by William Bebb
*****
Billy was cooling off and playing in the bathtub, as his grandfather stood in the kitchen and tapped the ceramic thermometer, shaped like a cactus that indicated it was 98 degrees in the shade.
“Why, oh why, Dear Lord, didn't I retire to Alaska?” He grumbled and glanced up at the blazing sun through the window then turned his attention to the truck. The binoculars felt heavy as he yawned and looked for any changes at the laundry building entrance.
Only half a dozen men were still milling around there and most looked like Dead Heads. They were feebly scratching and pushing at the barricaded door.
Over the last few days, the colonel decided the zombies could be divided into two distinct groups; the Dead Heads and The Screamers. Dead Heads were the ones that moved slower and had started to bloat up in the heat over the last few days. He was certain they were truly the undead. They had apparently somehow become infected with something and after death they reanimated. In addition to bloating they seemed to be capable of little more than an occasional grunt and a slow walk that got steadily slower as the days passed.
Pulling his tattered notebook closer, he looked over his observations he'd been making since the first day. Having fought in the war he knew the importance of knowing his enemy and made meticulous notes regarding their numbers, locations, habits, strengths, and weaknesses.
The exact number was unknown, but he estimated that there were no more than eighty. He'd given up trying to keep tabs on their locations after realizing they seemed to have incredibly short attention spans and would wander about aimlessly until something caught their attention then converge on the object of interest.
In many ways they were like school children who were badly in need of some sort of attention deficit disorder medication. In his notes, he theorized that their brains were deteriorating just as rapidly as their bodies. They also tended to stay close to the park entrance and the trailers they used to live in.
The much faster Screamers roamed everywhere and reacted much faster to any commotion or distraction. It could be anything- a wounded bird screeching as it was attacked, a rabbit running for its life, or any loud noise attracted them.
The truly dead zombies would often just stand, sit, or sprawl out in the dirt, unmoving until something happened then they would wander over to see what was going on. They were much harder to tell apart when a Screamer transformed into a Dead Head. It seemed when a Screamer died it came back in a fairly short period of time as an undead, and for the first several hours were almost as fast and relatively smart as they used to be while alive.
The Dead Heads were nowhere near as fast as The Screamers who didn't appear to be dead or undead at all, just murderously violent insane people. Their habits were also far more alarming than the Dead Head zombies. They could run extremely fast, sometimes used objects as tools, and seemed to have some way of communicating. He'd watched as first one and then more of the fast moving zombies would pick up and throw things at the birds or other animals. After knocking them down they would tear them apart and devour them.
Their speed was a major strength, but a close second was their apparent intelligence. He knew they'd never fit in at a cocktail party or a Mensa meeting, yet they weren't very stupid either. The only weakness he could think to write down was, they die permanently without their heads. Which wasn't much to be happy about, the colonel realized, knowing he'd die too if he somehow lost his head.
He nicknamed one of the smallest zombies Stinky. It paced around outside the trailer's fence and sometimes beat and clawed on the backside of the trailer itself, especially if they were too loud inside. Stinky would sometimes try to climb over the fence, usually when Billy said something too loudly or had the music on the transistor radio cranked up too high. He had numerous scrapes and scratches on his arms and blood sometimes flowed from some of the deepest gashes.
The colonel decided that Stinky was most definitely still alive after two days of observing his behavior. Stinky sometimes chewed at a few of the bones belonging to the colonel's beloved dog Gretchen and occasionally managed to kill some of the carrion birds that had been plaguing the park over the last few days. Plus, he'd spotted him drinking muddy stagnant water from the ditch that ran alongside the road. Stinky also would scream and sometimes fight with some of the other people that he once considered neighbors. Finally, there were two other things which convinced him he was still alive. He saw a gleam of intelligence in Stinky's eyes as he would sometimes stare at the trailer that was absent from many of the others. Also his pants were moist in the front occasionally and brown in the posterior constantly as he continued to 'do his business' without the ability or desire to drop his trousers.
He could always smell Stinky at a hundred feet and he was much closer than that as the colonel watched him that morning.
He lit another flower scented candle that his late wife Barbara always had scattered around the trailer. When she lit them she’d say that the aroma of wildflowers made her think of some kind of beautiful exotic gardens. But he knew she only lit them when he was in a farting mood which invariably followed after he made his infamous Inferno Chili, complete with two whole onions diced and finely minced.
He looked over at her picture resting on top of the darkened television console. She was still in her early twenties, sitting behind the wheel of a 1957 Chevy Bel Air, sipping on a milkshake while waving at the camera. She’d been ten years younger than he was when the picture had been taken and she always loved being with him. They went to parties, danced, and would see a new movie every week. Together in the darkness, they'd hold hands with an occasional make out session, but never when it was a horror movie. She loved all the scary movies and never missed a second of the action. That's why he always tried to take her to see westerns or comedies- anything but horror movies.
Of course, they saw them all anyway because she always loved being scared and hugging tightly to his arm in the darkened theater. Whether it was a very young Steve McQueen in The Blob or just a really badly made film where the aliens could be seen to have zippers on the backs of their costumes she loved them all; well... almost all of them.
He remembered watching movies on TV over the years while they were snuggled together in bed. None scared her as much as George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. She had nightmares for a few days after they had watched it and he inevitably had to swear to her zombies never had and never would exist when she'd wake up screaming.
He smiled as he rubbed the faded car located just above his left eyebrow and remembered exactly how intensely and violently she'd been scared by that movie.
It was a few days before Halloween 1973. Decorations were hung and set up all over the trailer park. There were pumpkins, fake gravestones, a couple of trailers made up to look like haunted houses with scarecrows and all kinds of spooky yet fun things in the yards. It was late afternoon and the sun had already set when he spotted Barbara kneeling by one of her flower beds doing some gardening. On a spur of the moment, he decided to give her a good scare since it was almost Halloween.
Unfortunately, as a result of that particular funny prank she wouldn't speak to him for a week and had nearly poked his left eye out. He sneaked up behind her and said in his deepest voice, “They're coming to get you, Barbara,” and grabbed her shoulders.
Actually, the prank was somewhat successful.
She let out a window rattling scream which had neighbors hurrying over to see what had happened. But he hadn't counted on her swinging around with a metal gardening trowel in her clenched hand.
When the neighbors ran over to investigate her scream they found him, groaning on the ground, holding his bleeding forehead which required twelve stitches to sew up.
He shook his head and was grateful she wasn't alive to go through this living nightmare. “I miss you, honey, but I'm glad you’re not here for this mess,” he muttered while gazing at her photograph.
Stinky had been staring directly at him and grunted loudly whi
le yanking violently on the chain link fence as if he'd heard him.
The old man ignored Stinky and tried counting the creatures again. It was hard to keep count because they moved around so much, and as racist as he knew it seemed many of them looked alike- especially now that they seemed to be zombies. After counting silently, carefully trying not to count them more than once, he lit a cigarette and estimated maybe seventy more or less undead monsters were wandering around outside. Looking at his estimate from yesterday in the notebook, where he had counted seventy-five, he wondered if the truck driver managed to kill some of them.
He puffed on the cigarette then coughed and wheezed for breath. Holding the burning cancer stick up, he watched the bright red glow at its tip burn into ashes.
Josey heard the coughing coming from the trailer inside the fence and caught a brief glimpse of smoke drifting from a window.
So, not only is someone alive in there but they have cigarettes too!
Smiling, he clicked his tongue at the dog that was still hiding behind the basement door. “Come on Boris, they got smokes over there.”
The dog looked up at him doubtfully.
Josey started up the steps then reconsidered. Looking at the doorway leading below, he tried to think of a way to secure the door in case the basement was needed later. It would be very bad to run down there thinking he was safe when in reality a nasty surprise was waiting for him. He looked at the metal railing on the side of the concrete steps and the padlock hinge on the door. While he didn't have anything to secure the padlock hinge with he did have some salvaged clothesline.
After pulling it out of the toolbox, within a minute he'd tied one end of it to the padlock hinge and the other to the railing post and then checked it to make sure it was secure.
That will have to do.
He glanced around again to see if it was it was safe to make a fast walk over to the trailer.
There was a very short man wandering around by the chain link fence and another one between the trailer and the laundry building and his truck. He stared back at his truck shining in the midday sunlight. It looked beautiful (well, as beautiful as a septic tank draining truck could look.) Unfortunately, there were just way too many zombies around it. Plus, it was also in the opposite direction from the old man’s trailer.
He breathed deep several times and tried to psyche himself up. Holding the long crowbar bar in his right hand and his toolbox and still lit lantern in the other he whistled softly for Boris to follow and limped slowly toward the trailer.
Billy had just gotten out of the bath and was squeezing toothpaste onto his toothbrush while making a soft squealing noise that his mom often wondered about. He began brushing but stopped when he looked in the bathroom mirror and saw a big man, through the window, limping toward the trailer. At first he thought it was just another bad guy, but he was carrying stuff and much bigger than any of the other men, maybe over six foot tall. And then he saw him turn and a dog came trotting after him.
He ran out of the bathroom shouting, with streams of toothpaste flowing out of his mouth and down his chin, “Grandpa! Look there's someone outside! Look! Look!” The boy yelled while running into the living room wearing only his underwear and a toothpaste splattered T-shirt with a picture of a monster truck on it.
The old man turned to look out the window with the binoculars trembling in his hands.
“Is it the police? Is he here to save us? Does he have a gun to shoot the bad guys? Can we go n-,” Billy asked in a rapid-fire style excited way while pulling hard at his grandfather's elbow making the old man shout something he would never say under normal circumstances to anyone, let alone to his own grandson. “Shut the fuck up and let go of my arm! And go sit down! Now!”
Billy shrank away looking up at him as if he were a stranger, and giant tears filled his eyes almost as soon as the last word was shouted.
The old man's nerves had been raw for nearly seventy-two hours, and he felt horrible for what he said to the boy who was running back to his room crying and heartbroken. He wanted to go after his grandson, but couldn't simply leave the stranger to come up and have no one here to meet him. Grabbing his cane, he stood up and felt his tired old heart racing. There was a slight pain in his chest as he made his way to the front door. Breathing hard, he moved the chair that was propped under the doorknob. He leaned against the wall by the door and unlocked the deadbolt with his trembling hand.
The short one was still watching the trailer, but the other man apparently had heard Josey whistle for Boris and was quickly galumphing toward him. It was someone that Josey hadn't seen before, wearing blue jean overalls and no shirt. His face was expressionless except where his teeth were already opening and closing and his hands were reaching out in an almost comical way, as if he were a redneck sleepwalker. Flies buzzed around his head like a hideous halo, and there were big sections of his muscular arms that had been ripped or bitten free of skin.
When he got closer, Josey threw the kerosene lantern at him hoping to set the man on fire. It hit him, bounced off, and rolled in the dust.
“Damn it, that would have worked in a movie,” Josey grumbled, setting down his toolbox and gripping his crowbar in both hands, waiting for him to come close enough for him to knock his ugly head off.
The man galumphed faster and closed the distance as the dog growled deep in its throat before springing forward barking ferociously. Boris leaped the last few feet toward the man, knocking him over spread eagle to the ground. When he hit the earth a small cloud of dust billowed up around his body. Boris growled and barked while leaping about him, as the man tried to stand.
While he was distracted by the dog, Josey swung the crowbar like a golf club. The metal tip shattered the man’s head. Josey did a quick victory dance, holding the crowbar up over his head. He then retrieved his toolbox, as a small part of his mind recoiled in disgust at what he'd just done. But for the most part he felt great. In fact, he felt more alive than ever before.
He noticed several men were starting to head toward them from near the truck- undoubtedly attracted by the barking and all the activity. There were more than Josey expected, and some of them were screaming and moving much faster than he thought possible- almost running.
CRAP! I thought the fast ones had all chased after the damn rabbit.
The brief feeling of exhilaration abandoned him as he limped away from them faster.
In the distance the door to the trailer opened and he saw an old man in the doorway waving for him to hurry forward.
The short man by the trailer turned, howled, and sprinted at Josey. As he started to run, his pants (which held three days of accumulated human waste) slid slowly down his legs. His speed dropped significantly as the heavily soiled pants slid past his knees, but he didn't stop his charge until the clothing dropped down around his ankles. Then only a few feet from Josey, Stinky lost any semblance of balance tumbled into the dirt grunted and started tearing at his filthy pants.
Under other circumstances such a sight would have probably made Josey laugh, but the screams the smelly man made were being answered by a chorus of other howling cries back where his truck was. He glanced back at the cellar steps and wished he'd stayed put.
As the short one was shredding and tearing at his pants, Josey quickly decided not to see how long it would take for him to finish his extremely unappealing striptease and detoured around him as he struggled to free himself.
Twenty feet from the fence the old man shouted, “Get down!” while pointing a gun at Josey.
Some people might have hesitated or looked behind to see what was back there, but the old man’s voice was powerful and commanding as it at least temporarily overrode the howling screams which seemed much closer. Hoping his knee wouldn't mutiny, Josey dived down onto the dirt road.
Three loud gunshots rang out, momentarily silencing the screamers.
Clutching his crowbar, he rolled onto his back and saw two men fall right behind him in the dust.
&
nbsp; “Run damn it! I'm out of bullets!” the old man yelled.
Josey used the crowbar to help him stand up and felt his knee trembling as he tried to limp faster. A sense of dizziness began to overcome him and breathing harder in huge gasps, he staggered along the fence surrounding the trailer's front yard.
“Look out! Stinky's coming back!” the old man shouted.
Josey turned and there was the short man running toward him, naked except for a mostly shredded blood splattered dirty gray shirt.
It's amazing what the human mind will think of when confronted by a running, nearly naked, screaming, homicidal maniac sporting a noticeable flapping erection.
In Josey's case, he had to bite his tongue to keep from singing out loud the song that was playing in his head; the classic Ray Stevens’ song The Streak.
As he much too rapidly closed the distance, Josey noticed that Stinky had a rat-like face, a long nose and teeth that seemed unnaturally large and pointed. Since Boris was busy barking at the other group of men approaching from behind, he set the crowbar aside his chest hoping Stinky would impale his body against the tip. Watching Boris from the corner of his eye, he saw the dog was getting several of the others to chase him around in a circle by barking and leaping around excitedly. But two of them ignored or just weren’t interested in the dog and were quickly moving up on Josey's left side.
The short rat faced man leaped forward screaming and the crowbar tip missed its target area.
He’d been aiming for the rat-faced man's stomach, but instead it hit very painfully low. The scream changed to a different and very high pitch as blood poured out of his badly torn crotch, before he fell over on his side holding himself and grunting in misery.
Josey saw the little man was of no immediate danger and turned back for the trailer only to see the two other men were within striking distance. He didn't hesitate and rammed the crowbar into the closest one's face as hard as he could. Broken discolored chips of teeth rained down on the dusty ground as the man stumbled around. He was badly unbalanced by the long crowbar imbedded deep in the back of his throat with almost three feet of heavy metal hanging out of his heavily bleeding mouth.
As the first man stumbled around, Josey swung his toolbox like a club at the second man. There was a loud clang as it slammed into his head.
The designers at Craftsman undoubtedly had not designed the toolbox as a blunt object to be used in a battle against the undead, so the fact that the latches sprang open and everything inside fell out can probably be forgiven.
While not crushed, his head was badly dented and a blob of bright red blood oozed out of an ear and also coated the open toolbox where he'd hit him.
The bloody ear man seemed dazed for a moment, then staggered and fell into the road, tripping the one stumbling around with the crowbar impaled in the back of his throat. The man with the crowbar finally lost the battle for balance and fell face first down, ramming the crowbar almost completely through his head.
Josey bent down and pulled the crowbar out of the man's shattered skull as his injured knee trembled more with each passing moment. Everything around him seemed to become blurry and spun wildly. He felt near exhaustion as he tried to catch his breath.
Boris yelped and ran toward Josey while being chased by a couple dozen of the nastiest looking men, undead or alive, Josey had ever seen.
Feeling as if this was the longest walk of his life, he limped backward to the trailer calling out, “Boris, come on boy! Fun times ov- Argggh!” Josey screamed, feeling fingers pulling down on his bandaged knee and hopped on his uninjured leg as Stinky held onto his battle-scarred one. He struggled to keep his balance as he whacked the rat-faced man with the crowbar to get away.
Stinky once more fell to the ground.
Josey saw a man in a filthy and blood stained Obama/Biden '08 T-shirt with the word “Hope” printed on it, running impossibly fast at him while screaming.
He threw the empty toolbox at him and tried to hobble back along the fence to the gate. He was just opening the gate when he felt fingers clawing at one of his leather boots. He didn't need to look down to know the short stinky one was still around.
He was biting and chewing on his boot while holding it firmly in both hands; like a squirrel gnawing on a succulent nut. The other one didn't seem fazed by the toolbox and was only seconds away.
His body trembled harder as he felt more tired than at any time in his life. With his knee shuddering and sending urgent messages of intense agony, he leaned back against the gate in the fence and swung the crowbar weakly.
The undead Obama supporter only stumbled back a step when it hit him but did not fall.
With his crowbar free, Josey stabbed down at the smelly man on the ground and felt it crushing into the short man’s head. Stinky had been grunting as he chewed and clawed at his boot, but as the tip of the crowbar rammed its way into his skull, the rat-faced man said in perfectly understandable English, “Uh oh.”
Josey felt stunned and sick to his stomach by the combination of the heat, the cracking wet squelching noises of the crowbar entering the short stinky man's skull, and the near exhaustion from all the fighting. The chewing and clawing on his boot stopped, but the spasm in him felt stronger. Oh, no, not now, Josey thought a moment before he began to vomit while pulling the crowbar out of Stinky's smashed open skull.
The vomit shot out of his mouth like a garden hose, and a foul spray coated the man he'd hit with the crowbar moments earlier. He never believed you could throw up and laugh at the same time until that moment. The situation was far from funny, but Josey couldn't help laughing as the spray of vomit made up mostly of water and a few last remnants of his breakfast soaked the man’s hair, face, and presidential campaign shirt.
The madman had the strangest expression on his bloody face. It was almost like shock, confusion, and maybe a touch of disgust, but Josey wouldn't swear to the disgust part. Things were happening too fast for him be sure.
The Obama supporter moved forward dripping foulness and grunting louder.
Josey spun to meet him and felt his knee spasm again. It didn't 'pop' out of joint but hurt plenty. Screaming and falling back against the fence next to the gate, he weakly held the crowbar up at the fast approaching madman. In pain and near exhaustion he said a quick prayer. It was definitely not a proper prayer, as defined by most church denominations, but was heartfelt. God? A little help!?
Boris may have never been the answer to a prayer before. But just as the vomit covered zombie knocked the crowbar aside the dog leaped at full gallop and sent the Obama supporter rolling sideways and away from the nearly helpless Josey.
Fighting against the pain, he managed to grip his crowbar and crawl away from the zombie that Boris had just toppled and made his way as fast as possible through the gate in the chain link fence.
The dog continued to distract most of the enraged men by barking and running back and forth through their midst.
The zombie he'd just fought with, that Boris knocked over, was up and moving toward Josey yet again.
Josey stood shakily by the gate and whistled weakly for Boris. But the undead were much too close to leave the gate open. He slammed it shut and swung the crowbar at the one still dripping from his vomit on the other side of the fence.
He heard a yelp and then saw a blur of fur as Boris easily leaped over the fence. The dog turned around to bark ferociously at the assembled crowd of undead and infected men.
Several more zombies surrounded and leaned over the fence. They apparently were unable to figure out how to climb over it or lift the gate latch.
Leaning heavily on the crowbar, Josey staggered toward the open door of the trailer. He saw an old man and a cute kid standing in the doorway, as he slowly limped up the steps and smiled weakly at them.
The kid was petting Boris and asked the old man, “Can we keep him, grandpa?”