Dead River, page 7
When a second hand clutched at his left shoulder, Colin tugged the zombie’s hand away and winced in disgust. He pushed himself away from the second one’s grasp, gave an incoherent whisper and led them away. They scurried along the fence at a distance so as to keep the zombies from reaching toward them.
The thin shafts of sunlight straining through the fence became eclipsed with the towering shadows of other zombies. Their protesting groans and heavy footsteps were nearly muffled by the sound of their hearts beating against their chests. There could anywhere from three to maybe three hundred waiting on the other side for the right moment to tear them apart.
Colin’s stomach churned with dread.
When they reached the end of the fence, a large opening brought them into an encroaching forest. They scurried across a narrow dirt trail surrounded bordered by gnarled oaks and thick pines. The smell of pine sap failed to override the noxious stench wafting from the undead.
Branches grasped at their clothes, nearly knocking them off balance. Fallen leaves and crooked gray twigs cracked under their footsteps like frail bones.
Colin led them out of the forest, glanced up at a two-story brown clapboard house and stretched his arm across Stacey’s chest to halt her progress. A green plastic turtle-shaped sandbox sat off to their left teeming with light brown sand now streaked with crusts of dried blood; a cheap plastic kiddie pool sat off to their right, glazed by clumps of dirt and blood that floated along the surface of the water. A trio of wooden stairs led the way across a large wooden patio and over to a pair of sliding glass doors with jagged shards of glass jutting out from the frame; a carpet of broken glass was scattered across the deck.
“Come on.” He said. “We need to move faster.”
“I’m trying, damnit.” Stacy said.
He couldn’t imagine how difficult it’d been for her to carry that baby throughout this whole ordeal. He gave her an A for effort, though.
A strange familiar sound lured his attention away from the house. He peered over Jason’s shoulder, beyond the top of the boy’s head and glanced at a small army of zombies lurching toward them. A squat bald man in a pair of muddy red boxers with a large black hole in the center of his face; a little blonde girl wearing only a flesh-colored pajama top and soft pink panties crawled toward them, dragging a strand of wet pink intestines behind her; the middle-aged couple behind her wearing bloody street clothes picked up the rear, their half-eaten legs leaving a snail trail of blood behind; a tall man in colorful bicycle spandex trotted behind them, his left cheek was peeled back to reveal a map of bone, teeth and rotten flesh.
He waved the kids over to a nearby tree some twenty feet away from him and pressed his finger against his mouth. He gave a loud grunt, launched his left foot and kicked the fat man in the chest. The big man gave a heavy guttural wheeze and stumbled back, his saggy pale arms flailing out from his sides.
When the little girl grasped at his left ankle, he leaped over her head. The tip of his right boot collided with the back of her skull and rolled her onto her back. He landed on his feet, shoved the middle-aged couple backward onto the patio stairs, spun around on his heels and hurried back to the kids.
He clutched Jason’s right wrist, said something incoherent to Stacey and dragged them around to the right side of the house. His heart thudding, he winced at the pain jabbing against his left hip. Sweat coated the back of his neck, poured down his cheeks and secreted inside of his pits.
Once they passed the house, they stopped along the curb and peered down the street. Odd pools of dry sticky blood spread across the pavement; tiny red droplets streaked the hulks of the other deserted vehicles scattered along the way.
From where they stood, his boat resembled a tiny black dot on a bright blue canvas. On his far left, the body of a skinny brunette had been pulled out from the driver side of her lime-green sedan and left to dangle over the side. Her chin rested under a large trail of blood streaking down the side of the door; her head was cocked to one side and there was a large gap in the middle of her throat where her larynx used to be.
Something brushed across his left shoulder, causing him to flinch.
“Look out, Colin.”
He spun around, his boots grinding against the debris sprinkling the pavement. A heavyset old man in a yellow golf-tee and white pants raked his fingers at the air, clawing for his left cheek; the skin around his eyes had been peeled away to reveal a road map of flesh and bone. He threw his arms up across his face to block the old man’s hands, felt the small of his back push against the edge of the Cooper’s hood.
He spun him around and drove his left fist into the old man’s chin. The thing’s head snapped to the right, his rotten lopsided mouth spewing a stream of blood across the air; broken teeth danced across the hood. The kids stepped back, waiting for that one thing to happen when the odds became too uneven for him.
A chorus of moans blared across the street behind him, growing uncomfortably closer. If they didn't get away now, their chances of survival would go from slim to slim.
When the old man clutched at his arm again, Colin drove his left boot against the zombie’s head. Its head twisted until its neck popped like bubble wrap. He peered over his left shoulder and saw a second army of zombies lurching toward them, spewing more guttural groans through their twisted black mouths.
On his right, a tall gaunt man in a bright-green mechanic’s uniform came stumbling toward them. The name HANK was stitched across the left front pocket of his blouse. His mouth had been peeled away to expose a set of black teeth and rotten gums.
Without saying a word, Colin snatched Jason’s right wrist and said, “Keep going, damnit.”
CHAPTER NINE
GIBSON’S Supermarket had been a familiar staple in the town of Milton Ridge, Ohio. Since its grand opening in Nineteen-Sixty-Two, it first started out under the name SCOOTER’S until Nineteen-Ninety-Two when the new owners changed the name to LAYMON’S. In Two-Thousand-Six, those owners filed for Chapter Eleven and sold it to another owner who then changed it to the previous name.
Teresa had remembered shopping there between Ninety-Nine and the three months before everything turned into a five-star fuckeroo, it was one of many local businesses that had been raided by crazy desperate people who cared only for themselves. After the zombies arrived, the owner locked it down, tucked their tail between their legs and skipped town.
Whether they made it or not was a mystery to anyone.
When she and Malik had set out, Teresa covered the right side of the street while he covered the left. His body shrunk into a low crouch, he gripped his nickel-plated 9mm in his right hand and scampered across the street. He stopped beside of a heavily-shaded tree standing along the faded-yellow curb, pressed his spine against its gnarled gray bark and checked each nook and cranny for any undead fiends.
She assumed he’d shaken off this afternoon tirade and decided to become a team player. Trust had never been easy for her to gain from anyone. As a female officer, she’d had such a hard time gaining even the tiniest bit of respect from her co-workers who refused to work with her because (as one of them had said one day) she was liable to go “all menstrual” on him.
Casting quick furtive glances across the neighborhood, they proceed down the street. Bits of broken glass and other debris crunched under their feet with each step they took. They weaved their way through a thin scattering of deserted vehicles with broken windows and rusted hulks crusted with dried blood.
They cleared the makeshift junkyard and passed an antique mall housed inside of a squat white stucco building sitting back from the curb on the left. A white-plastic banner with the words NETTIE’S ANTIQUES AND MORE scrawled across in bold black letters was strung up across the face of the building above the front door. Three cars were parked out front between large pools of dry sticky blood; a pair of vultures picked at the strips of red meaty flesh along spine of a dead plump gray-haired woman lying face down on the pavement.
A loud painful screech blared across the street, grating loudly against Teresa’s eardrums and stopped her dead in her tracks. She flinched, jerked her left hand away from the butt of her gun and snatched a quick breath. She sighed and glanced at the parking lot sitting off to her right in front of the local Salvation Army.
Malik glanced over at a fat black crow perched on the trunk of a red Kia Soul and chuckled. It cocked its right jaw to one side and glanced down at them with its dark soulless eyes. It spread its wings, gave another protesting screech and flew away.
Teresa shook her head, felt her cheeks blush and shook her head. She wrapped her left hand back across the checkered black grip of her Glock and resumed their journey.
She knew to keep her wits about her and be weary of any sudden noises or movements that could spell trouble for both of them. It were moments like those that made smart, courageous officers make bad decisions that got a lot of innocent people killed and jeopardized their careers.
She crawled back inside of herself and scanned her surroundings. Malik hung back for about ten yards just in case and hurried down the left side of the street. He glanced over to his left, then off to the right, over both shoulders and back around in front.
As a child growing up in a rough neighborhood, there was always something to be afraid of. For young Malik Jones, drive-bys, marital disputes that either ended in a hail of bullets or a resisting arrest, stolen property or a drug deal gone bad were just a few of the things which occurred on a daily basis.
At least until the age of seventeen when his cousin Sean (or as he was known around town as S-Dog) coerced him into joining The Ninth Street Mafia. He was timid at first, fearful of what his parents Kandice and Phil would say but he enjoyed it after a while. The drugs, money and pretty women had turned him into the very thing that tainted his childhood and drove his parents crazy with fear.
After they learned he’d dropped out of high school in the tenth grade, they kicked him out and told him to never return. From there on, he upheld his oath to Ninth Street. He would think about them from time to time but it was nothing a good forty, a rolled-up joint, a line of coke or a good blowjob (or maybe all four) that could make him forget about them.
If Phil wanted to work long hours for shit wages for nine hours a day with nothing to show for it, then fine. Not him. He made more cash in a week than what his father would make in a year. He’d rather make easy money any day of the week and every month after that rather than break a sweat for someone whose never broke one themselves.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust or despise Teresa because she was a cop. If there was one thing he couldn’t tolerate it was a woman who failed to submit to him. With a body like hers, she could have any man she wanted.
He had his share of easy women. He could shake their drug of choice in their faces and they would balance a ball on their nose if he told them to.
A loud whistling sound snapped him out of his trace. He blinked, peered over the crown of his left shoulder and down the street. Teresa was crouched down on one knee on top of a faded yellow curb in front of a tall red brick building with a flat gray roof and waved him over.
He raised his hand, checked both sides of the street and sighed. He licked a bead of sweat from his upper lip, held his gun down against his right thigh and hurried over to the front of the building. The words GIBSON’S printed across the face of the right side of the building in huge white capital letters.
His lime-green Converses gave soft whispers along the gritty gray asphalt as he scurried across the parking lot. There were only three cars in the lot but they were spaced out to where they were nowhere near him. He crouched next to her, raked a hand through his bristle-black hair and glanced over the crown of his right shoulder and across the parking lot.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He said. “I thought I heard something coming behind me.”
“Okay.” She said. “You know the drill right?”
He nodded.
“We go in and get whatever we need and get the fuck out here. Don’t bring anything that’ll weigh you down in case we have to run.”
He nodded again. She led him across the front stoop, knelt down beside a pair of automatic sliding glass doors, reached down toward the large black rubber WELCOME mat. She craned her head around, glanced over the crown of her right shoulder and holstered her weapon.
She flung the mat aside, nodded at Malik and grabbed the flat-head screwdriver with the round wooden handle lying in front of the door. He snatched a quick breath, slipped the rug back into place across the stoop, pivoted around on his knees and knelt down behind her. He held his weapon out in front of him in a two-handed shooter’s stance and scanned the parking lot for any unwanted surprises.
Beads of sweat trickled the back of his head and neck. His blood raced with a mixture of fear and unease as his heart pounded against his chest; his skin prickled with fear.
Teresa stood up on her tiptoes, inserted the tip of the screwdriver inside of the six-inch gap between the bottom of the door and the door frame and pried upward. When she heard the door tilt back, the latch dropped and released itself from the bracket with a loud metallic click.
Malik sighed. She withdrew her pistol with her right hand and flung the door open with her left. There were a few occasions in the past when she didn’t get it open in time and it nearly cost them their life.
She backed up against the door, her feet shuffling across the pavement and held it open. She stepped inside the store, called out to him and motioned for him to get inside. Once they were inside, she jerked her foot out of the doorway and drew her weapon.
The door swung shut, jarring the glass inside of its frame. She backed away from the door, snatched a quick breath and paused beside of the door, her heart thudding against her chest. She swept a strand of hair from her right eye, glanced out across the parking lot and sighed.
She turned and opened her to mouth to say something when she realized she was alone. The proud smile on her face etched tiny parentheses around the corners of her mouth for a second before it sunk into a confused frown. She called his name; nothing.
Sleek beige linoleum floors streaked with dust and a rank of glass doors with black rubber handles were stretched across the store’s lime-green walls. A bank of touch-screen cash registers sat off to her left, bullied by a thin metal pole connected to a brightly-lit lamp with a number stenciled on the side, coated in a soft veil of dirt. The twelve perforated metal shelves running parallel from the far-left under a bank of florescent lights were almost bare, displaying a few items that varied in usage.
Teresa knew that one day their supplies would run out and that they would have to seek out another source of rations. The hardest part would be convincing them that she was right and would have to bring them here to show them that she was telling the truth. If the shelves were as bad as they looked, her optimism vanished.
“Malik.” She said. “Where are you?”
Silence save for the low metronomic hum of the fluorescent lights overhead.
“Damn it, Malik.” She said. “Where the fuck are you?”
“I’m over here.”
She flinched at the sound of his voice. Her hand tightened on the grip of her pistol.
“Don’t do anything until I get over there.” She said.
She thought she’d never have to use that tone with an adult but it wasn’t like she was being forced to. Desperation, panic and anger soured the most intelligent minds.
She walked to the far end at the bank of registers and went around the corner. A thick noxious odor wafted across the room, stung her nostrils and burned the back of her throat. She knew not to go this way because they’d gone down this aisle before and knew what it was but she’d gotten tired of calling his name.
The produce aisle. Hundreds of flies hovering and buzzing over slabs of rotten vegetables sitting on slanted black rubber shelves. On her right, the snack aisle was almost empty.
“You better not be looking for more lube,” She said. “or I’m gonna kick your ass.”
She grimaced, her face creased with unease. She clamped her right hand across her nose to ward off the smell and hurried down the aisle, her shoes making tiny squeaking noises with each step she made. She was near the end of the aisle when she–
“Come here, Teresa.”
She flinched and stopped dead in her tracks. The soles of her shoes rubbed against the floor, uttering small childish gasps. Her heart stuttering with fear, she jerked her hand away from her face, no longer concerned about the thick rotten stench floating around her, and drew her weapon from its holster.
She marched down the remainder of the aisle and around the corner. A bank of large refrigerators with black rubber doors and curved metal handles were lined up against the wall on the far-right. Surprisingly, there were enough gallons of milk and orange juice, eggs and butter but she wasn’t sure if they were safe to consume.
“I need you come here.” Malik said. “It’s really important.”
When she reached the front of the dairy section, Teresa saw movement in the corner of her left eye. She snatched another quick breath, turned and peered down the aisle where the canned goods were located. A tall dark figure burst out from between the aisles and reared his right fist back.
She raised her pistol when something flew across the aisle in a straight whistling arc and collided with the left side of her forehead. The impact snapped her head back, jarred her senses and slammed the right side of her chin hard against the crown of her right shoulder. She stumbled back, her hand still tightened around the Glock’s checkered black grip, and collided with the second refrigeration unit on the right.
She slid down the front of the door and hit the floor on shaky legs. Pinpricks of light exploded across her eyes. Pain burst across her head, sliced the top of her skull and burrowed into her brain.
