A Zombie Survival Series (Book 1): Infestation Iowa (2 page)

Confusion set in, his mind nearly bursting with thoughts. He didn’t know exactly what to do and he had never thought about a situation like this happening to him again. It was too painful to think about because of what happened to his parents. After the moment of terror and confusion passed, David ran to the man as fast as he could, his head pounding more and more, but David ignored it.
              “What happened?” David yelled as he approached the man. The man paused, gasping for air and grabbing the bloody stump that was left of his leg. He raised his head to look at David as if he was going to say something. He could not seem to catch his breath enough to reply. His face was badly cut; it wasn't clear to David if the man was missing an eye or if it was so covered in blood it just looked that way. A piece of glass stuck out of his chin and his short brown hair was completely soaked in blood. The man raised his hand and motioned for David to help him up. Then the man’s eye looked toward one of the empty fields beside David’s house. He slowly turned his head away from David and fixed his gaze toward the field. He lowered his hand to the ground and dug his fingers into the earth. He seemed to get upset, as if he had seen something that haunted him badly. The man then faced the ground and continued trying to crawl. He dragged his body by drilling his hands into the grass and pulling his weight across the lawn. He grunted loudly with each heave, crawling towards the empty field away from both David and the car. David looked at the field briefly but saw nothing. He looked back at the man confused, “Hey mister! You are hurt! You should stop moving.” David exclaimed. The man ignored him completely and just continued pulling his body towards the field. David stood beside him and reached down to stop him. He placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. He could feel the bones in it were broken for sure. It was as if he had grabbed a bean bag chair. The man let out a louder grunt of pain and pulled away from David, continuing to crawl and bleed across the grass. David slid around him to move into his path, and placed his hand firmly on his shoulder as he knelt. A loud snapping sound in the man’s shoulder caused David to loosen his grip as he realized he probably did more harm than good. “Look!” David said sternly as the man groaned once more, “You’re hurt bad and you need to stop moving!” the man slowly rolled onto his back as David released his grip and continued; “I am going to go call the sheriff and the doc - just lay here until I get back O.K.?” The man looked up at David, his face in anger and pain. He grabbed David’s arm and once again tried to speak.

              “Gotta ...” the man sputtered, gasping after the one word he managed to get out. Then he tightened his grip on David’s arm.
              “What? Gotta what?” David asked as the man tried to get out more words. “I'm gonna call the doc just don't move!” David screamed, somewhat panicked, he grabbed the man’s hand and pried it off his arm so he could stand up. He started to run towards his house, but the man grabbed his arm again pulling him down to the ground causing him to be nearly face to face to him. David could now see that the man was in fact missing one of his eyes. David tried to turn away but then the man spoke softly and harshly.

              “Gotta …. Warn.....” The man continued as he coughed out blood onto David’s face. David struggled to get his arm free yet a second time. The man, being injured so badly, had an unusually strong grip. When David finally did get his arm free he stood up and backed away quickly in order to be out of reach of the man.

              “Look you need help and can say whatever you want after, just rest now, I'm gonna call the doc.” David turned and started towards his house.

He raised his arm trying to wipe off some of the blood from his face onto his arm. The man shook his head in frustration and turned back onto his belly. He began crawling once more toward the field. He coughed up more blood as he struggled to move. David glanced back at the man as he neared his home; he was shocked to see the man still crawling in agony but now realized what he was crawling toward. It was not to an empty field like David had thought. In front of the field was a small dark blue duffel bag. It must have been in the car and was thrown when it hit the tree. David’s gaze returned forward as he reached for his front door. Once again, the squeak of the screen door pierced the night as he opened it. This time David didn't pause for a second; his headache could wait until the man was safe. He rushed inside to the living room immediately to the right of the entrance. Just on the wall inside that room was an old rotary phone. He grabbed the phone and quickly dialed the sheriff’s number. Even after all this time since his parents left him the house, he had not gotten around to replacing the old rotary phone. ‘What had I fixed?’ He quickly thought to himself. After several seconds of slow dialing he waited for the rings to begin. Finally a woman answered,

              “Hello, Sheriff Holiday's office, how can we help?” she said monotone as always. In a small town like Lone Tree, Iowa everyone knew everyone.

              “Hey Viv. It’s David,” he said shakily, “There has been a car accident at my place and we need the Doc and the sheriff to come out here; the driver is pretty messed up!” David sighed loudly and leaned toward his front door to see if he could still see the man, but before he could get a view, Vivian replied.
              “Sorry David, Sheriff Holiday and the Doc are out on a call right now.” There was a slight pause and David started to speak but before he could utter a word, she continued, “Hold on I will put you through to speak with him on his cell.” Vivian was never emotional and always professional. David could have said Martians were invading and she would have said almost the same thing with no emotion behind it. “There are a lot of problems with phones right now so it might take a minute.” She continued.

“Hurry Viv! This guy is hurt bad!” David snapped at her as the line clicked several times and David was put on hold. The song Hotel California by the Eagles came over the receiver as he stood there waiting impatiently. After what seemed like an eternity but was in reality, only a few seconds, the phone clicked again and David was put through to the sheriff's cell phone.

              “This is Holiday, what’s going on David? Vivian said it's urgent.” He sounded annoyed, as if he had heard complaints about everything that day. Nothing was unusual about that. What was unusual was that Holiday even got the call, he wasn't very tech savvy and most of the time had no idea how to even answer his cell phone. On top of that, Viv had said there were a lot of problems with the phone service. David was partially amazed he got through and then quickly remembered the only other time he had called the sheriff’s cell phone was the night of his parents’ accident.

              “Sheriff you gotta bring Doc to my place, a car hit the tree out front and the driver is bleeding everywhere, he won’t stop crawling around -” David was cut off by the sheriff:

              “Son we are just down your road,” Holiday still sounded annoyed and David heard lots of moving around in the background. “Someone hit old man Stevens between your place and town and they didn't stop.” Car doors banged in the background on the phone as David listened intently.

Old man Stevens was well known all over town. He always said hello and nobody had anything bad to say about him. Why he was in the middle of nowhere at that hour was beyond understanding for David. The sheriff continued, “The coroner just arrived so we are on our way to you now.” David couldn’t believe what had happened, “Keep your distance from him! It could be the same guy who hit Stevens!” the Sheriff said loudly. “Just keep an eye on him!” Then Holiday hung up before David could say anymore.

David hung up the phone and headed outside. Once again, the loud squeak of the screen door rang in his head as he opened it. He grabbed the side of the door firmly and pulled at it. He thought about Stevens, and the man. He thought about how all of this could be a dream but his head was hurting so badly, he knew it was real. He ripped the screen door off and threw it on the ground outside. He sighed with relief and turned towards the car, his eyes searched for the man on the ground. At first he couldn't see him; not until he looked towards the duffel bag the man was heading toward earlier. The man was hunched in a ball beside the duffel bag gripping it in front of him tightly.

Sherriff Holiday's sirens blared as his police car sped wildly down David’s driveway. David sprinted toward the man’s body; the sirens from Holiday’s car causing his head to pound worse and worse as the sheriff’s car grew closer. The man laid motionless; blood still pouring out of him. David stood over the man and wondered what could be so important that he would risk further injury to crawl across the lawn; he knelt beside him and started prying off the man’s hands from the duffel bag. Just as he started to pull at his fingers the man sat up and screamed.

“Warn the Gregors!” he yelled and then he fell back to the ground motionless. He seemed almost peaceful compared to the agony he showed before. David grew beyond confused, the man had just shouted out David’s last name. Nobody else in town had that last name except for David and his deceased parents.

As he pried off the fingers from the duffel bag, he heard each one snap and creak – the sound of it clear, even over the sound of the sirens. He couldn’t help wonder why this man wanted to ‘warn’ him of all people. It explained why he was heading down David’s driveway but now David wondered who this man was. He had never seen him before. Finally he got the bag free and moved a few feet away from the crumpled man, sitting down with the bag in his lap. He thought he felt the duffel bag move and froze, staring at the bag. After a few seconds of nothing happening, he slightly shrugged and thought the sound of the siren and his massive headache must be playing tricks on his mind as he began unzipping the bag. It was fairly light but he could feel its weight shifting slightly as he unzipped it. His headache was so bad at this point he stood to yell at the Sherriff to turn off the sirens! In the process, he dropped the duffel bag onto the ground and its contents rolled out onto the ground. David let out a scream and jumped back. A slightly decomposed human head rolled out on the ground and towards David. The head was missing most of its skin, one eyelid was gone showing a milky white eyeball. The remaining hair was like a few strands of tinsel thrown onto a Christmas tree. David could see almost every tooth in its mouth except for a few where some grey muscle seemed to have fallen over it. David began walking towards the head. As he got closer it opened its one eye and began gasping and looking around. David covered his face and turned away from it. Holiday's police car finally came to a stop in David’s driveway at such a fast speed that once he stopped the vehicle it slid on the gravel a short distance. The siren turned off which slightly relieved David’s head. David uncovered his face and turned towards the head.

It was motionless, ‘probably always was’ David thought to himself. The events of the night had been intense for David and he thought maybe his mind could have seen something that wasn’t there. He moved closer to the head, slowly. Its eyes were closed, one cheek had a hole that seemed to go all the way through to the other side, and what was left of the neck had bits of flesh hanging out of it. He couldn't tell much about it other than that it was a person at one point. He couldn't even tell if it was a man or woman. It was a horrible sight.

David started to think the man who was in the car was a very sick man who killed someone. Looks like whoever it was he killed, was dead for a long time. ‘Why would he bring this to me?’ David thought as he stood right above the head. He uncovered the rest of his face now completely sure what he saw earlier was in his head and not real. Holiday got out of his car and started running towards David shouting something; David couldn't make out what he was saying and just stared at the head. 
              David started to mutter “What the f-” just then the head opened its eyes and growled. It snapped its jaw wildly. David jumped back, his face in complete horror and disbelief. What he saw earlier was true! This head was not dead! The sheriff ran up behind David with his gun drawn. Sheriff Holiday grabbed David’s shoulder and pulled him back out of the way. Then, without hesitation, he pointed his gun at the head and fired twice. “Fuck!” David exclaimed after the shots rang through the air. “What the hell is going on?” David screamed at Holiday but got no response. Holiday just stood there quietly staring at the head which now sat motionless with some extra holes oozing from where the bullets pierced the skull. 

              “Same thing happened to old man Stevens,” the Doc said in his rich southern accent as he came walking up behind David slowly wiping the sweat off his head with a rag. “He damn near bit Holiday's head off.” David turned to the Doc, the horror in his face turning to confusion.

              “The sheriff said the coroner was there now ...” He turned back to the sheriff, “what the hell happened?”

              “Shot em,” the sheriff softly spoke. “Had to.” He turned towards David, holstering his gun, and then walked away towards Doc. Holiday stood beside the Doc and started looking up at the stars in the sky.

              “Stevens was hit by a car,” the Doc continued, “probably by that very same one,” he pointed towards the twisted wreck around the tree. “Matches the description Steven's daughter gave us when she went looking for him. She found him just as he was being run down. He snapped his spine in three places from what I could tell, and also broke most of his ribs, collar bone, and a bunch of other bones too.” Doc tried to place his rag into his pocket, missing several times. His face turning to anger he continued, “And he still got up after I myself said he was dead and jumped onto Holiday … biting and moaning like something out of a damn zombie movie!” He threw his rag on the ground and walked away almost in tears. Holiday still looked up at the stars. He tipped the front brim of his sheriff hat up so it was out of the way and he could see more. Then he sighed loudly.

              Suddenly David was pulled to the ground; the man from the accident had crawled over to them and had his hand around David’s ankle. His face still covered with blood and his mouth wide open as he pulled himself closer towards David’s leg. The doc ran to David and grabbed his arm pulling at him, trying to get him away from the man.