Alive! Not Dead! (32 page)

I shook my head.  “And you’re still following this madman’s orders?”

In a way it looked like this stung Sharon.  “I am a Master Sergeant of the US Army, sir! It is my duty to follow orders.”

“What’s this man’s name?” Mindy asked.

“Lieutenant Lee Washburn.”

I wasn’t surprised, but still shocked.  In a calm voice I said “My wife and I, we would like to leave please.  We aren’t looking for any trouble.  We would like to try to live out our lives, peacefully, on this side of the split.  Is there somewhere safe that we can go?”

“There is nowhere safe to live,” he said flatly.  “Unless you are in a safe zone controlled by the military where there is plenty of firepower to hold off the undead or some of the other crazy lunatics out there, you really have no hope of survival.  My suggestion would be for you to remain here in Alvarado.”

“Are there a lot of zombies on this side?” I asked.

“Most of them have been removed.  There are still pockets of them I’ve been told.”

“Is the military taking care of the problem?” Mindy asked.

“We have roving groups out in the field.  We’re trying to secure this area.”

I said “Lynn’s sister lives in New Orleans.  We were going to find her.  Is that area secure?”

“New Orleans is about 200 feet underwater,” he said quietly.  “Your sister is most probably dead.”

“I still want to know,” Mindy said sadly.

Sharon sat there quietly for a few minutes.  He looked us both over.  He sighed again then said “You two are free to go.”

“Thank you,” I said then asked “Do you have any food?”

“There is a cafe on the other side of the helicopter pad where you can get a hot meal.  Tell Private Canton that I sent you.  He’ll get you some chow.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I took Mindy by the hand.  We left the small room.  The lady was still madly typing on the typewriter.  Morris was leaning over the desk, that quirky smile still on his face.  The lady looked very nervous as we passed.

Once outside, we walked to the other side of the helicopter.  We saw a café with
lights on.  There was movement in there.  Inside, I told some soldiers cooking that Master Sergeant Sharon sent us and he said they should feed us.  They did as they were instructed.  The food wasn’t good, but it at least filled our bellies.

We walked away from Alvarado side by side, walking down highway 35W south of Fort Worth.  We had no transportation.  Our motorcycle was still on the other side of the split.

We walked south until Mindy started to complain about her feet hurting.  I saw a farmhouse off to the side of the highway about a mile ahead of us.  I asked if she could make it there and she said yes.

The barn was destroyed.  We were able to make a comfortable place in the nook of
some of the fallen beams.  There was enough hay around to make a soft bed.  We were glad, too, that the rain had stopped.  We sure didn’t want to sleep in the rain again.

The next morning I awoke to a dreamless night, which really made me happy.  We scavenged around inside a home near th
e barn, but there was no food.

We continued south.

A helicopter landed in Alvarado.  First Lieutenant Lee Washburn bowed under the turning blades as he ran over to Master Sargent Sharon who saluted him.

“Welcome to Alvarado, sir,” he snapped.

“Where are our two escapees?” Washburn asked.

“We are holding them in a temporary brig inside the town hall.  This way, sir.”

Sharon led Washburn into the same building where he had questioned Dan and Mindy Kingsley not two hours before.  At the opposite end of the hall in a dimly lit room, Private First Class Doug Owens and Private Gary Hollis were handcuffed, sitting in chairs.

“Here they are, sir.” Sharon said as he opened the door for Washburn.

Washburn walked in.  A smile formed on his lips
.  He had finally got to them!

He stopped.  His jaw dropped.

Who the hell are these two?” he asked, his voice breaking.

Sharon didn’t understand.  “These are the two who went AWOL, sir.”

“AWOL? I’M NOT LOOKING FOR ANY FUCKING SOLDIERS WHO WENT AWOL!” Washburn screamed.  ‘I’M LOOKING FOR THE TWO WHO ESCAPED IN MOSES LAKE! THEY ARE INFECTED! THEY ARE THE ONES CARRYING THE MCON VIRUS! THEY ARE THE ONES WHO STARTED THIS WHOLE GOD-DAMN MESS!”

Master Sergeant Dean Sharon was dumbfounded.  He didn’t know what Washburn was talking about.  He thought Washburn had been looking for the AWOL soldiers.  He stood there stupidly and then asked “What did the ones you were looking for look like?”

Washburn spoke “A woman.  A man.  They claim to be married.  They are not.  The woman is blonde.  Their names are Dan and Mindy Kingsley.”

Sharon dropped his head. 
He had been duped.

Washburn unholstered his pistol.  He pressed it against Sharon’s head. “Where are they now?”

“Sir, I don’t know.  I sent them to get chow.  From there…”

“You stupid son of a bitch” he said.  He shot Sharon in the side of the head.  “You dumb fuck.”

Washburn looked over at Owens and Hollis.  They were looking at him, not understanding what had just happened.

Washburn shook his head at them.  He left the room.

Back out in the lobby, Washburn asked the secretary behind the desk: “Who can I talk to around here who knows what the fuck is going on?”

She gave him a questioning look.

We stayed off the main road.

The land started to return to normal the further south we went.  I guessed that the worst of the destruction was only around the split in the earth.

We made pretty good time.  Eventually we arrived in Hillsboro, Texas.  Our feet and backs ached from all of the walking.  I kept promising Mindy that we’d get some transportation.  All of the vehicles we had come across since leaving Alvarado had either been out of fuel or had no keys.

We walked through the town of Hillsboro.  We stayed in a Days Inn.

We kept on thinking that someone was going to follow us or trail us out of Alvarado, but it looked like we were in the clear.  We wondered what was going to happen to Gary and Doug.  We figured the military would have probably dealt with them by now.

Meeting them left a sour taste in my mouth.  I didn’t like how they had threatened us and then acted like we were their friends.  I honestly believed that they simply used us just to cross the split.

They never really cared about us.

But now we were safe.

Heading south.
  Moving toward the Gulf.

I hoped that things would work out when we got there.

We
finally
found some transportation.  Our feet were so sore.

There were several motorcycles lying on the ground near a lounge on one of the frontage roads in Waco.  One of the bikes had a set of keys still in the ignition.  I stood it up, held it as Mindy got on, and then climbed on myself.  It felt so good to sit down.  The
motorcycle fired right up.  The gas tank was nearly full so I didn’t need to look for fuel to siphon.

I started noticing more damage as we traveled.  I hoped that there wasn’t another split forming.  The ground looked like it had ripples in it – almost as if a huge stone had fallen upon the earth and ripples had formed around it.  The ripples were spread out every few miles.  I could guess where the next one would be as we drove.

Mindy would tighten her grip around my waist as we drove over them.  They were maybe 10 feet tall at the top of the ripple’s slope.  They made her belly flip-flop every time we went over one.

We made it as far as the town of Temple before we had to stop for a break.  We really didn’t want to stop, though, because we were getting excited to finally be getting closer to the Gulf.  We kept talking about finding a boat and sailing out into the middle of the waters – free from any other zombie threats or people threats.

We would be alone again, just the two of us.

Inside a Diamond Shamrock convenience store, I looked for another map just to make sure our directions were right.  There was a rack of maps next to a magazine stand near the back of the store.  Pulling out a map of Texas, I opened it against the magazines.

After rummaging through some of the looted shelves, Mindy said she needed to use
the ladies room.  She did that while I checked our position.

If we were to stay on our current course, the highway woul
d lead us away from the ocean.

When Mindy came out of the restroom, I told her we needed to change our directions when we got to Austin.

She was smiling with her hands behind her back while I told her this.

“What are you so giddy about?” I asked her, a smile forming on my face.

She held out something for me to see.  It was a pregnancy test.

“Daddy,” she said.  “I’m pregnant.”

BART

Bart could always count on his coonhound, Teller, to chase down people’s scents.

No matter how far they ran, no matter where they hid, Teller would always find them.  When he did, Trenton “Bart” Lewman would tie them up and haul them back to their meat shack in the back of his rusty old Ford.

Bart was strong.  In high school, he was the best on his wrestling team.  He had the record for two years straight until some punk kid from north Texas named Doug Owens beat him.  Even so, in high school, Bart
was at the top of his game.

His forearms were as thick as bricks.  He had the strength of an ox.  He got all the girls.
He drove a late model souped-up Trans Am with fire painted on the hood, licking back on the windshield.  His face was free of freckles and he surely didn’t have a zit.  He felt like he was the king of the world.  He loved how everyone in school looked up to him. It made him feel
powerful
– and he
dwelt
on it.  He shoved people around like he was the boss.  Younger kids in school feared him.

But when Bart’s girlfriend and true love Marla McKinley (the most popular girl in school), ended up pregnant, his heart was broken in two.  Bart found out that the kid wasn’t his – she had us
ed him to get to another guy.  Bart’s winning streak ended.  His complexion turned into a moon surface of pockmarks.  His muscle quickly turned into fat.  In less than four months, Bart went from being a 200 pound heavy hitter to a 350 pound bag of weak sauce.

He dropped out of high school and went to work for a low-paying job at a construction company in Brenham.  His work attendance was horrible.  He spent most of his time away from work drinking.  Numerous times he would show up to work with a hangover.  When he did, his fellow employees would slam their hammers down harder while he was around just to piss him off.  It would
make his head ache so much worse.

His home was dirty.  He never changed the sheets on his bed.  The sheets had a large sweat stain across them showing where he laid while he slept.  His bathroom sink was clogged with beard shavings.  A can of shaving cream had bubbled over on a shelf in the medicine cabinet above the sink.  The bottom of the can was nearly rusted through.

Outside in Teller’s kennel, dog shit lined the edges near the bottom of the fence that surrounded it.  Bart never cleaned the kennel.  He fed Teller mostly table scraps.  When he was having a semi-decent day, Bart would buy an extra Big Mac and feed it to Teller when he got home after work.

His life was pathetic.

One day,
he thought,
one day I will be powerful again and I will not let anyone take the power from me, god dammit.  I will never again bend my knee to another man.

However, Bart was never
given an opportunity to shine.

When the world crumbled, the foreman at the construction site told the workers to go home. 
Go home! Be with
your loved ones! The end is near! The end is
HERE! he yelled, being the Jesus freak that he was.  Even before the world went to hell, the preacher foreman had yelled from atop his bread box many a time.

“I should send Teller after that fuck,” Bart said, talking to himself.  “Teach him right to get his
balls
gnawed off!”

Bart went home.  His dirty single room apartment with an overgrown yard had collapsed.  There was nowhere for him to go.  He sat in his rusted pickup truck wondering what to do.  He flipped up the bill of his ball cap and scratched his balding sunburned head.  His first thought was
Where am I gonna get food now?
He started his pickup – Teller ran from his kennel that had popped open with the shifting earth.  He hopped into the back of the truck like a good dog.  Bart drove through the toppling town to McDonalds.  Maybe he would be able to get a Big Mac before they shut the place down.

The McDonalds sign had fallen down.  It was
sparking everywhere.  People around were trying to dodge the sparks.  Bart sat in the road as cars passed by, speeding, honking at him.  There was nowhere to park or even get into the McDonalds.  Bart knew that the drive-thru probably wouldn’t be working anyway.  He drove over to the Buccaneer Food store.

Inside, people were fighting over the food.  One man had a shotgun in the back of the store, pointing it at people, baring his teeth at them.  Bart recognized him as Dane Stockton, a guy he had lifted weights with a few times years ago at the gym.  Bart went up to Dane, standing guard with him as the people s
warmed.

“It’s our food, ya bastards,” Dane yelled.  “Get your own dammit!”

Bart started pushing people back, shoving them hard in the chest so they would stumble and fall on their asses.  He got a kick out of it, pushing the older people harder, watching them fall backward into other people.

Another man broke through the crowd.  Dane almost shot him but it was Jace; Jace Crowley - a friend of his from the bar.  They ate together a lot down at the seafood place on Sundays after football was over o
n TV.

“Get in here,” Dane hollered at him.  “This is our food.”

They fought the crowd for a long time.  Dane ended up shooting several men who tried to break them down.  They lay there dead on the ground around the deli, their faces flat against the concrete.

When the undead came through, the three men stood their ground.  Dane emptied his shotgun on the undead.  Bart used a tire iron.  Jace used a broken pipe.  It was madness the way the un
dead swarmed through the town.

Then the undead were gone.  Just like that.  It was almost like someone pulled a plug and they all
disappeared.

The food in the store lasted them three months.  It started to go bad soon thereafter.  The three men moved into the store.  They set up cots and lit fires in some barrels they drug from across the street that
were behind an old warehouse.

They cleaned out the deli first.  They had roast beef, ham, chicken, turkey.  They needed to eat it all before it went bad.  They made huge Dagwood sandwiches, piled high with all kinds of sliced mea
t, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes.

After that, they raided the freezers throughout the store.  They ate the ice cream, frozen popsicles, ice cream sandwiches.  They set up several barbecues and cooked all of the meat they could find. 
Packages of it.  The floor was littered with plastic wrap.

They drank all of the beer first.  Then they went through all of the sodas, power drinks,
powdered drinks and finally all of the bottled water.  There were still several larger gallons of distilled water along one shelf.

Each of them easily gained 300 pounds.  All they did was
eat and drink.  They had to find larger clothes.  Most nights they sat around the barrels simply wearing their underwear.  One day Bart raided a nearby Goodwill store.  Inside he found large bib coveralls for all of them.  He grabbed a handful of red handkerchiefs from a shelf.  Bringing them back to the guys he told them that they needed to tie them around their heads because it would be their clan signature.

Bart also started to use Teller as a
threat against the other men.  Anytime any of them lipped off to Bart, he would tell Teller to sic them.  Of course, Bart knew that Teller was not a mean dog at all, but he used Teller’s playing around with him to his advantage.

As the food dwindled, they all started losing
patience with one another faster and faster.  They fought over the last scraps of food.  The guys said they should get the scraps, not Teller! Teller was a dog, he didn’t need people food, but Bart wouldn’t allow it.

“We got to eat something soon,” Dane told them one night around the barrels.  “I’m getting damn hungry.”

Bart looked at all of them, hungry himself.  He told them about an old movie he had seen once on cable.  It was about a plane that wrecked high in the mountains.  He said the survivors of the plane had to eat the dead to stay alive until they were rescued.

“I aint eating no dead people!”
Jace said.  “I’d rather eat Teller.”

“No one lays a finger on Teller!” Bart yelled at them.  “You even touch him and I’ll have him eat your balls off!”

Jace and Dane sat back in their seats.  They were intimidated.

Days later, a young kid on a bicycle came into the store looking for food.  He said his name was Billy.  He didn’t know where his mom and dad were.  He was scared.  Was it
ok if he stayed with the men? They said sure.  No problem.

Jace grabbed him by the arm.  Dane grabbed his feet.

Bart knocked Billy out.  He said “There’s some meat for us, boys.  Let’s cook him up.”

The flesh was tough.  There were still plenty of bottled seasonings in the store and most of the sauces were good for another year or so.  They seasoned him, cooked him and ate him.  On a whim, Bart dared Dane to eat the little boy’s penis.

“I ain’t eating no kid’s dick,” Dane yelled.

“Teller wouldn’t have a problem eating yours,” Bart said.  “Now EAT it!”

“Fucking fine!” he said as he went over to the corpse of the boy on the table, rolled him over, and sliced the boy’s penis off with a pocket knife.  Dane put it in his mouth and started to chew it.

“You could’ve cooked the son of a bitch first!” Bart said.  He and Jace started laughing.

“Fuck you two and the horses you rode in on.”  Dane said, spitting the chewed flesh out.

This went on for a long time.  People would show up looking for food or directions or lost friends.  The men would be polite.  They would lead them back to the tables and quickly tie them up.  They would let the victim hang there until he/she would pass out.  Then the men would slice them, season them, cook them, and eat them.  They fought o
ver certain body parts to eat.

As time wore on, they began to slice the people as they hung on the hoists.  Sometimes they didn’t wait
until the victim passed out.  They made it a sport, seeing how long a victim would survive as they cut off parts of their bodies.  Screams would echo through the adjacent neighborhood.

Months later, Bart told them that Jace and Dane needed to start working a night shift.  He and Teller would work the day by going out into the surrounding areas to hunt people down.  Of course, Jace and Dane agreed to it – and Bart made them cook his food while he was away hunting.

He went out one morning.  The road to the south of town had been dry as of late.  The last good catch that Teller had made down that way was an old man with a broken leg.

He went north.

About three miles out of town, he saw a car on the side of the road that he didn’t recognize.  He slowly drove up to it.  Telling Teller to be quiet while grabbing a crowbar from the back of the truck, he walked over to the car.  A lady wearing a dark blue jogging pantsuit was sleeping inside on the back seat.  She had a very shapely body and long black hair.  She looked to be about 30 or so.

“Excuse me, miss,” Bart said quietly as he tapped with his fingertip on her window which was rolled down a little bit.  “Are you ok?”

“Oh…yeah…I’m fine,” the lady said, getting up on elbow as she wiped her eyes.

Bart lifted the handle to the door to open it, but it was locked.

She sat up in the seat.  “Do you need something?”

“Some company,” he said, bashfully.  “I’ve been out here alone, too.  I saw your car and maybe thought you’d like to talk.”

She didn’t want anything to do with him.  He was dirty and smelly.  His teeth were covered in scum.  His hair was long, unwashed, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in months.  The hair on his face tried to make a beard, but it wasn’t quite working.

“
Where are you from?” Bart asked, being the perfect gentleman.

“Houston,” she said, lying, trying to force a smile.  “I was just on my way back.  I got tired so I thought I’d lay down for a nap for a while.”

“Oh, why don’t you step outside? It might be good to get out of the car and get some fresh air.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

She didn’t want anything to do with him – or any man for that matter.  She was on the run, trying to escape the grasp of her insane husband.  She had been on the road for so long – and had been amazed at all of the help she had received from strangers along the way.  Even the men who were guarding the helicopter at the base where she had crossed the split had been nice to her.  She was so thankful that they didn’t recognize her.  If they had, they would have kept her there.

“Please leave me alone,” she said to the fat man outside her window.

Bart was done playing Mr. Nice Guy.  Gripping the crowbar tighter, he smashed it through the window they had been chatting through.  Glass shattered onto her lap.  Bart quickly unlocked the door, flung it open, and made his move to crawl into the car after her.

The lady was able to subdue him for a second.  She pushed him back with her feet.  She didn’t move him far or keep him from coming in, but she was able to grab the door and slam it shut.