Revelations - 02

by T. W. Brown

  “Kevin?” Heather asked again.

  “I’ll be fine.” He chased away the echo of a scream that rattled around in his mind.

  Down the stairs they went, Kevin leading the way. They moved through the house and out the back door. The distant sound of gunfire suddenly sounded much closer. There was no sign of movement in the yard.

  “Okay,” Kevin looked south towards the glow that would be Heath, “we’re gonna head north.”

  “Don’t you want to get the van?”

  “No…that makes it too easy for them to spot us. Staying on foot works to our advantage. Allows us to stay hidden,” Kevin explained. He stopped suddenly. What was that noise. Dropping the bag, he began walking towards the long building way across the open yard.

  “Kevin?” Heather whispered.

  “What the hell is that noise?”

  “Cows,” Heather blurted. Kevin turned, his face obviously showing the confusion even in the moonlight. “Dead cows. Lots of them.”

  “That doesn’t sound like cows.”

  “No…that’s because you hear the flies,” Heather managed as she tried to chase away the images from when she’d ventured out and looked through one of the dirty windows. There’d been enough sunlight for her to see. So many huge, bloated bodies. Most had already burst. Dark swarms flew around, sometimes allowing a view of a white, wriggling mass of what she immediately knew to be maggots burrowing into the spilled guts of all the dead dairy cows.

  “Nasty,” Kevin breathed. He walked back and grabbed the long, zippered sports-equipment bag. Together, they walked down the gravel driveway that led to the street out front. “Stay in the middle of the road,” he explained. “That will give us the best reaction time if any zombies show up. If you hear anything that sounds like an engine, dive into the nearest ditch or clump of bushes.”

  “Okay,” Heather said.

  

  The shooting had slowly faded. Partially due to becoming less frequent, and partially, Kevin hoped, due to the distance they were putting between themselves and what must be Shaw and his men. Deep down, he hoped that they were all dead. He knew better than to bank on that much luck. From the sounds he’d heard, as well as the impression Shaw gave that night at the RV Park, this was a mercenary-style army.

  “How you doing?” Kevin asked as he climbed a small berm. A dirt road ran alongside a set of train tracks. Taking a look around, he was satisfied that there was nothing nearby. Well…nothing too dangerous at any rate. Dark shapes loomed to their left, the silhouettes of suburbia: strip malls, schools, chain restaurants, neat blocks of cookie-cutter houses. To the right, lots of open terrain, and somewhere he could hear and smell water.

  “Actually,” Heather laughed, “I’m regretting having just shaved.”

  “Not exactly what I meant,” Kevin groaned. “And FYI…that’s TMI.”

  “Talkin’ about my armpits, Uncle Pervy,” Heather retorted.

  “You keep lagging behind,” Kevin ignored her remark, “I’m just wondering if you’re okay.”

  “The entire population of my hometown wants to eat me alive, crazy people with guns want to shoot me…or worse,” Heather paused. “Hmmm. Yeah, I’m doin’ fine.”

  “You wanna tell me where this new attitude is comin’ from?” Kevin stopped, turning to face the girl trudging along the train tracks about ten feet behind him.

  Heather came to a halt, feet planted firmly two railroad ties away from Kevin. “I’m tired, I hurt in places I never knew the body actually could. My hometown, the place I lived my whole life, is burned to the ground. I had to beat the head in on one of the nicest ladies in, like, the whole universe. Then, because I wasn’t paying attention, her husband, the man who taught my Girl Scout troop how to churn real butter almost got me. So I beat his head in, too. And it’s not ever gonna be normal again…ever.”

  Kevin heard the pain in the girl’s voice, and the battle she was having with keeping the tears at bay while she spoke. A voice in his head urged him to give her a hug. He wanted to, but…

  “I know things are looking bad right now,” Kevin said, fidgeting with uncertainty. He set down the huge carry-bag and approached Heather. His mind warred with which arm should go high, which low, and actually switched them twice before reaching them around her. Careful to ensure there was no bodily contact from the waist down, he hunched a bit and patted her stiffly on the back. His hand felt the ridge of a bra strap and he quickly adjusted upwards to ensure his hand was no longer touching her undergarments.

  Heather stood still, conscious of the man’s awkwardness. This was undoubtedly the most uncoordinated, non-comforting hug she’d ever experienced. “I appreciate the sentiment, Kevin,” she said into the collar of his flannel shirt.

  They stood for another endlessly uncomfortable moment before Kevin straightened and extracted himself from the young girl’s flaccid embrace. He leaned over to grab the bag when he heard it and froze.

  “What?” Heather hissed, her head looking around, instantly aware of Kevin’s reaction.

  “Hear that?” he breathed.

  Heather tilted her head, straining to hear whatever had caused Kevin’s sudden change. Already he’d ducked down to his haunches, the shotgun in hand. Then she heard it. Well off to the left, but heading their direction…engines.

  “Get down,” Kevin urged, tugging on her arm. “Standing up like that…they’ll see you.”

  “How?” Heather asked, crouching down nonetheless. “It’s dark out. I can barely see you and you’re right next to me.”

  “We’re up on a ridge, your silhouette will stand out.”

  Kevin heard what sounded like a single vehicle race past in the distance. It was moving fast. He scanned, trying to catch a glimpse, but there were too many obstacles between them and the main road. The squeal of tires carried, then gunshots, followed by what was likely the vehicle peeling out. He could hear other vehicles now, but they were someplace else. Looking back down the railroad tracks, far off in the distance, the flash of headlights crossed the tracks. His best guess was that he was headed slightly northeast, the vehicles were crossing the tracks heading sorta southeast. One…two…three…long pause, then four, five, six. He couldn’t tell the type or size, if they were a car or truck. It was just too far away.

  A rasping moan carried on the air from someplace close. “Great,” Kevin sighed. He turned, slowly, staying down on his haunches, moving in an uncomfortable duck-walk. There! Sumbling through an open field were a dozen or so staggering, dark shadows.

  “Let’s go!” Kevin grabbed the bag and stood, resuming their northerly trek.

  “What about them seeing our silhouette?” Heather asked as she fell in at a brisk walk.

  “They’re busy,” Kevin said over his shoulder. “Too busy for us. But all their noise is bringin’ the zombies out in these parts. We need to keep movin’.”

  “If they’re too busy to really look for us, maybe we should find a place and hide till they’ve gone,” Heather suggested.

  “Actually, that’s precisely what we’re gonna do,” Kevin replied.

  “But we’re getting awful close to Newark,” Heather warned. “Shouldn’t we go find a place in the sticks?”

  “We will, but first I wanna try and bring these idiots down once and for all.”

  “We’re still going to The Basket?” Heather stopped walking. “You can’t be serious! There’s no way in hell you can still hope to pull off some crazy sort of rescue.”

  “No, that’s over,” Kevin conceded. “Like it or not, it’s just the two of us now and we are gonna see my original plan through. We’re headed for the wide-open spaces of South Dakota. But…I am going to try and take as many of those bastards down as I can on the way.”

  “How?” Heather folded her arms across her chest, cocking her head and jutting out her left hip in a full-body pose of female skepticism.

  “We’re going to go into Newark.”

  “What!” A zombies low moan answered her o
utburst.

  “I said we’re going into Newark.”

  “But Newark is an actual city. You, Cary, and Mike always said that we had to stay away from cities,” Heather protested.

  “Did you ever see The Empire Strikes Back?”

  “No.” Heather glanced nervously to the right. The small cluster of zombies were still a good distance away, but they were now bee-lining straight for her and Kevin!

  “Well…” Kevin shook his head. “Wait! Really? You never saw it?”

  “Uhh…no!”

  “What the hell is wrong with kids today,” Kevin sighed. “Anyways, Han Solo leads these Imperial ships into an asteroid belt, and when Leia and Threepio say that he’s crazy to go into an asteroid belt, Han replies they’d be crazy to follow us.”

  “I don’t get it,” Heather shrugged.

  “We lead these yahoos into Newark, make certain that they follow, then find a place to hide and wait them out, let the zombies thin ‘em,” Kevin explained.

  “In a few days, they’re gone…or dead…and we can move on. I may not be able to rescue the Bergman’s, but I can at least try and wreck the bastards that took ‘em.”

  What he didn’t say out loud was that he’d been hoping to catch a glimpse of Shaw. He only needed one shot. Turning, he led the way along the railroad tracks to where they ran along behind a residential area not too far away from an open field and what looked like the burned out remains of a school. Even passing near the fence, he could smell the overwhelming stench of death. Countless corpses lay rotting on the ground, some of them obviously military. The government was nothing if not predictable, Kevin mused. This was likely a Rescue Center. In reality, it was little more than an open-air buffet for zombies. This close to a large population, hundreds had come seeking refuge, some likely infected. The undead massed up on the perimeter, eventually in numbers too great for the fences to hold back. Then…one day the dam burst. An absolute nightmare that probably made the climatic Mall Scene at the end of Dawn of the Dead seem tame by comparison.

  “How are we gonna get anybody to follow us?” Heather asked, coming up beside Kevin.

  “I’ve got a couple of ideas.”

  The opportunity to explain was eliminated as a hand suddenly closed on Heather’s ankle. The girl tumbled, landing hard on one of the canteens. A loud exhale ended with a squeal of pain. Kevin spun to discover a dried-blood-covered torso of what might’ve been female at one point dragging itself to the downed girl’s boot-clad ankle, jaws clicking in anticipation of biting into a living victim. Raising the shotgun, he brought the butt down on the back of the skull. The face smashed down hard into the rocky ground sending out a spray of gravel, teeth, or a mixture of the two—it was impossible to tell in the dark—skittering away. He brought the makeshift bludgeon down twice more until hearing the familiar and satisfying crunch.

  Heather kicked her leg free, an act that took a bit more effort because of having the wind partially knocked from her. Kevin pulled her to her feet, slinging her right arm over his shoulder. They stepped over the truly lifeless half-corpse and continued on until reaching the torn down back fence of a neglected, wildly overgrown back yard of a modest two-story house with no intact windows remaining on the ground floor.

  Skirting the edge, moving past a variety of faded plastic children’s toys and play structures, they slipped along in the shadows of the side of the house. Kevin kept them a bit further than arm’s length from the busted windows…just in case. Reaching the corner, they peered out front and up the dark, deserted street.

  “There,” Kevin whispered, his finger extending towards a white Suburban. “That thing is basically a tank on wheels. Let’s hope it’ll start…that, and that we can find the keys inside somewhere.”

  “Who needs keys.” Heather gave a playful poke at Kevin’s still-too-sore ribs and took off into the shadows.

  She looked both ways, then, in a crouch, scrambled across the street and up alongside the huge, white SUV. Kevin held his breath when an interior dome light flicked, then went out. He heard a loud ‘pop’, then a grinding chug. A puff of bluish smoke belched from the tailpipe, rising into the clear night air.

  Kevin hurried from the shadows as the driver’s side door slammed shut. He saw dozens of dark forms pulling out of the shadows up and down the street that had, until seconds ago, been empty. As if in answer to the heavy thrum of the Suburban’s engine, moans and raspy groans of the undead sounded.

  Reaching the idling vehicle, he tugged the front passenger side door. Nothing. With a quick rap of his knuckles—that he tried to not make sound frantic—Kevin indicated that the door was locked. Heather scrambled over and flicked a button.

  “You realize that there’s probably a driver’s side master switch to lock or unlock all the doors,” Kevin said as he shoved the large bag into the back and climbed in. “Oh…and when did you learn to hotwire a car?”

  “Churning butter wasn’t the only thing he showed us at Girl Scouts.” Heather beamed.

  “What the hell kind of meeting’s did you go to?” Kevin shook his head. “Well, let’s get moving, and keep the headlights off.” He opened the glove box and began digging around.

  Heather shifted into reverse, backing into and over the first zombie to reach the rear bumper of the massive SUV. With a frustrated sigh, Kevin climbed over and into the backseat, then, into the rear cargo area. Heather brought the wheel around and stepped on the breaks. A muffled curse followed a heavy thud.

  “Sorry,” Heather called, glancing at the rearview mirror.

  “Ah-ha!” Kevin exclaimed from the back of the Suburban. With an awkwardness that was a mixture of actual lack of coordination as well as a result of the pain and stiffness he felt from head to toe, he climbed back into the front seat with a plastic box.

  “Whatcha got?” Heather asked as she swerved just enough to miss the two zombies stepping out from behind the car they were driving past.

  “Bigger jackpot than I’d hoped for.” Kevin opened the box and produced what looked to Heather like an orange, plastic toy gun. “I figured that I’d find road flares at best!”

  “That’s a flare gun?” Heather glanced over, but only briefly; there were lots of zombies coming out from the yards and open doors of the dark houses of the dead neighborhood as she was trying to find her way out of it.

  “Yep.” Kevin looked up from his prize in time to see a nightgown-clad woman with a few curlers still in her hair lurch out at them. He winced at the sound of the front bumper clipping the zombified housewife, sending the body spinning away. It took a double whammy as its back connected solidly with the grill of what he thought might be an older Volvo, bending at an awkward angle as the back of its head came all the way down to slam into the hood. He glanced over his shoulder to see the unnaturally folded body tumble to the road and begin squirming as it tried to figure out how to move in its new configuration.

  “Which way?” Heather asked, leaning forward over the steering wheel as if it would help her see better.

  Kevin took a good look at her. He could see the whites of her knuckles, actually a greenish tint in the light from the driver’s display. Her shoulders were bunched up, her neck seeming to be trying to retract in between them. The tip of her tongue was poking from the corner of her mouth and her eyes were squinting.

  “How many times have you driven?” Kevin asked.

  “You mean, like a car?”

  “What else would I mean?”

  “Well…” Heather paused, the look on her face condensing even further as she considered the question. “I’ve driven my uncle’s tractor, and there was a few times Mister Stanley let all us girls drive his truck out in the pasture when he was dumping hay bales.”

  “Okay,” Kevin nodded. “but how many times have you driven a car…on a road?”

  “Counting this time?” Heather shot a quick glance Kevin’s direction. The Suburban swerved just a bit in unison with her. She immediately turned back to the road and the vehicle
mimicked the adjustment.

  “Sure.” Kevin nodded, placing a hand on the dashboard to remain steady.

  “Three times.”

  “Pull up in that four-way intersection.” Kevin pointed.

  “Why?”

  “We’re changing seats.”

  “It’s not like we have to worry about insurance or something,” Heather protested.

  “No…just Shaw’s men rolling up on us,” Kevin quipped. “You gonna be okay if we need to take off and end up in a high-speed chase?”

  “Good point.” Heather goosed the accelerator and got them to the intersection.

  Both of them unhitched seatbelts, then did a bit of front seat tango. Once behind the wheel, Kevin handed the box with the flare pistol in it to Heather. “When I tell you, you’re gonna roll down your window and fire that thing into the air.”

  “Really?” Heather asked.

  “Sure,” Kevin nodded, “we’re a team.”

  Heather sat back as the Suburban rolled forward into a cluster of zombie school children. She clutched the box to her chest, a big smile creeping across her face. It was the first time Kevin had referred to them as part of the team. Looking out her window, she could see the hint of pre-dawn light creeping into the sky.

  “There are five flares in there,” Kevin said, snapping her back to the here and now.

  “Okay.”