We found ourselves on the opposite side of the building where we’d broken through Tarah’s barricade. Other than the sounds of distant gunfire bouncing off the brick behind us, all was quiet. Given Tarah’s rain of bullets from her sniper’s perch, we weren’t expecting much activity in the neighborhood. Bodies covered the parking lot and surrounding grass, the ground around them painted black with blood. Even with this grim backdrop, we began retracing our steps to Roger’s grocery, where we’d left the truck and (more importantly) the rest of our gear. We could find more transportation but supplies would be dwindling from here on out without commerce and industry to replenish what was consumed. After all, who would operate the machinery once much of the populace became mindless, wandering killers? No union is that strong.
“Tarah sure was…something,” said Sam.
“She’s grieving.”
“I hope she moves on to ‘acceptance’ soon because she can’t hole up there forever. Too many revs running around and I didn’t see a lot of ammo up there, though she was blasting like she had a bunch.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t take inventory of what was up there.”
“Well, that’s a first.” He waited until he caught my glaring response to that zinger before he continued. “I mean, did you see how much ammo she went through just while we were up there? Twenty, thirty rounds at least. It’s not something you can just go down to the gun shop and get. Soon, people will have to start making their own ammo and not everyone knows how.”
“Maybe she does.”
“That makes her even more valuable. She should be with people, even if it’s not us.”
“She didn’t seem to be the sociable type, if you hadn’t noticed.”
We came around a corner and stopped after seeing movement ahead, finding a cat walking along the upper beam of a fence, its casual stride I took to mean the coast was clear. Revs went after anything that moved and no animal would be walking around in the open with danger present. The cat didn’t think much of us being a threat, either, as far as that went.
Sam waved me forward but I couldn’t see his hand so he pulled on the front of my shirt. “Let’s go, lollygagger. I should put you in one of those harnesses like kids wear.”
We rounded another corner, following a street through an eerily quiet residential neighborhood, without the normal sounds of life being lived on a typical July day. No lawnmowers or garage radios playing baseball games. No kids yelling on squeaky swing sets, dogs barking at their human’s excitement. I imagined it was a similar feeling to being on a closed movie set…obvious signs of life but not much life to be found.
Chuck’s truck was only a couple of blocks away, though I’d underestimated how far we’d gone between Roger’s and Tarah’s, so much so that had circumstances been different—such as a moonless night instead of broad daylight—I’d think twice about going back to the truck, especially without Tarah’s skills. But that loot was worth taking a chance on.
Sam was still on about Tarah, as though he was a worried relative. “She should’ve come with us. I mean, she’s better off with us than in some new warlord’s harem.”
“She can hold her own. We saw for ourselves how good of a shot she is.”
“For a while, sure. But it helps to stay mobile if you’re solo and that’s not what she’s doing. It’s like she’s blind to anything but that mission—”
“-Vendetta.”
“Whatever you call it. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
“She’s grieving.”
“We all are.”
“We should stay on task here. Tarah’s not our problem…the revenants are. But stand in her shoes for a second…would you want to run off with a couple of dudes like us?”
He scoffed. “Why not? We’re practically harmless. Well…you are.”
“Maybe she’s not being as foolish as we think she is. Maybe she’s holding out in the event she’ll come across someone who will raise her chances at survival. And she doesn’t think that’s us.”
We reached an alley that shortcut to Roger’s, pausing to look for movement among the waste bins, cardboard, and crates cast against the brick. I only looked long enough into the shadowy corners to the best of my ability just long enough to determine we were alone. Other than that, I didn’t want to know or see anything else. Whatever horrors lurked in those places could exist just fine without my knowledge, as far as I was concerned.
“Okay, we’re getting close,” Sam said. “Stay low and stick close to the walls. Anything passing by might miss us with a glance down the alley. Then we can get the drop on ‘em.”
“Or we can run.”
“I’d rather stay and fight.”
“You were just trashing Tarah about wasting bullets.”
“I wasn’t ‘trashing’ her. Just keep down and follow me.”
We hoofed it towards Roger’s market, two more long blocks away. Light on our feet, we could still stop on a dime against any threat but faced no resistance as we moved further into the red zone. The sounds of scattered, unseen revenants played with our perception like ventriloquists, their echoes multiplied in a chorus of maddening voices.
We made it halfway up the next block, sneaking a street over, before again pausing to listen and observe…or rather, Sam scouted ahead while I blindly followed like a hapless stalker. Then we headed north until we reached Roger’s. I noticed gaping new holes where the front windows had recently been before, signs that were affixed to the tops of the window frames swinging in the breeze like Tibetan prayer flags. On top of the building, the “R” in the large sign along the roof’s edge loosened and tilted to the side, as though acknowledging it was out of business with a silent nod.
From the outside, the store’s interior looked empty, though not inviting. Haphazard patterns of blood, bodies, and debris trailed along the parking lot as they came to rest where gravity allowed…some falling to bloody heaps, some turned to revs, others missing, or really dead (for good this time). I wasn’t sure how that worked. How dead did you have to be to not get back up again?
Thankfully, Chuck’s truck still sat half a block away, right where we left it. Its profile drew distinct traces within the frame of my deteriorated vision, like an oasis in a desert rippling with mirages. “Should we see if there’s anything left in the store?” I asked, wanting to look for drugs but not wanting to say as much.
Sam adjusted his cap. “You think that’s a good idea? I doubt we’d find much, and we’d be stirring up whatever shit is left in there.”
I shrugged, shaking off hallucinations of black rats running along the street curbs like the dark waters of a muddy river. If I closed my eyes and opened them again, the visions subsided briefly, until the dark splotches in my sight formed something else just as irritating. My brain was not my friend and, come to think of it, hadn’t been for as long as I could remember.
***
We zigzagged between parked cars and bodies lying on the street to reach the truck, crouching low, our heads poking above the vehicles like prairie dogs from their dens. We were thankful the chaos that had broken out when we’d arrived the first time either fizzled out or moved to a new location, giving us the confidence to continue at a faster pace. My vision coming and going, I ran my hands along the vehicles as though examining a used car on the lot, though I really felt I needed the presence of something solid to stay on the right path. There was probably a message off wisdom in there somewhere.
We found our gear still in the truck’s back seat and bed, bundled like Christmas gifts. We dropped to a squat for a mimed celebration, giving silent high-fives to the air. Retracing our steps had been worth it, after all.
Sam eyed the truck like a director setting up a shot as it sat wedged among the other vehicles. “I’ve played enough Tetris…I can figure this jam out. From this angle, I think we can get ‘er free without too much hassle…if we don’t mind a few dings on the way out.”
“I don’t think Chuck would mind,” I said, opening the squeaky door and climbing onto the shotgun seat.
Sam turned the key in the ignition and as the engine rumbled to life, the serene neighborhood became lively once again with the undead, as though we’d just thrown a stone at a bush full of sparrows. The quiet had given us a false sense of security. Countless revenants appeared from inside Roger’s (where I’d just wanted to go moments before), around the corners and bushes of nearby homes, and popping their heads up from inside windows like targets at a shooting gallery. Unfortunately, a BB gun wouldn’t cut it this time.
“They’re everywhere,” I said. “Let’s go!”
Sam spun the wheel from side to side as the truck rocked on its suspension, slamming into neighboring vehicles with the cracking sound of denting metal and tearing plastic, Chuck’s truck probed like a finger through the jam of cars. Rotting bodies appeared from all angles, throwing themselves at the truck with the ferocity of crazed predators, one of them cracking my window with its head, just inches from my own.
“I’m not sure which way we need to go,” I said, “but can we can get the fuck out of here?”
“Say no more, bro,” he said, casually working the shifter in the console like the captain of a pleasure cruise floating his craft away from the dock, complete with pinkie finger standing at attention. All he needed was a cocktail in his hand to complete the vision. The truck’s tonnage rocked and rolled with every shift between Drive and Reverse, eventually pushing a compact hatchback to the side with a low squeal of its fourteen-inch tires hopping across the concrete, giving us room to maneuver away from yet another nightmare.
The commotion brought even more revenants from their hiding places. They slid across the metal hood as centrifugal force splayed them across the road like rag dolls. They latched onto the truck’s bed like barnacles on a boat’s hull. They grabbed the door handles until their bodies were sheared off by sideswipes with vehicles parked along the road, one severed hand hanging on the handle like a loose gas cap.
We shed most of the revs like a dog shaking water from its coat, making a hard left at a corner that launched several into the air, their bodies rolling along the asphalt like crashed bikers. I watched them in the side mirror scramble to their feet (where they were closer than they appeared), but then left behind by the roaring truck as mechanical horsepower beat the tenuous gait of cadaver cursus.
Ahead, one of them stood in the middle of the road; a fellow with the kind of stature given wide berth at the gym…a being so large, it didn’t matter whether the mass was muscle or flab…the weight alone created its own gravity like a small moon. I tugged at Sam’s sleeve to return his attention front and center while he tried to shake a revenant hanging from his side mirror, dragging itself alongside the truck, the tips of its bare gray feet rubbing off on the road.
Sam turned to look just as we were upon the giant beast, before it timed its jump to land squarely on the truck’s hood, cracking the truck’s windshield with his boulder-sized skull. Although dazed, it was not the least bit concerned with its clumsy acrobatics as it locked a tight grip onto the hood’s nearest edge. Then it raised itself to its knees for momentum and began pounding the cracked windshield with its head, over and over in a prostration of blood lust. When its broken skull didn’t breach the glass, the monster began using its fists on the damaged glass like a brute, while Sam weaved the truck violently side-to-side like an angry test driver in an attempt to clear it off.
The windshield gave way and the revenant ripped aside the intact glass from its frame like peeling an orange. Tossing the webbed auto glass over its shoulder, its eyes searched for the fastest route to our tender flesh. Whatever clothing remained on his body had been ripped, stripped, and flayed away from previous skirmishes, allowing only gray, scarred, and bleeding skin exposed to the elements.
As the beast reared up to launch itself at Sam, a shot rang out and the revenant fell forward on the truck’s hood as (un)dead weight. Sam slammed the brakes and the body slid off the hood with a long squeak, before hitting the concrete with an unceremonious dull thud.
And then it was over. We sat in the truck, catching our breath and listening to the fading howls of the mob as they pursued other targets, away from us. Suddenly, the driver’s side door swung open and we jumped for our lives. Tarah stuck her head in the door frame, rifle resting on her shoulder like a burping baby. “I heard what you said about me back there and I think I’ve finally moved on to the acceptance stage,” she said, a sly grin forming.
- Paypal: http://paypal.me/danschellauthor
- Venmo: @danielschell138
The Body Shop ©2023 – Dan Schell. All rights reserved