by Jake Bible
So we kept going along I-40, right into the heart of what was a bustling, vibrant university town pre-Z. Go Vols, am I right?
Now, I think it would be a good idea to tick off all the flaws in our plan. That way, you aren’t wasting time doing the same thing instead of paying attention to the shit storm that comes down on our asses. Oh, and that isn’t a spoiler, trust me. There’s enough mystery to the shit storm that you won’t be disappointed when I get to it.
Which is right about now.
Knoxville has a funky layout. It’s this cool, hilly city that has a long, slowly winding stretch of interstate that brings you in from the east and right smack through downtown. Then things get all twisted, literally and figuratively.
You see, when you come into downtown Knoxville, you end up dealing with a trillion exits, overpasses, underpasses, highways merging into one another, and all that goodness. It isn’t all that hard to navigate if you are focused on where you are going and stay in the correct lanes. Pay attention to signs and all that jazz, which is what we had started to do when we got to the heart of the city.
However, just like with the rest of the highway, the haul truck was too damn big to get under the overpasses. We couldn’t stay on the interstate through Knoxville. We had to get off and use the downtown streets as a detour until we were past the clover-leafs and twisting onramps that crisscrossed the highways.
We probably would have been more prepared for what was going to happen if we’d stayed on I-40. At least we would have seen the bodies strung up and dangling from the overpasses as a warning.
Instead, we drove smack into the crazy with only our general unease and survivor caution to prepare us.
Fun times.
The order of the vehicles in the convoy had stayed the same the whole trip, and it wasn’t any different when the haul truck came to a stop on West Summit Hill Drive, just a couple blocks from the University of Tennessee. Stella was driving the Explorer and Elsbeth was sitting shotgun -literally with a shotgun in her lap- while the kids were in the middle seat and I was in the far back, a pistol in my hand and my back against the middle seat so I could watch our ass.
I waved at the Fitzpatricks as we stopped, and gave them a shrug that I had no idea what was going on. I could see Buzz speaking into his radio and then watched his eyes go wide. He pointed at me and twirled his finger for me to turn around. I looked over my shoulder, but all I saw was Critter’s Jeep and the hulking haul truck up ahead. I looked back and shrugged again and Buzz rolled his eyes. He smacked Porky on the shoulder and that brother got out of the truck and hustled up to me.
“Ain’t ya got a radio?” Porky asked, all farm muscle and freckles. “Buzz says there’s something weird up front and Critter wants your eyes on it.”
“Oh, okay,” I said and crawled my way out of the back. “Can’t wait to see what Critter defines as weird.”
Buzz had gotten out of his truck, and had sent Porky back to man the driver’s seat, so he accompanied me. Stella stayed in our Explorer and just gave me the “Be Careful” speech as I walked by. Buzz and I got up past the Jeep, which was empty, and then past the haul truck to the promised weirdness.
And, as it has always been in the post-apocalyptic world since Z-Day, the weirdness delivered on its promise.
“That ain’t somethin’ ya see every day,” Critter said as he stood next to Stuart in front of a massive set of billboards that had been set in the middle of the street to block anyone and everyone’s way. “Maybe you should get Stella up here, Long Pork.”
“What for?” I asked as I struggled to keep the bile in my belly from visiting my throat. “Why the fuck would I want to show her that?”
“She could check it for grammar and spellin’,” Critter chuckled. “I think they get an A for originality, though. Ain’t gonna debate that.”
There were four full sized billboards that blocked the street- two across by two high. Scrawled across the billboards was the message: “Fall kegger! Follow the signs to the party of the year! Don’t miss out on the biggest bash of the whole apocalypse, people!”
Yep, it said that.
Now, a message like that one on billboards that block our way and force us to go one direction only would be troubling enough. Except it was the medium in which the message was written that was the worst part.
All the words were spelled out using bodies as the letters.
And all the bodies were men’s. Not a single woman was nailed, glued, duct taped, stapled, roped, or bungeed up on those billboards. It was all men and they were naked. Disturbing in of itself, for sure, but the fact that each man was missing his junk really drove the “crazy” message home.
“Never been to a kegger before,” Buzz said. “Think they’ll have chips and dips there?”
That was about as serious and coherent a statement as any of us could make at that moment.
“Dad?” Charlie called as he ran up to us. “Mom wants to know what’s taking...so...long…”
Charlie didn’t win in his battle of the bile. He turned and puked right there, and then flipped off the billboards without looking at them again.
“I’ll tell her we’ve hit a snag,” he said, his face green and sweaty. He jogged back towards the Explorer with his middle finger still extended and pointing at the grotesque invitation.
“We could drive through it,” Red called from up in the haul truck’s cab. “Just flatten the whole fucking thing and keep going.”
“John! Reaper!” Stuart yelled. “Get down here so we can give this shit a once over.”
“A once over?” I asked.
“Check for booby traps,” Stuart said.
“There ain’t no booby traps up there ‘cause they’s all men,” Critter snickered.
“You’re a dick, Critter,” I said.
“They ain’t,” he laughed as he pointed at the billboards. “Not no more.”
I sighed and let Critter be Critter.
I walked forward carefully with Stuart as we waited for John and Reaper to get down from the haul truck. Their SpecOps training was what was needed to make sure the haul truck didn’t trigger any explosives or traps if we drove right through the billboards.
I studied how the bodies were arranged on the billboards, letting my intellectual curiosity take over and suppress my baser instinct of getting the fuck out of there right that second. It was easy to tell that the bodies weren’t that old. They had maybe been there for four or five days at the most. You live in a post-Z world and you get to know corpses intimately.
“They been replacin’ ‘em,” Critter said, suddenly serious. He didn’t even smile when I jumped with surprise as he came up behind me. “Look at the stains on the boards.”
He was right; there were deeper, darker stains on the billboards where other bodies had been before. And below those stains, barely visible, were thick, black lines.
“They made an outline with paint before they put them up there,” I said. “Jesus, they actually sketched out the message, then added the corpses.”
“Needed to make a statement, that’s for sure,” Stuart said as he joined us, with John and Reaper jogging up behind. “They could have painted in the stenciled letters, but they wanted everyone that came by to know what they were capable of.”
“The lack of cocks and balls was statement enough,” I said. “They could have just hung the bodies on lampposts and shit like all the other crazies do in this world. Isn’t that what you do when you want to warn folks off?”
“They don’t want to warn folks off,” John said. “They want people to be afraid of them and also to know where they are. That last part is what’s bugging me.Follow the signs. Great.”
“I like how they use the heads to dot the I’s,” Elsbeth said, making us all start and spin around. She just grinned and pointed at the billboards. “See? They use heads to dot the I’s and as periods. Then they use feet as commas and apostrophes. The spacing is well thought out and the composition of the bodies, making su
re the skin colors are grouped together, shows they cared about what they were doing.” Elsbeth clapped lightly then gave a thumbs up. “These folk ain’t just crazy, they’re careful.”
We just stared at her, which it being Elsbeth, made her uncomfortable then mad.
“What?” she snapped. “I used to scrapbook when I was a girl.” She furrowed her brow and shook her head. “Or I think I did. Can’t remember that far back. Doesn’t matter anyway. It took them a lot of hard work to get that message right.”
“So A for effort as well as originality,” I said. “Good for them, but what are we going to do?”
Stuart, John, and Reaper, having gotten over Elsbeth’s always confusing behavior, walked cautiously up to the billboards. They studied the road for tripwires, and then when they got to the billboards themselves, they studied the edges of the large wood and metal frames for booby traps and explosives.
“I’m not seeing anything,” John said. “We could probably drive right over these and not have to worry about damage to the haul truck at all.”
“We haven’t checked the bodies though,” Reaper sighed. “So we don’t know for sure it’s safe.”
We all stood there and looked up at the rotted corpses above us.
“Red!” Critter yelled back at the haul truck. “Move it in closer, will ya? Gotta get a better look at these cockless gentlemen!”
“No way, Critter,” Red said. “Too many bodies. I can drive through them, but getting up close is not in the cards.”
Critter sighed and rubbed his face. “Don’t know why I put up with that nutjob.”
“Because he’s smart and he’s loyal and he has a lot of good ideas that help us when we need him,” I said. “Same reasons you keep me around.”
“They keep you around because I’d kill them if they didn’t,” Elsbeth grinned. “Everyone knows that, stupid.”
“Thanks, El,” I smiled. “You know exactly what to say to make me feel like a winner.”
“Chicken dinner,” she replied.
There was a lot of looking down at feet and up at the buildings around us, pretty much everywhere but at Elsbeth.
Critter was cursing a blue streak as he climbed up into the haul truck. He proceeded to rip Red a new one as he shoved the one-eyed driver out of the way. I felt sorry for the guy (Red, not Critter) since he had severe agoraphobia and it wasn’t his fault for freaking out now and again. On the other hand, you have to pull your own weight in the zombie apocalypse.
Says the guy with one arm…
Critter got the haul truck up close to the billboards so Stuart, John and Reaper could climb up and get a better look at the bodies. They clung to the grill and the railing around the platform that was just to the side of the truck’s cab. Those of us not looking for booby traps stayed below and watched the surroundings, always ready for the next attack.
I say “next” because, let’s face it, life is just one attack after the other. Even pre-Z it was all about going from crisis to crisis, fire to fire. Or it was for us.
Maybe there is peace and quiet in other parts of the world. Maybe life just kept going with the undead rising being nothing but a hiccup in the day to day routine. Think about it, there were Third World countries that didn’t have running water, electricity, sewers, hospitals, or any modern conveniences. I’ll bet Z-Day was a trip, but nothing they couldn’t handle. Kill Uncle Sansu as he tried to eat Aunt Bolina then send the kids out to catch a chicken for dinner. Same old, same old.
“Long Pork,” Elsbeth hissed. “You out of your head enough to see what I see?”
I had to puzzle at that, since the term “out of your head enough” was more than just a little confusing. Did she mean was I out of my head crazy? Or out of my head, as in I was paying attention to the world around me instead of lost in my thoughts?
I said, “Yeah, what’s up?” Just seemed easier.
“We have watchers,” Elsbeth said. “Up in the windows. They been eyeing us since we got here. Haven’t stopped to take a break once.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Four,” Elsbeth said. “Man, woman, two kids, just staring at us.”
Elsbeth rolled her head on her neck, but I could tell she was trying to be casual as she nodded towards the windows in the building to our left. I stretched and turned that way, making sure I studied the whole building, not just the windows on the second floor. It was a nice building, I’ll give it that. Probably from the mid-Fifties, built of brick and stone. Part of it had some serious damage, so I couldn’t say what the building had been used for pre-Z, but what still stood looked solid.
The building wasn’t all that looked solid. I caught a glance at the four faces that peered down at us from the shadows of the second floor and I would have been more than surprised if they weren’t stiff as boards. Stiff being the operative word.
“More corpses,” I said.
“Really?” Elsbeth asked then turned and looked directly at them. “Huh. I didn’t catch that. It’s probably because you got to sleep all night and I didn’t.”
“Hey!” I snapped. “I said I’d take turns!”
Elsbeth just grinned.
“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Yep,” she said.
“You knew they were dead the whole time, right?”
“Right,” Elsbeth nodded. “So fucking with your shit.” She clapped me on the shoulder and drew one of her blades. She pointed it at the building. “Let’s go see what’s going on up there.”
I stared at her for a second, but she only stared back.
“Fine,” I shrugged. “What else have I got to do?”
“Where the fuck are you two goin’?” Critter asked as he looked down at us from the haul truck’s cab.
I pointed up at the dead faces in the windows.
“Oh,” he replied. “Have fun with that.”
“Watch your step!” Stuart yelled at me. “The building could be rigged as well!”
“Got something!” John announced as he pulled his hands back from a corpse just as Elsbeth and I stepped into the shadows of the building’s broken entrance.
I could hear them all talking hurriedly, but their voices were too muffled to make out as Elsbeth led us down a hallway and over to a set of less than safe looking stairs. She tried the first step then the second.
“The wood is feelin’ good,” she said, giving me a thumbs up. “One at a time and all will be fine.”
“Are you talking in rhyme now?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she replied. “Baby.”
“Yeah, don’t do that anymore,” I said, “and especially don’t call me baby.”
“You’re no fun when you’re scared, Long Pork,” Elsbeth said.
“I’m not scared,” I replied as I started up the stairs after her. “I just don’t need to hear you talk in rhyme while we go and look at the corpse family.”
“You don’t know they are family,” Elsbeth said. “Maybe they hate each other.”
“They don’t do anything, El,” I replied once we were on the second floor landing. “They are dead. I was just making a joke.”
“Dumb joke,” she said as she walked down the hall towards the door we assumed led into the room with the dead peepers.
Elsbeth pushed the door open with her blade and we waited for an undead rush. We doubted there were any Zs in there, since we didn’t hear anything or see any movement when we were down on the street, but it is the zombie apocalypse, so better safe than sorry and all that happy stay alive shit.
No Zs were in the room, which was large and open and had a set of stairs leading up to a loft where I assumed the bedroom was. The place looked like it had been renovated into a swank condo. And from the massive amount of University of Tennessee orange that adorned the walls, tables, couches, and chairs, my guess was that out of towners rented it to go to Vols football games on the weekend since we were so close to campus. Sucked to be the away team and get stuck in the eye-searing
orange of that condo, let me tell ya.
“Don’t stink,” Elsbeth said. “I bet they was put here after they died.”
She walked quickly over to the family of four that were set close to the windows so they could watch the gawkers stare at the invitation to what I could only guess was the kegger from hell.
“No wet stuffs,” she said as she felt around the hardwood flooring under their chairs. “No yucky stains. They’d been dead a long time before they got put here.”
“The windows are open,” I said. “Maybe all the gunk dried up.”
“But no stains,” Elsbeth said.
“Could be someone cleaned those up,” I replied as I looked about the condo. “This place looks spotless.” I walked to a bookshelf and ran my finger across a shelf. “It was just dusted.”
Elsbeth stood up and frowned. For being quite the weird bird herself, Elsbeth wasn’t too keen on things being weird and unexplained. She liked for there to be simple answers to all problems. Usually for Elsbeth, all problems were easily broken down to their barest simplicity.
“Why clean a house for the dead?” she asked out loud. “Why put that poor family there to watch the street? Why?”
I didn’t have any answers, so I stayed quiet as I checked out the rest of the condo. No personal photos, so my guess that it was a rental was probably right. No clothes anywhere, no food, no water. No sign that anyone had tried to survive in the condo post-Z. It reminded me more of a storefront display window than an actual living space.
“Let’s go,” I said. “The place gives me the creeps.”
“Long Pork!” John shouted from outside.
I went to one of the windows not blocked by a corpse, but it wouldn’t open, so I was forced to shoulder between the two corpse kids in order to see John.
“What?” I called.
“Every corpse is loaded with explosives,” John said. “Some impressive chemical shit. If we’d even nudged these billboards with the haul truck this whole thing would have gone up.”
“Great,” I said. “Glad you could share that with me.”
