Becky and Tom followed and he saw them look at the butchered, grotesque remains on the ground as they passed it.
“You sure killed him,” Becky mused. “No way he’ll ever come back from that, no sir.”
“I’m just so fucking tired,” Jill said panting, trying to catch her breath.
“Gotta save your energy, alright?” Jack said and opened the passenger door for her. When she was all situated, he shut it and ran to the driver’s side. “Get in guys,” he added to Tom and Becky.
“Don’t have to tell us twice,” Tom said and got in on Jack’s side.
***
It felt good to finally sit down. They had been running around and dodging death for so long, that Becky completely forgot that she had been dragging Tom and herself all over since the early hours of the day. Her feet ached, but she only now felt the pain shoot up her legs and into her lower back. It was over now. They could finally catch their breath. She let out a long sighed and rubbed her shoulders and her neck.
“Well, it will be a while before we go out on a run, right Tom?” she said groaning.
“It sure will. Not letting you take me anywhere anymore,” Tom chuckled nervously. She noticed that he wasn’t sitting still. He had been looking out to see if more of the dead would come. She looked out on her side, only briefly, to see that it was all clear.
How many of them could there be?
She heard Jack put the key into the ignition and turn it. The car clicked, then the engine tried to kick in, sputtered and fell silent. Cold sweat washed over her as she heard those dreaded sounds that you were never supposed to hear from a car, especially at a time like this.
“Is everything alright?” Her question was given by pure reaction driven by false hope. She knew what the answer would be.
The car was fucked.
Jack turned the key one more time and let the engine cough and stutter but not kick in. His fists pounded the wheel as he released the key and then grabbed his black thin hair. “You gotta be shitting me,” he sighed.
“So now what?” Jill asked. She didn’t even make eye contact with Jack. She just sat there, her eyes fixed to the road ahead. There was no freaking out, no raised voices, Becky noticed as she bit her lip and thought just what their options were at this miserable point. As she pondered, only one presented itself and that was in the form of getting out and heading to their own car. It meant going back to hell out again and trekking this damned place on foot, with those things roaming around. Sure, it was a nice warm September day; the sun was shining, there was a just cool enough breeze to say that the Fall wasn’t far away. All this made it a perfect day to get your body ripped to shreds, torn limb to limb and be eaten by some diseased, undead maniacs.
“I can’t believe this,” Tom added in disbelief.
Jack tried again but in vain. The battery was most likely dead and there was no other way to leave than on their own two feet.
“It’s fucking dead,” Jack said and put his head on the steering wheel. “I can’t believe it’s dead. I mean what rotten ass luck.”
“Well, that’s just wonderful.” Jill was just saying things now, and Becky thought, without any warrant. From what she could tell, the woman simply said things for the sake of saying them. At this moment, keeping her mouth shut would be most productive.
“Well,” Becky began, “we can head to our car.”
What else was there left to do?
“How far is that?” Jill asked annoyed.
“About another mile, maybe less, up the road. Back that way.”
“Wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“Got any other ideas?” Becky asked. “It looks like going to our car is the only option we have at this time. You helped us out and stuck by our side so I am offering you to come with us. If you don’t want to do that, fine by me.”
“No, no, we’ll come with you,” Jack cut in apologetically. “We’re just wasting time here now. Let’s go.” He opened the door and got out.
Becky did the same and Tom and Jill followed.
“Shouldn’t take us that long to get there,” Becky said as she joined her brother by his side. She watched Jill put her arm around Jack and bury her head in his side for a second. They were such an odd couple, but one thing was obvious and that was that they loved each other immensely. A smile escaped her at that sight.
They were both dressed in black. Jill sporting her black tights and a corset. Jack towered over her as he put his arm on her shoulder and continued to walk side by side. Why he wore a slight touch of eyeliner was beyond Becky’s comprehension.
“It’ll be alright,” she heard Jack comfort her.
“Here we are, on the road again,” Tom said next to her. “I swear, we just can’t catch a break.”
“I know,” Becky agreed. “But I haven’t seen any more of them since we got to the car, so that could be it as far as the dead go.”
“Yeah I highly doubt that. You don’t know how many of them were in that building. Since we got in the middle of it, they’ve been coming out of the fucking woodwork.”
“Just trying to stay positive, but whatever, I guess,” Becky said annoyed. Leave it up to Tom to bring the hope down crashing. But then it hit her; it was negativity, but it was realism. Tom was just being real, living in a world where not many things went your way when shit hit the fan. She quickly said, “Sorry.”
He didn’t say anything back, which made her feel bad because she didn’t want to mother him now. She just wanted to be a sister, running for her life with her brother.
“You know I love you,” Jack continued in front of them. “I’ll never let anything happen to you. This is just some bad luck we got ourselves into, that’s all.”
“I know honey, I love you too.” Jill buried her face again in his side. They slowed down until they were walking side by side with Becky and Tom.
“Forget about our car,” Jack addressed Becky and Tom. “Just drop us off somewhere in the city, we’ll manage from there.”
“Yeah,” Jill added. “I don’t ever want to come back here. This was that one trip too many, kind of thing. One job and it all got fucked up.”
“Same here,” Becky said. “We go out and run on the weekends. Figured this place was desolate enough for a quiet job. Boy, was I wrong.” Becky remembered reading about Love Canal and then coming here the first time. It was the mess people themselves made and eventually, nature took its course and reclaimed what was left of it. But the rotten nature of humans couldn’t leave well enough alone. Love Canal ended up looking like a little forgotten jungle in the heart of Niagara Falls, New York. People passed by it on the thruway and never even bothered to glance over it once. It was a dark spot in the history of the city.
“And to think the chances of the likes of us meeting the likes of you,” Jill giggled and shook her head.
“Imagine that,” Becky replied sarcastically.
“Definitely very strange. And how you thought we were going to kill you when you found out we kill for money. See now? We’re not that bad after all.”
“Well, to be honest Jill, we’ve never met anyone who openly declared that they kill for money, so you could imagine our surprise when we did.” Becky continued her sarcasm, but she didn’t do it to start an argument. She basically aimed to match Jill’s tone, which to her, was pretty light-hearted and harmless. Under different circumstances Becky was sure she wouldn’t mind grabbing a drink with Jill sometime. And given that she wasn’t, or at least didn’t know about her killing sprees.
“Well, I for one am glad we’ve run into you. We’re like, almost friends or something. I mean, we’ve been through some shit today,” Jill said and squeezed Jack at his waist.
“Friends? Are we friends? I dunno,” Becky said and snickered. “That’s a pretty strong word for us knowing you for less than five hours.”
“We’ve been baptized by … um, blood, I guess you could say, and limbs,” Jack added and Becky thought he was kidding around, since it
in all honesty sounded like a joke. But his face was serious. Perhaps he had a really dry sense of humor.
“Sure,” Tom laughed. “Baptism by blood, why not. I’ve heard of baptism by fire before, you know, soldiers being shot at and what not, but blood, yeah that’s a first.”
“It’s good, right?” Jack smiled.
“That’s it then,” Becky said and gave in into the somewhat jovial mood.
Jill giggled and it slowly turned into a laugh that lasted for about thirty seconds or so.
Becky and Tom exchanged a quick look and Tom’s face said that everything would be alright. She wanted to believe it. She really did.
***
There was now a black gaping hole where the man’s nose had once been. Bob stared into it with disgust as he pushed the man’s head with his boot. The corpse latched himself onto his foot and tried to bite it, but Bob pushed it off again. The head fell down and hit the ground, slightly cracking the forehead before the thing lifted it again, painfully, slowly. The man wore a short-sleeved shirt that was caked in dried blood and dirt. It was like a canvas that a painter would use to try different colors, smearing them up and down, back and forth. It was ripped in the stomach area where the last torn piece of the big intestine was hanging from. It was dangling there, swinging freely as the corpse tried to come up and attack Bob. It kept coming at him, not minding constantly being pushed down, kicked and dropped. There was no anger coming through. It was a simple need to feed, and Bob was wondering if it was an actual need. It looked like the thing was just going through instinctual motions. By the looks of him, the man had to have been dead for at least a week or so. The body was pale and grayish, eyes sunken in, lips cracked, skin hanging from the bones on the arms. There was a giant gash that went from the man’s ear all the way down to the upper part of his shoulder, as if someone or something had taken a hefty bite out of him. It had bled like a motherfucker at first, Bob thought, but was nothing but a dried up well now.
“I’d pay to see just what went on down there,” Bob said to the zombie. “You know, just go there and observe from the shadows; be a fly on the wall. Maybe I could have nipped it in the bud. Would have saved me a lotta time; wouldn’t be cleaning up this mess right now.”
He pushed the thing back again, walked around it and stomped on the man’s leg, crushing it with one single blow. He then walked away a few feet and squatted, waiting for it to come at him again.
“I could be giving my wife a proper burial right now if it wasn’t for all this shit. Well, now that I think of it, if I acted as soon as I smelled shit coming from that wretched hole, my wife would still be here.”
As he watched the man crawl toward him, Bob thought he heard him say, “You should have moved from this place long time ago.”
He shook his head in disbelief, for it was virtually impossible the thing could have communicated in any shape or form save for the primitive grunts and groans.
It didn’t change the fact that those words were painfully true.
If only he had given up and moved from here with Phyllis their life together would have been a lot different. There could have been forty-five years of marriage instead of not even twenty. They could have grown old together. But no, it was pride. He had to fight for the damned house that sat atop a few dozen barrels of toxic waste.
“You should have gone, stupid,” he heard the voice come again.
Now he knew his mind was playing tricks on him. He finally got back up and pointed the gun at the crawling ghoul. The zombie reached for him with its bony arm and let out a painful, hungry moan.
It was so easy to just pull the trigger and end this wretch’s miserable life. The bullet would go through its rotten skull and that would be the grim end of it. No fanfare. Just another corpse sent back to be judged.
Bob stared down the barrel and touched the trigger on the gun, but never pulled it all the way. He just couldn’t get himself to do it, to waste another piece of lead on these ghouls that stalked the grounds. It wasn’t their fault the sin of man had brought them back from their eternal rest.
He lowered it, almost letting it fall from his hand.
“You sorry sack of shit,” Bob whispered through clenched teeth. “They’ll all burn for what they’ve done. All of them. I can tell you that much, as God is my witness. The pits of Hell will fill up with their bodies and they will lick Satan’s ass to stop their suffering.”
The gun went up into the air again and before the crawling corpse could grab the barrel, Bob pulled the trigger and shot it right through the gaping hole where the nose had once been, carving out an even bigger one that now looked through the back of the head.
It collapsed and went down on what was left.
Bob crossed himself, stared at the carcass a moment longer and walked away from it. It was just another soulless body, he thought as he holstered his Desert Eagle. The undead were like mindless vessels that preyed on the living, roaming around only to satisfy their hunger for warm flesh and blood. It was rather simple, nothing to truly delve deep into. Man had moved against God, had strayed from his grace and the punishment was now swift and just.
It was that plain and simple.
Then he thought of the little group that had been on the move from him. They were probably the last ones left here and he’d take care of them too. The good thing was that they were oblivious to his presence, not even aware that he had been following them for some time. That was good, he wasn’t about to complain.
He had seen them dispatch a number of the dead on their way.
Hell, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say they were doing him a favor. He approved of it, for now. It didn’t change the fact that they were caught up in this mess and were as guilty as everyone else. The end was nigh and everyone would be judged for their sins and transgression and that made it alright. It made all of this just fine.
He hoped he did right by Phyllis and that he had fulfilled his duty as a good Christian. Part of him wanted to thank all the damned Muslims for spreading their filth. It had sent the common folk running back to Jesus. Oh, how everyone cried each time there was a bombing, not even realizing that was all a test, a simple challenge to see who the true believers were.
Sure, the government bombed the ever-loving shit of them desert dwelling sons of bitches, but it was for all the wrong reasons.
It was all coming to an end, and then it would all start over again. Life would start anew and there would be a clean slate. A new page of the Book would be written and it’d be glorious because it would be written by the righteous. He was sure he’d be the first one in line in the new world, and thinking of this ugliness would just be a nasty memory that would serve as a reminder of all the wrong turns.
CHAPTER TEN
‘The sun went out like a light switch,’ Becky thought as she looked up and saw the cloud covered sky. The sun was behind there somewhere and it looked like it wasn’t coming out any time soon. They were still about half a mile away from her car, but the constant threat of the undead made it seem a lot farther than that. She couldn’t even focus on a conversation that was unfolding between Jack, Jill and her brother. She went in and out of it, their voices droning over the sound of crickets. She felt like she was in a movie, the part when everything goes out of focus and the camera zooms in on a character’s face for a very deep and introspective moment.
But this moment was nothing more than her fear that one of those wretches would jump out and attack them. Every now and then she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that none of the dead were tailgating them. So far, luck was on their side, but that could change in a blink of an eye, she thought as she licked her dry lips and swallowed hard. Then she remembered that she was as thirsty as all hell and figured that it had to be at least five or six hours since she had had a drop of water.
On the other hand, Tom seemed to be distracted and deeply immersed in the dialogue. If it was just the two of them going on a run, it would have been an entirely different story
. There would have been no end to his complaints.
Almost there.
“That’s definitely debatable.” She heard Tom make his argument as the voices became clearer again. She now tuned in to the conversation that dealt with the greatest bands from the region of Western New York. To Tom, that might as well have meant ‘in the entire world.’
“Well I think the taste is subjective,” Jack tried to reason, but Tom wouldn’t have it.
“You say you have heard of them,” Tom continued. “You’ve heard of Johnny Revolting, but have you ever listened to any of their songs?”
“Yes, I have.”
“And you still don’t want to admit that they are possibly the greatest punk-rock band, if not one of the greatest bands of all time?” Tom’s jaw nearly dropped on the ground
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Jack fought back. “To say a certain band is the best ever, is like saying an apple is the best fruit. It’s all a matter of taste, likes and dislikes my friend. Just because you say so, doesn’t make it so.” He let out a good-natured laugh.
“You can argue with him all you want, he won’t back down,” Becky finally joined in. “He’s stubborn like our father. If he believes it, you can’t tell him otherwise.”
“Well, your taste in music sucks anyways,” Tom lashed out, and Becky could see that her last bit really struck a chord in him. They disagreed and fought like any normal siblings, but Tom was very passionate about his music. Attacking his taste or the bands he liked was, by Tom at least, as a personal attack.
“Anyways!” Jill tried to diffuse the situation. “Where to now?”
Becky stopped and looked around. There was another little lot to their right with parked trucks and bulldozers that were most likely out of commission. She thought that they could use it as a shortcut and cut through it. It would be a short walk that would bring them out to the other side and further down the street where they had parked her car. It wasn’t a huge timesaver but at this point anything helped. They had been out for too long and fatigue was setting in dangerously. Besides, any way they could possibly avoid the dead was just an added bonus and this little stretch of gravel lot looked cleared.
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