Less Than Human (4 page)

“
Super,” Ben said, trying not to sound bitter.

“
Don't worry, Dad. It's not like he's her boyfriend or anything.”

Oh, Jesus.
“I know, Jakester. And you know what? Even if he was, it wouldn't matter. Your mom and I, we aren't together anymore. Remember?”

There was a pause. “I know...” There was no controlling the sadness in his voice. “I just... I thought...”

“We went through this, Jake. I thought we had an understanding.”

“
We do... I just...”

Hope
was the word his son was looking for. It was, after all, the same word that bounced around his mind daily.

“
Look, Jake. I'm coming out to see you as soon as I'm better. I'm going to stay at a hotel near your Mom's and we're going hang out everyday, I promise. Sound good?”

“
Yes...”

“
Awesome. Don't worry about anything else, bud. Everything is going to be fine.”

“
I just miss you, Dad.”

“
I miss you too, kiddo.”

They said their goodbyes and hung up.

Ben remembered wiping the tears away from his eyes with his knuckles before falling into a sickness-induced coma.

H
e awoke the next morning on the couch, mail scattered on the floor below him. It was dark, so Ben instinctively figured it was nighttime. He swung his legs off the couch, placing his feet on the carpet. They weren't as sore as they were when he went to get the mail. He stretched, yawning simultaneously. He craned his head toward the battery-operated clock on the table next to the couch. It read five-oh-three. He had been asleep for almost fifteen hours.

Ben dragged himself across the carpet, stepping on the envelopes containing worries he'd soon no longer be concerned with.

As he moved from room to room, Ben realized he was back to his normal self. In fact, as the moments passed, Ben started feeling better than he had before the flu incapacitated him.

He grabbed his cell phone from the charger, searched for Melissa's number. He was only calling to inform her that he planned on leaving once he packed a few things. That was all. Just a warning so she could prepare herself. Maybe tell her new boy-toy that it would be best to make himself unavailable over the next week or so.

A smirk found Ben's face while he tried dialing her number, but the call was dropped immediately and Ben realized the phone had no service. He shrugged his shoulders. Strange, he never had issues with reception in the kitchen before. Ben tried the bedroom, achieving the same result. Zero bars. The bathroom, the living room, the spare bedroom, and the garage—all dead zones.

Hm,
Ben thought.
I knew there was a reason why I didn't cancel the land line.

He took the phone off the receiver. No dial tone. He examined the connection, making sure it was plugged into the wall, and it was. He glanced around the living room, realizing the lights were off. Ben flipped the light-switch and nothing happened.

“Goddamn power outages.” They were common in June when the heat was almost unbearable, especially on his block. It would happen at least once a week, sometimes lasting an hour. But this didn't explain why his cell phone wasn't working.

Ben decided to give the power time to come back on. In the meantime, he could pack his clothes. If the power didn't come back on by the time he was finished, he was going to drive and show up at his ex's doorstep unannounced. He'd still try to call her on the way, but if she didn't pick up...
oh, well.
Her problem, not his.

Packing his bags took a little longer than he expected. The power remained out when he finally finished. He peered out his bedroom window, staring at his neighbors' houses, wondering if they were having the same issue. He suspected they were. The streets were darker than usual.

Ben decided to wait for the sun before beginning his journey to Pittsburgh, hoping the power would come back on by then. Unfortunately, it never did. Ben found himself sitting in the dark, contemplating his next move. “Fuck it,” he muttered. He wanted to see his son very badly, and a silly little power outage wasn't going to delay his trip another second.

Before throwing his luggage in the trunk of his Sonata, Ben cleaned out the refrigerator, discarding everything that would begin to stink in a couple of days. The power company didn't exactly have the reputation of being speedy. He recalled an incident a few years back, after a fairly-destructive hurricane, when it took them nearly a week to get things running again. He didn't know how long it was going to take this time and he didn't want to take the chance of coming home to a house reeking of spoiled food. After he filled a garbage bag with all of the perishables, he went out the back door and jogged over to the giant garbage can on the side of the house. He threw the bag in the big black can, then whipped out his cell phone.

No service
, his cell phone informed him.

Dammit,
he thought, moving to the front yard, passing the small bed of flowers that Melissa had once planted, but never took care of. Still no bars. He reached the driveway, holding the phone up in the air, as if it that were going to magically help him establish connectivity.

Ben slumped his shoulders. He was just about to head inside when he heard glass shattering inside his next-door neighbor's house. Curiously, Ben stepped toward the Yoland's two-story ranch. “Rose?” he called out. “Larry? You guys okay?” He crossed onto their property, bounding the steps leading to the front porch. He put his eye up to the front door's obscured-glass window, peering inside. It was difficult to see. He could make out the hallway, but it was blurry. He tried the door knob, but it was locked. Once again, he put his eye to the glass, trying to see what the commotion was. “Rose?” he called again. “Larry?” He knocked on the door, but no one answered.

He was about to give up when Ben heard a noise coming from within. Someone was groaning, an agonizing cry that got Ben's blood pumping. His first thought was one of them had fallen. The Yolands were old and deserved the attention a retirement home could give them. Another moan came from within the house. “Rose?” Ben yelled. “Larry! Answer me!” If someone had replied, Ben didn't hear it. He took a step back, then bull-rushed the door, driving his shoulder into it. The frame cracked. On his second attempt, Ben lunged forward, his body colliding with the door, busting it open. He fell into the foyer, a long hallway lay before him. An awful smell entered his nostrils, instantly making Ben's stomach lurch. He did his best to keep from gagging. He surveyed the area around him, unable to locate the noise he had heard from the porch.

“
Rose? Are you okay?” Nothing. “Make some noise if you can hear me.”

The house reeked of death and decay. Ben thought he might become reacquainted with the eggs and sausage he ate for breakfast.

As he stood on his feet, Ben finally spotted what had caused the place to stink like roadkill. At the end of the hallway, Larry Yoland was sprawled on the floor, beyond the doorway that connected the corridor to the kitchen. “Larry?” Ben asked. “You okay, man?” Larry didn't answer. He remained motionless.

As Ben neared the kitchen, the smell intensified. Larry's body became clearer, each step revealing gruesome details. Ben gagged when he reached the doorway. A black cloud of flies hovered above his body, buzzing with fervent joy. The right side of Larry's face had been torn off, exposing raw facial tissue and cavity-ridden teeth. A dark pool of blood circled his body. Most of it, Ben noticed, had come from the gaping hole in his stomach. His entrails were curled on the floor next to him. One of his arms was missing, ripped away at the shoulder, exposing the bone.

Ben shielded his eyes, unable to handle the grisly display. Then, he heard feet shuffling toward him. Whipping his body around, Ben faced the murderer. Rose Yoland stood in the doorway, her lips pursed, snarling. She looked ill, much worse than Ben had over the past week. Her skin was gray. Bloody spittle slowly dripped from her mouth. Her eyes were murky, undistinguished. A deep, animalistic growl escaped her lips.

“
Rose? Are you okay?” he asked. Red smears were painted around her mouth. Ben took notice to the blood stains on her night gown as well. Red droplets fell from her filthy fingernails, onto the tile floor.

Ben backed away from Rose, tiptoed around the corpse of his elderly neighbor.
Oh, Christ,
Ben thought.
She ate him. She fucking ate him.

Ben crept into the hallway, mindfully sidestepping the broken door. Slowly, Rose followed him, taking baby steps. She walked like an infant learning how to put one foot in front of the other. Once Ben was through the doorway and on the porch, he immediately felt safer. But that feeling was soon erased when he heard more inhuman chatter behind him. He turned and saw Jackson Harlan, the three-hundred pound bus driver from across the street, stumbling into the middle of the road. He looked the same as Rose. Ben watched in horror as the residents of Densberry Avenue came out of hiding. Each of them moved similarly—slow and awkward, as if they had just exited the bar after last call. Some of them groaned, making unintelligible noises, and some of them said nothing. There were maybe a hundred of them flooding their yards, ungracefully making their way toward the street. Most of them were covered in blood. Their clothes were stained, so were their faces. And they were—

Heading his way.

Ben stood on the Yoland's porch, watching a flock of zombies scuffle toward him.

T
he term “zombie” entered his brain the instant he saw them occupy Densberry Avenue. Ben suddenly remembered the brief conversation he had with Jake the day before the flu left him bedridden. H
igh on bath salts, a man went crazy while riding the bus and started eating his fellow passengers.
Bath salts my ass,
Ben thought. He'd seen enough horror flicks in his time to know what a zombie was, and these people—they were fucking zombies.

He forgot about the news reports. The past week was hazy. He was barely awake for most of it, and the hours he spent conscious weren't wasted on television; they were spent with his nose in a book or with a pen and paper, jotting down notes about the next Great American novel he always dreamed about writing, but always lacked the time and motivation.

The world went to shit last week and he missed every moment of it.

Just as he was wondering how much of the zombie apocalypse had been televised, a snarling sound caused him to spin around. Rose Yoland was there, maybe four feet from him, grunting and dragging her feet toward him. Saliva flew from her open mouth. Ben took a step backward to avoid contact with her and her bodily fluids. Unfortunately for Ben, he miscalculated where he was on the porch. When he placed his foot on the stairs, he lost his balance. He landed hard on the wooden steps, rolled across the walkway and onto the lawn. He felt air vacate his lungs. Moaning, he crawled away from Rose, who awkwardly began to descend the stairs. Her uncoordinated body caused her to lose balance, and she too tumbled. She landed an arm's length away from Ben. Immediately, she crawled after him, snarling like a rabid dog.

Ben saw the sea of zombies heading in his direction. They had multiplied since the last time he glanced at the street. Just as he realized how fucked he was, Rose reached forward, grabbing his foot. He tried kicking free, but the dead woman's grip was something unnatural. He kicked again, more furiously. His foot finally broke away from her clutches. His shoe came off, but it didn't concern him. Scrambling to his feet, Ben got ready to run. He sprinted toward his backyard without looking back.

Zombies, holy-fucking-shit zombies,
he thought, as he bounded the steps of his deck, holding his ribs, trying to regain his breath. Ben wasn't a doctor—far, far from it—but he had experienced cracked ribs before.

He entered the back door, immediately locking it behind him.

Outside, the dead horde swarmed 19 Densberry Avenue.

B
en paced around his living room, grabbing the sides of his head, muttering the same three words over and over again: “Holy-fucking-shit.” Air slowly crawled back into his lungs and he was momentarily thankful. He was going to need a lot of it, especially if he planned on running from the throng of dead Red Riverians eagerly awaiting his exit.

He continued pacing in circles, his mind wandering in and out of negative thoughts. He wrestled with the realization that the world had virtually ended, that there would be no more electric or cable bills. No more credit card payments. No car loan payment. No mortgage. No lawyer fees.
No child support?

Keep it together,
he thought.
You need to get out of this.

Ben grabbed his suitcase, ran to the cabinet where he kept some snacks. He only packed a few, hoping to stop somewhere on his way to Pittsburgh. He didn't know how bad it was out there, but he was prepared to go a few days without food if he needed to. He might not have a choice. He headed to the front door. Scratching and moaning sounds stopped him from going anywhere near it.
Fuck.
They probably had the whole place surrounded. He heard pounding on the windows. It was only a matter of time before they would break in. He saw shadows moving behind the curtains. Lots of shadows.