Summer Of 68: A Zombie Novel (12 page)

Chapter Fourteen

“What was that?” Russell snapped. Beneath the soles of his shoes, the crunch of broken glass brought them to a quick and sudden halt.

Their tiny hearts hammered.

Jake heard it, too. Hesitant, he followed its origin and glanced down to his feet, the ground was littered with shards of glass. They littered the black pavement like diamonds.

Russell looked to his brother. His worried gaze only deepened as Jake shook his head. Jake froze where he stood with his only thoughts on the Sheriff. It seemed as though the whole world had gone absolutely mad in those few short hours that they had been down to the fishing hole.             

“Maybe we should go,” Russell whispered.

An icy chill draped along the back of Jake’s neck. It felt as though someone, somewhere, was watching them both. Goosebumps prickled his flesh, revolting against the high heat of the day.

“Now,” Russell demanded and begged in the same breath.

Jake couldn’t have agreed more. His hope was that if they stayed mobile, constant motion would break their voyeuristic fear. He looked to Russell from his peripheral, realizing that the youngest felt it, too.

Russell tensed, burying his neck into his shoulders like a turtle escaping into its shell.

Moving along, their uncertainty and unrest grew. There was no escape.

Jake turned, facing the other and was about to speak, utter a word of agreement, when something made him stop. His eyes caught and held a glimmer of something new, something different from the norm. It appeared as the swirling smoke fluttered, causing tendrils of grey to part like a curtain pulled to the side.

A smoldering husk of twisted metal materialized from the smoke. It took them a moment to realize that these oddly drawn shapes had once been eight or nine automobiles, all of different makes and designs, including an ambulance that took up the lead in the front of the line. They had collided with one another, clouding the middle of a four-way intersection, leading from the mouth of the bridge.

Like the ones that came before, all of the cars were abandoned, their drivers long gone—or worse… the windshields and contorted frames reflected a dull light leaking in from the sky above. Metal wrapped complacently around the next, fusing the machines together in the creation of a strange and futuristic caterpillar. They sat motionless, dead, devoid of life like an industrial-age haunted house. 

Just the sight of all those mangled vehicles sent Jake into a panic. He scanned their ranks, fearful to discover their family’s own car crumbled somewhere in the fold. Luckily, he did not.

Russell stepped forward, anxious to ignore their findings and continue on. His shoe slipped across the pavement. Gasping, he grabbed Jake for leverage. Beneath the motion, Jake nearly toppled. Together, they found balance.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Russell stared wide-eyed at the ground. After a moment, Jake followed his gaze. Soured bile and the sugar-sweet taste of fear rose from his throat. Underfoot, blood, packaged alongside other fibrous chunks of gore pooled in brackish heaps across the blacktop. 

Realizing it wasn’t confined to where they stood, Jake looked around and saw such signs of death to be everywhere. It dribbled from the sidewalk and spattered the wrecked cars. The day was getting worse and the youth fought the need to vomit, cleanse, and purge the horrors around him. In the heat, the smell was unbearable—especially now that they were aware of it.

Russell staggered back. A callous yelp squeezed past his lips. He tried to rub the blood off his shoes, scraping their rubber soles across the pavement. His attempts only smeared it.

He sniffled. “No, no, no!”

Russell wagged his head. The need to cry appeared stronger, erupting from him like a volcano. An overwhelming flood of emotions came to fruition. He whimpered, “Mommy…”

Jake mustered what he could and took his brother’s hand, offering a squeeze as comfort. He held tight, but the ghastly scene was as prevalent as ever. Soon, the dissipating smoke would reveal more of the grisly horrors it concealed. He once thought that the town could offer salvation, what they saw was far from it.

“It’ll be alright,” Jake said, but couldn’t believe it.

As if reacting to a burn, Russell jerked his hand away. “No it’s not. None of this should even be happening!”

“If we can get to the jail and find the Sheriff, then I’m sure that everything will be alright, trust me.” Jake did what he could to remain positive, but felt the weight of his own words boring down upon him.

“I don’t want to find him,” Russell protested. “I just want my mommy,” he begged rather than stated. When he turned back to his brother, his face was flushed, while tears slid down his cheeks, dripping from his chin. 

“It’ll be okay,” Jake said, “I promise.”

In lieu of protest, Russell whimpered like a beaten dog, sinking back into himself. His fearful eyes scanned their surroundings. Jake looked around, inspecting the bloodied intersection, scanning the neighboring storefronts and meaningless goods they displayed.

“Where did everybody go?” Jake asked, more to himself than to Russell. In the face of such a horrific accident, where were the people, the police and paramedics? The silence was near deafening.

He spied something, ghostly shapes moving at the end of the street. He thought of previous days, stepping through the busy sidewalk, holding his mother’s hand. Is that what he saw? Were these slow, slouching shapes just that—memories and hopeful ones at best? As the seconds progressed, he realized that these weren’t fictional apparitions but actual people.

His heart raced at the prospect of help. Had the accident just occurred and was it possible that two children were the first to respond?

“Hello,” he yelled. His voice echoed with a surreal resonance as it bounced across the streets.

“What are you doing?” Russell squealed, grabbing Jake’s shoulder to make him stop. “Don’t do that!” Russell spoke in a sharp, quiet tone, barely audible over his brother’s shouted words.

“I thought I saw somebody,” Jake huffed.

“Well, don’t let them know we’re here.” Russell was now begging.

“Don’t let them know—why not? People are hurt, look at all of this blood, they might need help. We need to do something, don’t we?”

Russell groaned and opened his mouth to speak, gulping the acidic air like a fish. That, however, was the extent of his protest. He stepped backwards and looked down at his blood stained shoes. It was obvious that Russell was afraid, but knew that doing nothing was the wrong route.

Russell looked to his brother and nodded, there was a silent understanding which passed between the two, that they would do their part to make it home before it was too late.

Jake cupped his hands to his mouth, his voice thundered down the street. “Hello. Anyone, we need help. Hello?” His voice echoed for a moment, carrying across the street. It fell flat and was followed soon after by a dense thicket of silence.

In the distance, along the south side of town, a shrill whine broke the silence. It cried for a moment, giving Jake enough time to recognize its origin. It was an air raid warning, he knew it from school. With a cursory glance towards the smoke filled sky, he knew that there would be no bombs falling, at least not anytime soon. This was something different, something more.

The brothers froze, turning to meet the others fearful gaze. The siren stopped abruptly, their ears continued to ring. The return to silence left a huge chasm spreading down the center of the street. Jake was about to speak when another sound cut through the air, screaming out with a
startling clarity. It was quick—the sudden pop sounded more like a Chinese firecracker than anything else. Three more pops soon followed in rapid succession—gunshots.

“My God,” Russell whispered. Any additional words were lost in the fray as a long, drawn out scream rained down from the Heaven. It lasted for only a moment, peaking at a high pitched shriek and like everything else, became lost in an infinite void.

Jake looked around, his small frame trembled.
What’s going on?
He continued to look for a glimmer of hope and was met by death and destruction.

“Hello?” he called again.

Much to his brother’s surprise, Russell joined in.

“Is there anyone there?” Russell yelled.

They waited for a moment longer, stepping forward in unison. The cheaply woven fabric of their canvas shoes crunched atop the scattered glass.

“What’s that sound?” Russell asked as he came to a halt.

Jake looked back at him and frowned. Cocking his head, much like a bird, he asked, “What did you hear?”

Rife with confusion, Russell shook his head and looked around, struggling to hear whatever it was, again. “I don’t know,” he whispered, cautious not to miss it over his own voice. “Wait, there—
there it is!”

The strange phantom-like sound carried down the street. It was manmade and differed greatly from the scream. After a moment, it returned—again, briefly—and it was in these seconds that Jake realized what it was.
A long, pitiful moan.

The sound was enough to kick start his heart with wild, albeit, primal palpitations. It brought horrid still-frame thoughts of the tramp and those vile sounds he made.

Something is horribly wrong,
Jake realized. He was about to call out. He sighed instead, unable to coax the words from his tongue. He couldn’t believe the lies, not anymore.

At the end of the block, a collective of figures emerged from the buildings.

“Look,” Russell said, pointing in their direction, “we’re not alone, after all!” He waved his hands over head. “Here—over here!”

“Quiet,” Jake placed a reaffirming hand against his brother’s back and studied the figure’s jerky movement.

Russell protested, “But we
need
them…” he remained none the wiser to his brother’s worries.

“Something’s not right.”

The focal point of Jake’s concern stemmed from their aimless stagger, which filled his gut with a churning unease of worry and doubt. It was an argument Russell didn’t see.

“And you don’t think there’s not something wrong with all of this?” he retorted, reeling back from Jake’s grasp.

“Over here,” he yelled once more.

Down the street, the majority of them stopped, their heads wobbled across their shoulders as they zeroed in on the origin of sound.

“No—stop it!” Jake demanded. He reached for his brother’s arm. This time Russell blocked the advance with a swat and stepped forward, out of reach.

“Hello! Call for help, there’s been an accident!”

Jake became frantic, desperate to silence the attention that Russell had drawn. “No—shhh, stop it!”

Down the road, the figures moaned. Their cries melded together, bouncing from the pavement and funneled towards the boys. It sounded like the dull roar of a distant sea, its waves crashing to shore. The sound was unrelenting, with no foreseeable end.

Jake hissed, “Shit!”

Russell looked wearily towards Jake. Realizing his error, the young boy followed his brother’s lead. “Shit,” he echoed and quickly grabbed Jake’s hand. “You’re right, we ought to find the Sheriff
now
…”

Jake nodded and turned, only to stop abruptly. These strange and horrible people weren’t limited to the end of the block and were in fact filling the street around them. They staggered from the shadows, doorways and alleys. The majority of them moved with slow and meticulously placed steps—others appeared labored, their actions poorly calculated at best.

“What’s wrong with them?” 

Jake’s mind reeled with the memories of the fishing hole, and the tramp. Only now, it was happening on a much grander scale. “Let’s go,” he said.

They stepped back as one, moving as quickly as their tired legs would allow.

Across the street, a man shambled out from behind a clothing store and appeared to have been mauled by a large bear of some kind. Jake was amazed he could stand, let alone walk. His face had been smashed, reduced to a blood-filled crater that dripped gore from an askew jawline. His body angled inward, causing him to hunch forward. The man groaned and through a break in the smoke overhead, the sun reflected the shine of the glass embedded in his face.
A victim of an accident.

He was a monster, a demon, a ghoul—a zombie.

Without hesitating, Jake stepped in front of Russell, shielding him from the advancing ghoul.

“Stay back,” he shouted.

The beast paid no mind to the demand and continued onward with unsteady determination.

Russell cowered behind him, whimpering. Jake bumped him back as the man stepped closer. “We need to go!” Jake spoke in a sharp whisper. He stepped back again, only this time Russell held his ground and wouldn’t budge.

“I’m scared,” Russell said.

“Me, too,” Jake replied, “but this isn’t reason for us to get trapped out here, now is it?”

The clamoring cries of the dead grew, intensified to a deafening pitch. Jake and Russell had to yell, just to be heard. Cautiously, Jake looked around, mindful of those closest as he looked for an exit. Their biggest threat came from the one covered in glass, as he was now less than ten or so feet away and continuing steadily along.