This Plague of Days (Omnibus): Seasons 1-3

by Robert Chazz Chute

  We are the zombie's reluctant buffet

  Bently pushed Oliver forward. The old man stumbled as they walked into the Spencers’ house. A drunk man lurched past them. He wore a ripped white wedding dress. “Liquor’s under the sink.” He pointed vaguely with a shaky hand that held an opened bottle of red wine. The drunk wandered to the front step, looked up at the moon and howled.

  The living room was surprisingly bright. Three gas lanterns threw circles of white light across the long room. Bently used his rifle as a prod to slam his prisoner against a wall. A picture of Theo, Jack, Anna and Jaimie rattled by Oliver’s head. Bently shoved the old man against the wall again and the picture fell. Shattered glass from the portrait’s frame skittered across the floor.

  “That glass will never come out of that area rug, dude,” Bently said. “Now, to business. Where you keeping that sweet, young thing?”

  Oliver smelled the little rat man’s hot breath and recoiled.

  “Where is she? You can introduce us, right?”

  “I don’t know where she is,” Oliver said.

  Bently hit him just above the kidneys with the edge of the rifle butt. Oliver would have sunk to his knees but Bently used the rifle again, this time pushing him up by the back of the skull. He forced the old man to stand, pinning him to the wall.

  “Where are you hiding her? Which house? You might as well give her up. We’re doing this whole neighborhood tonight and I’m sure you didn’t hide her far away. She’s too pretty to be far away.”

  Bently leaned in close, whispering in Oliver’s ear. “We checked the old lady’s house. She’s not there. You keeping that family over at your house still? I’m sure you are. You could have moved them farther. Should have. But that’s where they are, aren’t they?”

  Oliver turned his head to try to look Bently in the eye. “You already know where they are. You’re asking me questions just so you can hit me. Is this foreplay? You aren’t my type.”

  Bently punched Oliver in the kidney and the old man cried out. Bently leaned in close again. His breath smelled of rot. “No, not just so I can hit you. I could do that, anyway. I want you to tell me. I want you to give them up. I want you to betray them, old man. Then maybe we’ll get some cans of soup and bash your face in. That was a good con. That family trusted you. Now I get to play. Just for fun.”

  Tears ran down Oliver’s cheeks. He wondered if, when he eventually died, he would suffer enough that he’d see heaven. Would his old lover, Steve, be waiting for him with consoling words in a peaceful place that never knew disease or cruelty?

  Someone cackled behind them. Bently turned Oliver around, now holding the rifle’s muzzle under the old man’s throat. Two large, middle-aged men in green camouflage jackets, blue jeans and new, white tennis sneakers stood across the living room, each holding a bottle of beer. It wasn’t just that they wore the same clothes that marked their resemblance. They were twins. “The front door was locked,” said one. He held up his rifle. “But this key opens all locks. Where’s this pretty girl Bently’s been telling us about?”

  “Slow down and save me some beer!” Bently said.

  “You’re so little,” one of the men said, “you won’t need much.”

  Bently pushed Oliver toward the top of the basement stairs. “Jackson! Jackson!”

  A shirtless teenager appeared. Jackson was covered in tattoos and his head was shaved. He held a long crowbar, the tips painted yellow.

  Too many of them, Oliver thought. I’m dead. No way out.

  “Anybody downstairs?”

  “Nah,” Jackson shrugged. “The master bedroom is always where the best stuff is.” The boy looked to the twins, preening. “This isn’t my first B&E.”

  “You check downstairs yourself?”

  “Sure,” Jackson said. “It’s one of them splits. Lower level with like an office. Lots of books. Farther down is the basement.”

  “The people who lived here had good taste in beer,” added one of the twins. “Heineken.”

  The other reached for a wine bottle on the floor. “They had good taste in wine, too.”

  “How would you know good wine, Carl?”

  “Price tags, dumbass. Not a bottle in the house is worth less than eighteen dollars.” He began opening a bottle, working a corkscrew he’d pulled from a hook on his belt. “What goes with an occasion like this?”

  “Definitely red,” his brother replied.

  “Too bad, this is white. Champagne, actually. Probably left over from New Year’s Eve. Now, every night can be New Year’s Eve if we say so, huh, Earl?”

  Carl loosened the cork quickly and used both thumbs to shoot it at Oliver with a loud pop. The cork barely missed his eye and stung his cheek. Champagne shot across the rug.

  “Easy! You’re wasting it! They aren’t making more of that, you know!” Bently said.

  In answer, the man raised the bottle in a toast, brought it to his lips and tipped it back.

  Jackson leaned against a wall by the stairs and snickered, watching as the twins riled Bently.

  Carl smirked at Bently, and raised his voice to play to his audience. “You suck at math, huh, Bently? We can waste as much as we want. We’ll have a lifetime supply of everything. You’ll never get through all the champagne there is with the few survivors left. Drink all you want, and never pay the bill and toast the dead, dumbass.”

  Earl drank to catch up with his brother. “We haven’t done a thorough inventory of the basement yet. There’s a lot of stuff down there. You should have been more careful stocking the basement, Bently. Bad job! Bad dog! Imagine letting the old man run you like that.”

  Carl wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I hate it when people are disorganized.”

  “Lieutenant’s orders are to do inventory first,” Bently said.

  “You talk like we’re boneheads working retail,” Jackson said.

  “I’m in charge here!” Bently said.

  The boy shrugged. “Whatever. Just sayin’, what’s the point of not getting the plague if it’s business as usual?”

  Bently pointed his rifle at Jackson.

  Jackson crossed his arms. If he was at all bothered, he didn’t show it. “Whatever.”

  “Cheer up, Bently,” Earl said good-naturedly.

  “Yeah! We’re on a break,” Carl said. “I’m new to the militia but I’ve been a union man all my life. Some things are sacred. Taking breaks is part of the job.”

  Bently’s face burned. He turned on Jackson. “This old man is a black marketeer. You guard him.”

  The tattooed boy sneered at Bently but gave a slow nod of assent. He reached out with his crowbar, prodded Oliver toward the stairs and pushed him roughly. If he hadn’t grabbed the railing, Oliver would have fallen down seven steps head first.

  The back door was to his right but before he could try to run, Jackson stepped close, holding his lantern high, swinging it back and forth. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Oliver turned, his hands up. He looked around. They stood in Theo’s rec room lined with books. There was nothing he could use as a weapon that would outdo the crowbar in the young man’s hands. He also knew he couldn’t match the boy’s strength in a fight. His breath was still coming in gasps.

  Oliver wished the archer at the mall had shot that arrow through his head. At least he would have died quickly. That was just this afternoon, but the ordeal now seemed a remote and friendly encounter by comparison. “Just books down here, huh? Nothing you could use.”

  “Don’t be stupid, old man,” Jackson said. “We’ll be needing lots of kindling for cooking fires.”

  Oliver rolled his eyes and the boy swung at him, slamming the knuckles of the hand that held the crowbar into the side of his head above his left ear. “Don’t do that. Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

  The old man held his hands in front of his face. He cowered, expecting the next blow to be with the crowbar. The terror rose in him and he moaned
as liquid warmth spread across the front of his pants and ran down his legs. His urine came not in little spurts but in a long uninterrupted stream. The ripe, yellow puddle spread out toward the boy.

  Jackson cursed, long, loud and creatively. The boy stepped back to avoid the pool of urine at Oliver’s feet. Just as quickly as he was to anger, the boy tittered at his prisoner’s humiliation. “Get back! Pathetic old man!”

  He pushed Oliver with the tip of his crowbar, forcing him back toward the next set of stairs that led to the sub-basement. Without slowing so Oliver could turn and find his footing at the top step, the tattooed boy shoved the blunt end into his ribs so he tumbled backward down another seven steps. Douglas Oliver landed hard on the concrete floor.

  Oliver gasped and cried out in pain. The boy slammed the door after him, pitching him into blackness. “Useless, disgusting old man!” Jackson yelled through the door. Oliver cried, the snot spreading across his face. The warm wet mess dribbled down his chin as he slowly rolled onto his belly.

  Slowly, with great difficulty, he rocked back and forth, reaching into his front pants pocket. Hampered by pain and the wet cling of the thin fabric, Oliver pulled out what he needed. He took as deep a breath as his sore ribs would allow, closed his eyes and triggered the wheel on his small, silver cigarette lighter.

  This step of his plan was very dangerous. However, if he was to survive the night, no part of his plan was safer than any other. When everything’s an emergency, he thought, then nothing is. The lighter flashed twice and lit on the third try.

  Through his tears, he crawled forward on his elbows, saving what strength he had for a very risky idea. He stank of urine, but he had peed himself on purpose.

  Despite the pain, he allowed himself a hint of a grim smile. His anger returned to take over from the fear. He hoped the pumping adrenaline would fuel his strength for what he had to do.

  The deepest wounds are those unseen

  Jack threw herself at the high, wooden fence and, with a push from Anna, dropped into Oliver’s backyard. She landed roughly and, she thought, too loudly. She looked around. From what she could make out by moonlight, she was alone. Someone howled again from the street, but everything appeared as she had left it.

  Jaimie climbed the fence next, then Anna. He looked amused. A novelty, she supposed. Anna still looked as terrified as Jack felt.

  The back door to Douglas Oliver’s house was unlocked. That was also as they’d left it and, she thought, amazingly stupid. There were a lot fewer people around now, but the survivors could be more dangerous. Jack was in too much of a hurry to enter cautiously. She sprang through the door, desperate to find her husband.

  When Jack rushed in, she almost knocked Theo over in the darkness. The truck in Mrs. Bendham’s driveway was parked at an angle to make room for the long U-Haul trailer. Its headlights shone into Oliver’s front room. If anyone had been looking, they’d have spotted her silhouette immediately, even through the slightly tinted windows.

  Theo gripped her arm and pulled her back from the window. She pulled her mask away and pressed her lips to his neck.

  Theo looked at her with a wan smile. “I’m glad you’re back. I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Doing nothing was the right thing to do. We’re fine.”

  Theo pointed across the street to their abandoned home. “No, we’re not.”

  The Jeep parked on their front lawn was equipped with a spotlight. The man in the wedding dress, Jack’s wedding dress, laughed and howled to the man in Bermuda shorts. The other man howled back as soon as the man in the dress ran out of breath.

  “Oh…,” Jack said. She took a half-step toward the window. Theo held her close so she wouldn’t be caught in the light.

  Anna and Jaimie walked in holding hands. Even in the dim light, Theo caught his son’s wave of Oliver’s walking stick. It meant, Look what I’ve got, Dad!

  Jaimie broke from his sister and held his father’s hand. Theo straightened as if he’d received a small burst of energy or was refreshed from a power nap. “They’ve got Oliver.”

  “Got him? I thought they worked for him,” Jack said.

  “What do you mean?”

  She shook her head. “He can’t be trusted. He’s been using us to build his little black market empire.”

  “Empire?” Theo said, incredulous.

  “I don’t know. That might be overstating it. It’s just…Oliver only cares about himself. He wanted us out of our house so we’d take care of him if he needed help. When did he ever talk to us before his trip to the hospital? I think he wanted a tribe and he chose us. But he’s selfish.”

  “He’s a bad burrito,” Anna agreed.

  Theo turned back to the window. “From what I saw, there are worse men than him. And they have him now.”

  The man in the dress was back on the front step, still howling back and forth at the man in the Bermuda shorts.

  “Those guys choose one song and play it to death,” Theo said.

  The screen door Anna’s boyfriend had destroyed lay cast aside on the grass, like a small insult forgotten because of deeper wounds.

  The man in Jack’s wedding dress shook a can of something. He stretched his arm up and sprayed paint back and forth in broad strokes. When he stepped back, a thick orange phosphorescent ‘X’ was visible across their front door.

  “Wolf Pack!” the man in white yelled in triumph.

  “Wolf Pack!” the man in Bermuda shorts answered. They howled at each other again. The sound rose, up and up, a terrifying animal sound.

  Jack began to cry. She put a hand to her head and Anna moved forward to catch her in case she fainted. Jack stumbled forward into her husband and lay her head on his chest.

  The curtains moved against the window pane under the steady eye of white light. The guard in Bermuda shorts caught the movement from the edge of his vision. Was that a trick of the light, or was someone watching them? He’d been watching that window and wondering.

  He stood, dug a white hospital mask out of his back pocket and grabbed his shotgun.

  Between what we were and where we've been

  Oliver pulled himself up by the rough, wooden workbench. He tried to disregard the sharp pain across his back and chest, but his breath was ragged.

  How many ribs had Bently cracked? That could be nothing in the long run, if a jagged rib didn’t pop one of his lungs first. If the end of a broken rib did rip through the lining of a lung, deflating his balloon and pressing on his old heart, he’d die. He doubted Jackson had the skills or inclination to perform a thoracotomy to save him.

  In the flickering light of his old lighter, his cold hands shook as he searched in vain for a weapon. Years of accumulated junk littered the workbench: Discarded training wheels for a bicycle; old rolls and scraps of wallpaper; coffee cans full of screws and nails. A forgotten flower pot lay on its side.

  Oliver would have preferred a long, flat screwdriver but all he could find were smaller ones. Perhaps Bently had already gone through the workbench, taking what he thought useful for their cache. Oliver almost fell reaching for a tiny Robinson screwdriver from a plastic rack.

  At the top of the small flight of stairs, the tattooed boy was still cursing him, laughing at him and making gagging sounds through the door. Terrified Jackson would rush in and swing his crowbar any second, Oliver grabbed the small screwdriver. It was so small, the tool disappeared in his palm, but he would have to make do.

  He fumbled and gasped as he knocked a can of screws over. The screws and nails scattered and clattered across the concrete floor towards the washer and dryer by the far wall. To his despair, the sound had carried to Jackson’s ears.

  “What you doin’ down there, old man?”

  Oliver snatched up the empty flower pot and, despite his pain, pushed off the workbench and launched himself back toward the stairs and off into the darkness to the left, going by feel and memory. He’d hidden his treasure by
the furnace.

  The red plastic gas cans lay under a tarp. This was the inventory he’d told Bently to store in the Spencer’s house. The fuel was meant to power their escape to the promised haven of Theo’s father’s farm. It might save him now.

  The old man felt the cool plastic under his hands in the dark. He could save himself if he had enough time, but time was slipping away.

  His hope didn’t last long. His captor pounded down the stairs.

  Oliver was fit, but he was still an old man. Even without a broken rib, he wouldn’t have tried attacking Jackson on his best day. However, there was another, long-shot option.

  Jackson headed toward the laundry room. His lantern held high and swinging wildly, Oliver caught just enough thrown light in his corner of the basement to help him close on what he needed with a sure hand.

  That moment saved Oliver from immolating himself. In his rush and desperation, he’d come close to using the lighter. Instead, he stabbed at a gas can with the screwdriver point. He had meant to stab it low, close to the floor, but as he stooped, pain shot through his chest and he heard something crack and shift.

  The screwdriver, with all his lurching weight behind it, plunged through the thin plastic easier than he expected. Gas slopped out. Oliver gasped and dropped the flower pot. His hands on his knees, the old man bent farther, each breath a misery. He shifted the flower pot with his foot till he heard gasoline splash into it.

  The boy heard him. Jackson rushed forward but was hampered by a pile of cardboard boxes. He wound through the mess, holding the lantern and the crowbar higher, searching the basement.

  Oliver straightened as best he could and leaned against the furnace. “I’m here.”

  The boy slowed, cautious now. He saw Oliver bend down and heard his pained gasp. The boy smiled and came closer, bold and sure, raising the long crowbar.

  The old man straightened again and held up something silver in the light.

  Jackson faltered for a second, thinking his prisoner had a knife or a gun, but it was far too small for that.