Floodwater Zombies (17 page)

Rory’s dad held the screen door open and turned back to his son. Rory sat between Rachel and Woody on the leather couch, the same solemn expression gracing his bloody face as the others. “Well thank you, Deputy,” he said, running a hand through his thinning gray hair. “They won’t be going anywhere tonight.”

“Probably best they don’t,” Myer said, glancing through the open front door. He leaned in and tried to smile. “Your friends will turn up tomorrow.” Blank expressions answered him from the couch. Myer took off his ball cap and mopped sweat from his forehead with his hand. “Get some rest and you’ll feel better in the morning.” When they didn’t respond again, the deputy smiled thinly at Rory’s father and nodded. “Goodnight then.”

“Thank you again, Deputy.”

Myer raised a hand into the air on his way back to the patrol car parked behind Rory’s Honda Accord in the driveway.

Rory’s dad shut the door, leaned his back against it and exhaled one of those breaths that clearly
indicates
a parent is at their wits end. He traded glances with Laura, standing in a robe across the room with her blond hair poking out in all directions, and
let
his eyes bounce from Rachel to Rory to Woody. An incredulous laugh slipped from his lips as he rubbed his prickly face. “I don’t know what to say. I really don’t.”

Rory leaned forward on the couch. “Dad, it’s not what you think.”

“You shut your goddamn mouth!”

“Stephen!” Laura snapped, her mouth hanging wide open. “These kids have been through enough tonight already without you piling it on.”

 
“They’re not kids, Laura!” Stephen huffed, pacing the large living room. His bare feet made a dry
wooshing
sound against the hardwood flooring in the silence that followed. “They were smoking weed, for Christ’s sake!”

She inhaled sharply and threw her hands over her cheeks in mock horror.
“Big deal, Mother Theresa!
We did, too, at one time,
ya
know.”

“Yeah, in college!”
He stared hard at Rory, his pot belly making another break for it. “And the stuff they smoke today is
waaaay
stronger than anything we had back then. It’s no wonder they were seeing zombies!”

Laura adjusted her robe and tied it tighter, unknowingly giving Woody a sneak peek at the red panties hiding just beneath. “Stephen, since when do these kids make anything up like this? They are good kids and if you don’t know that by now, then you’ve got bigger problems,” she said gravely, dropping into a large armchair. She glared at him, awaiting his snide response.

Stephen stopped pacing and massaged his bristly face with both hands, his gray Twins shirt pulling up again and exposing the pasty beer belly beneath. Woody tried not to stare at Stephen’s gym shorts but they were so short it was hard not to.

“All right,” he said tiredly. “Let’s just…get some sleep and we’ll talk about this in the morning,” he said, heading for the stairs. At the bottom step he turned back to Rory. “But you are going to have some serious explaining to do tomorrow. This is no way to come back into our lives. We don’t deserve anything remotely close to…whatever
this
is.”

Rory glanced at Woody and rolled his eyes.

Stephen’s face stiffened. “You think this is funny?”

Laura frowned.
“Oh Stephen, stop being so dramatic!”

“The only thing funny around here are those shorts,” Rory said flatly, hitting his father with a defiant stare.

Stephen gritted his teeth and spoke slowly. “I should throw your worthless ass out of here right now.”

“Don’t talk to me like that! I’m not one of your employees you don’t give a shit about!”

“You’re not anyone’s employee!” Stephen laughed. “
Which makes me such a proud father!
”

Rory snorted and dropped his gaze to the coffee table. “God, you’re a dick.”

The quiet that followed was as uncomfortable as a motel bed. No one spoke a single word, making the humming refrigerator in the kitchen seem way too loud.

Stephen nodded slowly, holding onto his anger by a mere thread, and stomped up the stairs in a huff. “We’ll see
who’s
laughing tomorrow, hot-shot!”

Laura exhaled a defeated breath and leaned forward in the armchair. “Rachel, honey,” she said softly, taking her hand. “Do you want me to take you home?”

Rachel looked up with panicked eyes. “What? No, I don’t want to be alone tonight. Kate was my roommate.”

“Okay, okay,” Laura said with a high voice, patting Rachel’s hand. “You can stay here for as long as you want.” She smiled and turned to Woody. “Woody?”

“I’ll just crash here tonight, too, if that’s all right.”

“Of course it is,” she replied warmly, her sleepy eyes bouncing from their worn out faces to the scratches carved into their arms and legs. She took Rachel’s ashen hand in both of hers. “I’m so sorry about Kate, sweetie.” A tear rolled down Laura’s cheek and dropped to the floor. “And Ashley and your boyfriend…I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now.”

Rachel stared into Laura’s soft eyes and broke down crying.

“Oh honey,” Laura cooed, pulling Rachel into her shoulder and rubbing her back. “You just let it all out. Whatever it was that happened…it’s all over now.”

“Wait a minute,” Woody said, scooting to the edge of the couch. “You believe us?”

Laura stroked Rachel’s short blond locks. “I don’t know what went wrong out there tonight, but I can tell something happened just by looking at you.”

“Thank you!” Rory said, slapping his knee.
“Finally!”

Rachel pulled back and studied Laura through skeptical eyes. “You can?”

Laura’s heavy gaze traveled to each of their faces, stopping for only a few seconds that seemed like hours. “I know none of you would make something up like this, let alone come home early from camping when
you know who
is here,” she whispered, nodding upstairs.

Rory drank from his water bottle, not lifting his eyes from his mother. He thought it wouldn’t surprise him if she was the one person in the world who actually believed them but, hearing it now, it did.

“Something’s…afoot, but I’m sure the sheriff will clear everything up.” She smiled at them and gave Rachel’s hand one last squeeze. “Of course, he’ll blame the whole damn thing on a drunken boating accident or Mad Cow Disease, just like the government always does when the supernatural comes around.”

One of Woody’s eyebrows rose into his forehead, disappearing beneath his shaggy locks.

“Bird flu my ass!” Laura scoffed, rising from the chair and heading for the stairs. “Help yourselves to anything you want in the kitchen. There’s plenty of food in there.” She paused, staring at them with sorrowful eyes. “Try to get some sleep,” she said softly, disappearing upstairs.

The three sat on the couch without speaking for the next minute or two, each cornered by their own gruesome thoughts. Off in the distance, a dog started barking and Rory wondered if those…
things
had made it to town. He waited for other dogs in the neighborhood to join in, like some Disney movie gone horribly wrong. If that happened, it was game over. No, not
if
, but
when
that happened. At this point, it was only a matter of time. He wished his dad had a gun in the house before wondering if his softball bat was in the basement or out in the garage. A bat wouldn’t get them far and neither would his Honda Accord. The gas light was on. He shook his head, kicking himself for not filling up on his way home from McDonald’s the other day. But he had been too hungry and hadn’t felt like messing with it and now that lazy decision just might get them all killed.

Rory took a deep breath and released it, realizing they had plenty of cars to choose from and he was just being paranoid. Another dog joined in the yelping, this one closer. He prayed the dog was simply answering the other to let it know it wasn’t alone in the night, like a claustrophobic prisoner would do from cell block six. But what if those things had made it to town?

“I feel so bad for talking about Mark like that,” Rachel said faintly, jerking Rory from his thoughts. “You must think I’m a horrible person.”

He swapped a glance with Woody and took another deep breath. “You had no idea that was going to happen,” he whispered.

Woody nodded slowly. “None of us did.”

“I feel like I can’t breathe. I mean, I just can’t believe…they’re gone.” She dropped her face into her hands and broke down crying again.

Rory put an arm around her and squeezed, her tears staining his shoulder. “We’re going to be okay. We just need to get some sleep and figure things out tomorrow.” He smiled weakly. “Together.”

“What if those things make it to town?”

Rory’s eyes snapped over to Woody and held his tense gaze. “They’re not going to make it this far. They couldn’t even follow us into the woods.”

Woody glanced at Rachel’s pale face and dropped his eyes to his sneakers. “Yeah, you’re probably right. They were in pretty bad shape.”

The quiet resumed its place and the dogs stopped barking. Silent relief washed over Rory as he got up.

Rachel grabbed his hand. “Where are you going?”

He stopped and turned. “I’m just gonna grab some blankets and pillows from the basement,” he replied, trying to remember the last time he had seen his aluminum bat. “I’ll be right back and we’ll head upstairs and get some sleep.”

Chapter Eleven

Rory shuffled his bare feet across the living room floor, rubbing sleep from his puffy eyes and grumbling along the way. He wasn’t sure which was worse: Woody’s heavy snoring or the incessant doorbell. Probably Woody’s snoring, which had joined forces with Rory’s intrusive thoughts to keep him up most the night. There was an hour or two where he may have fallen asleep but he wasn’t completely sure, and figured if he couldn’t remember he must have nodded off. Either way, he spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, checking the clock and listening to Woody sawing logs. That much he did recall as it seemed like he was the only one on the planet for a very long time.

The doorbell sang out again, injecting high anxiety straight into his veins that nearly made him go back upstairs. Seeing Deputy Myer’s face again so soon was the last thing he wanted. Rory didn’t have the capacity for aligning any type of defense against the deputy’s – aggressive, yet understandable - barrage of rebuttals. Not this morning.