by Stevie Kopas
The Breadwinner
By
Stevie Kopas
Published by Stevie Kopas, Amazon Kindle Edition
Copyright © 2013 by Stevie Kopas
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Adult Reading Material: This eBook contains Adult content
Original cover art created by Evan Lerman
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Part I
Franklin Woods was the most upscale community a person could find in Columbia Beach, Florida, so much so, they had their own zip code. Elegant mansion style homes with the newest security technologies kept the residents safe and put their minds at ease. The community housed the doctors, business men, trust fund babies and lawyers of the city, including criminal defense attorney Samson Eckhart, III and his stunning wife Moira. On weekends, the neighborhood buzzed with block parties and barbecues. The sounds of children playing, the trophy wives comparing outfits, hairstyles and home furnishings and the husbands discussing work, golf and yachting were always heard with welcome delight in Franklin Woods.
But this weekend was different. Franklin Woods was not filled with the usual buzzing of the wealthy, but with an eerie silence that would unsettle even the deaf. An Escalade that had smashed into a BMW 7 Series weeks ago, sit empty, the occupants of the BMW lay mangled in their luxury coffin in front of The Eckhart House on Damon Circle. Moira Eckhart stared at the crash every morning through the window of her second story bedroom before locking herself in the bathroom to begin her day. Moira didn’t like that the crash happened literally 5 feet from her driveway, but there was nothing anyone could do about it anymore.
The world might have ended for everyone else, she would think to herself, but it hasn’t ended for me. The most difficult part of Moira’s day since everyone in the world began eating each other was what shoes went with what blouse. She undressed in the morning and washed her body with the baby wipes that Samson would bring home to her when he went out looking for food for the children. Since the water and the power went out, she had to use any means necessary to stay as close as possible to her routine from before everything went to shit. After cleaning up, she would cover her body in luxurious lotions from her collection. Anti-aging for the face, firming for the body, and softening for her feet and hands. Foundation came next, then the powder. Blush, eyeshadow, mascara and everything else came after. She examined the fine wrinkles in her brow and frowned. Her signature line was once “What’s a girl to do without Botox?” But now that was something she’d have to figure out. She would remove the curlers from her platinum blonde hair and brush them out, finally applying the finishing touches to her near perfect face, a deep red lip stain. Before leaving the room to dress, she would flash her water bottle brushed smile and wink, hands on her hips, and nod approvingly. I’m just a 20 year old trapped in a 38 year old’s body she would tell her friends, except for these, these are a 20 year old’s! And by “these” Moira meant her 36D breasts, the $12,000 gift from Samson on their 15th wedding anniversary. Moira was as plastic as she could be while remaining human. She would dance through her closet, brushing furs across her face as she passed them. Pulling scarves from their hooks, she twirled and wrapped them around herself. Each morning was a different song, always classy, usually bluesy. Moira would serenade herself as she dressed and privately performed in front of the mirrors that lined the enormous walk-in’s walls.
Samson was downstairs by the time Moira finished her routine and had slipped into her stilettos. She stepped out the bedroom and quietly closed the door. “I hope you took care not to disturb the children Sammy.” She said as she passed by swiftly to the kitchen without even looking at him. Her heels clicked loudly on the hardwood floor making his skin crawl. Samson continued lacing the boots he found while rummaging through one of their neighbor’s houses and chose to ignore her. Samson had been a lawyer, an incredible one, but once a man of words he found himself talking less and less these days. Samson saw that there was no more law, and without law, there were no rules to break. With no rules to break, and he himself breaking all the rules, his once sought after skills were meaningless. The only skill of importance that remained was to lie, and in the new world, he figured a good liar was a survivor.
Moira returned to the living room, her instant coffee in hand. The woman was careless with their minimal resources. She would guzzle bottles of water and prepare lavish meals that wound up in the trash. It angered Samson to no end. She stared at Samson expectantly, “Well?” He ignored his wife, her bright blue eyes burning a hole into his skull. He stood up, his 6 foot tall frame towering over her even with her 4 inch heels on. His back still to her, his gaze on the staircase before him, he thought of the last conversation he had with anyone other than his wife. An older man named Al with a Remington 870 who was holed up in a gas station 3 miles from Franklin Woods.
II
Samson had found himself in a bit of trouble that day last week. He had been outside the safety of Franklin Woods, searching for food at his wife’s request. Since the world “went hungry” as he liked to call it, he didn’t feel safe anywhere, but almost all their resources in Franklin Woods had been exhausted and he couldn’t risk having Moira leave the community. The woman wouldn’t even know what to do with herself out here he had been thinking when he heard the low moan behind him. He turned quickly in the tree lined street, raising his 9mm. Samson hated guns, he loathed the men he defended in court that used them in cold blood, but back then it was a paycheck, and now it meant defending himself and his life.
Before him staggered the corpse of what once was a woman. Her soiled clothing hung from her emaciated frame, only one shoe on and half of her right hand was missing. The thing hissed and groaned, stumbling over its own pathetic feet, but never breaking eye contact. He lowered his gun, she’s a slow one. He pulled his diving knife from its holster, anxious, his hands shaking, but he knew what needed to be done. He walked over to an abandoned Chevy Cobalt, the only car on the road, and laid his pistol on the hood. Wiping the sweat from his brow he took a deep breath in. Despite the shambling dead woman coming toward him the day was beautiful. 75 degrees and sunny. The faint smell of honeysuckle met him on the breeze in front of the empty gas station and the birds, busy in their trees, sounded lovely. The woman groaned again and he snapped out of his daze, dropping his bag on the street beside the yellow car. As Samson and the corpse grew nearer to one another, its eyes grew wide, its mouth agape. He raised the diving knife in his left hand and froze, another moan off to his left. The hair on his arms rose and he stepped back, turning in the direction of the sound. He scanned the woods; movement, but no need for panic. He raised the knife once more and brought it down in one strong fluid motion into the head of the walking corpse. He exhaled with a yell as the knife plunged deep into her skull. The woman collapsed in a heap, black blood pouring from the wound as he yanked the knife from her.
Samson only had a moment
to gaze down at the now still corpse below him, her gray, lifeless eyes forever fixed on the sky. In that moment, he imagined the state of consternation his wife would be in. Moira would have run screaming from the sight of the thing, but to have to witness Samson disposing of the creature, the woman would have soiled herself in the street. He smiled. The moan he had previously heard to his left was soon joined by a low growl and a high pitched wail. His smile became a scowl. “Shit!” Samson wiped the blood from the knife onto his pants and made a run for the Cobalt. The trees were alive with movement and the wails of the recently infected. The fast ones were the fresh ones, the ones you needed to worry about. He ran into a lot of them in the first few days, and they must have heard him shout as he was taking care of the woman on the street. Samson grabbed his gun and bag, crouching down on the side of the car, out of sight.
The first of the newly dead emerged in a lightning fast fury from the woods, growling and spitting as it looked around for its prey. It had been a middle aged man, wearing torn business attire with a gaping neck wound the size of Samson’s fist. He ravenously looked around, dog like noises escaping his mouth. Samson’s heart was pounding in his chest so hard he was afraid the beast could hear it. He peeked through the backseat windows of the Cobalt at the gas station but ducked back down out of instinct when another eater joined the business man. This one, a shrieking woman, barefoot in what was left of a blood stained pin striped suit. Her lips were gone, exposing her teeth and turning her face into a permanent grimace. What was once the woman’s chest was now a cavity of gore. The two eaters howled and frantically looked around the area. The business woman spotted the corpse Samson had just killed and moved toward it. The initial low moan Samson had heard from the trees was heard once more as another eater joined the pair, but this one was like the woman he killed, slow and less oriented than the other two. It was almost comical, seeing the ferocity of the business couple in contrast to the lethargic thing that had joined them, but all just as deadly. They moved in a circle, seeming to sniff the air, thankfully too stupid and too hungry to realize just yet where he had run to.
Samson was trapped on the side of the Chevy with only two options: three perfect headshots or running to the gas station with the high hopes that the safety of its walls was accessible. He mustered up the courage to steal another glance at the building. Having only been to a shooting range once and not fairing very well, his luck with the gas station seemed to outweigh the headshot option. He opened his bag and grabbed the can of Pepsi inside, shaking it up. Here we go he thought as he reared his arm back and pitched the can over the car. The force of the can hitting the ground wasn’t enough to make it explode as he’d planned, but the noise was enough to cause confusion amidst the trio and give him a decent opportunity to run for the gas station. With his bag on his shoulder and his gun in his hand, he sprinted toward the building and didn’t look back.
The business woman noticed him first with a bloodcurdling scream, followed by the guttural growl of the business man. The two were after him and running almost as fast as he was by the time he reached the front doors of the gas station. He yanked on the door. Locked.
“Fuckin’ figures.” Samson ran around the back of the building, passing a beat up Ford truck, silently willing the back door to somehow be unlocked. He reached the rear, hearing the pounding footsteps of the business couple gaining on him. To his absolute shock, the back door of the gas station flew open and he was greeted by the barrel of a shotgun. The elderly man lowered his shotgun momentarily and squinted at Samson, “Boy, you better be fuckin worth it.” He pulled Samson inside and fired one magnificent round into the business woman’s head before slamming the door shut and encasing them in safety.
III
Samson lay on the cement floor of the gas station’s utility room, breathless. He stared with wild eyes at the man who had saved his life. He was an older man with a messy frock of white atop his head. The man pushed on the door with his foot, checking that it was secure. The eater outside frantically clawed and pounded on the door. The room was filled with shelves of random automobile items and miscellaneous junk that no one had any use for any more. It smelled of stale cigarettes and piss.
“Jesus Christ, I think I’m gonna puke.” Samson got on all fours and spit on the cold floor beneath him.
“Well son,” the man turned to look down at Samson, “I’d appreciate you do so elsewhere.” The man walked over to a door and swung it open, revealing a small room with a toilet and a basin style sink. “No light, but you can borrow the camp torch.” He motioned to the source of light on a table to his left. “Hell, you probably won’t need much encouragement from your gut with a smell like that.” The man chuckled to himself as he shut the door and walked to the small wooden table.
Samson coughed a few times, the smell that had emanated from the room was almost enough to make him go back outside. He sat back on his heels and brushed his hands off on his thighs. The man had himself a seat on a metal folding chair, a Remington 870 rested in his lap, pointed straight at him. His face was covered in wrinkles, a faded but still prominent scar ran across his neck. The man’s right eye was ghostly, blind from either age or from an incident Samson didn’t care to hear about.
“Uh, nice gun you got there, sir.” Samson eyed the weapon, and the man, cautiously. He looked like the criminal type. But would this man have risked his own life just to take mine? “Thank you,” Samson cleared his throat and spoke again, his palms sweating. “For uh, saving me, you know.”
The old man nodded, never taking his eye off Samson’s hands. “You got anything useful in that there pack other than another soda can?” The man laughed wildly at his crack at Samson. “That was a good move out there though I tell you what.” His thick southern accent and jargon reminded Samson of his mother’s father. He was a real good old boy, about as racist and country proud as you could find. Samson pegged him as either the hate crime type or a wife beater.
Samson slowly reached for his bag, opened it up and dumped its contents onto the ground. Three cans of Pepsi, 4 packs of crackers and cheese and a bottle of ibuprofen. “I’ve got my knife on me, and as you can see my gun is on the floor. I’ll be no trouble sir, I can promise you that. But what I will ask, is what the fuck do we plan to do about the dead outside who keep knocking to come in?” Samson kept his voice low, but stern. He felt like a pussy for nearly losing his breakfast in front of the menacing stranger with the shotgun pointed at him.
“There ain’t nothin’ to be done about them out there.” The old man quickly glanced toward the emergency exit door. “I’m not wasting my ammunition, and eventually they get hungry and bored. They’re like wild dogs.” The man reached into his button down shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds. The other side of the shirt had the name Al embroidered on it. “Smoke?” He held the pack out to Samson.
“No thanks.” Samson declined, he’d quit 6 years ago. End of the world or not, it had been one of his biggest accomplishments.
“Well like I was sayin’, they’re like dogs.” The man spoke through a cigarette held between his lips as he pulled a lighter from the pack, never taking his left hand off the shotgun pointed at Samson.
“How so?” Samson asked.
“They just wanna eat. And they only come near people cuz they wanna eat.” He exhaled and tempting smoke filled the room. “When they see their food is gone and their beggin ain’t gettin’ them nowhere, they move on.”
Samson nodded. He hadn’t really ever compared them to anything before, other than monsters he’d only ever seen in horror films. The two men sat in silence for a good while, Samson’s legs began to grow numb underneath him and he stretched them out before him. The persistent banging at the door had been reduced to a scratching and a knock every now and then. Samson looked from the door to the man and back to the door again. He could hear a faint growl, almost the sound of frustration. “You’re right I guess.” He shrugged his shoulders and rubbed his legs. “I’m ass
uming from the name on your shirt, that your name would be Al. Am I right, sir?”
The old man scoffed, “What’s with all the formalities? Ain’t you seen the world’s gone to shit and people are eatin’ each other?”
“Well, that’s just who I am. Sir.” Samson put more emphasis on the word now that he knew it irked the old guy. “A lot might have changed. And I may have changed for the most part with it, but I’ll hang onto the formalities for as long as I can, thank you very much.” He smirked as he finished his sentence. For whatever reason, he could tell the old man didn’t care for him very much. Maybe it was Samson’s sudden arrogance in the face of his gun, maybe it was the $200 hiking boots that he wore in spite of the apocalypse, or maybe the guy could just tell he was a lawyer. End of the world or not, nobody liked lawyers.
“Yep. Friends called me Al, family called me Al, everybody called me Al.” Al dropped his cigarette to the floor and stepped on it. There were dozens of butts that Samson hadn’t noticed until now. “And you can call me Al too.”
“I’m pleased to meet you Al. I’m Samson, but my wife calls me Sammy, and you can call me Sam. I’d get up and shake your hand,” Samson stole a glance at the gun, “but I’d hate for you to waste any shells.” Samson smirked as Al narrowed his eyes and very slowly took the gun from his lap and placed it on the table. “Thank you, Al.”
“Don’t mention it.” Al lit up another cigarette and held the pack out once more and offered, what he had figured out to be his forbidden fruit, another smoke to Samson. Samson shook his head, declining. “You travel pretty light there Sam.”
“Cracker?” Samson asked as he collected the contents of his bag from the floor and put them back in their place. Al didn’t respond so Samson took that as a no and zipped up the bag. “I live just a few miles from here. Franklin Woods.”
“Oh!” Al clapped his hands once in delight. “Well fuck me, I knew it! You one of them rich folk!” Al had himself a good laugh followed by a coughing fit. When he was through, he wiped his eyes as if tears had filled them. “And tell me, Sam, your card get declined at the Franklin grocery store?”