John winced. “It just wanted you to pay for the stuff.”
“Pay for the stuff?” Beth said.
“Yes, he must have worked there when he was alive you know,” Amy said.
Beth, Dean and Jim looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Weird,” Dean said, “just plain weird.”
“Jim, where are you guys?” came a ladies voice over a small walkie-talkie clipped to Jim’s belt.
He looked up at John and Amy, “that’s my wife.”
Jim took the radio from the case and called back to her. “Just down the road. We had some visitors but everything is ok. Just a couple passing through.”
“When are you going to be back? Janet's coughing real bad and she's getting a rash on her stomach.”
“Soon. Just sit tight.”
“Ok but you know I don’t like being left here alone. ”
“I know, we’ll be back soon. Gotta go,” he replaced the radio in it’s case. “My daughter's got real bad allergies. Looks like she's having an allergic reaction to something.”
“I told you that dried fruit was moldy,” Dean said.
Jim ignored him.
Dean stepped closer to John. “We don’t have a lot of room in the shelter but there are plenty of empty houses nearby. You could stay here. You know what they say, there’s safety in numbers. There’s enough food and water in this neighborhood right here to keep us all for years.”
“It’s tempting to stay for a night and rest but we both have family we need to get to. Actually we need to get going. We were wanting to be in Columbia before dark.”
“How you plan on getting there,” Jim asked.
“We plan on finding a way over to I-26,” John said.
“I live right off the interstate near the mall before you get into Columbia,” Amy said.
“Oh,” Beth said with a grin, “I love that mall.”
“You love any mall,” Dean added.
Everyone laughed.
“What do you suggest?” John asked Dean.
“I would go straight through town then cut over. Just follow this road until you get to the four lane then take a left and that runs right into I-26. It’ll be slow going through town but once you get on the other side you should make the highway in thirty minutes. We can move one of them cars and let you through. The keys are still in ‘em.”
“Better watch out for those demons,” Jim said.
“Thanks,” John said. “I would say come with us but you have a real good set up here.”
“Yeah, we’re staying put,” Jim said. “We’re lucky, we have everything we need, we have our families with us and everyone is ok.”
John and Amy felt the pangs of jealousy creeping in but were happy for them.
“Well,” John said, “if you can move one of those cars we’ll be on our way.”
“You bet,” Dean said.
They shook hands all around, everyone wishing the other luck. Dean thought they were making a big mistake by not staying put where it was relatively safe but he understood why they had to go. Hell, he would do the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot.
John and Amy climbed back into the truck and buckled up. They looked at each other as people who are afraid to fly look at each other just before take off.
Jim un-slung his rifle and, holding it at the ready, approached the middle car in the barricade. He opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat of a twenty six year old white Ford Tempo with red fake leather interior. It brought back old memories. One of his old Navy buddies owned a car just like this. He couldn’t help but smile as he thought back on some stories best left untold.
“What the hell are you smiling at,” Dean shouted, “just start the damn car.”
Jim jerked back to the present and turned the key. The old car roared to life, a thick cloud of white smoke spewing from the exhaust. Once the car was out of the way John drove through the gap past where the dead demon lay and stopped. Jim pulled the car back into place and rejoined Beth and Dean. John and Amy turned to look back and waved. Beth, Dean and Jim waved back. John took his foot off the brake and let the idling engine pull them down the road.
“They’ll never make it,” Jim said shaking his head, “not in a million years.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Beth said turning to get back in the truck.
Dean stood for a moment longer watching the truck roll away. “Good luck guys,” he said almost at a whisper. He was convinced he was watching two people drive off to their deaths.
Slowly he turned and walked to the back of the truck and climbed in. Jim tapped on the roof and Beth did a three-point turn and headed back in the direction they had come.
At the gas station, Ken’s gomer stood behind the counter staring up at the blank TV screen. In the back Pops fashioned three crosses from some scrap wood lying around, painted them white and with black paint wrote the date on each one. On one he tacked the I.D. of Amy’s Grandmother. To the other two he attached his own and Ken’s drivers licenses. With shovel, crosses and a hammer in hand, Pops walked back to the woods where they had dug the grave earlier and dug two more. A little more shallow this time. At the head of each grave he drove the crosses into the ground then went back to the station and sat down to clean his gun.
In the truck John and Amy readied their weapons. The gomers stopped to watch them pass but none moved toward them. The sky was still dark gray as the rain returned again. John drove slowly down the street into the heart of town. They noticed bodies stacked in front of two of the houses they passed.
In front of the courthouse John pulled up and stopped. The lawn in front looked like a parking lot. Cars and trucks were parked all over the grass. They were parked at different angles but all were pointing at the courthouse. Some still had their doors open as if someone drove up to the courthouse and jumped out to run inside.
“John what is that,” Amy said pointing to something piled in front of the large doors.
“Looks like bodies,” John answered. “Like they’ve been stacked there to bury later. They must have been using the courthouse as a morgue.”
“Maybe,” Amy said.
The eerie silence outside of the truck was punctuated by the click of the intermittent wipers.
“Turn off the wipers,” Amy said.
“Why?”
“You didn’t hear that?”
“No. Hear what?”
“I’m not sure. I think it came from inside the building.”
John turned off the wipers and listened. The doors and windows of the first floor of the courthouse were all broken. The window on the second floor just above the main entrance was also: the only second floor window in that condition. Glass littered the sidewalks. Here and there bloodstains could be seen.
Just then a muffled scream came from within the courthouse.
“I heard that,” John said.
“Was it a demon?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know.”
Another loud scream met their ears. This one was obviously coming from the second story window of the building. John and Amy both looked up just in time to see a body fly out of the window and land with a thud on the sidewalk. They thought they heard a groan come from it, as it lay there unmoving. Amy felt her stomach churn as the bile rose in her throat.
John looked up at the window the body had come from to see a demon leaning out and looking back at them. Its eyes grew wide when it saw him. The demon withdrew back inside as another scream echoed through the interior of the building.
“Um…John?”
“I saw it. We’re going.”
John put the truck in gear and pulled away quickly. Amy saw the demon come out of the Court House, run to the street and raise it’s head to the sky and scream. It made no attempt to follow them.
“It’s not following us,” she said.
“I hope Dean and Jim keep their guard up. I have a feeling there are a lot more of these in this town.”
/>
“Just keep going John,” Amy said, “no more stops ok. Didn’t we discuss this already?”
John looked at her for a second. “Right,” he said, “right.”
Trying to maintain a little speed John found it easy to weave in and out of the stalled vehicles. Everywhere they looked they saw more gomers. In the yards, businesses and even sitting in crashed cars on the sides of the road. Occasionally more bodies were seen stacked at the front doors of some of the houses.
Finally they made it to the four-lane. John pulled up to the red light and stopped at the line.
“John, we said we weren’t going to stop again,” Amy said looking up from the journal she was writing in.
“I know,” John said pointing to the middle of the intersection, “look.”
Amy turned her attention to the school bus stopped on the other side. The driver was still in the drivers seat working the door handle. It would open the door, wait a minute then shut it. He kept repeating this over and over. Gomer children stood in the isles, book-bags over their shoulders. Several of them had their faces pressed against the windshield peering out. Another eight wandered around the outside of the bus as if lost.
“What do you make of that?” John said.
“Nothing,” Amy answered, still annoyed at John for stopping, “absolutely nothing. The fascination is starting to wear off for all this surreal bullshit. I just want to go home.”
“Sorry.”
“Can we go now?”
The truck crept out into the intersection and turned left, John still not able to take his eyes off the bus as they passed.
He looked over at Amy. “Last night when I was trying to get out of town, I went through an intersection where a crash had occurred between a police cruiser and a mini van,” he told her. “There were two children still strapped in their car seats in the back of the van. They were screaming at me. Their little hands were bloody, their faces were, just evil. It seemed like it was all happening in slow motion. You know what I did? I waved at them. I actually waved at two little zombie children. The looks on their faces...” he paused to look at Amy. “Weird huh?”
“Weird? Weird doesn’t begin to describe what we’ve seen. Seeing children effects us in a different way I guess, you know.”
“Yeah, I guess,” John drove slowly on.
The road was mostly clear to the interstate. An occasional car partially blocked the road here and there. They passed an overturned chicken transport truck on the side of the road. Chickens ran freely in the woods nearby.
As they neared the interstate an orange glow could be seen just over the hill. As they topped the rise they could see clearly that a convenience store was ablaze. John slowed as the truck drew near. The flames leapt high into the air ignoring the rain that was falling. The bright red and yellow flames reflected off the wet pavement as they danced high into the air.
Slowing dramatically in front of the gas pumps, John was instantly verbally assaulted by Amy.
“We said we weren't going to stop again unless we had to!,” she shot at him.
“We’re not stopped,” John said, “I’m still rolling. Besides it’s beautiful, don’t you think? I mean it is in a strange kind of way.”
Amy scowled at him. “Beautiful? John... for God’s sake just keep moving.”
John picked up speed and stopped at the interstate. There were stalled or crashed vehicles here and there but the road was mostly clear.
“It looks passable,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Lets go for it,” she said, “what other choice do we have?”
John turned onto the on ramp as they passed a burned out hulk of a tractor-trailer. There was no smoke.
At the bottom of the ramp was a large and expensive travel camper parked in the emergency lane with its engine cover up. The side windows were broken out and the door was hanging from the hinges. Blood was smeared along the inside of the windshield. Hand and fingerprints could clearly be seen.
“There it is again,” Amy said pointing to a stack of bodies by the door of the camper. “What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know. And I’m not sure I want to,” he answered.
They continued onto the interstate without stopping this time. Amy turned and looked back at the camper. For some reason she was curious as to which state it belonged. It had an Ohio tag.
The interstate was mostly clear as they traveled for the next hour covering almost forty miles. They had to slow a few times to make their way around big rigs and cars in the road but luckily the highway was never blocked completely. They saw no signs of life. Zombies wandered around here and there but mostly paid them no attention.
Just at sunset John stopped on a bridge over a state highway to get out for a stretch. The rain had stopped and the roadway was beginning to dry.
After cleaning his gun, Pops sat in his chair and reflected on his life. Although there were things he wasn’t proud of he thought he had lived a good one. He hoped he had been a good man. He thought about the birth of his first child and grandchild and the death of his wife of forty-eight years. At sunset he decided the time had come. He put the pistol in his pocket then took Ken by the arm and led him out of the station. Together they walked to the edge of the woods and stopped. Pops looked back at the old gas station one more time.
“Full service gas station,” he said out loud then began to laugh. “It’s a dinosaur; just like me.”
Pops turned to Ken, “Come on boy,” he said patting him on the back, “Time to go.”
Leading Ken by the hand, they stepped into the woods and disappeared into the dark dampness.
John walked around for a couple of minutes, relieved himself over the side of the bridge then walked back to the truck.
“We’re only about ten miles out,” John said leaning in the drivers door. “You want to drive? That way you don’t have to give me directions after we exit.”
"Sure, I’m tired of just sitting anyway," she said holding out a small plastic bottle. “Here, hold your hands out.”
John held his hands out palms up. Amy squirted some waterless hand cleaner into each.
“Just because it’s the end of the world doesn’t mean you don’t have to wash your hands after you use the bathroom,” she told him.
“Right.”
Amy switched over to the drivers seat and they started out again.
They soon came upon their exit.
“Look,” she said, “it looks like the mall is on fire.”
A plume of smoke was pouring up into the atmosphere over the trees. They could see that the whole structure had burned down. Probably the day before. The center was still on fire. the mall had collapsed in on itself leaving a large pile of charred ruble. A tear ran down Amy’s cheek as she turned onto the ramp.
“Wow, you women do love your malls don’t you?” John said as they drove by the main entrance.
“God, you can be so insensitive,” Amy said.
“I was just kidding,” John answered sheepishly.
“You know, I basically grew up in that mall,” Amy said tearfully, “pictures with Santa when I was a kid, hanging out there as a teenager, shopping with my Mom…” she trailed off and became silent.
They drove past the mall, over the railroad tracks then turned right taking them past the high school.
“I went to school there,” she told John, “it looks just like it would any other day when schools out.”
“Right, except for the bodies stacked by the main entrance there,” John answered.
Amy hadn’t noticed until he said something but there they were again. Neatly stacked like firewood. They failed to notice the demon standing in a second floor window watching them as they passed by.
They drove on for two more miles then turned into a neighborhood of mostly brick homes that looked to John like they had been built in the 1950’s. Amy turned into the driveway of the third house on the left. She gasped when she saw a mound of dirt, obviously a gr
ave, with a cross stuck in the ground at one end.
She pulled up to the garage and got out. John exited the truck and walked over to the grave.
No name was written on the cross. There was a trail of blood still visible even though it had been raining. The trail led from the grave, over to the sidewalk, up the steps, across the porch and disappeared under the door and into the house. By the marks on the ground it was obvious that a body had been dragged out of the house and across the yard.
“Oh my God,” Amy said trying to hold back the tears.
John put his arm around her and pulled her close. The house looked to be intact. There were no broken windows and the door had no damage. John handed Amy one of the pistols and held his at the ready as they entered.
They followed the trail into the house and into the kitchen where it ended in a puddle of blood in the middle of the room. Amy stared down. Terrified as to what it might mean.
John noticed a note on the front of the refrigerator. It was a note with Amy’s name at the top.
“Amy, there’s a note here with your name on it.”
Amy looked up at John. “I’m afraid to look at it,” she said wiping her eyes, “will you read it?”
John cleared his throat. “It says…Amy, we pray that you are safe and hidden somewhere. We hope you don’t find this note until this is all over. It is 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon. The whole world has turned upside down. We tried to call your Grandmother’s house and your cell phone but the phones went dead early this morning. Your Mother and I are fine. I’m sorry to tell you but your sister is dead. She turned this morning and had to be put down. I know that sounds cold and impersonal but that thing wasn’t your sister. We hope you understand and we will explain everything later.”
“There’s no need Dad,” Amy said tearfully, “I understand.”
John reached over and touched her arm then continued reading, “Your Mother and I have decided to go to the lake house. We think it will be safer there. We’ve packed the things we need and plan to stay there until all this blows over. We’ll be leaving first thing in the morning. Spanky is gone too. He ran off when we went out to burry your sister. We haven’t seen him since.”
The Demon Dead Page 7
