The Dark Times: A Zombie Novel

by Dane Hatchell

  Angie laughed. “You mean, June Melon?”

  “I guess. I don’t really pay that much attention to last names when I meet someone.”

  “It’s just my handle. You’re a cop. Surely, you know what I do for a living?” She ran her hands down the skimpy blouse.

  “Yes, I know what you do for a living. And I probably know why you do it, too.”

  “I change my name a lot. Usually it’s a combination of a month and a fruit. I like to keep it simple, you know? June Melon. September Peach. May Berry.”

  “January Cobbler?” Rico laughed.

  “No, silly.” Angie chuckled. “You get the point though.”

  “I got it. Your name is Angie Kinnum. Now Angie, why did you want me to stop?”

  “I just told you my name. Now, aren’t you going to tell me yours?”

  “I introduced myself at the gas station. The brunette said she didn’t give a fuck what my name was. I guess you were too distraught to remember. My name is Rico.”

  “Rico. That’s a nice name. I like it. No last name?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “No, I guess not, but I don’t see what’s the big deal about you telling me your last name. It’s not like I’m going to hunt you down later on and claim you the baby daddy.”

  From the way she said the words, he wasn’t sure if she was pissed, or just making a sarcastic joke back at him.

  “Hey, don’t get your panties in a bunch. My last name is Cruz. Rico J. Cruz. Don’t ask me what the J. stands for.” Rico was teasing, of course, and waited to tell her the J. stood for Joseph.

  Angie took a deep breath and hesitated before speaking again. “This time is different, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” Rico asked, wondering where Angie wanted to steer the conversation.

  “The dead coming back. This time it’s different. I don’t think it’s going away this time.”

  “There’s no real sure way of knowing, but I think you’re right. This might be it.”

  “What do you think will happen?”

  “I have no idea, honestly.” Rico ran his fingers through his hair and looked up and down the road. “I guess there’s a good chance if the military reacts fast enough they might be able to put this uprising down. There are probably a lot of people who’ve been affected. No doubt, some of those are in the military. Hell, cops too. Damn, just thinking about how bad things could get worldwide makes me have some doubts now.”

  “How so?”

  “You saw what happened back there just as well as I did. Earlier, everyone was basically fine, dealing with their little coughing fits, and not long after, they’re all stark raving mad. No one could have planned for something like that, at least not that drastic of a change happening as fast as it did. What we saw tonight is nothing. We were the lucky ones. We managed to be out in the middle of nowhere when it happened.”

  Angie remained silent through his long pause.

  “The chaos we just witnessed was just a taste of what’s probably happening everywhere right now. Think of New York City and places like Austin that are thriving with people. Sick people. Sick people that are no longer sick, but undead flesh eaters.”

  Angie gasped. Rico had painted an effective picture.

  “About nine million people live in New York City. That means maybe two to three million are zombies on the hunt right as we speak. There’s no way the police force could handle an emergency like that. And no time for the military to have a plan they can put into action.”

  “Oh, Rico, what are we going to do?”

  Great, now he went too far thinking aloud and had her upset again. “We’re not in a big city. As long as we keep to less populated areas, I think we’ll be okay… really. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open and take things one day at a time. Maybe the military will set up a safe zone. If they do, we can go there.”

  “Megan is dead!” Angie covered her face with her hands and started to cry.

  He had made her so upset he wondered if she had heard the last words he just said. In truth, Rico wanted to slap her across the face and say that a lot of people are dead. A lot of people are probably dying. Hell, Pop from the pub back in Killeen was dead. No doubt about it. Worse, Pop was one of the walking dead, but nothing was going to change that now. Nothing was going to take back the alien microbes that fell to Earth, or the dead rising from their graves. The six months of internal terror the world had endured could not be erased. The sudden rebirth of chaos that now had them in the middle of a deserted highway was here to stay. It was a changed world, and it stood a great chance of never being the same again.

  Rico took a deep breath and tried to undo the mess he made.

  “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to make it. Don’t worry, we’ll make it,” he said, leaning in to embrace Angie.

  She grabbed ahold of him and sobbed, digging her fingers into his jacket.

  It was actually strange to hold another woman in such an intimate embrace other than his ex-wife. Rico wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of guy to begin with. At first, all he could think about was what kind of disease might pole vault off her and get on him. The darkness hid her Earthly façade of flesh. Right now, she could be any woman, and there was no doubt how much she hurt inside. Rico felt small for being so judgmental. Sure, she was a drug addict and a prostitute, but she was a person like him just the same. He wondered what Angie’s life was like as a little girl and what awful tragedies occurred to turn it into such a disaster.

  *

  It was quite some time before Angie stopped crying.

  By then, it had grown cooler. The wind had picked up, adding to the chill. The clouds had thinned and Rico saw his surroundings better. The increased visibility loosened the built up tension, but not by much.

  Wiping away the tears and running mascara from her eyes, Angie looked up at Rico and half smiled.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be sorry,” he said. “I know what you’re going through. We’ve all been through a lot in the last six months. Life as we knew it has been turned upside down.”

  “You can say that again.” She took a deep breath and huffed it out.

  “The world’s been turned upside down.” He smiled.

  Angie half-giggled.

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s getting colder and it’s late. We need to move on.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded and pulled strands of hair from her face. “I uhmm . . . I wouldn’t mind stopping by my place, if that’s okay.” Before Rico replied, Angie shot back, “It’s my mom. She… she uhmm… lives alone.”

  Rico thought of his own mother. He wondered how she was doing, too, or if she were doing at all. That was something he didn’t really want to think about right now—not about his father either. They were too far away for him to do anything about their welfare. It would be up to others in the community to save them. Angie was here, and he could help her. Deep inside, he knew why. She reminded him of his older sister, Jennifer. Jennifer had been dead for years now, though her memory haunted Rico nearly every day of his life.

  “I understand the concern for your mom, but—well,” Rico dropped his head and chewed on his bottom lip. “Uh, how far away are we from her house? Hell, I don’t even know where we are right now.”

  “That’s the good thing. I do know about where we are. Out here, there aren’t many highways, so you always basically either head north, south, east, or west. We’ve been heading west. I think we can make it to her house in less than an hour.”

  “I don’t know if it’s safe to go. She doesn’t live in a big town, does she?”

  “No, she lives off in the sticks, down a road that’s so old the asphalt has practically worn away.”

  “I have to ask you this, and you must tell me the truth. Had your mom been sick since The Spook? You know, do you think she’s infected?”

  “I’m a hundred percent sure she’s not. Don’t worry. She won’t be waiting to eat us.”

>   “All right then, I’ll take you there. Being with your mom in a time like this will ease your mind, but…” If Rico was going to bring her home, it might be time to part ways. He was comfortable with the idea of only having to look out for one person. Being responsible for someone else was something he wasn’t ready to take on if he didn’t have to. “I, uh, I won’t be staying with you though. I hope there are some other members of your family you can huddle up with for safety.”

  “Oh? You won’t stay?”

  “I don’t want to be the odd man out with your family. I’ll catch a few hours sleep there, but I’ll at least be gone by noon.”

  “But you shouldn’t go out by yourself, not after tonight. Not after what has been going on for the last six months. You said so yourself. This thing is going to get worse before it gets better.”

  “You know, I say a lot of things. Maybe that’s a problem I have, too—saying things I’ve been thinking. Yes, there’s safety in numbers. If you have family to protect you then I don’t have to stick to my earlier plans. I might rather find the nearest town and see if I can hook up with the local police. If we can round up enough good old boys in the area, we might be able to get control of the situation before it gets out of hand. My mind’s been racing in a bunch of different directions.”

  “What, can’t make up your fucking mind? You have ADD or something?” Angie placed her hands on her hips.

  “Yeah, so what? I took medication for it when I was younger. I got better control of it so I don’t need to take it now.” Bitch.

  “Whatever.” Angie threw her hands to the side. “Can we go now?”

  “Sure.” Fuck, did this woman expect him to have all the answers right now? Hell, he was making plans as he went along. There was so much to consider, because truth was, no one had any idea how bad things were. He might change his mind ten more times before he actually made a final move, and that had nothing to do with him having a mild case of Attention Deficit Disorder.

  He climbed on his bike and helped Angie find her footing as she shimmied her way onto the seat. The motorcycle roared to life. The loping thump, thump, thump of the engine cut through the silence. Rico feel like a giant spotlight now shone on them. Still, the purr of his Harley was a welcome relief. He loved having all that power between his legs.

  “So, we just keep heading in the direction we were going?” he called back to her.

  “Yes,” Angie yelled into his ear.

  “You don’t have to yell so loud.”

  “Sorry,” she pointed. “Just keep heading west for another twenty minutes, or so, until we come to the next intersection. Take a right, and we’ll go down an old road that will eventually bring us to Mom’s. Don’t speed once we get on that road. It’s winding and not in good condition. Watch out for deer and armadillos.”

  Rico kicked up the stand and let off the clutch. “Remind me when we get there. Hold on.”

  The bike eased forward and picked up speed.

  Chapter 10

  Angie had spoken the truth about the road’s conditions leading to her mom’s house. Fortunately, no one drove in the opposite direction down the narrow road throughout the arduous trip. Rico had dodged potholes along the way and almost hit a possum avoiding one. Some of the potholes were so bad they had potholes in them. The street jutting off the highway leading to the house was in even worse condition. The saving grace of that was the two didn’t have to travel far to reach it.

  “Slow down, we’re coming up on it,” Angie said.

  If Rico went any slower, the bike would have fallen over. He thought he could make out a gravel driveway cutting through some tall weeds to his left. After a slight turn to the right, he swung his path into a hard left and drove down the driveway. A single bulb on the porch cast enough light for him to see where he was going.

  This was Angie’s mother’s house? It looked more like the city dump. This might be a place to call home, but it wasn’t a house. The dwelling was a singlewide trailer on cement blocks. A metal overhang serving as a second roof covered the length of the trailer.

  As bad as it looked, this certainly wasn’t the first time Rico had seen a living quarters in this bad of condition. There was junk strewn about all over the yard and a burn pile off to one side. Hell, the whole placed looked like it would benefit from a carefully placed match. The only thing missing from the stereotypical sight was a car set up on blocks with the tires off—oh, and a washing machine. He guessed the family was too poor to afford those luxuries. Jeff Foxworthy had a series of jokes that would go well right now.

  All too often, the inhabitants of such deplorable conditions shared a similar M. O.: Poor, ignorant, drug users, alcoholics—usually a combination of some or all. The kids had no choice but to suffer under such unfortunate parenting. Many abusive parents didn’t even enroll their kids in school.

  Despite Angie’s obvious problems, she at least seemed to have an education. How far into high school she had gone, he hadn’t a clue.

  The trailer leaned slightly to one side. The cement blocks propping it up had visible cracks and one or two were partially crushed. Rico wondered if it was safe to go inside.

  He parked the bike near a swing set, and the two dismounted. The swing set was so old that it had metal seats instead of plastic. Two of the seats had completely rusted in half but one was still partially intact. No way would that seat support the weight of a new rider.

  Over from the swing, a few garbage cans overflowed onto the lawn, sending out a rich stink of rotted fruit and meat. It was obvious this trailer wasn’t on any garbage truck route, and Rico wondered why bags of trash were left to pile up here rather than just thrown into the burn pile and gotten rid of once and for all.

  Something shifted in the garbage. Rico looked and saw a slinky black and white cat scrounging through the mess. He took a few steps toward it and heard a chorus of nearby baby kittens calling for their mother. That’s just fucking great, he thought. A starving animal making more starving animals. Rico never understood why pet owners didn’t have their animals fixed.

  Momma cat came toward him. She must have been more hungry than scared. She laid on her back and squirmed around playfully. The cat’s many nipples were swollen and stretched. One of them looked like it might be infected.

  That poor cat, he thought. That thing has probably been through half a dozen litters.

  The animal’s hair was matted in places and in dire need of brushing. She turned her head slightly and the porch light illuminated her eyes an eerie green. He reached down to pet her, but as his hand approached, she rolled back on all fours and trotted off. I guess she just wanted to make friends but didn’t trust me enough to let me touch her.

  “What are you doing?” Angie asked.

  “Checking on the cat. Why doesn’t your mom feed her?”

  “The cat’s fine. Come on.” Angie turned and headed for the trailer, not waiting for Rico.

  The porch area in front of the trailer basically looked like a tornado had touched down on garage sale grade gym equipment. A bench press set with chain and bar laid out beside the house. There were weights scattered across the grass. The steel weights had a harsh layer of rust covering them. No one had worked out with these in quite a while, especially those in the yard with grass growing around them.

  Angie waited by the door and said, “Watch your step,” and pointed downward.

  Rico saw her place her foot on the third step of the short stairway leading to the door. The wood looked rotted and probably had been infested with termites.

  Angie grabbed the screen door and yanked it open. The door groaned against the hinges. If the roar of the motorcycle hadn’t told her mother they were here, the door had. Rico looked over his shoulder to see if any uninvited guest stirred about from all the noise, they had been making.

  Satisfied things were cool for now he pulled the door shut behind him. He heard Angie stomp her way through the living room. When he turned around, she was gone. Rico was left to
face the horrors of the trailer alone.

  And a house of horrors it was.

  The dim light cast weird shadows on the wall. An old CRT television was on, showing nothing but fuzzy gray static. Rico had read once that some of the static on TV and the radio is actually caused by radiation left over from the Big Bang. Thinking of that discovery made him wonder, if the zombie apocalypse destroyed civilization as we knew it, how long it would take mankind to learn of that little gem of information again?

  The TV’s volume was low but still filled the room with agitating white noise. He turned it off without affecting the light in the room much. Not that there was anything worth seeing to begin with. There was so much crap stacked everywhere that there was nowhere to sit. The couch was a cluster of dirty laundry. The La-Z-Boy had stacks of pornographic magazines on it. A dinner plate balanced on the left arm of the chair. The remnants of pizza crust and crumbs lined the edges of the plate. Pizza and porn. Angie’s mom sure did have strange tastes.

  Framed photos lined the walls. Rico tried to make out faces in a few of them, but couldn’t see well in the dim light.

  Where was Angie’s mom? He heard a faint rustling noise coming from another room. Hell, what was Angie doing? A barely discernable path on the floor led him into an equally trashed kitchen.

  On second thought, the kitchen was by far the more disgusting of the two rooms. Plates and glasses piled in the sink and discarded junk food packages lined the counter.

  “How can people live like this?” Rico didn’t care if anyone heard him. Animals took care of their habitats better than this.

  He eased his way past the trash down a narrow hall. As he walked, he came to opened door and looked in. It was a bathroom. Opposite the bathroom, a back door led to outside.

  “Good God,” he said, taking in another masterpiece of mess. There was so much junk on the floor, there was no way of not stepping on something to go in. The counter was a cluster of things covered in hair and dried toothpaste. Then he noticed the icing on the cake. The window in the bathroom was cracked open. At first, it looked like an eight foot snake had found its way in. It wasn’t a snake though. It was a regular garden hose. The end of the hose led into the bathtub, which was full of soapy water. Curiosity got the best of him, and he reached over to the sink and turned on the faucet. Nothing. Something must have gone wrong with the plumbing, or God forbid, maybe the trailer never had running water to begin with. The thought of cooking and cleaning with water from a hose brought a grimace to his face.