Valley of Death, Zombie Trailer Park
Page 86
Several hours later, six big green New Mexico National Guard trucks were lined up neatly near a small tent city that had sprung up near the old laundry building. Troops in hazardous materials suits were methodically searching for any remaining people- alive, infected, dead, or undead throughout the trailer park, as well as the outlying areas.
Other soldiers, also in haz-mat, suits piled bodies and wood inside the old laundry building which had been soaked down with gasoline. Three helicopters hovered over different areas of the park relaying sightings of people to the heavily armed ground forces.
The foul stench of rotting bodies competed with the smells from the thousands of gallons of raw sewage as other soldiers shot and killed any birds in the area. They weren't sure why the sheriff ordered all birds shot but some suspected there was a possibility they could be carrying some sort of germ or virus.
Stephen Keck parked his elegant black Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren in front of the military trucks. Even with the door still closed, he thought the trailer park smelled very unpleasant. Keck got out and brushed back his hair as he looked around.
He caught a whiff of the plethora of hideously foul odors drifting around the trailer park and lit a cigar. He looked at the Rolex on his wrist and felt annoyed. He leaned against the trunk of his car puffing on his ten dollar cigar appearing very out of place and confused. First, the sheriff calls me up and tells me to get over here and now nobody takes a minute to tell me where the fuck he is. These fuckers don't know who they're dealing with, that's for damn sure. I'll give him just one more minute to get over here or I'm going to-
A large hairy knuckled hand landed on his shoulder, breaking his not so deep thoughts. Startled, Keck turned and looked into the chest of a very large man.
A state trooper towering six foot five and endowed with a body builder's physique hollered down at him, “You Keck!?”
Several soldiers looked over then went about their duties as Stephen looked up at the hulking giant and graced him with a slight nod of the head. He cleared his throat and spoke in a voice that trembled while at the same time tried to sound confident, “I am Mr. Stephen Keck, from Beaumont Industries. I was invited here by the sheriff and if you don't get your paw off my shoulder, right now, I'll have you demoted to crossing guard by tomorrow morning... I have friends in very high places.”
Instead of removing his meaty hand the trooper clenched it.
Keck felt something cracking somewhere inside his shoulder. The accompanying pain was a bit above agony but just short of outright torture. He squealed a high pitched string of syllables that came nowhere near forming actual words until he was released.
The trooper looked down at Keck in his expensive Italian business suit and grinned. “You can extinguish that cigar, right now, or I will be extremely happy to find a place to stick it for you,” the trooper said, in a gravelly voice, looking down as Keck's face turned bright red.
Keck quickly dropped the cigar and ground it out under his three hundred dollar pair of imported shoes.
“Follow me and DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING! If you do, I will shoot you in the head and your body will be tossed on a bonfire. I shit you not. Do you understand me?” The trooper asked as a shower of spittle flew from with mouth.
Keck stuttered and finally managed to say, “I understand.”
The trooper turned and took a step before Keck continued to speak. If only he could have left it at that simple two word statement things might have gone better for him, but of course he had to be himself and continued. “I wonder, my steroid addicted friend, if you understand who it is that you're addressing?”
The trooper spun around on his heel with his face an undisguised portrait of righteous fury. “I am addressing the sorry sack of shit responsible for this whole fucking mess. Now, shut the fuck up and follow me,” he said in a low voice. The state trooper then turned and walked to the sheriff's department van that had not one, but two deputies standing on guard duty at the door. Both looked extremely alert and professional. The deputies held their riot shotguns at the ready as the large state trooper climbed up the van's creaking metal stairs.
The trooper opened the door and made an after you gesture.
Stephen Keck walked into the blessedly cool air conditioned trailer and saw Sheriff Guiteriz talking to some officers while gesturing to an aerial map of the valley and the surrounding area. After a minute of being ignored, Keck got bored and noticed a small plastic animal carrier case used for transporting pets sitting on a nearby counter.
It had a piece of paper with a hastily written note taped on it.
Keck leaned down out of boredom and read the note: Contents: 1 small monkey. Property of Charlie Farro. Do not touch or move without permission. -Bo Autry
Keck leaned down further and peered into the shadowy container. It was enclosed except for small metal bars on one end. He saw a suggestion of fur and thumped the carrier softly as the police continued to talk behind him.
The monkey did not respond and he thumped the container again, only a little harder. Keck was in a bad mood and bored. He picked up a pencil and slid it between the metal bars.
When the pencil point poked the monkey inside the carrier it finally moved.
He leaned closer while wishing he had a flashlight. He poked the pencil in again and a loud screeching noise filled the air along with a small, messy, foul, smelly, simian, handful of excrement.
Cha-ka had often thrown droppings at her longtime enemy, Skynyrd the python, and her aim was still as good as ever.
“Shit!” Keck shouted stumbling away from the counter while wiping monkey feces out of his eyes.
Everyone in the van looked at him momentarily as he wiped his face with a silk handkerchief. Conversations resumed as Keck picked up the fallen pencil and started back to the monkey with thoughts of revenge on his mind.
Cha-ka hissed softly as he bent over again to look in the carrier.
State Trooper Dennis Watson had watched Keck's antics long enough. He'd shot people he hated for a lot less and wondered if he could ask permission to take Keck outside for a few minutes. But instead, he walked up behind the overdressed business jerk as he bent over to bother the monkey again. Dumb ass gets shit flung in his eye and still doesn't learn. Maybe I can drive home the point for him, he thought, and picked up a large sharpened pencil and moved to stand behind him.
Keck made kissy noises to Cha-ka and started to insert the pencil again when he felt something sharp stab him in his rather large flabby right butt cheek. He tried to cry out, but a big meaty hand covered his mouth and he couldn't. Hot breath filled his ear as Trooper Watson leaned down and whispered a series of promises; not threats he impressed upon the terrified executive, but promises of extremely unpleasant things he would do to him if he didn't sit down and behave himself.
“Are you going to be a good boy?” Watson whispered into his ear after making his promises.
Keck nodded and the sharp pencil was withdrawn from his butt cheek. He felt nauseated, looking over his shoulder and saw the trooper had swiftly moved back by the door. Oh God, how that big ape is going to pay. I'll tell the sheriff. Oh screw it! I'll tell governor. He owes me enough favors, Keck thought, looking at his expensive watch and feeling this whole situation had been blown out of all proportion.
“Expand the perimeter to forty miles and I want every bush and arroyo checked by nightfall. Coordinate resources with that colonel that has the bad breath over at the National Guard operations tent. Did you alert all towns out to fifty miles, like I told you?”
A grim faced and uncharacteristically deeply serious looking Captain Lopez said, “Yes sir,” and gave Keck a glare that strongly suggested he'd like to beat the crap out of him.
“Good. Did the Med-Evac chopper get that Farro guy out and to the hospital yet?” Guiteriz asked, looking over a notepad.
“Yes sir, bout ten minutes ago. Autry called in the report and said he was heading to the rendezvous point as per your instructions,” Lopez said, then coughed. “
Begging your pardon, sir, but could I be excused. I'd appreciate some fresh air,” he said while continuing to glare at Keck.
“Actually, I'm going to take Mr. Keck on a stroll while the site is still ours. The Centers for Disease Control said they'd be arriving within the hour and will take over all operations at that time. You two stay here and continue coordinating things. I'll be back in about thirty minutes. Also, I need one of you to give my wife a call. Have her pick up a birthday cake and take it to Memorial Hospital. Make sure she gets it done like right now. Tell her only what she needs to know. You got the kid's name?”
Captain Lopez nodded and picked up a satellite phone.
“Come on Stephen, let’s have a talk,” the sheriff said, putting on his hat and picking up a shot gun.
“Listen Manuel, I know things are fucked up but you really have got to believe me. I didn't know that any of this would ever happen,” Keck said, as they walked toward the western side of the park.
What followed was a long drawn out account of how Keck wanted his old friend to see things. While Keck yammered on saying things the sheriff knew were blatant lies, he just nodded his head and asked relevant questions whenever they seemed appropriate. They passed several squads of National Guard troops in search of anyone who might be left in the park as the sun began to set.
When they reached a remote clearing, Sheriff Guiteriz summed up Keck's last fifteen minutes of explanations and outrageous fabrications. “So, what you’re telling me is that none of this was your fault? Not the original death at the factory or the bribe you gave his coworkers to drag that poor bastard out here to dispose of the body? And I guess, viewed from your perspective, you certainly aren't responsible for all these innocent people including a few of my own officers that got killed. That's what you are trying to say, right?” He asked the question in a friendly almost conversational manner in hopes that Keck would say what he did next.
“Exactly, I'm glad we see eye-to-eye on this old buddy and don't you worry I'll be sure to remember you come the next election season. I can be a great fundraiser for a man like you,” Keck said, smiling. He pulled out a cigar and offered the sheriff another one.
“No thanks, old buddy. Hey Bo, would you like a cigar!?” The sheriff called over to the lieutenant standing with a shotgun in the shadows of an old trailer.
“Sure, thanks,” he said, walking over and taking one from the smiling Keck who was glad not to be in any serious trouble after all. He'd been more than a little worried after Captain Lopez called him at the office and said to be at the trailer park in fifteen minutes or he'd be sitting in jail for the rest of his life.
Plus, the muscle brained state trooper had really scared him with that talk of shooting him in the head and throwing him on a bonfire. He considered mentioning how the jerk stabbed him in the butt with a pencil but decided to wait and not press his luck.
Bo lit the cigar while alert for any trouble nearby. He puffed on the cigar and faced the sunset as the sheriff appeared deep in thought.
The sheriff stood with his arms crossed and gave Keck one last appraising look. The man responsible for so much pointless madness and death was sitting on a rusty paint can sucking on a cigar while the stench of burning flesh from the bonfire he'd ordered drifted across the park. He nodded as though having decided something, wandered over behind Keck, ran his finger across his own neck so Bo could see, and nodded again with a grim look on his face.
Bo had been hoping the sheriff would go for his plan. He smiled and ambled back over to them, saying, “Hey, you guys, want to see the funniest thing ever?”
The sheriff walked over and helped Keck stand up. “You should stick with us, Amigo. We certainly don't want anything bad to happen to a man like you, do we?”
“Thanks Manuel,” Stephen Keck said, thinking, I'm glad he understands who the boss really is. It's just like my Golden Rule says; He who has the gold makes the rules.
Bo stepped over a rusty chain and said in a near whisper, “If you look down in the hole you can see it.”
The sheriff stopped to bend over and tie his shoe, saying. “I’ll be there in just a second, Bo.”
Keck stepped over the rusty chain and started to look down in the hole.
Bo grinned and whispered, “Here's my flashlight. It’s a bit dark down there, but you'll laugh when you see it.”
The sheriff gave one last cautious look around and didn't see any possible witnesses.
As Stephen Keck shined the light down the abandoned well shaft Sheriff Guiteriz kicked him in his overfed, overpaid, stupid, murderous, pompous, ass.
He looked at Bo with a grim satisfied expression when they heard the splash followed by the snarls and screams that echoed up from the well.
“It was just a tragic accident, sheriff. I told him to watch out for the chain, but you know what Mr. Keck was like,” Bo said, suppressing a smile with great difficulty.
“It’s just a damn shame; as if the water wasn't polluted enough down there already,” the sheriff said as they turned and walked back to the command post.