The King of Clayfield - 01 (32 page)

Jen was on the ball.
 
My mask
 
hadn't even cleared my chin when I heard the gunshot. I looked up, and she was
 
hanging out the driver's side window shooting
 
Mr. Somerville's shotgun
 
left-handed. I didn't expect her to hit anything, but when I looked over my shoulder I saw
 
Hank was stumbling around
 
clutching his face with both hands, his cowboy hat at his feet. The other men were pulling weapons and running for cover.

Sara opened the
 
passenger door and stepped out with the .22 rifle and fired.
 
I tried to pull the revolver, but it hung on my pants. I got around the door of the truck and a bullet came through the windshield just above the wiper on the passenger side, spider-webbing the glass.
 
I climbed in anyway and grabbed Sara, pulling her back into the truck.

"Drive, Jen!"

The truck lurched backward, the passenger door still open. The men advanced, shooting. I could hear the bullets hitting the truck, but I didn't know what kind of damage they were doing. Hank was still holding his bleeding face with one hand, and firing a pistol with his other.

The infected came around both sides of the building and from the road.
 
Some of them were dragging their feet, but others were coming in a limping jog, and others were coming in a full sprint. They were in
 
different states of dress and undress. I saw five that were wearing the red Lowes
 
vest.

I leaned over Sara and pulled the door closed. We had a few that were interested in us, pounding on our windows, but most of them were headed toward the four men in the open.

The fear on the men's faces was evident even from a distance and even though they were wearing masks.
 
They turned their guns on the infected and backed toward their vehicles.
 
Soon, they
 
were empty. They tried to run and reload, but there was no time.

Hank pulled out his machete. He hacked
 
and chopped,
 
but there were too many of them.
 
He was dragged down.

The man with the shopping cart tried to make it back inside the store, but they caught him and went to work on him like piranha.

"Dear God," Jen said. "What are they?"

"Please go," Sara pleaded as sneering, slobbering
 
faces pressed against her window. "Please."

Jen looked over her shoulder and gunned
 
it in reverse. Before we got around the corner, I watched one of the men break free and make it to the Porsche.

Jen continued driving in reverse until she was well clear of the fray. Then turned, put it into drive, and pulled out onto the road behind Lowes.
 
I was shaking, and I couldn't make myself stop. Sara was crying.

"What happened?" Jen said.

"I asked him about Brian's car, and--"

"Is Brian okay? Where is he?"

"I don't know. He
 
told me he found the car.
 
He offered to trade it for one of you."

"For one of us?" Sara said.

"That's why you pulled down your mask?" Jen said. "Hell, that ain't no reason to shoot somebody."

"No," I said. "I pulled down my mask because I thought he was going for a gun."

"He was," she said. "I saw that. I was going to shoot him whether you signaled me or not. I was just wondering what you did to make him go for his gun."

"Dammit, I can't quit shaking," I said.

"This is going to happen again," she said, pulling out onto the bypass that circled around the town. "This ain't no
 
civilized world no more.
 
People are realizing now they can do whatever they want and get
 
away with it. There ain't no law or prisons to scare them into being good. For the rest there ain't no
 
god no more neither. When there ain't no law and there ain't no god, then....well,
 
it's going to
 
be like caveman days."

"You say that like you're okay with
 
it," I said.

"I'm just facing reality--taking the bad with the good. We ain't got no government breathing down our necks; that's a good thing. Sara and me were lucky to come across you and
 
Mr. Somerville like we did. There are more good folks out there like Brian and Charlie. There are also assholes out there that ain't got no moral compass. I ain't saying that I can't take care of myself--I can and have--but if I was to get backed into a corner... surrounded...outnumbered....there'd be nothing I could do about it."

"I still believe in God," Sara said softly.

"Sara, hon, maybe you could talk to him about a few things. I think he dropped the ball on this one."

"Don't be so condescending," Sara said.
 
"It'll all work out for the good. I believe that."

Jen laughed a little.

"Yeah," she said. "I can see that. It's worked out for my good so far."

Jen headed north on the bypass, the wind whistling through the bullet hole in the windshield.
 
She knew of another place that rented moving vans on the other side of town. We crossed the railroad tracks, and I noticed smoke coming from under the hood.

"We're overheating," Jen said, looking down at the gauges. "They must've hit our radiator. I ain't stopping. We'll just run her until we crack the engine block."

"Throw it in the gutter, and go buy another?" I said, making an attempt at humor.

"Huh?" she said.

"You know...Eazy-E."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never mind," I said.

It didn't take long. The engine started making a horrible sound and stalled. We coasted to a stop in front of Grub,
 
one of Clayfield's better restaurants.

"That's that," Jen said. "Let's find another car before the zombies find
us
."

We all checked our guns and made sure they were fully loaded. Then we grabbed our small bag of supplies that we brought--extra ammo, a little food and water, and the bottle of Southern Comfort.

There were plenty of cars around, it was just a matter of finding one with keys that would start. Most of the ones that were abandoned with the keys inside were left running, so their batteries were dead and they were out of gas. I went into the little restaurant to see if I could find a purse with car keys. I thought that would be our best option.
 

Both the dining area and the kitchen were trashed. The air inside stank. There was
 
old food and broken dishes on the
 
floor. I saw a couple of piles of human excrement and a raw, meaty bone with a partial
 
human hand attached. Something really bad had
 
happened
 
here same as everywhere else, but thankfully it was gone now. I found Grub to be unoccupied.

There was a purse at one of the tables, and I found two more in the back. I took them outside so I could
 
look through them in the
 
fresh air. When I came out, Jen was standing sentry with the
 
shotgun while Sara looked in the windows of cars and tried to start the ones with keys.

I turned the purses up and emptied their contents on the hood of the nearest car. Sara came up, and I handed her a set of keys.

"Try to find the car these go to," I said. "It'll be parked here in the lot."

She picked up one of the wallets and started to open it.

"Don't," I said.

"I'm not going to steal her money," she said. "I just thought I'd see who she was."

"I know," I said. "Don't. It's easier if you don't know them."

She did it anyway then proceeded to open the other wallets, too.

"Take them with you," I said. "We don't have time for this."

"Sorry," she said. She
 
put them into a
 
single purse and walked away.

"We need to move!" Jen said. "I see some coming down the road!"

I took the other two sets
 
of keys and tried them on the cars in the lot.

"Got it!" Sara said, standing
 
next to a
 
green,
 
two-door,
 
Dodge
 
Neon.

She got in and shut the door.

I got to the car next and climbed in the back seat, leaving the door open for Jen. Jen ran over and
 
got in the passenger side of the car. Sara started the car, and the
 
stereo started up, too, with
 
Flo Rida's
Right Round.
Sara
 
ejected the CD, but Jen pushed it back in.

"I haven't heard
any
music
 
in
 
more than a week," Jen said. "I don't care what it is; we're listening to it. Hell, I'd listen to
 
John Tesh
 
right now."

"I like John Tesh," Sara said.

"Of course you do," Jen said. "Now drive.”

She cranked up the volume, and I must admit that it brought a smile to my face
 
and helped me forget for a little while. I still had the shakes, but they were subsiding.
 
It was nice to see Jen enjoying herself. I was amazed at her
 
resilience and detachment. I'd been trying to separate myself from
 
all the excitement, too, but I
 
still felt shell-shocked. I
 
feared it would eventually catch up to all of us. I just hoped it wouldn't break us.

Sara
 
seemed to be having a good time, too. It brought back memories of cruising with my friends in high school.

Then I heard something else. I thought it was part of the music at first, but no....

"Turn it off for a second," I said.

Jen
 
did.

"What?"

"Do you hear that?"

Jen rolled down her window and listened.

"It's the tornado siren," she said, laughing. "I guess old Saint Nick
 
finally turned it on."

When we got close enough to see the rental store, Jen turned the stereo off.

"Pull in close," she said. "I'll run in and get the keys. I'll bet since the siren is on, we won't have any trouble now. I didn't think it was a good idea before--I still don't--but right
 
now I don't think we could have had better luck.”

"I wonder what
 
Mr.
 
Somerville is doing," I said.

"He's probably giving himself some
 
space so he can go door-to-door checking for survivors."

"He'll need our help," Sara said.

"He's not getting my help today," Jen said. "I'm sticking to the plan. We can check on him when we're done. He knew where we were, and he could have run his plan by us before he did something
 
foolish by himself."

Sara pulled up to the front door. There were four trucks and a trailer parked out to the side of the building.
 
They all had
MOVING? RENT ME
! on the sides and back. Two of the trucks were smaller, one was very large, and one was somewhere in between. I didn't really want to drive the big one. It was hard enough to maneuver through some of the cars on the roads as it was. Jen ran inside, and I got out, too.

I stood by the car for a while, and then I decided to go in.

"Jen, you okay?"

"I'm in the office!" she said.

I walked around the showroom looking at other stuff. There were big screen
 
TVs, furniture, and appliances. In another section of the store were tools like
 
log-splitters, welders,
 
and augers.

I didn't see anything we could use.