Darkest Days: A Southern Zombie Tale (17 page)

Eric pulled Randy’s hand from the red crater torn into him. The patient had wedged his fingers into the wound and scratched. Fresh blood poured out as he worked his fingers back and forth in the torn, tender flesh. The movement was accompanied by a squishing sound that disgusted Eric.

“Stop that! You’re making it worse!” He snapped while trying to replace the bandages that were hanging loosely off the trucker’s frame. The man kept on as if he were not conscious of clawing at his own bleeding flesh. “It’s useless!” Eric cried, exasperated. He walked into the next room and left Randy to his poking and prodding. Moments later, the trucker slumped down and his hand fell away from the wound.

The man in the booth removed his oversized black headphones. “New message up. How’s our friend?” He curiously asked.

Eric shook his head. “Dying.” He looked over his shoulder at the large man spread out on an ugly seventies couch. “He looks asleep or passed out.”

“Or dead.” The DJ added.

“I’ll check.” Eric turned and walked back to the office that he had just left. Above him, the radio pumped out Jeremy’s new PSA, which was accurate but, in Eric’s opinion, a little bit dramatic. He glanced back through the window at the DJ flashing him an exaggerated grin and a thumbs up.

Eric entered the room and knelt beside the still body. He began searching for vital signs beginning with the rising and falling of his chest. Disappointingly, he did not see even swallow breathing. “These attackers appear to be in some sort of trance.” The speaker pronounced as Eric shined a flashlight into Randy’s staring eyes. No pupil dilation. “They appear unresponsive to pain.” Eric slapped him lightly on the face. Nothing. Eric hung his head for a moment while checking for a pulse. He felt nothing except fading warmth.

The emergency room doctor looked into the DJ booth. The red “On Air” light above the door cast a small red glow that made everything look menacing. The jockey looked through the glass at the doctor returning his sorrowful expression. Eric’s mouth formed the shapes necessary to convey “He’s dead.”

The young man’s face fell but he never stopped looking through the glass at the doctor. As if he moved in slow motion, Jeremy’s face rearranged itself into a look of shock and fear. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. Any listeners still living heard him cry out “Behind you!”

Eric spun around to see what used to be Randy slam into him. The back of the doctor’s head hit the glass with a thump and he saw stars. Glazed eyes looked through him and yellow teeth snapped with animalistic fury inches away from his face. Despite the pain radiating through the back of his head like tendrils flailing from a central point, Eric had enough strength to stop the closing of those precious few inches. It required every muscle strained to the point of making his arms tremble to prevent the recently deceased from ripping out his jugular.

Jeremy sprinted between rooms armed with a flimsy wooden chair, which like most of the decor had not been popular for decades. He swung the piece of furniture, hitting Randy squarely in the back. Unlike in the movies he had grown up with, the chair did not break. It did succeed in knocking Randy’s corpse into Eric, but not expecting the sudden push forward, the creature only head butted the doctor.

Eric felt another blast of pain, this time from his forehead. He felt sure that he was dead, but again no teeth descended on him. Mindlessly, the resurrected Randy spun to attack the boy with long hair. The young man jumped back, trying to create some distance between him and the monster. While the beast was distracted, Eric groped for anything he could find. His hand dipped into a large glass ashtray, feeling soot coat his fingertips. As the doctor lifted the two pound piece of tempered glass above his head, he saw (over the shoulder of the trucker) Jeremy, like a lion tamer fending the creature off with a small wooden chair.

Eric prayed to the God that he had stopped believing in eons ago and brought the ashtray smashing down. Not paying attention to how he gripped it, he had unconsciously turned the tray sideways and the corner sunk into the skull. Both men watched the body fall to the floor with a half exposed ashtray protruding from its head. Randy fell to one side and the ashtray began to fill with blood from inside the fractured skull.

Eric’s hands shook violently. His chest heaved as he muttered over and over, “He was dead. He was dead.” He looked pleadingly at the other person standing across the gulf that the dead body created. “I swear to you, he was dead.”

***

Bryant and Cara sped down yet another back road as the radio spat out another pre-recorded warning about random attacks. Bryant had heard it through for the third time in a row and felt no reason to avoid interrupting it. “We’re going to my mother’s house. We’ll bring her with us to your parents.” His voice contained the determination that excluded all argument.

When they had left the trailer, the number of pursuers had grown to approximately twenty. Now, none could be seen but neither of the adolescents felt confident that the shadows held no surprises.

The repetitious message overriding the country music broke in mid-sentence. The DJ was obviously speaking live from the station. “Sorry about that folks. We were just attacked. Luckily, we both survived. The other person with me is a medical doctor who has encountered several of these things tonight. After witnessing two people who have been bitten by these maniacs go on to attack others, he has a shocking announcement. As incredible as this seems, the dead are coming back to life. I can’t believe I am saying this.” He muttered in-between well enunciated statements. “This doctor has been present at multiple deaths and every time the deceased has become reanimated and attacked someone else just minutes later. I myself just witnessed it.” His voice contained urgency and belief that would be hard for anyone to fake. “Now, I’ve been taking phone calls all night and the reports are all saying wounds to the head kill them. Shoot it in the brain or crush its skull. It sounds grisly but they will kill you if you don’t.”

When Bryant’s and Cara’s eyes met, neither one could decipher the other’s feelings; honestly, neither knew how to feel themselves. Fear was in their eyes but nervous laughs exited their mouths. Finally, Cara broke the emotional standoff. “I can’t believe I just heard that. If feels like that Orson Wells prank about aliens landing.”

Bryant turned his nervous eyes back to the dusty road in front. “But we’ve seen them. We’ve killed some of them.” He looked at her again, begging her to reason. “I don’t know whether they have come back from the dead like an EC comics’ villain, but the radio was right about the head. I shot one several times in the body but it didn’t die until I put a bullet in its brain.”

Cara shuddered at the thought of her boyfriend pulling the trigger, causing someone’s head to explode like a ripe melon. She shook off the image of her lover as a killer and turned toward the thoughts of her family. Her mother, her father, would they be safe? Would Dad have enough sense to blow away the messed-up looking people banging on the door? Would he know to aim for the head even though the body is a much easier target? How would they react to Bryant’s mom? Then realizing that he was probably worried about his mother in the same way Cara was now, she reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Your mom is fine.” She couldn’t know for sure, but felt that she had to say it. Her lover did not respond.

Prone to introspection, Cara replayed the events of the night in her head. First, they had come across a car wreck with no bodies. Second, they entered a house with signs of a struggle and again, no bodies. She had looked into the vacant eyes of her attackers. She had watched their bones break , take blasts from a pistol, all without registering any pain. She had heard the radio claim that people were eating other people. They attacked with only hands and teeth, like animals. In her mind, facts started locking together.

A chill ran the length of her back and she physically shook it off. “How horrible a death that would be!” She accidentally spoke out loud.

Bryant responded. “What was that?” he asked as if he had not heard her.

“Being eaten.” She tried to stress her fear of that particular fate. “Eaten alive by those things, clawed and groped while chunks of flesh are ripped out one bite at a time.”

“Don’t think about it!” He snapped, his own terror causing him to lose control. “It won’t happen to us.” He gained his composure and followed up in a calmer tone of voice.

“But if it does. . .” She tried to speak.

“It won’t.” He quickly shot back.

Her voice increased in volume trying to overpower his interjection. “But if it does, will you shoot me before they get us?” Her tone and mannerisms frightened him because it was obvious that she meant it.

“Jesus! What morbid fucking thoughts!” He felt sick at the thought of hurting her. Just trying to visualize it turned his stomach and made him taste bile.

“Just say yes.” She commanded.

Bryant could not say it. He licked his dry lips and tried but his heart fluttered, panged, did everything to stop his acceptance. He closed his eyes in the shame of compromise. “I’ll think about it.”

***

Brother Mark Willis headed for the only place he could think of . . . the First Baptist Church. It was an imposing building for a town of five thousand. At four stories tall, it loomed over all other churches in the county. It was a square structure composed mainly of dark brick and stained glass. Unfortunately, in order to reach it, one had to brave the most populated parts of town.

Mark had not heard the WLDX broadcast, since he only listened to the Christian station out of Tuscaloosa. Despite that, somehow he knew to avoid crowds; he knew that he needed a safe place, a comfort zone. He muttered prayers of forgiveness while contemporary Christian singers praised the Lord through his stereo. When he reached the town, it indeed looked like the apocalypse. His eyes widened as he crossed the excavated railroad tracks that once helped Fayette thrive.

The Strip was littered with mangled bodies, some motionless on the ground and others aimlessly walking around. Small fires burned unattended. He saw someone run by screaming, being chased by a large group of limping, sickly people. One vehicle sat on its side in front of the courthouse, overturned earlier in the night. He blinked his eyes, each flutter of the lids trying to wipe away the chaos before him. Blood was everywhere, on everyone, on everything. From his distance, he could not be sure, but one man appeared to be carrying a coil of intestines with him.

Mark completely forgot about the old woman with a caved in skull as he watched the grim menagerie in front of him. A truck raced by him and hit a shambling person wandering in the street. The body slipped under the tires and caused a slight loss of traction. The black pickup started to skid, colliding with a parked car that bounced out of its parking space and through a glass storefront. Steam poured out from under the hood, signifying a destroyed radiator. The truck doors opened after a loud crash, and the panes that once made the front of a furniture store shattered on the sidewalk.

None of the people in their trance-like state paid any heed to the sounds of glass or crashing, but the second a human voice screamed “Get out of the truck!”, Mark saw the crowd turn and start marching. The first boy to exit the wreck held a rifle, lifting the butt to his shoulder and firing at a gore-splattered pedestrian. The being twitched as it fell to the ground with a large exit wound on the back of its head. A passenger leapt out and quickly moved behind the boy with the gun. Mark recognized both boys from his work as a youth minister. “Martin Davis and Richard Langford!” He was shocked on two counts: one, he could not believe that the pair seemed normal in comparison to the rest of the crowd. Two, he never would have guessed that they would be seen in each other’s company.

With no rational thought, Mark stomped the gas pedal causing his car to launch forward. Underneath the layers of conscious thinking, a primitive fear that something bad would happen when the mob reached the two boys forced him to act. Mark’s Chevy Malibu plowed over a man missing both arms, but the preacher didn’t notice. He was concentrating on the rapidly approaching teenagers. He slammed on the brakes with both feet, and the door lined up with the surviving boys.

Rick’s lips kept the hard line his mouth had been drawn into, but Martin broke out in a broad grin and he ran for the car. Rick stayed behind a moment longer to fire one more shot, which missed its target completely, then he sprinted away from his truck with the crumpled front end. Martin dived into the back seat followed closely by Rick. The football player shouted, “Floor it!” as he landed.

Martin gazed out the back window. He saw the father of one of his fellow students stumbling around wearing women’s underwear and little else. Another man wore a towel around his waist and held a straight razor in a bizarre death grip. Both had lost their color like the blood did not course through their veins and arteries any longer.

Mark turned to the boys, one hand on the wheel. “What is going on?” The question was not shouted or asked in panic. It sounded like idle curiosity from a detached observer.

Rick shot back, the polar opposite of the unemotional interrogator. “If you’d listen to WLDX instead of this shit . . .”

Martin sensed that Rick’s ignorant outburst might push their savior to retaliation or at least strain the tentative relationship. He quickly spoke up, spouting out information he had heard on the ride back to town. “It’s mass homicide!” He shouted to overpower Rick’s voice. In a quieter tone, he continued. “These people are no longer human. The radio said that they’ve died and come back, but I don’t know.”

Mark processed this information and decided to remain undecided. His mind could not accept the dead coming back but something weird was going on. In the meantime, he would just keep his eyes open for any plausible explanation.

As the vehicle headed north, Rick became excited and interrupted. “Stop at these pawn shops!”

“Why?” Brother Willis retorted.