You and Me against the World: The Creepers Saga Book 1 (6 page)

A home run during this key tryout would seal the deal. Nelson could sit his fat ass on the bench and talk all day about his natural greatness. Austin would be right here doing the real work. Unlike Nelson the turtle, Austin didn’t flinch every time things got a little crazy. More important, however, was the simple fact that Austin loved this game.

He saw the three cheerleaders coming across the field. They looked as if they were doing some stupid dance move—one leg in front of the next. He picked up his bat and took a few practice swings while Joey stood on the mound, rubbing the ball.

The outfielders were still standing around in the dugout while the cheerleaders danced through centerfield. Austin pointed to them, and Joey turned and looked. He turned back and shrugged.

“You ready, Spider?”

“Yeah, send the heat.”

Joey went into his windup as Austin settled down nice and low over the plate.

The cheerleaders were now at second base.

“What the hell,” Austin said and gave Joey the wait sign as he stepped out of the batter’s box.

Joey turned to the cheerleaders again. One of them ran right into him.

Austin laughed until he saw the blood splash down onto Joey’s dusty uniform.

The second cheerleader turned and headed for a stunned Tommy, who stood at shortstop like a statue.

The third came right at Austin.

He saw that she was not right. He knew this girl; her name was Monica, and this morning, her big brown eyes had definitely not been a crazy, hazy blue, and she definitely had not had a big chunk of her neck missing.

Austin cocked the big wooden bat over his shoulder. She came in fast. He dug his back foot in. She was almost on him.

“Batter up, fucker,” he whispered.

Then he swung for the fences.

Connor’s bait n’ switch at Bass Pro

You had to see the irony in it. His department supervisor was always going on and on about great customer service. In Connor’s opinion, becoming a meal for a customer took it to a completely new level. Employees, customers, and even the crazies—was there anyone in this place not running and screaming? And the soundtrack to it all was that stupid country music playing from the speakers shaped like fish, bears, and coyotes. Another case of irony not lost on Connor: hunting brought to an entire new level.

He avoided a couple of the Creepers as he made his way out of the fishing department. Fish finders were fine, but the rack of shotguns in the gun department would even the odds a bit. He grabbed a canoe paddle when his assistant manager came down his aisle. One of her arms was just a bloody stump, but that hadn’t slowed her. She screamed at Connor in a mad howl. The sound was close enough to the one she’d made when he had shown up late last Saturday morning. He opened up her skull with the paddle, and she went down, twitching. He walked past, gave it a second thought, and returned. He took another hard swing at her head, and the twitches stopped.

A rather large fellow in a green camo trucker’s hat grabbed Connor’s arm.

“Fuck, man, you gotta help me. Is there another exit? The front is blocked.”

The guy was no less than 250 pounds, and Connor was disgusted by the guy’s tears.

“Don’t you think we should help these people?” Connor asked as calm as if he were asking about the weather.

“Fuck that, I’m savin’ my own ass, and you should too,” the sniveling, selfish moose said.

“You’re right, sir. There’s an exit right through that door.” Connor pointed to a corner door.

The guy considered it with measured suspicion.

“But there’s no exit sign over that door,” he said.

“I know. It’s an employee exit. Just follow the hallway.”

“Okay, thanks, man. Aren’t you coming?”

“I’ve got to get my little sister. She’s in the break room,” Connor lied. “Will you help me?”

“No can do, but good luck.”

“You too,” Connor said.

He watched the big man run to the door. Two Creepers saw the big meal and gave chase. The guy threw the door open and went through. The Creepers followed.

“Dead end, fucker,” Connor said and laughed. That short hallway led to a storage closet.

Connor reached the gun counter. He was alone on this side of the store. He smashed the glass case and took out a Mossberg pump action. He kicked open an ammunition drawer and dumped the shells onto the counter. He fed them into the gun and then pulled more guns from the rack. His cell phone rang.

“Yeah …. Yep, I’m at work … Getting guns. Pick me up in front … Nope, don’t come in … Two words—fuckin’ blood bath … I guess that is three … I’ll carry what we need … Gotta go.”

A woman galloped at him. He picked up the shotgun and blew her head away in a spray of blood and bone. He went around the counter and grabbed the largest bags he could find. He filled them with as much as he could carry and then headed out the emergency exit.

Kevin Bradley and the HOA

Kevin Bradley had just finished an oil change on his Chevy Silverado when he heard an engine roar. He wiped his hands on a dirty rag and walked out of his garage. His curiosity over the noise’s source was second to his desire to witness Mr. Jenks’s reaction. He wanted to see if Mr. Jenks would rush outside with his little notebook.
Mr. Jenks
was the Homeowners’ Association’s volunteer compliance agent. The man was ruthless in the execution of his duties, citing every weed, every dirty mailbox, and every extra car in a driveway. A race down the street would certainly draw Mr. Jenks and his big stack of violation forms.

The big Buick came down the street too fast for their residential area. Actually, it drove too fast for any street. It swayed from left to right and back again, as if the driver could only estimate where he wanted to steer. Kevin took a step back when the big street boat angled in his direction. The car overcorrected its course and headed for Mr. Jenks’s yard instead. A very un-Christian-like thought surfaced as he considered the absolute rage Jenks would display if the car careened across his perfectly manicured lawn.

The violation sheets will fly
, Kevin thought with a smile and then chastised himself.

Mr. Jenks appeared at his front door. The skinny old man, with his Marine buzz cut, stormed through the door with pad and pen in hand. He glared at Kevin as if Kevin were in some way responsible for the noisy vehicle. Kevin raised both hands to demonstrate his innocence. The old Kevin, the guy not-so-Christian, surfaced for a moment and considered flipping the old man off, or punching him in the face.

The Buick continued on its new course, toward Jenks. Kevin called out for the old man to move, but the engine’s noise drowned out his warning. The front tire hit the curb and pulled the Buick into a deeper turn. Jenks’s pristine white mailbox disappeared under the Buick’s large grill. A burst of laughter escaped Kevin before he could stop it. The mailbox caught on the bumper and then shot off the end of the post and tumbled and bounced down the street. The wood post scraped the bottom of the Buick and punctured the car’s oil pan. The oil left a large black smudge as the car turned and spun on the lawn. The oil reserve expended, the engine whined loudly as the car continued its reckless spin. The tires threw up the dark green sod, and a large chunk hit Jenks’s legs as he descended his stairs. The flying sod knocked him to his butt; he rolled off the stairs into his flower garden, and the pad of paper shot into the air. The fall saved him. The Buick continued its spin until the back quarter panel and tire slammed into the short set of cement stairs where Jenks had stood a few seconds earlier.

The old man was up and on his feet with alarming speed. The engine gave a final high-pitched whine and then sputtered in an ear-piercing metallic death. The old man screamed at the driver. It was a terrible sound, more high-pitched than the final whine of the Buick’s engine.

Kevin ran to assist but faltered when he saw two young boys exit in a panic from the car. They wore similar expressions of pure terror whose source seemed to be something other than their out-of-control joy ride. They scrambled away from the Buick, and Kevin noticed that they took special care not to turn their backs to the car.

Jenks yelled, screamed, and tried to grab hold of the driver. The kid was no more than fifteen, and he was quick. He dodged the old man’s hand and pointed at the car. Kevin’s paralysis broke and he ran into Jenks’s yard.

“What’s the matter?” he asked the second kid. The boy didn’t look a day over fourteen. The kid looked at him, but his eyes were distant and unfocused.

“They’re on the drugs, that’s what the matter is!” Jenks yelled. “Look at them. Go call the police.”

“Yeah, hang on a minute. Something is wrong here,” Kevin said and looked at the car. The sunlight on the windows shielded the interior.

“Wrong? Damn right. They destroyed my property, and they’re going to jail,” Jenks yelled.

Kevin turned to the driver, who still backed away from the car. He reached the kid in three short strides and gently grabbed the boy’s shoulder.

“Son, what’s the matter? What’s in the car?”

“M-m-my m-mother … sh … she’s … I … I …” The boy trailed off.

“Well, goddamn it, another crack mama letting her kids destroy the world.” Jenks’s voice had risen a couple of octaves, and he sounded like a teen girl. He stomped toward the dead Buick.

“Don’t do it!” Kevin yelled. He didn’t understand why, but the Buick gave him a deep sense of dread.

Jenks looked at him as if he was also “on the drugs.”

“Stay out of this, Bradley. This is Association business now,” he said and pulled open the back door.

Something leapt through the open door and drove Jenks to the ground. It was a woman, and she spit a thick, black fluid onto the old man’s face. Mr. Jenks screamed in pain. The woman bit his face and tore away a large piece of Jenks’s cheek. Mr. Jenks screamed louder.

“Mommy?” the boy said in a small voice and took a step forward.

She looked up; pieces of flesh and the black goo hung from her teeth. She hissed at them and then got to her feet.

Kevin Bradley grabbed the boys and yanked them hard.

“Run. That way,” he instructed and pointed to his open garage.

The boys ran.

The woman came at him in what he could only describe as a gallop. One leg came forward, and then the other caught up to it. Kevin looked over his shoulder. The boys had crossed the street and reached his driveway. He wanted to ensure they had a head start. The woman closed the distance. Her blue filmy eyes stared at him, and then her mouth opened. He knew what was coming, and he dodged the thick, black bile as it sprayed from her mouth. He spun on one leg and brought the other leg up high. On his path to God, he had sworn off life as the hair-trigger brawler that had nearly cost him everything. Now he prayed God would forgive the transgression of that broken promise.

It was a near-perfect roundhouse kick and he caught the woman in the side of her head. She spun once and fell to the ground. The kick should have knocked her out, but she hissed and crawled back onto her feet.

The boys watched him from inside the garage. Kevin ran. He could hear the woman’s feet slap the pavement as she pursued.

“Close the door,” he yelled.

The door began to descend, and he wondered if he was still fast enough to reach it before it closed.

Adam and Brad bang a left

“Bro, are you sure about this?”

“Sure about what?”

“A sleeve, bro. I mean that’s a pretty bold statement.”

“So it’ll be great.”

“Yeah, I guess, but I don’t know. What if someday you want to be, I don’t know, president or something?”

Adam laughed, shifted gears, and changed lanes without a head check.

“Brad, I’m pretty fuckin’ sure I’m not gonna be president.”

“Maybe, but who knows? I mean, I bet John Wayne never thought he’d be president.”

Adam eyed his friend.

“Brad, John Wayne was never president.”

“Sure he was. He was governor of California and then became president.”

“That was Ronald Reagan.”

Brad considered it. “Just the same, you never know what’s gonna happen.”

“My point exactly. The world could end tomorrow, so why not live for today?”

A shadow passed over the car and a loud sonic boom shook them in their seats.

“What the fuck,” Adam yelled. He slammed the brakes, stopping in the middle lane. The traffic around did the same.

“Shit, bro, that was a fighter jet. Look, it’s headed downtown and low.”

The F-15 flew just eight or nine hundred feet off the ground. Its nose turned up and accelerated into the sky at almost a ninety-degree angle before leveling off and turning toward the hospital.

A giant plume of fire and smoke rose from somewhere in the distance. Adam and Brad watched the jet circle around and head in their direction.

“Shit, was that the school?”

“The school or the hospital.”