by Barry Slater
“Alright,” Dwayne said. “Then we just need to figure out how to outlast them.”
“We're talking about dead people here,” Captain Jack said. “Remember, I didn't say this was going to be easy. They don't need food or water or shelter. Finding a way to overcome that is not going to be easy.”
“There has to be an answer.”
#
Did he want to make it, Dwayne asked himself in the mirror. Was it just his sense of duty to survive because it is what Jean would have wanted?
If no man is an island then what do only two men amount to? He and Captain Jack would possibly be facing hundreds or even thousands of living dead.
Normally in a disaster one would have to worry about one's neighbors in survival mode rampaging and stealing supplies, but dead people?
Dwayne took his Stradivarius out of its case. He played to himself in the mirror. He played the song that always soothed Jean, even after she became infected with the virus. He played to her in his mind then wondered how he could live—survive—in a world of living death.
As he drew the bow across the strings it came to him. Dwayne ran downstairs then outside to the front gate.
“Jack!”
“Dwayne, I've got the lasers wired and a firing position set up for the sniper rifle. The rooftop balcony is a perfect place. From there we can see in all directions.”
“Jack, I've got it. I've found the answer. I know how we can hold the zombinees back.”
“How?”
“We have a secret weapon. It was in our hands the whole time. We can try it tonight.”
“What secret weapon?”
“This,” Dwayne said as he held out the Stradivarius. “Music!”
“You're going to play for them?”
“It worked for Jean,” Dwayne said. “It's worth a try.”
#
At dusk, Dwayne and Captain Jack loaded up for the trip into town. Captain Jack packed his 9mm and several extra clips. Dwayne had the Stradivarius and, of all things, was wearing his signature tuxedo.
“You look like you're about to give a concert,” Captain Jack said.
“People always said I look good in a suit. At least I'll look good at my funeral. Right now, that seems to be all the good it's doing. Try not to use that too much,” Dwayne said looking at Captain Jack's 9mm. “Remember, the sound will attract them. We don't want to be overwhelmed by them until we know if this works.”
“I wish we had just one here right now to try it on,” Captain Jack said. “So you're just going to play to them?”
“I hope it could be that easy.”
“The Pied Piper of the Zombie Apocalypse,” Captain Jack offered.
“I reckon so.”
“The usual place?” Captain Jack asked.
“Yeah,” Dwayne responded. “The pharmacy. Pull in as quiet as you can. Park close to the door. We'll go in and grab a few things real quick. By then they should have noticed us.”
Captain Jack eased his truck up to the pharmacy's front door and the two went inside. Captain Jack filled a shopping bag with trash bags, Styrofoam plates and cups. Dwayne loaded the rest of the dog and cat food into the back of Captain Jack's truck then stuffed his tuxedo pockets with chewing gum and chocolate bars.
“I noticed you leave a list of everything even though John is dead.”
“It helps me sleep better at night. I don't like the thought of taking anything without paying for it.”
“Hey!” Captain Jack said. “We've got one.”
“Only one?”
“So far.”
“He'll be our guinea pig,” Dwayne said. “Open the door just a little. Be ready in case this doesn't work.”
Dwayne began playing the Stradivarius then nodded to Captain Jack. Captain Jack cracked the door slightly so the music could get out.
“This is for you, Jean,” Dwayne whispered to himself.
The man—the zombie—was suddenly calm. His expression changed from anguish to peacefulness. His eardrums reverberated with each note. Inside his mind glimpses of his past life began to reveal themselves. Layers of memory began to unfold.
Oblivious to his surroundings, the images of his past flashed through his mind. In his youth he was a popular high school all-star athlete. After graduation, he took a job with the railroad. In his prime he was the father of three beautiful, bright-eyed children. He could see them playing ball in the field beside the house during one of their grand Fourth of July backyard barbecues. Now in his early retirement years, he enjoyed fishing on the lake and hiking with his grandson.
The agony of having all these things taken from him was gone. The music brought joy to the memories. The music had brought back pieces of his humanity.
But those were only memories flashing through an infected mind from the life it had once lived. His mind and body was still a prisoner of a parasitic virus.
Continuing to play, Dwayne nodded. Captain Jack opened the front door. He followed Dwayne outside with the 9mm aimed at the man's head. Several more zombies gathered and were hypnotized by Dwayne's music.
After a few minutes of playing, Dwayne got into the passenger side of the truck. When the music stopped, as if they were awakened from a day dream and suddenly aware of their surroundings, the zombies immediately lunged with high pitched shrills. Captain Jack took all three zombies out with head shots.
“I don't believe it!” Captain Jack said as he got in the truck. “It worked!”
“It has to be line of sight, or in this situation line of sound,” Dwayne said. “I noticed if I turned slightly it cut down on the effectiveness. They have to be facing the music.”
“What if they can't hear, what if their ears are not working?”
“Those are the ones we'll have to watch out for.”
“We've got company.” Captain Jack looked outside the truck. A group of zombies came out of the shadows. He shined the flashlight into their distorted faces. “Let's get out of here before we pick up another hitch-hiker.”
Captain Jack backed up then pulled out of the pharmacy parking lot and onto Highway 50.
A group of about thirty zombies were feeding on a corpse as Captain Jack and Dwayne passed the gas station.
“My God.”
“You're right Jack. Sooner or later the whole freaking crowd is going to find us.”
“Is there a hardware store around?” Captain Jack asked.
“Just down the road,” Dwayne answered. “What are you thinking?”
“I'm thinking we draw them into a well-planned trap instead of just sitting around and waiting for them to find us,” Captain Jack said. “We put them out of their misery and hopefully we'll run out of zombinees before we run out of supplies. We use the music to lure them into our own territory.”
“To the house.”
“That’s right. All we need is a couple of things from the hardware store.”
“Looks like the hardware store is a little busy right now,” Dwayne said as they pulled in front of the store.
“Shit. The parking lot is full of them.”
“Let me out here,” Dwayne said. “Wait until I lead them away then pull up to the door.”
Dwayne stepped out of the truck and began playing. The shrilling stopped. The zombies became calm. Captain Jack tried the front door but it was locked.
Captain Jack motioned to Dwayne. Dwayne played louder to draw the group away. Captain Jack threw the metal trash can sitting beside the door through the plate glass window.
The zombies, distracted momentarily by the shattering glass, returned their lifeless gaze to Dwayne, but inside their minds they searched the music for the happier moments in their lives. They were not aware of the present, only the past. The notes became the moments and the chords became the days and the song itself became the years inside their memories. A semblance of order unraveled from the chaos inside their brains and they began to remember.
A young woman, in her early thirties, had made her dreams of intera
cting with people come true. Her job planning activities for the disabled had been brought to fruition by her natural ability to bring joy to those in need as Dwayne himself was trying to do. Even the memory of her worst patient, the cranky old Mr. Cruise, and his death, brought tears to her eyes. But they were tears of joy. His death was a good death. It was before the current plague befell those that are suffering the curse of death itself without dying.
Dwayne had no way to know the tears in the woman's eyes were anything more than just body fluids seeping from a living corpse.
Inside the hardware store, Captain Jack took electrical supplies and hand tools. Emerging from the front door he made a circular motion with his finger indicating that he would come around and pick Dwayne up.
Dwayne nodded. He continued to play the soft, sweet music he had played for Jean, the music his mother played for him as a child to comfort him when he was sick or afraid. The zombies had a peaceful, dreamy look in their otherwise dead eyes. It was the same look Jean had in her eyes when Dwayne played for her. The music had brought back a piece of their former lives; a piece of their former selves.
Another zombie, an eleven-year-old boy, could remember the joy of becoming a Tenderfoot scout, and the exhilaration of saving another young boy's life while on a rafting trip. He could remember the tingling inside as he opened the Valentine's Day card from the girl he liked but was afraid to talk to at school.
Dwayne felt for them all. His heart was filled with emotion. He cried. Tears rolled down his face as he played. For once fate had been merciful in keeping from Dwayne the cruelty of knowing that his music had awakened dormant memories in the dead. He could not know that his beloved wife had still possessed thought and emotion and was more than just a corpse controlled by a virus when he played for her.
A little girl with big eyes and matted hair walked slowly toward the music. She was wearing a tattered pink party dress and a pair of matching shoes. On her head was a paper party hat. Dragging the ground behind her was a deflated helium balloon with its faded pink ribbon tied to her wrist. On the balloon were the words “Birthday Girl.”
Captain Jack circled around behind Dwayne. The moment Dwayne stopped the music to get in the truck the zombies swarmed, throwing themselves against the side of the truck.
Not letting Captain Jack see, Dwayne wiped the tears from his face.
“That's fucking amazing!” Captain Jack laughed. “Like magic.”
“Magic,” Dwayne scoffed. My Violin Man Dwayne remembered Jean saying. “They may be only distracted by the unusual sound of the music. I'd like to think it’s more than that though. Whatever the music does inside their brains, it definitely slows them down.”
“The poor bastards,” Captain Jack said, for the lack of having anything better to say.
“Hey, take it easy on them Jack.” Dwayne was hurting inside. He needed to vent so he said the first thing that came to him, “Zombies are people too, you know.”
Captain Jack looked at Dwayne then laughed. “Yeah right,” he said sarcastically.
“What did you find inside?” Dwayne asked as he relaxed the clinched muscles in his jaw. Captain Jack's laughter had taken the edge off Dwayne.
“Electrical wire, some switches, steel wool pads. Also, a crowbar and an ax that can be used as weapons,” Captain Jack said. “We need to make one more stop.”
“Where’s that?”
“Is there a repair shop around here anywhere?” Captain Jack asked.
“There’s a place called Grayson's. Its several miles from here in South Lake Tahoe,”
Dwayne answered. “That means we'll have to come back through this same area to get home.”
“You think we'll have trouble getting back through?” Captain Jack asked.
“I don't know.”
“If we can find what I'm looking for,” Captain Jack said. “The risk will be worth taking.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A hydraulic cylinder. We're going to make a press. We are going to squash these poor bastards like grapes.”
“South Lake Tahoe has a population of twenty-three thousand. If only half of them has the virus, that would still be a lot of squashed grapes.”
“You lead them into the press with your music and we ambush the rest,” Captain Jack said.
“As long as we put them out of their misery.”
“We'll put them out of our misery. But just so you'll know, they are not going to be easy to kill.”
“What do you mean?”
“I've seen this kind of thing before.”
“You've seen this before?” Dwayne asked surprised.
“In Afghanistan,” Captain Jack said. “I don't know if it was the same stuff, but there was a man in a small village. There was something different about him. He was sick, but sick in a way I had never seen before. Several of the villagers tied him to a pole facing away from the village.
“Our medic offered to help but the village elders said there was no hope for him. They said he was a demon.
“Several weeks later we went back to the village. The man was gone. We asked what happened to him and they said they had shot him in the head. It was the only way to kill the demon, they said.
“Dwayne, the man had the same hollow look in his eyes. He made the same high-pitched sound whenever someone came near him. He had been tied to that pole for almost three weeks without food and water but he did not die. They said it was the only way to prove there was a demon inside him. At the time I thought it was just some weird religious ritual or something, but it was the same symptoms as this and whatever this is, it’s spreading. And once you get it there's no getting rid of it. Now I realize it was the same shit as this.”
“It sounds the same,” Dwayne said. “Turn left here.”
“Grayson's Auto and Machine,” Captain Jack read from the sign. “And no zombies. Their money is no good here.”
The headlights lit up the outside of the building.
“The shop door is up,” Dwayne said.
“We'll drive in then shut the door behind us.” Captain Jack said.
Using his flashlight, Captain Jack checked inside the shop then lowered the overhead door.
“Look at this,” Captain Jack said. “There's a car lift, a welder, an overhead crane, sheets of metal; there's all kinds of stuff here. These guys did a little bit of everything. It's like a dream come true. It’s the ultimate man cave.
“The car lift is perfect. It's everything we need in one package. We can dismantle it and take it home in the back of the truck.”
“How can we use it as a press?” Dwayne asked.
“There are several four by eight sheets of metal on the rack over there. We can bolt it to the swing arms.”
“Where do you plan to put it?” Dwayne asked.
“We’ll put it at the front gate. We can block them with the gate then lower the press onto them.”
“We need tools,” Dwayne said.
“Over there,” Captain Jack said pointing his finger to a work bench covered with tools, hydraulic pumps, hoses and hydraulic fittings. “They left all their tools here. These guys didn't take anything with them when they left.”
“They must have left in a hurry,” Dwayne said as he adjusted his eyes to the flashlight.
“And haven't been back since,” Captain Jack said as he looked around.
“We need to load the metal plates first,” Dwayne said.
“Guide me back,” Captain Jack said getting back into the truck. “Get me as close to that rack as you can.”
Dwayne and Captain Jack carefully slid the metal plates into the back of the truck.
“Do you have any cement?”
“In the basement,” Dwayne answered. “About four bags left over from the stonework.”
“Do you have any bolts?”
“There's some threaded rod,” Dwayne answered. “Why?”
“So we can anchor the lift to the ground,” Captain Jack said as they began to
disassemble the car lift.
“Damn,” Dwayne grunted. “This thing is heavy.”
“We're almost done,” Captain Jack said. “We'll use the crane to put the pieces into the back of the truck then we'll load the motor and pump last.”
“And the hydraulic fluid?”
“Yeah,” Captain Jack said. “We'll need that too. We might as well take the welding machine also. I'm sure we can use it for something.”
“Jump in,” Captain Jack said when everything was loaded. “I'll get the door.”
Captain Jack raised the overhead door.
“Shit!”
“What wrong?” Dwayne asked.
“Zombinees,” Captain Jack shouted. “Start the truck!”
Dwayne started the truck. The headlights illuminated a group of zombies just outside the doorway.
With a direct headshot, Captain Jack dropped the zombie nearest him, spraying the back of its head into the faces of the other zombies behind it with a 9mm round between its eyes.
Firing behind himself, Captain Jack blasted another zombie's lower jaw off as he jumped into the truck.
“Shit!” Captain Jack said. “I missed.”
“Let's go,” Dwayne shouted.
“Hang on!”
Captain Jack shifted into drive then pushed the accelerator pedal to the floorboard. Plowing through the zombies, several bounced off the hood and were thrown to the side. Several more were pushed underneath the truck. One's head exploded like a watermelon beneath the wheels and the legs of another zombie were smashed as its body rolled underneath the length of the truck.
“Thank God we're through,” Captain Jack said breathing hard as they drove back onto the highway.
“We're not out of this yet,” Dwayne said.
In Round Hill, the zombies at the hardware store had gathered in the road.
“Jesus Christ!” Captain Jack said.
“Go through the parking lot,” Dwayne said. “There are fewer of them there.”
Captain Jack clipped several zombies in the parking lot then pulled back out onto Highway 50 further down, taking out three more zombies along the way.