The Beginning of the End

by Emily Allison

  The crisp air hit Damon’s bristled face when he stepped onto the gritty pavement, and that scent hit his nostrils: death was in the air. When he reached the driver’s door Harper and Riley fanned out to clear the area of any predator, and they didn’t mean animals. After a thorough inspection for hidden dangers, he pulled the car door open. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to have a zombie try snapping off a finger or two of the person trying to get in a car. This time there weren’t any snapping jaws waiting, but the mechanic did call the guys over.

  “Look at this,” Damon murmured, pointing to the motionless driver slumped to the right with its head held back.

  The man had two bullet holes in his chest, and he looked relatively fresh, not at all like a zombie. His exposed skin was free of bite wounds from what they could see. Damon thought he looked pretty healthy, aside from the bullet holes. The question was what happened to the guy? Who shot him?

  “The car’s empty,” Harper reported.

  Damon smelled the aroma of gasoline, had a thought, then dropped to his hands and feet at the rear of the vehicle. Seeing there was a puncture in the tank, he got back up. “Whelp, whoever killed this guy took the gas too.” The mechanic dusted off his thick hands.

  “We need to get back to the vehicle now,” Harper instructed.

  “They could be watching…” Riley said with a spooky voice.

  “They who?” Damon inquired, turning a head.

  “Knock it off, Riley. Back to the—”Harper was cut off by gunfire.

  Damon took off running like a bullet while Harper and Riley took cover behind the Honda. Their bodies squatted behind the front and rear fenders. He saw Chloe make a move to get out, to help, but he quickly motioned for her to stop and stay low. She must have read the sincerity in his face because she sat back and disappeared under the dash. Damon risked a glance back at the marines and saw Harper moving to towards the truck with his broad back facing him. Riley was pinned down at the abandoned car, Damon felt for his pistol, knowing he had run his shotgun out of ammunition. He made a move to open the driver door to the truck when he was struck from behind; the impact slammed his chest into the door, taking the air from his lungs, and he thought he was going to hit the pavement. Chloe’s face appeared in the window, and the urge to protect her, and himself, welled up. Damon snapped his head back, connecting with the assailant. He heard a sharp crack.

  He turned to see a gruff looking man with his head flipped back as he fell onto the hard ground, arms splayed out, howling in pain. His matted blond hair stuck to his scalp as he held his bleeding nose. Damon snatched his pistol from his hip. Seeing the pistol, the man’s brown eyes flared and held up his hands, immediately started to beg.

  “Please, man no,” he stammered.

  Damon listened to all the gunfire, his index finger against the trigger but found it difficult to pull. After an eternity he started to speak. “Why did you attack us?” he demanded, there were many more questions he had for the unknown man, like where the hell did he come from? Or how had they survived so long?

  “Look, I’m sorry. He made us do it.” The man’s skinny body quaked, just as cold rain began to fall, splattering over his furrowed brow.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” During all the expeditions he and his crew had been on, they had never come across evidence of another settlement.

  “At the lake, Hagerty—” were the only words the man was able to say because Riley turned, and seeing a threat, fired a shot, killing the man, without hearing a word of the conversation. Damon’s back thumped against the truck as he fell backward stunned, the oozing red hole in the man’s head glared at him as he watched his body hit the pavement.

  Enemy fire ceased in an instant, and both marines fell back to the truck while Damon stared at the dead man. Dammit! “God Dammit Riley!” he cursed, as he slammed the driver’s door.

  “What? I saved your skin back there,” he responded, oblivious to Damon’s anger.

  “We should go,” Harper interjected before things got too heated.

  Damon hit the steering wheel with his fist. “That guy said someone made them attack us, but you killed him before I got anything but a name.” He glared at Riley, who now understood why he was pissed, and immediately took offense.

  “Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t hear your casual conversation when I was being shot at!” Riley exploded; his normally pale face was the shade of a lobster.

  “Hey! Both of you shut up!” Chloe shouted from the back seat. “Look Damon, Riley thought you were in trouble. He couldn’t have known you were talking to the guy during the gunfire. Cut him some slack.”

  “Right! Don’t go gettin’ all pissed off,” Riley rubbed in.

  Damon shook his head and sighed heavily. “I know. I know. It’s just he was saying something about someone making them do this.” He shifted the truck into drive and rolled passed the motionless body of the unknown man, and then the Honda.

  Harper glanced at Damon. “Making who do what?”

  “I asked the man why they attacked us, and he said that Hagerty made us. And something about a lake.”

  “Hagerty…” Harper pondered, rubbing his clean-shaven chin.

  Riley was listening again, it never took him long to get over anything. Even when he and Kya had a huge fight about his drinking right before they had left for this mission. He was over it pretty quickly. “Sorry…”

  “Did he give any more information?” Harper asked. “I mean there are a thousand lakes around here and a name really doesn’t mean anything to us.”

  Damon shook his head quickly. “No, Riley shot him after that.”

  “Well dammit. I said I was sorry,” the tall marine voiced automatically, and somewhat sarcastically. He clapped his hands together.

  “Just forget it,” Chloe said, attempting to keep the peace between the men.

  Harper rested back in his seat again, “Chloe’s right. What’s important is there is another settlement somewhere, and they are ambushing people.”

  “Maybe we killed them all,” Riley offered.

  Damon ignored him. “Let’s just find a place to crash tonight, and then hopefully we can find some supplies on the way back home. I’m sure if any of them survived, we won’t see ‘em again.”

  “Yup, now you just jinxed us.” Chloe huffed and threw her arms around her shoulders. She let her body slump against the cloth seat; turning her head, she peered out the window as the scenery passed her view.

  Damon ignored everyone after that and continued driving, until he couldn’t remember which mile marker he passed; he just wanted to be away from the mysterious Hagerty. Yet, deep down, Damon wanted to know more.

  chapter 2

  When darkness fell, the four companions pulled into the tiny parking lot of an even smaller building. The building’s exterior was constructed to look like a log cabin-there was a twinge in Damon’s chest-with a low roof in need of some new shingles. The lone bay window was covered in filthy grime, but it was free of the traditional blood spatter that was the norm these days.

  Damon let the Silverado roll by silently, getting a closer look before getting out. He heard Riley from the back seat as the passed the front door.

  “Walt’s Taxidermy. You kill ‘em, we stuff ‘em,” Riley read out loud. “Sounds like my kind of place.” Even in the dark cab, Chloe could see the huge smile plastered on the marine’s face.

  “Well I’m sure this place is gonna be pretty scarce for deaders, huh?” Chloe mumbled. “I mean it couldn’t have been very busy in its hay day.”

  “Never can be too careful,” Harper muttered with his eyes scanning the blackness for any sign of trouble.

  “Agreed,” Damon said, as he put the vehicle in park. “Stay together, you know the drilled.” He didn’t like stopping at night, but they hadn’t really had any luck finding supplies, so it kept them out longer during the day. They were running out of time, and he needed to get back to the safe zone.

  “Well, we may f
ind some weapons at least, right? I mean they got to have some pretty wicked knives in there, I bet,” Chloe said, shutting her door as quietly as possible, and then swiftly strung her bow.

  She fell behind Damon who held his machete in the ready position, not wanting to use his firearm at night. He was just thinking that he wished Chloe would have stayed in the vehicle; the same though he had each time they made a stop. Protecting her was more important than protecting himself, and one day that may lead to his demise. He thought back to the supermarket when Chloe and Victoria were in trouble, he threw himself into a storm of the undead to draw them away so the girls could escape. How he wasn’t bitten, Damon didn’t know. He chalked it up to luck, which he thought he was getting short on.

  “Damon, watch out!” Chloe shouted as a zombie launched itself out of the dark and into his sight of Damon’s flashlight.

  Baring dirty teeth and melting lips, the zombie moaned as it scratched violently at the air where Damon had just been standing a second before he sidestepped. The machete came down with a wisp of air and split its brain in two. The thing fell into a rotten heap onto some ancient trash, but the ruckus attracted another fiend that had been pondering endless nothingness in the surrounding field. Chloe put it down with a silent shot from her bow, and when it was safe, she quickly retrieved the arrow. Damon nodded his thanks, and the two of them joined Riley and Harper at the back of the small building.

  “Damon, you are going to get yourself killed if you keep drifting off like that,” Chloe warned, shouldering her bow as Riley fiddled with the lock.

  Damon wrinkled his eyebrows. “Who’s the adult here?” He smiled and pulled Chloe in with one arm to give her a hug.

  “OK. OK. Just be safe, would ya? Vic would kill me if you didn’t come back.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Yeah let’s not have that situation,” Riley agreed. He heard the lock click. “Yes! I still got it.”

  “And I could have just shot the thing open,” Harper offered.

  Riley opened the door, his azure eyes were vigilant as he remained on guard. “But then it wouldn’t have locked behind us so nicely.”

  Harper huffed, but didn’t say anything.

  “Why didn’t you offer to do this at the library?” Chloe chirped.

  Riley shrugged his skinny shoulders. “I forgot.”

  Damon and the crew made a quick run through of the interior, making sure there were no surprises left for them today. He found himself thinking about the unarmed man again, and the enigmatic Hagerty. He wondered if they had set ambushes anywhere else. “I’m going to move the truck around back, just in case we need to make a quick getaway.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. We don’t know how far of a reach this Hagerty has,” Harper said making Damon feel better knowing that someone else was wondering about him too.

  Damon disappeared out of the shop for only a moment, and then quickly locked the truck and checked the perimeter. They were alone. No noise, no insects, just utter silence. When he re-entered the main room he found Chloe analyzing forms of elk, badgers, wolverines, coyotes and bobcats. He saw her reach out a hand to stroke the fur occasionally. It was the closest thing to a zoo she had been too in many years.

  “Look at these,” she said admiring a large bobcat. “I mean, it’s sad they’re dead, but it’s neat to see them up close. Its fur is so soft.”

  Damon stood beside her. “Yeah, this Dale guy knew what he was doing.” His thick palm brushed against the bobcat’s hide and was pleased with the sensation. Something so simple was so comforting. He was interrupted by Riley who had a grin slapped on his face, and when they were both looking he raised his stub.

  Attached to the end of his forearm was a large bear paw, where his hand used to be. “Rarr.”

  Damon laughed. “You’re an idiot.”

  “Come on. That hurts. I’m just trying to find something to replace my hand since you chopped it off.”

  “It was either that or your head cuz you would have turned into a zombie.”

  “I think it’s cool,” Chloe said even though she was lying.

  “Thank you,” he snapped his bear paw up in a salute. “I think I just might keep it.”

  Harper looked up from the receptionist chair in which he was admiring a curved knife used for skinning. “You would shoot like shit with that thing on your arm.”

  Riley frowned for a second, and Chloe patted his good arm. His frown vanished in seconds, and his long eyebrows lifted when he had an idea. “Maybe I can manufacture a bad ass weapon.”

  Harper shook his head. “You need sleep. We all need sleep. You better get started because you have second watch.”

  “Yes sir,” Riley said with a smile.

  Damon watched the two for a few moments longer; finding himself bored, he decided to investigate the rest of the place. He passed through the main hall into what he supposed was the workshop where he saw piles of foam statues that waited to be stuffed into poor animal hides. A bucket of hardened glue was spilled over the side of a large workbench, and the fumes mixed with the stale museum like air. The back wall was lined with white freezers that he assumed held the animal carcasses until they were ready to be stuffed. At the end of the hall to his left was a small door, and at the opposite end, the door they’d used to come in.

  There was a small room hidden in the corner, about the size of a closet. He started walking that way and passed under the low door hang. The room was only about six feet by six feet with a desk pushed against the wall to Damon’s left. He sat in the chair and looked through the papers that lay sprawled out on the dusty old desk. Most were of no interest, but Damon read through them anyway. Billing receipts and inventory shipments made up a majority of the clutter, until he came across an old photograph. The man in the picture looked to be in his late fifties and had a beard that rivaled ZZ Top. He had his arm slung over the shoulder of a heavy set woman that reminded Damon a lot like Julene.

  He quickly shoved the picture under a mountain of papers when thoughts of his brother threatened to come to his mind. He went through the rest of the desk, until his hand passed over a familiar shape. He pulled a shining black pistol from the second drawer. It was much like the one he had at his home; the one that he pressed to his head, but could never bring himself to pull the trigger. He stuffed the gun into this pants and went back to join the others.

  Harper had positioned his chair in front of the window with his rifle lying across his lap. His eyes pierced the darkness, looking for any trouble, living or dead. The big marine was a great asset to the team, and Damon was grateful they found him when they did. Damon’s eyes went from Harper to Chloe, who was laying in the middle of the floor covered in a pile of animal hides Riley had found for her. She was already sound asleep. Riley was leaning against the wall, behind the receptionist desk, drinking from a flask.

  “What the hell is that?” Damon asked with a frown on his face.

  “Just a little something for the soul.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “The receptionist must have loved Jack too.”

  “Dammit Riley you gotta be on watch later.”

  Harper scowled at the marine, overhearing the conversation between the two men, but didn’t say anything. He had been in the service with him for a long time before the zombies came.

  “Oh don’t worry. This ain’t enough to catch a buzz on.”

  Damon cursed and turned from the tall marine; he gave up. He was too tired, and he needed sleep. Riley’s drinking hadn’t put them in danger before, so Damon found some extra pelts and found a spot on the floor next to Chloe. He got as comfortable as he could against the hard wood floor. He had to admit it was nice being somewhere other than his truck. Even though the air was stale, and there was a strong aroma of chemicals used in the taxidermy process. Before he knew it, his eyes were closing and he drifted into unconsciousness.

  Where the hell am I? Damon thought to himself. He was staring at the ceiling of
his old room; the one he had lived in with his brother, before the safe zone. The room smelled the same as he remembered it. There was a mixture of old closet, evergreen and musky cologne. Damon sat upright and brought his legs over the side of the bed. He let his bare feet touch the cold floor, and something else….something wet.

  Damon’s eyes drifted to his feet; his heart launched into his throat, choking him. What he saw turned the blood in his veins to icy sludge. His curved toes were swimming in a dark pool of blood. It was then the air changed, no longer the nostalgic aroma, but it was darker, diseased.

  A growl sounded from across the room, and Damon snapped up. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. His eyes watched the doorway where the undead form of his brother stood. Throat and abdomen ripped out, his jaw was slacked open bearing black teeth. The thing took one unsteady step forward, its body quivered from its wobbly head to toe. It took another step, then another. Damon watched, frozen in place, as the thing that once was his brother growled, snapping deadly jaws. Bloody hands reached for Damon, the moment a sharp fingernail touched his skin, he screamed and everything went dark.

  chapter 3

  Shrieks echoed through the taxidermy shop as Damon thrashed against the floor with sweat pouring from his forehead. His body was drenched as Riley shook him.

  “Damon! Shut up, man!” he yelled, “You’re gonna get us killed!”

  Chloe was set back on her feet, tears in her eyes as she watched Damon flail and scream; it was a behavior she had never seen before, and it scared the death out of her. “Come on, Damon. You’re Ok.” She hesitantly wrapped her pale hand around the man’s thick forearm. “We’re here.”

  Yet Damon didn’t stop until Riley slapped the screaming man across the face with his right hand.

  “Riley!” Chloe yipped.

  Harper, who had been pacing between them and the window, frowned at Riley, but knew it was necessary. He had been around countless soldiers suffering from PTSD, sometimes it was the only way to wake them up. “He’ll be fine, Chloe.” He laid a hand on her tiny shoulder and watched Damon.