Stay Dead: A Novel (23 page)

***

Sal was riding around town, slowly driving
through his old route when he heard what sounded like gunshots. It
had to be gunshots he thought, what else could it be? He pressed
down a little harder on the gas and poked his head out the window
more, as if it would help him hear things better. He heard the
noise again, and again. He was indeed hearing gunshots. He drove
toward the direction of the noise, and had a good hunch about where
they were coming from anyway.

As he approached the VFW hall, he could see
the dead things coming from the woods and down the hill. They were
everywhere. The morning sun highlighted their ghastly wounds,
illuminating the gore in a golden glow.

“Calling all units, calling all
units—requesting immediate assistance at the Hillside VFW. Bring
anything and anyone…the shit has hit the fan,” Sal squawked over
the ham radio.

He drove his cruiser right up the lawn.
Remembering Dane’s unsuspecting bravado from a few days ago, Sal
revved his cruiser up and plowed right through a good dozen or so
of the deaders. Casting even more of them to the ground. Two of
them clung to the underside of the crusier, their limbs growing
mangled under the steel chassis of the vehicle. He put the cruiser
in reverse and spun his way through a few more. He heard the
punishing sounds of flesh denting his cruiser and knew the cruiser
wouldn’t be able to continue running the dead things down. If he
didn’t break an axle, the suspension would surely go, and if not
that, then something else would find a way of breaking.

“Hell yeah!” Joseph shook his fist in
excitement.

Frankie hollered at the storm of oncoming
dead as he fired and pumped and repeated. He stood his line in the
field and knew the others at his side would do the same. They knew
their positions in the ragtag chain of command: some ran to the
vehicles in preparation to hightail it, others saw to the children,
some gathered the goods and weapons, while others saw to the bloody
details of dispatching man’s ever present shadow of death.

They wouldn’t be able to fight them off much
longer, however. Their sheer numbers were more than anything they
had ever seen–far more than they had come across on the road, and
certainly more than at the school. They were more than an army–they
were a sea, and eventually even the best of swimmers will die in
the ocean if stuck there long enough.

With Janice somewhat-safely in her car, Eddie
ran to his brother’s side with his weapon drawn. Eddie took a
breath, picked a target, and fired. The anxiety left his body and
coursed through the barrel of his gun as a bullet. He hit his mark,
it was far from a perfect shot, but it was good enough. The dead
things head slumped back, and the rest of its body collapsed,
tripping up a couple of the creatures behind it.

“Eddie, you know what this reminds me of?”
Joseph asked.

“Reminds me of staying up late to watch scary
movies, only about a million times worse,” Eddie replied, firing
another shot.

“No, it reminds me of when we used to shoot
our G.I. Joe’s with rubber band guns–remember those?”

“I don’t remember having this many G.I.
Joe’s,” Eddie replied.

Frankie looked over to the two brothers. “Are
you guys really talking about G.I. Joe’s right now?”

“Yeah,” they both replied.

“I love G.I. Joe’s! Snake-Eyes was the shit!”
Frankie smiled, sweat dripping down his cheek.

“Shit yeah he was,” Joseph said, “he’d fuck
these things up,” he continued.

“We gotta move back,” Scott yelled. “They’re
getting too fucking close!”

They moved back. They were only steps away
from the vehicles which were ready to roll out with extremely eager
drivers waiving them to get in. They continued to hold their
ground, barely making a dent in the dead’s numbers.

Sal took another swipe into the crowd of
dead, pummeling them with the front of his cruiser, leaving tread
marks all through the field. His cruiser was almost completely
covered in blood and gore, like a Halloween prop at a haunted
hayride. He continued to yell for backup over the radio, but no one
was responding.

One of the bodies rolled up onto the
windshield, hitting it hard enough to crack the glass. Sal didn’t
hear it crack, but once another rolled up and over he could see it
begin to splinter. He spun the wheel around trying to deflect the
dead away from the windshield and kicked up bloodied earth as he
sped away, only to hit another few on his way away from the
horde.

The dead thing rolled up the hood and into
the windshield, its head the straw that broke the camel’s back. Sal
screamed as the dead thing broke through the grass. He squirmed for
his service weapon as the deader raised its arms, reached through
the windshield and dragged itself closer. Its mouth began to move,
chewing on the air and its own swollen lips.

Sal could smell its decaying blue-grey skin
which was now coming over the steering wheel as he pulled up his
handgun. He flipped the safety, loaded the barrel and stuck the gun
to the dead things head and pulled the trigger. The black-blood
blew back and spattered over Sal’s entire face. It got into his
eyes, and mouth and Sal frantically wiped it off and spat it
out.

“Fuck,” he yelled, and fired at another
deader that began to crawl into the opening.

Sal could no longer see where he was going,
but he continued to keep his foot pressed to the floor. He fired
again, taking the face off of the new intruder and feeling its cold
blood blow back onto his face. He didn‘t know how he knew it, but
he knew he was fucked.

***

Davis heard the crackling of the ham radio
and was startled to wake. He couldn’t make out much more than
‘backup’ and ‘VFW’, but that was all he needed. He couldn’t tell
whose voice it was, but figured it was Sal. He grabbed his pants
from the floor, pulled them and jumped into his boots and headed
out the door pulling over his shirt. His truck kicked up a cloud of
dust as he sped over to the hall.

“Backup is on the way,” Davis called over the
ham. “I repeat: backup is on the way.” Davis depressed the button
again, “all units convene at the VFW immediately.”

***

Susan shook Dane awake when she heard Davis’s
voice over the walkie talkie. His eyes cracked open, but they
didn’t register anything other than bright lights and Susan’s
blurry face.

“Wh-what?” Dane mumbled, too asleep to
realize that something was wrong.

“It’s Davis,” she said. “He’s calling for
backup at the VFW.”

“Shit. Really?”

“Yeah. You gonna go?”

“Of course. I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” she said. “We can just
leave.”

“Don’t start that again. We’ve already gone
over this. Where would we go?”

“I don’t know, anywhere.”

“Yeah, maybe tomorrow...watch out.” He got up
from the bed.

“Dane, I got a bad feeling about this,” she
said softly.

“Babe, please, don’t start with that either.
Its way too early and I haven’t had any coffee--”

“Don’t just dismiss me like that. I got a
feeling, you know, like when my Grandma would get them. I just know
this is bad…I don’t want you to go…please…for me…”

“And do what? If I don’t go we have to pick
up and leave--I’d never be able to show my face around here again,”
Dane said, considering it.

“Fine, we’ll go. I don’t care. The world we
knew doesn’t exist anymore, so why should your job?”

Dane stared at her. Both of them were
glassy-eyed, and he couldn’t think of an answer, “they’re my
friends--”

“No. No, they’re not.”

“Yeah, Susan, some of them are.”

“Are they friends worth dying with?”

***

Jon-Jon grabbed Dawn by the arm and raced the
van. His heart thumped in his chest almost as rapidly as it did the
moment he’d first seen a dead man get up and walk. But this was
different–it was overwhelming, like a bad dream of being lost at
sea and the boat just out of arm’s reach. He wasn’t going to let
the boat speed away. He was getting on board and getting away as
fast as he could.

He yelled to others to do the same, but no
one could hear him over the several layers of panic-stricken
screams and ear-shattering gunshots. Dawn could barely hear him,
could barely believe that he was running away from the fight
instead of to it. But she could tell from the way his lips parted
and his eyes shimmered what he was saying.

Dawn turned in all directions, looking for
someone to pull along with her, for someone to help. But everyone
was either on their way to a vehicle or running with weapon in hand
toward the dead attackers. Then she saw Yussef from the corner of
her eye fall to the ground.

The little boy was scared pale, and spewing
tears from his eyes. Dawn screamed for him to come and, by sheer
luck, they caught eyes, because Yussef wouldn’t have been able to
make out her call amid the noise otherwise. But he knew enough to
pick himself up and run toward her, and he ran as fast as thin
little legs could carry him.

Dawn pulled Jon-Jon's arm hard, slowing him
down long enough for Yussef to catch up. She grabbed his delicate
wrist and pulled him close and the three of them ran toward the
van.

Sal lost control of his cruiser and spun into
Eddie’s vehicle with Janice inside. She was thrown forward, hitting
her head and nearly losing consciousness. Sal hit the car on the
opposite side of where she was sat. The impact was hard and hard
enough to wreck the front axle.

In the crash Sal managed to pin one of the
dead things between the two vehicles. He shook his head and
stumbled out of the car. Noticing the dead thing trying to free
itself made him laugh. His eyes grew wild, fierce, and his smile
was as savage as the heart that now beat vengefully in his chest.
He stepped over to it, reloading his handgun and laughing.

“Oh, you fuckers got me good, I’ll give you
that,” he said. “I guess it makes perfect sense--death always wins,
but I had hope.” Sal hovered over the dead thing. “I’d hoped to
live long enough to see the world get back to normal, but I guess
dying’s as normal as its going to get.”

Sal put the tip of the gun to the dead thing
as it squirmed to get free. It hissed and reached and squirmed, but
it didn’t matter. Sal squeezed the trigger and the dead man’s head
erupted, spraying bits of gore as the bullet exited the back of its
head.

By the time Sal turned around he was
surrounded by a few of the creatures. One bit down on his shoulder
and began to tear off clothing and flesh as Sal registered them. He
screamed and pushed the filthy, rotten thing to the ground. He
kicked it again, stomping on its chest and fired at its face. The
things cheek ripped off and dropped to the dirt. He fired again,
into the head and it moved no more.

He walked closer to the others and fired
accordingly. Stepping uncomfortably close every time and putting
them down one by one. Janice looked on in horror through the
blood-streaked glass of the driver’s side window. Her lip trembled
but that was all she could give. She died inside when the horror
hit home and was only living for the sake of her son’s sanity. Once
Sal dispatched the nearby-dead he walked over to her.

“You okay?” Sal asked.

“Good enough,” she replied.

“Got a smoke?”

“I quit years ago,” she said. “It’s bad for
your health.” She tried to smile.

Sal laughed and turned back around. He walked
toward the undead horde that staggered down the hillside.

Janice got out of the car. She was still a
little dizzy but quickly got her bearings and headed over to her
sons.

Sheriff Bruce Davis arrived as fast as he
could. He sped up the small hill to the side of the VFW and saw the
mayhem instantly. He didn’t know where to focus and as he stepped
out of his truck and had no idea where he was going. There was too
much going on and he’d never seen anything this bad, or on such a
scale. He’d been involved in small riots before, but they were
nothing like this. They were chaotic, sure, but when you had a
dozen or so trained officers in riot gear it was controllable, and
this was anything but
controllable.

“Everybody clear the area!” Davis
screamed.

He walked toward the line of vehicles.
Jon-Jon had just reached his van and was about to take off, but
when he heard Davis yelling to do so the guilt that was building
subsided. Jon-Jon drove off kicking up a cloud dirt behind him.
Davis continued down the lineup calling out to ‘clear the area,’
and those smart enough to listen did so.

Davis then turned his attention to the
hillside. He tried to take in the scene, but everything moved too
rapidly. There was no time to think: he couldn’t act but only
react. His eyes focused on Sal. Sal was the first friend he’d made
upon becoming sheriff and through it all they had remained friends.
What was left of Davis’s heart hardened in that spitfire
split-second of a moment when he figured out that his friend was
covered in blood and looked only a shade more livelier than the
dead things around. He was laughing like a lunatic and making
gunshot noises with his mouth as his weapon clicked empty over and
over again. The dead things began to surround them.

“Sal!” he screamed, running over to him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” But Sal didn’t answer. “Get away
from them,” he yelled as he drew closer.

Sal turned to look at his friend: not his
boss, but his friend. He smiled, but the smile was broken to pieces
as his laughter turned to sobs. He raised the gun to his head and
held it there as the dead things came upon him. He gave one last
cartoonish P-Choo as they dragged him to the ground screaming.