by William Bebb
“I got her covered.” Willie said aiming his gun at Maria, who was sitting in the truck with her hands on the dashboard. Boris looked from one officer to the other, growling softly.
Josey stood still, with his hands up in the air, looking at the hood of his truck and thought. All this, I survived all this shit just to get shot by a cop. He's going to shoot me as soon as he sees what's on the hood. God help me.
Bo saw the big man shaking his head staring at the hood of the truck. He glanced over and then looked again. There was a bloody severed foot in a sandal on the hood.
“Officer, I- I can explain. I know this looks bad, but I really can explain.” Josey said, and turned to look back behind him.
"Okay, just shut up. Slowly lean over the hood Mr. Hitler. Put your hands behind your back. Stay sharp, Willie.” Bo said, with his gun pointed at Josey.
Josey sighed, and leaned forward trying to avoid the smoldering foot. In seconds, the cold metal handcuffs slapped onto his wrists as Bo came up behind him.
“Hey Bo, something’s burning down in the park and good God there’s bodies everywhere.” Willie said, from the other side of the truck. He saw someone wearing an ICE uniform crawling in the roadway a few feet behind the truck. The man looked badly hurt and Willie trotted to where he was.
A dog barked from the cab of the truck, as the girl inside yelled something at Bo.
“Willie, get your fat ass back here. Go back to the squad car and call for backup!” he yelled, as he saw him run past the truck. Dumbass. We got enough crap to deal with without you running off. Bo thought.
“Now get down on the ground, Mr. Hitler.” Bo said, pushing Josey off the hood onto the dusty road. Josey felt and heard his nose break as he landed hard, face first, on the ground.
Lying in the dusty road, Josey cried out at the sudden flash of pain.
Boris had seen enough. He leapt through the open driver side door and knocked Bo over on his butt. Bo yelped as he hit the ground and saw the dog licking Hitler's face.
Maria yelled, “Be careful.”
Bo thought she meant be careful of the big guy on the ground or the dog. All he could make out from her yelling was “careful monsters! and leave him alone!” Boris growled and stood between him and the man on the ground. Bo aimed his gun at the snarling dog. God, I hate to shoot a dog, he thought.
Two screams rang out simultaneously. One sounded like Willie, the other was the little boy. The kid ran down the road, shouting “'Don't you shoot my dog!” The lady from the car was chasing the kid and Willie's yelling was more annoying than anything else. Bo backed up to see where Willie was and saw him kicking a badly injured man slowly crawling on the road.
“Willie! What the fuck are you doing? Leave that man alone and get back over here, now!” Bo yelled, getting madder by the second. Willie trudged back up the road cradling his injured hand and grumbling to himself.
Bo turned back to the dog and saw the boy was on his knees hugging it. The boy stared up ferociously and was yelling at him. The woman in the truck was yelling something and pointing at Willie. Bo put his gun back in his holster as the lady yelled at the boy to get back in her car. He was surrounded by chaotic screaming people and had reached his breaking point.
“Everyone shut up!” Bo yelled.
The yelling stopped. He looked at the boy and could see he'd been crying and looked like he was ready to die to protect the mangy dog. “Look kid if it’s your dog fine, get him and go with that lady back to her car. This is a bad man. I don't want to see you get hurt, okay?”
“That beast most certainly is not his dog. Billy get away from that filthy thing, right now. It's going to bite you.” Cheryl said, walking closer.
The boy ignored his mom and held Boris closer. When he saw Willie's bloody hand as he walked up beside Bo, his face paled. “Did someone bite you?” Billy asked, in a shaky voice.
Bo looked at Willie and his bloody hand.
“Damn right. That’s what you get for trying to help somebody. The dirty fucker bit me.” Willie said, looking angrily back down the road.
“He's going to turn into a zombie, shoot him!” Billy shouted at Bo.
“What?” Bo asked, looking at the boy, confused.
“Boy's right. Be careful.” Came the distorted, yet scared, voice of the cuffed man on the dusty road.
“They're telling the truth, just look at him!” Maria shouted, from inside the truck.
Bo looked at each as they spoke, but it was the dog that made him finally back away from Willie. It stopped looking at Bo and growled loudly while staring at Willie. The dog's hair bushed out as its body trembled. Still staring at the dog, Bo smelled urine and excrement close by. He turned and saw Willie trembling with his mouth hanging open, drooling. Bo backed further away from him when he started convulsing and screaming. He pulled his gun and pointed it at Willie, watching in horrified fascination, as the whites of his eyes changed within seconds to a bright red color.
“Willie?” Bo asked, nervously.
Willie's face twisted in rage as he ran straight at Bo, with his arms outstretched screaming. Bo fired fast and accurately. Three shots hit dead center torso and Willie flew backward collapsing on the ground where he shook for a moment then died. Oh shit. What the fuck did I do? I'm so fucked. Bo thought, putting his gun back in his holster.
Billy's mom fainted and fell beside Josey, in the dust.
“You gotta shoot him in the head.” Billy said in a scolding tone of voice, looking up at Bo while shuddering, and backing closer to Josey's sword lying in the dust.
“Boy's right, you have to shoot him in the head.” Came Josey's distorted voice, from the ground.
“El hombre de la cabeza! Do it now! Shoot his head!” Maria screamed.
Bo looked confused. “He's dead. Everyone calm down and everything will be okay. I don't know what's been going on out here, but you all need to calm down. Whatever happened to my partner is done with, he's dead. How I'm going to explain all this I have no idea, but it's all over now.”
Billy looked past Bo with his eyes widening. “If he's dead why's he getting up again?” He asked, reaching down and grabbing the sword handle. The boy stood holding the sword, beside Josey and his unconscious mother, trembling but with a determined look on his face.
Bo whirled around as Willie stood up, yelled, and ran forward.
“Son of a bitch!” Bo fired the rest of his clip. The shots burst Willie Dunn's head like an overripe watermelon stuffed with dynamite.
Hours later, six big green National Guard trucks were lined up neatly near a small tent city that had sprung up near the old laundry building. Troops in hazardous materials suits were methodically searching for any remaining people- alive, infected, dead, or undead.
Other soldiers, also in haz-mat suits piled bodies and wood in the old laundry building which had been soaked down with gasoline. Three helicopters hovered over different areas, relaying sightings of people to the ground forces. The foul stench of rotting bodies competed with the smells from the thousands of gallons of raw sewage as other soldiers shot and killed any birds in the area.
Stephen Keck parked his elegant black Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren car, in front of the military trucks. Even with the door still closed it smelled very unpleasant. Keck got out and brushed back his hair as he looked around. He caught a whiff of the plethora of hideously foul smells drifting around the trailer park and lit a cigar. He looked at the Rolex on his wrist and felt annoyed. He leaned against the trunk of his car, puffing his cigar, looking thoughtful. First, the sheriff calls me up, tells me to get over here and now nobody takes a minute to tell me where the fuck he is. These fuckers don't know who they're dealing with, that's for damn sure. I'll give him just one more minute to get over here or I'm going to- A large hairy knuckled hand landed on his shoulder, breaking his deep thoughts. Startled, he turned and looked into the chest of a very large man.
A state trooper, six foot five and endowed with a body builder's physique, hol
lered down at him as he exhaled cigar smoke. “You Keck!?”
Several soldiers looked over, then went about their duties, as Stephen looked up at the hulking giant and graced him with a slight nod of the head. He cleared his throat and spoke in a voice that trembled at the same time he tried to sound confident.
“I am Mr. Stephen Keck, from Beaumont Industries. I was invited here by the sheriff and if you don't get your hand off my shoulder right now I'll have you demoted to crossing guard by tomorrow morning. I have friends in very high places.”
Instead of removing his meaty hand the trooper squeezed it. Keck felt something cracking somewhere in his shoulder. The accompanying pain was a bit above agony but just short of torture. He squealed a high pitched string of syllables that came nowhere near forming actual words, until he was released. The trooper looked down at Keck in his Italian business suit and smiled.
“You can extinguish that cigar, right now, or I will be extremely happy to find a place to stick it for you.” The trooper said, in a gravelly voice, looking down as Keck's face turned bright red. Keck quickly dropped the cigar and ground it out under his three hundred dollar pair of imported shoes.
“Follow me, and DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING! If you do, I will shoot you in the head, and your body will be tossed on a bonfire. I shit you not. Do you understand me?” The trooper said, as a shower of spittle flew from with mouth.
Keck stuttered and finally said “I understand.”
The trooper turned and took a step, before he continued to speak. If only he could have left it at that simple two word statement, things might have gone better for him but of course he had to be himself and continued. “I wonder, my steroid addicted friend, if you understand who it is you're addressing?”
The trooper spun on his heel, his face an undisguised portrait of righteous fury. “I am addressing the sorry sack of shit responsible for this whole fucking mess. Now, shut the fuck up and follow me.” He said in a low voice, turned and walked to the sheriff department van that had not one but two deputies standing on guard duty at the door. Both looked extremely alert and professional. The deputies held their riot shotguns at the ready as the state trooper climbed up the van's metal creaking stairs.
The trooper opened the door and made an after you gesture. Stephen Keck walked into the blessedly cool air conditioned trailer and saw Sheriff Guteriz talking to some officers while gesturing to an aerial map of the valley. After a minute of being ignored Keck got bored and noticed a small plastic animal carrier, used for transporting pets, sitting on a counter. It had a piece of paper with a hastily written note taped on it. Keck leaned down, out of boredom, and read the note: Contents: 1 small monkey. Property of Charlie Farro. Do not touch or move without permission. -Bo Autry
Keck leaned down further and looked in the gloomy container. It was enclosed except for small metal bars on one end. He saw a suggestion of fur and thumped the carrier softly as the police continued to talk behind him. The monkey did not respond and he thumped the container again, a little harder. Keck was in a bad mood and bored. He picked up a pencil and slid it between the metal bars. When the pencil point poked the monkey in the box it moved. He leaned closer, wishing he had a flashlight. He poked the pencil in again and a loud screeching noise filled the air along with a small, messy, foul, smelly simian handful of excrement.
Cha-ka had often thrown droppings at her longtime enemy, Skynyrd the python, and her aim was still as good as ever.
“Shit!” Keck shouted stumbling away from the counter, wiping monkey feces out of his eye. Everyone in the van looked at him momentarily, as he wiped his face with a silk handkerchief. Conversations started again as Keck picked up the fallen pencil and started back to the monkey, with revenge on his mind. Cha-ka hissed softly as he bent over again to look in the carrier.
State Trooper Dennis Watson had watched Keck's antics long enough. He'd shot people he hated for a lot less and wondered if he could ask permission to take Keck outside for a few minutes. Instead, he walked up behind him as he bent over to bother the monkey again. Dumb ass gets shit flung in his eye and still doesn't learn. Maybe I can drive home the point, he thought, as he picked up a large sharpened pencil and stood behind him.
Keck made kissy noises to Cha-ka and started to insert the pencil again when he felt something sharp stab him in his rather large flabby right butt cheek. He tried to cry out but a big meaty hand covered his mouth and he couldn't. Hot breath filled his ear as Trooper Watson leaned down and whispered a series of promises. Not threats, he impressed upon the terrified executive, but promises of extremely unpleasant things he would do to him if he didn't sit down and behave himself.
“You going to be a good boy?” Watson whispered into his ear.
Keck nodded and the sharp pencil was withdrawn from his butt cheek. He felt nauseous, looking over his shoulder and saw the trooper had swiftly moved back by the door. Oh God, how that big ape is going to pay. I'll tell the sheriff. Oh screw it, I'll tell governor. He owes me enough favors. He thought looking at his watch, feeling this whole situation had been blown out of all proportion.
“Expand the perimeter to forty miles and I want every bush and arroyo checked by nightfall. Coordinate resources with that colonel, with the bad breath, over at the National Guard operations tent. Did you alert all towns, out to fifty miles, like I told you?”
A grim faced and uncharacteristically deeply serious looking Captain Lopez said “Yes sir.” and gave Keck a look like he'd like to beat the crap out of him.
“Good. Did that Med-Evac chopper get that Farro guy out and to the hospital yet?” Guteriz asked, looking over a notepad.
“Yes sir, bout ten minutes ago. Autry called in the report and said he was heading to the rendezvous point as per your instructions.” Lopez said, then coughed. “Sir, begging your pardon, but could I be excused. I'd appreciate some fresh air.” he said glaring at Keck.
“Actually, I'm going to take Mr. Keck on a stroll while the site is still ours. The Centers for Disease Control said they'd be arriving within the hour and will take over all operations. You two stay here. I'll be back in about thirty minutes. Also, one of you, don’t forget to call my wife. Have her pick up a birthday cake and stuff and take it to Memorial Hospital. Make sure she gets it done, like right now. Tell her only what she needs to know. You got the kid's name?”
Captain Lopez nodded and picked up the phone.
“Come on Stephen, let’s have a talk.” The sheriff said, putting on his hat and picking up a shot gun.
“Listen Manuel, I know things are fucked up but you have to believe I didn't know that any of this would ever happen.” Keck said, as they walked toward the western side of the park. What followed was a long drawn out account of how Keck wanted his old friend to see things. While Keck yammered on, saying things the sheriff knew were blatant lies, he just nodded his head and asked relevant questions when they seemed appropriate. They passed several squads of National Guard troops in search of anyone who might be left in the park, as the sun began to set.
When they reached a remote clearing Sheriff Gutirez summed up Keck's last fifteen minutes of explanations and outrageous fabrications. “So, what you’re telling me is that none of this was your fault? Not the original death at the factory, or the bribe you gave his coworkers to drag that poor bastard out here to dispose of the body? And I guess, looked at from your perspective, you certainly aren't responsible for all these innocent people including a few of my own officers who got killed. That's what you are trying to say right?” He asked the question in a friendly, almost conversational, manner in hopes Keck would say what he did next.
“Exactly. I'm glad we see eye to eye on this old buddy and don't you worry, I'll be sure to remember you come the next election season. I can be a great fundraiser for a man like you.” Keck said, smiling. He pulled out a cigar and offered the sheriff another one.
“No thanks, old buddy. Hey Bo! Would you like a cigar!?” The sheriff called over to the lieutenant standing wi
th a shotgun by an old trailer.
“Sure, thanks.” he said, walking over and taking one from the smiling Keck who was glad not to be in any serious trouble after all. He had been more than a little worried after Captain Lopez called him at the office and said be here at the trailer park in fifteen minutes or he'd be sitting in jail for the rest of his life. Plus the muscle brained state trooper had really scared him with that talk of shooting him in the head and throwing him on a bonfire. He considered mentioning the jerk stabbing him in the butt with a pencil, but decided to wait and not press his luck.
Bo lit the cigar while alert for any trouble nearby. He puffed on the cigar and faced the sunset as the sheriff looked deep in thought. He stood with his arms crossed and gave Keck one last look. He was sitting on a rusty paint can sucking on a cigar while the smell of burning flesh from the bonfire he'd ordered drifted across the park. He wandered behind Keck, ran his finger across his own neck, so Bo could see and nodded with a grim look on his face.
Bo had been hoping the sheriff would go for his plan. He smiled and ambled back over to them. “Hey you guys wanna see the funniest thing ever?”
The sheriff walked over and helped Keck stand up. “You should stick with us Amigo. We certainly don't want anything bad to happen to a man like you, do we?”
“Thanks Manuel.” Glad he understands who the boss really is. It's just like my Golden Rule says- He who has the gold rules. He thought, smiling.
Bo stepped over a rusty chain and said in a near whisper “If you look down in the hole you can see it.”
The sheriff stopped, bent over and tied his shoe. “Just a second Bo.”