ocalypse (Book 10): Drawl (Duncan's Story) (17 page)

Duncan had cranked the wheels away from the curb and popped
the foot brake the second the man in tartan with the drill sergeant delivery had
produced the shotgun. A few seconds later they were well out range of whatever
the weapon was capable of throwing their way.

“He meant business,” Duncan observed, stopping the Dodge
short of 92nd by a truck’s length.

“We’ve got to be careful … this thing has people acting out
of character.”

Shaking his head, Duncan said, “My truck in that
neighborhood … I was in his shoes I’d have done the same thing.” He craned left
then right and back again. Deeming the crossroad biker-free, he let the rig
coast the rest of the way down the hill and made a tight right-hand turn
without heeding the stop sign.

“The smoke from the fires looks to be moving north by west,”
Charlie said, pulling his shoulder belt on. “Good for us when we get into the
gorge.”

Duncan smiled as the truck rode the dip underneath the quiet
Interstate and bounced on its springs as the road settled back on a straight
tack. And he had every reason to smile. For one, he didn’t see a single soldier
milling around the distant intersection that had been the scene of the gruesome
double-murder, carjacking, and subsequent abduction—all of whose terrible
outcomes he had been unable to alter. His smile widened when he saw there were
no Humvees blocking the intersection. And most importantly, there was no yellow
crime scene tape or detectives or strobing blue and red lights.

Seemingly their luck had changed. But just in case, Duncan
slowed down as they neared the intersection. He wanted to see exactly what
measures the responding troops had taken. He figured their diligence, or lack
thereof, would give them more of an insight into what was befalling the city.

There was a soft
thunk
as the balding off-road tires
met the bridge transition. Under the bridge the trickle of Johnson Creek
sparkled like a live wire. Up ahead the stoplight and left turn arrow were
dark.

“The little car’s still there,” Charlie said.

“I’m not planning on stopping. Just going to drive real slow
across Flavel. You take a quick peek and tell me what the Guard soldiers are
doing now.”

Charlie snatched up the binoculars and leaned forward in his
seat.

At the intersection Duncan performed a slow-rolling
California stop. He squinted to see down Flavel but saw only a pair of tan
shapes off in the distance. He saw no soldiers. No police cruisers or ambulances
with flashing lights. “Anything changed?”

“Nope.”

“How many soldiers are there now?”

“Still six,” Charlie answered. “No dismounts. Two of them
are topside behind the big guns … the rest are split between the rest of the
rigs.”

“Why don’t you guys and gals want to be outside your
vehicles?” Duncan said, thinking aloud. “What do you know that we don’t?”

Charlie answered for the soldiers. “It’s already getting
pretty hot out there,” he said, lowering the binoculars and regarding Duncan.
“Plus, they are wearing all that gear.”

“For Christ’s sake,
Charlie
,” Duncan said, shooting
his friend a pained look. “This ain’t Iraq or Afghanistan. And I’d bet you all
the tea in China that those things don’t have any air conditioning in them. You
think the
snakes
in D.C. would earmark our hard-earned money for
creature comforts anyone
other
than them would get to enjoy?”

Charlie sat back against the seat. “Point taken,
sir
.”

Ignoring the “
sir”
part of Charlie’s statement,
Duncan continued the slow creep across Flavel. Mid-intersection, he stole a
quick glance at the left turn lane where they had recently averted the gunfight
with the bikers. “Hell,” he said through clenched teeth. “The soldiers didn’t
see fit to move the dead guy’s car.”

“That’s not all,” Charlie said, as they came even with the
little econobox. “They left the dead for the meat wagon to come and collect.”

Hearing this, Duncan craned back around and over his left
shoulder spotted the two black body bags laid out side-by-side near the car’s
rear bumper. One was nearly flat, as if it had nothing in it.
The wiry guy
driving the compact,
he thought. The other bag bulged considerably, no
doubt containing the remains of the SUV driver with the horribly broken arms
and legs. He muttered, “Not their job,” and swung his head back around in time
to see a man in a small car come up quick on his bumper, flash him an angry
glare followed at once by a raised middle finger for added emphasis.

After obliging the man a casual
sorry buddy
wave,
Duncan quickly got the Dodge moving north of the posted
thirty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit.

From Flavel north, save for the little car on their bumper,
there was no other traffic until they hit Woodstock where it started to back up
from the effects of a nasty crash half a block distant. As vehicles ahead began
to reverse and jockey around in order to detour onto Woodstock and avoid the
tangle of metal and flaring tempers, Duncan got his first up-close look at one
of the infected that must have been dead and roaming the streets for some time.
The thing had just staggered from between a row of chest-high shrubs fronting a
parking lot set aside only for customers of Rapid Diaper Delivery and Grand
Prix Motorcycle Repair.
Odd to see those two disparate ventures sharing the
same block, let alone a common parking lot
, thought Duncan as the bloating
corpse set a staggering course toward a woman who had just exited her wrecked
car and was talking animatedly with the driver of the other. “
Hunting
,”
was what Charlie said one reporter had called the infected’s main goal after
dying and coming back sans pulse and respiration. And this thing that looked
nothing like the infected young cyclist he and Charlie had unwittingly ferried
to her execution was doing just that—angling straight for the petite Latina who
was currently shouting and gesturing animatedly at the other driver.

The turned man was nearing the back side of middle age,
paunchy, and almost completely bald. The yellowish-white wife beater he had on
when he died was streaked and spattered with so much dried blood that it almost
appeared black. Some of the mess was obviously his, deposited there as it
hemorrhaged from the gaping half-moon-shaped wound torn just inches above the
exposed collarbone.

But unlike the cyclist’s skin that still had a little pink
tone to it when they’d handed her off to the soldiers, Wife Beater’s skin was
pale as driven snow. However, standing out starkly on the back of all four of
its stick-thin extremities were deep purple bruises where the blood that hadn’t
gushed from the neck wound had pooled after death.

“Looks like the stiff that attacked Gloria,” Charlie stated
as the thing reared its head back and drew its thin lips over still-bloodied
teeth.

“Except this one’s in the wild,” Duncan hissed as he looked
over his shoulder and toggled the right turn indicator. “And I want nothing to
do with it.”

As the Dodge cut the corner at Woodstock, Charlie rose up
off his seat and craned around just in time to see Wife Beater, arms extended
and maw opened wide, fully eclipse the Latina. “Run, lady,” he bellowed,
startling Duncan into nearly driving onto the curb.

“If they ain’t running already,” Duncan proffered, as he
regained control of the wheel, “then I’m afraid it’s too late for them. Hate to
say it, but we’re looking at Mother Nature and natural selection tag-teaming
the sheeple of the world.”

 “She slipped away,” blurted Charlie, eyes still locked onto
the macabre scene.

Duncan was about to expound on his assertion that those that
weren’t already on the move were more than likely doomed to be just like the
creature in the blood-drenched tank when a pair of booming reports reached his
ears. They were gunshots, for sure; however, they sounded nothing like the
crackle hiss of a .22. Nor did they ring with the hollow pop of a 9mm round.
Without casting a glance at the rearview mirror for visual confirmation, Duncan
said, “That was a shotgun.”

Eyes narrowed to slits, Charlie slowly retook his seat and
dragged the seatbelt over his shoulder. Clicking the clasp home, he said, “X
gets a square. And you can’t unsee something like that.”

Shooting him a sidelong glance, Duncan said, “Did you see
the pink mist?”

Swallowing hard, Charlie described the halo of skin, blood,
flesh, bone, and one would have to presume, brains, sent airborne the second
the Latina’s male friend discharged his black shotgun a foot from Wife Beater’s
head.

“Seen it more than once to varying degrees,” Duncan said
softly before going strangely silent.

For a long spell not a word was spoken between Duncan and
Charlie. Eventually the impatient man in the small car passed them where
Woodstock merged with Foster and automotive concerns suddenly appeared on both
sides of the four-lane. The wrecking yards, detail shops, and a U-Pull-It
place—all with darkened windows and vehicles in different stages of repair for
sale in their empty gravel lots—soon gave way to half a dozen treed blocks home
to sprawling business parks full of industrial-looking, cement and steel
low-rise buildings.

After traversing thirty blocks lined with darkened
businesses and having to treat the handful of dormant overhead lights like
four-way-stops, Duncan was amazed to see working traffic control lights where
Foster intersected 122nd. So, with the brush with the bikers fresh in his mind,
he slowed at the glowing red left-turn arrow and treated it the same as the
others: looked both ways twice, then blew through it with no remorse.

As the Dodge swung wide, Charlie got up the nerve to say
what he figured Duncan had been unable to twenty blocks back. “Saw the pink
mist in ‘Nam, did ya?”

Duncan didn’t answer at first. He continued driving with his
eyes fixed on the road ahead as long blocks dominated on both sides by
multi-storied apartment buildings scrolled by. Then, out of the blue, he drew a
deep breath and fixed a quick stare on Charlie. “You read my mind, Charlie,” he
said softly. “I
had
a buddy over there. He was a real kick-butt door
gunner named Dave Thigpen. We called him Pig Pen, more so on account of the
beer bottles and trash always littering his poorly sandbagged hooch than how
well it rhymed with his surname.”

“Two birds, one stone,” said Charlie behind a soft chuckle.

Duncan exhaled sharply and slowed and swerved wide left to
avoid a young woman who had just stumbled off the curb on Charlie’s side.

Wearing an ensemble consisting of dollar-store flip flops,
hip-hugging black biker shorts, and a ribbed tube top in neon pink that left
very little to the imagination and the mottled bruising peppering her swinging
arms hard to miss, it was clear to anyone with half a brain that the woman was
drug addicted and on a mission to fuel her habit with the commodities on
display.

Seeing the road free of moving vehicles for blocks in both
directions, Duncan committed the Dodge to a left-hand three-sixty across three
lanes and slowed the truck to walking-speed equidistant between the curb and
prostitute.

All through the impromptu maneuver both men had tracked the
staggering woman with their eyes.

Charlie said, “What the hell are you doing?”

Duncan answered, “Testing the rules.”

They were tight-lipped and apprehensive when the Dodge
finally ground to a halt broadside with the emaciated woman.

After burning a few seconds watching the woman doddle away,
seemingly oblivious to the truck idling behind her, Duncan cleared his throat.

Nothing happened. The steady slap of flip-flop rubber
against cement continued unabated.

“Considering what’s going on downtown,” Duncan called, “it’s
not safe for you be out here all alone.”

Abruptly the streetwalker halted in her tracks, one pink
flip-flop hanging on by a toe.

“That did it,” Charlie said, fingers curling around the pump
gun. “She’s our problem now.”

“Says the guy who got us stuck with Biker Girl.”

Rooted in place, back still facing the truck, the woman
emitted a raspy growl and began a slow, stilted, left-hand pirouette that
exposed in tiny snippets the angry purple bruises running up and down the
insides of both arms. And as she finished her head-down, four-point about-face
and paused squared-off with the driver’s side door, Duncan spotted the smaller
bruises standing out like Dalmatian spots against the pale dermis in the crooks
of both arms. Needle tracks, perhaps. Not much of a stretch considering the
nearly identical set of horizontal bruises encircling her upper arms. Duncan
was no detective, but if he had to put a wager on the source of the bruises,
safe money would be on someone with bad intentions having laid hands on her
there. And as a side bet, judging by the deep lacerations and torn and jagged
flaps of flesh on the knuckles of both constantly flexing hands, he’d put his
last thin dime on the fact that whoever she’d tangled with had gotten their
lips and teeth rearranged.

“Might want to get yourself some help …” Duncan was saying
when just an arms-reach from the pick-up the twentysomething’s head ratcheted
up and, much like Charlie’s recent visual exposure to death by buckshot, a
surreal image entered Duncan’s retinas and was burned into his mind alongside
dozens of other unspeakable horrors. Only with this one there was no pink mist
involved. No exploding skull or chunks of airborne brains, either. No men
screaming and pleading for their momma’s comfort as they expired above the
thick jungle canopy far from a loving embrace. Instead, Duncan witnessed true
living death up close and personal for the first time. The poor woman was
beyond saving. The deeply sunken eyes acquiring him were soulless and clouded,
the pupils barely discernable. As her greasy locks swung to-and-fro in front of
the fixed stare, Duncan suddenly knew how a gazelle must feel in the face of a
hungry lioness.

Moving slothlike, yet with a certain determined purpose, the
woman raised both arms horizontal and took one step closer to the truck’s open
driver’s side window.

Duncan felt a chill wrack his body as he tried to break from
her gaze. But he couldn’t. For a split second it was as if he was inside her
head and staring back at himself. And he didn’t like what he was seeing, for in
his heart of hearts he knew that behind that lifeless stare somewhere in the
gray matter, this infected shell of a human being was savoring the idea of
ripping the flesh from his bones. And to punctuate the obvious desire he saw
reflected there, her thin lips drew back and the mouthful of rotted teeth began
to piston up and down, subconsciously chewing the living flesh it so desired.

His living flesh.

And he wanted to keep it that way—living.

“Go,” Charlie said. “Rule number one. Don’t get bit. She
lunges and her teeth so much as nick you—
anywhere
—you’re as good as
dead.”

“You already told me the rules.”

“Then go.”

The dead thing swiped at the truck but found only thin air,
because Duncan had taken Charlie’s advice and released the brake. He let the
idling engine pull them forward a dozen feet, applied the brake and peered into
the gently vibrating wing mirror.

“Why’d you stop again?” whispered Charlie.

“Shouldn’t we put her out of her misery?”

“Who’s we?” Charlie asked, turning to look out the back
window. “You got a mouse in your pocket?”

“You jump out and do it.”

Charlie shook his head and nudged the shotgun across the
seat towards Duncan.

In his head, Duncan heard Charlie parroting what the
newscasters had said while he was sleeping:
Destroying the brain is the only
way to stop the living dead
.

He jerked the transmission into Park, grabbed the shotgun
and, after determining his
inaugural
infected was still a few steps
away, shouldered open his door.

On the road, he felt totally exposed. In his mind there were
a thousand infected about to stream out of the surrounding businesses and
apartments. The delusion reached a crescendo when he spotted a nearby bus stop
and imagined a bus pulling up and conveniently disgorging some infected backup
for the one plodding dangerously close to him.

Pushing the silly notion out of his mind, he began to walk a
wide counterclockwise circle, slowly drawing the ghoul away from the truck.
Once he had created a full lane of separation between him and the dead thing,
he took his eyes off the threat just long enough to peer north down the length
of 122nd.

Nothing
.

No cars or pedestrians moved for as far as he could see,
which, because of the bi-focal prescription lenses in his aviator glasses,
happened to be only half a dozen of these extremely long suburban blocks.

Still backpedaling, he craned over his right shoulder and
saw more of the same to the south: no people on the sidewalks and desolate
lanes of traffic all the way back to Foster—also devoid of pedestrians and
crossing traffic. Beginning to feel like the last of the living in a city going
through its final death throes, he stopped his backwards march, set his feet
shoulder’s width apart, and disengaged the stubby shotgun’s safety.