The Beginning of the End (12 page)

Without breaking his
stare he answered, “They’re eating a girl.” Chevy turned away
with disgust. I looked over again trying to avoid the death scene,
“Do you think we could make it to that van?” Chevy propped
himself up on his elbows and lifted his head over the side of the
ditch, “If we can make it to the van without being seen, we should
be able to stay low and run down the side of the street. Those cars
will block us from those dead’s view. What do you think?”

“I’ll let you know
in fifteen seconds!” Chevy said as he jumped out of the ditch and
sprinted until he was behind the van. He hit the ground rolling and
took up position against the van tire.

I looked at the group
of dead again. They hadn’t seen him. I gave Chevy an okay sign with
my fingers. I watched as he crawled around to the front of the van
and stole a look at the group of dead. With the coast clear, he gave
me an exaggerated “come on” wave. The dead were still devouring
their meal. I couldn’t prolong it anymore. I climbed out of the
ditch and sprinted across the lot. I didn’t slow until I was behind
the van. I dropped to my hands and knees trying to catch my breath
again. Chevy glimpsed around the front of the van and whispered “All
clear.” We rounded the back of the van and headed down the row of
cars, trying to keep low and out of sight. Even with the dead now, we
cautiously crossed the gap between the cars. If they looked away from
their rotting carcass, we’d be easily spotted.

The macabre scene of
the dead’s feast made me want to vomit. Still moving, I turned my
head forward in time to see a beer bottle in front of my foot. It was
too late. Before I could stop, my foot kicked the bottle. It rolled a
few inches and looked like it was going to stop, when it caught the
decline of the parking lot, and gravity took over. The bottle rolled
between the car tires and missed everything that could stop it. I was
fixated on the bottle, unable to believe it was still rolling. We
watched as the bottle coasted across the parking lot, underneath
cars, around rocks, and not stopping until it struck the front of a
dead man’s shoe. When we looked up from the bottle, the entire
horde was standing and staring at us. They had lost interest in the
girl and were looking for a fresher meal. Unlike Mrs. McCarthy, the
dead in the group seemed to be moving faster. I watched as they got
closer, petrified with fear.

“Hey!” Chevy
screamed, to get my attention. “Run,” he yelled as he broke into
a trot. I started running and didn’t make my third step when I saw
Chevy go down, “It’s got me!” Chevy shrieked as he hit the
pavement. An arm had come out from underneath a parked car and
grabbed Chevy’s ankle. His momentum took him down like a sack of
bricks. Chevy kicked and screamed but couldn’t get the hand to
release his ankle. The dead man’s second hand grabbed onto Chevy,
and he pulled himself out from under the vehicle and further up his
leg. With his head in full view, I could see he was snapping his
teeth at Chevy, trying to take a bite. Chevy was screaming, trying to
work the hatchet out of his belt loop. His spear fell just out of
reach. The dead man worked himself high enough to bite my friend. The
dead lifted his head with his mouth open. He plunged his teeth down
toward Chevy’s leg. Chevy pleaded for help. I unsheathed my knife
and plunged it into the back of the man’s head in one swift motion.
He collapsed on Chevy. I reached out to help Chevy up and watched as
his open hand turned into a finger pointing behind me. I snapped
around in time to see one of the dead, who had been feasting on the
woman a few minutes earlier, was now trying to feast on me. He tried
to tackle me. I put my hands up in time to grab onto his neck, and we
both tumbled over backwards. He was on top of me now, growling and
snapping his teeth together. His weight was too much, and my arms
were weakening. I couldn’t hold him up any longer. I screamed as
loud as I could. I was close enough to the dead’s mouth to kiss
him, when I saw a barbecue fork penetrate his temple. I pushed the
man off, and he fell to my side. Chevy held down the man’s head
with his boot and pulled his fork out. He turned and extended an arm
to help me up, “That sucked. Now get up, so we can kick some ass!”

Three of the dead were
still coming across the parking lot towards us. Chevy pulled his
hatchet out of the hammer loop on his pants and picked up his spear.
I pulled my knife from the dead man’s head and gave him a nod.
Chevy took three steps like an Olympic javelin thrower and hurled the
spear into the mouth of the dead woman. She toppled over backwards
and was dead before she hit the ground. Chevy screamed as he swung
the hatchet, like he was splitting wood, burying the blade deep in
the dead’s skull. The last dead was a woman who turned toward
Chevy, paying no attention to me. I stepped up from behind and
stabbed my knife through her ear, into her brain. She stopped moving,
and I held my knife there as she slid off the blade. Chevy pulled the
spear from the woman’s head and motioned me to move. We sprinted
through the last fifty yards of the parking lot and turned the corner
of a building, where we froze in our tracks.

There was a black
police car up on the sidewalk, and the red top lights were flashing.

It was hard to see
through the windshield with the glare of the lights flashing in our
eyes, but I could see there was someone sitting in the driver’s
seat.

Dad!

October 11th 11:19pm

Sidara had been walking
for what seemed like hours. The MOLLE vest was heavy and made her
back ache. She could see the bright lights of center city and was
heading in that direction. The screams grew louder and the hairs on
the back of her neck were standing up. Maybe this is a bad idea? She
needed to find a place to hole up for a while. She stopped when she
came across a huge Victorian that was sandwiched in between the
post-war cookie-cutter houses of the 40’s. If it wasn’t for the
Victorian in the middle of it all, this neighborhood could have been
right out of a scene from, “Leave it to Beaver”. Someone, perhaps
the owners boarded up all the windows on the first floor, obviously
attempting to keep the dead out. Sidara was willing to bet that the
occupants had left or died, considering the front door was now wide
open. Being vigilant, she crept closer and pulled her Sig from its
holster. After inching up the porch step, she stopped at the
threshold, “Hello, is anyone home?” Silence was the only reply.
She moved forward reaching for a light switch. She found one, flipped
it on, and nothing happened, “Damn it! The powers out.” She
rummaged through her MOLLE vest and pulled out a flashlight. The
light clicked on and illuminated the hallway. It looked like no one
had been here in months. Tiptoeing down the hall, she picked up on a
stench that grew stronger with every step. An old wooden door stood
at the end of the hall. Sidara placed her ear against it and
listened. She reached down and grabbed the knob, slowly twisting it.
Carefully, to be quiet, she pushed the door open a bit and released
the knob. Sidara lifted the Sig and flashlight together, opening the
door the rest of the way with her foot. The light lit up a living
room that was connected to a parlor. She stepped into a vile waft of
a malodorous brew. She flashed the light across room and smelled it
coming from a man who was sitting on the couch.

“Hello, I didn’t
know anyone was here. Are you okay?” He didn’t move a muscle.
Sidara flanked the man, keeping her distance. As she circled to the
front, she saw a large hole in the man’s chest. There was a .44
Magnum resting on his lap, still being clutched by his hand. I want
that gun, Sidara thought to herself as she eyed the man’s hand
cannon. She made her way through the rest of the first floor
continuing to clear each room as she passed. Sidara went back to the
front of the house and secured the insulated steel door. Walking back
toward the living room, she stopped to grab an antique decorative
chair. She closed the hallway door and wedged the chair under the
handle. That wouldn’t stop any unwanted intruders who might be
lingering upstairs, but it would certainly slow them down. Sidara
headed back to the kitchen not forgetting to grab the .44 off the
man’s lap. She held it up, twisting the cannon from side to side,
amazed by its look and weight.

Feeling a gurgle in her
stomach, she decided it was time to eat. She headed back into the
kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door. She was smacked in the
face with the smell of rotten food, and slammed it closed. “That
smells worse than the guy in the other room!” She said out loud.
The pantry was her only choice. She slid open the bi-fold door
revealing a bounty of soup and canned vegetables, “Perfect!”

The next shelf had the
crackers for the soup. Maybe this wasn’t going to be a bad day
after all. She was about to step out with the soup and crackers when
she saw an open step stool on the floor. Now why would you leave that
there? She used it to look on the top shelf of the pantry, and was
rewarded with an unopened box of Swiss cake rolls, “Jackpot!”

Sidara took a seat at
the table and ate until she was stuffed. Even the smell wasn’t
enough to slow her down. Her belly was starting to ache, she stood up
against the wall, unbuttoned her pants and slid down until her ass
hit the floor. This place was warm, safe, and dry. She closed her
eyes and fell asleep.

October 11th 11:23pm

I ran up to the police
car’s window and banged on the glass. It had to be my dad. I was
sure of it. I looked through the glass, the officer was bent over
wearing his 8-point hat, and it was pulled over his face. I rapped on
the window a few times, he snapped his head around slamming his face
against the glass trying to bite me. The dead cop was still wearing
his seatbelt and with his limited mental ability, he couldn’t
figure out why he was stuck. Unable to remove it, the car would
become his final resting place.

Chevy ran up behind me,
“Is it your dad?” I shook my head no. I didn’t recognize the
dead officer, but it was Unit 310. That was my dad’s police car.
Chevy gave me a tug on my arm, “Ty, there’s a lot of shit going
on here. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation why he’s
in your dad’s car. We’re about a mile away from his house. Let’s
hurry up and get there, and I promise you, you'll feel much better
when you do.”

Chevy was right, that
wasn’t my dad and any officer could have used his car. Maybe my dad
wasn’t working, so they gave his car out to someone else. After a
little self-convincing, I started to feel better. We turned up Bridge
Street and hung a right on Margaret Street. We weren’t far away
now.

We were in the middle
of Court Street when we heard the rumble of a large diesel engine
coming toward us. Chevy and I dove behind a parked car and hid there
as the vehicle got closer. It looked like the same Humvee we had seen
earlier. The guy wearing the wife beater T-shirt was still manning
the fifty-caliber on the top turret. As the vehicle passed us, we
heard screams coming from the back. Two girls came into sight, tied
against the back cargo area. They were both screaming for help. I
came up to a knee and peered over the parked car as the Humvee inched
by us. I was trying to get a better look at the girls, but was
careful not to be seen. Their feet were tied with parachute cord that
secured them to the bumper while their hands were zip tied together
at the wrist. A chain ran between two anchor points on the roof of
the Humvee. The anchor’s intended use was for helicopter transport
of the vehicle. Now the chain ran through the zip ties suspending the
girl’s arms above their head.

A stocky man wearing a
black cowboy hat and boots was sitting on the top of the Humvee with
a rifle resting in his lap. The cowboy turned back to his buddy
manning the fifty-caliber and said something that made them both
laugh. The cowboy looked down at the two shrieking girls and swung
his boot across the brunettes face, “Shut up you stupid bitch or
I’ll boot ya again!”

The second girl with
the blonde hair screamed back in protest, “Oh, big man, kicking a
helpless girl in the face! Untie my hands and try that shit on me and
see what happens. You fucking pig!” The cowboy raised the rifle
from his lap and pushed the barrel against the side of the blonde
girl’s head. The cowboy drove the barrel hard enough, to force the
blonde’s head against her shoulder, “Say it again, Bitch!”

The blonde didn’t
make a peep.

“Yeah, that’s what
I thought! Now you both keep your fucking holes shut or I’ll put
another hole in your head!” The blonde hung there silently with her
eyes closed. The cowboy pulled the rifle away and set it back on his
lap. He turned back to his buddy and said something I couldn’t make
out. They both laughed and I heard the cowboy throw out a, “Yee-haw!”

“Did you see that?”
I said, maybe a little too loud, subconsciously hoping they heard me
giving me a reason to kill them.

“Keep your voice
down, Ty. They’ve got rifles, and we’re outnumbered.” Chevy
stammered. I sat back down on the sidewalk, “We need to go kick
those guy's ass! And why the hell are they taking girls?” Chevy
held a single finger up to his lips, implying that I needed to keep
my voice down to avoid detection, “We have a plan. Let’s stick to
it. If we run out there now trying to help those girls, they’re
just going to mow us down with their rifles. We’ve seen those guys
twice now. It’s almost like they’re patrolling the city. The plan
is get to your parent’s house, find your mom and dad, and arm up
with every weapon we can find. After we do that, we’ll find those
guys and smoke ‘em!” Chevy urged.

I didn’t like the
idea of letting them drive away with those girls but what choice did
we have. Once the Humvee was out of sight, we hopped to our feet and
headed north, not knowing what we’d find.