Less Than Human (2 page)

T
he ride home was bumpy due to the many unpaved roads they had taken. The rocky trip made Josh queasy and he threw up over the side of the pickup truck several times. Otis smiled at him from the other end of the bed. Josh wrinkled his face at him, not quite grinning, and not quite telling him to go fuck himself, but somewhere in between.

About twenty minutes later, they arrived at the Barker's residence. It was lit up like a Christmas wonderland, minus the faux snow and Santa Claus decorations. The two-story Victorian home loomed before them like a lighthouse amid the fog. It wasn't just sanctuary, but a symbol of hope. Ben felt something flow and ebb through him, a sense that maybe everything was going to be alright after all. Judging from his companions' faces, they felt the same way. Even Emily's face cracked a smile.

“Won't the zombies see this place? It's lit up like an amusement park,” Josh said. His stomach had settled for the time being.

“
Naw,” Otis said, as Cooter brought the truck to a stop in the middle of the endless front yard. The dark made it impossible to tell where their property ended. “Ain't no folks live close to here.”

“
What did you guys do before the apocalypse?” Ben asked timidly.

“
Construction,” Otis grumbled. “Come on. We'll introduce ya'll to Momma Barker.”

M
omma Barker greeted them on the porch, happy to see some new faces. “Welcome ya'll!” she said enthusiastically. “Make yerselves right at home.” She was old—
really old.
Josh figured her days on earth were numbered even before the dead started reanimating.
She could probably pass as one of the dead,
Josh snickered to himself. She hobbled around on an old wooden cane, stained dark mahogany and clear-coated with something shiny. Her lips trembled when she wasn't speaking. Perched on the end of her nose, her glasses were much too small for her face. “I got some fried chicken in the oven. Should be done in bout fifteen minutes if ya'll wanna wash up while yer waiting.”

“
That sounds excellent,” Brit said.

Her mother nodded.

Emily smiled as her stomach grumbled. The thought of eating fried chicken filled her mouth with water. She could almost smell it. It smelled the way Victoria made it every Wednesday night after Girl Scouts. Her eyes welled when she thought about her camp and what had happened there. Her friends. Ranger Steve. The old woman,
what was her name?
Emily tried her best to concentrate on something else.

“
Ma'am? I was wondering if it would be okay to use your telephone? I just wanted to call my son, see if he's alright,” Ben said respectfully.

“
Absolutely. Come own in, come own in.” She waved them in and the five of them were herded like lambs lured to slaughter. “I'll take—what was your name, sweetheart?”

“
Uh, Ben. Ben Ackerman.”

“
I'll take Mr. Ackerman to use the telephone. Otis—you and Floyd show our guests where they'll be staying.”

“
Yes, Momma.”

“
Such good boys,” she muttered, waving Ben on.

Ben nodded to the rest of the group. The rest of the group nodded back, wishing him luck. Then he turned, following the elderly woman as she limped her way down the hall, into the kitchen.

The smell of fried chicken entered his nostrils, his stomach calling for it in a series of gaseous rolls of thunder. The old woman must have heard it.

“
Poor thing. Ya'll must be starving.”

“
Yes, ma'am. I don't think any of us have eaten since this whole thing began.”

“
I'll fix ya'll the best fried chicken ya'll ever had. Popeyes ain't got a thing on old Mae Barker. Ya'll can take that to the bank.”

Ben chuckled at the old woman's quirkiness. She seemed sweet. The southern grandmother he never had. “I can't thank you enough for taking us in,” Ben told her. “You're a mighty fine woman to be doing such a good deed.”

“Oh, stop it. Ain't nothin' but a little southern hospitality where I'm from, that's all. Anyone over here'd do tha same damned thang.”

“
I doubt that very much,” Ben said. “You from the south then?”

“
What gave that away, I wonder?” Mae Barker asked. “The accent or the home décor?”

Ben glanced around the kitchen. “Little bit a both, I suppose.”

“Born and raised in Alabama. Moved to Pennsyl-tucky after the boys' Pa passed away.”

“
Sorry to hear that, Mrs. Barker.”

She shushed him. “Call me, Mae. And don't be sorry. Calvin Barker was a cheating, lying, yellow-bellied son-of-a-beech anyway.”

Ben chuckled.

Through the doorway entered a girl no older than one of Ben's high school students. She was wearing skin-tight jeans, tattered and holey by design. Her hair was braided into pigtails. She was wearing an old, stained tee-shirt, raggedly severed at the shoulders and beneath her tiny breasts, exposing her midriff. Ben could see she wasn't wearing a bra underneath it.

“Bobbi-Jo, what in tarnation! Go put some dang clothes on for goodness sakes!” Mae Barker yelled. “We got company.”

Bobbi-Jo turned around, spotting Ben.

“I'm Bobbi-Jo,” she said in a high-pitched voice. “Sure is glad to meet ya!”

“
Nice to meet you, too,” Ben said, adverting his eyes from her scant wardrobe.

“
Ben and his friends will be staying with us,” Momma Barker explained. “Why don't you go help your brothers get them...
situated.”

“
Sure thang, Momma,” she said. “I hope to see you around, Mister Ben.”

Ben nodded as she bounced out of the room. 

Once she was gone, Momma Barker shook her head. “I sincerely apologize for that. I want you to know I'd never let my daughter leave the house that way. No sir.”

“
I believe you, Ma'am.”

“
Kids these days.”

You have no idea,
Ben thought, thinking about all the dress code violations he had seen at school over the years, never reporting a single one of them.

“
Well, there it is,” Momma Barker said, pointing to the telephone that rested on the kitchen table. “Guess I'll give you some privacy. Holler when yer finished. I'll send Floyd to show you to your room.”

“
Thanks again.”

The old woman nodded, hobbling toward the hallway.

Ben removed the phone from the receiver, raising it to his ear. Dial tone brought tears to his eyes.

“
Y
a'll goan be down here,” Otis told them, opening a door, revealing a staircase.

“
In the basement?” Brit asked, sounding surprised.

“
Well, sheet. Better down there, than out der wit the dead folk.”

Brit exhaled, realizing he was right. “Okay, fine. Let's do it.” She looked to her mother, then her sister.

“At least we'll be able to get a full night's sleep,” Victoria said.

“
Great! Follow me,” Floyd said. He descended into the dark. “Watch yer step. Light switch is in tha cellar.”

Brit followed. Her mother was behind her. Emily gripped her mother's hand as they walked into darkness. Josh wanted to be the last to go, but Otis insisted. Hesitantly, he followed Emily and Victoria. As the steps creaked beneath his feet, uneasiness fell over Josh. He felt Otis's overpowering presence behind him and he instantly felt trapped.
You're just paranoid,
he thought.
It's just the drugs fucking with you.
It had been a while since Josh felt normal and until now, he thought he was handling the strange feelings the withdrawals tossed at him quite nicely. Now he felt panicked, claustrophobic, like there was another person inside of him trying to writhe his way out. He almost turned around, wanting to push the overly-excited brute aside and scramble toward the exit. But then the lights came on, and Josh felt more at ease.

That was, until he exited the staircase and found his feet on the concrete floor. He stared around the room in a haze of confusion. He heard the girls gasp collectively. Josh felt his jaw slack, his mouth open. He rotated, trying to make sense of it all. He saw the decently-spaced basement was fenced in sections, from the floor to the ceiling. It took him a moment to realize these were cages, with locks on them. Dog kennels perhaps, although the Barker's weren't keeping dogs down there.

“What the fuck?” he babbled, stupefied.

A
familiar voice answered on the second ring. Ben's heart pumped so rapidly that he thought it might explode. Despite their past differences, Ben was glad to hear her in that moment. “Hello?” she answered, her voice groggy and half asleep.

“
Melissa...” he said.

“
Yes?” There was a pause. “Who is this?”

“
It's Ben.”

There was another pause and for a second, Ben thought she was going to hang up. He was about to open his mouth to tell her not to, when he heard the name he hated so much. “Benjamin?” she asked. “Holy shit, Ben? Is that really you?”

He wiped the tears away from his eyes, swallowing hard, trying his best not to cry too much. “Mel, is Jake—is he... alive?”

There was a deep sigh on the other end of the line. “Ben... he's... Ben...”

Ben swallowed hard.
Oh God...

“
Jake is fine. He's sleeping in his room as we speak. Ben—are you okay?”

“
No, I'm pretty far from okay.”

“
We've been watching the news. Everything they say...”

“
I know it's fucking crazy.”

“
Ben, New York City is on fire. The whole city is burning to the ground. Other cities, too. We thought... We weren't sure if you made it. We were starting to prepare for the worst.”

“
I'm alive.”

“
Where are you? Are you still in Jersey?”

“
No... I'm...” Ben noticed some mail sitting on the counter. He thumbed through it. “I'm in Cold Creek, Pennsylvania.”

“
How far is that from Pittsburgh?” she asked.

Ben heard another voice ask her who the hell was calling at that hour. At first he thought it was Jake, but the voice was too deep. Melissa told the voice that it was Jake's father. The man sounded astonished that Ben was still alive. Disappointed too.

“I don't know. Not too far I think. I can probably reach you in a few hours.”

“
Well you better be quicker than that,” she said gloomily.

“
What do you mean?” Ben asked, confused.

“
Oh, shit that's right, you can't watch the news.”

“
Mel, what the hell is going on out there? How do you still have power? Are there any zombies by you?” Ben asked.

“
Well, yeah. There are zombies. But not many. The situation has been controlled over here. But by you... the entire East Coast, Ben... It's...”

“
It's what, Mel? What's wrong with the East Coast?”

There was a pause. “It's completely fucked, Ben. And the government—well, what's left of them anyway—they're going to drop a bomb on it.”

Ben was at a loss. He opened his mouth but only a barely-audible squeak came out. He thought he heard Mel say something about going west, to where it was safe, but he tuned her out. A low-pitched drone was all he heard.

“
Everything east of Philadelphia is going to be wiped off the map, Ben.”

Just before he was going to tell Mel that he was coming for Jake and to tell the little guy not to worry, that his father would be home soon, something hard hit Ben in the back of the head. His vision blurred before he could do or say anything. Strength abandoned his knees.

Ben collapsed into utter darkness.

Standing in the middle of the road, the kid was covered in blood from head to toe. His shirt had been reduced to tattered ribbons, his pants caked with filth and gore. His bare feet were scraped from dragging them against the pavement. Droplets of blood trickled down his fingers, forming a scarlet pool around his feet. Behind him, the sun peeked over the horizon. Rows of empty houses stood tall on both sides of the suburban road. Slowly, the kid stumbled towards Ben Ackerman, who rested on his knees, his arms open, ready to embrace his only son.

Ben heard himself cry, uttering Jake's name. 

“
Daddy,” Jake said. “Daddy, you're home.” Jake shambled toward him, zig-zagging drunkenly. “Daddy, I missed you.”

Ben told his son that he missed him too. Very much. More tears fell from his eyes. Ben watched his son grow closer, a tiny smile appearing on his blood-slicked face. His hair was matted with bodily fluids. Chunks of brains and bone rested in the tangled mess like dandruff. The white of Jake's eyes stood out through the gore. Ben closed his, waiting to feel the warmth of holding his son again.

Once in range, Ben reached out, wrapping his arms around him. He hugged him with all of his might, so hard that he expected Jake to protest. But he didn't. Jake hugged him back, repeating the words, “I missed you, Daddy,” over and over again.

Blood smeared Ben's face, stained his relatively spotless clothes, but he didn't care. The cozy sensation from holding Jake felt too good.

Suddenly, Jake pulled back. He looked his father in the eyes, smiling. “Want to meet my friends?” Jake asked. “They're really cool.”

“
Sure, Jakester.”

A horde of dead men and woman appeared in a circle around them instantly. Their appearances mirrored Jake's, but most of them were worse. Flaps of skin dangled from their faces. Broken bones protruded through their thin, colorless skin. Some of the walking corpses were missing appendages.

Ben didn't recoil. He didn't run. He stared at his son confoundedly, awaiting answers to questions that went unasked.

“
They're my family now. Not you.”

“
No, Jake,” Ben said. “No. I'm your family.”

Ben noticed one corpse in the crowd moving toward the front of the pack. Jake's mother. Melissa walked toward them, weaving her way through the dead concourse. She groaned, reminding Ben vaguely of the times he'd been inside her. The noises associated with love-making were disturbingly similar. She pursed her lips back, displaying two rows of rotted teeth and black gums. She was holding the hand of another zombie, whose face was so badly decayed it was unrecognizable.
Fuck buddy,
Ben thought, as the circle enclosed on them.

“
Join us, Daddy?” Jake asked. “Won't you?”

“
Sure, Jake. Anything for you.”

And as the famished monsters reached for him, Jake put his mouth on his father's neck, and tore a hunk of meaty flesh—