10.
We made it, barely, before we heard the sirens coming from town. I dumped the equipment bag on the floor next to the door and quickly turned around and locked it, moving the couch to block the door again. I looked at Barrett and he nodded at my unasked question and quickly did a check of the trailer. He came back several minutes later and said that everything looked okay. No broken windows or zombies lying in wait.
We hoped. It was hard to tell with the zombies since we had no idea where Tamara’s dad had come from. It was like he appeared out of nowhere. Which was a disturbing thought all on its own.
Fannie Mae opened the bag and took out the shotgun and boxes of shells we’d found. It wasn’t much, but the 100 or so shells we had might make the difference. Again with the hope. I never knew I was this much of an optimist.
Of course in the back of my head I could feel the death knell tolling for us all. We had no transportation and no options. No one would believe us until it was too late. How many people would have to die before the rest of them would be able to accept alternative options? And by then I was guessing that it would be way too late for us to still have any good alternatives left. The outlook was bleak.
“Does anyone know how to work this?” She asked.
Barrett shook his head silently and resumed his position by the window. I went over to the bag and broke open the shotgun to make sure it was in good working order. I loaded eight shells into it and then rapidly ejected all eight out of it to make sure the gun didn’t get jammed. None of them stuck and they all flew out of the chamber. Fannie Mae watched all this with a little awe on her face.
“Where’d you learn how to do that?”
I grinned. “Barrett may have his horror movies, but I have my action ones. I’ve seen more than enough shooters in my day that I could tell you how to fire almost any gun.”
I slipped another half dozen shells in my pockets and stuffed myself as full as I could get. I’d never actually fired a shotgun before but I had heard of the “shotgun effect” so my hope was that I would be able to deal a few death blows before I got eaten. Although reloading in the middle of a zombie horde wasn’t my idea of a good time.
“The fire engine’s here,” Barrett said from his perch by the window. “A bunch of cops, too.”
“What’s going to happen next, Barrett?”
He looked at me. “What do you mean?”
I sighed. “We just got attacked by a couple zombies. Somehow managed to kill them. Barely. We saw Tamara out and about and she looked spry enough as she attacked old man Simmons. In your horror movie buff experience, what’s next? What can we expect to happen?”
He chuckled. “Well, we’ll probably put up the good fight since we are prepared. Might take out a few dozen, if we’re lucky. In the end, we’ll die. There aren’t that many options, cahuna. At some point we’ll run out of bullets or get overwhelmed or both and we’ll die. They’ll either pick us off one by one or got us in one massive chomp, but it’ll happen.”
Tears streamed down Fannie Mae’s cheeks as she asked, “Are there no other options, Barrett? No hope?”
“We could always go steal a car and try to get the hell out of here before all hell breaks loose. That’s my favorite option. The other options we have all revolve around how long it takes us to die.” He eyed us both critically. “If this were a movie at least one of us would already be infected and hiding it. Then at some point in the story when the drama and tension are high we’d turn and attack the others.”
He smiled grimly. “Fortunately this isn’t a movie, right?”
I nodded and then looked at him and Fannie Mae. I could see the same look on both their faces. “Okay, then, Barrett, how could we tell if one of us were infected?”
“The easiest way would be if we stripped down and looked at each other for bites or scratches, but,” he waved at Fannie Mae, “we’d have to do that nude and I don’t see us….” He stopped as Fannie Mae shrugged and started stripping down.
I stepped forward, holding my hand out to stop her.
She waved me off. “It’s okay, Dukey. He’s got a point. We have to know so that we’re not wasting time watching each other when we don’t have to. Let’s just get it over with.” And with that she pulled the rest of her clothes off and stood naked before us. Barrett looked away, blushing furiously. He couldn’t handle it.
I sighed and stepped forward so that I could inspect her. She had no shame and just stood there in front of me holding her arms out to the side. Her breasts were small and perky and a thin layer of hair ran down between her legs. My face was as red as Barrett’s as I knelt before her and inspected her body. As I knelt there she put one hand on the wall and lifted one leg up in the air after the other so that I could see her inner thighs. I nodded quickly at her so that we could get this over with. She turned around to show me her back and then I inspected her arms and this was finally over with.
Parts of me were stirring in response to her that I’d never thought would stir when looking at Fannie Mae. I could see her in a whole different light now. I stood up.
“You can, uh, get dressed now,” I said as I turned my back on her. I looked at Barrett out of the corner of my eye. He had a strained smirk on his face.
“I’m dressed,” she said sweetly from behind us. “Who’s next?”
“There is no way I’m getting undressed in front of her,” Barrett said to me.
“It’s only fair,” I said, turning around to face Fannie Mae. “She did it for us.”
Fannie Mae looked at both of us innocently, with a little smile on her face. She must have seen something when she looked at me as her smile got even bigger and she settled back with her arms crossed on her chest.
“You first then,” Barrett said.
“Um, that’s probably not a good idea. You go first, Barrett.”
He looked at me and opened his mouth to protest again and then looked at me harder and got a huge grin on his face. He looked at Fannie Mae and then looked at me again. Laughed a little. “All right, then. Fine.”
Barrett stripped down and I did a quick inspection of him. He was as clean as Fannie Mae. And looking at him took care of my little problem.
It was my turn then and I took my pants off with a wince. Though the swelling had gone down significantly it still hurt like a bitch. I looked off into the distance, not looking either one of them in the face, as I stood there for my inspection.
“It’s hard to tell,” Barrett said.
“What?”
“You got pretty beat to hell last night. You’ve got scratches on your face from Tamara, your knee is pretty banged up and your thigh looks like crap. That knot is huge. And you’ve got various scratches all over your body.” He shrugged. “I don’t really know, Duke. I think most of these are just from the fight, but it’s impossible to tell.”
Fannie Mae was on her knees looking at my leg. She leaned in closer to look at my thigh and that put her face perilously close to, um, areas. Private areas, you know what I mean. I backed up a step, “All right, that’s good enough, Fannie Mae.”
She rose to her feet with another grin.
I sighed and turned my back on them, getting dressed. “You guys have my word that I haven’t been scratched or bitten or anything like that. If that helps.”
“They all say that,” Barrett said. “Right until they eat their friend’s faces off in the movies. I wouldn’t be concerned, Duke, except you were alone with Tamara’s dad for a few seconds there. Anything could have happened.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “You have my word that nothing happened. But if you don’t believe me,” I pointed at the door, “you have my permission to go find somewhere else to be.”
He looked at me sourly and finally shrugged. “Okay. Just know that I’m keeping my eye on you.”
“Good. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I sent them off to bed shortly after that. Barrett was giving me the stink eye, but he went, too. He’d had a
couple hours of sleep and I’d had that extra hour or so in the tub but Fannie Mae hadn’t even had a wink. They both swore there was no way they could sleep with what was going on but I told them they had to try. We had to get our rest where we could.
I spent the rest of the morning camped in front of the window. I decided to use the milk from the fridge before it went sour, so scrounged a bowl of cereal from the almost-empty box. Mom’s body on the couch began to stink. Or it seemed to, anyway. She’d only been dead about 12 hours so there was no way she could really be stinking yet, but it was still weird to be sitting not five feet from my dead mom.
Not much out of the norm was happening out in the Acres that I could see. There were more people out and about than usual and kids were out yelling and screaming and horsing around. I wanted to go open the door and scream at them all to get back inside and barricade themselves in, but I knew I’d look like a madman if I did. I guess the power being out was forcing more people out of their trailers. When there’s no power there’s no TV, no videogames, nothing much to do but sit around and talk. The folks around here weren’t exactly known for fascinating conversation so it didn’t surprise me that they were outside.
It seemed like people were having fun. Around lunchtime a few of the guys pulled their grills together and started cooking meat for everybody. Nobody wanted it all to go to waste. I had the window cracked so that I could try to hear conversations. And to air the front room out if I’m going to be honest. Mom really was starting to smell. I heard a few people talking about the fire and how the police had found Tamara’s parents dead. It sounded like they were considering it an accident right now. The fire truck and the cops took off somewhere around mid-morning. I’m sure they’d be back at some point but I guess they’d done all they could at this point.
I had visions of her parents sitting up on the slab at the morgue and shuddered, pushing that thought away. That was the last thing I needed to think about.
Every so often I thought I heard scratching on the trailer. Real soft and just outside the range of hearing, but I swear it was there. I kept doing circuits of the trailer trying to track it down but it always seemed to stop when I started moving. I checked every window over and over again but never saw anything I wasn’t expecting to see. I even braced myself and opened the trailer’s back door a couple times to see if there was anything out there. Thankfully there never was, but staring at the woods behind the trailer kept giving me the willies so I’d shut the door pretty quick. I braced the door as best I could, but it opened out (not in like a normal door) and I didn’t see how much I could really to do it. It was definitely a weak point.
I checked on Barrett and Fannie Mae a couple times to make sure they were okay and sleeping. Barrett was passed out in my parent’s room and snoring away peacefully. Fannie Mae was sleeping in my bed. She was in a different position every time I checked on her but she was always sleeping, too, at least. I hoped they got their rest as I didn’t think the time for it would last much longer.
It just felt like we were in the eye of the storm. That forces were building and building and reaching higher and that soon the bubble would burst and everything would come crashing down on us.
So I was restless and fidgety and kept my vigil at the front window.
Fannie Mae was the first to come out, around noon. I heard her get up and take a quick shower and she came to the front room about 15 minutes later wearing one of my sweatshirts and her pants from the night before. She came over and held my hand and looked out the window with me. I surprised myself by not pulling my hand away. It felt nice somehow.
“That looks good on you,” I finally said, to break the silence.
She squeezed my hand and said, “Thanks. I hope you don’t mind but my shirt was kind of dirty and stinky and I wanted something clean to put on.”
“No, that’s fine. Help yourself to whatever you want.”
She nodded out the window and pointed to the little BBQ that was going on outside. “Nice party. I wish there was some way we could just warn them. Some way we could tell them they were all in danger.”
“I know. I’ve sat here all morning trying to figure out a way to do that, but there’s no way to go out there and yell ‘zombie’ that will sound credible. Until bodies start showing up no one’s going to believe us.”
“What do you think they’re doing?”
“Who?”
She looked at me with her typical don’t be stupid expression. “The zombies. Why aren’t they attacking?”
I shrugged. “I’m not really sure. According to Barrett they don’t really have brains or intelligence but maybe they’ve got an animal’s survival instinct. Maybe they’re in hiding or maybe they’re on the fringes of the trailer park just picking people off and building their little zombie army up and when they’ve got enough they’ll burst forward and attack.”
“Barrett’s zombie horde,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s the only thing I can think of that might explain it. When you and I saw Mason he took off when he saw us. We outnumbered him two to one. Tamara’s parents attacked us, but maybe that was because they had us surrounded and it was only three to two. Slightly better odds. Tamara,” I shuddered, “attacked old man Simmons from behind and when we ran she didn’t come after us. Maybe they are intelligent and are working on some master plan of revenge against us or it’s just simple animal survival instincts.”
She nodded, thinking deeply. “Maybe they’re a pack animal.”
“Yeah, that could be it. They can’t move fast so they take the easy prey and then once their army is big enough they’ll pour over us like locusts.”
“That’s comforting, Dukey.” She smiled grimly. “I know Barrett’s car is out and your dad has your only car so we don’t have any vehicles available to us, but why don’t we just walk out of here? It’s noon and there’s people around. We might be okay.”
I shook my head. “I’ve been thinking about ways out of here and that’s pretty much the only option available to us. But it’s about 10 miles into town and we’re surrounded by woods. I’m half-afraid that if we do it we’ll be attacked. Maybe I’m crazy but it just feels like we’re being watched and I’m afraid that if we make ourselves vulnerable that they’ll come right after us.”
I looked at her and sighed. “Plus, I have to admit, I feel 100% responsible for what’s happened here. I killed Mason and started all this. All these deaths are on my hands and it’s my responsibility to stop it. If I run away I’m not sure I can live with myself. Tonight I’m going out zombie hunting one way or the other. I’d do it now if I didn’t feel like any one of those people out there would stop me. My hands are stained with all their blood and I need to stop this.”
I took my hand out of hers and put both my hands on her cheeks, making sure that she couldn’t look away from me while I said this. “But I want you and Barrett to try. Take the gun and walk out of here. You might not be attacked. Or go ask someone out there to drive you into town, they’ll take you, and then this will be over for you.”
She shook her head and reached up and grabbed my hands. “It’s as much our responsibility as it is yours, Dukey. If you’re staying than I’m staying and we’ll take care of this ourselves.” Tears glistened in her eyes as she finally broke my gaze. She pulled away from my grip and took my perch in front of the window.
“Go lay down, Dukey. You’ll need your strength tonight, too, if we’re going to do this.”
I didn’t say anything as I went back down the hallway to my room. I did stop and look back at her as I left, though, and saw her wiping the tears on her hands. I couldn’t help but feel doom hanging over us all as I lay down and felt myself sweeping along toward dreamland.
11.
The zombies shambled slowly through the forest. Wandering aimlessly through the night as they looked for food. They could sense the life-force, the heat, of their prey as they methodically hemmed it in. Their stumbling and awkward gait was oddly choreographed
and in sync as they wove a pattern through the trees. They made no sound as they moved through the forest, almost gliding on the soft dirt.
The forest was full of them. By the hundreds and the thousands they roamed through the countryside. All the animals stopped and were still as the zombies passed within feet of them. Most rained hot urine down on the ground beneath them, unable to control their bladders as the undead shuffled past. The zombies ignored the wildlife, hunting and searching for stronger prey and tastier meat. They wanted to eat the life force, the very soul, of the men and women and children they hunted.
Only that could sustain them.
Some of them were relatively untouched by the death that filled them. These looked like normal men and women you’d see walking down any street. They’d have maybe a hunk of flesh missing here or a bite from teeth marks there or maybe even just a tiny scratch on their arm that they’d tried to hide from their friends.
Trailer Park Zombies Page 10
