by Victor Cruz
As they continued, the low-pitched noise grew louder, but even from the center of town, the sound was not distinguishable to Maxson. When they reached the center where the flag was, the group would split up and veer off from one another to. The noise died down for Maxson and he assumed it was coming from the other group’s side.
Maxson, Konrad and Tyler all began heading towards the West side of the small town. Checking each shop in the row and taking an overall mental note. The plan being to double back on the other side of the street where there were more storefronts before deciding where to focus their efforts.
Konrad had made himself preoccupied by splitting one of the dead’s head open vertically with one swipe of his machete. It fell dead to its knees and the mucky bearded man used the bottom of his boot to kick it back to dislodge his weapon from its skull. The strong kick sent smaller figure that had long blond hair hurling back into the middle of the street. The force from his kick lifted it of its bare feet to fall on its back and slide a few feet over the pavement. His actions were noisy and the commotion grabbed the attention of more of the dead, which Maxson could see Konrad wanted.
Truth was, Konrad was no different than the rest of the guys. Or even Achilles. They all took out their aggression on the walking corpses. The humanity in man, devolved.
Maxson didn’t have time to babysit Konrad and he wasn’t willing to risk either of their lives for him. Along with Tyler, the two left him behind and began to inspect each store. Large open windows with clear signs made it very easy for the men to find out where their efforts would need to be focused. By the time they started back towards the truck, Konrad had killed an additional four more and had begun a pile of them like he was keeping score.
Maxson watched Konrad walk towards the sixth one while he lifted the walkie talking to his mouth, “Inez. Come in.”
The main street eerily had no cars on it, but made it easy for Maxson to see down to the other end where they were which was about four city blocks in distance. He could see them both stopping and waiting for Inez to grab the transceiver from her waist.
There was a pause before she responded, “Can you hear me?”
Konrad had now added his sixth corpse to his pile of trophies. He was sweating heavily, breathing hard, but didn’t look like he was even close to being done.
“You have to come see this.”, Inez was pointing at something that Maxson couldn’t see from his view.
“What is it?”, He asked.
“Vámonos. ¡Ahora!” Inez responded in Spanish which hinted at her credence. Maxson could see her put the walkie talkie back into her waist. Reggie had just walked out of view with Inez slowly trailing him.
“What was that?” Tyler said, commenting on the oddness of Inez’s reaction.
Konrad had given the seventh creature a deathblow from his machete and looked to be determined to clear the entire street. Though, for each two that felled, another one slumbered into view ready to take its place.
Tyler’s only answer coming in the form of Maxson’s tightening lips and face full of stoic tension while he took a deep breath in. Between Konrad, Reggie and Inez, Maxson knew he wasn’t going to be leading this raid.
Tyler attempted to call for Konrad, but was unable to grab the barbarian’s attention. He continued to carry each kill to his stack that had grown a few feet tall. The pile of bodies puddled the black tarry fluids that made up the creature’s blood.
“Leave ‘em. He’ll be fine,” Maxson urged Tyler, but hoped himself to be wrong.
They made their way down the row of businesses and did their best to see what was in each store window. Small businesses such as tailors, butchers, wood-working, hardware were a few. They hadn’t run into a food market or pharmacy which Maxson assumed was on the opposite side of the town. There was an electronic store with a large bay window that held a display of a Boomer Blaster. A high-end vintage stereo that could be carried around and all the rave of the 80s and 90s and probably would have been worth a lot of money to the right collector.
“What is that?” Tyler asked.
“That’s a boombox. Plays music,” Maxson said before feeling old. He gave Tyler a strange look. “Damn, Tyler, I’m not that much older than you.”
Tyler shrugged, “Never seen one of them before. You plug in your earbuds into that?”
Maxson looked at him blankly realizing he was completely missing the concept of what a boombox was intended for, “Forget the boombox. C’mon.”
The two continued until they reached the center where the flag stood, the buildings stood three stories tall with a bank and a city hall. Crossing the street, Konrad’s grunting and growling from each swing of his machete had died down to faint noises. Replaced by the growing sound that could be instantly recognized as a crowd.
Maxson raised the axe to a more ready position as they neared the spot that Reggie and Inez were last seen walking out of view. The corner came and Maxson saw Inez standing there leaning against a chain-linked fence that was atop of a concrete barrier. She looked over at them before pointing down and over the barrier through the fence.
Maxson walked up to the fence next to Reggie who was clenching onto it and unaware that he had arrived. Joining in spectating, Maxson looked down into the big pit where the noise emitted from. It was an unfinished construction site with a few different construction vehicles abandoned in it. A dump truck that partly blocked the entrance of the dirt ramp that lead to the bottom and an excavator that was off center.
The fall from where Maxson stood, to the bottom of the pit was over twenty feet. And at the bottom of the pit, stumbling around aimlessly were a countless number of the infected dead.
“They must have gotten themselves trapped here,” Tyler suggested.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Shrugged Maxson.
“Check it out,” Tyler pointed off center to the other side that had no barrier.
Maxson could see another creature walking towards the pit. Without a barrier to stop it from falling it, it walked right off the ledge to fall harshly to the bottom of the pit. The drop was approximately twenty feet and the creature broke its leg when it awkwardly landed. Unable to stand it swam around on the dirt covered ground at the feet of its surrounding companions.
“Told Konrad there could be hundreds of them here,” Reggie said softly while watching the creature struggle to get to its feet the entire time.
Suddenly reminded of Konrad, Maxson looked back to see him approaching at the pace of a jog. “What the fuck, Maxy? You fuckin’ left me. I thought you were a good guy?”
“Cool it Konrad,” Maxson didn’t have the energy for his antics.
Konrad left a wake of dead corpses and an impressive pile at the other end of the town. However, the dead had all been replaced by more and the new ones followed him with a vengeance.
“These fuckers just keep comin’!” Konrad said in between his hard breaths. “What’s that noise? What the hell ya’ll lookin’ at?”
He approached the construction pit and looked through the fence. The sheer sight of the number of creatures must have caught him off guard, because for the first time since Maxson had met him, he was speechless. Catching his breath and sobering to the danger that the small town potentially held. The ones that followed him were closing in on their current location.
“What’re we going to do?” Tyler was doing his best not to sound nervous.
“I knew you were soft, rich-boy!” Konrad sneered.
“Sh. C’mon! I’ve got a plan. Follow me,” Maxson said while bouncing on his toes a few times to limber up before jogging back the direction he came.
“Where are-,” Reggie didn’t even finish his sentence and followed behind Inez. “Here we go again.”
Tyler soon trailed afterwards with Konrad trudging up the rear complaining like usual. “This better work, Wonderkid!”
I’m about to kill this man, Maxson did his best to restrain himself.
moshing in the pits
&nbs
p; The thumping noise echoed in the pit with the volume of the Boomer Blaster set at maximum output. It hung from a rope that Tyler had brought and Konrad had knotted on to a long bar. They lowered it down on a ledge and the stuck the stereo on the end of the bar so that it was as much overhead of the dead as it could be.
The simplistic plan had worked without a single kink drawing the attention of every single slumping and slithering infected to the construction site. Even the ones that had been stopped by the fence and concrete barrier initially managed to slip and fall down to the bottom after taking some time to search for an opening. Some broke the calling corpses from above and a couple even died from the fall or breaking the fall of others. It was like a waterfall of dead bodies until the dead town’s stream finally dried up.
From the tallest roof of the four-story building, the group had a bird’s eye view and took some time to enjoy the scenery around them. Much like around the Parson Farm there were woods mixed with plains that were shades of different autumn colors. The woods were thicker in the direction and almost appeared to be some sort of forest in that direction. On the map, Maxson knew that there was some sort of lake 20-30 miles north, but it wasn’t close enough for him to see, even from the top of the building he stood on. North of Greenbrook looked to become hilly and made up of rocky forest terrain, opposed to the flat lands they were used to back home. A pair of binoculars and high ground gave the group a good view of their surroundings.
Maxson took notice to a long road leading out of Greenbrook. The road became a fork with two possible directions. One road lead away from the forest and hills, while the other went into up and into the thick of the trees. There was a sign on the road that showed that the direction into the forest lead to a place called “Paradise Falls Resort”.
Must be a waterfall closeby. Maxson deduced from the name other than the potential settlement.
The information was interesting, but he kept the it to himself. There was no need to fill everyone in on everything until he talked to Catalina first and being the only one with binoculars, the rest of the group was none the wiser.
Scanning off to the east he found more fields, but he noticed a large building with what looked like a parking lot in front of it. Even with the binoculars, it was too far to clearly see anything peculiar. However, the parking lot was filled with cars and it made Maxson wonder if it could possibly be the residents of Greenbrook held up in the building. Afterall, there were suspiciously no cars on the street of the small town. Maybe they had time to prepare and escape before the dead arrived. The way Maxson saw it, they abandoned the town, and the items along with it. It wasn’t like they were there to tell them they couldn’t help themselves.
Finders Keepers, Maxson mentality invited. Besides, there was no way they couldn’t scavenge this town on a hunch that they were stealing from someone that they weren’t even sure existed.
Maxson’s scanning unveiled another smaller building farther north. There were a few trailers and a handful of motorcycles that looked to have been parked out front of the building. It was hard to tell if they were parked out front, or if they were on display. If it were a bike shop, then there would be plenty of leather biker gear there to prevent anyone from getting infected through bites.
Inside the construction pit, the dead walked around under the bass of the rap music that played overhead. The way the creatures moved to the music made it look like a doped-out rap concert to Maxson. The one that had fallen earlier and broken its leg was still not standing, but even after all of this time did not give up trying to either. It was strange to see the creature repeatedly fall when it placed weight on its own broken legs, causing even more damage. A mindless corpse that felt no pain and who had rendered itself useless.
Even stranger to Maxson were the other ones that were standing upright and still slumbering around. Shoulder to shoulder knocking int one another and bumping into each other was irritating them. They gave one another looks and hissed, or grumbled and even began to lean into their own bumping to keep themselves balanced. Maxson was unsure of what he was witnessing. Random reactions or behavior learning.
The bumping bass still thumped overhead with a vigorous man spitting lyrics. It was an infamous song that anyone who called themselves a hip-hop enthusiast would know. Maxson wasn’t big into big music of any type, but even he had heard the song before.
“What is this nonsense?” Konrad commented on the music. “You can’t even understand what they’re saying!”
“Maybe you can’t,” Reggie said while sparring with the air. He took one last physical jab before taking his figurative one. “But the rest us hear it just fine.”
Reggie’s eyes were closed and he was leaning his back against the wall of the roof’s ledge. His hands were folded behind his head and his ankles were crossed as he partly lied down. Taking the time to enjoy the music rather than what was going down in the pit.
Konrad retorted in disbelief, “How’s that possible?”
Reggie’s wit quipped back. “Because the rest of us have impeccable taste. You should try it someday; might find yourself liking it.”
“Awe-Hogwash, I ain’t never going to like anything of these sorts,” Konrad scoffed and angrily waved Reggie off with a hand.
“I’ve heard this song before,” Tyler was bobbing his head.
“RapSure,” Inez nodded. “I remember him. He always was a little too political for me at the time.”
“Nah-nah-nah, that brotha’ spoke his mind too much for any political party to take him. The system doesn’t want someone in the ranks they can’t control,” Reggie spoke in a matter of fact manner about the icon.
“Wasn’t he murdered?” Tyler asked.
“Yup. Alleged robbery gone bad, but I have my doubts. He was way too young to go, but his message always stuck with me.”
“Yeah? And what message could that possibly be?” Konrad’s words were meant to be as condescending as they sounded by the way he glared at Reggie.
“That it didn’t matter if you were white, black, brown in color… politically blue or red in color… the only corruption sees is the color green,” Reggie affirmed.
“Pfft, right,” Konrad said in disbelief and disagreeing to simply disagree. “I should have brought my headphones.”
“And a muzzle,” Inez snipped.
“Ooh, feisty, aren’t ya, kitty?” Konrad mocked Reggie from earlier while pawing his long arm towards Inez was not near him.
“Hey, ease up,” Reggie sat up to stare directly at Konrad. His relaxed demeanor changing at the snap of a finger.
Konrad let the awkward tension build so he could bathe in it, before raising his hands, “Alright, alright. Just fucking around. You guys are a real bunch of buzzkills. Which reminds me.”
The scraggly bearded, bald head man reached for his pocket and pulled out a silver flask. His initials were engraved in it which meant that he had owned it prior to the collapse of civilization. It was the only reason Maxson didn’t toss it off the balcony and down into the pit when he took it from him.
“What the fuck? That flask is mine! It has sensicalmental value!” Wailed Konrad. The word sounded right to him, even if it was made up.
“You can have your sentimental flask back, but only after we get back to the farm,” Maxson said.
“You all are fucking assholes! The whole lot of you.” Yelled Konrad, in anger. His temperament instantly shifting to normal when he looked to the youngest of the group. “Besides Tyler. You’re a good guy Tyler.”
“Hey, thanks,” Tyler replied.
“You got it, buddy,” Konrad made a gun out of his hand and shot it with a click of his tongue. His behavior went from anger to playful and it was his erratic tendencies that made Maxson the most uncomfortable. “Did good with the woman too!”
“Uhh, yeah, thanks, Konrad,” Tyler confusedly replied. “She’s great.”
“Mhm, a real keeper,” Winked Konrad before turning to Maxson to insist. “Maxy-son, how ‘bout
just a pull of the flask?”
“No,” Maxson then stated, “And I’m not your son.”
“Alright-alright, but c’mon. It’ll shut me up. Promise,” Konrad urged.
“No,” He remained firm.
“I’m tellin’ ya’, that you are going to push me too far one day, Wonderkid,” Konrad warned.
“So far… that you may just fly off a roof? That far?” Maxson’s threat was calm and subtle and his delivery could have been taken as either joking or serious. Either way, Konrad walked off to occupy a separate part of the roof and away from them.
“About fucking time,” Reggie said while crossing his palms behind the back of his head and return to his relaxation. It had been months since he heard Rapsure and he was going to enjoy it while he could.
“¡Ay Dios mío! If he doesn’t come back, I won’t say a word,” Inez said to the group’s amusement. She then pointed at Tyler, “Don’t tell him I said that either. ¿Comprende?”
“Nah. Never,” Tyler shrugged. His attitude was care free like he had no skin in the game.
“Good. Now what?”, Inez and the rest of them looked straight to Maxson.
“I think the sporting goods store would be a good place to start, work our way down towards the hardware store,” Maxson thought. If they could manage to scavenge enough, they wouldn’t have to make a second or third trip back here. “Keep your eye out for something we can haul on the tow off the back end of our truck.”
“I saw one,” Tyler said with his arms crossed all too proud of himself. Maxson thought he saw it too, but Tyler confirmed it. “There was a body shop that had a few, actually.”
“Perfect, well let’s hook it up and we can load up as much shit as we can. We could probably use a tarp and some ratchet straps to secure the payload down.” Maxson thought up of a few ways they could do it. “We’ll figure everything else out, depending on the trailer. Now let’s move!”