Nation Undead (Book 1): Neighbors

by Ford, Paul Z.

  Kahn cleared his throat nervously. “Um… yes. Yes, I’m a Neighbor. I live just down the road,” he replied and returned the loose gesture, indicating somewhere into the darkness of the store. “I can pay, here. I can pay.” He fumbled his wallet out of his back pocket and tried to hand several bills to the woman. She shook her hair into her face to reject his offer.

  “Supplies are free for Neighbors,” she slurred as she slinked back into the darkness. The way she said “Neighbors” made Kahn edgy, like a venomous snake hissing a warning. He worried what toll he owed to pay for this gift. Now that his eyes had adjusted, he saw her slump into one of the chairs at the nail salon and take a big pull from a large bottle.

  Kahn quickly put his wallet away and turned to exit the store. He slowed to let the automatic doors open and crossed the vestibule quickly. As he was walking into the sunlight outdoors a small noise startled him into looking over his shoulder. Three men were standing along the edge of the wall, in the shadows where Kahn hadn’t noticed them. Were they here when he came in? He didn’t think so. He suddenly felt very apprehensive. The hair on the back of his neck felt ominous electricity in the air, he knew now something was very wrong with the atmosphere here. He watched the shadowy forms of the strangers, and their eyes followed him out the door.

  The fresh, cool air hit Kahn and he gulped in the untainted smell of the fallen rain. The sun had come out and driven the drizzle away for now. He closed his eyes and tried to recover from the dizziness he felt from running around the muggy supermarket. The sticky stench of the store began to fade from his memory.

  He opened his eyes and reviewed his environment. The situation outside the store had changed drastically in the fifteen or twenty minutes he spent inside. The small gathering down the strip had grown and moved front and center in between the two entrances to the Wal-Mart. The man with the small crowd earlier was now only about 20 feet away, and was just stepping onto some sort of raised platform or box they must have thrown together hastily on the sidewalk in between the two entries. Kahn started, shaken by the sudden growth and proximity of the mob around the strange man. The level of noise rose quickly as the stranger stepped up and adjusted himself on the platform. Excited shouts and cheers began to emanate from the group. The man that was the center of attention was wearing a short-sleeved, baby blue, button-up shirt with an orange tie, with both the shirt and the end of the tie tucked tackily into his blue jeans. As he spoke and gestured to the crowd, he stomped his boots on the wooden step and absent-mindedly brushed his wispy, reddish-gray hair with his right hand.

  Someone came into view behind the man as he also stepped onto the platform and handed the speaker an object attached to a small amplifier. It was hard to see, but looked to Kahn to be a small karaoke machine with a microphone attached. The helper plugged it into an orange extension cord that ran off toward the opposite entrance to the store. Kahn’s suspicion was soon confirmed by a minor feedback squeal as the machine was activated. Kahn was frozen, hunched over his cart, watching the unusual activity curiously.

  “Ah, now that’s gonna be better I betcha!” the man suddenly and loudly blurted into the microphone. “Thank you for that, now that we’ve gotten the crowd we expected I kinda need this thing! Now, some of y’all I told to come here today, and y’all told others. Some of y’all just walked right up. Some of y’all,” he raised his voice and gestured to several bodies in the distance walking toward the group, “are a little late!” The crowd tittered and a few people cheered.

  “Now I don’t mind that, I’m just glad that you good people have given me this opportunity to talk and get the word out to protect our community. We are all Neighbors!” At this declaration, the crowd of twenty or thirty people began to hoot and cheer at the man. Kahn was mesmerized. The whole scene reminded him of some sort of campaign rally, and it was alarming and fascinating at the same time. The man waved his hands to calm the ruckus.

  “Okay, okay, I hear ya. Now you gotta listen to me,” he lowered his voice and spoke almost softly to the now silent crowd, “we got a problem here in our community, and in our country. We know that our homes and our families are at risk every day. You know what I mean.” Several in the crowd murmured and nodded their heads.

  “We have watched our country fail again and again, especially over the last eight years when we’ve done nothing but throw away money and invite terrorists into our lands!” He raised his voice and punched the air on the word “terrorists.”

  “Americans, real Americans here in the heart of Texas, will not stand for those who are violent. We will not stand for terrible attacks against our citizens. We are united in our resolve, and our desire, to bring these vicious terrorists to justice!

  “But we know our God is a violent and righteous God, and I am a God-fearing man. I know that judgment is ultimately not ours to make. But, we must be the judge, jury, and executioner for anyone who threatens us. We cannot be destroyed when we have the light of God showing us the way! Their God is not our God. They believe in making their evil laws the laws of our land, and they believe in killing us and tearing us apart. We can’t tolerate anyone who attempts to infiltrate us, walk among us, and plot to kill our people. When they send them over they are sending killers, murderers, bombers, and terrorists! To this I say, Neighbors, this will not stand!” He raised both hands high above his head and allowed the jeering and cheering crowd to bathe him in praise and agreement. He nodded and grimaced in acceptance.

  Kahn knew he pushed his luck with watching the display. Ten or so more people had driven or walked up and joined the group by now, and it looked like the size of this strange rally would grow. He was suddenly very conscious of his appearance as a bearded, dark-skinned man with Middle-Eastern features. Out of the corner of his eye Kahn noticed the three men from the vestibule, now standing in the sunlight and listening to the speaker on stage. They were all dressed similarly to him, different colored shirts and ties tucked into jeans. The one in the middle had a thick orange beard and red hair. One of the others had a dark brown goatee, and the third was clean-shaven with wispy black hair on his head. All three seemed to be looking his direction at first glance. Kahn didn’t know if they were following him or just attracted to the beginning of the speech, but he hurried to get out of their line of sight. He crossed the road hunched over his cart and twisted his head over his shoulder to watch. One of the men spit on the ground and tapped the one beside him with the back of his palm. Then he pointed directly at Kahn, his gaze meeting that of the fleeing man. Kahn twisted back as he stood straight and sped up, fear now driving him, as he got closer to the SUV.

  He fiddled with his pocket to retrieve the keys and hit the unlock button and trunk release. The rear hatch of the SUV popped open and slowly reached for the sky right as Kahn arrived. He grabbed the two cases of water and flung them in, followed by a random assortment of the neatly stacked items in the cart. He frantically tossed the items into the vehicle on top of the flattened seats, boxes of ammo and weaponry from his gun store. His vision became tunneled with panic as he threw the last items, leaned back, and closed the gate.

  Abrupt pain knocked Kahn backwards away from the vehicle. His face exploded in agony as he was struck, and his vision flashed white. He fell limp and his keys went flying out of his hand. A body caught him as he reeled backwards, and the first attacker hit him again, this time in the gut. Kahn’s exhaled in pain and he slumped down and forward toward the ground. The second man held Kahn up by his armpits. The two worked together to grab Kahn by either side, dragging him back toward the storefront as they did so. Kahn glanced over and saw the third man, the man with the thick red beard, bend down and pick up Kahn’s keys.

  He was vaguely aware of amplified speech continuing as he was forced closer to the makeshift stage. After a few moments, his senses started to return, and he felt blood running down the front of his lips. He spat and blew the red liquid out, and it stained the front of his shirt and made his beard glisten red-black in the
sun. Kahn tried to look around, but the two carriers kept a tight grip on his body as they started to make their way into the middle of the parting crowd. The third man sauntered behind, and Kahn watched as he spun the keyring on his fingers several times before placing the set of keys in the front pocket of his jeans.

  Suddenly, Kahn was dumped unceremoniously at the base of the small wooden platform the speaker was standing on. He could see now that it was some sort of long shipping crate. He stared at the markings of the wood as he tried to catch his breath and assess his situation. His face throbbed and he felt a buzzing in his head and ears that seemed to muffle and slow his perception of reality.

  “I said howdy, boy,” Kahn looked up and saw the face of the wispy-haired speaker as he knelt on the box above. He held the microphone down at his side and seemed to be speaking directly to Kahn. The man reached up and brushed his thin hair aside with the fingers of his right hand. He gestured to the three men and they roughly grabbed Kahn again and hoisted him onto the impromptu stage. The man stood and addressed the wispy-haired ringleader of the three assailants.

  “Where’d he come from?”

  “I don’t know Dad; we didn’t see him drive up.” The man had a slightly shrill voice. He sounded defensive and fearful.

  “How’d he get inside?” The man shrugged off his father’s question and turned toward his other two partners. They also shrugged. The man on stage looked directly at the redheaded man and seemed to drill into him with his piercing eyes.

  “Uh, we were standing right there the whole time. It was dark in there and… and you just started setting up so he musta snuck in. We’re sorry, Llewelyn.” He blurted his apology quickly, with a thick accent, and averted his eyes toward the ground.

  “It was that drunk bitch inside that let him get away with all that stuff!” the third of the group, the goateed man, quickly added. “If she weren’t so goddamn drunk and blind in there she would have let us know and we woulda--“ Llewelyn raised his hand toward the man and he immediately stopped explaining. The speaker, Kahn now knew his name to be Llewelyn, raised the microphone back to his lips and now addressed the rest of the gathered crowd. Kahn panted as he peered down, on his hands and knees, and searched desperately with his eyes for a way out.

  “You people,” Llewelyn began, “came to me because you need a protector. You came because you are scared, and hurt, and don’t know what to do. You know nobody outside of your family and Neighbors will lift a finger to help you. You know our country’s protectors have opened the doors for us to be weakened and hurt by people like this!” Llewelyn grabbed a handful of Kahn’s hair and jerked his head up toward the crowd. They reacted by screaming and cheering. Kahn grimaced with the pain in his face and head, and he looked at the audience with bared teeth and a carnal expression of suffering. Llewelyn threw his head back down and immersed himself in the cheers for a moment before he once again raised his hand for silence.

  “For too long, we have suffered while Muslims have infiltrated our government, our schools, and our way of life! This man is not innocent. This man is a terrorist! This man stole our lives from us. This man killed our people and tried to lay waste to America. This man will kill you, and kill your family! This man,” he paused through the rising cheers and noise, “is not our Neighbor.” Llewelyn let the mic drop to his side again, searching the crowd for appeal and finding it in a frenzy of activity. People were pushing to the front and trying to reach out to strike or hurt Kahn in some way. They all felt hurt in some way, and Kahn became the target of their wrath. Spit flew and landed all around and on Kahn as he cowered, waiting for relief. The three men who dragged him over here ironically became his protectors, pushing the unruly group back and keeping them off the crate. Kahn croaked up, begging to the man to let him go. He looked down at Kahn, like he was inhuman, and spoke again into the mic.

  “What was that?” He reached the microphone down and held it in front of the bloody victim.

  “I’m not Muslim,” Kahn’s voice meekly squeaked into the too far away microphone. Llewelyn raised up and spontaneously laughed hard, like Kahn just told a great joke to the crowd.

  “He says he ain’t Muslim! He says he ain’t Muslim! You see, you see how they deny themselves when they are caught in a trap,” he held the mic back down in front of Kahn and bellowed without the assistance of the amplifier, “like a rat!”

  Kahn reached up and grabbed the microphone, dragging Llewelyn’s hand and the object both closer to his bloody face and mouth. “I’m not Muslim, I’m Assyrian.” His face touched the man’s skin as he blubbered the last words, leaving a smear of blood on Llewelyn’s hand. Llewelyn reacted with disgust, pulled back sharply and inspected the foreign blood on the back of his hand. Kahn saw the look on his face and the silence of the congregation below him and remembered his conversation several weeks ago with Kimble. His declaration reverberated and whispered throughout the fearful people as they digested what he said. Llewelyn, in the meantime, had been handed a rag to wipe his hand clean. His voice suddenly boomed back into the barely controlled silence.

  “You heard the man, y’all! This ain’t no longer his world. This world is ours! You gotta watch out for your Neighbors. You got to eliminate your enemies! He defiles me with his blood and says he is,” Llewelyn glared down at Kahn with a frightening gaze, “a Syrian.” The mass of people threw themselves into a rage. Kahn was once again protected only by his attackers. He cowered, waiting for the crowd to reach him and tear him apart. He was powerless to dissuade them from their hate. He couldn’t explain that he posed no threat to them, their reaction was misguided. He waited for the end.

  “Griffin,” Llewelyn had abandoned the microphone over the cacophony of noise and kneeled down to his son, within earshot of Kahn, “kill him.” Griffin looked at his father and nodded, once. He gripped the black handle of a pistol that Kahn hadn’t noticed sticking out of the back of his jeans. He kept it low as he pulled it out, clicked the safety, and pointed it directly at Kahn’s injured expression. Kahn flinched and squeezed his eyes shut, not brave enough to move. Too shaken to do anything but brace for the end.

  An alarmed and shrill cry suddenly resonated over the clamor of the frenzied mob.

  Chapter 17

  Roadblock

  Ash fell awkwardly, panting and exhausted, down against the base of a large oak tree. He held his carbine in both hands, pointing it back up the hill where he had half-ran, half-fell down into the small ravine. His arms and body shook with fatigue and terror, waiting for a pursuer to appear.

  A long minute passed while Ash wheezed and caught each lungful of breath more easily than the last. He lowered the carbine, wiping stinging sweat out of his eyes with one hand, and then fumbled for a new magazine out of a pouch on his chest. He leaned heavily on the small pack he managed to recover from Hal’s car. The car he had abandoned before slogging into this patch of woods on the side of the road.

  He looked down and let the spent magazine drop to the ground while he slid the new one into place and snapped the bolt forward. He reached around his right side and felt for the drinking hose of the CamelBak. He took large, thirsty gulps of the cool water, keeping his eyes and the barrel of his rifle pointed up the embankment, and thought back on what had happened so quickly to destroy his well-laid plan that morning.

  Walking out to Kahn’s Corolla was uneventful, as Ash had expected. He looked down each side of the stairwell before he descended, seeing and hearing nobody. He opened the car and placed his backpack across onto the passenger seat. He propped the short rifle up in the crevice between the passenger seat and the center console, barrel up, ready in case he ran into trouble. He planned on first heading to Boomstick, his shop, because he knew there were some cases of water in the office and some freeze-dried food that hunters liked to load up on before an excursion. The plan was to drive there on the side and back roads, avoiding the highways, and then head to his sister’s place from there. Ash worried about her, and his brother-in-law, an
d knew they would all be better off pooling resources and sharing plans. After watching those carnivorous infected slowly hunt and kill the man at his gates, he wanted to be careful to avoid anybody at all. Nobody could be trusted.

  He drove the car toward the apartment gate and the remains of the gore from the incident with the horde of infected. To his surprise, the gate opened when he crossed the sensor with the car. It rattled on its chain and swung wide, leaving space for Ash to escape, eerily and silently beckoning him to the open roads beyond the safety of the tall metal enclosure. He drove around the front of the dark office building and up the hill to the street.

  There were no cars and no people in sight. Ash rolled down his window to look and listen and heard nothing. He turned to the left and drove along the road. He saw the strip center to his right as he drove slowly toward the intersection. Someone had burned down the building, as he had suspected. All that remained was the skeleton of the framing between businesses. A few cars were here, the ones near the building blackened and burnt, but there were no people. He stopped at the four-way intersection and again carefully peered around. The main road, the one that connected to highways going in either direction, was to his right. He could see the dark stop light servicing no drivers. That was the direction with the greatest population, large stores, and restaurants. Ash decided to go left.

  He cautiously drove deeper into the neighborhood streets, thoughtfully cutting around the major highways on the slow surface roads. He coasted along, keeping his eyes open for movement down any of the cross streets he passed. This was a pretty standard suburban neighborhood, and one that Ash was familiar with. There were fairly nice houses here with newer vehicles parked in driveways and on streets. Nobody else was on the road driving, though, and the yards and houses were as quiet and empty as the thoroughfare. He passed a pizza place on the left with no cars in the lot, and further along an empty middle school. He stopped at each of the multitude of stop signs, and with each became more apprehensive about the absence of life.