by Brant, Jason
“Come and get it, you ugly sons of bitches,” McCall yelled. “Dinner’s ready!”
The swelling horde continued on, clumsily working their way to McCall. The more of the bastards he could get inside the fence, the better he figured his chances to be of making it to the door. He stood in place for another twenty seconds as the horse’s area filled in, before taking off along the fence when the nearest moaner came within arm’s reach.
A few stragglers stood in his way but he jogged past them with ease and angled toward the door. The group grew thicker as more of them came around the sides of the house, so he slowed his pace slightly and raised the shotgun in both hands. He threw a heavy kick into the chest of a former teenager, sending it head over heels backward, its body kicking up dust as it went.
McCall swung the shotgun over his head and brought it down on the crown of the next moaner, the force of the blow worsening its stagger. He ran past it before it could regain its footing and dove through the door of the house, passing under a pair of clenching hands in front of the doorway.
He landed on the wood flooring with a thud, jarring the shotgun from his grip. He spun on his knees and swung the door shut as hard as he could. An arm popped through the opening just before the door closed and kept it propped open. The door bounced off the loose, grey skin and the arm slid further into the room, followed by a shoulder and a head. All of the flesh had been torn away from the face, leaving a lipless mouth and large, exposed eyeballs. He couldn’t tell if it had been a man or woman.
McCall lunged at the door, slamming it against the monster coming through the opening. He could hear the crack of breaking bones as he threw his shoulder against the door again, but the skinless horror squeezed further inside. Grunts escaped him as he strained against the door, struggling to keep it from flying open as more of them piled against it from the outside.
Knowing he couldn’t win this battle, McCall released the door and jumped for the shotgun. He grabbed it from the floor and brought the butt to his shoulder, aiming at the bloody skull. The door flew open and he fired, hoping that Karen was far enough away that she wouldn’t hear it.
The head disintegrated, showering the group behind it with a red mist. The body collapsed into the room, pushed down by the surging crowd behind it. McCall stepped forward and fired the second barrel at head height into the cluster of rotting moaners. Two more dropped at once as the tops of their skulls blew away from the lead shot. He tossed the shotgun aside as he reached the door.
McCall grabbed the body on the floor by the belt and dragged it into the kitchen, out of the door frame. He slammed the door shut again and succeeded in latching it as forearms and hands crashed against it from the outside. Thumps reverberated into his back as he leaned against the door, exhaling a long sigh of relief. The chair he’d used to prop the door shut the night before sat off to the side and he grabbed it, stuffing the back of it under the handle, securing it in place.
Though the chair felt solid, the door didn’t, and he wondered how long it would hold. The front entrance remained barricaded from the night before, but he felt the need to check it again. He jogged into the front room and inspected the table propped against the door. It was heavy and thick, but it would slide on the floor if enough force pushed against the door. He couldn’t see anything else in the room that looked heavy enough to make a difference.
McCall knew that it was only a matter of time before one of the doors caved in and they flooded into the house. He walked over to a window facing east and looked through it. There were too many dead walking around outside to count. Stretching into the horizon, as far as he could see, were thousands of them.
Most looked like small, black specks off in the distance, and McCall figured them to be miles away, but they were there and they were coming. It would be hours to days until they arrived, but when they did, it would all be over. Everything. He knew of no standing army that could take on such a large, and nearly impossible to kill, force.
“Damn.”
He decided to search the house again for more ammo or food. He went through the few drawers and closets he could find in a hurry, throwing their contents to the floor and sifting through them. Everything was empty – even the water bucket had but a few sips left in it.
Thuds and moans reached him from outside, slowly growing in intensity and frequency. How many surrounded him he didn’t know, but he figured that their numbers would eventually push the doors, or even the walls, in. He kicked at the shotgun lying on the floor and swore at it, angry that he couldn’t find any ammunition. Who owned a shotgun but didn’t keep any shells for it?
A second chair sat in the corner of the kitchen, opposite the barricaded door. Mad Dog stomped over to it and sat down heavily, letting his full weight drop on it in frustration. The chair was poorly built and a little crooked, with some of the legs shorter than the others, and it rocked when he leaned backward. One of the rear legs bumped against the floor, creating an odd, hollow sound that took McCall by surprise.
He leaned forward and then rocked back again, trying to reproduce the sound. It came again, louder this time. McCall stood from the chair and pushed it aside. The floor where it sat looked normal except for one board, which had a slightly lighter color shade. He gave it a kick and saw the plank shift in its slot a bit.
After grabbing a knife from one of the cabinets, he wedged it between the floor boards and carefully propped the loose one up. He slid two fingers under it and pulled it free. Beneath the flooring was a foot deep gap that ran under the house. Boxes of shotgun shells sat in front of him. A cloth wrapped around something else lay beside the boxes.
McCall grabbed more of the planks, though they weren’t loose, and tore them free, but found nothing beneath them. Only the shotgun shells and the cloth were under the floor. He picked the fabric up and felt the familiar outline of pistols beneath them. The cloth was covered in dust and he sneezed as he inhaled some of it while he unwrapped the guns.
The pistols had some dirt on them but he could tell they’d been polished. They shined as he blew some of the dust away and twisted them back and forth, carefully inspecting the barrels and chambers. Everything looked functional and in good shape. They were both fully loaded. The heft and solidness of the grips made him smile – they were good, solid guns.
Initials had been inscribed on both of the wood handles. McCall figured these to be some kind of family heirlooms or other prized possessions. They must have been hidden under the floor to keep anyone from finding and stealing them. The hiding spot reminded him of something his own father had done long ago – concealing a couple of gold coins behind a loose brick in their chimney. He’d said they’d been in his family for generations, though he never gave much more detail than that. When he died, McCall’s mother had sold them inside of a day. She’d never been much of one for sentimentality.
He didn’t know why the shotgun ammo had been stored there, and he didn’t particularly care. McCall knew that a few dozen rounds of ammunition wouldn’t do anything against the mob of cannibals outside, but it still gave him comfort. He inspected the cylinders and blew small specs of dirt from the barrels. After checking them over for stress fractures and finding them satisfactory, McCall dropped them into the holsters on hips.
He reloaded the shotgun and placed the rest of the shells into his empty pockets. Though he felt better with the weight of iron hanging around his waist, he knew that he was just wasting his time. When the doors finally gave in he would kill the first few that came inside, but the rest would overwhelm him in short order. Still, the work gave him something to keep his mind preoccupied, rather than dwelling on his fate.
He huffed and sat in the chair again, looking out the window on his right. The moaners were three or four people deep, pressing against the walls, running their rotting hands over the outside of the house. The window sat more than five feet above the ground – too high for them to climb in through.
Their stupidity had been the only thing tha
t allowed Karen and McCall to make it as far as they had. If they had the intelligence of a dog they would be able to enter the house through the windows and get at the one thing that seemed to always occupy their minds – flesh. Instead, they moaned to themselves stupidly and walked against the side of the building.
Thinking about their monotonous, single-minded actions had McCall wondering about the root cause of everything. Was Karen right? Could this be some kind of plague? Even if that were true, he couldn’t help but wonder where the disease could have come from. Something so deadly and infectious didn’t seem natural. He’d never seen someone get sick in a matter of minutes before, no matter who they’d been around.
He thought about what the idiot reverend had said in Gehenna. What if this thing was biblical? McCall knew that this would likely be the end of mankind, he wasn’t dumb enough to close his eyes to that, but did that justify the leap to the scriptures? They certainly fit, but he still struggled to grasp the idea that God had decided to give up on the human race. Either way, he longed for the time when he wouldn’t have to hear another moan. From the looks of the landscape outside, that wouldn’t be soon enough.
“Patience, you bastards. You’ll get a bite out of me soon enough.” He realized that he kept talking to himself, but it didn’t really concern him. He was in death’s grasp, so what did it matter if he lost his mind?
He sat there in the kitchen, yelling profanities at the dead husks outside, for hours. Though he’d slept for so long the night before, he found himself dozing once again. The sound of wood splintering jolted him awake sometime later and he nearly fell out of the chair. Stiffness in his neck told him that he’d been sleeping with it at an odd angle for longer than he’d thought.
The sounds came again and he jumped from the chair and ran to the front room. The barricaded door had a large crack running down the middle of it. The constant stream of thuds against it sent the crack farther down the wood, inching its way through the door. It would break soon and then they would come.
McCall went back to the kitchen and picked up the shotgun. He propped the stock against his shoulder and waited. If he was to die this way, he would make sure he got as many of them as he could first. He would go down fighting, no matter the odds or inevitable result.
A whistle came over the barrage of thumps surrounding him and he cocked his head, trying to make out the sound. Another shrill blast, louder this time. He ran to the other room, where he had killed the legless moaner the day before, and looked out the window, trying to see down the railroad tracks.
A train barreled toward them, stacks of steam flowing from the front of it. The thuds around him lessened before grinding to a stop. Out the window he could see hundreds of the moaners stop their incessant house beating and teeter around at the sound of the train whistle. They watched it for a moment as it continued down the track, and then they started moving toward it.
McCall laughed aloud at their unending stupidity, but clamped a hand over his mouth to stop himself. He realized then that this could be his chance to escape. He raced back to the kitchen and grabbed the nearly empty bucket from its place on the floor. The last swallow of water ran down his throat, rejuvenating him and increasing his hope that he might have a shot at getting away.
He glanced out the window at the rear of the house. The moaners at the backdoor had moved away and now performed their staggering walk toward the train tracks. He grabbed the door handle and waited, letting the crowd surrounding the house thin as much as he could.
The train drew closer with each passing second and McCall could hear it chugging along over the never-ending groans of the horde. As it approached the house, he eased the door open and ran. The sound of the steam engine covered his footfalls as he dodged his way through the waning crowd. Many of them saw him run by but were too slow to grab him. The majority never knew he was there.
He carefully worked his way past the creatures until he broke clear of the pack, and then he only had to concern himself with a few stragglers. The rest stumbled after the train, oblivious of the escape of their would-be meal. After he put fifty yards between himself and the edge of group, he slowed to a brisk walk. The walking corpses were still plentiful as he went, but the space between them kept him relatively free of danger.
For hours he walked in the dreadful heat of the day, feeling his already disgusting clothing become drenched with sweat once again. The number of moaners dwindled during the first few miles and he hadn’t seen one in over an hour. He focused on his stride for most of the evening, trying to maintain an even pace.
The sun set in front of him as he followed the rails to the west, hoping to get to Sheol, or most of the way there, by the morning. He didn’t want to be caught in the desert heat without food or water again, so he lengthened his steps a little more, pushing the limits of what he thought he could maintain through the night.
Seeing the incredible amount of the dead approaching from the east forced McCall to fight on. He knew he had to reach Karen before they did, and he was prepared to walk through Hell to do it.
Chapter 2
Karen sat on her cot in shock.
She stared through the bars at Evans, trying to understand the situation she found herself in. The fact that the murderous bastard was even alive threw her off kilter. The badge on his chest made her question whether she was awake or dreaming.
“Surprise,” Evans said with a grin that showed too many teeth. The smile never touched his eyes.
Karen wanted to respond, but didn’t know where to begin.
“Gary, Mike, why don’t you go check on the boy. I want a few minutes alone with this sadistic little wench,” Evans said over his shoulder.
The mismatched pair of deputies gave her angry looks but said nothing before they left through the open door. Karen noticed that the smaller man went first, with the lumbering behemoth following behind him.
“You seem a little confused.”
“Just a little,” Karen said.
Evans closed the door to the building and came back to the bars, standing close enough for Karen to grab him. She’d seen how fast he was before and knew that she would be no match for him - at least not in their present circumstances.
“I’m sure you thought I died during the crash.”
“Well, I wished you’d died during the crash, if that helps.”
Evans smile slid from his face. “Even now, as you face death, you can’t keep your mouth shut, can you?”
“Don’t you know? I’m nothin’ but a hooker. Keeping my mouth open is how I make money.”
“You disgusting little whore.” Evans’ cheeks flushed.
“I thought we just covered that,” Karen said. She could see that she was getting dangerously close to being shot by this maniac, but she couldn’t keep herself from goading him. “I guess you don’t need to be smart to be a piece of shit criminal.”
Rage flashed in Evans’ eyes. He seemed ready to murder her on the spot when his shoulders abruptly relaxed and his smile reappeared.
This guy is completely insane.
“Nice try,” he said.
“You seem intent on rubbing this situation in my face, so why don’t you go ahead and get it over with. How did you survive the train derailing?” She needed to know what the hell was going on more than anything, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
She was right – he wanted to brag about his grand schemes, whatever they may be. His smile grew even larger, taking up half his face, and he puffed his chest out in pride. Karen hoped his lungs would pop.
“After killing that worthless little conductor, and that was a whole lot of fun by the way, I ran several cars back on the train and hid in one of the cargo sections. I found something soft and waited for the crash. It was quite simple really.”
“You must be very proud of yourself,” Karen said.
“I am. Have you ever heard of someone derailing a train before? Let alone doing so after blowing up a dam? I know I haven�
�t, and I see all kinds of things as a man of the law.” Evans emphasized the last word, doing his best to dig at Karen’s confusion.
“How exactly does that work anyway? How can you be the sheriff of a big town like Sheol? And how in the name of God did I get here anyway? The last thing I remember is seeing a forest.”
Evans shook his head and wagged his finger at her. “Now what fun would it be if I explained everything? Maybe I should send you to your grave without knowing anything at all.” His voice dropped as he spoke, as if he were talking to himself.
“I was just curious how a sadistic dumb ass such as you could pull off something like this,” Karen said. “Everyone knows that Jones had all the smarts and you are nothing more than a mindless beast.”
“Could a mindless beast be the sheriff of Sheol, and one of the most wanted men in the country, at the same time? I don’t think so. And Jones? He isn’t with us anymore, now is he? If he was so damn smart, why is he dead?”
“So how is this possible? How are you standing there with a badge on your chest?” Karen asked. She was getting tired of talking in a circle with him, but she had to get some kind of understanding of what was happening.
“Who do you think puts all of the wanted signs around town? The sheriff. My face isn’t tacked up all over Sheol because I don’t let it happen. Anyone who even speaks ill of me is taken before the judge. It also helps that the only way to get here from Gehenna is by train. I have to tell you though – it’s quite fun having everyone around here think that I want to protect them, even as I twist the knife deeper into their backs.”