Unlike the rotting dead back at the cemetery, the creatures were anything but slow. The halls ran rampant with chaos as the hungry undead feasted on the living. Those that were eaten were reanimated back to life to eat too. The transfer time was much faster.
Old man Benta had been bitten in the cemetery next to his house, and managed to drive for ten minutes before being found. By the time he was in the ambulance, more than thirty minutes had passed since he was bitten.
It happened much quicker at the hospital. Almost as soon as the heart stopped beating, the victims would awake again anew. Something beyond evil. Something no longer dead. The growing numbers added exploded exponentially.
They ran the hospital halls belligerent with rage and hunger for flesh. One nurse had managed to avoid being attacked by hiding beneath the counter under her desk. Equipped with nothing for defense but a broom handle, she patiently waited for her chance to flee. But her luck didn’t last long.
As a group of zombies wrestled with a flailing victim, one of the ghouls fell over the counter and discovered her hiding place. Without hesitation, the woman struck the creature with the broom handle. As the creature lashed out toward her with blood covered teeth, the tip of the broom struck home hitting it in the eye. She drove it forward, feeling the soft tissue of her attacker’s eye socket give way. The eye exploded in a bloody spray of muck and gore. The broom handle snapped as it sent the creature motionless to the floor. She looked down at it in horror. The splintered handle protruded from the man’s eye. Blood pooled from the wound to the cold tile. She didn’t know what to do. She just stared at the unholy sight, terrified, and decided to go back into hiding. That would prove to be her biggest mistake. She should have taken the chance to leave when she had it. It wasn’t long before the creature began to move again. It started to lift itself up, but it wasn’t the same. It was slow and struggled with its coordination. The creature stood to its feet and meandered slowly about in the confine of her work space. It acted as if it was unaware of her presence. It just shuffled around, bumping into chairs and the counter. When she felt like she could make a break with the thing ambling away, she took it. She darted out from under the counter. Just as she thought she was free, the zombie turned toward her. The splintered broom handle still stuck from its bloodied eye socket. Excited, it lashed out and managed to grab the neck of her scrubs. She screamed and fell, after slipping in the bloody mess on the floor. The creature fell on her and began his ravenous feast. Her scream never reached the air. As soon as she fell, her head hit hard against the tile and knocked her unconscious. She was one of the lucky ones.
And that was just how it was. The monstrous horde spilled out into the streets. Those that were able to defend themselves didn’t last long. Zombies scoured the streets in search of two-legged sustenance. Those that fell to the hand of the living eventually got back up to shamble aimlessly in their lost pursuit of fresh meat. There was no stopping them.
How can you kill something that is already dead?
The gas station attendant across from the hospital was one of the first to go. He never saw it coming. He stood behind the counter, sipping on the Dr. Pepper that he had neglected to pay for, while flipping through one of the many porno magazines that lay on the rack behind him next to the plethora of cigarette choices. He scratched at the slowly growing bulge in his pants and flipped the page.
The front door crashed open, making him slam the book closed, and dropping it to the floor. Expecting to see another insomniac customer stepping in to get a few six-packs of beer, his eyes went wide. More than half a dozen, blood covered men and women rushed in, fully enraged. He didn’t have a chance.
The first one was on him before he could press the emergency button beneath the counter or grab the revolver. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had. Unfortunately for him, it was not a painless death. Gnashing and thrashing teeth pulled and tugged as more than one set of hands tore muscle from bone. When he returned to his new existence, the dirty magazine at his feet was forgotten and covered in his blood. He climbed over the counter eager to join the chase.
The hungry, living dead engulfed the small town of Clarksburg.
Tina Smothers lived alone a few blocks away from the hospital and had worked there for more than thirty years. She was retired and nearly eighty-five years old now. She was a tuff old woman. So when her puppy, Snowball, suddenly wouldn’t hush from barking at something outside, it was no wonder she woke up and proceeded to check it out. Nobody was going to be snooping around in her flower patch and get away with it. That, and she needed to appease Snowball so that he would calm down and let her get back to sleep. With her walking stick in one hand, she made her way onto the porch to shoo off whomever it was that was bothering Snowball.
“Get out of here,” she had shouted into the darkness, waving her walking stick in the air for good measure.
That was all it took. Before Tina died, coming back to be one of them, she felt her bones break as she was tackled to the ground by two zombies. She winced as her hip dislocated and several of her ribs cracked as she collided on her backside. What came next was even worse. The first one bit down hard on her throat. She winced, blood pooling in her mouth. Blood and viscera wallowed forth from the wound. The zombie hovering over her followed the first bite with another. Blood bubbled in the open wound as she drowned in her own bile.
And then there was Tom. It wasn’t someone rustling about in his flowers outside that woke him. No, he had a habit of waking up suddenly in the middle of the night. The doctor had called it night terrors, but he knew better. It was God. It was God showing him things. Others told him he was just being crazy. A little bit much of a fanatic. But what did they know? They were probably all headed to hell. Above his bed, was the crucified image of Jesus dying on the cross. And next to his nightstand laid the Bible. But not just any Bible, the NKJV, and nothing else. He’d have it no other way. Of course he was a fanatic. What forty-seven year old, Pentecostal preacher wasn’t? He sat up pulling the covers free from his sweat covered body and planted his feet on the warm carpet. He rubbed his eyes with his palms and looked at the clock. It was getting pretty close to one in the morning. At least tonight the dreams had taken a while to wake him. The night before, he was up by eleven.
No matter. He wiped the cold sweat from his head and stood to his feet making his way through the dark and into the kitchen. If God wanted him awake, then it was for a good reason. It was time to pray and maybe even do a little reading. For the last couple of weeks, the nightmares had gotten worse. Aside from feeling a little sleep deprived during the day, he had taken advantage of his time awake in the middle of the night. One thing was for sure, his sermons had gotten quite better, having had more time devoted to reading and reflection. This was a good thing in his eyes, mostly because attendance had been down for some time. What wasn’t down, though? When the economy crashed, everything was affected by it. Including church attendance. If he could just get the people coming, into giving just a little more, maybe, just maybe, they could meet the fundraiser goals for the year. The church building was in bad shape and needed to be remodeled. If anyone knew that, it would be Tom. His father’s father built the church with his own bare hands. It was the most recognized icon of the community. He hoped all of the extra time spent awake would pay off in his attempt to turn things around for the church.
Wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, Tom’s bare feet slapped against the cold tile in the kitchen as he retrieved a glass from the cabinet. There was no time that wasn’t the right time for a nice glass of cold milk. He was in luck. There was enough left in the carton for one serving. Satisfied, he gulped it down and sat the glass on the countertop. The glass meeting the surface of the counter broke the silence. Tom ran his fingers through his thin, gray hair.
He crept down the hall past the framed pictures of him and his wife, who happened to be away on a women’s retreat. He smiled, examining the photo for the billionth time. Her hair was long and brown and
her dress made her body look perfect in every way. They never had any children, although not for lack of trying. They even prayed that God would give them a son. But, if it was going to happen, it would be His time and not theirs. It never came. He didn’t blame God and tried with all he had to not blame his wife. It was hard sometimes. He loved her dearly and couldn’t wait for her to come back home. Reaching the living room, he turned on the light and sat down at his favorite spot, the Lazy Boy, worn and old from over a decade of use. Had he owned a television, he might have turned it on. But he didn’t. Everything on it was corrupt and filled with the sins of the earth. No, he had something much more entertaining than that. He had God’s blameless word.
He leaned the recliner back and picked up his reading glasses and the Bible that lay next to them. There were Bibles everywhere in his home and just about all of them got a lot of use, especially the one that sat next to the toilet in the master bedroom.
He sighed heavy, and then closed his eyes.
“Okay, God. You woke me. Show me what you have for me this night… Amen.”
He opened his eyes and began to flip through the holy book’s golden trimmed pages. As he read the sanctified word, he held the cross necklace around his neck for comfort. At first, he opened to no page in particular, scanning its red words amidst the black text. It wasn’t long before he found himself reverting to his favorite passages in the book of Psalms. He read there for more than half an hour taking no notes. He really didn’t need to, having memorized many of its passages. It wasn’t long before he found himself nodding off again, still sitting in the recliner.
It wasn’t until he fully fell asleep that the thick book in his grip slipped free, falling with a loud thud to the floor. The sudden sound jarred him to attention. For a moment, he was unsure of his location, the surroundings were unfamiliar. He thought he had still been asleep in bed. But as his eyes adjusted to the bright light, he remembered that he had gotten up and entered the living room to read. He wondered how long he had been asleep in the chair. He rubbed his eyes and started to stand. His bare back and legs stuck to the pleather chair as he pulled away.
Finally finding his footing and peeling himself free from the chair, Tom adjusted his boxers and walked over to the window. He smiled at the portrait of Jesus that his wife had gotten him two years back for their anniversary. It was almost as if Jesus was smiling right back at him. He pushed back the curtains to take a look at the front yard. If there was anything that he took away from his old man before he passed away, it was that a church can live or die based on location. He smiled, knowing that this is what had kept the community of believers alive for so long. His house was in the same neighborhood as the Clarksburg High School and the massive lot that his window overlooked next to the house was the church. He was proud of it. Sometimes too proud. If there was one thing he loved even more than his wife, it was living on the same land as the church.
He smiled at it while peering into the darkness. The streetlights illuminated the small building and its large steeple. The large wooden cross at its peak stood tall and firm, being lit by the florescent lights it contained. He smiled with satisfaction. Keeping that thing lit might have been a major expense for the church, but it was worth it in his eyes. Jesus was the truth and the light, and that light never wavered. And so, neither would that community steeple. Along with the streetlights, the steeple helped light up the church’s small parking lot. Tom liked that it was always lit. It made things easier for him to check out from the comfort of his home without going outside.
“You know…,” he said out loud. “Between you and me, God. We are going to turn this town around. You just wait and see.”
His eyes burned, making him realize that he needed to get back to sleep and get some shut eye. With a heavy yawn, he started to push the curtains back into place and go back to bed. But suddenly, something outside caught his eye.
A figure darted across the church’s parking lot. Running like they were injured. Just as they disappeared around the church building and out of sight, another figure followed behind in pursuit. There was no questioning that someone was being chased. Tom felt his chest tighten and his throat tensed. He tried to swallow, but it felt clogged. He watched in disbelief as the two disappeared behind the church.
Tom darted into the kitchen and snatched up his phone from the wall. About four years back, the church was having a lot of problems with the homeless sleeping in the parking lot, so he had the local law enforcement number along with the fire department and a few numbers of some of the Deacons on the refrigerator.
He dialed the police department. Holding the phone to his ears, he waited, but nothing happened. The phone was silent. He tried the number again, but there was nothing. The phone was dead. That wasn’t good. He tried a few of the numbers on the fridge and came away with the same problem. The lines were down. He bit his lip looking around. He was getting too old for any of this.
“Okay… Okay…,” he told himself. “What would Jesus do?”
He stood there for a moment and shook his head.
“I can’t believe this. You are going to owe me big time,” he said looked to the ceiling.
He ran into his bedroom and threw on a pair of sweatpants. He slipped into the Velcro-shoes he bought from Wal-Mart for ten bucks and then grabbed the baseball bat from beside the bed. Gripping it tight, he was glad that his wife had been so insistent about feeling better with a weapon near in case of emergency.
He wasted no time. There was no telling what was happening out there. Some poor woman could be getting raped, or even worse, murdered. It had been a very long time since anything as hideous as a murder happened in Clarksburg, and Tom would be damned to hell if he was going to let something like that happen on his church property.
He reached the front door and kicked it open. The cool night air felt moist against his bare back and chest. He gripped the aluminum bat tightly. The damp grass folded under his frantic steps.
He crossed the lot and reached the church parking lot. His steps instantly grew louder against the less forgiving cement. His shadow stretched the closer he got to the looming streetlight and the corner of the building. He bit down hard on his lip, feeling something wet and warm in his mouth. It tasted of iron. His palms were sweating and his heart was racing with fear as he rounded the corner. A large shadow from the building made it hard for him to see anything. He didn’t need to. He knew they were still there. He could hear them. He stopped dead in his tracks and let his eyes adjust and to keep his presence unknown.
What he heard was ungodly.
Wet sloshing and slurping filled grunts filled Tom with grief. With the bat tight in his grip held above his head, he slowly eased forward to get a better look. A figure came into view amidst the shadows. He had been right. The woman was in danger. A large man was on his knees leaned over her doing God knows what. The woman lay on her back and all Tom could see was her legs and part of her dress.
He muttered a silent prayer while clenching the cross around his neck, and then moved for a clearer view.
It took Tom a second to build up the nerve, but he finally spoke up. “Hey… you,” he said. “What do you… think you’re do… doing?”
The attacker didn’t respond to Tom’s call. Instead, he just kept doing whatever it was that he was doing. Tom felt sick to his stomach. He had never been in a physical confrontation in his entire life. He had no real idea what to do. It was obvious in his voice. He gripped the bat tighter and waved it in the air for the attacker to see.
“Hey now… I… I said…” Tom found his voice. “What in God’s name are you doing to that woman? Answer me!”
In a way, Tom hoped that startling the man into realizing he had been caught would just make him run off for fear of being caught. But that wasn’t what happened at all. The man slowly stood to his feet. Tom instantly regretted putting himself in this situation. He estimated the man had to be twice his weight.
“Now, I’m not looking for t
rouble, Mister.” Tom shoved the bat forward as the man turned around. “You hearing me? You leave right now, we will forget this whole thing. Now go!”
The man didn’t leave. He started toward Tom.
Through the shadows he could see the man’s gruesome features. Tom almost dropped the bat. The man snarled wide eyed with a rancid grimace. His face was covered in blood and as his mouth was opened wide. A large meaty chunk fell from his lips into the grass at his feet. The man rasped an angry warning.
“Hey pal, I don’t want—”
The man lunged toward Tom with hands raised. Tom screamed and swung the bat as hard as he could with his eyes shut. His hands stung as the bat made impact. He opened his eyes back to see that he made contact with the head, knocking him down into the grass. Blood ran down the side of his head, his hair already matted with red gore.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry…” Tom said, but the man began to get up again. “Don’t move!” he shouted.
He didn’t listen. It was almost as if Tom’s sense of primal instinct kicked in. It was like a hedge of angles had taken over guiding his hands to strike again, and again. As much as he would refuse to admit it later, the rush of adrenaline that had filled his being with each strike excited his mortal bones. He felt more alive.
The bat came down a third time and hit him in the head again. Blood splashed into the air as the bat connected with the dying man’s skull. Tom looked down to see that the man’s features were distorted and maimed. He had done a number on this poor man. Tom dropped the bat feeling weak.
He stepped away from the man and braced against the building, trying like hell not to pass out. Tom vomited the milk into the grass and then looked at the dying man again. He no longer moved or breathed.
It wasn’t until the woman abruptly sat up that Tom even remembered that she had been laying there. What he saw made him gasp for breath. One of her eyes was hanging limp from its socket and her bottom lip had been peeled free like an orange skin. Her smile never wavered. As she stood to her feet, he called out. How could someone abuse another human in this way? He looked down at the man he had just killed, and felt totally justified.
Rancid: A Zombie Novel Page 7