As the World Dies (4 page)

    Feeling uneasy, Eric walked back down the hall and checked in the parlor and the small office tucked off it. No one was in sight. The world seemed frighteningly empty and he walked over to the fireplace and snagged a poker from the ornate stand next to it. As he gazed down at the handle clutched tightly in his hand, he could see that he was trembling and he took several deep breaths. The unease he had felt the day before was swelling into an overwhelming fear and he struggled to gain control of it.

    The front door of the house suddenly slammed open and he let out a yelp and almost fell backwards over a chair. Pepe began to bark furiously and Mrs. Waskom appeared in the doorway to the parlor looking flushed and agitated.

    "You need to leave," she said bluntly. "Now. I'm leaving with my kids to join my husband at Fort Hood and I'm closing the bed and breakfast."

    "My girlfriend left without me," Eric said softly.

    Mrs. Waskom blinked then said, "Damn. You had a fight?"

    "Something like that." Eric picked up Pepe, but held onto the poker. "Why are you leaving?"

    "My husband called and told me its getting worse. It's spreading, whatever it is, people going crazy, attacking each other." She hesitated. "He said I needed to get to Fort Hood before this thing explodes. He says they can't get it under control."

    His throat felt painfully dry and he swallowed hard. "I noticed on the TV that the higher population areas are having a lot more trouble. You might be safer out here."

    She laughed in response. "Sorry, but I'd rather take my chances with a fort full of armed soldiers than stay out in the middle of nowhere."

    Eric shifted Pepe in his arms and said, "I don't have anywhere to go. I have three hundred dollars in cash and my credit cards. If you can let me stay here, I can watch over the bed and breakfast and the barn until you get back."

    Mrs. Waskom hesitated then said, "Look, you could come with us."

    He considered this for a moment, but the memory of the map that showed all the violence came to mind again. "I'd rather stay here. You can charge me for my stay."

    "I have Felipe putting the horses out in the pasture along with bales of hay. They'll be fine until I get back. But…" She pondered the offer again. "I guess you can stay. Seeing as you don't have a car and the bus that comes through town isn't coming today…"

    Eric sighed with relief. "Thank you."

    "Let me show you where everything is," Mrs. Waskom said and then held out her hand.

    He was confused for a moment then realized what she was waiting for. He quickly took out all his cash from his wallet and handed her two of his credit cards. Her fingers snapped around the items and she shoved them in her jeans.

    "I'll make this fast," she said.

    In ten minutes, he understood where all the food was, the emergency generator, the fuse box, the propane tank and the emergency gun.

    "I don't think you'll need it, but just in case," she said.

    Pepe curled up against his chest during the entire tour, looking pensive and a little sleepy. Eric felt much the same way. Finally, Mrs. Waskom ran out to her car packed with kids and Eric shut the door. He listened to the car roar away and then the world returned to a state of eerie silence.

    Slowly, he trudged back up the stairs to the bedroom and flipped on the TV. Holding Pepe tightly, he flopped down on the bed and turned on the TV.

    "…and the Fort Worth area report increasing violence and residents are advised to stay home, close your doors, and stay put until the authorities determine the safest location for you to go to. Emergency Rescue Centers are being set up, but as the infected escalate in numbers, it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine which areas are actually safe in the cities."

    Eric watched with morbid fascination as the footage of bloodied, crazed people rampaging through various cities flashed on the screen. A warning label in the corner of the screen that announced scenes of a disturbing nature amused him. The whole world was a disturbing nature apparently. Scenes of more mutilated, insane people attacking outside the Kremlin showed that this was just not happening in America. If it was terrorists, they had set off whatever it was all over the world.

    The scenes continued to play out, Brandy did not return, and Pepe fell asleep next to him and snored loudly. As the news reports droned on, Eric felt his numbed mind trying to cope with Brandy leaving and the horrors that now filled the outside world.

    And at some point, he fell asleep. While he was sleeping, a helicopter flew low over the town, veering crazily from side to side before crashing on the outskirts of town into the tall cedar trees.

    He woke up to Pepe barking hysterically near the end of the bed. By the shadows filling in the room, he realized it was late in the afternoon and the television was still on and the map of the United States was now filled with nasty little red dots showing where the infected continued to wreck their vengeance.

    Pepe was bouncing on all four legs, barking as loud as he could, crazed with anger at something downstairs. Gripping the poker tightly in his hand, Eric slid off the bed and stumbled slightly toward the bedroom door. His right leg was still asleep and he rubbed it hard to get the blood running.

    Then he heard the loud thump down below. It almost sounded like someone knocking on the front door, but not quite.

    "Brandy?" His voice cracked and he swallowed hard.

    He was hungry and thirsty and he realized he had yet to eat today. Pepe growled low in his throat and Eric slowly opened the bedroom door.

    Again there was a loud bang down below.

    Slowly, Eric crept out into the hallway. Pepe didn't care to be slow and tore down the stairs, barking loudly.

    "Pepe!"

    Eric gave up the pretense of caution and followed him down. The dog stood two feet away from the front door and barked loudly. Eric's gaze was drawn firmly toward the figure on the other side of the stained glass set in the heavy oak door. Dimly, he could make out the form of a person.

    "Hello?" His voice cracked again and he tried to muster up some saliva to coat his throat and give him more of a voice. "Who is there?"

    A very low moan was his answer then the form on the other side of stained glass slammed into the door again.

    Pepe grew even more crazed and Eric backed up the stairs toward a window up near the landing.

    "Pepe, calm down," he whispered, but the dog was growling and didn't care to obey. Carefully, he slid the curtain back to see onto the porch and view who was on the other side of the door.

    "Shit," he whispered.

    It was a solider or what remained of a solider. How he could be up and walking around was beyond Eric's understanding. He was stripped down to just his pants and boots and his shirt hung in long strips around his bloodied torso. Both his arms were missing and a good portion of the right side of his face. Eric sat down hard on the step and took several deep breaths.

    "This can't be happening," he said in a soft voice.

    Pepe darted up the stairs, hopped onto his lap, then launched himself up onto the windowsill to let the man on the porch know just how much he did not approve of his presence. The militated face of the solider swung about and he staggered determinedly toward the window.

    "Crap," Eric exclaimed, grabbed his dog, and bolted down the stairs.

    To his horror, the soldier began to bang his head hard against the window.

    "Okay, this is wrong. He shouldn't be able to do that or even walk around," Eric said aloud. "Hell, I should call 911. Or go outside and help him…"

    Pepe twisted around in Eric's grasp trying to see toward the window and growling viscously.

    The humane thing to do, he thought, was to go outside and try and calm down the solider. But if he was infected with whatever was making people violent, maybe he was contagious. And considering the solider was banging his head as hard as he could against the base of the window, Eric was guessing he was infected with whatever was making people insane.

    "Need to check the TV," he decided and started back up the stairs.

    As he passed the window, he heard the solider hissing and growling. He carefully pulled back the curtain an inch to see the man still banging his forehead against the base of the window. It was set high, so without arms, it was all the solider could really do to try and break in. The terribly wounded man saw him and began to howl, his twisted mouth opening so a gush of blood could froth out.

    Eric let the curtain fall back and staggered back up the stairs. Holding Pepe tightly, he turned and ran back to his room.

Chapter Six

Battling Death

    
None of this makes sense
, Eric thought as he watched the TV.

    The news was now filled with scenes of burning cities, horribly mutilated people filling city streets, even more disturbing scenes of the "infected" apparently eating other people, and clips from a CDC press conference where a very pale woman said, "the dead are returning to life and attacking the living."

    Pepe growled and clawed at the bottom of the bedroom door as the banging continued downstairs.

    Eric flipped the channel and an Asian scientist was in mid-sentence. "…unknown contagion is reanimating the corpses of those attacked by the infected."

    Another man seated next to the scientist scoffed at this. "That is ludicrous. It is obvious that this is a biological attack of terrifying proportions and whatever agent is being used is provoking people to acts of insanity."

    "Have you seen the footage," the scientist answered angrily. "Have you seen them eating each people? Have you seen the people with missing limbs, organs falling out of their bodies, walking down the streets? Have you? Because how can you not see that obviously-"

    The sound of glass shattering made Eric jump and he immediately turned off the TV. Tossing the remote onto the bed, he grabbed up the poker he had carried upstairs earlier. Pepe was in a snarling and growling fit now. His tiny body was bouncing all around as he prepared to do battle.

    "Okay, so, basically, that guy is dead and wants to eat us," Eric informed Pepe.

    The dog threw him a dark look as if to say, "d'oh" and continued barking.

    With a shaking hand, Eric reached out and turned the doorknob. He could still hear the pounding continuing downstairs. A low snarl echoed up toward him and he gulped hard. The shotgun Mrs. Waskom had for protection was down on the top shelf of the pantry in the kitchen. If he had been thinking straight and not about Brandy leaving him, he would have brought it up with him. Now he had to get himself down the stairs and get the gun before anymore of the living dead arrived.

    "Zombies," he said to himself. "Who would have thought it."

    He pulled the door open and Pepe rushed down the stairs again.

    "Dammit, Pepe," Eric exclaimed and hurried after the dog. If anything happened to his little companion, it would devastate him. But Pepe was fearless and that terrified him. He would have to keep a leash on him at all times.

    Pepe had stopped on a step above the window and was barking down at the dead solider still systematically banging its head against the now broken window. The pane had shattered in the corner and only a few large pieces had fallen out of the frame. The rest of the window was still intact. The pale dead eye of the solider fastened on Eric and it began an ungodly howl.

    "Crap," Eric muttered and scooted down the stairs, hugging the wall to keep far away from the bloodied creature. He had nothing to fear since it had no arms, but he just didn’t want to even get near it.

    He ran down the hallway of the slowly darkening farmhouse, feeling lightheaded and a little sick. He hadn't eaten all day and his brain was foggy and his body sluggish. As soon as he dealt with the creature outside, he would need to eat something and get his wits about him.

    The kitchen was dark and foreboding when he entered. The warmth and beauty of the room was now lost as the late afternoon shadows filled it. Swallowing hard once more, he glanced toward the back door and saw it was firmly shut with the locks engaged. Hoisting the poker up in one hand he slowly approached the closed door of the large pantry. Was there a window to the outside in there? He hadn't noticed before. What if something was in there waiting for him?

    Pepe skittered into the kitchen and rushed up to the pantry and waited for him expectantly.

    "Anyone in there, boy," he asked the dog.

    The dog yawned in response.

    "Okay, I'm trusting you on this," Eric said.

    He took a deep breath and whipped the pantry door open. It was filled with darkness and the dim light from the kitchen barely made a dent. With a trembling hand, he fumbled for the light switch and quickly flipped it on. Light flooded the pantry and revealed its many shelves nicely stocked, no window to the outside, and a huge case of diet cokes on the floor.