by Evans, Mike
Jude nodded and looked back to Ed. “You got any last words, kid? Anything you don’t want following you wherever you end up going?”
Ed said, “Aren't you going to wait until I turn into one of those things? You aren’t going to just go and kill me in cold blood, are ya?”
Jude set his axe down and marched forward with the machete. "I wish I could be more civil, kid, but unfortunately for you, I got family to protect. I don’t have the time to wait around here for you to die and come back. The quicker you're gone, the better for everyone involved.”
Jude brought up the machete, quickly slicing through Ed's jugular. Ed took a few steps back, falling down. He brought his hands up to his neck, trying in vain to stop the bleeding. Jude stood clear as the boy’s tear-filled eyes went dark and he fell to the ground. Jude caught his breath for a moment, hoping that, going forward, he would only have to kill those who had already passed and come back. He grabbed the axe as the boy’s body started to twitch and brought the blunt end down three times, until he was sure there’d be nothing left to hurt anyone.
He went back to the store’s showroom, moving displays placed in front of the truck. When he climbed in, he thought it was almost a shame he was more than likely going to take this thing on a ride to hell and back. Jude turned the engine over and let his foot off of the clutch, revving the engine and letting it warm up for a minute before the abuse that wouldn’t quit was bound to start. The others came around the corner, armed to the teeth with newly acquired weapons. Chuck was doubly weighed down, carrying Jude’s chainsaw as well as his own. When the four saw the truck, no one needed to tell them to get in. Jude pulled up slowly, and they took it out the front doors.
Chapter 2
They drove in silence and felt halfway optimistic for a moment, seeing that the rest of the town was still normal. When they drove down the highway, they saw a few cars parked on the side of the road. Further on, they saw cemeteries. Those who had stopped to see what was going on had most likely, become part of the problem. Jude didn’t stop, knowing that, for the greater good, it was better to ignore the dead and to keep moving. They were mostly alone on the road. They passed a few billboards advertising a Kansas City Royals game, as well as a NASCAR race.
When Chuck saw the race ad, he said, “You realize God doesn’t like us, right? The one time we're down here when there's a race, and we gotta go to the news and then deal with zombies.”
“Yeah, you know, that’s God’s way of getting back at you for all the shit you’ve done in life, Chuck,” Leslie said.
Chuck smiled, almost bouncing in his seat, and clapped his hands together, looking over at Jude. “You know, if by some chance we take care of all these things and get to be, like, heroes and shit, I’m gonna ask for a NASCAR.”
Jude pinched the bridge of his nose. “So in this fictitious world you live in—you know, the one where you save the world and are a hero—the only thing that you want to ask for is a NASCAR?”
Chuck shrugged. “I guess maybe I’d take me a billion dollars or two. I’m not a greedy man, Jude. I don’t need much. Just a lil’ nest egg and a good woman.” He turned around, smiling at Leslie in the backseat, raising his eyebrows. “That isn’t too much to ask, is it, Jude?”
Jude shook his head, unable to think about it at the moment. He wished he'd taken five minutes to call home when he was at the store. He knew there wasn't anything he could do for his family in the face of the impending apocalypse, and calling would waste valuable time. Jude was confident that the best thing he could do for them was to get the news out to the rest of the masses and then get home.
His family was by far the most important thing to him in life, but he kept telling himself that if he could save all of the people who were able to see the broadcast, there would be that many fewer people to turn into the dead. Fewer people to try and eat himself and his family along the way.
Just as they pulled into town, the rain began again. Chuck said, “Holy shit, where does this rain keep coming from?”
“Hell, Chuck," Jude replied. "Hell. You guys get those windows up—I don’t want anything coming out of nowhere and reaching inside the truck.”
Leslie said, “Yeah, I’d say we have a unanimous vote on that. You guys need to take it easy. I can’t see shit out there, so I’d imagine you aren’t able to see anything either, correct?”
“Nope, can’t see a damn thing. We need to let the rain stop, but there's a good chance we'll be able to break in on a special weather forecast if we get lucky. I don’t know what the answer is.”
They went slowly at first, until they realized they were the only ones out on the road. This gave Jude a new-found confidence and he sped up, trying to find the signs to direct them to the downtown district. When they were close, the rain was finally beginning to slow.
Chuck rolled down the window and could feel all things good going to hell in a handbag. He watched a group of the homeless, holding cups and a liquor bottles. He thought, How the hell are they keeping from drinking the rainwater? until he realized they were using their cups and liquor bottles to collect it. Chuck yelled, “Don’t drink the water! I repeat, do not drink the water. There's something wrong with the rain—you aren’t going to make it if you keep drinking it!”
The homeless men, unused to being noticed unless the police were harassing them to stop sleeping on the street, extended their middle fingers to him. They leaned backwards and slammed the liquor-water as quickly as they could.
Chuck nodded, smiling. “Well, you enjoy that cold drink of death you're sipping on. I’ll be back around later. We got some saving the world shit we need to do. You all go ahead and do the zombie thing, and try not to bite anyone.”
The middle fingers never left, and Chuck just shook his head. Jude pulled up near the entrance to the news broadcasting station, and they looked at the height of it. The sun was slowly starting to come out over its edge, making it almost impossible for them to see the top of the building.
Charlie said, “You know, the news station is probably up on the top floor of that place.”
“Why, what makes you think that, Charlie?” Jude asked.
“Because the longer I hang around with you all, the more I think you don't have a whole hell of a lot of good luck come your way.”
Chuck opened his mouth to retort, but couldn’t dispute Charlie's observation.
Leslie said, “Yesterday, they saved me from a van surrounded by zombies, but I think I’ve almost been killed ten or twenty times since then.”
Jude watched pedestrians, who'd been waiting for the rain to stop, emerge from their hiding places in buildings and parking garages as the rain turned to mist. The people with umbrellas were safe, but their children were running in circles around them. If this town was any indication of how the rest of the United States was going to be affected, Jude knew today would be the bloodiest in American history. He could not help but think of Patrick; if he became one of the dead, Jude would not have the heart to put him out of his misery.
Jude pulled into the first empty spot he could find. He looked in his rearview, seeing that it might already be too late
Chuck opened the door, ready to roll, and stopped when Jude did not do the same. “Jude, you, uh, good, buddy?”
Jude shook his head. He turned fully around in his seat, pointing. “Look there, you see those kids?”
Chuck was about to comment that they must be sick, but caught up to what Jude had said. The children looked like they were spasming on the ground at first.
Charlie and the others were watching, as well. Charlie said, “Hey, what the hell is wrong with those kids?”
“Well, you’ve seen what happens when someone gets bitten, right?" Jude asked. "Well, now you’ve seen what happens when you drink the water. Do not, at all, drink the water. That is currently a guaranteed one-way trip to Hell, and the quickest way to become one of those…those things.”
Charlie nodded slowly, watching the children rise back up to
their feet. When they did, the parents knelt down, thankful that their children were okay. The children, of course, weren’t okay, and leapt at their parents. They knocked the adults backwards, and their once sweet faces were now filled with hunger and rage. The kids quickly ripped into their parents' necks, sending geysers of blood into the street.
The adults screamed and kicked. Immediately and unfortunately, onlookers ran to their aid. Expecting to be able to stop the children, the good Samaritans became fresh targets. The children ripped and clawed at them, bringing the onlookers to the ground. By the time they were done feasting on the helpers, the parents were rising to their feet and looking for meals of their own. They no longer seemed to know who their children were, literally ripping them off of the feasts in front of them, and began gorging themselves on the victims.
Jude said, “So, what was that—like, three minutes? It took a hell of a lot longer the first time the change took place. It’s happening faster.”
“This is bad," Joann commented. "This is very, very bad.”
Chuck snorted. “You figure that out with all those science degrees you got?”
“Chuck, shut up, please. We need to help those people,” Joann said.
“Those people are fucked," Jude countered. "We need to get inside, and we need to stay there for a while and get the message out.”
“Oh, I am all about getting inside of a building right now,” Chuck said.
The five of them got out of the truck, grabbing their arsenals and sprinting into the building. The security guards, who had been watching the truck since it pulled up, jumped to their feet and ran toward the doors. The normal, mundane, boring days of sitting around watching self-important big wigs walk past them were going to seem like heaven very soon.
When the five walked through the door, armed to the teeth, the younger guard ran back for the desk and picked up the phone, dialing 911.
The second guard yelled at him, “What the hell are you doing? Five people come running in with weapons, and you run back to the desk?”
“I’m calling the police, you idiot. They have fucking chainsaws, Howard, what exactly do you think you're going to do to stop them? You have a flashlight and a fucking nightstick—what are you going to do? Get in their way so you can get killed?”
Howard rationalized this quickly, and realized that, while his partner Mark might be right, he still had a job to do. His nightstick felt light and useless in his hands as he imagined the weight of the strangers' saws, axes, and machetes. He screamed, trying to convey as much authority as possible to the group coming in. “You stop! You stop right there, and…and, uh, put your weapons on the ground, now!”
Jude might as well have been on a mission from God, the way he ignored Howard completely. When he tried to pass, Howard stepped in Jude’s way. Jude’s hands were full, a saw in one and an extra gas tank. The security guard smirked, cockily tapping the club in his other hand. Jude yelled, “Get the fuck out of my way, now!”
“You aren’t allowed to enter here, sir. You put down your weapons and you lay down on the ground now…or else.”
When Jude kept advancing, Howard stepped forward with the club handle wrapped firmly around his hand. To Jude's surprise, Howard brought the club back and swung it, aiming for Jude’s head. Jude brought up his right foot, never stopping, and kicked Howard squarely in the balls.
Tears came quickly to Howard’s eyes. He gripped himself, falling to the ground. He tried to get up and, when he did, puked everywhere, covering his hands in it and slipping. He fell back to the floor, soaked in his own vomit. Howard coughed, wiping at his chin and trying to push up from the ground, only to slip again.
Mark remained seated with the phone to his ear, watching while Howard crawled back behind the security desk. He knew the police would be needed to take care of this invasion, growing nervous as the phone on the other end continued to ring. He cupped his hand over the receiver and said, “You are a dumbshit, Howard. Why in the hell didn’t you wait?”
Howard pushed up so that he was leaning against the drawers. He looked down at himself and stripped off his work shirt, wondering if he or his wife would be able to get it clean. He thought about how he'd explain his day to her when he got home. Anyone who failed as a security guard didn't last long, and his biggest worry at the moment was keeping his job.
At the moment he worried more so that maybe they would get the puke out and when they did, they would have to find him a new job. He knew being a security guard wasn’t the hardest employment to get and anyone who failed at it, didn’t last much longer afterwards. Howard got up to his hands and said, “I'm going outside; I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“What do you mean—you're going out to your car? You can’t leave. Those crazies are still up there. What do you expect me to do until then?”
Howard said, “I'm going out to my car and getting my pistol. You keep on being a coward behind the desk. If those dumb sons of bitches come back my way, I'm putting a hole in the fuckers. I guarantee that bastard who kicked me in my unmentionables is going to get it back tenfold.”
“You can’t go around shooting people, Howard.”
“I'm not going around shooting people. I'm making sure that nothing happens to the talent upstairs. They're probably some crazy religious cult that's gonna blow itself up on the top floor!”
Mark moved the receiver away from his mouth, looking at him. “Are you shitting me? You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“No, not really. What are the police saying? We need them down here, like, five minutes ago,” Howard said.
“I'm on hold, but for some reason no one is picking up the phone, keeps saying that all operators are busy. What the hell are they so busy about? It's Sunday, no one does shit on Sundays.”
Howard said with no shortage of sarcasm, “Yeah, not a damn thing, except, you know, there's a NASCAR race and a Royals game going on. I can’t imagine there’d be any extra traffic because of that.”
Mark was about to retort when an officer came on the line. He held up a finger. When Howard kept trying to talk, the finger became a middle one, which Mark shook the hell out of toward Howard. Mark said, “Yes, we have an issue down at News Station Channel Seven. We just had four or five people go running through our lobby, armed with chainsaws and machetes. No, I have no clue what they wanted, they didn’t say. I don’t know if they're hostile, but I’d lean towards yes. Why? Because they kicked my partner in the balls…yes, the balls. The man was running straight for the elevator, and when my partner got in his way, the man kicked him in the balls and just kept on running.”
Mark hung up the phone, shaking his head. Howard yelled, “Well, what did they say? What are we supposed to do?”
“They said they aren’t able to do anything for the time being. They said the entire city is going crazy. I don’t know why, though; the paper says that shit's not going to start until this afternoon. I don’t understand what the hell is going on. What are we going to do about those people, then?”
“I'm going to go out and get my gun, and then I'm going to go put a hole in that son of a bitch if he takes another swing at me!”
Mark just stared for a moment. “Is it really a swing, when they kick you in the balls? I mean, wouldn’t it be take a kick at you?”
“Mark, how the hell did you get this job? Are you someone’s nephew or cousin? Are you one of those special needs guys they gave a job to make things look good on the books?”
“You know, that offends me. I got this job fair and square. They said down at the employment agency that if I do good for three months, they’ll hire me on full time.”
Howard shook his head, not responding, and checked his pockets, making sure he had his car keys before running out the door. When Howard made it out, he stopped short, seeing the pandemonium in the streets. He saw what looked like people wrestling on the ground in the distance and felt he should go help, if it weren't for the trouble taking place in his own building.
The roaring from down the street grew louder, and he thought that, once they let the police in, he and Mark should be sure to lock the front doors. Of course, had he known anything about the so-called rioters, he would have known it wouldn’t matter what he did. The lock would only slow them down. It would do no good when it came to stopping them; it would simply get in their way.
When Mark saw Howard coming, he shouted, “Howard! Howard, come look at this shit! They're showing the Royals game today against the Cubs.”
“You know I don’t care about baseball, right, kid?”
“Oh, you might want to come have a look at this.”
Howard could feel a migraine forming, two veins pulsating in his forehead. He was sure that one was for Mark and the other was for the guy who’d seen fit to kick him in the balls. Howard walked around the desk, getting a good look at the small black and white television they kept for entertainment on the slow weekends so they wouldn't fall asleep on the job. He bent in, trying to understand what, exactly, he was seeing. Howard asked, “I’m sorry, but are those guys pretending to eat each other on the field?”
“Sure as shit looks that way, doesn’t it? They didn’t say nothing about having any movie stunts going on during the game today.”
“Movie stunts?” Howard asked.
“You know, zombie movies, movie stunts, whatever you call it.”
Howard flicked the set off. “We have important things to deal with here and now. Come on, let’s go, kid.”
The two ran for the elevator, ready to take care of the intruders.
Chapter 3
Jude held the elevator door, looking back at his handiwork in the form of the security guard on the floor holding himself. Jude was glad they hadn't been armed; he knew if someone had kicked him in the balls, he’d be happy to shoot them for it and pay for his sins later. The other four hustled through the door and Jude stepped in, letting it finally close. Leslie studied the floor numbers, found the one for the news station, and punched it. Chuck leaned over into Jude’s ear and said, “Dude, you know how much bad karma kicking a guy in the balls is going to get you? That was the best idea you could think of?”
