We drove on past the creature that devoured the poor girl. I could see the creature’s head crane and its body turn as we went past. It made a halfhearted reach at the truck but moved too slowly to present any threat.
Driving past the young girl it felt disrespectful to simply leave her there for this creature to have its way with. I knew that someone somewhere might be waiting for her; waiting in vain for she would never come. If it had been me I would want to know what had happened to a loved one, someone I cared about.
That girl had been precious to someone, loved by someone, but all that she was, all that she could have been, all of her potential, now reduced to nothing more than chucks of rotting meat inside the putrid belly of that unholy, godless thing. Despite of how we felt there was nothing we could do for her, not even a decent burial, not now, not like this; her problems were now over but ours were just beginning. We drove off doing our best to leave the scene behind
us.
A few miles down the road we began to calm somewhat. The fog of events that had so quickly transpired began to settle as reality reasserted its grasp. The death grip on the steering wheel began to loosen as my heart rate slowed and breathing returned to normal, I took a deep breath and tried to re-collect myself.
Rick's cell phone had been ringing wildly throughout the whole ordeal, Rick had dropped the phone when I lost control of the truck and Amanda had gotten disconnected. Rick snatched it up off the floorboard and answered. I could hear Amanda yelling frantically, but couldn't tell what she was saying; all I could hear was Rick's response.
“It's alright, it’s alright, we just ran into...an accident”. He commented without giving the details of what had just happened.
“Okay, okay where are you now?” He nodded, listening intently.
“Good, now listen to me. Be careful and don't stop anywhere you hear me? Don't stop anywhere! When you get to my place get inside and lock the door. Don't answer it for anyone, don't go outside for anything, just sit tight. I will explain everything when I get there. We'll be there in about twenty minutes. Just stay put, I love you . . . we'll be there soon.” Rick hung up, his hands trembling.
No doubt Amanda already knew something of what was happening, but considering the situation there was going to be some degree of explanation required.
“What’s going on?” I asked of the conversation he had just had with Amanda.
“...She's about ten minutes from my place.” I could see a sense of relief in his eyes as he spoke.
“Good, good, okay then, let’s get back to town. See I told you everything was going to be okay. Let’s just try to forget about what we saw back there, and don't say anything to her about it when we get back”
The remaining twenty minutes back to town seemed as if it took forever. Neither of us had much to say, what could we say? Rick sat quietly just staring out the passenger side window. Trying to process everything that had happened over these last few hours had left our minds drained. Only a day ago we were sitting in my backyard grilling, drinking and relaxing by the pool, talking about high definition and watching girls run around in bikini's. We were as
loose and carefree as anyone could be; but now that sparkling, shimmering water seemed so very far away.
As it stood my objective was to get us back to Barkley safe and unharmed; baby steps, crossing each bridge as I came to it and not thinking much more ahead than that, for each time I did I found myself overwhelmed.
Many of the houses we passed along the way were either already boarded up or in the process. Once beautiful homes, now bastardized by ugly 2x4's and sheets of heavy, knotted plywood. I remembered on the news seeing people on the coast fortifying their homes when getting ready for a hurricane; the scene here was not unlike that in many respects. We continued to listen to the radio, and everything we heard indicated mixed and scattered, it was hard to get a real bead on the situation.
“Hey Rick; what about Frankie and Brit? Have you tried to get a hold of them?” I asked.
Rick had been doing nothing but staring out the window in silence for miles now; it was like he was trying to awake from a deep slumber, only thing was he wasn't asleep, he was in shock. I had never seen my best friend so out of it and shaken. “Um no, no ...I haven't” he said, shaking the cobwebs from his head.
“Why don't you try to give him a call? See if they're okay”. I was concerned; no one had heard from Frankie and his wife since this whole ordeal began.
Rick dialed and Frankie picked up almost immediately. Rick in a moment of clarity put him on speaker phone.
“Hey you guys okay?” I said, relieved that we were able to get a hold of them.
“I just I...I...I can't believe this is happening.” He kept repeating.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“We're here at the store, we can't get out of town.”
Rick and I looked at each other in despair. The Game Pad was a single level store with only one way in and one way out. The front of the store was simple, with three huge panes of glass each beside the other; not much protection from much of anything. Knowing that even if those “things” didn't get to them it was likely that looters and scavengers would. We couldn't say anything, couldn't do anything to cause further alarm. Frankie knew all this as well as we did, he was no dummy.
“Are you going to be all right buddy?” I asked, hoping that he was in better than standing that it would seem.
“Yeah, were gonna be fine. I've got all the windows covered, the backdoor is dead bolted and barred, and no one can get in. We've got the car around back so no one knows we're here, we have that old heavy metal trash dumpster...”, he paused.
“Yeah, I remember that, what about it?” I said.
“I pushed that in through the back doors and I've got it up against the entrance. I flipped it over so it can't be moved, no one will be able to get in, it weighs a ton.”
Rick cut in, “You got food and stuff? Whatever you do don't make any noise and don't do anything to let anyone know you’re there, make it look abandoned”
“We are going be alright. We had a bunch of snacks from the machine and we got to the store before it got crazy, we can hold out a long while if we have too. I think it will be alright, I have my gun here if things get out of hand.” Frankie seemed confident and it sounded like he had everything covered, but remembering the layout of the store I questioned how long the two of them could hold on or go undiscovered; and a little pistol might be fine against a few rogue thugs, but against the damned things we now faced it seemed like little protection.
Without thinking Rick asked if he wanted us to come up and try to get them. I looked at him wide eyed and shook my head. He knew it had been a mistake to ask, but now it was on the table and we were obligated if he accepted our offer. I could have strangled Rick, his heart was in the right place; but realistically there was no way for us to get to Frankie, there was nothing we could possibly do. An awkward silence fell over the situation as seconds passed, seconds that felt like hours as we held our breath for Frankie's reply.
“No, listen, we're okay, you guys can't get into town anyway, its nuts out here! The only way you can get anywhere now is on foot. It took us two hours to get from the mall back to the south side. There ain't nothing you can do, we will be fine here”
We were glad that he had let us off the hook, but felt guilty as we were basically leaving them to fend for themselves. Frankie was right though; considering what he had just told us it would have been fruitless trying to get back into town and this point.
“Okay, but if you need anything, or hear anything let us know alright? We're worried about you buddy,” I told him.
“Just play it cool. Don't make a sound, don't even go outside and you'll be alright,” Rick added.
“You guys just take care of yourselves. It will all be under control soon, they've been bringing in the military all day” Frankie repeated.
“Alright, well we are going to go man, we'll talk to you l
ater, k?”
“Okay, good luck guy, talk to you later” Then just like that, he was gone.
I closed the phone praying that this wasn't the last time we heard from our friend. We felt horrible, we wanted to help but there was nothing we could do. The word futility came to mind, a word I had never truly understood until this day and now I understood it all too well.
We drove the remaining twenty minutes back to Barkley without incident.
We arrived back in Barkley only to find complete chaos. People were doing exactly the opposite of what had been advised, (why this surprised me in this little redneck podunk' town I don't know).
There was a gas station sitting on the right, just as we came into town, it had a line a mile long. People came in all sorts of vehicles, some on foot with gas cans in hand. Anything and everything that could hold a sip of fuel was brought up to the pumps. The panic and desperation was sickening. People sat in their cars cooking in the summer heat, sweat pouring off of them for some small chance to get what little fuel remained in the nearly depleted pumps. What would they use the fuel for? Were they going to make a futile run for safety? Had they not heard the news? Fucking morons, sooner or later this would be a worldwide pandemic, maybe it already was; there would be nowhere to run. Bunch of stupid dumb ass rednecks with little intelligence, and no common sense to speak of; little people with little minds.
Cars and trucks packed with screaming children filled the station. Distraught mothers tried to calm crying babies who were heat-exhausted, their little faces beet red from over-exposure. What made the situation worse was that we recognized many of the faces there.
Rick pointed, “Look at that”.
Up the road Mark's Grocery was also packed. People forcing their way past each other scrambling to gather the last remaining food and provisions remained. They carried goods out by hand, pushed carts down the street; or made off with things by whatever other means they could manage. We could have been wrong, but it didn't look to us like any of them were paying customers.
Further down the road the sheriff's department was on high alert. All off-duty officers and local volunteers had been called in to help assist in evacuations and emergency preparedness; I imagined that the scene was much the same across the entire state. Officers
were gathered outside the makeshift head-post, shouting orders and giving direction through hand-held radios. You could hear the squawk of the police radios as we drove past.
As we turned off down the street that would eventually lead us to Cider road, we saw a large group of men congregating like a makeshift lynch mob complete with guns, hatchets, and cans of gasoline. One of the swarthy men had climbed into the bed of an old beat-up truck. A large, bloated, barrel-chested man with a thick gray beard stood overlooking the scene. He was wearing dirty overalls which obviously hadn't been washed anytime in the recent past. As we watched he began to shout.
“Let’s get these sum' of a bitches, lets fuckin' kill 'em!”. It was Haderson, I recognized him immediately, he had been Barkley's sheriff several years ago and not a particularly good one at that. Wilburn Haderson was his name, but everyone around here called him “Willy”. Some folks were probably more forgiving than I and overlooked his...tendencies. I harbored a deep disgust for the incompetent bastard parading around as “the law”. Haderson was a
raging alcoholic; no better than half the drunks he himself hauled in. Years ago I had a run in with him when my house was robbed, when Haderson finally arrived to take my report his uniform wreaked as if it had been soaked in old Kentucky bourbon and the old fuck was so loaded he could barely stand; even now I had no doubt he was full of the cheap booze and cigarettes.
We slowed down to watch the whole debacle play out. Haderson had built them into an absolute frenzy; these stupid rednecks were blissfully unaware of what they were going to be up against. They probably would kill dozens, maybe even hundreds of these things but the problem was you weren't up against a few dozen or even a few hundred for that matter; we were looking at a figure in the thousands. Taking down one or two, sure no problem, but what
happens when it goes from one vs. one to one vs. fifty, or a hundred?
“What the fuck do they think they are going to do?” Rick cursed. “What the hell is their goddamn problem? Stupid fucking rednecks, they're going to get themselves killed.”
“I know but it’s not like anything we have to say is going to change their minds. If we go in there and try to convince them otherwise it’s just going to piss them off. Let’s just get back home, we’ve got to take care of ourselves first; it's all we can do.”
We felt a sigh of relief as we finally turned down Cider road, our long trek from Panatauk nearly over; we were only minutes from home now. The few scattered houses along the road seemed deserted. It appeared that most of our neighbors chose to pack up and leave
rather than stay behind and try to hold out. It didn't make much sense to me, as the home field advantage would be to stay in the place where one was the most familiar.
This part of the country was flat, as how it was mostly farmland. The large stretches of land on Cider road weren't any different. It was early in the planting season and most of the land had just been tilled, but not yet planted. For a mile in either direction all you could see were barren fields, with a vague tree line meeting the horizon off in the distance.
We were only a few minutes from Rick's when we came across another heart wrenching sight, and it's one of the few incidents that have stuck with me to this very day.
Walking on the side of the road was a large, portly woman wearing a long gown. The type of gown that isn't exactly a dress, but more akin to pajamas. We knew immediately who it was as she was a familiar sight on our road. It was Mrs. Martinez, a sweet old lady somewhere in her mid-sixties. I would drive by on my way to work and she would always be out in her garden. She would always take the time to stop and wave as I drove by. She was the classic grandmother type, heavy-set, sweet and cheerful. The kind of grandmother you could easily imagine in the kitchen baking sugar cookies for her grandchildren. She had lived alone for many years, her husband Ed having passed away a long time before. Ed was a kindly man, sometimes I would stop and chat with him from time to time. They didn't have any family that I knew of, at-least none that ever saw. They seemed to enjoy it when people stopped by to shoot the breeze. They were just good old fashioned people; the world needed more like them.
It seemed odd in light of recent events that she would just be out walking around alone as if nothing was going on. She almost certainly would have heard the news by now, but she was quite old and getting more than a little forgetful in recent years, so I dismissed it.
“Hey,” as I tapped Rick on the shoulder and pointed. “Isn't that Ms. Martinez?”
“Yeah, yeah it is, pull up, let’s see if she's okay.” Rick asked.
“Okay, but let’s just be careful” I said as we approached.
As we neared something about Ms. Martinez didn't seem right. She appeared to be disheveled and had a strange gait to her walk. We got closer, within yards…
As the front of the truck neared we could see that she was covered in blood.
“SHE'S HURT!” Rick hollered.
“No, something isn’t right, man...” I told him.
Then, just as Rick's passenger side window meet up with the old woman she turned and looked at Rick. Her eyes were half rolled back in her head and had a glazed, milky white sheen to them. She was cradling one arm with the other. The reason she was so covered in blood? She had been feeding on herself; taking huge chunks out of her own flesh. You could easily see the gaping wounds she had inflicted upon herself; torn shreds of skin, muscle and sinew dangled from the bone, dripping with thick, rich blood which looked as though it was already half congealed. She looked at us through those dead eyes and let out a moan that was part scream, part breathless wheeze.
We didn't wait to see what happened next and Rick didn't have to say anything this tim
e. I slammed on the gas, the force of which threw him back against the seat.
“DAMN IT! GODDAMMIT! FUCKK, FUCCKK, FUUUUCCCKKKK!!!!!!!” I screamed as I started pounding the steering wheel. “She never did a goddamned thing toanyone, nobody! This is fucking bullshit!”
It was true, the old woman had never hurt a soul; but that didn't matter. Whatever this infection, virus or radiation...whatever the hell it was, it didn't take into consideration past deeds whether they be for ill or good, everyone was the same. Young, old, sick, well, dead or living. It didn't matter, it leveled the playing field.
“I know it’s not right; but there is nothing we can do for her. Whatever that thing was, it wasn't her. She's gone now and that body is just what's left behind. She's with God and now she's not hurting okay?” Rick said trying to comfort me.
Zombies! Rising from the Dead Page 5
