The Gorging (17 page)

“Right now, we’re just three grown men trying to find our way back to civilization. As far as jurisdiction is concerned they can kiss my ass.” Sergeant Anderson grabbed another cigarette from the pack lying on the desk. “Nashville works for me. I haven’t been there in years anyhow.”

“What are we going to do in Nashville?” Trooper Anderson stood up and walked over to the map. “What makes you think it’ll be any different there. That’s a big ass place and if things are bad there too it’s probably going to be a hell of a lot worse than here.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be any different anywhere. What I do think is that if we’re going to deal with this fucked up situation, we should do it where there are more people that can get a grip on things. And that means more sane people.” Sampson slapped his hand on the map, covering the entire state of Kentucky with his palm. “As far as I’m concerned Kentucky doesn’t exist right now. If this shit is happening across the country, which I don’t doubt it, the closest city is our best chance for finding good communication and hopefully people who are fighting back.”

“He’s right Jeffrey,” said Sergeant Anderson. “Our little town looks destroyed at this point. Besides, Nashville is only about a thirty minute drive from here, quicker if we take the freeway and run the lights.”

“We might not be able to do that, but we can try,” said Sampson. “There may be multiple car wrecks. Could be the same on Route 31, but we should stick to the side roads to keep a low profile. Probably will take longer, but it’ll be safer. Less traveled areas are going to be key. They’ll be less people around and less of a chance of being seen.”

“What if there are crazy people standing on the sides of the road shooting at us?” Trooper Anderson paced back and forth on the office’s tiny floor.

“We can’t stand around here all day thinking about what ifs,” said Sampson. “The only
if
we need to worry about, is
if
we can make it out of this half-ass secured building.”

“Alright,” said Sergeant Anderson. “You’ve convinced me. Now we just need to figure out how we’re getting out of here, but first let’s go to the weapons storage and grab everything we can.”

“Good idea,” said Sampson.

They know it’s not a great plan, but after looking out of the window in the Sergeant’s office and seeing a multitude of growling, bloody Franklin residents, it was time to get moving. The townspeople must have figured out that the last remaining fresh meat was held up in Trooper Post 31. Sergeant Anderson didn’t like the idea of leaving his hometown, but he kept his opinion to himself. He figured it would be the best thing to get his young nephew out of there. He hadn’t discussed it with them just yet, but he was not going to leave without checking on his sister either. He wouldn’t have a problem with Trooper Anderson agreeing to this, considering it is his mother, but he wondered how his nephew would react if Margie was in the same state of mind as the blood covered townspeople, or worse, if she was dead. At least if she were alive, they could tie her up to keep her from biting them, and they could keep her that way until they could hopefully find a cure for whatever turned the people into, well, cannibals. That is certainly the impression the people are giving now.

That’s what cannibals do. They eat people. They certainly aren’t on their knees with their faces buried in the grass, munching away. Sergeant Anderson thought about a cure and wondered if there could be such a thing. Probably not, because nothing like this had ever happened before that he knew of. It could be some governmental experiment that had gone wrong. He had heard of things like this happening before. Another thought crossed his mind about the Miller farm. He wondered if it was some kind of a sign and if this was just the beginning of something much worse. He knew the thought ran through all three of their minds as they looked out of the window at the mass of people gathering around. It reminded him of the first time he watched that zombie movie, the black and white one from the 1960s. He didn’t like how it ended because the good guys killed off the one remaining good guy held up in the house without even checking if he was normal or not. It didn’t give him a good gut feeling about their future on this cool September morning.

They stood at the main entrance to Post 31 behind the steel door with a duffel bag full of weapons and ammunition. They were an army of three, with Sergeant Anderson being in charge, Mike Sampson being the brains behind the operation, and Trooper Anderson being the low man on the totem pole. They all served a purpose and that was to make sure each other stayed alive until the madness ends. They donned as much police protective gear as they could without weighing themselves down too much in case they needed to run. They each had put on a bulletproof vest and protective gear for their faces and necks. Thank goodness for the government supplying the police force with military grade gear.

They all agreed that the flesh-eating people had gone straight for the face or neck first. Each of them held an extra shotgun slung over their shoulder. They double- checked all their weapons to make sure they were fully loaded.

Sergeant Anderson pulled the shade back slightly on the front door and peeked through the side. He squinted his eyes as the bright sunlight shined through.

“Is it clear?” Trooper Anderson looked over his uncle’s shoulder and tried to see out through the window himself.

“No,” said Sergeant Anderson. “Looks like about five or six hostiles.” He noticed they were gathering near the Mobile Command Vehicle and thought to himself how ironic it is that they would be loitering in the direction himself and the other two needed to go. “We’re probably going to have to blast our way out of here like Dillinger.”

Sampson stepped next to Sergeant Anderson and pulled the shade back, letting the sun brighten the entire hallway. “All right, let’s—”

Just as Sampson was going to make a suggestion on the best approach to take in getting to the Mobile Command Vehicle, his fingers slipped off the shade, sending it zipping up to the top and rolling completely up. It spun on the mounts and popped off, falling to the floor in front of them. This got the attention of the blood-covered hostiles.

“Oh, shit,” said Sergeant Anderson. “They’re starting to come this way.” He pulled the shotgun from his shoulder and pumped it one time, sending a red shell loaded with buckshot into the chamber.

“We have to do something and fast,” said Trooper Anderson.

The hostiles (the name Sergeant Anderson coined for them while they were gathering their weapons) started to growl as they noticed the trio inside the building. They turned and started walking slowly toward the door with clearly one thing in mind, and that was “it’s getting close to lunchtime so let’s eat.”

“All right,” said Sampson. “You got the keys ready?”


“Got them right here,” said Sergeant Anderson.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” said Sampson as he checked the ammunition in his shotgun. “We’ll go out of here in a type of triangle formation with our backs to each other. This way we can cover all angles around us so none of those hostiles can sneak up on us and take one of us out.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Trooper Anderson. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

“All right,” said Sergeant Anderson. “Let’s do this.” He took a deep breath with the thought it could be one of the last breaths he takes after opening the door. Hovering his finger over the combination lock buttons, he felt like a cartoon character tempting to push the red button, wanting to know what would happen when he did. Of course, he knew there were only two possible outcomes once he opened the door. Either they would make it to the vehicle or they would not. He hoped for the former. He took another deep breath and punched in the four digits, 3-4-9-3. The door clicked. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open.

By the time they reached the vehicle that sat less than fifty feet from the building, they all three felt like it must have taken ten minutes to get there. With their backs to each other and shotguns sticking out in front of them with the butt stock down near the hip like in an action-hero movie, they shuffled their feet as they crossed the threshold of the door. The small group of hostiles was no match to the high-powered shotguns loaded with buckshot. Five went down with shots to the chest that blew large gaping holes through their backs, sending blood and gore across the parking lot. The sixth one went down when Trooper Anderson’s aim had been slightly off. Now you see it now you don’t. The sixth one’s head disappeared into thin air and sent a spray of red mist and skull fragments across a fifteen-foot radius, some splattered onto nearby parked patrol cars and some onto the trio as they picked up their pace toward the Command Vehicle.

Without exchanging any opinions about the six hostiles they had just blown away, they got into the vehicle and fired it up. The engine sputtered to life, but smoothed out after Sergeant Anderson pumped the gas pedal a few times, sending a cloud of white smoke out of the exhaust pipe. A quick glance in the side view mirror let him know they made a smart decision to leave. There were at least twenty or thirty hostiles coming toward the Post. This gave all three of them the assumption that there were not too many normal people left in town at this point. Sergeant Anderson put the vehicle in gear and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The rear tires hopped and skipped, but the van wouldn’t move.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sampson.

“It’s fucking stuck,” said Sergeant Anderson.

Sampson looked out of the passenger side mirror and noticed his car sat smashed against the side of the command vehicle, blocking it from leaving the parking space.

“Oh, shit,” said Sampson as he opened the door and jumped out. Jeffrey looked stunned at watching Sampson exit the vehicle and wondered if he had a death wish.

“What’s he doing,” said Jeffrey. Sergeant Anderson watched as Sampson hurriedly started his car and threw it in gear. Smoke flowed from the rear tires as he backed up, ripping the front bumper off the car that was stuck to the side of the command vehicle.

“He’s getting the car unstuck,” said Sergeant Anderson. “Just relax.”

Jeffrey looked out the back window and said, “They’re getting closer. We have to go now.”

“I know that Jeffrey. Just shut the fuck up.” The hostiles got closer and closer as Sampson got out of the car and ran back to the command vehicle. He opened the door and got inside. Sergeant Anderson put the vehicle in gear, looked at Sampson, and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The vehicle jolted out of the parking space, sending smoke from beneath the tires and a cloud from the tailpipe. Some of the hostiles had made a jump for the back of the vehicle, but missed grabbing hold by mere inches.

They sped out of the parking lot and onto the main road. The passed several abandoned vehicles and watched as hostiles were gnawing away at bodies that lay in the middle of the road. Some hostiles looked at them as they sped by, growling and hissing. They tried to grab the vehicle, but were flung away each time.

They made it off the main road and headed south toward Nashville. They would drive straight through, but first a quick stop to Jeffrey’s mother’s house to assess her situation.

NIKKI AND EDDIE

Blood dripped from the bite wound on Nikki’s left forearm and stained the plush carpet in the living room where she had been watching television. She wrapped the wound with dressing she pulled out of the first aid kit that she kept under the kitchen sink. She never thought she would need it for this kind of emergency. She breathed heavily and wiped the sweat from her forehead with a dishcloth then tossed it into the sink. It was quite a chore and had scared the shit out of her, almost literally, when she wrestled Eddie into the hall closet and pushed Bobby’s heavy recliner in front of it to keep him from getting out. She felt sick to her stomach and wanted to throw up because she had never hit her child before. In fact, she had never punched anyone quite the way she did Eddie this morning. She knew she must have busted his nose when the blood poured from it. For no apparent reason he had sunk his teeth deep into her skin. Eddie’s teeth were quite sharp and the braces added to the intense pain when he broke through the skin on her arm and touched bone. She felt his teeth grind against it, sending a shockwave of pain through her entire body. Punching him in the nose seemed like the only way to get him to let go so she did it without thinking twice. She first tried to squeeze her fingers between his teeth, but he held on like a pit-bull with a T-bone steak hanging from its mouth. She wondered to herself that if she hadn’t punched him would he have continued to try and bite her again and again?

She sat down in the kitchen chair trying to hold her tears back that were building up in her eyes. She knew the tears were coming from the fact that she hit Eddie and not from the pain in her arm. She reminded herself that she had no choice but to put him in the closet so he couldn’t do more harm to her or himself. After he broke free from her arm, he tried to go for her neck. The growling and hissing coming from his mouth reminded her of a rabid dog. She laid her head down on the table, thought about Bobby, wishing that he were home with her.

The closet door shook as Eddie banged on it from inside. The pictures on the wall rattled with every punch and kick Eddie gave to the door. The hinges seemed to loosen with each blow and Nikki couldn’t image what she would do when the door would finally give way and let the little monster out of his hole.

The tears fell from Nikki’s eyes onto the kitchen table. The banging became louder and she could hear Eddie growling louder and louder behind the door. She shook her head and pounded her fists on the table.

“Stop it! Just stop it!” She jumped up from her chair and briskly walked to the closet door. She stood there looking at the door as it shook. The banging noise hurt her ears and it was on the verge of sending her into a nervous breakdown. She couldn’t take it anymore. She beat her fists against the door. “Stop hitting the door!” She cried harder and beat harder on the door. “Stop it, Eddie!” She slid down onto the chair in front of the door and wept. The banging noise went on for another minute and then stopped. She could still hear him behind the door, growling in a low, deep groan. She could hear his breathing. It reminded her of a monster waiting on the other side wanting to eat her.

Eddie’s breathing slowed down to a shallow pace. She wondered for a moment if Eddie had lost too much blood from the nose punch and if he was starting to pass out. She felt like she was trying to restrain a monster. She wondered if this is what it’s like to work on the fourth floor in the mental ward at the hospital.

She cried out for Bobby in her mind and cursed his boss for sending him on the pointless trip to Kentucky. She would pick up the phone and call Mr. Masterson and tell him what a piece of shit he is for sending her husband away when she needed him most, but she couldn’t call. For some reason the landline had no outgoing connection and her cellphone kept repeating to her that all networks were busy. She thought to herself that she would just sit in the chair in front of the closet long enough for Eddie to calm down, and then she would take him to the hospital. She leaned back in the chair and her head rested against the closet door. If Eddie decided to hit the door again it would surely hit her head.

That’s exactly what Eddie did. The door tapped the back of her head and sent a rush of pain through, vibrating her front teeth. She screamed and jumped up from the chair, turning around to see the closet door. The pictures on the wall in the hallway began shaking again as Eddie screamed and growled while banging his fists against the door harder and harder. This time a family picture, the one they took when Eddie was only three years old, fell from the wall.

“Shut up,” Nikki yelled. She grew more furious with every minute that went by with Eddie screaming and beating the door. She wanted to be a good mother. She had always been a good mother. “Please, honey. Please be quiet.” She spoke softly to him, hoping he would calm down behind the door. She began crying again and started hating herself for locking him in the closet. This is not what a good mother does. She fell back in the chair and cried herself to sleep.

At a quarter to ten, Nikki woke up from her nap in the recliner. She rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. She shook her head and remembered she had her son locked in the closet behind her, not that she could forget. She slowly got up. She didn’t want to wake him out of fear he would start with one of his vicious rants again. She grabbed the arms of the recliner and slowly pulled it away from the closet. Her chest jolted up and down as her heart raced. She had a crazy feeling that some kind of an evil monster would crash through the door and eat her alive after she got the chair out of the way. She felt the blood pumping rapidly and hard through the veins in her neck.

Her hands trembled as she reached for the doorknob of the closet. She feared that Eddie would be lying on the other side of the door dead in a pool of blood. Blood she caused to pour from his tiny nose. She grasped the knob and slowly turned it all the way to the right until it stopped and clicked. She swallowed what felt like a lump as she eased the door open. She closed her eyes and opened them again. If Eddie wanted to jump up and have a go at her again, now would be the perfect chance. The only thing between her and the boy lying on the floor with a bloody nose was about two feet of empty space.

The blood had dried on his face and covered the front of his bare chest. She did her best to hold back the tears and felt a little relief when she noticed his chest rising up and down. “He’s still alive,” Nikki said to herself. “Thank God.”

Eddie had fallen asleep, and at the young age of ten years old it doesn’t seem to take much for a child to drift off into a deep sleep. From all the banging and pounding on the door he had done he was no doubt in the deepest of sleep. The way he lay in the closet made him look like a rag doll that had been tossed away after playtime.

Nikki reached down carefully out of fear of Eddie biting her again. She hovered her hand over his mouth to feel for air coming out of him as she watched his chest rise and fall. He was breathing normally despite his busted nose. She grimaced at the site of what she had done to her son’s face, but she reminded herself she had no choice. I had no choice, is what she’ll tell the police, if it ever comes to that.

“Eddie?” she whispered. “Are you okay?” She said it softly so she wouldn’t wake him. She’s too afraid he will come at her again. She slowly wrapped her hands around his shoulders and underneath his arms. She gently picked him up from the floor.

“He’s getting heavy,” she said under her breath.

She placed Eddie on the couch and covered him with his favorite blanket and went to the kitchen briefly, then returned with a washcloth soaked in warm water. Tears ran down her cheek as she wiped the dried blood away from Eddie’s face and from his chest. Her tears dripped from her chin and landed on Eddie. She wondered to herself why something like this would happen to her and her son. She became angry as she thought about the perfect timing of the phones not working when she really needed them the most.

Nikki decided to wait just a little while longer before putting on some decent clothes and throwing a shirt on Eddie before driving him to the hospital. She wanted to think about what she would tell the doctor when they ask what happened to his face. Would they accuse her of abusing her child? Would they claim that Eddie bit her to defend himself even when she would tell them what really happened? This made her question herself about taking him at all. She had seen it happen before in her time as a nurse with Cheyenne General. A high-tempered parent would conjure up an almost believable story before they would bring in their battered child only to have the story fall apart when the child talked to the police.

“Oh, he fell out of the top bunk and hit his head on his Tonka truck. It was quite a fall doctor,” a parent would say. “Me? A child abuser? No way...Why are you calling the police?”

She pictured herself standing in the emergency room trying to explain to the doctors a similar story. They would have to believe her. She works for them. They know she is a calm and passive person. She took the vision of herself to an extreme and saw herself in handcuffs in the back of a police car with Eddie standing on the sidewalk, waving to her and laughing. Should have left me in the closet woman.

No. I have to tell the truth. I need to take him. Just in case his nose is broken.

She turned and looked at her sleeping son on the couch.

His nose doesn’t look broken...It could be cracked though.

She stared at him for what seemed like a half hour until she finally decided to pull herself together and get dressed. Before going to the bedroom to change out of her nightgown, she reached down and picked up the television remote.

Maybe there are some cartoons on this morning he can watch if he wakes up. What am I thinking? There is nothing good on TV in the morning.

She turned on the television anyway. The white noise and the snowy background on the television reminded her of when Bobby had begged her to stick to regular cable. She also thought about all the shows that she could watch on her days off if they had satellite TV. Instead, anytime she wanted to see the latest episode of her favorite show, she had to do an exhaustive search on the internet just to watch it. She shook her head, turned the television off, and carelessly tossed the remote on the coffee table in front of her. She froze as she watched it hit the glass table, causing a loud clanking noise as it bounced twice and landed on the carpet. She knew right away that this was a big mistake. She felt as though everything turned to slow motion as she turned to look at Eddie.

Eddie’s eyes opened and jerked to his right to his see his mother turning toward him. The look on her face was as though she just remembered something she forgot to do, like turning off a gas burner before leaving the house or maybe putting the car in park before leaving it on a hill.

She turned just in time to watch Eddie’s lips curl back, exposing every tooth in his mouth. He took a deep breath and began to growl at her. She didn’t have time to think about what to do, so she did the second thing that came to mind (the first had been to put a pillow over his face, but she knew she couldn’t do that).

“Eddie! Stop it!” She tried to push him away.

Eddie pushed his elbows down on the couch and began to raise himself up. She grabbed both of his wrists, jerked him from the couch and dragged him back toward the closet. He squirmed his body in her arms and she nearly lost hold of him. There was no telling what could happen if he broke free.

“I’m sorry honey,” she said as she pulled him closer to the closet. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you’re hurting yourself and you’re hurting mommy.” She didn’t waste any time putting him in the closet and slamming the door shut. She held the door closed in fear of the door knob breaking away and Eddie jumping out and latching down on her with his teeth again.

Eddie beat his fists against the door over and over again. Then there were several thuds that made the pictures shake. Nikki stepped back and put a hand over her mouth. She gasped, realizing the thud was from Eddie beating his head against the door. Thud after thud after thud.

“Stop honey,” she said. “You’re hurting yourself. Please stop.” She fell to her knees and the tears began dripping from her eyes. Eddie continued beating his head against the door. “You little bastard, stop it!” She couldn’t take it any longer and let herself go. She felt like a failure at being a mother at that point. She couldn’t control her own son.

The beating stopped. Nikki’s cries reduced to a shallow whimper as she looked up at the door. She could hear him growling on the other side. It was a low and hideous growling that made Nikki feel more scared than she had been in her life. More scared than the time she had watched “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” when she was no older than Eddie.

Please God. What is wrong with my son? Please make it stop.

A faint scream that Nikki thought was coming from the closet was actually coming from the street in front of their home. Nikki turned her head and looked toward the front door in the hallway. The screaming faded away, then another scream. This one seemed closer. She wondered what was going on outside, but there would be no way in hell she would step foot out of the front door if she really knew what was going on. She looked at the closet door, and then pushed the recliner in front of it to make sure Eddie could not get out. She walked up to the door and peeked through the peephole.