by J. D. Bishop
“Are you guys even listening to me?” Greg asked in angry confusion, looking over at Jeff. “What are you doing, man? Is this about me punking you out last night?”
“This has nothing to do with that, Greg, and everything to do with last night. We're going to need protection. Those people out there who are sick . . . they're going to turn into those things. We have to be able to protect ourselves.” Jeff didn't know why Greg was trying to act like he didn’t see the dead man attacking them. He had just argued the contrary all night to the military people. It was like he wanted to just have solid ground to stand on, and he was willing to do whatever it took, even denying reality, to do it.
“Let's just think about this for a minute. It's not really possible for a dead man to get up and start walking. I think we were all just drunk. I wanted to believe you guys, but now I'm not so sure anymore.” Greg seemed like he was trying to convince himself, which pissed Jeff off.
Jeff shook his head. “Dammit, you can be stubborn on your own time, Greg. I wasn't drunk, remember? How do you explain that?”
Greg shrugged in confusion. “I don't know. I just know that we’re facing jail time, and I don't want to make matters worse by going around shooting people.”
Jeff stared down at his hand, remembering the man from the night before. “Once they become one of those things, they aren't people anymore. They're some sort of wild animal who will attack anything. You saw him, Greg. He was hanging onto that hood and pounding the car like it had lunch inside and he was starving. Your sister didn’t see it, but we did!”
“Dammit, Jeff, this isn’t about—” Greg started heatedly before Becky came down the stairs looking like something out of a Resident Evil video game.
“I was able to find two guns,” she said, holding them expertly. Becky had returned with two custom 1911 by Kase Reeder and ammo that went along with them. She set them on the table in front of Jeff and Greg. Jeff admired the handiwork on the guns. They were pretty cool looking. She’d also taken the time to pull her hair back into a ponytail, and her skirt was replaced with a pair of stretch Levis that, in Jeff’s opinion, made her legs look better than ever. “Have either of you ever handled a gun before?”
“I have,” Jeff said. Jeff's father took Jeff hunting all the time, and he had been to a gun range a couple of times. Jeff knew Greg barely knew much about guns. “Rifles mostly, but I’ve shot a pistol or two.”
Greg shook his head, looking embarrassed.
“Here, let me show you . . .” Becky began.
“No, that's all right. It can't be rocket science.” Greg looked really embarrassed. It would injure his pride to be shown how to use a gun by a girl. He reached for one of the pistols, but Becky snatched it back, shaking her head. Greg reached for it again, and she pulled it all the way off the table. “What the fuck, babe? I can deal with it.”
Becky wasn't taking Greg’s bullshit for an answer. “To someone who's never handled a loaded gun before, it can be the difference between life and death. Fuck your pride. Let me show you how to use it.”
Greg grumbled, but he finally relented and let Becky show him how to load, aim, and fire the gun. She had him do it a dozen times, the snap of the dry fires startling in the quiet house, before she let him keep one of the 1911s. Jeff followed along, running through the procedure himself as he connected the dots between the guns Becky had brought down and what he knew.
Jeff stood up when they were done, tucking the other handgun in the back of his pants and grabbing the ammo. “Okay, here's what's happening. Becky and I are going to our high school. Greg, you're going to take one of Becky's parents’ cars and go get your niece, then we’re going to meet back up at your house, okay?”
Greg didn't look too pleased at these orders, and his eyes darted jealously between Jeff and Becky. “Why is Becky going with you?”
Jeff felt a small twinge of guilt as his and Becky's eyes met. “Because, as much as I hate the assholes at our school, they do deserve to be warned. Becky and I can cover more ground going from classroom to classroom, alerting people. Last I heard, the intercom didn’t work in a lot of the east wing classes.”
“And the only person who’s going to be able to get Natalie is you,” Becky added, putting a hand on his arm reassuringly. “She’s counting on you, Greg. Patty and Natalie both. They need you right now.”
Greg still looked unconvinced, but he finally nodded. “Fine, only because Trisha said so.”
Jeff didn’t care if Greg was going because his sister, the President, or God told him to. He was at least going. He could deal with the rest, and they all got up to leave.
As Greg got into Becky's mom's car, Jeff stopped him. “One last thing, buddy. If you encounter one of those things . . .” Jeff had heard about how the military shooters killed the store clerk, and he shivered at what they might have to do. “Aim for the head.”
CHAPTER 6
Wesley cracked an eye open. His blurred vision could barely make out his surroundings and his head felt like someone was doing a heavy metal show right behind his eyeballs. He blinked, breathing slowly like he always did when coming down from a hard high, and looked again, this time the room coming somewhat into focus. It looked like a hospital room. Muffled yelling and screaming could be heard from somewhere outside the room. His body felt sore all over. He was naked underneath a gown, and a quick check showed him that he had some bruises on his chest.
He couldn't remember much of anything or how he had wound up in this room. The last thing he could remember was telling Jeff to get him some good shit out of the store. They’d stopped for munchies, and from there, his mind just went blank.
He heard a groan from the other side of the room. There was a curtain between him and whoever was on the other side. It hurt his neck just to turn and look.
“Hello?” he croaked. This was seriously starting to weird him out. The yelling and screaming outside the room, the groaning just on the other side of the curtain . . . all of it made him jumpy. “Who’s there?”
No one answered, but the groaning continued. Wesley tried to move his leg, feeling a sharp pain run up his side. It hurt like hell, but he finally managed to pull his legs over the side of the bed as he sat up. There were bandages in several places on his leg, and he could feel some on his stomach and head. He poked at them, wincing at the feeling, but he didn’t think it was too bad. He peeled the one bandage off his leg and saw that he’d been stitched up, but it was small, like he’d been cut by something sharp and deep.
Using the bed as support, Wes stepped unsteadily on the floor. His legs felt so weak. He tried to stand without the support of the bed, but he fell back against it when a surge of weakness overcame him. It took him several minutes to gather the strength to try again.
This time, he was able to stand and take a few baby steps.
Unsteadily, he shuffled over to the curtain and pulled it back, revealing a battered person in a bed. It took him several moments to recognize who was laying in it with how badly she was beaten up. It was Christy, and she was tossing her head back and forth, groaning with her eyes closed, as if in a dream.
Like him, she was naked under her hospital gown, and he could see the outline of her large breasts through the flimsy material. Wesley was surprised to feel himself getting a boner. He’d always had a thing for the tall girl. She just had a way about her that made him want to get his shit together, but then she’d toke up too, and he was happy to go along for the ride. Quickly turning his thoughts away from temptation, he called out her name.
“Christy, wake up. It's me, Wes.”
She didn't respond. Wes shuffled over to her bed and gently shook her. After a moment of this, she finally opened her eyes and groggily stared up at Wes. “Wes?”
He swore that in that moment, he could have kissed her. She looked so hot, even as battered as she was. Just those eyes looking up at him that way . . . sweet baby Jesus. “Yes, it's me. Do you remember how we got here?”
“I remem
ber . . .” her voice trailed off and then her face twisted in terror. “I remember . . . the dead man!”
Wesley had no idea what she was talking about. A dead man? “Huh?”
Christy's eyes were clouded with fear. “That man who attacked us. He was dead.”
Wes placed a comforting hand on her arm. “Listen, Chris, it's obvious to me now that we were in a car accident. I think you hit your head a little too hard.”
Christy ignored him, shrugging off his hand and shaking her head before suddenly looking around the room in a panic. “Where are the others?”
Wes shook his head. Honestly, he hadn’t even thought about them. He was more focused on trying to figure out what the fuck happened. “I have no clue. I just woke up, and here we are. I hope the others are okay.”
Right then, they heard several loud gunshots. The sound of screaming and yelling intensified, and Wes jumped, his heart immediately going into overdrive.
“What the hell is going on out there?” Christy asked in alarm, struggling to sit up. “Were those gunshots?”
“Let me go see.” Wes's strength was slowly returning to him. It wasn't as hard to hobble over to the door, and maybe it was just that his heart was pounding like a drum, but with every step, the pain lessened another few notches. Slowly, he cracked the door and peeked outside. What he saw freaked him out.
It was a slaughterhouse. He counted five men, maybe more, all of them in military fatigues, armed with pistols just down the hall. One of them looked at a man who was weeping and begging, saying something that Wes couldn’t hear over the screaming, but whatever it was, the soldier didn’t care. He raised the pistol that was in his hand and pressed it against the man’s head, pulling the trigger. The man’s head jerked, the back of it exploding to spray blood and bone over the wall, but the soldier didn’t even stop, walking to the next sick person.
Wes blinked back tears as he looked around the wide area more, seeing that all of the soldiers were going around and methodically shooting people in the head. It didn't matter if they were doctors, nurses, or patients. They even executed a little boy right in front of his mother.
“What the fuck?” Wesley whispered, his eyes wide.
He slowly closed the door and locked it, his heart pounding in his chest. The world had gone crazy. He didn't know what to make of what was going on outside. It made little sense. Was this some sort of terrorist attack? Had their country been invaded? The soldiers looked American—they were wearing what looked like Army uniforms—but American soldiers didn’t go around shooting innocent women and children in the head, did they?
He hobbled back over to Christy, who had finally managed to sit up. Wes found himself wishing he had a huge bag of weed to smoke to relieve stress. His nerves were completely shot, and his hands were shaking as he wiped his sweaty forehead.
Christy eyed him suspiciously. “So what's going on out there, and why are you shaking?”
Wes's eyes had a haunted look in them. “You don't want to know.”
Giving him a bitchy look, she said, “Yes, I think I do.”
Wesley's eyes kept being drawn to Christy's nipples that stuck out like mini-torpedoes through her hospital gown, but even the hottest chick on earth couldn't arouse Wes after what he'd just witnessed.
Wes glanced at a heavy cabinet near the door. He didn’t know why the soldiers were shooting people, but he knew that a little door lock wasn’t going to stop them if they wanted to shoot him and Christy. “Look, don't worry about that right now. You need to gather your strength. I'm going to need your help.”
Christy swung her legs over, giving Wes a long look at her muscular thighs, thighs he’d watched more than once as he and his stoner buddies harassed the girls’ lacrosse team during practice and he’d gone home to beat his meat over later. Wes still wasn’t thinking with his dick yet, though, and he held a hand out for her when she stumbled. Frowning as a sharp pain hit her side, Christy asked, “My help for what?”
Wes pointed near the door. “You see that metal cabinet over there? We're going to need to move that in front of the door.”
Christy stared at the heavy cabinet, giving him a raised eyebrow. “What the fuck for?”
Wes fought down exasperation. “Listen, just trust me.”
Christy crossed her arms, stubborn to the bone. It was that more than any other reason that Wes had never found the balls to ask her out. She was a hellcat when she was pissed. “Tell me what's going on out there first.”
Wesley let out a big sigh. “There are military men out there executing people in the halls. I saw a man put his pistol against a man’s head and blow his fucking brains out, that’s why. I’d like to keep what I’ve got.”
Christy gasped in horror. “Are you serious?”
Wesley nodded slowly. “Dead. Now come on. You’re the sports chick, and we’re both pretty fucked up right now. But we can get the damn thing moving together.”
“Wow.” Christy shook her head in disbelief. She started moving though, half leaning on Wes as they limped to the cabinet. “It must have something to do with what we saw before the accident.”
Wes, whose hand was closer to Christy’s ass than he’d ever been in his life, felt his cock wake up and tell him he had the hottest girl he knew next to him. He eyed her tits. “What did we see?”
Christy rolled her eyes, stopping at the foot of the bed. “The dead man.”
Wes’s eyes were drawn back to her face. “Christy . . . you're disoriented. I mean, we both must have taken a hell of a head knock when the accident happened. You're just imagining things.”
Christy slapped the side of the bed rail. “I'm not imagining a goddamned thing. It's the only thing that makes sense. I mean—”
Another gunshot went off, and this time it sounded much closer. The soldiers, or whoever they were, were moving quickly.
Wes tossed a frantic glance at the door. “Whatever. We can argue that shit later. Come on, Chris!”
Christy didn't need any further encouragement. She did need Wes's across the ten feet to the door, however. Wes found himself touching places on Christy he thought he'd never live to touch. Too bad the horror of the moment ruined it.
Christy was unsteady on her feet, just like Wes had been, and needed a bit to steady herself. Her hand tightened on his shoulder, and she groaned as another shooting pain went up her leg as she looked at the door and imagined the horror show outside, trying to find the will to keep going. “Wes, I don't know about this. Not sure I have the muscle to help you.”
Wes gave her a reassuring pat, dangerously near her ass. “Sure you do. You're built like a brick shit house.”
Christy placed her hands on her hips, standing up on her own. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
With a weak grin, Wes smoothly replied, “Really, Chris. It's a compliment.”
Christy looked unconvinced. She’d always been aware of her bigger frame, shoulders that were nearly as wide as some of the guys’ and hips that her father laughingly called ‘battleship hips’. Yeah, she was a demon on the field, and she knew she was normally the strongest girl in school, but that didn’t mean she liked being compared to football players. “Sure it is.”
Wes gestured at the cabinet. “Come on. We don't have time for this.” Wes placed his hands on the cabinet and pulled. It was very heavy, but he managed to move it a few inches. Christy braced her back up against the other side and began pushing her weight, her bare feet jammed into the linoleum tile and driving with as much force as she could muster while he pulled. They were both gasping for breath and sweating when they finally had the cabinet in front of the door.
Panting and wiping at his forehead, Wes said, “Not sure what's going to happen, but that should hold out for a while if they try to come in here. Maybe it’ll give us some time for help to come get us.”
Christy was not so optimistic. She remembered what had happened, how a single dead man had hung on with a stubborn ferocity while pounding the windshie
ld with all his might. What would two or three of those do to the barricaded door? “Not if it's a bunch of those dead people.”
Wesley didn't feel like arguing, so he didn't bother with a response. “I need a hit. Seriously, just one toke of good stuff, and I’ll be able to handle this.”
Christy looked around the room. She liked getting high too. Not as much as Wes, but she loved a good buzz too. “Wes, we're fucking stupid.”
Wes raised an eyebrow. Christy was smiling at him, something she didn’t do all that often. She was seriously starting to make him pop wood. “Huh?”
“We're in a goddamn hospital,” Christy said, nodding to the cabinets all around, laughing. “Every kind of high you can imagine is right here, all around you. You’re like Charlie in the goddamn chocolate factory.”
Wes's face brightened. Suddenly, the world wasn't such a dark place.
CHAPTER 7
J eff and Becky stood outside LaGrande high school, right below the American flag pole, both of them feeling nervous. The high school was a large brick and mortar building, built just after New Orleans integrated schools back in the late sixties, and it had the sort of hunched, brooding look that government construction always seemed to have, like the building itself was ready to swallow you up and eat you. Jeff and Becky were seniors, and until then, they’d been enjoying their senior years.
Jeff thought maybe he had erred in being the one to warn people. Greg was far more popular than him, and people were more likely to listen to him. Jeff was no slacker, but Greg was the quarterback, the captain of the football team, the guy who walked down the hall and everyone had a good word for him. Even when Greg did stupid shit, the teachers didn’t bust his ass that much.