They will wait a few days until after I’ve made my public statement, and then arrange for me to have some sort of accident… But I’m not going to let them kill me, hell no…
She went to the bathroom and washed her face. She gazed at her reflection, at the purple bruises on her neck and the bridge of her nose. She reached into the medicine cabinet and took out a white, plastic bottle of Ambien. As far as she knew, there were eight of the original ten pills remaining.
She squeezed the bottle in her tiny fist, closed her eyes and thought about what she was about to do, then turned with the steely-eyed determination of a model on the catwalk and strode back to the kitchen. She knelt and stretched her arm and felt along the back wall of the cabinet. Seconds later she found what she was searching for, a half-finished fifth of Ten High.
Not wanting to lose her nerve, Trudy hurriedly swallowed the pills and used the bourbon as chaser. Once she was sure that the pills would stay down, she polished off the rest of the liquor. She never tasted any of it and after a deep breath she returned to the living room, knelt at the edge of the sofa and asked God for forgiveness.
With that, she lie on her back on the floral pattern sofa, folded her arms across her chest, and closed her eyes. Within the half-hour she drifted into a sleep with no end.
***
Freddie’s Joint was the hotspot for the over-thirty crowd, and it was a big moneymaker because that was when the local steelworkers and cannery employees came in to cash their checks, drink away their tension and wolf down baskets of chicken wings. Such nights were also good for the scantily clad waitresses, in their too-tight frilly dresses and fishnet stockings.
On this particular Friday evening, the unusually large crowd doubled the fire marshal’s stated capacity of 175 persons, but the owners had greased enough palms to insure it wouldn’t become a legal issue.
“Five minutes to closing,” shouted Freddy, the 400-pound proprietor.
Freddy attributed the large turnout to the storm, for it seemed to him that on the first cold, rainy night of the year people liked to drown their sorrows and dance away the melancholy.
A gray haired man in a poor-fitting tweed jacket, dark blue polo shirt and slacks, sat at a table in a corner of the room annoyed by the smile of the young woman seated across from him.
“Ella, I don’t know if you’re drunk or just plain stupid,” he said. “I try and tell you something serious and you act like I’m speaking a foreign language.”
He finished the remnants of his drink and signaled for the waitress to bring him another.
“I’m going to tell you again, I got a phone call from my niece.” He went on. “She said she heard on the radio that people were being shot and were coming back to life.”
The woman sitting across from him, Ella Tresvant, sat with nearly every butter-colored inch of her on display thanks to her short dress and sheer blouse. Ella was thirty, twenty years younger than the man with the handlebar mustache seated across from her.
“Mister Howard, where does your niece say this is taking place?”
“My niece lives in Antioch.”
“There’s your answer,” Ella said leaning back with a smug look on her face. “She lives in Antioch, the meth capital of the Bay Area. The folks out there are just high and seeing shit!”
“My granddaughter’s got a degree, so you know damn well she ain’t crazy, and I know she ain’t on drugs. She was crying and carrying on something awful.” He stood and reached for his jacket. “I told you, I’m going home.”
Ella threw her hands on her hips, rocked her shoulders and took up an indignant tone. “So we ain’t going up to Reno tonight?”
“How the hell can I go gambling when my granddaughter’s at home scared out of her wits?”
“You know, I could have gone to the Holiday Inn with Keith Barnes.”
“Shit, it ain’t too late.”
“You know he left with that cum freak, Louise Jones!”
“Well I’m sorry, Ella. I’ma hafta give you a rain check.” Howard began to weave through the dancing couples.
Ella was up out of her seat with venom dropping from her tongue like saliva. “You ain’t never lied, you’re sorry all right, you little dick muthafucka!”
As if Ella had spewed some ancient curse, the lights flickered and the music on the jukebox died. Hips ceased gyrating and the old men who were lucky enough to find a lady for the evening flicked their disposable lighters, gathered up their jackets, cigarettes and carnal desires and then headed for the door.
Freddy already made up his mind about which waitress he planned to go home with. The woman was a new hire, short on cash and eager to earn some extra-curricular money to pay off several delinquent bills. She stood an even six-feet and the silicone in her breast gave credence to her story that she had once been a stripper at one of the hottest clubs in Los Angeles. Just thinking about what she looked like naked gave Freddy a hard-on.
None of the patrons paid much attention when old man Henry Watson and his “date” stepped out the door and quickly disappeared from sight. He’d been in the club drinking since nine and everyone assumed he’d fallen down, per his habit. The grunts that followed, which sounded like two men engaged in some sort of athletic endeavor, is what caused the couple standing in the door to pause.
Henry’s head rolled back through the door, all the way up to Millie Perkins’s fat foot. She emitted an ear-piercing scream, which marked the official beginning of the panic that ensued. Blood spattered against the door and two men rushed to close it. One of them was the bouncer, Big Jim Turner, and the other was a steelworker named Frankie Rhodes. They had a firm grip on the door bar and yet the door was yanked open as if it were being pulled shut by two octogenarians.
The door nearly came off its hinges and Jim and Frankie fell to the ground. The wide eyed, suddenly sober crowd was set upon by the undead. The beasts chewed the flesh from the men’s arms and faces. Freddie’s admonitions to get out of the way were drowned out by the ensuing pandemonium.
After he waddled around the counter and fired off the first shot from his double-barreled shotgun, several other men joined in. The shots only slowed down the ghoulish creatures, but even more stepped over the pile of bleeding flesh.
Dozens of patrons fled toward the front door and were greeted by pedestrians being chased by more of the feral creatures. Freddy could squeeze off no more shots, due to the risk of hitting healthy people. He decided to try and shoot his way to his truck, certain that if he could make it that far, he could save himself.
Customers stumbled over furniture and each other. Some fought, but were overmatched by the superior strength of the living corpses. The tall woman whom Freddy planned to sleep with was thrown onto a chair and her back snapped. Freddy didn’t wait around to see the grisly outcome. A skinny woman armed with a knife was slicing and slashing with great vigor until one of the creatures got his fingers into her mouth and ripped a gash in her jaw, and then gagged her with his fingers. When they fell to the floor, the last thing Freddy saw was her mouth being pushed open like the flip top on a box of cigarettes.
Freddy pushed past a man who was tussling with one of the demons.
“Help me Freddy!” The man pleaded.
Freddy ignored him and ran down the clear path to a side emergency fire exit. He came through the door like O.J. over luggage in an old Avis Rent-A-Car commercial. He pushed as fast as his flabby, rubbing legs would carry him. His lungs burned, his sides ached and he panted for breath as he fished his truck keys from his pants pocket.
He used what strength he had left to hoist himself into the F-150 cab. He tried to put the keys into the ignition, but they fell from his hand. The moment he reached down for them his passenger side window was shattered and a gray-colored hand that was missing two fingers and was streaked with blood, reached for him. Freddy finally got the keys into the narrow slot, started his truck and gunned it in reverse.
He mashed down on the brakes and jerked his
steering wheel hard to the left. The fishtail effect threw the attacker to the pavement. Freddy then accelerated through the parking lot and looked in his rear view mirror. A set of fingers was holding fast to his tailgate. Freddy swung a hard right and narrowly missed slamming into a fire hydrant. Whoever, whatever was hanging to his tailgate tumbled onto the pavement.
Freddy checked his rear view mirror and saw that person was bouncer Jim Turner, who struck his head on the ground and was immediately set upon by a trio of flesh eaters. It was eerie to watch as they feasted on him and yet, there were no screams. He pushed his truck up Main Street and saw three military transport vehicles speeding in the opposite direction. Occasionally he heard a few gun shots, which made him all the more anxious to make it home to his two teenage children.
Things must be fine, he surmised. They haven’t called.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a two-digit code. The phone rang five times before the answering machine picked up. He heard the message his son had recorded but a few days earlier.
Hello, you have reached the Robinson residence. Please leave your name and a brief message and someone will return your call.
“Three more blocks,” he whispered. “Three more….”
His truck sputtered and slowed, and as he pushed the accelerator, he regained speed only to see his engine slow again.
“Aw, hell naw!”
Freddie glanced at the gas gauge and saw the needle resting comfortably below the “E” mark. Flustered, he pulled to the curb and reached into the glove box for a flashlight. After he stepped from the cab he reached across the seat for his shotgun and then took a look around. The street was dark and quiet as he sucked in a deep breath to steel his nerves.
He gazed at the vast patch of black sky and prayed there would be no more rainfall until he made it home.
F I F T E E N
2:02 a.m.
When the first contingent of National Guardsmen arrived at the Pittsburg Police Station they were stunned to find the glass doors and windows to the building broken, and the metal frames stained with blood. Twelve of the forty-two soldier contingent sent to Pittsburg proceeded into the building donning protective gear and with their guns leveled. They were disturbed by the body parts they found littered about the station.
It was a baby-faced soldier named Lionel Mays who shined his flashlight and spotted the first group of shadows moving about in the halls. Reacting to his hand signals, the twelve men who’d gone inside fanned out, taking cover behind desks whenever possible.
“Fire on my command,” radioed Mays.
What he saw coming toward them frightened him more than anything he’d seen in either Iraq or Afghanistan. He gave his men the order to cut loose and they engaged in a fierce battle that required them to take down their targets and afterward sever the heads, and then drag the twitching bodies into the parking lot.
Once outside, the corpses were piled atop one another, wriggling and writhing like worms in a bucket. They were then doused with chemicals and set ablaze. Afterward a head count was made and Mays was thankful that he’d lost but one of his own. Mays ordered two soldiers to toss the corpse onto the burning heap, before he led them across the street to the town museum.
“This will be our new base of operations,” he announced.
After Mays received no radio response from the other thirty men that came into the city he instructed six to proceed as ordered and the others were to stay with him and finish searching the police station.
“We’ll burn everything if we have to.”
What Mays didn’t know was, three miles away the rest of his contingent was in an all-out battle with a dozen of the things that wouldn’t die.
***
2:21 a.m.
Freddy walked along with his flashlight casting a small halo of light on the cracks in the sidewalk. Goosebumps formed on his arms, not from the chill in the air, but the fact that he didn’t see the familiar yellow-orange glow of utility truck lights. His neighborhood was one of the city’s more exclusive, and usually during blackouts it was one of the first to be serviced.
With each rustle of the leaves, his heart rate quickened and sweat rolled down the crease of his back. The fear of being accosted by one or more zombies lurking in his neighbors’ shrubbery made it difficult for him to swallow. His head turned back and forth as if it were on a swivel.
Walking more than a few blocks was foreign to him. His knees and lower back hurt, and his breathing was steep. As he came within a block of his house raindrops began to dot the sidewalk, forming a strange paradox with the fire burning across the street at the police department. Freddy looked on as he saw soldiers moving communications equipment into the museum. None of them seemed too concerned with the blaze behind them.
Lord, Lord, don’t let this be the beginning of the end of the world…
In his inattentiveness, Freddy stubbed his toe on a slab of uneven concrete. He grunted and staggered forward. One of the guardsmen, running cables across the porch of the museum, saw Freddy pitch forward off-balance and quickly drew his sidearm.
The soldier called to the men assisting him, “Enemy at six o’clock!”
Freddy fell, rose to one knee and threw his hand up, too tired to formulate a complete explanation. All he could get out was “Hold on…”
Two soldiers fired, with at least ten shots striking Freddy. Neither took note that their victim was toting a shotgun, or that his skin was a normal hue. Mays and the others rushed outside to see what the commotion was, and when they saw Freddy’s trembling body they unleashed more rounds into him.
They wasted no time dousing him with a mix of aluminium oleate with diesel fuel, the same chemicals used in flamethrowers. One of the men tossed a match on him and the men looked on as if they’d gathered around a bonfire. The only thing missing were hoisted steins of beer and a rousing rendition of The King’s Own Men.
***
2:26 a/m.
A stuffed shirt.
That’s how the employees of Bank of Pittsburg described their boss, Wallace Patton Graham, or as some derisively called him, “The asshole with three last names.” He pulled onto North 3rd Street, into one of the city’s newest subdivisions, but he hated the fact that many of the residents who lived there were minorities. He cringed as he took sight of a quartet of armed black men standing on a porch with their faces lighted by a single lantern.
He exhaled once he bent the corner and they were no longer in his rear-view mirror. He regretted that the institution he ran approved so many loans to the influx of Mexicans and the burgeoning black middle class. Even though it meant business for his bank, he feared that the presence of people of color would upset his quality of life in the newer neighborhoods, or at least that is how he heard a right-wing radio host phrase it. He accepted the analysis even though he didn’t fully understand it.
The unwritten policy of the bank meant for loan officers to steer blacks and Latinos toward loans of the sub-prime variety, which contained clauses for end-of-the- year balloon payments, adjustable interest rates and steeper closing costs.
He looked for the address on Jayson Owens’ business card: 21317 North Street. He drove another half block and spotted the two-story house. The skinny, Pajama clad owner, was on his porch. In his hand was an unopened bottle of Michelob. Graham pulled into the driveway and parked next to Jayson’s new Buick Lacrosse.
When Graham got out of his Jaguar, he was carrying a DVD case. He strode toward Jayson with all the refinement of an Army General. When he spoke his voice was gruff, like that of a pack-a-day smoker.
“Good evening, Owens.”
The soft-spoken Jayson responded without looking up. “Actually, I think you mean ‘good morning,’ considering the time.”
“This is the sole viewing of the robbery that took place earlier last evening. The other copies were turned over to the police department. I just rode past there and things did not look good.”
Jayson gave his boss his
full attention. “What do you mean?”
“There was a huge fire burning in the parking lot and the place looked as if it had been bombed out.”
Jayson raised an eyebrow. “The police station?”
“Yes, and I also caught a news report that there was some sort of melee. A lot of evidence was destroyed by gunfire.” He climbed the five steps to the porch and handed the DVD to Jayson. “Something strange is going on.”
Jayson couldn’t help himself. “Gee, ya think?”
Graham took a deep breath and gave himself some time to take the cross look off his face. “The news report I heard stated that emergency calls are being re-routed through the county Sheriff’s office, and the National Guard is setting up a command post at the museum.”
“So why did you come here with this DVD?”
Graham steeled himself for a harsh or sarcastic response. “I’m thinking you might be able to identify the robbers.”
Jayson’s fingers tightened around his beer bottle. “I was told the robbers wore masks.”
“The fact they were black is unmistakable.”
“So all of a sudden I’ve developed x-ray vision, or do you think I know every black person who lives in this town?”
Graham rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, man, I wouldn’t suggest anything that offensive.”
“You just did, under the pretense of being ‘tactful.’”
“What I’m saying is that the bank needs your help.”
“Stop calling me ‘Owens,’” Jayson said. “Call me ‘Jayson,’ or ‘Mister Owens.’ Second, you have a lot of nerve infringing on my personal time. Take that DVD back to the bank, and I’ll look at it first thing Monday morning.”
“And if the bank isn’t there Monday morning?”
Jayson served up a look of disbelief. “Then we’ll both be looking for work on Tuesday.”
“You’re just full of trite remarks tonight, aren’t you?”
Zombie Factor Page 10