Hobbes Family

by Dan O'Brien

  Hobbes Family

  A B-Sides Story

  Dan O’Brien

  Hobbes Family is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Original Cover Photo:

  “Cabin on Sandia Peak” © John Fowler

  Copyright © 2013 Dan O’Brien

  All rights reserved.

  For more information about the author visit:

  www.thedanobrienproject.blogspot.com

  Other books by Dan O’Brien

  The Path of the Fallen

  Book of Seth

  The Path of the Fallen: Unabridged

  Bitten

  Cerulean Dreams

  The End of the World Playlist

  The Journey

  The Twins of Devonshire and the Curse of the Widow

  Mondays with Mephistopheles: 9am––Rhys

  The Conspirators of the Lost Sock Army and the Loose Change Collection Agency

  The Portent

  Drained

  The Ocean and the Hourglass

  Steam City Samurai

  Publish Your Dreams

  Water

  I

  Day One

  T

  he world had ended, or at least slowed for a spell, when the outbreak claimed the consciousness of humanity. There was a brief moment before the proverbial sky fell when many people thought the entire idea was just the shenanigans of the ne’er-do-wells who were pulling a fabulous hoax on the world. The first day brought skepticism and curiosity. Pop culture had engrained in people the fear of the unknown and a fair amount of preparation in the event of anything resembling a zombie plague.

  This sense of a participatory chain of events signaling the end of Hobbes’ civilization was far more abrupt than for which many were ready. People had hoarded and stockpiled. Nary a person could be found who did not have an assault rifle or nail-bat prepped and ready for the staggering undead.

  It was the deed, however, that proved far more difficult for most. Even though necrotic flesh and a certain vacancy behind the eyes announced the undead to those passable as living, it was the possibility that this momentary lapse of humanity could be overcome. This idea quickly faded as the disease spread, claiming metropolitan areas and rural areas alike.

  By the end of the first week, skepticism had turned into panic. Stores were raided and cities were emptied as quickly as possible.

  Roads were congested with cars fleeing to a transient safe haven just beyond the boundaries of memory and the known. The problem with being surrounded by water is that eventually you hit a coast, no matter which direction you drove. Cars were abandoned as power grids wavered and then went silent. Soon, the nights were as dark as the inside of a coffin and the days unperturbed by the sounds of the city.

  Philosophers had for the majority of human civilization discussed what man would be like in this state of nature. Great minds debated the merits and pitfalls of a world unperturbed by the guiding force of norms and mores. It appeared that something drawn from nightmares and the fiendish, albeit amusing, minds of writers who envisioned a world where the rebuilding of a civilization was juxtaposed against a frightening dystopia burdened by moral ambiguity and vagary of purpose. The great apocalypse proved to be a grand thought experiment, much to the chagrin of everyone.

  *

  Michael had been an insurance salesman before the world took a turn for the dark and weird. His wife, Susanna, taught 3rd grade; their daughter had just turned six.

  The first day had been horrendous. As a family they had sworn off guns; they had even joined in on the sobering mantra of gun regulation. It was for this reason that the home invasion in their quiet suburban neighborhood came as a shock.

  The television droned on about airborne toxins, blood-borne pathogens, and other maligned medical reasons for what was simply being called an outbreak. Sirens cried in the early morning as the sun peeked above the horizon like a shy trickster. Clara, his young daughter, ran through the house with wild abandon. School had been cancelled for fear of spreading the infection.

  Hollywood had prepared the masses for a sudden outbreak with scampering, roaming bands of undead. The reality had been far more frightening. Loved ones degenerated slowly, like a full-body Alzheimer’s.

  Movement slowed as well as brain function.

  Alertness was replaced with a complacency that went well beyond fatigue. Mouths rotted and skin congealed, before sloughing off like warmed ice on a windshield. It was on this first day, as Michael watched his daughter run about the house yelling and laughing like it was a snow day, he learned that he was not as prepared as he thought.

  They did not live in a large home.

  The sound of broken glass was muted by a passing siren and raised voices farther in the distance. Clara did not react and Michael approached the front window that overlooked the manicured lawn in the secluded cul-de-sac. Wide in the shoulders, he was not a muscular man. His large hands were bony and calloused––strange for a salesman. He had lost his appetite, and his love for violence, during two tours in Afghanistan.

  His brown eyes watched the street carefully, not paying nearly enough attention to the sounds of his house. As he watched the neighbor across the way pull bungee cords over boxes that were haphazardly thrown together, the realization that his daughter’s voice was no longer white noise to the wordless symphony outside dawned on him.

  A narrow hallway led back into the house.

  His voice was strained. “Susanna? Clara?”

  There was a whimper, and then murmurs.

  The sound of his heart thundered in his ears as the worst possible scenarios worked their way through his head: the disgust he felt for all the pornography he watched over the years; cheating on his taxes; not doing the dishes or telling his wife he loved her enough. These were the silly things that raced through the mind in a nanosecond when the world tilted ever so slightly.

  The morning sun cast shadows.

  Walking past the kitchen, he looked for a weapon.

  A mallet, the kind Susanna used to tenderize meat for filets, was on the counter atop a cutting board. With no knives or pointy implements of any kind––clearly the desired weapon of any child of horror and gore movies from the late 20th century––he settled on the mallet. He was holding his breath as he took the two steps into the back bedroom.

  A wisp of a man held his wife by the neck.

  He hid behind her small body, which provided proof that the intruder was a featherweight at best. His wife’s auburn hair was wet in places from sweat and her green eyes screamed, though her lips remained tight.

  Clara was nowhere in sight.

  “Where’s Clara?” Michael rasped. The intruder looked at him strangely, clearly not recognizing the name. “Where’s my daughter? What’ve you done to her?”

  A frightened squeak emanated from deeper in the room, among the shadows and piled sheets that had been a cascading fort hours before. Poking his head out from around Susanna’s head, the bird-like quality of the man’s face––sharp nose, thin eyebrows, and angular jaw––were quite apparent.

  The invader’s eyes were a soupy gray. Gesturing with his free hand, in which he held a box-cutter, he started to speak. “Money….”

  Michael took a step forward and the man squeezed harder on his wife’s neck and shook the box cutter angrily. “Let my wife go. You can have whatever you want, just don’t hurt her.”

  A surreal moment passed, in which, were it a heroic action film, Michael would have leapt across and disarmed the man with a series of well-coordinated movements. Unfortunately, his life was not directed b
y Michael Bay. The intruder relieved his grip, convinced that the strong hold of societal norms would enforce the unspoken agreement made under duress.

  Up until the moment that Susanna ducked to the side and fell against the side table, dislodging and breaking an antique lamp, he was still convinced that he might indeed get what he wanted. As Michael moved across the room with a lumbering tackle, the lie dissolved and the state of nature was restored.

  Bringing the mallet down as hard as he could, Michael felt bone give way. The intruder screeched and swung the box-cutter as they rolled to the ground. Michael could feel the skin split far too easily, but the pain faded behind a kind of primordial rage that was unquenched. Grabbing the hand that held the box cutter with his free hand, Michael struggled with the man.

  Clara screamed as her father and the freak came down in one convoluted ball near her. Clara was up, a small wound along her forehead bleeding and turning strands of her hair into gnarled clumps. Susanna grabbed her daughter in her arms and ran to the edge of the room, stopping to look back. Clara pressed her face against her mother’s shoulder and sobbed as the grunts intensified.

  The intruder, though smaller and frail, was possessed of a surprising strength. It was then that the thin veneer between civilization and chaos gave way. Swinging his head wildly––though if pressed he would say he was attempting to strike the man with his head in a controlled movement––Michael crashed the hard bone of his forehead against the softer tissue of the man’s face.

  The resistance faded into a groan.

  The box-cutter rolled to the ground as the intruder’s arm went limp. Michael realized he was screaming as he stumbled back onto the bed. His vision was blurry and he could make out part of the man’s face; rather, only a portion of the man’s face resembled something human.

  Civilization had died, but the concert played on.

  II

  Day 147

  A

  s Michael looked out the broken window of the convenience store, he recalled the last remnants of humanity that been flushed from him like so much waste that day.

  Winter had set in.

  The tall blue oaks that surrounded the building on two sides were dusted with frost; the ground was an amalgam of crystal sheets broken only by brave stalks of undergrowth that dared the frigid touch of the gales.

  The interior of the building would not serve as a long-term solution. However, it would be useful until the weather broke.

  The trek out of the suburban areas, even ones as small as those in the Sacramento Valley, had begun in the family Subaru. Highway 99 had been so congested, so overrun with smoldering and abandoned vehicles that the Hobbes family was forced to make the remainder of the trek on foot. Winter had not been as absurd as it had been during the past month. Often the snow levels came down into the valley for a day, sprinkling unsuspecting areas with brief, beautiful moments of frozen precipitation.

  This was different.

  A storm had settled in the valley, trapped and angry.

  When the sun managed to peek through the clouds above, there was a moment when it almost felt bearable. But the great star was soon obfuscated behind a gray wall once more, bloated and teeming with fury as a fresh zephyr of snow and blinding particulates dragged the valley.

  Before the fall of civilization, Susanna had begun to gain a little weight; the difference now was drastic. Her high cheekbones were prominent and the sallowness of her cheeks from periodic starvation saddened Michael as much as he was capable.

  He had not fared much better.

  His beard had grown in with dark clumps and gray patches that had no doubt taken residence from the stress that had become everyday life. His neat hair had become bedraggled and curly in places despite its length. Had it been on purpose, he could have imagined Susanna running her long fingers through it and calling it cute.

  The store had weathered the apocalypse.

  Shelves remained intact for the most part, though they were barren fields. The coolers had been left open and the power had long since faded. Overturned cans, smashed and left for dead, littered the floor.

  It had served as a last stand for someone.

  The doors and windows were adorned with long wooden planks cast in random patterns. A length of coiled chain looped through the front doors––chime removed. The open register was a dusty beach before the sunglasses tree, broken lenses covering the counter.

  Susanna approached slowly.

  Clara walked beside her mother in silence.

  As they neared Michael, the young girl reached out her arms and wrapped them around her father’s neck. Patting her back, he felt emotion surge in for just a brief moment. He pushed it down and looked at the wide eyes of his wife––the distance there saddened him.

  She had been vibrant before the world went to shit.

  Susanna had what could modestly be called a sunny disposition. She was always laughing and hugging people, a bright smile painted on her simple features. That beauty made her perfect in a way that Michael could never properly articulate, especially now that such simple joy was gray-washed by despair.

  Michael’s voice was a whisper. “Find anything?”

  Susanna shook her head, pausing as if to speak.

  The moment passed.

  Fear of something deeper in the darkness had stolen the chattiness of joyful people. There were times in the very beginning, just after the lights went out and the roads became impossible to travel, that people could still be people. You would meet someone and for a second it was possible that they wouldn’t slit your throat in your sleep.

  This, like the many stolen moments of their lives, passed.

  Now there was only the Hobbes family against the world.

  Standing, Michael adjusted the heavy revolver at his side.

  Necessity had been the guiding force for weapon choice. The two machetes with masking tape wrapped around the handles along his back in makeshift sheaths might have been a katana or a chainsaw in a shinier world. The scarf around his neck had become a patchwork of shirts, blankets, and burlap that could now withstand the sharp slap of the winter air.

  Producing a crumbled bag, he handed it to Susanna.

  “Some of the rabbit.”

  The cold seeped in through the bottom of the front door, despite the lattice of uneven boards. It was not the frigid air outside that made Michael tread lightly.

  Zombies.

  Or at least that is what people expected.

  The reality was far more frightening.

  The world had grown silent around what remained of humanity: the undead, or groaners, as the Hobbes family called them. They couldn’t bring themselves to refer to them as zombies. It seemed that if they were zombies as they had always conceived of them, then there would be some stability to their behavior.

  As Michael looked through the slits of the overlapping planks, he watched the snow-covered road just outside of the store. There were no tracks, no bodies of which to speak. Groaners were far from consistent. Sometimes they would run like creatures drawn from a nightmare with broken backs on all fours, and then there were those that lumbered along like they were drawn from a black-and-white film.

  The Hobbes family had not been in contact with many people since their flight from civilization. There had been plenty of conjecture in the beginning.

  III

  Day Six

  I

  t would be several days before Susanna could look Michael in the eyes. Thinking about the frightening look upon her husband’s face proved a startling reminder that humans were not far removed from a more primal ancestor. The television did not fade into static as was so often portrayed in apocalyptic moves, but instead progressively haggard-looking folks repeated what was more gossip than news. The infected––no one wanted to call them what they were––were steadily increasing.

  Hospitals could not contain the overflow.

  Stories of people being attacked in the streets and cannibalism were rampant. Civili
zation broke not from the undead, but when the power and water stopped flowing. Two days after the faucets and showers no longer worked, people began to panic. Panic became hysteria; hysteria gave way to violence in the streets.

  Northern California was not particularly large.

  The Sacramento Valley could boast a million bodies if the capitol was lumped in with the small cities nestled behind mangroves and almond groves. San Francisco to the west was the first to disappear from the world; Sacramento did not fare much better. Smaller communities just to the north like Yuba City and Marysville were soon overrun with infected folks who were no more human than the world was flat.

  Cities like Chico and Redding walked the fine line between being overrun and acting as potential safe havens. The Hobbes family had lived a quiet life a few miles east on highway 32 toward a little piece of Podunk called Chester. There, just before the bluffs and the Sierra Nevadas, their home had been a part of a tiny development.

  Fall was still very much in bloom.

  Pastel colors dashed trees.

  The beauty of a place like Chico was that the man who had founded the town, Bidwell, had gathered trees from all over the country and lined the streets with them. This gave the small city a sense of wonder at any time of year. You might see palm trees and blue oaks growing across the street from one another––one blooming when the other was fading.

  Long before the world was broken down into groaners and the Children, television anchors and “experts” blathered about the possible root cause of the infection. Some cited deregulation of packaged goods, genetic modifications to crops, and even the drinking water.

  The cause was not what frightened people.

  It was the process.