by TW Brown
He plopped down in one of the booths and tried to let the chalky tablets do their job. That was when he realized that Sean had wandered off at some point and he hadn’t noticed. He glanced at his watch and decided that it would be at least another half hour before Colton would be back with whomever he’d gathered up.
On a whim, Ken decided to drive up towards the mayor’s house. The man had most likely walked. That meant he was probably struggling to walk up that steep hill that led to his neighborhood.
He made it to the first plateau of the hill when he spotted the man sitting on a bench that the city had placed during one of their beautification kicks.
Ken stopped the truck and climbed out. The man’s head was down, and the sounds of snoring could easily be heard.
With a heavy sigh, Ken walked over and gave the man’s shoulder a shake. There was a snort, and then Sean fell onto his side on the bench, his snores returning with a vengeance.
“C’mon, man,” Ken groaned as he leaned down and tried to pull the mayor into a sitting position. The man made a few noises and then belched. The smell was so strong that it almost seemed to have a physical presence.
Ken shook his head and threw one of Sean’s arms over his shoulders. He considered putting the man in the cab of his truck but decided to just sort of roll him into the back.
He closed the tailgate and then hopped back in behind the wheel. He drove up the hill and then turned down the little dead-end street. Pulling up to the man’s house, Ken climbed out again and was instantly hit by the smell.
“Oh…” he looked into the back of his truck, “…crap.”
A slurry of vomit sloshed around the bed. It had soaked into Sean’s dark hair as well as the shoulder of his shirt.
Moving to the rear of the truck, Ken dropped the tailgate and grabbed an ankle. He pulled the man to the back and then moved to put himself on the side that wasn’t fouled with sick.
Getting the man to his feet wasn’t all that difficult, but moving him to the front door of his house proved to be no small task. The man’s body would randomly sag and almost fall to the ground.
At last, Ken got him to the front door. He was a little surprised when he tried the knob and it was unlocked. Granted, there wasn’t too much concern about somebody breaking in, but if they did, chances were that they would not hesitate to murder anybody they encountered.
A second thought came…at the same time the stench of the undead hit. Ken searched his memories. He realized that he’d not seen nor heard mention of Mary, Sean’s wife, this entire time. Granted, it wasn’t like he was close with the Drinkwines, but now that he thought of it, she had always been active to a degree in regards to the town. Yet, she hadn’t been to a single meeting. And he had not seen her at that first gathering at the stadium.
“You don’t wanna go downstairs,” Sean slurred. “Mary hasn’t had a chance to tidy up, and she might get mad.”
Ken eased the man down to a nearby recliner. The man instantly resumed snoring. Pulling the pistol from its holster, he very cautiously made his way down the stairs. The stench grew stronger with each step until Ken found himself holding his breath. All the lights were off and apparently the curtains had all been pulled closed. The lower level was almost pitch black.
At last, he reached the bottom step. The sound of something moving in the darkness could be heard. As his foot touched the bottom step, he heard a soft moan. Clicking on the Maglite he had mounted on his pistol, Ken scanned the room until he found her.
Mary was in the far corner from the stairs. She had a nasty but old wound on one forearm. Her dead eyes stared back at him, her mouth opening and closing with a click as she snapped at the air between them, her hands reaching in impotent desire as she strained against what looked like orange extension cords keeping her in place. The cords were attached to an eye bolt that was obviously a new addition to the room’s décor.
“Dammit,” he swore.
He was looking at his own worse fear. A surge of pity for Sean came with surprising force.
Ken holstered his weapon once he had enough confidence that the zombie was tethered securely. Now that the initial shock was past, he could take in the scene better. There were packages of raw meat at the zombie’s feet. There were also packages of what had once been frozen vegetables, and a loaf of bread that was green with mold. Other than being stepped on, none of it had been touched.
There were a few small bones scattered, and Ken thought that he recalled something about the Drinkwines owning a tiny dog. That made him shudder again. He pushed that aside, not wanting to dwell on such a horrible image.
After a moment, Ken clicked off the light and returned up the stairs. A voice in his head told him to put that shell that had once been Mary out of her misery, but he quickly decided that it was not his place.
Since this nightmare began, his biggest concern and fear was how he would deal with the situation if his Bennett was infected. He seriously doubted his ability to put a bullet in her head. It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t want her to be one of those things; he still did not think he could shoot her in any form.
While it had never been proven one way or the other, what if there was still some part of her in that undead shell? And without absolute evidence, that tiniest sliver of doubt would be enough to keep him from pulling the trigger. Why would Sean be any different?
Retreating back up the stairs, Ken checked on Sean one more time. The man was still sitting up in the recliner and snoring heavily.
Exiting, Ken took a deep breath to cleanse himself in more ways than one. A shudder ran through him, and he had to silence that voice that told him to go back inside and end that creature downstairs wearing Mary Drinkwine’s skin.
“It ain’t my place,” Ken said to the silence that was now the norm in the new world.
Ken climbed back into his truck and headed down the hill. He pulled up to Fearless Brewery just a few seconds before Colton and those he’d gathered managed to arrive.
His eyes widened when he saw Bennett climb out of the car. She leaned over and whispered something to Colton and the man motioned for his group to head inside. Ken swallowed hard as his wife approached him with no expression on her face at all.
“You’re going after Lake?” Bennett stopped right in front of him and planted her balled fists on her hips. “How many times are you going to roll the dice? One of these times, you are going to come up snake eyes.”
“This isn’t about that asshole, Lake,” Ken replied calmly. “There are two big rigs loaded with food.”
“You can tell everybody else that line of crap, Ken.” Bennett waved a hand dismissively. “But don’t try to pull that with me. You get something under your skin and you can’t let it go. For some reason, Patrick Lake pisses you off and you won’t be happy until you knock him off his pedestal.”
“It shouldn’t take long.” He leaned down and kissed his wife on her forehead.
“And then you are done for a while, mister.”
With that, she turned and walked into the brewery. He watched until the door shut. Did she just tell him he was grounded? Hell, maybe she had a point.
Ken walked over to the car and looked inside. He did not know the names of one person in that car besides Colton. None of them looked older than early twenties. It wasn’t a group he would’ve picked, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Let’s go,” Ken said as he pulled the door shut.
10
Snake Eyes
Ken sat in the car watching what had once been very familiar surroundings pass by. Now, it was starting to look foreign. So much destruction. Buildings that he hadn’t even realized he’d used as landmarks were now piles of burnt debris and rubble. Bodies were everywhere, rotting in fields, the roadside, jutting from the piles of garbage and the ruins of houses, or still in their vehicles that were now sinking into the landscape as well.
The young men in the car were engaged in a banter that was far too casual for what await
ed them. He wasn’t actually listening to the words, but from their tones, they all sounded like this was just one big party they were heading for. Although, he did note that Colton was not joining in on the conversation.
As they rolled through the area known as the Carver Curves, Ken felt the first surge of adrenaline dump into his system. His body was already preparing for what was to come. His stomach churned with too much acid, and a small bubble of bile climbed up to burn the back of his throat.
Why is this any different than anything else I’ve done these past weeks…months? Ken silently asked himself.
When they reached 142nd Avenue and turned right to head over to where Patrick had said they were trapped, Ken did a pat down check of his arsenal. He had his shotgun between his knees, pistols on each hip, and in the trunk was his scoped .30-06. He also had a knife strapped to his leg and a machete that would clip to his belt as soon as he climbed out of the car. He checked his five spare magazines for each pistol, the pouch with thirty rounds for the rifle, as well as the bandolier holding twenty-four rounds of buckshot for the Mossberg 12-guage. Everything was as it should be. He knew that he often carried more than he needed, but he would rather stow a few unused rounds when he got home versus running out.
While the norm was to only use firearms as a last resort, he had no doubt that they would be the priority on this run. This was going to be a shootout. It was also a very likely possibility that more than one of the group would end up dead before it was all said and done. Perhaps that was why he had not bothered to even attempt to get to know the names of any of these young men.
He would still see their faces in his nightmares. He was almost certain of that.
The car sped along, all the greenery outside the window zooming by in a blur. This display of fast driving only served to excite the young men even more.
As they approached the SE Sunnyside Road intersection, Colton eased off the gas pedal. There were a lot of bodies strewn about in the road. Also, up ahead on the left was a huge church. It looked like it had been used as some sort of refuge. There were barricades in the entry ways, but the church was shot up and had been mostly burned to the ground.
“Stop!” Ken barked.
The car jerked to a halt causing most of the passengers to protest in some way or another. Ken tuned them out as he exited the vehicle. Sunnyside Road had been blocked here, but not by cars or cement barriers. This barricade was comprised of dead bodies. The fact that none of the ones he could see were White, made Ken certain he knew the culprit behind such a horrific creation.
Now that he was out of the car, he could wander closer to the church parking lot. There were three school buses that were riddled with bullet holes and one that looked to have been fire bombed. On the other side of the vile barrier, a few cars had been waylaid. One was upside down in the roadside ditch, anther was on its side, and the third was a blackened husk of its former self.
They turned left on Sunnyside Road and kept their eyes open. According to what they’d gotten from Lake, they were just past a Safeway. The attackers had emerged from some apartment complex just ahead of that location around 122nd Avenue.
They’d been boxed in and forced to retreat inside the Safeway where they were defending themselves. A disturbing lack of gunfire is what greeted them as they approached SE 122nd Avenue. To Ken, that indicated that perhaps Patrick and his cronies were dead.
“Stop the car,” he called again as the sign for the intersection of Sunnyside and 122nd could be seen up ahead.
Colton did so, and now Ken noticed the other young men had grown quiet as well. They were all peering out the widows, searching the area as if they expected the enemy to simply stroll up to the car and announce itself.
“We get out here and go the rest of the way on foot.” Ken was surprised when not one of the others voiced a protest or asked a question.
Once everybody had emerged from the car, Ken attached his machete to his belt, grabbed his rifle from the trunk, and made one final check to be sure he was locked and loaded. He hurried over to the sidewalk, stepping over a few rotting bodies that were scattered about and now acted as the beacon for what seemed like a million buzzing insects. He also noted that the stink of death was almost pleasant when compared to the undead. There was a sickly sweet smell of rot on the spring breeze that was almost a comfort. If Ken could smell that and not the stink of the walking dead, he’d be just fine.
As they reached 122nd Avenue, the parking lot became visible. There was an assortment of abandoned vehicles scattered about, but the two semis with trailers attached were parked right in front of the store. One of them even had its back doors open, a wall of boxes from floor to ceiling clearly accessible. What he didn’t see was any sign of Patrick Lake…or a gunfight.
The area was quiet. What was even stranger was the fact that there did not seem to be a bunch of zombies in the area. He expected to find some—a few at least—pawing around after all the noise of a gunfight.
As he started to cross the parking lot towards the trucks, he motioned for Colton to take the open one on the left with a couple of his guys. He would take the one on the right with a couple of the others. They would drop one of Colton’s friends at the car on the way out.
“Where is Lake?” Ken muttered.
It did not bother Ken that the man was gone and likely dead. It did bother him that there was no sign of the man or any of the others who must’ve went with him.
He was perhaps ten feet from the trucks when he stopped walking. He looked around the parking lot, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
“What? Zombies?” one of the young men asked, foolishly sounding excited.
But it wasn’t zombies. Ken turned back and stared at the trucks, the one open and looking fully loaded with pallets containing boxes wrapped and strapped in place.
“Why didn’t they take the stuff?” Ken asked the warm breeze.
“What stuff?” another of the young men asked, scratching the side of his face as he eyed Ken like he might perhaps be a bit on the crazy side.
“Back to the car,” Ken said calmly, not wanting to shout.
“Are you nuts?” one of the men snorted. “You see all that stuff waiting for us to take back home? Maybe you been eatin’ good, old man. Everybody knows you hid a bunch of the stuff from your restaurant and been eatin’ like a king while others barely been getting’ enough to squash the growlin’ in their bellies.”
Any other time, Ken would have no trouble putting this punk in his place. To accuse him and Bennett of hoarding food? That was ridiculous. Was this another of Patrick Lake’s jabs to erode the community’s trust in him and the others that were doing everything in their power to hold things together?
He simply did not have time at the moment to engage this idiot. In fact, he would leave them all right here and right now. His gut was screaming at him that there was a serious problem here.
“Ken?” Colton called. “What the hell? The trucks are right there. Even if zombies showed up this very moment, we’d be in, have ‘em started, and roll out before they could be any problem.”
Ken slowed and turned back. Was he being foolish? Had Bennett spooked him with her little conversation before he’d left on this run?
Colton apparently took Ken’s pause as a sign to continue with obtaining the trucks. He spun and motioned for his team to follow as he jogged up to the open doors of the trailer. He was about to shut the huge doors when the boxes seemed to erupt outward.
There was a loud chatter of a high-powered automatic weapon, and Colton was shredded by the rounds that ripped through him. The others beside him suffered similar fates.
Ken could see flashes of light coming from inside the trailer as the machine gun continued a few seconds after Colton’s team had been pulverized and were scattered on the asphalt of the parking lot in a dark smear.
The sound of engines turning over caused Ken to look away from the carnage in time to see a familiar truck round the
far end of the grocery store. It was followed by a school bus with a machine gun mounted on top.
The two vehicles came to a stop almost in the middle of what had once been Colton and his men. The bus opened at the same time as the driver’s side of the truck belonging to Patrick Lake.
“Wow, I told Pat here that you would absolutely not fall for this,” Don Evans said with a chuckle. “I guess I owe him a beer.”
“Something good,” Lake said with a sneer. “Not that Fearless crap.”
Ken did not say a word. He simply stared at the two men. For as much as he disliked Patrick Lake, he certainly had not imagined that the man would fall in with somebody like Don Evans. He never considered that the man might do something on a scale like this.
“Well, Lake,” Don Evans patted the man on the shoulder, “I am a man of my word. You’ll have that beer, and as long as you hold up your end of things, I will let you stay in charge of Estacada once we take it.”
“Take it?” Ken scoffed. “You think a few of you are going to be able to just walk in and take over an entire town? There is no way the majority will stand for it.”
“They will if given the right…incentive,” Don said with a smirk.
“Let’s get this over with,” Patrick suggested. The tone of his voice put an icy ball in the middle of Ken’s belly.
“You three,” Don pointed to the rest of Colton’s group that had been with Ken, “you get one chance to join us—”
He hadn’t gotten the words out of his mouth when the three scrambled to him. This seemed to amuse Patrick to no end.
“If it is this easy, we’ll have the town by the end of the week.” Patrick shook his head, laughing way too hard in Ken’s opinion.
“You understand why I’m not extending that offer to you, right?” Don Evans said as he moved a little to his left.
That gave Ken a clearer look inside the back of the trailer that had obviously been nothing more than bait. He could see a dark outline set back some ways from the opening. He did not need to see it clearly to know it was another .50 cal machine gun on a tripod manned by at least two people.