Ranger Martin and the Search for Paradise

by Jack Flacco

  “The children?”

  “What did you do with them?”

  “They’re safe now. They don’t have to worry about those rot brains anymore.”

  “Where are they?’ Ranger shouted.

  The eater crashed against the bars swinging its arms at the undead killer.

  “If I were to tell you, you’d think I was some sort of monster.”

  “Where’s your training facility? Where are you keeping them? They’re only children. They’re the innocents in this mess. What have you done with them?”

  Josh glanced at the eater chomping at the bars then settled his stare once again on Ranger. It was as if he was thinking of a response but all that could come out of his mouth was nothing more than a few chuckles. Despite possessing the ability to shoot Ranger on the spot, he held his gun firmly on him and stared at the undead murderer.

  The eater moaned at the slayer but was helpless from doing anything. As long as the bars were there, it was unable to come after him.

  “You read my letter.” Josh finally said.

  “Yeah, I read your letter.”

  “Then you know what happened to the children.”

  Ranger’s nose flared and his face turned angry. “I have a good idea, but I want to hear it from you.”

  “There’s nothing I could tell you that would change what I did.”

  Ranger’s chin fell to his chest and his gaze locked on his shoes.

  “My wife was the loveliest woman on the face of the earth. Deep red hair. Almond-shaped green eyes. Her smile brought life to me. Every moment of every day, I couldn’t stop thinking of her. If you’d seen a photo of her, you would understand.”

  Ranger understood. He lost his wife to the chewers. He understood perfectly.

  “She had a way of igniting a room. Everyone wanted to know her. Everyone wanted to be her friend. She had a way of looking at me that melted my heart. And her smile? No matter how bad a day I had, if I saw her smile—it would be like sunshine filling and warming my heart. That smile is what attracted me to her the most. With it, she brought me into her world and wouldn’t let go. Even when we fought, I couldn’t stay mad at her for long. I missed her too much to stay mad at her. I missed her smile.” Josh pressed his eyes with his fingers trying to hold back the water.

  “What happened to your wife?”

  “She wanted to have children but she was barren. As much as we tried, she couldn’t get pregnant. She had become sad because of it. She’d cry to sleep at night with thoughts of suicide. Her body ached from the agony. One evening, I found her stooped over the toilet vomiting. I had asked her what was wrong. She had brought herself to misery from the stress of knowing she had disappointed me. I told her far from disappointing me, I was proud of her being my wife, but couldn’t shake the fact she couldn’t bare me any children.”

  Raising his head, Ranger stared at Josh knowing fully well he had done something so terrible, something so awful that he couldn’t imagine a person capable of such a thing. The anger turned his hands into fists and his mouth into a sneer. Darkness settled over his eyes as he then turned his attention to the left, past the bars, past the chewer with the red hair and into one of the shower stalls. There, he didn’t need Josh telling him what happened to the children. He already knew. A blood trail from the stall led to a drain where in the past, water once flowed.

  “But things are better now. We have all the children we need and she is happy because of it.” Josh said.

  “How many were there? Are they all dead?”

  “No, no, no. You don’t understand. They’re not dead. They’re all part of my wife. They will always be there to comfort her in her time of need. She’ll never feel the loneliness ever again.”

  Ranger’s chest rose and fell quickly as his breath sped. “You’re nothing but a murderer.”

  “Murder? They’re still alive. They’re part of my wife. How am I a murderer?”

  “You fed the children to your wife. They’re dead. You get that, don’t you?”

  “All I get is she’s happy.” Josh pointed to the chewer at the bars. “Do you see her smiling at me? She’s never been happier.”

  The zombie’s face on the other side of the bars had rotted away. Its teeth had fresh stains of blood, and its cheeks had holes in them. The beautiful green eyes Josh had so loved had dimmed to pale white, and the red hair he so admired, except for a few strands, had all but fallen. Whatever was his wife in that decrepit body had disappeared long ago.

  Ranger couldn’t imagine all the children dying at the hands of the chewer. With Paradise being the size it was, he thought there must have been some that had survived Josh’s brutality. However, once the screech from the chewer awoke him from his thoughts, he remembered how his wife had died the same way. The children were all dead, but it didn’t mean he had to stand there and accept it.

  When Josh pinched his eyes again to contain the water from staring at his beautiful wife, Ranger made his move. He lunged at Josh, raising the gun’s barrel in the air. They twisted and turned in front of the bars as Josh’s wife screamed her excitement at the men. Ranger said, “You bastard. They were innocent children. They didn’t deserve to die the way they did. I’m going to kill you!”

  As they held the rifle in their hands, each not surrendering their grip, Josh used Ranger’s inertia to pummel him without much effort. He smacked the zombie slayer several times in the face with the barrel of the gun.

  Stunned, Ranger didn’t let go. He held on until they slammed against the wall.

  * * *

  “They’re coming, Matty!” Abigail stood in the center of the road pointing at the zombies. “They’re coming.”

  Thirty feet away, the horde dragged their limbs and rotten bones across the parking lot and down the drive. Fifty, perhaps, seventy-five strong, no one knew how many there were. The crowd had one thing on its mind. This time, the zombies wouldn’t allow anyone to escape, not after having had the kids slip from their grasp. No. Nothing would stand in the way of their meal.

  The zombie mass’ groan raced across the drive to hit the kids’ ears.

  “Do what I said, Silver! Get this truck from the ditch and back on the road. Randy, are you with me?” Matty loaded a black handgun with a clip of ammo from a crate sitting in the back of the truck.

  “I’m with you.” Randy filled his pockets with clips, cocking an automatic.

  Matty slammed the rear door of the vehicle then dashed to the little girl by the side of the road. “Abigail, I’ve changed my mind. Randy and I will take care of the chewers. Help Jon with the truck. Silver’s going to drive while you two push.”

  “No. I’m more help killing these maggot sacks.”

  “Listen to me.” Matty bent to Abigail’s eye level, “Jon needs your help. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? He needs you.”

  Abigail nodded. She understood Matty didn’t want to say the words that Jon couldn’t push the truck on his own. He needed her help to do it otherwise they’d fail. She raced to the back of the Humvee and smiled at Jon.

  Jon straightened his posture and took the lead. “Silver, are we ready?”

  “Start pushing.” Silver answered as he slipped the truck into drive and floored the pedal.

  The back wheels spun and threw dirt everywhere, but it didn’t move. Someone had forgotten to remove the broken tree branch from under the wheel. Silver jumped from the truck, and said to the kids. “Help me with this.”

  As the kids pulled and tugged at the broken log, Randy joined Matty in the center of the drive, his gun pointed at the pavement.

  “Are you ready?” Matty asked.

  “When have I ever not been ready?”

  “Before we do this, I just want you to know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re my best friend, Randy. No one else comes close.”

  “You’re my best friend, too, Matty.” He said then flashed the biggest grin he could muster.

  “
Don’t let it get to your head. Remember, we’re still just friends.”

  “Best friends.”

  “Right. Best friends.” Matty couldn’t seem to keep a straight face either. She smiled as she turned all sorts of red.

  The crowd, having moaned and grunted halfway to Matty and Randy, didn’t take to the kids’ warm moment. Their fiendish sneers and drooling mouths couldn’t wait to have a taste of the kids’ soft meat. They screeched and groaned from the pain of the pangs within their stomachs. They rocked as they slopped along as one voice, unable to hold their cravings any longer.

  The first bullet landed in the head of the apparent leader of the horde. It blasted apart its brain, scattering its green contents all over the crowd behind. When the eater collapsed at the feet of its brothers and sisters, nothing prevented the rest of the horde from trampling the remainder of its skull.

  Trekking its brother’s blood over the drive, the mass didn’t stop. Another bullet blew through another zombie head. Another chewer dropped in front of its brothers and sisters.

  Soon, bullets sprayed from the distance where Randy and Matty stood, cutting the undead front line. Bodies crashed to the pavement as other zombies shuffled over them. Not a one relented from their course, though. With every hit and every additional body falling to its solid grave, none of the eaters yielded to the onslaught of firepower delivered by the teens. Whatever sense of self-preservation they once possessed had left them.

  As the bullets crashed into the crowd, the casings snapped from Matty and Randy’s guns and flew through the air to smack against the drive with hallow sounds. The noise from the shots sounded like cannon fire that reverberated throughout the parking lot’s location. The more zombies fell, the more appeared until another group dragged from the street at the bottom of the hill where the truck sat in the ditch.

  “We need help!” Silver screamed at the duo as he hoisted on the broken branch under the Humvee’s tires.

  Yet Matty and Randy couldn’t hear a thing. The gunfire was just too loud.

  Silver grabbed his gun he held in between his belly and his belt, and dashed to the rear of the truck where Abigail and Jon stood with their hands on the back ready to push, not realizing Silver had left the vehicle.

  “Get in the truck.” Silver yanked them from the scruff of their necks.

  “We have to get this truck moving, otherwise we won’t live another hour.” Jon threw Silver’s hands from him.

  “We don’t have time to argue. Look behind you!”

  Jon and Abigail gazed across to the end of the drive to the street below and their faces drained of their color. The sudden awareness struck them that, far from being in control of the situation, they had more to deal with than what they had expected.

  “Go. I said.”

  What happened next, no one couldn’t have imagined, including Matty who had her back turned toward the three. Jon wrestled Silver’s gun away from his hand, walked a few steps past him and cocked the gun, aiming it at the second group of undead heading up the drive toward the vehicle.

  Jon pulled the trigger and let loose a volley that splattered the brains of the first zombie that had taken the lead.

  The innocence left him and he had become a zombie slayer like his hero, Ranger.

  Chapter 30

  Ranger and Josh slammed each other against the walls leading to the cell doors where Josh’s undead wife stood screaming with outstretched arms from behind the bars to the shower.

  “You’ll never leave this place alive.” Ranger said through a sneer plastered over his mouth. “You and your wife’s life will be a ransom for the lives of the children you took. I’ll guarantee you’ll never live to see another morning.”

  Yet, as much as Ranger held the rifle firmly in his hands, Josh wouldn’t release it. Even with their strength equally matched, it didn’t prevent Josh from exacting his own revenge. He kneed Ranger between the legs expecting for the zombie slayer to drop where Josh could then finally end the discussion.

  It didn’t do a thing. Ranger continued pushing and pulling on the rifle, “You’re gonna have to do a lot more to me if you want this gun. You’re gonna have to kill me.”

  “Then we have an understanding. You die, and my family will eat you whole.”

  “Sonofabitch.” The veins in Ranger’s temples were throbbing. He finally had had enough of the loudmouth showoff. The muscles in his arms tensed, his head lowered as would a bull when preparing to gore its victim, and he dug his feet into the corners or the hallway. With all his might, Ranger let off a loud grunt and rammed Josh against the shower room’s bars.

  Josh’s undead wife wrapped her arms around her husband and squealed with glee. Without holding back her hunger, she dug her teeth into Josh’s shoulder and he screamed in agony.

  Having stepped a couple of feet back, all Ranger could do was watch while holding the rifle pointed straight at the child killer’s head. As Josh’s screams became louder and more agonizing, Ranger closed his eyes, unable to take it anymore. He swung around behind and left Josh with the undead. He thought he deserved to die the way he did for what he did to the children. He thought it would make a perfect ending to his miserable life.

  When Ranger left Josh to head back to retrieve his weapons, the sounds of Josh’s painful cries stopped him in his tracks. He took a breath and shook his head. He couldn’t leave him that way. Ranger may have killed zombies and enjoyed what he did, but zombies were not human. They didn’t have souls. They killed to eat, not out of intent.

  Back at the bars where the zombie had torn a chunk from Josh’s shoulder, his right foot twisted in the struggle and slipped behind the bars to lock between them. The rot brain was too strong for him. It held him as he pushed and prodded against the bars to pry himself free. Hope had disappeared from his eyes.

  Ranger appeared from the corridor opening. The reluctance of seeing such an unhappy sight churned his stomach. He raised the rifle to his face and aimed it at Josh’s head. He pulled the trigger slightly and adjusted his eye down the barrel of the gun.

  Whatever hope Josh might have had all but disappeared. A bullet to the brain would have been easier to deal with than the undead eating him alive. It might have been the first sensible thought Josh had had all night evening.

  Ranger pulled the trigger and the rifle cracked through the moans to deliver its payload to its intended victim—Josh’s undead wife. The blast propelled the zombie backward as green blood splattered all over the floor behind. It crashed into a pool of its own juices with a gaping hole where its face used to be.

  As the rifle Ranger held in his hand smoldered, Josh collapsed on the floor with a crack. His foot snapped between the bars and he let out a loud yelp, as a dog would have after a sore whooping.

  After Josh had gathered enough strength, he propped himself on both hands and stared through the bars at his now deceased wife.

  Ranger released his nose from the rifle and stood there blaming himself for coming back. He thought he just should have let the zombie eat the child killer and be off with it, but he couldn’t let another human die if he could’ve helped it—even if that human suffered from delusions.

  “You killed her.” Joss said, pushing his face between the bars, watching her green blood flow from the corpse and pool underneath her. “You killed my wife.”

  “She was already dead.” Ranger held the gun on Josh, standing five feet from him.

  “She wasn’t.” Josh banged his head on the bars. “You killed her.”

  “She deserved to die, like all the rest of ‘em.”

  Josh didn’t see it that way. He kept banging his head on the bars and kept repeating the same thing. “You killed my wife. You killed my wife.” Then, his hands trembled and shook until another, “You killed my wife!” escaped from his lips. He swung around and rose to his feet to attack Ranger, but his foot was in no condition to walk.

  He fell in pain, grabbing his ankle. “You bastard. I will kill you. I will hunt you down and
take everything you have. Once I do that, I will kill you.”

  Ranger waved his hand dismissing the threats and walked from Josh’s sight.

  “Do you hear me? I will take everything you have away from you and I will kill you!”

  * * *

  The bullets blasted through the air at record pace. Matty couldn’t keep up with the clip changes and Randy had a hard time keeping up with Matty. Either way, every so often they would trade glances and smile at each other as if to say they belonged together. Nothing could get in the way of their friendship ever again. Through the hard times and the good, being best friends is all they needed. It kept their courage up and their guns blazing. The thought of having each other in their lives kept them in check to doing what they had to do.

  “Have I told you lately how pretty you look?” Randy asked.

  “Not recently.” Matty answered.

  “You look pretty.”

  Her gunshots muffled the last words Randy said to her. “What was that?”

  “I said, you’re pretty!”

  “Oh, thanks! I should get my hair done soon. It’s a mess!”

  He laughed at her banter. He could always count on her joking and leaving him with a cheerful thought. If anything that he felt more sure about than anything in the world, he knew he could count on her regardless of what was happening.

  Yet in spite of their understanding, Matty had other things on her mind. When she gazed at Jon, who was standing behind the Humvee, to ensure her plan of escape was working, she saw a second crowd climbing the hill from the foot of the drive. Then, she watched Jon with a gun in his hand blasting everything that moved. Had it been months ago, she would have walked up to him and snatch the gun right out of his grip. However, she didn’t do that this time. She concluded he was old enough, he was hurting enough, and he was done with the undead. He could handle a gun. If anything, she was proud of him for growing up the way he did.