The Plan

by Shawn Chesser

“We need to eat,” Steve-O said. “You promised, Lee.”

  “I second that,” was Tara’s reply.

  Passing by a deserted rest stop, Riker grumbled something about not stopping until they were low on gas and needed to access the spare tanks in back.

  To Steve-O’s delight, Tara nixed that idea.

  When Riker pressed the issue of continuing on and pulled a couple of cereal bars from a pocket to stave off their hunger, Tara resorted to the one thing that had always made their dad capitulate when she and her brother found themselves on a road trip and in a similar position.

  She said, “Are we there yet?” and continued to repeat the question until Steve-O caught on and joined her.

  After hearing ‘Are we there yet?’ for what seemed like the hundredth time in less than a minute, Riker’s resolve crumbled like a house of cards in a hurricane.

  Shooting Tara a sour look, he said, “Fine. Find us a place to eat. And it better not have a drive-thru.”

  Tara thumbed on her phone. Almost at once, she shut it down, saying, “No service.”

  “Try the navigator thing,” urged Riker.

  She pulled up the screen. Tapped the zoom-out button a few times, making the image shrink down so that a good chunk of the Texas/Louisiana western border filled the entire screen.

  “Do you see a greasy spoon?” Steve-O asked.

  “Here,” Tara said, tapping on a location that was ahead of them and on the right side of the interstate.

  Seconds later, the trees flanking I-20 West thinned out and the lights of Waskom, Texas dominated the new vantage. Especially alluring to Steve-O was the illuminated yellow M a short distance beyond the next exit.

  Steve-O knocked on his window. “Is that it?”

  In unison, Tara and Riker said, “No way!”

  “Where then?”

  “A place with greasy spoons,” quipped Riker.

  Steve-O had to wait five long minutes to see what Tara had chosen off the navigation screen. To everyone’s delight, it was open. Behind the squat baby-blue building was an enormous pond. Halide lights rising up from the mostly empty parking lot bathed the building and vehicles in a ghostly orange hue that didn’t quite reach the body of water bordering the restaurant to the north.

  Rectangles of light spilling from the many windows flanked the building’s west side. On the south elevation, a glowing neon sign that read Catfish Corral painted the ground all around the front door a vivid red.

  Before Riker could find a spot under a light to park Dolly, Steve-O was giving Tara’s selection two enthusiastic thumbs-up and unbuckling his seatbelt.

  Chapter 53

  Riker parked the Shelby on the corner of Catfish Corral’s lot nearest to the pond. He chose a lined spot awash in the spill from a bulb high above, where the pickup containing all of their worldly possessions could be seen from any one of the restaurant’s large, west-facing picture windows.

  The trio entered through the front doors and Tara asked the teenaged hostess to seat them where they could see the parking lot.

  The hostess summoned a gangly redheaded server whose nametag read Chad.

  As usual, Riker got most of the attention from both the hostess and Chad. Hard not to thanks to his pro-football-player’s physique.

  Chad showed them to the booth Riker had hoped for. It was in the corner by a window that faced the lot. It also had a great view of the pond.

  A large boathouse sat on the bank less than a hundred yards away. The pond was ringed by scruffy plants and looked like a place the Creature from the Black Lagoon might call home.

  As Chad set out the menus, Riker asked, “You farm your own catfish out there?”

  “No, sir. That’s just a water feature for lookin’ at. Catfish we serve is farmed in New Orleans. Dick has it flown in fresh every other day.”

  Crestfallen, Riker said, “What are you drinking, Sis?”

  “Sweet tea.”

  “Me too,” Steve-O said, pushing his menu aside.

  Riker asked for the same.

  After letting his gaze linger on Riker for an extra beat or two, Chad set off toward the kitchen.

  Categorizing the extra attention as a byproduct of either his stature, skin tone, or both, Riker swept the room with his eyes. The booths were upholstered with glitter-infused red vinyl. Even under the low lighting, they sparkled a bit.

  On the table tops were pages from old newspapers. The shellac used to seal them in was scratched and yellowed, making the stories accompanying the headlines near impossible to read.

  Seeing Chad push through a pair of swinging doors behind the host stand, Tara said, “I was hoping the same thing about the pond.”

  “Can’t beat wild line-caught catfish,” Riker declared.

  Chad was back in a flash with their drinks. As he navigated the room, his eyes never left Riker.

  Of course, Riker got his tea first. Then Chad passed teas to Tara and Steve-O and came back for Riker’s order first.

  Motioning to Tara, Riker said, “Ladies first.”

  Tara and Steve-O ordered nearly identical plates: Cajun catfish strips with tomato relish, hushpuppies, coleslaw, and cornbread with honey butter.

  Riker went with the same, but added a rare ribeye steak and baked potato with all the trimmings.

  When Chad walked away, Tara said, “Methinks he’s got eyes for you.”

  Steve-O was in the middle of taking a drink. Upon hearing Tara’s declaration, a stream of iced tea shot out of his nose. Composing himself, he said, “Lee Riker has a not so secret admirer.”

  Speechless, Riker shook his head, then rose and struck off for the restroom. Along the way, he pulled Chad aside and jokingly said, “We need a cleanup on aisle one. Seems my brother has a hole in his lip.” Then, all business, he turned his back toward the booth, and whispered, “Have you been here most of the week? Working, I mean.”

  Chad nodded.

  “Serve lots of guests?”

  Again with the nod.

  Riker quickly shared most of what he’d seen and done over the last thirty-six hours. He started with the dead coming ashore in Miami, him and the others coming ashore at Buccaneer State Park, and ended by describing the pens full of living dead at the border, just six short miles away.

  When Riker stopped talking, Chad’s face was blanched and bore no discernable expression.

  Shell-shocked was the only word Riker could think of to describe Chad’s affect.

  Feeling awful for heaping all he knew about the outbreak on the young man’s shoulders, Riker apologized. After looking around the restaurant to see if anyone was listening in, he asked Chad if he’d heard any of his guests talking about living dead things.

  “You mean eaters?”

  Riker said nothing.

  Chad swallowed hard one time, then told Riker all that he could remember.

  Riker listened, never once interrupting. Once Chad had finished, he thanked him and continued on to the restroom.

  From her spot in the booth, Tara had watched the entire interaction. The look on the younger man’s face when her brother turned and walked off worried the hell out of her. It was a mixture of confusion and incredulity. Surely Lee hadn’t mentioned her half-joking observation to the twenty-something. That wasn’t Lee at all. He wasn’t one to make someone feel uneasy for no good reason. And he certainly wasn’t a homophobe. Or racist. Or any of those other awful things people seemed to be so quick to foist on people they don’t agree with.

  However, worrying Tara more than someone she didn’t know getting their feelings hurt was her brother’s pronounced limp. She’d noticed it earlier at the Gas Fast but hadn’t said anything.

  The food was arriving at the table when Riker returned.

  Face still a bit pale and devoid of emotion, Chad asked if he could bring anything else for the table.

  Saying they had everything they needed, Tara waved the man off.

  Once Chad was out of earshot, she said, “You’re limping, Bro. You OK
?”

  “It gets irritated after awhile. Just a thing that happens. Plus, all the sitting and driving is taking a toll on my lower back.”

  Spoonful of slaw poised in midair, Steve-O said, “Let Tara drive. I will be her wingman.”

  “I bet you will,” Riker said.

  Ignoring her brother, Tara sipped her tea. Dabbing her lips on a napkin, she said, “We’ll move stuff around back there so you can stretch out.”

  Riker said, “I’d need a limousine to do that.” He handed over the remote fob. “You kicked ass being backup driver on the way down from Jersey. Just remember, speed limit is seventy-five in Texas.”

  “Means I can drive eighty-five if I want, right?”

  “Better watch out for tumbleweeds,” Steve-O said, throwing his napkin on his plate.

  Half-finished with his meal, Riker looked at the other man’s clean plate. “Damn, Hoover. You sucked that down.”

  Tara put her hands to her face. “Hoover. That was good.”

  If Steve-O got the joke, he didn’t show it. “I’m going to the grown ass men’s room. Be right back.”

  Turned out Steve-O’s idea of “right back” was ten minutes. When he returned, the plates had been cleared and the check dropped off.

  Tara said, “Ready?”

  Steve-O said, “What, no desert?”

  “Grab a mint on the way out,” said Riker as he took the wad of bills from his pocket and peeled off a pair of crisp hundreds.

  Waiting by the edge of the table, Chad scooped up the check and cash and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Riker called out, “Keep it,” and rose from the booth.

  “A hundred-dollar tip?”

  “Don’t make me change my mind, Chad.”

  Thanking Riker profusely, Chad looked to Steve-O. “You take as many mints as you like, sir,” and disappeared through the pair of swinging door leading into the kitchen.

  At the Shelby, as discussed, they changed seating arrangements, with Tara behind the wheel and Steve-O riding shotgun.

  With both front seats run nearly to their forward stops, Riker had an ample amount of room from front-to-back. Side-to-side, however, was the issue. The space was maybe five-and-a-half-feet from armrest to armrest. Which meant to sleep on the bench seat, he was going to have to lie on his side with his knees drawn up to his chest.

  For all of its plusses, good ol’ Dolly was far from a limousine.

  Before firing the engine, Tara fiddled with the navigation unit. Finding it a bit glitchy, she turned on the dome light and traced their route the old-fashioned way—on the wide pages of the Rand McNally atlas.

  Still sitting up in the backseat, Riker said, “Chad wants us to steer well clear of Dallas.”

  “That’s going to take us way off course,” she said. “Either direction we skirt it, south or north, we’ll be burning up precious fuel.”

  “You have a full tank. Plus twenty gallons in back. Fifty-six gallons ought to get us most of the way to where we’re going.”

  Tracing her finger across two pages, Tara said, “I think you’re right.” She tossed the atlas to the floor, then took her Glock from the console and put it underneath her right thigh.

  Looking at his watch, Riker said, “If we’re lucky, we’ll be hitting Amarillo by morning.”

  Hearing those last three words straightened Steve-O up in his seat. Smiling, he cracked open a bottled water and took a sip.

  Here we go, thought Riker, just as the man in the front seat launched into the song Amarillo By Mornin’ popularized by George Strait in the early ‘80s.

  As Tara steered for the nearby interstate, Riker shed his prosthesis, balled a jacket up to use as a pillow, and stretched out on the seat as best he could. His watch, wallet, wad of cash, and bag of gold coins and ingots went into the door’s lower side-pocket. Feeling the Sig and holster digging into his side, he tugged the holster free and placed it and the pistol on the floor within easy reach.

  In a matter of seconds, serenaded by the unlikely combination of the Shelby’s exhaust note, the hypnotic thrum of off-road tires rolling up the ramp to I-20, and Steve-O’s near perfect cover of an oft-covered song, Riker drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 54

  Riker awoke in the backseat of the Shelby, totally disoriented. Gone was the sensation of movement that had lulled him to sleep and kept him there. It was totally quiet and he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Put together, it was as if he’d been deposited on the dark side of the moon. Or had been kidnapped, hooded, and folded into the trunk of a tiny Hyundai Elantra.

  He was on his right side with his head still resting on the jacket. The cool leather of the seatback against his forehead assured him he wasn’t in a car trunk.

  Voice a near whisper, he said, “Tara? Steve-O?”

  Nothing.

  For a half-beat he thought maybe Tara had gotten drowsy and pulled over. Maybe the pair were slumped down in their seats and conked out like he had been.

  If so, why wasn’t he getting an earful of Steve-O’s snoring?

  A couple of things he did know. As if Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had put him out with a choke hold, there was a terrible pain in his neck. In addition, his entire right arm was useless. Fingertips to shoulder, he couldn’t feel a thing. No sensation at all. Only when he sat up did the sudden eruption of pins and needles let him know the arm was still attached to his body.

  On the plus side, his stub no longer possessed a heartbeat of its own. Staying off of it for an indeterminate amount of time had done him good in that department.

  With his left arm, he probed the front seats, finding only empty space and more cool to the touch leather.

  Beginning to worry, he looked out the windows. Slowly scanned all points of the compass.

  Still no signs of life.

  If there was anyone out there, the impenetrable darkness was concealing their movements.

  Riker quickly gunned up and snugged on the bionic.

  To maintain any type of advantage he might have over anyone watching while preserving what little night vision that might be building, he slid the switch on the dome light to OFF.

  As he pushed open the door, he noticed a big drop in temperature. Whereas it had been around seventy degrees outside of the Catfish Corral, here the air had a mid-fifties chill to it.

  Riker opened the door slow and smooth. When he stepped to the ground, he felt the soles of his Salomons sink in what he thought was very fine dirt. Or sand. He couldn’t be sure.

  Leaving the door open, he looped around front of the Shelby. Pausing by the right front fender, he placed his palm atop the hood.

  It was still warm.

  As he stood there, staring away from the pickup, slowly he began to see shapes. Just lighter outlines of things in the foreground, really.

  Close in were what he took to be low bushes or scrub brush. In the middle distance was a car-sized hole in the dark. A sedan. Bigger than the Elantra, but smaller than an old American car.

  Behind what he took to be a car was a second hole in the dark. It rose twenty feet above the car’s roof and rambled off left and right.

  Trees?

  Though he wore a long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to his sternum, the cold still raised goose flesh on his arms.

  Sig held at a low-ready, he advanced toward the car, taking slow, tentative steps. Kicking up unseen puffs of dust, he crossed the distance, the only sound the soft squelch of the talc-like dirt moving underfoot.

  To give him a little warning lest he come up against someone or something waiting for him in the dark, he swept his off hand back and forth in front of him as he moved. Having covered what he guessed to be half the distance to the car, he picked up the scent of decaying flesh.

  The odor was eye-watering by the time Riker felt his fingers brush cool metal. Running his hand over the surface revealed the raised ridges of what had to be some kind of metal emblem. Perhaps a badge denoting make or model. Moving his hand left introdu
ced some kind of metal trim, then the unmistakable smooth surface of window glass.

  Suddenly, something hit the glass with tremendous force, the strike causing it to flex against Riker’s palm. Then there was a clacking sound. Next came a noise like that of a gas station squeegee being dragged across a dirty window.

  In his mind’s eye, Riker saw the dead thing tonguing the window from the inside. Saw the window clouded by long wet streaks of whatever fluids wept from the putrefying body.

  Screw tactical advantage, he thought, dragging the Scorpion from his pocket. Last thing he needed was to bump into another one of these in the dark.

  He averted his eyes and thumbed on the tac-light.

  Squinting against the brilliant white cone of light, Riker held the flashlight hip-high to him and walked the beam left to right, beginning at roughly his nine o’clock and ending at a point directly off his right shoulder.

  All of Riker’s earlier conclusions were confirmed. The ground under his Salomons was covered with a thin layer of khaki-hued dirt the consistency of baby powder. Low scrub that he thought might be mesquite formed a low barrier in front of a picket of mature trees split down the middle by a narrow dirt track.

  Parked broadside to the trees was a late model Chevy Impala. Somehow the black four-door sedan had become a tomb for a badly decomposed female zombie.

  Reacting to the light sweeping across the car, the zombie seated behind the wheel bashed its face repeatedly against the window glass. The nonstop pounding quickly turned its already split lips into a pinkish gray paste that coated the window with a cataract-like film.

  Focusing the beam on the ground behind the car revealed footprints other than his. They were two different-sizes and left there by two very different style of footwear—the smaller of the two definitely possessing a squared-off boot heel.

  Riker thought about calling out for the pair but quickly decided against it. If a flashlight beam wasn’t bringing zombies out of the woods, no sense in ringing the proverbial dinner bell for them.

  Instead, he turned the flashlight bezel until the wide cone of light was a focused beam. Lighting up the side-by-side tracks, he followed them to the break in the trees, where he paused and listened hard.