But as the procurer of the Soul-mobile continued onward, he came across an utmost anomaly. At the end of the dead-end street stood an erect steel monstrosity of a structure that resembled a three-tiered fortress much more than that of a residence. The two-and-a-half-acre property was lined with a titanium-like, twelve-foot-high wall and an electronic sliding gate of the same height which bore the name GLAZIER on its exterior, facing the roadway.
Upon further investigation, Jake noticed the three-foot-high rolls of Constantine barb wire on top of the walls. There were long, deep trenches around the outsides of the walls. These had been dug by backhoe and now contained still-kicking INFECTED - skewered on vertically positioned and pointed bamboo poles rising from thetrench’s depths.
Another dire diseased one appeared to be pacing slowly back and forth in front of the main entrance. It was almost as if IT knew that there were living beings inside that IT might potentially be able to feast upon soon.
With the creature only about fifty yards away, the street-savvy sergeant pointed the Kia at the diseased one. Jake stomped onto the accelerator with both size 11s, and the Soul car’s rear tires chirped lightly on the pavement.
The vehicle’s front grill K IA emblem struck the rotting, walking corpse around the knee area, cutting the mutant in half. The lower portion of IT, the ankles and shoeless feet, stayed put right there in the street. Meanwhile the upper torso, arms and head, went airborne and flew ahead about thirty feet. It slammed down onto the road surface just before the speeding Soul drove forward over IT again.
The automobile ground the demented one into the asphalt for another twenty feet or so before Jake threw the car into reverse and stopped suddenly in front of the Glazier property.
“Hey, kid. Denise. Wake up -we’re here.”
Theteen passenger awoke to see Castle Glazier outside the car window. “What the … this is where we are going?”
“Yeah, come on,” Jake said.
“OMG!” Denise said. “Look at all of the freakin’ zombies in the ditch! Creepy!”
An intercom button on the front gate was not accessible now due to an overturned U.S. Postal Service mail delivery vehicle blocking the way. The odd couple exited their vehicle and made their way around the mail Jeep and up to the intercom. Denise pushed the gate button and then stepped back away from, not quite sure what to expect at a place such as this. Jake’s head was on a swivel as he stood postured to attack any potential threat. Each hand was holding one of his thrift store kitchen knives that were straight outta Jersey.
Inside the steel domain, Stan Glazier’s sixteen-year-old daughter Hannah had heard the intercom buzzer. She pulled up the front gate camera video on her monitor from the front door entryway/living room area.
“Hey, Dad, there’s a dark -haired goth-looking girl at the gate. She’s with a big white guy with a bad blonde dye job on his hair. And it looks like they drove up in a toaster. “
“Don’t just buzz them in - let me see them first,” the former Dallas Police Officer cautioned Hannah.
“But, Dad, I can handle them if they’re bad people,” the young girl said. She clutched her black and blue crossbow tightly.
Stan wheeled his chair over to the monitor and was unable to recognize the girl or big guy on the screen. He pushed the intercom voice controller and asked, “Who is it?”
The somewhat recognizable voice replied, “Stan, it’s me - Jake Hathaway. I know I look different, but it’s me. My badge number is 4856.”
Stan was stupefied, to say the least, and under his breath he replied, “No fucking way. They said he was dead.”
Stan buzzed the visitors into his estate. As the gate slid shut behind them, Hannah opened the large double front doors and said, “Come on in. My dad’s in the living room.” Jake noticed the once-fit ginger hardly appeared to be the same person. Stan, once a physically fit and strong man at 5-foot-9 and 160 pounds, was now something quite different. Now wheelchair bound, his thin frail body was battered and scraped beyond repair and he was paralyzed from the waist down. His head once full of thick, red hair, this white male was now hard to recognize with his thinning splotchy white hair and the skin on his arms, legs, and face all horribly scarred and damaged.
Jake was as surprised about Stan’s appearance as Stan was of Jake’s. They both gave each other the onceover look and simultaneously they said, “What happened to you?”
“Jake, what can I say? I’m still in shock seeing that you’re alive, after all I’ve read and all that’s been reported. How are there so many conflicting stories about you?”
“Let’s just say that it’s been an interesting time in my life, for sure. First I get set up on a bad murder charge for what was really a self-defense shooting, then someone breaks me out of the prison bus and sets me free, only so that I can be on the run from the law and trying to avoid an escape charge on top of the murder. As if this world hasn’t gotten crazy enough already. Some days I have to pinch myself and hope that I will wake up from this nightmare.”
Jake’s former co -worker sympathized with him. “I know, man. This shit doesn’t seem like it can be real. I’m sorry you have to deal with all that side bullshit too. So, what happened to your hair? And what happened to your Soul?”
“Oh, yeah. I need to dye my hair back to brown. I changed it up as a disguise when I first got to Jersey and the cops were hot on my trail. As for ME, I have changed. Everything that has happened has me thinking differently, feeling less or other than usual emotions. I feel numb on the inside sometimes. It’s amazing how you were able to pick up on that so fast.”
“What do you mean I picked up on it?”
“Stan, you asked me what happened to my soul.”
“Haaa, Dude…” Stan chuckled…. “I asked about your car your Soul…. there’s half of a
corpse moving around below the engine block. I can’t tell if he’s stuck under there or giving you an oil change.” Glazier was happy to provide a guided tour of the homestead for his guests. He placed special emphasis on his secure fortified basement with distant escape hatch, the pressure chamber with fresh oxygen pumped into it, and a supply of food and rations vast enough to last five people for up to three years.
Afterwards, the guys began to catch up with the past as the girls quickly became bored and departed to hang out in Hannah’s study. Jake and Stan continued to swap stories into the late night as they also indulge themselves with some of the finer spirits of Chardonnay from Glazier’s liquor cabinet.
Stan soon found himself recalling one of the many true tales that he experienced on the job as a federal air marshal. “One week I was in Raleigh -Durham, North Carolina, waiting to board my assigned plane for the day. In the same gate area was a woman sitting in a wheelchair, covered in a pink bathrobe with hood.
“Airline employees saw her itinerary and boarding pass sticking out of her purse and they were able to scan her papers without waking her. There was a boarding announcement overhead, and then the airline employee pushed her and her chair into the ramp and onto the waiting plane. There, other flight attendants then assisted the elderly Middle Eastern woman into her first-class seat. She appeared to be sick, sleeping and mumbling in another language unknown to me.
“The Airbus A320 took off for its three -hour flight to Atlantic City, New Jersey. There were rows of three seats on either side of the center aisle. I remember seeing a couple all dressed in wedding clothes apparently set to marry as soon as they reached their chapel destination in Atlantic City. Some members of their wedding party were seated near them also. And there was a large group of senior citizens on board too, apparently on their way to the casinos to gamble and enjoy the shows.
“So, the lady in the wheelchair appeared to be sleeping at first, then she woke up and tried to communicate with the stewardess. She was pointing at the restroom at the front of the plane. So, the stewardess helped push her wheelchair into the plane’s restroom. The lady was in there at least thirty minutes. I’m seated at th
e rear of the plane, kind of observing and taking in everything and everyone all at once.
“Eventually I start to hear other passengers talking amongst themselves, and I see the m standing up and pointing toward that restroom. I got up from my seat and began to walk up the aisle toward the front of the jet. All along I was thinking to myself that maybe the lady had fallen, and she couldn’t get up, or something like that. We all began to hear banging sounds, moans and groans from within the lavatory. At that point a flight attendant knocked on the door to see if someone was inside and needing assistance. There was no verbal response, but the moans and groans from inside were turning into growls and snarls. It sounded like there was something very peculiar going on within the plane potty or else someone was joining the mile-high club. But since I saw who had entered the restroom, I was betting on the first option.
“The concerned head air steward waved me over. I went up and pounded on the door, announced myself as a police officer. More growling, more heavy breathing and snarling continued. I pounded my fist on the door and it popped right open. I had been leaning on that door so now my weight shifted, and I stumbled forward into the lavatory. My hands latched onto the sink and I was able to suspend my forward motion.
“What had been a frail old disabled foreign woman was now a hideous, wiry, blood -thirsty dead thing covered with death vomit and smelling of the same. It lunged at me from the corner of the latrine and savagely tried to bite my chest and face. I tried to spin out of ITs path and my face smacked into the small metal mirror above the tiny sink.
“I pulled my gun out of the concealed holster below my suit jacket, and I fired two 9mm rounds into IT’s chest. The creature wasn’t even fazed by this and showed no signs of pain. “I figured I better shoot it in the head, like they have been telling us in our trainin g. I went to shoot this thing in ITs head, but the demented creature struck me on my arm, knocking the gun out of my hand and causing a misfire. A man from the economy seating area of the jetliner ran up the aisle toward the struggle and tried to help me fend off the beast. I told the guy to find something that we could use to tie IT up with.
“So, he tore that curtain down f rom its rod, the one that had been separating the seating areas. Two air stewards assisted us. It took all four of us to get it done but we finally wrapped the curtain around the creature, restraining ITs arms by strapping them down tightly by ITs side.
“ We planned on taking IT alive. But the plane was damaged when my bullets went through the monster’s body and projected into an electrical panel. As we started to prepare for an emergency landing, IT began to fight again and nearly broke free from its curtain restraint. I resorted to smashing in the creature’s head with repeated whacks from a fire extinguisher.
“Unfortunately, the good Samaritan guy was bitten in the process. If he had just stayed in his seat like a pussy and hadn’t helped me, I would have probably been chomped instead of him. It really sucks that he got bit.”
“Wow, that’s intense, man. So that’s how you got all beat up?”
Stan explained, “No. I was in a motorcycle crash.”
“Huh?” Jake said.
“Yeah, one night I was up on I-95 riding my black Kawasaki Ninja when a large SUV
came into my lane. It bumped me while doing over 80 miles per hour. I slid about sixty feet on the freeway until a guardrail stopped me really quick. It snapped my spine in half, and now I’m a paraplegic.”
“Oh, fuck, man.”
“No, Jake. The good news is my bike slid about thirty more feet than I did, and it got mashed by an eighteen-wheeler. So, I was the lucky one that night because Ididn’t stay on the bike.
“Also, it turns out, the driver of the SUV was a coach for the Redskins, driving home drunk from a club. So, I ended up with a fat settlement check from the team and turned my house into this fortress.”
Meanwhile, Denise and Hannah had no choice but to become acquainted. Upon first glances, and based upon each of the other’s appearance, neither of them seemed interested in learning more about the other. And even less interested in befriending the other. They were quite apparently exact opposites. Hannah was the type of girl who dressed preppy and neat in pinks, whites and yellows. Denise on the other hand, preferred the attire of a punk rocker. She wore dark, torn outfits, concert tees, and plenty of black makeup and fingernail paint.
Nonetheless, the two struck up a conversation to at least kill time and the awkwardness of their silence. Denise began to talk about her love of music and the artists that she primarily listened to, such as Nirvana, Rob Zombie, and Marilyn Manson.
“Eww,” Hannah murmured. “What kind of music do you like?” Denise teased. “Oh, I know, I bet yo u like Taylor Swift and probably Bieber and all those mainstream pop tarts out there, right?”
“Yeah, they’re okay. So what? But my favorite artist is Kina Grannis. She’s really popular on YouTube, she’s got a great voice and writes beautiful songs. I saw her in concert once and met her backstage. I love her. She is so sweet!”
The thoughtful teen paused and then added, “Oh man, I hope she hasn’t been eaten by a zombie.”
The ice now having been broken, Hannah began to talk about losing her mom to breast cancer three years earlier, as well as the more recent hardship of her father being paralyzed from the waist down in his motorcycle crash. She revealed that he was able to do a lot for himself now, but it had been a long, hard road they both had to endure in order to get to the place they were at now.
“After he first had his accident and got out of the hospital, he had already pretty much given up on his life. I remembered feeling the same way after mom passed. I didn’t feel like I wanted to or could go on. But that was when dad told me to ‘suck it up’ and ‘quit feeling sorry for myself.’ He just got real frank and said that Mom wasn’t going to be around to help me with everything anymore or to protect me from the world. He said I was going to have to start doing things for myself and grow up.
“And that’s exactly what I told him after his crash.” Denise somewhat sympathized with Hannah. “But now you’re filthy rich and live in this mansion and can buy whatever you want, so it’s all good, right? At least you still have a dad - or any family at all. Because I don’t. The closest thing I have right now is Jake, and I’ve only known him for three days. Plus, he doesn’t even like me.”
Hannah was incensed by Denise’s “rich” remark and expressed herself with “I’d giv e all this money and stuff away in a heartbeat to have my mom back and my dad healthy again.” But she also felt sorry for the darkhaired teen as well. “What happened to your family?”
The jaded juvenile related her traumatic tale, attempting to stifle any emotion. She soon broke down, sobbing. Denise told her story and Hannah was surprised to see such heartrending sentiment from the one with the hardened façade. The preppy one then felt inclined to hug Denise tightly in a comforting gesture.
The unpleasant conversations now out of the way, the girls compared notes on their likes and dislikes, favorite hobbies and fashion preferences, and so on. Denise was particularly fond of welding, creating the likes of industrial-themed art pieces and weaponry out of metal. Hannah shared her love for the crossbow and archery, which quickly led to the girls comparing zombie survival stories. A friendly debate followed, over which of them could better survive if they were ever stranded alone somewhere in zombie apocalyptic territory.
“I’ll tell you what,” Hannah challenged her new friend. “Let’s see how good y ou really are. Let’s have a scavenger hunt challenge. We will go out to a neighborhood in search of food and supplies. Whoever comes back with the most valuable and best finds wins.”
“How is that going to be fair? I have no weapons, and you have that fancy crossbow. Also, you probably know which houses might still have good stuff in them and which ones have already been raided.”
“Let’s go down into Stan’s bargain basement,” Hannah quipped “I bet there we can find you a good deal on some gently
used tools ofdestruction.”
“You call your dad Stan? “
“Sure, that’s his name. What should I call him? Pablo? “
“How about, maybe…Dad? “
“Yeah, I guess that would work. I like ‘Stan’ better. “
They walked down a long wheelchair accessible ramp into the nether regions of an underground storage room. They began to sift through piles of old computer parts, police equipment, sporting goods and motorcycle gear.
“Oh, badass!” Denise exclaimed. “I found an arc welder over here! Can I use this?”
“Yes, of course. Everything here is fair game.”
Denise was stoked. “So cool! I found some things over here I can use. Why don’t you run along and go play with dolls or something while I build my weapon?”
“Bitch, I’m about to kick your a___”
“Save the hostility for the monstrosities out there, honey. You’re gonna need all the help you can get.”
Hannah left the room as Denise began to implement her new creation, a zombie slayer constructed with the likes of an aluminum softball bat and the blades from two ice skates. Denise forged the blades onto the barrel of the Louisville Slugger, with the business end of the blades facing outward. These had now been sharpened on a grinding wheel and were capable of slicing through zombies like a hot knife through butter.
Denise had impressed herself with her freshly fabricated armament. “Okay, I’m ready! Let’s do this!” Without alerting the adult type people in the place, the duo proceeded out a side exit of the building. They walked through the foot-tall Bermuda grass in the backyard toward the rear gate of the compound. Each contestant had her weapon of choice in hand, Denise her Louisville Slicer and Hannah her favorite micro crossbow.
“Okay, here are the rules,” Hannah pronounced.
“We will go out onto the street over there Mountaineer Drive. It’s one that I have never explored, and I don’t believe anyone has lived in any of those homes for several months. Most of the people either were eaten orfled when the last herd came through. I really don’t think many of the survivors packed stuff up. They probably just got the hell out.
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