The Zombie Plagues (Book 2)

by Sweet, Dell

  He had no phone, but the way the flames were leaping into the air he was sure someone farther down the road would be calling the fire department soon. The heat was already intense.

  He squatted down, shaded his eyes against the glare of the flames, and tried to see into the back seat. No one, or if there was anyone else in the car he couldn't see them, but he did see a large suitcase resting on the roof of the car just inside the shattered rear door glass. He debated for a split second and then ran forward and grabbed for the bag, pulling it from inside the wreck. It was heavy and hot to the touch: The imitation brown leather sticky on one corner and melting. Whatever was in it, he told himself, would not have lasted much longer. He was headed back up the road from the wreck when he spotted a grocery bag spilled into the ditch. It was mainly intact so he picked that up too and ran for the trailer.

  Behind him he could hear the sirens now. They were on their way and that meant there would probably be neighbors on the way too... Any minute, he told himself. He got the trailer door opened, jumped inside and closed it. He set the grocery bag on the counter. His heart was beginning to slam in his chest once more. He picked up the suitcases and duffel bags and hurried them back to the bedroom. He came back, threw the grocery bag and the packages of lunch meat and cheese into the refrigerator, debated briefly about the loaf of moldy bread, but decided to leave it. He looked back into the fridge. It looked crowded: Beer, lunch meat, cheese, bread. It was the most he could ever recall seeing in there at one time before.

  He stepped back letting the door swing shut and looked around the kitchen-living room area: Nothing looked out of place. He could not imagine that the cops would want to come in here for any reason, but if they did they wouldn't find anything.

  He looked down at his hands, grimaced at the blood and specks of bone. A smear of drying blood decorated one shirtsleeve. He looked down at the front of the shirt and saw it was streaked with blood and gore. He turned and ran to the bathroom stripping off the shirt as he went: As he looked down at his jeans he noticed they were gore spattered to. He peeled them off just as quickly, kicking his boots aside. He left the bathroom and went to the bedroom where he dug a wrinkled pair of jeans from the basket there, a clean shirt from the dresser, and quickly re-dressed. He sat back on the bed, pulled the jeans up and shoved his left foot into one of his sneakers lying next to the bed where he had left them the night before. He stood, jammed his right foot into the other sneaker, danced around unbalanced for a moment as he tugged the zipper home, buttoned the top and threw himself back down onto the tangle of sheets to work the sneakers on the rest of the way and lace them.

  His heart had become a racing engine once again, all high speed and flat out, and he tried to calm down as he smoothed the sheets out flat and then walked down the short hall, opened the door and stepped down the rickety steps and into the bare dirt front yard.

  He could not see the fire engines or police cars, whichever it was that were coming. Both eventually, he told himself, but the sirens were loud and a half dozen people were walking down the road towards his place and the car that was burning. They were still a quarter of a mile away. He forced his breathing to slow down for the second time, and sat down on the top step waiting. The smoke from the fire was thick and black, spiraling up into the air. The smells of cooking meat and burning plastic hung in the air, competing with each other, causing his stomach to flip once more. The smoke seemed to catch in the trees, unable to rise further: Pools of it snaked along the ground, drifting slowly.

  The lights came into view within a few seconds. They were far down the road, but closing fast. Within a few seconds a city police car skidded to a shuddering stop on the dirt road, followed by two sheriff cars. Two fire engines came next, coasting to a stop behind the sheriff cars, and then swung around them angling down toward the burning car. Billy Jingo rose from the steps and began walking down the road to meet them.

  Cops

  All the cops were calling on their radios at once it seemed to Billy. He broke into a run and the city cop looked his way.

  “There's another one in my back yard with a dead guy too,” he yelled.

  The cop looked amazed for a moment and then went back to talking on his radio once more. He finished, threw the radio handset back into his car, and glancing once more at the burning car, he turned and followed Billy into his back yard.

  "Jesus," the young cop said. "That happened when he hit the tree? No way!"

  "The other car was shooting at them," Billy said. He immediately wished he had kept his mouth shut.

  "You saw that?" the cop asked.

  Providence again, Billy thought. "Well, no, I didn't. I heard shots... I didn't see 'em," he lied.

  "So there are people in that other car?" the cop asked.

  "I think so," Billy answered. He took a few moments to formulate a lie. He didn't need a complicated lie. Something simple: Something close to the truth so he could remember it, but something that wouldn't make him an eye witness. "When I got out, I had seen the car lying on its top. I didn't know about the other one. I had to get dressed. Once I got out of the house and headed down the road the car made this little popping sound and flames shot out of the engine compartment: When I turned away I saw the other one in the back yard. I knew something had crashed, because a few months back another car crashed into that same tree, and this sounded the same to me," Billy said.

  The cop nodded. "You go near either car?" he asked.

  "The one out back: I leaned through the window to see if the guy was okay... Had to catch my hand on the seat... It was gross... I realized the guy was dead and got away from the car as quick as I could... Waited for you guys," Billy said.

  The cop nodded, pulled a small notebook from his shirt pocket and wrote in it. He asked Billy for his name and the address and wrote that down too.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, Billy thought. He hadn't wanted to link himself to anything, but he had been afraid that they would find the hand print on the seat: An area of the seat that had been covered with blood and splatter and was now noticeably cleaner in the shape of a hand. What else could he do?

  "You okay?" the cop asked.

  "Not really," Billy admitted.

  "Go sit down... I'll have somebody talk to you." He looked intently at Billy for a moment. "How much you had to drink, Billy?"

  "Uh... About a six pack... It's my night off," Billy explained.

  "Easy, Billy... I'm not here to bust your balls. They'll want to know... Impairs your judgment. It will determine whether they will take what you say or look for other witnesses, you see?" the cop asked.

  "Yeah," Billy agreed. "I do see."

  "So?" The cop asked.

  "Oh... Right; I had about a twelve pack," Billy said. He shrugged.

  "Night off," the young cop said.

  "Night off," Billy agreed.

  "All right, Billy. Go have a seat and when the detectives get here I'll send them over," he told him.

  Billy went and sat down on his front steps and waited for the rest of the cops to show up. He watched the lead fire truck drown the burning car in foam, and in just a few seconds the fire was out, the car sat smoking: Steam rising into the air: The smell of burned meat thick and heavy.

  The cops were brief:

  "I understand you had quite a lot to drink during the evening," a big, blonde haired cop said to him.

  "Well, yes," Billy admitted. "But it's my day off," he added.

  "Easy, son nobody's blaming you. You're home; day off. No reason why you shouldn't have a few drinks. It's not like you knew a car was going to crash into your back yard." He smiled to put Billy more at ease, and although Billy knew that was why he smiled he felt more at ease anyway.

  "You look familiar to me," The shorter dark haired cop said.

  "Did a little county time a few years back," Billy admitted.

  He looked at him.

  "Possession with intent," Billy added. "Eighteen months."

  "Out in a year wi
th the good time though, right?" the blonde haired cop said.

  "Still fucking around with pot, Billy?" The dark haired one asked.

  "No... Not no more," Billy told him.

  "So we could check the house and find nothing," the shorter, dark haired detective said.

  "Sure... Sure.... Go ahead," Billy said. "There's nothing there at all."

  "But we aren't going to do that," The blonde said. "Your past is your past, Billy. I said I ain't here to give you a hard time and I meant that." He turned and looked over at the Toyota which had been lifted into the air. The roof had been cut away and two bodies had been taken out as they talked. They had set the car back down and were now winching it over onto its wheels so they could pull it up onto the flatbed wrecker that waited. He glanced back to the backyard. They were still working to pry the car in the back yard away from the tree. The body was long gone. They were using metal saws to cut the car away. Once enough had been cut away to move the car, it would go on a flat bed too. The cop's eyes came back to Billy.

  "You think of anything else that might help us?" he asked.

  "The gunshots," Billy said and shrugged.

  The detective nodded. "We have an eyewitness to that. Says she was walking down the road when she saw the two cars coming, jumped in the woods. She saw the passenger lean out the window and fire at the car ahead... The dude in the car in your back yard, Billy? That's how he got dead."

  To Billy it felt as though his eyes had bugged out of his head, but he struggled to maintain his composure. She? Who was she? He had seen no one at all, but whoever she was, she had described exactly what he himself had seen, so she must have been there. What else did she see?

  "You okay?" the blonde asked.

  "Tired... Sickened too, to be honest," Billy said.

  "Yeah... Pauls-that's the name of the officer that spoke to you, Jay Pauls-said you leaned into the car to check the guy... Found a hand print there.... I assume it's yours. I guess if I had found that I wouldn't be feeling too good either." He sighed. "We'll be out of here in a few minutes," he added. “But if you think of something.”

  He closed his own little notebook that he had pulled from his pocket and looked at the other cop. He shook his head.

  "I guess we have nothing else, Billy. Like I said, if you think of anything else," he reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. He handed the card to Billy. "Give me a call, okay?"

  Billy nodded, looked over the card and then shoved it into his pocket.

  They all stood and watched as the Toyota flipped back over onto its wheels: Metal screeching, the car lurching from side to side on its ruined suspension as it slammed down. The men began hooking up the cables to winch the car up onto the flat bed truck. A few seconds later a second flat bed truck drove around the first and then backed down Billy's driveway to the back yard. A steady Beep, Beep, Beep sounding as it backed up. They watched in silence as two men hooked up the remains of the Ford and then winched it backwards and up onto the flat bed.

  A second later the two cops walked away without another word. Billy sat back down on his wooden steps and watched them get into their car and drive away. The trucks followed, and a few seconds later the silence descended once more on Lott road. Billy sat and watched the dust settle back down to the dirt lane.

  There was a little gray seeping into the air and the sky was lightening above the tree tops. Dawn was not far away. Billy walked up the steps and into the trailer He took one of the beers from the refrigerator, went back outside and sat down on the steps once more.

  She, whoever she was, was on his mind. If there had been someone else there, why hadn't she let him know? Had she been afraid? Most likely, he thought. What had she seen? Had she seen him take the stuff from the Toyota? The Ford?

  The Ford he found hard to believe. She would have pretty much had to have been in plain view to have seen the Ford in his back yard, but the Toyota was a different matter. He had been exposed, she could have been anywhere, but if she had seen what he had done why hadn't she told the cops? She couldn't have or they would have confronted him and taken those items back, probably arrested him too.

  He sipped at the beer, remembered that he had eleven more: Wished he had, had time to check the one guys wallet, maybe there had been money it; in fact probably there had been money in it; then he tipped the beer and chugged it. Got up, went back inside, got two more beers and then came back out and sat down on the steps once more.

  He really wanted nothing more than to go back inside to the bedroom and see what he had gotten, but he was too worried about the witness the cops had told him about. Who could it be? Would she eventually tell the cops? Had she and they were just playing it cool to see if he would lie? Questions and questions and no answers.

  He popped the top on one of the beers and took a deep drink. His mind seemed to clear a little.

  The big bags were almost certainly pot. That wasn't cash money, but it could be soon. The bricks that had been hidden in the ice chest were probably cocaine: That was scary, but it was also money. And he knew who to go to, to get rid of all of that. That would be a very large sum of money. He sipped at the beer and thought about it, playing it over in his head.

  The two bags of pot were huge: Too heavy for him to carry both bags. That was a lot of pot. A lot of money... The guns... And what else was in the other bags? More drugs? Money? Guns? Dirty gym clothes?

  He reached to pop the top on the beer, was surprised to find it was already open, and took a deep gulp: As he lowered his hand he caught movement down the road. A shadow at the side of the road, but it quickly turned into a shape: Someone walking toward him down the side of the road.

  FOUR

  Lott Road

  Billy Jingo

  Billy pulled out his cigarettes, lit one and watched. He knew it was a young woman long before she got to his driveway and started up it. Nineteen... Twenty give or take… A little younger than himself: Dark hair, slim jeans and a Baby-T that showed a lot of skin and a pierced belly button. She walked up and stopped in front of him.

  "Got another smoke?" she asked.

  And suddenly Billy was not sure she was that old. She sounded even younger. He shook out a cigarette and lit it for her. She reached down, picked up the second can of beer, popped the top and took a deep drink. No, Billy told himself. She must be even older.

  “April,” she said. “I've seen you around. I live down at the trailer park.”

  The trailer park was a worse dump than his own place. "Billy," he said.

  She took a deep pull on the cigarette; blew the smoke out and then locked her eyes on his. "I saw you," she said simply. "I saw you take that shit from the cars, but I didn't tell the cops." She smiled.

  ~

  He held the door for her as she stepped into the trailer. Her eyes seemed to take in everything in one sweeping gaze.

  "Hey," she said as she walked to the couch. "This looks like that old lady’s couch. The one her husband died on... I heard," she said as she turned to Billy, "he died watching one of those uncensored Canadian films.... Had him a heart attack," she sat down.

  Billy snapped his mouth shut. He had been going to tell her how he had found it on the curb in front of old lady Johnson's house. How it had taken him twenty minutes to wrestle it into the truck by himself, and nearly a half hour to get it through the trailer door, but how it had been worth it because it was in such great shape. Now it didn't seem like such great news.

  He opened the refrigerator and checked the sack he had picked up from the ditch. Bread, crackers, two bags of chips, probably smashed, he told himself, and a broken jar of mayonnaise. He turned around to ask her if she wanted a sandwich and some chips, but she was right behind him.

  "Too bad about the mayo," she told him.

  "Yeah... But we got bread. Cheese, bologna, and..."He picked up the other packs of meat, "Salami, ham and olive loaf too," he told her. "Oh, and chips."

  "I'll take the white bread for mine," she said
and laughed.

  Billy looked at the green loaf of bread. "I guess it's no good, huh?" he asked.

  "It was probably no good two months ago," April told him. She took out the new loaf of bread, the cheese and the olive loaf. "What kind do you want?"

  "Salami," Billy answered.

  "I'll make the sandwiches." She picked up a squeeze bottle of mustard and looked at it critically, shook it and then looked at Billy.

  "It's good... Just bought it last week... "Besides, mustard doesn’t go bad, does it?" he asked.

  "Everything can go bad," April said. She picked up the salami and the mustard. "You can get the beers and chips," she said.

  She sat everything down on the counter top and then dragged the steel trash can over to the refrigerator: Got the same spatula out of the sink, and levered the green bread into the trash can. She took everything else out of the bag with the broken mayonnaise and then carefully dropped the bag into the can too. A cup that had something that seemed to be growing black hair. An expired container of milk, and that was it. She dragged the can away, pulled out the bag and looked at Billy.

  "Under the sink is fresh bags," he told her.

  After she had taken the trash out to the steel bin down by the road, she came back, washed her hands, and made the sandwiches. She carried the sandwiches over and handed one to Billy and then settled down on to the opposite end of the couch.

  He looked at her funny as he ate his sandwich, a question in his eyes.

  "You want to know about the stuff from the cars?" she asked.

  Billy nodded. "Like, how did you see me out back?"

  "I was in the woods. I ran. I didn't know what those guys would do. I knew you lived here. I was heading here when I saw you come out. I wouldn't have done that... I couldn't have: Especially when you fell inside the car. It made me gag."

  She paused and met his eyes for a second, then looked away once more. She closed her eyes like she was recalling the scene, or it was playing out again behind her closed lids. Billy supposed it was. She continued in a lower, measured voice.