Nobody answered. At last, Buck said, “That's a helluva thought.”
Rudy continued. “Before we decide to stay or go, I think we need to at least entertain the possibility that the rest of the world is in the same situation or worse, and no help is going to arrive. Like my dad always said, hope for the best, but plan for the worst.”
Harbaugh said, “Well, if we are going to move, the first stop should be the sheriff's station. We need weapons and ammunition.”
“Second that,” said Alex.
“How would we even go anywhere?” said Rachael. “I don't know if you noticed, but we're kind of trapped here.”
“Say, Rudy,” said Alex. He looked up. “Is there a way up onto the roof? Seems like the buildings here are pretty closely spaced. Do you think we could travel on the rooftops and just avoid that whole mess out on the street?”
“That's not a bad idea. If we could get up there, maybe.” Rudy tapped his chin. “The only way onto the roof here is the external ladder.”
“What about the skylight?” said Rachael.
Rudy cocked his head and looked up at the square of sunshine in the roof. “It doesn't open, though.”
Buck lifted his shotgun. “I think I can fix that.”
Rudy smiled slightly. “Okay, good point. If you managed to get up there, it's maybe a ten-foot gap between this building and the next, then it's one long roof until you get down to Annie's place. I've got an extendible ladder in the store room that would probably stretch across the gap. If it doesn't break when my fat ass tries to walk across it.”
“Even if we can't get to the other rooftops,” said Alex, “it'd be good to get up there, just to get a better view and see what we're dealing with.”
Harbaugh said, “Okay, so let's get up on the roof and see how things look.”
Rudy nodded. “Josh, could you go get the ladder? Rachael, you and I are going to scrounge any kind of makeshift weapons we can out of this place. Lila and Tom, you two gather up all the bottled water and pre-packaged food you can. The rest of you . . . I don't know, just try to keep busy.”
“Sounds good.” Josh ran into the back room.
“Sheriff Harbaugh?” said Lila Montez. Her eyes were red from crying, and her blond hair was mussed. She still wore her black vinyl apron. “I'm just . . . I just don't know. Is this right? That we're killing them? I mean, we know these people!” She burst into tears. “I mean, what if they're sick? What if there's a cure? They're just . . . Mrs. Martinez was going to get a cut and color this afternoon, and . . . and you shot her in the head!” She buried her face in her hands. “She was a nice old lady and now she's dead and I just can't . . . I can't.”
Alex peered out the window at the corpses banging against the windows. “I ain't got no explanation for it,” he said. “But you gotta realize that whatever they was, they ain't no more. All them folks out there, them folks you knew, they're dead now. And I'm as sorry as hell for your loss. But you can't fool yourself. Look what they did to that poor kid in the letterman's jacket. I think puttin' 'em out of their misery is the best thing we can do for the poor bastards.”
“He's right,” said Harbaugh. “I understand where you're coming from, Lila. I really do. But Christ, look what Buddy did to my arm. I knew him since high school, and he's never hurt a fly. And two hours ago, he was stone dead.”
“He was . . .” Lila sniffled. “He was dead?”
“Somebody killed him last night. Lila, I swear on my wife's grave, he was as dead as anything. He was as stiff and cold as a slab of marble. And now he's up and walking around. I know all these people as well as you do, but we have to acknowledge that this isn't . . . This isn't a normal situation.”
“I still think it's wrong.”
“Everything about it is wrong.” Harbaugh sighed. “And yet, here we are.”
***
Emily sat at a booth in the corner, sobbing quietly. Sinder sat down across from her and placed a comforting hand on her forearm. “It's going to be alright, you'll see. We're going to figure out a way to get through this.”
“Mr. Sinder.” She looked up at him with tear-reddened eyes. “I don't think it's going to be alright.”
Sinder smiled encouragingly. “Of course it will. We just have to have faith in the Lord.” He paused for a moment, laughed softly, and said, “I suppose it goes without saying that your tutoring session is canceled this week.”
Emily smiled despite herself. “You know, you don't have to tutor me anymore. I already graduated.”
“Nonsense,” said Sinder. He squeezed her hand. “It's always been my pleasure. I won't have my best student going off to Harvard being anything less than fully prepared.”
“You're sweet,” said Emily.
“At least we can thank God that your parents aren't here to get caught up in this. It was His grace they won that cruise when they did. On a boat at sea is probably the safest place anyone could be right now.”
Emily sat up abruptly and put a hand over her mouth. She looked over at Josh, just as he returned from the stockroom, maneuvering the extendible ladder through the doorway. “Oh, no,” she said. “Josh, your dad. I totally forgot in all this confusion.”
Josh carried the ladder into the restaurant and set it down on the floor. “It's okay,” he said.
“Shit, kid,” said Alex. “Didn't even cross my mind that you'd have your folks out there. Don't you worry none. As soon as we can, we're gonna get out there and start rescuin' folks. Your old man is at the top of the list.”
“No, it's okay,” said Josh.
“No?” said Alex. “What do you mean, no?”
Josh's face crumpled. “I see him. He's out there.” He stared out the window. “We don't have to rescue him because he's already dead.”
Alex took off his hat. “Ah, hell, kid. I'm sorry.”
Josh smiled bitterly through the tears. “He doesn't . . . He doesn't look that different than he did after his first twelve-pack of the day.”
Emily stood up from her seat and hugged Josh. He broke down in her arms.
Sinder tapped his fingernails thoughtfully on the tabletop.
At the front doors, the crowd of zombies still pressed mindlessly against the security grate, gnawing and drooling and moaning.
Chapter Six
“Fire in the hole!”
Buck pressed the shotgun's stock to his shoulder and aimed up at the skylight. He pulled the trigger, and the shotgun boomed. In the enclosed restaurant, the noise was as physical as a slap in the face.
Broken glass rained down from the ceiling. Hot desert air seeped in through the hole. Josh hoisted the ladder and propped it up against the rim of the shattered skylight.
Buck climbed the ladder and broke away the remaining shards of glass with the shotgun barrel. He popped his head up and looked around the roof. “All clear,” he said. “No zombies up here.”
“Hot damn,” said Alex. “Now we're gettin' someplace. Let's take a look.”
They climbed up the ladder and onto the roof to stand next to the faded, fiberglass statue. The desert sun beat down mercilessly. Sweat beaded on Harbaugh's forehead. He wiped it away and shielded his eyes with his hands as he looked out over his town. “Jesus.”
Prosperity was overrun. Zombies shuffled down Main Street and Old Mine Road like ants. They streamed out of the trailer park and the residential areas and the retirement home. Smoke rose on the horizon. Far off in the distance, they heard more screams and scattered gunshots. Lila stood silently, tears running down her cheeks, the wind blowing her blond hair into her face.
“What's the population of this town?” said Alex, peering off into the distance.
“Give or take six hundred,” Rudy answered. “It never was a metropolis, but we were holding our own until the gypsum quarry closed down. Since then, people have just been drifting away.”
“Well, I guess for once we can be glad that there aren't more people in town,” said Harbaugh. “Jesus Christ.” He peered down Ma
in Street. “It's like everybody in town is one of 'em. How did it happen so fast? What the hell happened?”
Buck said, “I don't have any way of explaining the dead walking around and eating people, that's for sure. But what about the part where the electricity doesn't work?”
“You were saying something earlier about an EMP?” said Rachael. “What the hell is that?
“Electromagnetic pulse,” said Rudy. “It's basically a high-altitude nuke. It's designed to cook electronics. Something they came up with during the cold war. Honestly, I don't think they've ever used one on a populated area. That we know of, anyway. How do we know this isn't what happens?”
“It's not like the government would tell us if it was,” muttered Tom. “For all we know, they've had zombie-bombs for years.”
Rachael shrugged. “For once, he's not wrong. I mean, under the circumstances, I think a government zombie bomb is as good an explanation as any.”
“Another possibility is a solar flare,” said Tom, “Any of you heard of the Carrington event?” His question was met with skeptical looks. “Okay, I know you don't believe a lot of what I say, but this is a mainstream historical fact. You can look it up on Wikipedia. In 1859, a solar storm, a coronal mass ejection, hit the earth dead bang. You could see the northern lights as far south as Baltimore. Telegraph wires literally caught on fire. Telegraph operators got electrical shocks. Some reported being able to use their equipment even after they disconnected the power. If the same sort of storm were to hit the modern grid, it would cook every electrical device in the country, from cell phones to power plants. The northern hemisphere would be back to the Bronze Age in minutes. It's one of those horrifying, very real possibilities that makes people like me stockpile food in their basements, the sort of thing that normal people like you go out of their way to not think about.”
“Still wouldn't account for no zombies, though,” said Alex.
Rudy looked out over Main Street, deep in thought. He said, “We can't say that for sure, can we? Who the hell knows what kind of weird crap is going on out in space? Maybe we got hit with some kind of freak space zombie radiation. Maybe that's what killed the dinosaurs.”
Josh said, “Dude. Zombie dinosaurs.”
Buck said, “You're the scientist here, Dan. You have any theories?”
“I can only think of one explanation that fits.” Sinder stared out over the town.
“Yeah, what's that?” said Alex.
“Jesus, take the wheel. Here we go,” said Rachael.
“It's the Apocalypse,” said Sinder. “It is the end of days. It's God's punishment upon the unrighteous. These are the final trials and tribulations before the return of our Lord.”
“Any evidence to support that hypothesis?” Tom responded.
Sinder made a sweeping gesture toward the street below. “Just look around us. All of this was described in the Bible, in the book of Isaiah. Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”
Rachael rolled her eyes again. “Oh, well, that explains everything. By God, the Bible really does have all the answers.” She grinned insincerely. “Thanks, Dan.”
Sinder shot her a poisonous look. “Well then, let's approach it from a scientific point of view. I'm sure you're all familiar with Occam's razor?”
“Heard of it, yeah,” said Alex.
“Very well. In its original form, Occam's razor states that entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity. In plain English, this means that the hypothesis requiring the fewest assumptions is usually correct. In this case, which requires fewer assumptions? Space alien conspiracies? Government chemical bombs? Nuclear zombie warheads? Or . . . simply that God is purging the unrighteous from the earth?”
“That last one still requires a lot of assumptions, in my book,” said Rachael.
“So, wait a minute,” said Buck, with a smile. “I'm pretty damned unrighteous. How come I'm up here and not down there?
“The Lord works in mysterious ways. Besides . . .” Sinder smiled back. “The day isn't over.”
Buck's face darkened. “Hey, fuck you, Dan.”
Rachael said, “I'm more inclined to believe Tom's batshit alien conspiracies than this religious mumbo jumbo.”
“The proof is out there,” said Tom. “It's not my fault if you want to side with the sheeple and ignore reality.”
“Okay, people.” Harbaugh raised his hands. “We've all got theories, and none of us have answers. So, why don't we all just agree to keep our opinions to ourselves and focus on what we know? For example, we know that we need to avoid being eaten by a herd of walking corpses. Agreed?” Everyone reluctantly nodded. “We decided we're going to head for the sheriff's station, right? So, let's work on that.”
Harbaugh walked over to the edge of the building. Milling below, the zombies looked up hungrily at him. “Okay, stranger, this is Main Street. Down there at the next intersection, that cross street is Old Mine Road.”
Alex nodded, peering out from beneath his hat brim at the distant intersection. “Followin' you so far.”
“On the right side, that two-story building is Annie's Saloon. Across Main Street from that is the sheriff's station. I think that extendible ladder can cross the gap between here and the strip mall. Once we get across that, we can walk all the way over to Annie's place.” Harbaugh pointed at the big two-story building at the end of the block. “After that, it's another gap, and we can hopefully get in through the second story windows of the saloon.”
“So, we're going to go have a pint and wait for this whole thing to blow over?” said Josh. Everyone ignored him.
“Annie's a pretty sharp lady,” said Harbaugh. “I'm sure she locked the doors as soon as things started to go sideways. And, if we're very lucky, the . . . zombies won't even notice that we've relocated. We . . .” He paused for a moment, closed his eyes, and swayed slightly. Rudy tensed to catch him, but the sheriff's eyes snapped open again and came into focus. Harbaugh blinked a few times and continued. “We'll go back out through the front door of the saloon, then we can just walk across the street and we're at the sheriff's station. By the time they notice us, if they notice us, we'll already be inside.”
“And what then?” asked Tom.
Harbaugh blinked again and grunted. “How the fuck do I know? You have a better plan?”
Tom didn't respond.
“Okay. Let's go back downstairs and load up. Then we're out of here.”
***
“Okay,” said Rudy, “here's what we've got.” He gestured to the pile of makeshift weaponry on the counter. “Aside from Buck's shotgun with three more rounds, and the sheriff's pistol, we have a hammer, a crowbar, a fire ax, a baseball bat, an oak closet rod, two metal shelf brackets, a meat cleaver, and a couple of table legs.” He looked around the room. “So, I guess just grab whatever you think works for you.”
As they crowded in and grabbed weapons, Rudy said, “Oh, yes, and I almost forgot.” He reached under the counter and took out a hardwood pickaxe handle. Burned into the handle were the words the manager. “This was a gag gift one year. They told me it would come in handy next time some asshole came in and wanted to talk to the manager. Guess I'll use this.”
“I've been havin' pretty good luck with the bat,” said Alex. “If nobody objects, I'll stick with it.”
Rachael picked up the crowbar, Josh the hammer, and Emily a metal table leg. Sinder picked up the closet rod, and Tom another table leg. Lila grabbed the meat cleaver. She looked at it with horror, then put it down again. “You know what,” she said, “I'll be okay. I don't nee
d anything.”
“Lila,” said the sheriff, “please, just take it. You never know what's going to happen.”
With a shiver, she reluctantly picked up the cleaver again.
Sheriff Harbaugh hefted the fire ax experimentally. “Guess this will work for me.”
“And here's what we have for food.” Rachael dumped out a cart full of single-serving potato chip bags, salami, apples, oranges, and a dozen bottles of water. “We don't have a lot of storage space. Josh has a backpack. I have a freakishly huge purse, which I've heroically emptied out in order to carry more vital supplies.”
Josh and Rachael loaded up their bags, while Lila and Sinder packed the remainder into plastic shopping bags.
Harbaugh said, “Are we ready to go?”
Rachael shrugged and slapped the crowbar against her palm. “Ready as I'm ever going to be.”
***
Josh held the ladder steady, then climbed up last. With Buck's help, he pulled the ladder up onto the roof. They fully extended it and slid it over the gap between buildings. “Careful,” said Alex. “If we dropped this, we'd be right up shit creek.”
Rudy read aloud the safety message printed on the ladder. “Caution, this is a ladder, not a bridge. Do not load horizontally.” He shrugged. “Alright. This isn't going to be easy,” he said, as he peered down into the gap between the buildings, “but I think we can all do it.” Down below, a restless horde of the dead gaped back up at them, with blood caked on their faces and bits of flesh caught between their teeth. “I don't know how much weight this ladder will hold, so we're going to go one at a time. We just need to remember to take our time. Go on your hands and knees if you have to.” He looked around the crowd. “So, does anybody want to be the guinea pig?”
After a pause, Alex said, “Well, shit, I'll go.”
Down below, the zombies noticed the commotion. They bunched up beneath the ladder, a writhing knot of mouths and hands blindly reaching upwards.
Alex Rains, Vampire Hunter (Book 2): Hell Night Page 7
