Swarm (Dead Ends) (19 page)

Chapter 18

I stared at the backpack that I had left in the bushes before almost going cliff diving with an undead hunter. An unexpected smile crept onto my face. A wild-eyed kind of grin that oozed with waves of mental instability. It’s the look I would imagine every person who’s ever gone postal and mowed down their co-workers like they were the bad guys in a Grand Theft Auto game would have plastered across their face. A distant detachment from reality that proved both freeing and dangerous. A few minutes ago I had enough supplies to last me for months along with an SUV capable of carrying those supplies and protecting me from the undead. Now I had a backpack filled with sundries that wouldn’t last a whole work week and a pair of gangly, battered legs that seemed dangerously close to reaching their limit. And to add insult to injury, my clothes are starting to smell like a potent mixture of sweat, shit, and death.

I tried hard to calm down and gather my thoughts. There was no way I wanted to spend any more time in or around that bunker. Even if it was the safest thing to do, it was far from the sanest. I needed to be moving, no matter how much my legs tried to convince me otherwise. I knew there were campgrounds not far from here and at the end of the trail that led to those campgrounds was the old Sunrise Market. It was full of supplies for fisherman, hunters, and campers who may have forgotten something before hopping in the car and heading off to the great outdoors. It was the last opportunity for food, supplies, and gasoline for at least 25 miles that didn’t involve going into some unsavory backwoods hick town that would undoubtedly now be filled with gun-toting drunks looking to take target practice on anything that moved, regardless of whether it was undead or not. I doubt many people had the chance to flee the city, given what I’d seen from the ranger’s tower, so my hope is that no one had raided the market yet and I would have the chance to figure out my next move while munching on some potato chips and chugging an energy drink or two.

***

The campgrounds were mostly empty save for a few towards the end. The first site with a tent on it and pots and pans scattered around the fire looked empty. Whoever was staying here got the message quick and took off, hopefully before they were eaten alive. There weren’t many supplies to speak of but I picked up a cast iron skillet that still had a bit of warmth from the embers in the fire. It wasn’t an ideal weapon, mostly because it was a bear to carry but it was all I had. And the prospect of cartoonishly bashing in a zombie’s head with a frying pan was too sweet to pass up. I’d take anything at this point to help me get over the loss of my machete. The final site was what looked like the prime spot for this area, perched right on a babbling brook; it seemed like a perfect place to just get away from it all. There were a series of tarps propped up with poles where the tents should be and inside were a few hammocks. The whole place reeked of patchouli and stale weed. A thick blood trail led out back as if someone had either crawled or been dragged. I gripped the frying pan tight and walked out back preparing for the worst. Instead I found what was left of a female body, her long blonde locks and tie-dye shirt stained with blood, her forehead bashed in with what must have been a large heavy rock. Bite marks peppered her arms and legs, the skin tearing away to reveal muscles, tendons, and bones in some places. I found myself fighting to keep an appropriate amount of emotional distance from what I was seeing. It’s not as shocking once you’ve seen it a few times but a dead body is still a dead body.

I continued on to the creek to find what was left of her boyfriend laying limply in the muck. I followed the length of his body from the feet all the way up past his tie-dye shirt to the point where his head should be but was not. Instead it was a few feet downstream, the current slowly positioning it so his lifeless eyes looked up at whatever vision of heaven he may have believed in. I watched the blood flow downstream and wondered how many people, how many animals would drink from something that this stream fed into. My mind drifted towards bottled water. Unending pallets of safely bottled water from some Parisian well, harvested long before the dead trampled the earth. As far as I was concerned, the water out here wasn’t even good enough to wash my hands in. From inspecting the man’s neck, I could see that his head had been severed cleanly, hopefully by something big and sharp that would be somewhere nearby. As I drew back from the stream my foot hit his leg and a bit of filtered sunlight glinted off something hanging out of his pants. I reached down and pulled a keychain out of his pocket, complete with a shiny peace sign and a row of keys, one of which had the distinct look of a car key. I shoved them in my pocket and hoped that whatever vehicle they owned was parked at the foot of the trail, a stone’s throw from the market.

I continued to look around the site for anything useful but all I found was a bunch of dried fruit, nuts, and granola. I took a big handful of the nuts from their sealed pouch and munched them down as I looked around for something sharp that would make me feel a little bit safer than a heavy frying pan. I held out hope that they’d be the first hippies to have a doomsday stash of weapons hidden somewhere but I had no such luck. I just hoped whatever stoner wagon they drove up here in still had some miles left in it. I continued down the path towards the Sunrise Market. Unsurprisingly the road was bereft of traffic, the whole area good and quiet. There were three cars in the parking lot; an old pickup truck that I knew belonged to the owner of the store who had been working there longer than I had been alive, a newer looking Toyota Prius, and an old van with a soaring eagle painted on the side of it and a marijuana leaf bumper sticker. It wasn’t hard to figure out which vehicle’s keys I currently possessed. I rolled my eyes but it was hard to be too mad at getting a new form of transportation without having to work much to get it. The way things are shaping up, you take what you can get and you get the most out of it for as long as you can. Good advice even in safer times.

The Sunrise Market was unchanged. Just as it had always looked for the 20 years I had been coming here with family and friends. It was the convenience store that time forgot. A neon sign advertising live bait, old Rainier Beer signs from the 70’s and 80’s, a weathered poster of the Marlboro Man. It was all here along with the two old-school gas pumps outside that were made long before digital readouts and debit card readers had become the norm. Back in the 80’s when the state of Washington was a hotbed for Hollywood filmmakers looking to shoot on location in the wilderness, it was rumored that many Hollywood stars came through this little market, stocking up on the locally made Rainier and Oh Boy Oberto pepperoni sticks. Many people still tell the story of Kiefer Sutherland stumbling through that old screen door in the middle of a bender making a mess of the aisles and really playing up the Hollywood star as childish asshole role. Red, the owner and seemingly the only person who actually ever worked there, pulled a shotgun on him and eventually had to knock him out with the butt of the gun. To this day, Red probably has no idea who Kiefer Sutherland was, which was what always made this place so great.

Walking up to the rickety screen door felt like any other time I had ever been there. Even in the middle of everything that has happened, it still put a smile on my face. I opened the door, which triggered the familiar warped electronic ding that had remained unchanged since my childhood. I walked in and there was Red, taking a second from swearing at the television to give me a friendly hello. A vague look of recognition crossing his face as it relaxed at the site of what would be considered a “regular” visitor in these parts. The whole scene was so surreal. It begged for one of those too-good-to-be-true incantations to be uttered a second too soon before reality smacked you upside the head in the form of a blood hungry mutant sorely in need of some human jerky. Only none of that happened. I walked towards the counter suddenly aware of the large frying pan in my hand and how odd that would look to someone who seems to be completely unaware of what is going on outside. He acknowledged me with a sidelong look as I approached, still swearing at the television.

“I pay 60 goddamn dollars a month just so I can watch my Mariners games and all I get is static” he muttered, raising his arms in defeat. “I don’t care if they lose every damn game! I just want what I paid for.”

I approached the counter and just as I was about to ask if all of the channels were out, a loud banging echoed through the store from the back, near the ice cream freezer.

“What the hell was that?” I said.

“Oh just some Meth-head. He came in all hopped up trying to attack me so I took my shotgun out and popped him over the head. He ain’t comin’ outta that bathroom until that shit wears off. These kids are crazy these days.” He laughed slightly, “What? My beer ain’t enough for ya’? You gotta go suckin’ in a bunch of cleaning products? I don’t understand you kids,” he said, waving his hands in mock defeat.

I laughed uncomfortably before saying “Yeah… Red, are you sure he was a Meth-head? I mean, do you know what’s going on out there?”

“Of course I do! A brood of hillbillies set up camp a few miles away and started cookin’ that garbage and now they’re all a buncha soulless monsters just lookin’ for their next fix. Been trying to call the damn Sheriff all day but the phone line’s busted or somethin’. I sure as hell ain’t payin’ the bill next month if this is what kinda service I can expect.”

I stared at him in disbelief, my mouth involuntarily agape; the last man in the Puget Sound to hear about the apocalypse. With Red, that just about made sense. I could see him looking at the frying pan now.

“Plannin’ on doin’ some cookin’ there? We got plenty of eggs and bacon in the cooler. No steaks though. Didn’t get my damn delivery yesterday.”

“Oh… no, I just found this outside. Some camper probably left it.” I racked my brain, trying to figure out a way to explain to this old man what was going on but nothing came to mind. Anything I said, it was guaranteed he wouldn’t believe me. Who would, unless they had seen it for themselves? The banging continued in the back of the store and I could swear I heard someone talking, pleading maybe. Before I could go investigate, the door buzzer sounded off. A shambling gray mass of a man dressed in overalls with no shirt underneath lurched towards us, the sound from the back momentarily getting its attention before it turned back to us. His throat had been slashed and his left hand barely clung to the few tendons that were still connected to his forearm. Multiple blunt bite marks spanned the length of his arm.

Before I could react, Red raised his trusty shotgun and leveled it at the man. “You goddamn meth freaks, we ain’t got no Sudafed here so get the hell outta here or prepare to get winged!”

“That’s not a meth head” I said, raising the heavy cast-iron pan in the air and letting if fly before I knew what had happened. It connected with the side of his face and a mucky wet sound rang out, dull and heavy. It stunned him momentarily but he quickly shrugged it off, never once showing the slightest amount of pain or anger.

“Jesus Christ” Red mumbled, “Get back here behind me son, this boy needs to get dealt with.” I did as told. The large man kept shuffling towards us, his eyes hungry, his purpose evident.

“One more chance boy” Red said as he cocked the shotgun. The man kept coming. “All right then. Have it your way.” The sound and concussion of the shotgun almost made me lose my balance. The shot hit the man in the left shoulder, shredding meat and tendon away like a layer of clothing and revealing bone and viscous red goo. The man looked down at his wound with no emotion aside from curiosity. He stopped walking for a second while he tried to figure out what all the noise was about and then his gaze focused quickly back on us as he picked up his lifeless shamble once again.

“What in
thee
Hell?” Red gasped.

“You have to shoot them in the head” I said, “It’s the only way to stop them.”

Red looked at me with a mixture of confusion and amazement. “
Them
?” he said, “just how many of these goddamn things are there?”

“Too many to count” I said, “they’re sick and they’re not going to get better. You have to shoot them in the head to end their suffering and to keep them from eating us.” The calm manner in which I said this shocked even me.

Red looked at me quizzically while he cocked the shotgun, not uttering a word as he turned back towards the man and fired. Chunks of brain and fragments of skull splashed over the selection of boxed donuts and pastries as the man’s lifeless body fell in a heap to floor. Once the shock of the shotgun blast subsided, I could hear the man locked in the back once again. The intermittent banging was accompanied by what I could now tell was a voice. Red and I both looked at each other, faces full of confusion and fear.

“Red, that guy in the back, what did he look like?” I said.

“Like they
all
look! What the hell do I know?”

“I mean specifically,” I said trying hard to swallow back the rising tide of angry impatience.

“Well shit, crooked teeth, missin’ teeth, angry lookin’, you name it. They all look like they haven’t had a meal in months because most of ‘em haven’t. All they do is stay up and get high.”

“What about his skin? Was it the same color as…?” I looked toward the bloodied pile of skin and bones streaking across the floor.

“Yeah, I suppose it was” Red said, his eyes narrowing as he tried to make sense of it all. “He was a talker though. Didn’t have that creepy stare like that meat pile over there.”

“Was he bleeding? Did he look like he was bit anywhere?”

“Bit? Jesus boy, you better start explaining things ‘cause I’m too old for this ‘20 Questions’ bullshit.”

“Look, something happened alright? A bomb went off downtown, some kind of chemical weapon, I’m not sure. I only heard part of the emergency broadcast before the…” The look of bewilderment on his face kept me from talking about the helicopters and the two-legged meat grinders marching their way towards us. “All I know is that this is happening all over. It turns people into freaks. Into… zombies.” The word still sounded so foreign rolling off my tongue.