Floodwater Zombies (41 page)

“Rory?”

He stared at the wavering wingtip with a far-away look in his eyes. “Attack command,” he said lightly.

Grundy’s brow folded.

Rory blinked, his heavy eyelids taking their sweet time. Everything was different now. Everything stained. The sharp words with his father the night before floated through his mind alongside the shoe. The last words he had said to him. The last words he would ever say to him. He shut his eyes and grimaced with the regret surging through him like a deadly virus.

“Attack command?”

Rory opened his eyes and tried to relax his clenched fists. “It’s the killing curse from
Harry Potter
.”

Grundy stared at him for a moment longer with his mouth hanging open. “It’s over now, son,” he said softly, holstering his government issued sidearm. “Go be with your family.” Grundy turned and crossed the yard to inspect a white shed planted near the back end of the privacy fence.

Rory’s stomach twisted into tight knots at the mere mention of the word:
family
. Two people didn’t make much of a
family
. He glanced over his shoulder to his mom. Her sad eyes looked upon him with pity. He swallowed hard and turned back to a black cloud of goo silently spreading throughout the pool. He couldn’t help but wonder when it had happened. It was the last thing he wanted to think about but he was tired of fighting and lowered his guard, letting different scenarios play out in his mind. He saw his dad’s twisted face in the bathroom upon realizing a foul smelling ghoul was hiding in the shower with the water turned on. He saw Stephen grab a beer and shut the fridge door to find some wrinkled slug swaying on the other side. Or was it when Stephen took the trash out and went to investigate a strange noise in the garage? Regardless, the shock must have been overwhelming, overwhelming enough to lose the upper hand.

Rory dropped his head and closed his eyes, knowing he should have done more. Knowing the last words he had spoken to his father had been hurtful and that no matter what he did, he could never take them back. Knowing hungry crows and hawks were picking flesh from his best friend’s body lying on Doc’s rooftop and he was powerless to stop them.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Five weeks later, life in Minot had returned to something that almost resembled normalcy. The kind of normalcy one could expect to find in a fever dream or funhouse mirror. It looked like home, but everything was an illusion that barely hid the wicked devastation lurking just beneath the city limits. Most everyone knew a handful of people who were no longer residents of the easygoing township and - sooner or later - the city council would have to address the population statistic on the Minot city signs coming into town.

The military had pulled out four days ago, handing Sheriff Hooper the reigns, which he gladly accepted with his one good hand. Before the Army packed up their makeshift tents and sand-colored
Humvees
, they detonated underwater explosives in Lake Darling and proceeded to secure it with heavily armed divers and robotic mini-subs. Two divers and one remote sub were the last casualties of the still unexplained uprising. The Army dragged bloated bodies from the lake and piled them on top of the ones that hadn’t been able to make it back into the water. After transporting the corpses to an undisclosed massive pit - which Hooper and many other townies suspected was in or around Glenburn – the dead were set ablaze. The soldiers even burned the bodies of Woody, Doc and Deputy Meyer and Johnson, which Hooper had argued against until he was as blue as the bruises covering his body.

The roads reopened five days ago and the gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants and bars were open for business but Allan’s Funeral Home was slower than all of them combined. The military had even torched the bodies stored in the funeral home’s cold basement coolers, indifferent to whether or not they had died before or after the outbreak. It didn’t matter to those in charge. They had their orders and no chances were to
be taken
in returning the small community to their glory days of being one of AAA’s top twenty-five safest places to live in the country, a stat that now defined the word
irony
.

Rory slid open the top drawer of his dresser and grabbed a black wallet. He flipped it open and stared at the shiny gold badge inside, rubbing his finger along the words
Deputy Callahan
engraved along the bottom. He snorted and shook his head, slapping it shut and sliding it into his back pocket. His hand went back into the drawer and came out with a tiny black box. With a click, he cracked it open and gazed at the small chocolate diamond inside. The sparkling jewel, perched atop a titanium band nestled in red velvet, made his heart flutter even more than the badge. His eyes rose to the mirror above the dresser. He straightened his short sleeved button-down, cleared his throat and held the open box out to his reflection.

“Rachel, you mean everything in the world to me,” he whispered, narrowing his eyes. “I can’t imagine ever spending another day without you and…” He trailed off and squeezed his eyes shut. “Okay, that’s stupid.” He wiped a sweaty hand on his jeans, looked into the mirror again and cleared his throat. “Rachel, you complete me…” His chest rose as he inhaled deeply. “Oh my God, that makes no sense.” He shook it off and gazing at his reflection with thoughtful eyes. “Rachel, I’ve known you my entire life, and one thing I’ve never been so sure of is my desire to keep that trend going.” He dropped his head. A long burst of air ruffled his lips.
“
My desire to keep that trend going
?
What the hell is that?”

High heels clacked down the hallway’s wooden floor. “Oh my God!” his mom shrieked, stopping in his bedroom doorway with a large brown purse slung over her shoulder.

Rory snapped the jewelry box shut and dropped it into the open drawer, bumping it closed with his hip as he spun around. “What?”

Laura looked up from a Kindle Fire in her hand and wrinkled her brow. “Were you talking to someone?”

Rory looked around the empty room. “No.”

She stared at him for a moment longer before returning her attention to the small tablet in her hand. “They’re blaming all the deaths in town on
Listeria
!”

His eyebrows drew together. “What?”

Her eyes swept back and forth across the screen like an old fashioned typewriter. “They’re saying people got food poisoning from bad cantaloupe.”

 
“Bad cantaloupe?
Who’s saying that?”

Laura shook her head and dropped the tablet into her purse.
“Fox News.”

“Are you serious? I still don’t get this whole cover up thing,” he said, staring at the floor with unfocused eyes. He could still see the confidentiality agreements they had all signed, agreeing not to speak of anything concerning the walking dead in/or around Minot, North Dakota. Unsurprisingly, there was little choice in the matter. Everyone in town - including twenty-seven unlucky out-of-towners who managed to survive the nightmare in one piece – were told to sign the papers and take the money or be branded as doomsday
nutballs
. Public panic was to
be avoided
at all costs.

Rachel’s dad had scoffed at the deal, arguing they could make millions for their stories and possibly stop it from happening again. The Army, however, made it very clear they would be the ones to stop it from happening again, and confidently insisted their troops would not be pulling out of town until there wasn’t a single shred of evidence left to back up any far-fetched zombie stories. In the end, everyone signed the papers. Besides, it was easier than reliving it with Matt Lauer and Anderson Cooper.

Laura adjusted her purse and shrugged. “
What’ya
gonna do, Rory? Take on the entire Army?”

“It just makes
ya
wonder what else they’ve covered up with ridiculous stories like
bad cantaloupe
.”

“Probably UFO abductions and Bigfoot attacks,” she said straight-faced. “I always knew that kind of stuff was true.”

Rory raised his eyebrows and pocketed some keys.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if vampires were living right here in this very town. I bet one of
em
is probably the Mayor.”

Rory laughed. “You need to lay off
The Vampire Diaries
.”

This time Laura was the one to laugh. “Well, who do you thinks works the overnight shift at Perkins?”

Rory turned back to the mirror and tried not to laugh. He splashed on some cologne and double checked his hair. “Either way, I think I’ll skip out on this year’s Founder’s Ball.”

Laura threw her head back and laughed the hardest he’d heard her laugh in weeks, a little too hard. She seemed to realize it too and drew in a deep breath while digging some car keys from her purse. “What time is Rachel coming over?”

“Any minute now.”

“Do you need some money?”

“No, mom, I have money.”

She pulled a twenty from her purse and handed it to him anyway. “Here, take this.”

Rory smiled. “Thanks, but I’m all set.”

“Just take it.”

“I don’t need it.”

She cocked her head and let a resolute sigh seep from her lips.

Rory rolled his eyes and grudgingly took the cash. “Thanks.”

“You two have a great time this weekend and call me if you need anything.”

“Sounds good,” he replied, grabbing a black nine-millimeter from the dresser and popping the clip to make sure it was fully loaded.

Laura’s face soured.
“Really, Rory?”

He slammed the clip back in and checked the safety. “What?”

“Do you really need to take a gun with you everywhere you go? This isn’t Chicago.”

He stuffed it into a small holster in his lower back. “I thought you just said there were vampires living here.”