The Creeping Dead: Book 2

by Edward P. Cardillo

  With Marie’s husband, Mario, gone, she needed all the help she could get. Tara understood. They were both zombie widows.

  Tyrell opened up a fresh box and pulled out a T-shirt with a big, ragged zombie on the front clutching a surfboard. In blood-smeared lettering above, it read ‘The Zombie Shore.’

  Tara couldn’t help but frown. Marie winced at her reaction, feeling bad about Tara’s loss of her husband in the attack.

  Tara, sensing Marie’s reaction, was quick to smooth it over. “Oh, come on. You need to make your money and feed your family.”

  Marie shrugged, shamefaced. “You don’t think it’s in poor taste?”

  Tara waved a dismissive hand. “Honey, this whole town is in poor taste.” She saw the clock on the wall. “Dammit, I’m running late.”

  Marie hugged her and gently ushered her out of the store. “I’ve got him. Go, go.”

  Tara darted to the ramp leading back to her car, but she took a moment to notice the other shops opening up, some already open. The ‘Shoot the Zombie’ booth two storefronts down was already spewing creepy music with screams, like a haunted house. In June.

  Before she boarded the wooden ramp, flashing lights caught her eye on the beach. The lifeguards were all mobilized, converging around one spot on the beach. Chief Holbrook was there. She shook her head, as she estimated that someone had tried to go for an early morning swim and had gotten into trouble, and then she headed for her car.

  Chapter 2

  As Chief Holbrook was standing over the chewed-up remains of an apparent swimmer, two things bothered him. Firstly, the man was thick in the middle with skinny arms and legs and a tuft of gray hair flopped over a vast bald spot on a half-eaten head. His nose and one eye were missing, and claw marks on his face made him unrecognizable. However, one thing was clear—he was an older gent.

  The second thing that bothered Holbrook was his attire. He wasn’t wearing swimming trunks. Instead, he was clad in shorts and a Hawaiian print shirt. There was still a sneaker on his right foot, which was dangling by the thread of sinew.

  “This was no swimmer,” he said to Mac Cochran, the Beach Captain.

  Mac scrunched his face as he viewed the remains. “Shark attack?”

  Holbrook gave a heavy sigh. “God, let’s hope so.”

  Mac knew exactly what he meant by the remark. A shark was the better scenario.

  Holbrook looked around. “Who discovered it?”

  “Mike Sasso. He saw it when he was driving the sandboni up the beach. Jumped out and screamed like hell at us during our morning drills. Forgot to turn the sandboni off.”

  Holbrook crouched down on his haunches and studied the bulge in the deceased’s right rear pocket. He unbuttoned the flap and pulled out a wallet soaked in seawater.

  He cradled it in his left hand and gingerly opened it, revealing various cards packed into the small sleeves. Right above the credit cards was a driver’s license. When Holbrook pulled it out and saw the name and picture, he dropped his head. “Aw, Christ.”

  “What is it?” asked Cochran.

  “Morty Sandberg.”

  “That’s Morty? What the hell was he doing out in the ocean?”

  Holbrook stood up, folding the wallet closed. “That’s one of many questions.” He slipped the license into his shirt pocket for safe keeping and patted it. “Where’s Mike?”

  “He’s still over by the sandboni,” said Cochran. “He’s pretty shaken up.”

  Holbrook nodded. “I don’t blame him.” He looked down the beach and saw the sandboni parked at an odd angle. They were usually driven parallel to the boardwalk. He walked over the sand against the early morning breeze and down to the sandboni, where he saw Mike Sasso leaning against it, fanning his baseball cap in front of his face.

  When he saw Holbrook, he swallowed hard and managed, “Morning, Chief Holbrook.” He was a portly man in his fifties with a farmer’s tan. However, at the moment, his face was the shade of sea foam.

  “Jesus, Mike. I heard you found the body.”

  Mike’s face was drenched in sweat, and his eyes were hysterical. “Body? You call that a body? There was barely anything left.”

  “Mike, explain to me what happened.”

  “I was driving up the beach, and I saw a crumpled heap washed up on the sand, not too far from the water’s edge. I can’t drive over anything like that, so I got out to gather it up and throw it in the garbage.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I smelt it, and then I saw fingers, and then a shoe. I realized it wasn’t garbage, but a person. So, I called nine-one-one.”

  “Mike, I’m sorry.”

  “In all my years driving the ‘boni, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that. Ever.”

  “You gonna be okay?” asked Holbrook. “You want a paramedic to have a look at you?”

  “I-I…” Mike’s eyes drifted off for a moment, welling up.

  “I’m going to have someone come look at you, make sure you’re all right.”

  A white van up on the boardwalk caught Holbrook’s attention. It was Dr. Hickey, the county medical examiner.

  When Holbrook didn’t receive an answer from Mike, he took it as his cue to leave, giving the man some space. He walked back to where Morty’s remains lay as he saw Dr. Hickey walking onto the beach, kicking sand up. Hickey stopped in front of Holbrook and the remains.

  “Morning, Chief.”

  “Morning, Doc. Seems we’ve had ourselves an attack.”

  Dr. Hickey looked down at the pile of chopped meat, and his eyes went wide. “Shark?” It was more of an expressed hope than a suggestion.

  “I was hoping you could tell me, Doc.”

  Dr. Hickey squatted down, hovering over the heap of gore that was once Morty Sandberg. “Do you know him?”

  “Morty Sandberg,” said Holbrook.

  “Don’t know him.” Dr. Hickey slipped on a pair of gloves.

  Holbrook shook his head. “Retiree. Lives with his wife on Neptune St.”

  Dr. Hickey began to manipulate the remains, examining the bite marks. “Small bite radius. Maybe a juvenile bull shark.”

  Holbrook shook his head. “Not common in these waters. Possible, but not likely.”

  Dr. Hickey furrowed his brow. “You don’t think…?”

  “C’mon, Doc. You and I know those teeth marks are human.”

  Dr. Hickey sighed. “Only one way to find out.” He knew what had to be done. Protocol Z. “I’ll get this all wrapped up and meet you at the morgue.”

  Holbrook nodded. “Right-o.” Then to Cochran, “Mac, I want the beaches closed until further notice.”

  Cochran shook his head. “The fourth is coming up.”

  Holbrook sucked his teeth. “Jesus Christ, Cochran, this isn’t Jaws. It isn’t the Fourth yet. We’re still in the off season, so it shouldn’t be a big hassle. I’m talking twenty-four hours. If the remains pass Protocol Z, the beaches can open right back up, you guys can throw up red flags to keep everyone out of the water, and we’ll send up another shark copter.”

  Cochran put his hands on his hips. “If it fails?”

  “Then we have a big problem on our hands.”

  Within minutes, the remains were carefully gathered, packed, and brought to the medical examiner’s van, all before foot traffic began to pick up on the boardwalk.

  *

  Under the boardwalk, little April crouched in the midst of several feral cats, her brain foggy but her eyes alert. She watched the group of officials on the beach from the shadows, failing to register what was happening. The virus had already taken hold and was coursing through her veins like greased lightning, her young, healthy circulatory system helping it along.

  She knew enough to stay hidden, at least until the official-looking men all left the beach. She placed a hand on her stomach as she wheezed, her stomach lurching from a primal hunger that she hadn’t known before.

  Soon, she would have to feed, and something in the primal recesses of h
er reptilian brain told her she needed to make more of her.

  All viruses had their primary and secondary directives—sustain and reproduce.

  * * *

  Lenny stood at the edge of the motel pool next to the ghost of Billy, gazing down into the water. It wasn’t really the ghost of Billy, but Lenny imagined his late friend as a ghost or imaginary friend of sorts for company, and mostly because he missed his friend. He forgave him for what he did to Officer Joann.

  Although the surface was still, and the water clear, all Lenny could picture was his mother at the bottom, walking around, as he had heard his Aunt Patricia describe it once.

  He missed Alice. He never referred to her as his mom or mother because he was not a kid, and only kids had moms. Moms told kids to brush their teeth and take a bath. He was an adult, had been for quite some time, and she had become his close friend. This was a common sentiment amongst those with Down Syndrome.

  As he gazed into the water, he missed his friend. He even allowed the word ‘mom’ to pop ever so briefly into his mind before shooing it away.

  Now his Aunt Patricia told him to brush his teeth and take a bath, but that was okay because she wasn’t his mom. And he wasn’t a kid. He was a grown-up.

  “Lenny!” It was Mallory, one of his cousins. She was working at the motel for the summer to earn some money before returning to college.

  Lenny smiled. He liked his cousin Mallory. She was pretty and nice to him.

  “Lenny, Mom wants to talk to you in the front office.”

  He winced at the word, wondering why Mallory would use that word when she wasn’t a kid. She went to college. Lenny knew that it was the school you went to after high school, but having never been, his concept of college was left to his imagination.

  His mind’s eye conjured up images of vast classrooms the size of ballrooms, lined with bookcases running from floor to ceiling, where students learned about all kinds of things like science and history, and there were vending machines containing every type of tasty treat he wasn’t allowed to have…

  “Lenny, did you hear me? Mom wants to see you.”

  He nodded and winked. “Okie-dokie.”

  Dressed in dark pants and a short-sleeved white button-down shirt for work (because Dr. Tara drilled into him the importance of being a professional), he marched over to and into the office. His aunt was examining the oak tag chart of the month’s reservations.

  Last year, a television show about helping hotel owners modernize and become more efficient had shot a segment at their hotel. Lenny remembered the mean man had made fun of his Aunt Patricia’s oak tag system, and she had told him to go jump in a lake. Lenny had reminded her that there was either the ocean or the bay. The man left, and other than some cosmetic upgrades, operations had remained unchanged. His aunt said they made some money for doing the show, so it hadn’t been a total waste.

  “I’m here, Patricia.” He didn’t use her title of aunt when addressing her, because it made her like an adult and him like a kid. If he said ‘Patricia,’ it made them both adults.

  She looked up from her large chart. “Lenny, did you remember to take out the garbage in the back building?” She already knew the answer. The question was more a prompt than an inquiry.

  Lenny thought about it for a moment and snapped his fingers. “I will do it now.”

  Patricia smiled. “Great. Thanks, Lenny. You can go do that now.”

  Lenny gave her a thumbs up and whistled a jaunty tune as he stepped back out of the office. As it was late June and still off-season, the motel was mostly empty, except for a few guests and the annual Prescott family reunion. He greeted a few early risers cordially as they emerged from their rooms for breakfast.

  Lenny’s now imaginary friend Billy addressed them as well, tipping his baseball cap, as he wasn’t dressed as Lava Man’s sidekick Magma Boy at the moment. As they made their way across the grounds to the newer back building, Lenny snuck a brief conversation with Billy, something that Dr. Tara and his Aunt Patricia had both discouraged.

  Lenny briefly discussed their plan to foil Doctor Industry, the evil mad scientist bent on destroying the environment. Lenny tied the nefarious doctor’s activities to the appearance of the dead two years prior, figuring they were likely the twisted result of some horrific experiment.

  When he reached the first garbage pail, he ceased all discussion as his other cousin, Lucy, was manning the back office. If she saw him talking to Billy, he’d get an earful from his Aunt Patricia about how there was no one there and how badly it looked that he was conversing with no one.

  Dr. Tara had agreed that it was unprofessional, the flipside to his favorite catchword (other than ‘Super’), ‘professional.’ So, most of the time, Lenny agreed to suspend all conversations with Billy until after work.

  Lenny tore the lid off the one garbage can, and grabbed the edges of the plastic bag. There was the faint smell of garbage as he tied the bag off, noticing the new siding behind the pail. He didn’t like the new siding because it didn’t match the old siding exactly, but after the superstorm, the entire first floor of each building had to be redone. That meant new carpeting, new furniture, new sheet rock, and yes, new siding.

  The smell reminded him of the dead. Not that they smelled like garbage, but they stunk of something else…death. Decay. His mind wandered back to that day the dead invaded Smuggler’s Bay when he found all of those people and brought them to the second floor of the hotel.

  *

  Two Years Prior

  Lenny paced back and forth in his room on the first floor, sloshing through the water as Dr. Tara and her boy Tyrell sat on his bed. He heard car horns, the screeching of tires, and police sirens outside. And shrieking. That awful screech the dead made.

  “Lenny, we can’t stay here.” Tara looked terrified, and she was clutching her son. She was looking down at the rising water and then back at Lenny. She was looking to him for help. “Lenny, we need to get to a safer place.”

  Lenny stopped pacing and frowned as he thought. “I have a h-h-hiding place.”

  Tara leaned forward, loosening her grip on Tyrell. “Good. Where?”

  Lenny pointed up at the ceiling. “Upstairs.”

  “Is it safe?”

  He nodded without hesitation. “It is my s-s-secret spot.”

  “Anywhere’s got to be better than here.” She grabbed Tyrell by the shoulders and turned him to face her. She met his gaze. “Listen to me. We have to move. It’s too dangerous here.”

  Tyrell looked less terrified than she estimated he should given the circumstances, but she was grateful for that. “I know, Mom.”

  Lenny placed an index finger up, signaling them to wait. He threw open the sliding door to his closet and reached towards the back, producing a Lava Man cape and cowl. He quickly tied the red plastic cape around his neck and slipped on the red cowl with a large ‘M’ on the forehead.

  Tyrell smiled. “Cool.”

  Tara stepped forward, now grabbing Lenny by the shoulders. Lenny didn’t like this. “Lenny, we have to go now.” Then she said out loud to no one in particular, “We need something we can use as weapons.”

  Lenny and Tyrell simultaneously began to look around the room. Lenny reached back into the closet, bent at the waist, leaning so far inside that only his legs remained outside.

  He heard Tyrell say, “Here, Mom!”

  Then he heard Tara answer, “I suppose we can use it to put some distance between us and one of those things.”

  As if on cue, there was a loud screech not too far outside the room they were in.

  Lenny pulled out a large, metal replica of a sword with a black and purple hilt, the blade polished and shiny. However, the edges were dull.

  “Cooool,” said Tyrell in admiration.

  “From the m-m-movie D-Dracula!” Lenny announced proudly.

  Tara shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose that could be used as a club…of sorts.”

  Lenny saw that Tyrell had a broom, a
nd he gave him the ‘A-Okay’ sign.

  Tara looked around and then at Lenny’s closet. She pushed Lenny aside and dove right in.

  Lenny and Tyrell exchanged looks and shrugged their shoulders.

  Tara was yanking on something, lifting and pulling, grunting with exertion as she pulled the metal crossbar on which all of Lenny’s hangers were hung. His clothes spilled to the ground as Tara hefted the metal pipe, holding it out in front of her to gauge its length and weight.

  Lenny frowned at the mess she left in his closet. “You shouldn’t have done that. S-s-someone is going to have t-t-to clean that up.” The insinuation was that it wasn’t going to be him.

  Ignoring Lenny’s rebuke, Tara took a couple of practice swings with the metal pipe. “Yeah, this’ll do.” She looked at Lenny. “Let’s go.”

  They opened Lenny’s door slowly, and Tara peeked out into the hotel parking lot. Guests were running back and forth, scurrying around as the dead chased after them.

  She pulled her head inside as a guest ran past, clutching a bloody bite on his arm. Two doors down, the dead had forced their way into someone’s room, and there were screams coming from inside. Human screams.

  Tara looked back to Lenny and Tyrell. “Okay, we go now.”

  Lenny and Tyrell, hefting their respective sword and broom, nodded and bunched up behind Tara. Tara held her metal pipe in her right hand and grabbed Tyrell’s hand with her left, and she yanked him outside behind her.

  The three dashed out of the room, clinging to the side of the building, as they witnessed the mass carnage of the dead overrunning the hotel. There were people lying on the ground, their bodies twitching, as the dead tore chunks of flesh from their bodies in a ghastly feeding frenzy.

  Tara yanked Tyrell close to her. “Look at me, sweetie! Don’t look out there! Look at me!”

  He nodded, terrified, but he had already seen more than he was able to handle.

  Tara pulled him forward, Lenny following behind them. “Lead the way, Lenny!”