by K Helms
The Pirate, he thought. Yeah, that crazy bastard would know what to do.
The pirate was actually Arlington Neff. He was a former Army Ranger that had an actual hook for a left hand after a freak accident that cut his military career short. To further the nick-name he had never refused a shot of 151 Rum. Arlington wasn’t aware that people called him the Pirate; it was one of those unflattering nicknames that were uttered in hushed tones and usually followed by laughter. Daniel was also fairly sure that Arlington was often called Yarlington, or simply Yar, in reference to his pirate nickname. After his discharge he began a downward spiral of drugs and alcohol that had left him, if not burned out, then at the very least, crispy around the edges. Once upon a time he had been straight-backed and squared away although he had always had a terrible time with articulating his thoughts to words. Now you had to visit him early in the morning to get any sense out of the man. When Arlington was drunk he talked more than he did when he was sober, but his thoughts were manic and paranoid at best. He was a conspiracy nut. He believed that the government was hiding everything. Aliens landed at Camp David and planned the New World Order with the President and other world dignitaries, in the JFK case Bigfoot had been the second shooter on the grassy knoll, Elvis was in the witness protection program and working with the FBI and possibly that Soylent Green was made of people.
Arlington used to have a lot of friends, but his compulsions, conspiracy theories and alcoholism had driven everyone away. Arlington was ignorant as to why no one wanted to hang out with him anymore, but he figured that it probably had something to do with the government.
The former Ranger lived down an old haul road in a run-down trailer with a large, yet dilapidated deck on the front. His front yard gleamed in the sun, completely covered by broken brown glass bottles. Daniel saw Arlington’s old Ford pickup rusting in a hulk of mud tires. One of the huge mudders sat atop a dead dog. Daniel recognized the mutt as Arlington’s own shepherd/ lab mix. It appeared that Arlington was completely unaware that he had run over his best friend.
The body lying on the front porch in a heap did not escape Daniel notice. He cautiously put the car in park and closed the door behind him as soundlessly as he could. He carefully walked through the yard, although he still crunched on broken glass with each step. The body never stirred as he crunched forward, but as he drew near the first step of the front porch he saw the dual barrels of a 12 gauge shotgun snake its way out of the boarded up front window, which suddenly made the dead guy lying in a pool of shredded gore in front of him a lot less worrisome.
“You one of them?” croaked a slurred voice. The sound reminded Daniel of Otis from the Andy Griffith Show.
With his hands rising slowly in front of him Daniel spoke in a subdued tone, “Whoa,
whoa, easy, Arlington. It’s me, Dan. Dan Tyson.”
“I s’pose you came here to eat my brains, didn’t ya?” asked the voice behind the shotgun in a slurred and groggy tone.
Daniel had never been good at concealing his emotions and he couldn’t help the expression that crossed his face of bewilderment, but he managed to compose himself. “You don’t have any brains to eat, you moron,” said Daniel. Many in his circle of friends believed that these outbursts were possibly a mild form of Turrets Syndrome, or lack of inner monologue; whatever the case, Daniel was renowned for having absolutely no tact.
There was silence for a moment before he saw the shotgun’s double barrels retract back into the boards followed by a few more seconds of silence then he heard the multiple locks click and the door swung open. The Pirate looked more scurvy than ever, with wiry muscled arms and a pale skin tone that pronounced he had not seen the sun in a long, long time. His beard had about six day’s growth; he wore a black bandana tight around his skull, pinning his ears to the sides of his head. Arlington was fashionably adorned in a thread bare, faded blue denim shirt with the sleeves cut out that exposed two sleeves of the worst tattoos Daniel had ever seen. The dude is going to get hypothermia or hepatitis, one of the two, Daniel thought absently. He hoped that Arlington hadn’t paid for any of those travesties. Daniel was aware of the reason Arlington always wore tank tops and sleeveless shirts, and that reason was his hook. Arlington had complained about getting the hook caught and ripping out the material of every long-sleeved shirt he owned.
The Pirate smiled showing off a mouthful of slightly yellow teeth. “Danny! How’ve you been, brotha?” he asked, holding the door for him to enter. Daniel noticed that Arlington scanned not only the tree line behind him, but also the sky and he had to resist the urge to look up at the sky as well, even though he was sure that Arlington was searching for black unmarked helicopters silently hovering over the trees.
Daniel went inside with trepidation, almost wishing he hadn’t as he stepped past the blue clad corpse. He studied the body as he entered the trailer. “Is that your mailman?” he asked the gaunt figure swaying before him.
Arlington shrugged and said, “Used to be.”
Arlington shut the door behind him and fumbled to re-lock all the deadbolts. Dan’s slightly inebriated host motioned to a red milk crate with his hook, “Sit down, sit down, you want a beer?” asked the pirate as he staggered to the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“Yeah, that’d be good.” replied Daniel as he scanned the small trailer.
Daniel studied his estranged friend for a moment and in that fleeting fraction of a second he saw what Neff could have been.
The living room walls of the mobile manor were covered in faded centerfolds from various Playboy magazines; evidently Arlington had a thing for giant, fake boobs, but Dan couldn’t fault the man there, what guy didn’t like giant, fake boobs? The couch was covered in newspapers, and beside it were stacks of other newspapers that were somewhat yellowed, from age or nicotine, Daniel was not sure. He looked into the kitchen and saw a computer screen glowing on the dining table. The table beside the dated PC was strewn with stacks of loose leaf sheets of papers. Daniel could see that they were covered in yellow highlights and red grease pencil had circled underlined and scrawled notes in the margins. Arlington returned, handed him the beer with his good hand that was adorned with a Ranger para-cord bracelet and took a seat on another milk crate and cracked open his own beer. He drained half of it with greedy gulps as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, then with an audible sigh “So… zombies…” he said, then drained the rest of his beer. He looked at the empty bottle in an oddly accusatory manner, like he wondered who the bastard was that had just drank his beer and had placed it again in his hand empty then stood back up and wove his way through the piles of debris back to the fridge. “Need one?”
“No, I’m good,” answered Daniel shaking his head.
“Need me to put a nipple on that for ya?”
“Fuck off Arlington,” said Daniel and Arlington laughed. Daniel paused for a minute before he began. He figured he would regret his next question, but he had come this far. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw something furry skitter along the wall and shivered. “So…what’s your take on these…zombies,” Dan asked, feeling stupid even saying the word.
Arlington shrugged, took a long pull on his Blue Ribbon and decided to light a cigarette before he leveled his yellowed eyes at Daniel. “Don’t know for sure. Probably the military; we have always had some weird shit.” The last three words he belched in a long, low resonant blat.
Daniel shook his head and wondered how long Arlington had been drinking.
“All I know is that you’d better get strapped, brotha. I got an extra Glock in the back if you need one,” he offered.
“I have no desire to start shooting people,” stated Daniel. He felt his gorge rise as he thought about the little girl he had used like a baseball bat just hours before. He didn’t want to revert to that again.
Arlington was either studying him or trying to focus his dilated eyes. “Me neither, but I’ll sure as shit shoot zombies.”
Daniel changed the subject
. “Is there anywhere we could go for safety?” he asked hopefully.
“Go? I ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. This place is all I got; besides it’s secluded and shouldn’t draw too many unwanted visitors.”
“What about the mailman rotting on your porch?”
“Hell, he ain’t goin’ anywhere either,” Arlington said with a grin, “you can ask him, but he’d make a right smelly, not to mention, uninformative navigator.”
“So you won’t go with me?” asked Daniel, his heart sinking.
“No can do Amigo, but I suppose I do know somewhere that might be safe. You probably won’t be able to get in ‘cause it’s for politicians and the like in case of an NBC strike.” He finished his beer, dropped it to the floor where it clinked against its fallen comrades before rolling to a stop beside a De-con mouse poison box. Arlington stood up and walked back to the fridge. He retrieved his beverage, stopped by the window and peeked through the crack in the boards when he heard crunching outside.
“Dammit!” he growled and grabbed his shotgun.
Daniel started and asked, “Another one?”
“Yeah… doggone it… its Mrs. Carter from the next holler over. He poked the barrel out through the crack, his left hook a vise on the front stock, while his right hand triggered the cannon and blasted her in the face. Her head disintegrated in an explosion of red mist and fleshy chunks, then her body slammed forward at the waist like a metal head in a mosh pit. It looked fake, surrealistic to Daniel as he peered through the peephole in the fortified front door. It looked nothing like the movies he had seen where the body flew backward. But there was nothing fake about her grated tongue flopping around where the top of her face used to be. Her body didn’t have any spasms it just laid there in the glittering shards of broken glass. There wasn’t even that much blood. Some blood, he noticed, and reasoned that her circulatory system hadn’t exactly been pumping for a while. Arlington broke down the double barrel, kicking out the spent shells and shoved a pair of fresh slugs in their place. “She used to bring me down the best peach pie I’ve ever ate,” he muttered, shaking his head in disgust and gesticulated wildly as he spoke. Cords in his neck stood out like ropes as he talked, giving him an appearance of anger or madness. Daniel thought it was more anger though, but it was an anger that pointed inward only to be projected outward. Daniel was certain that Arlington Neff was a pressure cooker of self-loathing. Then as suddenly as his madness emerged it was gone and he spoke in an almost whimsical tone. “Any who… the Greenbrier, it’s in West Virginia; outside of Covington.” He staggered to the kitchen and shuffled through the papers. He picked one up and took a minute to focus his dilated eyes then flicked it with his middle finger. “Yep, Covington; here’s the details of the place…it was shut down years ago, but they kept the place up for tours and such. As long as the political fat cats haven’t occupied it, you might have a shot. I wouldn’t go alone though. I would try to find some of your friends; strap up and grab some food and water before you do anything like that,” he gulped down some beer, “but I can’t go.”
“That’s all right, man,” Daniel said standing up.
“Yeah… if you’re gonna go, better sooner than later.” Arlington lowered his voice and he almost seemed to hold back some tears, and then said, “It was good seeing you again, Danny. It’s been a long time.” Daniel nodded. Arlington cleared his throat then said in a loud voice, “OK, you take care.” He unbolted the door to let them out, then shut the door behind them, and walked his friend out to the car.
As Daniel got in his car he asked sheepishly, “Arlington …is that your dog?” He pointed toward the pickup.
Arlington’s eyes followed his gaze and slowly focused on the tires. He threw his beer down on the gravel driveway, sending broken glass and white foam spraying in all directions. “Goddammit!” the Pirate exclaimed and walked over to the truck, still swearing and possibly crying. Daniel felt sorry for him as he put the car in gear, but he thought it best that he get going. He spun the car around and headed back to town.
Daniel knew first hand, what the risks were in going back to his home town war zone but there were some personal things he couldn’t quite part with. Once he had those items loaded up he would try to find a couple of his friends, before heading to Covington.
If he had glanced back in his rear view mirror he would have seen that Arlington had fallen down face first in the mud, passed out drunk.
Chapter 12 - Trailer Park Piñatas
Day 2 of infection
Mine Hills, West Virginia
Mick Oswald ran through the hills and hollows, tripping over vines covered by snow, ducking under hanging branches, batting at them with his free arm and hurdling fallen trees. The path was littered with obstacles, but he ran hard, his breathing as controlled as possible in the cold December air.
He had already had his regular morning run only three hours ago, but this run was born of necessity, not for his wrestling conditioning.
He had arrived home yesterday for Winter break, as the term Christmas break had become politically incorrect, from the West Virginia University where he attended on a full wrestling scholarship. His five foot, eight inch frame carried a lean one hundred and sixty-eight pounds of muscle. His left arm swung like a heavy pendulum, while the other carried his single shot .12 gauge. His legs pistoned through the snow in long powerful strides and he ran as he had never run before. His navy blue Mountaineer sweatshirt was a stark contrast to the snowy terrain, his white face virtually camouflaged by the snow except for his three day growth of red beard and the light brown freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose. Steam rose from the body heat escaping from the top of his head, which made the stubble of his close-cropped red hair look as if it might burst into flame. He was Ichabod Crane on steroids, rampaging through Sleepy Hollow, though not in fear of the headless horseman. This incarnation of the Washington Irving character ran from his father, Foster Oswald. As he ran he tried to keep the vision from his mind, but it persisted and in his memory he watched helplessly as the horrible events replayed over and over as he ran toward his girlfriend’s house.
He had just returned to his parent’s double-wide after his morning run with the intention of refilling his tank with a nice big breakfast. He’d looked forward to his mother’s home cooking but she had gone to bed sick as a dog the night before and he figured that he would have to settle for a bowl of cereal.
With Christmas, and it was still called Christmas in Karen Oswald’s home, just days away, the trailer was decorated in twinkling red and green lights; presents lay wrapped beneath the freshly cut spruce that filled the home with its sweet scent while the sounds of Gene Autry crooned Silver Bells from the stereo. Mick had poured himself a concoction of Cap’n Crunch and Alpha-Bits and sat at the kitchen table. He read the back of the box of Alpha-Bits, easily solving the children’s word find as he shoveled a heaping spoonful of cereal into his mouth, crunching contentedly.
From over the box he saw his mother shuffle into the kitchen and he was remotely aware that her mouth was moving, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying over his crunching.
Mick saw her hand knock over the box he was looking at. He wondered what was wrong and glanced up just in time to see her face explode outward in a spray of blood! He blinked and gaped as he saw that bits of his mother’s skull and chunks of her brain floated lazily in his cereal bowl. The Alpha-Bits didn’t spell out any clues to what had just happened and for an instant he thought that the foreign chunks could have been colored marshmallows from Lucky Charms, but there was nothing lucky or charming about his breakfast, only the good Cap’n and something he could not quite wrap his mind around. Mick realized that he was babbling within his shocked mind and he looked up at what used to be his mom. Her face was gone, shredded and hanging down over her chin and neck in long bloody flaps, as if someone had shoved a grenade in her mouth and pulled the pin. Her left eye dangled from the optic nerve and spun like a top from the collar of her threadbare ho
usecoat. He sat in stunned silence as her body toppled forward; her chin struck the edge of the kitchen table and a molar shot out of her jaw, clattering past the upset box of cereal.
As she fell to the floor, Mick’s father was revealed, standing in the hallway. He slowly lowered his pump action .12 gauge from his shoulder and stood there, swaying. Foster was tall and thin with skin that was brown and leathered even in the cold of winter. He resembled a picture of an old cowboy in black and white photos.
“Sorry, son, but she was comin’ after ya.” Foster Oswald’s weathered face was a tempest of emotions; anger and grief masked by the semi-transparent mimicry of stoic composure. His chin quivered, “I wouldn’t eat that cereal, it’s got your mama’s brains in it,” he said, his tone one of rationality. It was that tone that creeped the twenty year old sophomore out more than his father’s actual words.