Those Lazy Sundays: A Novel of the Undead (8 page)

"Yeah, brother," Brent replied. "What the hell did you think we were?"

They looked at each other for a few moments, before Mary spoke up.

"Well I guess, um, we thought you were both policemen."

Brent made an exaggerated show of looking at the sleeves of his leather jacket, then at his jeans and boots. "Yeah, I could see why you'd think that."

Mary blushed, embarrassed.

 "Cop or not, I saved your ass from that weirdo who was about to˗-” He paused.

The truth was, he didn’t know what the guy had been about to do. He’d shot because his brother had yelled for him to, and because of what his brother had told him earlier. The guy had definitely been aggressive, but he had no idea if it had really required deadly force, though he had a feeling there might not be many questions about it, if things were as bad as Mike thought they were. Plus, there was the fact that the guy had taken three shotgun blasts to the chest at close range with barely a flinch. That wasn’t normal. Hell, it violated just about every natural law he knew of – the main one being, getting shot in the chest with a shotgun will put a person on his ass – no exceptions.

“Knock it off, Brent,” Mike said.

Brent turned and looked at Mike, his cheeks now a dark crimson, the same color they were when he was aiming his shotgun at Andy’s head.

“Stay the hell out of ˗-“ he began, angrily. He continued speaking, but Mike raised his voice and talked over him.

“You can pick on the kids later, if you want,” he said calmly. “But right now we have a more important situation to deal with out there.” He pointed toward the front of the station.

His final word was punctuated by a particularly strong bang that shook the door on its hinges.

“I just checked the news,” Mike said, drawing everyone’s attention from the door back to him. The thumping and banging continued for a while longer as he spoke, and then stopped. “Looks like they're just starting to report on this. Just a headline and a couple of short stories saying there's some kind of sickness in a bunch of places in the northeast."

“A bunch of places?" Kyle asked. "Like... it's not just something here?"

“I’ve only read a couple of articles,” Mike replied. "They're just saying reports throughout the northeast, whatever that means. All the articles right now are pretty short. Doesn't look like anyone knows much of anything yet."

“Maybe it’s terrorism,” Kyle said, thinking out loud. “Biological weapons or something.”

The banging began again in earnest.

“What if that’s somebody trying to get in?” Mary asked. “A regular person, I mean.”

“I doubt it,” Sarah replied. “If it was, they’d be yelling for help. We’d be able to hear them.”

The thumping on the door was joined by banging on the outside walls of the building. The brick exterior and thick walls muffled the sound, but it was still audible inside the police station.

“So what are we doing Mike?” Brent asked, looking at his brother. His face was still red, but he was starting to calm down.

“Staying in the station for now, until we get some kind of guidance from the State Police, or Montpelier, or somewhere."

“I'm sure none of those guys knows shit…” Brent muttered. Mike stared at him, but said nothing.

“Is there anything else on the net about this?” Kyle asked. "Like, is anyone posting on Facebook or Twitter or... internet forums. Anything?"

Mike shrugged. "To tell you the truth, I'm not real up on all that social media stuff."

Kyle took his phone out of his pocket and fidgeted with it for several seconds, while Mike continued to click through Yahoo News, CNN, and the WPUR website.

"Can't get any kind of data connection. Guess everything's still overloaded or something," Kyle said.

"Nobody gets a data connection here," Mike said. "You're lucky to get a regular connection most of the time."

"Great," Kyle replied, stuffing the phone into his pocket. “How is all this even possible? We left the Strive camp a couple of hours ago and everything was fine. Nothing could spread that fast. Not even a virus.”

“Well something sure is,” Sarah replied. “I don’t think we’re hallucinating all this.”

Mike nodded at her. He clicked the mouse a few times and looked intently at the computer screen, moving the scroll wheel slowly.

After a few minutes, he frowned and looked up.

"Now WPUR is reporting that the state health department thinks there is some kind of pollutant or sickness that's causing people to hallucinate. They say state and Federal health officials have been notified..." He read further.

"And they're advising people across the state to stay inside."

"Think we've got that covered," Brent said.

As if on cue, one of the windows near the vacant deputy’s desk shattered, the sound of breaking glass filling the room. Everyone leapt from their seats, Brent whipping his shotgun up towards the broken window. A second window soon followed as the pounding on the front door grew more intense. Pale hands reached through the shattered windows and banged against the iron bars.

“You think they can get through there?” Brent asked, pointing at the front door.

“There’s no way they can get through the windows,” Mike said. "The bars are solid. But the door…”

He trailed off and turned his gaze onto the flimsy looking wooden door at the front of the room.

“It should hold,” he said, feigning confidence. “It should…”

J
ACK AND KATE walked rapidly down the windy road, glancing to their left and right nervously, still making their way towards town. After passing the first curve in the road, Jack looked back and saw that they had lost Gumby-Neck. He checked again every couple of minutes, but didn’t see the erstwhile businessman-cum-claymation figure behind them.

The sun sat low in the sky, hanging just below the horizon, only barely visible through the blanket of leaves. Jack and Kate’s shadows were getting long on the pavement, and the forest was beginning to look dark and shadowy. Kate kept her arms hugged around herself as she walked, the chill seeping through her light sweater. They hadn’t prepared to be hanging around outside on their trip home, and they definitely hadn’t prepared to be hiking down the road at dusk, running away from a bunch of crazy, hypnotized people while separated from their friends. Both Jack and Kate tried their cell phones and were both answered with a rapid busy signal. After several tries, Kate tried sending a text message, only to have her handset either flash a “Network Busy” or "Unable to Send" message.

“Do you think there are a lot more of those people?” Kate asked, breaking a long silence.

“I don’t know. There seemed to be quite a few at that store… maybe it’s some weird disease that’s just happening here. I don’t recall seeing any crazy people anywhere else.”

“Yeah,” Kate said. “That’s true. I mean, everything was normal until we hit this area.”

Jack nodded.

“Since the lines were busy, I’d imagine the authorities know about it. The CDC will probably be here before long.”

“I guess it’s just our bad luck, huh?” Kate said.

Jack nodded again. “Yeah. I just hope we don’t get thrown into quarantine or whisked off to some government facility or something like that.”

They passed a black mailbox with the number 237 printed in black lettering on a silver background. A long dirt driveway wound its way deep into the trees, which hid the house from the road. The red flag on the mailbox was down.

“Maybe we should go knock on the door,” Kate suggested. “They might be listening to the radio or television. Plus, maybe they’ll let us use their regular telephone. The regular lines can’t be broken like the cell phones are, can they?”

Jack stopped and looked up the driveway, into the trees. He squinted, hoping to see part of the house through the thick canopy of leaves, but saw only the orange and red leaves and the shadows cast by the late afternoon sun.

“It would be nice to get on a landline.” He rubbed his chin as he spoke as if stroking an imaginary beard. “But I don’t want to leave the road. If the guys are on their way back, they could drive right by us while we are up there.”

“But if we have a phone that works, we can call them,” Kate replied. "At least get a connection, anyway."

Jack looked down the road toward Allentown, and then back up the dirt driveway, deep in thought. He was indecisive. With everything that was going on, Jack was uncomfortable not being in contact with anyone. Their friends were already late coming back, and he had no idea what the overall situation really was. Above all, Jack hated not being in the know. And right now, he wasn’t even in the same zip code.

“What if one of us goes to the house and the other stays here?” Kate suggested. “It shouldn’t take too long to use the phone. And that way, if they do come back, we can still flag them down.”

Jack shook his head. “You don’t watch many horror movies, do you?” he said with a slight chuckle.

“I hate horror movies.”

“Well, in almost every horror movie, some idiot decides everyone should split up, and then they all get picked off one by one by whatever is after them.”

Kate looked away, the look on her face somewhere in between embarrassed and angry.

“Sorry…” he began again. “I don’t mean that you’re an idiot. I just meant that I don’t like the idea of one of us being alone here. Or up there.” He pointed towards the driveway. “You never know. One of those people could be up there.”

Kate nodded and faked a smile, still not quite accepting his apology. Jack took another look up the driveway. In spite of his habit of putting his foot in his mouth, he hated hurting feelings, especially Kate’s.

“I think you’re right, though. We should go check,” Jack finally said.

Kate’s face brightened a bit. “Really?”

“Yeah. I doubt they’ll be coming by any time soon. And I have an idea: I’ll put my jacket on the mailbox. They should see it if they drive by.”

Kate smiled. “You won’t be cold?”

He shrugged. “It shouldn’t be that long. I’ll be fine.”

Jack unzipped his light blue windbreaker and draped it over the mailbox, and they started walking together up the driveway. They reached the top of one small hill, and the driveway curved into the woods, the house still not visible.

“This driveway could go on for a mile,” Jack said.

“You want to keep going?” Kate asked.

“Sure, why not,” he replied nonchalantly.

They were halfway up the next steep hill when Kate stopped abruptly. A thought entered her mind, and she her forehead.

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“I just thought of something,” she said, still looking directly in front of her. “We can’t call them. They're all on cell phones too. If the connection is that bad or the network is that busy, it won’t matter if we call from someone’s house.” She paused. “Right?”

Jack inhaled deeply and looked up toward the forest canopy. He always looked up – toward the sky, the ceiling, whatever was above them – when he was deep in thought.

“I honestly have no idea,” he said. “But you’re probably right.”

He paused and looked up again.

“In fact, I would say I’m ninety-nine percent sure you’re right. And now that I think about it, I’m a complete idiot for not having thought of that before we hiked all the way up here.”

“I didn’t think of it either,” Kate replied. “Do you want to keep going anyway? We’ve come all this way; we still might be able to get some idea of what’s going on. See a TV or a radio or something.”

“I think we should head back,” Jack replied. “We really need to get on the road in case they come by.”

Kate nodded.

“I guess this is why there aren’t many action heroes in real life,” Jack added. “Real people do stupid things.”

Kate smiled.

“So you’re not quite a hero yet,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. It was my suggestion anyway. I doubt it’ll matter much in the long run”

Jack smiled back.

They turned around and began descending the hill. At the corner to the last straightaway, a rough humming sound became audible, growing gradually louder by the second. After a few moments, the source of the noise became clear: it was an engine.

“Shit I think that’s them!” Jack yelled. “Come on!”

He grabbed Kate’s hand and they took off, sprinting down the driveway. Jack caught his foot on a rock and momentarily lost his balance. He went sprawling forward, let go of Kate’s hand and stumbled down the driveway before setting a hand on the ground to right himself. They both stopped by the mailbox, breathing heavily, exhausted from the run, the noise of the engine fading.

Jack looked down the road towards Allentown, then turned around and looked in the direction of the general store. The engine noise disappeared completely, and the vehicle was nowhere to be seen, having also disappeared around the curve.

Jack cursed and kicked at the dirt on the driveway, sending a rock rolling into the grass.

 “I really hope that wasn’t them!”

“Did you see the car?” Kate asked.

“No. Did you?”

Kate shook her head.

Jack swore again. He put his hands on his hips and stood staring at the road, like the coach of a losing sports team. Kate dug her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed a number.

“I’m getting through!” she yelled, holding the phone to her ear. Jack looked at her hopefully. Her cell phone’s volume was turned up high, and he could hear the ringing of the phone on the other end. There was a short click, and Jack’s heart raced in anticipation.

Hello. You’ve reached Andy…

Jack grimaced and looked at the ground. Voice mail. He hated voice mail even when he wasn’t being chased by a bunch of homicidal psychopaths. Now they were probably going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of sick, psychotic, whatever-the-hell they were, all because their friend left his phone on vibrate.

Jack reached into his jeans and grabbed his own cell phone and dialed. He was greeted with the same rapid busy tone.

“What should we do?” Kate asked. She looked upset.

“I guess we just keep heading towards town,” Jack replied. “I’m sure they’re trying to call us just like we’re trying to call them. If that was them that passed by, I’m sure they’ll see the guy we left by the road, and…” he stopped.

Kate wasn’t listening to him at all, but was instead staring over his shoulder. He waved his hands in front of her face to get her attention, but she was fixated on whatever was behind him. He turned around and abruptly took a step backwards almost bumping into Kate.

“Jesus!” he yelled, surprised.

Walking down the road toward them were at least a dozen people, their appearance and demeanor all too familiar. Two teenagers in baggy jeans that looked like they were about to fall off of them stumbled along the shoulder of the road. An older man with curly black hair staggered down the yellow white line, the tail of his striped button-up shirt flapping in the breeze behind him. His entire bottom half was naked, his shriveled genitals swinging lackadaisically in time with his stiff walk. A woman with graying curly hair in a bright pink bathrobe was close behind him, the belt on her robe looking dangerously close to coming undone. An assortment of others followed behind, shimmying, limping and twitching their way down the road.

“What do we do?” whispered Kate.

Jack glanced back down the road at them. The people were a good seventy-five yards away and weren’t moving very quickly, but he didn’t want to let them get too close. Even the one that they hit with their car had been deceptively quick when he tried to bite Sarah, and he didn’t want to let them get close enough to test their reflexes. They were still people, and people could be fast and clever when they wanted to be. When you least expected them to be.

“Back up the driveway,” Jack said decisively. “That hill should at least slow some of them down. Hopefully there’s a house up there or something. I’m starting to think it might be kind of dangerous for us to be out here.”

Kate nodded, not taking her eyes off of the strange people.

“Let’s go,” Jack said, and broke for the driveway. Kate followed, and they jogged into the forest together for the second time that day. Jack looked over his shoulder every thirty seconds to see if they were being followed. When they rounded the curve and put the road out of sight, he still hadn’t seen any of the people pass by the driveway entrance.

“Hang on,” he said and walked back towards the road.

“Jack, what’re you doing?” Kate asked, watching him but not following.

“I just want to see if they’re passing us by,” he said, continuing to move down the driveway and disappearing around the bend.

"Who said something about people in horror movies splitting up?" Kate asked, though Jack was already out of earshot.

Kate shuffled her feet nervously. For several anxious seconds, she heard nothing. A strong wind whipped up the dust on the driveway from behind her and she braced herself against a cloud of dirt that blew past her.

More seconds passed, and she still heard nothing. The wind picked up again, the trees swayed, and the noise of the rustling leaves grew. Over the noise, she thought she heard the sound of a moan, so faint that it seemed to have been carried in by the breeze. She gazed down the driveway at the place where the path bent and disappeared into the trees and listened intently. The wind died down, and she was greeted with almost complete silence.

She thought of yelling to Jack, if he was nearby, but realized that it might draw unwanted attention. If those people were just passing them by, she didn’t want to give them reason to change their direction of travel. Kate looked at her watch, frustrated. Jack had been gone five minutes. At any other time, five minutes would have been nothing. Five minutes would barely cover the time it took to walk down her own driveway and back. But understandably, she was on edge.

Then she heard it, and it was unmistakable this time: A long, baritone moan. Unlike last time, it sounded close.

Before she could do anything else, Jack came tearing around the bend in a full sprint. When he came to within a few feet of her, the man in the button-up shirt with no pants staggered around the curve. In spite of his condition, he was moving pretty fast – not anywhere near a running pace, but much quicker than she had seen them move before. A few paces behind the naked man, the bathrobe woman appeared. And then another person. And another.

Jack waved frantically, signaling for Kate to go up the hill. It was all the prodding she needed. She began climbing the hill as fast as she could. Jack caught up with her and they ascended the steep driveway side by side. Jack was already panting from the first leg of his run, but managed to keep pace.