer.
“It don’t feel right,” Terry said when Doug walked up to him leaning against the F-150. “It’s like when you walk into a room after somebody had a fight.”
Doug laughed, although he knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. Not now, not at all. “I don’t mean to take your feelings lightly, but you guys are just letting your imagination run crazy.” He stretched his arms and shouted into the Allenville sky. “Hey, boogieman. Come get us.” The caw from a nearby crow answered him. Doug lowered his arms and nodded his head toward the pharmacy. “Nobody’s here. Let’s go inside and get some medicine for Herman Munster before we have to scrape him out the back of my truck and leave him for the crows.”
“Negative,” Arnold said softly. “I cannot jeopardize my mission.”
Terry turned to him. “What is your mission?”
“To ensure the survival of John Connor.”
Terry motioned to Herman Munster moaning in the back of the F-150. “How do you know he’s not John Connor?”
Arnold let out a long, slow sigh, snatched Terry’s beer from his hand and drained it. “I think I’m finally ready to be back amongst the world of the living,” he said, and tossed the empty can out the window.
“What the…” Terry started.
“This is my time,” Arnold said, stepping out of the truck. Everyone stared at him. “My name actually is Arnold. Arnold Pickrell, PharmD. I think this is why I’m here. Before the pharmacology geniuses distilled the Piper from the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus in Southeast Asia and doomed everyone taking it to become mindless toadstool food, I was a pharmacist. We can talk Terminator later.” He cocked his shotgun. “I don’t like this town. Let’s make it quick.”
July 15: Allenville, Missouri
Chapter 34
Craig sat in the clock tower and watched his world change through the scope of Billy Bob Purdy’s hunting rifle. Two trucks, one black, one red, drove north on U.S. 71, and turned onto Main Street. Craig had watched them coming up the highway, topping hill after hill, whispering for them to keep on driving, but they turned on Business 71, and headed closer to him, ever closer. The trucks pulled to a stop in front of Carter’s Pharmacy and people stepped out, three men and a woman from the cabs, another woman climbed from the bed of the red truck. A man lay still on a mattress in the truck bed, his leg bandaged. The five stood in front of the red truck, talking. Arguing? Craig wondered. What’s wrong with that guy?
“He’s dying,” Posey said. Craig felt the old man next to him again; a shudder ran through him.
“I don’t have time for you Posey.”
The group filed into the pharmacy. “You just going to leave him there in the sun?” Craig whispered. He levelled the rifle on the man, his bandaged head an easy target in the powerful scope. Craig knew he could end the poor guy’s suffering with one squeeze of his finger, just a small voluntary muscle movement and no more pain.
“Don’t do it, McAllister,” Posey hissed. “You’ll fuck everything up.”
“Goddamnit Posey.” Craig swung around and faced the voice, but nothing was there. No old man Posey in his Royals cap, no moldering corpse, nothing. “Leave me the fuck alone. You’re dead.” Craig started to turn back toward the pharmacy when something moving along South Main caught his eye. He hoisted the rifle and trained the scope to a spot near the city park. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “That’s a tank.”
***
Darryl. A flush of warmth pushed through Maryanne as she peeked through the curtain of the RV’s side window. A knot of people milled in front of an old red F-150. Darryl didn’t stand among them, but he was there. She felt it in her loins. She had him. She could almost feel her skin pressing against his, but his was hot. Something was wrong with her baby. Was he sick? Momma could make him feel all better. Maryanne pulled her .38 off the RV’s kitchen table where it sat amongst empty beer cans and paper plates of half-chewed pizza, and tucked it in the back of her tight white pants. She had a present for Darryl, and she wanted to save it for last. She opened the thin RV door and stepped into the afternoon.
The big front pharmacy window bled plenty of daylight into the building; bottles of drugs scattered everywhere. Before all the citizens of the town of Allenville fell to a killer in the guise of medicine, its citizens had a run on drugs.
“What are we looking for, Arnold?” Terry asked, poking through the few large medicine bottles that still lined the shelves.
“Don’t worry about that,” Arnold said. “You guys grab plenty of bandages, Benadryl, Acetaminophen, antacids, rubbers, Tampons, just anything you had in your medicine cabinet back home. I’ll take care of Herman Munster.”
Terry giggled at “rubbers” and Doug slapped him on the shoulder. “Dumbass.”
They fanned through the pharmacy, filling green plastic baskets with over-the-counter medicine. Nikki grabbed deodorant, Jenna some chocolate, Doug, Bic razors and shaving cream. Arnold plucked a big white plastic jar off the floor, walked to Doug and dropped it in his basket.
“That’s amoxicillin, an antibiotic. I’m going to give Herman two of these immediately with plenty of water.” Arnold held up two yellow capsules between his index finger and thumb. “Then he needs three or four of these a day until his leg clears up.”
Doug nodded. “He’s going to be okay?”
“Yeah. He’s going to be fine.” Arnold looked sternly at Doug, furrows lined his forehead. “I’m just worried about what he’s going to be like when he’s healthy. You have a pretty good record with stragglers, even me, and I was going through a pretty bad time in my head. Can’t say I’d do the same for you if you started spouting Rambo movies. Thank you. But this guy? I don’t like the way he feels.”
The tank kept south on Main Street; Craig knew where it was heading. He looked out the south window and leaned his elbow on the old wooden windowsill to keep the rifle steady, and rested his right eye against the scope. The people from the truck were still inside the store, but somebody outside moved. The side door of an RV parked next to Taco Bell popped open, the word “Haven” painted across the side of the long, beige Winnebago. Hmm, he wondered. When did that get there? A woman stepped out.
“The Devil woman,” Posey whispered.
The blond woman in tight white pants descended the two steps slowly, tied her long hair into a ponytail, and walked around the big vehicle toward the red truck. Something about her walk, maybe the way she swung her hips, or the way she threw back her shoulders, or the way …
“She sprouted those horns?”
“Shut the fuck up, Posey.”
Craig didn’t like her. There was something wrong about that woman, something bad. Something wicked. She stopped next to the pickup. She talked to someone, the man on the mattress. The helpless man. The sick man. She rested a hand behind her on the handle of a pistol tucked into her pants. Craig trained the rifle on that woman, right between those thrown-back shoulder blades.
“Devil woman.”
His finger tensed on the trigger of Billy Bob Purdy’s grizzly bear rifle and waited. Nope, Craig didn’t like her. He didn’t like her at all.
Darryl’s world was blue, a big blue nothing. The ocean? No, I’ve never been to the ocean. I’m from Kansas, how could I be at the ocean? But the ocean was blue, right? And big, the ocean was big. Darryl’s blue was big, and it swam. The blue nothingness rippled in his vision like waves. His mouth was dry, too dry, and he hurt. His head, his leg, his soul. If only he had water. But here was the ocean. Why couldn’t he find water? A face suddenly loomed over his. Was this a mermaid?
“Hi, Darryl,” the mermaid said. How did she know my name? He thought he said something, he tried to say something, but didn’t know if it came out. “Aw, you’re hurt, baby,” the mermaid said. Was she here to help?
He tried to sit, but that slight movement sent the great blue ocean spinning. But it wasn’t the ocean. Three red walls imprisoned him, three short red walls, and the blue, the blue was the sky, maybe. The mermaid leaned on one of the walls, smiling. Am I in a pickup? Darryl lay back down, his eyes swam.
“You ran out on me, Darryl.” The mermaid no longer smiled. No, no. Don’t look at me like that. Her eyes had grown black; the iris and whites drowned in a pool of ink. Shark’s eyes. The mermaid had shark’s eyes. “Nobody runs out on me.” What is she talking about? I never met a mermaid before. He tried to speak again, but he couldn’t form the words. “You’re going to hurt, Darryl. You’re going to hurt like you’ve never hurt before.” Pain shot through his leg as he thrashed, trying to move away from this mermaid, this evil, evil mermaid. She reached out a fist and jabbed it into the bandage on Darryl’s leg. This time he knew he made noise.
Suddenly the mermaid held a gun. Why did a mermaid need a gun? Darryl felt he should be crying, but didn’t feel tears. “I think we’re about to get some company, Darryl baby. I wish you could watch.” Then the mermaid smiled again, and Darryl screamed.
Karl followed the Bradley in the cruiser; the big thing’s speed surprised him. What the hell does Maryanne want with this beast? he wondered. What was she going to do to that poor damned Darryl? Mike drove the Bradley through the square, swerving to strike a Geo Metro, the rusty little car careened off it like a pinball, spitting shards of metal and glass from its crushed frame. Karl glanced up at the clock tower and wondered what spooked Maryanne. He liked to see her spooked; maybe this demon wasn’t invincible. That thought almost sent him around the square and out of town. He could outrun the Bradley, he could outrun … then he felt it. He felt Maryanne’s gaze, and his bowels threatened to let loose. No, he had to see this thing play through. She wouldn’t let him go.
The door to the RV hung open when Mike and Karl neared the Budget Barn parking lot. Maryanne was out, standing next to a red Ford F-150, waving. Not to him, but to Mike. The Crazybitch swung her arms in over-animated movements toward a building. Taco Bell? No, as the yards clicked away a pharmacy came into view. She pointed at the pharmacy, then pulled her hands to her chest and fanned them out, fingers radiated in what only could mean an explosion. Karl knew Mike understood all too well.
