Justin noticed that Nate and Paxton had avoided the huge horde that had already reached the rear of the Costco truck. Then, the two trucks raced past Dean and Justin. Justin heard one of the two men yell, “Last one home has to kiss my bony-black ass—” Must have been Nate . . .
Dean suddenly swerved and ran over the curb of the sidewalk, causing Justin to nearly bounce out of the truck along with the boxes. “Near Miss!” Justin bellowed as the truck barely squeezed by a pile-up of cars, more like skeletal shells of cars, from what remained after a fire or explosion. Justin wondered what kind of jam he had gotten himself into this time.
These people are cray cray!
All he knew was that he was riding around in the back of Mr. Ram Man’s truck, tumbling around with boxes of Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops somewhere along Orange Drive in Vacaville, California.
This has got to be some whacked-out dream. I couldn’t make up shit this crazy.
Dean had just saved his life, even if he was old enough to be his grandfather, heck great-grandfather. Justin had been ready to call it “game over.” And then Ram Man came along . . . He could not believe his incredible good luck.
Ye-ah, Dean’s super-cool for an old guy.
He sort of reminded him of a modern-day cowboy: rough around the edges, weather-beaten face, cowboy boots, and a faded jean jacket, and extremely athletic (for an old man).
Heck, he’s probably like sixty-something-years-old. He’s got to be super-tough to survive this long.
Dean pulled into the parking lot of a small hotel, “Sweet Suites,” according to the sign. And
Nate and Paxton closed the gate right behind them, all the while ranting and raving like they’d just won the Super Bowl or something.
“Justin, how the hell are ya!” Dean shouted as he hopped out of the truck.
“Dude, are you trying to kill me?” Justin moaned.
“Can you walk . . . break any bones?” Dean asked.
“Ye-ah, like only my whole body,” Justin retorted. He shrugged a Frito-Lay box off of him. “I’m just peachy.” It was something his mom would have said, which made him smile and then made him sad.
“Glad to see you’re all right, son.” Dean gave him a brief smile, “The girls will take a look at you and patch-up your scratches,” Dean said while fetching a dolly.
Paxton and Nate were still bragging about how awesome they were. Justin noticed that Dean ignored the two overly-amped-up men, carefully staying out of their way. Nate, a thin, black man seemed to be buzzed, maybe on meth the way he twitched about. And Paxton, a thirty-something white man, looked like a bad-ass: brawny and full of muscles, a shaved head, tats, all-inclusive with his stone-cold glare.
“So what’s up with those two, did you break them out of prison or
what
,” Justin snapped, checking out the bruises on his arms that were already starting to turn purple.
“They do seem jaded, don’t’ they? You might want to steer clear of them as much as possible. They’re from Stockton. Met-up with them on Interstate 80, here in Vacaville last month.”
Justin looked nervously back at them and whispered, “I think they might be gangers. They look and talk pretty tough.”
“Well, whomever they were before, now they’re just one of us . . . people trying to survive. Still, I’d watch my back if I were you,” Dean whispered back.
Justin began unloading the trucks, stacking the boxes by size and realized how relieved he felt now that he had actually found other survivors. It had gotten to the point where he really couldn’t tell reality from fiction or pure madness. His mom had always nagged him to stop watching all those horror movies. Now he wished he had. His vivid imagination didn’t need any help. All he ever saw were Zs eating people, even when his eyes were closed. He really needed the companionship and the feeling of security of being with people again.
Will they let me stay here?
Justin took in a deep breath of relief and eyed the perimeter. “Nice fence, you guys do that?” Justin asked.
“You betcha, one of the first things I did after we decided to set-up camp, here. Though, it’s only a very crude fence. Sunk-in a few posts in the ground with cement from the Home Depot, strung-up the barbed wire . . . and there you have it. Course, it won’t keep out actual
living
people, but it’s kept out the dead-heads. Although, after today’s episode, I’m not so sure. It definitely wouldn’t hold up to that big mob we encountered today. Wasn’t planning on that,” Dean shook his head.
“So how long have you guys been here?” Justin asked.
“Since the end of August. Came from Winters and picked up a couple of people along the way: LuLu and Ella. Found the two of them trapped in a van on Interstate 505, in dire need to be rescued—just like you.”
“So why here?” Justin wondered.
“Good question. Came to Vacaville to find out the latest news since the electricity had been out and to stock up on supplies. Had no idea things were this bad. Found the town deserted except for the dead-heads. I had planned to return to my cabin, but the gals refused. And I couldn’t rightly leave them here to fend for themselves now could I?” Dean said.
Justin nodded.
“Figured we needed a place small enough to defend and close to the highway, so I could keep an eye out on any military or survivor activity. The parking lot surrounds the hotel, so it’s easy to guard. This hotel meets our needs just fine: a big kitchen, a dining room, a couple of conference rooms, which we use for storage, an adequate generator set-up in the basement, and its own well water supply. We even got a gym,” Dean said, slapping Justin on his shoulder, “In case you want to bulk-up.”
Justin faltered as they approached the hotel with the over-loaded dolly. “Ye-ah, but all those windows . . .”
“Don’t worry son; we’ve got things pretty damn well boarded-up inside. Walk with me,” Dean motioned towards the front of the hotel. They entered a type of maze to get to the front entrance, three sharp turns of barbed wire fencing until they reached the hotel’s entrance.
“Ye-ah, the maze thing is super-cool.” Justin decided. Zombies don’t have reasoning skills, so the simple maze would probably work unless a freakin’ horde moshed their way through it.
“First, those stinkin’ bastards have to make it through this mess-of-a-maze—so far so good. See, we dern near boarded-up the entire first floor. We use the rooms on the third floor. So, I’m thinkin’ the only time we’re in any real danger is when we’re in the parking lot. Otherwise, they can’t even see us,” Dean explained.
Uh, but they can smell us. Doesn’t Dean know that?
Justin wondered, but he decided not to worry Dean about that now.
“I’ll introduce you to Ella and LuLu. Funny thing, LuLu used to be my waitress back in Woodland. Just a heads-up, Ella doesn’t talk. Most likely she can—she just doesn’t. Must have seen something awful—” Dean shook his head as if remembering something he wished he hadn’t.
Right on cue, the two women greeted Justin and Dean at the front entrance of the hotel.
“Ladies, this is Justin. He likes riding around in the back of my pickup,” Dean introduced.
“LOL,” Justin smirked.
Ella and LuLu scurried about. LuLu fluffed a pillow on the oversized couch sitting in the hotel’s lobby. “Have a seat, hon,” LuLu’s raspy voice demanded in a pleasant way, “while I tend to your cuts. It looks like you were in quite a battle. Who won?” she teased.
“I think the boxes did,” Justin joked back.
Justin plopped down on the couch, enjoying the attention; he hadn’t seen an actual living (non-dead) person in over a month.
LuLu opened the first aid kit and begun dabbing his scratches with a cotton ball of ointment. She was a kind of pretty, dishwater blonde, probably in her thirties with a cool tramp stamp of skulls and roses that wrapped around her entire arm. She reminded him of a biker chick from the 70s with bright, blue eyeshadow, and thick, black eyeliner adorned eyes.
“Awesome tat,” Justin complimented.
“Thanks, I used to love it—before people started eating each other,” LuLu grimaced.
Dean seemed to be watching in amusement, “So LuLu, you think he’s gonna live?”
“If he makes it through the night. You know what they say, those first twenty-four hours are always the most crucial,” LuLu teased back and closed the lid to the first aid kit.
Ella inched up to him and silently handed him a cold bottle of Coke.
“Awesome,” Justin smiled. She sort of smiled then scampered behind the lobby desk like a skittish kitten. He’d never really been into girls, but he thought the Hispanic girl was absolutely gorgeous. She was about sixteen with the cutest pixie haircut, a small turned-up nose, and the huge-est brown eyes
ever
.
Ella reminded him of his mom’s favorite singer. What was her name, Rhonda something . . .
Mom would love this girl,
he thought wistfully.
Ahh, Linda Ronstadt.
He could almost hear the belted-out-ballad like it was yesterday, “I’m going back someday, come what may to Blue Bayou,” playing in the background along with the busy sounds of mom cooking dinner. The melancholy brought him back down to earth a moment too soon, and he caught himself before his eyes got all glassy and leaky.
That was a long time ago—this is now.
Dean was relieved that the kid, Justin, wasn’t badly hurt. Overall, it had been a good day; he had found a new source of food and saved a boy’s life. Now, what more could a fella ask for?
“Do I smell food?” Justin perked up from his relaxed position on the couch. “I’m starving.”
“Follow me, dinner’s at six o’clock sharp,” Dean said. “Don’t know what Ella was able to come up with, we’re dern near out of everything—‘cept a few canned goods. But she always manages to whip-up something tasty.” Dean headed to the dining room.
Justin and LuLu followed Dean into the hotel’s dining room. “Wow-y, wow, wow, these plates are fancy,” Justin said, plunking himself into a chair at the fabulously set table. “Is the Queen coming for dinner?” Justin exaggerated.
“Ella always sets a formal table for dinner. She’s funny that way. Guess it’s just her
thing,
” LuLu explained.
Dean watched in amusement as Justin practically drooled over the overly-stuffed, steaming pot pie Ella placed in the center of the table. She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a basket full of homemade biscuits, piping hot, just sitting there ready to eat.
Justin reached his hand out for a biscuit, and Dean announced, “And now for a moment of thanks.” Dean watched Justin snatch his hand back while his eyes lingered on the biscuits. Dean knew the young man could barely wait for the blessing to be over, so he kept the prayer short and sweet.
“Dig in folks—Justin might conk out on us at any moment. When’s the last time you ate, son?” Dean asked.
Justin looked at Dean, but didn’t say a word; his mouth was already stuffed with a biscuit.
“So, tell us your story. Where’re you from? What’s the latest news about the flu? Are you with friends? Have you heard when the military is planning a rescue . . .” LuLu could hardly contain herself.
“LuLu,” Dean interrupted, “Let the boy eat. Then he can give us the scuttlebutt.”
An awkward silence filled the room, followed by the sounds of metal spoons clanging against fine bone china while everyone watched Justin stuff his face. “Son, it does help to
actually
chew the food before you swallow it,” Dean commented casually, hoping to break the awkward silence. To his surprise, Ella giggled. Then he noticed the fleeting eye contact between Justin and Ella.
Hmm, very interesting
, Dean thought.
“Did you send Paxton and Nate out on another run?” LuLu asked.
Much to Dean’s dismay, the Stockton Boys had been making a big “to do” over a particular box they had hauled in. Dean was not at all pleased when he read the box: Johnnie Walker Black Label. Those two would be shitfaced before they’re done with dinner.
Looks like I’ll be hauling the rest of the cargo myself.
Well, what else was he going to do?
“Banned them to the second floor,” Dean said. “We won’t be seeing much of them for the next few days.”
LuLu frowned knowingly.
“What’s up with Paxton and Nate?” Justin finally spoke.
“Let’s just say those two have a drinking problem, so you might want to avoid the second floor,” Dean said. Dean was all too familiar with the Stockton Boys’ routine by now. Whenever they found alcohol: it didn’t matter what it was, the two would get piss-poor drunk. They even had a TV and DVD set-up in one of the second-floor suites, and Nate and Paxton would watch porno movies until the alcohol supply had gone bone-dry.
And sometimes, LuLu even joined them, but it wasn’t his place to judge anyone. Hell, they were all lonely. Although, Dean had noticed that LuLu had been staying away from those two this past week. Something must have happened the last time they were all carousing together.
Paxton and Nate had a tendency for violence, and he hoped LuLu could take care of herself. Although it was apparent that LuLu was a tough cookie, used to rough and tough men and hard times. No, he didn’t need to worry none too much about her; it was Ella that worried him. Ella was such a young, sweet, innocent girl. He had absolutely forbidden the Stockton Boys from laying a hand on her.
Dean winked at Ella, “I swear that boy ate six biscuits,” Dean exclaimed.
Ella giggled.
“Eight,” LuLu corrected.
“All right already, so tell us your story. What news do you have for us?” LuLu begged.
Justin opened his mouth to answer; instead, an elongated belch escaped. “
So
sorry
, my mom would have killed me for that.”
They all got a hearty laugh out of it, but Dean saw the sadness lingering in the young man’s eyes when he had mentioned his mom.
“Actually guys, I’m no superhero, not like Mr. Ram Man over here,” Justin pointed to Dean. “He saved my sorry ass.”
“Ram Man?” LuLu said with arching eyebrows.
“I don’t know where to begin?” Justin suddenly seemed overwhelmed.
“Might as well start from the beginning son, it’s not like we don’t have the time,” Dean said.
“OK, ye-ah, I was hanging out with my college buddy, Parker, when things first started to go cray cray. We had two IT classes together at UC Davis last semester. We were BFFs. We came up with this awesome app idea, and we decided to design the app so we could, you know, market it.”
“Excuse me, what’s an app,” Dean interrupted.
“It’s one of those thingys you download to your cell or iPad, so you can do things . . .” LuLu answered impatiently.
“Now, that really explains it,” Dean said completely perplexed.
“Go on,” LuLu urged.
“Only you see, I was supposed to go to Florida with my parents for our annual family quality-time vacay thing we do—
did
every summer. I got out of it by telling my parents I had to take a summer class. But I just wanted to spend the summer with Parker. He had the geeky-est computer setup ever in his basement. We worked practically 24/7, hella-stoned most of the time. But, working hard. Then I started getting these strange texts from my mom. Dad had apparently caught some weird summer flu. Ye-ah, then I got a text from mom saying dad’s in the ER. Then mom texted she was coming down with the flu too. She warned me to stay indoors and to take my vitamins. Then, no more texts. No phone calls. Nothing. So, like I knew something was hecka wrong,” Justin’s voice wavered.
Dean could see the tears welling up around the corners of Justin’s eyes. “You know, the news was saying that this Super-Summer flu originated in Florida . . .” Dean left it at that, not wanting to say anymore.
“Ye-ah, I found that out, later.” Justin blinked back tears. “See, the whole time I was avoiding my parents when I should have been with—with them.”
“Now son, if you’d gone to Florida, you’d most likely not be here right now. You’d most likely be one of
them
. Don’t go blamin’ yourself,” Dean consoled. He felt bad for the kid.
“So where’s your BFF,” LuLu asked.
Dean butted in, “Question—what’s a BFF?”
Ella let out a silly giggle and rolled her eyes at Justin.
“Best Friends Forever,” LuLu rasped impatiently. “Please continue, Dean’s behind the times as you can see.
“Like, we were so involved with our project and so freakin' stoned most of the time, we didn’t notice that things were getting weirder and weirder. Like one day, Parker’s parents didn’t come home from work. They never called or anything. Parker even tried calling the police, but he couldn’t get through. Dude, we couldn’t even get through to 911. How bad is that?”
“So what did you guys do?” LuLu nearly whispered as she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the dining room table.
“Ye-ah, uh, we just got more stoned.” Justin actually looked embarrassed. “We thought things were just weird because we were, you know—super-stoned. But looking back, I can see now how reality was unraveling. So when we finally ran out of geek-food, we ordered a pizza on the Papa John’s app.”
“You can order a pizza with an app?” Dean couldn’t possibly be more confused. “Why didn’t you phone in the pizza order
?”
Dean asked.
“Dude, the phone lines were jammed. Besides, nobody uses the phone to order pizza anymore, unless you’re from the Stone Age or something,” Justin’s tone was slathered in sarcasm.
LuLu laughed, “You hear that Dean, you’re from the Stone Age.”
Dean gave LuLu his best-disgruntled look and then nodded his head to Justin to continue.
“The pizza guy never showed up, so Parker decided to go to Papa John’s ‘in person’ and maybe get a free pizza out of it.”
“I thought an app was a computer game,” Dean said, still stuck on the entire app concept. Justin and LuLu ignored him.
“And,” LuLu prodded.
“I finally went upstairs, thinking he decided to eat the whole pizza without me. Heard some crazy screaming outside, and when I opened the front door to see what the heck was going on . . . Dude, it was like freakin’
World War Z
. You know, the movie,” he explained to Dean.
Dean shook his head, no. He didn’t know a thing about
World War Z.
Technology sure had a way of making an idiot out of him, or was it just old age? But what did it matter to him, he had been perfectly content on fishing the rest of his life away—until the world had been taken over by flesh-eaters. Now he felt responsible for taking care of LuLu and Ella.
Until the government sorted things out,
never thought he’d say something like that, but Dean couldn’t wait for the day the military came to town and took over.
“Dean, can I get you somethin’ hon? You don’t look so good,” LuLu asked in a worried tone.
“No, no,” Dean waved his hand. He was simply tired of this whole dad-blast-it mess. “Go on Justin,” Dean said, trying to ignore the pain in his chest.
“Ye-ah, like I saw some random dude covered with blood, and there was this other guy helping him. Only he was eating his guts . . . That’s when I knew. I must have screamed, cause a freakin’ horde started staggering for me. I ran back in Parker’s house, grabbed all the food in the cupboards and hauled ass down to the basement. They pounded on the windows for hours, and eventually they broke inside the house. Dude, I heard them raving around upstairs for days. . .”
Dean listened in astonishment, he saw the fear in Justin’s eyes, heard it in his voice, and he watched as Ella’s eyes grew wider and wider and LuLu’s face turned paler and paler. Those first few hours—first few days had been hell for everyone. That is, everyone who had survived. And a living hell for all the non-survivors that were now: dead-heads.
“Ye-ah, uh, never saw Parker again,” Justin’s voice faltered. He seemed to be deep in thought.
“It’s a horrible thing, son. You got any news for us?” Dean hated to be so blunt, but he needed to know.
“After I barricaded myself in the basement, I did some surfing on the web. That’s when I found out about the Super-Summer flu. Dude, I was so freaked, stayed in Parker’s basement for almost two weeks, afraid to leave. The power finally went out. Ran out of food. I searched the house for a weapon and found that 22 pistol and a box of bullets. I just started roaming around from house to house for food and searching for people—like you guys,” Justin let out a deep breath. “I kinda gave up.” Justin looked down at his scraped-clean plate.
“Son, you’re certainly welcome to stay with us,” Dean invited, and LuLu agreed, and Ella shook her head yes.
“Thought you’d never ask!” Justin seemed relieved.
“LuLu, you gotta a room ready for our new resident?” Dean asked, hoping to cheer up the poor kid.
“You bet,” she offered a broad smile.
“So, you were able to access the internet. What did the news report about this, this crisis?” Dean continued, anxious for news.
“When are they planning to rescue us?” LuLu asked excitedly.
“Uh, doesn’t look so good,” Justin paused. “The CDC reported that only about twenty percent of the human population became infected with the deadly flu strain, and apparently 100% percent of those people died.
Only the dead don’t die
—they turn into—
them
. Which I’m sure you all know by now. In the beginning, CNN and Fox News basically said that everything was under control and that there was no need for people to panic.”
“I remember that,” LuLu sounded pissed.
“They were working on a vaccine. Then one day a curfew was announced for the entire United States. It seemed like the major mainstream type of news stations were censored by the military or the government. Because—” Justin paused and looked at all the anxious faces, “when I checked out the progressive websites, you know, like
AlterNet
,
Truthout,
and
Mother Jones
; it was an entirely different story. It was like total chaos: the military and FEMA evidently were
not
working with each other—at all.
Dean interjected, “According to my neighbor, whose son was in the National Guard, it was more like Martial Law, not a curfew. And, I heard those FEMA camps were more like
death camps
,” Dean said somberly.