Progress is slow as Hewitt exercises greater caution, hoping to avoid any surprises like he’d experienced coming down from the rooftop.
There are more of the zombies and more gangs of local assholes roaming about, but they’re clearly not on the same side, as Hewitt discovers as he watches three men in an offshoot of the mob swarmed by five of the unthinking eaters. The sight is awful, but strangely not quite as bad as some of the things he’s seen in movies. He recognizes that distance and no small amount of shock is playing a role in his being so detached, and he moves on.
He continues with his mission, knowing that no one in the immediate vicinity is worried about him, as there are worse things out there.
Thankfully there aren’t any of the operational street lights ahead and the only light comes from the disorienting strobes of red and blue. He has to risk going out into the main road, traveling a block down before he can get into the alley that will take him closest to the source of light.
He creeps up to the edge of the alley, hunched almost low enough to be on his hands and knees. In the center of the street sits a large SUV with a light bar flashing atop it. The contrast makes it hard to pick out any details, but there doesn’t appear to be anyone inside.
He doesn’t deflate at the apparent vacancy, forcing himself to consider alternatives, thinking immediately that there is sure to be a radio inside and hopefully a gun of some kind. He can beg forgiveness later. For right now he needs to worry about his survival.
He hefts the hatchet in his right hand, hoping the door is unlocked so that he can avoid breaking the window to gain access.
“All right, fuck it,” he mutters out loud. “Here goes nothing.”
“I’d stay where you are, if I were you,” a calm, commanding voice rises from the shadows directly behind Hewitt.
Startled and acting on instinct, he whips around quickly, swinging the hatchet wildly through the space between himself and the source of the voice while clumsily backing away.
A huge man in a sheriff’s uniform steps from the shadows and barely into the pulsing light, effortlessly grabbing the forearm holding the hatchet. Surprised, Hewitt drops the weapon, falling backward on his ass painfully when the man releases his arm.
Looming over him in the alley is a man standing easily 6’ 5” and weighing a solid 280 pounds. Unexpectedly, the stranger extends his hand. Hewitt recoils before he recognizes the gesture for the offer of assistance that it is.
Cautiously he takes the hand and is pulled to his feet so rapidly that he almost stumbles and falls all over again.
“You don’t want to take the bait,” the stranger says. “Trust me.”
Hewitt stares at the man, confused and not knowing what to say.
The deputy continues, “There’s one of the maniacs in there, crouched down in the passenger side, and he’s not alone, he’s got friends just out of sight in the shadows across the street.” He pauses for a second, “Guy’s name is Jim Stanley, the mechanic from a garage a couple of blocks down. I’ve known the guy for years. Hell, I even brought my personal truck up here to have him work on it a time or two.”
“So, what’s going on?” Hewitt asks, finding his voice after another half a minute of silence.
“Near as I can tell,” he replies, “Jim and his buddies are waiting to ambush me when I come back to the vehicle. Odds are that encounter won’t work out too well for a couple of them, but I’m worried about how it’ll work out for me. I think they mean to kill me and I’m dead certain they would’ve killed you too.”
Sheepishly, Hewitt replies, “I guess I owe you then.”
The man takes a moment to look Hewitt up and down. “You’re not from around here, must be why you’re acting sane. I’m Deputy Albert Weber, spend part of a rotation here in town at the Emergency Services Building, it’s a combination fire department, sheriff’s office, and medical clinic near the edge of town.”
“My name’s Hewitt Chambers and I’m just here visiting a friend.”
“That scientist fellow? Price, I believe?”
Hewitt nods while replying, “Yeah. My friends and I came out for vacation, hiking and fishing, that sort of thing.”
“Well, I don’t know what’s going on around here, but you and I are obviously not infected or under the influence, whatever the issue is. There are others who seemed ok too, but guys like Jim out there seem to be hunting them down like animals.”
Hewitt’s knees almost give out as the unspoken meaning behind the words crash into him, his friends, Mariah. He imagines them being hunted and brought down.
“What do we do?” He finally asks.
“We start by not springing Jim’s little trap out there,” the deputy replies, gesturing to the street. “I’m thinking you and I make our way up to the old mine and out of this rain for a bit. Gain some high ground and figure out what’s next from there.”
“I have to get to Gale’s house. That’s where everyone else was headed,” Hewitt protests through clenched teeth.
“I get it that you want to find your friends,” Deputy Weber says, his tone managing to convey both sympathy and impatience. “But you ain’t running that gauntlet out there and coming through the other side.”
Hewitt prepares to argue but the deputy cuts him off. “I’m not saying we can’t go after your friends, but we need to step back and get a handle on whatever this is. You made it this far and maybe they did too. If they’re smart, they’ll be doing the same thing we’re doing.”
It takes him a moment, but Hewitt agrees, nodding his head silently.
“Obviously, we aren’t going out this way,” the deputy says, gazing out at his vehicle. “How was it back the way you came from?”
Hewitt quickly relates the details of what he’d seen between the rooftop sighting of the lights and his arrival here; not knowing what will be important, he tries to leave out nothing though he hesitates before admitting to the killing of that man in the alley.
“God damn! That’s a hell of a memory you’ve got there,” the deputy replies with a chuckle.
Hewitt grins, “Sort of a thing of mine.”
“Good for you,” Deputy Weber replies sincerely, bending down and retrieving the hatchet and handing it to Hewitt.
The two of them make their way back down the alley and through town in the opposite direction of where Hewitt knows he should be going.
No amount of caution saves them from being discovered at different points and they do what has to be done, whether facing more of the zombies or small clustered groups of the prowling locals. It certainly doesn’t get easier for Hewitt, but he doesn’t hesitate like he did the first time. There is no truth for him in the saying that the first time is the hardest as each succeeding murder is no easier.
The men take rest where they can find it, getting to know each other a little better in the process and they work together as a team getting through the ordeal of reaching the gravel road leading up to the mine.
It’s taken them longer than either of them expected but the route was far from straightforward and without obstacles.
“So, what’s up there?” Hewitt asks, beaten down by the effort involved in getting just this far.
“Honestly, I have no idea,” the deputy replies. “Hopefully some shelter and a place to catch a second wind so that we can sort shit out. The government was up here years back, sealing up the mine for liability reasons, but I’ve seen that the opening is still accessible.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
They begin the ascent, leaving behind the madness of the town and hoping for some peace ahead as the march into the darkness and the unknown.
25
While he certainly feels more confident with the shotgun in his hands, the seven shells won’t get him far and the noise is sure to draw all sorts of unwanted attention if he fires them out in the open. He’s not willing to trust his luck and count on the locals thinking the blast is just another peal of thunder. That leaves the butcher knif
e, which won’t afford him much protection at all. The thin blade will likely break even if he’s careful about how he uses it, and its edge is only good for just the right kind of cutting. It isn’t like the movies where some masked serial killer can slaughter a dozen people with the same kitchen blade.
He’s better off than he was, he knows, but only marginally so. He would be happy trading both of his current tools for just a single Ka-Bar, at least it would be reliable.
Shit happens, he thinks to himself, Suck it up, buttercup.
He’s not certain, and the darkness doesn’t help, but he believes he’s only four or five blocks from Gale’s property when he stops to balance himself after hastening away from the house he was certain the enemy would be converging upon.
These locals aren’t organized or acting like insurgents he’s seen overseas, those enemies imitate and emulate the tactics of guerrilla fighters but there is a logic and a structure behind what they do. This, whatever this is, feels more like a good old fashioned lynch mob, and that sort of thing correlates with unsettling cultural heritage that produces a level of discomfort and fear he’s never experienced from any of his combat deployments.
Gale had brought him out here to cracker country, he and Kateb, and now he’s dealing with something that should be buried deep in the shameful depths of American history.
He can’t rightly explain the zombies though. Not by latching onto shit like the KKK or neo-Nazi groups as the culprit, and he’s as positive as he can conceivably be that those were zombies. The good ol’ George A. Romero variety, just fucking uglier and smelling positively fucking awful. There was none of the cartoonish blue hue or comic book colored blood here, just something horrifying.
He has to resist letting emotion get the better of him, as frustrating and impossible as that seems.
As easy as it may be to fall back on this being about his skin color or he and Kateb being gay, that doesn’t make any fucking sense with everything else going on. The problem, he finds, is that none of it makes any sense at all. There can’t really be zombies.
A trio of locals patrol past his hiding spot and Miles waits for a few beats before slipping from cover into the shadows and following them at what he hopes is a safe distance. Their conversation is lively but he can’t make anything out from where he is.
He’s making better time shadowing these three than he has otherwise and he’s starting to feel optimistic about getting to Gale’s when a sudden movement ahead, from further down the same lawn he’s crossing, causes him to drop to the ground and scuttle for cover.
He’s grateful to see that it’s the gang ahead of him rather than his presence that set off the zombie. It must have been lurking in the yard, just beyond the bushes that framed the front steps. It latches onto the nearest man of the group and begins tearing into him with gnashing teeth.
The other two don’t hesitate as they pry it free from their friend, too late to help him, and begin beating at it with the baseball bats they both carry. The brutality of it forces him to wince as the sounds of skull and bones fracturing are carried to him where he crouches in the dark. The creature is pulverized beneath the force of the blows.
Satisfied with what they’ve done, they move on, continuing on their way without seeming to care about the man who’d been attacked, leaving him dead, lying halfway in the road without any pretense of remorse or concern.
The coldness of the behavior chills Miles more than the cold rain that has soaked into every inch of his clothing.
As he sidesteps around the bodies on the ground he leaves nothing to chance, carefully slipping by with as much space as he can manage between himself and the two unmoving corpses.
He’s almost to Gale’s when he almost stumbles over a body laying on the ground. In the dark, he hadn’t seen it there and as he turns to see what he’d almost tripped over, it lunges for him, useless legs dragging along the ground behind it, using its hands to pull itself along.
He steps toward it and slams the knife down into the spine where the skull meets the neck. The blade slides uselessly off of the bone, nearly slicing into his hand in the process.
Still, it does the trick. As ugly and graceless as it might have been, the blade had continued downward, lodging itself into the dirt, slicing through the woman’s throat on the way. The zombie on the ground gurgles for a few seconds and then goes still.
Miles leaves the knife behind and continues the rest of his way to Gale’s house without interruption. There is no sign of activity, but he sincerely hopes that would be true even if everyone had beat him there.
The front door is locked and he cases the property, making his way around to the rear where nothing but undeveloped wilderness abuts the yard. Cautiously he approaches the deck overlooking the lawn and he slides the shotgun up and onto the floor before climbing up the scaffolding affixing the deck to the edge of the house and hoisting himself silently over the rail.
Retrieving the gun, he pads across the deck, peering in through the glass of the French doors.
The patio doors open noiselessly, but he knows anyone listening nearby will hear the change in tone of the rainfall before everything returns to normal. He stands silent and still after closing the door behind him, primed to react if there is any movement.
Hushed voices downstairs beckon him and he slips out of his boots, hoping to make less noise.
As he gets closer to the room where the noises are emanating from he recognizes the familiar cadence of Gale’s voice and the pitch of Mariah whispering back.
Slapping the shotgun over his shoulder as he enters the room, the noise causes both of them to jump.
“I am so glad to see you two,” Miles says with no hesitation, the relief is greater than he’d known it would be.
Mariah crosses the space in a flash and hugs him tightly, glancing around him. “Where’s Hewitt?” She asks.
26
It’s slow going, moving cautiously while monitoring every shadow the whole way.
Abraham begins to worry that he’s lost the crowd in the downpour and that they haven’t been heading the direction of the city park as he’d suspected they had been.
Hugging the fences and dense shrubbery to keep from standing out in the open during any of the frequent strobes of lighting, as the two of them approach the corner nearest the town’s central park. The noise of shouting and screaming becomes audible over the white noise of the storm.
Hunkering down, Abraham nudges Ben back against a lilac bush yet to bloom.
As cautiously as they can, father and son creep along the property line toward the corner, the noise from the commotion nearby becoming clearer and muffled largely in waves.
A break in the hedge allows them to slip surreptitiously into the corner yard to limit their exposure. From this more secure vantage point, the two of them continue to watch the events unfolding in the park.
There is still no way to make out anything being said, individual words lost in the chaos as the chorus of voices overlap and mingle with the rain. It would have been virtually impossible to mistake the naked hostility for anything else, no matter how difficult it is for Abraham to discern specifics.
As the crowd mills about, lit by headlamps, flashlights, and camping lanterns, Abraham can make out what appears to be a scene directly out of an old western or some pre-civil rights documentary.
Nooses are draped from a thick branch on a massive tree, and the ropes are held taut by a person dangling from each snare.
From the distance, it’s hard to be sure, but neither Abraham nor Ben recognize any of the five people bound and tethered by the neck to the tree. One of the victims appears to be infected by the same illness as that crazy fuck who had killed Kateb, based on the jerking, spasmodic movements and the color of their skin.
There is some relief to be found in the knowledge that the veritable pitchfork-wielding villagers are helping to take out the zombies as well. The enemy of our enemy is not our friend, Abraham knows without any doub
t.
Without any ceremony or preamble, the benches beneath the hanging victims are yanked away and all five begin a little dance, joining the zombie in an unnatural spasming, a dance that is all too familiar to anyone who’s witnessed footage of this method of execution.
Ben stares in fascination and Abraham can’t even bring himself to ask his son to look away from the murders taking place. He had already seen worse and there is no reason to think that there isn’t worse yet to come. As a father, it is breaking his heart to know that his son will never be innocent again, after all of this.
It feels like it is taking forever for the executed people to give up the ghost, but finally, the twitches and shakes are done.
The crowd, seemingly satisfied, begins yelling and migrating away from the park grounds, searching for more victims it would seem, without even displaying the decency of cutting down the still hanging people, leaving only the bodies swaying lightly in the wind, suspended as a memento of their presence.
As a pack of nearly a dozen people walks down the sidewalk on the other side of the hedge, Abraham and Ben remain as still as they can manage, holding their breath as a reflex even though there is no reason to think that little bit of noise could give them away. The crowd passes by on the other side of the hedge, only a couple of feet away and Abraham wishes that he and his son could just merge into the hedge and become invisible. It isn’t until the group has moved entirely out of sight and earshot that he even considers moving.
Innocence Ends Page 9
