Tales of the Decay

by James Barton

  The man in red-stained bandages looked toward the window nervously. He spun around and noticed the zombie heading his way. It was still half of the parking lot away and, at the pace it was moving, there was still time for a little chat.

  “You and your friends just move on.”

  “Someone is fucking with the back door,” Russel whisper-yelled as he scurried into the room.

  “Will the door hold?” Ian asked Kayla.

  She looked at him with panic in her eyes. She finally snapped to, before responding. “Yeah, it’s one of those heavy industrial doors. It’s a double deadbolt too, so we should be okay.”

  “What friends? It’s just me, please don’t let me die out here.”

  “I already spotted your friend in the bushes over there. Look, you call your people off and find a new target and nobody gets hurt. Otherwise, we end up in a gunfight where I get the first shot.”

  “Man, you’re crazy, please just let me in.”

  “Look I’ll give you to the count of three to turn around and leave,” Ian commanded.

  “C’mon, all the other places turned me away. Please don’t leave me out here to die,” the man begged.

  “One.”

  “Please, man!”

  “Two.”

  “Y’know what, fuck this,” the man said angrily. He lifted his shirt slightly, revealing a concealed handgun. He reached for it in an overly showy fashion and before it left the rim of his belt, Ian fired a shot that sent brain matter cascading onto the dirty pavement.

  “Jesus Christ!” Kayla cried out and shielded her ears.

  The man who had been hiding unsuccessfully in the bushes leapt to his feet in surprise. Ian had immediately moved his sights toward the bushes after the first shot. Without hesitation Ian pulled the trigger a second time. The man tumbled awkwardly onto the ground as the sound of gunfire filled the room.

  “What the hell are you doing?” David shouted and dropped to the floor in a prone position.

  “Stay down, the one from the back will be here any second.”

  “You can’t just murder people!” David cried out.

  “He was going to shoot, I just did it first. I’m not letting them come in here to steal the food or worse,” Ian said and looked over at Kayla. “I’ve met these types of people before.”

  Kayla’s face contorted into a sad and yet confused look. It was too difficult to assign blame in the middle of this situation.

  Ian positioned himself so that he would have a clear shot if the person from the back door ran toward the road. He now noticed a small plume of exhaust drifting into the air a few buildings down. It had to be their vehicle, the one that was not crashed.

  “Ian, stop, you can’t do this,” hissed David.

  “He will just run back to his crew and come at us when we least expect it,” Ian replied.

  “They might do that anyways after you killed two of their friends!”

  “It’s a dangerous world, they won’t know what happened after the dead eat the evidence.”

  Ian’s eyes didn’t stray from his scope, but he didn’t have to see David to know he was upset. Ian figured he knew what kind of person David was, he was the type of person that still believed in peaceful solutions. He thought there was still good in the world. Ian believed he was wrong.

  “There he is,” Ian said softly and leaned into his scope.

  Running past the bushes and into the street was an overweight man with a head full of curly brown hair. The path was somewhat obstructed, but Ian scanned the street and saw an opening fifteen paces ahead. He peered into the scope and waited for his moment.

  There was a sudden shove that pushed the rifle and scope vastly off target. Ian looked up to see David with his bony white fingers wrapped around the side of the barrel. The chance to take the shot had passed. A few moments later the sound of screeching tires faded into the distance. Ian’s eyes narrowed into a scowl and David let go of the rifle, his arms raised in submission.

  “David, what the hell is wrong with you?” Russel shouted from the middle of the dining area.

  Ian said nothing and only shook his head softly in disapproval. At that moment, there was a fire in his eyes. Ian wasn’t a large man exactly, but at that moment he appeared to be ten stories tall to David.

  “Look I’m sorry. I just …”

  Ian leaned in and with one swift punch, floored David. As he hit the ground butt-first, he uttered a soft hugh as the air escaped his lungs. Ian turned his grip on the rifle and raised the butt up in the air, his lip curling in anger.

  “Ian, stop!” Kayla cried out.

  Ian halted his rifle-butt a few inches from David’s nose. He looked at everyone, their faces plastered with fear. “Fucking asshole. You think I enjoy this?” He paused, looking at their shocked faces. “Now, when they come back – and they will – I’m going to have to kill more innocent people.” Looking down at David, Ian said, “I hope you didn’t just kill us all.” As the truth of what he said began to sink in, he stepped toward the front door. “Out of my way, I have work to do.”

  “Are you okay?” Kayla whispered to David as she knelt beside him.

  Ian swung the front door open and paused halfway.

  “I’ll be shoring up our defenses if you need me. Oh, and don’t lock me out … just, don’t,” he said, glaring at them, the threat clear.

  Ian took a few steps outside and the sun had begun to set. If it weren’t for the zombie chowing down on their former attacker, Ian might have thought it was a nice day. It would have been a good day to go golfing, even though he hadn’t been in years. It was a sport he was never that good at, but enjoyed it all the same. His old buddies used to say he’d have a better chance of shooting the balls off a horsefly, than making par on a course.

  The zombie barely seemed to notice Ian as he was shoveling what looked like a string of sausage links into its gaping mouth. With one grunt, Ian drove his combat knife deep into the creature’s brain. He pushed the zombie over and wiped his blade on the dead man’s pants. He dug around the man’s pockets and searched the area for anything left behind.

  “Ian, you are starting to scare people. They are pretty upset,” Russel said as he stepped outside.

  “Two 9 mils and about thirty-six rounds.”

  “What?”

  “It’s what they had on them,” he said and handed Russel both weapons.

  “What do I do with these?”

  “Arm up. Two guns, so I guess you all pick two people,” Ian responded.

  “You aren’t afraid that, uh, I mean …”

  “David might shoot me?” Ian barely acknowledged the question. “When you’re done with that, come see me. I have an idea for these vehicles.”

  “We tried getting them to run earlier, but I think they’re out of gas.”

  “That’s fine, I only need the battery to work.”

  That night, dinner was relatively quiet. David repeatedly cast dirty looks at Ian, but he paid it little mind. The group was comforted at the gesture of being armed; it showed at the very least that this was no longer a one-man army. Russel and Kayla had stepped up to be equipped and David had no objections. Before dinner was completed, Ian had shown them both how to handle and use their new weapons.

  “They might not come back, you might have scared them off,” Russel said.

  “They might not have needed to come back if someone hadn’t shot them,” David said with a thick layer of attitude slathered on.

  “Why was the man begging for us to save him from the zombie when he had a fully loaded pistol? It was all deception, you should thank Ian for acting when he did,” Russel responded.

  “Maybe I should just talk to them first. They might understand that it was out of self-defense,” David said.

  Ian looked up from his dry cornbread and swallowed hard before responding. “If you try to talk to them, they will kill you.”

  “You don’t know that. God, you army-types are all the same.”

&nb
sp; “I’m not picking sides, but I believe they had ill intent. If they have friends, revenge might be high on their list of things to do. We just need to be ready if they come back,” Kayla said.

  “Fine, take his side,” David complained.

  “I just said I wasn’t taking a side.”

  Ian interrupted. “David, please, just hang back.”

  “I’m not one of your little soldiers, I’m going to talk some sense into everyone and you can’t stop me. Or are you going to hit me again?”

  “Fine. Just, don’t open the door.”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  Ian looked at him blankly for a moment. Choice responses seemed to float just within reach, but he decided to leave it be.

  “Eat up, they’ll be here tonight,” Ian said surely.

  Everyone stopped bickering for a moment and looked at him.

  “How do you know?” Kayla asked.

  “The driver went back in the direction they came from, meaning they have a base of some sort. They will know it was us, so they will want revenge. They will be smart enough to wait until nightfall, but too impatient to wait more than a single day.”

  “This isn’t an old western, you can’t possibly think you can just shoot them all dead,” David said.

  “I don’t have to shoot them all, just enough for them to realize we aren’t worth attacking. After they realize they are dying for some cornbread, they’ll retreat. After that, it’ll be hard to convince people to come back.”

  “You’re not psychic,” David mumbled.

  “No, but I know combat.”

  Ian wished he was wrong. He knew people and being prepared for the truth eased the blow. Ian had seen this same story unfold too many times, but who was he responsible for? He wasn’t a commander and these people weren’t his soldiers. But even at his relatively young age, he had seen too much of the world and too many things to just let a bunch of kids get him killed with their naïve bullshit.

  A dark truck rolled up and halted hard in the road. Ian made the signal and Russel slipped out the back door and headed to his position. It was too dark to make out features, but the truck had a light rack on the top and it was packed with a handful of men. From here, he thought that he had a decent chance of hitting one before their feet even touched the ground.

  David put his hand gently on Ian’s shoulder. “Don’t. Let me talk to them first. I just want to give everyone the chance to walk away, that’s all. Please.”

  “You got guts, but I’m telling you that you should …”

  “Just let me do my thing, you do yours if it goes sideways.”

  “Deal.”

  A few men hung around the truck and two others began walking cautiously toward the building. They looked like they had hunting rifles, but it was hard to make out details.

  One of the men hung back halfway and the second one approached the door.

  David stood neatly in the center of the doorway breathing deeply. There was a hard banging coming from the other side.

  “You all shoot everyone that asks for help or just my brother?” the man accused.

  David took one deliberate deep breath. For a second it looked like he was about to execute a meditation pose.

  “It was all a misunderstanding,” David said through the door. He was visibly shaking, but his voice came out strong and confident.

  “Misunderstanding? Those normally result in heated words, not the deaths of all my friends. Why don’t you open up and we can talk about this without me looking over my shoulder, there are zeds all over.”

  David looked over at Kayla who was squatting by the side window. She looked back to him with a look that said, ‘Don’t you dare’.

  “I’m sorry, we aren’t opening the door.”

  “Sorry? Yeah, you sound sorry. Murder my brother and hide in your little pillow fort like you big or something. If you’re sorry, why don’t you give us some compensation. I figure you got quite the stockpile of food. How about you give us half and we walk away. That’d show me how remorsed’ you are.”

  David looked to his left and right, Kayla and Ian both furrowed their brows. He took a deep breath before whispering to his housemates, “We can end this without bloodshed.”

  “No,” Ian said calmly.

  “Kayla?”

  “David … I … no, just no,” she said hesitantly.

  “David, it’s time to disengage,” Ian said.

  “Look, we can work this out. No one has to get hurt. He drew his weapon on us,” David called out.

  “Uh huh. Look, things are tough, I get that. I just need you to know …” he began before his voice trailed into a muffled nothing.

  David put his hand up to his ear after being unable to hear the man.

  “He just waved the other guy closer,” Kayla whispered.

  “I said,” the man began before trailing off into a quiet mumble of words again.

  David pressed his ear up to the door, “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “David get down!” Ian shouted.

  His shout was interrupted by the sound of a shotgun slug breaching the door. David was blasted backward as a snowstorm of glass flakes plinked onto the linoleum floor. Without hesitation, Ian took the easiest shot. The man’s partner that had been hanging back was completely exposed. Even in the dark it was an easy pick. The man spun backward and down after taking a hit center mass. He slowly sat up, his left hand clutching his chest and began firing wildly into the building. The men in the truck began firing indiscriminately into the old restaurant as well. Bits of sawdust and splinters began to explode around them as bullets invaded their home.

  Their leader fired his shotgun once more into the lock of the door and it flapped open like a flag in the wind. The truck on the street turned on a powerful spotlight and it nearly blinded them. As the door swung open, the light poured onto David. He was lying on his side grasping his chest and the floor was stained with more blood than seemed logically possible.

  Their attacker stepped inside. His entrance caused his men to pause their attack, if only briefly. One loud bootstep echoed throughout the dining room and, for a moment, there was silence. Both sides had ceased their attacks and there was only a low whimpering sound coming from David. “I saw you in the window,” the man growled under his breath. He pivoted to the left and stepped forward, firing his shotgun twice into the darkness. There was again, only silence.

  Kayla took a deep breath; this wasn’t easy for her. A cramp in her stomach appeared suddenly, and through a wince, she pulled the trigger. There was a deafening roar from her gun that somehow seemed to shake her harder than any previous sounds. She pulled it four more times and, out of her five shots, four of them tore through the intruder’s back. Their tactic of revealing their position and then moving to the other side left him completely exposed. Kayla was no sharpshooter, but her second bullet struck the man’s spinal cord, and the fourth and final one entered the back of his brain, killing him instantly.

  David was the only thing illuminated in the building as the spotlight beamed through the front door. He gulped at the air like a fish as he struggled to stay propped up on his shoulder.

  “Jake!” one of the men outside yelled.

  “Jake!” a second one called out.

  The shadowy figures behind the spotlight looked at each other with a look of confusion.

  They raised their weapons to their shoulders and it seemed that they finally pieced together the fact that Jake was not going to be riding home with them.

  “Now!” Ian screamed out the window.

  The men pivoted their aim toward his voice, but they were suddenly hit with the high-beams from a Dodge pickup stationed in the parking lot. They squinted and turned their faces to the side as the light engulfed them entirely.

  One shot rang out from the building and it shattered the spotlight on their truck. As the light died in one glorious burst, so did the truckers’ advantage. Before the man standing in the back of the truck even realiz
ed the spotlight had been hit, a second bullet knocked him over the side of the truck bed. “Help me up, let’s get the hell out of here,” he called out.

  Another man jumped down and ran over to him. Before he could grab his friend, he collapsed on top of him limply, as the sound of Ian’s rifle cut through the night air once more. The black truck’s tires screeched before rocketing off into the darkness.

  The next few minutes were a blur; the adrenaline began to fade and the gravity of what just happened began to set in. Kayla had thrown up in the corner before securing the front door. Russel stepped inside, a can of spray-paint clasped in his hand, and a smile planted on his face. His smile disappeared almost as quickly as Kayla’s dinner when he saw the damage. Ian was squatting over David.

  David looked up at Ian, a weak smile stretched across his face. “Go ahead,” he coughed, “you can say I told you so.”

  “Seems like it would be in poor taste, bud,” Ian said softly.

  “I just wanted to help, I wanted to stop the shooting. It isn’t who we are, it doesn’t have to be.”

  “It’s who I am. I’ve been fighting the bad guys long enough to know. I was trying to protect you.”

  “That’s what soldiers do, right?” said David hoarsely. “You fight the bad guys so people like me can think there is still good in the world. You think I’m a coward who refuses to fight, huh?” he said before hocking up a red gob onto the floor. It plopped loudly into the puddle of blood beneath him. It seemed that the wound was coming from his stomach; it was something painful and ultimately untreatable with their limited supplies.

  “You might be a lot of things, but a coward is not one of them. It took courage to try and stop the fighting,” Ian responded. He looked over at Russel who was now leaning in and wide-eyeing David’s wounds.

  “I’m here, we made it David. They ran off, we won,” Russel said awkwardly.

  David looked at him with a confused squint and then turned back to Ian.

  “Just keep them safe, I think that … that … at,” he struggled to speak his final words. Before the release there was a sad panicked streak across his face. It was the look of someone who had their airway suddenly blocked. Before the expression could fester, it faded into sleep … permanent sleep. David’s head slumped over and a line of reddening drool hung momentarily before dripping onto his pants.