The terrain had drastically changed due to the quake. Jack had hoped the damage would be centered at the graveyard, but as he continued in the unnatural gloom, that hope was soon dashed. The countryside showed even more signs of violent upheaval. Entire trees lay on their sides, uprooted like gnarled giants felled by a mighty blow. In the surrounding fields, the earth had cracked, leaving deep ruts in the soil. Another row of telephone poles along one side of the road teetered on the edge of falling over.
At a brisk pace, they continued through the devastated countryside for another mile.
“A car’s coming,” Kate said, breaking the tense silence as headlights brightened a bend in the road ahead.
“Everyone to the side,” Jack said.
While his family huddled in the grassy shoulder, Jack stood in the center of the road and waved his flashlight at the approaching vehicle. An old station wagon, covered in dingy yellow paint and rust spots, rounded the bend. For a second, he wasn’t sure the driver was going to stop and prepared to jump out of the way. The vehicle braked to a halt a few feet in front of him and a scruffy unshaved man with greasy hair cranked down the window.
“Yeah? What’s up?” the driver said. The sickly sweet aroma of stale whiskey was on the man’s breath. Jack knew the reek all too well. He looked past the drunk to see the other occupants. A frazzle-haired woman with a hardened face was in the passenger seat, and three girls from about five to nine years old sat in the back.
“You can’t go down this road,” Jack told the driver.
“Why not?” The man was missing some teeth, probably from years of alcohol abuse and poor hygiene.
“The quake opened a crack in the road a mile back. It’s impassable.”
“Our trailer is only a half-mile up.” He started to crank up the window. “We’ll be fine.”
“Wait, there’s something else.”
“What?”
“There are zombies, too,” he said, knowing how unbelievable it sounded.
The frazzled woman leaned forward. “Zombies?”
“Yes. We were in the cemetery up the way when the quake hit. The zombies rose up out of the graves and my family barely escaped. They’re headed this way.”
“You’re full of shit,” the drunk said and resumed rolling up the window.
“No!” Jack leapt forward to grab the steering wheel. “Don’t be stupid!”
“Get the fuck away,” the driver said and continued cranking up the window. Jack jerked back his fingers just before it closed.
“You have to believe me,” he said, pounding the glass. “I’m not making it up.”
The drunk shot him the finger and put the car into drive.” As he pulled away, the three little girls in the back seat looked at Jack with haunting eyes.
“You stupid drunk bastard!” Jack yelled at the receding taillights. “You’re going to get your family killed!”
Jack crossed to where the others were huddled on the roadside.
“Oh, God.” Kate put her hand to her mouth. “Those poor children.”
“I couldn’t stop the dumb-ass.”
He searched for a higher observation point from which to watch the car’s progress. In the middle of a field bordering the road stood an oil storage tank that appeared to be rusted and abandoned. A metal staircase wound twenty-five feet up its side to the top.
“Everybody stays here,” Jack said.
“Where are you going?” Kate said.
“To the top of that oil tank.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
“I think so.”
Jack waded through the high grass and shone his flashlight up the rusted metal steps, which appeared to be undamaged by the quake and capable of holding his weight. He made his way to the top of the tank, where he spotted the far-off taillights of the station wagon continuing down the dirt road. Looking through the binoculars as he prayed that the family would be safe, he focused on the car for another quarter-mile. His breath froze when the brake lights brightened. A moment later, he watched in horror as the zombie horde overran the stopped vehicle.
The drunk driver was pulled out first. Zombies fell on him and ripped his body apart in a grisly feeding frenzy. The passenger door flew open and the woman tried to run but made it only a few feet. The undead mob pulled her down and ate her alive as she screamed in insane terror. Jack turned away in disgust when the zombies pried open the doors to reach the little girls. There was nothing he could do except fight back his tears and stare at the dark sky until the children’s horrible distant screams faded away. At that moment, Jack swore never to let the same fate happen to his family.
In the somber aftermath of the horrid slaughter, he decided to scout the lay of the land from his new vantage point. The flat Oklahoma countryside provided an excellent view for miles around. What he saw confirmed his worst fears. Dotting the landscape were out-of-control fires sending billowing smoke trails into the pall of the sky. He focused the binoculars in the direction of the small city of Enid to the east, where they had spent the night before. The entire horizon was ablaze in the glow of a massive blaze. Jack recalled what Puss Cobb’s ghost had said earlier this incredible morning. It had come true. The apocalypse had arrived with a vengeance.
Something caught his attention farther down the country road in the direction of the highway and he swung the binoculars toward it. A single headlight shone from a pickup truck wrecked against a telephone pole. Jack pounded his way back down the metal steps and returned to his family.
“Did they make it?” Kate said upon his return.
“No.”
“Dear God, those poor children didn’t deserve that.”
“We’ve got to keep moving or we’ll end up like them.”
Kerri stepped forward. “How bad did everything look from up there?”
“Like something out of an end-of-the-world movie,” Jack said. “Just be thankful we didn’t spend all morning in Enid.”
“It’s what I tried to tell you,” Kate said. “It’s written in the Bible. The sixth seal of Revelation has opened. Now do you believe me that it’s Judgment Day?”
“Whatever’s happened, we need to get somewhere safe. I spotted a wrecked pickup truck a quarter-mile down the road.” He touched Kate’s hand. “I want you to stay here with the kids while I check it out.”
“You’re leaving us?”
“Only for a few minutes.” He didn’t want to remind her that the zombies were busy feasting at the moment.
“Okay.”
Jack took off alone. After rounding the bend, he squatted in the roadside bushes and brought up the binoculars. A green older-model Ford F150 was wrecked against a leaning telephone pole fifty yards away. From his position, he saw that two people occupied the front seat, but due to the distance and the poor light, they were nothing more than silhouettes.
His gut warned him again. Normally, he would have run to the crash scene to see if someone needed assistance, but that was before the world had gone to shit. Now he had to be more cautious and decided to flash his light toward the truck first.
“Help me,” a man called out from the cab. “Please, I need help.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Yes, please, hurry,” the man said in a thick Oklahoma drawl, “Martha’s in a bad way. She needs an ambulance.”
Jack approached the wreck. He noted fresh blood splattered across the spider-webbed windshield. Reaching the partially open driver door, he found a large man jammed against the steering wheel. He was dressed in blue overalls, and blood from a broken nose was leaking into his gray beard. Beside him sat a thin elderly woman with her head leaning back and her mouth wide open. The windshield before her was cracked, apparently due to the impact of her forehead during the crash. The woman looked dead.
“I lost control of the truck,” the man said with labored breath. “Please check on Martha. She was breathing a few minutes ago, but I can’t hear her anymore.”
“I will.”
&nbs
p; Jack went around to her side and felt the woman’s left wrist. No pulse.
“Is she all right?” the farmer said.
“She’s dead.”
“Oh, no,” the man sobbed. “Not my Martha.”
“I’m so sorry.” He returned to the driver’s door. “Can you move?”
“I can’t feel my legs.”
Jack leaned in to examine his injuries. The man’s wide belly was crammed under the steering wheel to the point where it would take something like the Jaws of Life to free him. He was too big for Jack to extract by himself. And if he had spinal injuries, it was best not to move him without the proper trauma equipment.
Jack spotted a rifle resting in a gun rack behind the man’s head. He had a working knowledge of how to load and shoot rifles and shotguns, thanks to several hunting trips with a couple of doctor friends. He recognized the firearm. It was a lever-action Marlin with a six-round tubular magazine. The rifle didn’t have a scope, but it wasn’t needed, because most of his targets would be at close range.
He reached in and lifted the firearm off the gun rack.
“What?” The man looked at him in surprise. “You’re stealing my rifle?”
“I’m just borrowing it.” Jack pointed down the country road. “My family’s back there and I’m trying to get them to safety. When I find emergency help, I’ll send them to you. I promise.”
“You need my rifle for that?”
“Yeah.” Jack slipped the safety off. “There are these things out there.”
“Things?” The man turned his head and looked at him with a pained face. “What things?”
Before he could answer, dead Martha’s eyes popped open, showing nothing but a dull white. She let out a hissing moan.
“Oh, shit,” Jack cried out.
The woman leaned over and bit her husband’s neck, pulling up a bloody mass of flesh and sinew as he let out a horrifying scream. Jack froze in shock. She continued biting and tearing at the man’s neck, causing his arterial spray to paint the interior of the truck’s cab. Trapped beneath the steering wheel, he could do nothing except die a horrible death.
Martha turned her lifeless gaze toward Jack and let out another inhuman moan from her gore-covered mouth. He staggered back in revulsion as she crawled over her husband’s twitching body toward him. He brought up the rifle and pulled the trigger. The round hit the zombie woman between the eyes and exploded out the back of her head in a spray of brains and bone. The impact of the bullet flung her into the passenger side of the truck, where she lay still.
Jack’s ears rang in the aftermath of the rifle shot. He knew his family had heard it and would be worried sick. He needed to return to them quickly but decided to search the bloody truck interior first for anything he could use. In the glove box, he found a Bic lighter and stuffed it into his pants pocket. He felt under the passenger seat for a box of shells for the Marlin. It was at that moment that the dead man’s eyes popped open. He moaned and reached for Jack and struggled to free himself from the steering wheel.
Jack looked deep into his glazed eyes and felt pity for the mindless thing the man had become. He had a grim revelation: The phenomenon of the resurrecting dead no longer limited to those buried in graveyards. The recently deceased were also coming back to life. It meant any victims who had perished in the devastating quake would become re-animated as well.
The implications were terrifying.
Zombies would be everywhere.
The thick smell of gasoline burned his nostrils and ended his contemplation. He realized it was coming from a growing puddle of gas leaking under the truck. He knew that before returning to his family, he needed to give the old couple their final rest. They deserved that much. He flicked the Bic lighter and the fumes from the gasoline caught with a whoosh of flames. Jack ran back down the road as the pickup exploded behind him with a thunderous roar, the fiery glow illuminating the dark terrain.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Where did you get that gun?” Kate said when Jack rejoined his family, still hiding on the roadside. Her eyes were wide at the sight of the rifle crooked in one arm.
“From the wrecked truck.”
“We heard a gunshot and an explosion.”
“There was a zombie, too.”
“Good God,” Kate said. “There are more than the ones behind us?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Are you okay? There’s blood on your jacket.”
“It got a little rough back there, but the blood’s not mine.” He clutched his wife’s hand. “Everyone listen up. Things have changed now. We’re in a very dangerous situation and need to play it smart until we get somewhere safe. Agreed?”
They nodded in unison.
“It’s too risky to follow the road. The safer route is to cut through fields in a straight line toward the gas station. Once we’re there, we’ll decide on our next course of action.”
“Sounds smart,” Kate said.
“Then let’s get moving.”
Jack crossed the road to the barbed-wire fence lining the field on the other side. He used the tire iron to spread the wire, and the others crossed under it.
“Isn’t this trespassing?” Kate nodded toward an old tire hanging on a nearby fence pole. The words No Trespassing were painted on it in white letters.
“That’s the least of our worries at the moment.” He ducked through the opening and slid the tire iron back into his belt.
The dark pasture stretched before them under a gloomy rolling sky. Jack switched on the flashlight and took point as they crossed the field in the oppressive silence. They continued their trek until the distant boom of gunshots rang out across the farmland. He shoved his family down into the grass and crouched with rifle ready. More shots followed, but after a few minutes, the silence returned.
“Okay, keep going,” he whispered to the others. “They’re shooting at something besides us.”
He led the way across the open field without encountering anyone, living or undead. Finally, they reached a creek of slow-running water that looked black in the dim light of the unnatural morning.
“We’ve got to be getting near now,” he said in a hushed voice. “I remember driving over a bridge after we left the station. I think this is the creek we crossed. If we follow the bank on the other side, it should bring us close.”
“And then what?” Kate said.
“From there I don’t know. We take it one step at a time. I’m going to scout ahead, so everyone take a breather until I get back.” Jack slid the tire iron from his belt and gave it to Kate. “Hold this until I return.”
“I hope I won’t need it.”
“So do I.”
Using a fallen tree trunk, Jack crossed the creek and followed the bank. By now he was getting tired and his mouth felt sticky. The day’s physical activity had burned up his breakfast of waffles and eggs, leaving a growing hunger gnawing at the pit of his stomach. In a matter of hours, food and drinking water were going to be a concern for his family, too. He needed to find some semblance of civilization soon.
A rustling sounded in the nearby trees. Jack swung the rifle around but hesitated when he saw a young gray doe sprint out the brush and disappear over a hill. The sight heartened him a bit. At least some wildlife had survived the apocalypse, which meant he could hunt game for food if the need arose.
Following the tree line, he continued in the direction of the station. Eventually, he reached the base of the bridge they had driven over on the way to the graveyard. The quake had collapsed the cement span, making it impossible for anyone to cross it in a vehicle, but it could still serve as a way to climb to the highway.
Jack returned to his family. He found Kate sitting on the ground reading her Bible in the dim light, with an exhausted Brett asleep in the grass beside her. He caught sight of Kerri leaning against a tree and flipping through pictures on her cell phone. The glow from the phone highlighted the tears in her eyes.
“You’re going to run dow
n the battery,” Jack said. “It might be a long time before you can charge it again.”
“I tried the phone again. Still no reception yet. I’m just looking at pictures of my friends back home. I wish I’d stayed with them. Do you think they’re all dead?”
“We don’t know the extent of the disaster. It could be regional, national, or worldwide. The destruction may not have reached home.”
Kate closed her Bible. “What did you find?”
“The bridge we crossed earlier. It has to be near Cobb’s Corner. How’s everyone doing?”
“We’re getting thirsty.”
“I know. We’ll find something to drink when we reach the station.” He put the rifle aside and bent down next to his son. “Hey, buddy, let’s wake up.”
Brett’s eyes opened and he looked confused. “Where are we?”
“In the trees by the creek, remember?”
“I was hoping to wake up in my bed back home.” He rubbed his eyes and sat up. “I wanted this to be a bad dream.”
His words hit Jack’s heart like a hammer. The waking world had indeed become a bad dream. “Just hang in there, buddy.” He hugged him close to his chest. “We’ve still got each other, right?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
Jack helped him to his feet. “The station’s not far. We’ll get food and water there, okay?”
“I hope Doug’s there, too,” Kerri said.
“This isn’t a school dance, Kerri. We have to think of each other now.”
She shot him an angry glance. “What do you care? You never did before.”
“Kerri, I might be a douche bag to you, but I’m still your father. I’m sorry I haven’t been the best dad over the last few years, but we’re going to get something straight between us: You’ll do what I say and maybe you might live through this. You got that?”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms and looked away. “Whatever.”
* * * *
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