by David Smith
You can nod your head all you want but I really don't think you understand what I mean by, crazy. He and my Mom were together since high school and from the very beginning, he made her feel like everything that went wrong was her fault and he had to clean up her messes and she loved him for it. She once told me he had this way of making people feel like everything he did was right and everything they did was wrong and if he did wrong, it was their fault and a result of some wrong they did against him. That's how he became number one in the club so fast. He was number two by the time he was twenty-five, something most only reached by the time they were in their fifties. The old number one got killed during the outbreak, trying to break into someone's house and the club killed the entire family on the spot. Dad's been it ever since. You have no idea how ruthless they can be. Mom was just too brainwashed by him to see through his bullshit until after I was born.
Before the plague, everyone in the club made a living by selling drugs, meth mostly. Most of them hadn't killed anyone yet but I guess only because they were afraid of going to prison. Mom said, before the dead even reached Louisiana they had already started looting and killing, taking whatever they wanted from whoever. They had terrorized Pearl River, Nicholson, Picayune, Slidell and pretty much the entire North Shore for two weeks before the dead got here. They lost a few to homeowners who fought back but gained three times as many new recruits. The cops were just too busy to do anything about it, Mom said. But she wasn't scared, said she felt less scared than she ever had because she knew that once the dead made it down here, the club was going to own the whole town.
They underestimated the dead though and ended up stuck in Louisiana until Magnolia Ridge was built up and had almost as many survivors as we did. Mom said the roads were too jammed up to go north by truck or car and too full of the infected to go on the bikes so they sat in this compound till they almost starved to death. Finally, Dad convinced them to try an honest days work for a change and float down the river into the Honey Island Swamp to hunt for food. That didn't last long though. Criminals will be criminals.
Mom said there were almost four hundred members by this time and all but her and one other guy's 'old lady' got hopped up on meth and went riding out like wild Indians on the warpath, revving their engines and screaming. They had left her and the other lady behind to open the gate when they came back with nothing but a fireman's ax and a big pipe wrench to defend themselves.
She said that up to this point, only a handful of dead had come down the road but had passed right by, since they didn't know anyone was here. There was a fence behind the buildings across the road that separated this area from the interstate where thousands of them had been passing by for days without noticing they were here. When they tore out of here making all that noise, the dead turned like a river that suddenly found a path of less resistance.
She said she could hear when the fence fell and less than a minute later, they came pouring out from the woods behind the buildings and crossing the road, coming straight for her and her friend. There were hundreds of them, all kinds of rotted and mutilated in different ways. When they reached the front gate, the ones in the back pushed so hard that the ones in front were smashed into the gate, their bodies being pushed through the chain-link like meat out of a grinder and sliced off clean to their bones as they were pushed down and stomped to the ground. Their flesh hung there in the fence like they were still standing in it; thick, human shaped skin jackets complete with eye holes and hair. When the gate pushed right out of the roller tracks and fell, she was is such shock that they were almost within arms reach when she dropped her ax and ran.
They made it back into the warehouse and were able to roll the door down just before the first few dead slammed into it. They spent the rest of the day and all that night crying and listening to the door rattle. Early the next morning, they heard a barrage of gunfire and shouts that lasted till noon. Finally, one of the skylights fell in and the men from the club started climbing down the shelves. Almost four hundred left the day before and now there were just over a hundred and the door still rattled just as much as when they first closed it.
Dad came down and immediately threw Mom on the ground and beat the hell out of her but not before accusing her of being a lesbian and making her and her friend do things with each other, sexual things, in front if everyone, just to humiliate them. Later on, after he calmed down, they broke open a pallet of warm beer they had been saving for a special occasion and had a victory party. From their drunken bragging, Mom was able to loosely piece together everything that had happened. Now, this is all second hand or even third or forth because I wasn't born yet and Mom wasn't actually there and all she had to go on was the drunken ravings of over a hundred men with penis envy and various other emotional shortcomings, but this is how she told it to me.
After they left here that morning, they tore right through the middle of town, cutting a path through the dead all the way to where the interstate crosses the river, a path that closed right back in behind them as they went. They charged right through them, guns blazing, every man for himself and by the time they made it the five miles through town to the river, a less than ten minute ride, a third of them were already dead. They scattered at the boat launch, some of them stealing boats out if the parking lot, pushing the trailers into the river and leaving them as they sped away. When they ran out of boats, the rest jumped into the river and swam across then took off running through the swamp to get away from the horde of infected that was closing in behind them.
A couple hours later, most of them managed to regroup out in the middle of the swamp somewhere between the river and Porters Island, following the sound of the boats. The men in the boats said they had seen a few freshly laid trot lines so while the others hid in the swamp, up and down the river banks, the ones in the boats went back to start poaching. It wasn't long before some of those laying in wait saw three men in a flat bottom aluminum boat, paddling upstream.
Purely by luck, the men were done fishing for the day and headed back downstream. A few of the brothers waded in and followed them, treading water far enough behind not to be detected. Almost two miles down the river, the fishermen turned their boat in through the trees. The men followed, staying low, dragging themselves over roots in the muddy riverbank. About fifty feet in, they watched the men step out and pull their boat up onto the first dry land they had seen in hours, a sandy beach in a clearing twenty feet wide and fifty feet long with a trail, barely wide enough for a jeep, leading into the woods at the north end.
After the fishermen had disappeared down the trail, the men skirted the edge of the clearing and followed them. Less that a quarter mile into the woods, the trail opened up and became a gravel driveway wide enough for two cars as it emerged from the woods into a big, open yard with neatly manicured grass. The driveway was another 50 feet long ending in a triangular loop.
There was a large, wooden, cabin-like structure facing away from the driveway, overlooking a lake that was perfectly round and 200 feet across at the center with a narrow, wooden pier, a foot above the water, extending to the very center where there was a large deck. There were two other buildings; one right next to the cabin and the other, at the far side of the clearing, almost in the tree line and both were much smaller and more primitive than the big one.
This main building was built 3 feet off the ground on wooden pilings, had a wide porch that wrapped completely around it, a tin roof with a single peak running long ways it's entire length and a set of wooden steps, 10 feet wide, leading up at the front and back. The entire thing was of wood construction; massive, debarked cypress trunks for the uprights, thick hand-hewn beams for the floor and ceiling joists with wide, rough-cut cedar planks for siding. All in all, it was a square, 50' x 50' and almost thirty to the peak of the roof. Large traps of various kinds hung on the wall facing the trail. It was a sportsman's paradise, a jungle hut fit for a king.
The entire scene was out of place, like it had no business
being there. The entire civilized world had crumbled and fallen into chaos and there, amidst a million ancient cypress trees, under which there were many places the sun had never shined, miles deep in a watery wasteland where it seemed no man had ever set foot, was a palatial estate with no evidence of how it was built or even how the materials were brought in to build it.
The men watched from the woods for awhile before going back to get the others. They counted eleven adults, five couples and one old man, all going about their business cleaning the mornings catch or doing other chores. There were also five children of various ages; the two oldest, cleaning guns and the other three, playing on the pier. There could have been more inside the camp house but they assumed no one would be allowed to sit around in this kind of place so they went back to tell the others what they had found.
They knew they couldn't swim against the flow of the river so they followed it from the shallows, amongst cypress knees and lilly pads, watching closely for snakes, which they didn't see, and alligators, of which they saw quite a few at a distance. As they made their way upstream they heard the boats coming and flagged them down. They reported what they saw to Dad and he had them bring him down the river and show him where it was, leaving the boats far enough upstream that they wouldn't be heard. After he had had a look at the camp, they went back to the boats and he sent a group back up to gather the ones on foot and lead them back to their location. An hour later, the two hundred and something who had not been eaten while riding through town like a bunch of idiots, stood in the shallows beside the Pearl River like a pack of hungry wolves.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we're about to secure our meal ticket. We need them alive, as many as we can keep alive, so don't shoot unless you have to. They've only got a couple guns we know of so you three get in the house first and make sure they don't give us no surprises. The rest of you, surround the place then just keep your eyes open, your mouths shut and let me do the talking."
They left the boats behind and walked through the shallows for about ten minutes before they came up onto dry ground, just north of the clearing, the house barely visible through the cypress trees. Keeping to the woods, they spread out until they were on both sides of the house. Dad stepped out of the woods first and the rest followed his lead from both sides, quickly surrounding the house. It took a moment for everyone to notice and they all stopped what they were doing, freezing in place.
"Everybody just stay calm!" Dad called out to all of them. "I just want to talk to the man of the house and the rest of you can get back to work. You got a lot of hungry mouths to feed."
"What you mean by that?" An older man with a long, thick, white beard asked. He wore a dirty t-shirt with the sleeves torn out, showing his muscular arms, and denim shorts with white rubber boots. His round belly strained the material of his shirt where he had been wiping fish guts off the fillet knife he held in his hand.
"You in charge here?" Dad asked.
"This is my place if that's what you mean." He replied.
"Come here, let me have a word with you." The man walked over to him, griping the knife tightly. "That's far enough." Dad said before he got within arms reach. "This is your place and you can keep it. But we gotta eat too."
"We ain't got enough for you. I'm sorry but you all need to find another camp for yourselves. There's another big one about four bends down the river, by Peach Lake." He said, keeping his voice steady despite the little shake in his knees.
"You didn't even listen to my offer first. Care for a cigarette?" Dad asked as he slowly reach behind his back.
"No thank you. I've got my own."
"Suit yourself." Dad said, then swung that big pistol around and shot him in the face, snapping his head back from the force of the slow moving round and his body followed, almost lifting his feet off the ground, and he fell flat on his back. A huge flock of birds vacated their tree with a whooshing commotion at the sudden noise.
It blew the back of his head out and took most of the middle of his face with it. They all flinched and two of the women burst into tears, wailing loudly but they were all too shocked to say or do anything else.
"Calm yourselves, ladies." Dad said soothingly. "He can't hurt you no more." He then looked at the house and started walking toward it. "It just makes me sick that in a time of crisis such as this any man would be so...selfish."
They found a few more guns in the house, hunting rifles mostly, and took them. Dad picked out twenty-five men and their ol' ladies to stay behind and make sure they didn't try to leave the island, forty-two members in all. Most of them still live out there and have learned to fish and hunt for alligator and that's where all our food comes from. That's why there are no children here too. When one of the members' ol' ladies has a kid, she and the kid are sent to live out there until it's weaned then she comes back here and the kid stays till it's old enough to fend for itself then it comes back here or stays, depending on where people are needed.
Except for me.
Dad wanted Mom to stay here where he could keep an eye on her. She was his prize possession. She said when I was a little over a year old, he wanted to send me out to the island but she threatened to kill herself so he let me stay. So I grew up here, watching him beat on her and humiliate her for any reason he could find. Then, a few years ago, she became convinced that he was abusing me, or that he would when I started to develop and she took me and ran.
One night, when they were all passed out drunk, Mom stuffed a backpack full of jerky and we slipped out through the guard shack between the gates, leaving the doors wide open. It was winter time, maybe around January because I remember how cold it was.
We ran as fast we could up the road, taking a shortcut through the hotel parking lot, crossing the street into the driveway of the gas station and past it then through an open field of soft, wet ground and waist high marsh grass, cutting a straight line from the warehouse to the woods that separated the neighborhoods at the edge of town from the interstate. Several dead who were wandering here and there in the distance began converging on us and following as we passed by.
We stuck to the woods, following the interstate but keeping our distance. We passed just by the edge of a few back yards on the way and more began to follow as we moved at almost a jog. After some time, we passed the last neighborhood and the woods opened into a big field where we could see the railroad tracks to the left, some five hundred feet away. This was the first time we stopped to catch our breath. I wasn't cold anymore, just my face and fingers and places where the air made it into my coat and hit the sweat that was soaking through.
Ahead, between us and the road leading to exit 5, was a lake, then a sand pit with a dirt road following the railroad tracks north all the way to the road. One the other side of the tracks was a two lane highway that passed by two churches before reaching the intersection that took it out of town. Suddenly, with day breaking to the right, we heard a sound like a herd of cattle coming through the woods behind us and we ran.
There were more dead across the tracks and they all began following and joining the herd behind us as we ran up the dirt road. When we reached the end of the field we got on the tracks and followed them, running as hard as we could to distance ourselves again, from the growing herd. Grass had grown up through the big gray rocks but it was still so hard to run on.
We followed the tracks all morning, eventually slowing down but never stopping. I kept looking over my shoulder and every time I did I could see the herd. It looked like hundreds of them in that gauntlet of trees along the tracks, never getting closer or further away. We walked for about four hours before we started seeing a couple of houses through the trees on the right side. A little further up, the trees on the right side opened to reveal an industrial looking yard with a few old, rusted down freight cars covered in graffiti. At the north end of the yard was a road crossing the tracks that led into a rundown neighborhood to the right.
I felt okay, a little tired, but I could tell Mom's feet were ki
lling her. My fingers and ears and the tip of my nose hurt though and I just wanted to get out of the wind which had been blowing hard from the north the entire morning.
"My fingers hurt Mamma." I said and she looked behind us then over at the rusted freight cars.
"Mine too baby. We need to get out of this wind."
We ran into the gravel and grass yard and to a freight car that still had a door on it and crouched down beside it to get out of the wind. I immediately felt to sun warming me up a little. Mom looked to see if the herd had come out into the open yet.
"Let's hide in here. Maybe they'll pass us by."
She said then reached up to pull the handle to release the latch. As soon as she pulled the door aside, bodies began falling out, almost landing on us both as we jumped back and almost tripped. More were to follow.
They poured out of the car, falling to the ground hard on top of each other then climbing back to their feet to chase us as we ran toward a road that headed east, back toward the interstate. I looked over my shoulder just once and the other herd had joined them and all were moving quicker than before, it seemed. Maybe we were just moving slower.
We ran past a few houses and could see two gas stations up ahead, one on either side of the road, then the hill of an interstate overpass. We ran to the gas station on the left, which looked newer and hopefully more secure. The glass double doors were unlocked and when Mom pulled one open, a broom fell out of the door at her feet and we quickly stepped over it and into the store. She locked it behind us and stepped back and we both heard a click.
"Freeze!" A deep voice said from behind us and Mom put her hands up. "You too, put your hands up, now!" He barked and I did. "Turn around."
We turned and there was a man standing back by the hallway that led to the bathrooms. He walked out slowly, looking us up and down and I thought, 'Great, we escaped a murderer we knew just to be raped and killed by a stranger.' He stopped five feet from us though and put his gun back in its holster.