Neil couldn’t remember a time when he had ever been feared. He was always the likable guy, even in sports. His friends and co-workers all considered him an affable fellow. His wife might have had a different description for him, but her opinion was tainted to say the least. Neil was worried that perhaps he wasn’t the best person to be playing the hardened tough guy. It just wasn’t in his nature to be that guy. He tried to think of ways to get the information from him, but his grasp on his thoughts drifted again with the overwhelming din of their movement on the road.
Emma knew why Neil looked worried and distracted. She could see that he was contemplating his next move. She could almost see him torturing himself the way that Meghan always said he did when he made decisions. He wasn’t really a tough guy to figure out; perpetually dissatisfied with himself and still trying to prove to himself that he was capable.
Emma had known other guys like that in her life. They were usually the nicest men but also the least likely to be attractive to her. She didn’t much care for the melancholy, but she accepted it. It was just part of the package. When all was said and done, she knew that she and everyone else could count on him. She knew that Neil would, if asked, step up and use every means possible to get the information they needed.
It was because she knew that they could rely upon Neil’s willingness to be the “Man for all Seasons”, that she decided she was going to do the dirty work. She started thinking of little tortures with which she could start. She could beat the man with one of their bats. She could break his fingers. Cut him; burn him. If they let her, she was pretty certain she was capable of all of this because she could envision it in the first place. There was a time, not too long ago, that she abhorred violence on television or in movies. Violence was just something that she didn’t feel necessary to make a part of her entertainment lineup. She didn’t sign petitions to ban violent video games nor did she tell others what to watch, but she didn’t typically see those kinds of movies either.
Times had definitely changed and so had Emma. And it wasn’t just that she was considering torturing another living being. The problem was that she was considering ways in which to torture another living being to maximum effect, and no objection was forthcoming from her psyche. Emma hadn’t become psychopathic; she wasn’t looking forward to hurting the kid sitting in the back seat with Della. It was just something that needed to be done and she was perfectly willing to do it. At least that was what she was trying to convince herself to believe it.
Emma pivoted in her seat and took a long look at her quarry. She wondered if it would escalate to include shooting him. Where should she shoot him so as to hurt and possibly maim, but not kill? She thought to herself that she shouldn’t shoot him in the leg or foot in case they needed him to be able to walk. Of course, if she shot him in the foot, he wouldn’t be able to run away. She looked the scared kid in the eyes and he immediately looked away, sending his gaze to the passing trees along the side of the road.
But Della caught Emma’s eyes. The big black woman seemed to fill the entire back of the truck, but still looked comfortable. Della cast her big yellow eyes to the left and then the right, looking at the backs of Neil’s and Jerry’s heads. Like a tennis serve suddenly hitting the net, her eyes dropped when they came back to the middle and stared back into Emma’s eyes. It was clear to both of them what Emma’s intentions were, to which Della started to hum another low, soulful song that sounded as if it had first been sung by Nefertiti’s head priestess on a pyramid somewhere near Giza and Della had been there to hear it.
Satisfied but a little unsettled, Emma turned back around. If it came to it, she was certain that she could do whatever was necessary to learn where her friends had been taken. She looked back out at the road and let Della’s song wash over her.
37.
The car lurching to a stop was preceded by an agitated series of chirps on the radio. Despite this early warning, Claire, apparently unprepared, rolled from her supine position on the back seat onto the floor. Without the use of her hands, Claire’s tumble was painful and solicited a grunt.
The car’s driver, Howard, heard her discomfort and said, “Serves ya right. What the hell were you think’ pissin’ in my car! Dumb bitch!”
Under her breath, Claire muttered, “Fuck you, redneck!” She’d do more if she could, but wet underpants was her current limit. It was the discomfort of having wet undergarments that had prompted her to lie down in the first place. She was hoping her clothes would dry but the smell would persist.
Instead, Howard, upon noticing the rising pungency, had simply opened the front windows and permitted the cold air outside to fill the car’s cabin. He’d turned on the heat, which warmed and comforted him but did nothing for her. Regardless, Claire knew that the foul odor would be hard to dispel from the seat’s fabric for some time to come.
She had heard the voice on the radio, but was unable to decipher what had been said. With the passenger window still open now that they had stopped, she could detect a distinctly burnt aroma coming from outside. It wasn’t the inviting smell of wood burning as in a campfire though. The acrid air was much more industrial, like perhaps plastic or rubber from some internal part of an engine melting.
Car problems.
Car problems had sidelined their slavers’ caravan. Talk about falling victim to the mundane.
Claire climbed from the floor and did her best to right herself on the bench seat. She looked around and saw a wafting cloud of whitish smoke seeping like a last breath from the green and yellow panel truck’s grill.
It appeared they were on the Sterling Highway but still well outside of the first large, by Alaska standards, community on the highway when headed south, Cooper Landing. On the left side of the vehicle were trees and a flowing river. She guessed it to be the Russian River but geography and place names were never her strength. They were parked in a small, paved parking area that ran alongside the road. From the tiny lot, the river was easily accessible, allowing hip wader-wearing fisherman to crowd themselves onto the river banks and into the waters themselves in the contest to land any of the plentiful salmon who swam and spawned in its waters.
She wished she could somehow use this respite to her own advantage, but the bindings on her wrists and ankles were constraining her thoughts as well as her activity. She felt helpless and hoped that the delay didn’t lead to.... She just hoped that she wouldn’t become entertainment for the road. Howard had alluded on a number of times to her upcoming role when they got her back to the encampment...base...whatever.
Burly and disagreeable, Howard pulled himself from the car with some exertion and walked over to the expiring truck. He spit dark, tobacco filled wads of fluid as he and the other drivers debated their next moves. Claire wasn’t able to follow all of it, but she did surmise that the convoy was transporting more than just her and her companions. Supplies had been gathered in addition to captives and so they argued which should be carried back and which should be abandoned, even temporarily.
Finally, another man dressed in all black military fatigues, held up his hands to end the discussion. He spoke calmly and quietly enough that Claire could not hear what he was saying. His composed disposition commanded everyone’s attention and settled their collective anxiety. Claire wished she could hear what he was saying but the odd thing she noticed was that she felt calmed as well. She sat back, adjusted her little behind on her mostly dry underpants, and awaited her fate. What more could she do?
She sat in total silence for a few moments, contemplating all that she couldn’t do. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t fight. Yelling and screaming was pointless. There was no reasoning with her captors, not yet at least. Claire thought about all of this, barely noticing a low level vibration that was tickling her chest, disguising itself as a cough that was threatening to pounce. She tried to clear her throat to no effect.
And then, all at once, it suddenly dawned on her what she was feeling: the walking dead. They were near and getting
closer. She tried to crane her neck around so that she could see them. Nothing, but the buzz was getting stronger.
Was she safe? Could they get in? She’d have no chance to defend herself. She finally knew how live bait felt just before it was hooked on the line or tethered to a stake. Blending themselves into a noxious cocktail in her stomach, Claire’s anxiety eagerly mixed with the growing vibrations. She pulled harder and harder on the straps securing her wrists, desperate to get her hands free. She was nearly in a frenzy, her forehead and cheeks glazed with cold sweat and her breath forming a growing cloud in the car’s cool interior. Cool interior? It occurred to her that the front windows were both down. She looked around for anything she could use to free her hands. If she could reach them, she was almost convinced she would willingly gnaw her hands free by chewing through her own bones if necessary. When she realized she was shaking the whole car and drawing attention to herself, she froze.
Claire finally saw the movement, slow and stilted, to her left and on a depression of inclined ground that separated their parking spot from the river. She turned her head slowly, like a merry-go-round on its final, rapidly deteriorating rotation. She wanted to avoid detection at all costs; she didn’t want them to know she was there.
She counted at least five of the ghoulish figures. She contemplated alerting her abductors to the threat but then thought better of it. Let the fuckers die! Maybe she’d get lucky and the zombies and the rednecks would kill each other. She’d be willing to sit and watch that happen; only thing missing would be some popcorn. She was trying her best to be flippant about her situation, but it was no use. She was scared shitless; there was no point denying it.
She heard one of the men standing in the circle say, “Oh shit. More skins.”
The undead, or skins as they were known by the militiamen, ascended the gentle slope leading up to the road where the cars and trucks were parked. Claire had seen five of the creatures but in reality there were closer to ten of them. This close to their prey, the rotting abominations were much more vocal and excited. They emitted a collective wet, hungry groan as they approached, their hands reaching out in front of them desperate to close the distance to their next meal.
Spilling around the front and rear of the squad car, the zombies didn’t seem to notice Claire sitting in the car’s back seat. Watching them, Claire could not control the shaking fit gripping her. It felt like she was suffering a feverish shiver without the fever.
The crowd of undead was an eclectic group to say the least. There were fishermen still wearing hip waders, a businesswoman in a shredded skirt suit, tourists and locals wearing casual tee shirts and jeans, and even a couple of police officers, one of whom had been eviscerated and now had an empty, festering pit where his torso had once held his internal organs. The monsters’ skin was not much lighter than the road upon which they were sauntering. And like any corpse, their fingernails had continued to grow, causing their emaciated, bony fingers to resemble small daggers.
One of the police officer ghouls was pinched against the front of the squad car by the press of undead around him. His right hand, more of a claw really, dragged itself across the car’s metal hood with an ear shattering and teeth chattering scraping sound. He stopped and looked at the vehicle, a semblance of remembrance in his dark eyes.
Fear, cold and bitter, gripped Claire as she realized it wasn’t the car he was seeing. He was looking right at her. He circled around the car and came to the open passenger side window. Luckily, it wasn’t down all the way, but it was down far enough that he could reach in toward her. She screamed when his face appeared in the opening, his rancid breath filled the car’s interior with its foulness.
She shifted to the far side of the seat and pressed herself against the locked door, trying to make herself as small as possible. The fiend’s wiry, gray arm found its way into the partially opened window, reaching toward her fiercely. Its fingers opened and closed, grasping at the space between it and Claire like a hungry, chomping mouth. Claire’s terrified scream seemed to go on and on, echoing around her as if she was in a cave. She screamed until her ears rang and her throat ached. But really, screaming was all she could do.
She couldn’t hear the shooting over her own shrieks. The militiamen had overcome their own hesitation and were fighting back. There were sixteen militiamen who were drivers and passengers in the convoy. Of the sixteen, several were strictly drivers and retreated in fear toward the vehicles. The problem was that a couple of zombies were coming from the other direction and had found their way undetected into the mix of parked vehicles.
A young man of perhaps twenty was trying to get back to the pickup truck he had been driving when he ran unsuspecting into one of the zombies behind them. He cried out in terror when the gnashing jaws sank themselves into his neck just below his ear. The creature, quite literally quaking with delight at the taste of warm flesh, pulled away a merciless mouthful of bloody skin and, still chewing, dived down for another bite. With his carotid artery now severed and both his vision and his balance fading, the young man fell to his knees and succumbed to the attack.
Another of the militiamen, while firing his shotgun from his hip and backing away calmly, lost his footing when he stepped from the pavement onto the shoulder of the road and did not anticipate the change in height of the ground beneath his feet. He fell backward, discharging the shotgun into the air. One of the zombies took the opportunity to pounce. One of its knife-like fingers burrowed itself into his calf right through his pant leg. The militiaman pulled a pistol from his belt and fired four rounds into the top of the beast’s skull, spreading bone fragments and teeth all over the man’s legs and feet.
Already on his back and wounded, the man made an easy target for two more of the undead, who fell upon him like hyenas on a wounded gazelle. He shot his pistol a couple more times but to no effect.
The other men were faring a little better. They discharged their rifles, shotguns, and pistols in a furious storm of smoke and death. There was little to no discipline in their fighting, but it was effective. Soon, all of the zombies were dispatched and the shooting ceased.
Claire’s screams were still erupting from the squad car. The zombie preoccupied with devouring her was still trying to get enough of himself into the car to be able to pick that seemingly low hanging fruit. He jostled and wrestled with his body to be able to get in a better position to be able to reach her. No matter what he did seemed to matter and his limited reasoning ability did not allow him to fully comprehend the futility of his efforts. He simply continued to reach and stretch, unaware and apparently not caring that he was tearing and splitting his deteriorating skin and leaving dark streaking patches of bodily fluid on the vehicle’s partially raised window and door.
Many of the militiamen had recovered from the skirmish and watched Claire’s predicament with amusement. They snickered and giggled to one another and dropped comments about Claire bringing this on herself.
After watching for several moments, Howard decided that it was prudent to end the game. He stepped forward and tried to pull the beast away by using its collar as a lever. Its clothing was damp and mildewy to the touch and seemed to hang on its frame, like a soft exoskeleton. He thought to himself that it would be much easier if he could shoot the damned thing, but he didn’t want to do any damage to his car. He was proud of his car and didn’t want anything to happen to it. And so, he pulled even harder on the fiend who was lodged in the passenger side window of his car.
On the third tug, the zombie shifted position and poured out of the window. He landed awkwardly on top of Howard but then turned with the agility of a predatory cat and found himself face to face with Howard. Cracked and dirty teeth, he lunged at Howard, who barely held his attacker at bay. This all was happening so fast that no one else had been able to react. The other men had been caught unaware and were stunned at the sudden turn of events.
The man in black stepped forward and kicked the brutish creature in the side of the h
ead. It was enough to upset the balance of power that was rapidly tipping away from Howard. The two scrambled again and Howard was getting the better of the thing this time. Howard laid his hand against its leathery cheek and began to force its head into the side of the car repeatedly. Fissures began to form in the thing’s forehead as its skull began to crack.
Howard looked at the man in black and smiled. He was pulling back his hand for one final bruising pummeling when the ghoul shifted its head slightly and Howard’s hand slid right off its face, leaving Howard defenseless. The zombie didn’t hesitate. Its thrashing, jagged teeth and black, rotting gums fell onto Howard’s forehead above his right eye. It gnawed skin and eyebrow away from bone and chewed it hungrily.
There wasn’t time given for a second bite as the man in black had drawn his pistol from its hip holster. He pulled the trigger and pressed the gun’s barrel to the zombie’s skull. Though much of the fluid in the zombie’s body had long since dried, there was enough to create a sickly Rorschach spatter design on the dirty door of the squad car.
Howard pushed the thing off of him and sat up, pressing his palm against the gushing wound above his eye. He took a handkerchief from an inside jacket pocket and used that to wipe away some of the blood and then held the stained cloth to the ghastly injury. Much of the flowing blood ignored the cloth and continued to pour down the bridge of his nose and onto his lap.
Howard said through clenched jaws, “Sorry. Sorry. I guess he just.... Sorry. Do you think I could go back with you fellas? You can do whatever you need to back there. I’d just like to say good-bye.”
Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) Page 19