by Tim Meyer
“Oh, stop it. Ain't nothin' but a little southern hospitality where I'm from, that's all. Anyone over here'd do tha same damned thang.”
“I doubt that very much,” Ben said. “You from the south then?”
“What gave that away, I wonder?” Mae Barker asked. “The accent or the home décor?”
Ben glanced around the kitchen. “Little bit a both, I suppose.”
“Born and raised in Alabama. Moved to Pennsyl-tucky after the boys' Pa passed away.”
“Sorry to hear that, Mrs. Barker.”
She shushed him. “Call me, Mae. And don't be sorry. Calvin Barker was a cheating, lying, yellow-bellied son-of-a-beech anyway.”
Ben chuckled.
Through the doorway entered a girl no older than one of Ben's high school students. She was wearing skin-tight jeans, tattered and holey by design. Her hair was braided into pigtails. She was wearing an old, stained tee-shirt, raggedly severed at the shoulders and beneath her tiny breasts, exposing her midriff. Ben could see she wasn't wearing a bra underneath it.
“Bobbi-Jo, what in tarnation! Go put some dang clothes on for goodness sakes!” Mae Barker yelled. “We got company.”
Bobbi-Jo turned around, spotting Ben.
“I'm Bobbi-Jo,” she said in a high-pitched voice. “Sure is glad to meet ya!”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Ben said, adverting his eyes from her scant wardrobe.
“Ben and his friends will be staying with us,” Momma Barker explained. “Why don't you go help your brothers get them... situated.”
“Sure thang, Momma,” she said. “I hope to see you around, Mister Ben.”
Ben nodded as she bounced out of the room.
Once she was gone, Momma Barker shook her head. “I sincerely apologize for that. I want you to know I'd never let my daughter leave the house that way. No sir.”
“I believe you, Ma'am.”
“Kids these days.”
You have no idea, Ben thought, thinking about all the dress code violations he had seen at school over the years, never reporting a single one of them.
“Well, there it is,” Momma Barker said, pointing to the telephone that rested on the kitchen table. “Guess I'll give you some privacy. Holler when yer finished. I'll send Floyd to show you to your room.”
“Thanks again.”
The old woman nodded, hobbling toward the hallway.
Ben removed the phone from the receiver, raising it to his ear. Dial tone brought tears to his eyes.
“Ya'll goan be down here,” Otis told them, opening a door, revealing a staircase.
“In the basement?” Brit asked, sounding surprised.
“Well, sheet. Better down there, than out der wit the dead folk.”
Brit exhaled, realizing he was right. “Okay, fine. Let's do it.” She looked to her mother, then her sister.
“At least we'll be able to get a full night's sleep,” Victoria said.
“Great! Follow me,” Floyd said. He descended into the dark. “Watch yer step. Light switch is in tha cellar.”
Brit followed. Her mother was behind her. Emily gripped her mother's hand as they walked into darkness. Josh wanted to be the last to go, but Otis insisted. Hesitantly, he followed Emily and Victoria. As the steps creaked beneath his feet, uneasiness fell over Josh. He felt Otis's overpowering presence behind him and he instantly felt trapped. You're just paranoid, he thought. It's just the drugs fucking with you. It had been a while since Josh felt normal and until now, he thought he was handling the strange feelings the withdrawals tossed at him quite nicely. Now he felt panicked, claustrophobic, like there was another person inside of him trying to writhe his way out. He almost turned around, wanting to push the overly-excited brute aside and scramble toward the exit. But then the lights came on, and Josh felt more at ease.
That was, until he exited the staircase and found his feet on the concrete floor. He stared around the room in a haze of confusion. He heard the girls gasp collectively. Josh felt his jaw slack, his mouth open. He rotated, trying to make sense of it all. He saw the decently-spaced basement was fenced in sections, from the floor to the ceiling. It took him a moment to realize these were cages, with locks on them. Dog kennels perhaps, although the Barker's weren't keeping dogs down there.
“What the fuck?” he babbled, stupefied.
A familiar voice answered on the second ring. Ben's heart pumped so rapidly that he thought it might explode. Despite their past differences, Ben was glad to hear her in that moment. “Hello?” she answered, her voice groggy and half asleep.
“Melissa...” he said.
“Yes?” There was a pause. “Who is this?”
“It's Ben.”
There was another pause and for a second, Ben thought she was going to hang up. He was about to open his mouth to tell her not to, when he heard the name he hated so much. “Benjamin?” she asked. “Holy shit, Ben? Is that really you?”
He wiped the tears away from his eyes, swallowing hard, trying his best not to cry too much. “Mel, is Jake—is he... alive?”
There was a deep sigh on the other end of the line. “Ben... he's... Ben...”
Ben swallowed hard. Oh God...
“Jake is fine. He's sleeping in his room as we speak. Ben—are you okay?”
“No, I'm pretty far from okay.”
“We've been watching the news. Everything they say...”
“I know it's fucking crazy.”
“Ben, New York City is on fire. The whole city is burning to the ground. Other cities, too. We thought... We weren't sure if you made it. We were starting to prepare for the worst.”
“I'm alive.”
“Where are you? Are you still in Jersey?”
“No... I'm...” Ben noticed some mail sitting on the counter. He thumbed through it. “I'm in Cold Creek, Pennsylvania.”
“How far is that from Pittsburgh?” she asked.
Ben heard another voice ask her who the hell was calling at that hour. At first he thought it was Jake, but the voice was too deep. Melissa told the voice that it was Jake's father. The man sounded astonished that Ben was still alive. Disappointed too.
“I don't know. Not too far I think. I can probably reach you in a few hours.”
“Well you better be quicker than that,” she said gloomily.
“What do you mean?” Ben asked, confused.
“Oh, shit that's right, you can't watch the news.”
“Mel, what the hell is going on out there? How do you still have power? Are there any zombies by you?” Ben asked.
“Well, yeah. There are zombies. But not many. The situation has been controlled over here. But by you... the entire East Coast, Ben... It's...”
“It's what, Mel? What's wrong with the East Coast?”
There was a pause. “It's completely fucked, Ben. And the government—well, what's left of them anyway—they're going to drop a bomb on it.”
Ben was at a loss. He opened his mouth but only a barely-audible squeak came out. He thought he heard Mel say something about going west, to where it was safe, but he tuned her out. A low-pitched drone was all he heard.
“Everything east of Philadelphia is going to be wiped off the map, Ben.”
Just before he was going to tell Mel that he was coming for Jake and to tell the little guy not to worry, that his father would be home soon, something hard hit Ben in the back of the head. His vision blurred before he could do or say anything. Strength abandoned his knees.
Ben collapsed into utter darkness.
Standing in the middle of the road, the kid was covered in blood from head to toe. His shirt had been reduced to tattered ribbons, his pants caked with filth and gore. His bare feet were scraped from dragging them against the pavement. Droplets of blood trickled down his fingers, forming a scarlet pool around his feet. Behind him, the sun peeked over the horizon. Rows of empty houses stood tall on both sides of the suburban road. Slowly, the kid stumbled towards Ben Ackerman, who rested on his knees, his arms ope
n, ready to embrace his only son.
Ben heard himself cry, uttering Jake's name.
“Daddy,” Jake said. “Daddy, you're home.” Jake shambled toward him, zig-zagging drunkenly. “Daddy, I missed you.”
Ben told his son that he missed him too. Very much. More tears fell from his eyes. Ben watched his son grow closer, a tiny smile appearing on his blood-slicked face. His hair was matted with bodily fluids. Chunks of brains and bone rested in the tangled mess like dandruff. The white of Jake's eyes stood out through the gore. Ben closed his, waiting to feel the warmth of holding his son again.
Once in range, Ben reached out, wrapping his arms around him. He hugged him with all of his might, so hard that he expected Jake to protest. But he didn't. Jake hugged him back, repeating the words, “I missed you, Daddy,” over and over again.
Blood smeared Ben's face, stained his relatively spotless clothes, but he didn't care. The cozy sensation from holding Jake felt too good.
Suddenly, Jake pulled back. He looked his father in the eyes, smiling. “Want to meet my friends?” Jake asked. “They're really cool.”
“Sure, Jakester.”
A horde of dead men and woman appeared in a circle around them instantly. Their appearances mirrored Jake's, but most of them were worse. Flaps of skin dangled from their faces. Broken bones protruded through their thin, colorless skin. Some of the walking corpses were missing appendages.
Ben didn't recoil. He didn't run. He stared at his son confoundedly, awaiting answers to questions that went unasked.
“They're my family now. Not you.”
“No, Jake,” Ben said. “No. I'm your family.”
Ben noticed one corpse in the crowd moving toward the front of the pack. Jake's mother. Melissa walked toward them, weaving her way through the dead concourse. She groaned, reminding Ben vaguely of the times he'd been inside her. The noises associated with love-making were disturbingly similar. She pursed her lips back, displaying two rows of rotted teeth and black gums. She was holding the hand of another zombie, whose face was so badly decayed it was unrecognizable. Fuck buddy, Ben thought, as the circle enclosed on them.
“Join us, Daddy?” Jake asked. “Won't you?”
“Sure, Jake. Anything for you.”
And as the famished monsters reached for him, Jake put his mouth on his father's neck, and tore a hunk of meaty flesh—
Ben awoke abruptly, snapping out of the horrific nightmare. He realized he had awakened inside a new one. The concrete floor was cold beneath him. The room was dank and smelled like urine, as well as other unknown pungent odors. He glanced around, surveying several unfamiliar faces, and the four he had been with before he ended up...
Where am I? Ben asked himself.
“Welcome to Hell, mister,” the black man in the cage next to him said. He had his arm around a young man, whom Ben assumed was his son. They were sitting, backs propped against the heavily-textured stucco wall.
“Where are we?” Ben asked, looking at Josh, who had been tossed in the cage across from him.
“The basement. Motherfuckers duped us,” Josh told him.
“You,” a man uttered contemptuously. He was kneeling on the floor, in the same cage as Ben, pressing his face against the chain-linked prison bars. His face was badly cut, blood had dried in streaks on his cheeks. The victim of a few angry tree branches perhaps. His shirt had holes big enough to be fingered and his slacks shared a similar story. He was dirty. Smelled bad. Much worse than the other dozen prisoners. “I... know you,” he said to Josh.
“Excuse me?” Josh said.
“You're Josh Emberson, right?”
Josh looked at the man, shaking his head. “Look, man—” And then it hit him like a swift kick in the crotch. It was his eerily familiar face, one Josh wasn't particularly fond of. “Well, I'll be damned.”
“It's me. John Vander. Olivia's father.”
“Yeah, I almost didn't recognize you without your glasses and those cuts and bruises.” Olivia flashed into his mind, as she seldom did those days. Her nearly-perfect naked body. Her sweet smile. The magic tricks she could do with her tongue. “Where's Olivia?” Josh asked, although deep down, he knew.
John Vander shook his head, his glassy eyes telling the whole story. “She didn't make it. We were driving back from June's mother's house when these psychos abducted us. They... I don't know what they did with Olivia and her mother. But... those bastards told me they didn't make it.”
“Shit.” Josh took another moment to reflect on the good times he had with his ex-girlfriend. The drugs. The sex. The unfathomable sensation of mixing those two things together. “How long have you been in here?”
“A week.”
“I've been here four days,” a man sporting a trucker hat said. He was in the cage to Ben's right, alone. Ben noticed a burgundy stain on the concrete next to where the man sat. He assumed it wasn't spilled wine. The stain looked weeks old and the truck driver didn't appear to be wounded. “They took me at a truck stop in Voorhees.”
“They took us out of our homes,” a woman in her forties said. She was with her son, a twenty-something year old. “Three days ago.” She had an accent that wasn't quite southern, but not Jersey either.
“We need to get out of here,” Ben said. “And soon.” He recalled what he had been told right before the attack.
“Well, I tell you what—you let us know when you find a way out,” the black man said.
“What's your name?” Ben asked.
“Me? Name's Ross. This is my son. Landry.” He put his hand on Landry's neck and gave it an affectionate squeeze.
“Well, Ross. I'm Ben. Sitting across from me, in that cage over there, is Josh.” Ben nodded to the cage farthest from him, to the right of the staircase. “That's Victoria and her daughters Emily and Brittany.” He looked at the cage to his right. There was an old man sitting there with long silver hair and a cowboy hat. He reeked of smoked tobacco. Ben looked to the woman and her twenty-year old son. “I think we should go around the room and introduce ourselves.”
“What's the point, man?” a middle-aged man rudely inquired. He was in the same kennel as Ross and his son.
“Because. If we're going to get out of this thing, we are going to have to work together. And that means we have to trust to each other. The only—”
“There's no getting out of this,” the bespectacled man interrupted. “I've been here for almost two and a half weeks. Two and a half weeks. Do you know what they do to the people they bring here? They take them, in small groups, and they never return. It's been going on ever since I woke up here.”
“Two weeks ago?” Josh asked. “You mean... you don't know what it's like up there, do you?”
“I tried to tell Jason here about the zombies,” Ross said. “But he won't listen.”
“Can you believe this fucking guy?” Jason asked. “Keeps going on about fucking zombies.”
“It's true,” Ben said.
“I've seen them too,” the woman with the twenty-year old said. “I'm Tabby by the way. This is my son, Anthony. He's mute, so he won't be saying very much I'm afraid.” Anthony shot his mother a disdainful look, rolling his eyes, clearly embarrassed. She shrugged her shoulders, continued running her fingers through his hair. Anthony tilted his head down, staring at the floor. “The zombies are real,” she added, then peered at Jason, who shook his head disbelievingly.
“Yeah, yeah. You fucking people are crazy, you know that?” Jason chuckled somewhat madly. “There's only one way out of his place, man. And that's if those redneck motherfuckers drag you out.”
“Well, we better find another one.” Ben looked around the room, surveying their worried faces. They wore looks of despair. “Because what's headed our way... is a lot worse than what those apes upstairs have planned for us...”
CHAPTER TWO
TWO DAYS AGO...
It had been over a week since Ben Ackerman felt alive. The past few days consisted of ambling back and forth betwee
n the couch and his bed. He was still unable to keep a meal down, which led to many trips to the bathroom. Salty crackers seemed to be the only food his stomach didn't reject. The beginnings of a beard started to bother him. He hoped to find the strength to erase it soon.
Ben found himself in front of the bedroom mirror, appearing too thin. Much too thin. The emaciated reflection of himself was barely recognizable. The bathroom scale informed him that he had lost over twenty pounds since he got sick. Jesus. The number was alarming considering he was under his average weight before he started his saltine-only diet.
Despite his frail frame, Ben felt much better. He had an appetite, which relieved him greatly. The thought of eggs and sausage made his mouth water and his stomach growl.
After he ate, Ben decided to retrieve his mail. He wondered how large the collection had grown over the past week and how many bills awaited his arrival. Since the sickness hit him full force, this was first time he stepped foot outside. Slowly, Ben trudged toward the mailbox, shielding his eyes from blinding sunlight. Although he felt better, his muscles remained stiff from inactivity. Ben's eyes were still acclimated to the dim indoor lighting, burning with intensity when sunlight hit them. It would be a few more days before he felt one-hundred percent again, however, he was thankful to be on his feet. Ben had never been a sit-around-the-house kind of guy. If his free time wasn't spent grading papers or editing stories for the local newspaper, he was doing yard work or fixing up the old Mustang, which currently took up most of the room in his garage. That and hundreds of tools forced Ben to park his blue Sonata in the driveway.
Ben grabbed the pile of mail from the mailbox, flipped through the envelopes lazily. Electric bill. Water bill. Lawyer bill. Doctor bill. Oh, a Chowmart Ad. Nothing interesting, nothing that required immediate attention. He wedged the envelopes under his arm, journeying back toward the house. His legs ached like he had ran a marathon. The flu had gotten the best of him, hit him real hard. He couldn't remember the last time he was that ill. Doctor Dillon had called in a prescription to help, but really the only thing to do was rest and wait it out. “You'll start feeling better in about week,” he had told Ben over the phone. And sure enough, today, he felt much better.