Origins of the Outbreak

by Brian Parker

  The white Wrangler’s oversized tires made a whupp-whupp-whupp noise as they sped along the streets surrounding The Inked Apple, Trent’s tattoo shop. At first she’d panicked, thinking he’d done something foolish and gone to the apartment, but his car wasn’t there. It was sitting at the shop and she’d asked a couple of the other guys if they knew what had happened to him. They said that he took a smoke break in the middle of a big shoulder piece for some college kid and never came back. He just walked off into the night and Klepto had to finish the work free of charge. Nobody was happy with Trent, not the guys at the shop and certainly not Trisha.

  What the hell has gotten into him? It’s not like she broke up with him or screwed one of her customers for rent money again. They’d been on pretty good terms all week, until last night. Maybe he was more on the edge than she’d thought. Geez, when I find that boy, I’m gonna kick his ass!

  To top it all off, the rent was due today. If Trent had gone space cadet all day long like Klepto said he did, then he probably didn’t pay the rent and they’d get another late fee. They usually made enough money to pay their bills, but it seemed like the late fees just kept mounting up and they couldn’t get out from under them once they started. Fuckin’ life, man. It’d be so much easier if I didn’t like him so much. That way I could just leave this stupid town and go to Dallas. Dallas is where girls of Trisha’s caliber went to dance and made a lot of money. They had all nude, BYOB clubs up there and the rumor was that the girls made an absolute killing. All she had to do was stay away from the drugs and she could bank five grand a month.

  She let her mind wander about how much different life would be if she made that much money. All it took was half a second for her to zone out and some damn animal jumped right in front of her Jeep. The little SUV hit the creature and both the passenger side tires crushed it underneath them.

  Trisha slammed on her brakes out of habit and the Wrangler’s rear end started to slide around to the front with a screech that shattered the relative calm of the evening. She took her foot off and turned into the skid like Trent had taught her when dealing with ice and got it back under control. She slowed to a stop and looked over her shoulder towards whatever it was that she’d hit. The goddamn thing was still moving.

  “Fuck!” she screamed into the night. That was a big dog, maybe even a deer. I hope my car isn’t ruined.

  She unbuckled her seat belt and opened the half door. Trisha jumped down and walked cautiously around to the front of her Jeep and cursed under her breath. Her passenger side headlight was smashed in, but it looked like the bumper saved everything else. “How the hell am I gonna pay for a new light?” she asked the night.

  The dog gave a low moan of pain and she looked worriedly back towards its twitching form. Wait… That’s not a dog. Oh my God!

  She ran towards the lump on the ground. “Somebody help me!” she screamed. When she got up next to the heap, a dirty white lab coat took shape in the darkness and she slowed to a walk.

  She got within a few feet of him and the man rolled over, his face was covered in blood. She recoiled in horror at his sunken chest where her tires had crushed his sternum. He reached out for her, obviously in pain, but she didn’t know what to do for him. He was too far gone.

  In a daze she dialed 9-1-1 and waited for the operator to answer.

  “9–1–1, what is your emergency?”

  “I… Uh, I just hit a guy.”

  “Do you mean you punched someone or were you in an auto accident?” the operator asked in confusion.

  “I ran over a scientist with my Jeep.”

  “Is he alright?”

  “No, he’s messed up – he’s still alive, but he’s gonna die soon. His chest is totally crushed.”

  “Can you render aid? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine, but there’s something wrong with his face too. I don’t think that was from the Jeep.”

  “Listen to me. Is he breathing?”

  “I don’t know. He’s moving around.”

  “I’ve alerted the fire department. Do you know where you are?”

  Trish looked around and squinted to see the street sign. “No…,” she said and then trailed off as a familiar shape materialized out of the dark.

  “Trent! Oh my God, I’ve been looking for you!” she screamed at her boyfriend who was slowly walking towards her from the drainage ditch between privacy fences.

  “Miss. Miss, I need you to focus. Can you tell me where you are?”

  “No, I can’t, but my boyfriend is here now,” Trisha replied. “He’ll be able to tell you where we are.”

  “Please put him on the phone.”

  “Uh, sure,” she said and dropped the phone down to her side.

  “Trent, what’s wrong with you?” she asked, the phone hanging uselessly at her side. He staggered like he’d been hit by a car towards her. Did he get hurt somehow too? Her eyes went wide as he stepped out of the ditch and she was able to see a shiny wetness on his neck and shoulder.

  Trisha screamed and ran towards him. “Oh my God, Trent! What happened to you?”

  He grasped one of her outstretched hands and pulled it up to his mouth. Her scream was different than the one she’d emitted a moment before. This time it was a primal screech from the depths of her soul as three of her fingers were sheared from her hand.

  “What the fuck are you doing, you fucking whack-job?” she sobbed and tried to pull her hand away from him. His grip was too tight and the blood already flowed freely from the severed stumps.

  Trent dropped her arm, reached out and grabbed a handful of her tank top. He jerked her towards him and both of her shoulder straps broke, exposing her eight thousand dollar tits to the world. He grasped her and bit deeply into her neck.

  From behind her, Steven had finally managed to stand and he stumbled over, biting into the other side of her neck. As Trisha’s mind began to shut down, the last thought that ran through her head was, Looks like that asshole is getting his MMF threesome that he always jerked off to.

  The Thursday Reveler, 2:05 a.m.

  Sean pushed him gently out of the pub’s door and Jake hit the railing. He started to fall backwards down the steps. “Whoa, fuck!” he shouted, grabbing the rail to keep from falling.

  “Hey, douche! You coulda just told me to leave!” Jake yelled at the door as the manager locked it. He flipped the bird at Sean, who shook his head at him through the window, and turned drunkenly towards the parking lot.

  “Fuck!” he said loudly and tried to recover his balance. He almost had it, but his top half wouldn’t cooperate and he tumbled down the stairs in slow motion. Some asshole must’ve shortened the steps when I was inside. How were customers supposed to have a good time when they kicked everyone out early and people were running around changing the stairs while they were inside?

  Jake shoved the hood of his sweatshirt off his head where it had landed and glared at the pub from the bottom of the short flight of steps. Eventually, he sighed and pushed himself upright. Even though it was One Dollar Longneck night, he’d still spent most of the money that he had. “Oh well, I blew too much money anyways,” he muttered and tried to fish his keys out of his pocket.

  He successfully retrieved them and walked in a jagged line to the car. The thought that he should call a cab briefly crossed his mind, but he discarded the idea as another expense that he couldn’t afford. It just didn’t make sense to get a cab to go the two miles to his apartment. It was a straight shot down Walnut Street from the pub and he’d driven it a hundred times over his years at the school.

  Jake tapped the unlock button on his key fob and redirected himself away from a similar black sedan. He placed a forearm against the back seat’s window and leaned heavily against his car. After several unsuccessful attempts to open the driver’s door, he finally got it open and sat down in the seat.

  He tried to fit the key into the ignition, but the damn thing wouldn’t go so he gently turned the steering wheel back and forth �
� sometimes it locked up and that helped the key to turn. It still didn’t work and he pulled the keys out in frustration and held them up into the dim light of his car’s interior.

  “Goddammit,” he murmured and slapped his hand ineffectually against the door handle. “I need… light.”

  Somehow, Jake’s hand caught against the handle and the door clicked open. Yes! he congratulated himself and shoved against the door. It went flying outward and he barely caught himself on the steering wheel.

  “Sombitch,” he cursed and then began to giggle. “Didn’t get me!”

  He held the keys up into the weak dome lighting and realized that he’d been using his apartment key instead of the car key. The older cars like his didn’t have the fancy molded plastic keys like the new ones; all the keys on his key ring were plain nickel-colored metal.

  He sorted through them until he found the GM key and once again crammed it into the ignition. It slid in without any problems this time. Jake snorted at his stupidity and reached out to close the door.

  A low moan startled him and he instinctively jerked his hand away from the handle. “What the fuck?”

  The moan repeated from somewhere behind him and he checked his rearview mirror. His eyes went wide and he jerked the keys from the ignition when he saw the cop sauntering his way. Jake tried his hardest to remember if it was legal for him to be sitting in a car – drunk – if the keys weren’t in the ignition. Or was it still considered a DUI? Dammit, why didn’t I pay more attention in Criminology class?

  He did the only thing he could think to do and chucked the keys in the back seat. There was no way that the cop could say he was planning on driving, Jake was just sitting in his car trying to sleep it off. He chuckled to himself once more because he’d outsmarted the stupid police.

  The noise rang out in the night once again and he whipped his head around. “Was that… Did the cop just yell at me or something?”

  No one was in the car to answer him so he just placed both hands plainly on the steering wheel and waited for the man to arrive. His features were hidden in shadow, but something seemed familiar about the cop to Jake. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it until the guy was near the back of his car.

  Then he recognized Kyle, the campus rent-a-cop. Must be mad that I hit his little go cart earlier. Suddenly, Jake got extremely mad. Who the fuck does this guy think he is, tracking me down?

  Jake practically fell out of his car and stood on shaky legs. He pointed a finger at the security guard and shouted, “Hey! You’re not on school property and you don’t have jurisdiction out here.”

  Kyle stopped and tilted his head like he was seeing Jake for the first time. It was really creepy and an involuntary chill ran down his spine. The security guard’s features were still draped in shadow and Jake couldn’t help but feel like the night was going strangely – even with the twelve-pack that he’d put away at the pub.

  “You hear me, bro?” Jake said with more confidence than he felt. “You ain’tgot no right to be out here pretending to be a real cop.”

  Kyle continued to regard him with a tilted head and then he leapt. Jake beat drunkenly against his attacker, but it was over before it started as the sickness transferred from Kyle's saliva to the unfortunate college student.

  The Pub Manager, 3:10 a.m.

  Never gets any easier, Sean thought. He’d been a manager at Flannigan’s for almost ten years and thought that he’d seen just about everything. But the kids these days were absolutely out of control. Like that dickhead, Jake; he’d been coming to the bar for a year and each and every weekend he had to kick him out.

  The owner refused to let Sean ban him from the bar since he was the steadiest regular that Flannigan’s had, but was it worth it? The guy was a royal pain in the ass and he was fed up with it. Sean had a cousin who worked on an oil rig off the coast and he’d been seriously considering the offer to go down there. Hell, work on the rig for a couple of seasons, save up some cash and then move to Fort Worth and get a regular job.

  He grinned as he pressed the start button on the dishwasher. It would be nice to have some money saved up and not have to worry about making ends meet every paycheck. He could get an apartment downtown, a girl, maybe even a dog. Yes sir, it would be a pretty cushy life.

  It wouldn’t take long to close out things here in Belton. Everything he owned could fit into the back of his Bronco and he only had a two hundred dollar deposit on his place, so it wouldn’t hurt too much to lose it. That settled it; he made up his mind. He was sick of dealing with the redneck drunks and college kids. He’d call his cousin tomorrow and be down in Galveston by the end of next week.

  He walked across the bar to the trash can near the back door and tied up the bag inside. Sean grunted with the effort as he hefted the bag upwards and then carried it through the door into the alley. The night was quiet, like always, but somewhere in the distance he heard police sirens. Wonder if there was an accident out on the highway? Or maybe some stupid kid wrapped his car around a tree after they left one of the bars in town.

  Sean was sure he’d hear about it at the diner tomorrow morning. He ate at the same diner every morning – he was a regular there, just like Jake was a regular at Flannigan’s. One of the old men was the former sheriff, so he always had all the juicy stories before they made it to the radio station – Belton’s one radio station, he amended his thoughts.

  “Well, I don’t know what the hell is goin’ on,” he grunted as he lifted the bag into the dumpster and then let it fall with a crash into the empty box. “But I’m tired.”

  He sighed and looked down the alley towards the parking lot before going back inside. An old black sedan sat in the middle of the lot, near the light. “Hmpf,” Sean grunted once more. That loser Jake must have finally taken my advice and gotten a cab.

  The wind howled strangely and it reminded Sean of a raspy voice calling out in the woods. “What the?” He rushed back inside and locked the door to the alley quickly.

  Sean wasn’t the type to get scared easily, but there seemed to be something strange going on outside. The cop cars off in the distance and the wind got under his skin; he didn’t understand why, but he felt like he needed to get inside.

  After a few minutes of intermittently checking out the windows while he mopped, he decided that his nerves were just getting the better of him. He’d lived in this town his whole life and the most dangerous thing he’d seen so far was when the census man came snooping around asking how many people lived in each house. Damned federal government was always trying to find ways to make more money off the little man.

  He finished up for the night and grabbed his Stetson off the peg behind the bar. He never wore it while he cleaned, didn’t want to risk it falling into the dirty mop water. As he placed his hand on the deadbolt he once again felt that something wasn’t right.

  The feeling was so strong that he actually unclipped the leather strap across the holster on his hip. Even though it was a small town, a bartender with a pistol on his belt was a good way to help keep folks in line. He flipped off the interior lights and took a deep breath to steady himself before opening the door.

  When he stepped outside there was a new smell on the air, one he hadn’t noticed before. It was a tangy, metallic odor, like… Blood.

  His first job had been over at the slaughterhouse so he knew the smell well enough. It invades your nostrils and imprints itself on your brain. Once you’ve smelled a lot of blood in a confined space, you never forgot the scent. That doesn’t make any sense, he thought. Johnson’s shop is all the way across town.

  He looked around to determine what the source of the smell could be. Maybe an animal got hit out on the road and dragged itself up near the doors. Sean took out the little flashlight on his keychain and shined it into the corner where the base of the stairs met the building. Nothing.

  He shuffled around to the other side. “Goddammit!” he muttered softly when he shined the light on this side. “One more thing I don
’t want to deal with at three in the morning.”

  A dog, possibly a golden retriever, was pressed against the side of the pub. He stepped closer so he could see better and stepped right into a massive puddle of blood which set off another gruff string of obscenities from the bar manager.

  The dog was torn up. Patches of skin were missing and he could see the intestines in the poor animal’s stomach. “What the hell? That wasn’t a car….”

  The strange-sounding wind howled again and cut him off. Sean didn’t know what was going on, but he was really freaked out now. The sound didn’t seem natural. He looked around in a panic, but nothing was around. Stop being a pussy and man up, he told himself.

  He turned back to the dog and watched for a moment to make sure that it was dead. Once he was satisfied, he grabbed the animal’s tail and dragged it towards the alley where he’d throw it in the dumpster. The trash truck would come in the morning and get rid of the body, but he still needed to wash the blood from the corner before it dried and became a lot harder to clean up tomorrow. These long, unpaid extra hours reinforced his decision to quit and go to the Gulf.

  Sean lifted the dumpster’s lid and tried to lift the dog with one hand, but it was too heavy. He set it down and threw the lid all the way open and the slamming of the plastic lid on the back side of the dumpster echoed loudly down the alleyway. Almost immediately, the wind made that same noise. He’d have to investigate tomorrow in the light, there must be something sitting in the alley that caused the creepy noise when the wind hit it.

  He grunted as he lifted the dog with both hands up onto the edge of the dumpster and its limp body slid from the lip down into the container. Still warm. Must have just happened, he thought as he closed the lid.

  He shuffled wearily towards the head of the alley where the hose was. The wind continued to howl every few seconds and he quickly pulled the garden hose from the mount. It fell heavily to the ground and he picked up the sprayer to wash away the dog’s blood.