A Glimpse Of Decay (Book 2): Staring into the Abyss

by Santiago, A. J.

  “You listen here, hillbilly!” the trooper barked back in a raised voice. Benjie could see the man’s hand tightening around the pistol grip of his rifle. “If you put that truck in reverse, I’ll blow your goddamn head off. It’s that simple. Martial law gives us the right to use deadly force for trouble makers like you.” While keeping his rifle pointed at Benjie, the trooper called out to his partner. “Hey Ronnie, we got another hot head over here. Wanna give me a hand with this one?”

  The second trooper trotted over to Benjie’s truck and raised his rifle to his shoulder, drawing a bead on Benjie’s forehead. “This one ready for the ditch too?” he asked. Benjie saw the trooper’s eyes glance down towards the road block. He then noticed that there was a mix and match of plastic and canvas tarps that were stretched over the median near the intersection. He strained his eyes and he could just make out what he thought looked like a human arm and hand sticking out from under a blue tarp.

  “Now, you’re either gonna get out of that piece of shit truck, or else your ass is gonna go into that ditch with the rest of those dumb fucks who were stupid enough to give us trouble,” Ronnie said as he tapped at his trigger. “It makes no difference to me, mister.”

  “Okay, look, we don’t want no trouble, we’ll do as you say,” Benjie said. He realized that these men had already done plenty of killing and he felt that they wouldn’t have had any problem with shooting him. Looking over at Michelle, he sighed and said, “We better do what they say.” He slowly raised his hands so as not to startle the jittery men. As he stepped out of the truck, he began to say, “All I ask is that you please don’t—”

  The sound of two gun shots coming from behind them stopped Benjie in mid-sentence. Benjie, Michelle and the cops quickly turned to see what was going on. As Cantrell and Ronnie began to sprint towards the gunfire, Benjie and Michelle were able to see a guardsmen and another trooper dragging a convulsing man from out of a faded green family sedan. A wailing woman and two small children jumped out of the car, screaming and pleading with the two armed men.

  “Grandpa!” screeched the young boy.

  “Get him in the head, you gotta get him in the head to make sure,” the guardsman told the trooper as they continued to drag the man by his ankles. “Just shooting them in the body isn’t good enough.”

  “But I didn’t want to have to shoot the old guy,” the trooper lamented.

  “Well, he didn’t give you any choice. You did what you had to do.”

  “You killed my husband!” bawled the elderly lady. “You killed my husband, you bastard.”

  “No, we didn’t kill your husband!” the guardsman yelled back at the shrieking woman. “He got himself killed!” Followed by the crying woman and her two grandchildren, the guardsman and the trooper hauled the man over to the sunken median and rolled him down into the ditch.

  As Cantrell reached the scene, he stepped in front of the devastated wife. Using his rifle, he shoved her away from the distraught trooper and guardsman. Once the convulsing body was in the grass, the guardsman placed the end of his rifle barrel against the forehead of the man, and as he looked at the woman, he smirked and pulled the trigger.

  The bereaving woman grabbed onto her two grandchildren and pulled them back to the car, huddling up against the tire well. They continued to cry and scream uncontrollably.

  “What happened?” Ronnie asked his fellow trooper as he looked down at the elderly dead man.

  “This crazy old bastard tried to pull a pistol on me when I told him that they had to leave everything behind in their car.” The trooper pulled a small revolver that he had tucked into his waist. “Crazy old ‘sum bitch.”

  “He had no choice but to shoot him,” the guardsman told Ronnie.

  The trooper, clearly shaken at what had just transpired, reached up to the radio mic on his lapel to transmit. “This is Jake. Get that damn bus up here so we can get these fucking people out of here! Also, we need the flat bed to take one over to the tarps.”

  “Oh my God, they just killed that old man!” Michelle cried. “They shot him down like a dog!”

  “Jesus, what’s going on here?” Benjie exclaimed.

  “Jake, you and the guardsman work these cars from here back,” Ronnie said to the stressed out trooper, pointing to the end of the line of traffic. “Me and Cantrell will deal with the cars from here to the intersection. I’ll see if we can get a few more guard guys out here, or maybe Pettit.”

  Ronnie and Cantrell began to walk up and down the road and pointed their rifles at the other people who were sitting in their cars. “Stay in your cars unless you want to end up like that other guy! Do not get out of your cars!”

  Benjie leaned out of his truck window and saw a state trooper opening the door of a car that was near the head of the traffic. He took off his campaign hat, got into the car, and then drove it through the blockade. A few moments later on, the trooper returned on foot.

  “Did you see that?” he asked Michelle. They just took someone’s car past the road block…I guess the bus already picked them up.”

  “Or else they’re already in the ditch,” she replied grimly. “I’m scared Benjie. What are they going to do to us?”

  Cantrell and Ronnie began to scream and yell at the occupants of a blue sports car that was two places ahead of Benjie’s truck. A large man who was sitting in the driver’s seat was trying to open the door of the roadster and Cantrell kicked at it in an attempt to force the man back into the car.

  “But you aren’t telling me shit!” he screamed. “And I don’t have to stay in my fucking car if you won’t tell me what’s going on!”

  “Stay in your car,” Ronnie yelled. “You won’t be told again!”

  “Fuck you!” the man in the car yelled. He swung his car door open, and as he tried to step out onto the highway, Cantrell cut loose with a burst from his rifle, shredding the man and his car. Riddled with bullets, the shattered hulk stumbled for a moment and fell down on his back in a bloodied heap onto the asphalt. Ronnie quickly ran up to him, firing a shot into his head. The bullet exited the back of the man’s skull and sparked off of the road.

  “Fuck it, we’ll just leave him there until we get some more help to move his fat ass over into the ditch,” Ronnie said. “He’s a big ‘sum bitch.”

  As the troopers looked down at their grizzly work, the sound of a bullet zipping past their heads caused the men to dive for cover in the sunken median. Shocked and bewildered, Benjie turned to see a large black truck rolling down the highway. It was brimming with heavily armed men and it was headed towards the troopers and guardsman. The truck came to an abrupt halt and the occupants jumped out from bed and the cabin, quickly spreading out over the span of the roadway.

  After realizing that they were under attack, Jake and the guardsman began to return fire as they dropped down to their stomachs. They were caught on the shoulder of the road and had nowhere else to go. Jake started to scream into his radio, but as soon as he began to transmit that they were under attack, a bullet from a deer rifle tore through his right shoulder; his right lung was blown out through his back. He rolled over onto his side as blood spewed from his mouth and nostrils, gushing out like a running faucet. Clutching at his wound, he began to choke on his own blood. Not wanting to suffer the same fate of Jake’s, the guardsman hunkered down into the median and began to make a speedy retreat.

  Seeing their compatriot shot, Ronnie and Cantrell sprung to their feet and emerged from the median, firing away at the truck. They both moved towards the line of cars as they sought protection from the incoming fire. Ronnie was able to reach the safety of the vehicles, but as Cantrell tried to make his way across the highway, a bullet sent him tumbling down onto the asphalt. Ronnie looked back at his fallen partner and saw that he had been done in by a head shot. With his campaign hat on the ground next to him—a hole through its side—Cantrell’s brains were splayed out across the scorching pavement.

  A stray bullet shattered the rear windshield of B
enjie’s truck and he and Michelle threw themselves down onto the floorboard. The air was filled with the crack of bullets zinging and buzzing past them. In desperation, Benjie reached over to Michelle’s door, flinging it open.

  “Hurry, get out and stay low!” he screamed. He shoved at her and she fell out onto the asphalt. “Crawl for the trees!”

  Grabbing the shotgun, he crawled out of the truck, staying low and dragging himself towards the grass. Unable to maneuver on her belly, Michelle had raised herself slightly and was crawling on her hands and knees. Knowing that she was sure to get shot if she remained elevated, Benjie launched himself forward, landing on her back. He forced her back down onto her stomach. A bullet tore into the earth right next to them and Benjie yelled, “You have to stay low or else you’ll get shot!”

  As the two of them reached the safety of the trees, Benjie heard the grumble of a heavy diesel engine and a strange, unfamiliar resonance that made him think of a buzz saw. He positioned himself to where he could safely look back at the battle; his eyes widened in awe. It looked like the men who had been in the truck were now being joined by other civilians who had been stuck in the traffic jam, and a full blown battle was now raging.

  “This is still America, you sons of bitches!” screamed one elderly man as he crouched behind an abandoned car. He was armed with a bolt action rifle and he was taking shots at the retreating guardsman; showering him with dirt and grass as the bullets popped all around him.

  The diesel engine that Benjie had heard belonged to a Humvee from the National Guard, and it was slowly making its way up the road towards the rebelling citizens. It drove past the idle school bus, which was now riddled with bullets, and as it did, the mini-gun in the armored turret indiscriminately fired into the row of stopped vehicles. The people who had been too fearful to flee from their cars and trucks were slaughtered where they sat.

  “Damn, they’re using one of them mini Gatling gun things on those poor people!” Benjie screamed.

  He saw that another 20 or so guardsmen were leap frogging their way up the road from the barricades and he figured that the rebels wouldn’t last but a few more minutes. Just then, one brave soul who had arrived in the black truck and who was wearing hunter’s camouflage ran through a hail of gunfire, jumped into a car and drove straight for the Humvee. Although the gunner in the turret was able to spin his weapon around on the approaching vehicle, he couldn’t disable it in time. The vehicle struck the Humvee head-on, and it erupted into flames. In a scene reminiscent of an old war movie, the gunner jumped from the turret as he was fully engulfed in fire. He ran down the road for a brief moment and fell to the ground, where he continued to burn.

  “Oh shit, he’s coming back!” cried one of the rebels. Benjie looked back at the position of the battling civilians and saw that one of their dead combatants was staggering back to his feet.

  “Shoot ‘em in the head!” screamed another.

  Benjie then noticed that several other dead men, women and children were starting to emerge from the wreckages of the shot-up cars. They were reanimating and they began to lumber towards the advancing guardsmen.

  Ronnie was darting from car to car in a crouched posture as he fired at the rebels. He looked over to where he had last seen Jake, but to his surprise, the fallen trooper was nowhere to be seen. After letting off a long blast of automatic fire, his rifle ran out of ammunition and he dropped to one knee to change out his magazine. With his shaky hands he struggled to insert the magazine into the rifle, and as he tried to steady his weapon, something hit him in the back and sent him to the ground.

  His face struck the pavement and he was knocked senseless for a brief moment, but a sharp pain on his right side brought him back into focus. He rolled over, clutching at his side, and he saw Jake kneeling down over him; his eyes glazed white. He was holding something up to his mouth and he was chewing on it. He then realized that Jake was chewing on a piece of bloodied uniform—a piece of a Georgia State Patrol uniform.

  Ronnie looked down to find the source of what was hurting him and he saw that there was a large piece of flesh missing from his waist area. Blood was spewing out over his hands and Ronnie could feel something bulging from out of his wound. Fear instantly took hold of him and he turned to crawl away, scratching at the pavement with his left hand. He looked back to make sure Jake wasn’t giving chase. Being full of terror and staying fixated on the reanimated trooper, he didn’t see the pair of feet that he was about to crawl into. Ronnie’s right shoulder bumped into the ankles of a woman who had been shot by the Gatling gun while sitting in her car.

  With her head silhouetted by the bright sun behind her, Ronnie couldn’t tell who he was looking at. It wasn’t until she started to bend down that he saw who his attacker was. The mini-gun had almost cut the left side of the woman’s body away from her torso. Her left arm, shoulder and breast were dangling to one side. Her shredded and bloodied clothes were barely covering her, and her pants were starting to fall off. She was held together by a few strings of sinew and skin and her pink and white intestines were hanging down to her left thigh. Petrified with horror, the only thing Ronnie could do was scream as the dead woman squatted over him. Pushing down on the back of his neck, she lowered her head and began to gnaw on his spine.

  Gaining some satisfaction at witnessing Ronnie’s brutal demise, Benjie turned and crawled to Michelle. “Come on, we gotta get out of here, and I mean in a hurry.” He took her by the hand and they both sprinted uphill and into the woods.

  “Who were those guys?’ she asked. “The ones who showed up and started making trouble.”

  Looking back in the direction of the battle he said, “I think they were just like us, trying to get away. I guess they didn’t take too kindly to the way that the state cops and the soldiers were treating everyone, so they fought back. Never thought I’d see something like that...never.” After pausing for a moment, he turned to Michelle. “You know what else I saw?”

  “No. What did you see?” The sound of the battle could still be heard and Michelle was trembling uncontrollably.

  “Some of those people that got killed back there…they started coming back to life.”

  Coming Soon

  Book Three: Lost in Twilight