Apocalyptic Beginnings Box Set

by M. D. Massey

  Scarlett gathered her wits and grabbed the door handle. Unlocked! She jumped inside, one shoe less. The creeper ripped the lavender pump from its mouth and swayed about next to the open car door, ogling the shoe, then her, and then eyeballed the shoe again as if he couldn’t believe his incredibly good luck had just turned into incredibly bad luck.

  Her throat lumped like a day-old bowl of oatmeal. She couldn’t even swallow. A gurgling growl jolted her back. She slammed the door. There, on the front seat, where she had left them, were the keys. Even her purse was there, untouched. Everything was okay until she started the car. They quickly surrounded the car like an overzealous mob of paparazzi. But it no longer mattered. She slammed the pedal to the metal, knocking them out of her way.

  After Scarlett finally found her way out of the Nightmare on Elm Street community, she decided to drop by Maggie’s house. She’d been avoiding Maggie since the un-wedding, for Maggie had always insisted Kevin wasn’t her Mr. Right. Occasionally, she came upon a pedestrian and immediately slowed down. And every time, the same awkward gait, the tattered, bloodstained clothing—it was a dead giveaway. And, whenever she happened on a group of them shuffling about, she immediately flipped a u-ey and headed in another direction.

  For some reason, she couldn’t connect to Maggie’s side of town. The blocked streets were a lab rat’s maze of dead ends. She’d taken so many detours she lost her bearings. It seemed like all the detours and roadblocks led her to Berry Street, so she drove down Berry Street. She passed countless yellow school buses, which lined both sides of the street. The buses sat empty, lifeless. After she drove past the buses, she could not believe her eyes. What? Roseville High School was in ruins. Actually, it looked more like the school had been bombed. It had that Syrian war-ravaged look, giving her an even more desolate feeling of hopelessness.

  “What’s happening?” she shrieked.

  Scarlett assumed the injured people were the plane crash survivors. But it didn’t explain her irrational fear. Also, there were too many of them rambling all over Roseville, not just near the crash site. What sort of catastrophe would cause Roseville to evacuate? “Unless we’re at war . . .” She shook her head, refusing to believe it. War. It was the only thing that made sense.

  After abandoning her attempt to visit Maggie, she finally reached the safety of her own home. She paced the living room, contemplating. On impulse, she decided to visit her paranoid-hermit neighbor. The man who had chained his courtyard gate. She understood why he had behaved in such a manner; he must have thought she was one of them. A creeper. Hopefully, he could fill in the blanks and explain what was going on.

  “Oops.” She ran back to the garage to retrieve the baseball bat. Better be prepared, she thought. Upon reaching the sidewalk to his building, she noticed a shopping cart overflowing with all kinds of items. A few feet beyond it was a stuffed rucksack. Did he just leave this? Surprisingly, his courtyard gate stood wide open; the huge chain was coiled on the concrete, useless. Once inside the secluded courtyard, Scarlett quickly averted her eyes. “Dear God!” A bloody body was sprawled face down on the porch—a woman wearing a blood-soaked skirt and nothing else.

  Blood everywhere. And it was still moist. Scarlett gagged and scuffed-off the sticky blood from the bottom of her Sketchers. The front door was open, and to her astonishment, a rifle leaned against the doorframe as if someone had completely forgotten about it. She couldn’t help but think it odd, especially for this particular neighbor, who was overly obsessed with security.

  It looked like the woman had been shot in the head from what she could tell. He must have shot her in self-defense. Perhaps, in his shock, he had forgotten the rifle. She poked her head inside his condo and impatiently rapped on the open door. “Hellloooo, it’s your neighbor.” Her throat went hoarse. “Sorry to barge in. I really need to talk to you,” she pleaded. No answer. She shouted another panicky “Hellooo?”

  She let herself in, thinking he might be injured and need help. She snooped around. The place was a wreck. It was not the smartest thing to enter a stranger’s home, uninvited. However, she had to find out what was going on. She crept from the living room to the kitchen, making her way to the dining room. He wasn’t there.

  She dared herself down the hallway and then peered ever so slowly around the first door she came to. He was on the bed, his back toward her, apparently asleep. Based on the amount of blood on the carpet, he must have been attacked by the dead creeper in his courtyard. I thought they were dangerous. His breathing sounded more like a combination of wheezing and snoring. Since he wasn’t facing her, she really couldn’t tell how injured he was. She decided to wait in the living room until he woke up. That way he couldn’t avoid her.

  Ugh, I’m not sitting on that! The sofa cushions were soaked in blood. She sat down at the dining room table, away from the blood. “What’s this?” she whispered. She grabbed a flyer from the oak table: FEMA MANDATORY EVACUATION. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. It stated that the high schools were temporary evacuation shelters, and it also listed several Major Shelter Centers. The list included all the sporting arenas, stadiums, and concert auditoriums in the Sacramento metropolitan area. The nearest Major Shelter Center was in Natomas at the defunct Sacramento Kings arena.

  She stared at the bloodied-fingerprinted flyer, stunned. So, there had been a catastrophe . . . It happened when I was drugged-out on those flippin’ painkillers. She tried thinking back, but those four to five to six days were still a blur. It started to make sense, recalling the sirens, helicopters, and the fact the electricity had gone out. Poor Miss Purlie—it must have been too much for her to handle. “Oh, please let Cyndi and her family be all right.” Scarlett couldn’t stop the flood of tears that followed.

  A commotion in the hallway startled her. He’s awake. “Uh, excuse me, dear neighbor, I really need to talk—” Scarlett screamed in mid-sentence. He stood before her, gawking. He seemed in as much shock with her appearance as she was with his. A chunk of oozing flesh detached from his neck, slid down his shirt, and then plopped onto the dining room tile. But that’s not what made her scream. He had turned into one of them. Bulbous black eyes protruded from his red-rimmed eye sockets. Saliva dripped from two rows of snarling teeth. She was too close, close enough to see into its soulless eyes.

  “Uh, okay, sorry to intrude. I’ll be on my way now. Uh, you might want to get that looked at,” she babbled, gaping at his flesh-torn neck, knowing all too well he—it—didn’t understand a single word she said.

  She edged backward, one hand sliding against the wall and one hand gripping the bat so hard her fingers went numb. It didn’t seem to know what to do next. It just stood there goggling her. The horrible gurgling sounds started. And, once again, she ran.

  The clues were adding up. She understood the urgency of Kevin’s baffling text messages somewhat. He was coming for her. Had been. She assumed he’d planned on taking her to one of the shelters. Had the government forced him to evacuate without her? Or had he— She shuddered. She refused to even think it. Wait a minute. Miss Purlie had been sneezing. A virus! Apparently, Miss Purlie had known she’d been infected with the creeper virus. That’s why she killed herself. She didn’t want to end up as a creeper. Or was afraid she might hurt me?

  It was time to leave Roseville. That night Scarlett packed two suitcases by candlelight. She even packed the nonperishable foods in bags and loaded the car. Food was a valuable commodity during a crisis. She’d leave at dawn and maybe retrieve the neighbor’s rifle if it was still in the courtyard. She had an uncanny feeling he—it—wouldn’t need it any longer. She should probably check out the shopping cart and rucksack for supplies as well; she had a feeling it wouldn’t need that either.

  Scarlett tossed in bed most of the night, speculating. It must be a highly contagious virus, for the other day her neighbor had appeared healthy. After the encounter with the creeper, he had apparently become afflicted. But how did he wound his neck? The gruesome afterimage of his flesh flopping o
nto the floor was permanently burnt into her retinas.

  Her thoughts rambled on and on: The wound on his neck . . . The creeper attacked him when he was searching for supplies? That’s why he shot it. Then he came down with the illness and turned into a creeper. Within a few days, hours or minutes? She had no idea how long ago he’d been attacked. But, she hadn’t noticed anything unusual the day before, for as she recalled his gate had been chained.

  So, he’d been infected with the virus recently. And, if the disease was airborne, she was screwed. It seemed so . . . unreal, like some farfetched scene right out of a grade B horror movie starring Vincent Price and Boris Karloff, complete with hokey-looking monsters. Impossible.

  Scarlett’s mind was set, and so was the alarm clock; she’d leave at dawn, for that’s when the creepers seemed the least dangerous.

  7

  Scarlett’s trip to Natomas turned out to be much more complicated than she’d anticipated. Every Interstate 80 on-ramp she tried was obstructed with abandoned vehicles. Around noon, she tried her luck with the back roads and drove west on Baseline Road. Much to her relief, the country roads were clear. Occasionally, she passed an abandoned vehicle on the side of the road, but all in all, everything appeared normal. Definitely, a good sign. Until she realized there hadn’t been any oncoming traffic, and she hadn’t seen a single person.

  In urgent need of a pit stop, she stopped at a roadside deli. Its blinking neon-pink OPEN sign beckoned her to pull over. “Electricity!” I can’t wait to talk to a normal person.

  Scarlett resisted the urge to go running into the deli shouting, “Help, I’m the only person left in the world!” Instead, she cautiously opened the glass door plastered with vendor signs: Red Bull, California Lottery, Budweiser, and a collage of other labels. The lights were on, and a machine hummed in the background, so she expected a cheery face behind the deli counter. But, no one greeted her. The deli’s curved glass display case was empty. Still, someone must be minding the deli, and she quietly searched the building.

  She walked around the empty aisles that once held the usual eat-on-the-run snacks like beef jerky, chips, and cookies. The deli was barren of the products it so boldly blasted on the windows. After she was confident the store was free of creepers, she decided to check out the rooms in the back of the deli. The restroom was next on her agenda.

  Scarlett found her way to the deli’s back office and noticed what she thought was an old ham radio sitting on a paper-cluttered desk next to a plate of food and a mason jar of water. Someone’s here! She searched the room for other signs of recent activity. Then reality set in. The plate of mashed potatoes, green beans, and what looked like a slice of ham buzzed with several pesky flies, a sign the food had been forgotten about. Although, the food wasn’t moldy yet; someone had been there recently.

  She located the humming source in a storage room, where a large orange and black generator faltered when she entered the room. Probably needs more gas. Several red fuel cans caught her attention. I really need gasoline. The Kia was almost out. Should I just take it—and risk going to jail? Who would believe my reasoning? I thought it was the end of the world. Yeah, right.

  After unscrewing the fuel can’s cap, she took a quick whiff, and the familiar intense odor filled her lungs. It was definitely gasoline, three cans of it. Despite her urgent need, she couldn’t bring herself to steal a can. She left a yellow sticky-note on the supply room’s door: HI, I’M SITTING IN THE PARKING LOT. I NEED YOUR HELP. PLEASE SEE ME ASAP. The note idea was a bit silly; however, she assumed the employee or deli owner would return shortly to start the generator. Maybe she could bargain for a can of gas. She had plenty of cash in her wallet.

  Scarlett sat in the car under a shady tree and waited in the hot, August afternoon only daring to leave the windows down a few inches, forcing herself to handle the heat. Even though she hadn’t seen any creepers, she still couldn’t shake the unnerving feeling she wasn’t safe. Would these people help her? Did they know what was going on? Her thoughts rambled from one thought to another like a toddler asking a never-ending barrage of irrelevant questions.

  She’d been so caught up in her quest to find people, she had ignored her hungry stomach. She rummaged through a bag of supplies she had loaded in the passenger’s front seat. Yum, a can of tuna and a package of Ritz Crackers. She dumped the can of tuna onto a paper plate and mixed it with several tiny, plastic packets of Miracle Whip. Finally, a use for those annoying condiment packets of ketchup, mayo, and soy sauce she had saved. She kept an eye on her surroundings and spooned bites of tuna with the crackers. Not a single car drove by—another ominous sign.

  By 6:30 in the evening, she was getting worried, more like paranoid. It was all she could do to control her rattled nerves. She debated over stealing the gas. A thunderous boom quaked the parking lot, rescuing her from her ceaseless, anxious thoughts. “An explosion?” She slipped out of the car, automatically grabbing the bat this time, and stood in the middle of the road to investigate. In the field across from the deli, a billowing cloud of black smoke plumed. She waited to hear the sirens—expecting to hear them—needing to hear them—not hearing them.

  A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Far off in the distance, a myriad of black specs approached from all directions and scurried toward the burning building, which looked like a food processing plant next to a row of silos. Must be a granary. She couldn’t take her eyes off the humongous fireball mushrooming in the sky.

  Groaning startled her. She reeled around. Hundreds of black specs grew in size right before her eyes. Creepers! Everywhere. They headed toward the fire en masse. Soon they’d be close enough to see her. On impulse, she ran back into the deli, stealing a can of gas, leaving two for the owner. She skidded off in the Kia, sliding on the graveled shoulder. She swerved to avoid slamming into a pack of creepers that seemingly materialized from out of nowhere, nearly sideswiping a utility pole when the car fishtailed by.

  Had they been there all along, hiding in the golden fields of wheat, which had never been harvested? How could so many creepers suddenly be . . . everywhere? It didn’t make sense. She drove down Baseline Road toward Sacramento, trying to calm her racing heart. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” she blathered. She was a bundle of nerves as she drove the next mile, passing wave after wave of creepers. It was astounding how quickly they’d formed into packs. “Does this mean they have super-hearing abilities?” Of course, it had been a loud explosion. Still, they seemed to know where the explosion was. Must be an instinctual thing.

  After she passed the droves of migrating creepers, she pulled over and emptied the gas into the tank. “There, that should get me to Natomas.” She said it reassuringly enough, but the thought worried her.

  Scarlett’s drive to Sacramento seemed surreal. She didn’t see a single (normal) person the entire trip. She ran into CA-99 and headed south. Once again, she found it clogged with ownerless vehicles, but it wasn’t as congested as Roseville. She maneuvered the small Kia between the mass of vehicles like some idiotic motorcyclist with a death wish. She had long since given up on not hitting anything. By the time she exited CA-99, she knew her poor car was riddled with dents and scratches; even the front bumper clung on for dear life, scraping the pavement. She couldn’t help but think: Hope my insurance covers this.

  She finally made it to Natomas, a small booming community on the outskirts of Northwestern Sacramento. Great. The Arena Boulevard exit was one huge parking lot of abandoned vehicles. Even the shoulder was impassable. Determined, she put the car in reverse and backed to the previous exit. It was clogged as well, but she found a passable route beyond the shoulder. She was ecstatic when she reached Arena Boulevard.

  For some reason, she couldn’t see the domed arena, which was visible from Arena Boulevard. Jeez Louise, don’t tell me I’m lost again? She flipped a u-ey. She found it maddening that all the arena entrances were barricaded. Even more determined, she drove around the area until she
found a possible way through the blocked entrances, a narrow gap between two yellow school buses. Can I squeeze through? It was the only way in as far as she could tell. Already frazzled, she cringed at the sound of metal scraping metal like the unbearable screech of metal fingernails raking a chalkboard.

  Attempting her way to Sports Parkway, she drove behind a maintenance building and discovered an employee access road. She followed the access road to the arena’s main road. Once on Sports Parkway, she was amazed at the rows and rows of city and charter buses parked on the side of the road. The buses were empty, just like in Roseville.

  Her heart palpitated faster and faster as she coasted by the never-ending lines of buses. Is this where everyone is? Had the entire population of Roseville evacuated to Natomas? She was surprised not to see the National Guard, police, or attendants monitoring the area.

  When she reached a point in the road not blocked by the empty buses, she screamed in despair, “Dear God!” The stadium, once home to the famous (or not) Sacramento Kings, had been obliterated. Not even a fire could do that. No. It had definitely been bombed.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Her fist pounded the steering wheel, inadvertently beeping the horn in her anguish. She really expected—really needed—to find help at this Major Shelter Center: the police, the military, or FEMA. Just one single living human being. Is that too much to flippin’ ask?

  It had taken all day to get there. And even worse, she had most likely ruined the car’s paint job, for nothing. A movement in the rubble caught her eye. The pile of rubble grew larger. A mass of charred things crawled and hobbled in her direction! It was a rather large pack of creepers. Uh, without legs! She whipped the car around. “Now what? Now what?” she ranted hysterically. Think!