COLD FAITH AND ZOMBIES

by Sean Thomas Fisher

  “Hold on!” Dan yelled, yanking the Chevelle’s black steering wheel to the right.

  Shelly1 swerved to the right, its wide tires angrily screeching. The thing bumped against Dan’s side of the car with a dull thud. Its mouth was hanging wide open. Wendy screamed.

  Dan laid on the horn as the muscle car blew by. The shambling corpse whirled around with the swirling dust, no longer delivering packages. Now it was taking them. Paul briefly considered making Dan pull over so he could blow the thing’s head off. Maybe he would save somebody else’s life down the road by doing so, but he was tired of seeing blood. Tired in general.

  Dan turned to Paul. “If that thing scratched this car, I’m going to be ticked.”

  A mile later, they passed a big brown UPS truck that had t-boned into the passenger side of a blue pickup. Someone was slumped over the wheel inside.

  “Slow down!” Wendy said. “You’re going to kill us.”

  “Now, don’t you go worrying your purty little head none, darlin. Daddy’s got her under control,” he said into the rearview mirror.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Darlin?”

  “Ya know, Smokey and the Bandit?” he said, his mouth agape.

  She returned a blank stare at him.

  “No?”

  “No,” she said flatly, looking back to the road. “When do I get to drive?”

  Paul released an annoyed sigh and turned back out the window. A poorly lit bank sign passed by that normally would’ve told him the time and temperature. But now the black sign was telling him that he would never go to another Gary Allan concert or attend another Cubs game.

  Vacant strip malls, fast food chains and gas stations whizzed by, each serving as a grim reminder of what they were up against. They passed motionless cars and a neighborhood of nice houses. Dan slowed the Chevelle way down.

  “Oh brother,” he mumbled to himself. “This is getting hairy,” he said, squeezing between a new red Camaro with a crumpled front end and a yellow Hummer that had flipped onto its hood.

  Paul watched the houses trickle by. There were no kids playing in the yards.

  He would never have kids. They would never have kids. No little girl with Sophia’s eyes and zest for cooking. No little boy with her dark skin and talent for making messes.

  A billboard for a local country radio station went by.

  There were no kids playing in the yards. Not one damn kid.

  “Are you okay?” Wendy asked.

  Why did he leave her there? That was so stupid. Dan and Wendy would’ve been just fine on their own. He was a wet bag of bones now anyway. If anything, he would only slow them down. It would’ve been easy. Peaceful. Just the two of them, enjoying sunrise after sunset together.

  Wendy tapped Paul on the shoulder from behind and he flinched.

  “Hey, are you alright?” she asked, leaning forward.

  He rubbed his face.

  “Here?” she said, passing him a bottle of water.

  He took a good long drink and passed it back.

  “Keep it,” she said, leaning back again.

  Tires hummed on the road beneath them.

  “Paul, I just want you to know,” she said.

  Paul stared ahead and swallowed.

  “...how sorry I am about Sophia.”

  He glanced towards her and turned back around.

  “I know how much you two loved each other and I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now,” she said, her voice beginning to quiver. “She was so nice to me and didn’t hold my job over my head like everyone else always does. I just wish I could’ve gotten to know her better.”

  Paul didn’t respond, fighting back the tears again and wishing she would just shut up.

  “Where did you two meet anyway?”

  He looked down to his hands and listened to the car gripping the snaking road beneath them.

  “My gym in Milwaukee.” His voice cracked.

  “Wow,” Wendy said. “How did you approach her there?”

  “I didn’t. She approached me, when I got stuck with a hundred and fifty-five pound barbell on my chest.”

  “What?” Wendy said with a short laugh. “Seriously?”

  “Oh, he’s serious. Luckily for him no one else saw it,” said Dan.

  “Luckily for me, she was the only one around.”

  The car’s droning tires filled the dead air. Seconds dragged by like hours.

  Paul swung around. “But thanks.”

  The wheels turned on the car and in Paul’s head. He should’ve never left her alone on that hill. He promised her he would never leave her. But deep down, he knew she wouldn’t want him to stay there at that house by himself. “Are you crazy?” he could hear her say. “Do you want to die alone? He wanted to go back anyway. He didn’t have a single picture and couldn’t see her face again. Maybe he could if he was someplace she had at least been.

  Silence gripped the car for the next few miles.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Dan said, cutting through the tension and looking to Wendy in the mirror.

  “What?”

  “Why is it that all strippers wear those big, clear plastic heels?”

  Wendy’s face contorted. “What?”

  “You know, those platform things that look like they could hold a couple of goldfish in em.”

  She snorted. “Gee, I don’t know, Dan. Why do all librarians wear ugly flats?”

  “I’m just saying, why not wear some classy and timeless black high heels or something once in a while? If those clod-hoppers were so great, how come you never see normal chicks wearing them out to parties and stuff?”

  “Normal chicks?” she said curtly.

  “No, I mean...”

  “Oh, I know what you mean!” she said, turning from him.

  A painful lull swept over the car’s interior.

  “Is it to make you look taller? Because you’re already three feet higher on that stage than everyone else in the bar. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You know what, Dan? You don’t make any sense,” she said, crossing her arms.

  Dan returned his attention to the road, where another blockade of cars had settled in. He let up on the gas pedal and sighed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A two story house with brown siding sat atop a large plot of land just outside Victoria, Texas. The fifty-nine degree temperature outside was dropping almost as fast as the sun, which lit up the side of the lonely looking house. No cars in the drive. No sign of life, or un-life for that matter.

  The drive had gone much slower than they had anticipated. So many abandoned vehicles had been littering the roadways, they’d had to either go around or push cars off to the side. Paul wished they had kept the cop car at that point because of its push bumper grill guard they could’ve used to nudge those cars out of the way. Dan refused to use the Chevelle. He wouldn’t take the chance of scratching it, said they owed that much to the poor car show guy.

  Tomorrow they would make it to the beach for sure. It was only another forty miles, if even that, and Wendy swore she could already smell the salt water in the air.

  Dan backed Shelly1 down the long driveway and parked near the house’s expansive back deck. He shut the rumbling motor off. The eerie quiet consumed them once again.

  Paul swallowed as they surveyed the surroundings with the doors still locked. A nearby fenced in section held twenty to thirty cows, all of which seemed to be fending well for themselves at this point. Better than Ginger anyway. Another outbuilding sat in the tree-lined backyard, with what goodies, only time would tell. The thought of clearing all of it made Paul tired just thinking about it. He took a gulp of water and tried to focus with itchy, dry eyes.

  Quietly, they exited the vehicle and approached the back deck. Paul’s legs felt like lead with each step he took. He was tired of this stuff already and it hadn’t even been three weeks yet. Tired of all of these chores taking him away from his thoughts of Sophia.

  “
I think I just saw something,” Dan whispered, peeping through a back window.

  Wendy and Paul joined him at the window and peered through the cracks of the wooden boards on the other side. The kitchen was painted in shadows.

  “It looked like someone just walked out of there,” Dan said.

  “I don’t see anything,” Paul said, leaning his shotgun up against the house and cupping his hands around his face for a better look.

  “Somebody boarded up the windows?” Wendy asked, holstering her gun so she could put her hands around her face as well.

  Dan readjusted his stance. “Are those candles still smoking?”

  Paul squinted through the boards. Thin streams of smoke were rising from the candle’s tips, as if someone had just blown them out. “I see it.”

  “That is so weird,” Wendy whispered.

  The hammer clicked back on the gun behind them. They froze and Paul prayed it wasn’t another Gary.

  “We already gave at the office,” a gruff voice said.

  Instinctively, the three eased their hands into the air and slowly turned around to find themselves staring straight down the barrel of a .357 Magnum revolver. The man behind it let out a wide grin from beneath a thick gray mustache and tipped his brown cowboy hat to them with his left hand.

  “Now just keep your hands were I can see em,” he said, chewing on a toothpick and not taking his thin eyes off them.

  “We’re just looking for a place to crash tonight. We’ll move on,” Dan said, his hands still in the air.

  The man studied them, the toothpick swirling in his mouth. Time slowed to a crawl.

  “Well, so far I ain’t seen no talking stiffs yet, so y’all got that much goin for ya,” he said, with a deep voice.

  “No, we’re not one of those things,” Dan said, making sure there was no confusion.

  “Not yet anyway,” Wendy muttered.

  The man snorted. “Just the three of ya?”

  Dan nodded. “We were just looking for some gas and a place to spend the night.”

  “Brock! Put that gun down before you go and kill somebody!” A slim lady shouted from the white French doors on the back deck.

  “Go on back in the house and mind your own bees wax, woman!” Brock hollered, still not taking his eyes or gun off the three strangers. “Where y’all comin from?”

  “We came down from Des Moines, Iowa,” Dan said, pointing to himself and Paul. “Picked her up in Kansas on our way south.”

  He eye-balled them with careful consideration. “Uh-huh, and where to now?”

  “We’re going find a place down by the Gulf and put our backs to the ocean. Figure things out from there,” Paul told him, with the sudden urge to scratch his nose.

  Brock nodded. “Not a bad plan,” he said, lowering his weapon. “Bet you were freezin your tails off in Iowa. Power out there too?”

  “Everything’s out,” Dan said, dropping his arms.

  Paul finally scratched his nose.

  “Yep, never seen or heard anything like it,” the cowboy said, still observing them with the narrow eyes of a suspicious detective. “Well, y’all look like ya could use a good hot meal. Come on inside.”

  “Oh, we don’t want to put you out,” Wendy said, nervously looking to Dan and Paul.

  He chuckled. “The only visitors we’ve had drop around here lately can’t hold a conversation worth a dern, so we’d appreciate the company. Gonna grill up some fresh steaks too,” he said, gesturing towards the fenced in cattle. “Cora will whip up some mashed potatoes, corn and plenty of beer n whiskey. Gotta eat all the steak we can tonight ‘cuz it ain’t gonna be worth a hog’s ass tomorrow,” he said, spitting the toothpick to the brown grass. “Hated to waste an entire cow for just two people,” he said, giving up his back and going up the deck stairs.

  The three of them traded unsure looks.

  “Well, y’all comin or what?” Brock asked, just before going through the French doors.

  Dan raised their shoulders. “When in Rome,” he said, heading towards the deck.

  Paul had no idea what a hog’s ass was worth but the last thing he wanted to be doing right now was making new friends over dinner. He sighed and followed the others inside.

  Brock’s wife was drunk. Paul could tell that much right away. He could smell the whiskey in the cola she toted around the kitchen in a rocks glass and reminded him of one of those ladies on the cooking shows Sophia loved to watch on the Food Network. Cora’s stylish brown hair bounced as she danced around the kitchen, easily tending to four different things at once. Her thin frame and warm smile made her attractive in that “cougar” sort of way. Her sculpted calves poking out from beneath a black skirt led to a timeless pair of black high heels, which he thought was an odd choice of clothing. It wasn’t that warm yet. They must have had a special dinner planned for tonight.

  Packages of instant mashed potatoes, gravy and cornbread littered the kitchen island, this one only slightly more modest in size than the one in the Jacobson house. The smell of charcoal soon filtered into the room, taking him back to a lazy sunny afternoon playing a game of bags with Sophia in the backyard.

  “Cora, where in tarnation did you put those tongs?” Brock hollered from the deck.

  “They’re right here, honey!” she sang out, gracefully rushing them outside and planting a big kiss on his cheek as she handed them off. “Man would lose his head if it wasn’t already attached. Shoot, might anyway these days!” she said with a laugh as she glided back into the room. “What do y’all want to drink? We’ve got whiskey, rum, vodka, gin, warm beer and wine.” Her green eyes sparkled like emeralds as she waited for their order.

  They all went for Cokes, but later on Wendy switched to a nice red cabernet to go with her dinner. Red with steak, white with fish. As promised, Brock grilled up some fresh cuts right off the farm and the smell of it alone was enough to make your mouth water like a Seattle rain cloud. Juices bubbled around the charred edges of the enormous slabs of meat that took up most of each plate.

  Paul hadn’t felt hungry in the least, but ate like he had just been rescued from a deserted island. They all did. Perched around a long wooden dinner table with trembling light coming from four tall, creamy candles, they wolfed down the thick cuts, instant mashed potatoes and gravy and canned corn. Cora even baked up some instant cornbread on the grill. They would have to get creative like this in the future and Paul made a mental note to add a large deck with a grill to their Haunted House Hunters list for the beach episode as he chewed a bite of delicious warm meat mixed with mashed potatoes.

  Brock had gravy all over his mustache and chewed with purpose, only stopping to take big pulls from a can of Coors Light. He didn’t speak or look up much from his plate, taking the time to appreciate what won’t last forever.

  Sophia would have been impressed with Brock and Cora’s cooking. Outside of Giada’s good looks, all of the cooking shows Sophia had insisted upon watching had mostly bored Paul. One time however, something had stuck with him when Rachel Ray had preached to “set yourself up” while cooking. If you knew you were going to be knee-deep in raw chicken, she advised opening all of your jars and drawers with your clean hands ahead of time. “Set yourself up,” she had said. Paul felt like you could apply that theory into other aspects of life as well, ranging from work, to the gym, to playing golf, even mowing - i.e. taking a bottle of water outside before getting your shoes all muddy. From here on out they would have to start setting themselves up with the right people and the right gear for the future. Not that there was going to be much of a future to worry about now.

  He ate with his mouth closed while the others traded stories about where they were from and what they used to do and who they had lost in the spread. Wendy told Brock and Cora she had been a waitress at a Perkins, which had caused Dan to start choking on a piece of meat. Paul didn’t even think her small town had a Perkins.

  “That was amazing!” Dan said, rubbing his bloated belly. “Thank you so muc
h.”

  Wendy dropped her red cloth napkin onto her empty plate, pushed it forward and leaned back in her chair. “That was soooo good. I feel sick right now, but thank you.”

  “There’s plenty more if ya want,” Cora said, showing off her pearly whites. “Normally I would’ve made a nice chocolate cake to top y’all off with, but kinda hard to do without my oven,” she said forlornly while clearing plates.

  Paul swallowed and went back to his food. He still had over half his plate left to finish and felt full already, but eating kept him from talking.

  He sometimes felt standoffish meeting new people like this when he had been unemployed, dreading the unavoidable question about what he did for a living. His stomach would churn as he tripped his way through a reply that painted things in a much brighter picture, even though they could probably see right through it. Sophia had told him to just start telling people he worked for a non-profit and he had laughed out loud.

  He sighed. She should be here, enjoying this meal and looking forward to the beach tomorrow. It would’ve almost been fun. Just them against the world, but he had failed her and there was no taking it back. His limbs felt tied to ten pound bags of sand. Just cutting the meat with the Crocodile Dundee steak knife was tiresome work. He just wanted to be alone with his thoughts for awhile, regardless of how bad an idea that was.

  He looked down to his plate, pushing food around with his fork while Cora said something about needing a new swimsuit. Wendy mentioned a surfboard and Dan said he wanted to get a generator so they could watch DVDs and charge an iPod. Brock just laughed.

  “Oh yeah, that’s exactly what ya wanna do these days, go and stick one of them dang iPods in your ears so ya can’t hear any of those creepin crawlies sneakin up on ya from behind!” he bellowed.

  “I don’t have to put the actual ear-buds in my ears, I can get a dock for it,” Dan said flatly.

  Brock leaned forward and frowned. “The what’s that now?”

  “Never mind,” Dan giggled, shooting a sideways look at Wendy.