Dead: Snapshot 01: Portland, Oregon

by T. W. Brown

  “Whoa!” Jason held his hands up in a gesture of peace. This only caused the child to cry out even louder.

  “Put that thing down!” Juanita hissed as she shoved past Jason, knocking down the arm with the hand that held the machete.

  Jason winced and dropped the offending limb. Meanwhile, Juanita moved to the child and bent down once she was about five or ten feet away. Holding out her arms, she beckoned for the child to come to her.

  After a series of sniffles and more than a few wary glances past Juanita to where Jason stood feeling every bit like the boogeyman, the child climbed to its feet and came tentatively to the woman. When the child stepped into a narrow shaft of light, Jason was able to get a better look at him. He had sandy colored hair and was wearing pajamas with some yellow cartoon character that he wasn’t familiar with. There were a few rips in his clothing, the most notable being the right sleeve which was practically torn completely off. The exposed arm had one fairly nasty bite as well as a few deep imprints that were now mouth-shaped bruises.

  “It’s okay,” Juanita cooed, causing Jason to think that it was going to be anything but. He moved back out into the aisle that ran the length of the back of the store and made absolutely certain that there were no more zombies coming their way. He would allow Juanita to see to the child despite knowing full well that the little boy was doomed; his fate sealed with that first bite.

  “The reapers are coming,” the boy whispered.

  Jason returned his attention to the youngster, his blood going a few degrees colder in an instant. His mind raced through several of the zombie apocalypse books and movies that he’d read. A few were the sort that went off on some kind of supernatural tangent. He never liked those much. He didn’t think that zombies needed anything to make them even that much scarier, like mind-controlling necromancers or other equally preposterous things.

  Any time that he stumbled across a story like that, he immediately, fair or otherwise, shoved it into the category of “books that stole blatantly from Stephen King’s The Stand.” While that was admittedly one of his all-time favorite stories, and imitation was supposed to be the most sincere form of flattery, he could not help but see such things as cheesy.

  “The reapers?” Juanita asked, beating Jason to the punch.

  The little boy nodded and began to sway back and forth a bit as if to some unheard rhythm. Whether it was due to the poor lighting, or simply to the fact that he had been stretched about as far as he could over the past few days, Jason could not suppress a shiver.

  “They come with fire,” the boy whispered.

  “That’s all I need to hear.” Jason tossed his head, indicating that they move for the doors.

  Juanita scowled, but she took the boy’s hand. “My name is Juanita, what’s your name?”

  “Gabriel James Prentiss,” the boy replied, accepting Juanita’s hand and following along.

  “That is a pretty neat name,” Juanita said with enthusiastic appreciation.

  “My mommy said I am named for an angel and my granddaddy.” The little boy edged around one of the corpses that littered the floor as he spoke, and Jason had to admit that he was handling all of this very well.

  They were almost at the front of the store when Jason heard what sounded like music. It was distant at first, but as they froze in place and waited, it became louder.

  “Reaper,” Gabriel whispered.

  Jason turned his attention back to the street that ran the length of the front of the grocery store. It was actually a business loop for Highway 26, and thus, very wide. He had to hope that whomever this might be, they would simply continue to drive past.

  No such luck. As the strains to “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult blared from the large, red vehicle…

  “Is that a school bus?” Juanita asked, leaning forward over Jason’s shoulder.

  “Looks like it used to be.”

  “It’s hideous.”

  Jason had to agree. It had been painted red, but in such a way that it looked like somebody had just thrown buckets of paint at the side of the bus. The top of the bus was an ugly shade of sky blue with a yellow trim. There was aluminum foil over all of the windows that ran the length, and the tall windows of the door where passengers would board were painted black. Additionally, giant letters in white were painted all over. Most of them were garden variety profanity, but a couple were actually several word phrases that were vile.

  The bus stopped, and then it turned right, swinging wide and coming into the parking lot. The music ceased with an audible click, and a voice came over some sort of PA. “Attention whoever is in the store…the owner of the pickup truck, we have claimed this area and you are considered to be trespassing. Come out and give yourself up and we will let you go with a warning.”

  Just as the voice stopped, somebody else could be heard in the background. It sounded like the second person was laughing. Not that he needed any special reason to openly defy and disobey this request, but that was the nail in the coffin.

  Turning to Juanita, Jason took her by the arms and looked her in the eyes. “We have no idea how many there are in that bus, or what they might actually intend to do. What we are not going to do is just give up to these people.” The woman nodded in agreement.

  “Good.” Jason shot a look over his shoulder and out the window of the grocery store, watching as the bus slowed and then came to a stop where it effectively blocked the exit that the truck would need to use. “I have a plan.”

  ***

  “You think I’m gonna die pretty soon, don’tcha?” Mary Simpson practically cackled. The Golden Retriever swung its head around and gave him a look like it was just as anxious to hear his answer.

  Ken stood in the door to the barn. He’d sworn that he heard gunshots a few minutes ago. Of all times for a pair of zoms to show up and get that black and white dog all riled up to the point where it was barking its fool head off, it had to be this exact moment.

  “You hear me, Kenny?” Mary Simpson called.

  “Huh?” Ken turned to face his mom. His gaze immediately locked on her eyes.

  Still no signs of the tracers. It seemed unlikely that she would go this long and not show any of the evidence that she was sick with whatever it was that turned people into the walking dead. Yet, here she was, days after a bite and still nothing.

  “I said,” she stressed that second word, “that you think I am going to die pretty soon.”

  “What?” Ken shook his head a made a ‘pssh’ sound in dismissal. “Of course not.”

  “Kenny, I am not stupid. I see the way that you are looking at me. It is like every single time I manage to catch you, you have that look on your face like you are expecting to see a flattened puppy.”

  “It’s just…” he started, but then he remembered that he was talking to his mother. Mary Simpson could not be strung along or fed a line of bull. She could sniff out his lies before he usually got the first word out of his mouth back when he was a boy. What made him think that anything was different now?

  “I saw the news, I know what they are saying, and I can’t help it, but I feel fine. A bit hungry and thirsty, but not for anything more than maybe a ham sandwich and an ice cold beer.”

  Ken laughed. Leave it to his mom. He still remembered the first time he’d ever drank a beer with his mother. Sure, he’d drank plenty before that day, his eighteenth birthday, back in the days before the legal age was twenty-one. It had been strange at first, but over the years, he’d discovered that he enjoyed sipping a few brews with his mom and just hanging out.

  “Well, Jason and Juanita should be back soon. They went to get food.” He didn’t hold out much hope that they would return with any beer, but there was always the chance.

  “And why do you dislike that other young man so much?” Mary Simpson got up and made her slow, deliberate way across the barn to where Ken stood in the doorway.

  “Just…it’s…” Ken fumbled for something concrete. He knew that if
he told his mother he simply hated the guy because he knew the man was a former convict, that his mother would scold him and tell him that he was being foolish. He knew that; he just did not feel like having his judgment called into question by his mother on this one issue.

  “We may be together for a while, Kenny,” his mother said with a smile, patting him on the arm. She leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek and Ken staggered back like he’d been shot.

  “Oh, ma,” Kenny managed around a throat that was becoming tighter by the second. He felt that he would start choking any minute now.

  The black tracers had finally come.

  The tracers were starting to show in his mother’s eyes. From the corners they were creeping, and if he stared, he knew that he would see them make their way across until they had completely entrenched themselves.

  Mary Simpson looked up at her son. Ken saw her own realization dawn as his face was unable to hide anything. She reached up and touched his cheek. He made every effort not to flinch away from her touch. After all, that Rose girl had caught the zombie infection from some other way. She hadn’t been bitten; she’d still turned into one of them.

  “It finally happened,” she whispered.

  Ken could not lie to his mother. That had already been established. He simply nodded. Mary’s head dropped for a moment, but when it came back up, despite those sinister dark lines, she still had that look of calm.

  “You won’t let me become one of them will you?”

  Ken stared at his mother. His mind was having a difficult time processing what was being said. He was flashing back to those last days when his wife was confined to that hospital bed. She had looked up at him with much the same expression. She did not want to continue to endure the suffering. They had even touched on the subject of medically assisted suicide. Ken had refused to entertain that idea. In his mind, that would be akin to his signing the death warrant against the woman that he loved more than anything in the world.

  In the end, she had slipped into a coma. For another five days, she hung on to the fragile thread of life. The doctor had explained that often, it is sheer force of will that causes people to linger. She was basically already gone, the doctor went on to explain, and that perhaps she was simply holding on for his sake. Ken considered that absolutely preposterous. He refused to accept that until the day he finally allowed himself to leave her side. It was only for a short time. He had just wanted to stretch his legs for a minute and get some coffee that was not absolutely revolting. He’d driven the three blocks to the nearest corner coffee cart and grabbed his drink. It had been less than thirty minutes.

  When he had stepped out of the elevator, the first thing that he noticed was the empty nurses’ station. He rounded the corner, his legs trying to run, but the fear of what he would find, what he knew in his heart was waiting around that corner, prevented him from doing so.

  The doctor was coming out of Milly’s room, his hands in the act of hanging his stethoscope back around his neck. Ken was no stranger to hospitals, and he had become very well versed in the body language of medical personnel. He knew before the words were spoken.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Simpson. Your wife is dead.”

  “Kenny?” Mary Simpson put a hand on Ken’s arm.

  “Sorry, ma.” Ken shook his head to clear away the bad memories. “I promise that I will not let you become one of them. When the time comes, I will take care of you.”

  ***

  Jason stepped out of the store with his rifle slung across his body. He gave a nod to the man standing on the top of the bus with the microphone in his hand.

  “You say this is your turf?” Jason snorted. “And what makes you think you are running shit around here? The way I see it, it is every man for himself. I’ll be takin’ what I loaded into my shopping cart and heading on up the road.”

  “You don’t—” the young man began, but he barely got two words out of his mouth when Jason brought up the high-powered rifle and put a round into his throat.

  Jason winced; he’d been aiming for the center of the chest. He would need to sight in the rifle as soon as possible. That would be important when it came down to head shots on the undead.

  “Anybody else want to run their mouths?” Jason challenged.

  Sure enough, the bus slammed into reverse, the man still standing on top beside his fallen companion tumbling awkwardly and landing hard on the asphalt. Jason knew that things would change soon enough, but it had been his experience that most bullies were a lot of talk. He’d ended a lot of stuff back in the joint by simply punching in the face whoever it was that was running his mouth. Anybody that needed to do a lot of talking before a fight usually needed to work up the nerve or simply hoped that words would be enough to scare the person they were confronting. It was simply not normal human nature to be violent. It was even more uncommon for somebody to actually be able to commit the act of killing another. His advantage rested in the fact that he already saw this entire situation for what it was…

  The end of the world.

  “C’mon, let’s get out of here before they grow a spine or bring more of their friends,” he called out.

  Juanita hurried from the store, Gabriel seated atop the groceries in the big red cart. She scooped the boy into her arms and put him in the cab as Jason started simply scooping everything into the back of Ken’s truck as quickly as he could manage. Juanita was there to help a moment later, and they made short work of their relatively small haul. Jason was already planning the next move. He had an idea as to where he could find a better supply of food. It would be dangerous, but it was going to be worth it if he was correct.

  As they drove back to the farm, Jason spotted his target. He made a note as to where it was located and then kept an eye on the odometer. It would not be long before they would have to rely on their feet for transportation. Fuel was a very finite resource, and the power would be tripping offline sooner rather than later.

  As they pulled up to the gate, Jason noticed Ken sitting on the ground beside the VW. He was holding one of his Glocks and made no sign that he even saw or heard them arrive. He climbed out and opened the gate, and then shut it once Juanita drove the truck through. He stifled the feelings of annoyance at the fact that the man had not seemed to do anything during his absence. If they were going to secure this place and make a go of trying to survive this nightmare, they were a long way from a time when you could just sit around and do nothing.

  “Where is Mary?” Juanita asked as they pulled up and parked in front of the barn.

  Jason sighed and shook his head. He’d all but forgotten about the fact that the woman had been mauled just a little by one of the undead. In fact, he was starting to think that just maybe a bite, or at least a scratch, by a zombie was not a death sentence. His eyes flicked to Gabriel and then back to the dark interior of the barn.

  When he finally saw what he was looking for, he stifled a groan. Right now, somebody needed to be the rock everybody could turn to when things went bad; he would be that rock. Another look over at Ken confirmed his decision. The man’s red-rimmed eyes told part of the story, but the body-shaped lump on the ground with a blue tarp over it told the rest.

  Jason climbed out of the truck and told Juanita to take Gabriel on a walk for a while. He gave a tilt of his head towards the tarp. Juanita actually staggered back, obviously not realizing what had happened until that moment. She grasped Gabriel’s hand and hurried away with the boy, saying something about showing him around the place.

  Once she and the boy were out of earshot, Jason approached Ken. The man had neither budged, nor made any sign that he was even aware that he was no longer alone. Jason took each step with caution; after all, the man was holding a pistol in his hand. It would be nothing more than a flick of the wrist for the man to bring it up and fire a round or two into his chest.

  “Hey, man,” Jason spoke in what he hoped was a non-threatening voice. “Umm…” And that is where his mind just sort of w
ent blank.

  He glanced back to the barn and the blue tarp. What exactly could he say to a man that had obviously just had to kill his mother?

  “I thought that she was going to be okay,” Ken whispered, his voice barely audible, even in the relative silence. “Shit…how many days had it been? And didn’t they say that people were turning within seventy-two hours?”

  Jason thought that he’d heard something like that. Only, maybe it had something to do with the severity of the injury. But then he recalled Rose. That woman showed no sign of being bitten; she had ingested some kind of fluid from a zombie. This was not working out at all like any of the books or movies.

  He shot a look across the yard where Juanita was walking with that boy Gabriel, pointing out flowers or some such thing. He had obvious bite marks, yet his eyes were clear. He looked at Ken and felt the question come. He tried to bite it back, thinking that this was obviously too soon for such things.

  “Did you see it show up in her eyes?” Jason wanted to sink into the ground at that very instant.

  Ken’s head came up and his puffy eyes seemed to almost have to search for him for a moment before locking on. “Yeah.”

  After several heartbeats, Jason realized that he needed to breathe. He’d been holding it in, and his lungs felt like they were on fire.

  “You want help taking care of her.” Of course, Jason had no idea what that might entail. Would he want to bury his mom? Cremate her?

  “You’d help?” Ken lifted his chin and seemed to examine Jason closely. “Even with everything…” The man’s voice trailed off and he dropped his head.

  “Like it or not, we are sort of in this together for the time being. We are going to have to rely on each other.”

  “And you are okay with the fact that, no matter what, you and I ain’t ever gonna be friends?”

  Jason smiled. The man was set in his ways. He saw Jason as a criminal…a convict. He might always see him through those jaded eyes. The man was speaking through grief and pain and a lifetime of dealing with the worst that society had to offer. Hell, until this last time down, Jason had been one of those bad people that had helped give Ken the views he held onto.