“I doubt that. I’m sure there are plenty of things you can do to be useful.”
“Heh. Maybe you’re right. Sometimes I get down on myself. Anyways, what we have here is a nine millimeter. It’s one of the most common handguns around. So if you ever need more bullets, this is your best bet. And it’s pretty easy to shoot, very light recoil, so your sister shouldn’t have a problem with it. Anything else I can get for you?” he asked.
“What’s your name?” asked Simon.
“Me? People call me Stump. My real name is Dwayne. Haven’t been called that in a while. Not since my wife passed.” He pushed the gun and ammo across the desk to Simon.
“What happened to her?” Simon didn’t want to pry, but he sensed Dwayne needed someone to talk to.
“What happened to most of the people who aren’t here anymore. She turned. It was before we found Town Hall. She and I were still boarded up in our house across town. We had always been prepared for long storms or the power going out for weeks, so we had a supply closet and it was stored with nearly a month’s worth of food and water. My wife, she was a kind soul. Always looking out for stray animals and handing out food at the homeless shelters. Anyways, we had been boarded up for about two weeks when she saw this young girl walking down the street. She was all alone, just kind of shambling along. I told her not to go. That it was a bad idea. But she didn’t listen.” Dwayne covered his eyes with his hand like he was trying to block out the memory. “She had made it halfway across the lawn before the little girl turned around. When she did, half her face was missing. One of her eyes and her nose were completely gone. And the little girl just took off. Faster than I would have thought possible. She just sprinted over to my wife, and before I could do anything, she was on her biting and clawing at her throat. I wanted to go help her, but with my leg, there was nothing I could do. So I shut the door and about three weeks later, one of the Mayor’s men came knocking. He said there was a place that was safe. And they brought me here.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s a terrible thing to have to witness.” Simon couldn’t imagine what it would be like to watch a loved one die in front of them.
“We all have our stories. Mine is no worse or no better than anyone else's. At some point, we have to move on and start thinking about the future. About protecting what we have left. So that’s what I focus on now. Most of the time.” He pushed the gun and ammo closer to Simon. “You should probably get going. From what I hear, you have quite the adventure ahead of you.”
“Maybe I’ll see you again one day, Dwayne. Take care.” With that, Simon left.
Claire was waiting for Simon when he returned, bags ready at the door. “What took you so long?”
“Sorry, there was this old man working the counter. And he started telling me this story about how his wife died.”
“Everyone calls him Stump. He’s had a pretty rough go at it. Losing his leg to cancer, and then now having to deal with all this shit. I don’t know how he does it. Are you ready to go?” she asked.
“Yeah, I got this for you.” He took the gun from his waistband and handed it to Claire. “He said it’s easy to shoot. Hopefully you don’t need it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry I would think. He gave us about two hundred bullets as well.”
“I’ll just put it in my bag. You know I hate guns.”
At the gate, the same man was on duty as the first day Simon arrived. Simon couldn’t help but notice that he looked more alert. Maybe he had gotten a hard talking-to. The man noticed them and called down. “Are you two ready to head out?”
“Yeah, can you open the gate, please?” called Simon. The man grabbed a rope and pulled. The gate slowly began to open; Simon and Claire ran through and were on the outside. “This is it, Claire. No more protection from the barricade. We have to stay alert. Who knows what is around the next corner.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get moving.” She took off down the road, not waiting for Simon to catch up.
They followed the first street they came across. Simon pulled out the map the Mayor had given him. “This is Candler Street. If we follow this for about two miles, it will run into highway seventy-six, which should take us the rest of the way to Old Man River’s farm. At least according to the map.”
They had walked for about a mile when they heard gunshots ring out from the direction of Town Hall.
“What was that?” asked Claire. She gazed in the direction of Town Hall, though it wasn’t visible beyond the trees and empty houses. The echo of the gunshot lingered in the air.
“I’m not sure, but we can’t go back,” said Simon.
“It was a gunshot! What if they need our help? We should at least go check and make sure everything is okay.” She pointed back towards Town Hall as if showing the direction would make the choice easier.
Simon grabbed her by the shoulder. “Look at me. We can’t go back. We are searching for our family. And the only hope we have of finding them is to go to the places they might have been. Whatever is happening back there, and it could be nothing, is behind us. They probably spotted one of the monsters and shot it. We have no choice but to move forward.”
“Simon, shut up.”
“What? I’m trying to te—”
“Shut up! I heard something in those bushes over there.” They both crouched down and looked out into the brush. The bushes had lost most of their color. The trees had barely any leaves. It was a stark difference between the trees inside Town Hall. They could hear rustling in the depths. Something moved behind the brush. Leaves crunched and limbs shook, but the source of the noise could not be seen.
Simon whispered to Claire, “What do you think it is?”
“It’s probably one of the dead. Should we go check it out or wait for it to come to us?” she asked.
“Blow your whistle,” said Simon. He had no experience with these monsters, but he would rather fight it out in the open.
“Are you crazy?” She grabbed the whistle in her hand, unwilling to blow on it.
“Fine, give it to me,” Simon insisted. Claire took the whistle from around her neck and handed it to Simon. He blew on it hard and loud. A shrill, high-pitched ringing resonated through the air. The bushes started to rustle more and a hand became visible from behind a tree limb. Then a head. What came out of the bushes had been a large man at one point, about six-foot-tall with a strong build. The elastic gym shorts still hung, tattered, around his waist. Once it recognized living humans, it began to run. He charged at Simon like a bull, head down but with arms flailing. The man’s lips had curled up around his yellowed teeth, his face frozen in a permanent snarl. He had the same glazed-over eyes as Simon’s father. Those eyes had haunted him for days now. Pus ran down the man’s arms and face, oozing from the scratches of the tree branches. There was a cut across his throat from ear to ear, a permanent smile etched in a desolate wasteland that bubbled yellow pus with each step. Simon felt his heart race at the approaching monster, wishing he had left it alone. The monster was faster than Simon thought it would be, so he barely had time to lift his bat and get in a stance, ready for the undead pitch coming towards him. He was a few feet away when Simon swung Slugger.
The man ducked. Whether it was by instinct or luck as he lunged for Simon’s body, Simon couldn’t tell. The bat scraped the top of the man’s head, barely doing more than ruffling his hair. Claire gasped behind Simon, but his eyes were focused on the monster before him. Simon sidestepped, barely avoiding the raging monster. In the seconds it took for him to turn around and charge again, Simon was ready to swing. He kept his eye on the man’s head as he lunged again. This time he swung lower, making contact. There was a wet crunch as the bat caved in the side of his head and the creamy yellow liquid sprayed out between his eyes and nose. The monster collapsed to the ground with a thud.
“What the hell was that, Simon?” Claire yelled, her nostrils flaring along with her temper. “Do you ever think things through? What if there had been more than one
? What would you have done?” She walked over to Simon and put her face inches from his. “Use your damn brain next time, or you’ll get us both killed.” Simon was surprised by her sudden rage.
“You’re right.” He turned away from her. “That could have gone a lot worse. My bad.” Simon knew he had screwed up. That even though he killed the monster, he put them both in more danger than was necessary. He looked down at the dead body. “Do you think he did this to himself?”
“What, slit his own throat? I don’t know. He was a big guy, hard to believe he would take the easy way out. But you never really know. A person’s size doesn’t dictate their mentality.”
Simon leaned in for a closer look at the body. The man still looked human in a way. But at the same time, he looked completely foreign. “Don’t you think it is a little weird? How their whole bodies are just filled with this yellow stuff? I’m no genius, but it doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Claire crouched down to get a closer look, her temper abating. “Everyone thinks it’s chemical. but we’ve never actually run into any scientists or anything. So there is no telling. I’ve heard dozens of theories.”
She was on Simon before he knew it. A small woman about the size of Claire attacked him from behind. He fell face forward onto the dead body. He could hear the gasping of her rotten lungs and the click of her jaw as she clawed and tried to bite at him, but was unable to reach him because of the giant backpack. Her weight was too much for Simon to lift with the pack still on; full water jugs hung from straps and weighed him down on each side.
Simon heard a soft crunch and then it was over, the woman was no longer thrashing about. “Are you okay? Simon, are you okay? Did she get you?” asked Claire. She rolled the body off of Simon and helped lift him to his feet, looking him over for bites or scratches. The woman had a small hole in her temple where Claire had jabbed her spear, slowly leaking bodily fluid onto the pavement.
“I’m fine. She took me by surprise is all. No more whistles. I really screwed that up.” He took a deep breath, attempting to regain his composure. If not for Claire, he might be dead. “We best get moving in case any more show up.” Simon brushed the dirt off his clothes and they both trekked down the road. A little faster than before.
“I think we did okay back there,” said Claire, attempting to soften the mood. “We made mistakes, but we fought them off. At least we know we can now. I’m sure it won’t be like in the beginning, when they were everywhere. Maybe we’ll see a few a day. And if we keep a low profile, we can catch them before they catch us.”
“You’re right. I just need to keep my head about me.” Claire laughed. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Just thinking. You know, back before all this happened, you would never admit your mistakes. Now, it seems you’re good about taking responsibility. Makes me proud.”
Simon couldn’t help but smile.
They followed Candler street until it merged with Highway 76 without incident. The highway was full of abandoned cars. Graystone was no great metropolis like New York or Atlanta, but even in a place as moderately populated as this, there seemed to be hundreds of cars. They weren’t all jammed together like in the movies. They were spread apart, like they had all just died at once and then coasted to a stop. Every few hundred yards another car, as far as the eye could see. Everywhere they looked had the same grayish green grass and nearly leafless trees. The roads might have been grown over if not for the fact that nothing seemed to grow anymore. The vegetation didn’t die either. It all seemed to be living on the verge of death, waiting for someone to bring it back to life.
“I’ve been thinking, Claire. About the plants back at Town Hall,” said Simon. A thought had been tugging at him all day.
“What about it?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It seems strange to me how the plants are doing so well. How all they needed was a little kindness. A human touch and some water, and they were back to their old ways. It makes me wonder if it is the same way with humans. Maybe if we were able to feed them, give them water, do you think they might become normal again?” He looked to Claire for an answer, thinking of their father.
“I don’t think so, Simon. What’s left of them isn’t human. I think once you turn, your brain is fried. You’re already dead and your body is just running on autopilot. I don’t think whatever it is affects plants in the same way. I think it just kind of neutralizes them. You know? Puts them in a stasis until something brings them out of it. Or maybe the plants do it to themselves. Maybe they put themselves in a stasis to protect themselves until everything got back to normal. But what do I know? I’m not a scientist.”
“Then why did you leave Dad like that? Tied up in the backyard?” he asked.
“It wasn’t my call. Mom did it. She was downstairs when he died. He barely made it a week after everything went sour. He was stressing out more than ever trying to make plans for us to get out of town, to get somewhere safe, but we had no way to get there. She said he stood up from the table to go look out the window, and that he grabbed his chest. He said everything was going numb. Ten minutes later, he was dead. Mom was hysterical. She told us to carry him out back. That we would keep him safe until they found a cure. So we took what we could find, an old chain, and we put it around his neck. Twenty minutes later, he was one of them. We were there another month and a half before we found out about Town Hall. And every fucking night we had to listen to the clink of that damn chain as he tried to roam around the yard. God, how I wish we had used rope.” Her face was scrunched in a mixture of sorrow and anger.
“Why do you seem so bitter towards him?” asked Simon. “He was doing the best he could.”
“Well, it wasn’t good enough. Was it, Simon?” There was anger in her voice now. “He left us when we needed him most. He died because he couldn’t handle the stress. Because he drank five cups of coffee every morning just to be able to function. He worked himself into an early grave, and for what? More money? How fucking useful is it now? Can we go buy a nice condo on the beach? Can we buy any fucking thing? No. We can use it as kindling. He should have been there, Simon. He should have been there when I got taken. Every night for months, when I was locked away in that room, he was at home clinking around. What kind of father is that?” She had tears running down her face. Tears fueled by fire and anger. Simon knew then that she wasn’t sad about what had happened to her. She was angry. Claire had felt vulnerable and afraid for so long, and she never wanted to feel that again. He was certain she wished she had smashed Russel and Stan’s heads in herself. She had a fire inside her that could take on anything, because she had endured the worst and hadn’t broken. Maybe at times she had even thought she had broken. But standing there in the midday heat on this abandoned highway was proof she hadn’t. Simon didn’t know anyone as tough as his sister.
“You know it’s not his fault. He was doing what he thought best for us,” said Simon.
“Just drop it.” They kept walking. The conversation was over.
The sun was scorching after a few miles. Occasionally the wind would come roaring through, carrying dead leaves and hidden messages no one could decipher. They walked along in silence for miles, and Simon lost himself in his own head. I’m sure deep down she knows it’s not Dad’s fault. But if it helps her deal with everything, by having someone to blame, then I guess I’ll leave it at that.
“Let’s stop and take a look at the map, we must be getting close,” he said. They walked over to an old abandoned pick-up truck and spread the map out on the hood. The truck had a vanity plate that read ‘God’s Country.’ “We must be somewhere around here, wouldn’t you say?”
“Looks about right.” She leaned over the map. “So we’ve got two, maybe three, miles left.”
“Yeah, that’ll take an hour or so. And then the real fun begins. Are you nervous at all?” Claire had carried herself with such confidence after they left Town Hall. He wondered if she was as nervous as him underneath.
“Maybe a little. I don’t really know what to expect. What about you?” she asked.
“A little. But the Mayor said they are good people, as misguided as they may be.” Simon folded the map away and they continued on their journey. As they passed another car, Simon spoke. “It’s not like in the movies. The cars that are out here. You always see the dead trapped in the cars, like they were driving somewhere and then just turned on the spot. I guess it’s because the power went out first, you know? And everyone got out of their cars to see what was wrong. Why would anyone stay in a car that doesn’t run?”
“Yeah. They were always clawing at the windows and hanging out in back seats. They definitely missed on those parts,” she said.
“Do you think this is happening all around the world, or just in America?” asked Simon.
“It’s hard to say. I mean, just to think about everything that would be involved in an attack like that, it’s a lot. But from what I’ve heard, the power went out everywhere. They must have hacked into all the satellite systems. But you would have to think that somewhere, there has to be someone who has figured out how to get things back online.”
“You would think. They never prepared us for this in high school,” said Simon.
“That’s for sure.”
The last few miles passed quicker than expected. Their feet were sweaty and aching, and their necks red from the sun, when they found the exit for River Farms Road. It was a small dirt road leading to a farm house about half a mile back.
“This is amazing,” said Claire, looking out towards the farm. Even from the road, they could see the difference. Trees were green; hundreds of them, some had apples. There were acres of green grass. Rows upon rows of vegetables. Corn, tomatoes, cucumbers. There were flowers on the porch and a small patch of sunflowers growing in the yard.
Land of the Dogs (Book 1) Page 6
