Rancid: A Zombie Novel

by P. A. Douglas

  Just as Trevor started to step away from the window, something outside caught his attention.

  “Oh, thank God,” he proclaimed. “We’re totally freaking saved, dudes!”

  “What?” Both girls said simultaneously.

  They both found themselves pushing the rocking chairs aside to get a look at what Trevor was seeing. Out in the darkness, beyond the yard and beyond the thick brush and trees, they tried to scan the bleak night. They didn’t see it at first. Then the first zombie shuffled out beyond the trees and into the yard. Its body swayed limply with each step forward. The creature was naked. Its ribs were protruding from its sternum. As it stepped forward into view, Noel could see that its lower jaw was missing. Something in its place wiggled and squirmed like foraging earthworms. And that’s exactly what they were. Worms feasting on mutilated and decayed tissue. Two more ghouls just as grotesque as the other stepped out from the tree line. Then four, and then six. Their moans filled the air as they slowly approached the house. Like a sea of rancid remains and undead sand, the dead poured out before them.

  Kelly screamed.

  “Oh shit...” Noel said in horror.

  “No… Not that,” Trevor said, still sounding hopeful. “Out there… Look!”

  In the distance Noel finally saw it. The lights were far off, but still there all the same. The blue, reds, and whites flashing as they rolled down the street toward the cemetery were unmistakable. The cop car was driving in from town and they could see its lights through the thicket.

  “Hey… Over here!” Noel shouted, leaning out the window. “Please help us! Over here!”

  Her exasperated flailing was useless. They were too far away.

  “They can’t hear you.” Trevor pulled Noel from the window. “We need to figure something out until the cavalry comes!”

  “What do you mean?” Kelly gasped. “We’re saved. They're coming to get us the hell out of here!”

  “That may be true,” Trevor agreed. “But what good is that going to be if they get to us first?”

  Noel shuttered, looking out the window at the approaching ghouls. So wrapped up in the idea of help on the way, like Kelly, she suddenly forgot that they were so close. She slammed the window shut, and then picked her jacket back up putting it on. She looked around frantically for something, anything to use in defense. There was nothing. She wasn’t some CIA operative from some Rambo movie and had no idea what to do. She was a college student about to transfer to the Savannah College of Art Design. It wasn’t like she had a gun crazy dad that raised her to be a tom-boy either, having grown up with two sisters and a single mom. Life was simple and this was anything but. Finally, something in her head snapped together like long, lost memories or a sober relapse.

  “Weapons!” She snapped her fingers.

  “Right, dude!” Trevor agreed.

  “Oh my Lord!” Kelly shouted, still looking out the window. “They’re at the door! What do we do?”

  The door shook on its hinges.

  Kelly started screaming.

  “Get the door,” Noel insisted, rushing to it to keep the dead from getting in.

  Trevor was right beside her pressing against it while the door violently shook in place. The wood creaked and groaned against the persistent pounding.

  “It’s not going to hold!”

  “Tell me something I don’t know!” Noel shouted over Kelly’s screams. “The back door. We need to get out of here. We can’t hold up much longer. There're just way too many of them.”

  For a moment, Trevor looked around assessing the situation, then agreed. She was right. They had to move. It wasn’t safe here. The door wasn’t going to hold them off for long, and it would only be a matter of time before they were overrun by the masses that hadn’t even made it into the front yard.

  “Okay…” Noel said, pressing against the jittering door. “On the count of three, we both break from the door.”

  Trevor nodded.

  “Once we break,” she continued. “You grab Kelly. We bolt for the back and on the way I will try like hell to get us some kind of a weapon. A broomstick. Anything… Cool?”

  “Yeah, like now or never, bro!”

  “1… 2… 3!”

  They dashed forward. As they agreed, Trevor ran back into the living room and grabbed Kelly by the arm. Still wailing like a maniac, she didn’t resist. He pulled her along, heading toward the back of the house. Noel darted toward the opposite side and into the kitchen. Exactly where she wanted to be. Flipping on one of the light switches, the room lit up.

  “Come on… come on… Give me something. Anything!” She shouted to herself.

  Not quite satisfied, she yanked a large cooking knife from the old wooden sheath. Although she was hoping for something a little more long range, it would have to do. Swinging it twice for good measure, she started her way back to the living room. Just as she reached the main entryway, the front door caved in. The bolt hadn’t held and the hinges were too worn and rusty. The door fell flat to the floor before her, sending in a heavy gust of wind.

  Startled, she stepped back, gripping the knife at the ready just as the first undead creature lumbered into the house. Noel ran forward, wanting to pass them before there were too many. As she darted past, the lead ghoul snarled with eager excitement. The stench of rot filled her nose making her wince with watering eyes. It reached out just as she passed, grabbing hold of her shoulder. Quivering with fear, she reared back with the knife in hand. Hovering right over her, the zombie snarled wide, pressing forward. Its potent breath assaulted her in the face almost knocking her clean off of her feet. She persevered against the nausea as bile brewed in her belly, and lashed out with the knife, stabbing the ghoul’s throat. The gray, leathery tissue sliced like thick jerky. Expecting a gruesome flood of blood and plasma, Noel reared back, shocked. Nothing but dust and brittle tissue bellowed forth from the gaping puncture.

  The creature didn’t let go.

  Noel pulled away screaming, dropped the knife and squirmed to be free of the leather jacket. The sound of metal meeting wood clanged as the heavy knife reached the floor. Slipping from the jacket's sleeves, she ran into the living room. As much as she hated to see it go, a present from Jared or not, it wasn’t that important.

  She quickly reached the back door, finding both Trevor and Kelly standing there looking out into the gloomy night. She was surprised to see that they had waited.

  “What happened to the weapons?” Trevor grimaced.

  She shrugged, frantic.

  “They got in, bro?”

  “Yeah,” Noel nodded, scanning the backyard.

  The coast looked clear.

  “What the hell are we waiting on?” Trevor demanded.

  The sound of over a dozen zombies staggering through the front door and into the house filled their ears. They were getting closer. Something fell, giving way to a loud thud somewhere in the living room.

  “That was in the living room!” He cried. “Like, totally down for a plan right about now, you know!”

  “Fuck if I know,” Noel said. “All I know is we should try to get to that cop car!”

  “Okay…,” Trevor sighed. “Let’s do this.”

  Noel glared long and hard at Kelly. “Are you ready to do this?”

  Kelly didn’t respond. She just stared off into the nothingness that was her hopeless situation.

  “Kelly… Are you in there?” Noel grabbed her best friend, shaking her senseless. “I’m not about to have you slow us down. You going to keep up or not?”

  “Yeah…” Kelly whimpered.

  Noel nodded at Trevor, who met eyes with the gothic girl. He reached back grabbing Kelly by the arm, knowing that was what Noel was suggesting with the nod. Her arm was raw and dry like sandpaper, feeling cold like the deep soil of the earth. He looked up and saw Kelly and Noel stepping out into the yard. Still standing at the door he gasped, swallowing so hard that he almost swallowed his tongue. The thing's wrist started to crumble in his gri
p. Dust seeped free from the crackling skin between Trevor’s fingers. A worm broke free through the dead tissue crawling across his hand. His eyes went wide with fear. Still standing at the back door, the creature lunged forward. Its throat was freshly slit. Worms and white chunks of dry pus slid out from the open gash. Worms fell to the floor as the creature leaned forward, its teeth meeting the fleshy area of Trevor’s forearm.

  Trevor screamed out in pain.

  FOUR

  “You think that old man is going to be okay?” Joe Montoya asked.

  “What… old man Benta?” Officer Baily said, driving up to the cemetery entrance. “Honestly, kid. I don’t know. He is pretty old. Hell, I’m pretty old too, and don’t know how I feel about living through a wreck like that and I’m ten years younger than Glen. He looked pretty bad. Lost a lot of blood.”

  “I know,” Joe agreed. “I’ve never seen anything like that in real life before. I almost threw up!”

  “Well…” Baily stroked his thick mustache, and then licked his thumb rubbing the moisture into his left eyebrow. “It's times like these that you need to keep your wits about you. I haven’t had any real problems with that Garrison boy before… but for some reason, I just have that feeling tonight.”

  “Oh yeah?” Joe sighed, checking the side mirror.

  “Yeah, Joe. And if old man Benta doesn’t end up pulling through the accident, I'm going to have Jared’s head! He’s up to something. I just know it.”

  “Jared?”

  “Garrison… Jared Garrison.” Baily shrugged. “Are you taking any of this in, Montoya?”

  “Yeah… I am!” Joe jerked his head back against the headrest. “I’m not a little kid…,” he mumbled.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing, Baily. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just check things out and call it a night.” He looked at his wristwatch. “We're supposed to check in at the station in less than an hour. I don’t know about you, but I'm ready to call it a night.”

  Joe Montoya didn’t understand why things had been so hard for him at the precinct. So what if his uncle was the mayor? He worked just as hard if not harder than anyone else to get where he was on the force. And if he had it his way, in ten years he would be well beyond the point of patrolling the streets in a cop car. Officer Baily was just giving him a hard time because the old fart didn’t like how fast he was moving up. If things kept advancing at this pace, Joe would be his boss in five years. Then, he'd put Baily behind a desk. The jerk deserved to be a pencil pusher.

  Joe realized that he was a newbie, but it was his first freaking day on the job. Baily needed to let up some and give him a break. Just because he was the shortest cop in Clarksburg, didn’t mean he couldn’t hold his own in a brawl. He couldn’t wait for the moment when he saved his partner’s ass. Maybe then, Baily would soften up a bit.

  The car stopped at the cemetery's entrance. Baily left the siren and flashing lights on along with the headlights. Unlocking the shotgun strapped in the center console, Baily checked the chamber for shells, and clicked the safety to off. Nodding at Joe, he stepped out, slamming his door shut.

  “Man… Maybe Baily is just uptight,” Joe said before getting out of the car. “The shotgun… really?”

  He stepped out, closing the door and un-holstering his sidearm, leaving the safety on. One thing that annoyed him was cops leaving on the flashing lights. It was unnecessary in his opinion and often just gave him a headache. He looked up to see Officer Baily leaning down and looking at something in the middle of the road. Baily’s back was a flash of cascading reds and blues. His silhouette danced on the gravel in rhythmic stride with the lights. With the shotgun in one hand, he reached for the bulky flashlight at his hip and shined the beam to the gravel and dirt at his feet.

  “What is it, Baily? What do you see?” Joe asked, still standing beside the car door.

  “Come take a look.” Baily waved him over. “Blood and fresh tissue of some kind. And look there…” He waved the light forward. “Footprints everywhere. Something went down here and we need to find out what. I’ve been in this business for a long time, son. And if I had to guess… this is old man Benta’s blood. There was a struggle. You see all these footprints?”

  Joe nodded.

  “There has to be several dozen separate tracks here.” Baily continued, pointing his flashlight back toward the cemetery entrance. “Looks like they’re headed out toward the woods.”

  Nearly every zombie that had fled the cemetery in pursuit of Noel and her two friends were already too far into the woods for them to see. There were those closer than either suspected, immersed in the darkness. If Baily would have scanned the area with his light, he would have seen over a hundred shadowy figures pressing forward toward old man Benta’s house.

  But he didn’t.

  He stood to his feet and panned the light to the left and right. The cemetery was in shambles. The gravel drive was covered in countless steps. Upon further inspection, they noticed the graves. The soil was overturned, not on just one… but all of them.

  Joe was overcome with disbelief as he stepped away from the patrol car to get a better look. Even the tops of almost every headstone had at least one or two muddy prints.

  “Are you believing this, Baily?”

  The older officer didn’t say anything. He just kept looking around and shining his flashlight across the field of graves.

  “How could someone have dug up all of these graves in one night?” Joe asked. “How many acres is this place?”

  “Seven,” Baily said, still stunned. “Seven acres.”

  “Wow,” Joe gasped. “That has got to be something like eight or nine hundred graves. That’s impossible for someone to dig up in one night, right?”

  “I… I don’t really—”

  A groaning hiss cut Baily off. It was coming from near the car. It was then that Joe realized they had walked a lot farther from the cemetery entrance than he realized. The car had to be at least fifty feet away.

  “What was that?” Joe said. “Man, this cemetery crap gives me the creeps. Can’t we call for backup or something?”

  “I heard it too,” Baily said, shining his light toward the car. “And no… we can’t call for backup. We are the backup. It’s after midnight, remember?”

  “Yeah, don’t remind me,” Joe grimaced.

  “Well, you going to go check it out?” Baily insisted.

  “Me? You’re the one with the light and the shotgun!”

  They heard it again. The groan was human but unnatural. It was more of a rasping wail than a cry for help. Baily gulped and eased his way back to the car. It was then that Joe realized Baily was just as unnerved as he. All this time the old man was showboating about how much of a badass he was and here he was, just as uneasy. Following behind Baily, Joe shook his head in disapproval. Baily was just a pushover that didn’t realize it yet.

  They slowly crept around the car toward the eerie sound, unable to see what was making the noise. The groaning turned into rustling.

  “Holy Crap!” Joe dropped his gun.

  The pistol thumped hard at his feet in the loose dirt.

  It was dead!

  Baily stepped back. The creature lay on its stomach unable to move forward. Its head was caved in from where it had fallen and its back looked as if it had been kicked in. Its skin was pasty white with rot and decay. A rancid jaw rattled back and forth biting at the air when it lifted its head. As it strained further, its neck snapped with a teeth gritting pop, severing the head from the spine.

  Joe stared wide-eyed. The thing was clearly deader than a doorknob and yet its teeth were still chomping like no tomorrow. Its eyes were black cavernous, rotting voids of scarred and scratched skull. The stench of bile wafted in the air.

  Baily covered his nose with his sleeve, shining the flashlight down on the grotesque monstrosity. Even with its body separated from the skull, the arms dug forward in the dirt, hoping to advance.

  Joe vomited.

/>   The splash of warm wet chilidogs plopped across his boots and the grass before him.

  “Back up!” Baily shouted. He lifted the shotgun and aimed it at almost point blank range on the creature's face. It bit down on the barrel. Brittle teeth sickly cracked against the steel.

  Joe stepped back, the deafening blast sent his heart nearly into his throat.

  When the dust, dirt, and gravel settled, only tiny bits of debris and skull fragments remained.

  Baily lifted the flashlight, making a full scan of the cemetery. In the distance, he saw three shadowy figures coming toward them.

  “Hey… you!” He shouted. “Stop right there!”

  Joe’s eyes darted to where Baily was aiming the shotgun.

  “Shit, son. Pick up your damn gun and get in the game!”

  “Yes… yes sir…” Joe’s voice wavered, looking down at the gun and the headless ghoul lying beside it. “What the hell is going on here?”

  He bent down and picked up the gun.

  “Hey… I said stay where you are! That’s an order. I’m Officer Baily of the Clarksburg Police Force! Halt!” Baily shouted.

  Terrified, Joe looked up at the figures heading toward them. The gun shook in his grip as he pulled it from his side and took careful aim.

  Then it grabbed him. The undead thing, even without a head… it reached up and snatched Joe by the wrist.

  Joe screamed, falling back on his butt in the grass. Without even thinking it through, he aimed the pistol and fired. He was confident with a firearm, thanks to time spent at the gun range with his uncle and the training at the academy. He had even ranked almost top of his class when it came to accuracy, but this… this was different. He had never shot flesh before. He had never inflicted pain on another person before; alive or dead.

  Joe felt bile fill his throat again. He swallowed hard, rapidly pulling the trigger. The back of his throat burned with acidic recoil. In sporadic succession, bullets tore through the undead monster. Grime and dry, meaty, rotting tissue gushed into the air like a cloud of putrid dust. The body jittered with each loud report, as the bullets tore through brittle bone. Joe just kept firing. Baily didn’t stop him. He was busy aiming the shotgun out into the darkness.