by TW Brown
“Ned and Colton went with a few others,” Ken said softly. “It’s been a bit, maybe I should go check on things.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the cluster of people gathered around one of the booths. The Miller’s neighbor, Candace White had been the one to come with word that something awful was happening at the Millers. She said she’d tried 9-1-1, but she got an “All circuits are busy” recording. She’d seen activity just down the hill and jumped in her car to try and find help.
Ken had only been back for about ten minutes from returning the delivery trucks when the woman had come to a screeching halt in the middle of the street and jumped out of her car. She’d been near hysterics saying that she’d heard the most horrible screams come from the Millers’ house.
Ned and Colton had both volunteered to go check it out. Ken knew for a fact that Colton kept his pistol in a case in his trunk. He’d pulled the man aside before the two left and told him not to approach the house without it.
That had been about ten minutes now. He and Bennett had watched the two men hop in Colton’s car and speed up the street and vanish as they crested the hill. The Miller place was just to the right, about a block away from the elementary school.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Bennett scolded, giving his arm a squeeze.
They were still standing there in front of the brewery when the sound of a vehicle coming from behind them caused them both to turn. Ken sucked in a breath and held it. If there was one person he wasn’t ready to see, it was the man pulling up right now.
“Good morning, Mister Mayor,” Ken said, doing his best not to clench his teeth.
He was going to have to tread carefully with the mayor. It was doubtful the man would be very understanding of his most recent exploits. It wasn’t that he was a bad sort, it was just that the two didn’t always see eye-to-eye. It seldom took much to get them to be at odds with one another. It was just one of those strange dynamics that had no rhyme or reason. It just was what it was.
Mayor Sean Drinkwine was in his late forties or early fifties, Ken had never really asked. He was a few inches shorter, probably around five-foot-nine or ten, and in the two-hundred-pound range. His dark hair and mustache had a few strands of gray, but less than you might expect for somebody his age. His eyes glinted with just a hint of mischief that showed in the slight smile he always seemed to sport. It was as if he was always hearing something mildly amusing. And he refused to share.
He was dressed in a button up shirt with a tie, jeans and some nice boots that did not have one visible scuff. He didn’t look like he’d pulled an all-nighter, so that meant he’d simply gotten up early. Not that it was something unusual. The man ran his own sign business and often was often out and about in the morning.
“Mayor Drinkwine?” the man chuckled. “Really, Ken. If we aren’t at an official function, you’ve known me as Sean for much longer. I think we can dispense with all that mayor nonsense.”
Ken smiled and hoped that it didn’t look as strained as it felt. “So, you here because of the Millers?”
The man’s smile faltered just a bit and then was right back. He didn’t know. Ken was certain of that.
“Problem at the Miller’s?” Sean asked casually. “Hope it doesn’t have anything to do with all that business on television last night.”
Ken grimaced and didn’t bother to try and hide it. “Not sure, but Candice White came down just a few minutes ago saying she’d heard screaming.”
“Don’t suppose anybody called the police?” Mayor Drinkwine peered up the hill like he might be able to see the Miller house from here.
“Police don’t seem to be answering…if you can even get through,” Ken said.
“Think we should go up and take a look?”
“Ned Sanders and Colton Becker went up a few minutes ago to check on things.” Bennett finally spoke, saving Ken from having to continue biting his tongue. Something told him the man was going to just show up and try to take things over.
“Colton Becker?” Mayor Drinkwine said flatly.
Ken could understand that reaction. The young man was not known for being the brightest light on the Christmas tree. He’d been in and out of trouble most of his adult life. Never anything serious, but he’d spent more than a few days as a guest of the county’s Gray Bar Inn.
“He was here,” Ken said with a shrug.
“Any idea how long ago they went to check things out?”
Ken was about to answer, but Bennett cut him off. “Here they come.”
Ken heard the relief in her voice. More than once she’d had to tell him that he needed to “play nice” when dealing with the mayor and the people on the city council. He had a habit of just saying whatever came to mind and often that put him at odds with others. In a town this small and as the face of a local business, that was not always the best for the bottom line.
Ken noticed right away that the car was coming fast. He also noticed that it was Ned doing the driving. He didn’t see Colton. Part of him wanted to go to his truck and grab the rifle he’d picked up on the way home from returning the delivery trucks.
The car skidded to a halt and Ned jumped out, his face a mixture of pale but with very flushed cheeks. It was a type of fear he’d never seen before, but he knew it for what it was.
“Colton is trapped in the Miller house,” Ned gasped, then sucked in huge gulps of air.
“What do you mean he’s trapped?” Ken snapped, stepping forward and grasping the man by the shoulders.
“We got to the house and didn’t hear a thing. We walked all the way around it and even peeked in a few of the windows. We finally saw Missus Miller. She was standing in the hallway, but it was dark, so we didn’t get a good look. I tapped on the window. She turned around like she heard me, but then she just stood there for a minute. About then, there was a crash and she vanished through a doorway so we couldn’t see her.
“Colton jogged over to the front door, opened it, and stuck his head in. He came right back out choking and gagging like he’d just swallowed a turd. I got to the porch and smelled what had him so messed up. Ain’t never smelled nothing like that before.
“So we finally just did our best not to breathe through our noses and went inside. Soon as we reached the hall, the smell was so bad I could taste it. That was when we heard something upstairs.”
Ned opened and shut his mouth a few times and then shook his head. After a few slow, deep breaths, he continued speaking. His voice was quiet, like he was afraid to tell this next part out loud.
“Colton ran up the stairs. I told him to hold on and that we should go slow, but he yelled something about hearing a baby. The Miller’s don’t have any new babies. Hell, their youngest is a junior in high school if I remember correctly.” Ned wiped at his face and gave a nod of thanks when Bennett offered him a cup of steaming hot coffee that seemed to appear in her hand like magic.
“A baby?” Ken asked, cocking his head to the side and looking around at what was now a small crowd as a few of the guys that helped drive the trucks as well as employees from Fearless had come. Apparently Bennett had called the entire crew in for a meeting.
Everybody returned his questioning look with either a shake of the head or shrug of the shoulders. He motioned for Ned to continue.
“So Colton is at the top of the stairs and I hear him saying something to somebody. I…I…I never even heard her coming up behind me,” Ned blurted that last sentence like he believed everybody will be angry. “I thought that stench was getting thicker, but at some point, you just gotta figure its nasty and your gut is getting sour, so your nose plays tricks.”
Ken knew the smell that Ned referred to; he’d smelled it at the Stone Farms office. It wasn’t a smell he would likely forget, and now he had to consider that as one sure sign of the zombie.
“A hand caught me by the hair and yanked me back. I spun, thinking maybe somebody had come in the house. Maybe the family’d been murdered. I turned and brought my fi
st up in an uppercut…and I cocked Missus Miller right in the chin.” Ned dropped his head and waited; again, it was as if he expected to be chastised. When nothing came, he resumed. “Only, there is something wrong with her. Her face is all ripped up and a big chunk of one of her arms is gone like an animal got to her. Only…well…I know it weren’t no animal. It was one of them things they are talking about on TV.”
“What happened when you struck her?” Mayor Drinkwine asked.
“That’s just it.” Ned looked at the man as if just realizing that he was present. His eyes widened for a moment and then he swallowed hard. “She didn’t even act like nothing happened.”
“What do you mean?” the mayor pressed.
“I mean she didn’t cry out or loosen her grip or nothing.” Ned rubbed his head as if remembering the incident had renewed the pain. “I had to wrestle her arm and get her to let go by…and I ain’t swearin’ to it, but I did hear a few snaps, and I think I broke a few of her fingers getting her to let go. The whole time, she’s trying to bite me.”
“And Colton?” Ken said, bringing the man back after his voice had trailed off and he returned to looking at the ground.
“I think I heard him hollerin’ about something, then I heard a door slam. Something was pounding on that door, and that damn baby was crying, but I didn’t know what else to do and…I ran.”
“You left him?” Ken snapped. “You left him alone with those…things?”
“I didn’t know what to do,” Ned practically whimpered. “Colton had the gun with him. I don’t know why he didn’t use it.”
Ken pushed his way through the gathered crowd and stalked to his pickup. He’d already encountered one of those things and lived to tell the tale. Although, in truth, he had been very sparse on details, especially when he related it to Bennett.
He was turning the key in the ignition when the passenger door opened. The last person he expected climbed in and shut the door.
“Sean—” Ken started, but the man cut him off.
“This isn’t about us, Ken. I say we table anything that might exist between us and see to the situation at hand. From what I am hearing and the things on the news, I think we’re on our own out here.” The mayor pulled his seatbelt across and clipped it. “There was about ten minutes where the internet worked this morning. I saw a video…” The man’s voice cracked. He swallowed audibly as Ken turned the key and backed out of where he’d parked. “Portland looks lost. There was footage from one of the hospitals. It’s even worse than they have admitted.”
“What do you mean Portland is lost?” Ken said, his own throat closing as the full weight of the reality of their situation settled on his chest.
“I mean buildings are burning and nobody is showing up. They told people to avoid the hospitals. Avoid, Ken! There is also word that the military is fractured, police have simply vanished. Looters are going crazy. This might be more than we can stand against.” The mayor sighed and leaned back in his seat as they reached the top of the hill and turned right.
Ken pulled up in front of the Millers’ house. He shut off the pickup and listened. He didn’t hear a sound. When he looked around at some of the other houses, he saw no indication that anything was wrong. It could be any ordinary day by the looks of things.
“You got something to defend yourself with?” Ken asked.
“I don’t see—” the mayor began to protest.
“You need to be carrying something in case things go badly,” Ken snapped, cutting the man off.
Reaching under his seat, Ken felt around until his hands found the small three-pound sledge he kept on hand. He thrust it at the man who took it with an exasperated sigh.
Just as he was bringing his attention back to the house, he saw a curtain from the house across the street shift as if somebody had been peeking out and then hid.
“Cowards,” he muttered as he climbed out of the truck, reaching behind the seat to grab the prybar. He didn’t figure a rifle would be the best weapon in close quarters, especially when Colton’s fate wasn’t certain.
The two men approached the house. As they neared the porch, Ken caught that first whiff of the now imprinted-on-his-mind stench of the living dead. He had no doubts as to what they would find inside. The only question was if Colton had managed to survive it.
He gripped the doorknob and glanced over at the mayor. The man was grim-faced, and a bead of sweat was trickling down his temple. He almost felt sorry for the poor guy. After all, this was his first zombie, and nothing prepared you for what they looked like up close and in person.
The door opened allowing the stench to roll out with an oily thickness that caused the mayor to back up a few steps and gag. Ken moved away in case there was any vomit. He had to give the man credit, he was able to force it down.
When the mayor stood up and wiped his hands down his face, Ken could see that all the color had drained, and now his forehead was pebbled with beads of sweat. He waited for the man to nod and then stepped through the door and into the entry hall. The first thing he noticed was what looked like a bloody smear along one wall. A few of the family photos that had once hung there were on the floor.
“We stick together, got it?” Ken whispered over his shoulder.
Before the mayor had a chance to respond, a low moan sounded from down the hall. Seconds later, it was answered by the cry of a baby.
“Son of a bitch, there is a baby here,” Ken hissed. “Sounds like it’s upstairs.”
He realized that he’d just said they needed to stick together, but he couldn’t help himself. Taking the stairs two at a time, Ken rushed up to what he hoped was a chance to save the poor baby that had just cried.
When he reached the top of the stairs, the first thing he saw was the back of the Miller girl. She was clawing at a closed door.
He looked around, certain that he would spot a small child somewhere. The baby had not been behind a door, he was almost certain of that.
What happened next caused Ken’s blood to run cold. His throat closed as his mouth went dry. Part of him stood there, detached from the scene and simply refusing to accept it.
Then it happened again. The Miller girl let loose with a sound that was just like a baby’s cry. How could that be possible?
He scrambled to recall her name. There had to be something else going on here. Maybe she was hurt. Perhaps, for some inexplicable reason, that was the only sound she could make. His logical mind knew better, but anything had to be better than this possibility.
“Alyssa Miller?”
Ken jumped when the mayor called out to the girl from beside him. He’d been so focused on the situation and its impossibility that he hadn’t heard or felt the mayor step up next to him.
The girl turned, and Ken’s gut tightened. Her eyes made it very clear that she was one of them. They were filmed over and shot full of the black tracers indicating her status of being infected. She was one of those things. Then he noticed the bandage on her hand.
She opened her mouth again and let loose with that terrible sound. This was nothing like the noise the zombie made at the warehouse. That sound had been low and guttural. Maybe the female versions made a different sound, he reasoned.
Whatever the situation, that thing was not the Miller’s daughter anymore. She was one of those…things.
“Is that you, boss?” a familiar voice called from behind the door the Miller girl had been clawing at.
No, he corrected himself, that was just another one of those things. He couldn’t start looking at them as human. If he did, then there would be no way he could do what needed to be done.
“It’s Sean Drinkwine,” the mayor responded to Colton’s call and Ken shook his head clear and moved up the last few stairs and edged around the mayor who had somehow gotten past him.
“The mayor?” Colton yelped. “What are you doing here?”
“He’s here with me,” Ken said, reasserting himself into the situation.
“That Miller g
irl is crazy,” Colton yelped from the other side of the door. “She tried to bite me…and she stinks!”
Ken held his tongue. Surely the kid wasn’t that stupid that he didn’t realize what had happened. He’d obviously seen the same news as everybody else the previous night.
He was about to ask if she’d managed to bite him when a low moan from the bottom of the stairs caused him to jerk and spin around. Standing at the bottom of the stairs was Sheila Miller, Alyssa’s mom.
She had her right cheek almost entirely torn away. Her tongue—what was left of it since it looked like a chunk of the tip had been bitten off as well—poked around and flopped hideously through that rip. Also, it looked like maybe one ear had been ripped off. When she reached for them, Ken could see that the fingers of one hand were bent back in odd and abnormal directions just as Ned had said. This also ended his theory that the female versions made a different sound. Sheila Miller had let loose with a moan just as low and plaintive as that poor fella at the warehouse office.
“Dear lord,” the mayor gasped, the thud of the sledge echoing like distant thunder as it dropped from the mayor’s hand.
Ken looked over to see that the man appeared to have just realized he was now trapped between two of the walking dead. His head kept swinging from the Miller girl that was making her slow and unsteady way toward them to Sheila Miller who was now trying to make her way up the stairs.
Ken brandished the pry bar and sighed. He would have to take care of this himself by the looks of things. He eased the mayor back with one arm and advanced on the zombie teen. The bandage on her hand had come partially off and his eyes fixed on the dark bruising around the meaty part at the base of the thumb with what might be a single slight puncture in the flesh.
It looked so minor that he had a tough time reconciling the whole of the situation. How could an injury so slight be the reason the girl turned? He scanned her, searching for something more, but that was the only evidence. There was blood around her mouth and drying on her chin, but no injury to speak of.
