Up in flames, p.3
Up In Flames, page 3
part #8 of This Rotten World Series
Tim stood up then, stared down at Steve. The man nodded once more. From there, they escorted the people one by one into the house and had them gather up their belongings. By the time the sun was turning orange in the west, the farmers had loaded up their vehicles, and the bikers sent them on their way.
Chapter 3: The Lay of the Land
Pat Longley had just experienced the most harrowing forty-eight hours of his life, and he couldn't take anymore. When the bikers, who were plain fucking nuts in his opinion, had stopped to raid the Exxon, he knew he would wind up dead if he didn't ditch them. With his car now empty of bikers, he backed out, spun the wheel around, and swerved through the dead. He lived north of Casper, thankfully. He didn't know what he'd do if his home had been in Casper proper.
He didn't imagine anyone would be able to survive in town. How much of it had already been given over to the dead? With groups like those bikers running around and killing everyone and stealing all the food, how long could anyone still left alive actually survive? Not very long, he decided. Better to clear out.
When a clear stretch of road opened before him, he fiddled with his radio. Most of his presets were static now, but there was one station coming in out of Cheyenne. When he'd found his background noise, he lifted his eyes to find the road blocked by two cars, an old pickup truck and a newer SUV. He slowed to a crawl, wondered if he was in trouble, if this was more of those militia fucks.
He pulled to a stop and sat in his car, the hand on the gear shift in case he needed to throw it in reverse.
An old man popped out of the car, a rifle in his hand. He kept the barrel low, but he looked like the type of guy who could use the thing. He walked with a bow-legged strut, skinny as a rail. His gray hair was close-cropped and framed a wrinkled but hairless face.
"Hey there," the man said, holding his hand up.
Pat kept his eyes on the pickup truck and the four brown-skinned dudes in the vehicle, just in case they tried something funny. It seemed to him that everyone was trying something funny these days, only he wasn't laughing.
"Hey," he said cautiously, eyeing the shambling forms making their way down the road.
"Looks like you seen some action," the old man said, nodding at Pat's bloodstained scrubs.
"You're not one of them militia guys, are you?" Pat asked.
"Militia guys? Nope. You had some trouble with militia guys?"
"Yeah, bunch of 'em went crazy, started shooting at people. Bunch of 'em got killed over at the Walmart, them and a bunch of bikers."
"Bikers, huh?"
Pat didn't know why he was talking, didn't understand why the words were spilling out of his mouth. Maybe it was just nerves. Maybe he just needed to tell someone all the bullshit he'd seen over the last 48 hours. "Yeah, and they're just as bad as those militia guys. They don't care about nothing."
"These bikers come from Monktree?" the old man asked, his eyes intense.
"Yeah, I think so. Monktree got it bad from what I heard."
The old man's eyes, which had appeared mostly dead up until that moment, seemed to glow with an inner fire. "Where you goin'?" the man asked him.
"Headed up to my house in Hollis Hills. I need to get out of this town. If you were smart, you'd get out too."
The old man lifted his rifle, took aim, and popped the head of one of the dead who had ventured too close for comfort. It thumped to the ground, and he turned and looked at Pat, his eyes still burning with something he couldn't identify.
"Well, you get home safe," the old man said, and then he patted on the hood of Pat's car, waved at the fellas in the truck. They turned the pickup around and made room for Pat to pass.
In the rearview mirror, he watched as the old man stood chewing his lip, looking like a cowboy from an old movie.
Pat floored it, couldn't get home fast enough.
****
Memo was barely aware of the old man. His eyes were focused on the dead shambling shapes. They'd spotted a couple on the road before they had pulled into town, watched as a man in a University of Wyoming Cowboys hat stumbled down the street, his arm missing below the elbow, ragged strands of flesh reflecting red in the sunlight.
From the back of the truck, he'd heard the old man call out to the guy, but the injured man offered no response. That was their first sign that whatever the radio was talking about wasn't fake.
When the man had gotten to within a few feet, the old man had taken off. Memo had studied the man's face as they drove by, tried to see something living in there, but there was nothing.
"Hey, you with me?" Farrell asked.
"Si, si," Memo said.
"Sounds like we got some bad actors in these parts. Y'all keep your rifles handy. You see something, don't wait on me. Better to shoot first and ask forgiveness later. That man said people been shooting at each other, so that means we gotta be ready to do the same. You with me?"
Memo nodded, though, the further they ventured into town, the less he seemed to care about Farrell's promised bonus.
As the old man popped back into his SUV, Memo voiced his concerns to the others.
"Maybe we should leave," Pedro said, Guatemalan accent coming through like red clay in his Spanish.
"We give him a day," Memo said. "After that, we go home, get our families, then we head south."
They agreed with him. They owed the old man nothing. The only reason they'd come this far was for money, and based upon what they'd seen in town, money wasn't worth shit anymore. Hell, it looked like you could walk into any store you wanted and just take stuff. But he had been good to them, and they all liked Pammy. She was a good kid.
****
Farrell hopped into his SUV, listening to the preacher on the radio as he talked about damnation, the end of times, the rapture. He wanted to hear anything else, but this was the only station still live. Where was that emergency broadcast system shit when you needed it? All those years of interrupted TV shows so they could play that annoying tone, and now, when they needed the damn thing, nothing.
He swiped a hand across his face as he shifted into drive and brought his SUV around. The words of the man in scrubs tumbled around his mind, and he focused on the world around him. It was a new world. He could see that. A world where the dead walked, and people with guns could take whatever they wanted. He cruised past the Walmart, took note of the trucks sitting in the lot, their doors wide open, waiting for their owners to come back. The dead milled thick around the place. Maybe there's a sale on eggs.
He began making a list of problems in his head, popping them into mental columns in his mind. Bikers, militia men, food, gasoline, Pammy, Heather, Bobby too, he guessed, his workers… he sorted each problem into one of two columns, problems to deal with now and problems to deal with later. When he came to his workers, he didn't know which column to put them in. Could be they'd want to turn around right now, leave him on his own. He'd let 'em too. They had their own problems, didn't owe him a lick of spit. He hoped they'd stay, but you never knew when it came to family. Money didn't mean shit when your family was in danger.
On his right, he passed a gas station, its front doors shattered, a collection of motorcycles and tough-looking customers grabbing anything and everything they could. He sped by. He didn't care about looters.
At the top of his list of problems, he put Pammy, Heather… and Bobby too, he guessed.
He stepped on the accelerator, his rifle close on the passenger seat, his eyes scanning for living threats among the dead. Onto Monktree.
Chapter 4: Respite
Besides the pain, it was the whistling that bothered Flash the most. Outside, among the groans of the dead, the roar of engines, and the blast of gunfire, he couldn't hear it, but on his own, in the relative quiet of the farmhouse, he could hear the damn thing whistling in his throat as he breathed in and out.
Flash was exhausted. It was only right. He had exerted himself to the max, even after his throat had been crushed by that massive good old boy. As he settled into one of the beds in the farmhouse, a veritable mansion by his standards, his throat whistled as he breathed in, finally getting enough oxygen to feed his body. Loud enough to keep him from being able to ignore it. Sleep stayed at arm's length because of it.
He worried what he'd done to his brain. Had parts of his brain started to die off? Was he too oxygen starved to keep his body going?
He swallowed and grunted at the pain. He didn't know how long it would take for his damn throat to heal, and the doctor lady, or whatever the fuck she was, hadn't been able to give him a timeline. "Most of the time they do surgery for an injury like yours," she'd said. "But I'm no surgeon. I just run an x-ray machine."
Flash smiled at her, knew she wasn't giving herself enough credit, and while he wouldn't let her cut open his throat to perform surgery on the bones in his crushed trachea, he knew he wouldn't be here without her. He owed her a debt, and Flash always paid his debts. As long as Cammy was around, he had her back. Now, everyone else? That was a different matter altogether.
He sighed, his throat whistling as the air in his lungs forced its up through his throat and up out the tube. It was a weird sensation, breathing out of one's neck, and he hoped it would go away soon. His biggest concern, other than if his trachea would ever heal on its own, was infection.
With most wounds, you could clean them out and put a bandage over them, but not with this one. With this one, he had to have it open to the air so he could breathe.
Did it itch? Were red lines snaking from his wound right now?
He knew they weren't. It was too soon. But still, the thought rattled around in the back of his head, like a loose screw in an empty saddlebag. Downstairs, the party was in full swing. It hadn't taken them long to find the wine in the farmhouse's tasting room. Normally, he would have been down there with them, but for now, he just wanted to sleep, wanted to rest so his body could heal itself, so his damn throat bones could mend themselves and he could take the fucking pen out of his throat.
He sighed again, listening to the whistle once more. He didn't know if he'd ever fall asleep. He did what he always did when he couldn't sleep, started counting titties.
****
Bubba Jepson couldn't believe he was still alive. Oh, he'd always fantasized about this, about being one of the last few survivors in a world that was falling apart. It was something he'd dreamed about since his first zombie movie, only, in his dreams, he hadn't been on the verge of shitting himself pretty much every second of the ever-loving day.
He considered himself an expert on the subject of the end of the world, had consumed all sorts of shit from zombie movies to video games, to Stephen King books about superflus, to lighter fare like The Road, and he had always wanted to be there, to be the last dude standing, and so far, he'd made good on that desire.
And while, at the moment, he felt lucky, not like some badass survivor fuck, he knew his attention to apocalyptic media had saved his ass already. When he'd seen that first crumpled dude crawling in the street, he'd known what was going on. The rest of the men in his gang didn't believe him. They thought he was a joke with his books and his movies. All they wanted was to get drunk and fuck, but not Bubba Jepson, not completely at least.
He'd come to Monktree with several friends. They weren't necessarily a gang, but just a group of dudes who hung out together, liked to get into trouble, liked to throw their fists around every now and then. When he'd said the word "zombie," they'd just laughed at him, told him to fuck off, then headed off to the nearest bar, even as the motherfucker on the street bit someone. Then came the gunshots, and Bubba was smart enough to put two and two together. With live bullets rushing around, he'd fled Monktree, tried to call his buddies on the phone, but they never answered. He hoped they'd made it, but if they didn't, that put him closer to being the last man on the planet, some fucking Charlton Heston Omega Man shit. He'd like that down the road, but for now, there was a lull in the action, a chance to really delve into how fucked up everything was.
In movies, there was always a lull, and this movie, the movie of his life, was no different. He'd popped the top off the first bottle of wine he'd found. It was red, and that was about the extent of his wine knowledge. People didn't usually drink wine in the dive bars he frequented, but hey, any port in a storm, right?
He upended the bottle, drank directly from it, much to the consternation of the man with the blue bandana to his right. He thought his name was Russ, but he couldn't be sure. He'd never been good with names.
Half the crew was here, the other half gone off to rest. He guessed some people hadn't gotten enough sleep last night, but shit, he'd slept like a damn baby.
"Not like that, you fucking heathen," the man who might be Russ said.
The man pulled a wine glass off the counter, tipped it upright, and poured the wine in the bottom, maybe a fingerful. "You gotta let it breathe, man."
Bubba laughed. "Listen, man, the only thing I care about breathin' around here is me, and I'm breathin', so I'm drinkin', and I don't need a crusty old fuck like you telling me how to get drunk."
Russ shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Your loss," and passed the bottle back to Bubba.
Bubba, just to mock the old dude, swirled the glass around, stuck his nose in the glass and breathed deeply. "I'm getting notes of bullshit…" Sniff. "…a faint hint of duck's ass…" Sniff. "…and uh, oh yes, alcohol." With that, he tipped the glass back and drained the wine in one fell swoop and patted the man who might be Russ on the shoulder.
With a beaming smile, he grabbed the open bottle, walked to a table, and sat down across from a couple of other people whose names he barely knew. Didn't really matter what their names were when they were all going to be dead soon, not because of anything he did, but that's just the way these movies went.
****
The big man was drinking fast. Carl Hurts was not a fan of drunk people. He'd seen far too many of them at the hospital, coming in all fucked up after a drunk driving accident or a brawl, their wrists chained to gurneys.
He shook his head, tried to forget about the past couple of days… the hospital, all the dying people, fighting his way through familiar patients and familiar workers. The things they'd done to escape sickened him, and he wanted someone to blame for having to kill people he knew. He wanted to find out who was behind this stupid sickness, and nuke them from the planet. Had to be China, right? All the bad shit came from China.
"You know drinking?" the lumpy man across from him asked. He wore muttonchops, had a round, soft face, but he walked with an easy confidence that spoke of danger.
"I don't know how you can drink at a time like this," Carl said.
"It's easy. Like this." He tilted his wine bottle back, let his Adam's apple jig up and down a few times, and then smacked his purple lips.
"Don't you think we should stay ready?" Carl asked. He had always been ready, always knew something weird was going to go down at his hospital. It was only a matter of time. With the world discovering new diseases every day, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Although, in his premonitions, it would always be a regular disease, something you could walk away from when the beds in the hospital got too full.
As an orderly, he'd seen some crazy shit in the hospital, had wrestled many a drunk into their beds, held them down while the nurses sedated them. But the other day, none of that had worked. It was a miracle he hadn't been bitten. Carl had never advocated for bagging people's heads, too many complications with it. It was hard to breathe in a bag and anyone having some sort of respiratory episode could suffocate, but that night, when the dead started rising, he had been all for it. From the moment the first of his patients had tried to chomp down on his arm, he'd been down for it.
The evening had started off fine, a little too many elderly people in the hospital with sniffling noses and semi-catatonia, but he figured it was just the flu going around. He'd masked up then, made sure to wash his hands religiously. But then the old people had turned, some of them flatlining on their beds, only to rise again, violent and unresponsive to any sort of stimulus.
He'd watched a nurse whack up one of those jokers with enough sedatives to kill a horse, and it had done nothing… because they were dead already. No one had believed it. Neither did Carl. By the time all the beds had been filled with bite patients, Carl knew he should have bugged out. He had no particular fondness for his job, just liked to work, maybe rough up a drunk every now and then. Walking away would have been nothing for him, but he'd stayed, because he still had time on his shift.
By the time he realized his mistake, he'd been forced to take cover as the dead rolled through the hospital. He'd watched his friend James try to wrestle one of the sick people, saw him take some hellacious bites to the face, and then decided to pack it in, locking himself into a room on the third floor. That's where the bikers had found him, planning some way to get his hands on some morphine and get the fuck out of this world the easy way.
But they'd offered him a new lease on life, and he meant to take it. And this drunk across from him wasn't going to fuck it up. "You should stop drinking," he said.
The man's lip curled up like Elvis, and he said, "You wanna make me?"
"Jesus Christ, man. Are you retarded or just plain stupid? Don't you see what's going on here?"
The man sneered at him once more and said, "I see what's going on. I see it alright. It's a free lunch, and you're too scared to take a bite." He set his bottle down for once and leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with dangerous intensity. "You think the cops are gonna come for us? Huh? Cops are dead, man. I saw one get chewed up back in Monktree. You see all that shooting we did in the Walmart? Not a single cop, man. Might be different in some places, but we are the kings of this motherfucking castle."
Carl couldn't believe how stupid this guy was. He might have helped them get out of the hospital, out of the Walmart, but when shit calmed down, he was going to be a liability, and the thought crossed his mind—I gotta get out of here.
