He would have never thought the other man had it in him. Jeff was soft, not a brawler of any sort. Unless he was hiding some sort of ex-military commando existence behind his bland exterior, Michael knew he could easily take Jeff down in a fight. More importantly, Jeff knew that as well. People like him avoided physical confrontations like the plague. Jeff was just an average dude who had been a family man once upon a time. Michael did his best to try to understand it. Jeff had to know that Michael was younger, faster, and stronger than him, plus he had all the weapons. So why risk getting his nuts squashed? The whole idea went against the grain. Jeff had probably lived his whole existence going with the flow, not rocking the boat. He lived a dull, unexceptional life, kept his nose clean, and obeyed all the laws, just like 99.9% of the other slobs out there.
As Michael continued to mull Jeff over, another possibility occurred to him. Maybe Jeff was willing to get a few teeth knocked in, just to show everyone he wasn’t a coward, and that Michael needed brute force to maintain control over the camp. Jeff would have been beaten, but Michael would have lost the respect of some of the camp members.
Oh you son of a bitch. You sly, sly son of a bitch. You almost had me, you cock sucker.
There was a small sense of satisfaction at having rooted out the trickster’s plan, but it was surrounded by doubt. Was that really Jeff’s intention? Was he willing to get bloodied to prove a point? George had stepped in and changed things with his declaration, which left Jeff’s real intention a mystery. All Michael knew was that there was no way that motherfucker was going to undermine his authority. No way in hell. Others had tried before and he had dealt with them—it was one of those ugly responsibilities that came with the burden of leadership. His father had taught him that. “Make a good enough example out of a troublemaker and the others will think twice before they cross you.”
Jeff was just another liability that would be dealt with soon enough. Michael just needed to get a better fix on him, so he could find out the best way to make him behave.
* * *
Perhaps if Michael had bothered looking out the window of the Winnebago at that moment, he would have seen Jeff and Megan consoling one another, which might have given him some ideas of how he could keep Jeff in line. Instead, his thoughts shifted back to Cindy. He stared down at her, his knee still on her chest. In that moment he felt the closest thing to love for her that he could possibly could. She had allowed him to see things in ways he had never seen them before. Everything was… easier now.
Without her he was a good leader, but with her he was a leader that understood that he always needed to be consolidating his power and eliminating elements that would seek to undermine him. He knew the sensation he felt was not really love; it was more like gratitude. An appreciation for the woman who had unearthed in him the feelings and passion that drove him. He grew more excited as he continued gazing at her.
The resentment and regret that always seemed to creep up on him when he thought too much about her had dissipated, as it always did. It seemed foolish not to embrace the power he felt because of what Cindy had done for him, what she had shown him.
He slapped her across her jaw as a grin surfaced on his face. He watched as the side of his girlfriend’s face slammed into the carpeted floor of the RV.
Cindy felt dazed, but knew once again that Michael was just getting warmed up. It made her shiver with excitement. He was getting closer to losing control with the others like he did with her. He’d nearly gotten into a fight with both George and Jeff instead of trying to be diplomatic, which was how he used to handle things like that. Not anymore. He’d used that brat Jason to get his way, and it had stirred up shit with that bitch Megan, as well as Jeff and George. What had happened outside was a tantalizing tease and there was a good chance that Michael would come to blows with one or both of the new men in the next couple of days.
The idea of it nearly sent Cindy over the edge with excitement. She loved seeing the hate boil up behind her man’s eyes. It wouldn’t be long before he stopped trying to restrain himself and let go. It would be a beautiful sight to see when he did.
She licked at the small trickle of blood that came from her split lip and returned Michael’s smile.
Ray and Teddy
Part I
These two flashbacks were originally inserted in the story when the two teenage boys were standing in front of the Dollar General, before they start arguing and Ray wants to check things out around the store.
The two boys took a little time making a connection after they met. Certainly, there were some significant differences between them, but after a while, they took comfort in having each other to lean on. Ray was a year older than Teddy, but given the fact that the other children in the group were significantly younger and the rest of the survivors were made up of adults, a minor difference in age and their distinctly different personalities didn’t seem to matter all that much to Ray and Teddy.
They were excited when Jason showed up, though the younger boy seemed to take more of a liking to Michael than them. It only served to reinforce their belief that they were a team and they weren’t going to let anyone get in their way.
Ray was a self-proclaimed computer nerd and was very proud of that fact. His claims were, of course, untested since computers, like so many other things these days, were historical artifacts. He jokingly introduced himself to Teddy as a “Nerd without a cause”. Ray had been into video games and blogging, which was something that he had to explain to more than one person in their group. He shook his head in amazement at the lack of awareness some people had of the wonders of the internet world.
He had felt strange and totally out of place within the group of survivors until Teddy showed up. Even then, it took them a while to understand one another. Ray wanted to talk about all the video games he missed and the website he had been creating with some online friends dedicated to Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show that had been off the air for years but lived on thanks to You Tube and Netflix. Teddy, sadly, had never even heard of the show and sadder still, according to Ray, didn’t really care. When Ray tried to explain the wonder of it all, Teddy interrupted him almost immediately with “It doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”
From that moment forward Ray decided he would never speak of the show or any other useless hobbies he had ever again. He never told Teddy how much the deadpan comment hurt, and that was partially because he had to admit that what the other boy had said was true: none of that stuff did matter anymore. Not in the world they lived in. He tried to get angry about that fact, but failed. Everyone Ray had known who loved MST3K was dead, and so were all the other geeks he linked up with on Xbox Live to play Halo. His world of computer screens and game controllers was officially dead and buried.
Even with Teddy’s brush off, the two boys worked hard to find common ground, in particular after they witnessed the deaths of several members of the group and even more so when they had to flee the factory. Teddy was somewhat reserved and aloof with Ray at first, but with nothing much else to do when the survivors weren’t running or hiding, he began sharing more and more about himself with Ray.
Teddy Schmidts was a small kid, a few inches above five foot tall and weighing in at 100 pounds. He was a freshman in high school and remarkably, at least to Ray, he had been quite popular with his classmates despite his diminutive stature. Teddy didn’t speak of his popularity as if he was bragging. Like everything he said, the words sounded genuine and honest. There was no embellishment in anything Teddy stated or did. He played soccer and wrestled and was good at both. Despite not having the size to play football or basketball, he was strong and fast, which landed him on the varsity wrestling squad. He had a good chance to make varsity in soccer as well by his sophomore year, according to his coach, if he stayed focused and kept improving his footwork.
Teddy had energy to burn, but athletics calmed him down. He told Ray that when he was little, doctors advised his parents to get him into sports ye
ar round to help with his focus and concentration. He had been diagnosed hyperactive, but did well with a lot of exercise. As he got older, the hyperactivity dissipated and his grades improved. Ray had wondered why Teddy felt the need to run around all the time and do pushups and sit ups like his life depended on it. He still didn’t understand after Teddy’s explanation, since Ray loathed physical activity, but shrugged it off. If it made his newfound friend happy, it was cool with him.
When Ray had asked about the Springfield rifle that Teddy had with him when they first met, Teddy stated that his father had been a hunter, though he refused to say much else about either of his parents beyond that. He did let it slip that this particular weapon had been his father’s favorite, and Ray suspected that was a pretty important detail about Teddy’s life, and a good reason why he wasn’t so chatty about his family. No one had any pleasant stories to tell about what had happened to their loved ones, so if someone didn’t want to talk about them, they were left alone.
Ray, on the other hand, didn’t mind speaking about such things and Teddy was good enough to listen.
He was the youngest of three, and as his mother described it, he had been a happy “accident” when he had come along in her early forties. Ray’s older sisters were well into their twenties and he didn’t see them all that often anymore—he had no idea what had happened to them when the world had fallen apart. They both lived in other parts of the country.
His father was an electrical engineer and his mother a librarian.
“I got my card as a charter member of the nerd society while still in the womb,” he’d told Teddy. His parents had raised him to be proficient on the computer and a voracious reader, but had not graced him with many social skills. Outside of an almost obsessive focus on his grades, Herman and Bess Jordan had little interest in their son’s social development.
When the first reports came on the air about the dead beginning to walk, Ray’s parents, like so many other people, dismissed it as mass hysteria. It was only when local reports about riots and attacks in the streets of Cincinnati started showing up on the TV that they showed even the most remote interest. It still took them a couple of days before they came to the conclusion that they should do more than quibble with each other and take some action. They piled into their car with the idea of driving out to a campground they had spent a single weekend at several years earlier. The idea of heading to one of the National Guard shelters or remaining at their house seemed foolish. From the campground, they would figure out where they could best sit tight to wait out this whole ridiculous mess.
They did not even get five miles from their house.
Caught in one of the many never ending traffic jams on the interstate, they sat waiting, like everyone else. About an hour after getting stuck and watching other motorists leave their cars, Ray’s parents bickered and debated yet again about what they should do. Since Ray’s mother had severe rheumatoid arthritis and his father was not in tip top shape either, it didn’t seem like such a good idea for them to grab what they could and hoof it. The mini-debate was settled twenty minutes later when they saw people running and screaming in both directions along the median and breakdown lanes of the highway.
Ray, who was a nervous wreck at that point, watched as his father got out of the car despite the fact that his mother was pleading for him not to. He told them to wait for him, and that he would be right back. Herman moved off from them and for the next five minutes the two people he had deserted in the Volvo Station Wagon sat and wept. Ray tried to comfort his mother by putting his hand on her shoulder, but she swatted it away, crying and screaming unintelligibly at him. After that he balled up in the back seat and whimpered, imagining what was happening to his father and wondering what he should be doing. His mother was hysterical, which was something entirely new to Ray. It felt like his world had collapsed.
Things got worse from there. His father finally came back to the car and opened his door. Bess Jordan pled with him to get in and lock the doors. After nearly thirty seconds of screaming, her voice elevating higher and higher with panic, Herman pushed her frantic hands away, hard. He leaned into the car and the look on his face was one Ray would never forget.
It must have had the same impact on his mother because she went silent. The last words Ray recalled his father saying were so quiet he was not quite sure he heard them correctly, but what he believed they were remained etched in his mind.
“We have to leave. If we stay here, we’ll die.”
His father grabbed his mother by the arm and pulled her out of the car. She resisted at first, most likely thinking Herman mad. The look on his face was like nothing Ray had ever seen before. His father had always been steady, composed, and dispassionate. Ray found it nearly impossible to describe what had become of his dad to Teddy, except to say it looked like someone had scraped all the color out of his skin and replaced it with the same texture and color as milk. It was as if his father’s blood flow had stopped. His eyes were wide and bulging and he looked like some sort of side show freak as he gaped at Ray and his mother.
It took a couple of minutes for Herman to finally pry Bess free of the car. As Ray opened his door and stepped out, he tried asking his father if they should take anything with them. His inquiry was ignored for the most part as his father dragged his mother down the road.
Less than a minute later Ray understood what had caused his father to act as he did.
Their car had been stuck on the inside lane of the highway. The cars had been moving at first, slowly inching forward, but then came to a halt. Besides having bumper to bumper traffic, the median was clogged with more cars trying to sneak past everyone. Overpasses with huge cement pylons had served as blockades to traffic along the grassy center strip every few miles or so.
The Jordans ran forward, limping along with the scattered crowds of other desperate people. The obstacle course of cars required them to adjust their path continuously as other people plowed past them, bumping and shoving them with an equal amount of desperation.
Ray remembered hearing a noise behind him mixed in with the screams. At first it sounded like a swarm of locusts and he remembered that being odd because he recalled locusts only came out once every few years. Maybe cicadas? He had no idea if there was any difference between cicadas and locusts and dismissed the line of thought as useless.
Only in hindsight did the sound have any real meaning.
The Jordan family was buffeted and pushed around by most everyone rushing past faster than Ray’s parents were capable of moving. As hundreds of people streamed by, Ray spared a moment to look back in the direction they had come from. They were on a straight ribbon of highway that stretched for several miles off into the distance, and he could see everything behind them very clearly.
What Ray saw, and later told Teddy about, confirmed everything the news reports had been saying that his parents had found so hard to believe. The dead had indeed come back to life and were attacking the living. Ray had remembered all the postings on the net spewing out rumor after rumor, and dissecting every sordid detail being reported from around the globe. Some were absolutely ridiculous while others, especially the ones displaying extremely graphic photographs or grainy cell phone videos, were hard to dismiss. Now he was bearing witness to everything he’d laughed about as the random ravings of internet sensationalists just a day or two earlier. Nothing even the most artful fear monger on the web had tried to relay to the rest of the world could compare to what Ray was seeing with his own eyes.
People were being pulled out of their cars by other human beings who weren’t even waiting for them to clear the shattered windows and windshields before tearing into exposed flesh. Some ganged up on the people in particular vehicles while others stood alone, smashing their bloody fists against windshields. It all looked like some slow motion movie being played out frame by bloody frame.
Ray stopped running and watched the unholy scene unfolding off in the distance.
It wasn’
t just those stuck in their cars being attacked. Everyone on the road was fair game. The slowest and weakest were being dragged to the ground, along with anyone who had the misfortune of being trampled in the mad rush to escape the claws of the rotting army marching toward them. The old, the infirm, and those carrying small children were the easiest for the horde to overwhelm, while a brave few who chose to fight wielding an assortment of weapons such as golf clubs and handguns were obliterated just as quickly as the horde of maddened cannibals poured in around them.
Ray gauged the distance to the closest fighting at about a half a mile. There the feeders were still sparse, a recon force leading the way for a much larger mass of infected out beyond the horizon. Ray’s eyes scanned further back and saw that their numbers were endless; they were a great consuming machine destroying everything within their reach.
Ray had looked up at Teddy at that point in his story and gave him a meek smile.
“I remember sitting on my porch when I was a little kid, watching an ant hill off in the dirt in my front yard. I was always fascinated by the worker ants, when they carried all those little pebbles of dirt and bits of leaves down into their underground bunker. I must have watched that ant hill for thirty minutes one day,” he laughed, his eyes growing distant.
“But then something happened. Another ant, obviously not from that colony, because it was larger and red, wandered by and was attacked by all those smaller black ants. It didn’t have a prayer. It must have taken just a few seconds for it to be swarmed over. The black ant army came in huge numbers and annihilated their enemy, dragging its carcass off down that same hole they used to carry all those pebbles and leaves. I’m not sure if they ate it, and I really didn’t want to know, but that’s what those dead people reminded me of: those black ants, climbing all over their enemies and tearing them to pieces within seconds.”
The Dark Trilogy 02 - Into the Dark Page 21