by Mark Tufo
Wallace chomped into Max’s arm. The pain was immediate and overwhelming. “You little shit! Forget your inheritance!”
For his part, Wallace had no use for money. He took what he needed, all by himself. And as Wallace tore skin and muscle from his father’s arm, that might have been the bigger insult.
Max’s scream echoed out across the lake.
The sun slid higher into the sky like a curious eye eager to watch the spectacle of humans and things that used to be human.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sheriff Hightower was on the ball now, confident. He was going to handle this thing, serve and protect the public like he’d pledged. Old Choppy Chop was nothing but a ghost, an echo from the past, and these new screams were louder. Urgent.
He dashed back into the dining hall.
“Booger!” he shouted.
He shone his light around, but the corpse was gone. Impossible or not, the dead were coming back to life and he had to deal with that. His boys up north never had to deal with anything like this.
“Booger!” he screamed again. “We gotta get out of here.”
No response.
He entered the kitchen. Pots and pans lay scattered all over the place. The gas flame was still on, scorching a skillet. The obese cook had left the sausages in the pan and now they were burning into an awful, charred stench.
“Jesus.” He navigated to the stove and turned off the burner. Whatever was in the pan was burned beyond recognition. He waved the smell away. Beneath it, he smelled propane. Was there a leak in the line? A wonder the whole place hadn’t blown.
“Booger? You here?”
From the back room came a squishy noise. Plastic sheeting separated the rooms. Gun in one hand, Hightower parted the curtain, letting some of the early daylight ooze into the cramped space. “Booger?”
The fat man sat on his soiled cot. He grinned into the light. He bit into a sausage biscuit. Crumbs stuck to his chin. “Hey, Sheriff,” he said in a slurred voice. “Sure you don’t want one? Sticks to your ribs.”
Booger’s shirt was soaked with sweat.
“We need to clear the camp,” Hightower said. “Until we know what we’re dealing with, I’m shutting it down. Quarantine.”
“You can’t do that.” Booger now sounded like his voice was coming from a far distance, like a frequency not quite coming in on the radio. “The boys will be coming in for breakfast soon. And I need this job.”
“I have no choice. Come on, let’s get going.”
“The kids love my biscuits . . .”
“Sure. Come on.”
As Hightower turned to lead him out, Booger stood and something spilled out of his lap and hit the floor with a heavy, wet slap. Hightower stared for a moment in disbelief. It hadn’t been sweat soaking his shirt. Those were his guts, his intestines, spilled on the floor.
“Hey, Sheriff,” Booger said. The biscuit dropped and up came his other arm, enormous cleaver in hand. Sunlight winked on the cleaver’s sharp edge.
“Put it down.” Hightower was sure Booger was dead, and so the command was silly, but it was instinct. It seemed like instinct was all that remained in Meat Camp, besides lots of Choppy Chop.
“Momma’s recipe,” Booger said and charged the sheriff.
Hightower could have raised his weapon and blown Booger’s jowly face away but in his shock, he’d forgotten he was holding a gun. In fact, he dropped it, and didn’t register the clacking sound as it bounced on the floor.
All things come back again, he thought in an absurd ironic appreciation.
Booger swung the cleaver at Hightower’s head. Just in time, the sheriff ducked and the cleaverthwacked into a wooden support beam. Booger loomed over him. He emanated heat and an awful, rotting stink. Hightower brought his hand up to shoot the bloated and disemboweled mutant, but his palm was empty.
This time, he didn’t hesitate. He plunged his hands into Booger’s gaping abdominal wound, tangled his arms in Booger’s organs, and yanked them out. Booger’s eyes went wide but he did not scream in pain or collapse forward in final death.
Booger pulled the cleaver from the post.
How the hell was he supposed to kill this guy?
Hightower dropped the spools of intestines and turned to run.
His gun was on the floor.
Booger stepped forward and swung the cleaver again. Hightower dove for the gun and the cleaver swiped past his head and sliced through a metal pipe. A loud rushing air sound filled the room. As he grabbed the gun, Hightower smelled the gas.
“Don’t make me shoot!” he screamed down on the ground.
Can’t blame the guy for trying to chop you when all you do is lay there like firewood; hell, man, heard what happened, lemme ask you: you ever think to use your fucking gun?
Booger staggered forward and raised the cleaver.
This is it, Hightower thought.No more firewood bullshit.
He pulled the trigger.
WHOOOMPH!
An explosion of hellfire swallowed Booger as the gas erupted. The flames charred his face instantly.
Hightower raised his arms against the blast as the forceful heat poured over him.
At least I did something, he thought.
And a moment later,Firewood’s meant for burning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
An explosion brightened the darkening sky in a momentary surge of towering flames. The fire rescinded quickly, but thick, black smoke spiraled into the descending night.
Eva Dean, Delphus, and Jenny all ducked at the sound of the explosion.
“Shit fire!” Delphus said.
“The kitchen . . .”
Jenny turned from the smoke as their canoe grounded into the shore. Out on the lake, Boston and Benny were still swimming, maybe fifty yards back. There was no sign of anyone else.
“Robert . . .”
“That your boyfriend?” Delphus asked.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Don’t worry about it, then. Plenty more where he came from. Let’s get you a doctor.” He put an arm around her and she almost shook it off, but it felt surprisingly good to be held. Momma had always said she was a survivor. And killing mutants didn’t mean you were a bitch. Not necessarily.
“We need to get to the neighbor’s house and call for help,” Eva Dean said.
“Closest neighbor is two miles,” Delphus said.
“I’ll go,” Jenny said. Her heart ached from Robert’s loss but she figured if she kept moving, she’d handle it better. The last thing she wanted was to go numb. Especially when she could save some lives.
“Did you get bit again, Daddy?” Eva Dean said, checking his neck.
“Good thing these are zombies instead of vampires,” he said. “If I come back from the dead, I don’t want to be no sissy.”
“Don’t worry,”’ Jenny said, tapping an arrow. “If you go down, I’ll make sure you stay down.”
“That’s real comforting,” Delphus said.
“Can you help us get to the camp first?” Eva Dean asked her. “We can hole up in one of the cabins until you get back.”
Slowly, they headed up the beach and toward the woods. Blood dappled the ground from gaping wounds as they walked. In the distance, the smoke thickened.
- - -
Lewis and Samantha sat in their car, engine idling, and watched the distant flames. “It’s like World War Six out there,” Lewis said.
“Please, God, let it be terrorists and not a viral mutation.”
“That never happened, either,” Lewis said.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Lewis put the car in gear and paused. “Delphus has a shepherd. Like the one we cut up. Do you think that was Lucy?”
“Don’t tell me you’re more worried about dogs than people.”
“I am a vet. Besides, dogs never did anything to deserve cruelty.”
“I’m a vet, too, and what, exactly, have I ever done that makes me deserving of cruelty?”<
br />
He grinned at her. “Married me.”
“Okay, we notify the police and the health department. We’ll write this off as ‘People business’ and stay out of it.”
Lewis started driving. A squirrel landed on the windshield. It gave a crazy-eyed snarl and leaped off the car.
He looked at Samantha. “Don’t worry. I didn’t see that, either.”
- - -
Eva Dean led the way through the forest. Delphus and Jenny leaned on each other and limped along behind. Jenny had managed to wrap her torn shirt around her and she looked like Raquel Welch in that dinosaur movie. Jenny apparently hadn’t been bitten, but she had plenty of bruises and scratch marks and was probably aching to the bone. Eva Dean had to get them some help.
From this distance, it looked like more of the camp had caught fire. Maybe it had. Heck, maybe that was for the best. The whole thing might burn down. The trees glowed faintly with the orange light.
Sorry, Mom, she thought.I failed.
“Well,” Delphus said, “I reckon we better sell out to Cloudland now. We’re going to get our asses sued off.”
“How can you think about money at a time like this?” she asked. Truth be told, she was thinking the same thing. The insurance she had to cover the camp and the delinquent kids it hosted was not nearly enough to cover apocalyptic damage. Assuming they even lived long enough to go to court.
Something fell from above. She heard it rushing down at them. Instead of jumping out of the way, she looked up.
CROOSH—a heavy form fell from the trees, slapped through branches, and thudded to the ground. It was Max Jenkins. His suit was torn up, his feet bare, and most of his face had been chewed off to reveal the skull beneath.
“Shit fire,” Delphus said. “That’s one more buyer gone.”
From above came a shriek. Up high, a kid leaped from one branch to another and scrambled like a chimp down a trunk to perch just overhead. It was Wallace, Max’s kid. He grinned. A red hunk of meat dangled from his mouth.
Out of the woods stumbled Pedro and Shaun, both bloody and possessed. They chuckled as if at some stupid shared joke.
“At-risk kids, huh?” Delphus said to Eva Dean. “Still think fresh air and sunshine will turn their lives around?”
“They were so sweet . . .” Jenny said to herself.
“Honey, they nearly tore us to pieces. This ain’t ‘The Smurfs.’”
Above them, Wallace snorted.
- - -
Lewis drove a little too fast, considering the gravel road that led from Meat Camp. The tires skated across the rocks in spots, especially when he negotiated curves, but he didn’t dare slow down.
Samantha gripped his arm, alternately telling him to speed up or slow down. Lewis suddenly locked on the brakes, nearly skidding into the ditch.
“What?” Samantha asked.
He pointed. “Hurt dog.”
In the weeds beside the ditch, a dog sagged and stared stupidly into the headlights. Samantha grabbed Lewis’s arm before he even reached for the door. “What if it’s like the shepherd?”
“I took an oath, remember?”
“What about ‘Until death do we part’?”
“We have to part sometime.”
She could have slapped him for that. Should have. Sure, he had a duty, but wasn’t their marriage a more important duty?
Lewis got out of the car, leaving the engine idling, and approached the dog. It cowered before him and whimpered. Samantha relaxed just a little, took a breath, already feeling guilty for her selfishness. It was just a poor, hurt animal.
Lewis kneeled and stroked the dog’s neck. She felt a wave of love wash over her. He was such a good man. Then he gave her hisSee?-Told-you-so look and she grew angry again.
Something moved in the brush nearby, an eruption of motion pushing through branches and leaves. A kid darted out and tackled Lewis. The dog yelped and ran off. For a moment, Samantha thought she was seeing things. Then she was grabbing her door handle and—
A kid’s face filled her passenger window. Blood and saliva splotched his mouth and his eyes wavered. Samantha slammed the lock down and reached to do the same on the driver’s door.
Glass shattered under a smashing rock. The safety glass crumbled all over Samantha. The kid crawled in through the window. Samantha kicked the kid in the face, grabbed the steering wheel, and dragged herself into the driver’s seat. The kid stumbled back from the car, shook his head, and lunged forward again.
Lewis stood up, the other kid on his back in some crazy game of giddy-up. The kid was biting into Lewis’s shoulders. Blood soaked his shirt.
Samantha hit the horn, shifted into DRIVE, and pegged the gas. The kid slithering through the window slipped but managed to hang on. Lewis spun around, saw the car, eyes going wide, and flipped the kid off his back and directly into the car’s grille. Just as the kid’s bodyTHUNKED against the car, Samantha slammed the brake. The other kid’s body flapped across the windshield, but the creepy little monster clung tight.
“Get on!” she screamed at her husband.
Lewis climbed onto the hood with a dazed look on his face. Hi s expression asked: Is this really the best possible option?
“Guess we’ll find out,” Samantha said and hit the gas once more.
- - -
Now, Boston and Benny joined the party, still dripping wet and their bodies pale and shriveled. Eva Dean picked up a broken branch. “Maybe it’s time for a little tough love.”
“The only kind of love I ever taught you,” Delphus said.
The boys moved in slowly, encircling them. Eva Dean swung her branch back and forth but the approaching boys were unfazed. “There’s so many,” she said.
Eva Dean, Jenny, and Delphus were pressed together with the boys circling like a pack of sharks. The pack included Wallace, Shaun, Pedro, Benny, and Boston. Each kid looked worse than the one next to him. What did they have to do to kill—really kill—them?
In the distance, an engine gunned. It sounded like salvation, but she knew better.
“That the cavalry?” Delphus asked.
“I don’t hear any hoofbeats,” Eva Dean answered.
“Christ amercy.”
The boys closed in, all slobbering and deranged grins. “I’m not ready to be anybody’s last supper,” Jenny said, notching one of her final two arrows.
Wallace leaped for Eva Dean and she swung the branch like a club. It split against his head. Wallace giggled.
Pedro and Shaun closed in.
- - -
Samantha had no idea what she was doing but, considering she was probably going to die or go insane, she was actually handling herself pretty well. She kept the pedal down no matter how many branches thwacked off the car or how bumpy the road became. She swerved side to side. Lewis gripped the windshield wipers and stared at her through the glass. Death do us part and all that.
The other kid was still hanging on through the shattered passenger window. He growled and grunted but couldn’t crawl any farther inside the car. Not as long as she kept the pedal to the metal, anyway.
The road opened up into a clearing and she veered onto pasture. Up ahead was an outhouse. Who the hell uses an outhouse? No wonder these kids went nuts.
She gestured for Lewis to roll off. His eyes tried to pop from their sockets but she insisted and, good husband, he rolled to the side and fell off the car with a heavy thump into the tall grass.
When she was sixteen, Samantha had stolen her mother’s car to attend Bobby Kell’s birthday party. She’d driven it in excess of one-hundred miles-per-hour. She’d driven as recklessly as any person could, save for what she was doing right now, but her escapade had come to an unexpected conclusion when she lost control of the wheel and the car slid sideways into a telephone pole.
The force of the crash had tried to yank her free from the seatbelt. Everything else in the car went flying toward the pole at over one-hundred miles-per-hour. The car had folded like an accordion, but there
was a little protective web of metal around the airbag and Samantha hadn’t even suffered a scratch. A miracle, the police had called it.
She’d never told Lewis about that little stunt. Her mother had been so happy that Samantha was okay that she never said anything about the car. You only got that kind of luck once in a lifetime.
The outhouse loomed ahead.
Sometimes you have to push your luck,she thought.
She hit the brakes and simultaneously spun the wheel. The car swerved sideways and the tires kicked up dirt and rocks. The kid lost his grip and flew through the air.
“Eat shit and die!” Samantha screamed.
The kid crashed into the outhouse, which collapsed beneath his weight, a popsicle-stick house beneath a boulder. Boards fell in all directions and a geyser of brown sludge burst into the air in imitation of Old Faithful.
“Thank you, God,” she said. She couldn’t believe that actually worked.
She glanced in the rearview mirror for Lewis, but he was next to her, wiping himself off. “Where did you learn that?”
“Watching all ‘The Fast and the Furious’ sequels,” she said.
- - -
Shaun reached for Jenny with one bloody, claw-curved hand. It couldn’t end this way. It wasn’t fair to let her get this far and then have her be torn to bits. She was still a virgin, for God’s sake. In horror movies, the virgin always lived, didn’t she?
This isn’t a movie. It’s reality.
Although she had a feeling somebody—somewhere—was going to get a reality TV show out of this mess. She’d already used two arrows on Boston and it hadn’t even slowed him down.
“We have to do something,” she said.
“I’m trying to grow wings and fly away,” Delphus said. “Don’t seem to be working too well.”
Shaun’s hand flexed an inch from Jenny’s face.
CLANG!
Something hit Shaun on the head and he hit the ground. A rusty horseshoe lay on the ground nearby.
“What the hell was—”
Another horseshoe clanged against Pedro. He fell back several steps and dropped onto his knees, wobbling. Wallace, Boston, and Benny hesitated, confused, whatever passed for instinct now thrown into a spin by this new threat.