Darkest Days: A Southern Zombie Tale (13 page)

As the intensity of the situation drained away, Cara slipped her hand onto her boyfriend’s bicep. “Whoever it was probably cut himself and came in here for a towel.”

Bryant nodded. “We still need to check the rest of the house.”

The rest of the search proceeded much more quickly since both youths were in a much more relaxed state of mind. Finding a phone still on the hook in a bedroom, they called the police and reported the location of the wreck. Since no one present had witnessed the accident, the dispatcher did not tell them to stay put but assured them that someone would be sent out.

Neither teenager could know this, but the old man losing his heart’s blood had raced to the hospital with a rag tied around his wound. He had left only a few minutes before Bryant had driven by the first time. The wounded man reached the emergency room just as the couple reached his pantry.

***

In the ER waiting room, Jed shook as he did whenever he had a high fever, while a nurse bandaged a large chunk of missing flesh. The doctor sprinted down the hall but to no avail, as a major artery had been severed in the patient. Jed, rapidly bleeding to death, started to lose consciousness. The thirteen-minute drive allowed the dishrag to soak through, and the interior of his run-down pickup wore smears of brightly colored blood. In his final moments, he still could not fathom why he had been attacked. His eyes closed and his heart beat once, twice more. Then he died.

The on-duty doctor reached Jed in time to hear the death rattle. “Damn it!” Eric cursed under his breath.

The nurse looked up and gazed with a worried, confused stare. “Doctor Wagner, this man has a large bite on his forearm.”

Eric Wagner checked for a pulse and then faced her. “What does it look like attacked him?” The nurse pulled the bandage away to reveal a wound in the unmistakable shape of a human mouth.

***

Martin walked up and down The Strip, floating from group to group hoping for someone to address him and therefore include him. Walking quickly with his head down, he suddenly heard someone call his name.

Rick, the ever-popular athlete, sat in the back of a new S-10 with a can of light beer clenched in his hand. A girl of fifteen hovered beside him, stroking his thigh. He smiled as he called out in a loud voice. “I’ll bet Martin could help us.”

Martin looked up at the sound of his name. His eyes met Rick’s and he felt a vicious stab of jealousy. The athlete had strength and a handsome face. More importantly, he possessed confidence. His ability to knock larger guys to the ground boosted his ego. Besides that, Rick managed to slide his way into the pants of the majority of high school females.

Rick’s smile widened in a way that made Martin think of a crocodile. “We’re out of beer.” He crushed the empty can for emphasis, letting loose a metallic crunch. “You could help us out.” Rick stood up, patting the girl beside him on her leg. “Excuse me, honey.” The words exuded wisdom of women beyond his tender years. Then he turned his charisma toward the chubby boy standing at the tailgate of his truck.

Martin hesitated. “I don’t know. How will you get it? I don’t think anyone here is twenty-one.”

Rick stepped off the truck and placed his arm around the shorter boy’s shoulders. The slightly fuzzy fabric of the letterman jacket tickled the back of Martin’s neck as a strong hand squeezed his upper arm. The larger boy leaned in like a conspirator.

“Did you know that whoever comes back with the beer is a big hero?” He whispered in Martin’s eager but frightened ear. “All the girls thank him. They drink with him. Then you know what they do, these drunken girls pretending to be women?” He gave a dramatic pause. “They fuck, Martin. And trust me, it’s better when they’re drunk. They’re not as self-conscious, less inhibited.” Minutes later, Rick’s truck, containing Martin and his wallet, headed for the county line.

***

Bryant peered into the darkness past the beams of his headlights. His heart raced with fear, a fear that had been gnawing at his entrails all night long. The fact that they had found nothing in the abandoned home did not comfort him. A foreboding premonition kept forcing its way into his brain. What if the entire town was as deserted as the roads and houses? What if all he found anywhere was a spot of blood and an overturned table?

Bryant mused, “Maybe the owner of the house took the people from the car wreck to the hospital?” That made a certain amount of sense. The survivors would have been disoriented and could have wandered up to the house. The owner would have driven them to town. They had not seen a vehicle outside, and he or she was not home.

Bryant glanced at Cara with concern. He could see that she had never encountered a situation so serious. Lives could end or be saved depending on their actions. Also, something did not feel right, regardless of how much sense her explanation made. When his eyes floated back to the lonely road, a yell erupted from his throat. Two figures stood with their backs turned, blocking the road. Red taillight blazed to life and brakes squealed.

Bryant instinctively threw his arm across Cara’s chest trying to prevent her from flying forward. When the vehicle skidded to a stop, he reached behind the seat for his trusty tire iron, unsure of why he needed it; it just felt safer. With his left hand, he slowly reached across and unclasped his seat belt.

Cara reached out and put her hand on his before he retracted it. “You’re not going out there, are you?” Her demeanor betraying the fear she tried to hide.

Bryant looked through the dusty windshield and saw the two staggering people had turned around and slowly shuffled toward the truck. The male dripped blood from the lower half of his face and it covered the upper part of his shirt. He looked like a non-descript T-shirt and jeans guy except for his head rolling from side to side with each step, tossing his disheveled hair back and forth. The other person was a female wearing a tube top and jean shorts. Her right arm dangled unnaturally from the elbow down.

Bryant’s voice came out dry and hoarse. “They look like they may be from that accident. We’ve got to see if they need help.” Cara’s grip loosened. The driver side door groaned as he stepped out onto the road. His knuckles faded into a pale pink hue as he tightened his hold on the weighty piece of metal. He did not bother to close the door because the two figures finally stepped directly into the beams of his headlights. The male extended his arms, reaching with outstretched fingers toward Bryant.

“Are you okay?” He called, and then waited. Neither one responded. “Can I take you to a hospital?” He tried again.

The tire iron rested at Bryant’s side about the level of his thigh. The man plodding forward suddenly lunged, grabbing at Bryant’s chest. He instinctively stepped back, swinging the bludgeon at the stranger’s head. The skull cracked as the metal connected with the attacker’s cranium. The body crumpled to the ground like a marionette after someone had cut the strings. The female swiped at him, curling her fingers around Bryant’s collar. He retaliated by planting his palm on her sternum and shoving as hard as he could, sending her to the ground. The rough asphalt ripped the skin off the palm of her hand with which she caught herself. Her other arm hung uselessly from her torso as she stood. Bryant watched in horror, realizing that her eyes never registered any pain, not a gasp or even a flinch. She reached for him again.

“Get back or I’ll hit you!” The threat sounded dumb in his ears but it was all he could think of. “Can’t you hear me, you crazy bitch?” She responded by stepping closer. Bryant flexed, closing his eyes as he swung. The tire iron whistled through the air, crashing into her already shattered arm. Bryant opened his eyes to assess the damage he had done. He stared in shock at the still advancing insensible girl. The blow had landed on the compound fracture and almost tore her arm free at the break. The lower half of her appendage held on to her body by a thin strip of flesh pulled taut by the weight of her hanging forearm.

Cara hit the horn and saw Bryant’s head snap around toward her. He had been dazed by the sheer weirdness of the encounter. Like a runner hearing the starting pistol, he broke into a sprint. Racing back to the truck, he dived in and slammed the door. As he threw the column shifter into drive, the woman outside slapped at the window with one good arm and another flopping around, utterly broken. Bryant slammed on the gas and sent the truck rocketing forward.

As scenery raced by outside, Cara’s eyes searched Bryant’s worried face for a reassuring sign. “Did they attack you because they were in shock?” she ventured, still wanting to offer a logical explanation.

Bryant broke out in a sweat only partly the fault of the humid Alabama night. “I don’t know.” He paused. “Their skin was so cold.” He opened his mouth to add something but shuddered at the thought of those hands.

***

Eric Wagner’s normally compassionate brown eyes met the nurse’s frightened green ones as she briskly marched down the hall. When she neared, the woman began hurriedly explaining a recent development. As she spoke, he could feel all the empathy draining away. He knew that this was some backwater, primitive hospital, but the level of incompetence that he witnessed was too much.

In the calmest voice he could muster, Eric asked, “What do you mean the body is missing?”

The nurse repeated her previous statement. “The man that died in the waiting room about fifteen minutes ago has disappeared.”

Eric searched his vocabulary for the appropriate response. “Are you fucking with me?” His control momentarily slipped as he uttered the question. She shook her head, shocked at his language. “Well, find it! I’m sure it didn’t just get up and walk away.”

A scream ripped its way down the hall and another nurse ran by at breakneck speed. Eric turned to see Jed, the bite victim, grab the janitor on both sides of the head and bite his lips off. The skin stretched to the breaking point before ripping away from the front of the man’s face. The injured man fell back with his shiny exposed teeth forming a morbid smile. More high-pitched screams filled the air, one from the victim and several from the witnesses. Behind the current horror show, another blood-splattered patient shambled out of her room and lumbered forward, taking the janitor’s arm and tearing off a chunk like Eric had seen many people do with a fried chicken leg.

This time Eric’s vocabulary failed him. Even for a hardened Emergency Room doctor, this unexplained act of cannibalism pushed his boundaries. He put a hand over his mouth and swallowed the harsh, burning contents of his stomach back down.

***

Martha Crane, at the age of eighty-seven, could barely move. Her muscles had atrophied due to extended bed rest. She hadn’t been able to walk on her own for months now. She hated the bedpan and the condescending orderlies who came in to “help” her. They were young men and women who looked at her with disgust, thinking that their youth was eternal and that they would never end up like her.

Her eyes had dulled over the years, but her ears were still sharp. She could hear the brats in the hall outside on occasion talking about hating the job, hating so and so in room 2A. Suddenly, her sharp ears picked up the sound of her door opening. She rolled her eyes over but only saw a blurred outline of a person. The entrant did not greet her or try to make asinine conversation the way most of the staff did. Then the alarms in her head sounded. As the being moved closer, the fuzziness departed and her eyes widened. The person standing above her lacked his throat. A large hole revealed a crushed trachea, the exposed muscles flexing as the creature worked its jaw in a chewing motion in anticipation of the coming meal.

Martha tried to raise her feeble hands against her attacker. Even with the flood of adrenaline, her arms felt heavy and cumbersome. The looming figure easily pushed her defensively placed arms aside. The old woman did not know why her executioner had chosen her, but she did know what those blood stained teeth wanted.

***

Eric fled down the hall in a panic, pushing open random doors trying to find any kind of haven. One door hit a cannibal in the back as he swung it open. Quickly, he closed it back, catching a glimpse of the beast turning around. Sprinting to the next door, he tossed it open. On the floor only paces in front of him, one of the lunatics shoved a handful of intestines, one end still attached to the former patient on the floor, into its gaping maw. The creature turned, its blank eyes meeting the doctor. The devoured patient, motionless earlier, began twitching and then rolled over to stand up. A mess of various internal organs spilled out onto the floor creating a “plop” as the detached entrails soiled the tiles. Eric shrieked in an uncharacteristically high voice. “You can’t get up!” The doctor aimlessly turned and ran, the Doppler Effect playing with the sound of his screams as he retreated.

Eric reached an exit door and threw himself through it, but the scene greeting him on the other side was no better. For a brief moment, he stood rooted to the spot, his mind unable to process the level of death he personally witnessed. People ran blindly, yelling for help. Terrifying parodies of living people attacked anything moving. Somehow in the maelstrom, Eric escaped detection and joined the random population running in a blind panic. Eric’s flight was not blind though, as he had one recurring thought: “Get to the car, get to the car, get to the car.” Fumbling with his keys as he ran, he dropped them once but smoothly plucked them off the ground without losing more than a few steps. He reached his white Ford Escort and missed the keyhole twice before successfully unlocking his door. Inside the car, he felt momentarily in control, an illusion that would soon be shattered.

On the highway, the drivers of passing cars wondered about the multitude of nurses and visitors pouring through the doors of the hospital. Some thought about a fire, others about a chemical leak, but certainly no one thought about the truth. Spectators flying by at fifty miles an hour did not have much chance to observe what was happening. One passing motorist called the police on her cell phone as she watched a man with his arms on a nurse’s shoulders tear her throat out with his teeth. She informed the 911 operators that the Fayette Medical Center was in complete carnage. Very soon, the calls would flood the paltry number of operators, and almost as soon, something else would flood the entire town.