Holiday of the Dead (20 page)

"Son of a bitch!" Mitch exclaims as he peers through the partially open gate. The undead are flooding in and out through the opening with scraps of fat and flesh hanging out of their wretched maws.

He slams the brakes, nearly jack-knifing the rig and suddenly begins tapping them repeatedly to slow the truck down rather than twist it up into a heap. He slows the truck considerably, and begins to inch it forward through the pulpy mess from earlier in the day. The tires slip ever so slightly upon the remains, tendon and bone letting loose against the mud flaps. As his jaw drops wide from the scene laid out before him, "They’re gone . . . every one of them."

"It was a massacre," Brae exclaims, putting his hand over his mouth like someone trying to keep their soul from escaping.

Bodies crawl over one another, tripping and sliding through the spilled entrails, all trying to work their way into the compound. A triumphant moan escapes from a corpse that has become androgynous through decay, indescribable in its putrification.

"What do we do?" asks Brae, at the edge of a full on break down.

"We get the fuck out of here!" Mitch replies, turning the rig down the next street, the eight wheels of the tractor slipping slightly on the soup beneath them.

"God damn it, kid! There's nothing we can do. There are only the two of us. I don't know about you, but I'm down to only a few rounds. You need to get a grip, it's fucking hopeless."

Silence falls over them. Mitch knows that there might be a slim possibility that someone could still be trapped in there, but common sense, the very thing that has kept him alive for so long, says to keep moving.

Brae, still in shock, leans into his hands, weeping, "Fuck Mitch, everyone?"

"You saw as clearly as I did. If anyone did survive, chances are that they're smart enough to get out of there," Mitch squints his eyes, and then opens them wide like he suddenly remembered something. "We'll head to the compound in Chicago like everyone planned if something went wrong. If anyone survived, that's where they'll go."

Mitch's response did little to reassure Brae, he had seen this happen before and the outcome was never positive. He couldn't even believe there would be anything left of Chicago either. It was hard to find hope in a world controlled by the undead.

All he could do was stare out the window, watching the abandoned cars go by, caught up in the sorrow he felt for everyone who was lost that day.

This was truly Independence Day, independent from life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. For where the undead roam free, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing tomorrow.

Mitch pulls the big rig off the two lane highway, slowly cruising the lot before engaging the brakes, parking in the front of an abandoned gas station.

He is worried about Brae. The kid hadn't said a word for nearly eighty miles, and it was beginning to become unnerving. He had never known the kid to be so quiet. Brae was never much of a talker, but he would occasionally drop a joke or two for good measure.

"Brae, what I meant when I said that everyone dies in the end is that no one gets out alive, no matter what you do, everyone eventually fades away into whatever oblivion it is that exists on the other side of life.

You'll never know when it's going to happen, and there's no way to prepare for it. People die. That's the end goal. It's what you do up to that point that really matters.

You just have to take it on the chin and do your best to keep on fighting. We live in a world full of nightmares, and until that nightmare is over, we have no other choice than to fight. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"OK, kid. I need to get some sleep. We'll leave first thing in the morning. Chicago is only a hundred and twenty miles away, so we should be able to make it by tomorrow night," Mitch says, moving the clipboard from between the seats, and negotiating over the rope and supplies that are laying in the way of the sleeper.

"I'll pull out the bottom bunk for you. You should probably get some sleep too," Mitch states, situating himself.

"Yeah, I will. I'm just going to stay up for a little while longer," Brae replies, still staring out the window.

Mitch settles down into the sleeper, wrestling with himself to go to sleep. In his mind, all he sees is death. Wave after wave of images, warped and twisted; faces of those who were lost, transforming into the undead, frame by frame.

He wakes up in the middle of the night, checking on Brae who is passed out in the passenger seat. He turns over bunching the pillow up beneath his head, surrendering to a few more hours of unconsciousness.

Brae nestles his rifle closely, hardly finding sleep between moments of sorrow and uncertainty. The day plays over and over in his mind. He sees Jesse, Mark's younger brother laying on the cold concrete, blood seeping through his shirt, puddling up below him. He recalls Ed slipping from the cab of the other truck, the look on his face as he goes down. He can see Mark jumping in to save him. The snarl of an animal spreads across his face, the sorrow of losing someone close, battering him deep inside.

"I'm sorry, Mark. I'm sorry, Mark. I'm sorry …"

Startled, Mitch awakens, sitting up fully in the sleeper. He can’t see Brae and immediately senses that something is wrong. It wasn't like him to just up and leave.

He crosses over into the driver’s seat and stretches out his arm to open the door when something catches his eye. The clipboard that he had been left between the seats last night, now laying on the passenger seat.

Across the driver’s log sheet, left by the previous owner, a note is scribbled in dark black ink …

He flies out of the truck running with everything he has. There, swinging from the canopy, just above the gas pumps, hangs Brae's undead body, his neck red where the rope burnt his skin from the friction of his movements.

Brae's arms reach out in a futile attempts to reach Mitch, kicking at the air, trying to get closer, bent on the promise of warm flesh.

"Ah hell, kid …" he says, pulling the revolver from his side, turning back and forth in frustration.

Using the barrel of the gun, he tilts back his baseball cap, shaking his head in disbelief. He pulls back the hammer of the pistol, taking careful aim, lining up the sight, dead centre on Brae's forehead.

"God damn it, kid. It didn't have to be this way," he says to himself, pulling the trigger, landing one clean shot between Brae's eyes.

Firing once more, the rope snaps, dropping the body to the ground in a heap. Mitch ties the rope to Brae's feet, dragging him away, towards the rig.

After a few minutes of sorting through the sleeper, he comes out holding a small, military shovel and begins to dig. Sweat beads up on his face, he wipes it away with his shirt sleeve, glancing back at Brae's body.

He drops Brae into the earth and covers him with a blanket he retrieved from the truck. Checking over his shoulder every few minutes to make sure he's still alone, he fills the hole, losing the boy with every scoop he adds.

He has never been one for long good-byes, and he doesn't know how to start now. He tilts his hat over his brow, mutters a few words under his breath and walks back to the truck.

From inside the cab, he looks out through the windshield, holding back an emotion he hasn't felt in a very long time. His eyes are glazed over as he wipes his face, ending at the grizzly brush upon his face.

Turning to the seat next to him, he reads the note, one last time:

We all die in the end.

THE END

NAKED FEAR

By

Tonia Brown

Howard kept his eyes downcast, watching as the sun-warmed sand crunched under his timid steps, tumbling over his toes and dusting his bare feet in a layer of soft, gentle white. It wasn’t that the sand was particularly interesting. It was the view that awaited him — should he lift his eyes — that had his vision glued to the ground. He clutched his complimentary robe tighter about himself and shuffled along, step by nervous step, wondering if he could really do this, knowing he couldn’t.

“Come on now, Howard,” Martin whispered. “It’s going to be okay. Trust me.”

“Trust you?” Howard asked Martin’s liver-spotted feet, because he was unable to bear raising his head enough to talk to Martin’s liver-spotted face. Or the other liver-spotted bits of the old man. “I trusted you for five years, and look where it’s gotten me.”

“Hands on!” Howard’s heart raced at the thought of someone actually touching him. It was bad enough being seen like this. “You said it was all look and no touch!”

“I can’t.” Howard’s lip quivered. And where there was lip quivering, tears were bound to follow. Which was par for the course, he supposed. Only he would end up in tears on a gorgeous beach in the middle of summer on such a beautiful day.

And all because he was afraid to be nude.

No. It was more complicated than that.

Howard Straw wasn’t just afraid of his own nudity, he was terrified of it. His was a commonly misunderstood condition, often misclassified as someone ashamed of his naked self, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Physically, he knew he was normal for his age, with nothing to be ashamed of: normal weight, height, build and, from what he had been told, he was blessed in certain anatomical areas. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to expose this normality to others, or himself. Even alone, in the shower, in the bed, he always wore something, anything, to keep from being naked. He wasn’t exactly comfortable with others being naked, but just the mere thought of someone seeing him in the buff sent him into a cold, sweaty panic.

Howard’s eyes widened to saucer proportions when he heard the telltale slither of the old man’s dressing gown slip open. He watched in horror as Martin’s robe – the only thing that kept the doctor’s wrinkled rear from facing the rest of the world – slid down his calves and pooled at his bare feet like the shed skin of some terry-clothed animal.

“You signed a contract with me. Remember? You’re not going to welsh on your word are you? That would violate our therapist-patient bond. I mean, how can I trust you if you’re just a liar?”

“Young man, I will not tolerate this kind of nonsense. We have come too far for you to start regressing on me. Now, raise your eyes and look at the people around you. The naked people.”

Howard hated when Martin said that word aloud. The old coot always stressed it like it was a disease of some sort. But the old coot was right. Five years and thousands of dollars worth of therapy had left him brave enough to agree to this lunacy. He couldn’t back out now. He was under doctor’s orders; a brief visit to an all-nude resort was surely the cure for his weary soul.

“Raise your eyes,” Martin commanded.

Just to silence the badgering old coot, Howard took a deep breath and did as he was asked. To his surprise, everyone looked normal. Nude, but normal. Folks were playing volleyball or swimming or sunbathing, all in the natural. A handful of people were pleasant to look at – shapely bodies with well-proportioned assets. The majority were, well, not as pleasant to look at. But, more importantly, no one was pointing or laughing or running or screaming. They were just … living.

Howard looked to his now-nude therapist, and winced. Somehow the effect wasn’t as peaceful when he knew the dressed person beforehand. His glance darted south for a moment, below the other man’s waist, before he quickly looked back up to greet Martin’s smiling eyes.