by William Bebb
The familiar chugging sound of the septic tank pumps made him feel better as he closed his eyes and leaned back against the big truck's storage tank. It was more than half full and the cool metal felt good on his back.
He made a mental note to buy more nicotine gum and gasoline after he left the trailer park.
Yawning hugely, he briefly considered getting his lunch out of the truck. But ultimately decided to wait since his stomach was still queasy from the unfortunate rabbit experience. He checked his clipboard and saw he only had three more pickups to do. After that he could go home and sleep for the rest of the day.
Josey had been draining tanks since a little after midnight that morning, but didn’t mind since it was much cooler working at night than in the unrelenting heat of the day.
A cloud of flies were attracted to the delicious aroma of the truck's contents and began congregating in greater numbers. He squinted and walked through the growing swarm of excited insects. When he could see clearly, he continued on toward the roofless laundry building. Looking through the doorway, he saw a big room about thirty by sixty feet. The walls were made of concrete blocks. A dark doorway was in the middle of the far wall. There were the old rusting remains of two dozen washing machines and driers, an old candy machine, a broken TV, lots of roofing shingles, rotted boards with rusty nails poking out of them, and a sizable collection of smashed bottles in the room.
What a nasty mess, he thought shaking his head. He imagined that years ago this was probably the safest place to be if a tornado was coming. But where do the people go today in a storm? Probably just hunker down and pray, he thought, looking up at the sky. It was a dark purple color to the west and as he looked back toward the rising sun he saw a deep blue sky making its entrance. Josey smiled, thinking, No tornadoes in sight, it's going to be a beautiful day.
Josey was still staring at the dark blue and purple sky when he heard the truck pumps chugging sound change pitch; it was sucking dry. The swarm of flies was more than he'd seen in a long time. He grumbled, “Damn, forgot to spray myself with bug spray. They're going to eat me alive.”
Pinching his nose shut (having learned long ago the hard way that flies will go up your nose if you don't) he ran for the truck. The flies were everywhere and piloting into his eyes, hair, ears, nose, and mouth. It was disgusting and they bit too. Squinting, he hurried through the cloud of flies until he found the pump switch and shut it off.
The pump fell silent.
The buzzing swarm of flies and the cawing sounds of birds mixed together in a way that made him feel momentarily confused and a little dizzy. Josey stumbled and ran back away from the truck to where the hose was still attached to the septic tank.
He ran into someone and heard them fall with a thud. The flies had thinned out enough for him to catch his breath and open his eyes. Quickly gasping for air, he looked down at the man he knocked over in his blind dash away from the flies. The man was face down on the ground wearing a torn long sleeved dirty blue and white checkered shirt, dirty blue jeans, red bandana, a greasy baseball cap, but no shoes.
Josey couldn't miss seeing that the man's bare feet were all scratched and covered in open cuts and lesions. He must be drunk, he realized, reached down to shake the man's shoulder and asked, “Hey, are you okay?”
The stranger got slowly to his hands and knees as Josey helped him stand up. His hand was only inches away when the man suddenly seized it with frightening strength. Josey gasped when he saw the man's bloody fingers and his skin which appeared grayish black and looked as if it had been torn at by dogs. The stranger’s fingernails dug into his hand and, even through the thick leather gloves, he felt them stabbing his hand.
“Hey! Damn it! Knock that shit off and let go, dick weed! “He yelled, yanking his hand free of his grasp. It was at that moment that he got his first look at the man’s face. Face? Well yes once it may have been a face, but now it looked a lot like what was left of the rabbit this morning (minus its furry cuteness.)
Josey squealed in a very unmanly fashion and gagged at the same time as he fell backward, shocked and nauseated.
The now standing man started to walk toward him.
Josey could often be heard to say, usually at a bar after a few drinks, “My momma raised a lot of Hell, but she never raised a coward who would turn tail and run from any man.” As Josey kept backing away thinking about that phrase. He decided he'd never use it again if he managed to survive the next few minutes. That boast sometimes ended a fight before it began. Although it sometimes set off a brawl if the other guy was a jerk that made some suggestion about other rather impolite things that Josey's momma used to do.
“Nope, never saying that again,” he muttered to himself and quickly turned to run. “Sonof-!” he shouted upon feeling and hearing his knee pop out of joint. It was the same exact agonizing pain as when it had hyper extended like it had the previous month while he'd been playing basketball. He fell onto the ground and screamed, “Damn it!” in blind pain, sprawled face down on the dusty pavement.
Flies buzzed and flew into his face making him gag. He exhaled forcefully through his nose, trying to evict the flies which had already started exploring his nostrils. In a normal situation he'd have taken the time to carefully pop the knee back in place, but under the circumstances he didn't think there was the luxury of time.
The disturbing looking stranger was on his feet grunting and moving toward him.
Rolling onto his back, Josey looked up as the man came closer. Clenching his teeth he pulled the disjointed knee with his hands and felt it 'pop' back into its proper place.
Knowing that it might 'pop' out of joint again, he pulled himself backward and scooted awkwardly across the dusty pavement on his butt. He was moving as quickly as he could toward the truck's cab as the stranger followed. More flies began investigating his mouth and nose.
Josey gave up worrying about them. (Yes, they were disgusting and unpleasant but there are only so many things a person can deal with at one time.)
The strange man followed while he searched his mind for a better or more accurate word. It may have been a man at one time. But now it was what... a monster? Okay sure, a monster, but what kind is he? Josey thought frantically, backing steadily toward the truck's cab unwilling to turn his back on the strange early morning monstrosity.
The man-like thing that walked toward him seemed to be smiling, yet the large patches of missing skin on his face made it hard to be certain.
Josey thought of those late night movies he’d watched as a kid after his parents thought he'd gone to sleep. What's that guy supposed to be, a frigging zombie? It can't be. A walking corpse is the stuff of nightmares and cheesy books, not a Monday morning at an old trailer park just outside of Albuquerque, yet here it is, he thought while frantically hoping everything going on was just a bad dream.
Josey gagged as he scooted back deeper into the swarm of flies. While they began flying in and around his mouth and nose in greater numbers, he felt almost certain this had to be a nightmare. His vision was obscured as he coughed and felt more nauseated while scooting away from the approaching figure. Not being able to see with the swarm of flies all around him, he reached up and felt for the truck's door handle. Gagging and spitting out flies, he painfully opened the door and managed to climb up into the truck cab. After slamming and locking the door shut, he noticed a good size cloud of ravenous flies were trapped inside the cab with him.
He grabbed the can of bug spray and didn't pause a moment to consider the label's dire warning printed in big red letters of using only in a well ventilated area. Instead, he quickly pressed the button and sprayed poison all over himself and the cab of the truck.
Josey coughed on the fumes as he wiped his face, and blew a few flies out of his nose into his handkerchief. He heard a tapping sound and saw the possibly undead man standing outside. His fingers were sliding all over the door's window, leaving dirty dark red blood trails on the glass.
“That's it! I'm leaving!” He sho
uted, starting the truck and wrestling the transmission into first gear. Swearing a mix of often used profanities, he glanced ahead and saw a group of men coming at a staggering trot. He didn't take time to count, but there had to be at least twenty of them and they were within a few seconds of reaching the truck.
As he got the transmission into gear, he yelled at the horde of apparent trailer park zombies, “Adios, Mother Fuckers!”
The truck lurched forward and died so suddenly and completely, he almost started to cry.
He thought maybe he had it in the wrong gear and looked down at the stick shift. But it was in first gear as he pressed down the clutch and tried to restart the engine.
“What the-?” he started to say, before slapping his forehead in realization. “The damn drain hose is still hooked up to the septic tank! Shit!” He swore while turning the key again. The engine sputtered yet most inconveniently refused to start. “Damn engine’s flooded. This is so fucked up,” Josey muttered, (never being known for understating the obvious) while continuing to turn the key with no success in starting the engine.
The men surrounded the truck cab and some climbed up onto the hood.
It's just like one of those stupid damn movies, he thought, while purposely not looking at their faces as his stomach churned uneasily. If he did look at them he knew he'd throw up again. What confused and frightened him, almost as much as their appearance, were the sounds coming from the mangled group of former men- that were now apparently zombies.
In most of the movies Josey had seen they were usually mute or moaning softly. But the undead men were mostly making a weird grunting noise or yelling and screeching. Those noises were accompanied by the sound of fists and scratching fingers as they continued to beat on the truck. A loud scream followed by several others, forced Josey to look around frantically.
The passenger side window was hit by a large brick and cracked.
Josey shouted, “Start, damn you!” as the engine continued to sputter.
A loud crashing sound filled the truck cab as the passenger side window was shattered into tiny pieces as the brick wielder swung again. In a matter of seconds, a thin wiry man was agilely crawling in through the broken window. He moved fast and screamed while scurrying across the bench seat toward Josey.
If he had a gun he would've happily shot him, but since all he had was a can of bug spray he used that. The poisonous spray coated the wiry man from his bleeding eyes to his mouth. The undead man momentarily appeared confused before tearing at his eye sockets while screaming and gibbering nonsensical sounds. Digging and scratching at his eyes with his fingernails, the wiry man howled louder as bright red blood began to flow down his cheeks.
Josey whacked him on the side of his head with the heavy metal toolbox, shouting, “No! Get out! No!”
The wiry man stopped screaming and tearing at his eyes. He shook his head and started crawling forward again, sniffing loudly, as blood continued to pour out of his ruined eye sockets.
That was more than enough for Josey. He snatched up his pack of nicotine gum and his toolbox before shoving open the driver-side door with as hard a push as he could manage.
Several of the apparent zombies fell over backward and into others.
He climbed gingerly out favoring his bad knee and pulled his long crowbar from behind the driver’s seat. Using the crowbar as a cane, he limped shakily a few yards away and thought quickly about his extremely limited number of options. The Remlap house is much too far away but what about the trailers? He glanced over his shoulder at the old man’s silvery trailer and realized it was also too far (at least a quarter mile away and his knee was trembling and throbbing painfully even as he stood there.)
When the pack of undead surged toward him a few started screeching loudly and moved much faster than the rest, perhaps somehow sensing Josey's lack of escape options.
Out of choices, he was about to swing the crowbar at the nearest man when he remembered the laundry building. Josey limped backward and tried not to trip or hurt his knee any worse than it already was. He moved slowly but thankfully most of them were slower.
The man he sprayed had somehow gotten out of the truck and ran through the crowd of slower moving men. He barged forward, knocking a few of the others onto the ground as he came. Sniffing the air with great intensity, the blinded man clutched the can of bug spray in one hand.
Josey leaned against the big metal tank on the back of the truck. He swung and hit the fast moving blinded man with the crowbar. The iron bar struck him on the side of his head. It wasn't much of a hit, but the blinded man dropped the can of bug spray and fell back into the crowd of pursuers, causing several more to trip over his body. They fell into a snarling, biting, clawing mass of madness.
Multiple additional screams were coming from all directions, as the fighting continued, and Josey limped faster.
Stepping through the doorway of the dilapidated building, he tried to avoid the nails and boards which almost blocked the entry entirely. After hobbling inside, he tossed more boards and various other bits of junk into the doorway and looked quickly around the room. He saw the long row of washers and dryers and carefully made his way over to the old rusting machines. The dryers were much lighter than the washers, as he knew from his last job delivering appliances for Loco Larry's retail outlet in Albuquerque.
He yanked and pulled on one of them as he heard the boards and other debris in the doorway being pulled down and knocked aside. Grunting and tugging harder on the rusty machine, he felt it snag on the power cord. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw one of the men halfway inside the ruined building was crawling through the debris while others pushed and tried to climb over him.
“Come on you big bastard,” Josey grunted. When he felt the power cord finally rip away from the rusty machine, he heaved as hard as he could and sent the dryer flying through the air into the doorway.
It landed with a terrific metallic crash on top of the man who had been crawling inside.
He seized the next dryer in line, pulled harder and felt the cord again rip loose from the wall. (Hefting the dryer as a smaller man might toss a bale of hay, he threw it with fairly good accuracy on top of the other one in the doorway.) The door of the dryer sprang open and a somewhat faded multicolored collection of long ago abandoned panties and bras fell out.
