Rotten (8 page)

“Where are we going, Highland?” I said.  “I’ve never heard you mention an uncle.”

“He’s been dead for a long time, but we still have his property, it’s outside of Arlington on the river.  It’s fifty undeveloped acres and a lot of wilderness past there all the way to the state park.  That should get us on the other side of Arlington and past the blast range.  I spent a lot of time there as a kid, hiking, canoeing, and stuff.  Mom and I still get up there a few times a year to take care of the place and hang out.” 

“What did short-wave radio guy mean when he said weird fence?  How was it weird?”  Rotten said, as Highland steered around two deserted cars left on the road.

“Electric, he said.  But that it seemed like some kind of new technology, like a force field.  He said he saw a bird try to fly over at about twelve feet and get knocked out of the air.  And he said you could feel it in the ground, vibrating under your feet, and that it made him a little nauseous when he got within about twenty feet of it.  Oh crap,” he said, slowing down.

Ahead of us we could see the brake lights on Mrs. Williams Jeep and then the cars blocking the intersection in front of the Wal-Mart where it looked like a kid had dumped his collection of toy cars on the street and had left them where they fell to go on to other pursuits.  Several cars were upside down, and others had been deserted hurriedly and the doors were still open, and some still had dimming lights on as the batteries were beginning to die.  There were bodies, the dry dead pile of clothes, and the wet dead gore.  I glanced over at the Super Center and saw nothing moving in the parking lot or at the illuminated entrance.

“Follow me, Wayne,” Mrs. Williams said over the radio.  “I think I see a way through.”  We watched as she bumped over the median, nearly scraping a light pole, and slid between two cars, running over a couple of the dead, the wet dead.

“Gross.” Princess shuddered.

“I know, right?” I winced.

Highland followed, scraping against the light pole with a screech of metal on metal, and when he tried to follow the path his mother had taken between two cars the Escalade became wedged and the tires spun on the wet remains.  Finally the tires caught, and with a groan the other cars moved enough to allow us to get through. 

“Now we have guts under the car,” Princess pointed out the obvious. 

Mrs. Williams weaved through the stalled traffic, and resumed her spot in the right lane after the median turned to double yellow lines. 

“It should be easier going out here,” Highland said, as the road reduced to two lanes and the surrounding area transformed into farmland. 

We passed a sign that stated Arlington was twenty miles ahead and Mrs. Williams turned onto a barely noticeable gravel road that looked hardly more than an overgrown forgotten driveway.  “Is this your uncle’s place?”  I said, as the limbs of the trees scraped the sides of the vehicle.

“No, we’re taking the shortcut.” 

Princess laughed as Mrs. Williams deftly drove through a flowing stream.  “Who would have ever thought Mrs. Williams went four-wheeling?”

“Hell, I didn’t even know she owned a pair of jeans,” I said, just as amazed as Princess, when the Jeep pulled from the woods and bounced into a large field.  Thick power lines ran overhead and Mrs. Williams maneuvered the vehicle over a rarely used path up a hill, parking close to a tall metal tower that supported the heavy wires.

Rotten and I had called those pylons
Langoliers
ever since we watched the Stephen King movie by the same name, even though the electric lines had absolutely nothing to do with doom in the film.  “This is not a good omen,” Rotten said, stepping out of the car.

We gathered, guns in hand, looking in the direction of Arlington.  “That’s Black Oak road down there, we’re going to have to cross it to get to the orchards,” she explained, pulling the binoculars away from her eyes and handing them to Sully.  We all took turns staring down at the road, agreed it looked deserted, and Mrs. Williams warned Highland to stay close to the tree line and to go slow.  We climbed back in the car quickly and quietly; the threat of zombies now seemed minor when compared to soldiers. 

“I think we missed the point of all those zombie movies,” Rotten said, as Highland pulled in behind the Jeep.  “We always saw the zombies as the bad guys.  We always made our plans around the undead being the biggest problem, but we never talked about the real bad guys and those are always the people in charge, if you can call them people.  They are worse than any zombie, vampire, or monster ever conceived because they are real, have power, and don’t give a damn about us.  In every movie there is someone creating the problem and someone else solving the problem, and we are just cannon fodder in the mix of all the monsters.  It’s always the same.  The zombies are just as much as a victim as we are, the only difference is that we know it.” 

Despite a couple resigned sighs, we said nothing, what could we say?  Since the beginning of time the unseen leaders had made all the decisions for the little people.  And the little people, well, we just struggle and fight and try to claw our way to the top of the heap.  And most people believed it was normal to work hard for forty or fifty years until they were old, sick, and tired with the hopes of being able to retire and live the life they’d always wanted, but others, like us, we fought against the notion, we wanted to live the life we’d always wanted now.  These leaders, who we never see, who we don’t know, who are never on the news or having press conferences, make the rules that all of us live by from how much work or school we need to when we go to war.  They decide everything from the food we can buy and consume to what is in fashion and popular.  And they decide when to cull the herd.

We followed the Jeep across the highway, not seeing any traffic, and turned onto a rough trail beside a deserted farm stand with fading paint declaring Peaches!  And soon the path opened up on the edge of a huge orchard and the bare craggy limbs looked ominous against the darkening sky.   We were quiet for a moment, bumping along the orchard and then I asked the question that if it wasn’t on everyone else’s minds, it sure was on mine.  “How did you meet Sully, Princess?”

“I’d like to know, too.”  Rotten turned in his seat.

She sighed.  “Remember how we all got those fake ids in high school?”

“Yeah, mine never worked, said I was forty-five,” Highland said.

“Mine did and I used to catch a ride downtown and hit the bars by myself.  I guess I was looking for trouble or I was bored, it’s not like my foster parents gave a damn where I was.  Anyway, I met him at that bar Indescribable and we dated for a few weeks.  He broke up with me when he found out I was seventeen, evidently he doesn’t mind dating young women, as long as its legal.  I was dumb, stupid, and thought I was so grown up dating an older guy, and he broke my heart.” 

“I’ve noticed he does tend to date a lot of students and I remember your secret boyfriend, but you never told me his name,” I said.

“Yeah, I was living in fantasy land for a bit there and then I wised up.  I don’t guess I can blame him too much, I did lie about my age.”  She shook her head.  “I was an idiot.” 

“We all are sometimes.”  Rotten turned to look out the windshield.  “Any ideas of how we’re going to get across that fence once we get to it.”

“Not really,” Highland said.  “But I was thinking if the fence is electric, maybe they can’t run it through the water, so we may have to canoe up river.”

“What if it electrifies the water?” I said.

“That is a possibility.”  Highland said.  “I can’t really believe they have us totally surrounded, not unless they have some kind of technology we’ve never heard of before.  Some areas out here are rough, there are lots of hills and valleys, I can’t see how it would be humanly possible to cover it all with a fence, no matter how advanced it is, and if they have, maybe we can short it out somehow.  I don’t know, but first we have to get to Uncle Paul’s place.”

              “And if we get out, what then?”  I said.  “If they nuke Blacksport we’ve lost everything, most of us have already lost our parents and our homes, Princess has lost her business, and I’ve lost my family and everything I’ve ever owned.  I don’t even have a change of clothes.  And what if they track us though our bank cards which I’m sure will register at our bank on ground zero?  Will they hunt us down to make sure no witnesses exist?” 

              “Probably.” Rotten sighed. “They probably will.  We’d have to change our names, our entire identities, and be on the run for the rest of our lives.  We can try to tell people, but who will believe us?  It’s not like they’ll be breaking news on any of the networks, the people, or the real undead, controlling this situation will make sure of that.  Think about it, if they are willing to kill the entire population of Blacksport, Freemont, and the surrounding areas, nearly a hundred thousand people, knocking off a few freaks like us is nothing.” 

              “With a secure connection I can figure out a way to get us new identities, we’ll just have to find a place to hole up for a little while so I can set it up.”  Highland slowed to a stop behind his mother in the tree line.

              “Y’all be quiet, don’t slam any doors, there are lights up ahead,” Mrs. Williams whispered over the radio. 

              We stepped out of the cars and gathered, watching headlights move into the center of the orchard.  “Looks like a couple buses and a truck,” Mrs. Williams whispered, passing along the binoculars. 

              Even though the orchard was higher than the dirt path, and we were damned near in the trees, I darted low to the ground in a crouch, my heart pounding.  The others followed my actions, except Sully who held the binoculars and studied the buses bumping into the orchard.  “Why…” he began as the vehicles stopped moving, and then ducked down with the rest of us.

              The slam of two car doors drifted down to us and we stilled, straining to hear, and then a voice barked a string of words that sounded like an order.  It was deeply quiet for a moment, as it can only be before a barrage of automatic gunfire and screams fill the air, and we all jolted with the first shot. 

              “No witnesses,” Rotten whispered.

              “It’s really real,” Moonshine spoke the words that we were all feeling.  It was really real, all of it, the zombies, the military, the unseen rulers deciding our fate, the threats on our person and sanity, all of it, was really real.  Just like the movies, although unlike the movies in that there was no button to make it stop, fast-forward or rewind.  It was real and the odds of us making it out alive were slim and each gunshot from the orchard punctuated the fact that there was little hope for us. 

              The screams stopped first, and the shots went on for a while longer, it seemed like minutes, but was probably just a few seconds.  Again we heard a voice we couldn’t make out, and then the slam of car doors, four in all.  A motor started and we watched the lights of the SUV turn around and bump out of the orchard, it crossed the path in front of us just beyond a small rise and we stayed low and quiet until the engine faded from our hearing.

              “We should check for survivors,” Moonshine said, as we stood up and stepped onto the path.

              “No one survived that,” Sully said and put the binoculars back to his eyes. 

              “You see anything,” Rotten asked.

              “Just the buses, school buses.”  Sully handed the glasses to Rotten and shook his head.  “I’m pretty sure I heard kids screaming, too.” 

              “We have to check,” Moonshine repeated and I agreed.  We decided quickly and Moonshine, Highland, and I ran into the orchard, staying close to the trunks of the bare trees.  We approached the site slowly and stared at the dead, children and adults; the witnesses who could have helped tell the world.  Then we saw something move in the pile. 

              “Shit!”  A voice said and we saw movement again. 

              “Hello!”  Moonshine called out.

              Nothing, no one responded.

              “We’re not the bad guys, and we’re not zombies.  And we’re about to leave, so if you’re there, speak up.”

              “Help me, I’m stuck under my dad.”  A voice said and we saw a couple bodies shift.