Necrophobia #3

by Jack Hamlyn

He got out of the way.

  Tiny tried to apologize and Bill hit him. He hit him two more times, as he fell to the ground. It sounded like a hammer striking a pumpkin.

  “Enough, Bill! Christ, you’ll kill him!”

  Bill grumbled and stomped away. The others followed, two of them holding Tiny up. He was making whimpering sounds in his throat. I didn’t know who Bill was, but I knew what he was: a violent asshole with an obsession.

  KILLER INSTINCT

  But he wasn’t my problem.

  After the boys were gone, I did a little figuring based on my current orientation. I knew that Jonesy had been flying us north-northwest deeper up into the Catskills, following the Neversink River up to Doubletop Mountain and, hopefully, the farm of Bobby Hughes. Considering where we “splashed down,” my drift in the river, and judging by the position of the Dog Star in the sky, if I cut straight through the woods I would reach County Road 31. Which, in its own roundabout fashion, would lead me to Catskill State Park and the vicinity of the farm. At least, I’d be going in the right direction.

  But I’d have to be careful, because Wild Bill and the boys were no doubt going to be watching the road. And anyone would do to avenge Georgie.

  After twenty minutes spent tripping over logs, slopping through knee-high mud, and having most of my blood drained off by late-season mosquitoes, I reached the road. I fell onto it, gasping for breath. I laid there a moment, wanting to sleep. I think I was going on something like forty-eight hours without sleep by then. A nap on a bed of nails would have been acceptable.

  But I got up.

  I got moving.

  I moved on down the road, keeping to the shoulder and staying out of the moonlight. The trees threw spreading dark shadows that I melted into. I was keeping an eye out not just for Wild Bill and his bullyboys, but the dead. They were sparse in the country compared to New York City, but I knew they were around. All it would take was one good bite to initiate me into their club and turn me into a ravenous, walking corpse.

  I made it maybe half a mile when I heard voices.

  I slid into the shadows, waiting for trouble. The voices were just ahead. I could smell cigarette smoke. There was no alarm or panic in the voices, so I figured they weren’t on the hunt.

  I moved in closer, being as silent as possible.

  I came around the trunk of a big pine and I could see the lights of their cigarettes. The moon had slid behind a cloud and I waited for it to come out. I rubbed sleep from my eyes, knowing I had to get a look at them before I went any farther. If they were attentive, slipping by them would be tricky. The idea of sneaking around them through the woods wasn’t exactly appealing either.

  The moon came out. I saw them at the next bend in the road, leaning up against a pick-up truck, smoking and drinking beers. You can tell a lot about a person from their posture. It tells you whether they’re motivated or they don’t give a shit. These two definitely didn’t give a shit.

  I moved in closer, within thirty feet of them.

  A voice in the back of my head was saying: You need that truck and you know it. You gotta be willing to do whatever it takes to get it. It’ll bring you to Paul, Tuck, and the others. Get ready to take it.

  And I was ready.

  God, how I was ready.

  The truck was a GMC, four-wheel drive, the answer to my prayers.

  I listened to the boys chew the fat, unaware that I was creeping up on them. “Goddamn Bill, he ain’t right in the head and we both know it.”

  “He’s been fucked up since Georgie.”

  “He shot that chopper right out of the air. Friends, enemies, we’ll never know. He’s got one RPG left. Can’t wait to see what poor bastard gets on the wrong end of it.”

  “Hope it ain’t us.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  So Wild Bill was the one with the itchy trigger finger. If I had the time, I would have hung around just to sort out his hash. But there was no time for that. I was on a mission, and deep in my heart, I felt it was the most important one in my life.

  Finally, one of the guys stretched and said, “I gotta get back down to the others. Keep an eye out. Bill says there’s some maggotheads on the prowl. Watch yourself.”

  “Sure, Chip, sure.”

  I watched Chip meander away down the road. The other guy finished his smoke and cracked another beer. He guzzled off it. Fifteen minutes later, he cracked another one. I was waiting for the inevitable, but this guy had a bladder of iron. I needed him indisposed when I made my move. After what seemed a good hour, as I fought to stay awake, he finished another beer and tossed the empty in the back of the truck.

  Then…he walked around the GMC to take a leak.

  It was time to make my move.

  His rifle—a .30-30, I guessed—was leaning up against the truck. My plan was to grab it and bash him over the head with it. He’d wake up later in the ditch with a very sore noggin, but he would wake up. My back-up plan was a bit more bloodthirsty. I was going to slit his throat. I didn’t want to. I had nothing against this guy. I really wished him a long and healthy life…but I needed that damn truck. I needed it bad.

  Looking back, I’m amazed at how cold-blooded I was.

  As he walked over to the ditch, I broke from cover. His rifle was leaning up against the back bumper. I came around the side of the truck as I heard him start to piss. My Gerber fighting knife was in my hand. I had almost reached the rifle when I stepped on a very dry pinecone and it crunched like I had stepped on a bag of potato chips.

  The guy half-turned, saw me, said, “Hey—”

  Two quick steps and I was on him. I clamped my hand over his mouth as he half-heartedly reached out to grab me, then I buried the blade of the Gerber in his belly. His entire body tensed, then went completely loose as I rammed the knife into his guts three or four times. He fell back, tumbling into the ditch. I heard him rolling and squirming amongst the cattails, making wet gagging sounds. It lasted maybe ten seconds and then all was silent. My skin crawled a lot longer than that.

  He was dead and I had murdered him.

  I stood there, shaking in the moonlight, my arm drenched in blood right up to the elbow. My knees felt weak and my stomach flip-flopped. I had killed before; make no mistake about it. I had killed when I was in the Iraq War and I had done a lot of killing since The Awakening brought the dead up out of their graves. But it had always been done to protect me and mine and always against armed or vicious, deranged combatants. This was the first time I had killed when there was another way. I was no commando. In the war, I had crewed out a Stryker armored vehicle as a TC, a Truck Commander, and gunner. I wasn’t a ground soldier. I wasn’t trained in close-in, handed-to-hand stuff.

  But when the time came to kill that guy, I did not hesitate.

  I operated on pure instinct. It was as if my body said, step aside, I’ll handle this. My mind, my will, had not been involved. No, I was no commando, but I was motivated, driven, and desperate. I had to get to my boy. He thought I was dead. I could almost feel his pain out there, his longing for me, and the need of the stability that only I could provide.

  I didn’t care how many I had to kill to get to him.

  As I said before, I was not about to let him down.

  NIGHT RIDER

  I came out of it quick enough, grabbed the rifle, and jumped behind the wheel of the GMC. I was feeling no guilt; there just wasn’t time for it. I turned over the truck and it had half a tank of gas, which I figured was enough to get me where I was going…or damn close.

  I found some cigarettes in the cab and helped myself to them. The nicotine would keep me awake. I made it maybe a mile when two figures stepped out into the road. Teenage boys. Only one of them had anything you could call a face. Zombies. They had no fear of anything and particularly not moving vehicles. They came right at me and I knocked both them both out of the way and just kept rolling. I wondered if one of them was named Georgie.

  As luck would have it—or lack of the sam
e—I went flying down the road, coming around a bend, and there was the bridge that Wild Bill and the boys had originally sighted me from.

  They were still there.

  A half-dozen of them waiting with rifles.

  I slowed down right away out of indecision. I wasn’t sure what the hell to do. If I came charging down on them like a juggernaut, they were going to open up on me and I didn’t care much for the idea of dozens of rounds flying through the windshield. Caught in my headlights, they were relaxed, gun barrels pointing down. They, of course, thought I was the man I had killed. In the glare of the lights, they knew no different.

  I saw no reason to disappoint them.

  I came up to the bridge slowly and they waved to me. When I was about twenty feet away, I floored the pedal and as I did so, two scenarios played through my head: the truck would choke and conk out, leaving me at their mercy…or one of them, maybe hotheaded Wild Bill himself, would take the initiative and fire, and I would catch a round in the face or neck.

  But neither happened.

  God loves fools.

  The boys weren’t expecting trouble, so they were casual, almost bored. When I floored the truck, they jumped out of the way. Two of them flipped over the railing into the river. I hit another. He flipped up onto the hood and slid off. Another went under the wheels and I rolled over him with a sickening thump.

  Then I was free.

  I was going to make it to the farm.

  I was going to be reunited with my son and friends. Nothing was going to stand in my way. I was feeling pretty good. Better than I had in weeks. Much better, in fact. I lit another cigarette and wished I had a beer. I had made it maybe five miles from the bridge and things were smooth and easy. I should have known something had to go to shit.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t alone on the road.

  Headlights were coming up behind me fast. I opened up the GMC, as much as I dared to on that narrow, twisting road. The headlights were getting closer and closer. Then, coming around the bend in front of me, was a very big truck. It was pushing right down the center of the road. It was a real monster, something about the size of an Army deuce-and-a-half. It was going to hit me head on.

  I was sandwiched.

  These were Wild Bill’s boys. I had no doubt of it. It never occurred to me that they would have two-way radios.

  THE LONG WAY DOWN

  What I did, I did without thinking, because there just wasn’t time. I hit the brakes, fishtailing in the gravel, hoping to cut past the big truck on the shoulder. It worked. Almost. What went to hell was that the tail end of the GMC was sticking out just enough that the big truck hit it, sending me spinning further onto the shoulder, the front-end of the GMC edged down into the ditch.

  Except…it wasn’t a ditch.

  It was an embankment leading down into a hollow maybe forty feet below. There was no way to stop what came next. The GMC went over the edge and then it was rolling down a grassy hill, which was uneven, full of dips and holes. The truck bounced and jumped, stumps tearing at the undercarriage, as it picked up speed, smashing through clumps of brush and clipping off saplings. I tried to ride the brake, but with all the jostling, I was thrown all over the place. I could barely hang onto the wheel.

  Finally, down in the hollow, the GMC smashed into a big pine, knocked me clear of the steering wheel, and came to a rest. My noggin had taken a few good raps, but I managed to stay conscious. The door was bashed-in. No way I could force it. I found the rifle and crawled through the window, dropping into a pond that was six inches of stagnant water above and three feet of sucking black mud below. I fought my way through it and scrambled onto dry land.

  Above, the boys were shining lights around, trying to see if I had survived the ride. It would have been child’s play picking them off with the flashlights in their hands like beacons. But there was no point in wasting cartridges. They weren’t interested in coming down after me, so I wasn’t about to give them a reason to.

  I cut around the mud pond and crept deeper into the dark hollow. I kept going for about ten minutes until I was deep in the woods and the truck was far behind me. I found a stump and sat down, mosquitoes investigating my neck.

  I was the original Hard-luck Charlie. I really was. I had been separated from my friends in the Bronx and nearly devoured by a scavenging band of zombies. I escaped and spent part of the night in the bombed-out ruins of a building, only to wake and find a guy with a face of fungus wanting my boots. I spent the rest of the night in a near-collapsed Army/Navy surplus store, only to wake yet again to find a pale, bald woman sucking the blood from my wounded arm. Then I was captured by a militia, held prisoner in a hole, and drafted into a zombie extermination squad commanded by a psychopath. I escaped that mess by diving off a roof and hanging onto the skid of a chopper…only to have that chopper shot down twenty-four hours later. I lived through it and was hunted by a marauding crew of shitkickers only to find a truck and survive a crash into a muddy pond.

  What next?

  I mean, really, what next could fucking happen?

  That, as I damn well knew, was a question I should never have asked.

  After my breather, I took a fix off of the stars, and started cutting cross-country. If I kept going, I knew I would eventually find County Road 31 and that would bring me to Catskills State Park and, hopefully, to the farm of Bobby Hughes. It was hard going. I climbed up and out of hollows in the moonlight. The land was rugged with deep cuts, draws, narrow streams, and heavy brush. Up and down, up and down, humping it, humping it. It was like being at Fort Benning again.

  I kept at it for hours, taking little breaks now and again, until I came to an elevated dirt road. I figured it had to lead somewhere. And if that happened to be a house out in the middle of nowhere, then I could catch a few hours of sleep. I badly needed it.

  I followed the road until I saw a cabin in the moonlight sitting atop a little hill.

  CABIN OF CORPSES

  Sanctuary.

  I saw no lights and heard no dogs barking, which was even better. I wanted quiet. I wanted solitude. I wanted to stretch out and sleep before I fell down. The closer I got, the more I realized this wasn’t somebody’s home, but some kind of sprawling lodge. It was log-built, two stories. There was a high flagpole out front, several log buildings fronting the river, and a series of small cabins spreading under the pines and up a grassy hill. I saw a baseball diamond, a couple totem poles, and a huge stone-fronted firepit. I could see it all clearly in the moonlight. Set before the lodge was a massive rock upon which was painted: CAMP BITT-A-BAHN.

  It was a Boy Scout or Girl Scout summer camp.

  It was a nice layout, what I could see of it beneath the eye of the moon. I was thinking that if the farm didn’t work out, this might be an ideal location for my people…if I could find them, that was.

  I studied everything from the shadows for ten minutes or so.

  I saw no movement, sensed no threat. Satisfied, I slipped up to the front door, amazed that it was unlocked.

  Of course, it’s unlocked, dummy, I thought. When Necrophage broke loose and people were dying by the thousands, they had better things to worry about than whether or not Camp Fuck-A-Lot was locked up.

  I went inside. I shut the door and locked it behind me.

  Inside, it smelled of dust, pine sap, and long summer afternoons. I could almost feel the memories oozing from the walls…hot summer days of swim competitions, hikes in the woods, leaf-collecting and woodcraft bellying up to nights of sing-songing, wienie roasts, flashlight tag, and ghost stories told around the fire. What I was feeling were lives. All the young, promising, hopeful lives that had passed through this place, never guessing for an instant that the wonderful world of tomorrow would be a graveyard.

  It made me feel ill and angry.

  Pure, freakish coincidence had loosed the death bacteria upon the world.

  Necrophage reigned supreme now and men, once the masters of the globe, were now no more than squirming micr
obes fighting for existence.

  Shit, I was not paying attention.

  While my body had carried me further into the lodge, my brain was dreaming away. Had there been any deadheads about, I would have been a hot lunch. I needed sleep. My body and brain were going in different directions.

  I was in the main hall of the lodge.

  There was a fireplace in the center with wooden tables and pine benches lined up. This is where the scouts grabbed their grub, did their crafts, and got their awards. Other than some scouting posters on the walls and a few Smokey the Bear bulletins, there wasn’t much but a lot of white sheets on the floor like a bunch of ghosts had dropped their shrouds.

  Had I been rested and my brain firing on all cylinders, I might have realized the significance of that.

  But I was oblivious.

  There was a set of stairs at the far end and I figured they would bring me to a safe place where I could rack out for awhile. I was guiding myself primarily by the moonlight flooding in through the windows.

  I got upstairs and made it maybe six or seven steps down the moonlit, knotty pine corridor when I realized I was suddenly very awake, very alert, and tense. Then I knew why. Below, I heard a creaking door open and now I was hearing the padding of footsteps.

  Many, many footsteps.

  I felt a bolt of panic in my chest as a hot, sickening odor of damp decay filled my nostrils. It was overpowering, almost violent. It was not coming from whoever was downstairs, but from the figure coming out of the darkness into the moonlight. It was a woman. In life, she had been average and overweight; in death, she was a monster. She came at me, hands reaching out. As she approached, I could see that her belly was wide open, what was inside swaying from side to side. I could see her glistening eyes. Her face was a black chasm. Then I realized there was something growing over it like a veil…a crawling veil.

  Maybe if I had more time to think, I would have escaped without wasting a bullet, but there was no time.