The Rabid (Book 1)

by J. V. Roberts

  I look to Bethany and she shrugs. Momma is smiling. Lee is back.

  “Alright, sounds like a plan to me,” I say.

  Green signs boasting incoming exits and their particular array of offerings cruise by to our right as we continue to weave forward.

  Cheap motels,

  diners,

  museums,

  all now vacant caricatures of Americana.

  All that once defined our culture now serving as nothing more than elaborate tombs.

  “There is a Shop-It coming up at the next exit.” Lee points at the glass.

  “Think it’s a safe bet?” Momma asks squeezing us through a small gap created by two compact sedans sitting at a perfect v-angle.

  “Nothing is a safe bet.” Lee answers grimly.

  Minutes pass before the exit we’ve chosen to stake our lives on fades into view.

  “Well, this definitely isn’t a safe bet.” I grasp my weapon just a little tighter.

  “My God,” Momma’s voice is barely a whisper.

  The off ramp is blocked by an orange striped barricade usually reserved for road crews. A large cardboard sign has been tacked to the front, All Dead! Keep Moving.

  “It could be a bluff, just to keep people out, you know, to dissuade looters.” Lee says with uncertainty, trying a little too hard to find the silver lining.

  “Yeah, anyone here willing to take that chance? I’m the optimist here and I’m not willing to take that chance.” Momma says.

  We idle on the bridge, staring down into the one streetlight highway pit stop. There is a police cruiser hiked up on the sidewalk, trampled parking meters beneath the tires, the roof lights nothing more than hollow bulbs. The outline of a body is visible in the front seat, hunched across the steering wheel. The street around it is stained with blood. Discarded limbs line the gutters like cast off party favours. Broken windows and splintered doors outline the blackened interiors of abandoned shops. And at the center of it all, beneath a lifeless traffic signal, stand three of the Rabid.

  “Still think it’s a bluff?” I ask as we pull away.

  20

  We make it just inside the Mississippi state line as night begins to force itself upon us. We park the truck in the middle of a group of abandoned sedans and kill the engine and lights.

  “We’ll find some food tomorrow. Tonight it’ll have to be the emergency rations.” Lee says, stepping from the cab to retrieve the food bars and a water jug from the duffle in the back.

  “I seriously hope these don’t taste bad.” Bethany groans, grinding her feet against the floorboard.

  “It's not going to be steak and eggs, but its food; let’s be thankful for that.” Momma says.

  “We’ll snatch a candy bar for you tomorrow.” I assure her with a smile.

  Lee is back with a tightly wrapped silver block of survival rations and the water. The rations make a rather unappetizing thud, as he drops them on the center console and begins chipping away at the airtight package with his thumbs and forefingers. “Geez, they don’t make these things easy to open.”

  “Guess they want you to work for your survival rations,” I laugh.

  “It’s an omen,” Bethany utters flatly.

  “Or perhaps it’s a sign that it’s delicious. Anything worth having…”

  I cut in right on cue. “Is worth working for, yeah, yeah, we know, Momma. That’s stretching it a bit, don’t you think?”

  The package finally submits, sliding away to reveal the pale bricks underneath. “There we go. Break a piece off and pass it around.” Lee hands it back to me after severing a brownie-sized slab for himself.

  “This looks disgusting.” Bethany accepts the pale slab of carbs, fat, and protein from me with the utmost hesitance.

  “It doesn’t taste much better.” Lee manages through a mouth full of the stuff.

  “Like a really bad ginger bread cookie.” I conclude after testing a small bite between my molars and choking it down with more effort than should be necessary for something that’s supposedly edible.

  “My God,” Bethany spits into her hand, “forget it; I’m just going to starve.”

  “No here, swish it around with the water and just swallow it. You need food.”

  She accepts the jug from Lee and, with a few gags and whines, nibbles another bite into her mouth, mixing the water in immediately after. “Still tastes disgusting.”

  “It’s pretty bad, I must admit.” We all start laughing at the sight of Momma staring down at her barely eaten ration with her eyes squinted shut and her lips puckered.

  “The optimist relents,” I announce.

  “You got me; I withdraw my previous support from this product.”

  Lee shakes his head and sighs. “Well, looks like Bo called it, these things do taste like gopher shit.”

  “Yep,” I stare out the window at the setting sun, “he called it.” For a while, we just sit and choke down out rations. We pass the water jug and listen to the world as it winds down around us.

  ***

  The dashboard clock reads half-past one when it's finally my turn to sleep. I drew first watch, which basically entailed holding my eyelids open while everyone else snored and shifted around me. As soon as the clock turns over, I tap Lee awake and curl up against the backseat passenger door. My quick descent into slumber has less to do with the chilled over window and the sticky vinyl siding, and more to do with the sheer exhaustion I feel from the adrenaline dump we'd experienced earlier...

  It doesn’t last long.

  Lee wakes me with a slap on the knee and a harsh whisper. “Two-Step, we got trouble.”

  “What the hell, Lee, come on.”

  “Shh, keep your voice down, look.”

  I rub my eyes, once, twice, and a third time just to be sure of what I’m seeing. The girls begin to stir. “Do not scream, do you understand, you can’t scream.” I implore Bethany, grabbing at an arm as she stretches and yawns, preparing to open her eyes.

  “Oh my…” Momma muffles a gasp with her hands.

  Bethany scurries backwards in her seat, her fingernails buried in the upholstery, but she doesn't so much as peep.

  It’s the exodus of the dead. There are hundreds of them, moving with the slow and deliberate pace of a sediment-laden river. They bump against the cars on either side of us, rocking the truck chassis ever so slightly as they move past. Their breath is labored and wet, they groan like an old foundation, keeping time with their geriatric gait.

  “They don’t see us, stay calm. We’re okay.” My whisper hits like thunder amid the panicked silence.

  Minutes pass.

  Hours pass.

  Bethany falls asleep beneath my arms, and Momma while hiding her head in Lee’s lap. We, the men, are left awake to monitor the parade. As the first threads of sunrise weave across the skyline, the last of the Rabid shuffle past to our right.

  “Let’s get some sleep, Two-Step, it'll allow some ground to set up between us and them.”

  21

  Around noon, we reach a group consensus that it's safe to move out.

  “Can we please find food? I’m not eating another bite of that crap from last night.” Bethany asserts through a yawn.

  “Yeah, let’s get that out of the way, should go ahead and top off the gas too. Pull into the next rest stop.”

  There are four cars and a utility vehicle occupying the rest stop parking lot. We circle twice, searching for movement, living or otherwise. There is sunlight seeping through the trees and some overstuffed pigeons strutting across a lone picnic table, but other than that, nothing. There are no signs of struggle or panic. No busted windows. No bodies. No body parts.

  “Alright, this place looks to be as good as any, let’s do this. They’ve usually got two or three vending machines behind the bathrooms.” Lee is checking the magazine on his rifle. “Pull up to the curb, back it in by that blue car.”

  I grab Bethany by the arm as she goes to step out and nod towards the pistol she’s le
ft tucked in the driver seat pocket. “After what we saw last night, this doesn’t need to leave your body, okay?” She rolls her eyes, sighs, and retrieves it as if I've inconvenienced her.

  Lee hands Momma the gas can and hose. “You know how to do this?”

  The rusty can creaks as she swipes it from his grasp. “I know how to work a syphon.”

  “Just checking, babe; fill it up and pour it in, rinse and repeat till Two-Step and I get back with the goods. Bethany, you keep an eye on your Ma, keep that pistol up, and yell if you see something. We’ll be right around the corner.”

  There is a small field to our left with discarded trash and a worn out soccer ball dotting the expanse. A tan rack boasting some shuffled around tourist pamphlets rests against a single brick pillar with a set of open-air bathrooms flanking it on either side. We move slowly up the sidewalk beneath the small portacache.

  “How’re you feeling? You okay?” I pick up a blue pamphlet with a gray striped border, Jim Slither’s Snake and Reptile Sanctuary.

  “I just needed a little processing time; I’m good. Bo and I were never close or anything, you know, but a loss is a loss.”

  Huey’s Haunted Harbour; dull brown background with yellow letters and a black border. “Well, if you ever need to talk or just, whatever, I’m game.”

  Lee leans back against the mud colored cement pillar and tucks some stray curls away beneath his multicolored headband. “You’re a good kid,” he says it like he means it, capping it with a smile. “I’ll take you up on that offer if I ever need it, and same goes for you.”

  “Well, alright then, thanks.” I continue shuffling through the pamphlets; they're all hyperbole and blurry pictures.

  “We should clear these bathrooms while we’re at it; I’ve had to piss for like an hour now.” Lee shoulders his rifle, scanning back and forth beyond the field as he moves to the opposite corner.

  “Yeah, same here. The food, then the bathroom, girls probably have to use it too.”

  “Agreed.”

  It’s the school all over again. Except instead of trying to find Bethany, I’m trying to find drinks and snacks.

  “It’s clear, Two-Step.”

  There are exactly two snack machines at the back of the building and a soda machine; Lee had called it. However, the backlit face and the familiar buzzing that signified ice-cold carbonation is nowhere to be found. The power is as dead here as it’s been at every other God forsaken hell hole we’ve passed through.

  “I don’t know about you, but the notion of warm soda pop isn’t exactly tickling my taste buds.”

  “The water bottles are what we need; warm or cold, water is water.” Lee checks the sides of the machines as if he’s going to happen across a trap door.

  “These things are like bank vaults.”

  “Yep.”

  “Maybe not quite as sturdy, but they’re heavier than you'd believe.”

  “That they are.”

  “You know, I read somewhere that fourteen people die every single year from being crushed by a vending machine.”

  “So what’s your point, kid?”

  “That you should probably stop rocking it back and forth like that, there are a lot of ways to die right now, getting crushed by a soda machine is probably among the most preventable.”

  “I was going to tip it over, and smash the face.”

  “Terrible idea all around man, it’s going to make a racket, and that’s if it doesn’t fall on top of you. Even if it works, we’ve still got to tip it around to get at the contents, just not the most efficient idea.”

  “So define efficient for me.” He turns, breathing heavy.

  “We break it open as it stands, I don’t know, beat on it, it’s not iron plated or anything.”

  Lee slams the wobbly plastic with the butt of his rifle.

  Once,

  Twice,

  Again, again, and again.

  I join him. Inside of a minute, we’re hunched at the knees sucking wind as the machine mocks us with our exhausted blurry reflections.

  “Brilliant idea, Two-Step, really, up there among your best.”

  “Better than slow dancing with it. You got something superior you feel like throwing in the mix?”

  Sweat trickles from his locks onto the spider web cracked pavement. “That shovel thingy-ma jig that’s in the bug out packs. We can use the sharp end to hack in.”

  “Ya know…that’s not a bad idea at all.”

  Momma is padding the last few bits of gasoline from the can into the truck using the heel of her palm.

  “How’s it going, dear?” Lee asks, planting a kiss on her cheek as he walks past.

  “Great actually, it looks like they almost had a full tank when they pulled in.”

  “What about you, Bethany, keeping your eyes up?”

  “Don’t you know it, cause there’s so much to see.” The way she gazes at the chipped black polish crisscrossing her nails, only serves to spice up the tart flavor coagulating on the surface of her voice.

  Lee looks to me, shrugs, and throws his hands up in defeat.

  “Bethany, listen…” I begin softly.

  “Oh, Tim, just save it. I don’t need a hug okay, just get the food, we’ll get the gas, and we can all cram back into that tin box like day laborer's.”

  “Bethany!” Momma drops the can, the hose, all of it, and gets right in her face. “Child, I’ve never been one for slapping, but so help me if you don't drop this attitude of yours.”

  Bethany erupts into tears and jumps inside the truck, rocking it to-and-fro as she slams the door.

  Momma pounds the glass. “You get back out here right now, young lady.”

  Bethany just cries harder, tucking the gun back in the front seat pocket before losing her face in the palms of her hands.

  “Momma, just let her go, you know how she gets. You just have to let it run its course.” I say as Lee hops down from the bed with the folding shovel in his hands.

  “Sometimes, I want to help her run it a little faster with the back of my hand.”

  “Are you going to be okay out here by yourself?” Lee pushes the shovel into my arms.

  “I’ll be fine; it’s just me and the birds. If I need you, I’ll shoot something.”

  “Just don't let that something be Bethany,” I laugh.

  “I’m not making any promises.”

  We’re inside the pop machine with a single swipe of the fold out shovel. Lee goes at it twice more for good measure before tossing it aside. We peel back the plastic as if it is a soup can revealing the towers of plastic and tin within.

  “Go grab the bags so we can fill them up, I’ll start on the next two machines.” Lee says retrieving the shovel.

  We return to the truck twenty-minutes later, our bags loaded to the brim with chips, candy, and bottles of water.

  Momma turns from tossing the hose and the gas can into the bed and smiles at us, wiping her hands clean on the front of her dress. “Took ya’ll long enough.” She pats our chests as we teeter by.

  “You run that car dry?” Lee grunts as he hefts his bag over the side.

  “As dry as the desert, my dear.”

  “Good, Two-Step and I are going to clear the bathrooms out real quick. We should all probably hit the head before getting back on the road.”

  “Good idea,” Momma opens the passenger door and ducks in. Bethany crosses her arms tightly and leans away. “We’re all using the restroom, sweetie, come on, we’re not stopping anywhere else before sundown, so now is your chance.”

  Tight lips,

  key turned,

  thrown away.

  “You know, sweetie, any other time I’d say be a brat or have it your way, but, this isn’t any other time, this is on the other side of any other time, am I making myself clear? Use the restroom now, because this vehicle will not stop for you later.”

  Stubborn

  as

  a

  mule.

  “Okay, you were wa
rned.”

  We clear the bathrooms. I cover him while he kicks in the stall doors, yelling clear after each one, enjoying himself much more than he’d like to admit. There is nothing for us to find on either side, except backed up sewage and broken toilet seats; I imagine the conditions weren’t much different before the apocalypse hit.

  “My heroes,” Momma feigns breathy exhilaration, kissing us wildly on our cheeks, the machine gun strung under her arm bouncing against my chest.

  “Just another day at work, Miss.” Lee grins, going along with it.

  “You guys go in first, I’ll stand watch. Two-Step, we’ll switch off when you’re done.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Five minutes later, I emerge and find Lee posing like an old Vietnam portrait; propped against the grey cement pillar, one foot kicked back, rifle over his shoulder, narrow eyes scanning for trouble. All he is missing is the cigarette.

  “Your go, GI Joe.”

  “What?” Lee’s sheepish tone and the splash of molten in his cheeks give him the appearance of a kid that just got caught rocking out on an air guitar.

  “Go on, get in there tough guy.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re getting at, Two-Step.”

  I just smile and slap him on the shoulder.

  Out here, the smell of rot and burn is minimal, even standing upwind. The interstate, with its conga line of wreckage and death, is shrouded by auburn leaves.

  Crank up the grill!

  Who brought the hot dog buns!

  Get em’ while they’re hot!

  Right now, it’s just another road trip and we’re just another all American family enjoying each other’s company. Part of me is glad to be out of the house. Maybe the attack was a blessing in disguise, as they say, aside from losing Bo of course. Call it the difference between being tied to a tree waiting to be mauled by tigers, and being turned loose in a field and given the option to run for your life. Same result with a little sprinkle of hope added for flavor. Everything tastes better with a little sprinkle of hope.