The Hobo King pulled the hood from his head so his face was exposed.
“Do you know me?” he screamed.
Silence answered.
He took another step closer to the church and put his foot on the first step. He looked up Crystal Avenue to the sidewalks he used to ride his bicycle on when he was a kid. He touched the railing and remembered the time he had been here at this very place at night. His eyes closed and his head fell to side as the memory struck him like a fist.
Heather.
He remembered her. She had invited him. To this place. Where the children – just preteens – gathered in the basement with the man in his early twenties. The basement was finished. It was lit with fluorescent lights but the rest of the church was quiet and dark. Music played on a cassette tape of Christian music. The other kids moved around him like ghosts. He couldn’t make out their faces only shapes. The one adult loomed at the head of the group like the shepherd he wanted to pretend to be.
“You remember me.” The Hobo King took another step and felt the lost memory more vivid. How the shepherd had warned him of his evilness and guile. That the Hobo King was not worthy to be among God’s children. But what he meant was that the Hobo King was not welcome around Heather because the shepherd wanted Heather for himself.
“What’s my name?” he asked as he struck himself in the head, slapping his forehead as if he could just knock the memory to the forefront of his mind.
There was a loud noise of something dropping on the other side of the door and metal grinding on metal. The door knob turned and a man in priest garbs came forward. His flock armed behind him.
“Son,” the man said, “let me help you.”
“Help me,” the Hobo King fell to his knees in front of the minister. “Do you know my name?”
“No, son, I do not. But God does and He welcomes all into His house.” The minister leaned down so that he could look the Hobo King in the face. “Walk away from this evil and vile and come with me into God’s house.”
The Hobo King’s hand snatched up and grabbed the minister by his clergy collar and pulled him close. Guns were loaded and leveled in front of him and pointed at his horde. Adam and Christine had moved forward but the Hobo King had aimed his staff at them and they halted. Adam’s feet were scratching at the ground as he pushed at the pavement wanting to break free and rush the living.
“Evil and vile.” The Hobo King looked into the minister’s eyes through the string of black hair that fell across his face and smiled behind the thick dark black beard. He truly must have looked like the devil himself standing there on the footsteps of St. Luke’s with his family of undead. “Years ago you said the same thing to me in the basement of this abortion you call gods house.”
“What are you talking about?” the minister asked as the Hobo King squeezed the collar tighter.
“She was the only one that paid any attention to me. That showed me any kindness and you wanted that for yourself.”
“Who?” the minister asked as the Hobo King rose to his feet gripping the clergy collar so tight that oxygen was being cut off to the minister’s brain and his skin was turning from red to a shade of blue.
“Heather,” he whispered. “Because you wanted to sin you told a small boy all the dirty and nasty things that your Christians thought about him. You never wanted to bring me into your flock. You wanted me to exiled.”
“Son, please. That wasn’t me.”
The Hobo King took another step pushing the minister up the stairs toward his congregation.
“You wear the Christian garbs. You stand with your flock. You judge us.”
“No, please.”
“You judged me now I judge you and find you a sinner, preacher man.” The Hobo King kissed the minister. He forced the man’s mouth open and pressed his tongue against the minister. For a moment he thought the man might have started to kiss him back but the change had already fallen upon him. Grasped in the Hobo King’s grip he watched as the minister’s eyes washed from white and brown to a solid black and his veins became a sketch of black roadways across his skin.
The Hobo King whispered into the minister’s face, “Now it is I, not a god, that commands you. Turn to your flock, preacher man, and grow my army.”
A phlegm filled noise came from the minister as the Hobo King released his grip and let the man go. The minister turned and the gasps came in a chorus when the flock saw their shepherd. He coughed as his feet scratched the ground with his unsteady steps. That hacking cough a person has in the early days of New England spring when the allergies start to reemerge. The minister stalked toward the flock ignoring their pleas and cries.
When the first gun was fired and it struck the minister in his heart and his body jerked as black blood oozed out of him, the Hobo King turned to his creations Adam and Christine.
“Leave no one alive. We will cleanse this town.”
Adam lunged up the stairs and past the minister that was now his brother and grabbed a elderly woman wearing a natural tone dress made for Sunday worship, and dug his fingers into her throat and tore it out. There would be time to feed after the slaughter but first they needed to kill. Adam screeched and Christine bounded inside the church and fell on a small boy as her naked body held him down and her teeth sank into his stomach and began to tear out his guts. There were more cries for help and gun shots going off but the horde had descended on the church and was tearing them into an unsolvable jigsaw of carnage and death.
One man tried to escape and the Hobo King swung his scepter splitting the man’s skull wide open so he could see the brain inside. A group of zombies fell on the man with his brain already exposed and tore the rest of his head away as they devoured the meat inside the like shucking a lobster.
The Hobo King walked between the pews that were shattered or knocked over, bodies hung on them like drying clothes or splayed out on the floor as they were torn open and feasted on. He walked up the nave to the altar, the carnage behind him and the screams playing like a soundtrack for his life.
“Where are you oh great and powerful god?” the Hobo King genuinely asked as if he expected God to smite him as he entered the church.
“What am I?”
God did not answer the Hobo King even though he expected Him to. The world had changed and the rules were thrown out the window. Why couldn’t God answer him?
Pissed of his denial for answers the Hobo King screamed out to Adam and Christine “That one! Bring him to me.”
The zombies did as they were ordered and grabbed a man with a long black beard and a man bun tightly wrapped on top of his head.
“You will play the part to perfection,” the Hobo King told the man then looked to Adam, Christine and now the minister had joined the other two. “Tie him to that cross and put it upside down. Give him a small wound which will slowly bleed him out. Let the world know there is no God here!”
Chapter 6
Blood ran out of the church and down the small hill that was Crystal Avenue.
Inside the zombies continued to feast while the Hobo King stood on the streets with his scepter in hand. He looked around trying hard to remember more familiar things about this town but he was so filled with rage and hate that all he saw was what was right in front of him.
What was her name?
That girl that hung in the cage with the stitches across her mouth.
The Hobo King stepped up onto the U-Haul trailer and took out his knife. He opened the cage where the girl had become placid and no longer struggled. Not even when his cold bloodied hand touched her chin and lifted her stitched eyes to meet his. He took a pocket knife out and unfolded it, placed the cold steel against her lips and cut the stitches from her mouth.
“What’s your name?” he whispered to her.
“Ca – ” she tried to speak but his mouth closed on hers and he kissed her like he had the minister until his darkness filled her completely.
“Crawl,” he told her.
She cra
wled out of the cage. Her eyes still sewn shut. But the Hobo King could feel his children. Especially the ones that he created himself. Even blind little piece of candy would be able to stay beside him and heed his commands.
“Hmm.” He looked down at her and she at him, “Candy. What a lovely description for you.”
Candy, he had named his pet.
He started to walk up the street with Candy crawling on her hands and the balls of her feet after him. There was something close by that he was missing. Something that made sense to him, he could feel it. He just couldn’t…remember it.
The street turned up ahead and he turned with it until he was walking down a smaller side street and came to a playground with a great pond. There were swing sets, monkey bars, climbing structures, a small store to probably buy food and drinks in the summer and one lonely lifeguard tower tipped over on its side on the small sandy beach.
“I know you,” the Hobo King said as he dragged a finger along the old wood of a bench.
The path he was on now was only rough earth that been beaten down and made so that nothing could ever grow on it again. It led to the playground, the beach, and the store. It also led into the woods. A dark trail leading into the shelter of the trees and vegetation like a cavern made of green and tree trunks.
Don’t go in there. Something in his mind warned him.
It was too late.
It had been too late the moment he had wandered along the road to find the sign announcing Derry.
Here it was. He stepped into the woods and saw the beer cans and cigarette butts and condom wrappers, even a few used condoms, the graffiti covered picnic table and the Hobo King reached down into the mud and pulled loose a used syringe. He took his jacket off, laying his scepter at his side, and his hoodie and undershirt until his bare pasty white skin was exposed to the elements. He looked at the needle that was now empty of its poison and then pricked his skin with the tip and felt the sharp satisfying sting of pain. The marks that covered his skin were like leprosy spots.
This is where it began.
A blue tarp stirred in the woods. The Hobo King watched it. Surprised he had not noticed it right away when he had returned to this old spot that he now clearly remembered so well. The woods had always been filled with the homeless and the addicted. They were still here. Of course. The church and all its preaching wouldn’t have allowed these people, these bottom-feeders, to cross the narthex.
Under the tarp crawled out a man as skinny and ragged as the Hobo King. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot, his hair long and messy like his beard. The clothes on his body were too big and had to be tied with a piece of rope to stay up. He wore no shoes and his feet were as dark with dirt as a coal miner.
“Hey, man,” he said in his daze, “you got anything on you?”
This man had been him. His words felt the same his voice even sounded like his own. If the man hadn’t been so blonde, he would have thought he was looking in a warped mirror showing him who he was just days ago before the whole world went away.
“I am not you,” the Hobo King spoke.
“What, man. I can’t hear you. What’s that?” he pointed to Candy.
“I AM NOT YOU!” the Hobo King pulled his scepter into his hand and lunged at the man. He struck him across the top of the head and when he fell, he beat the man’s skull until it was nothing but a puddle of blood, brains, and chunks of bone. The Hobo King fell onto the man and tore off his clothes and began to dig at his skin until it tore away to the muscle beneath and he was digging though the man’s body until he was pushing his hand up under the ribcage and lacing his fingers around the heart. With all his strength he pulled. He pulled so hard and had to push back with his feet until the heart tore away from the arteries and he held it victoriously in his hands.
“I,” he said to the heart, “am not you. I. Am. A. King.”
Candy sat beside the Hobo King while the master ate the heart of the junkie.
Chapter 7
Mrs. Bhattacharjee had given Tuck a list of unoccupied houses that were on the island. He drove around the many curves and through the thick woods that centered the island as he looked for the numbers of the houses on the mailboxes.
“So, this is how the other half lives,” Brittney said staring up at the yellow mansion.
“Not anymore,” Tuck replied as he tried the door knob already knowing it would be locked. “Maybe there’s a spare key under a rock or something. Garrett look for anything that looks weird or out of place. A plastic rock maybe.”
“Can’t you just kick it in?”
“Yes,” Tuck said and gave Garrett a little kick to the shoulder, “but I would like to keep the door in tack so you and your mother can stay safe.”
Tuck stepped off the top step of the staircase and fell to the rich green grass. He started to walk the estate to try and see if there was another way into the house. All the hedges and trees were manicured like a woman’s nails. Not a single spot on the lawn was a different shade of that Kentucky blue grass as if each blade of grass had been hand painted. This was how the other half lived. The rich and wealthy. The best Tuck could have ever hoped for in a normal life was to be the person that carved the hedges or cut the lawn.
“Hey Tuck?” Brittney came running around the corner. He couldn’t help but notice her breasts bouncing in the loose tee shirt she was wearing.
Goddamn.
How long had it been since he had been with a woman?
“Where’s Garrett?” he tried to change the subject averting his eyes from those large tits of hers.
“Looking for the key you know he won’t find.”
“How do you know there isn’t a key?”
“You think someone that lives here,” she said opening her arms to exaggerate the size of the house, “leaves a key just lying around?”
“Never know. They have a security system.”
“And how do you plan on getting past that?”
“I don’t. Electrical company already did that for us when they went off line. Also, who’s going to pick up on the other end?”
“Tuck?” Brittney said and touched his shoulder.
He took a deep breath and exhaled. When he turned into her his arm brushed across her breasts and his lips could have touched her forehead.
Brittney’s hand touched his and then lightly went up his arm and to the bandage. She pulled his arm to her and began to undo the bandage. He wanted to pull away. Every instinct was telling him to not let this woman see him weak and dying but her touch was like a drug that he craved. Brittney undid the bandage and it fell to the perfect lawn.
“My God.”
“What?” Tuck looked down to see exactly what Brittney was looking at. Instead of seeing lines of death running through his veins and spreading into his body he saw dark spots of clotted blood in the small holes of the teeth that had punctured his skin. There was no swelling or puss or any sign of even a normal human infection.
“You’re not turning, Tuck.”
“Cover it back up.”
“What? Why?”
He reached down and grabbed the discarded bandage and pushed it into Brittney’s hand.
“We don’t know what this means. We don’t have any doctors or experts. This needs to stay between us.”
“But this could mean more of us are immune.”
“Brittney, please do as I ask. For now. Between you and me?”
“And me.” Both of them turned to see Garret standing there with tears in his eyes. He ran up to Tuck and wrapped his arms around him. “I can keep a secret too. And I found this.” He showed his mother and Tuck the key he had found to the mansion.
Chapter 8
Rebel led the small group to 13 Summit Avenue. She saw the fancy car that her father had just bought a few weeks ago in the driveway and took a deep breath before pulling the plow truck behind it and lowering the plow. She put the truck in park and turned it off getting out of the truck. She heard the gate plop open and saw Forrest
briefly as he leapt out the back and started to mess with the straps securing his dirt bike in the bed of the truck.
“This your folks place, huh?”
“Yeah, Kiefer, we come from old money,” Rebel confessed as the three walked the stone pathway to the front door. Forrest had stayed behind with his bike and Rebel didn’t have it in her to fight with him anymore. She was just looking forward to catching some sleep in her own bedroom and her own bed with her Tigger stuffed animal cuddled in her arms like a pillow.
She had to admit that she was somewhat disappointed to see her father’s car. Did that also mean that her mother was here? It would make sense if they were a normal happy family but they were anything but. If she knew her father, he had left her mother behind and would make up some excuse about how he searched for both of them and was unable to find them. What wouldn’t surprise her was if he had some mistress with him that he did go find and rescue that was only a couple years older than her.
The front door opened.
“Amy. Oh my god you’re safe,” Paul Shore said as he came out the front door and the two walked to each other like cordial enemies with a ritualistic greeting of a cold embrace and then distance again.
“Did you get my note?” Paul asked.
“No. What note?”
“I tried looking for you and your mother – ”
“Mom isn’t here?” Rebel asked playing dumb. It was just as she had guessed. A script she could have written herself.
“No. I am so sorry, Amy. I couldn’t find you or your mother. I left a note at work,” A lie, “and home to tell you to meet here.” Another lie.
“I never made it home, dad. Forrest and I were together when everything went to shit and we just took off on his bike and headed this way.”
Beyond Dead | Book 4 | The Island Page 2