Dan stared at the trunk and slid a key into its lock.
“She’s obviously shaken up,” Paul said, nodding towards Sophia. “And I don’t know how much help she’s going to be.”
“I gotcha,” Dan replied, popping the lock and carefully opening the trunk as if there might be a handcuffed ghoul inside waiting to spring out at them.
“Do ya?” Paul asked, bending down to catch Dan’s eyes.
Dan looked up at him. “You know I’ve always got your back.”
Paul studied Dan, looking for affirmation that the severity of their current situation was crystal clear. Without that, they were as good as dead.
“I’ve got your back and Sophia’s back and I always will,” Dan said, staring into Paul’s bloodshot eyes.
Paul nodded and plopped a hand down on his shoulder. “That’s all I want to hear, man. And I’ve always got yours.”
They exchanged awkward grins and looked down into the trunk.
“Jackpot,” Dan said, staring at two flashlights, three boxes of shotgun shells, flares, spike-strips, bolt-cutters, blankets and a rain slicker with reflective green stripes on it.
“Nice!” Paul smiled, grabbing a flashlight and a box of shells.
After leaving most of their gear in the Jeep, this was definitely a solid break. They would need some along the way.
Dan took the other flashlight and slammed the trunk shut while Sophia watched them.
Chapter Ten
Paul loaded the cop’s shotgun and returned it to the dash mount before taking his turn behind the wheel. Trees and cows and scary looking farm houses whizzed past as the sporadic clouds above turned orange in the late afternoon sun. No one said much. Dan said something about finding a book on how to hot wire cars but soon the only sounds were the wheels crunching through snow and the heater’s fan on medium.
Paul glanced into the mirror. Dan and Sophia were slumped against each other, fast asleep in the backseat. He returned his attention to the narrow highway in poe-dunk nowhere. The snow had melted away enough to give them a little better time but they were still in Kansas. Taking no chances, he had pulled off the interstate well before Kansas City and headed west before turning south again, giving K.C. and even Topeka, a wide-berth as they went. Despite the generous recognition, he had been able to see smoke billowing from both towns off in the distance.
As dead trees slid through the patrol car’s headlights in a gloomy blur, Paul wondered if he was even awake most of the time. He wondered if God would see them through this nightmare. Thanks to his mom’s relentless insistence that they attend church each and every Sunday - regardless of how much he and his brother just wanted to sleep in - his faith in Him had grown strong.
It became a habit based upon a lifetime of proof. When he was stuck working one meaningless job after another, He led him to college. When he lost his first radio gig, He led him to an even bigger station in Des Moines. When he battled through a nightly sea of lonely women and constant desolation, He led him to Sophia. No matter how dark and twisted the roads became, He was there to guide his steps. The proof was in the pudding.
His grip tightened on the wheel, producing white knuckles as the car snaked through Kansas. But how could He let this happen? To Carla, Matt and Mike? To his mom? To everyone? Things had obviously spiraled out of God’s control because this couldn’t possibly be any part of His plan. Not for the innocent.
“We should stop soon,” Dan said, yawning.
Paul looked into the mirror from Dan to Sophia, who was now leaning against her door, still asleep. “Little further,” Paul said.
“We should’ve stopped before it got dark.”
Paul released an anxious sigh. Dan was right; it would’ve been much safer to clear a place with the help of daylight. But after the Shell station debacle, they needed to give Sophia as much time as possible to get her head on straight before storming some strange place with their guns blazing again.
Dan looked out his window and yawned. Normally, it would’ve had street lights flickering across it as they passed beneath them, but in this world shadows ruled the night.
“Where are we anyway?”
“Somewhere near Dwight, Kansas,” Paul said, yawning.
“Dwight, Kansas? What’s the population?”
Paul glanced to Dan in the mirror. “How should I know, dude?”
“Well is it just one guy named Dwight or what?”
Paul grunted and shook his head. “We’re going to pull over soon and find out.”
“Hey, the less people the better. One guy we can handle.”
A yellow school bus, lying flipped over on its side in the ditch, sailed through the cop car’s headlights. Paul could’ve sworn he saw small heads bobbing around the open emergency door in the rear end. He shivered and got into the gas pedal again.
Maybe all of the earthquakes had been a warning sign for the end of time after all. Maybe this present day horror story was punishment for having more friends on Facebook than in real life. For texting instead of talking. For shuffling through life with our heads down like a ZIP. Civility was lucky; it had died before this any of this had ever begun.
Whatever the reason for the spread - selfishness, cold faith, standoffs with God after an unfair tragedy - Paul would roll with the punches the best he could, believing He did have a plan. What other choice was there? Without that, he would find himself wrapped in a dingy blanket fashioned from the same thread of despair that drove Kurt Cobain bonkers. They would make it to the ocean together and things would get better. He actually believed it too. It was all he had ever known.
He stopped the cruiser in the middle of a snow covered gravel road. A large two story bar, constructed to resemble a country log cabin in The Great North Woods, sat up ahead on the left. Large red letters spelled Red Stallion across the top half of a sign in the parking lot. Below that, smaller black letters reminded everyone that line dancing lessons kicked off every Saturday night at seven, and Eric Church would be taking the stage on March ninth. Across the street from the Stallion, sat a single story red brick building with a sign on its roof reading Papa’s Dancers in big, curly letters that, undoubtedly, came to life at night when there had been electricity. The blacked out windows made Paul guess they hadn’t been doing line dancing in there.
There were zero cars in either bar’s parking lot, which didn’t mean squat. Those things didn’t drive, not yet anyway. He and Dan decided to hit Papa’s because of its blacked out windows and more manageable size.
It was pitch black out behind the bar. He turned the car off and pulled the emergency brake, producing a loud screech that echoed into the night.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Dan asked.
“Doing what?”
“Pulling the brake like that,” he said, scanning the bar. The silent police radio cast an eerie glow of red and green spots across his face, making him look like an evil Christmas elf.
Mike’s voice suddenly bounced through Paul’s head again. “Is there going to be a Christmas this year?”
“Just put it in gear, that brake is way too loud,” Dan said, looking like something out there had to have heard that screech.
They waited for their night vision to adjust with the doors locked and the headlights off. It was dead silent. The kind of quiet that now followed them everywhere they went, like a man wearing a trench coat and dark sunglasses.
Chills ran through Paul’s body as he unbuckled his seat belt and turned around. “How you doing, baby?” he asked Sophia through the cage, ignoring Dan’s valid complaints about the brake.
“I’m alright,” she said glumly, yawning and not making eye contact with him.
“You gonna be able to do this?”
She nodded tiredly, looking out the window into the blackness as he studied her reaction.
“Because I am telling you, I will not make for a very good dead person. I’ve got too much charisma and too much potential for that to happen. Plus, I’m way too young
.”
“And I’m younger than he is!” Dan said. “So I’ve really got something to lose here.”
Paul held up a hand to him. “Don’t do this, Dan. Not after all we’ve been through together.”
“Well it’s true!”
“You’re barely younger than I am but trust me, I’ve got a lot more to lose than you do.”
Dan’s jaw dropped. “Like what?”
“Like... I’ve got a brand new mountain bike sitting in my garage at home to think about.”
“Pffff! I’ve got a brand new pickup truck!”
Paul stared at him. “You do?”
“Yeah, you rode in it with me. Hello?”
“I did?”
Dan chuckled and looked away.
Paul inhaled a deep breath and let it out through the cage. “Well, looks like you got me there,” he said, turning back to Sophia. “The man’s gotta brand new truck to think about here, baby,” he said, jerking a thumb towards Dan.
She turned to him with a cold stare. “This isn’t funny, Paul!”
He glanced to Dan and then back to her. “Baby, I know this isn’t funny,” he said heavily. “It sucks, and I definitely don’t want to make light of any of it but sometimes that’s how I keep going. One of my defense mechanisms, I guess.”
“I know it is,” she snapped. “Like when my great-aunt died and you told me “at least you won’t get any more cat figurines for your birthday now”.
Paul raised his hands. “Well, we didn’t even have a cat.”
Dan stifled a laugh.
Sophia looked down and put her gloves back on.
“Listen, I get it,” Paul sighed. “We screwed up by not checking that bathroom door, and those poor kids didn’t deserve that and Carla didn’t deserve that. Nobody deserves any of this, but this is the hand we’ve been dealt and we don’t have the time to sit around and dwell on it. We don’t even have time to properly bury someone, let alone mourn them. We’ve got to keep moving or we’re going to be next.”
She pulled the zipper on one of her gloves back and forth, tears welling up in her dark, cavernous eyes.
He watched her and continued. “And unfortunately, we’ve got to go into this place right now because it’s dark and it’s cold and we need some rest. Believe me, I don’t want to go in there. I want to sit here and think about Matt and Mike and Carla and about how if we would’ve just done this or that differently, maybe they would be in this car with us right now. But I can’t. Because the car isn’t safe to sleep in.”
She pulled the zipper back and forth. “I know,” she quivered.
Paul turned to Dan, then back to his wife. “Are you going to be able to do this?”
She nodded with a sniffle.
“We’re going to get through this. I promise you,” he said, sticking a finger through the cage.
She lifted her eyes to his. “You promise?”
He smiled. “Cross my heart.”
She took his finger and almost smiled back.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said with one last sniffle.
“Give me a kiss.”
Dan looked out his window and fidgeted in his seat as they kissed through the metal cage.
After the salty kiss he turned to Dan. “You ready?”
“Yeah, let’s get this over with,” he replied. “I don’t know about you but I need some toilet paper. My butt itches somethin fierce!”
The back door of Papa’s was dead-bolted from the inside while a nearby cellar door had a padlocked chain running through the metal handles on the outside. Dan grabbed the bolt-cutters from the car and snapped the chain.
“It is so dark out,” Sophia said, gazing at the sky while Dan returned the blot-cutters to the trunk.
The stars had a dazzling brilliance that would normally be this bright while camping in some remote back country. Even then, it wasn’t like this.
“It’s crazy how much light pollution a town used to give off,” Paul whispered, scanning the stars with her.
“Even the sky has changed,” she said glumly.
“Alright, you guys ready?” Dan asked, returning from the car.
They nodded and pulled out their flashlights and guns. Holding them in one hand over the other, just like on Cops, Dan grasped a metal handle and gingerly pulled the cellar door open. A musty waft of stale air smacked them in the face. Their flashlights revealed wooden steps leading down into an even blacker darkness.
“Oh brother,” Paul murmured.
“Great, another haunted house,” Sophia said.
“You mean haunted strip bar,” Dan corrected.
Sophia looked at Dan, then back down the stairs.
“Alright, stay together and we check every door this time,” Paul said.
Leaving the cellar door open in case they had to make a hasty retreat, Dan descended the rickety planks with Sophia and Paul right behind him. They grimaced with each creaky step they took. At the bottom of the staircase the unfinished basement smelled like moth balls and dirt. It was littered with dusty tables, stacks of chairs, a darkened jukebox, dented kegs, boxes of glassware and even a rusty bicycle with a basket. On the other side sat a narrow stairway leading up to another door. They exchanged glances and cautiously crossed over to it, their flashlights creating jumping shadows that played tricks with their minds as they went. Every few seconds, one of them would quickly jerk their light and gun to a spot in the room where they could have sworn on their mother’s grave they had just seen something move.
At the bottom of the stairs, Dan turned around to make sure Paul and Sophia were still behind him before going up. Each loud squeak of the wooden steps made them grimace. Paul went up backwards, guarding their backs, his breath rushing through the beam of his light.
At the top, Dan held up a hand.
Sophia and Paul stopped.
Their heavy breathing was the only sound.
Dan put an ear to the closed door. They all froze. He looked back and shook his head. Paul nodded to go through so Dan took a deep breath, gripped the knob and gently turned it. The door creaked when he pushed it so he stopped and peeked through the crack. “It’s pitch black,” he whispered.
“Keep going,” Paul said.
The door sang out a long rusty song as they eased into the cold bar with their flashlights cutting through the darkness like light sabers. Tables and chairs sat strategically plotted around a large T-shaped stage with a brass pole running from floor to ceiling at each end. Their reflections in a nearby mirrored wall caused Sophia to inhale sharply and nearly pull the trigger. Paul gave her a look that said to take it easy. She relaxed her index finger and let out a pent up breath that rolled out in a tumbling billow of smoke.
A gunshot shattered the giant mirrored wall, scattering reflective shards all over the floor. They jumped and dove behind a nearby pool table, their ears still ringing from the blast.
“Holy crap, the damn things have learned how to shoot guns!” Dan cried, realizing this was the end for sure now.
“I’m not one of those things!” a female voice rang out from behind the bar.
“Neither are we!” Paul quickly returned, not wanting to leave any room for misinterpretation.
“Who the hell are you and what do you want?”
“We’re just looking for a safe place to crash until morning. We came down from Iowa!” he said, hoping that would give them some kind of reputable clout.
“Congratulations!” she replied.
“We’re just trying to get to warmer weather,” Paul said.
Silence reclaimed the room. They could still smell the burnt gunpowder in the frosty air as the three exchanged nervous glances behind the pool table.
“His brother lives in Kansas City!” Dan suddenly blurted, causing Sophia and Paul to lean forward and toss quizzical looks at him.
Dan shrugged.
“Well good for him!” the woman said.
“We’re not looking for any trouble,
” Sophia chimed in, deciding this needed a woman’s touch. “Are you hurt?”
“Not yet.”
They could feel the weight of her eyes and gun upon them through the darkness.
“Are you alone?” Sophia asked.
“I was until now.”
Paul figured the bar must be secure or this girl would’ve been stripper-stew by now. Outside of the mirror, everything looked in order.
“What’s your name? Mine’s Sophia.”
“Unless you’re into frozen beer, you’ve come to the wrong place!”
“We just need a safe place to spend the night. We’re heading to the Gulf in the morning,” Sophia hollered over the table.
“The Gulf?”
“Listen, if we come out will you promise not to shoot? These two nitwits have already gotten me into enough trouble for one day and I am exhausted.”
“That’s men for ya, isn’t it?” the girl said. “Always creating trouble.”
Silence resumed its place in the room as the mystery woman deliberated. Paul quietly double checked to make sure his safety was off. It was.
“Alright, come on out. Real slow like now.”
Hesitantly, they peeked over the top of the pool table and got to their feet, holding their guns and flashlights up into the air.
The woman hit them with her own flashlight.
“This is my husband, Paul, and our friend, Dan,” Sophia said, quickly trying to establish any type of human connection with the woman.
“Sorry we scared you,” Paul threw in, his hands still raised.
“Sorry about the gunshot,” she said, lowering her pistol. “I’m Wendy.”
Dan’s brow folded. “You almost killed us!”
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead by now.”
Sophia kicked Dan in the leg. “How long have you been here?”
“Three days.”
“And your family and friends?”
“Who knows? Didn’t have much of a family to begin with and my friends are probably all dead or hiding somewhere. I figured someone would’ve shown up here eventually, but so far I’m it,” she grinned.
COLD FAITH AND ZOMBIES Page 5