Jason was tired of feeling confused by Lydia’s words, but it was happening all over again. His look betrayed his thoughts.
“You were tuning me out. You didn’t want to hear what I had to say … and you really needed to hear it.”
“But I already know all that stuff.” Jason sounded weary and frustrated. “Look, I don’t need to hear again about how much George has sacrificed for me. I don’t need Megan trying to protect me. And I don’t need Jeff …” He looked confused. “I don’t need him trying to stick up for me in front of Michael. I don’t need their help, and I don’t need them. Not anymore.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Jason shook his head and slouched down. He looked like he was going to clam up completely now. He was done arguing and just wanted the crazy old woman to leave him alone. Lydia felt frustrated and wondered if this was getting them anywhere. Spoon-feeding the boy guilt had not been her plan. It was clear he already had plenty of guilt buried deep down. Jason was a smart kid, and soon enough he would sort things out, but he had to do it at his own pace. Until then, he was going to be angry—with himself and with everyone else.
She sighed and smiled at Jason, patting his hand one last time as she stood.
“Okay.” She turned, strolling to the door. “I won’t browbeat you any more, Jason. I apologize for the slap; it was uncalled for.”
She stood waiting by the door until Jason finally looked up at her. The brooding anger was still there, but it was dissipating. In a while, it would be completely gone, and he might have a clear enough head to understand things better. She glanced out the window and saw Megan in the courtyard, looking sad and lost. But as she looked at her, Lydia’s mind was on another one of the newcomers. It was hard to believe that George had sacrificed finding his family to ensure Jason’s safety, but that was exactly what he done by agreeing to stay at the camp for good.
Oh Jason. You poor child. Once you realize what George has done for you, it might just tear you apart. Maybe you are better off staying angry instead.
“Stay in here as long as you want. You’re still welcome to live with me and the children in our camper.” She paused. “But I’ll understand if you decide to remain here instead. That’s entirely up to you.”
Lydia turned and left.
Jason had been trying to think of something to say, a snide comment he could throw at her as she left, but thought better of it. That was something a child would do.
Instead, he threw himself down on the bed and smothered his face in a pillow. His screams were muffled as he slammed his fists down over and over again into the mattress. It wasn’t fair. It seemed like everyone was out to get him. Jason wondered if even Michael was sincere, or if he was just like everyone else.
He continued to scream until he felt his throat growing raw, and only then did he stop. His arms ached, and his head was pounding. He pulled the pillow over his head. He did not want to see or hear anything; he wanted to be left alone in the dark.
Why did you make me do it, Jason? Why did you make me give up my family to protect you? Why?
He pictured George standing over the bed, staring down at him, making him feel guilty. George would never say that. He would never try to make me feel bad like that. He’s too … he’s too nice.
But there George was, imaginary form unwavering, demanding an answer.
“I didn’t make you do it! You did it yourself! Why are you blaming me? Why did you do something so stupid, George? Why? Why did you do that?”
Jason lifted the pillow and threw it at the wall. His eyes were open now, and he realized that he had yelled these last words out loud. He looked around the interior of the RV, but there was no one else there. But the words George said, the questions he had asked, still hung in the air.
“Why did you do it, George? Why? Why couldn’t you just butt out? It’s your own stupid fault for telling Michael you would stay. I couldn’t have known you were going to do that! If I did, I-”
Jason wiped away a tear with his fist as he growled. He sounded like a wounded animal caught in a trap. After some time, the growl contorted, turning into a wailing moan as more tears came.
The pain of the revelation that Jason had done this to George dug into his gut. He had screwed up. Screwed up worse than ever before.
Besides George, he had made Megan into a miserable mess. Remembering how she looked as she begged him to stay made Jason cringe. She had screamed at Michael, pleaded with him to keep Jason here, safe. She had done it because she cared, right?
Even Jeff stuck his neck out for him. That coldhearted bastard who didn’t seem to care much for anything except beating on stiffs with that baseball bat of his had confronted Michael and Frank.
But it was George who had sacrificed everything.
What have I done?
Jason curled up even tighter. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mother back. He had made a mess of things, and he just wanted Momma to be alive again to come get him and take him away from this place.
Jason fell backwards on the bed and lay on his damp pillow. He would try to figure everything out while the men were gone, work out what he could do to make things right again. But for now, he would close his eyes for a few minutes to clear his head. Just a few minutes and then he would figure everything out.
A minute later, he was asleep.
Chapter 13
The Dollar General Store was several hundred yards past the van. The front doors were intact, and there were no splashes of blood or trampled bodies crowding the parking lot.
They had walked past a couple of smaller establishments. One was the combination laundromat-carwash Jeff recalled seeing the day before. As he glanced into the dark, open wash bays, he watched for any movement back in the shadows. There were no windows on the rest of the building, so there was no way to look inside … or for something inside to look out. There were two more buildings between “Scrubbing Bubbles” and the general store. One was a light blue one-story cinderblock and wood structure with a green awning. The other looked like someone’s house rather than a business. There were no placards denoting what the establishments were, and the group dismissed the idea of examining them too closely.
On the other side of the road were two drab brown buildings. A wide gap between the two decrepit shacks showed the field and woods beyond where the RVs were. The pasture was flat and expansive.
Past the general store, a string of telephone poles ran along the side of the road. Several abandoned vehicles with shattered windshields and flat tires were scattered across the asphalt, and one of the combination streetlight-telephone poles had been rammed and lay across the top of a car, creasing its roof.
As they continued moving forward, they saw two more identical brown buildings directly across from the Dollar General. They looked to be in far better shape than the ones they were currently passing.
Each housed several businesses. Jeff glanced at some of the names on the doors and the cracked and shattered picture windows. There was an insurance company, a small hobby shop, a sub restaurant, and what he guessed to be a rather small and cramped tavern.
There was a hazy blur of businesses and houses well beyond the immediate commercial area. Jeff could see some two- and three-story office buildings off in the distance. He squinted, looking for movement, but saw none. There were only a few birds on the telephone wires that marched into town and no noise at all.
“Well, it looks pretty good, doesn’t it? No one’s around,” Ray said as his eyes darted everywhere. His hand kept traveling to the pistol stuffed into his khaki pants to reassure himself that it was still there. Jeff idly wondered if the boy pawed his dick as much as that damned gun.
“Shut up back there.” Marcus turned, swinging his shotgun toward the teen. Ray clammed up and stutter-stepped to a stop. He stood nervously, shifting his feet side to side. His face turned red with embarrassment as he stared at the ground to avoid the further wrath of Michael’s henchman. After a few second
s, Marcus looked satisfied and started moving again.
Jeff picked up his pace and moved up next to Marcus so they could speak.
“So what’s the plan?” Jeff kept his voice low, not interested in pissing off the redneck even further.
Marcus stopped and stared at Jeff. There was no anger in his look, but it was clear that he had nothing but contempt for the suburbanite. After a few seconds, he snorted and bent his neck forward. A large brown glob of tobacco juice and mucus plopped onto the pavement a couple of inches from Jeff’s shoe, splattering his leg. Jeff saw the trajectory of the confection, but kept his eyes on Marcus’s face even as the warm gruel seeped into his jeans. A line of spittle ran down Marcus’s beard, but he didn’t bother wiping it off.
“The plan is that you stay the fuck out of my way, hotshot.” With that, Marcus began walking again, leaving Jeff standing alone.
The others moved up to Jeff as he looked on in stunned disbelief at Marcus’s back. He was drifting to the right, toward one of the brown buildings opposite the Dollar General. After a few moments, it became clear which entrance Frank’s buddy was heading for.
“So what do you want us to do?”
Marcus did not stop at Jeff’s inquiry. “Check the general store out or jerk each other off. Either way, I don’t give a shit.”
Jeff stared in amazement at the back of the dirty t-shirt Marcus was wearing as he continued walking. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The headache that had persisted since Fred from the abandoned farmhouse had walloped Jeff was creeping back to the surface. The pain had diminished to a dull throb after he had swallowed nearly an entire bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol over the course of the past couple of days. Now the headache was back at full throttle, ready for an encore.
No one spoke as they watched Marcus move across the street. As one, the teens and George turned to Jeff. Biting down on a scream, he rubbed his eyes wearily. This was going to be up to him.
“Okay, guys, here’s the plan. George and I are going in the store.” Jeff gestured over his shoulder toward the Dollar General. “You two stay outside and stand watch.” He could see the relief on both teens’ faces at the directive. George nodded as he studied the store.
It was a standard rectangular one-story brick building with a swinging glass door but no display windows. Hopefully enough light would pour in from the doorway to get a clear view inside. Jeff was reminded of the drug store he had raided back in Milfield and hoped there wasn’t a storeroom full of dead bodies in this one.
He looked around once more to see if there was any movement. There was none except for Marcus, who had reached the tavern, endearingly named “Hole in the Wall.” He was peering through the broken glass of the front door, about to push his way inside.
Jeff looked back toward Michael and Frank. They were distant specks now, several hundred yards away. The duo still leaned against the van, waiting for the group to return with the supplies the camp needed. Jeff wondered if booze was on their shopping list as he spied Marcus ducking inside the tavern out of the corner of his eye.
Motioning for the others to fall in, Jeff moved into the parking lot of the general store. There was a dumpster on the side of the building, next to a metal door that likely led to a stock room. The building looked fairly new, and Jeff recalled that the Dollar General in Milfield had been built only a few years before. The two structures looked identical, both with a light brown brick exterior. Jeff squinted at the metal door and dismissed the idea of checking it out. They would go through the glass doors at the front instead.
“Holy crap!”
George’s expletive startled Jeff out of his mental inventory of what they needed to grab from the store. Looking over at his friend, he followed George’s eyes to the top of the building.
A woman was on the roof, moving toward them. The foursome gaped at her, watching as she limped slowly but surely toward the edge of the roof.
As she drew closer, Ray was the first to comment. “She’s going to jump.”
“No way. Uh-uh. She’ll stop,” Teddy disagreed, shaking his head vigorously.
Jeff saw the two boys' eyes bugging out with excitement, in sharp contrast to their nonchalant words.
He studied the woman. It was clear she was infected, even from a distance, and from the looks of things, she had been for quite a while. Looking her over clinically, Jeff realized she must have been up on the roof for several weeks, as the sun had bleached most of the color out of her hair. Most of the damage to her face had probably come from heavy direct exposure to the elements. It was a puzzle how she had gotten up there, but his best guess was that she had been bitten and managed to escape to the roof before succumbing to the virus. The muggy and humid summer environment on a super-heated tar roof had caused her body to swell, and Jeff was positive that if they caught a whiff of her, she would smell like a trash bag filled with boiled beef. The bloat around her midsection was tremendous and had pushed her uniform smock beyond its bursting point. Several buttons had popped off the garment. Her skin was burnt to a crispy red and was peeling off in great sheets from her arms and legs. The bottoms of her pants were shredded, and her legs had burst through, the swelling there even greater than on the rest of her body. Part of her scalp was missing, or the hair had simply fallen out; the skin underneath was bleached bone white.
Teddy lifted his rifle slowly to line up a shot at her. Jeff put his hand on the barrel and pushed it back down. He shook his head, and the teen looked at him, puzzled.
“It’s a waste of a bullet. Look.”
She was on the edge of the roof now, staring down at them. Not hesitating even for a second, she stepped off the surface with her right foot. Her other foot got stuck on the ledge, and as she fell forward, the ghoul swung back toward the building and smashed into it. Her foot then popped free of its impediment, and she plummeted earthward. They watched as the woman sped toward the ground and did nothing to shield herself from the impact. She struck the pavement headfirst.
Her skull shattered with an audible crack, which was followed by a sudden eruption of the soft, yielding contents of her head. A foul puddle spread outward as her body landed on top of the messy remains. The ripened corpse burst with a rush of liquid as the thin skin surrounding her legs broke open. Black gruel splashed the cement and left a sodden mist in the air.
George gagged and looked away. The two teens continued to peer at the woman’s remains, fascinated. After a moment, Ray nudged Teddy. “Told ya she would jump.” Teddy pushed him back, and they laughed at one another.
George tried reprimanding the boys, but as he glanced back at the body for another split second, he looked green around the gills. He turned away to bend over as he breathed heavily.
“Did you see her as she fell? She was looking straight at us. She didn’t even care that her head was going to get smooshed. All she wanted to do was eat us. That was awesome, man!” Ray said in awed disbelief.
The two boys chatted animatedly with each other, excited by this new discovery. Jeff looked on while George worked to regain control of his stomach. After a few seconds, Jeff moved between the teenagers.
“Okay, guys, enough.” He grabbed them both by the shoulders. They looked at him, and the grins disappeared. Jeff could see the fear in their eyes hiding behind the false bravado the strange little event had brought out in them.
“Fun’s over.” He continued to hold their shoulders and moved them gently so they were facing the body. “Take a good look at her and try to understand something, okay?”
Ray and Teddy glanced curiously at each other and then back at the body congealing on the hot pavement.
“Those things aren’t human anymore, boys. They only care about one thing, and that’s ripping you to pieces. It’s just that simple.”
Ray looked like he was going to offer up a smart-ass rebuttal when Jeff moved his hand from the teen’s shoulder to the back of his neck. The adult gave it a squeeze as he pulled Ray around until th
eir faces were inches apart. Ray let out a little yelp and stared at Jeff with fear in his eyes.
“Listen,” the reluctant leader said, glaring at the pimple-faced kid. “I don’t have any idea how you got lucky enough to survive this long, but the fact is that you won’t last much longer if you keep thinking those things are a joke.” Jeff squeezed both Ray’s and Teddy’s shoulders harder until they both winced. He moved his eyes back and forth between the two boys.
“You think because most of them are slow and stupid that you can outwit them? There are millions of those freaks out there. Millions with nothing better to do than hunt you down and rip your heads off. And that’s if you’re lucky. Because the alternative is a nightmare you don’t want to face.”
Jeff pushed the boys away and glared at them. He was trembling with rage as images of his dead family filtered through his mind. Ray and Teddy looked at him, their faces pale as the desire to retort fled in an instant.
“Do I make myself clear?” Jeff almost snarled.
They nodded solemnly. As Jeff stared at them, the headache flaring up worse than ever, he rubbed his eyes gently.
“Good.”
“Can we get going? Where there’s one of those things, there’s probably more.”
Jeff opened his eyes and looked at George. The pale, blond man’s skin had a light green tint to it, and he had his hand clamped over his stomach.
Jeff nodded and took a deep breath to clear his head. He gave Teddy and Ray a small smile. They still looked a little frightened of him, but both tried returning it.
“Well, we all know what to do. Let’s get to it.” Jeff turned to the store again. They moved past where the woman had fallen. Just as Jeff had suspected, she was pretty ripe. The smell was overpowering.
“Jesus Christ, that’s foul.”
They moved to the front door. Jeff glanced inside and saw that much of the contents of the shelves was gone, at least toward the front of the store. There were still plenty of darkened aisles and the storeroom to check out. The fact that he saw nothing moving inside was an added bonus.
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