Doomsday Sheriff_Day 2_A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Adventure

by Michael James Ploof

  Into the Great Wide Open

  Max was ready to set out immediately, but there were many in the group who thought it wiser to stay where they were.

  “Sorry, Sheriff. I know you want to join your wife, and I ain’t going to try and stop you,” said one of the hockey players from the night before. “But I’m not even from around here.” He pointed to three others. “We’re from Long Island, and we intend on heading back south in the morning. We’ve got family out there too.”

  “I can respect that,” said Max. “I can’t tell any of you to come with me, but Fort Drum is going to be our best shot at survival.”

  “I’m with you, Sheriff,” said John. “They took my family too.”

  “Anyone else?” said Max, eyeing the dozen or so soldiers.

  “I came down here from Montreal,” said Valentine. “I’ve got no family to speak of, and none of my friends are drinkers. I’m up for an adventure.”

  “Alright then. Once we find out if Fort Drum is secure, we’ll come back for you,” Max told the others.

  Together with John and Valentine, Max gathered what supplies he could fit in the Hummer and the Bronco and cleaned the local gun shop of its more lethal weaponry. They brought a case of vodka with them, along with empty wine bottles and rags, though Max prayed that they wouldn’t have to use them.

  If everything went smoothly, they would be in Fort Drum in three to four hours depending on road conditions and would find Piper and the rest of them living like post-apocalyptic kings.

  The sun was fast setting when Max and Valentine pulled onto Main Street, with John close behind in the Hummer. The back seat of the Bronco was full of canned food, water, liquor, and guns—if Max didn’t know better, he might have thought he was going on a hot date.

  “You mind listening to The Tragically Hip?” Max asked as he popped in a CD.

  Valentine grinned as “Blow at High Dough” began playing. “That’s a stupid question to ask a Canadian.”

  Max laughed. “Sucks what happened to Gord.”

  Gord Downie, called by many Canada’s Poet, had been the lead singer for the Canadian band that had topped the charts for more than twenty years, and he’d found a cult-like following in Northern NY as well. After being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2016, he died in the fall of 2017, only weeks after another of Max’s favorites, Tom Petty.

  “I must have seen them a dozen times,” said Valentine, her eyes watery.

  She reminded Max of his cousin Angie: tall, lithe, strong, with a Victorian face and a quiet strength. Her auburn hair was shaved on the left side, giving her an edgy look.

  “Me too. Piper loved them. Used to get drunk and play their music for hours. What’s your favorite song by them?”

  “Scared,” said Valentine.

  Max sighed. “Me too.”

  “We’re going to find your wife. I mean, if it was the military who took them, then they’re safe.”

  “Piper was infected, now she’s been cured. The military is going to take a keen interest in her and the others like her. But I don’t expect them to be treated well. You saw how quickly the survivors turned on the cured back at the lodge. Now add the army in that same scenario.”

  “Shit,” Valentine whispered.

  “Shit is right.”

  Max knew that he too would come under scrutiny if the military found out he had been infected, if even for a few minutes, and they would want to know if he still had a link to the mother worm and all her squirming children. He didn’t, but he couldn’t say the same for Piper.

  “You mentioned that none of your friends were drinkers,” said Max, trying to change the subject for his own sake. “Seems strange for a survivor to say, since being drunk that night was the only thing that saved you.”

  Valentine put her hands up. “You caught me, Sheriff. I’m guilty of a relapse.” She put her arms down and sighed, watching the town go by. “I had a pretty bad drinking problem in college. I dropped out, was disowned by my uptight parents. But I went into rehab, got my shit together.”

  “What happened on Saturday?” said Max.

  She shrugged. “I’d just broken up with my girlfriend—another reason I’m not welcome in my parents’ holy house. I played in the ice hockey tournament and boozed it up with the rest of them.” An ironic laugh escaped her suddenly. “Who would have known drinking would save my life? What about you? Celebrating the meteor shower with the rest of them?”

  “No. I’d just been told I had terminal lung cancer. Didn’t go home and got drunk alone in my hunting cabin.”

  “Jesus,” said Valentine. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be, it was a hoax.”

  “A hoax?”

  “My wife, Piper, she paid the doctor a grand to lie.” He glanced at her, thinking she would be sharing his mirth, but she was frowning.

  “Your wife paid a doctor to tell you that you had cancer?”

  “Yeah,” he laughed. “We play pranks on each other, it’s kind of our thing.”

  Valentine shook her head. “And I thought my folks were weird.”

  They drove out of Lake Placid, through the neighboring town of Saranac, and continued west. The roads had at least a foot of snow on them from the Sunday storm, and the going was slow. Max dared no more than forty miles an hour on the straight roads, staying in four-wheel drive and within the boundary of the multitude of tire tracks left behind by the National Guard’s trucks. They looked to have gone through about two hours ago, given how much snow the wind had blown into the tracks.

  An hour into their journey, as they left the mountains and started across flatter land, they came across a house fire in the small town of Beaver Lake. Max stopped the truck, glancing around at the handful of houses dotting the intersection that seemed to comprise the entire hamlet. Aside from the homes, there was a diner that boasted Sunday prime rib dinner. Max’s stomach growled, and he was reminded that he hadn’t eaten all day.

  “What do you make of it, Sheriff?” asked John over the walkie-talkie.

  “Was probably the military. I’d guess they came through and ran into a nest. Looks like the place has been burning for a few hours.”

  “You want to investigate?”

  “Nah, let’s keep moving.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said John. “Over and out.”

  Max got moving again. If the military had been through here, there was no one left for him to help. Besides, he was aching to get Piper back. He should have been comforted by the idea of her being in the military’s custody, but he knew that the cured wouldn’t be treated like the other survivors. They would be detained in a separate area, poked and prodded…and possibly disposed of.

  He gripped the steering wheel, kneading it in his fists.

  “You alright?” said Valentine. “You seem a bit tense.”

  “Tense isn’t the word.”

  “Your wife will be alright. The screamers or howlers or whatever the hell else is out there won’t get to her if she’s with the army.”

  “It’s not the monsters I’m afraid of,” said Max.

  Chapter 9

  The King of the Rednecks

  Max was almost to Malone, a town about sixty miles west of Lake Placid, when he noticed a quick flash of light about a mile ahead. He followed the tracks made by the army trucks and continued down the straightaway, peering at the spot he thought the light had come from.

  “Sheriff here,” he said over the walkie-talkie. “I spotted a quick shine of light ahead. Looked like a flashlight or headlights.”

  “Survivors?” said John.

  “I’m assuming so. I doubt the screamers bother with flashlights.”

  “Why didn’t they chase down the army train that came through here?”

  “I don’t know,” said Max. “Maybe they’re just noticing the tracks. We’re coming on the spot now. Keep your eyes peeled. There’s a crossroads coming up. Perfect spot for an ambush.”

  “Who the hell would be ambushing us�
��”

  Lights suddenly burst to life on each side of the crossroads, and six trucks peeled into the intersection, cutting Max off. He hit the brakes, and the truck slid ten feet before coming to a stop.

  “Son of a bitch,” said Max, more tired than anything.

  “Who are they?” said Valentine, sitting up in her seat suddenly alert. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing good,” said Max. He grabbed his radio and clicked on the PA system. “This is Franklin County Sheriff Max Maelstrom, and you better have a good goddamned reason for stopping me.”

  He could make out a few human shapes in the cabs of the trucks, and there were at least two armed men in the beds of each truck, rifles aimed at the Bronco. The passenger door of a Chevy Silverado that had come from the left side of the road opened, and a skinny man with a ratty beard and a camouflage jacket got out. He wore a cowboy hat as well, and given his silhouette and the pose he struck as he lit his cigarette, he could have been the Marlboro Man—if the Marlboro Man was a pill head.

  Crackhead Marlboro Man reached back in the cab and pulled out a bullhorn. It shrieked for a heartbeat before coming alive with the brazen, slightly drunken greeting. “Sheriff Maelstrom. Please step out of the vehicle with your arms up, turn around, and walk backwards toward me, if you please.”

  Max glanced in the rearview, where two more sets of headlights suddenly appeared about a half a mile away.

  “This just isn’t my day,” he said aloud.

  “It’s nobody’s day, Sheriff. But I for one don’t intend on making it that fucking redneck’s day.” Valentine shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and Max was well aware of her fears, though he couldn’t share them.

  Then again…

  He heard the banjo from Deliverance in his head and clenched his ass cheeks.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll figure out something,” he assured Valentine.

  “Sheriff?” said Marlboro Man.

  “I didn’t catch your name, sir,” said Max through the PA.

  “Name’s Pike.”

  “Well, Pike, I’ve got no beef with you or your men. You can have the entire damned town for all I care. But I’ve got business with the men who belong to these tracks, and I don’t have time to chat. So, if you’ll kindly unblock the way, I’ll be gone.”

  Marlboro Man blew smoke out his nose, squinting against Max’s headlights. “That ain’t how things work ‘round here, Sheriff. We here own this road now, and there’s a toll to be paid.”

  “Do you take Mastercard?” said Max, and Valentine slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Really? You’re going to be a smartass?”

  “Fuck this guy,” Max began, but then John came over the radio.

  “Got four men coming up on my six from the fields. Two on each side…”

  “What are we going to do?” said Valentine.

  Max glanced in the rearview, barely making out the men approaching in the moonlight. He guessed that the trucks a half mile back had at least eight men in them, and he didn’t put it past the Marlboro Man to cut them down if they tried to break through the blockade.

  They were up shit creek with a tennis racket for a paddle.

  “We’ll work out payment later,” said Marlboro Man, flicking his cigarette into the snowbank. “Right now, I need to make sure you’re not a danger to the rest of us.”

  “Sheriff…” said John over the radio. Other voices came through as well, those of men with guns and demands. In the rearview, Max saw John putting up his hands.

  “Time’s up, Sheriff,” said Marlboro Man.

  “Listen, Valentine, you’re my daughter for the next few hours, got it?”

  A man appeared in her window, and Max saw one in his as well. She nodded, raising her arms.

  “Tell your men to back off, and I’ll get out,” said Max through the PA.

  Pike waved his arm like a fly-by-night magician, and the men on each side of the doors backed up. Max opened the door and got out with empty hands held high. The dude by his door aimed the gun at his face, and Max took a steady breath, not liking how the skinny young man’s body twitched.

  “Don’t ever put your finger on the trigger, unless you plan on pulling it,” said Max.

  “Move!” said the kid, motioning with the rifle.

  Max knew that one on one, he would have had the punk right there, but he was hopelessly outnumbered, and so he played his best card—he kept cool.

  “Come forward, Sheriff, keep those hands up,” said Pike, lighting another cigarette.

  Pike seemed like a two-packs-a-day kind of guy. Max knew the type; they beat the shit out of their bodies with booze, tobacco, coke, and pills, and they drank Mountain Dew like it was going out of style, but they never gained any weight and ended up living well into their eighties. Meanwhile, the guy biking through the Adirondacks every weekend and running marathons died of prostate cancer at fifty.

  Nobody could say that God didn’t have a sense of humor.

  Max walked forward and stopped five feet away from Pike. He knew that at this distance, he could pull his sidearm and put a hole in the man’s head before the punk behind him could squeeze out a surprised fart, but that would only get Max killed.

  “You’re thinking you could kill me right now,” said Pike, unafraid and loving it. He was glowing. For men like Pike, the end of the world was the beginning of the new world, one where they made the rules and broke all the others.

  “And you probably could,” Pike admitted. “But you won’t. You’re a lawman, and you got no gripe with me, just like I got no gripe with you. Ya hear? Now be a good guest and let Simon there frisk you down.”

  Max submitted to the pat-down and allowed Simon to take his sidearm. John and Valentine were brought beside him and relieved of their weapons. Only Valentine complained.

  “You already checked there,” she told Simon.

  Max glanced over and saw Simon handing the weapons to another man, then gleefully going back for another grab of Valentine’s crotch. She whirled around and slammed a palm into his nose that jerked his head back and sent him staggering and falling on his ass. Valentine immediately turned back around and put her hands up.

  Rifles cocked in a chorus of metal, but Pike raised his hand and no bullets came.

  “Simon? Get your sorry ass up off the road!”

  “You fucking bitch!” Simon protested, leaping to his feet and moving toward Valentine’s back.

  “Simon!” Pike warned.

  That stopped him dead.

  “Get your ass over here,” said Pike.

  Max watched him go. Valentine sneered.

  Pike took a drag from his cigarette, clenched it in his teeth, and pointed a pistol at Simon as he approached.

  “What did I tell you last time?” Pike asked.

  Simon stopped and put up his hands. “Come on… I was just having a little fun.”

  “What did I tell you?” Pike pressed.

  “You said…” Simon looked like he was going to cry. “You said that next time you would put a hole in my—”

  Pike fired, and bits of brain and gore splattered on Max’s boots. The body fell to the snow, the bullet wound steaming, and Pike twirled his gun before holstering it.

  “This here’s a brave new world,” Pike bellowed through his megaphone. “In the old world, men who blatantly assaulted women were given a slap on the wrist, or else never reported, but in this new world, men who commit such crimes are put to death.”

  Valentine glanced at Max, visibly shaking.

  Pike turned to the men around the trucks. “All y’all motherfuckers hear that? There ain’t no place for that kind of behavior!”

  “We hear ya, Pa!” said one of the young bucktooth men in the back of his truck.

  “In this brave new world,” said Max, “what’s the penalty for murder?”

  “An eye for an eye,” said Pike. “But you can’t blame the executioner for the deed once sentence is cast. If you’re insinuatin’ that this here wa
s a murder, I assure you that you are wrong. This hear was a public execution, as deemed by law.”

  “Whose law?” said Max.

  Pike grinned, showing off his seven good teeth. He walked closer to Max, pistol hanging easily at his side. Pike stopped and reached out to take Max’s badge, grinning when Max didn’t try to stop him. Rancid breath puffed over the badge and Pike rubbed it against his camo jacket.

  “My law,” he said, pinning the badge to his chest.

  “What do you want, Pike?” said Max.

  “I want what every man wants: peace, warmth, food, drink, a good woman at my side, and healthy kids.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” said John.

  Pike looked him over before looking Valentine up and down and finally returning to Max. “Why you chasin’ down them army boys?”

  “They’ve got my wife.”

  “Kidnapped her?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And you’re going to save her, or join them?”

  “Depends on their attitude,” said Max.

  Pike grinned. “You’re the real deal aren’t you, Sheriff? You got that look in your eye…you’ve killed before.”

  Max stared at him.

  “Yeah, you’ve watched the lights go out,” said Pike, leaning in closer. “You could probably rip my throat out right now with your bare hands, couldn’t you?”

  “I’d need a good reason,” said Max.

  Pike laughed long and hard, and his cronies joined in, but that only made him scowl at the cliché. He laid a dangerous glare over them all and turned his bloodshot gaze on Max. His breath smelled of cigarettes and whiskey, and his clothes stunk of death.

  “The sheriff of Franklin County, New York’s got no reason to kill anyone. Doubt you’ve even drawn your gun on the clock. But you’ve seen war, haven’t you, brother?” Pike rolled up his sleeve, showing Max the USMC tattoo on his forearm.

  “What about it?” said Max. “If the old world is dead, so is the institution embroidered in your arm. You hint at brotherhood, but here I am, weaponless and under the barrel.”

  “King Pike,” came a voice over the radio clipped to Pike’s side.