by Jason Offutt
He took the shotgun from the seat next to Maryanne, a moaning, bucking Maryanne, her hand down the front of her pants, masturbating. He laid the weapon across his lap.
Darryl punched the gas sending flies clinging to the swinging bodies buzzing off in waves. A crowd of people rushed from the shadows of the buildings and into the street behind them. Some fired shots that went wild. Some, Darryl saw in his mirror, shot each other. “Oh, yeah, baby,” Maryanne screamed from the seat next to him. “Drive, drive, drive.”
Darryl drove. By the time Maryanne had finished and fallen asleep, he’d pulled off Interstate 435 toward the amusement park Worlds of Fun, signs along the highway proclaimed “Survival Shelter.” He sure as fuck hoped so. She was probably going to kill him one way or another.
July 7: Savannah, Missouri
Chapter 12
Tears dried on Nikki’s cheeks as Gene Holleran’s Harley-Davidson rumbled up Interstate 29. Everything she knew was gone. Sure, the buildings were there, and St. Joseph was just as friendly as it ever was with its darkened storefronts and danger at every corner, but everything important to her was gone, just gone. The Piper had taken most of it; her father, her friends, her civilization. The shit residue of people left behind took the rest. ‘A little present for Danny Boy,’ the Greasyman had said as he walked toward her, probably already sporting the beginnings of a hard on, as he stalked her in her house, her own house, a place she should have been safe.
‘Don’t worry, porky. I won’t hurt you too bad.’ No, you won’t, cocksucker. You won’t hurt me at all. Nikki pulled the bike toward an off ramp, an arrow on the billboard sporting “Jesse’s Last Stand Convenience Store: 25-cent hotdogs” pointing to the west. The coward Bob Ford assassinated outlaw Jesse James in Nikki’s town more than 110 years before she was born and people still used the name of that sociopath on everything, even convenience stores that sold Powerball tickets and quarter hotdogs. At least they used to. If she never heard the name Jesse James again, she’d be just fine.
The off ramp took her to Business U.S. 71 through the nearby town Savannah, home of the politically incorrect Savannah High School Savages, their American Indian mascot staring toward the sky as she drove by the high school. No one in the area thought twice about the name. Only people from places with too few things to occupy their time raised a fuss over the school mascot. If any were still alive they were busy running from the new breed of savages, none of whom were probably offended by the high school mascot. Savannah had been a fine enough town, a Subway, Dairy Queen, Pizza Shoppe restaurant; everything short of a Wal-Mart to keep it going. Now it was dead. Nothing moved in the streets, grass and weeds already grew between cracks in the asphalt. Nikki slowed the bike when a stoplight on Business U.S. 71 switched to yellow a block in front of her, her mind quickly calculated it would turn red before she reached it. A grin slowly crawled across her face as she gunned the bike and shot through the now-red light. There were no rules anymore, none but what you made yourself, and she didn’t want to stop at a stupid red traffic light.
What did the rest of the world look like? she wondered, the drone of the Harley’s motor somewhere in the back of her mind. Were the Chinese or the resurging Russians licking their chops at the thought of a desolate United States sitting across the water like a cheap buffet, ready for poor families to storm in and pick it clean? Or were they dead, too, lying in pools of their own blood, growing beards of gray fungus? Nikki wished she’d spent her time watching “16 and Pregnant” like Tammy and laid off Fox News and CNN, and she’d be more worried if Taylor and Nathan could ever patch it up for the sake of their baby, Aubri Rose, than knowing what was going on in the world. Being blind to life is easy. She gunned the bike and shot up Business U.S. 71, the Shop ’N Hop gas station was close to the highway on-ramp, and she had shopping to do.
A big Budweiser truck sat outside the Shop ’N Hop, a side door rolled up revealing box after box of Bud Light. The deliveryman lay face-first on the pavement, a lump on his back pushed against the gray material of his work shirt, six cases of beer spilled over the parking lot. Gene had come home one day after work grinning like a kid who’d just found a prize in the bottom of a cereal box, a couple of cases of beer in his arms. “These fell off a truck,” he’d told Nikki’s mom about three months before she died. “I flagged down the driver, but he told me if a can popped out of a six-pack ring, they couldn’t sell it, so he gave this to me.” Nikki’s mom laughed and hugged her husband, not knowing a few months later a college student talking on a cell phone would drive her over in the street.
Nikki pulled into the convenience store parking lot and killed the Harley’s motor; this northwest Missouri city that once housed 4,762 people dead quiet under the midday sun. A dog barked blocks away. Nikki hadn’t heard a dog in a while; it didn’t sound comforting. She slowly drew her leg over the seat of the Harley and stepped to the pavement on weak legs; weak not from the motorcycle, but from fear. What lay behind that plate-glass door of the convenience store that sat before her like the gates of hell? The Greasyman, his now full hard on fighting its way through his jeans, filled her mind. Was Savannah’s Greasyman behind that door? Do I need to go in? Yes, I do, Nikki thought, answering herself. She needed more gas for the road, she needed more water than the milk jug she’d filled before leaving the house, and she needed tampons, or would soon enough.
A bell jingled when Nikki slowly pulled open the door, this absent background noise as loud as the Harley to Nikki in the small convenience store. She froze, waiting for the rush of a body toward her. It didn’t come. She was alone. Nikki grabbed two cases of bottled water, a five-gallon gas can, and walked cautiously back to the parking lot. The bottled water slid easily into the trailer, and the pumps were still on. Sweat ran down Nikki’s back, partly from the summer heat, partly from fear. Something was wrong here. She could feel it pressing against her like the heat from a fire. The can filled painfully slow with gasoline as she stood by the pumps, nervously scanning the city streets around her, the only noise in the still day the clicking of the gas pump, and the dog. The fucking dog had gotten closer. “Come on, come on,” Nikki whispered under her breath. Two gallons, three gallons, four. Movement. The dog, a big brown mutt, sniffed its way around a small, pale yellow house. Nikki stood still, her breath came in shallow huffs. It crouched next to the porch and barked. A small brown ball scampered from under the steps and shot through the yard – a rabbit; the dog ran after it. “Shit,” Nikki whispered, as gas gushed over the lip of the can and spilled onto the asphalt. She slid the gas handle back into its cradle with a click, screwed the lid on the can and set it in the trailer. Nikki couldn’t see the dog anymore. She hoped it caught that sqwewy rabbit.
Nikki didn’t notice the bell this time as she stepped back into the Shop ’N Hop, grabbed a basket and walked up each aisle, stuffing the basket with beef jerky, peanuts, pain relievers, coffee, chocolate, toilet paper, and cans of pork and beans, spaghetti, chili, beef stew, and chicken soup. She paused at the end of the aisle; something silver caught her eye. A can opener hung from a peg, the price tag read $2.45. Nikki smiled.
“Sorry guys,” she said as she pulled the tool off the peg and dropped it in the basket. “That’s a bit too steep. I’m going to have to shoplift.” Nikki turned toward the door and froze, her breath stopped dead in her throat. A man, who was a banker by his nametag, loomed outside the door, his white shirt yellowed with sweat and spotted with blood, a red paisley tie hung loosely around his neck. He coughed, and red splattered the glass. Nikki’s heart pounded against her chest; she screamed, the sound pierced the small room.
The Banker pushed open the door, his hand smeared blood across the glass. Nikki screamed again, the jingle of the bell hanging by a string off the door again driven to the background.
“Help me,” he wheezed, as he tried to step forward, but stopped, holding the door to keep standing on shaky legs. “Help me.”
“Stay back,” Nikki screamed at the Banker,
stepping back and hitting a display of Little Debbie’s. Chocolate cream-filled cakes scattered across the floor behind her. The man’s breath came heavy and hard, blood dribbled down his mouth, red spots appeared on his white shirt.
“I’m, uh, I’m dyin’,” he said, gurgling.
He had the Outbreak, or whatever; that much was certain. Nikki wasn’t afraid of the Outbreak anymore. She hadn’t caught it from the fat businessman at Hooligans, she hadn’t caught it from her own father, if it was something she could catch at all. She was beginning to buy the load from all the Internet bloggers. It was the antidepressant that infected people, like her dad.
“Stay away from me,” she said, pointing at the Banker, her hand shaking. “You stay the hell away from me.”
The man leaned against the door, pinning it open, and pushed a shaky hand into his pants pockets. He pulled out a pistol. Nikki took another step back, squishing a pack of Zingers beneath her sneakers. The man’s eyes, rimmed red with blood, grew wide with surprise. He shook his head and coughed.
“No,” he whispered. “I’m not. I’m. I’m. I’m not going to hurt you.” He paused, breathing hard, his lungs sounded to Nikki like they were full of liquid. They probably were, Nikki knew, probably with blood. He held the gun in his open palm. “Kill me,” he wheezed. “Please kill me.”
“I…” Nikki started, and stood stock still as the Banker’s legs collapsed beneath him and he dropped to the floor; the door slammed against his body that lay in the doorway, and held it open. Nikki stepped slowly toward the man, eyeing the gun next to him.
His eyes swam like a cheap doll’s as he tried to focus. Nikki walked into his field of vision and he reached for her, she took a step back. “Ple… please kill me,” he said. “We hid. We hid away. Away from the Outbreak. As long as we could.” He paused to catch his breath. “But my wife, my daughter, she’s in college. Dead. All dead. They moved for a while, but they, they didn’t know me, they didn’t know anything.” He caught his breath again, this time it took longer, much longer. Tears of blood began to flow. “They’re covered with something. Some kind of shit is growing on them. One of these ball things exploded and got all over me. I can. I can’t live anymore.” You won’t, ran through Nikki’s head as she stood, looking at the dying man, his left hand quivered dangerously close to the pistol. “Please.”
She shook her head; tears ran from her eyes. “I can’t,” barely came out of her mouth. “I can’t.” Nikki gripped the handle of the basket and eyed the door pinned open by the Banker’s body. She couldn’t kill the Banker; she couldn’t even kill the Greasyman. She knew she couldn’t kill anybody. She walked slowly toward him, the Banker’s entire body quivering now. Nikki stepped over the man, and walked through the open door.
“Puh. Puh. Please,” came from beneath her. She lifted her leg over the dying man and set it flat on the pavement, exhaled, and ran to the Harley. Nikki threw the basket into the trailer, slammed the door, and jumped onto the bike. She fired it up, covering the dying Banker’s pleads with the motorcycle roar. Nikki slid her helmet over her brown, unkempt hair – something that didn’t seem important anymore – and saw she wasn’t alone. The dog, the big brown mutt, stood fifteen feet from her, its muzzle red from the rabbit bared toward her – its white teeth ominous.
“Fuck you, Fido,” Nikki said between her teeth as she gunned the bike and went right at it, the beast scampered away from the motorcycle as it ran back toward the highway. She didn’t look back, tears streamed down her face. Nikki knew what she’d see; the Banker getting his wish at the teeth of the feral dog.
Twenty miles later she realized she’d forgotten to grab Tampons.
July 7: Clarinda, Iowa
Chapter 13
Corn stood tall and green in the fields that spread across Nodaway Valley, running in long, straight lines, some with the highway, others away from it and up over the hills. Stacy Tracy thought the corn beautiful. Growing up in Philadelphia, the only cornfields he’d seen were 30,000 feet below him on flights to Des Moines on his way to visit family, or on late night infomercials about the twenty-disc DVD “Hee Haw” collection. Corn, to him, was something home-style restaurants served next to mashed potatoes. He knew enough, however, that these great, green, orderly fields that ran beside him would be a tangled jungle in a few years, corn playing host to weeds, grass, and trees that would soon retake the land. Stacy flew into Des Moines June 4, to spend the weekend with his family in Atlantic, Iowa, for Grammy’s 80th birthday – then the Outbreak hit. Airplanes stopped running, soon after trains and buses, then people. Grammy lived to see her birthday before she died, dropping from her wheelchair onto her kitchen floor, her cake still at the grocery store, probably moldy or brittle as Styrofoam. Nobody in the family was alive to buy it; nobody except Stacy. He ran to the telephone in the living room and tried to call an ambulance, but no one answered. When Stacy turned back toward the kitchen, Grammy stood in the doorway, her always sharp eyes unseeing. She stood on legs she hadn’t fully used in three years. She fell again, and didn’t get back up. Stacy said a prayer over Grammy and buried her in the backyard next to the birdfeeder she loved to sit and watch on summer evenings. That was a month ago. The phone lines were down, the Internet was down, there was no way for him to get home except to drive. And who the hell wants to drive to Philadelphia? But he couldn’t stay anymore – the food Grammy had squirreled away was nearly gone. He had to find more.
Stacy lashed a small trailer to the bumper of Grammy’s 1996 Geo Metro with bailing wire and bungee cords, loaded it with empty gas cans he hoped to fill at the Sinclair station down the street, and water jugs he filled from the bathtub tap. He sat in the front seat, the small engine sending only a slight vibration through the cab, and slowly spun through the radio dial. Static, just static as he scanned FM. Stacy clicked the switch to AM and scanned again. In the 700s, a voice crackled through. “… shelter at Worlds of Fun. There is a survivor’s shelter at the Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City, Missouri. Food, beds, and water.” More static, then it started again. “There is a survivor’s shelter at the Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City, Missouri...” Then it repeated, and repeated, and repeated. Automated, Stacy knew, but it was something. Kansas City, Missouri. Everyone back home was dead. They had to be; the people at his accounting office, Marcia with the great legs, the office manager Tim, and Denny – fucking Denny who ate out of everyone’s lunch. The people in his life he knew were gone, too, like Tracie. He’d had three dates with Tracie, beautiful Tracie with bobbed, deep brown hair, green eyes flecked with gold, and a smile that did all but hypnotize him. They had a drink at the airport as he waited for his flight to Des Moines, his a domestic beer, hers an import, and Stacy teased her about being Tracie Tracy, married to Stacy Tracy. She’d laughed an honest laugh. Stacy didn’t want her to be dead, but as he put the Geo in drive and drove toward the Sinclair station, then hopefully toward the Signal in Kansas City, he knew she probably was.
A white cat scampered across the city streets as Stacy made his way to the highway. No people though. He drove with the window down, hoping to hear something human. A car, music, a fight, anything. The Sinclair station where Stacy had bought beer on his first night in town loomed over him as he walked to the front door like something evil. Thoughts of men with knives, waiting for him between the aisles of Doritos and motor oil, ran through his head. His hand stopped when his fingers touched the metal door handle, still cool in the Iowa morning. He swallowed hard and pulled open the door. Someone – many someones – had cleared the Sinclair station of food and beer; a few stray water bottles and jugs of iced tea dotted the walk-in coolers, a package of cheese puffs sat on the floor. Someone had stepped on the bag of orange corn and grease, many times. Fine enough, Stacy hated cheese puffs. But at least the electricity was still on in town. He filled the gas cans and drove south.
An hour later there was only highway and corn, the occasional car or truck stopped on the highway, a decomposing b
ody with tendrils of gray mold stretching over every piece of exposed skin slumped in the seat, the smell grabbing Stacy and holding onto him for miles. Nothing unnatural moved outside his windows as the car hummed south, nothing but birds and deer, their lithe, graceful bodies bounding away from the coming car, white tail up alerting danger. “Clarinda: 13 miles,” a road sign read as he drove past Villisca, Iowa, home of the haunted Axe Murder House and not much else. When Poppy was alive, he and Grammy took twelve-year-old Stacy and his cousins to watch the minor league Clarinda A’s play baseball, and they stopped by the Axe Murder House as a surprise on the way home, its Amityville Horror windows scaring the children too much for anyone to go inside. Stacy drove past the off ramp because there was no reason to see a haunted house. With the number of people the Outbreak had picked off, the whole fucking planet was probably haunted. But he slowed the Geo and turned off the highway to a Casey’s convenience store. This was a small town; if the Outbreak hit Villisca like everywhere else, there probably weren’t as many people to take all the food.
Fluorescent lights shone in the store as Stacy pulled open the door, a bell on a string alerting the empty building of his presence. Stacy froze. No movement. He was alone – except for the smell. As he walked cautiously through the store, boxes full of beef jerky and peanut packets sitting on the shelves alongside great bags of chips and popcorn, pizzas cooked probably a month ago sat on the still revolving glass-lined display, sat rotting. “Hello?” Stacy called. He was relieved when no one responded, grabbed a couple of trash bags from the back room, filled them with as much non-perishable food and water bottles he could, and hurried back to the car. He grabbed a twelve-pack of Budweiser just because.
A sea of trees in a valley hid Clarinda, Iowa, two water towers and the spire of the county courthouse the only indications of a town. “There is a survivor’s shelter at the Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City, Missouri. Food, beds, and water,” crackled softly over the Geo’s radio. Stacy left the radio on so he could at least hear a human voice, but kept it low and the car windows down. If some sound of living humans was out there, he wanted to hear it. “There is a survivor’s shelter at the Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City, Missouri. Food, beds, and water.” The streets of Clarinda were clean, at least of trash, and abandoned vehicles. He slowly pulled the Geo to a stop in front of Clarinda’s Single A baseball stadium, at least twenty cattle slowly ambling across the road. For the first time in a while, he smiled. Cattle. Cattle walking down a city street with no fences, no major predators, no worries. The moo shall inherit the earth. Stacy honked the Geo’s muffled, high-pitched horn, sending a few head of cattle scampering off; most ignored the intrusion. “Hello?” Stacy yelled out the window, not at the cattle. “Is anyone there?” Silence. “Hello?” He drove away from the baseball stadium and toward downtown, calling out the car window every few blocks.