Degeneration (55 page)

             
The buckshot sent the black inmate into the ditch where he lay motionless.

             
The hispanic inmate sneezed.

             
“Sorry, homes, nothing personal, but my crew will be the only crew running this shithole town. Your boys are out of luck.” He put the shotgun down, opened the metallic crate, brought out one of the individually wrapped sterilized syringes, tore it open with his teeth, and injected himself.

             
Back at the high school, poisoned air churned steadily out through the gymnasium’s ventilation shafts, rustling the ‘Welcome to the 20
th
Annual GCHS Harvest Dance!’ banner. The gym was eerily silent.

The disco ball slowly swayed in the middle of the gymnasium and caught the sunlight coming in through the skylights. The ball threw reflected circles of light across the thousands of corpses that lay strewn across the gymnasium floor and slumped in wheelchairs.

In the corner of the gymnasium, slow-moving reanimated corpses were amassed on top of each other, devouring the dead…

36

             
T
he APC crushed a blue wooden police barricade as it neared the edge of downtown Butner.

The engine was sputtering.

             
It rolled across the railroad tracks and passed the National Guard Armory. The front doors of the armory were wide-open and the military vehicle storage lots had been emptied. Richard contemplated stopping and searching for any weapons that the soldiers left behind, but he thought that he saw something moving inside the armory’s darkened windows.

He decided to keep moving.

             
He drove past a BP station on his right. The station was deserted and looted. All of its windows and glass doors were shattered.

             
The engine continued to sputter as it passed a Subway restaurant and a row of shuttered shops. Just a block ahead, a Dollar General store burnt wildly out of control and threw flames high into the nighttime sky.

             
Lightning arced through the sky and ash continued to flutter down.

             
The engine coughed on its last drop of fuel before finally dying.

The heavily armored vehicle slowly coasted to a stop in the middle of the street and its lights greatly dimmed.

             
“Damnit,” Richard muttered. He cranked the key in the ignition, causing the lights to briefly flicker brighter but otherwise no avail.

             
“You need gas,” Andy said from the passenger seat, arms folded across his chest.

             
“You think I don’t know that?” Richard sighed and peered out the window for infected. He couldn’t see through the falling ash and the darkness that consumed the town.

             
Richard opened the driver-side door and stepped out onto the street. It was eerily quiet; even the sound of crickets and cicadas had ebbed. All he heard was the crackling flames of the Dollar General.

             
His stomach suddenly twisted in an excoriating cramp as lightning arced across the sky.

             
Richard collapsed onto his hands and knees. Once his hunger pains subsided and his head stopped spinning, he stood and staggered towards the sidewalk.

             
“You’re weak,” Andy said, walking besides him.

             
“I know,” Richard muttered as he stumbled onto the sidewalk in front of the plywood-covered Subway restaurant. He stared at the covered front door and begun walking towards the building, keeping a wary eye out for infected. “I need to eat something… I feel like I am going to pass out, Andy…”

             
“Come over here and have something to eat with me then,” a man wearing a blood-stained sweater and dirtied khakis said from in front of the Subway. His chest had been stabbed multiple times and his forehead had a deep gash in the middle of it, giving him a grotesque third-eye. The man smiled warmly at Richard.

             
Richard narrowed his eyes, staring at the familiar face.

             
It was impossible.

             
“Dad…?” Richard said, stepping towards the Subway.

             
“
The power is out! Any food in that restaurant will be spoiled by now!
” Andy shouted into his face. “He’s just trying to slow you down and trick you!”

             
The man in front of the Subway frowned and vanished.

             
Richard clinched his aching stomach. His throat was parched and his tongue felt swollen.

             
“
Besides, you need to find a way to get us some fuel.
You’re so close to the prison and so close to breaking me out!” Andy pleaded, exasperated.

             
Richard looked over at the BP station. Lightning arced across the sky and the heavens opened up. Heavy rain started to fall and rinse away the irradiated ash. He was soaked within seconds. Puddles quickly formed on the asphalt.

             
“
Don’t fuck this up and stop being selfish! Did it ever occur to you that I’m hungry too?
” Andy asked, glaring at him.

             
Richard cupped his hands together and collected rainwater in his palms. He greedily gulped down the water and collected a few more handfuls.

             
“
I bet it’s cool and refreshing, isn’t it? You’re a selfish bastard. I’ve been drinking toilet water in my cell. I’m w
asting away inside here,” Andy reminded him, looking up at Richard from the puddle’s reflection.

             
Richard shuffled towards the BP station, sloshing through the puddle, dissolving Andy’s visage. Cold rain continued to pelt against his back and stifled the fire at the Family Dollar.

             
Lightning arcs flashed across the heavens and lit the town in white strobe.

             
In the white flash, he caught something in his peripheral vision. It looked like someone was standing on the other side of the street.

             
Richard spun towards the person, but the lightning had subsided and the town was shrouded in darkness once again.

             
He turned his attention back towards the BP station and shuffled onto the parking lot, limping past an abandoned Butner police car parked underneath the BP canopy next to one of the pumps.

Richard leaned against one of the fuel pumps and reached for the black nozzle.

“
Diesel, Richie. Th
at armored vehicle takes diesel,” Andy said, his voice seemingly coming from two directions at once, disorienting Richard.

             
He reached towards the green fuel nozzle, the diesel one.

             
“You’ll
need something to carry it in, idiot. Not that matters anyway. The power is out so the pumps are worthless. You’ll need
to figure out something else,” Andy said, voice coming from the center of Richard’s skull.

Richard winced and massaged his temples. He heard his sister snickering at his frustration. Her laughter got lost in a legion of voices.

“Shut up!” Richard hissed, swatting at the air. He stumbled backwards and caught himself on the pump.

             
“
Focus
, goddamnit
!
” Andy shouted, rising above the other voices in Richard’s head.

             
Richard closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. Once the voices and laughter subsided, he opened his eyes and stared at the Butner police car.

             
Richard pushed himself off of the fuel tank and looked inside the police car. The keys weren’t in the ignition. He opened the passenger door and searched the glove compartment, both visors, and looked in the center console.

He found nothing.

Distressed, he got out of the car and kicked the fender.

             
Andy’s visage stood next to him and pointed down at the pavement.

             
“Maybe he still has them,” Andy said.

             
A trickle of dried blood led from the police car through the BP station’s shattered glass doors.

Richard staggered along the trail and entered the station.

             
The shelves were ransacked. The only light inside the station came from battery powered emergency lights in the corners of the store. Candy and trinkets littered the linoleum floor. The cigarette and the lottery ticket displays had been emptied out and the cash registers were missing.

             
Glass shards crackled underneath his feet and a putrid smell overwhelmed him. He gagged, repressed vomiting, and covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve.

             
He glanced ahead and saw the spilt candy bars lying in the middle of one of the ransacked aisles. Entranced, he immediately forgot about the smell and let his ravenous hunger consume him.

             
Richard ran forward into the aisle and collapsed to his knees. He tore open packs of half-melted candy bars, consuming each of bar in two or three bites. Chocolate smeared his lips and stained his fingertips.

             
“Now is not the time, selfish bastard
!
” Andy yelled, standing in front of him.

             
For once, he ignored Andy. He snatched up a bag of trail mix and tore it open with his teeth, downing the bag in a matter of seconds.

             
“RICHARD!” Andy’s voice billowed from all around him and items went flinging off of the shelf into the center of the aisle.

             
Richard startled and almost choked, spewing a mouthful of raisins and peanuts onto the floor.

             
“
Find the
cop’s
fucking keys! Now!
” Andy ordered, voice rumbling.

             
Richard shoved a few melted Hersey bars and crumbled protein bars into his pockets and got back on his feet. He walked back down the aisle towards the entrance, stopping along the way to grab a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. He twisted the cap off with his teeth and chugged half of the bottle down by the time he reached the trail of blood by the shattered entrance doors.

             
He took another swig of Pepsi and followed the trail deeper into the station. He looked ahead and froze.

             
At the back of the store, in front of the bathroom, the corpse of a police officer wearing a gasmask lay sprawled out on the floor in a pool of dried blood underneath a flickering emergency light. His lower extremities were hidden behind a tall stack of beer cases, leaving only his upper torso visible. His arms were splayed over his head and a Remington riot shotgun lay near him amongst a number of scattered spent casings.

             
Richard turned abruptly back towards the entrance doors.

             
Andy was standing there, blocking his path.

             
“
And run where, pussy? Where is there left to go?
” Andy asked.

             
Richard froze, heart thumping.

             
“
You need those keys unless
you want to walk to the prison,” Andy said, smirking.

             
Slowly, Richard turned back around towards the corpse…

             
“
Besides, he’s not even moving. Be a
man and go get his cruiser keys,” Andy said, gently shoving Richard forward.

             
Richard stumbled forward and then, begrudgingly, crept towards the dead man. The coppery stench of blood mingled with the stench of decay and made the air thick and noxious. He held his breath and dropped the Pepsi.

             
The sound of horseflies was almost deafening.

             
Richard reached the corpse and prodded the corpse with his foot.

             
The corpse didn’t move.

             
Just to make sure, Richard prodded it again, harder, and then stepped on the corpse’s hand, grinding his heel into the man’s palm.

             
The corpse didn’t react.

             
Feeling some confidence, Richard stepped over the corpse, shooing the flies away. When he looked up, he gasped in terror and stumbled backwards against the wall.