by Nathan Brown
Joseph thought about stopping to see if he could help. His instincts told him to keep moving and not stop until he had no other choice.
No one stopped.
Joseph went back to listening to the radio to see if they had any new information. He scanned through a few radio stations; none of them had anything new running, just the same crap about staying inside.
Henrietta was quiet. Joseph figured people had started taking the emergency statements very seriously. He looked over the freeway to one of the side streets. A police cruiser sat in the center of the road with its lights flashing, but the officer was not in it. Joseph assumed he must have taken cover in the gas station on the corner. Near the edge of town he saw an ambulance with an unattended gurney. The patient strapped to the gurney bounced around as if trying to breaks the straps holding him down.
Okay, where are the paramedics? They should be trying to calm that guy down before he hurts himself.
His stomach rumbled. Out of habit, he looked at his watch—quarter to two. A moment later he saw a green, travel distance sign, “Wichita Falls 20 miles.” He pushed thoughts of hunger aside and slid his car in behind one of the big rigs.
He blew past a hitchhiker shuffling along the side of the road. He glanced at his rearview mirror a second after he passed the hitchhiker. A red Suburban jumped to the right as its right front tire blew out. The driver must have jammed on the brakes and turned the wheels left to avoid the hitchhiker. The man snapped his head up at the sound of the tire blowing but didn’t seem to attach any significance to the grinding metal or screeching tires that were coming his way. He didn’t attempt to run to safety or jump out of the path of the careening SUV. The Suburban swerved too late and plowed broadside into the man, leaving a bloody smear on the side of the road.
If I make it to Wichita Falls, it may be nothing short of a miracle.
Just past a small pond with a fountain that sat in the median, traffic slammed to a halt yet again. Joseph took a deep breath and started looking for a way out. He was still more than a mile from the nearest exit and had to cross a bridge to get there. As much as he hated the idea, he settled down to wait for traffic to inchworm its way forward until he could slide up to the exit along the shoulder.
Joseph rested his arm on the door and used his hand to block as much of the sun as he could. He turned the radio back up and scanned through every radio station, mainly just to pass the time. He tried to think of what he was going to do to find more information and, more importantly, food and a safe place to sleep.
An hour later, he still had no clue what he was going to do, but he had moved forward enough to clear the bridge and get an idea of what caused the traffic jam. Traffic collapsed to just the left lane a few hundred yards later. From the number of flashing lights in the immediate area, it must have been a hellacious wreck.
A red light on the gauge panel caught his eye. He looked at his gas gauge—his car was down to fumes.
His panic level jumped to critical mass.
Joseph jumped on the left shoulder and slid up to the clear left exit for Highway 79. He didn’t care where he was heading now that he was out of Dallas. Besides, he was almost out of gas. The only thing that mattered to him was that he was moving again.
About two miles down the smaller highway, Joseph saw the tall sign of a Fina station. He edged toward the right hand lane so he could exit. A crack of thunder erupted from his left. He looked back to the gas station in time to see a fireball rising up from a tower of black smoke.
Joseph stayed in the right hand lane and followed the right exit that looked like more highway leading back toward civilization. A black SUV refused to move over blocking him into an exit lane. He eased his car to a halt at the stop sign. A traffic cop waved him to turn left through the intersection. He went straight through the next stop sign.
Joseph went less than a mile before he started panicking again. The road continued away from town and had nothing that looked like a gas station anywhere in sight. He turned right at the first stop sign onto an ill-repaired country road. He heard the snarling of fighting dogs. He looked to see what had the dogs so riled up. He was repulsed to find that they were eating a llama. For a second Joseph wondered how the dogs had gotten out of their kennel and into the llama pen. He decided he didn’t want to know.
At the end of the road, Joseph’s skin began to crawl as he approached a well-kept cemetery on his left. His terrified imagination shot into overdrive when he saw about ten people milling aimlessly about in the front lawn of a funeral home across from the cemetery. He hesitated speeding off long enough to notice the broken bay windows and the body lying beneath them on the ground.
Joseph turned left and stomped on the gas, not giving a damn that his car was already nearly out of fuel.
He drove about three miles down the two-lane highway, passing an area marked Lakeside City — Pop. 984, before finally finding a gas station at a Y-fork in a small country road. He coasted into the gas station and stopped in front of one of the ancient looking pumps. He closed his eyes, calmly counted to five, and climbed out of his car. He had the nozzle almost into his tank when he noticed the sign “All Pumps Pre-Pay.”
Joseph re-racked the nozzle and screwed the gas cap back on. He walked into the store as if everything was perfectly normal. His head snapped up when he heard the distinct Clack-Clack of a shotgun chambering a shell.
“Whut da hell d’you think you want?” growled the burley man from behind the shotgun.
“I just want to buy some gas,” Joseph said, keeping his hands out to his sides.
“Pumps’re closed,” the storeowner snapped. “Any other questions?”
Joseph watched the back door swing in. A person came in and shuffled quietly forward. Joseph would have sworn he was hallucinating … the side of the person’s throat appeared to have been torn away, as if by an animal.
“I didn’t think you would. Now get da hell outta hurr,” the man ordered, waving the shotgun to the side before re-leveling it at Joseph’s head.
Joseph slowly raised a finger at the strange man emerging from the shadows of the back room as he backed his way out the front door.
“What the fuck’re you pointing at me f—aaahhh.”
The man wrapped his arms over the shoulders of the shotgun-wielding station owner and bit down hard on a shoulder. A finger must have twitched, sending a blast from the shotgun, shattering the glass door of a beverage refrigerator.
Self-preservation sent Joseph running back to his car. He slid across the hood, fell to the ground, picked himself up, opened the door, and jumped in. Just as he slammed the door, two bloodstained people came around the corner of the shop at a run. He watched their forced strides as he shoved the key in the ignition. The car sputtered to life. Joseph gunned the engine, flinging gravel everywhere as he fishtailed out of the parking lot heading back toward the interstate.
He almost got back to the last major intersection when the engine started choking. Just past a church, he turned left into the rural suburb of Lakeside City. He went straight because the road left of him was blocked by a three-car pileup. At the end, he followed the road to the left past a row of mostly brick houses.
Fuck no. No, NO, NO! Don’t die on me yet. Come on, just a little farther.
The engine sputtered twice and died, leaving him stranded in front of the twelfth house. Joseph shoved it in neutral and turned on the parking brake. He got out, braced himself and turned off the parking brake. He pushed the car just far enough to get it out from in front of the house’s driveway. He walked up the driveway, past a black, heavily tinted Chevy Blazer, and knocked on the glass storm door.
“Hello? Anybody home? I ran out of gas and could use some help,” Joseph yelled, banging on the door again and peering through the glass to see if he could spy anyone inside. He looked nervously over his shoulder, back toward the street. When he brought his head back around, he found a gun barrel sitting just inches from his nose for the second time in
just a few minutes.
“Are you bit?” the man behind the gun demanded with a strange tone of calm in his voice. He wasn’t exactly a huge guy, but he definitely had the look of a person that Joseph did not want to fuck with. The young man’s black cargo pants and blood splattered olive drab T-shirt reminded Joseph of a deranged serial killer from some horror movie. His pale-blue eyes were all the brighter when contrasted by his military-short dark brown hair. Joseph was sure the man would shoot if he didn’t answer the right way, but he was almost doubly sure the man would shoot him if he attempted to run away. “Damn it, are you bit? Yes or no?”
“What?”
“George fucking Romero, mother fucker! Are you infected?! It’s a simple question! Have … you … been … bitten?”
“No,” Joseph answered slowly.
“Then get in here bef—”
Before the blood-spattered gunman could finish his sentence, Joseph was tackled from the side. He got his knee up and placed a hand around the throat of the woman attacking him. A bloody eyeball dangled from her left ocular cavity. Her hands were covered with a pair of leather gardening gloves and the flesh of her left forearm had been torn down to the bone.
Fuck! Again? Today is just not a good day to be me.
Joseph used his free arm to pound on the ribs of the crazed lady on top of him. She didn’t so much as wince at the barrage of heavy punches.
The gunman clubbed the back of the woman’s head with the butt of his pistol, which seemed to have little effect on her attack. He then grabbed her by the hair and jerked, pulling her off of Joseph. She stood, clicking her teeth on empty air. The gunman kept his grip on her hair, torqued his hips, and twisted his frame around, putting the woman off balance enough to lose her footing. He kept on coming, and kicked her in the crook of the hip with the heel of his right boot. The blow was enough to put her to the ground. She rolled to the ground and landed on her back a few feet away. He calmly raised his gun and, as she began to sit up, shot her square in the face.
Joseph jumped, startled by the gunshot.
“Why did you shoot her?” he yelled.
“You’re not playing with a full deck, are you? Do you have any idea what’s going on or have you been jerking off in a bathroom stall somewhere for the last twenty-four hours?” the man asked, leering at Joseph with intense, flashing eyes. “Look, just get inside before more of these fuckers show up. Noise tends to attract their attention, and we just made a shitload of it. Or … you can stay out here.”
Dead Come Home
Chapter 6
Hell Comes Home
Mike turned the doorknob lock, engaged the deadbolt, and slid the door chain firmly into place. He took a look at his panicked visitor. He was a young fellow, but probably not much younger than Mike. Life “in the shit” tends to age a guy, as Mike well knew. The man’s eyes were wide, his expression one of shock and confusion. Mike suddenly realized what a sight he must make, his clothes spattered with blood, face dirty and tear-strewn, and holding a monster of gun in his hand.
“Take it easy,” Mike said, still catching his breath a bit. “I ain’t gonna hurt you. If I was, I’d have just left you to that thing out there. What’s your name, friend?”
“Joe … Joseph.”
“Okay, Joe-Joseph. My name’s Mike. What brings you out here?”
“Ran out of gas,” Joseph said. “The guy at the filling station down the road pulled a shotgun on me.”
“Sounds like you met Bob Cutching. Yeah, he’s always struck me as being a bit on edge.” Mike chuckled, imagining big, hulky Bob pulling a shotgun on this average-sized gent.
“Well, I don’t think that’ll be a problem for him anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“One of those crazy people—like that crazy lady out there—one attacked him. That’s what sent me this way.”
“He was attacked right in front of you?”
“Had I been any closer … it could have had me.”
“And what did you do while all this was goin’ on? You ran?”
Joseph paused, suddenly struck by a sinking pang of guilt in his gut for abandoning a man in trouble. The knowledge that he was still alive, however, more than cancelled out the guilt.
“Calm down, Joe-Joseph,” Mike sighed. “Not passing judgment. If he was bit, there was nothin’ you coulda done to help him anyway. But you can help me.”
“Help you with what?”
“Well, if you will turn your attention to the living room,” Mike said, holding his arm out like a tour guide. “You will notice that I’ve had quite the party. And my guests have made one helluva mess.”
Joseph’s stomach twisted at the sight of the mutilated corpses.
“What is this? What have you done?”
“Well, I’d have thought that was obvious … I killed three people in my living room. And pretty soon, they’re gonna start getting ripe. Besides that, I don’t exactly wanna be tripping around in the dark, stumbling over dead people all night. We need to move them to the far end of the house. I’d do it myself, but old Tom over there is a pretty big guy, even with most of his head gone. If you hadn’t shown up, I woulda had to chop him up to get him moved and, to be honest with you, we don’t really have that kinda time.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Joseph choked on the words.
“Bathroom’s through there,” Mike said, pointing to the master bedroom door on the right side of the living room. “There’s another one at the far end but, trust me, you don’t wanna go that way.”
Joseph darted off for the toilet before Mike finished speaking. Mike stood in the living room, keeping his eye on the front door as he listened to the muffled sounds of Joseph retching and gagging. Then he heard the sink running. A few moments later, the young man emerged from the bedroom door.
“Better?”
“I’m okay now,” Joseph said, wiping his water-soaked face with the back of his forearm. “Sorry about that. I’ve just … I mean, I’ve never.”
“Never seen dead bodies? It’s fine,” Mike said. “Are you gonna be able to do this?”
Joseph nodded that he would and swallowed hard on the lump of nausea that was again swelling in his throat. He took a few deep breaths; soon, the initial wave of vertigo began to subside. He tightened his fists and readied himself for the terrible task that lay before him.
“It’s not that I haven’t seen a dead body before. It’s just that last time … ” Joseph said, “Last time I didn’t have time to look at it for long. I hardly saw what it looked like.”
“Yeah,” Mike replied. “It really gives you a newfound respect for morticians, doesn’t it? Imagine if you had to look at your loved ones like this …”
Joseph saw Mike’s expression change, saw a wave of sadness wash across Mike’s face. Just as quickly, it faded away as the young man gritted his teeth and took hold of a pair of flannel-clad shoulders.
“Just get his feet, would ya?”
* * *
Mike and Joseph made quick work of their morbid detail. They piled the bodies into a small bathroom at the far end of the house. Joseph managed not to get sick until they were disposing of the very last body. A chunk of Sheriff Tom’s esophagus had slid grotesquely out of his neck and rolled down Joseph’s leg. He’d blown chunks over the piled bodies, christening their defiled corpses in putrid vomit. Mike said nothing about it. He just nodded in an odd gesture of understanding, as if to say, “I used to do the same thing, once upon a time.”
In all honesty, however, Joseph found Mike’s calm demeanor rather disconcerting. The emotionless way in which he seemed to deal with the situation put an odd fear in Joseph’s already nauseated belly. Joseph wondered if Mike would be so cold and calm and kill him as he had these three men. The young business intern decided that it was in his best interest not to let himself be perceived as a threat by this blood-soaked, gun-wielding fellow.
Joseph followed Mike to the kitchen. Mike reached into
one of the cabinets and pulled out a yellow plastic glass. He handed it to Joseph.
“You should get yourself some water,” Mike told him. “We’ve still got miles to go before we sleep.”
“Thanks,” Joseph said, taking up the glass.
“You can get it from the tap, if you want. There’s cold water, too, if you need it. Just use the spout on the fridge.”
Joseph filled the glass at the fridge and gulped the ice cold water down. His head suddenly ached from the “brain freeze,” making him regret drinking so fast. He winced and shoved his tongue to the roof of his mouth until the pain subsided.
“What do you mean, ‘miles to go?’”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that staying here for long would be too bright. I mean, this house ain’t exactly Fort Knox and, in case you haven’t noticed, the cavalry ain’t exactly on the way to save us. We need to get our hands on all the supplies we can, load up the Blazer, and get the heck outta here while we still can.”
“You think this is going to get worse, don’t you?” Joseph asked.
“I do.”
“But how can you know that? How do you know that the Army or National Guard or something won’t be on the way soon?”
“Listen to me,” Mike said, pulling himself up and sitting on the countertop. “These things are infected with some kind of a virus. It’s the bites. I have a friend who’s a genuine G-man of a spook. He was kind enough to let me in on that much.”
