Dead World: Hero

by D. N. Harding

  With coffee now abandoned, Jack stepped fully into the kitchen and gagged. Lying next to the fryers on the ceramic tiled floor was an obese man in a white smock. His arms, mouth, cheeks and chin were crusted in blood. Buried in the center of his skull was a meat cleaver. Beyond the cleaved man was a woman in what would have been a brown smock and a white blouse had they not been nearly ripped from her corpse. Her upper body was separated from her lower extremities by nearly two feet. Ropes of intestines spanned the portions. With her throat torn away, Jack could see the white of her spinal cord.

  A crash from what he could only guess was a back stockroom, snatched his attention and got his heart pumping. The door was closed, but it also had a round window centered at its heart. Jack looked back into the dining room as Davis approached the kitchen, carrying his own hot cup of coffee.

  “Davis, you don’t want to come in here. Trust me. Drink your coffee. I’ll be out in a minute,” Jack said as he stuck his head out from between the kitchen doors.

  Davis raised his brows and nodded slowly. When Jack disappeared back into the kitchen, he realized that this would be a good time to use the restroom and walked off in search of the facilities.

  Jack pulled a long butcher knife from off the counter and proceeded back to where the noise had emanated from. The clamor was consistent with an attempt to get someone’s attention. Did people barricade themselves away from what had transpired here? Did they find themselves trapped and unable to get free? His imagination grasped at every scenario. The closer to the stockroom he moved, the worse the mental images became until he managed to work himself into quite a froth.

  He held the knife low and wide. His awkward-looking posture — squatting low with his knees bent — gave the distinct impression that he was auditioning for a bad version of Westside Story. Yet, despite how foolish he felt, he came at the door below the window. He didn’t want to be seen by whomever it was. Once he was in position, directly below the window, he slowly raised his head.

  The room beyond was vast and used for storage. He could only see some of it from the window. The room was packed with shelves that were filled with all manner of restaurant provisions. Boxes, crates, Styrofoam cups and utensils, uniforms, janitorial supplies, and a plethora of other items occupied places that were labeled clearly and professionally.

  Jack tried the doorknob. Though it turned, it wouldn’t open. Pushing and pulling availed him nothing. The door was jammed in some manner he couldn’t see. He started to come at the door with his shoulder when it occurred to him that maybe he should knock first. So, he did. He gave the door three sharp taps with the butt of the knife and waited.

  Through the rows of supplies to the far right, he caught sight of someone moving at the edge of his vision. It turned out to be a bunch of someone’s. From the back and around both sides of the shelving came two women dressed in brown smocks, white blouses, and beige slacks. Their green aprons emblazed with Denny’s logo were heavily soiled. One was missing a shoe. A burly man with a full beard and plaid shirt came up behind them followed by a tall balding man in a three-piece suit. His eyeglasses were pushed back on the top of his head.

  It was more than evident that these people were infected with the sickness that afflicted others he’d met. He started to back away and then wondered about how secure the door was going to remain. Would they bang on it? Beyond the lurching crowd, more began to arrive until the stockroom was filled with wailing, pasty, foggy-eyed people lusting for Jack’s attention. One waitress pressed her face to the window and snapped her teeth in unrestrained appetite. It made Jack shiver.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jack said as he burst back into the dining room looking for Davis. The elderly black man was nowhere to be seen. “Davis!” Jack yelled.

  “Up here,” Davis whispered loudly.

  Jack jogged to the front and found Davis standing to the side of the entrance. A hall opened up that led back to the restrooms, past two pay phones.

  “Look,” Davis nodded. Congregating outside the front door was a group of ten or so shamblers, the sickness evident in their eyes and demeanor. At the head of the gang were the nurse, bus driver and police officer. They looked no different than before — still covered in Danny’s blood.

  “It’s worse in the back,” Jack said, as he picked up a phone. No service. The phone at the checkout counter was dead, too. He looked out to see more shamblers across the street and even more moving across the parking lot. Apparently, they were attracted by the wails of dissatisfaction echoing from the growing crowd outside. “We’re going to need to be quick about finding a way out of here, it seems. There are over two dozen more locked in the stockroom back there and I’m not sure how long the door will hold them.”

  “Well,” Davis interjected calmly. “At least they haven’t figured out that the external doors must be pulled open.”

  It was true. No matter how big the crowd grew out front, the best they were doing was pressing against the door. As long as the glass held, those out front would not be getting into the building.

  “Somehow, this sickness inhibits their problem solving skills,” Davis deduced. “Plus, they seem to have a single-minded veracity. Bite. Their response to everything is bite. Look how they try to chew at the glass,” Davis continued, pointing with his empty coffee cup.

  “Yeah, but also notice that they don’t bite each other,” Jack said.

  Tapping a finger on his upper lip, Davis said, “Hmmm. It is curious, to say the least.”

  A crash in the kitchen brought both men out of their contemplations. Jack sprinted for the kitchen doors and found himself confronted with a horror. The stockroom door was open. The sick poured out into the kitchen like jellybeans from a broken jar. Through the crack between the double doors, Jack watched them move about without real direction. Some sniffed the air as if looking for a scent. He also realized that he had been wrong in his estimation of how many were locked back there. They continued to fill the kitchen. Those still coming out of the stockroom forced those in front toward Jack and Davis. Soon, they would be forced into the dining room for no other reason than there was no more room for them elsewhere. There were too many heads for him to count!

  Jack looked around him. To the left and right of the swinging doors were stainless-steel cabinets bolted to the floor. There was no way to move them. Exasperated, Jack looked to Davis and shrugged. “If we don’t find a way to block these doors we’re going to be up a paddle without a creek,” Jack whispered.

  Davis offered a sly smile and said, “When one door closes, the Lord opens another.” With that, he shuffled over to the server’s station. It was comprised of a long slender table with collapsible legs. “How about we wedge this table behind the cabinets across the door. That might hold them long enough for us to be eaten by the ones coming through the front door.” Davis’ eyes twinkled.

  “What is that? A coping mechanism? Humor in the face of certain death?” Jack asked with a smile of his own.

  “No. It’s defiance in the face of uncertain death.”

  The two men unloaded the table and Jack collapsed the legs. He was halfway back to the swinging doors, when he found himself staring eye to cloudy eye with a particularly large shambler. The man was bent over looking through the window in the kitchen door — a window that Jack, at over six feet, could stand perfectly erect and see through.

  “Crap!” was all Jack could say before leaping at the swinging door. His hope was to move the table into place before the big guy knew what happened. He wasn’t fast enough. The man, seemingly excited at being the first to see lunch carrying its own table, came through the door with such fervor that he sent Jack toppling backward into a stand that held the silverware. Like the chime of an immense dinner bell, the silverware hit the floor. Wailing and howls erupted from behind the man in response. Jack scurried on his hands and knees across the carpet to escape the clumsy grasping hands of the hungry gray giant.

  Davis stared with disbelief when Jack
was hoisted into the air by a single hand from a man who looked like a circus freak he was so large. The infected man moved in to take a chunk from Jack several times, but on each occasion, Jack was able to turn away the bite. Davis had never seen anyone fight as Jack fought. Repeated uppercuts to the lower jaw sounded like hammer blows on raw meat over the chorus line of moans coming from behind the combatants. A cheekbone cracked under the pressure of one of Jack’s haymakers. Yet, no matter how hard Jack beat the man, the man would not be discouraged. It soon became apparent, that even if Jack could stave off the attack from the giant, there was a crowd of others who would soon fall on him. Jack couldn’t fight them all.

  Panic flooded his heart and in desperation, Davis turned to look out the windows behind him. The prayer he was about to offer never passed his lips. A white and black checkered taxicab moved up the street at a slow crawl. It was evident that the driver was looking for someone. His eyes moved deliberately across the buildings until he noticed the crowd in front of Denny’s. Davis ran to the windows and waved his arms frantically. The taxi driver waved back and then sped further up the street.

  “We need help,” Davis whispered to no one. When he turned around, he could tell that Jack was tiring. His movements were defensive now. No matter how hard Jack tried to escape the clutches of the big man, he could not. The man was just too strong. In fact, Jack hadn’t touched the floor once since he’d been picked up. Now, the others were nearly upon him.

  Davis looked down at his frail hands. They looked old and wrinkled to him. He knew what he had to do. If he did this right, he might give Jack another minute or two to escape. Davis walked around the side of the restaurant so that he would come as close as he dared to the crowd of shamblers who would soon be gnawing on Jack.

  “Try to get out while you can, Davis,” Jack shouted as he spotted the old man moving toward the mob of man-eaters. Davis continued around until he was in full view of the others.

  Understanding came to Jack in an instant. “Don’t you do it, old man!” The thought of Davis sacrificing himself gave Jack what he needed for a second wind. He redoubled his efforts to keep the man’s snapping maw from tasting his flesh. In his mind, he calculated his best approach to getting away from the vise-like hold the man had on him. His blows did nothing to deter the man. It was as if he could feel no pain. What he needed was to get his feet back on the ground.

  “Hey, you shambling mounds of moaning miscreants!” Davis shouted. “Over here!” When he waved his arms, the mob stopped and looked his direction. Now that he had their attention, he actually smiled. In his last moments, he decided, he would go out in the style of a Broadway musical. He cleared his throat, waved his arms, and then sang, “Hello, my baby. Hello, my darlin’. Hello, my ragtime gal. Give me a kiss by wire. Baby, my heart’s on fire. Honey, don’t use me. Then you will lose me. Then you’ll be left alone. Oh, baby, telephone and tell me I’m your own.”

  Davis’ voice and dance routine drew the crowd after him. Sometimes he forgot the words or the order in which they were supposed to be sung, but he didn’t care and neither did his audience. They stumbled and fell over chairs and tables in their attempt to reach him. When they would get close, he would back away constantly teasing them with song and dance.

  It was Jack’s fourth kick at the man’s knee that made it buckle. The leg bent backwards, in the wrong direction. The odd angle let Jack know that he’d finally broke it. When he felt his feet touch the floor, he steadied himself, widened his stance and then hammered his fist into the elbow of the man’s left arm dislocating it. There was a sickening POP and the hand fell away. It took two blows to do the same to the other arm. Finally, Jack was free. He pushed the big man down.

  He spun quickly to find Davis nearly pinned into a booth with his back to a window. He was still singing and exaggerating his movements. It would have been funny had the situation not been deadly. Behind Davis, Jack watched a white taxi pull along the curb outside. The driver motioned slowly with his hands signaling that he would get them away from there if they could get out of the restaurant. Jack looked to Davis, who was oblivious to everything except the impending doom of being consumed by his audience.

  It was at that moment that Jack remembered something that made him nearly cry. Reaching behind him, he withdrew from his waist the pistol he’d taken from the officer. He aimed it at the window behind Davis and squeezed the trigger. The glass shattered and then cascaded down into the booth in which the old man was standing.

  Davis’ eyes went wide as he hunkered down in shock. The warm air poured into the building through the open window. Jack lowered the pistol and stepped back as the mob of deranged man-eaters turned their attentions on him.

  “Go ahead, Davis — out the window. Look, the taxi driver is waiting on us,” Jack said, pointing his chin toward freedom.

  “What about—“

  “I’m right behind you. I just need to skirt around these guys and I’ll be out, too,” Jack said, feeling weary.

  Davis looked past his shoulder at the waiting car. The taxi driver smiled and waved him over. With a hop and a jump, he was out of the restaurant of doom with his feet on brown dry grass. He knew that they weren’t completely safe yet. The mob around the front of the building was coming to investigate the ruckus caused by the shattering window.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I n a moment, the two companions were running for the taxi. As they approached, the Asian man introduced himself. He said, “My name Mr. Ree. You wish for me to take you away, you pay me one hundred dolla each.”

  Davis looked around at the danger approaching them from nearly every direction. “This seems a bit unfair,” he huffed. “You’re taking advantage of our need.”

  “No. I am businessman. I make money. You want to reave? You pay me money. You have money I have taxi, you pay me.” With that, the man raised his brows and looked down the road as if to say, if you want, I can leave.

  This was the first time in over thirty years that Jack debated pulling a gun on a man. But one look at Davis’ tired posture and he knew he would pay anything to get the man to safety. He reached into his pocket and counted his money. Davis did the same. “Can we finish this discussion in the car?” Jack asked, throwing another hurried glance over his shoulder.

  Mr. Lee looked around at the approaching crowds and then nodded. The back door unlocked with a click.

  “It seems to me,” Jack said as he slid into the car, “that if you are as much a businessman as you say, then you are probably willing to negotiate a price rather than pull away from here with nothing. Something is better than nothing. Am I right?”

  The old man slid in behind Jack. The interior of the cab smelled like bleach. It looked as if it had been converted from a police cruiser. For a man the size of Jack, there was no legroom. He had to sit sideways with his back partially turned toward Davis. The back seat was separated from the front by a stretch of shatterproof Plexiglas.

  “What are you offer?” Mr. Lee asked, cocking his head to one side as Davis closed the door behind him.

  “We don’t have hundreds of dollars, but we are willing to give you what we do have,” Jack said. “I’ve got sixty-five dollars.”

  “Twenty-seven,” Davis said.

  Mr. Lee looked from one man to the next, then put the car in reverse and hit the pedal. Jack and Davis had to catch themselves to keep from falling forward into the divider and were tossed back into the seat when the car stopped abruptly about a hundred yards away from their previous position.

  “That for sixty-five dolla,” the driver said, looking through the rearview mirror at Jack.

  “What?” Jack said. “I’m not paying you to drive us a distance we could have just as easily walked!”

  Davis placed his hand on Jack’s knee. They shared a look.

  “What will you take to drive us to Willow Street?” Davis asked. “Or, at least near it. It’s close to downtown.”

  “I know where it is,” Mr. Lee said. He turned
and looked out the windshield. “You give me all money . . . and your gun.”

  “Hold on a—,” Jack started.

  “Deal,” Davis said quickly, again patting his friend’s knee. He collected Jack’s money, placed it with his own, and then extended his hand silently asking for the gun. It took a moment for Jack to work it out in his mind. He knew men like Mr. Lee. The prison was full of them. They would shake a man down simply because they had an advantage and it galled him to surrender to such vermin. In the end, however, he knew that he didn’t want the gun.

  “Here you go, my rapacious friend,” Davis said, placing the payment through the slot in the window. To Jack he said, “We are in an unusual circumstance. It requires us to do things we might not usually do. Be encouraged. My daughter lives on Willow Street. Think: home cooking.” Both their tummies growled n response.

  “Mr. Lee? What do you know about what is going on? Mr. Wages and I have been out of touch for a while.” Davis’s voice was pleasant and friendly.

  “They call, ‘The Prague.’ Whole city is shut down,” Mr. Lee offered. “Cell and internet services no work. Poriceman even say they will cut all of utilities to everywhere nobody to conserve energy and water. I hear poriceman say they’ve been working on a cure. I don’t know if poriceman tell me truth.”

  “What do they consider ’everywhere nobody?’ ” Jack asked.

  Mr. Lee shrugged. “I don’t know, but the poriceman and Army man no have enough to stop sick people. Poriceman say just too many of the sick walking around.”

  Jack looked out the window as he listened. The streets were vacant except for the occasional military truck or jeep he would see down a side road as they passed. He was also surprised at the sheer number of sick men and women walking the streets and their population increased noticeably the closer to downtown they drove.