Infestation
Iowa
By: Nathan A. Smith
Copyright © 2014 Nathan Smith
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1496195692
ISBN-10: 1496195698
Dedication
Dedicated to my good friend David, who was taken from us at an early age in a car accident.
R.I.P. my friend, you are missed
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1 – The End of the Beginning
Pg. 9
Chapter 2 – Meanwhile
Pg. 35
Chapter 3 – David’s Run
Pg. 47
Chapter 4 – Meeting Destiny
Pg. 72
Chapter 5 – The Beast
Pg. 92
Chapter 6 – Trinity
Pg. 99
Chapter 7 – Incredible Adventure
Pg. 122
Chapter 8 – Holdout
Pg. 135
Chapter 9 – Rescue?
Pg. 159
Chapter 10 – It Sings No More
Pg. 176
Chapter 11 – Scientific Method
Pg. 190
Chapter 12 – Mindgames
Pg. 211
Chapter 13 – End thy name is David
Pg. 229
Chapter 14 – Aftermath
Pg. 250
Contents
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge all of my family and give thanks to all of you for the never ending support. Special thanks to my wife Vivian and her daughter Amanda for without them this book would never have been possible.
To my mother Cathy, thank you for the inspiration you instilled in me and to Jerry for being the rock of my life.
To my father Allan, thank you for a childhood filled with stories and Tracey for a life of trust and love.
Chapter 1 – The End of the Beginning
David leaned back against the rock breathing heavily, his white shirt in shambles and blue jeans badly charred with soot. The crackling of fire all around him was so loud that it was all he could hear. The light of the fire flickered in the dark while dancing shadows bounced off of the nearby log cabin. He started to hear movement around him in the forest, but he could not see through the ring of flames. Blood poured from his forehead filling his brow and it steadily dripped onto the ground. He closed his eyes and began to pass out from exhaustion knowing this is how it would end for him. The cold night air howled as he slowly lost consciousness. His short black hair slightly moved with the breeze.
A sudden loud snap of wood and an enormous thud caused him to whip his head to the side. A massive tree had fallen, severing the ring of fire that surrounded him. It had landed just beside the rock he leaned against, missing him by only inches. With his blue eyes wide open and heart pounding, he could barely raise his massive pistol with his arm towards the opening. The gun was bulky, awkward, and he had been through so much already. It was heavy compared to other pistols. He was fairly muscular and the gun’s weight was usually handled by him easily, but now he was struggling with it. He groaned loudly and was shaking from both the fear and the pain from the wound on his forehead. He knew what came next; he had seen it too much. The first couple fall down easily, but it all ends the same. You get surrounded and scream in pain wishing you ate one of your own bullets before they were through with you. He saw a figure climb onto the tree on the other side of the fire. It began slowly walking towards him from the darkness. As it got closer, the fire around it lit it up, making it light enough so David could see what it was. His pain subsided. His fear turned to anger and sadness at what he saw. His eyes narrowed and he fired.
Three Days Earlier
David’s house was probably the largest he had ever been in. It was two stories tall, bright white paneling all around the outside and a massive yard all around it stretching towards empty corn fields. Living just outside of Lone Tree Iowa, he didn’t see many people and he was sort of a loner. He didn’t mind, he had friends in town and knew a lot of people. He just preferred to be alone with his thoughts. The house used to belong to his parents but when they died in a car accident he inherited it four years ago. He planned on leaving Lone Tree and seeing the world but never got around to it. The house got especially cold even during the hot months. The only warm spot in the entire house was his bedroom on the second floor, so not surprisingly, when David went to bed, it was the best part of his entire day. One night, after a long hard day working odd jobs around town, he curled up in his bed for what would be the last time. On just a regular night, with no cares in the world except for a minor headache, he started to finally fall asleep just after midnight.
Shortly after he had curled up into his comforter David ended up springing from his bed startled by a noise. He threw off the comforter and ran to the window. He peered out to see what had woken him up but the filth on the window pane was hard to see through. He had cleaned up the house a lot since he owned it, but his fear of heights has caused the upstairs to suffer on the outside. The roof was badly missing shingles; and the upstairs windows were never cleaned on the outside.
He opened the window and the night time cool air chilled him to the bone. The sound that awakened him and the fast movement of jumping out of bed made his headache much worse. Holding his head and leaning out the window into the cold, he saw what had caused the sound of glass shattering and metal clanging outside. A black car had driven into the only tree in his front yard. With wide open grass surrounding his house and empty fields all around, the only thing the car could have hit was that tree. David thought to himself, “Whoever that is must have been driving down my long driveway on purpose before crashing. There is nothing down here except for my house.” The car had apparently hit with intense speed because it was wrapped around the tree like a cloth on a towel rack, severely mangled and steam billowing out of it.
David backed away from his window, and searched the floor for his blue jeans and white t-shirt. He found them and quickly threw them on while briefly flashing back to the car accident that killed his parents. Trying to think about what to do he looked around frantically before he realized there was only one thing he could do. He ran through the old wooden doorway of his bedroom and headed to the paint peeled stairs. The house he lived in was old and creaky which seemed to make his head hurt more and more while he rushed toward the stairs. The pressure in his head made him nearly stumble into a piano that sat strangely at the top of the stairs. He noticed the piano rolled a little as he ran past it heading down the stairs. It was on wheels and David had been meaning to move it but it hadn’t been a priority. It once belonged to his mother and sat in his parents’ bedroom where she taught him to play when he was younger. He moved it out to the stairs after his parents died and he moved into the bedroom. As long as he didn’t pound on the stairs and he warned everyone who came up them, then it could stay there a little longer until he got around to moving it downstairs.
The stairs creaked loudly as he stepped on each of them. He rushed down them, skipping a few steps at the bottom to save his head some agony from the creaking. When he got to the bottom he looked over his shoulder to check on the piano. It sat firmly where it was earlier and he could now pay attention to the issue outside. He stood, looking grimly, at the wide front door to his house.
He slapped the switch beside the door, tu
rning the outside light on. The outside light was a rigged up spotlight he had salvaged from a bar in town the week before. He saved it from the dumpster and fixed it up like he did with most of the things around his house. It was so bright, the spotlight illuminated the front of his house as if it was daytime. He stood there for a moment looking at the car and the area around it. It reminded him of his parent’s accident. Except for the flames that killed his parents, it was nearly the same sight. He opened his screen door dismissing his thoughts; the squeak was loud and caused him to grab his head with pain. He shook it off, slightly annoyed that a minor headache had progressed so much and then he jogged outside towards the vehicle. About half way towards it he regretted not putting on his shoes, or even just socks. The cold wet grass chilled his bare feet as the bumpy land around his house made it even more awkward to walk on. He paused and thought about going back for his shoes, and then he realized that there had been an accident right in front of his house and there wasn’t time. He needed to focus.
He looked towards the wreck and saw a man crawling out of the front window on his stomach. David was partly in confusion that anyone could live through such a bad accident but continued forward. Mostly he was feeling terror about what he might see.
The man was missing a leg; long strings of muscle and flesh dragged behind him as he crawled out of the car shaking in pain. His whole body was covered almost entirely in thick red and black blood. The man groaned in pain loudly as he struggled to move. David, stunned in a moment of terror, started wondering what to do. ‘Should I go to the phone and call for help? Go to the man and stop him from making himself worse?’
Confusion set in, his mind nearly bursting with thoughts. He didn’t know exactly what to do and he had never thought about a situation like this happening to him again. It was too painful to think about because of what happened to his parents. After the moment of terror and confusion passed, David ran to the man as fast as he could, his head pounding more and more, but David ignored it.
“What happened?” David yelled as he approached the man. The man paused, gasping for air and grabbing the bloody stump that was left of his leg. He raised his head to look at David as if he was going to say something. He could not seem to catch his breath enough to reply. His face was badly cut; it wasn’t clear to David if the man was missing an eye or if it was so covered in blood it just looked that way. A piece of glass stuck out of his chin and his short brown hair was completely soaked in blood. The man raised his hand and motioned for David to help him up. Then the man’s eye looked toward one of the empty fields beside David’s house. He slowly turned his head away from David and fixed his gaze toward the field. He lowered his hand to the ground and dug his fingers into the earth. He seemed to get upset, as if he had seen something that haunted him badly. The man then faced the ground and continued trying to crawl. He dragged his body by drilling his hands into the grass and pulling his weight across the lawn. He grunted loudly with each heave, crawling towards the empty field away from both David and the car. David looked at the field briefly but saw nothing. He looked back at the man confused, “Hey mister! You are hurt! You should stop moving.” David exclaimed. The man ignored him completely and just continued pulling his body towards the field. David stood beside him and reached down to stop him. He placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. He could feel the bones in it were broken for sure. It was as if he had grabbed a bean bag chair. The man let out a louder grunt of pain and pulled away from David, continuing to crawl and bleed across the grass. David slid around him to move into his path, and placed his hand firmly on his shoulder as he knelt. A loud snapping sound in the man’s shoulder caused David to loosen his grip as he realized he probably did more harm than good. “Look!” David said sternly as the man groaned once more, “You’re hurt bad and you need to stop moving!” the man slowly rolled onto his back as David released his grip and continued; “I am going to go call the sheriff and the doc - just lay here until I get back O.K.?” The man looked up at David, his face in anger and pain. He grabbed David’s arm and once again tried to speak.
“Gotta …” the man sputtered, gasping after the one word he managed to get out. Then he tightened his grip on David’s arm.
“What? Gotta what?” David asked as the man tried to get out more words. “I’m gonna call the doc just don’t move!” David screamed, somewhat panicked, he grabbed the man’s hand and pried it off his arm so he could stand up. He started to run towards his house, but the man grabbed his arm again pulling him down to the ground causing him to be nearly face to face to him. David could now see that the man was in fact missing one of his eyes. David tried to turn away but then the man spoke softly and harshly.
“Gotta …. Warn…..” The man continued as he coughed out blood onto David’s face. David struggled to get his arm free yet a second time. The man, being injured so badly, had an unusually strong grip. When David finally did get his arm free he stood up and backed away quickly in order to be out of reach of the man.
“Look you need help and can say whatever you want after, just rest now, I’m gonna call the doc.” David turned and started towards his house.
He raised his arm trying to wipe off some of the blood from his face onto his arm. The man shook his head in frustration and turned back onto his belly. He began crawling once more toward the field. He coughed up more blood as he struggled to move. David glanced back at the man as he neared his home; he was shocked to see the man still crawling in agony but now realized what he was crawling toward. It was not to an empty field like David had thought. In front of the field was a small dark blue duffel bag. It must have been in the car and was thrown when it hit the tree. David’s gaze returned forward as he reached for his front door. Once again, the squeak of the screen door pierced the night as he opened it. This time David didn’t pause for a second; his headache could wait until the man was safe. He rushed inside to the living room immediately to the right of the entrance. Just on the wall inside that room was an old rotary phone. He grabbed the phone and quickly dialed the sheriff’s number. Even after all this time since his parents left him the house, he had not gotten around to replacing the old rotary phone. ‘What had I fixed?’ He quickly thought to himself. After several seconds of slow dialing he waited for the rings to begin. Finally a woman answered,
“Hello, Sheriff Holiday’s office, how can we help?” she said monotone as always. In a small town like Lone Tree, Iowa everyone knew everyone.
“Hey Viv. It’s David,” he said shakily, “There has been a car accident at my place and we need the Doc and the sheriff to come out here; the driver is pretty messed up!” David sighed loudly and leaned toward his front door to see if he could still see the man, but before he could get a view, Vivian replied.
“Sorry David, Sheriff Holiday and the Doc are out on a call right now.” There was a slight pause and David started to speak but before he could utter a word, she continued, “Hold on I will put you through to speak with him on his cell.” Vivian was never emotional and always professional. David could have said Martians were invading and she would have said almost the same thing with no emotion behind it. “There are a lot of problems with phones right now so it might take a minute.” She continued.
“Hurry Viv! This guy is hurt bad!” David snapped at her as the line clicked several times and David was put on hold. The song Hotel California by the Eagles came over the receiver as he stood there waiting impatiently. After what seemed like an eternity but was in reality, only a few seconds, the phone clicked again and David was put through to the sheriff’s cell phone.
“This is Holiday, what’s going on David? Vivian said it’s urgent.” He sounded annoyed, as if he had heard complaints about everything that day. Nothing was unusual about that. What was unusual was that Holiday even got the call, he wasn’t very tech savvy and most of the time had no idea how to even answer his cell phone. On top of that, Viv had said there were a lot of problems with the phone service. David was partially amazed he g
ot through and then quickly remembered the only other time he had called the sheriff’s cell phone was the night of his parents’ accident.
“Sheriff you gotta bring Doc to my place, a car hit the tree out front and the driver is bleeding everywhere, he won’t stop crawling around -” David was cut off by the sheriff:
“Son we are just down your road,” Holiday still sounded annoyed and David heard lots of moving around in the background. “Someone hit old man Stevens between your place and town and they didn’t stop.” Car doors banged in the background on the phone as David listened intently.
Old man Stevens was well known all over town. He always said hello and nobody had anything bad to say about him. Why he was in the middle of nowhere at that hour was beyond understanding for David. The sheriff continued, “The coroner just arrived so we are on our way to you now.” David couldn’t believe what had happened, “Keep your distance from him! It could be the same guy who hit Stevens!” the Sheriff said loudly. “Just keep an eye on him!” Then Holiday hung up before David could say anymore.
David hung up the phone and headed outside. Once again, the loud squeak of the screen door rang in his head as he opened it. He grabbed the side of the door firmly and pulled at it. He thought about Stevens, and the man. He thought about how all of this could be a dream but his head was hurting so badly, he knew it was real. He ripped the screen door off and threw it on the ground outside. He sighed with relief and turned towards the car, his eyes searched for the man on the ground. At first he couldn’t see him; not until he looked towards the duffel bag the man was heading toward earlier. The man was hunched in a ball beside the duffel bag gripping it in front of him tightly.
Sherriff Holiday’s sirens blared as his police car sped wildly down David’s driveway. David sprinted toward the man’s body; the sirens from Holiday’s car causing his head to pound worse and worse as the sheriff’s car grew closer. The man laid motionless; blood still pouring out of him. David stood over the man and wondered what could be so important that he would risk further injury to crawl across the lawn; he knelt beside him and started prying off the man’s hands from the duffel bag. Just as he started to pull at his fingers the man sat up and screamed.
A Zombie Survival Series (Book 1): Infestation Iowa Page 1