Those Lazy Sundays: A Novel of the Undead (4 page)

Jack stared wide-eyed at him, the queasiness in his stomach growing into a full blown face-in-the-toilet nausea. Both of the man’s legs were obviously broken. His left leg was bent at the knee ninety degrees in the wrong direction, and his right leg was snapped at the ankle, a dark blood stain on his pants cuff. His left arm was under his body and looked mangled beyond repair. The sandy hair just above the right ear was bloody, and there was a small bit of gooey substance poking through a crack in the man’s head. It reminded Jack of the stress ball he had on the desk in his dorm room, next to his computer. It had a tear in the cover, so when he squeezed it, the gel oozed out through the rip. Along with the biting, the man was now grabbing at the pavement with his one good hand, as if he were trying to pull himself forward.

Jack took a few steps to the side, bent over, and threw up on the dirt by the side of the road.

Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he glanced back at his two friends, embarrassed, but they weren’t paying him any attention. Andy was holding Sarah’s wrist and looking at it closely, a clear look of worry on his face.

 “Christ, did he bite her?” Jack asked, re-joining them.

Her shirt had a small tear, revealing a small amount of blood dribbling from a scrape just below her hand.

“Motherfucker,” Andy swore. “What the hell is wrong with that guy?”

Jack glanced at the man on the ground again. He was still fixated on Sarah and Andy, still snapping his jaw, writhing, drooling, and trying to drag himself across the pavement. He also made an occasional primitive growl or grunt that sounded far more animal than human.

“I just scraped my hand on the pavement when I fell,” Sarah said, glancing warily at the man on the ground. “He didn’t actually bite me. I’m fine. This guy needs help, not me.”

Andy looked at her wrist again. She covered the wound with the sleeve of her shirt and looked up at him. “Andy, I’m
fine
. I just need a Band-Aid. It’s just a scrape.”

 “This guy’s seriously busted up,” Jack said, deliberately keeping his eyes off the man. He’d looked at him twice now, and that was enough. He didn’t think he had anything left in his stomach to regurgitate.  “When we hit him we must have messed up his brain or something. We need to get this guy to a hospital.”

“No shit,” Andy replied. “First he was standing in the middle of the goddamn road, and now he just tried to take a bite out of my girlfriend. Of course he’s fucked up.”

“Something is not right,” Sarah said, backing away from the man. “Shouldn’t he be dead? I mean, look at him.”

“God damn it,” Andy muttered, ignoring her statement. “Sarah do you have your phone?”

“It’s in the van,” she said.

Sarah waved at the vehicle and made a gesture like she was talking on the phone.

Mary leaned out the open door and yelled, “I just tried. I’m still not getting anything! I don't have any signal!”

Sarah, Andy and Jack all glanced at each other.

“I’ll keep trying though!”

“Shit!” Andy yelled. “We can’t just leave this guy here.”

“There’s no way we’re trying to get him into the van!” Sarah replied.

Jack shook his head.

“Even if he hadn’t just tried to take a bite out of your hand, you’re not supposed to move accident victims. Especially people with…” he paused and nearly glanced at the mangled body again before catching himself. “Serious injuries.”

“One of us could always take the van into the nearest town, and the rest of us could stay here,” he suggested.

Andy nodded. “We’re only a few miles away from Allentown. It wouldn’t take long to get there and back. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes max.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sarah said. “What if those guys from the store come?”

“They won’t,”Jack replied. “We’re a good five miles away from that store. Even if they followed the road, at the rate they were moving, it’d probably take them all day to get this far.”

“I know. I still just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Jack said. “Andy’s right. We can’t leave this guy here. At least one of us will have to go track someone down.”

“Well, we should at least let Mary, Kate and Kyle know what’s going on,” Sarah said, pointing at the van.

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Tell you guys what. I’ll stay here. You guys go let them know what’s going on. They can hang out here with me if they want. I’m good either way.”

The truth was, he didn’t have any desire to stand by the side of the road with the apparently cannibalistic accident victim, and definitely not by himself, but he was embarrassed. He’d lost his cool – and his lunch – in front of his friends. Though neither of them had said anything (and, he knew, they probably didn’t care), he wasn’t letting himself off the hook.

“Sounds great,” Andy agreed. “We’ll see you in a few.” Sarah shot him a worried glance, and then she and Andy walked back to the van, leaving Jack alone by the side of the road.

Seeing them walk away, the chubby man renewed his attempt to pull himself along after them. His jaw wasn’t snapping anymore, but his mouth was open and saliva pooled around his tongue and dripped out the sides of his mouth.

Jack looked up and saw Kate getting out of the van. Andy leaned his head out the window and yelled. “You good man?” Jack waved and gave a thumbs up.

Kate stopped a couple of feet away from Jack and grimaced, looking down at the man on the street.

“Oh… oh my god…” Kate whispered, bringing her hand to her mouth, and looking away.

“Sarah said he tried to bite her?”

“Yeah,” Jack replied. “Just started snapping like a rabid dog. Damnedest thing. Looks like his skull is fractured. Must have done something to his cognitive abilities or something.”

Jack was definitely the intellectual of the group, or at least usually managed to make himself sound like he was. He didn’t know anything more about human brain than any of them, but he always managed to throw around big words and impress people. His friends found it annoying, though they begrudgingly admitted that he was pretty smart.

“It’s amazing he’s still conscious,” he added.

They both turned their heads at the sound of the van starting. Mary and Kyle waved at them through the rear window. They waved back, and the dark green van pulled into the road and drove off. They watched it without saying anything, until it disappeared around the next bend in the road.

T
HE BALL BOUNCED off the receiver’s hands and tumbled along the ground, where another hulking player dove on it, before a piercing whistle ended the play.

“The ruling on the field is an incomplete pass,” the referee announced, as the players huddled.

“Jesus Christ, catch the goddamn ball!”

Brent Williamson enjoyed watching football, or so he told himself. The Patriots had been pretty damn good the past decade. Three Super Bowl wins in five trips, one agonizingly close play away from a perfect season, all under the command of one of the greatest coach-quarterback combos in history (
the
greatest, as far as most New Englanders were concerned). But that didn’t stop him from swearing at the TV with every dropped pass, and curse the team as the biggest bunch of bums to get a ride to Foxboro with every loss ˗ the hallmarks of the proverbial fickle fan.

He took a gulp from his Michelob bottle and waited while the Patriots’ training crew tended to an injured player, the television station finally deciding to cut to a commercial when it became apparent it might be a while.

Brent got up from the couch and walked across his small, one-bedroom apartment and into the kitchen, where he grabbed a can of roasted peanuts from the counter. He had just sat down again when a “Breaking News” banner flashed across the screen, which then cut to Bob Bartolo, the local news anchor, sitting behind his usual desk. WPUR, the local NBC affiliate, had a pretty loose definition of “Breaking News,” and tended to break into television programs whenever there was even a hint of anything interesting happening nearby. Usually it involved some kind of minor local scandal, a car accident, or something having to do with the weather.

“Coming up on Action News after the Patriots game,” Bob Bartolo began in his almost comically deep voice. “Over one hundred people were sickened this afternoon at the Allentown Summer Cookout. The annual event, planned yearly on the first Sunday of fall, usually involves various lawn games and sports competitions, and heavy servings of summer favorites like grilled hotdogs, hamburgers, and potato salad. But something this afternoon sent dozens of people home with flu-like symptoms, cutting the celebration short and prompting questions about the tradition of serving all homemade food at the event. Also coming up, Ben and Jerry's announces a new flavor dedicated to a famous comedian! Who is it, and what is in their latest concoction? Tune in after the game to find out!"

Brent took another sip of beer and snickered. So the cookout in Allentown went to shit. That would mean his brother was probably about to have a whole bunch of bullshit to deal with. State health officials. Reporters. It would probably only be a couple of days worth. It wasn't like a few people getting sick ˗ or even a few hundred people getting sick ˗ was that big of a deal in the long run. But it was a Sunday, in Vermont, a slow news day if there ever was one. They'd probably milk this for a couple of days, then it would go away.

The whole thing probably shouldn't have anything to do with Mike, given that he was the town cop and public health issues usually didn't have anything to do with police, but as Brent had told him that last time they had spoken (which was quite a while ago), his brother had long ago gone from being the town's cop, to the town's bitch, dealing with all kinds of shit that the town council and mayor should have dealt with. Instead, they got paid to sit on their asses while Mike got paid next to nothing to do their jobs for them.

That had been Brent's take, anyway. A take Mike hadn't appreciated, as illustrated by the right hook he had unleashed across the side of Brent's face. That had hurt, and left a nice shiner for a week or so. But it wasn't the first time Brent had been slugged. It wasn't the first time he'd been slugged by his brother. Plus, they had been having a fight about another issue ˗ Jenna ˗ before they'd moved on to getting at each other's throats about that topic.

Brent cursed again at another dropped pass, a moment that thankfully took his mind off of his brother, a topic which he hadn't had any desire to revisit anyway. It's not like Brent was perfect. Sure, he was doing okay. After doing his two tours in Iraq, taking one bullet and having one more close call, he'd decided that he probably shouldn't press his luck any more. So he'd come back home and used all the money he'd saved up during his time overseas to start a construction company.

It had been pretty good timing, actually. The construction market wasn't great, but most of his local competitors had been decimated by the recession and housing crash, and being a start-up had actually helped: his company was lean, not burdened by old debts and large staff. And the labor pool was, well, plentiful. He hadn't gotten rich by any means ˗ at least, not yet ˗ but he was doing pretty well. He was doing well enough that he had been able to afford a pretty nice BMW, a car that stuck out like a sore thumb in most parts of Vermont. But that was fine by him. Unlike Mike, he wasn't out there to please everyone and get fucked over in the process.

Life was good. Not perfect, but good.

He let out a loud yell, nearly sending his beer into the next room, at the sight of a Patriot standing in the end zone with the ball. With not much else going on, that was about as close to a "good day" as he was going to get on a fall Sunday like this. It was lazy, it was quiet, and a win made it a good day, a loss made it a bad one. That touchdown brought it a lot closer to being a good one.

He was still in a post-touchdown euphoria when the phone rang.

Later, he would tell people that he remembered that moment like it had just happened, just like some people remember seeing the Kennedy assassination, or the Challenger Explosion, or 9/11. He would say that he remembered the instant that the electronic jingle broke through the raucous cheers of the crowd. He remembered the walk into the kitchen, grabbing the phone, bringing it up to his ear. He would remember knowing even before he said 'Hello,' who it was on the other end. And he would remember, knowing, somehow, that this call was something bad. Something really bad.

H
E SLAMMED ON the brakes. The tires screeched, the smell of burned rubber filled the cabin of the car, and his vehicle skidded for what seemed like an impossibly long time before coming to a rest in front of Packard’s Jewelry Store, halfway down the narrow Main Street of Allentown. In front of his cruiser, in the middle of the road, three people were kneeling, huddled around something that he couldn’t see from where he was. It looked like they were tending to someone, possibly an injured person, though he was amazed at the fact that none of them even looked in his direction in spite of the fact that his car had been a few feet away from turning them into hood ornaments. 

He took the handset from his dashboard and keyed the mike.

“Rita, this is Mike. Can you get Jeff to come to the front of Packard’s please? Over.”

He waited for his dispatcher to respond.

The radio hissed softly. He keyed the mike again. “Rita, did you copy that last message? Over.”

He let up on the button and waited.

Grumbling under his breath, he unbuckled his seatbelt and eased his six-foot eight-inch frame out of the vehicle. Mike Williamson’s size more than made up for the lack of numbers on the town police force. If he ever really needed backup beyond his fellow deputy, who was a full foot shorter and 135 pounds lighter, it would have to come from the State Police, who were a good half hour away. They had tried to get the town to allocate enough money to hire at least another part-time deputy, but Harry Andrews had blocked that too, claiming the town didn’t need another cop. Luckily, in Mike’s decade working as a police officer in Allentown, he’d rarely needed backup. The town was quiet to begin with, and nobody – even the few troublemakers there were – was dumb enough to mess with a behemoth like him. Nobody, that was, until now.

“Excuse me folks, is everything okay?” Mike asked, walking towards the three people. Receiving no reply, he opened his mouth to say something a little more forceful, but stopped mid-breath.

 One of the people leaned over, giving him a glimpse of what they were huddled around. By this point, it looked like a butchered animal, but it was clear to him what it had been. He could see the fabric remnants of the shirt, stained red, and a mess of blood-spattered curly brown hair on the head. The throat was torn out and the other parts of the corpse were torn, mutilated and bloody, as if it had been mauled by an animal.

Mike reached for his revolver.

Just as his hand wrapped around the handle, a sharp pain tore through his side, below his ribs. He screamed and instinctively struck out with his elbow. It connected with bone, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure sprawl away from him and land on the ground. He patted his side, feeling the sticky blood that poured from a small but deep gash above his hip.

Mike pulled out his pistol and spun around, facing his assailant. If the broad, square jaw of the policeman hadn’t been attached to his skull, it would have dropped on the ground and cracked the pavement. It was little Mrs. Samuels, a retired schoolteacher who lived in an apartment above the jewelry store. He could barely believe that it was that fragile old woman, not a hair above four-foot-ten, who had taken a chunk of meat out of his abdomen.

“Mrs. Samuels are you ok?” he asked, trying to ignore the pain in his side. Her eyes were hollow and sunk, and blood covered her lips and mouth. She was chewing on the piece of his flesh she had torn from him, like a cow chewing cud. Her dentures were slightly askew, sticking partway out of her mouth.

He glanced back at the small group in the street who were still preoccupied with their meal, and then took a cautious step toward the elderly Mrs. Samuels. She let out a guttural sound from deep in her throat, something between a groan and a growl, and gnashed her teeth. Her dentures fell the rest of the way out of her mouth and landed with a dull clack on the sidewalk.

Then she leapt.

This time he was ready, easily sidestepping the clumsy attack and grabbing her by her pencil-thin arm. Had it been anyone else, he would have slammed them to the pavement and knocked the wind out of them. Given Mrs. Samuels’ age and size, however, he delicately guided the old woman onto the ground so she was lying on her stomach. He re-holstered his weapon, pulled his handcuffs from his belt, and restrained her hands behind her back, ignoring her feeble struggling.

He stood back up and checked the group in the street.  One of them was standing up now, though they still appeared to have not noticed the police officer and the woman on the ground.

“Hang tight Mrs. Samuels,” he told her, receiving a growl in response.

He stood up and checked his wound again. His shirt was torn, and the gash, though just a couple of inches long, was ragged and torn, and pooled with congealing blood. He grimaced. It hurt like a bastard, but would be okay for the time being.

He drew his weapon again and stood at the ready, pointing his service revolver at the person who was standing. The man wore a pair of tan slacks and a white polo shirt, as if he’d just come back from a round of golf at the county club.

“Excuse me folks!”  Mike boomed his usual greeting, a greeting that most people in town recognized as a warning.

They noticed him this time. The man in the polo shirt began to stiffly turn around. His body movement reminded Mike of someone doing “the robot,” the annoying dance that is inevitably busted out at every dance and party on the planet.

The other two, still kneeling, stopped what they were doing and looked up, their eyes locking on the towering police officer who was pointing his gun at them. Their mouths – and most of their faces – were covered in blood and other bits of gore. A red tendril, likely a piece of muscle or tendon, hung from the mouth of one of them, a youngish male in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt.

 Next to him was a female, her dark brown hair cut just above her shoulders. He recognized both of them. The young male was Jimmy Anders. He had just begun his senior year in high school and did a lot of odd-jobs to raise money for college. He’d mowed Mike’s lawn a couple of times over the summer. The female was his younger sister, Ashley, a junior varsity softball player, just beginning her sophomore year.

Mike didn’t have to wait for the man to finish turning to know who it was: Bob Anders, the pater familias of the Anders clan. Bob was a real estate broker who had a hand in almost all of the property in Allentown. He had sold Mike his first house, a small two-bedroom ranch just a couple of miles from the town square, and had even helped him understand the ins and outs of financing and mortgages.

As that puzzle piece registered, so too did the last one: the corpse in the middle of the street. It was Dara Anders, housewife, mother, regular church-goer – and now the main course in the Anders Family Picnic.

Mike didn’t have a lot time to ponder the philosophical implications of what was happening, however, as the three remaining Anderses were now fixated on him, their sunken eyes locked onto the only other living thing nearby.

“All three of you! Step away from the body, put your hands on your heads, and get on your knees!” he yelled, keeping his weapon trained on the father.

They stared at him blankly. Bob opened his mouth, appearing for a split-second like he was going to say something, but instead, emitting a loud, raspy moan. The other two began to stand as Bob Anders started staggering in Mike’s direction.