by Joe DeRouen
So when he reached with shaking fingers to manually tune the radio, my smile faded. “Shit! John Patrick O’Reilly, you better not be shitting me, or so help me.” The words died on his lips as a pre-recorded voice I never thought I’d hear outside the history channels came out of the speakers.
‘...ay in your homes. If you have a shelter, use it. Do not come out at night. Government forces are attempting to control the event. I repeat, stay in your homes. If you have a shelter, use...’
I flicked the control stalk to silence it. “Fuck, Ted. That’s the emergency broadcast!” I took my foot off the gas. “Tell Johnnie to pull over.” I braked and came to a stop beside the tree lined road. We were still miles from the highway. The Chevy pulled up behind me and Ted’s two brothers got out.
“What the fuck’s going on, Jaz?” Bill shook visibly, his eyes wide.
Johnnie smacked his younger sibling on the arm. “Stop yer bawlin’, bro.”
I saw through his bravado, nodding my thanks. Bill was the youngest of us, only twenty-seven years old. Johnnie did his best to control his brother’s hysteria.
I looked around. We were off the beaten track, but I hadn’t seen another car in the two hours we spent driving towards the South Dakota state line. That might change when we hit the highway, but even here in the boondocks there should have been some sort of activity on the roads.
“I dunno, son.” My forty-three years granted me the privilege to call him that. “Could be anything; an attack on America maybe. Ha! Maybe it’s the end of the fucking world.” I chuckled, before realising the implications of the radio message.
It was called the Emergency Broadcast for a reason. Its use was designed to free the government up, and help the citizens, but the brief advice it provided confused me. Basically, it told everyone to stay inside and hide. Hide from what?
I shook myself. I stepped over to squeeze the kid’s arm. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious, but why don’t me and Ted go on alone. You and Johnnie can head to your pop’s old cabin.” I smiled. “Hell, you can even take the rest of the beer; all two cases of it.”
The others joined in as I snorted, laughing along at Bill’s disgust. He didn’t drink, and over the last week had put up with us, as we got drunk most nights. To be honest, we were stoked by mid-afternoon, most days.
We split up around fifty miles on, Johnnie and Bill heading to their dad’s cabin in the pine woods of the Black Hills to the west, while Ted and I drove southeast towards Pierre.
“I’m scared, Jaz.” I’d heard these words before, many times, but this time they chilled me to the bone, because I felt the same. No matter what I said to Bill, I knew something was terribly wrong.
I reached across, and Ted grasped my open hand. His hard squeeze made me smile. “Carpe Diem, my friend; let’s just see what today brings.” Maybe the broadcast was a mistake. Perhaps the lack of traffic was due to the weather.
The first town we reached banished these ideas. We drove into it, hoping to see the normal noon-day activity, but the main drag was empty, no cars or people; it was totally dead.
Ted got out of the car as I parked. “Where the fuck is everyone, Jaz?” Ted’s eyes widened as he looked at me. “It’s the middle of the fucking day, man.”
I walked to the window of the hardware store I parked beside. It was all locked up, like all the others, shutters lowered and secure; like it was the middle of the night.
“No idea, bud,” I said. “We passed a diner on the way into town. I’m pretty sure I saw lights on in it.”
Ted nodded, finishing my thought. “Yeah, maybe someone there knows what the heck’s happened to the world.”
We got back in my jeep, and five minutes later, pulled up outside the service station. It was a few miles out of town. I was right, the lights were on, but I hadn’t noticed something when we drove past earlier on.
Glass covered the parking lot. The wooden blinds swung in the breeze blowing in through the shattered windows. Yes, the lights were on, but that was the only sign of life. ‘Fuck! What the hell is going on here?’ I thought.
“Hello?” I held my Glock 9mm in an over under stance as I approached the front door of the diner; only there was no front door. It lay in a broken pile of splinters to my left. “Anyone inside?”
No answer.
“I’m coming in. I’m armed, ok?”
Shit, I was scared. The Marines prepared you for a lot. I saw a lot in the Mog, as we called the inferno of Mogadishu. You could walk into a room of smiling people, and within a second have twenty guns pointed at you.
I’d rather have had that than the sight that greeted me.
I stepped in, and my stomach heaved as the smell hit me. The mixture of faeces, rotten food, and the coppery smell of blood filled the small space. There was blood and gore everywhere, and I wiped my face as I felt something drip onto my forehead. Lowering my hand, the red drop on the back of it made me look up.
“Shit!”
I ran outside, past Ted who stood waiting to back me up with his rifle. I threw up beside my jeep.
“Fuck, Jaz!” Ted’s voice was high and panicked. “What’s in there man?” He brought his rifle up to his shoulder, pointing it at the door. “What is it? A bear, or some shit like that?”
I wiped my mouth after a few dry retches.
“They’re all dead. Ted, I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” I pointed to the diner, “but that place is a fucking slaughter house.”
Ted wasn’t squeamish. How could he be, after four tours in the most brutal warzones in modern times, but I saw the fear in his eyes. It was like all his doubts, all his darkest and deepest fears were coming to life.
We both jumped as his cell chirped.
“Fuck!” I exclaimed. My heart leapt as I heard the entirely normal sound, hoping beyond hope for it to be someone from outside this nightmare.
“Johnnie? Is that you?”
My spirit dampened.
“Yeah, we’re in Sturgis. Fuck man, they’re all dead. The whole fucking town is dead. I...”
I grabbed the phone off him. “John. Something’s wrong, ok? Something’s real bad, but just stay there, ok? Me and Ted are gonna get some supplies, and come right on up there, ok?”
“Shit, Jaz.” Johnnie’s voice shook. “I just turned on the satellite TV and got the same shit as the emergency broadcast. Then I called my mom’s house in Pierre. No answer. Then my uncle in New York...no answer, man. I tried, like ten numbers. Nothing. Nobody’s home, Jaz.”
I took a deep breath. Johnnie had taken care of Bill and Ted when their dad walked out over twenty years ago. He was effectively their father.
“John, we’re gonna gas up and be there soon. Turn the lights on; it’ll be dark when we get there. Tell Bill I’ll bring him some beer.” I smirked.
Johnnie snorted. “Shit, Jaz. The way he’s freakin’ out, you better bring more than beer.”
“Ha!” I felt Johnnie’s smile on the other end of the phone. “Roger that. One bottle of JD on the way, my friend.”
“See ya soon, JZ,” Johnnie said, before hanging up.
JZ. That’s what they called me back in the day. My parents knew me as Jason Zion Goldberg, and I spent most of my life called by my first name, Jason. Upon entering the grinder of Parris Island, however, it was shortened to JZ, before evolving into Jaz.
Only Johnnie called me JZ now. We joined the same day, the day after a group of crazies crashed two planes into the Twin Towers in NYC. Through him I met, and served, with Ted, before meeting Bill, their kid brother. Oh, and their sister, Sherri, who I went on to marry.
That had been a complicated conversation.
“We’re gonna need a trailer,” said Ted, his voice trembling. “Better take a drive around the suburbs; see if we can find one.”
I crossed to him, grasping his upper arms. “Ted! Stay with me, man. Bill needs you; needs his big bro, okay?”
Ted’s eyes were wide and moist with unshed tears, but he nodded. �
��Right. Thanks, bud...and...sorry.”
I embraced him. “Fuck you, asshole. You never, EVER, need to apologise to me, okay?”
While searching for a trailer, what we didn’t find was any more bodies. Oh yeah, there was blood, a lot of it. The suburbs were covered in it; inside and outside the houses. Even the streets were bathed in red.
“Where are the dogs?”
Ted’s question shocked me. He was right. As we drove around we should have seen pets wandering the streets. I stopped the Jeep, stepping out to listen. Ted came to stand beside me.
“There’s no birds,” I said. “Ted, this place is dead. I mean, totally dead. There’s nothing left alive here. Shit, can you even here any crickets?”
The sky grew red with the coming dusk. “There.” Ted pointed to a house half way down the hill we stood on. A large double wheeled trailer sat in the driveway. “Let’s get that sucker, and get the hell out of Dodge, okay?”
“Oorah, buddy!”
In moments we had it hooked up to the tow-bar and headed back to town. Hitting the hardware store first- quite literally as the shutters were down, and the only way through was to hijack a car and drive it through the window- we stocked up with as many jerry cans as we could, among other things.
“Shit, Jaz.” Ted had a grin a mile wide. “This brings a whole new meaning to smash and grab.”
I chuckled, the mirth quickly descending into a giggling fit. Ted looked at me like I was mad before I managed to gasp out, “You know what’s even funnier?” I became hysterical. “We need groceries...and we just used the only car in the street with keys in it to smash this window.”
Ted sat on the kerb, shaking his head as I shook. “You really are an asshole, you know that, right?”
All I was capable of doing was leaning forward, trying to nod in agreement. Ted joined in a moment later, our laughter lifting the mood for a short while.
After a while, I sobered enough to stand up, gradually gaining control. “Well, at least we hit the right shop first.”
“How do you figure that?”
I pointed to the gear on the trailer, winking as I smiled. “We have the tools to break into the grocery store, for one.”
Ted snorted. “Shit, there’s always a silver lining with you, ain’t there?”
“You better believe it, bud. Now, let’s load up and hit the road before it gets too dark.”
We used a set of bolt cutters to gain entry to a mini-mart a few shops down. The shelves were stacked full, so we took as many imperishable items as we could, boxing them up and loading them into the trailer.
I came back to pick up another box to find Ted standing with his mouth open. In his hands was a newspaper, and as I watched, his face drained of colour.
“What you got there, man?”
He turned to me, eyes widening as he held the pages out to me. I took it from his trembling fingers as he ran outside. I heard him retching as I flattened the crumpled paper enough to read.
The headline read, ‘Demon Invasion.’ What the fuck? My first instinct was to dismiss it as a hoax, but this wasn’t a local rag, or one of the national sensationalist ones.
The photo on the front was grainy, and from past experience I knew it was an airborne camera shot.
“That’s Boston, Jaz.” Ted had recovered enough to come back in.
My senses reeled. The picture showed a huge mushroom cloud. “Shit, Ted! That’s a nuke!”
Ted tapped the page. “Read it.”
I did. I wish I hadn’t, because I barely managed to avoid throwing up like Ted. On page three was a close up of a butchered body lying on its back. The torso was covered by a hastily painted placard. It said ‘Satan’s Trick-or-Treaters have come. Repent or suffer.’ Only the word ‘Trick’ was obscured by blood so the word ‘Treater’ stood out. I never understood the significance of the word at the time, but it stuck in my head.
The reading was grim enough by itself, but the fact this was the only paper we could find that said anything about what happened chilled me to the bone.
“Whatever happened, it happened too fast for the media to catch up.” I glanced sideways at Ted. “You know how fast the media is these days, right?”
He nodded. “We’re screwed, man.” He pointed at the paper. “They dropped a nuke on Boston to try and stop them for fuck’s sake; and it didn’t even faze them. They just walked out of the fire.”
I had to admit, it didn’t look good. Fuck! Why did I even think that? The realisation hit me like a freight train. “They’re all gone, aren’t they?” It came out like a whisper, and tears welled in my eyes.
“Let’s go, man.” Ted grabbed me by the arm, dragging me outside. “Let’s get back to the others. Then we can decide what to do.”
I nodded, getting into the jeep and driving out of town. As I pulled into the gas station on its fringes, the street lights flickered to life, bathing the world in orange illumination.
I jumped out, thankful for the auto pay facility on the pump. I processed the payment while Ted picked up the nozzle and inserted in into the side of the jeep.
“Want your tyres and windows done, sir?”
I chuckled as I got into the driver’s seat. “Chuck me the keys, you idiot.”
He threw them over arm and I snatched them from the air inserting them into the ignition. “Whenever you’re ready, Ted.” I saw a shadow in the corner of my eye, dismissing it as a trick of the light.
“Fuck you sir. If you expect quality service, you need to expect to wait for i....”
“Ted?” I looked in the door mirror. I saw the lower half of Ted with his hand on the gas nozzle, but I heard a thump like a wet towel landing on the ground.
“Stop shittin’ around, dumb ass!” I toggled the control to shift the view upwards. Why was Ted twitching? As the view reached his torso, he lurched back, spilling gas over the side of the jeep.
“Ted, what the fuck are you do...?”
A huge shape filled the mirror, dark and indistinct. My eyes flicked over the rear view mirror, seeing dozens of dark shapes emerging from the shadows as the last rays of the sun left the world.
Looking straight at me was Ted’s head, lying around twenty yards behind, as his body continued to turn, grasping the nozzle in his death throes. It spewed liquid over the tarmac, but all I saw was the huge shape that picked it up. Its mouth opened, revealing a horrific maw of bloody, foot long sceptres.
I didn’t think. I just acted on instinct, putting the car in gear and mashing the pedal. The tyres squealed, the smoke obscuring the sight of the creature as it gorged on my friend. My heart hammered in my chest and my hands gripped the steering wheel so tight the knuckles were white.
I rapidly picked up speed, rounding a bend so the grisly sight of the gas station disappeared, but my survival became doubtful as the mirror revealed dozens of figures running after the vehicle. My stomach lurched as one of them leapt over a hundred metres to land on the trailer. Its eyes were like glowing embers of coal as the beast climbed over the supplies. I saw the hunger in them, the blood turning to ice in my veins. Fortunately, my army training took over. I threw the steering wheel to the left, jack-knifing the trailer around. The timing was fortuitous, as it hit a telegraph pole, launching the monster off it into a ditch, half of the supplies following it. The trailer somehow survived its encounter with the monster, unlike Ted.
I didn’t hang about to see if it was dead or not, just floored the pedal to get out of town. After an hour, I managed to let go of the wheel, but I wasn’t about to stop until I saw sunlight. I understood now how dangerous night time had become, and any safety lay with the sun. There was no sign of pursuit, but that didn’t mean they weren’t coming after me. The darkness around me could be hiding hundreds, thousands of them, all hell bent on having me for supper.
By around 10pm, the adrenaline wore off, and I struggled to keep my eyes open. I managed to avoid getting close to any major population centres, and even though I passed through a couple o
f small towns, there were no further sightings. I considered stopping, then the adrenaline kicked back in again as I remembered Ted’s head, the eyes sightless as it rolled to a stop, looking straight at me.
This kept me going for another hour, before I jerked awake, screaming as the jeep crashed through a fence. I struggled to control it as it rocked and bounced across the furrows of the freshly ploughed field. Dirt hammered the windscreen as I hit the brakes, digging into the soft earth and eventually coming to a halt beside the trunk of a large tree. I shook, breathing heavily as my heart thumped in my chest. My breathing threatened to turn into a panic attack, so I forced it to slow down. I needed to rest. If I continued on, the next thing I hit might be more solid than a couple of planks of wood.
I looked around. The headlights illuminated the tree and a good distance in front, but everywhere else was shrouded in darkness. It was with shaking fingers I reached across and flicked off the lights. After a moment, as my eyes adjusted to the night, it became clear I was in the middle of nowhere. There were no lights to be seen. I hoped, prayed, for the first time in years, I was far enough from anywhere the creatures might find me.
Sleep was not an option that first night, even if my mind would have let me. I put the seat back, retreating under the muck-stained windows. The sight of Ted’s headless body holding the spewing gasoline nozzle filled my head.
At the time, that was one of the longest nights of my 43-year-old life. I sobbed as I accepted my family was gone, along with my former life. I cried myself dry, sobbing into the night until at last, the sky went from dark purple to grey, and finally to the red tinged blue of dawn.
I cracked the door open, terrified, even in daylight to let the outside world into my tiny island of safety, even though I knew it’s safety was a lie. The dried mud covering the jeep cracked and fell to the ground as I stepped out and looked around, balking as I saw the buildings sprawling at the far end of the field. I wasn’t as far away from civilisation as I’d thought. I was alive, however, at least for now.