Floodwater Zombies (23 page)

Hooper wiped water from his face and checked the clip in his gun. “You don’t even want to know.”

Kourtney peered out the large front window that normally let in a ton of daylight. “How many were there?” she asked, scanning the blurry tree line across Highway Ten.

“A lot,” Rory said flatly, plopping into a padded metal chair at a square table.

Doc stopped in front of the sheriff and narrowed his eyes. “Ryan?”

Hooper met Doc’s thin gaze and nodded. “Everything they said,” he began, nodding to Rory and Rachel. “It was all true.” The two men held each other’s cold stare for a few seconds as thunder rattled the old light fixtures above. Hooper nodded again, rain dripping from the brim of his hat to the floor. “All of it.”

Doc’s face contorted into a ball of leathery wrinkles. “But how…how is that possible?”

Hooper shook his head. “I don’t know, Doc, but it is. They got two of my men and two divers from Garrison.”

Doc pulled his bushy eyebrows together and cleared his throat. “What got
em
?”

Hooper dropped his eyes to the cracked floor and shook his head. “Whatever they were, they were dead.”

Doc traded glances with Kourtney and coughed into his fist. “Who was dead?”

Hooper looked up and found Doc’s vexed eyes.
“The people that came out of the lake.”

Rob set his beer on the bar, got up from his stool and threw on the leather jacket he had been sitting on.

Mick swiveled, watching him head for the front door. “Where the hell are you going?”

“Get my gun.”

“Oh, no you’re not!” Kourtney said, sliding between him and the front door. “That door is staying locked.”

Hooper dashed behind the bar and snatched the phone from its faded cradle on the wall. He put it to his ear and started punching buttons. After just a few numbers, he stopped and began tapping the hang up button. “Shit!” He slammed the receiver back down and turned to the others. “It’s dead.”

An uneasy laugh escaped Woody. “What isn’t?”

“Let me go, Kourt!”

“Rob, you don’t need your gun!” Kourtney said, folding her arms across her chest and closing her fist around the keys.

“Let him get it!” Hooper hollered, sliding a silver cooler open and tossing a cold bottle of water to Rory, who passed it to Rachel. Hooper threw another one to Woody and then grabbed one for
himself
. “We’re going to need all the firepower we can get, but you make it quick, Robert!” he said, cracking the plastic top and taking a long drink.

Doc cast a sideways look at the sheriff and put his hands on his hips.

Hooper swallowed with a sigh. “Trust me, you don’t
wanna
be out there long.”

“Is it the boogeyman, Sheriff?”

Hooper turned to Alex, his chest still heaving inside his black t-shirt. He stared at the young boy for a moment before nodding grimly. “But we’re gonna be fine, buddy.”

Alex’s face brightened. “Can I have a real gun, just in case?”

Kourtney sighed and stepped aside, allowing Rob to bolt out the glass door and disappear into the hammering rain. Thunder rattled the old bar and the lights flickered again.

“That’s not good,” Woody said, surveying the ceiling. When the lights held, he shrugged and folded his long limbs into a chair, banging his head on a small light hanging above and scraping his bony knee on the underside of the table. “Dammit!” he winced.

“Those things
gotta
be coming out all around the lake,” Rory said, staring out the front window, which was like being in a car wash. He turned back to Woody’s shotgun lying on the table. “We each need a weapon.”

Rachel shivered and rubbed her arms. “Why are they in the lake?” she whispered, as if those things might hear her and come knocking.

“Maybe they’re aliens,” Woody said, keeping a close eye on the front door and rubbing his forehead. He swallowed, making his white necklace jump.

“Even if the phones did work, no one could drive in this storm. Not for awhile anyway. For now, it’s us against them,” Rory said softly.

Woody gripped the shotgun tighter in both hands, staring at the floor with unfocused eyes. “They’re so fast,” he whispered.

Rory stared at Rachel with tired eyes. He couldn’t tell if the water rolling down her pallid cheeks was from rain or tears.

“Rory’s right.” Hooper slammed a new clip into his handgun, racked a load and slipped it back inside its holster. “We make a stand here! Kourtney, go make sure that back door is locked.”

She hesitated before power walking around the bar. “We’re going to be okay, honey,” she said, kissing Alex on top of his head and pushing through the door behind the bar.

Hooper turned to Doc, who was busy scratching a furry sideburn, still trying to get his bearings. “You got any guns in here, Doc?”

The rain came down in buckets, falling in straight lines to the ground. As soon as Rob heard the door lock behind him he immediately began wishing he had parked his motorcycle closer, but, as usual, it sat way out where no one could ding it like some inconsiderate asshole had done at Walmart last month. He stopped and squinted to the right where the fuzzy outlines of two Harleys seemed to float above the gravel. The storm had triggered the only parking lot light to switch on early. It did little to illuminate the secluded lot on the best of nights, let alone now, and cast long shadows that stretched to the trees. His eyes bounced across the mostly empty lot to the quiet highway. It looked clear but everything was a gray blur filled with gloomy shadows.

He pulled his collar up and started for the bikes, passing Hooper’s patrol car - parked at a cockeyed angle off to the side. The broken passenger window gave him the goose bumps and the hair and skin stuck in the grill guard made his heart sink. Gravel crunched beneath his black combat boots while his eyes played tricks on him along the way. The bikes seemed to drift further away with each hasty step he took. The rain clouded his vision. His breath hitched when he saw someone standing in his peripheral vision. He jerked his head to the left and released the pent up breath, realizing it was just an old telephone pole, stained with rain and tar.

“Jesus Christ,” he chuckled, finally reaching his bike and fumbling for the key that unlocked the two fiberglass saddle bags. The rain slapped against the bike’s glistening gas tank, filling his ears with a steady hum. The black, leather tassels on the ends of his handlebars hung limply in the rain. A clap of thunder made him wince.

“Shit!” Rob hissed, dropping the keys to the wet gravel. He bent over. A branch snapped in the woods next to him just as his hand found the keys. He rose back up and inspected the woods, blinking water from his eyes. “Okay, this is creepy,” he muttered, finding the right key and sinuously sliding it into the lock with the experience of someone who had done it a thousand times before. The glossy side compartment popped open and Rob grabbed the shiny .38 Special sitting inside. He tucked a long box of bullets into his jeans with his other hand and quickly checked the pistol’s chamber. Another branch broke. He turned to the woods, rain streaming down his face. A dark shadow passed through a sparse spot in the thick row of trees and quickly vanished behind a broad bush.

With the jerk of his wrist, Rob slapped the chamber back into place and straightened his arm, pointing the gun at the ground as he tip-toed closer to the tree line. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” he called out, trying to sound brave and failing. His boots stepped carefully from the gray gravel into the sodden green grass. His left hand peeled back a heavy branch of wet leaves. The gnarled face of a dead man grinned back at him with rotten teeth resembling a weathered fence guarding an abandoned house. Rob blinked and the man was gone.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. “I’m seeing shit.” He tried to laugh but it was as difficult as seeing through the thick leaves. His eyes swept back and forth through the gray woods, blinking water away as his grip tightened on the small gun. Something shuffled and Rob drew a bead on a wet squirrel burrowing through some foliage.

He chuckled lightly, letting the branch snap back into place. “I shouldn’t
of
had that last beer,” he mumbled, turning for the bar. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of four silhouettes standing between him and the small bar nestled in the trees. The group stood there, silently watching him through the driving rain, their shoulders hunched at awkward angles.

“Doc?”
Rob called out.

They didn’t respond or move, but the weight of their stares made his heart quicken.

“Awe hell,” he said softly. “Hope they’re watching me inside.” He cleared his throat and took a deep breath of country air that smelled like worms.
 
“Are you okay?” he yelled, praying for some sort of an intelligible response. Praying it was just a family from a lake house down the way. Praying the steady influx of water had forced them to higher ground.

Fat raindrops assaulted the ground, the leaves and the bar’s flat rooftop. He strained to hear and see. “Hello?” The four darkened shapes quietly studied him through the unyielding downpour. The gun in Rob’s hand suddenly felt heavier than it ever had during target practice.

Despite the rain, he swallowed dryly. “Yeah, this isn’t good.”

At the same time, they began limping towards him.

“Yep, this is bad,” he muttered, raising the gun. “Stop or I’ll
shoot,
goddamnit
!”

They either didn’t hear him or didn’t care, and kept shuffling across the waterlogged parking lot, their shoes kicking up pieces of gravel with each languid step.

Rob widened his stance, bracing himself for the gun’s kick. He squinted through the rain. “Dammit, I’m not kidding around here, people!”

When they shuffled a few steps closer, he realized how wrong he was. They weren’t people. Not anymore. They were as dead as the breeze. His blood pounded thickly in his temples. He shook rain water from his face. Sharp teeth sunk into his shoulder from behind. Rob threw his head back and screamed. Instinctively, his elbow swung around and connected with the face of an old man not wearing any pants. The man stumbled backwards and regained his footing.

Rob stared at him in horror. The man’s shirttails covered his privates but not the pasty chicken legs leading to feet with thick, yellow toenails. The geezer raised two bony hands, covered in liver spots, and staggered forward with a lifeless expression covering his scaly face. His splintered lips parted, releasing a long moan. Rob hesitated and then shot the thing in the mouth, silencing the bloodcurdling death groan. The man jerked backwards and crumpled onto his back, his skinny legs folding beneath him, exposing a shriveled up, headless penis.

Rob clutched his shoulder and cringed with the pain. He pulled his hand away and watched rainwater wash the blood from his open palm. “Damn!” A gunshot startled him. He jerked around to see a woman drop face first into the soggy gravel just behind him. Another gunshot dropped a fat man in an expensive looking pinstriped suit.

“Run!” Hooper yelled over the storm, holding the front door open with his foot.