DUSK 2
After speeding through back roads for hours, Ty had stopped the station wagon inside of a ruined state park. A quarter of a century ago, there had been well kept dirt roads and hiking paths. Today, the weeds and branches overtook the roads, blocking some paths and making others bumpy. Every once in a while, they had to work their way past an abandoned vehicle. Ty wondered if the vehicles had been left there by people at the park when the dead started walking or by those who were fleeing to somewhere that might have been abandoned. As he looked down an embankment at a river, Ty could see where a hiking path had been washed out by a storm several years before.
Jud sat on the hood of the station wagon, looking at an old road atlas, while Ty climbed down to the river, under the pretense of gathering food. They’d spotted deer from the station wagon, but Ty didn’t want to shoot them because the sound might attract attention from a search party that may or may not be after them. On the way out, Ty had frantically searched for a tail, but found none. There had been helicopters flashing lights on the street in search of pedestrian attackers, but apparently Oscar had created enough of a diversion to allow the survivors to slip away undetected. Since shooting was out, Ty decided to try his luck in pulling fish out of the stream if he was allowed the time. He’d been instructed by the voice in his head to get away from Jud, so this trip might have been business only.
When he reached the river’s edge, the air grew chilled and the light faded as though the trees had consumed the sky.
You’re alone. Good, the voice said.
“I’ve lost two men and the enemy knows we are out here.”
They don’t know where you are and your men are expendable.
“What do you want me to do now?”
Return home. Tell Reed that you found the establishment deserted and that the sinners are in scattered encampments in the surrounding miles.
“But how do I get Jud to go along with this?”
You know what must be done.
“Tell me.”
The voice did not answer. He’d hoped it would give him an alternate course of action. If he was able to convince Reed that his story was true, Ty would still have to deal with the consequences of not finding the alternate settlements.
Have faith, he thought. The entity had known where to find the main city. Maybe what it said about the others was true too. He just had to deal with the situation one step at a time.
When he climbed back up the embankment, empty handed, Ty spotted Jud still perched on the station wagon, but no longer looking at the map. Instead he sat with his hands folded over his rifle. It was in a relaxed position, but there was something Ty didn’t like about his partner’s posture.
“I see you came back empty handed,” Jud said.
“Fish weren’t biting. Do you know where we are?”
“We’re in the middle of the fucking park you got us stuck in.”
“Watch your tone. We were under fire and took the fastest way out of there. You could have kept track of where we were as well.”
“I was getting ready to shoot anyone who was behind us after you lead us into that trap.”
Without saying another word, Ty raised his shotgun and blasted off the top of Jud’s skull. The body slid off of the hood, leaving a red trail and a puddle at the front of the vehicle. The body twitched.
Ty grabbed Jud’s backpack from the ground and tossed it inside of the vehicle. Then he gathered anything useful from Jud’s half headless corpse and pushed the body into the bottom of the embankment.
He was a liability anyway, Ty thought.
Hoping the shot hadn’t been heard by anyone else, Ty leapt into the cab, and drove out of the park.
*
While Sal woke his daughter and Wade, Jasper tried to remember his dream last night. When he’d been aroused from his sleep, Connie’s scent lingered in his nostrils as though he’d spent the night in his wife’s arms. Sal claimed to have slept dreamlessly, but Sarah had told them both that they’d been thrashing and kicking throughout their sleep. Maybe they were normal dreams and nightmares instead of the dead trying to communicate, but Jasper wanted to remember anyway.
He walked through the front door, expecting to see Connie sitting on the front porch, but only finding himself alone in the damp morning breeze. No birds chirped in the woods and there were no undead moans in the distance. The cloud cover had broken, showing the sun for the first time in days, but the sky was somehow grim.
Rubbing his eyes with clenched fists and yawning, Wade emerged through the doorway.
“Did I miss anything?”
“Just the crickets.”
Without saying anything else, Wade rushed to the back seat of the station wagon and tossed his backpack and rifle inside then watched the house with a tapping foot.
Sal stepped out of the house a moment later with an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. Sarah, whose eyes were still half shut, gave a slow wave to Jasper and Wade.
“I don’t think we’ll have far to go once we get back on the road,” Sal said.
“What makes you so sure?” Wade asked.
“I just am. Now get in the car.”
While Wade grumbled and sat in the back seat, Jasper got in the other side with his back pack beside him and his rifle on his lap. Once everyone was inside, Sal accelerated to the road. When the wheels connected with crumbling asphalt, Wade sighed with relief.
“I’m glad to have that place behind me.”
After a few miles, they passed an abandoned bait shop and gas station. Oblivious to the passing vehicle, a ghoul in a plaid shirt and corduroy pants stood by the front entrance, shaking an overturned and broken rocking chair. Jasper wondered if that ghoul had owned the store. In his previous life, the ghoul had probably sat in that rocker every day, waiting for customers to roll by, or perhaps just enjoying the view on his time off.
Unlike the previous night, Sal drove the station wagon much faster than the numbers posted on the faded speed limit signs, cutting time off of their journey. Maybe an hour later, they spotted a car wreck, where one car had overturned. They’d been able to get by using the shoulder.
*
Stop, you’re safe here.
After leaving the park, Ty Cooper had steered away from the city and into unfamiliar territory. The terrain was suburban, with two story houses lined up in rows of lots that were about an eighth of an acre each. Years before judgment, this had been a place where children had played and families had both flourished and imploded.
Ty had vague memories of his life before the dead had started to walk. He’d lived in a similar neighborhood in northern Montana when he was little. His father had worked as an attorney for the state. His mother had been whoring herself to the men in a neighboring town to fund her habit.
One day, Ty’s father had come home with pamphlets and a smile. He spoke of true salvation and clamed that the end was near. According to the literature, a catastrophic event was only a few years away and humanity had to prepare for the final battle between good an evil. At eight years old, Ty had thought his father had gone nuts. His mother didn’t seem to notice until Ty’s father raped her and shoved her in the trunk of his car. Before the police arrived, Ty found himself in a father and son trip to a commune in the wilds of Canada.
“What about lepers? This place should be crawling with them?”
They’re all inside for now.
He pulled into a school parking lot, but kept the engine running. As the car pulled to a full stop, a figure materialized in the seat beside him. Ty gaped, gripping his pistol as he gripped his blanket when he’d heard his mother downstairs with a stranger. At first the figure was black as though light was afraid to touch it, but then features began to form. The man beside him had a beard, black hair, and yellow teeth.
“Lenux!”
“Cooper, you were always a good soldier and a skeptic. We think alike, which is why I chose you out of all of the others,” Lenux said, no longer speaking inside of Ty’s head.
“I don’t understand. You were killed.”
“I paid a price, but my death made me a god.”
“Why do you need me?”
“Why did God need Moses? The people need someone like them to lead and I don’t want to appear to all of them. I’ve been influencing Leonard Reed, but he thinks I am the dead man he still worships. He will do well in war, but the people need someone like me to lead them.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing for now. Wait until nightfall and return home. I’ll show you the way. When you meet with Reed I will tell you what to say.”
“What about the others? The woman?”
“You will meet them. Right now they are conducting a blind search for your car. They won’t find it though.”
“Who are they? How do they know about us?”
Without answering the question, Lenux dissolved into the seat, leaving Ty alone in a town full of dormant zombies.
*
“What the hell is going on?” Wade asked as he saw what looked like military transports roll out of an abandoned compound.
“They didn’t get hit by the same ones who got us,” Sal said. “There’s only limited damage to the walls. We had holes big enough for an army to pass through.”
“What the hell is going on?” he repeated.
Jasper snatched the pair of binoculars from Wade, and watched the activity himself.
“I don’t think we’re looking at whoever lives here,” Jasper said.
“I wonder if this was what our friend was trying to say.”
Sarah crossed her arms and huffed at the assertion of something supernatural. She’d seen the dead walk, yet she refused to believe in ghosts. Wade had agreed with her until he’d seen that door the previous night. However, he didn’t want Sarah to feel alone so he didn’t argue.
While the two overnight clairvoyants took in the scene, Wade watched Sarah hug herself. His jacket fit loosely over her frame, making her look even smaller than she was. The wind tugged at her blonde hair and she moved a strand away from her eyes with her right hand. When she realized Wade was watching, Sarah smiled and winked at him. He blew her a silent kiss.
“Looks like they’re pulling out,” Sal said.
“Do you want to take a look inside?” Wade asked.
“I don’t want to be stuck in there if they return,” Jasper said.
“Neither do I. I think we already know what we’ll find in there. Let’s follow them.”
Sal looked back to the access stairwell which would take them off of the rooftop.
“Let’s head back to our ride. I want to be ready to roll after them.”
The moved through the door, and down the stairs. Every other landing fed into a main hallway through a door. With a small window on every landing, the lighting was dim but they could see. The stairs were constructed from concrete, so they were sturdy and didn’t feel and sound like they were going to splinter under every footstep. Wade liked the change of events, but then remembered what they were about to do.
It was insane. If those people they saw were the ones who had attacked the nearby compound, then they were dangerous. They had the numbers advantage and they looked to have better weapons. Even if they weren’t the ones who attacked the compound, there was no telling if they would be friendly to strangers.
“You look worried,” Sarah said putting her hand on his shoulder.
As he looked down the stairs, Wade didn’t spot Jasper or Sal, but he could hear them on the landing below. Being the only two members of the team to have visions, the two had developed a comradery they’d lacked before, but since they’d started Jasper had seemed more like himself than a man built from a deck of cards. Maybe it was just the activity.
“I think this is a bad idea.”
“What else are we going to do. The people back home can’t live off of rations forever and we can’t carry all of them to a safer location. If these people aren’t the enemy then they could be our only hope,” Sarah said.
“Luck hasn’t been with us lately.”
As they reached the bottom of a landing, Sarah rubbed Wade’s neck and kissed his cheek.
“How long has it been?” she whispered into his ear while stroking the back of his neck.
Wade had to count on his hand. Since their home had been destroyed, he’d lost track of time.
“Weeks I guess. Do you want to slip away and… LOOK OUT!” a figured stumbled through their doorway and the leading claw grasped at Sarah’s hair.
Wade grabbed her and spun her away from the doorway, towards the stairs above. Grunting, she fell on her butt and barely missed hitting her head. As the others reversed direction to see what was going on, Wade fell into the creature. The corpse of a large, shirtless man with curly hair both on the chest and head wrapped its arms around Wade and bit into the side of his neck.
“OH FUCK!”
“Wade!” Sarah shouted, springing to her feet and raising her club.
After the first blow, the ghoul dropped Wade to the ground and turned to Sarah. She hit it again, striking low but knocking the creature down the stairs towards Jasper and Sal.
“Look out!” Sarah shouted.
Both men cursed below, and Wade heard a series of wet thuds.
“Oh my God! I’m sorry. I should have been paying attention.”
Wade tried to tell her it was okay, but he couldn’t force the words from his mouth. Sarah knelt over him, and kissed his forehead.
“I’ll get you out of here.”
He tried to push Sarah away, but his arms were too weak. He might not be dead by the time they reached the car, but if they got him in he’d die inside.
“No,” he rasped.
“What the hell is going on?” Sal said. “Let’s get a move on… fuck.”
Sal pulled his daughter away from Wade.
“Take…” Wade tried to kick his rifle in Sal’s direction, but his leg didn’t work.
“He needs help,” Sarah pleaded.
“You know what will happen. There’s only one way to help him, honey.”
Sal drew his pistol, but his daughter stepped in the way.
“No, daddy! We can’t.”
“If it was any one of us he’d do it.”
Jasper tried to grab Sarah’s arms, but she pushed him away. She lunged at Wade and threw her arms around him.
“I love you. I’m going to get you out of here.”
She kicked as her father pulled her away by the shoulders and tossed her at Jasper.
Sal aimed the pistol again.
“I’m sorry this has to be done. Just nod when you’re ready.”
Wade bobbed his head and Sal shot a bullet into his skull.