The Living Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Coast (11 page)

A mold-covered woman reached her first and raked her shins with the sharp bone tips of her fingers, mouth stretched wide. Tiny mushrooms sprouted amongst her broken teeth and a stump of a tongue moved from side to side. The rest of the throng closed in fast.

She jumped and splashed down on top of a body, hidden just beneath the water, knees scraped painfully by a jutting ribcage. Crying out in pain she scrambled up the muddy bank, expecting to be pulled back down by rotting hands at any second.

Soaking wet and covered in mud, she stopped to catch her breath, eyeing the ditch warily. The water roiled and a detached arm floated to the surface followed by a torso, distended in decomposition. Bea flinched away but nothing else surfaced. Whoever was in there was really dead.

Wheels screeched around the corner and David came to a stop. She jumped inside, yanked the door closed and they were back on the road with the dead soon left far behind.

“Illegals,” David said.

“What? Oh. They were being smuggled in, weren’t they? I knew Walmart was evil but-”

“Funny. The truck was either stolen or a fake. Coyotes have a lot of tricks they use to get them across the border. I only saw women. They thought they were coming here for a better life but it was probably a prostitution ring.”

Shivering, Bea turned the heat up. “I took some peroxide from the mini-mart. I’m going to try to clean your ear. This will sting a little.”

“How bad is it? I haven’t looked at it yet,” he flipped the rearview mirror. “Crap! That’s practically a hole.”

It wasn’t really but the tip of the ear was gone and the bullet had scorched a path through his hair. He didn’t flinch when Bea drizzled peroxide on it.

“It bled a lot but scalp wounds do. I don’t see any signs of infection.” She brushed his hair away from his ear and blew on the peroxide to dry it.

The pleasure he felt at the touch of her hands was incredibly stirring but he deliberately tamped it down. He had done his best to forget their brief almost-tryst back in D.C. and she never referred to it again. But now she continued to touch him gently along his temple and neck. The nearness of her was intoxicating and when she sat back and buckled her seat belt he felt bereft.

“Don’t worry. It’s healing. Think of it as enhancing your rugged good looks.” Her smile had a sweetness to it that took him by surprise.

“Kind of like that mud below your eye is a beauty mark.”

She laughed and rubbed her face. “I know. I’ve never been this dirty in my life. I’ve been having shower fantasies for days.”

At the sound of her laughter
he
began having shower fantasies too. To distract himself he turned the radio on and then hit scan. Static blared through the speakers.

The day grew warmer. This road was taking them south and they should be near Memphis in a few hours if their luck held. Road signs for various communities flashed by. On one for Newbern someone had painted out the population number and written, “All Dead, Keep Moving.”

Bea said, “There was a body in that ditch I jumped into. It had decomposed to the point it was falling apart. I don’t know if it had turned or if whoever it was just died.”

“As it warms up we will probably see more and more of that,” David replied.

“Where exactly are we going? It’s not downtown Memphis is it?”

“No, I’m trying to avoid that. We need to get to the other side of the river. There are several bridges well above Memphis. I want to cross in Ripley; it’s much smaller than Memphis.”

“Why do we have to cross over? Couldn’t they pick us up anywhere?”

“They’re not flying any more missions across the Mississippi river. The eastern half of the country is considered lost and the Mississippi is the designated cut-off. It’s sort of an arbitrary decision and I don’t know who made it. They may be trying to save fuel.”

“Cut-off as in quarantined? Will someone shoot us if we try to cross?”

“I don’t think so. They don’t have enough people to enforce a quarantine."

Again the enormity of the situation pressed in on her. All the immense means of commerce stopped. Vast ships at sea slowly turning into derelict, drifting hulks. Food rotting in warehouses or in the fields. Thousands of miles of paved roads overtaken by weeds and vines.  Wharves and docks collapsing into harbors. Homes destroyed by leaking natural gas lines, their uncomprehending owners charred by the flames. Hydroelectric plants failing and concrete dams bursting due to lack of maintenance. Nuclear power facilities melting down. People dying from injuries or illnesses that were once easily treatable. Women dying in childbirth.

Bea filled their backpacks with as much of her stolen food and water as possible. She hoped they would drive across the bridge but who knew? It could be blocked, forcing them to travel on foot.

A pack of dogs emerged from a stand of trees and crossed the road in front of them. In the rearview mirror David saw a pack of dead stumble from the trees and cross after them. The dead were slow and clumsy; the dogs were in very little danger.

They took the exit for Ripley in the late afternoon. The two-lane road led them past farms and small local stores before they entered a stone-paved town square with a fountain and an ornately carved, wooden band-stand. A tattered American flag still waved in the breeze in front of a red-brick post office. Next to that was a rather grand building with massive, white columns and a door partially ajar. A brass plaque identified it as the local courthouse and police station. The only dead they saw were in the distance, shuffling around a Dairy Queen parking lot. David pulled into a space in front of the police station.

“We need ammo and more weapons if we can get them. Also, there might be shower facilities here. I can’t guarantee they’re working. Are you game?”

“Absolutely.”

The smell hit them as soon as they entered the building. Slowly, guns at the ready, they scanned the atrium. Bea pulled her tee shirt up to cover her mouth and nose and they entered the door marked “County Sheriff.” Chairs, phones, and computers were smashed and overturned and papers and files lay scattered. Bullet casings littered the area near the front door and bloody footprints crisscrossed the room before fading away out in the atrium. They saw no one, infected or otherwise, but the smell- where was it coming from?

A solid-looking wooden door with a small glass inset led to a hallway with four jail cells, two on each side. The door wasn’t locked and hinges squeaked as they opened it and stepped onto the scuffed tile.

B
ed springs squeaked and a man, hair wild and wearing jailhouse orange, got slowly to his feet and stood beside his bunk. He stared at them as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes then ran to the bars, shaking them violently.

“Let me out! Please, you have to let me out of here. The keys is in that desk out in the front. I ain’t seen nobody for a week.”

He pressed against the bars, eyes pleading and arms reaching for them. The smell of rot and fecal matter was overwhelming. Bea backed away but David, noticing pooled, dried blood in the center of the hall tiles near a floor drain, moved in for a closer look.

“Move away from the bars! I want your hands up on that back wall. Now!” David punctuated the last word by gesturing with his gun. The man raised his hands and backed away.

“Don’t kill me, mister!” He was crying now and snot ran down his upper lip. “I’m nearly dead already. You got to let me out! I’ll starve if you don’t let me out.”

Bea left and searched the desks out front for keys. Finally finding a plastic key card dangling from a chair she went back to the cells, prepared to run it through the reader on the cell door but David gestured for her to wait. The man was still sniveling but it now seemed forced to her and she stopped, wondering what was going on.

“Where did everyone go?” David asked.

“I don’t know! All I know is the cops got me for DUI on Friday but it wasn’t my fault. I was home, minding my own business when my dad called to get a ride home from the bus station. Carl, he says, you got to come get your old dad. The only time he ever remembers me is when he needs something. Before I could get there I got pulled over and thrown in here. Half a six pack, that’s all I’d drunk, I swear. The next morning I heard a bunch of screaming and gunshots out there and then nothing. We hollered for two days but ain’t nobody ever answered. I’ve been drinking from the toilet but the water’s all gone now. You can’t leave me in here!”

David’s eyes narrowed and he lifted the gun again. “We? Who was it who shouted with you for two days?”

The man’s face went whiter than it already was. “There ain’t no we, it’s just me.”

David gestured with the gun. “Pull that blanket up off that bunk and show me what’s under the bed.”

The man’s face went utterly blank for a moment then he turned to Bea. “You, Supergirl, you gotta understand. I was gonna die if-”

David shouted, “Throw that blanket over here before I blow your head off!”

Trembling, the man reluctantly pulled the blanket off the bunk revealing a body, crammed under the bed and nude from the waist up. Chunks of flesh were missing from the arms, shoulders, and ribs. Bite-sized chunks. The smell of decay intensified.

“Don’t try to tell me he conveniently died of natural causes. Did you kill him so you could eat him?”

“No! That’s not how it started. We got in a fight about how much water he was drinking because the toilet stopped filling and I knew the water was- I never meant to hit him that hard but he was trying to kill me!”

“So you just got hungry and decided to carve up your compatriot there?”

“What was I supposed to do? Just starve when there was-” he stopped as if he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“Meat? Is that what’s hard to say? But it wasn’t that hard to take a bite, was it?”

David’s hand shook and his finger tensed on the trigger. Bea put her hands over her ears and ran out into the offices, taking breaths of the cleaner air out here and waiting for the sound of the gunshot.

It never came. David followed her out, gun by his side. He grabbed a clipboard hanging on the wall and began flipping through the clipped pages. The prisoner began yelling again, the sound only slightly muffled by the closed door.

“What are you looking for?”

“This is the arrest sheet for the last two weeks. I see just two names. One for a Carl, charge is DUI and the other for Public Drunkenness, a guy named Roscoe. I just wanted to check the facts before I do anything.”

“I know it’s horrible but the circumstances were well…unprecedented. I mean, getting locked up for DUI just as civilization falls is a difficult situation to deal with,” Bea said.

“Yeah, but is he telling the truth? Did he just kill the guy so he could eat him to survive?”

“He said it was an argument. As for eating him, there have been instances where the Catholic Church granted forgiveness for this kind of thing due to extreme circumstances. This was pretty extreme. And you know what they say about mercy.”

“‘It falleth as the gentle rain from heaven’? Shakespeare?”

“I mean the part about it being ‘twice blest. ‘It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.’ We all could use some blessing right now.”

David took the plastic key from her and went back to the cells. Metal clanged and the prisoner emerged, looking relieved and terrified at the same time. David held his gun on him.

“Get out of here.”

“Thank you, thank you! If I can ever do you a favor, I will.”

“Just go.” David waved the gun.

Carl fled. The door down the hall banged and they saw him run past the windows.

“Did you tell him what’s been happening in the world the last few days?”

David shook his head. “It didn’t come up. Help me find the keys for the armory. I don’t want to dwell on the fact that I just released a murderer and a cannibal back into the world.”

Pickings were slim. The police here either didn’t keep a lot of ammo on hand or else they took it with them when they left. They found two boxes of shells and pocketed them but the guns were gone.

“Let’s hope they put them to good use. Let’s go.”

The dead down the street drew closer, attracted by all the noise. Bea and David left them behind and drove toward the setting sun, winding through lanes of lovely, old houses. They finally found a sign that directed them to River Road and they turned, hoping it would lead them to a bridge.

Starting out as rivulets the water soon ran across the road in a muddy stream. The road now sloped downhill and the lower they went the deeper the water rose. The floorboard was awash in several inches of water when they struck a submerged log and the car shuddered to a stop. They got out. The log wedged inside the wheel well.

They waded through water up to their knees and hung on to trees to stay upright. They reached an area where the road was washed completely away and stopped, not knowing the direction to take.

“Where’s the river?” Bea looked through the trees for a road sign or anything that would tell them where they were.

David said, “I think we’re in it. It’s jumped the banks.”

They struggled on a few yards more until they reached an overturned boat pressed solidly against the trees by the rushing water.  Scrambling up the hull they hoisted themselves up to the lowest tree branches then began to climb.

The Muddy Mississippi. Old Man River. The Mighty Mississippi. All those nicknames came to mind when they looked down and out over the river valley. Dark water roared by in the mile-wide river, bringing with it trees, cars, even parts of houses. A huge barge swirled by in the strong current as if it weighed no more than a leaf.

“The bridge is gone. Swept away.” David’s voice was full of awe. A set of McDonald’s golden arches bobbed up briefly in the muddy torrent then sank again. A dead cow, belly distended and legs jutting stiffly in rigor mortis bumped up against their tree before floating on.

“So what now? Where’s the next closest bridge?” Bea asked.

“I’m not sure. I know Memphis has at least two or they used to. Maybe not anymore. We’ll never make it through a city that size. It’s not even an option.”

The sound of the water grew louder as a dark, rolling current unfurled beneath them, carrying with it more debris. Steel pylons slammed against the trees and stayed there, crushing the wooden boat to matchsticks. The old oak tree shuddered but held as the water rose even higher. The road they had driven in on was no longer visible.

“It’s getting dark and the water is still rising. I wish we had some way to tie ourselves to the tree. I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep and fall out.” Bea looked down at the surging water.

David pulled a hoodie from his pack and passed it to her. “We’ll just have to keep each other awake. Put this on. It’s going to get a lot colder once the sun goes down.”

Bea put it on gratefully. The air was already chilly and they were both soaking wet. She positioned her pack behind a limb then leaned back and slipped her arms through the straps. The branch hurt her back but this should hold her in the tree unless the straps gave out.

David straddled a broad limb and leaned back. “Dams and locks upstream must have failed and caused the flooding. Once the water recedes we’ll find a way across. If we survive the night things should be better tomorrow.”

The sun set and the night grew dark. The only sound was the rush of the water and their desultory conversation.

~

The splash woke him. He opened his eyes to a gray morning with mist hovering above the water and the sight of Bea floundering below him in the dirty, much shallower water.

“Hey! Are you alright?”

She got to her feet and climbed the metal pylon. Out of breath after the shock of the cold water it was a few seconds before she could reply.

“I fell off the branch. I was sound asleep one minute then the next thing I know I’m under water. But I’m fine.”

The good news was that they survived the night. An early morning mist drifted over the water. The bad news was that the water, while it had gone down, was still dangerously fast and rough. Trees, broken boats, and dead bodies bobbed in the turbulent water.

Or were they dead bodies? David took another look. The current eddied and sent a body straight toward them. Fleshless fingers clawed at the tree trunk and the infected gained its feet, only to fall again, the current pressing it up against the tree. Another body soon drifted their way. This one was swollen with water and the gaping hole where its abdomen used to be was full of insects and worms. Broken teeth gnashed in the lipless mouth but the creature had no legs and could only thrash about feebly with water-swollen arms.

The river swarmed with corpses, some animated, some truly dead. They were trapped and even if the water level kept dropping they would still be surrounded by the hungry infected. Bea dropped her head. She felt like crying but didn’t want David to see.

David checked his ammunition before pulling out another MRE for breakfast.

“Hungry?” He offered her a packet but she was facing in the opposite direction and just shook her head no. He shrugged and peeled open the foil pouch. A light rain still fell but the sun was growing brighter and the fog should burn off soon. The bodies in the water writhed and bobbed as they-

A sputtering engine sounded somewhere in the distance. It died. Someone cursed enthusiastically then the engine started up again. It sputtered along and grew louder.

A battered aluminum boat with a small outboard motor slowly came into view. The chugging motor died again and the cursing, now accompanied by a metallic
clang
, resumed until the engine once more came to life.

“Hey! Up here!” David waved his arms.

“I see you! I’m getting there as fast as I can,” shouted the boat operator.

Maneuvering through the debris and the occasional tussock of ground, their would-be rescuer pulled in closer. He wore a plastic rain jacket and hat.

“You! How did you guys get up there?” The voice sounded familiar.

It was the erstwhile jail inmate Carl. He grinned and stopped the boat. “Ya’ll need help getting down?”

From their vantage point Bea and David saw two gray, water-logged hands grasp the side of the boat. They shouted out a warning and pointed. Carl picked up a small fire-axe, turned, and hacked both hands off at the wrist. The boat swayed violently and nearly capsized, Carl hanging on to the sides.

“Where’re you headed?” Carl asked as soon as the boat steadied.

“Across the river. Can you get us there?” Bea asked.

“Let’s find out, Supergirl. Climb down but be careful. I got a feeling there are more of those things down where we can’t see them.”

The river, while calmer, still carried dangerous debris. Knocks and scrapes on the hull were constant. A mutilated body surfaced, seeming dead until it reached for the boat. The little craft rocked dangerously before David chopped the hands away. Even after that they had to pry the fingers loose.

Something hit them hard underneath sending the boat into a spin. A cross-current carried them back toward the bank they just left. The motor snagged on weeds and vines and died.

Carl tugged but couldn’t untangle them. “Someone’s going to have to get out and unwrap that junk from the propeller.”

David splashed down in the murky water. The thick, ropey vines were impossible to untwist so he used the axe.

“Be careful you don’t hit the motor,” Carl said.

Exasperated, David didn’t reply, just kept chopping. Looking for attackers floating in, he saw nothing. Something bumped against his leg and he kicked out at it only to see a log surface and go spinning off into the current.