by Jason Offutt
Screams filled the night. Ken Gundy stood in the doorway of the Corral; his head scanning the buildings close by. There weren’t many tall enough for a shooter, except for the high school. The sound came from the high school, didn’t it? There was no grassy knoll like in the Kennedy assassination, so there was no question here. It didn’t come from the stands, there weren’t guns in Mayday anyway, at least that average citizens could get their hands on.
“Go to the high school,” he yelled into the night as townsfolk scattered into the darkness. “Get the shooter. Get the shooter.” No one stopped. Lazarus stood over Mac in a daze.
Ken Gundy turned and looked toward Walter Seidel. The fucking punk stood, pulling against ropes Ken knew damned well he wouldn’t be able to untie. Ken tied those knots himself. Seidel wasn’t an average citizen; he could get his hands on guns. So could that goddamned slacker Gil Haply. Who was out there? Ken stepped toward Walter, his fists bunched. “I’m going to break your spine.” He took a step, then dropped to his hands and knees. Lacy stood over him, the Craftsman hammer clenched tightly in her hand.
“Lacy,” Walter screamed. She ran to him and cupped his bruised face in her hands.
“Oh, no. What did they do to you?”
“Just get me out of here, baby.”
Lacy went behind Walter and pulled a pair of pruning shears from her back pocket. They easily cut through the rope. Walter grabbed Lacy and kissed her deeply. No peaches, but her breath tasted like home. He took the shears and cut Nikki loose, then Doug. Lazarus moaned from a stack of fat over Mac.
Walter looked at Doug. “Can you walk?”
Doug shook his head. “Not very fast.”
Walter looped an arm around Doug’s waist. “Let’s go.” They took two steps and stopped. Jeremy stood at the gate, its face no longer placid. There was blood in the Corral and Jeremy smelled it. Its mouth opened and shut like one of those grinning toy monkeys pounding cymbals. Walter looked down at his naked chest. Ken Gundy had taken away his shirt, the special shirt with the patch of zombie skin. Now he was food.
“Lacy,” he yelled and threw the shears; they landed near her feet. “Cut off their shirts.”
She nodded and grabbed the shears. Suddenly, Ken Gundy rose in front of her. Blood ran down his scalp from the hammer blow. He groaned something unintelligible and stepped forward. Gundy. Lazarus’ security man. She hated the way he looked at her as she worked the garden, staring like he wanted to eat her. She sometimes saw him outside at night, standing under the big elm tree in her yard, staring at her house. Always staring. He was the reason her Walter was here. Lacy froze. His eyes glazed as he stumbled forward.
Nikki pushed Lacy aside and leveled a kick between Gundy’s legs, her tennis shoe smashed into the man’s testicles. Gundy groaned and dropped like the gorilla. She plucked the shears from Lacy’s hands and pointed to a foot square leather beige patch on the back of Gundy’s shirt. “This it?”
“Yes,” Walter shouted. “Get the leather.”
Gundy moaned as Nikki sliced into the fabric, cutting away the leather patch. She kicked him in the head. Lacy kicked the back of Lazarus’ knee and he toppled on top of the rotting carcass of Mac. He screamed as she grabbed the back of his threadbare shirt and ripped off the patch of skin. Nikki stepped in front of Walter and Doug, holding the shirt in front of her like a shield.
“What is it?”
“Zombie skin,” Walter said. “They don’t attack their own.”
Nikki’s stomach threatened to come up. She winced and swallowed, the taste of stomach acid sour in her mouth. What kind of fucked up place is this? Lacy stepped next to her holding the great expanse of Lazarus’ shirt toward the zombie.
Jeremy shrieked and rushed forward. Nikki winced as the monster staggered past her. Lazarus screamed again as Jeremy fell onto him, ripping into him with its strong, yellow teeth.
***
The chants outside were now screams. Lacy ran outside the school after the gunfire exploded in Mayday, leaving Terry and Jenna standing in the sweltering wet heat of the gymnasium. There were guns here in the school, in some room. Lacy (was her name Lacy, or Lucy?) said so, but whateverthehell room they were in was locked. She had a hammer to break the lock, but she took it with her. Terry shook his head, but the fuzz wouldn’t budge. “You okay?”
Jenna tried to smile, but it wouldn’t come. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Light poured into the hallway from the large front windows. They staggered to the front doors and pushed their way through. Outside was chaos. People ran from the circle of lights that shone above the wooden circular fence surrounded by bleachers they saw when they came to town.
“What the hell’s going on here, Jenna?” Terry asked, but Jenna was silent. He turned to her, her face pointed toward the roof. “What’s wrong?”
Jenna turned toward him, tears rimmed her eyes. “Oh, God, Terry.” He slowly looked up.
“Andi.”
Corporal Andi Bakowski lay on the ledge of the Terrance County High School roof, head hung over the side, a line of blood ran from her mouth. Andi was dead. “I think Andi just saved our asses, Terry,” Jenna said. Terry just stood, staring at the still figure dangling unnaturally off the brick wall. He’d just had a beer with her this morning. Jenna pulled at Terry. “We have to go.”
She dragged him with unsteady legs toward the Corral, most of people from the stands now gone, some lay on the ground crying. Screams still rang through the night, but they were farther away. Four figures moved in the Corral gate and started walking toward the high school.
“Doug,” she yelled. “Terry, it’s Doug and Nikki.” Jenna dropped his arm. “They’re alive. They’re alive.” She ran toward them in a half trot, her spinning head threatened to drop her to the ground with every step. “Doug,” she screamed.
Doug pulled away from Walter and hobbled forward, catching Jenna in his arms. Her hair smelled like strawberries. “Oh, Doug. I thought I’d never see you again.” She kissed his bruised face. “I was so scared.”
Walter wrapped his arm back around Doug. “We can do this later,” he said. “We gotta go now.” He pointed toward the west side of the high school. “There are trucks parked in the Ag shop parking lot; the keys are just inside the shop door.”
“Is the door locked?” Terry asked.
Lacy put the Craftsman hammer in his hand, the head stained red with Ken Gundy’s blood. “Break the window.”
***
Artificial light poured over the back of the school and onto the patch of high grass beyond. Donnie giggled as he bounced down the old wooden bleacher seats like a kid and jumped into the tall grass that had once been a lawn where the FFA students judged cattle and sheep. He’d stuck that doody-head. He’d stuck her good. He spun in the tall grass, arms stretched wide, like Julie Andrews in that mountain singing movie with all the Nazis. His mother loved that movie, but he didn’t understand it. There was much too much singing for a war movie.
The half-moon stood out in the sky like a spotlight, the stars bright and clear, almost as clear as the stars back home in Colorado, but nothing could ever be like that. Donnie felt so close to the stars of home, he could almost reach out and grab them. The moon bathed the forest behind the grassy field in enough light the trees were gray and the paths through them, made by people or deer, were easy to find. The rifle crack split the night, killing the roar of the crowd, as Donnie stepped into the tree line. The sudden sound froze his steps.
He stood at the edge of the forest, listening for anything. Screams, far away, burst into the night. A smile split his face. People were suffering. Why did that always make him so happy? When Gordie Tomlin fell off the slide in kindergarten onto the gravel bed of the playground, the crack of bone as loud as a handclap, Donnie laughed. Kindergarteners stood around Gordie as the little boy with a crew cut and short pants screamed, his arm jutting in a strange way, like it had two elbows and Donnie just laughed. He was still laughing when the playground teacher ran o
ver and carried Gordie inside to the nurse. He hoped those people in town had broken something, too. That would be funny.
Something moved about twenty feet into the trees. Not much, just enough that Donnie noticed it. He stepped slowly into the trees and stopped, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer moonlight that filtered through the branches. The figure didn’t move so much as it swayed. As Donnie stared at it, his eyes found arms and a shirt. A thin beam of moonlight reflected off something round and shiny. Glasses. It was one of the Good people. The Army woman – dead as a doody-head. Dead as the Taylor boy – found the Good people standing on guard in the trees to protect the town, then she killed them. She smashed them in the heads and killed them, but not all of them. Donnie stepped forward slowly; the soft moans of the Good person grew louder as the screams from the town grew faint, then stopped altogether. The Good person was a man in a white shirt and tie, his clothes just like Donnie wore before that stupid Vanessa Hagen-looking woman made him wet his pants. Now Donnie wore Army woman pants. If there’s anything Donnie regretted from his trip with the Gunkies, is that he didn’t get to play with the Vanessa Hagen woman. Maybe there was still time.
“Hi,” Donnie said, standing about four feet from the Good person. The Good person stood fast, a rope tied him to a tree. The man in glasses reached out to Donnie like he wanted to play. Donnie had played this game with Mother lots. He ducked under the Good person’s clumsy grab and continued down the path. “You’ll get me next time.” Donnie chuckled and skipped down the overgrown path. He didn’t know where he was going; he was just going away, happy.
***
The truck started on the first try. Walter told them Lazarus wanted the four pickups always ready to go. A Dodge Grand Caravan sat off to the side; the McKenney family’s last ride. The 1997 Ford F-150 Walter picked held a five-gallon water jug in the back, a full gas can, enough food in the tool chest for four days in the woods and three rifles on the gun rack in the back window of the cab, loaded and ready to take down anything that fat fucker might want to eat. Two dented wooden baseball bats, Louisville Sluggers, sat in a bucket welded to the floor of the truck bed. More weapons at the ready. Walter sat behind the steering wheel, Lacy pressed next to him like they were in high school. Jenna squeezed in next to Lacy and Doug pulled himself slowly into the passenger seat.
“Our car’s outside the gate,” he said and patted his right front pocket. “I still have the keys. Let us off there.”
Walter opened his mouth, but his words died under a pounding on the roof of the cab. “We can talk all day long later,” Terry said. He stood in the bed of the truck, hands on the roof of the cab. “Let’s go.” Nikki put a foot on top of the back tire and prepared to hoist herself into the bed.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Lacy said, then screamed. A man limped from around the side of the high school; the stadium lights bathed him in silhouette.
“Aw, fuck,” Doug spat.
Ken Gundy walked toward them, his shirt torn, his face awash with blood, his breathing heavy. Gundy’s left arm lay slack beside him, a chunk missing from the deltoid; he held a piece of rebar in his thick right hand. “You fuckers,” he hissed. “You goddamned losers. You’ve ruined everything. Everything.”
Nikki dropped off the tire. “No you don’t,” she said and grabbed a baseball bat from the bucket. She gripped it in both hands. This man had beaten her, dragged her by her hair and tied her up to die for sport. No you don’t.
“You need to just die.” She rushed Gundy, who pulled his right arm back for a swing. The Louisville Slugger caught him in the neck and he staggered, the rebar fell into the grass. “Just,” Nikki screamed as she pulled the bat back and slammed it across Gundy’s forehead. He fell backward, his skull dented from the blow. “Fucking.” She pulled back again and caught Gundy on the chin as he pitched toward the ground, it moved to the right like Elmer Fudd had just shot Daffy’s beak and it spun around that stupid duck’s head. “Die.” Gundy’s body hit the ground and twitched. She hit him again, his skull making a flat, squishy sound. Nikki reached back to hit him again, but Terry grabbed the bat and wrestled it from her grip.
“TCB, baby,” he said and dropped the wet bat on top of Gundy’s chest.
“What?” she said, her breath hard and heavy.
Terry turned Nikki toward him and pulled her in close. “Elvis had a ring,” he said. “It read TCB. That meant Taking Care of Business.” She fell into his arms and wept.
Doug stepped out of the cab on his good foot and held onto the door for support. “Move now, cry later. Get in the back.”
The truck moved smoothly over the well-trimmed grass of Mayday, Kentucky, light from the Corral still running. Walter suspected it would run until the generator ran out of gas. He stopped at the Gate, the big barn door loomed like the one on Skull Island. Terry jumped from the truck bed and landed on the pavement of Main Street that led from this damned town. He lifted the ten-foot-long two-by-six, tossed it into the weeds and swung the door wide.
Terry walked back to the pickup and helped Nikki down. “I think this is where we get off,” he said. “Doug?”
Doug opened the door and got out. “Yep. Thanks, but we’re all on our own.” Jenna helped Doug walk toward the Prius, the lights flashed and the car chirped when he hit the remote’s unlock button. Terry and Nikki followed them.
“Where are you going?” Walter asked out the open window of the truck.
Doug stopped and looked back at Walter. “Dyersburg, Tennessee. There’s supposed to be an army there.” He stopped and looked at Jenna. She smiled at him. “I’m not going to ask you to follow us,” he said. “I’ve fucked up everything else before now. But that’s just where we’re going.”
Doug dropped into the driver’s seat of the Prius and Jenna sat next to him. Nikki sat on Terry’s lap in the back and Doug started the car. A sign outside Mayday said Interstate 69 South was 10 miles west. He turned the Prius around and went west, over the railroad tracks and through thick fields of corn and cotton that would never be harvested, the headlights of the Ford F-150 behind him the whole way.
***
The game got old quickly. An old grandma lady leaned toward Donnie against the strap that held her to a thick walnut tree, her moan loud and hungry. Well, if you knew you were going to be out here so long, you should have brought a snack. Snack. Donnie had snacks, but she wasn’t getting his Skittles, no way. He reached into a pocket in his Army pants and pulled out the packet of beef ramen. He held it up to her.
“It’s all I have, lady. Take it. It’ll make you feel better.” He tossed it toward her. The package struck her old saggy chest and fell to the forest floor. “Ungrateful,” Donnie spat. “That’s what you are, ungrateful. And I’m not playing with you.” Other moans started in the darkness. He looked at the grandma lady, chomping at him like a monkey eating a banana. Donnie walked up to her, ducked under her arms and kept walking. “Good-bye, grandma lady. I hope you learn some manners.”
The forest slowly began to brighten, individual leaves now visible on the branches that hung low over the path, the twisted limbs of hawthorn trees a maze in the canopy. Then the trees began to thin and Donnie stepped into a clearing. The moon had moved, ever so slightly, its bright light filled the clearing of high grass that looked to Donnie like a soft bed. Donnie breathed in the cool air of night. He just wanted to lie on that bed of grass and roll, then stare at the stars and dream of a world of Good people, a world without Gunkies. He stepped into the wonderful clearing and knew he wouldn’t be surprised if this weren’t the Hundred Acre Wood and Pooh Bear and Piglet came out and took him on a hunt for Heffalumps. He all but danced into the tall grass, then he realized he wasn’t alone. A lone figure stood in the middle of the clearing, tied to a post, just like he’d found Mr. Grimes tied to a post in his back yard in Julesburg. He stepped forward and the figure moved.
“Hello,” Donnie said. Whoever it was didn’t say a word; it just stood there, waving at him. Donnie steppe
d forward.
Grass high enough to brush his thighs parted when he walked toward the mysterious figure on the post. It didn’t move. Did it ever? It didn’t talk. Who are you? he wondered. Detail came as he stepped closer. The figure was a woman, a beautiful, beautiful woman. Her thick black hair was pulled back in a red ribbon and fell onto the shoulders of a red and white dress, the same red and white Sunday dress Mother wore back in Julesburg, Colorado. “Mother?” he whispered. More detail became clear as he approached, the wedding ring Daddy gave her glinted in the moonlight. The dried, crusty blood on her face that had soaked under her chin made a pretty red necklace on her dress. “Is that you, Mother?”
‘Of course it is, Donnie honey. Come to Mommy.’
“Mother?” But how did she get here? I’m a thousand miles away from home, Mother. Donnie stepped closer on weak legs. ‘Mommy missed you, honey.’ Of course she did. Of course she missed her baby. Donnie threw up his hands and ran to her. “Mother,” he yelled, his mouth twisted into a smile, a real smile.
She’s here. She’s really, really here, he thought as he ran to her and threw his arms around her. Her arms found him and her nails tore through his shirt and into his flesh, blood squirting from the wounds. “Mother?” he wheezed and looked into her face. The eyes were wrong; the nose was wrong. This wasn’t Mother. Donnie screamed as the zombie ripped his cheek from his face.
Part Three: The Bleak Lands
August 2: Dawson Springs, Kentucky
Chapter 20
By the position of the sun, it had been up for hours. The once cool morning breeze that slowly drifted through the slightly cracked Prius windows during the darkness, now carried with it thick humidity. Doug stirred in the driver’s seat, sweat beading on his face. He turned toward the passenger side of the Prius; the door sat wide open and Terry stood just outside, pissing onto an asphalt parking lot. The splatter of urine loud in the – whatthehell time is it? – morning. Terry’s butt moved in circles. Where are we?