Evolution of the Dead (18 page)

They left.

Carmen wanted to cry.  How could they leave her? Especially after they got onto Nick for leaving her at the Rent-A-Center.

And for leaving Janet behind.

Running her over, you mean.

The only thing Carmen needed to do was get up on her feet.  She could chase after them.  Maybe talk some sense into them.

Sadly, getting up was easier said than done.

Her broken foot was simply killing her.  When other people were around, the pain was not at the top of the list.  But now with everyone gone, it was singing soprano from the hilltops.

Blaring!

Need my pills!

Each throb caused a splintering ache to creep around her ankle and go rushing up her shin.  It felt like one of the bones in her leg was cracked, too.

She pushed herself to a sitting position on the couch.  Using her good leg to stand, she nearly lost her balance.  She limped over to the exit door.  Pushing it open, she hoped to see Kim in the distance, but she and Scott were gone.

Scott was utterly heartbroken over the loss of his sister and dad.  The back of his throat ached from all of the crying he had been doing.  “Let’s go over to the terminal,” he said quietly.  “I’m starving.”

“Are we going to bring some food back for Carmen?”

He shook his head no.

Minutes later, Carmen left the hangar.  She knew she wasn’t going to be able to get very far.  Her goal was the next hangar in line to the west, hangar
D
.  If she had to, she could stay in a hangar a day until she got enough courage to head over to the airport.

That would be a walk of hell.

She leaned against the hangar, using the wall as balance as she headed to the rear much like Scott’s dad had done the day before.

If she would have looked the other way she would have seen Scott and Kim walking hand in hand toward the airport.

At the rear of the hangar, she stopped for a breather.  Each hangar had its own small parking lot.  A few cars were parked here and there.  The rear of the hangar had a large letter
C
painted high on the back wall.  Beyond the parking lot a tall perimeter fence stood in front of a deep drainage ditch.  There were no gates.

There were two hangars to the left,
D
and
E
; and two hangars to the right;
A
and
B
.  Carmen didn’t know if any of them were locked or not.

She went left.

The door to hangar
D
was locked.  In the shadow of the building, she banged on the door hoping someone would open it from the inside.

Standing there waiting, she thought maybe knocking on the door had not been such a good idea.  She didn’t know who might be in there.  They could be rotten people.  They could be killers or rapists.  Seeing her in just her undies might make people do things, strange things.  They could take advantage of her so easily.

No one’s around.  These shadows along the buildings could be hiding killers with knives, killers with saliva running down their stubbly chins, running out of their rotten tooth filled mouths.  They might be waiting for the right moment.  They might have been sharpening their knives, their meat cleavers, waiting for the right moment to grab you while you’re in the shadow of the hangar.  You don’t know what these people do in these places.  Why do you suppose they call them hangars? Because they hang people up in them.  They slice them from foot to head and let the guts pour out.  Then they drink the blood.  Sip it, darling.

Carmen hobbled quickly to the rear of the hangar, back into the sunlight.

She knew the next hangar to her left,
E
, would be in total sunlight.  There wasn’t another hangar past
E.

Rats don’t mind the sun.  They can creep out of the dirt along the edges of the runway.  They can nip your ankles.  They can pull you down under the dirt and gnaw you to death!

Pawing her way along the last hangar’s sunlit wall, she tried the door.

It was locked.

“Shit!”

The closer they got to the airport, the more they felt like turning back around and going back to the hangar.

“This doesn’t look safe,” Scott said.

“No,” Kim said, her arm around his waist.

Ground crew vehicles had crashed into the lower sections of the terminal.  A large passenger jet was tipped over onto a wing.  There were no bodies anywhere.  Vomit covered everything.

Kim asked, “Is it worth it to even cross this?”

“I don’t know.”  He was scanning the ground, looking for places to walk across.

“I really don’t think Carmen would be able to get through here.”

“Would you forget about her?” Scott asked, his voice rising.  “She’s dead, alright.  Just like my fucking family.  They’re dead and no use to us now.  You understand?”

Kim let go of his waist.  “Yes.”

“I’m trying to figure something out, alright.  Leave me alone for a second.”

“Ok.”

He grabbed her hand.  “I’m sorry.  I’m just…
Jesus
.”  Tears stung at his eyes.  “I won’t yell at you anymore, I promise.  I’m just so upset.”

“It’s ok.  I understand.  You’re taking this a lot better than I would.”

He wiped his eyes.  “Ok. I think I see a way in.  You see the plane sitting sideways with its wing on the ground?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a way through.  I think if we’re careful we might be able to scoot around the plane and go up the stairs on the jet way close to it.  You see?”

“You lead,” she said grabbing his arm.  “I don’t see it, but I trust you.”

Leaning her back against the closed, locked door of hangar
E
, Carmen sighed deeply.  Tears ran down her cheeks.  She said, “God, I don’t want to walk across the runways.”

Pushing herself away from the door with her butt, Carmen started the long walk of hell.

Scott and Kim were nowhere in sight.

They were on the other side of the tipped plane stepping cautiously over large splotches of vomit.

It stunk.

Kim asked, “Where are all the dead people?”

“I don’t know,” Scott said.  “But I know one thing.”

She asked with her arms out for balance, “What’s that?”

“This next jump is gonna be a bitch.”

They were near the jet way.  The steps were on the other side of a wide pool of vomit.

Scott looked around for any other way to get to the stairs but every other direction was either blocked by a vehicle or yards of worm covered puke.

“I’ll jump first,” Scott said.  I’ll try to move the jet way closer once I get in.”

“What if the freaks are inside?”

He leaned down, kissed her on the cheek and said, “Well then, it was good to know you.”

He jumped.

The pain in her foot was capsizing.  With each step, she could feel it, stretching, cracking, aching, reaching up through the bottom of her foot, grasping around her ankle, pinning it, scraping along up the side of her calf, towering, repurposing, pivoting, and then slamming down through her shin like an iron punch.

The pavement of the runway was ahead.  She was now only walking through short weedy grass on soft soil.

A step.

A heavy jar tearing limp
.

A step.

A pointed spear to the foot.

A step.

The further away you get from the hangars, the more out in the open you’ll be.  And they’ll see you.  You and your white flag panties covered in piss.  You are so frail, darling.  Such an easy target.  They’ll wait until you’re way out in the open and then they’ll come speeding in their jeeps or their trucks and they’ll take you to their hideouts and rape you and rip you limb from limb.

“Good,” she said.  “Then I won’t have to deal with this pain anymore.”

They’re going to twist your broken foot.  You don’t know pain.  They’ll rip your foot off and wrap your leg with the tendons from your ankle.

“You’re can’t scare me,” she said as she took another step.  “You’re trying too hard.”

Why are you going to the airport? You know when you get there, you’re going to find Scott and Kim dead, right? They’re going to be the dead ones, darling.  You’ll go to them.  You’ll try to save them, but they’ll be dead.  They’ll spit on you.  They’ll drown you in their vomit pure blood.

“Leave me alone.”

They’ll stare at you with their dead yellow eyes.  You’re going to be dripping in their vomit.  And then you’ll feel it, in the rotten depths of your guts.  A churning.  A severe bleeding rupture tearing your intestines apart, and it will be squeezed out of you like a soaking bloody tatter.  You will drip.  Your cunt will pour out onto the empty ground.

“Stop.”

You know night is falling.  Haven’t you noticed the sun lowering in the sky? You are going to be out here in the midst in the middle of the dark.  The dead ones will come out then, darling.  They’ll surround you.  The grubs from underneath will be at your feet.  The crawling will raise the edges of the concrete and come from under the ground as they have for eons.  They will bring you down into it.

Carmen made it to the grassy edge of the concrete.  The runway was ahead.

The sun was setting.  It was above the top of the terminal.  She had an hour left of sunlight.

The wolves are still alive.  None of them have been smitten.  And the alligators from the glades and all of the other deep creatures from the foul muck.  They’re hungry now.

She swallowed.  She took one step onto the concrete.  It felt like she set a round wooden stump on rock.  Her foot felt numb, swollen and large.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered.  “There’s no way.”

Hurry back to hangar
C
.  By now, the dead one in the restroom has escaped.  He’s waiting now, right inside the door.  His mouth is already open.  His bowels are filling.  He will vault on you.  He will bury you in vomit.

Painfully, Carmen sat down on the ground.  Weeds itched at her bare legs.

The bugs will scratch at you…

Carmen screamed, “Shut up!”

Scott landed right on the edge of the bottom step leading up into the jet way.  He pin wheeled his arms for balance.

Kim slapped both hands over her mouth.

Scott held there for a second.  In his mind he wondered if he should just let go.  Fall back into the puke.  Or should he go on? Live.

“
It’s what you would have wanted
me
to do son
,” he heard his dad say.  “
Continue living.  Be strong.  Be strong for Kim
.”

Scott reached forward while pin wheeling.  A loose strand of rope was tied to a tarp on the top of the jet way.

They use that when it’s raining
, Scott thought. 
Don’t want the passengers to get wet when they’re getting on the plane
.

He pulled the rope, yanking himself out of his pin wheel.  He fell onto the steps.

Kim yelled behind him, “I knew you could do it!”

Sighing, he got onto his feet.

Turning around, he saw Kim on the other edge of the pool of vomit, a pretty smile on her face.

Behind her, above her, dead people were leaning out of the plane’s exit door.  Vomit started dripping from the bottom of the open door.  Worms dropped to the ground.  The dead were getting ready to spit down on her.

“Fuck!” He yelled.  “Kim, jump!”

The sun slipped down behind the terminal.  Shadows were getting longer as they slowly spread across the runway.

Carmen was lying on her back in the grass, her good leg bent at the knee.  Staring straight up, the first stars began to peek out of the darkening sky as her foot throbbed a constant beat.

Tears were running from the corners of her eyes, down the sides of her cheeks, to her ears.

If only she could
walk
.  If only there wasn’t so much throbbing pain.

We blamed the mailman, but we knew you did it.  The mailman got 25 years for your little stunt, darling, but I lost a daughter.

She whispered to the sky, “What?”

I lost a daughter. You lived with the guilt.

It was going to be dark soon.  She wouldn’t be able to see.

You deserve every lick of pain, darling.  Every bit.  Every single drop.

And then…a trickle.

“No,” she whispered.  “Please.  Not my period! God.  No, please.”

Oh they’re going to laugh at you.  They’re going to point, their hands covering the smiles on their faces.  You’re going to be a laughing stock!