by Bryn Roar
The three unfortunate firefighters awoke on the morning of the 14 to find they had changed. Mutated into mindless monsters. Gone was their dedication to the job, their desire to help their fellow man in need. These decent and caring souls were now rabid, uncontrollable, foaming at the mouth beasts, intent on the destruction of the human race—one human being at a time.
*******
The carnage began as the families returned to the island in the small fleet of working and pleasure boats, all of which had managed to dock before the Betty Anne slipped into the harbor that afternoon. As each family walked unawares past the Firehouse, on their way up Main Street, to get to their cars parked in the business district, they were beset upon by Lonnie and his men, roaring from the dark maw of the open bay doors like ravenous bears from their winter dens. The victims were then dragged back into the nether regions of the Firehouse, where the women and girls, no matter the age, were raped and beaten within an inch of their lives. Those individuals the firefighters didn’t kill in a blind rage were left to stumble their way home, naked, beaten, their blood running furious with the mutant strain. Home, where they’d wait for the night. Wait for the coming madness. The men, for the most part, had had their limbs torn asunder, their throats ripped open for the hot blood coursing through their jugulars.
Lonnie and his men had spared precious few from the wilding, which had lasted all day.
The Rabids had lay bloody and replete on the limb-bestrewn floor of the Firehouse. They’d smelled the girl the first time she’d walked by the open bay doors but had been too bloated to get up from their grisly litter. Too spent to pursue. Josie had made it easy on them, however, delivering of herself and the quivering fat boy.
If not for their drunken stupor, the volunteers would have already added two more victims to the Firehouse floor. Still, they were plenty fast enough.
Josie knew she and Tubby could never outrun them. They were as good as dead. Unless…
“Into the jail!” she said, shoving Tubby up the flight and back into the Sheriff’s Office. Tubby didn’t have time to object. Josie herded him inside the nearest cell and slammed the iron bars shut behind her. She fell on Tubby, tackling him into the furthest corner of the cell, just as the naked men crashed headlong into the bars…
*******
They couldn’t locate Bilbo. The emergency generator was running, though, so that meant he had to be somewhere nearby. Bill wouldn’t leave it running unattended for very long. Its main purpose, during a power outage, was to get any customers safely through the darkest bowels of the museum. They could hear the chugging motor all the way up in the lobby. The main power wasn’t back on after all it seemed. The generator in the basement was the only thing supplying electricity to the live wires outside.
While Bud looked for his dad in their apartment, Gnat picked up the intercom mike on the dash of the lead coffin car on the lobby tracks.
Bilbo? You back there somewhere? Come running if you are! We’re in bad trouble, you hear me? Bill? Shit! Hurry up, old man, we fucking need you!”
Not liking the sound of his own panic-stricken voice, echoing so stridently in the tunnel, Rusty quickly shelved the mike. He hurried into Bill’s office, turning off the breakers for the marquee. When he returned to the lobby, it was still empty. No sign of Bill or Bud.
After checking every room in their apartment, Bud picked up the phone in the kitchen. No dial tone. Of course there wasn’t. He met up with Rusty in the front lobby, disappointed to find his friend waiting all alone. A deep sadness tightened his chest, constricting his already madly thumping heart. Rusty looked up at him, his owlish eyes feverish and wet. Anxious to find Bidwell before it was too late. Which, of course, it already was. Had been for the longest time. Bud grieved for his unsuspecting friend. At this point he had no intention of hunting down Bidwell or his vaccine. Now that Ham and Frank were both dead, what was the point? He’d only gone through the motions to string Rusty along. To keep the little guy from rushing back to the Betty Anne. His only focus now was the Bunker—and how best to get them there before it was too late.
Piece by piece his dream/visions were falling into place and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to upset the final picture. Bud had an idea that as long as the puzzle stayed unfinished in his mind, that all was not yet lost. The second that last piece slipped cleanly into place was the moment he’d lose control of his own destiny. At that moment only one outcome could be the end result. Getting off the island now seemed out of the question. And if that was the case, then the Bunker truly was their last hope.
“Come on, Bud,” Rusty said. “Enough of this tentative bullshit, man! Where’s the reckless Buddy boy when I need him! Let’s get the Jeep and pick up the guys!”
At the mention of their missing friends, Rusty’s eyes grew even wider. He looked down at his watch again.
Bud checked his watch, too. Ten till six!
At some point in their search for his dad, Time had laced on its boogie shoes. “Where the hell are those guys? They should’ve been here by now. It’s getting dark outside, too. Come on, Rusty, let’s go out the back way,” Bud said, running down the hallway. “Lock the door behind you!”
They burst into the lengthening shadows. Nightfall was but a breath away. Someone laughed hysterically off in the distance. It was the first sign of life they’d heard since coming back to the island. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the kind of hilarity that followed the antics of the Three Stooges—it was more like the wild laughter preceding acts of madness.
On the heels of this maniacal laughter was a heart-wrenching scream, coming from the direction of the harbor. By the sound of it, a young lady in distress.
Bud and Rusty exchanged harried looks before making a dash for the Jeep. They splashed their way down to the service bay, the water at once past Bud’s waist. Rusty nearly foundered behind him, the water well above his chest. Unable to open the doors, the boys pulled off the top and jumped into the flooded interior of the Jeep. The bucket seats were barely treading water. As always, though, the key was in the ignition. Bud looked heavenward, and then cranked that mother hard.
Nada. Not even a lonely little click from the solenoid. He was about to call it a “worthless bitch” when: !!!BBBWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMPPPP!!!
Josie’s braying air horn made them jump in their seats. Overhead, in the broken branches of the pine trees, a motley gathering of crows gave rancorous flight.
A murder, Bud thought in a daze, feeling yet another piece fall irretrievably into place. That’s what a gathering of crows is called. A murder. Black murder…
He sat in the flooded Jeep, not sure of his next move. The horn paused, as if out of breath, before bawling again: !!!BBBWWWAAAAAAAAAMMMMPPPPPP!!!
There was a frantic note to the long-drawn-out blasts. A clear urgent cry for help.
“Josie,” Bud said. He got out of the Jeep and sloshed his way back up the flooded ramp, the double barrel clutched tightly in his fist. Rusty struggled to keep up. Neither noticed the dark plume of smoke coming from the direction of the Moon Island Marina, where the largest shrimpboat in the harbor burned hot and bright. The flesh and bones aboard the Betty Anne would be dust and ash, long before she settled on the bottom of the bay…
*******
While some souls peered down into the abyss, Samuel J. Huggins watched his friends, Frank and Emma Tolson, enter into the loveliest light he’d ever seen. Together and whole, Ralph’s folks looked over their shoulders, smiling at Ham, before disappearing into the light. The sort of light that filters down into a forest after a hard, clean rain. The golden rays like God’s own fingers, beckoning you home. Ham longed to follow his friends, to enter into that embracing light he knew to be God’s love, but it was a journey he refused to travel alone.
No matter. She’d be along directly. Then they could go together. Like their friends before them. He knew it in his heart to be so. Otherwise, he’d have no recall of his wife at all. For there are no sad souls in Heaven
. He felt a hand envelope his own, the soft, warm fingers sliding into their customary slots. “Betty Anne,” he said, smiling.
*******
Josie and Tubby lay huddled together on the cell floor for several minutes before they’d accept the fact that their pursuers hadn’t been able to follow them inside. They cowered there, their eyes squeezed just as tight as their puckered sphincters, listening to the Rabids howl in impotent rage, rattling the bars like furious apes at the Zoo. Josie prayed that they wouldn’t have the presence of mind to search out a set of keys to the cells. In that event, she and Tubby couldn’t hope to survive.
She braced herself and raised an eyelid.
The three men were all at the door, yanking on it idiotically. Their angry penises stabbed between the bars and seemed to point right at her. She opened her other eye and sat up a little, untying Tubby from his fetal knot. He whimpered as she pulled his head up from her lap. He seemed even more disturbed by their frank arousal.
“It’s okay, Ralphie. We’re all right,” she said, even as she leaned further into the corner, her face pressed tightly against his sweaty cheek. “They can’t get us.”
“You…you really think so, Josie?”
“Yeah…I think so.”
Josie tried not to look directly at the rabid men. They were like zombies on speed. Not at all like the slow- witted and even slower moving ghouls from Night of the Living Dead. These creatures darted like bats, pounced like cats, and had an unnatural strength that comes only from insanity. Neither were they stupid and oblivious like the walking undead. True, their rage preceded most forethought on their part. But their shining, lunatic eyes told another story. In their fevered depths was a gleam of terrible understanding.
Josie watched Chief Briarson break off from the other two, still clamoring at the bars, to begin a systematic search for the keys to the cell, going through Rupert’s desk drawers, before moving on to the dispatcher’s station.
“Joe…is he…” Tubby left it unsaid; too frightened to say the words out loud.
“I’m afraid so,” said Josie. She wondered if she should go ahead and use her last bullet on Briarson before he succeeded in his quest.
Yeah, Right! It took you five shots to kill the feckin’ dog! Instead, she turned her attention to Jumbo and Ted. She needed room for a clear shot, and they were in her way. At first, their erections had embarrassed her, but after a while the Rabids (yeah, that was a good word for them) began to lose all semblance of their former humanity.
Like the Chief, a gruff but caring sort, Josie had known these men most of her life. Seen them argue over checkers in front of the Firehouse; rolled her eyes at their tired old jokes in Peg Leg’s, and watched them become excited as little boys at the circus on those rare episodes when their assistance was called upon. Jumbo, a six-foot- eight, ex-linebacker for Michigan State, and Ted, a wiry gentlemen barely reaching five-foot-eight, were physical opposites, but otherwise occupied the same tender plane. Service to their fellow man was their mutual calling. Except for their familiar faces, though, they bore no resemblance to the Jumbo and Teddy of old.
Pulling savagely at the bars, they called Josie by name, trying to draw her near. She ignored their angry call, and focused instead on the more cunning of the three.
The thing that used to be Chief Briarson roared in triumph. He pulled out a set of keys from the row of file cabinets and taunted Josie with his find, jangling them madly in the air. Josie tried aiming at the Chief but couldn’t get a clear shot with those bozos at the door.
“Josie!” Tubby jumped up and down, pointing hysterically at the Chief. “Josie!”
“I know! I know! Let me think, will you?” Her green eyes lighted upon the bullhorn at Tubby’s feet. “Ralphie, the air horn! Blow it right in their faces! Get them out of the way!” She assumed a firing stance as Tubby picked up the air horn.
One bullet. One chance. Don’t you blow it, Tits!
Tubby got as close to the outstretched arms as he dared and pointed the air horn right at the Rabids. The result was immediate and just what Josie had prayed for—the deafening roar filled the room, sending Jumbo and Ted fleeing down the stairs, shrieking in abject terror. Briarson, on the other hand, merely crouched down and covered his ears. Eventually the air began to run out, and Tubby released the button at once; saving that last little bit of compressed air should they need it again.
As soon as the silence returned, the Chief stood up and grinned. His eyes glittered brightly in the lengthening shadows, creeping now through the plate glass window.
“Aaawww, my sweet, sweet Josie,” he rattled, in a voice eerily similar to Betty Anne’s that afternoon; like some androgynous demon. “Do you taste as good as you smell, sweetheart? Hmmmm? Well, I’m going to find out, yesss I ammmmm. I’m going to suck the nectar from your loins till you scream in ecstasy! And then I’m gonna let you do the same for meeeee. What do you say, fat boy? Wanna watch your girlfriend swallow my firehose?”
Josie waited until Briarson put the keys into the lock before walking up to him. She placed the barrel of the revolver against his temple, and said, “Thanks for letting us out, Chief.”
The Chief slid boneless to the floor, a neat, round bullet hole smoking beside his left ear.
“Get the keys, Josie! For God’s sake, the keys!”
Josie tore her eyes from the man she’d just killed. There, emerging from the staircase. Jumbo and Ted, back again, slithering towards them, like two dusty pit vipers on the floor. No other description was apt. For a second she watched, hypnotized by the sinuous contractions that enabled them to move in such a reptilian manner.
The effect was altogether disabling.
She managed to look away in time to snatch the keys from the lock. “Lay on that horn, boyo! Lay on it till it your feckin’ thumb falls off!”
*******
As Bud and Rusty raced down the service road, the air horn finally petered out to nothing. The following silence was nearly as panic inducing as the braying wail had been earlier. “Faster!” Bud shouted, aware that his small friend was slipping behind him. It was getting dark now and he couldn’t leave Rusty to fend for himself.
Hang on, Josie! his mind implored her. Hang on just a little longer! Oh, God…What if I’m too late?
Bud chased that traitorous thought from his head, even as Ham’s last words echoed in his ears:
It’s Josie I got my mind on! She’s on her monthly and I can smell it!
Up ahead, backed up to the loading dock of Peg Leg’s, was Mr. Peteovich’s old Dodge pickem-up truck.
“Dear God, please let the keys be in it,” Bud prayed, without even realizing. It’s tough being an Atheist when death turns its avid eyes on those you love. “Rusty, the truck!” The pick up was sitting in the same amount of water as the Jeep, but this vehicle had more wheel height. The water didn’t quite cover the front tires.
Thus the engine was only partially submerged.
Bud slid onto the bench seat, his hand scrabbling madly for the ignition…the keys weren’t in it. He slammed his hands on the steering wheel.
Rusty leaned over his seat and flipped down Bud’s visor. The keys dropped into Rusty’s outstretched hand.
Bud stabbed the key into the ignition and cranked it. The old engine sputtered for a second, and then caught fire, the exhaust belching bubbles underneath the floodwaters. Bud dropped the stick into reverse and floored the accelerator, emerging on dry land. He popped on the lights, dropped the stick into first, and floored it again. Something darted out of the Pines and struck the side of the truck, startling Rusty into a full throated scream. Up above the tops of the buildings, Bud could see red-tinted smoke, coming from the docks. The Betty Anne on fire. Ham Huggins was dead by now, his shrimpboat serving as his funeral pyre. If there’s a God in Heaven, I implore you, Lord, please let that poor man be dead by now.