Summer Of 68: A Zombie Novel (6 page)

“Jesus Christ, that’s impossible,” Cohen said. His voice was nearly inaudible against the tinny ring in Baker’s ears.

The Mexican field hand found leverage and pulled himself upright. As a result, his remaining organs plopped to the ground and were trampled underfoot.

“Back,” Baker ordered as he chambered another round. Together, the two men took a step back, moving towards the entrance. Wasting no time, Baker quickly fired another shot. With a sharp crack, the zombies staggered, driven backwards by the spray of pellets. This time, none of them fell.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Cohen shouted. His eyes were wide, wild, and crazed.

“Keep firing,” Baker replied. “Give ‘em hell and drive ‘em back!”

The collective horde groaned, their arms outstretched, reaching towards their prey with needy, slashing fingers. The gap existing between the living and the dead wavered drastically, and soon, had fallen to a couple of yards. The zombies seemed to sense it, too. They grew increasingly agitated. Some groaned, other’s hissed, baring their bloodstained teeth like animals.

Baker drew a breath, his heart raced as he lined up his third shot. Cohen fired, followed by Baker’s. Each of their rounds took residency in putrid flesh. They did little damage, aside from being a minor distraction.

“Kick gravel,” Baker commanded as the zombies drew near. Both men stepped back.

Baker took aim, turning his focus to the ugly mug of a ghoul, whose left eye had all but been plucked from its socket, as a knot of nerves connected the spongy ball, bouncing it from his cheek. He breathed deep, “Come on you bastard…”

He squeezed the trigger—nothing.

“Goddamnit,” Baker cried, he cursed himself for not counting his shots.

A moment passed and Deputy Cohen yelled a similar statement, “I’m out!”

Their luck be damned, somehow they burned through the heavy-guns with no kills. The zombies wobbled closer, both men realized how dire the situation had become.

As the corpses moved in for the kill, mangled limbs reached out, desperate for warm flesh.
Cohen lunged, brandishing his shotgun like a club. He smashed the closest zombie across the sweet spot, landing it upside its head.

The zombie wiped its head back and expelled a mournful cry—again, it didn’t fall.

Cohen fell back, readying his makeshift club for another swing.

“Screw this,” Baker said, his voice a murmur in his ears and drew his revolver, and he took aim. The bullet cracked through the barn, cutting through a zombie’s face—it hit below the left eye, exploding out the back and disappeared beneath a hail of brains and bone. The zombie crumbled to the floor.

With that, Cohen looked at Baker, both of them grasping this realization.

“The head…”

Baker laughed with a tired chuckle. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You gotta shoot ‘em in the fucking head.”

Cohen tossed the spent shotgun aside, pulled the revolver and took aim.

“Blow their fucking head off,” Baker reminded and squeezed the trigger.

The next zombie bit the dust as the bullet punched its ticket, tearing through his brow and ripped off his ear as it exploded out the opposite side.

The remaining zombies advanced, this time, Cohen and Baker weren’t quick to fall back. With their hope rekindled and survival renewed, Baker knew they could win this yet.

He tapped the trigger, squeezing off another round, cocked the hammer and fired again. Lady luck was on their side, each bullet met its mark—obliterating gray matter as quickly as the trigger was pulled.

The Sheriff smiled, grinning as another corpse crumbled to the ground.

Through the shrill ringing in his ears, a scream caught Baker by surprise, knocking him off his feet as a figure collided against him, ramming him from behind. He fell, nearly losing his revolver in the process. Hitting hard, the air whooshed from his lungs.

Baker acted quickly, flipping onto his back just in time to see the haggard corpse rip through tender flesh of Cohen’s neck. The zombie growled, howling out with a vicious, doglike snarl.

Cohen screamed. Spittle and blood erupted from his lips as he cried. The deputy wasted no time and threw his weight against his attacker, grating flesh from bone and propelling his blood loss to fatal proportions.

Despite the offensive, the zombie held strong, chomping down upon the scrape of flesh, swallowed, and returned for a second helping.

Cohen wiggled, twisting his body, but the zombie remained.

It reached out, grabbing the man around the waist in a horrific embrace.

Panic-stricken, Baker aimed. His hands shook. If he risked the shot and missed, Cohen would be dead as a result—but wasn’t he dead anyways? No one could lose
that
much blood and walk away from it.

With a phlegmatic cry, Cohen broke free. He staggered back, his hands pawed at the gore-slicked gash as he slipped to his knees, sagged for a moment, and staggered away.

“Kill the bastard,” Cohen said, weakly.

Baker emptied his revolver and fired two consecutive shots. The bullets punched a couple of holes through the ghoul’s forehead and nose, dropping the beast for good.

Cohen’s shrieks were ear shattering as he pulled himself across the gravel, heading to the door. He moved slow, waving back and forth. One hand dangled listlessly by his side, the other was used to stem the arterial blood falling from his throat in sheets, staining the front of his uniform.

Baker stood and dispatched two of the three remaining corpses without incident. A lone shot sang out, dropping the third. Cohen fired the kill shot. Dark splotches formed beneath his bloodshot eyes. His skin looked translucent, and slickened by a filmy layer of sweat and grime—blackened veins stood out from his flesh like roadways etched into his arms.

Deputy Mark Cohen barely had enough strength to stand, let alone hold the weight of his revolver. He wobbled back, looking down at the slain corpses and smirked. Blood glistened in the corners of his lips.

“Fucker,” he slurred and would’ve crumpled to the ground, if it hadn’t been for Baker, who rushed to his friend’s side.

“Whoa-there buddy,” Baker said, grabbing Cohen by the waist, slipping the revolver from his hand. His skin was damp, cold to the touch. “I’m thinking you ought to sit.”

Cohen didn’t reply. He stared at the corpses for a moment, and shook his head, blood swelled from beneath his hand. Sadness—his eyes shimmered, glistening as the first of many tears fell.

“That bastard came out of nowhere, you know that?”

Baker nodded in agreement, “That he did…”

Cohen remained unblinking. “It hurts,” he said, the color of life was a sick, pasty yellow. Sweat poured from his brow. He was spiraling down, quick and fast.

Baker turned away, looking everywhere but at his friend with sickness, guilt, and remorse. “Still, you need to sit.”

Cohen sighed. There was a deep, moist rumble in his lungs. His eyes looked lost, scared and alone. It was painfully obvious that soon, he would be dead. It was a silent reality that hung between them.

Begrudgingly, Cohen nodded. “Yeah,” he coughed, “might as well.”

Baker lowered his deputy to the ground. Cohen felt like dead weight and settled into place with a pained groan. Sadness swelled in the Sheriff’s gut as he took a step back, using the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. The barn’s temperature was stifling, thick with a horrid combination of both carrion and manure. It was an awkward tension that swung around them both.

“It’ll be alright,” Baker lied, closing his eyes.

Chapter Six

Before too long, Cohen went cold, his body limp, and suddenly, he screamed. His back arched pushing himself forward, where he struggled to stand, and somehow managed to pull upright and onto a pair of wobbly knees.

“Ellie,” he muttered.

Baker stepped forward and felt a sharp pang in his gut. Ellie was Cohen’s wife—seven months pregnant and alone at home.

“You need to sit,” Baker ordered, sharply.

“Ellie, I love you…”

“I know you do,” Baker said.

“I’m sorry for letting you down baby, I really am…”

“Mark, you’re not letting anyone down. Now please—sit…”

Cohen took a deep breath and winced. He nodded, looking back to the ground like a child buying time.

“Let me give you a hand,” Baker said and eased Cohen back to the ground. The deputy sat cross-legged, one hand still clinching his torn throat. He was in horrible shape. The gash continued to bleed, though far from the severity it had. Baker needed to escape and head back to the cruiser and try for Janet on the radio, but Cohen was dying, and Baker couldn’t stomach a good man like him dying alone.

“Hold up,” Baker said and promptly knelt. He examined the dark blood crusted across his knuckles. Some of it was red, most of it was black. It smelled sour. Baker furrowed his nostrils, but couldn’t tell if it had anything to do with the dead rotting slowly around them. Either way, it wasn’t good.

Cohen mumbled something, speaking not to Baker, but to Ellie.

“Let me take a look at it,” Baker said.

Cohen looked him square in the eyes, his were glossy and bloodshot. He nodded, his head wobbled across his shoulders. “Okay,” he coughed, as blood trickled from the corner of his lips and down his chin in a frothy stream.

Cohen removed his hand from the wound as a fresh jet of blood trickled out. He winced, hissing from the sting of it. “Hurts like a mother,” he groaned. 

Baker leaned in for a better view. The wound was gangrenous, without question. The zombie’s teeth had flayed the skin, peeling muscle from bone. By now, the initial blood rush had crystallized, appearing black around the edge. Lucky for Cohen, the corpse had missed his jugular by a couple of inches, prolonging his life by a handful of minutes.

Cohen whimpered, his body trembled, the cause and effect gave Baker the opportunity to his tendons as they flexed beneath his skin. What he saw made him sick, Baker gagged and turned. After a moment, he built up the courage for another peek—his stomach fought in protest.

Cohen looked him in the eyes, wanting the truth, nothing more, and nothing less. The two of them sat in awkward silence—waiting for the other to speak.

“I’m not going to lie,” Baker spoke softly, “it doesn’t look good.”

Painfully, Cohen snorted and with a saddened grin, he said, “Give it to you not to bullshit me, huh?”

Baker didn’t respond. He couldn’t. No longer able to find the words to express himself, he let his emotions take control and shut him down, if not momentarily—he looked away, unable to glimpse it any longer.

“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” Cohen said, “this goddamn thing feels like it’s on fire.”

Looking everywhere except the deputy, Baker lied,
“That’s good. It means your body’s fighting the infection.”

Cohen smirked and had seen through his response as clear as day. Baker hung his head and cradled his knees against his chest.

“I’m sorry, buddy, I really am.”

Cohen drew a breath. “Me too,” he said and finally, after all of this time, allowed himself to cry. His eyes shifted, following the footpath leading to the door and there they remained, unblinking.

“Mark?” Baker asked thinking death had come.

“At least…” Cohen mumbled. His mouth remained open long after he spoke.

Baker waited. “At least,
what?
” he asked.

“At least...at least I got off easy…” Cohen repeated and incoherently mumbled something else, but Baker couldn’t understand what was said.

And then, there was silence, Deputy Mark Cohen was dead.

Baker took a step back. He stopped as the heel of his boot came to rest atop a lifeless hand of one of the corpses. He jumped as bones cracked underfoot.                                                                                                                                                             

He stared at the corpses scattered around the barn and seethed with hatred and disgust. He didn’t know why he did it, as it was petty in every respect, but when he looked down at the hand beneath his boot, he shifted his weight and dug his heel down into it—harder and harder, until the sound of tiny bones popping, rang like music to his ears.

“Bastard,” he whispered, casting a look back at the creature that had ultimately killed his friend. He was a scrawny man, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt—your average Joe in every respect. The key difference was that his brains now seeped from a quarter-sized hole in his head, dribbling to the dirt like curdled milk.

Baker felt everything coming to a head. “You piece of shit,” he howled and with a solid kick, rocked the man’s broken crown across the gravel, dislodging additional fluid in the process.

He took a series of breaths and suppressed the urge to act on his remaining rage. He didn’t have the time, and to do so was worthless in his eyes. What was done was done, and there was no going back.

“What am I going to do with you?” Baker asked, as he slipped his jacket from his shoulders and laid it across Cohen’s face.

His initial plan was to head to the farmhouse and utilize Ruth’s telephone—that was if the radio was still out of commission. He paused, dreading the inevitable visit he would eventually pay Ellie. That was later, first and foremost, Baker needed to get out of the barn and away from this gruesome scene.

He bowed his head and closed his eyes, contemplating the words to say. When nothing came to mind, he chuckled sadly. His hiccupping cackle left him hollow inside. His sorrow soon found ways to fill the gap. Mark Cohen was a good man, one of the best and there was nothing he could have said that would articulate such kind words.

“I’m sorry,” Baker whispered
, fishing last of the bullets from his pocket, reloaded, and took his leave without ever looking back.