A Good Distance From Dying

by David Carroll

“The guy who did that was crazy.” Shawn said.

  The magic that the fire held over me ended. Shawn’s words hit me like a hammer.

  “What guy?”

  “You mean somebody set that fire? On purpose?” Sass asked.

  Amanda must have felt that a lengthy conversation was on the horizon because she immediately held up her hands before Shawn could answer and stated the obvious.

  “Not here, not now. Let’s get somewhere safe before we start this conversation.”

  Looking around the only two places I could see were either the back of the dump truck or on top of the fire truck. Seeing as how we were standing beside the fire truck we opted to climb up.

  “I was on my way to work this morning.” Shawn said. “I’m a delivery driver at Pizza Hut here in Gray. I don’t live that far from here so I just come to work on the old road instead of taking the interstate. Today, as I topped the hill and started towards the intersection I saw, well, I saw this.”

  He had looked around as he said this to show that all the wreckage we were looking at was here hours ago.

  “I also saw people running around acting crazy. They looked like they were drunk or stoned or something. They were staggering around, falling over and attacking other people. There was blood everywhere. People were screaming. Some people were trying to fight their way out of the intersection, but they were overwhelmed by the crazy people. I skidded to a stop without hitting anybody but the truck behind me didn’t, and it plowed me into the other wreckage. When it hit me, I felt something snap in my chair and it fell back into the reclined position so when I came to a stop, I was laying down below window level looking up at the ceiling. I reached up and locked the doors and then just lay there. I had my sunglasses on so I could watch out the window without anyone on the outside noticing. My plan was to hope that the crazy people would already think I was dead, and they would leave me alone.”

  “The plan worked better than I could have hoped for. Every now and then somebody would stagger over to the car and look in at me but I would stay completely still and after a few minutes they would wander away. At some point I think I either crashed as the adrenaline left me, or I just fell asleep out of boredom. When I woke up, I sneaked a look around. Most of the crazy people had moved on. I only saw three other people in the intersection, and none of them were anywhere near my car. I was thinking that if there was a time to make a break for it, now was that time. I unlocked the doors and steadied myself as I grabbed the handle. That was when I heard the scream.”

  Veronica had held up her hand, “That scream was me.”

  Veronica almost jumped at the chance to be the center of attention.

  “It all started last night after work. I work at the Mouse’s Ear as a dancer.”

  Everything about Veronica suddenly made sense. Her body, her clothes, and her ability to bend people to her will. Her job had forged her into a man manipulating machine.

  “Last night me and a couple of the girls went to work a party after the Ear closed down. We sometimes do that to get a few extra bucks when the weeks are slow. We all ended up sleeping at the guy’s house since we didn’t stop dancing till after the sun came up. We were coming back here to pick up our cars.”

  She looked over at Sass and placed her hand on his leg as she said, “We all went in T’s car.” She said this like it was some secret, like she was telling us something life changing. After she said it she just looked at Sass and said nothing. After a few seconds of the awkward silence Sass finally said, “Okay.”

  Sass shot me a look that said, “What the hell?” I simply smiled and nodded. If she wanted to be a little weird that was fine with me.

  “But when we got here, you won’t believe this, we found the strangest thing. The door to the Ear was standing wide open. I thought it was just the cleaning guy. I figured that he had left it open by mistake. I told the other girls this and they agreed with me, but Mabel said we had to check it out. She said we had to make sure nothing was wrong. So we walked over to the door and took a peek inside.”

  “We ended up walking all the way to the stage before we stopped to really look around. The place was a wreck. It looked like somebody had filmed a bar fight in there for some western movie.” Her eyes seemed to lose focus momentarily then her brow furrowed into a look of irritation.

  “Then Mable starts yelling the cleaning guy’s name. We shushed her, but it was too late. The bad vibes that you could feel in there were nasty enough when everyone was quiet. Once Mable started yelling, it got even worse. We heard a loud crash from behind the stage where the dancers usually got ready. That scared the hell out of us, and we all started heading for the door. Then we found the cleaning guy. He was behind us. That’s when I heard what sounded like bare feet running across the floor. As I turned to look I saw Jerry coming at us from the dressing room. Everyone had always thought that she and the cleaning guy had a thing going. I guess this was the proof of it. She was completely naked and had blood covering most of her body.”

  Veronica looked at Judy when she said, “It kind of looked like that body art where they put paint all over you while you’re naked and it makes it look like you’re wearing clothes or something. I really loved that stuff. I had it done once. I was walking around town like a living, breathing work of art. Everyone loved it; they were complimenting me on it and taking my picture and everything. It was really cool.”

  Somehow listening to her talk was like being hypnotized. She could have droned on and on about her body art adventure and I would have sat there listening till doomsday. I couldn’t even make myself look away to see if the others were as captivated by her as I was. This was something more than simply knowing how to play people. There was something about the girl that demanded your attention and left you powerless against it.

  “Any way, Jerry was running at us and I was so frightened that I couldn’t move. I just stood there watching it all happen. I was lucky to survive. Jerry tackled Mable and started biting her and the cleaning guy grabbed T by the arm and bit into her wrist. Blood went everywhere.”

  Veronica grew quiet again. Her eyes were now focused on the top of the fire truck directly beneath her. Nobody said a word.

  “I made it out the door and to the car, but I forgot that T had been driving so I didn’t have the keys. As I was getting out of the car I saw Mabel step into the doorway. At first I thought that she had somehow gotten away from Jerry and was trying to escape until I got a better look at her. Half of her face was gone from where Jerry had attacked her and she looked really, really, pissed. I decided my best bet would be to run for it. I headed towards the intersection hoping that somebody would be there to help me. As I was running down the hill towards the road I noticed that there were cars everywhere. We had come in from the road out of Gray and I don’t remember seeing any wrecks on that road.

  She stopped for a moment then turned back to look at me.

  “Mabel was like hellafast now that half her face was gone. I used to be able to outrun her easy when she was like, ya’know not eaten. But now she was seriously hanging with me. At the bottom of the hill I felt her grab my arm. That’s when I screamed.”

  “I guess that would do it.” I said as she paused to take a breath. Amanda gave me a look and shook her head in a slow deliberate manner. I gave her a smile.

  “I know!” Veronica said. “I mean here was this scary, half eaten woman that was trying to catch me. All I could imagine was her eating half my face off.”

  She turned and looked directly at Amanda and said, “You can understand how frightening that would be right?”

  I wanted to whisper to Veronica that Amanda was probably not the person she wanted to be looking towards for validation of her fears. Amanda smiled at the young dancer and spoke in a matter of fact tone, “I would have simply shot her in the head and went on about my business.”

  Veronica gave her a strange look, “Why would you have shot her in the head?”

  “Because she’s a zom
bie. That’s how you stop them.”

  Veronica got quiet and looked at Amanda, “Really? These people are zombies? Are you messin with me?”

  Amanda shot another look over to me. The look conveyed the message of “This girl will be the death of us all.” I smiled back and shook my head.

  “Veronica, what did you think these things running around attacking people were?” I asked.

  Veronica seemed to think about for a minute. “I guess I just thought they were crazy people.” After another short pause, “A crazy person could eat half of somebody’s face off just as well as a zombie could.”

  I had to admit she had a point, but I felt I needed to help her a bit towards the path of zombie enlightenment.

  “Yes, they could. However, it isn’t very common for a person who has been bitten by a crazy person to suddenly turn into a crazy person as well. That situation is commonplace with zombies though.”

  Veronica gave me a big nod as she considered my words. “Ahhhh, yeah, you’re right. I can see it now. I didn’t think zombies existed.”

  Sass started laughing, “Join the club. So, what happened after she grabbed your arm?”

  “Oh, that. Well I spun around really quick trying to get her off me. She lost her balance and fell to the ground. I took this as a sign to start running again so I headed down the middle of the road towards the intersection.”

  Shawn now spoke up, “That brings us back to my story. After the scream, I looked in my side mirror and saw her running right towards my car. I saw this mangled chick running after her. As Veronica passed me I gripped the door handle and waited till the zombie was right on top on me then I opened my door. She hit it at a full sprint. It upended her, sending her cartwheeling into the road right beside me. I jumped out and grabbed the baseball bat from my back seat and hit her so hard it spun her head around. It was pretty disturbing to look at. After dealing with the zombie I looked back and saw Veronica just standing there staring at me. She was freaking out big time.”

  Veronica nodded in agreement, “I was really freaking out.”

  “I walked up to her to see if she was okay when she just jumped up and hugged me saying ‘Thank you’ over and over. It was while she was hugging me that I saw the guy walking up to the different gas pumps at the station down there. He went to every pump. He would take the nozzle out of the pump, lock the trigger with the little spring thing and then just lay it on the ground. I was trying to figure out what his deal was. He was wearing black everything. Boots, pants, gloves, a hoodie with the hood pulled over his head. He even had on sunglasses.

  After setting all of the nozzles to pump gas out into the parking lot he then went into the building. I heard two gunshots from inside and then all the pumps turned on. After a few minutes you could smell the gas pouring out and pooling up in the parking lot. The guy then reappeared out of the store. He had grabbed a drink while he was inside and was eating a candy bar. He stood there at the door eating his candy and I guess he was watching the gas spill out into the parking lot. As soon as he finished eating he took a lighter out of his pocket. He walked up to the pump that’s closest to Gray and picked up the nozzle. He started walking up the hill with it, using it to make a path of gas that would lead back to the station.”

  “I could smell the gas.” Veronica said.

  “I looked around and saw the fire truck. I knew we were in trouble and that we needed someplace to hide because there was about to be one mother of a fireball roll through this intersection. I grabbed Veronica by the hand and ran to the fire truck. I put her inside and looked back to the man in black. He had set the nozzle back on the ground and he was watching us.”

  “Are you sure he was standing there watching you?” Amanda asked.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t just a coincidence that we got to safety before he did what he did. He was waiting on us to get into the truck.”

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “Before I shut the door he waved at me and gave me a thumbs up. Then he dropped the lighter.”

  “Wow.” Was all I could think to say.

  “Guy sounds suicidal.” Sass added.

  “There is a fine line between genius and suicidal when dealing with explosives. What happened next?” Amanda said.

  “I turned to see what was happening. The man in black was nowhere to be seen. The fire ran towards the gas station and then it happened. The explosion was so loud I thought I would go deaf. The wind from the explosion pushed the fire truck to where it’s sitting now. If we had gotten in a car it probably would have flipped us over.”

  As he was talking I looked around the intersection and could see that many of the cars were on their sides or upside down. I had just assumed that they were in that position because of the wrecks, but now it made a bit more sense. The explosion must have been impressive to see up close.

  “After the boom of the explosion everything went white. It was so bright that it blinded me. The only thing I can really think to compare it to would be how bright the sun is when you’re leaving a movie at like noon. How it hurts to even crack your eyes open. That’s what it was like looking at the explosion.”

  “It wasn’t long after the explosion that you all showed up. My ears were still ringing and my eyes still hurt and those two things acting together led to my exit from the fire truck being so graceful.”

  “What do you think about the gas station guy, Amanda?” I asked.

  Amanda gave it a second before she answered.

  “It seems to me like he’s creating a diversion. He knows the routine, and from the sound of it he had no fear of what he was doing. This would make me think he’s done it before. Even when you are well trained, the first time you do something there is that apprehension of the unknown that plays on your nerves. I think this is something he’s doing over and over as he makes his way somewhere. The only question I really find myself asking is what’s the diversion for? Who, or what, is he drawing attention from?”

  “Another thought is that he could be herding either people or the zombies towards a general direction. This road sloped downhill meaning the fire forces anybody who comes this way to go into Gray,” I said.

  “Point.” Amanda said as she thought about it.

  “So now it’s Gray as well as the interstate if we are still trying to make it to Johnson City. What do you want to do next, Charlie?” Sass asked.

  I knew what we needed to do, but I was also aware that nobody else was going to want to do it.

  “I think we should go check out the Mouse’s Ear.”

  My suggestion was answered with complete quiet.

  “Let me explain. First of all, it’s a strip club. That means there are no windows. The only point of entry is most likely the front door so if we can figure out a way to barricade the door I think we could hold up there safely for a few days. Let all this craziness pass us by before pushing on to Johnson City. Also, Veronica, I am sure that you have a change of clothes in there.”

  “But, we know that there are zombies in there.” Judy said.

  “There are three zombies in there, and there are millions of zombies out here. We are going to have to get used to the idea that anywhere we explore is going to come with some risk. Every building we pass, every road we take, every place we camp is not going to be safe. Danger is around every corner and hiding in every shadow. If we start playing the game of ‘we can’t do that because there are zombies’ then we are screwed before we start.”

  I could see the doubt in the faces of those around me. It seemed that except for Veronica nobody else wanted to go with my plan. I thought that this would be the moment where I was going to lose my voice in the group but then Amanda spoke.

  “He does have some very good points here. Of all the buildings we’ve seen, a strip club would be the easiest to defend. That is if the only point of entry is the front door. Veronica is as defenseless as they come in her current attire. If she has any other clothes in that building we would be doing her and the g
roup a disservice by not getting any protection that we can for her. I agree with Charlie’s plan. Anybody else have a suggestion?”

  Nobody spoke up.

  “Good.” I said, “Let’s go to the strip club.”

  C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N

  From the parking lot we could only see three or four feet into the building. Nothing was moving. No sounds were present. From where I stood this place was either going to be completely empty or the scariest surprise party I had ever encountered.

  “Maybe the others wandered off while we’ve been doing the welcome to the company bit.” Daniel said.

  “They could have left. Others also could have entered the building. The door is standing wide open for anyone, or anything, to go through. This will be dangerous.” Amanda said.

  She made a good point. I thought about it and decided having the entire group in there would be a time bomb just waiting to go off. We needed a small force, a group who had already thrown down with these monsters and wouldn’t be slack jawed if they ran into them again.

  “Okay, here is how it’s going to work; Amanda, Sass, Shawn, and I are going in there and checking it out. Once we make sure everything’s safe we will come back for the rest of you.” I said.

  Daniel seemed to take offense that he wasn’t included. “And what exactly are we supposed to do out here, wait to be eaten?”

  “Daniel, there are just too many of us for everyone to go in there. I want the rest of you to get into one of these cars and stay safe while we check things out.”

  Daniel glared at me. “Maybe we don’t want to hide while the mighty zombie killers go protect us.”

  I kept telling myself that we weren’t going to do this here. I knew Daniel had been waiting for his chance to fight. He wanted to get payback. He wanted to turn our group into his own private army and take his mission of pain to the dead.

  “Daniel, I mean no disrespect here. I need people who have already fought these creatures in there. If we get inside and have to fight, all it takes is one moment of hesitation and you’re dead. I’m not saying you won’t get your chance for revenge. I’m just saying you’re not going to get it right now.”