Transformation Page 9

  Dale attempted a standard move to disarm an opponent, a cop move. Weed thwarted his attempt by doing the unexpected. He didn’t resist or try to evade Dale’s advance. He simply rotated his wrist so Dale impaled himself on Weed’s blade. When Dale reflexively jerked his arm back Weed pushed the blade down and pulled it towards himself. This made the injury far worse than it was to start with.

  Dale was caught off guard. The feel of the blade cutting his flesh, the added damage when he recoiled, stunned him. He forgot all about Francis for a moment and clutched his arm in reflex as he tried to pull it away. He bent forward trying to free himself from the intense pain. Weed let him pull free and immediately grabbed the back of his head. He lifted his knee and pushed Dale’s head into it.

  Dale hit the concrete with a broken nose. He was stunned and before he could get his bearings Weed was on him. Weed lay across Dale and drove his knife into his throat with both hands. Dale didn’t struggle for more than a few seconds.

  Weed stood and wiped his blade off on Dale’s shirt. He didn’t mind killing, he’d done it plenty, but he was pissed as hell he had to do it. Damn messy business. Damn pain in the ass to deal with.

  Stupid pig. Weed was breathing heavily and was angry. Now he’d have to do some shit with the body and deal with all the questions as to the pig’s whereabouts. After all the guff between him and the undercover, he was sure more than a few glances would be cast his way.

  He rolled Dale’s body onto a large brown tarp. He sopped up as much of the blood as he could and made a giant burrito of all the evidence. He rinsed away the rest of the blood with some bottled water. Weed pulled one end of the tarp wrapped body and as it moved, it made a horribly loud noise on the concrete. He grunted as he bent down and heaved the bundle up and over his shoulder.

  Weed winced as Dale’s body thudded loudly when it hit the ground. He pulled out one of the many knotted ropes the kid installed around the second level and went over the edge. Weed hefted the bundle over his shoulder and carried it off into the night. He took it some three hundred yards to the edge of the large grassy area underneath the highway overpasses near the structure. He’d seen some of the dead shambling about in the sunken area where the grass grew tall in thick mud. They seemed unable to get out of the area because of the steep slope leading down into it.

  Weed grunted as he pulled out his buck knife and bent down. He had to cut all the ropes in near darkness. When he was finished, he pulled the edge of the tarp upwards. Dale’s corpse rolled out and down the slope. He heard that fucking moaning and the thrashing of the grass and backed off to leave. He saw skeletal hands, then arms, covered in rotting flesh come through the tall grass. He hightailed it the fuck out of there.

  Francis dug around in the seams of the concrete pillars and pulled from them a black twine. He pulled a rope down from the second level. He was on the second level in under a minute. He was an old fuck, no doubt about that, but there were large knots in the rope and he was motivated.

  All in all, he’d spent close to an hour on the cop and he was tired and ready to sleep like a baby. As he returned to his little box, he noticed the letter propped up against it. He looked left and right, then bent and picked it up.

  Inside, he sat on his bed with a large joint between his lips, already glowing and filling his lungs. He took a pull of some smooth shit they had lifted from Costco. He lit a candle that sat on his little plastic nightstand. He looked at the letter. It had Ron’s name on it. He opened the envelope and started reading. He started smiling and pretty soon he was trying really fucking hard not to laugh out loud.

  “Ah shit, Francis,” he whispered to himself in spasms of mirth. “Ah shit you couldn’t a planned it better. Sumabitch! God must love bikers or hate cops.”

  He put the letter back in its envelope and walked quickly down the ramp to the second level and all the way to the blast site. Things had been cleaned and organized a lot already. The floor was swept, bodies and parts buried, shit all stacked up. He looked around for a few seconds then saw it. The perfect place to leave the letter.

  That night he turned in and fell straight into a deep slumber. He was pissed at the cop and all that mess, but he was damn glad for that letter he left. Made his life a lot easier for sure.

  Ron was the early riser. In truth, he hadn’t slept much at all. He started a pot of coffee and spent a moment looking over the city. The world had melted down and now Donna was surely dead. He’d found a group of friends and a home, but the explosion took all of that away. Were they really as safe as he’d let himself believe?

  “Hey thanks,” Lisa smiled. Then she caught herself, remembered Donna, and lost the smile. “How are you?” she asked. “I’m sorry, dumb question.”

  “Thanks,” Ron muttered. They both looked silently over the world for a few minutes.

  “What do you think of Francis?” Ron asked Lisa out of the blue.

  She thought for a moment, turned to look around because people always walk up behind you when you are talking about them. She spoke in hushed tones.

  “I don’t know. I think he’s a nice old man but…”

  “But Dale says otherwise. I am wondering…”

  “If he did it?” Lisa, eyes wide, looked at Ron.

  “No, not really that, although Dale seemed to think he did. Dale was always so worked up about Francis. He insists he is evil, but the old guy is so decrepit.”

  “I don’t know. He seemed to see criminals around every corner. I think no matter what Francis may have done in the past that he’s just trying to survive like the rest of us. The old guy is pretty rough around the edges, but he’s really sweet.”

  “Maybe he just reminds Dale of the criminals he’s had to deal with.” Ron fell silent and looked out across the world. He was desperately trying to distract himself. He was deeply troubled by the explosion and the loss of lives. He was devastated by the loss of his wife. He felt his throat tightening. He tried to keep his thoughts moving.

  “I’m worried about Wendy, too. It looks like Sal returned, but there was no sign of Wendy… you know.”

  “Should we be out looking for her?”

  “Where would we start?” Ron asked but didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and walked off before he fell apart in front of Lisa.

  He walked down the ramps to check on the blast sight. There was still a lot to be cleaned up and organized and he had to keep himself busy. They’d spent most of yesterday picking up all the parts of the deceased. That was emotionally brutal. There was no sign that Donna had been in the blast so it was conceivable she was still alive, but where would she be?

  As he scanned the debris, today they were to focus on the rest of the mess—the nonhuman parts of it—something caught his eye. He saw something white fluttering in the wind. It was a piece of paper anchored down by a small chunk of concrete that sat atop a larger chunk. It looked purposefully placed and Ron could see that it was an envelope. He picked it up and was startled that that it had his name written on it. He was confused at first until he opened it. Then it all made sense and he was devastated farther than he thought possible.

  Ron went back upstairs glad to find that Lisa was still there and now so was Ana.

  “You OK?” Lisa could tell there was something wrong.

  “I found this downstairs at the blast sight.” He handed her the envelope.

  Lisa read it quickly. “Oh no. No way.”

  Ana took the handwritten note and started reading.

  Ron leaned against the wall to look out over the city. He was blank, numb, and for the first time in his life, wanting to die.

  Ana read the letter out loud.

  Ron,

  I hope you can understand that my actions were for the good of the group. Maybe you can explain it to the others for me. Some people are bad no matter how decent they look on the outside. There are more evil people out there then you can accept, and they do evil things that you can’t even imagine. It feels like the only people that survived the
end of the world are the evil ones.

  I know my actions seem extreme but they were necessary. You need to watch your back and be more careful about who you let into the structure.

  I hope you learned your lesson. You should have listened to me.

  Dale

  “What the hell does this mean?” Ana handed the letter back to Ron.

  “It seems like he’s saying he caused the explosion.” Ron let the letter drop to the ground.

  “No. I don’t believe that.”

  “Neither do I.” Ron was looking out over the city. “But . . . “

  “Hey folks. Do I smell coffee?” It was Weed. He hobbled up to the table and poured a cup.

  Ron turned around. “Oh good, you’re OK.”

  “Why yes, I am. Shouldn’t I be?”

  “Maybe you can help us make sense of things.” Ron handed him the letter.

  Weed took the letter and looked at it for a second but then lowered it.

  “Who am I fooling?” He held the letter out for Ron.

  “I’m ashamed to admit that my eyes ain’t so good and my letters is worse.” Damn he was getting good at the helpless old fart routine.

  Lisa snatched the piece of paper.

  “Here, I'll read it to you.” She read him the letter.

  Thank god for his beard and moustache as they hid the fact that he was biting the shit out of his lip. The effort caused tears to come to his eyes. Ana put her arm around his shoulders.

  “Poor fella,” he said and shook his head side to side.

  “I guess we never knew what he was really like. He was kind of quiet and almost paranoid about our safety.” Lisa said.

  “I guess this is why he made such a show of blaming Francis for the explosion.” Ron barely faced the group. “I can’t believe anyone could do that. Who was he trying to kill? Sal? Alvin? Donna!? Who the fuck does that?”

  “I prayed for him last night,” Weed croaked out. “My momma always said that the harder someone tries to hate you, the harder you have to pray for them cuz’ they are lost and hurting.”

  Lisa patted his shoulder, “Your momma was a good woman.”

  Ha! My momma was a dirty whore who dumped me the second I dropped from her coot.

  “I guess he lost it,” Ana said. “Maybe he thought Alvin was a threat?”

  “I just can’t believe Dale could do that.” Ron hadn’t turned to face the group. He just looked out over the city.

  “I can believe he did it more than I can believe Francis did,” Lisa said.

  Weed just nodded and hung his head in a look of sorrowful contemplation.

  Goddamned fish in a barrel Francis. Weed closed his eyes and fought so hard not to laugh his body convulsed. He covered his face with his hands.

  Jeff came around the corner from the living room. There was a three sectional sofa set up several yards from the kitchen on the opposite side of the structure. The original common area was just lawn chairs and stacked boxes and had grown and become what was now called the kitchen. They set up what they called the living room just a few yards away in the other corner of the structure. Since this side of the structure was front-facing towards the massive parking lot, it was considered the front of the building and had walls that extended from the corners for about forty feet. There was still a large section between the two areas that had no wall, but these walled corners made it easy to disguise the two areas where the most activity occurred.

  “We have a problem.” Jeff said. “The blast attracted a lot of them. I think they are still a good two hours out, so I am going to go lead them away.”

  “You have to leave the garage?” Lisa was grateful for the change of subject.

  “Yeah, one of the units failed.” Jeff kept walking.

  “You want company?” Lisa yelled after him, but Jeff just waved and kept walking.

  Jeff jumped in a car and headed out to the rooftop setups he had spread across the area. Basically, they played a recording of the human voice and Jeff could turn them on and off remotely. They played old news casts, audio books, whatever. The zombies didn’t care about the content just that it came from a source of fresh meat. Turning on the units attracted all the zombies in the area, turning it off and then turning on the next one led them away. He’d used them several times already.

  The unit that had failed was the second to last one. Jeff wanted to not only fix the unit but move the last two units out to the main road. As he drove, Jeff kept looking at the stuff in the car. It was nagging him. It was common to have stuff in the vehicles, he’d put most of it in them personally. But this was stuff he didn’t recognize. He took another quick look at the items on the seat next to him. It looked as someone had prepared the car for a long trip.

  The red sedan jumped the curb, plowed over a small shrub, and came to rest in the front of the building where the failed unit was located. He could see a few shambling corpses in the distance. He checked all angles before opening the door, and then he was out. He jogged to the side of the building and leapt onto the dumpster using two hands to pull himself up as he jumped and swung his legs sideways. A shimmy up a pipe and he was on the roof.

  “Bad battery,” Jeff mumbled. Good thing too. That was the easiest thing to fix. The solar panels that charged the car battery, and all the other parts, were a bit harder to come by.

  He took apart the unit to move it. Solar panel unplugged, speakers disconnected, antenna pulled down, All the rest of the electronics were in a plastic storage bin. The antenna was nothing more than a long length of heavy speaker wire pulled apart at one end and tied up high and in a direct line of site to the structure. This formed a large V shape. The antenna worked amazingly well boosting the signals sent and improving the reception of signals received.

  Jeff lowered everything on a rope. There was already a small crowd of the dead waiting for him below and there were more coming. He ran to the back of the building and then down and around. He was ready to take out all the dead before more came.

  As he rounded the corner, he was faced with three corpses. They were nude and displayed the trauma their bodies had suffered as was usual. The strange and unusual wounds never ceased to amaze Jeff. There was always something new to turn the stomach. This time it was the woman before him. She had one eye popped out and it dangled and bounced as she walked. It threatened to go in her mouth as she opened and closed it, but the fleshy strands, arteries and optical sheaths, weren’t long enough. The eye distracted Jeff momentarily. The woman had been obese in life and in death her flab had turned blackish from the lack of blood. Her legs were totally black, and she had a smell more foul than any other corpse he had come across.

  He gagged almost the instant he turned the corner, saw the eye, and paused for a split second. As he started to turn, she lunged forward. Jeff almost slipped as he bolted. But the woman hadn’t lunged at him, she had tripped. The black skin of her legs fell away in large pieces, looking almost like a pair of pants falling off. A blob of fat hung down from her waist as she lay rolling on the ground, trying to get to her feet again. As she did, innards fell from the torn abdomen, fat squished out along with blackened and congealed blood. She slipped and fell and her body continued to deteriorate as the massive globs of fat and bloated organs tore through her flesh. She fell to pieces like a loaf of bread that had been soaked in water. Jeff lost it and vomited a gush of burning sickness that he had to avoid as he ran away.

  “Jesus,” he hissed and fought the compulsion to puke again. Now he had to work his way around the car because the woman blocked his path to the equipment and the car door. He pulled out his new favorite weapon from his coat. He had a found a ball peen hammer with a long wooden handle, the head of the hammer was literally ball shaped. The long handle gave him a farther reach and made it easier to get the head shot while the rounded head rarely got stuck in the skull. He whacked the first of the dead on top of the head, the next got a forehead smashed, and the third was another top shot. He’d tried to fight two-handed
like Sal, but just couldn’t do it. Sal had been swinging hammers in one way or another for decades.

  Another three down, more on the way. Jeff loaded his gear quickly. The woman was dragging her shredded body towards him, the smell getting worse by the second. Suddenly several corpses came around the corner of the building. They were followed by more and more. The woman was by the driver’s side door, almost at Jeff’s feet. This was a huge crowd that Jeff could not handle alone, plus he didn’t want the car to get blocked in by the sheer numbers so he jumped into the backseat. The equipment was all there, but there was also a very full, large backpack in the rear seat. He’d noticed it earlier and seeing it again reminded him of the fact that the car looked like it was prepped for a long trip. He had to keep moving into the car to close the door.

  He had to hold himself awkwardly over the top of his gear, trying not to crush anything or crack the solar panel. The backpack bothered him. The more he thought about it the more he wondered who it could be that was planning the trip. Was it Dale? But that would mean he either packed two cars or took another car and left the packed one behind. Was someone else planning a quick exit?

  He managed the front seat as the first of the dead crowded around the car and started pounding on it. He started the car and took off, but he was itching to dig in to the pack and try and figure out whose car he had accidently taken.

  He backed the car up, cutting the wheel so he smashed the fat woman’s head then shot forward. Several bodies bounced off the car, a few flipping over the hood. When he found a safe location, he stopped and pulled the backpack into the front seat. But stopped. He really needed to get the job done before the dead swamped the place. He unloaded all the gear and threw the end of the rope, weighted with a small rock, up and onto the roof of a one story building. He chose this building because it was part of a mall where the roofs were all stair stepped up to about three stories. He repeated the process of climbing a few times and was soon high above the ground, he could see the parking structure in the distance. He set up all his gear and had to run down to the parking lot to fetch a new battery.