Once he was satisfied that he was as presentable as a flesh-eater could be, he tossed the wipes into the back seat, threw the hoodie on top of them, and started the car again. He pulled up at the far side of the pumps and shut down the engine, then climbed out to fill the car.
No one was about at that hour, though the attendant inside gave him a cursory glance. With his hair all slicked back and his face freshly scrubbed, Paul looked respectable enough not to warrant a second look. He managed to fill the tank without interference and guide the car back to the highway.
He had gone perhaps ten miles when the phone rang. The sound of it scared him and the car lurched as he started. Then he picked the phone up and grimaced at it. It shone brightly, announcing the name of the caller. Matt.
"Who the hell is Matt?" he asked himself. "Matt." He frowned heavily and shook his head. "Matt."
No matter how many times he repeated it, the name meant nothing. There was Linda. His parents. But Matt? Try as he might, he could find no memory associated with Matt.
On a whim, he flipped through his contacts, finally landing on Matt's name. It showed his phone number – which he didn't recognize – and his address – which matched his own. "Ah, Matt!" he sighed with a smile.
How could he forget his best friend and roommate? He'd only known the guy for his entire life! And now he couldn't even remember who he was without prompting?
Paul clicked the green button on the screen and answered the phone. "Matt?"
"Oh good! You're still alive." Matt chuckled a bit and pressed on. "Listen, I know you can't talk…at least I can't understand you when you talk…but that's okay. I just wanted to say I'm sorry if I was too rough on you earlier. I know how important Linda is to you. And I want you to know I didn't call the police or anything. Just take care of the car, you know? We still owe on it and I would kind of like to keep it nice at least until we pay it off."
Paul thought of the torn-out trunk carpet, the dead body in the back seat, and the blood covering most of the interior. "OK," he said, forming the words as carefully as he could.
"Cool. Okay. I just wanted you to know we were cool and all. You take care, ok? And if you need anything…like…well…anything at all…you let me know."
The call ended and Paul frowned. "Sure, buddy," he chuckled to himself. "I'll take care. And I could use some help. Could you get the dead guy out of the back seat and maybe find a way to make me be NOT undead? As in, alive? As in, not eating people anymore? 'k, thanx bye!"
Paul had been driving straight ahead for two hours. Blessedly, he didn't require sleep, food (at least not beyond the occasional taste of the corpse back there) and he didn't need to stop to relieve himself. He made good time.
Most of the time, his eyes were fixed, unblinking, on the windshield. His mind was a complete blank. It wasn't that he had repressed any of the last two days, but that his mind quite simply would not contain thought unless it was forced. It seemed like years since he had left New York; years more until he would reach LA.
"Keep left!" the electronic voice boomed at him through the silence.
Paul cried out and for a heart-stopping moment, he thought that the dead guy who had lain on the floor for the last 300 miles had somehow been revived; that somehow, he, Paul, had turned the poor bastard into a zombie.
Then his eyes flashed to the dash and realized that the GPS was the owner of that voice, as cold and dead as the guy in the back seat. He did what the GPS advised. He kept right. But for the life of him, he couldn't remember why. Where was he going again? Why was he going there?
He tried to force himself to remember. It was getting harder to recall things now, even simple things like his friends' names and how to check his email. He knew that one bite of his human snack-pack would fix it. But he had made himself a promise some time ago, and that was to never again taste of human flesh. He was saving the corpse for that one all-important moment when his pseudo-self was face-to-face with . . . with . . .
He began to cry then. Still no tears, but his body bucked and shook and he made a pitiable noise. He was on his way to somewhere, to see his girlfriend, whose name he couldn't remember. He made a mental note and hoped that it would stick: When he next needed gas, he would check his phone and remember her name. Then he would write it on one of the sticky notes that . . . that . . . what's his name . . . always kept in the car for leaving messages on people's doors.
Paul drove on. The fact that this had happened at all was distressing enough but coupled with the fact that he was forgetting simple things drove him almost over the brink. Why had this happened to him? He was a good person. He was smart. He did favors for his friends without being asked. He never once called in sick to work when he wasn't sick. And while those other city-fed fat-cats relied on the fact that they couldn't get fired and wasted the day smoking and shooting the breeze, he carried out his duties faithfully. He'd had a plan from the time he was sixteen; he knew how his life should go. He had never once deviated from that plan; had worked arduously toward its completion. And now, a mere two weeks from the realization of his life's dreams, this had happened.
His mind blanked again. He took a curve in the highway too fast, made the body in the back seat shift, and scared himself. He checked the mirror and noticed that several blotches had broken out on his face. One check of his hands revealed even more.
"I won't do it," he snapped to no one but himself. "I won't eat human flesh again. I don't care how bad it gets, I won't do it."
And with that total conviction set firmly in his mind, he drove on.
A huge power line joined up with the road and followed it for a while. It stayed with him for nearly twenty miles, then branched off and disappeared. Paul's phone rang and he snatched at it, looking at the name on the screen.
Linda.
And the battery was at twenty-one percent.
"Hello?" he barked.
There was a moment of silence and then, "I know you can't talk. Where are you? Are you almost here?"
Did she even know how far it was from New York to LA? "I've got a long way to go, baby. I'm driving as fast as I can."
Linda sighed. "Email me when you can. Let me know where you are. If you're going to arrive during the day, I'll stay home from work. But I need to know when you'll be here." There was a pause. It cut like a dagger. "Bye, Paul."
Linda. Paul dropped the phone onto the seat and groaned. "No, I love you? No, I can't wait to see you, Paul? No, I miss you?"
It became painfully obvious to him then that she was losing interest in him. He had pissed her off, made her doubt him with all this craziness. He had to get to her. Fast.
If only he had taken a plane. Why hadn't he taken a plane?
The gas warning bleeped at him again and he trained his eyes on the signs ahead. There was a SuperMart at the next exit. He would pull off there and get some gas. It was going to be tricky, though. The sun was up and he knew his car was a mess. The mirror taunted him; told him that he was a mess, too.
He eased onto the exit ramp, watching the road ahead for signs of the SuperMart. There were signs everywhere, though, and he had trouble finding the one he needed. Then fate stepped in and guided him in the guise of a giant sign that blared red against blue, SuperMart.
The parking lot was huge. Morning commuters were pulling in and out, getting their coffee, their donuts, their energy drinks. Cars moved so quickly through the process that it was almost like watching a time-lapse video.
There was parking all around the building. The door opened into the front of it, the delivery and service door opened into the right. Paul pulled toward the left side of the building, the only one with no doors and no glass. He maneuvered the car until he could back into the space, putting the bloody driver's side on the wooded edge of the lot. He needed to gas up, but first he had some cleaning up to do. If he tried to just pull up to the pumps, someone would see all that blood and he would be done for.
Once he had stepped from the car, his mind fel
t clearer. He pulled his hair forward, so that it covered his eyes and the edge of his face, trying for that fine line between armed robber and gangsta. His plan was to go into the SuperMart, grab an energy drink and a donut (which he would throw away) and a bottle of window cleaner and some papers towels (which he would use to clean the blood off the car). He had this all mapped out in his head, repeating it to himself as he walked, trying not to let those precious plans slip away from him in a moment of thoughtlessness.
It was a good plan, as plans went. It came very close to working, too.
Paul bent his head low and slipped into the store, making sure to face away from the camera aimed at the door. He slid to the back of the store where the coolers were, grabbed himself a small energy drink, then paced over two aisles to pick up a bag of donuts. It was easier and quicker, he reasoned, to grab a bag than to fuss with the rack that held the single donuts. Cleaning products were to the right, paper products to the left. He grabbed the window cleaner first, then made for the paper products.
His hands full now, he marched to the checkout and placed the items on the counter. At the far end of the counter was a rack of hoodies, fifty percent off. He grabbed an XXL and tossed it on the counter with his other items. He kept his head down and coughed every now and again. If the clerk thought he was really sick, he would be more likely to hurry him through the process. Paul dug around in his pocket, produced a twenty, then scooped up his items and headed for the door.
The cool morning air hit him as he stepped outside, clutching the bag to his chest and making sure not to make eye contact with anyone. Briefly, he stopped on the sidewalk, pulling the hoodie out of the bag and over his head. He strode purposefully down the sidewalk and rounded the corner . . .
There were two cops and a cruiser sitting on that side of the parking lot. Paul felt instant panic well up inside of him and he ducked back around the corner. He wondered what had tipped them off. Even knowing the blood was there, he couldn't see it from where he stood. How did they see it?
He managed to peek around the corner again. No sir! They weren't leaving any time soon. If Paul had had a heartbeat, he was sure it would be pounding right now. His phone was in the car. The GPS that knew where he was going was in the car. He needed that car!
There were only two choices, he knew. One, he could look for a car that had been left running, slip into it and hope that he could drive casually out of the lot before the owner saw him. He looked around. All the cars seemed to be either occupied or shut up and locked. He could stand there and wait for one of the drivers to get out and leave their car but every second he stood there, he risked being found out.
And that brought him to choice number two. He could run. Running, the international sign of guilt. But how far could he get if he just nonchalantly walked away? Twenty yards? Maybe fifty?
There was no other recourse left to him. He had to get away from the SuperMart without the cops – or anybody else – seeing him do it. Quickly, he dumped the tell-tale bag into the trash, turned on his heels, and walked away from the place. And as he turned, the lead policeman came around the corner. He turned that corner just in time to see Paul's back walking away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
This town was a small town, suffering from all the same pains that other small towns suffered. Its death or growth rested on the shoulders of its industry. At present, this town's industry was farming and it was thriving, thank you very much. The nearby river and rich soil that surrounded it meant that crops flourished. Calm winters, moist summers, and an employee pool of thousands meant that a farmer would have to be awfully stupid to fail.
And like most small towns in their prepubescent years, this one suffered from a sort of reverse big bang. Its center had started to die, the old original buildings marked with decay, the crime following the decay like a flock of vultures. And as the center died, the town grew from the inside out. New businesses chose prime locations on the outskirts of town. Old businesses relocated to the higher-traffic, newer parts of the town, each according to their stability and ability. The further out into the country you got, to a point, the richer and grander the homes were. If you were a CEO or a doctor, you lived in one of those neatly planned and carefully staged subdivisions. Old school lived on the hill. And if you were the single mom welfare recipient, you lived at the center of town, where grand old houses had been turned into festering eyesores.
The growth, death and re-growth of the town, if seen from space in a time-lapsed video, would look like the blooming of a flower. What would appear in that video in a matter of seconds had taken over a hundred years, but it had happened nonetheless. People, whether happy about the way things were going or not, all had opinions, and those opinions kept them separate from one another, kept them struggling.
Paul didn't know anything about the little town into which he had escaped. He didn't even know its name. All Paul knew was that he had to get his stuff out of his car, and that the police had the car. By now, they knew who it was they were looking for. Paul only knew two things: First, that he was on his way to LA to find Linda, and that he could not let the police catch him before he did.
He walked away from the SuperMart, keeping to the shadows and small backstreets of the little town. Whenever possible, he cut through alleys and skulked behind houses. All he wanted to do at that point was to get to some place, any place, where he felt safe. But safe was a relative term.
He was a murderer now and the whole world knew it. How long it would take before the police contacted Matt and Linda, he had no idea, but very soon, Linda would think him a monster. Was there really any point in carrying on with this silly plan? Wasn't it better to just turn himself in, try to explain, and take his licks? Surely they would eventually come to see that all of it had been beyond his control. He was no longer human in any way that mattered and so could not be blamed for what he had done. No, he couldn't have Linda thinking that the love of her life was a killer. He had to get to her and tell her his side.
And so Paul developed his Mantra. Things were slipping from his mind so quickly that he could barely carry a sentence from beginning to end without forgetting it. And so he marched on through the town, chanting.
I have to get to Linda in LA. I have to get to Linda in LA.
He considered himself the luckiest duck in town, since he had managed to travel that far without being seen. Surely, the cops had put out an APB on him already. How long could it take for them to peruse his phone and find his name, address, every single bit of personal information there was to know about him?
At that thin line which divided the industrial outskirts of town from the inner-town slums, Paul found an old and long-forgotten club. It harkened back to the days when the good folks of the town hadn't so much minded having a "gentleman's club" around and when the back of said club was operated by the local madam. The neon sign was all but gone. Only the high-kicking legs of the animated stripper remained. The door was chained, though that chain looked like it had been strained to its limits on more than one occasion.
A layer of grime coated the door handle as Paul put his hand on it. The handle itself was warm from the sunshine that bathed it. He gave it a pull and the door opened a good eighteen inches. Paul ducked down and slipped under the chain and through the opening. He was saved.
All was darkness inside. The plywood that had been studiously nailed over the window blocked out any form of light that might have penetrated glass. There was no electricity anymore, so none of the lights would work, even if the bulbs had managed to survive all those years. Paul tried to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but it was complete. There was not a bit of light to see by. He was blind.
He felt his way slowly across the room. If he barked one foot or banged one shin, he might well lose that part of himself forever. It was something that he didn't want to think about.
He found his way across the room and to the bar. By now, his hand was well and goodly coated with a film of dust. Everything had d
ust on it in there and he was sure that if he had some light, he would see that the air was thick with the dust he'd stirred up just by moving slowly through the room.
His hands traveled the length of the bar, first on top, then on the first shelf and then the second. He was looking for anything he might use to create light. A flashlight. Matches. A barbecue lighter. Anything.
He knocked a glass to the floor and it shattered. He winced from the sound and stood still for a moment, waiting to see if there was anybody else in there who might come running at the sound. When no one did, he began his search anew, hoping that luck would hang out with him for just a little longer.
His hands closed on something big and rectangular. It felt like cardboard but the humidity and dust gave it kind of a spongy feel. He pulled it off the bottom shelf and ran his fingers carefully over it, feeling as they rounded the long side and rubbed on something that felt like sandpaper.
Matches. He had found a big box of matches. No doubt, some bartender in years past had used them to make flaming drinks. Now, they were Paul's Godsend.
He opened the box carefully so as not to spill the contents, which rattled around the box as if they had a life of their own. He removed a match and closed the box, hoping against hope that the humidity hadn't destroyed any chance he had of lighting it.
He placed his hands just so, being careful. When he finally had worked up the nerve to try, he dragged the end of the matchstick along the sandpapered side and almost cheered with joy when it lit.
Zombie - A Love Story Page 5