Valley of Death & Zombies

by William Bebb

  Looking through the doorway, he saw a big room about thirty by sixty feet. The walls were made of concrete blocks. A dark doorway going God only knew where was in the middle of the far wall. There were the old rusting remains of maybe two dozen washing machines and driers, an old candy machine, a broken TV, lots of roofing stuff, shingles, rotted boards with rusty nails poking out of them, and a few broken bottles.

  What a nasty mess, he thought shaking his head. He imagined that years ago this was probably the safest place in the park if a tornado was coming. But where do people go today in a storm? Probably just hunker down and pray, he thought, looking up at the sky. It was a dark purple to the west and as he looked back toward the rising sun he saw a deep blue sky making its entrance. No tornadoes in sight, it's going to be a beautiful day, he thought.

  Josey was still staring at the dark blue sky when he heard the truck pumps chugging sound change pitch- it was sucking dry. The swarm of flies was more than he'd ever seen before. He grumbled, “Damn, forgot to spray myself with bug spray. They're gonna eat me alive.”

  Pinching his nose shut, having learned the hard way flies will go up your nose if you don't, he ran for the truck. The flies were everywhere, piloting into his eyes, hair, ears, nose, and mouth. It was disgusting and they bit too. Squinting, he walked through the cloud of flies until he found the pump switch and switched it off.

  The pump fell silent. The buzzing swarm of flies and the sound of birds mixed together, making him feel momentarily confused and a little dizzy. Josey stumbled and ran back away from the truck to where the hose was still attached to the septic tank. He ran into someone and heard them fall with a thud. The flies had thinned out enough for him to catch his breath and open his eyes. Quickly gasping for air, he looked down at the man he had knocked over in his dash away from the flies.

  The man was face down on the ground wearing a torn long sleeved dirty blue and white checkered shirt, dirty blue jeans, red bandana, a greasy baseball cap, but no shoes. He saw the man's feet were all scratched and covered in open cuts and lesions.

  He must be drunk, he thought, reaching down to shake the man's shoulder. “Hey! You okay?”

  The man moved slowly to his hands and knees and Josey reached down to help him up. Josey's hand was only inches away when the man seized it with frightening strength. He gasped when he saw the man's bloody fingers and his skin which looked grayish black and like it had been torn at by dogs. The fingernails dug into his hand, and even through the thick leather gloves he felt them stabbing his hand.

  “Damn it! Knock that shit off and let go!“ He yelled, yanking his hand back, then he saw the man’s face.

  Face? Well yes once it may have been a face, but now it looked a lot like what was left of the rabbit this morning minus the furry cuteness. He squealed, in a very unmanly fashion, and gagged at the same time as he fell back in shock. The now standing man started to walk toward him.

  Josey would often say, usually at a bar, after a few drinks, “My momma raised a lot of Hell, but she never raised a coward who would turn tail and run from any man.” He kept backing away thinking about that phrase and decided he'd never use it again if he lived past the next few minutes. That boast sometimes ended a fight before it began or if the other guy made some suggestion about other things his momma used to do would set one off.

  “Nope, never saying that again.” he muttered to himself and quickly turned to run. “Son of-!” he shouted, as he felt and heard his knee pop out of joint just like it had last month while playing basketball. He fell forward ungracefully onto the ground.

  “Damn it!” he roared, in blind pain, face down on the dusty pavement. Flies buzzed and flew into his face making him gag. He exhaled hard through his nose, trying to evict the flies which had already started exploring his nostrils. In a normal situation he'd have taken the time to carefully pop the knee back in place, but under the circumstances he didn't have the luxury of time. The man was on his feet grunting and moving toward him. Rolling onto his back, Josey looked up as the man came closer. Clenching his teeth, he pulled the disjointed knee with his hands and felt it pop back into place.

  Knowing that it might pop again, he pulled himself backward scooting across the dusty pavement on his butt toward the truck's cab as the man followed him. More flies began investigating his mouth and nose, and he gave up worrying about them. Yes, they were disgusting and unpleasant but there are only so many things a person can deal with at one time.

  The man followed while he searched his mind for a better word. It may have been a man at one time, yet now it was what... a monster? Okay sure, a monster, but what kind is he? Josey thought frantically, backing toward the truck's cab unwilling to turn his back on him. The manlike thing that walked toward him seemed to be smiling, yet the large patches of missing skin on his face made it hard to be certain. He thought of those late night movies he watched when he was a kid and his parents thought he'd gone to sleep. A zombie? It couldn't be. A walking corpse was the stuff of nightmares and cheesy books not a Monday morning at an old trailer park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, yet here it is. Josey thought frantically, hoping it was all just a bad dream.

  Josey gagged as he scooted back deeper into the swarm of flies. As they began flying in and around his mouth and nose in greater numbers, he felt this just had to be a nightmare. His vision was obscured as he coughed and felt more nauseous while scooting away from the approaching figure. Not being able to see, with the swarm of flies all around him, he reached up and felt for the truck's door handle. Gagging and spitting out flies, he painfully opened the door and pulled himself up into the truck cab. After slamming and locking the door shut, he trapped a good size cloud of ravenous flies inside with him.

  He grabbed the can of bug spray and didn't pause a moment to consider the label's dire warning printed in big red letters of using only in 'a well ventilated area'. Instead, he quickly pressed the button spraying poison all over himself and the cab of the truck. Josey coughed on the fumes, as he wiped his face, and blew a few flies out of his nose into his handkerchief. He heard a tapping sound and saw the man standing outside. His fingers were sliding all over the door's window, leaving dirty blood trails on the glass.

  “That's it!” he shouted, starting the truck and wrestling the transmission into first gear. Swearing, he glanced ahead and saw a group of men coming. He didn't take time to count, but there had to be at least twenty of them and they were within a few seconds of reaching the truck. As he got the transmission into gear, he yelled at the horde of zombies. “Adios! Mother Fuckers!”

  The truck lurched forward and died so suddenly and completely, he almost started to cry. He thought maybe he had it in the wrong gear and looked down at the stick shift. It was in first gear as he tried to start the engine again.

  “What the-?” he started to say, then slapped his forehead. “Damn hose is still hooked up to the septic tank! Fuck!” he shouted, turning the key again as the engine sputtered yet refused to start. It’s flooded, he thought frantically. “This is fucked up.” Josey said, never being known for understating the obvious, while continuing to turn the key with no success.

  The men surrounded the truck cab, with some of them climbing on the hood. It's just like one of those stupid movies, he thought. He wouldn't look at their faces, as he felt his stomach churning, afraid he'd throw up again. What frightened him, almost as much as their appearance, were the sounds coming from the mangled group of former men- now apparently zombies. In the movies they're usually mute or moaning, but these guys were mostly making a weird grunting noise accompanied by the sound of fists and scratching fingers as they continued to beat on the truck.

  A loud scream, followed by several others, made Josey look around frantically. The passenger side window was hit by a large brick and cracked. The engine continued to sputter as he pumped the gas and shouted “Come on!”

  The passenger side window shattered to tiny pieces as the brick wielder swung again. In seconds, a thin wiry man was
crawling through the broken window. He was moving fast and screaming as he crawled toward Josey. If he had a gun he would've happily shot him, but since all he had was a can of bug spray he used that. Squirting him in the face, the poisonous spray coated the wiry man from his bloody eyes to his mouth. He looked confused for a second before tearing at his eye sockets while screaming. Digging and scratching at his eyes with his fingernails the wiry man howled louder as bright red blood began to flow down his cheeks.

  Josey whacked him on the side of his head with the heavy metal toolbox, shouting “No! Get out! No!”

  The wiry man stopped screaming and tearing at his eyes. He shook his head and started crawling forward again, sniffing loudly, as blood continued to pour out of his ruined eye sockets.

  That was more than enough for Josey. He snatched his pack of nicotine gum and his toolbox before shoving open the driver side door with as hard a push as he could manage. Several of the apparent zombies fell over backward and into others. He climbed gingerly out, favoring his bad knee, and pulled his long crowbar from behind the driver’s seat. Using the crowbar as a cane, he limped shakily a few yards away and thought quickly about his extremely limited options. The Remlap house was much too far away, but what about the trailers? He glanced over his shoulder at the old man’s trailer and realized it was also too far- at least a quarter mile away and his knee was trembling and throbbing painfully as he stood there. As the men moved toward him a few started screeching loudly and were moving much faster than the rest, maybe somehow sensing his lack of escape.

  Out of options, he was about to swing the crowbar at the nearest man when he remembered the laundry building. He limped backward and tried not to trip or hurt his knee worse than it already was. Josey was moving slowly, but thanks to merciful God most of them were slower.

  The man he had sprayed, had gotten out of the truck and ran through the crowd of slower moving men knocking a few onto the ground as he came. Sniffing the air, he held the can of bug spray in one hand.

  Josey leaned against the big metal tank on the back of the truck, and hit the fast moving blind man who was screaming in his face with the crowbar. The iron bar struck him on the side of his head. It wasn't much of a hit, but he dropped the can of bug spray and fell back into the crowd of pursuers. Multiple screams were coming from all directions and Josey limped faster.

  Stepping through the doorway of the dilapidated building, he tried to avoid the nails and boards which almost blocked the entry entirely. After hobbling inside, he threw boards and various other bits of junk into the doorway and looked quickly around the room. He saw the long row of washers and dryers, and carefully made his way over to the old rusting machines. The dryers were much lighter than the washers, as he well knew from his last job delivering appliances for Loco Larry's retail outlet. He yanked and pulled on one of them, as he heard the boards and other debris in the doorway being pulled down. Grunting and yanking on the rusty machine, he felt it snag on the power cord. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw one of the men halfway in crawling through the debris and others pushing and trying to climb over him.

  “Come on you big bastard.” he grunted. After he felt the cord rip from the wall, he heaved as hard as he could, sending the dryer flying through the air into the doorway. It landed with a terrific metallic crash on top of the man who had fallen and been crawling in. He seized the next dryer in line and pulled harder, feeling the cord again rip from the wall. Hefting the dryer as a smaller man might toss a bale of hay, he threw it with fairly good accuracy on top of the other one in the doorway. The door of the dryer sprang open and a collection of long ago abandoned panties and bras fell out.

  Everyone thought being a big guy was a blessing, but Josey knew better. With the exception of being able to make a barricade out of rusty major appliances, during a rare zombie attack, being a big man sucked. Standing over six feet tall, he'd suffered back pains and even managed to throw it out completely a couple of times. Plus when you're tall, it's much farther when you fall down to the ground whether due to a bout of drinking or being surprised by a pack of apparent zombies in an old trailer park on a Monday morning. Finally there was Josey's most hated thing about being tall, short bastards who wanted to impress someone by getting in a fight to show how tough they were.

  It was more annoying than anything else. Little guys coming up, bumping into you, trying to start a fight when all Josey wanted was a few minutes to enjoy a beer or hang out with some friends. He had always tried to follow the principle of live and let live yet when pushed too far he'd managed, throughout the years, to send several short guys with an inferiority complex to various medical facilities.

  Of course, the dirty little secret is, it's always a winning scenario for the little guy who gets a big guy to fight him. If the little guy wins, it's always a David vs. Goliath victory. But even if he loses, the little guy still can come away saying the big guy wouldn't have won if they'd both been the same size.

  Josey limped over to the doorway, spotting a man's head and groping arms under the bottom dryer. The men or zombies, Josey hadn't made up his mind yet, started pushing on the top dryer. It would soon slide off unless somehow braced in place. His knee still throbbed and shook unsteadily while he considered the much heavier washing machines. He was sure they’d never be able to move one of them. The only problem was if he tried to move them he could hurt himself worse, maybe even throw out his back. The idea of lying on his back, in a dilapidated building with no roof, surrounded by dozens of zombies convinced Josey not to try it. He leaned his crowbar against the dryers in the doorway and looked around the room.

  The candy machines front glass had long ago been broken out, but its large six by three foot metal frame seemed fairly sturdy if not overly heavy. Climbing over boards and broken glass he pulled on the big machine. It was heavier than it looked and hard to maneuver, but he managed to push it over onto its side. He was pushing the rusty machine toward the doorway, when he heard a metallic crash as the top dryer fell back into the laundry room. With several feet left to reach the doorway, he saw a man already climbing over the bottom dryer with others pushing and starting to follow him inside.

  “Give me a break.” he muttered, realizing they'd be in the room before he got to the entrance unless he dealt with them first. He hobbled over to the dryers and picked up the crowbar that had fallen. Turning back to the doorway, he saw the first man fall into the room as two more were climbing over the bottom dryer. The boards creaked and snapped, as he walked gingerly over them and swung the crowbar like a baseball bat. He aimed at the man that had already fallen into the room.

  “Will you guys just drop dead!” he shouted, swinging the crowbar. It slammed into the man’s torso, making a sickening crunch and a juicy wet sound. The man flew backward and knocked one of the two men still on the dryer back through the doorway. The other fell into the laundry room and he recognized him as the one he'd sprayed in the truck, with the mangled eyes.

  His sore knee started to spasm and he gasped in pain. Losing his balance, he fell toward the wall nearest the door. He dropped the crowbar and grabbed onto a board propped next to the wall, and felt a rusty six inch nail pierce his hand. He screamed and looked at his leather gloved hand as several men outside the building screamed in response.

  “Shut the fuck up!” He yelled, back through the doorway. The bloody metal nail point poked out a couple of inches through the palm of his hand. As he stared at it, he no longer felt fear as much as a growing anger. Watching the blinded man stagger deeper into the room, apparently unable to tell where he was, Josey bit his lip and yanked his hand back off the nail. He felt it slide sickeningly back through his flesh. If all that happens to me today is Tetanus, I'll be the happiest septic tank drainer in the whole damn world, he thought absently. He was panting and about to reach for the fallen dryer when he felt something grasp his leg from behind. He fell with his back against the wall, barely avoiding the same nail protruding board. Looking down, he saw the man pinned u
nder the dryer pulling on his right pant leg. The man couldn't stand, yet held firmly on to his pants and the crowbar was half under it.

  “You won’t be happy until someone bashes in your damn head, will you?” He asked, grabbing the long board with the nail in it- careful not to stab himself again. Josey swung it at the man’s head. It hit with a loud cracking noise and his skull split open like a rotten soft boiled egg. A foul stench filled the air as his grayish green brains oozed out. He felt his stomach almost heave again as he saw the others had already started coming back in. Josey swung the board toward the entrance where the others were climbing in. It knocked them back through the doorway. He threw the board after them shouting, “Piss off! Go eat someone else! I saw some fat cripples in wheelchairs, down the road! Go get them!”

  Grabbing onto the fallen dryer, he lifted it using his good leg as much as possible and crammed it tightly into the doorway. He wedged it in hard so it wouldn't slip off as easily this time. Taking a minute, he double checked the man who had made it in with his mangled eyes. He was on his back and making pitiful grunting noises several yards away, apparently having fallen over some debris and getting himself stuck. Ignoring him, Josey limped slowly back to the candy machine. As he reached out to grab it he noticed his right glove had begun dripping red splotches of blood and his hand felt numb. Swearing a long stream of colorful profanities he pushed the machine the last few feet, and propped it against the dryers in the doorway. Still not satisfied, he jammed boards against both the candy machine and the dryers.