Zombie Rush 2
Copyright 2015
Joseph H. Hansen
H. J. Harry
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Prologue:
“Driver, get back into your vehicle, please.”
“I just want to have a cigarette!” Dean shouted back at the guy on the speaker.
“There is no smoking allowed at this facility; please get back into your truck or I will have you escorted from the premises. Your dispatcher will then have to send another driver with the proper clearances.”
“Okay, okay, I'm getting back in the truck,” Dean said, snuffing out the cigarette. He knew that these high-security facilities were a tough bunch to deal with, but they paid so nice.
Goddamn stuffed shirt in the security booth should relax a bit. I got my clearances … they know I’m not a criminal. What the hell are they storing in here, anyway?
That question would plague Dean Solomon for two days; then the world changed and he became too busy to wonder about it.
Two days passed before he got out of the sleeper of his truck to stretch. Everyone knew about the mucked-up relationship with his wife and the restraining order. He wasn’t allowed to go to his house, touch a firearm, or even see his son—but he still had to pay for all of it. That was Solomon’s plight and somehow it felt more like fate.
He didn’t understand how some whore could step out behind his back for years, and he still got the short end of the stick. He knew what she was doing all along, but there was only one time that he caught her in the act. Suddenly her boyfriend wasn’t so pretty anymore. She claimed that it wasn’t his mangled nose, sculpted by Solomon, that pushed her away, but he knew the truth; it was the money. Dicky had more, much more, than the piece of meat he crushed that night.
Of course, Dean Solomon was never able to factor in the fact that he scared the hell out of most people, including the judge. Solomon didn’t see himself as the asshole that the rest of the world saw. In his mind, he was simply pragmatic. There was no room for feelings for a man like him in this day and age. You have to be tough, thick skinned, and able to take a beating as you struggle to refrain from doing the beating. Other than that one night, Solomon had become quite good at hiding his temper and his desire to finish every altercation his way. So many times each day, he had to take a few minutes and breathe while mentally fantasizing about what he would do to that person’s face or family when they really pissed him off. But in today’s age, it simply wasn’t allowed.
His bosses were also wary, so when he asked to sleep in the truck for a few days, none of them objected for fear of the attitude he would bring if they did. That was three weeks ago.
“Solomon, we need you to take a run today,” the dispatcher said as politely as he could while shouting.
“Can’t roll for thirty-six, boss. I’m already at seventy in eight,” he said, quoting the federal driving statutes that all drivers had to adhere to.
“We don’t have a choice; we have had four no-shows and one who showed up so sick he looked like a fricking zombie.”
“Did ya send him to the doc?” Solomon asked, believing that anyone who went to the doctor for the flu was nothing but a pansy.
“Hell, no … Didn’t even let him through the door. You can drive on my card today. I’ll pay ya cash, and you can consider it a consideration for letting you sleep here.”
“Ha, you should be paying me for the security that you laid off while I am here. It will have to be this evening; I’m allowed by the faggot judge to see my son for an hour this morning because it’s his birthday,” Solomon said as he grabbed his walking staff out of his truck.
“You’re bringing Shaaka with you?” the dispatcher said in reference to the handmade walking staff that Solomon kept with him always. Ever since his guns were confiscated when the restraining order went into effect, Solomon had been a little different. He made the stick in a friend’s garage shop and carried it like it was his only friend.
“Shaaka stays with me. There are a lot of degenerates out there and someday they will give me my chance,” Solomon said as he passed through the terminal and out the front door, where Brent stood looking like death warmed over. He literally lunged at Solomon when he opened the door, but Dean merely sidestepped and let his coworker fall into the building.
“Jesus, Brent, get the fuck away from me. Are you trying to get me sick?” He was tempted to help him back to his feet but then opted out. “You’re on your own, bro, just go the fuck home and sleep it off,” he said to the prone figure on the floor before heading off to his pickup.
His old Dodge always fired up no matter what the weather. It was the ugliest truck in the world with the tan on brown two-tone and very little chrome to accentuate it; nothing but a heavy-bodied, underpowered, single-cab four-by-four that always started.
He turned on the radio and tuned in to the local evangelist channel to hear, for the first time, the odd occurrences of the day. He then found another FM station that was already playing a loop of
stay inside
instructions. National Public Radio aired
The Mating and Migration of the Monarch Butterfly
, while the local public news reported on cult activity up north. The local stations reported some very strange occurrences in the area as well. In the forty-five minutes it took to get to his son’s house, he not only believed the zombies were taking over, but a part of him
wanted
it to happen. He wanted it so badly that he could taste it.
Finally, things are going to get really real, oh yeah.
He pulled up in front of his house where his soon-to-be-ex lived, seething from his own thoughts. He never understood why she really left other than she was fucking her yoga instructor … and the neighbor … and even the UPS man on a couple of occasions. Now she was with her attorney and they were “in love.”
He knew she couldn’t help it or even try denying it; she was a whore, and that’s how whores are.
She could never truly love someone, not in an altruistic way.
His thoughts never considered the fact that he couldn’t either; very few people can.
She claimed to be afraid of him. He never hit her. He yelled and sometimes broke things, but he never laid a hand on her or his boy—even when they both deserved it. And they
had
deserved it on multiple occasions.
His son was standing on the porch roof, as far away from the windows as he could get, looking for a way down to the ground.
“What are you doing up there, Charlie?”
Charlie looked down at him, surprised by the verbal invasion of his escape. The look of relief on his face warmed Solomon to his core. It was a look he had never witnessed from his son before, even when he was a baby. Fear, wariness … those were the expressions he usually saw, mixed with respect—or at least what Solomon construed as respect. He never thought anything else from his son would ever be necessary, but now … all he could feel was the need to protect his boy, his blood.
“What is it, Charlie?” he asked of his fourteen-year-old son.
“It’s Mom and … and Dick. They’ve gone crazy and are tryin’ to grab me and bite me.”
This is it! The bitch is infected.
“That’s okay, Charlie, I’m here now; we’ll take care of this … together, okay? All right, now come over here to the little roof over the door. Can you get to it? Good. Okay, now, hang from the gutter and I’ll catch you.”
Charlie looked at him with an expression of distrust. “Promise?”
A flash of anger swept through Solomon, but he quickly pushed it to the back burner until it dissipated. His boy needed him. “I promise, Charlie, this isn’t like at the ball field, okay? All right, now, hang down here … I gotcha. Hey, where are the boots I got you?”
“Mom makes me keep them in the garage,” Charlie lied. The truth was that he thought they made him look like some kind of twisted lesbian.
“I’ll get them for you; wait here in the truck for a couple of seconds while I make it safe for you to get some clothes.”
“What are you going to do, Dad?”
“Have you listened to the news, Charlie? Just like all of those useless video games of yours, the people of the world have turned into zombies. There is only one way to make it safe from zombies,” Solomon said as he pulled Shaaka from behind the seat of his truck.
While Charlie watched, he gave the oversized handle a twist and pulled it off, exposing how deadly Shaaka truly was. Eight inches of reshaped file blade, sharpened to an elongated point, glinted in the sunlight. The thick blade was polished to a high sheen like the ones he had seen at truck stops and the mall; except their fancy plastic handles and gilded scabbards were cheap compared to the sheer strength of this simple piece of thick steel bound to the wooden shaft of a transfer shovel. It looked much like the spears of old. Solomon could tell by the way people looked at his homemade weapon that it was a weapon of power, a natural utilitarian power that frightened people.
The sheath’s mug-styling was shaped out of a single piece of bastard-cut ash. Two and a half inches of solid wood, almost twenty inches long, acted as both buckler and human battering ram. The handle ended with a forearm shield on the bottom and a shaped wooden battering pyramid on top. Everyone thought it looked bulky and awkward, but they were unaware of its designed purpose to protect and disarm, while the spear did the bloody work. He had fantasized about fighting street gangs with Shaaka, not zombies. Yet, somehow, he had always known that Shaaka would someday have her day in the sun.
He went up to the door and tried the handle, knowing it would be locked. He vividly remembered having to dole out extra in the judgment to have the locks changed so he wouldn’t have a key. Didn’t matter though, he knew how cheap the doors were with their melamine jambs and short-screwed hinges. One solid kick at the middle hinge sent the door plummeting inside. He had heard how infectious the zombies were over the radio on the way to the house, but that didn’t worry him. It validated what he was about to do, and in a strange way allowed him to bury the joy he was going to get from it.
The foyer and entryway were empty. He looked to the kitchen, seeing that was also empty, and then moved for the stairs. He could hear them shuffling around on the second floor in what sounded like the area where Charlie’s room was—which made sense since that was the window Charlie crawled out of.
Solomon thought that Charlie was a whiny little pussy, but he was the only son he would probably ever have, so he mattered. Now with the boy’s mom soon to be out of the picture, Solomon could turn him into the man he should have been all along.
At the top of the stairs, he met Dick. Dick, whose Cadillac was parked in his driveway; Dick, whose clothes were in his dresser, and that very same Dick who rode his wife all the way through the divorce.
He used the oversized buckler sheath to slam Dick up against the wall, pinning him in place. He came in close to the wretched creature so he could look at the features of the cretin who had helped to take so much from him.
“Hello, Dick, you mother fucking home wrecker.” He was disappointed by the lack of reaction from the lawyer. A sound to his right and movement sent his spear out and into the chest of his loving wife.
“Ah, there is the cunt who loved me,” Solomon said, almost laughing. The reanimated corpse that was his wife struggled to get closer to him, only to have the binding beneath the spear’s head stop her progress.
“I will get to you in a minute, honey; first, I want to talk to Dick,” he said before directing her to the banister with his five-foot piece of hardened ash attached to the reshaped carbon steel file. A quick thrust and she fell to the living room below. Dick didn’t so much as even blink. Thoughts, feelings, emotions … no longer a part of his genetic makeup; instead, Dick struggled only to feed.