Wormwood Dawn (Episode IX) (3 page)

And it was all his fault.

He had failed, that was for sure. Cliff might be dead now for all he knew, and here he was sitting in the woods like some kind of sulking freak. He felt worthless.

“You fucking piece of shit,” he whispered.

There was a cracking sound nearby, and Dan lifted his head to peer into the shadows. He could see nothing, but could hear something large creeping through the brush. Maybe it was an animal, or maybe it was a shuffler coming to finish him off. It was then that he smelled the scent of decay.

Corpse,
he thought.
Come and get me.

The cracking sounds came closer, and were accompanied by moans—several moans. There were more than one coming his way. He pressed himself farther into the alcove, hoping the creatures would pass him by. But a little part of him didn’t really care. He was tired of everything anyway. Fuck it. Besides, he was in no condition to fight.

He held his breath as the shadows began to move around him. The slow, plodding footfalls of the dead echoed in his head, driving his heart to pound faster, and his breath to come in short, silent gasps. They passed just ahead of him, pausing only momentarily to sniff the air. Only a few of them lingered for any length of time, but they too went on, evidently not catching Dan’s scent.

But the shambler that followed them wasn’t fooled. Its quick thrashing footsteps stopped directly in front of him, nearly four feet away, as the creature sniffed around. Its excited moans and squeals deepened, and it turned directly in his direction. Dan’s heart nearly stopped. He reached into his pocket to fetch the revolver, waiting for the creature to start coming in his direction. When it did, with a growl, Dan cocked back the hammer, blasting the creature square in the chest.

He jumped up immediately as the creature groaned and fell back. Dan didn’t stick around to see if it was dead. He took off running in the same direction as the dead, knocking them over as he passed, dodging their rotting claws. He bowled into one, knocking it into the dirt and falling over with it. As he rolled to his feet, he heard the angry howling of the shambler he had shot. Breathless, he sprinted in the dark, heading toward what looked like a field at the edge of the forest.

He ran into a few more corpses, knocking them out of his way, desperately trying to escape the deadly shambler behind him. He could hear it getting closer, and could almost feel its hot breath on his neck.

“Go fuck yourself,” he growled, surging forward with his last ounce of strength.

He broke through the tree line, coming into a field. In the distance he could see a farmhouse, lit from the inside by candles, possibly. Someone was there. He craned his neck around as he ran, seeing not only one, but two shamblers on his heels.

“Fuck!”
he shouted.

His vision was swimming, his head swirling in a drunken stupor. He wasn’t even sure he was running in a straight line. He felt like falling over and letting them tear into his flesh. He was just too spent. But, something inside him kept him going, despite the fact that his vision was fading.

Fading into darkness.

Before he collapsed, he heard several large caliber gunshots, and the death growls of the two shamblers as they were blown to bits.

“What are you doin’, bud?” Travis asked Eric.

Eric was carrying boxes of canned foods, bottled water, and other items into the parked RV. It was barely dawn, and the sky was only the slightest bit blue; not quite bright enough to see what he was doing.

“I figured if we have to skin out real quick, we should load up the RV with a few supplies.”

“Skin out?” Travis asked, laughing. “I’m rubbing off on you.”

Eric grinned, plopping a box down just inside the flimsy door. “Jake reinforced the walls of this thing and souped-up the engine a bit. Once I get enough supplies in it, I’ll park it in a little spot I found down the hill.”

“Down the hill? Won’t it be hard to get out if you park it down there?”

“Nah,” Eric replied. “The path I found continues on forward. It’s pretty flat from there. No problem.”

“Alright, man. That sounds good.”

Eric paused for a moment. “How’s Cliff?”

“He’s fine. The pain is pretty bad, but that’ll go away. He doesn’t have an infection or anything. He’ll heal up nicely, I think.”

“Yeah,” Eric said, sitting down. “I’m worried about Dan, though. I thought he would be back by now.”

“We could go look for him.”

Eric nodded. “Once the sun’s up, we’ll do that. I thought I heard gunshots last night.”

“Is that what that was?” Travis asked. “I couldn’t tell.”

“I was outside last night, coming up with this plan.”

“Well, is there room enough for everyone in there?”

“There should be,” Eric said. “It won’t be a joy ride, but we’ll be safe.”

Drew came out then, eyeing Eric curiously. Once he realized what the man was doing, he seemed to approve.

“Expecting trouble?” he asked.

“Not really,” Eric said. “Just in case.”

“So when are we going out to look for Dan?”

“I guess that’s up to you,” Eric said. “But I’m thinking once daylight gets here.”

“Alright. Don’t worry though. He’s probably fine. He just needs a little time to figure things out. I wish there was a way to let him know that Cliff’s alright, though.”

“He’ll be back, man,” Travis said. “He left his rifle.”

Drew grinned. “Yep.”

Dan’s head swam, and his stomach churned and twisted. It had been a few weeks since he had drank that much whiskey, and the familiar feeling of a hangover was definitely not welcome. He opened his eyes, seeing the morning sunlight streaming in through a curtained window. He was in a bed, in a sparsely-furnished bedroom.

How did he get here?

He remembered very little. There were some shufflers, corpses, and a lot of gunshots. He looked over to the bedside, seeing the revolver he had found the night before. It was laid on top of two nicely stacked boxes of ammo, right next to his lighter, cigarettes, and keys.

He instinctively reached for his cigarettes, sitting up and lighting one.

“If you’re gonna smoke,” a woman’s voice said behind him. “Then I’ll open the window and get you an ashtray.”

Dan turned. There was a young woman standing there in the doorway. She was in her early thirties, with short dark hair, jeans, and a simple plaid shirt. She looked like a tough country girl, raised on the farm, ringing the necks of chickens for dinner.

“Good morning,” Dan said. “Where the hell am I?”

The woman went across the room and opened the window, and then reached into the top drawer of a nearby dresser to retrieve an ashtray. She leaned up against the dresser, looking him over.

“This is my dad’s farm,” she said. “He found you last night being chased by freaks. You were drunk off your ass.”

“Okay,” Dan said. “I guess I should thank him.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You can do that when he’s done cleaning up the mess.”

“What mess?”

“There were dozens of those dead things out there,” she said. “They followed you here. We had to kill them all.”

“Sorry,” Dan said. “I just had to get away from my group for a while. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

She sat down next to him. “You have a group?” she asked. “Where?”

“In the old impound lot near the highway,” Dan said. “The one with the junk yard.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know it. I didn’t think anybody was there. You walked all the way from there?”

“I guess so,” Dan said. “My name’s Dan, by the way.”

“Linda,” she said.

Linda.
The last Linda Dan knew blew her brains out with a shotgun. He remembered the splatter on the wall, and on his face. The look of horror Drew had before he blew chunks on the floor.

“Nice to meet you, Linda,” he said.

Linda stood. “You’re probably hungry,” she said. “I made some eggs and bacon if you want some.”

“Thanks,” he said. “That sounds great.”

Dan stumbled into the kitchen, immediately mesmerized by the smell of bacon; delicious, yummy bacon. It seemed like forever since he had tasted its crunchy, fatty goodness. He sat down at the table, staring at the large pile of it on his plate. He dug in immediately.

“Oh my god,” he mumbled with a mouthful. “I thought I would never taste bacon again.”

She set a small glass of orange juice down next him. He could tell there was alcohol in it. Evidently, she was familiar with hangovers.

“Daddy’s hangover cure,” she said smiling. “When you’re done with breakfast, he’ll be expecting you to go out and help.”

“Is he angry or anything?”

“No,” she said. “Not at all. We deal with stragglers all the time… among other things.”

He noticed that she trailed off with a sad tone. She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t press the matter. He continued eating, watching her as she cleaned up the breakfast mess.

“So what happened that made you leave?” she asked.

“A friend was hurt really bad,” Dan said. “It was my fault. I couldn’t deal with it.”

“Why was it your fault?”

“I should have been more prepared,” he said. “But I had no idea the things we were after could mutate so much.”

“And what was it you were after?”

“Some strange people,” Dan said. “Weird things that dress in rags and eat other people.”

Linda stopped, setting down a pot and turning around. “Did you kill them?”

“Most of them, I think. Why?”

“Good,” she said. “They don’t belong. No more than any of the rest of the monsters. Daddy says they’re spreading like wildfire. He sees them a lot when he goes out for supplies. They’re cowardly, but dangerous in large numbers.”

“Kind of like sandpeople,” Dan said, grinning.

Linda shrugged. “I guess. They’re about as ugly.”

Dan took a sip of his screwdriver, feeling the grogginess fade away. It seemed to do the trick. When Linda wasn’t looking, he could pop a Vicodin. He knew he had some with him. He never left home without it. But she surprised him with a question.

“Do you want a Percocet?” she asked. “It should help with your hangover.”

“You have Percocet?”

She nodded. “We stocked up on just about everything when the shit hit the fan,” she said. “Pain killers, antibiotics, vitamins, you name it.”

“Okay.”

She left the room, and Dan continued eating. Outside, he saw a man in the distance, dragging a load of what looked like bodies on a wagon behind his tractor.

That must be dad,
he thought.

“Here you go,” Linda said when she returned, handing him a large, white pill.

Dan took it and washed it down with a swig of screwdriver. “Is that your dad?” he asked.

“Yep, that’s him,” she replied. “Maybe you should get out there and help.”

The old man stopped his tractor as Dan walked up. He hopped off, smiling, and offered his hand. “Howdy,” he said. “Bill Holley. Like the carburetor.”

Dan chuckled. “Dan Parker,” he said. “Thanks for saving my ass last night.”

“Oh, no problem. It’s just a good thing I heard coyotes, otherwise I might not have been outside.”

He seemed pleasant. He was a typical middle class farmer type. He wore fairly clean jeans, a gray button-up shirt, a vest, and had a biker-style mustache; almost white. He was probably considerably older than his daughter, more so than usual.

“That’s a nice .357 you had,” Bill said. “Where’d you find that?”

“A cabin back toward the north,” Dan said.

“Ah,” Bill said, thinking. “Must have been Carl’s. He probably killed himself, eh?”

Dan nodded. “Probably a good move.”

“I hear ya,” Bill said. “Say, why don’t you hop on back of the tractor and we’ll pick up the rest of the bodies.”

Dan followed Bill and climbed up on the trailer. He wasn’t really bothered by the dead creatures that were piled on it, but was fascinated by the mix. There were corpses, shufflers, shamblers, and something that looked like a coyote thing with its head missing.

The tractor was fairly quiet, and chugged along quite nicely. Every now and then Bill would stop, and Dan would hop off, load up a body, and hop back on. This went on for about an hour, and Dan was surprised that there were so many. Had Bill not been there, Dan likely would have died. There was no way he could have fended off so many creatures.

“You killed all of these last night?” Dan yelled.

“Most of them,” Bill said. “Me and Linda, anyway. Some of them were from the night before or even older. I don’t always find the ones I kill right away. But I like to clear them out when I can. They stink, and attract more.”

“Have you seen any mutants?”

“A few,” Bill said. “Mostly the crawling ones. But then there are the weird ones that talk.”

“The scavengers,” Dan mumbled.

“What’s that?”

“Where have you seen them?”

“Out and about,” Bill said. “They collect supplies, too, but they ain’t human. Not anymore, anyway. I kill ‘em when I see ‘em.”

Dan spotted movement along the tree line near the bottom of the hill. Bill saw it, too, and handed Dan his rifle. It was a Henry Big Boy; beautiful and well taken care of. Bill steered in that direction, keeping his eyes ahead. The movement continued, and finally a figure emerged from the trees. It was a single corpse, stumbling along, looking for flesh to devour.

Dan raised the rifle, waiting for the creature to get closer to make it easier to collect. When he was satisfied with the distance, Dan pulled the trigger, blasting the thing’s head to pieces.

“Good shot, son,” Bill said, steering the tractor toward the body.

He and Bill hopped off, staring at the decaying thing there on the ground. Bill’s face was saddened as he realized who he was looking at.

“This is Diane Miller,” he said. “Or it was, anyway.”

“You knew her?”

“I knew this dress,” Bill said. “Not much left of the head, though. My wife made her that dress before she passed away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, that was seven years ago. Long before the infection. I don’t know what this is, though. Ain’t no reason for the dead to be walkin’ around. They were nice and dead before. Something happened I guess. If the damn moldy things weren’t bad enough…”

“I’ve seen a whole horde of them before,” Dan said. “We fought them off right before the piece of the comet hit.”

“I’ve seen that same horde,” Bill said. “Kept goin’ back and forth until the sun went out. Don’t know where they came from, other than south.”

“Some mutants are able to wake them,” Dan said. “But a whole horde of them? I doubt a single creature could do that.”

Bill shook his head. “Nothing surprises me anymore,” he said. “The shit’s just getting’ worse and worse.”

“How did you and Linda survive during the darkness?”

“Same as usual,” Bill said, climbing back up in the tractor seat. “By the skin of our teeth.”

Eric maneuvered the RV down the hill, heading toward the copse of trees he had found. Their shapes formed a kind of natural garage with an entrance and an exit. The vehicle was just the right size to fit inside with a little room on either side, and barely any room on top. Here, the roving trashcan would be hidden from view, and ready to evacuate the group at a moment’s notice.

Eric shut the engine off and took one look in the living area to make sure everything was secure. Outside, he could hear Drew and Jake begin covering the back with branches. The front would be left open. There, an old road led back up to an older highway that was not much more than a gravel road.

After his quick check, Eric exited and joined the others. The mood was sullen, as everyone was worried about Dan.

“There are some cabins around here that nobody really knows about,” Eric said. “He could be holed up in one of them.”

“Or he could be lying dead in a ditch,” Jake added.

“I would say he’ll come back when he’s cooled off,” Drew said. “But Jake’s right. He could either be dead or injured somewhere. Either way, we’ll never find him.”