One Hour to Live

by Gary M. Chesla

  Lisa laughed and shook her head.

  “No way. You better let me talk to him,” Lisa smiled. “At least he won’t try to shoot me. I hope.”

  They rode quietly for a few minutes.

  “This is the first time I’ve had a chance to look at your car in the daylight,” Lisa said as she sat up and looked down over the hood. “It’s a real mess.”

  “A cracked windshield, blood everywhere, an arm wedged in the grill,” Kevin chuckled, “Don’t you think you’re over reacting a little by calling my car a mess!”

  Lisa smiled and squeezed Kevin’s hand.

  Kevin was still worried about seeing Lisa’s dad.

  “Do you think it would help if I showed your dad the car?” Kevin asked. “Maybe so long as he didn’t think all the blood on the car was yours, he might give me the benefit of the doubt.”

  “You kept me out all night,” Lisa grinned, “anything else as far as he will be concerned, would just be something you did to try and cover up what you were up to. Then if he looks at the smile you always put on my face and if he finds out how you got that jacket, I think he will just shoot you.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Kevin laughed. “I guess I’ll just play it by ear when we get back. With all the fucked-up shit going on, your dad is the least of our problems.”

  “Sorry for making a joke out of this,” Lisa said, “I just needed something to make me laugh, I feel like I have been scared to death for the last two days.”

  “I know how you feel,” Kevin replied, “it’s OK. But when we get back, we tell everyone what we saw. They believe us or they don’t, but we know what we saw. Then we just hope that it doesn’t happen again. Shit, that scares the hell out of me to think it could happen again.”

  They thought about what they had been through and knew they were both lucky to be alive.

  Telling her parents about it, whatever her dad wanted to believe would be nothing to deal with compared to what they had been through.

  In fact, the more they rolled things over in their minds, they decided that they really didn’t care what Lisa’s dad thought. If they were all dead by the end of the day, it wouldn’t matter what he thought.

  Kevin slowed the Subaru down to a crawl and finally stopped the car on the road in front of the old rusty one lane bridge when they reached the Conemaugh River.

  “I can’t believe this,” Lisa said. “They beat us to Bolivar.”

  The old rusty bridge over the river to Bolivar, was no longer just an orange and brown rusty color.

  The surface of the road and four feet up on each side of the bridge was now covered with red streaks.

  “Maybe they didn’t beat us to Bolivar,” Kevin said as he stared at the bridge.

  “Then what the hell are we looking at?” Lisa asked. “It sure looks like they got here before we did.”

  “What if it wasn’t them,” Kevin asked.

  “Who else would it have been?” Lisa said looking confused.

  “Something you said yesterday just hit me,” Kevin said.

  “I probably said a lot of things yesterday,” Lisa replied. “I’ve been told I like to talk a lot.”

  “It was the reason you are home,” Kevin continued. “You said the docks, your school and the mall where you worked all closed because of that ship at the dock with all the sick people on it. We’ve been wondering where these zombies were coming from. What if that is where all this started?”

  “Do you think these are the people from that ship,” Lisa asked.

  “Not the same people, but that’s where it could have started. You saw how the dead were coming back to life at the bus and the motel,” Kevin said. “It could have started in Boston and now they’re coming down our way. I don’t know if that’s what happened, it’s just a thought that crossed my mind, but where else could this all have started?”

  “That’s scary, Kevin,” Lisa said. “I thought we were in deep shit before, if that’s what’s happening, we could really be screwed.”

  “But again, what the fuck do I know,” Kevin sighed.

  “I would imagine, probably more than anyone else right now,” Lisa replied. “I think we need to get home.”

  “I hope we have a home to go home to,” Kevin said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Lisa whispered.

  Kevin began to drive the Subaru over the bridge slowly, careful not to hit any of the many potholes with any force, again, so as not to make his front tire start to go flat.

  The all-wheel drive, spun on the slick bloody surface a few times before they finally made it safely to the other side of the bridge.

  When they reached the movie theatre, Lisa said, “It looks like they’ve been everywhere.”

  “There must have been a lot of them,” Kevin replied. “Shit, they make one hell of a mess where ever they go.”

  “Yeah, even for Bolivar this is a mess,” Lisa added.

  Lisa and Kevin were becoming more concerned as they approached the bridge that crossed over the sulfur creek.

  Seeing this much blood and gore this close to home, they began to worry about the possibility that something could have happened to their parents.

  Kevin worried that if his dad and old Bill were sitting out in the yard, drunk on their asses when the dead came through, they wouldn’t have had a chance.

  Lisa’s mind wandered as she considered the possibilities of what could have happened if the zombies had already been at her house.

  The first thing Lisa thought was, “What if my mom was outside hanging up clothes when the zombies came?

  When Lisa had lived at home before going off to school, Lisa’s mother, to her embarrassment, had always liked to hang the wash out in the yard to dry.

  Lisa didn’t have a problem with hanging clothes out to dry in the yard, a lot of people did that. But Lisa sometimes had a problem with what her mother hung out to dry.

  Lisa had never minded when her mother hung her dresses or jeans out to dry, but whenever she hung out Lisa’s then little bras for the whole neighborhood to see, it was embarrassing.

  On their second date that summer, when Kevin came over to pick her up, her small bras were hanging out on the line. Trying to be funny, Kevin said he didn’t know that she had a little baby sister.

  However, by the end of that second date, Kevin never teased her again about that subject.

  Lisa didn’t mind Kevin coming over when her underwear was on the line after that night.

  In fact, she kind of enjoyed it.

  The only other comment Kevin ever made again about her bras that summer besides, “The damn hook is stuck,” was, “I can’t believe you can actually wear this little thing.”

  After that, Lisa could care less what the neighbors thought. All that mattered to her was what Kevin was thinking

  and she soon discovered that it wasn’t very hard to figure out what Kevin was thinking.

  Lisa’s thoughts again turned back to the present as the impact of the eerie sights in front of her, brought her back to reality.

  If her mother was out in the yard hanging clothes on the line when the zombies came, it would have been over quickly. Her mother got so involved in what she was doing when she hung out clothes, a truck could run her over and she would never hear it coming.

  When Miller’s Service Station came into view, Kevin’s heart jumped into his throat when he saw the bloody trail veer off Market Street and go up through the yards that led straight to his house.

  “Shit I hope my dad and Bill weren’t sitting out back drinking beer when this happened,” Kevin said.

  As they pulled into the driveway, Lisa tried to comfort Kevin.

  “I’m sure your dad is OK,” Lisa said. “Look, he has the shutters closed, maybe the zombies couldn’t get in.”

  Kevin looked at the house as he shut off the engine.

  The yard was a maze of bloody streaks. Chunks of dried flesh were scattered haphazardly across the yard.

  The back porch looked like a war had b
een fought there.

  Part of a bloody shirt hung from the side railing.

  A zombie must have been at the picnic table and got its arm stuck between the bench and the table legs.

  The zombie was no longer there, but the arm was still hanging from the seat.

  “I hope that arm belonged to a zombie and not…..,” Kevin started. Lisa could hear the anguish and uncertainty in his voice.

  They got out of the car.

  Lisa walked around the car and put her arm around Kevin and leaned her head against his arm.

  “He has to be OK,” Lisa said softly.

  Kevin studied the gruesome scene in front of them as they approached the house.

  When he saw the back door, he stopped and chuckled.

  “What?” Lisa asked as she looked up at him when she heard him laugh.

  “The door,” Kevin smiled.

  “Yeah, it’s a mess,” Lisa said, a little confused at

  Kevin’s demeaner.

  “No,” Kevin said, “The shutters are closed and the door is boarded up. Dad wouldn’t have boarded up the door before the zombies came. He would have done that after the zombies had gone.”

  Lisa squeezed Kevin as a cheerful grin formed on her face, “Let’s go in and make sure he is OK.”

  “When we get up to the door,” Kevin said, “Don’t stand right in front of the door. My dad might shoot you.”

  “Why? Does he know we didn’t really go to the carnival? Do you think that someone told him that instead of the carnival, I took you to a motel and had my way with you?” Lisa grinned. “I thought it was only the girl’s father that worried about things like that. Do you think if you tell him that you said yes willingly, he’ll spare me?”

  “Smart ass,” Kevin grinned, “He has a shotgun and the zombies probably pissed him off. Right now, he’ll more than likely shoot anything that comes on his porch. He can’t hit shit with that thing, but he might get lucky.”

  They quietly walked up the steps and stood off to the side of the door.

  Kevin tapped on the door as he yelled, “Dad are you in there?”

  “Kevin,” came the reply.

  “It’s me, Dad, are you OK?” Kevin asked.

  Kevin heard footsteps approaching the door and locks being turned.

  Then the door opened and Bob’s smiling face appeared.

  “Thank God, you two are OK,” Bob said as he put his arms around both Kevin and Lisa and hugged them.

  “Come on in here before those bastards come back,” Bob said.

  Kevin and Lisa stepped inside as Bob closed and relocked the door behind them.

  The kitchen was a glow from an old camping lantern sitting in the middle of the kitchen table.

  Around the lantern were about ten empty beer cans.

  Old Bill was sitting at the table and a large smile spread across his face when he saw Kevin and Lisa step inside.

  “Sit down and have a beer,” Bill said.

  “If you want a beer you better hurry and grab one before Bill drinks them all,” Bob added.

  “How was the carnival?” Bill grinned.

  Kevin didn’t say anything, but Lisa was obviously becoming her old self again.

  “I had a great time,” Lisa grinned as she pinched Kevin’s butt.

  “Yeah,” Kevin said, swatting at Lisa’s hand behind his back. “It was the rest of the evening that wasn’t so good.”

  “I can imagine,” Bob said, “Maybe we need to talk about that.”

  “Yeah, I would really like to hear about what you did at the carnival,” Bill said.

  “Forget the damn carnival, Bill,” Bob growled, “I think we have more important things we need to talk about.”

  Chapter 14

  September, One year ago

  “I was out on the porch doing my crosswords puzzle when Bill came over,” Bob was saying. “We smelled them first. The bastards smelled like death warmed over.”

  “It smelled so damn bad, I was glad we had finished our beer,” Bill said. “I don’t know if I could have stomached another beer.”

  “That bad,” Kevin smiled.

  “Don’t believe him,” Bob growled. “He could sit in a pile of shit and it wouldn’t bother him.”

  Lisa giggled.

  “But the next thing we knew, they all started coming up through the yards right at us,” Bob continued. “Bill and I came in the house because we didn’t know what the hell was going on. The next thing we knew, this gross face came breaking through the backdoor window. When I saw how many of them were on my back porch, I told Bill we had better get upstairs and barricade the damn stairwell before they all got in the house.”

  “It doesn’t look like they did too much damage in here,” Kevin said looking around the kitchen.

  “When we decided to come down and see what was what in the morning,” Bob said, “We found that only two of them had managed to get inside. They must have fallen in or were pushed in through the busted window on the door.”

  “Mac blew their fucking heads off with the shotgun,” Bill said, then he looked embarrassed. “Sorry Lisa, I didn’t mean to use profanity in front of a lady.”

  “It’s OK,” Lisa smiled, “I’ve heard that some people use those strange words sometime.”

  Lisa jumped in her seat when Kevin pinched her butt.

  “So, we tossed their asses out on Market Street, cleaned the kitchen up a little. We closed and bolted the shutters and found a few old boards behind Millers to board up the busted window in the door,” Bob said.

  “Maybe you could help lock down my place later?” Bill asked.

  “Yeah, and you can probably do a better job on that back door than we did,” Bob added. “But it will have to do for now. I just wanted to get it covered in case those things came back.”

  “Me and Mac think they were zombies,” Bill said.

  “Yeah, but what the hell do we know,” Bob added.

  “We think they are zombies too,” Lisa said. “We saw them kill people and then later, we saw the people they had killed, get back up and start walking around.”

  “Where the hell did you see that?” Bill asked.

  Kevin told his dad and Bill about what they had seen last night. When they thought they had hit something and then how, when trying to get away from the dead, they found themselves at an old motel, where they had been trapped in a bathroom for the night.

  For some reason, Bill seemed to smile a lot when Kevin told them about their experience at the motel.

  Bob became very interested when Kevin and Lisa told them about what they had seen on the bus this morning.

  “That all sounds like damn zombies to me,” Bob said after Kevin was done. “I never thought I would ever hear myself talking about damn zombies. But like you said Kevin, until someone can tell me something else that makes sense, I can’t pretend I didn’t see those bastards and just hope they go away.”

  “I wonder where they came from?” Bill asked, then he laughed. “I just thought of a joke.”

  “I could use a laugh about now,” Lisa smiled.

  “Well,” Bill grinned, “When a boy zombie and a girl zombie fall in love…”

  “Oh, knock that shit off Bill,” Bob growled, “That’s not funny. It doesn’t even make any damn sense.”

  “I guess not,” Bill grinned. “It doesn’t explain where the boy zombie and girl zombie came from.”

  Bob rolled his eyes.

  “If we ever find out where this shit started,” Bob said. “You can bet your ass the government will be behind it. They are always getting themselves into things where they don’t belong. Hell, I wouldn’t doubt they did something like this on purpose so they could declare martial law and be able to tell everyone when they can go to the bathroom.”

  “Maybe that’s how they were going to take care of all those damn rioters,” Bill added.

  “What rioters?” Kevin asked. “We didn’t hear anything about riots. We haven’t been able to get anything on
the radio for two days.”

  “Yeah, our radios stopped working yesterday too,” Bob said. “Before they stopped working, Bill said he heard something about riots in Philadelphia. Then yesterday he heard they had spread to Pittsburgh. We didn’t pay it no mind. Those lazy entitled bastards are always rioting.”

  Lisa looked at Kevin.

  “Philadelphia is just right down the coast from Boston and New York,” she said.

  “I do have an idea about where this all started,” Kevin said.

  “Lisa and I were talking about it on our way home.”

  Bob looked at Kevin.

  “Before Lisa came home from Boston, a ship sailed into the harbor and crashed into the docks,” Kevin said. “They quarantined the docks, shut down her school and some area businesses because the passengers were all sick and the government was afraid what they had might spread.”

  Bob thought for a second.

  “That could make sense,” Bob said. “Something started in Boston, spread to New York and Philadelphia. Made its way over to Pittsburgh and now out our way. Who knows where the hell it has spread to by now. We could be in deep shit depending on how many of those things are around.”

  “That’s what we were thinking,” Kevin sighed.

  “Talking about home,” Lisa said. “Kevin, could you take me over to my house. I want to check on my mom and dad.”