This Rotten World | Book 2 | Let It Burn

by Morris, Jacy

  When Lou stepped inside the house they had claimed as their base, he noticed the wide-eyed fearful looks of Joan and Clara. "Hey, easy as pie," he said, not sure if that was actually how the saying went.

  His words seem to relax them, and they gathered around marveling over everything that they had found in the other house.

  "Maybe we should check all of these houses," Clara said.

  Joan slapped her on the arm and said, "You're nuts."

  "Why?" Clara looked around the room. "There's not a lot of those things out here. Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to get out of here."

  "Uh-uh," Lou said. "There's not a lot of those things out here now, but when they start running out of food, there's a whole dead city just a few miles down the road. What is it? Like six miles from Portland to here?"

  "About that," Joan said.

  "That's too close for me," Lou said.

  Mort added, "You and me both."

  "Maybe you're right. Did you find any smokes?" Clara asked, ditching the idea of settling down in the burbs.

  Mort and Lou shook their heads.

  "Damn."

  With that, they bedded down in the living room, sticking together, despite the fact that there were other rooms. Privacy, a once prized commodity, was now something that they feared unconsciously. All except for Katie, who got up off the couch every now and then to go to the bathroom and look at her belly in the mirror.

  Chapter 20: After a While, Wild Dogs

  There was a problem. Of course, there always was. In the garage, they had found a nice SUV with half a tank of gas. Their supplies fit in the SUV, but now it wouldn't start. To make matters worse, the garage door wouldn't open.

  Clara shone her flashlight at the garage door, trying to figure out the mess while Lou and Mort tried to remember how to jumpstart a car. Neither of them had ever actually owned a car, and the ideas were something of a mystery. They had found no instructions when they found the jumper cables in the back of the four-door sedan that sat slumbering next to the SUV. Katie claimed to never have done it before, and Joan hadn't either, both of them having relied on the kindness of strangers to do the job for them.

  Clara had always had Courtney there. He would know how to do this in a heartbeat. Courtney had always been mechanically inclined, so much so, that he had never intended to leave his job at a local bike shop, where every day he solved problems like this. He could open the garage in a heartbeat. He could have the SUV running in no time. But now, here they were, three women who had never done the work themselves, and two men who had never had a pot to piss in, let alone a garage door to open or a car to jumpstart.

  Clara's examination of the garage revealed metal rails and a track with a chain wrapped around it. Hanging above the SUV was a metal box, probably the thing that made the chain turn and raise the door. Without electricity, it was worthless. Dangling from the automatic garage door's engine was a red cord. A-ha! Got you, motherfucker!

  "What are you doing?" Joan asked as she climbed on top of the SUV, the metal buckling underneath her weight. She reached for the red handle and pulled on it. There was a clang as the garage-door-opener detached from the track. The clang sounded impossibly loud in the dark garage, only a little bit of light spilling in from the open door that led to the kitchen.

  "I think that did it," she said triumphantly. "See if you can open the garage door."

  Katie and Joan moved to the garage door while Lou and Mort debated what to do with the four, copper, alligator clamps they held in their hands. The women bent down and strained to lift the garage door. It clanged and rattled as it rose upwards along the rails.

  "That's good," Lou said over his shoulder. "Don't want those things knowing we're in here until we got that SUV running.

  "We could always just ride in the car," Mort said.

  Lou smirked. "Why do that when we can ride in style?"

  "Yeah, I don't think anyone wants to be piled in next to me right now, at least not until we can find ourselves a river or something to bathe in. I'd give anything for a hot shower," Katie lamented.

  "Besides," Lou said. "I ate that can of beans for breakfast this morning."

  The group groaned as Mort and Lou held the jumper cables far out in front of them, as if they were capable of shocking them on their own.

  Clara yearned for the days when she could just pull out her cell phone and look up directions on how to jumpstart cars. They all did their fair share of lamenting the loss of the old days, but Clara found that she did less and less of that as the days wore on, and they and the world settled into the new reality, but now was definitely one of those times.

  Katie popped the hood of the SUV and the sedan. That's one thing that she could do. She even said she could change the oil if they gave her a new filter and quart of 5W-30. Clara didn't think that would be necessary. How far would they get in the damn thing? A mile or two before they had to leave the vehicle on the side of the road?

  Joan and Clara stood off to the side as they watched Mort and Lou figure out what to do. "I think we need to start the first car," she said, remembering the time that she and Courtney had found themselves stranded at the drive-in during a double feature of Toy Story 3 and Grown Ups. They had gone simply for the pleasure of saying that they had gone to the drive-in. Clara had felt no nostalgia, but Courtney had loved every single minute of it. The only thing that Clara liked about the experience was that she could smoke and smuggle in a flask. As the credits rolled for Grown Ups, Courtney had tried to start their rundown Honda Civic, resulting in only a choked sigh from the vehicle.

  Quickly, before all of the other patrons left, he had started rushing around and asking people for a jump. It was mostly an older crowd with grandkids in tow, so it didn't take too long before Courtney found a nice set of grandparents who were willing to help them out. She remembered sitting in the car, waiting for Courtney to give the signal to start her own car. She wished she had gotten out of the vehicle to see how he had hooked up the jumper cables, but she hadn't. Now they were simply guessing in the dark... literally.

  Katie climbed in the sedan, and fired up the engine.

  "Let's do this quick," Joan yelled. "It doesn't take long to get carbon monoxide poisoning in a closed garage."

  "You got it," Mort said as he clamped the jumper cables to the SUV's battery. Lou did the same on his side. Joan climbed inside the SUV and tried to start it. There was no noise from the vehicle.

  Clara smelled smoke and was about to say something when flames erupted underneath the hood of the sedan.

  "Shit! Get out!" Clara yelled. She ran to the back of the garage and attempted to lift the garage door on her own. She moved it, but only barely. As the door rose up the flames in the vehicles reached higher and higher. Visions of exploding car parts filled her mind, and she threw the garage door up as quick as she could.

  Bright sunlight blinded her for a second, and then she was staring down the business end of a hunting rifle in the hands of a gnarled old man with white hair and an "I mean business" snarl on his face.

  "Put your fucking hands up, missy!" he yelled, gesturing with the rifle.

  The others came boiling out of the garage, coughing up inky black smoke and stumbling out of the garage to skid to a halt in the driveway of the ranch style home. Behind them the flames got larger.

  "All of you, put your hands in the air! You're not stealing anything on my watch," the old man continued.

  Clara risked a look over her shoulder and saw that the flames had reached the wooden shelving of the garage. She also noticed the nice assortment of paint cans stacked on those shelves. If the cars didn't explode, those paint cans likely would. Either way, she didn't want to be standing around when the entire house went up in flames. She certainly didn't want to be around when the dead noticed the flames.

  "Can we move away from the house, please?" she asked.

  The old man looked at her, his knotty fingers tensing on the trigger. He gestured with his rifle across the
street and said, "Get your asses over there."

  They walked across the cul-de-sac and watched as all their supplies burned up. The cars never did explode, but some of the paint cans did, echoing loudly in the morning air.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. It was the only word that Clara could think of as they watched all of their supplies go up in flames.

  "Goddamn, thieves," the old man said, "comin' into my neighborhood and fucking things up. Where are the Gradys? What did you do with them?"

  "The who?" Mort asked.

  "The people that own that house. Are they still in there?"

  "They're dead," Clara said.

  "You kill 'em?" the old man asked her.

  "Of course not..." Lou began before the old man turned his gun on him.

  "Wadn't talkin' to you. I was talkin' to her. You shut yer mouth." He turned the rifle back at Clara. "Well, did ya?"

  "We didn't kill them. They were already dead."

  "And what about that O'Malley fella over there?" The old man pointed to the ranch house that Mort and Lou had pillaged.

  "He was dead, too," Mort said.

  The old man pointed the rifle at Mort and said, "The next one of you motherfuckers that talks out of turn is going to be on the ground, tryin' to plug your fingers in a bullet hole." He pointed the gun at Clara again. "Answer me."

  Clara was getting annoyed by the old man's antics. Her shock and fear were wearing off, replaced by anger at the old man. "He already answered you, you old shit."

  The old man was silent for a second, and then he broke into a yellow-toothed smile. "Old shit," he laughed. "I like that." He took one hand off the rifle and reached into the pocket of his yellowed t-shirt to snake out a soft pack of cigarettes, he flicked his wrist upward to expose a cigarette, and used his lips to draw it out. He put the pack of cigarettes back in his shirt pocket and pulled a lighter from the front pocket of his jeans. He lit the cigarette and left it hanging in his lips as he put his hand back on the rifle.

  "That your jalopy over there?"

  Clara nodded her head.

  "Well, why don't you young shits get your asses in there and get the fuck out of here before more of those things get here."

  They didn't know what to do at first, and then he laughed again. "Go on, get," he yelled, that queer smile still plastered to his face, smoke billowing up from the lit cigarette in his mouth. Clara and the others turned to walk to the car. She waited with anticipation for the crack of the old man's rifle, but it never came. When she reached the beat-up brown car, she pulled the door open and slid in. The others piled in after her, and she wound up sitting between Joan and Mort. The old man stood at the end of the cul-de-sac, still smiling.

  Clara looked over her shoulder, to see some of the dead stumbling into the streets. Where had they been? Had they been hiding? No, she didn't think they were capable of that. Katie tried to start the car, but the car wouldn't start.

  "I fucking knew it," Katie said, "just like one of those goddamned horror movies." She cranked the key again, but there was nothing, not even the sick whine of the engine trying to turn over. They closed the car doors, though it was hot in the car. Clara jumped as the first of the dead banged on the trunk.

  "What is that old bastard waiting for?" Lou said.

  "Maybe he's just crazy," Mort said.

  "More like he wants to watch us get killed," Katie said, trying the ignition for the fifth time. "It's no good; this thing is fucking dead, just like us."

  Clara turned and looked at the old man, swearing at him in her mind while racking her brain to try and figure out any way to get out of the situation. Black smoke billowed into the sky now, a dinner bell for the dead. How many of them were on their way right now to investigate the cause of the smoke? Where there was smoke there was fire... where there was fire, there were humans... where there were humans, there was food. If the dead could think, that's exactly what she imagined was going through their brains.

  The old man raised his rifle to his cheek, and then he fired a shot. Clara jumped in the car. Joan screamed.

  "Is everyone ok?" Lou asked.

  They were all fine. A half-beat later, one of the dead slid face-first down Clara's window, blood smearing across the glass from a bullet hole in the creature's forehead.

  "What the fuck is with that man?" Joan asked.

  Behind the old man, Clara saw something, a hint of movement from the shrubs that ran along the side of the bloodstained house. At first she mistook it for one of the dead, but then the shape appeared, coalescing into the black and white hide of a medium-sized dog. It looked curious, playful. But then another dog appeared next to it, and then another, larger, pitch-black. Its pointed teeth gleamed as it snarled at the old man.

  The old man didn't notice them, and as Clara tried to signal the old man, the pitch-black leader of the pack broke into a run, his jaws clamping down on the forearm of the old man. The other dogs weren't far behind, and the old man was on the ground, his body being shaken like a toy in the maws of the dogs.

  The car shook now with the pounding fists of the dead. Clara watched as the old man was torn apart. It was a sobering reminder that there were still things out there that were more dangerous than a handful of the dead. On the pecking order of the post-apocalyptic food chain, old man with rifle beat five people not paying attention, and pack of wild dogs beat old man with rifle.

  One of the dead pressed upon the glass window until it shattered. Rotting flesh split and shredded against the jagged edges of the glass, but that didn't stop the creature from reaching inside with cold hands to paw at her hair. She should just chop it all off she thought as she slapped the hands away.

  "It's time to go!" she yelled as another window in the car broke.

  "Let's make a break for that old man's house!" Lou yelled, as he too fought off the hands of the dead.

  "Straight into that pack of Cujos? Why the hell not? It beats being eaten alive in a broken down car," Clara said.

  Clara, without waiting for the others, pulled the door handle and pushed with all of her might. The dead man, toppled over staining his already ruined Ed Hardy t-shirt. Clara slid out as quick as she could, high-stepping over the tangled limbs of the dead man on the ground. She turned around as Joan slid out after her. Then they sprinted across the cul-de-sac, leaving the dead behind them. The dogs, seeing a group of humans running at them, sprinted off into the smoke-filled day, some with pieces of the old man still in their mouths.

  Clara dropped down to pick up the old man's rifle, and as she did, she shrank back in horror as the old man, intestines spread out on the concrete, sat up and waved his stump in her direction. His eyes, empty of all expression told her everything that she needed to know.

  She squatted down, out of range of the old man's arms, and snaked the rifle away. The old man tried to get to his feet, but he didn't have any. The dogs had taken those as well.

  Clara looked at the rifle, pointed it at the man, and pulled the trigger. There was a click. Crazy old bastard, she thought. The gun was empty. She let it clatter to the ground.

  "Come on!" Joan yelled, as she threw open the door to the house, ignoring the bloody handprints on the screen door. Clara hefted the rifle in her hands and stepped into the darkened interior of the old man's house. Immediately, she wished that the rifle actually had some bullets in it.

  In the darkness, underneath the moans of the dead, and the distant barking of the wild mongrels trumpeting their kill, Clara could hear the stretch and creak of rope as shadowy figures strained in the dark. The other survivors stood in the living room, looks of shock on their faces. Clara circled around, letting her eyes adjust.

  She saw them, an older woman and a couple of children, one boy and one girl, tied up with coarse rope to wooden chairs at the dining room table. They had been tied up for some time, and the rope that held their arms down had shredded away the flesh, leaving gaping wounds in their gray, mottled skin. Their teeth clacked in the gloom of the dining room, orange light
pouring in through smoke-tarnished drapes.

  Beer cans were piled up in a paper bag to the left of the one empty seat at the table. An ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts.

  "What the hell is this?" Mort asked.

  "It looks like he was just keeping them here," Clara said, wondering in her mind if she would have done the same with Courtney. At the beginning maybe she would have, but knowing what she knew now, she couldn't believe that anyone would go through with it. How could the old man stand the smell, the stench of the dead clawing up his nose? How could he sleep with the dead gnashing their teeth just a few feet down the hallway? But most of all, why wouldn't he give them peace? Maybe he was too weak. Maybe he had used up all of his ammo.

  "I'm not staying here with those things," Joan said.

  "Then let's fix the problem," Lou stalked into the kitchen and pulled a butcher knife free from the knife block. He walked into the living room, and without pausing, stepped up to the old lady. He raised the knife over his head and brought it downwards. The blade skittered off the old woman's skull, splitting the flesh but leaving the bone intact.

  "Goddammit!" Lou said.

  This time, he brought the knife around to the front and plunged it deep into the old woman's eye. Her body spasmed and went still. Lou tried to pull the knife free, but it was lodged too deep into the old woman's skull.

  There was banging on the screen door as the dead outside accumulated like drifts of snow piling up against a building in the middle of a snowstorm. Lou gave up on the butcher knife, and walked into the kitchen to grab a small, more delicate knife. With a paring knife in his hand, he approached the first of the children.

  His hand flattened the curly blond hair of a little girl. He steadied her head this way as he drove the paring knife through her eye socket. There was an audible crunch, followed by another spasm, and then she too was still. The little boy came next. His freckled face sneered up at Lou as he wiped the blade on the shirt of the little girl. Then his sneer was gone, replaced by a rivulet of blood running from his eye socket to his cheek.