Valley of Death, Zombie Trailer Park

by William Bebb

CHAPTER 11

  Tug of War & Skynyrd

  Gripping the dusty steering wheel tightly in both of her wrinkled arthritic hands, Mrs. Remlap's face was a combination of snarling insanity and confusion with more than a dash of outright terror thrown in to the mix. She bore little resemblance to the members of NASCAR racing, but the old Chevy Nova roared down the trailer park road fishtailing with its tires squealing and sending a plume of dust in its wake just the same. The old woman's eyesight was not very good during the day and just before the crack of dawn, with one headlight smashed out during a collision with a wooden crate, it was safe to say as her late husband often would about other poor drivers, “She was bat shit blind.”

  The engine coughed uneasily when she slowed down to make a left turn and headed down the road that led toward the trailer park's exit.

  A large, well aged, and rather savvy in the way-of-the-world jackrabbit leaped atop an antique washing machine someone left along the side of the dusty road. It stood on its hind legs and watched the approaching one headlight piercing the darkness as the car once more picked up speed. It roared closer with its motor shattering the early morning quiet as music spilled through the open driver side window after Remlap's failed attempt to turn off the stereo. In her terrified state of mind, she accidentally turned the volume to its highest setting. The powerful set of quadraphonic stereo speakers played music so loudly that the Nova's body was shaking as much from them as the roaring engine.

  The right front tire spun past the furry long-eared animal within literally a whiskers distance before the car continued into the darkness and left a cloud of dust and exhaust in its wake.

  The jackrabbit twitched its nose, blinked, then looked over its shoulder. It felt the vibration of running footsteps coming closer. The running things smelled of death, madness, and man. (Three things that it didn't want any contact with) It leaped from the washing machine and raced to its narrow home that was in the crawlspace under a nearby mobile home. Once it was safely inside, far from the range of reaching human arms and hands, it turned around and watched the shadowy forms of men on the road and listened to the running footsteps passing by. There was a chorus of growls, snarls, and grunts coming from them. The jackrabbit closed its eyes and its body trembled in the dark safety of its snug subterranean home until they all had left.

  The car ran over an old tricycle decorated with long faded pink tassels hanging out of the handle bars. The small three wheeler became wedged under the front bumper and a horribly loud screeching and scraping sound accompanied the disjointed bucking and shaking of the car.

  Mrs. Remlap glanced at the dashboard as a great many red lights flashing back at her. OIL, TEMP, CHECK ENGINE, and SEATBELT warning indicators tinted the light that covered her face to bright crimson while sparks flew from under the car as it kept dragging the firmly wedged tricycle down the road. The engine coughed and bucked harder as she turned toward the exit.

  A confusing jumble of wrecked cars, junk, and running men blocked most of the exit.

  Her jaw dropped open and the adhesive holding her upper dentures in place failed utterly.

  The dentures that were bought on sale in 1988, at half price, fell out of her gaping mouth and landed on her robe as several dozen men quickly sprinted toward the car. Without thinking, she hit the brakes as the men began to climb up on the hood of her car.

  The Nova's engine made one enormous fart of a backfire and died. From the eight-track stereo, Jerry Reed kept singing about someone named Amos Moses as she seized the crank and began quickly rolling up her window.