Existing Dead

by Lyle Perez-Tinics

  “What do you have there?” Victor asked, sitting on the ground next to the now-extinguished fire.

  “Something for you.” Kyle reached into the box and grabbed the bat by its rubber handle. “Are you ready to take a few practice swings?”

  Victor rose to his feet and walked wobbly toward Kyle. The medication Kyle had given him earlier had made the boy unsteady. Victor reached for the bat handle.

  “Grab the rest of your things.”

  Victor turned and began picking up everything he needed to take with him. He stumbled a few times as he tried to keep balance. Maybe leaving so soon was a bad idea. But Kyle had already wasted too much time. Jasmine was probably suffering at that very moment, or tomorrow could be her last day on Earth.

  They gathered the rest of their things and walked outside. Kyle looked up. It had not begun to rain again, but there were still clouds in the sky. A small patch between one of the clouds allowed a sliver of sun to stream down.

  Victor saw the truck parked next to the post office sign and then noticed Chet’s body lying face first on the pavement. He looked at the bat one more time then looked at the body coming closer with each step. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Victor’s thoughts. Chet was to be a human piñata.

  “It would have been better if he was still active, but I think the Existing Dead are dying off,” Kyle commented.

  Victor didn’t respond. He dropped the rest of the items in his arms and raised the bat into the air. Without any hesitation, he brought the weapon down onto the body, making contact with the back of Chet’s leg. He raised it again and hit the same spot. The bone cracked after the third swing. Without stopping, Victor continued to pulverize Chet’s lifeless form while Kyle watched. In his mind, even this was too good for him.

  “Stop swinging,” Kyle said, walking toward the body.

  Victor took a few more swings at his back before stopping. The boy’s panting seemed to grow now that he was no longer swinging.

  Kyle put his hands under Chet’s shoulders and rolled him to his back. He backed away from the body to put more things into the truck.

  It didn’t take long for Victor to continue. His first swing made contact with Chet’s groin, then moved toward his face. It took three swings before Chet’s face was no longer recognizable. His head dug farther into the pavement as it began to liquefy. All that remained was a mess of flesh and bone. In any other situation, this would probably have made Victor vomit, but not now. Victor finally dropped the bat, exhausted.

  Kyle sat inside the truck, waiting for Victor to finish with his revenge. He stared out of the rearview mirror and saw Victor climbing up onto the bed. He loosened the noose that was keeping Chet in place and tossed it to the ground. He jumped out and entered the truck. He buckled himself in and waited for Kyle to start the engine.

  “Do you feel better?” he asked.

  “Let’s just go, I’m ready to go home.”

  Kyle knew that Victor was in no emotional state to deal with any more bad news, but he had to make sure that Victor understood that there was a chance that his mother was dead.

  “Listen, I know we talked about this before, but I need to make sure you’re not going to go suicidal on me if we get to your house and your mom is dead, or worse, one of them. There’s no telling what we’ll find when we get there. This could all be a waste of time.”

  Victor’s face squinted as though he couldn’t believe what was being said to him. “What about you?” he spat. “You’re the loser who’s driving to California to find some stupid girl that’s probably already dead. Talk about a waste of time. Oh wait … your wife killed your son then killed herself, so I guess it looks like you have nothing else going for you.”

  The words spoken from Victor’s throat pierced Kyle as though he were being shot a hundred times by an automatic gun. At each syllable, a bullet broke through his skin. Who was he to judge about Victor’s motives about going home? He was basically in the same situation. Kyle didn’t know what he’d do if Jasmine were dead. She was all he lived for now. Mary and Eddie were both gone … the only other person that he would consider family was sitting next to him. He would do anything for this kid; even chase down his rapist, get him infected and bring him back for the boy to turn into a liquefied mess in the middle of a post office parking lot.

  “You’re right,” Kyle said, breaking the tense silence. “I can’t judge. All we can do right now is go and see what we find.”

  “Good. Let’s go. My face feels like shit and I have to take one.”

  Kyle didn’t know whether to laugh at the comment or let it pass over his head. He stayed quiet and turned the engine. He figured it would be safe to laugh about the situation once Victor did.

  The vehicle lurched forward out of the parking lot. Chet’s body remained on the ground like a piece of discarded trash. Kyle turned right and they continued their journey.

  “Are you hungry? Maybe you should eat something with the pills I gave you.”

  Victor searched the bag at his feet and picked out a large slice of beef jerky. He cut the slab of beef in half and handed a piece to Kyle. Kyle looked at the jerky, then to the disgusting, blood-covered hand holding it. It wasn’t like Kyle cared about hygiene while eating food; hell, he’d eaten pudding off of a public restroom on a dare. But staring at the blood-soaked hand, Kyle recoiled.

  “Are you going to take it?” Victor insisted.

  Kyle pulled the truck over and looked at Victor. “Grab one of the bottled waters and wash the blood off your hands.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that blood is probably infected. I don’t need you catching whatever the fuck is happening.”

  Victor hopped out of the truck and took a bottle out of one of the water crates in the bed. The box was soaking wet. He opened the bottle and poured the water over his hands.

  Kyle remained in the truck and began flipping through the AM radio stations. The message from Doctor Greenly was still being looped. If he knew how to track radio signals, he would consider finding the source of the message. It was intriguing, especially the part about the Existing Dead evolving. He didn’t know what that meant, but he speculated that the dead dropping simultaneously had something to do with this ‘evolution.’

  Victor came back in after his hands were clean. He showed them to Kyle like a child would show its mother after washing up for dinner. The speakers in the car blared out white static, only coming clear when Kyle passed a station broadcasting the message.

  “Listen to this,” Kyle said.

  The message Kyle heard played back for Victor.

  “… All over town I have been seeing them collapse. I dragged one of them into my lab for research. What I have discovered is astonishing. The Existing Dead have begun to evolve … I am broadcasting on every AM frequency …”

  “Is that what you saw?” Victor asked.

  Kyle nodded after rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger.

  “What do you think he means by ‘evolve’?”

  “I’m not a science-bright person. But what I remember from some classes I took in high school is that life evolves to adapt to the surroundings and in some cases to solve problems within life. But like I said, I’m just a welder. I can’t even explain it right.”

  “Well, that doesn’t help. Let’s just go. Whatever comes we’ll figure out on the way.”

  “I need something to drink,” Kyle said unbuckling his seat belt and opening the door. The sky had finally started to clear up with specks of sunlight, and no heavy dark clouds loomed. But the wind blew wildly, as if God himself was blowing from the heavens above.

  He took a bottle of water out of the crate and began to drink it slowly. There was no sense for him to rush. The streets were clear of all Existing Dead. It was probably like that around the world. Doctor Greenly said that all of the dead around his area were falling to the ground. It wasn’t just Kyle who had witnessed this. He really hoped that he would hear the remaining
part of the message. Most of his questions would be answered.

  Finishing the bottle of water, Kyle threw it to the ground. The entire world was now more or less a landfill, and tossing a plastic bottle onto the ground wouldn’t help, but it wouldn’t hurt either. He was about to enter the truck again, when Victor who was sitting in the passenger seat looked as though he was about to take an afternoon nap. Poor boy needed all the sleep he could get, without the proper first aid, sleep was literally the best medicine they had.

  Kyle had the urge to examine the head he had stored in the bucket. He didn’t know what for, but he felt that there might be something, anything, that the head could tell him about what was going on. He picked up the bucket and dropped it onto the side of the road. Water splashed out as the head rolled on the ground and stopped upright, with its teeth grinding on the pavement. He stared at the teeth, one of them looked different than the others, it was as though the tooth was a small fang. Its eyes remained open, exposing the gray gloss that seemed to be the calling card of the Existing Dead. But there was something different now, its eyes seemed to be turning red. Kyle reached for the last metal spike in the truck bed and began gently poking the head. He walked around it and noticed something that he’d not seen before. A large brown bubble that resembled a boil had appeared on the side of the creature’s face, just above the right cheekbone. Kyle poked at it once and it felt tough, but he wasn’t sure what exactly it could be. He sure as hell didn’t want to touch the growth with his bare hand.

  “Was that always there?” Kyle asked, but no one was listening.

  The head in front of him began to move its eyes.

  No words could describe Kyle’s confusion. This was something new, something unknown, something he didn’t have any answers to.

  The eyes of the monster moved rapidly, first looking directly in Kyle’s direction, then toward the truck, and finally toward the open area to Kyle’s right. Its eyelids began to open and close at an alarming rate, as if the creature had an itch that it couldn’t scratch. It stopped suddenly and stared at Kyle.

  The creature finally realized what Kyle was. He was the only thing that seemed to please the Existing Dead; he was fodder.

  Kyle reached for the Glock holstered at the small of his back and pointed it directly at the creature’s temple. He took a deep breath and fired. The bullet ejected from the cartridge with such speed that it met its target within a blink of Kyle’s eye. The head jerked back a few feet from the force and rolled to its side, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. Brain matter covered the pavement where ground zero had taken place.

  Victor opened the truck’s door and hustled toward Kyle, the blood-covered Winchester in his grip. He stared at Kyle and gave him a look, as if mentally asking where the danger was coming from. Kyle motioned toward the ground where the head lay and placed the Glock on the corner of the truck. He held on to the spike in his hand and used it to perch the head upright again. The bullet hole that appeared on its forehead was small. The round hadn’t done much damage to the face, only to the back of the head where the bullet had ejected. Kyle called Victor over.

  Victor gazed at the creature’s lifeless face. Its right eye was half open and his left fully open, resembling someone with the worst case of lazy eye ever. Kyle used the point of the spike and aimed at the growth.

  “Was this here before?”

  Victor squinted the best he could with his overly droopy eyes and said, “I don’t think so. I can’t be sure, though. But that fang sure as fuck wasn’t.”

  “I don’t remember seeing it, either.”

  Kyle and Victor stared at the head for a few seconds and jumped back when the creature’s cheeks began to twitch. Its eyes rolled around the area as it had before and stopped once it locked eyes with Kyle’s. There was no possible way that Kyle had missed its brain completely. Half of it was splattered on the ground anyway. The creature, however, continue to move its eyes.

  Chapter Seventeen

  No words would express what they felt right then and there. No longer did a headshot work to stop the Existing Dead. Was this what Doctor Greenly meant by the dead evolving? Had the cause found a way to override the body’s nervous system and continue walking or existing without a brain? All of this was more than Kyle’s head could comprehend. All he knew was that if the Existing Dead were really getting harder to bring down, humans would not be able to survive.

  “I think we should go. We need to find someone who knows what’s going on,” Kyle said, gripping his weapon with more strength than needed.

  “Take me home, Kyle. I want to go home.”

  Kyle stared at Victor for a moment. He could see the fear in his eyes. Kyle raised the weapon toward the monster’s head and fired three shots. Two missed, but the third shot the creature through the right eye socket. Pus exploded from the wound and splattered the ground around it. The head did not roll like it had before.

  Victor began to walk toward the truck, while Kyle continued staring at the head. He wanted to fire at it a few hundred more times until there was nothing of the head left. Maybe then it would finally die. But before Kyle could fire again, he heard a loud boom. He jumped in the direction of the sound. Victor stood by the door of the truck, holding Kyle’s Winchester in a firing position. His first shot missed the head by only a few inches. He pumped the shotgun and took aim.

  “No!” Kyle yelled just before Victor fired the bloodied weapon.

  It made an undistinguishable clicking noise, something that Kyle had never heard before. The weapon ejected the shell from its barrel, blowing out fire on its exit. Victor yelled as the backfire from the weapon forced the stock into his shoulder. The slug met its mark, blowing the head into a thousand small pieces. Teeth, brain matter and flesh spewed all around the area.

  “Victor,” Kyle said quickly rushing to his aid. “Why the fuck did you do that? There’s a reason why I didn’t fire the shotgun without cleaning it first.”

  Victor rubbed his shoulder. “Yeah, I think I just learned.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Just hurts.”

  “Move your hand,” Kyle said, holstering the Glock and putting his hand on Victor’s shoulder to check for any broken bones. “It doesn’t look like you broke anything.”

  “We need to find you some cold compress ice packs. One for your face, and now one for your shoulder.”

  “Just take me home. My mom’s a nurse just like that Susie chick. She has first-aid kits all over the place. I’m sure there’s a few of those ice packs.”

  A moan erupted from the wooded area. They both quickly glanced in the direction of the noise.

  “Get in the truck,” Kyle said.

  Victor quickly got inside and strapped himself in.

  Before Kyle made his way back to the truck, he stared at the splattered head when something odd caught his attention. A large piece of flesh and muscle had managed to stay together. It seemed as if that piece of mangled flesh twitched of its own accord. He examined the piece as another moan drawled closer. Kyle noticed that it was part of the head’s cheek, the same part where the boil had appeared. Could that little sack of fluid be what was causing the creature to continue moving?

  Another moan, followed by another and another, began to come closer. The Existing Dead were finally in view. There were five of them, all with their eyes locked on Kyle, who had crouched down to look at the mess.

  The piece with the boil twitched again, while all the other pieces remained still.

  “Kyle! Come on!” Victor yelled.

  Kyle stood and raised his leg into the air, then brought it crashing down on the still-moving piece of flesh. He rubbed his heel into the ground as if he was doing the Twist. A pinkish gel-like substance began to ooze from the sides of his shoe. It felt slippery under his footing. He removed his foot from the piece of flesh, exposing the ruptured boil. More pink gel continued to flow from the hunk of flesh, but Kyle did notice that it was no longer moving.

&n
bsp; “Fuck, Kyle! Let’s go!” Victor yelled from the passenger seat.

  Kyle glanced up and noticed that the Existing Dead were now focusing their attention on the yelling Victor.

  Before Kyle could finish his thoughts, he sprang to action. He ran for the truck at full force and jumped into the driver’s seat.

  “What the fuck were you doing?”

  “I think I just figured out how to kill the bastards.”

  “Well, let’s get the hell out of here. Tell me later.”

  Kyle started the truck at same time that a hand of the Existing Dead slammed on the passenger side window. Victor jumped back, reaching for the shotgun.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Kyle scolded.

  He slammed the truck into gear and it lurched forward, knocking the dead off their feet. They fell to the ground like bowling pins with the force of the truck. Victor stared at them as they fell. “Some of them have those wart things.”

  “On their faces, around the cheek bones?” Kyle asked.

  “No …” Victor said, his voice trailing as the dead were no longer in sight.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They had them in different places. I could see them on their faces like on the chin or something. But yeah, in different places. I couldn’t really see them on some of the others.”

  Kyle’s mind tried to process all of this new information. It was times like this where he really wished that he was smarter. Victor seemed like a smart kid; maybe if both of them put their heads together they could make sense of all of this.

  “We need to figure this out,” Kyle said.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Victor replied, not acknowledging Kyle’s comment.

  “I think I know where you live. At least the general area.”

  “Okay. Just keep going down this road. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

  “Sure,” Kyle replied. “Listen. We need to figure out what’s going on with the Existing Dead. We have all these clues, but we need to put them together. Okay, so … they all fell to the ground and stopped moving. With the dead we saw back there, it looks like they’re all coming back to life again. But this time, a headshot doesn’t stop them. Well … it does, but they come back again. I think if we destroy that boil looking thing, we bring them down. Hopefully for good.”