“Maybe even some real food that doesn’t come from a can.” Teddy waved a finger in the air as an idea struck him. “I bet we can find a butane camp stove at one of those outdoor stores.”
“I bet so,” Ein agreed. “Maybe… we can even find a car that works.”
Teddy slapped him on the back. “I like the way you think, but right now, I’d be happy to kick my aching feet up, eat some pancakes, and drink a nice cold beer.”
Ein quickened his pace and got ahead of Teddy, smiling. He waved him on. “Well then hurry up, old man—we got five more miles between us and some pancakes!”
Teddy laughed and followed after him. He forgot about his hunger as the pain in his feet subsided, and his stiff joints loosened. He brought his knapsack over his shoulder and hurried down the middle of US 70.
Whatever friction had formed between the two men had dissipated—at least temporally.
CHAPTER 2
The five-mile hike to Dickson took over two hours to complete as the highway suddenly became clogged with stalled vehicles and crashes. Rotting corpses sat behind the steering wheels. Suitcases full of personal possessions were piled high in backseats and strapped to roofs. Pick-ups, rusty sedans, and even a few John Deer tractors stood parked bumper-to-bumper—it was as if every rural resident had decided to pack up and head east at the same time in their final, terminal stages of the flu.
Teddy and Ein maneuvered through the congestion and around the blackened remnants of a jackknifed Wal-Mart semi-truck that had eight cars crumpled against it.
On the other side of the bottleneck, two Tennessee Highway Patrol cruisers blocked off the highway heading into downtown Dickson. Skeletal ghouls wearing nickel grey trooper uniforms sat slumped against the police cruisers and lay sprawled on the pavement with their Remington shotguns by their sides.
Past the police blockade, small two-story brick and plaster storefronts lined both sides of US 70. The store windows were shattered, and most had their doors smashed in. A faded, tattered banner strung overhead between two streetlamps read: Dickson Welcomes You! 10th Annual Country Music Fest—October 20th thru 25th.
Teddy walked down the middle of the road, stared at the dead troopers, and frowned as he looked over at Ein. “What do you think, kid?”
“What do I think?” Ein stared at eerily vacant stretch of road that cuts through downtown and then all of the empty parking spots which were marked by old fashioned coin meters. “I don’t think we’ll be getting a working car anytime soon—that’s what I think.”
“Yeah, you may have to measure down those expectations until we get closer to Nashville,” Teddy said. “Come on… Let’s see what the looters left behind. At the very least, I reckon we can find a decent place to lay our heads for the night.”
They walked around the barricade and wandered down the street, staring at the shattered storefronts. The town looked like a throwback to the 1950s with its soda shops, small cafes, and even an old two-screen movie theater. Boxes of dropped sundries and bags of clothes lay strewn along the sidewalks along with shards of glass and mangled corpses.
Teddy saw sunlight glistening off of many brass casings scattered on the ground—it occurred to him that most of the dead that were hanging out of the storefronts and laying on the sidewalks weren’t flu victims at all.
“What do you think happened here?” Ein asked. He stared uneasily at a smiling ghoul that dangled from a rope from the cinema’s marquee.
“I imagine the same thing that happened to most of the other towns…” Teddy shook his head. “Law and order collapsed, folks kept dying, and everyone panicked… You already know how this shit goes.”
“Yeah, but I thought it’d be different out here. It looks like what I saw back in Arizona.”
“Why would it be different?” Teddy asked. “Did you think that things would be more civil in a small town?”
“Yeah, I did,” Ein admitted.
Teddy chuckled humorously. “Kid, people will always be people—regardless of the population size.”
“But… there’s not much to loot here.” Ein pointed at a diner that had its display window shattered, and its tables and chairs flipped. “Why would people kill each other over some apple pie or whatever?”
Teddy shrugged. “It’s a lot easier to fight your neighbor than it is to fight some fucking germ that you can’t even see.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense, and it would make even more sense if you were half out of your mind with fever.”
They passed a small clinic that had a handwritten placard in the window that read: Dr. Allan is out sick—we will reopen Monday. Next to the clinic, there was a flower shop—Marcy’s Blooms—that had been turned into a morgue and was overflowing with stiff corpses wrapped in plastic garbage bags and black tarps.
Teddy stopped in front of a clothing store that had its security grille pried open. “You wanted new threads, right?”
“Yeah, but this isn’t what I had in mind.” Ein looked doubtfully at the cowboy hats and bolo ties on display in the window. “Are you homesick or something?”
“Don’t be a smartass,” Teddy said with a grin. “Beggars can’t be choosers, right?” He walked towards the door. “Besides, ranchers have some of the best gear when it comes to handling winter’s bite—but you city folk wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Now, all of a sudden, you’re Buffalo Bill…” Ein stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed him. “How long ago has it been since you were actually in Texas—60 years ago?”
Teddy laughed and gave him the finger. “Hey, if you want to hold out for a department store, then more power to you. The chances are that they’ve been looted clean by now.”
“A shirt’s a shirt, I guess.” Ein shrugged and followed him into the store.
Aside from the opened cash register and a glass display of silver belt buckles and knives that had been practically picked clean, the rest of the store appeared relatively unscathed. Racks of leather coats, dusters, and flannel shirts lined the aisles. At the back of the store, underneath a stuffed buffalo head with glass eyes, were shelves full of Levi jeans, hats, and boots. There was no stench of death and decay, only the pleasant smell of leather.
Teddy took a deep breath and savored the aroma. “We’ve hit the jackpot, kid.” He immediately went towards a row of jackets. “Buy whatever you want—my treat.” He grinned.
Ein laughed. “I left my wallet at Tucson, so that’s very kind of you.” He walked down one of the aisles and looked at the variety of styles and colors, genuinely impressed.
Fifteen minutes later, Teddy emerged out of one of the changing stalls wearing black snakeskin boots, blue Levis, a plaid shirt, and a leather duster coat that had a sticker price of $1,400. On top of his head, he wore a Stetson cowboy hat. He pulled the tags off of his clothes and admired himself in a nearby wardrobe mirror.
Ein came out of the adjacent stall wearing faded jeans, work boots, a plain shirt, and a wool coat. He saw Teddy carefully tilting and adjusting his cowboy hat in the mirror and burst out laughing.
Teddy turned towards him and held his arms out. “What?”
Ein got himself under control after a few seconds and wiped away his tears. “You look like a walking caricature!” He stared at the beard and started laughing again.
Teddy’s cheeks turned slightly red. He tossed his cowboy hat over his shoulder. “I don’t take fashion advice from a kid who thought purple hair was a good idea.” He hastily stuffed his knapsack with some extra underwear and socks, slung it back over his shoulder, and then started walking away.
“Aw, come on, don’t be mad,” Ein called out after him, still laughing. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but… that hat was just too much!”
“I didn’t like that hat anyway—fuck it,” Teddy said quite unconvincingly. “Let’s go see what else this town has worth taking.” He went towards the door and buttoned his calf-length duster.
Teddy stopped, looked over his shoulder, and narrowed his eyes at him.
“Sorry—sorry.” Ein held up his hands, smiling. “I’ll be good—promise.”
“What the fuck did I get myself into partnering up with this one?” Teddy asked himself as he continued onward and went outside, shaking his head.
Ein followed, snickering.
They walked down the middle of the highway and passed nothing but trinket shops and a grocery store that had long since been cleaned out.
Teddy frowned as he looked around with his hands in his pockets. “It looks like slim pickings.” His knapsack was getting light, and he knew that they needed food and clean water.
“Not seeing much in the way of comfortable beds either,” Ein said with disappointment.
“It wouldn’t be the first time we have had to make do.”
Near the edge of town, they saw a building with a stucco façade and a red, white, and blue sign that read: Jim’s Guns & Ammunition. The front doors had been pulled off its hinges and lay in the road along with brass casings. Splotches of dried blood covered the building’s lower exterior and sidewalk.
“A gun wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Ein said as he pointed at the building.
Teddy nodded. “I don’t know if they’ll have anything left… That would be one of the first places they’d loot.”
“May as well look, right?” Ein headed towards the gun store.
Teddy was troubled by the sight of the blood and casings. “Yeah—just be careful.” He glanced uneasily over his shoulder and followed him. He couldn’t shake the sensation that someone was watching them.
Inside, the building reeked with the sickly-sweet stench of rot—hundreds of flies buzzed in the air. The walls had bullet holes, and at least fifty aerated corpses lay sprawled on the floor and collapsed against the shelves. All of the rifles and shotgun racks were empty, and most of the ammunition was gone. Trays of hunting camouflage, safety gear, and sacks of deer corn sat untouched.
Ein stood in the doorway and pinched his nose in disgust. “This looks like a massacre… Do you think that those troopers did this?”
Teddy stepped inside and stifled a gag. He looked around the room where the bodies lay and shook his head. “No… I guess these folks killed each other just to lay claim to what wasn’t theirs in the first place.” Something was unsettling about the scene—it didn’t feel right.
Ein stared at the empty display racks behind the counter and frowned. “It looks like you were right… The place has been picked clean.”
“I figured that.” Teddy sifted through the shattered glass display cases. “All that's left a couple of useless fucking peashooters. Did you find anything over there?”
Ein stepped over the bloated corpse of a fat man and peered down one of the aisles. “No ammunition and no guns… Just a bunch of gun safes and hunting shit.”
“What about the dead folks?” Teddy asked. The corpses around him were all unarmed and in varying stages of decomposition. Some looked like they had been there for a long time, while others appeared to be much more recent.
Ein looked at the bodies on the floor and shook his head. “Someone must’ve come and collected whatever they dropped—they don’t have anything.”
“It doesn’t make sense for there to be nothing left like this. Hell, I imagined that we’d at least be able to find some revolvers.” Teddy reached up and scratched the back of his neck. “We should go back and check the trooper’s cars. There were a couple of shotguns on the ground, wasn’t there?”
“Yeah, I saw—” Ein fell silent as he heard loud, steady whistling that seemed to come from both sides of the town. “Do you hear that?”
Teddy shushed him and heard the whistles and footsteps rapidly approaching. It was a goddamn trap. “Kid, get ready—they've surrounded us.”
“Surrounded?” Ein asked with concern.
“Yeah, we fell for the okie-doke.” Teddy shook his head. He took the knapsack off of his shoulder and dropped it on the floor to lighten his load; he knew they’d have to make a run for it. “I should’ve known better.”
“Who are they?” Ein whispered.
“Bandits.” Teddy motioned towards the back of the store. “Get to the fire exit.”
“What about the supplies?” Ein pointed at the knapsack.
“Forget it—we can get more. Besides, we didn’t have much left anyway.” Teddy went towards one of the aisles. “Come on!”
They hurried down the middle aisle, glancing over their shoulder. Both stopped at the bullet-riddled fire exit. It was chained shut and had six rotting corpses lying in front of it.
“Goddammit,” Teddy said. He looked around for another door, but of course, there was none—they were trapped.
Ein started to panic and stared worriedly towards the front door. “Now what?!”
“Hide,” Teddy whispered.
They split and took cover behind the aisles’ endcaps.
Teddy looked around for something, anything, to defend himself. Aside from the dead, the floor offered nothing except casings, broken ceiling plaster tiles, and empty cardboard ammunition boxes. Fluorescent lamps dangled out of their fixtures from the badly damaged dropped ceiling overhead.
Ein’s eyes danced side-to-side, and he started to hyperventilate. He balled his shaky hands into fists and pressed his back against the endcap, ready to strike at the first thing that came down the aisle.
Two men with hooded eyes and bushy beards walked through the front door and scanned the store with their hunting rifles. One of the men, tall and lean, wore a faded trucker’s cap. His companion was a short, chubby baldheaded fellow with a cobra tattoo that ran down the front of his throat.
The man wearing the trucker’s cap stepped forward and pointed his rifle down the middle aisle. “You may as well come out—we know that you’re in here.”
“We want whatever supplies you’re carrying,” the tattooed man added as he pointed his rifle down an adjacent aisle. “If you surrender and tell us where your camp is, we’ll let you leave this place alive.”
The two men waited for a few moments, but Teddy and Ein remained silent and hidden.
“Have it your way then,” the man wearing the cap said. He started carefully walking down the middle aisle with his rifle raised and ready.
The tattooed man followed behind him, finger on the trigger.
Teddy looked at Ein and pointed towards the front of the store. He mouthed: Go around—take the rear.
Ein nodded and crept down an adjacent aisle.
Teddy reached up and quietly unscrewed one of the fluorescent tubes out of the hanging fixture.
As soon as the man wearing the cap reached the end of the aisle, Teddy smashed the glass tube across the back of the man’s head. The hat was knocked off of his head, and the tube exploded—a cloud of phosphor went everywhere.
Teddy, coughing, was left holding only a portion of the glass tube. He stared down at the sharpened slivers on the broken tip.
The man, covered in the powder and bits of glass, gasped and panted for breath as blood dribbled from the back of his lacerated head.
Teddy drove what remained of the tube up into the man’s throat and gave the tube a violent twist.
Blood spurted out, and the man’s eyes bulged as he gurgled up red.
“Brian!” the man with the cobra tattoo called out, coughing. He aimed his rifle and squinted as he tried to peer through the phosphorus haze. Just as the fog started to clear, he heard someone running up behind him. He began to turn, but Ein was faster.
Ein wrapped his arms around the man’s throat in a backward chokehold.
The man, caught by surprise, drove the rifle’s stock back against Ein and quickly shook him off.
Ein landed hard on the floor.
The man spun around and faced him. He glowered down at him and aimed his rifle at him. “Little fucking punk!”
&n
bsp; Ein closed his eyes and flinched at the crack of gunfire. When he opened his eyes, he looked up and found the man swaying side-to-side.
The man was staring down at the hole in his chest and watched with terrified wonder as his cotton tee turned a vibrant crimson. He let out a final croak, dropped his rifle, and collapsed next to Ein.
“Are you okay?” Teddy asked as he ejected the spent shell and lowered the rifle. He hurried down the aisle and looked down at Ein. “You did well, kid.”
“Thanks…” Ein scrambled to his feet and nodded. “I’m fine.” He grabbed the rifle off of the floor and studied it briefly. It was a bolt action piece with a five-round magazine. “You?”
“I’ll be doing a lot better once we get out of here,” Teddy said.
Footsteps approached from the street. “Did you get them?” someone asked.
“Let’s go,” Teddy said. “We have maybe eight rounds between us—there’s no way we can hold off an assault.” He hurried back towards the fire exit, pointed his rifle at the cheap lock, and fired.
The lock exploded in a shower of sparks and fell to the floor.
“Do you think the back is clear?” Ein asked as he followed after him.
“We’re dead for sure if we go out the front.” Teddy pulled the chain off of the lever and kicked the door outward.
They stepped outside into the narrow alleyway that ran behind the row of downtown buildings with their rifles ready, but nobody was waiting for them.
Teddy swung the door shut again and overturned a stack of plastic crates and wooden pallets to block off the doorway. “We have to hurry—that won’t hold them off for long.”
They cautiously made their way down the alley and checked behind overflowing dumpsters and pointed their weapons up at the buildings. Every darkened window felt threatening, and suddenly the sleepy town didn’t feel so empty after all.
“I don’t like this,” Ein whispered. “I feel like I’m being watched.”
“I don’t like it either. Let’s get out of this downtown strip and lose those men on the open highway.”
H7N9- The Complete Series Page 57