by Thomas North
Life was good. Not perfect, but good.
He let out a loud yell, nearly sending his beer into the next room, at the sight of a Patriot standing in the end zone with the ball. With not much else going on, that was about as close to a "good day" as he was going to get on a fall Sunday like this. It was lazy, it was quiet, and a win made it a good day, a loss made it a bad one. That touchdown brought it a lot closer to being a good one.
He was still in a post-touchdown euphoria when the phone rang.
Later, he would tell people that he remembered that moment like it had just happened, just like some people remember seeing the Kennedy assassination, or the Challenger Explosion, or 9/11. He would say that he remembered the instant that the electronic jingle broke through the raucous cheers of the crowd. He remembered the walk into the kitchen, grabbing the phone, bringing it up to his ear. He would remember knowing even before he said 'Hello,' who it was on the other end. And he would remember, knowing, somehow, that this call was something bad. Something really bad.
HE SLAMMED ON the brakes. The tires screeched, the smell of burned rubber filled the cabin of the car, and his vehicle skidded for what seemed like an impossibly long time before coming to a rest in front of Packard’s Jewelry Store, halfway down the narrow Main Street of Allentown. In front of his cruiser, in the middle of the road, three people were kneeling, huddled around something that he couldn’t see from where he was. It looked like they were tending to someone, possibly an injured person, though he was amazed at the fact that none of them even looked in his direction in spite of the fact that his car had been a few feet away from turning them into hood ornaments.
He took the handset from his dashboard and keyed the mike.
“Rita, this is Mike. Can you get Jeff to come to the front of Packard’s please? Over.”
He waited for his dispatcher to respond.
The radio hissed softly. He keyed the mike again. “Rita, did you copy that last message? Over.”
He let up on the button and waited.
Grumbling under his breath, he unbuckled his seatbelt and eased his six-foot eight-inch frame out of the vehicle. Mike Williamson’s size more than made up for the lack of numbers on the town police force. If he ever really needed backup beyond his fellow deputy, who was a full foot shorter and 135 pounds lighter, it would have to come from the State Police, who were a good half hour away. They had tried to get the town to allocate enough money to hire at least another part-time deputy, but Harry Andrews had blocked that too, claiming the town didn’t need another cop. Luckily, in Mike’s decade working as a police officer in Allentown, he’d rarely needed backup. The town was quiet to begin with, and nobody – even the few troublemakers there were – was dumb enough to mess with a behemoth like him. Nobody, that was, until now.
“Excuse me folks, is everything okay?” Mike asked, walking towards the three people. Receiving no reply, he opened his mouth to say something a little more forceful, but stopped mid-breath.
One of the people leaned over, giving him a glimpse of what they were huddled around. By this point, it looked like a butchered animal, but it was clear to him what it had been. He could see the fabric remnants of the shirt, stained red, and a mess of blood-spattered curly brown hair on the head. The throat was torn out and the other parts of the corpse were torn, mutilated and bloody, as if it had been mauled by an animal.
Mike reached for his revolver.
Just as his hand wrapped around the handle, a sharp pain tore through his side, below his ribs. He screamed and instinctively struck out with his elbow. It connected with bone, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure sprawl away from him and land on the ground. He patted his side, feeling the sticky blood that poured from a small but deep gash above his hip.
Mike pulled out his pistol and spun around, facing his assailant. If the broad, square jaw of the policeman hadn’t been attached to his skull, it would have dropped on the ground and cracked the pavement. It was little Mrs. Samuels, a retired schoolteacher who lived in an apartment above the jewelry store. He could barely believe that it was that fragile old woman, not a hair above four-foot-ten, who had taken a chunk of meat out of his abdomen.
“Mrs. Samuels are you ok?” he asked, trying to ignore the pain in his side. Her eyes were hollow and sunk, and blood covered her lips and mouth. She was chewing on the piece of his flesh she had torn from him, like a cow chewing cud. Her dentures were slightly askew, sticking partway out of her mouth.
He glanced back at the small group in the street who were still preoccupied with their meal, and then took a cautious step toward the elderly Mrs. Samuels. She let out a guttural sound from deep in her throat, something between a groan and a growl, and gnashed her teeth. Her dentures fell the rest of the way out of her mouth and landed with a dull clack on the sidewalk.
Then she leapt.
This time he was ready, easily sidestepping the clumsy attack and grabbing her by her pencil-thin arm. Had it been anyone else, he would have slammed them to the pavement and knocked the wind out of them. Given Mrs. Samuels’ age and size, however, he delicately guided the old woman onto the ground so she was lying on her stomach. He re-holstered his weapon, pulled his handcuffs from his belt, and restrained her hands behind her back, ignoring her feeble struggling.
He stood back up and checked the group in the street. One of them was standing up now, though they still appeared to have not noticed the police officer and the woman on the ground.
“Hang tight Mrs. Samuels,” he told her, receiving a growl in response.
He stood up and checked his wound again. His shirt was torn, and the gash, though just a couple of inches long, was ragged and torn, and pooled with congealing blood. He grimaced. It hurt like a bastard, but would be okay for the time being.
He drew his weapon again and stood at the ready, pointing his service revolver at the person who was standing. The man wore a pair of tan slacks and a white polo shirt, as if he’d just come back from a round of golf at the county club.
“Excuse me folks!” Mike boomed his usual greeting, a greeting that most people in town recognized as a warning.
They noticed him this time. The man in the polo shirt began to stiffly turn around. His body movement reminded Mike of someone doing “the robot,” the annoying dance that is inevitably busted out at every dance and party on the planet.
The other two, still kneeling, stopped what they were doing and looked up, their eyes locking on the towering police officer who was pointing his gun at them. Their mouths – and most of their faces – were covered in blood and other bits of gore. A red tendril, likely a piece of muscle or tendon, hung from the mouth of one of them, a youngish male in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt.
Next to him was a female, her dark brown hair cut just above her shoulders. He recognized both of them. The young male was Jimmy Anders. He had just begun his senior year in high school and did a lot of odd-jobs to raise money for college. He’d mowed Mike’s lawn a couple of times over the summer. The female was his younger sister, Ashley, a junior varsity softball player, just beginning her sophomore year.
Mike didn’t have to wait for the man to finish turning to know who it was: Bob Anders, the pater familias of the Anders clan. Bob was a real estate broker who had a hand in almost all of the property in Allentown. He had sold Mike his first house, a small two-bedroom ranch just a couple of miles from the town square, and had even helped him understand the ins and outs of financing and mortgages.
As that puzzle piece registered, so too did the last one: the corpse in the middle of the street. It was Dara Anders, housewife, mother, regular church-goer – and now the main course in the Anders Family Picnic.
Mike didn’t have a lot time to ponder the philosophical implications of what was happening, however, as the three remaining Anderses were now fixated on him, their sunken eyes locked onto the only other living thing nearby.
“All three of you! Step away from the body, put your hands on your heads
, and get on your knees!” he yelled, keeping his weapon trained on the father.
They stared at him blankly. Bob opened his mouth, appearing for a split-second like he was going to say something, but instead, emitting a loud, raspy moan. The other two began to stand as Bob Anders started staggering in Mike’s direction.
“Don’t move!” he ordered. “Not another step!”
Unheeding, Bob Anders took a few more stiff steps forward. The blood on his face was drying, but fresh saliva glistened and dripped from his teeth and lips.
“One more step and I will shoot! Mike said firmly.
Now all three of them were coming towards him. Hesitantly, he aimed his weapon center mass, and squeezed the trigger. The bullet struck Bob dead center in the chest, just to the right of his heart. He jerked backwards with the force of the bullet, which left a small hole that quickly overflowed with blood.
Mike pulled his gun back slightly, anticipating his target crumpling to the ground. Instead, incredulous, he watched the man recover his balance and begin his stiff shuffle forward again.
He squeezed the trigger twice more, both rounds hitting near the first, making a tight triangle of red holes in Bob Anders’s bloodstained white shirt. Again, Bob jerked backwards. Again he regained his balance and shook off the effects of the three metal objects that had just punctured his vital organs and shatter his chest cavity.
All three of the Anders were closing on him now, with Bob now nearly an arm’s length away. Mike retreated backwards, looking over his shoulder at his car and debating whether or not to jump inside and head for the police station to track down Jeff and Rita.
A pair of arms slipped around his waist and grabbed him in a bear hug. He twisted his torso, swinging his massive arm in a wide arc and simultaneously jumping to the side, tearing himself out of the grasp of yet another assailant.
His fist grazed the cheekbone of the new attacker, whom he recognized as Carl Letourneau, one of the town’s auto mechanics and resident drunks. Carl was dressed in his blue coveralls with his name stitched in yellow cursive lettering over the right breast pocket. Carl lunged at him, but the mechanic’s movement was slow and lethargic. Mike had encountered him plenty of times when he was wasted, but this was different somehow. It was slow, but not drunk slow.
Mike easily sidestepped the move, and still clutching his gun with one hand, slammed the mechanic onto the pavement face down, using none of the delicacy or softness he’d used with Mrs. Samuels. He followed up by planting the toe of his size-sixteen boot in the man’s ribs.
Before he could contemplate his next move, Bob Anders was on him, his children a few feet behind. The real estate broker grabbed Mike’s left forearm and, bearing his teeth, tried to bring the meaty wing to his mouth. Mike jerked his arm away, but not before Bob clamped down hard with his front teeth.
He yelled in pain and swung his right arm at Bob’s head, smashing the top of the pistol into his left temple. Bob Anders clamped down harder with his jaw a split-second before the hard metal of the gun caved in the side of his head, taking a piece of blue fabric and a large chunk of forearm with him to the ground. The fiery pain of his skin and flesh being torn from his body drew another scream from the cop, who immediately clutched his arm to his body.
The two children were now within striking distance. Mike took a deep breath and assessed the situation. He was in pain, but the wounds were mostly superficial. The assailants, all people he knew, were clearly dangerous, but so far hadn’t been armed.
Calmly, he stepped backwards. He didn’t notice the figure of Carl Letourneau, who had been struggling to get back to his feet since being tossed to the ground, and had just managed to push himself onto his knees, until it was too late. Mike fell head over heels over the former mechanic, smacking the back of his head on the cement, a scene that looked like it could have been taken straight from a Three Stooges skit.
He lay sprawled on his back in the street, his legs coming to rest directly under the gaze of the mechanic, his wounded arm leaving a splash of blood on the pavement. Carl, seeing a thick leg just a few short inches away, opened his mouth wide, his saliva making little dark drops on Mike’s blue slacks. He leaned forward ready to sink his teeth into the large calf muscle in front of him.
His brains landing on the pavement prevented him from indulging in an afternoon snack of his own. Mike stood up, his smoking pistol still in his hand, and spotted Jimmy Anders staggering toward him. Checking behind himself this time, he backpedaled, putting a few feet between him and the Anders children. His side and forearm hurt badly, and the pain in his head felt like someone was hammering at his brain with a chisel.
With the two children still approaching, Williamson clenched his teeth and steeled himself on what he was about to do. Calmly, he aimed at the forehead of young Ashley Anders. Staring into her large brown eyes, he saw emptiness; they contained none of the youthful energy or vigor of a young teenage girl, or even the basic consciousness and awareness of a person. They contained nothing at all.
He fired, and watched the body of the young girl collapse to the ground. He aimed at her older brother, and without pause, squeezed the trigger again.
With all of his attackers down, he took stock of the carnage. Carl the mechanic was lying on the ground, half of his head attached to his body, the other half splattered on the ground next to him. Bob Anders was face down on the cement near Carl, still also motionless, the side of his head caved in like the crunched fender of a car. He looked dead.
The Anders kids were both down too. He’d put a bullet in both of them.
Walking back to his car, he saw Mrs. Samuels twitching on the ground. She was still on her stomach, unable to get to her feet with her hands restrained behind her. He knelt down, drawing a violent twitch and a frothy growl from his old teacher, and unlocked her handcuffs. He would have liked to have taken her to a hospital, but from the looks of things, he knew that probably wasn't realistic.
Mike looked down Main Street. A half-dozen or more figures were mulling around the town square, all of walking with the same unmistakable shambling gait. He turned a full three-sixty, noting another person across the street near a Subway, three more further down Main Street near the library, and a few isolated ones staggering around the shops and buildings of downtown Allentown.
Mike Williamson got into his car, locked the door, and put his keys in the ignition. While pulling away, he took his cell phone out of his pocket, flipped it open, and dialed Jeff’s number. The phone rang several times and then kicked to voice mail.
Next, he went to the phonebook on his phone and searched down the list until he found the entry he was looking for. He pressed “Send,” and waited. As the digital ringing sound blared in his ear, he saw someone in an expensive-looking gray business suit staggering across the street. It was Harry Andrews. Mike ignored him, holding back his very real urge to cut across the street and turn the bastard into road kill.
“Mike,” the voice on the line said coldly.
"Hey. Something’s going on here,” Mike said, cutting directly to the point. “Are you nearby?”
“I’m at home. And yeah, I heard you all had some kind of food poisoning or something. Must be a big day there.”
“I don’t think it’s any kind of food poisoning, Brent,” Mike replied. “Can you get here?”
There was a long pause.
"Sure, fine. I'm not sure what you expect me to do, though. What happened to that skinny guy you had working for you?"
“He's missing. So is Rita. Brent, make sure you come armed. Got me?"
There was another pause.
"Armed? What the hell is going on there?"
"I don't know... But if you see anybody walking funny, kind of like they’ve got bad arthritis or seem like they’re all doped up, steer clear of them.”
“Uh okay, why? What're they going to do?”
Mike hesitated, thinking about how to respond.
“Well…” he began. “You remember that mo
vie Alive?”
4
HIS BROTHER WAS a lot of things, but insane wasn't one of them. At least, not unless something had changed in the past year. Even if Mike's mind did go, he wasn't the type of guy who would go insane. He was too boring for that. He'd probably just become catatonic, sit in a chair rocking in front of a window all day, drooling on himself and shitting his pants. But not go insane.
Yet, what he'd said over the phone sounded insane. Food poisoning or the flu were one thing. But mass murder and cannibalism in broad daylight? By people both of them had known for years, some since both of them were kids? One of the people he mentioned had been their schoolteacher, for God's sake. How was that even possible?
The call had been short. Brent had a lot of questions, but Mike hadn't been in the mood to answer them over the phone. He'd wanted him there in person. It was a surprise Mike had called him at all, but demanding that he drive to Allentown, armed no less, was the clincher. He would go if only because now his interest was peaked. Something was happening there, and he wanted to see with his own eyes what it was.
Maybe his brother would deputize him. He was looking forward to getting a little tin "don't fuck with me" badge like his brother had. Unlike his brother, he'd actually use it if he had to.
Brent had a nice pump-action shotgun in his shed that he would toss into his car with him. He downed the rest of his beer, pushed himself off of the couch, and grabbed the remote control, but paused in front of the TV before shutting it off. The camera was focused on the crowd instead of on the field. A brawl had broken out in the middle of the stands, and a half dozen security guards were trying to get it under control, some already bringing out their tasers to try to subdue people who weren't complying with their orders.
"Drunken jackasses," Brent muttered, and shut off the television.
