Darkest Days: A Southern Zombie Tale (30 page)

***

The sun broke through the tree tops and gleamed off the hood of Rick’s black S-10 as he drove away from another broken shop window. Someone had beaten him to the ammunition inside. The whole time he skulked around the looted ruins, he thought about the church and ways to gain entrance. He had something worked out, but the only kink was lack of a phone. If he played the game right, he could barter his way in. The church would be poorly stocked for a siege. Ammo and groceries could get him in and he
had
to get in. If not, the next time he slept, he would be dead. They would shuffle forward, arms outstretched, wanting his warm flesh. The thought of lying there helpless as they approached made him shudder as if he could already feel the cold hands gripping him.

When Rick finally made up his mind, his hands turned the wheel angling the vehicle into a grocery store parking lot located in between the housing projects and downtown. The particular Shop and Save he looked at through burning, bloodshot eyes most affluent people of the town did not use. Hence, it was small, dingy, and deserted. Cars rested at crazy angles, ignoring the lines underneath. Two met in twisted bumpers and bent hoods. A teenage boy, now deceased, aimlessly pushed a shopping cart up and down the sidewalk. As he neared, the automatic door would slide open as the sensor activated. After a few seconds, it would close and quietly glide open again on the boy’s return trip.

Despite the prolonged yawns stretching his mouth, Rick felt energized. How fast could he scoop canned food into bags and sling it into the truck? Those things would converge pretty quickly once he was discovered. He grinned at the thought of it. “Look out for Billy Bad Ass!” His fist hit the steering wheel for emphasis. He revved the engine and sped at the boy, attempting to block the door with his vehicle. The grill shattered the boy’s hip and his torso ricocheted off the hood. The shopping cart launched off the end of the sidewalk and into the street, sounding out with a metallic rattle. Now the entrance was protected. He could still use the exit door and cut down on the number able to get in. He marveled at his own ingenuity and entered the shop.

Right inside the door, Rick stopped to pull a shiny, stainless-steel buggy from a short row in front of the checkouts. He quickly sped down the produce aisle, very aware that this trip required haste. After only a few feet, a body blocked his path flanked by racks filled with heads of lettuce periodically wetted by misters at the top of the display. As he stopped the cart, a small cloud of flies radiated away from the elderly woman’s carcass and landed back on the seemingly endless food supply. He steered the cart around her, one wheel nudging her hand and sending the pests scattering once again.

Rick reached the end of the aisle having seen only useless perishables and turned the corner by the meat department. He stopped the cart and sharply drew in a breath. A bulky zombie in a butcher’s apron, sans arm, waddled around the bunkers making thick gurgling sounds. The behemoth had not noticed him yet and Rick slowly slid his hand into the belt of his jeans and drew out a pistol. The former butcher turned and looked at the young man. The eyes had already clouded with what the young man assumed were cataracts, but was actually the color and texture of a dried out eyeball. The mouth opened wide in anticipation of food, sending a mixture of syrupy blood and black bile oozing from its maw, dripping onto the shiny floor. Rick laughed in a desperate way as the little voice in his head announced itself. “You know him.”

Keeping the sight on the monster, Rick responded vocally. “I do not. I never shopped here.”

“Still, it’s a small town. You recognize him. He was probably a neighbor.”

“Shut up.” His voice came out even and controlled.

“Is he the father of one of your friends at school? Is he a supporter that cheered you on every Friday night at the game?” The familiar voice taunted him, distracting him from the duty of killing that abomination walking toward him.

“I’ll bet you’ve killed a lot of former friends over the past twenty-four hours. You’ve just been too busy to notice.” He recognized that mocking voice. It was the same one he sometimes used on people at school.

“Survival. No emotion. That’s how I’m going to make it.” He defended.

“Think what you will. In the end, you’re a selfish prick who abandons his ethics the moment he has an excuse to.”

Rick pulled the trigger, filled with hate toward that obnoxious head-voice, feeling that firing his weapon would kill the chatter. The voice did not need to find a chink in his armor, for it was already inside. Nonetheless, the loud rapport of the weapon silenced it as the beast’s bone cracked and the speeding piece of metal pierced the fragile gray matter. The body slumped to the floor, landing with the legs splayed and the remaining arm twisting under the girth of the stomach.

Rick scooted the cart around that body also. He suddenly felt the urge to whistle. And why not? The voice had shut up and he was killing the bad guys. He deserved to enjoy himself for a moment. Pluckily, he continued through the store picking out the items he needed. When he found the Ramen noodles, he slid his arm past the product and just pulled forward sweeping the entire shelf worth into his basket. Next, he attacked a large display of tuna. Then he added canned vegetables and assorted canned fruits, and something that went by the vague and ominous name of “canned meat product”.

Rick briefly paused to lament that Fayette was a dry county. Anything alcoholic would be good at that point. He had developed a taste for any type of beer. When one was underage, one had to drink what was available. He came to the last aisle, which was just a valley of bread, and saw an undead girl of about five on her hands and knees, feasting on a middle aged woman. Rick noticed the blade of a meat cleaver embedded in the adult’s head. His eyes lingered over the gory details. The wedding ring on the woman’s left hand sparkled, catching the fluorescent rays and reflecting back. The meat of her thigh had been ravaged by large bites all the way down to the bone. The girl was occupied, not even noticing the interloper.

Rick wanted to vomit, but did not think that he had anything left to come up. His body surprised him with the things that it could accomplish. Despite having no food in his stomach, the churning hydrochloric fluid spilled over his lips and onto the floor. The acidic bitterness caused him to double over. As the sick flood rocketed out, the girl tore off an inch wide strip of meat, causing his belly to convulse and spasm once more.

Enraged by his weakness, he rushed forward and kicked the girl in the head. Her tiny body tumbled over and Rick began stomping on her fragile face. Her skinny wrists flailed until the structural integrity of her skull gave way. When he finally stopped, he only saw a mess of pulp and fragments of bone. He suddenly felt tired of shopping. The entire thrill seemed to drain away as he carefully placed his foot down in between puddles of various bodily fluids. Vomit or blood, he did not want either on his shoes when he got back in his truck. Almost in a daze, he wrapped his fingers around the handle of the buggy and pushed forward, hearing cans clang together as the weight shifted. At the registers, he half-heartedly shoved his items into white plastic bags printed with the Shop and Save logo. Three bags per hand, he emptied the cart in two trips to his vehicle. Creatures from nearby streets appeared around the corners of the building and across the parking lot, converging on the new meat.

“Too slow, fuckers.” He taunted. His overactive mind flashed the image of killing the five year old causing a chill to creep up his back. That little girl’s skull caving in under his foot made him shudder. The sensation of his foot meeting resistance and that resistance suddenly disappearing made him feel queasy. He opened the door to his truck and waited to turn the key. “Snap out of it.” A cold voice exploded forward. “This is your survival mechanism speaking. You know what happens to pussies who cry over doing what’s necessary? They become zombie chow! So you’re going to hit that fucking gas pedal now!”

On the way out of the parking lot, he missed a walking corpse. The voice with the no-nonsense tone chastised him for it. “What are you thinking? Every one of those things is a potential killer! Hit the next one! Take a few out on the way!”

Rick responded out loud. “Yes, sir.” He pulled the wheel sharply to the right and plowed into a strolling cadaver. “Why don’t I drive to Tuscaloosa?” He asked the voice.

“So, you’d just let a little twerpy piece of shit like Martin shame you? He knocked you out! How big are the guys you block against? Two-fifty? And you let that tubby faggot knock you out?” Rick’s eyes burned with hate and his cheeks reddened with shame. That voice belonged to one mean bastard. He hated that voice more than he hated Martin. He knew that he could drive through anything waiting on the outskirts of town and reach safety, but that damn voice would not let him. The asshole in his head kept goading him by calling him a coward and a sissy. Even with the satisfaction of staying alive, he did not think that he could live with that voice. With mocking laughter ringing in between his ears, he turned the truck down Temple Avenue and headed for the church.

***

The priest sat in one of the third floor offices writing down the day’s happenings, in the event that someone would arrive and pick up the pieces. Maybe some anthropologist in some far-flung future would find a miraculously preserved sheet of paper with Father O’Brien’s distinctive cursive on it. He knew that the odds of this particular sheet on the third floor of building in the middle of what became a war zone were close to astronomical. He wrote anyway as a form of catharsis.

Day one ended horrifically. The creatures endlessly clawed at the obstructed entrance. The inhabitants of the First Baptist Church attempted sleeping in shifts but the constant scratching of nails on wood and the hiss of wordless mouths allowed fitful sleep at best. Once or twice, Stephanie woke up screaming. Martin alternated between extreme openness and complete withdrawal. Eric seemed changed after the boy’s father and sister passed on. The doctor seems to have shut off all the parts of his brain that spurred emotion. Oddly, the boy seems to have recovered quickly besides a mistrust of many of us. After a few hours of sleep, he demanded to be taught marksmanship. The image of an emotionally distraught ten-year old with a rifle comforted no one, but Bryant volunteered to give him lessons in the morning. Speaking of the lovers, the adolescent couple slept and sleep still. They are the only ones managing to rest. They have strength together that they would lack otherwise. I envy them and pity them as well. Their love could be a very short one. Now for the author, I am tired and old. I personally believe that we are all dead. The answers the others ask for lead us nowhere. While I don’t publicly voice my belief, I am starting to feel as though God has quit forgiving us.

The phone rang in an unexpected burst of shrill jingles. Completely dumbfounded, Father O’Brien did not pick up the receiver though his hand was by it. On the second ring, his shock eroded and he lifted the phone to his ear, tentatively greeting “Hello.”

The static-filled reply rushed out in a panic. “I’ve got food and ammo. I can be there in twenty minutes if you’ll open the door and let me in. I have food enough for a few weeks. Oh God. . .” A gunshot sounded through the phone and into the priest’s ear. “Just say yes or I’m a dead man!”

Father O’Brien wanted to alert the others, but the immediacy of the situation was obvious. He quickly responded with assurances and promises of cooperation. “Yes. In twenty minutes, we’ll be expecting you.” He heard the slam of someone hanging up in a hurry on the other end. He had no way of knowing that the fear-filled voice called from a secure room on the second floor of a business in downtown only a few blocks away.

The Father knocked on the office door that Bryant and Cara had made into a bedroom and called through the wood. “Wake up. Get dressed. Everyone needs to meet downstairs immediately. He hopped down the flight of steps to convey the wonderful news to the rest of the party. Bounding into the sanctuary, Martin tossed and turned making it a wonder that he was still asleep. The thin blanket covering him had become tangled around his kicking feet. The priest shifted his gaze to Stephanie who had been awake for hours. She thumbed through a hymnal, looking tired. She looked up at Father O’Brien and shrugged. “I guess you heard me wake up a few times.” The truth was that the priest had heard every one of her screams as she regained consciousness, convinced that some chauvinistic male had been holding her down.

The old man cleared his throat and commanded everyone to rise. Eric looked haggard and begged for the luxury of more sleep. The priest responded curtly. “Get up. Lives are at stake, namely ours.” A statement such as he made grabbed everyone’s attention. Martin sat up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and groggily asking what was going on. Eric listened for the holy man’s next words but was only told to wait.

“Our young couple is on their way down and we need to find Tommy.” As the priest spoke, the child appeared in the stairwell behind him.

Tommy asked in a resigned whisper, “What’s happening?”

Bryant and Cara stepped into the doorway behind the boy and repeated his request. “What is this about?”

The old man rubbed his hand together, eyes gleaming in a way none of them had previously seen. “Now that we are all together, if anyone has taken stock of our food situation, you all know that we will have to survive on a handful of snack cakes and a jar of peanuts.” Grimly, everyone nodded. “A survivor called and said that he had food for several weeks and more bullets. We have about fifteen minutes to get ready for him.” He mapped out his strategy for them. “We’ll post one person on the roof as a lookout. When we receive a signal, we’ll clear the door. One person will be designated as a runner to help bring in the supplies. The rest of us will provide cover.”

Everyone cautiously looked at each other, knowing that someone had to volunteer for the dangerous job. Making several trips back and forth to a vehicle outside the walls of their haven did not appeal to anyone. Soon, the conversation began. The process of elimination started with a seemingly innocent comment from the priest.