Summer Of 68: A Zombie Novel (10 page)

Russell whimpered. A cry fluttered from his lips and sounded like a beat down, cowering in the corner. As he shook his head, a stream of tears dislodged from the corner of his eyes and quickly rolled away.

That was all it took. From the water, the man groaned, cocking his head sharply their way. He focused in on the new sounds emanating from nearby. His eyes met theirs. They were cold, calculating, yet seemingly blank. A murderous rage lay hidden within the milky sheen that engulfed them. They narrowed at the sight of the children. His jaw fell slack, permitting the remaining nugget of meat to tumble from his lips, as it hit the water silently and soon drifted away.

Without hesitation or adverting his eyes, he hurdled himself forward, against the stream. His groan, more like a howl, was filled with an unbridled determination. The man moved with a purpose, longing for the children, no matter what the cost might’ve been, as evident by his fevered, almost perverted cries.

He quickly closed the gap between both parties and by the time either child knew what was happening, he was less than five feet away. Neither of them said a thing as they spun on their heels, slipping through the sand and ran back to their belongings. They stopped only once and that was to grab their shoes. 

“What about the poles?” Russell asked. With difficulty, he slipped his shoes over sand caked toes and hoped upright. 

“Leave ’em!”      

Nearby, their aggressor pulled his shriveled body to shore, rolling to his stomach. His hands clinched the soil as he pushed himself, first onto his knees and then to a set of unsteady legs. Once he rose and looked around, the boys were gone.

Jake and Russell ran. Like a rocket, they careened forward, hurdling to the top of the hill. They hit the main road in a handful of seconds. It was this vary road, which only minutes prior had offered a platform for their childish ways. The dirt and gravel roadway reflected the sun’s blistering glare. Their once gentle breeze was gone, replaced by nothing less than a stifling heat. This was Hell and they were lost in the midst of its belly.

Chapter Eleven

After leaving the Miller Farm, the minutes it should’ve taken for Baker to return to town, became hours—or at least that’s how it felt. His mind reeled at everything he had seen. Horrific thoughts blurred together and overshadowed the landscape lying beyond the windshield. He couldn’t tear his mind from them, no matter how hard he tried.

His foot bore down, grinding atop the gas pedal like a cast-iron weight. His car drifted, careening between the lanes at a neurotic speed. Strangely, they were deserted and he hadn’t seen anyone else since hitting the road.

Where were they?

He tried the radio, the CB, and each device bore the same results, and he hadn’t felt helplessness on par to this level, since his wife died. How long had it been since he fled the farmhouse? He didn’t know. He had to pull the cruiser aside on numerous occasions, just to vomit on the asphalt. The air felt muggy and dank, dark clouds rolled overhead. As they slowly took shape, he realized what he was seeing wasn’t the start of a summertime rainstorm, but the result of a handful of fires rising up from the city limits. Plumes of smoke polluted the sky like cancer.

The Sheriff’s panicked heart flipped and fluttered as did his stomach. The mounting need to vomit and retch forced his driving once more to the side of the road. The sight of all this smoke was crushing, salvation was tattered. There was no illusion, and Baker knew exactly what had happened… The dead had breached the town. He stared down the road and measured his breaths, taking shallow gulps until the sickness subsided.

Looking out from the idling car, he judged the distance—fifteen, maybe twenty miles to go. He wished Cohen was alive, he’d know a back road or two that would get them there quicker. Again, if he was alive, then this mess would’ve probably never happened. He cut the engine and fumbled for a cigarette. The pack was broken and crushed, and he took one of the maimed cigarettes and tore off the filter, where it had ripped. The uncensored blast of nicotine and smoke clouded his lungs, left him lightheaded and strangely sedate.

“We’re all dead,” he whispered, cigarette smoke fluttered around each word.

Squinting against the blistering sun and for a moment, imagined the heat and the crackle of flame. It was soon replaced by screams and an onslaught of moans. The sound was deafening, triggering a cold sweat. Baker trembled, drawing his focus a little ways down the street. The pavement shimmered beneath the sun, shiny like an oil slick. It wavered, looking as if evaporating before his eyes.

Then he heard a new sound, one that was different from the damnation in his head. It sounded like the pained chug of an old engine. The sound carried, rattling across the hills, and down the road. As the sound grew closer, he saw it. In a moment of waiting, he spied the markings of an old Chevy truck.

“I’ll be damned,” he said as he hurried from the car and into the road. At this rate, the truck would be on him in no time flat.

“Hey!” he screamed, waving his hands over head. “Hey, stop!”

Desperate to make his presence known, Baker jumped up and down as he continued to shout and wave. The truck came quick, but he held his ground and prayed the driver would see him before it was too late.

“Hey—stop, I need to talk to you!”

His cry for attention worked. The truck slowed, decreasing speed with the shrill squeal of the brakes. It came to a halt beside him, momentarily concealed in a dense cloud of dust.

Baker took a deep breath and was thankful to see another person after all this time. Baker stepped forward, the driver rolled down the window. As they did, he withdrew his badge and flashed it as if adding credence to his presence. His legs wobbled as he resisted the urge to demand what was happening back in town.

“Howdy…” the driver was female, a few years older than himself. Her body was toned, sculpted by years of manual labor and tanned a dark and golden brown. Her long, sun bleached hair was pulled back, tied into a thick braid that disappeared beneath her. She possessed a warm and kind appearance, especially when she smiled.

“Sir, you picked one hell of a time to break down.”

“My name’s Jared Baker,” he said and slipped the badge back into his pocket.

“Norma,” she replied. Regardless of her smile, there was a strained look of concern that graced her wrinkled face. There was no use beating around the bush, the time for pleasantries was gone.

He took a breath, hitching his shoulders and braced himself for the worst. “How bad is it?” he asked. 

Norma’s smile downturned, her wrinkles lightened, and left behind a haunting reminder as her muscles relaxed. “It’s bad.
Very, very bad.” As she spoke, her eyes drifted back to the rearview and the smoke she was escaping.

“What happened?” he asked.

Norma shrugged. “I can’t tell ya’, ‘cause I don’t rightly know. I reckon though, we’re at war.”

The Sheriff was taken back, his heart dropped. Before he could reply, Norma nodded in agreement to her own statement. She continued, “I did some time as a nurse in Frankfurt during the war.”

Baker nodded, he couldn’t picture such a rough and tumble woman as this, working as a nurse—an auto mechanic, maybe, definitely not a nurse. 

“Some of the things I’d saw in forty-three ain’t ‘bout to hold a candle to what’s going on back in town, what’s going on isn’t natural, it isn’t right. The man on the television said we ought to—”

“Television,” Baker interrupted, “they’re still broadcasting?” His eyes lit up. He hadn’t tried the radio in sometime, and perhaps the lack of broadcast was only a hiccup, and was broadcasting once again.

“What about the radio?” he asked, hopeful.

Norma shook her head. “Ain’t got one on board,” she said, nodding at the dashboard.

“The damned thing broke awhile back and I ain’t got around to fixin’ it just yet.”

“I see,” he grumbled.

She sighed, as though realizing the hope she had extinguished. 

Baker turned, looking back to the smoke as it spread further across the sky and studied the tendrils, contemplating his options.

“What did he say?” he asked, forcing himself to focus back on the women. “The man on television, what did he say ‘about all of this.”

Norma bit her lip and looked away.

Whatever was coming, Baker knew, wasn’t good.

“They said to hide,” Norma said, “lock the doors and windows. Just hide. Do what you can to stay out of sight.”

“Did they say if it was local?”

“It ain’t,” she said. “Whatever it is, it’s happening everywhere.”

Baker nodded, he had already figured as much. “What about
them
…what are they, did they say?”

“They’re dead.”

Baker echoed her statement and already knew as much. It was nice to have reassurance from another person, rather than wondering if this was all a defect of the mind—a thought that he wondered more times than not this last hour.

“Dead bodies… dead people, whatever you want to call ‘em—they’re dead. Whatever you do, you need to stay away from them. Don’t touch ‘em, don’t go near ‘em.”

“I know,” he said. Memories of his own confrontation left him fearful. He thought of Cohen and for the first time, wondered if he had contracted whatever it was that made the them—
them.

Norma could see the grim look in his eyes and left it at that. She added, “They’re calling them
zombies…
can you believe that?”

Baker smiled, sadly. “I can’t believe a lot of things anymore.”

She chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth?” Before looking back at the smoke filled sky.

“And Red Bluff?” he asked, refusing to look where she was. “How’s my town faring?”

Norma’s response lacked subtlety. “I suggest you turn around and forget about it, sir. You know what I mean, but that look in your eyes—you’ve seen ‘em, you know what they can do. Me? I’m heading to Shasta, got a cabin that used to belong to my Mama, gonna ride this
thing
out until it runs its course.”

“What about everyone else, what are they supposed to do?”

Norma swallowed, shrugging, she thought it over. “A few cars are on the road, folks loading up their families, too. Getting out of dodge while they can, the ones that stay…consider that their fault. Like I said, I suggest going elsewhere—only a fool would go back to that Hell.”

Somewhere in distance, gunshots echoed through the countryside. Norma shook her head and shifted the truck into drive. “That’s all I need,” she told herself. She looked back to Baker and frowned.

“With all due respect, there ain’t much of anything for you to save back there. You understand me?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I just wish it was as easy as that.”

She waved him off. “If it’s worth anything, they’ll be sending some of their military men into all places hit by the dead, said so on the television. I reckon Red Bluff to be
somewhere
on that list, wouldn’t you? Do what everyone has to do—hide, save your own ass.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, he drew a deep breath and averted his eyes. He was scared to death, and wanted nothing more than to avoid this travesty like everyone else, but he was a man of the law.
He couldn’t—wouldn’t allow it, as years ago, he had taken an oath to protect and serve, and to give up now would’ve rendered his life obsolete.

Norma sighed, loud enough to be heard over the deep rumble of the old engine. She said, “You do what you gotta do, but remember when the going gets tough—and it will, you’re still gonna have to look out for yourself.”

Baker nodded as she lifted her foot from the brake. The truck lurched forward, slightly—squeaking to a stop with the sudden addition of pressure atop the pedal.

“You be safe now.”

“I will,” he said.

She never broke her gaze. Her focus remained solely on Baker. His, however, remained elsewhere. “The man on television said, when in doubt, all you need to do is shoot ‘em in the head, best way to put ‘em down. When they’re down, you burn ‘em, they ain’t too big on flames, neither.”

“I’ll remember,” he nodded, looking up for the first time and spied her sad smile.

“Good luck,” she said.

Baker took a step back, watching as she drove away. With a cough, he fanned his face from the churned dirt and returned to his car. It was covered in a thin veil of dust. He ran a finger across the hood, smearing the brown powder and rubbed it off on the breast of his shirt. He moved sluggishly, boot heels scraped across the blacktop as he considered his options. His mind was at war. Conflicting emotions fought fruitlessly amongst themselves, pining for dominance.

Upholding the law or self-perseveration?

Back in the car, he closed the door and began to cry, his forehead rested against the steering wheel.

Baker had reached the end of his rope and the day had only begun.

He sat there in silence, crying for an unknown period of time. The Sheriff cried until he’d spent all of his sadness, and the tears refused to fall. He hadn’t sobbed like this since his wife had passed and found it a cleansing release of inner demons and sorrow.

He met his reflection in the rearview. His eyes were bloodshot, puffy. Baker sat there, looking into his own eyes. The only sound came from the breeze as it fluttered through the fields, and chased by the occasional gunshot.

The smoke grew immensely, falling like rain from the Heavens. Its thick acidic aroma stung his eyes, rubbing them raw. It was a reminder that he couldn’t stay here, he had to move. The car sputtered to life, still Baker flicked and danced through the radio station and was greeted with the familiar hum of static. It filled the cab with the subtle hiss of white noise. He listened to it, embracing it like an old friend.

With a deep breath, Sheriff Baker began his journey back to town.