Dead Stop Page 19

  She had done it with Deke because she hadn’t had time to think about it, and Deke was losing the fight anyway. But this was different. Harley had fought the thing to a standstill, and she was scared of doing anything that might put him at a disadvantage again. At the same time, she remembered Deke and Stacey both talking about how these things didn’t tire and realized a standstill already put Harley in trouble. She needed to do something, but she didn’t know what.

  In the end, she opted on asking the expert.

  “Harley?” She squinted at the dark shape of the two combatants struggling on the floor. Without the light, she didn’t dare swing for fear of hitting him instead of the creature. “How can I help? Just tell me what to do. Should I go get the others?”

  “Nope,” he grunted. “That wouldn’t do much but risk getting the others hurt…and it ain’t necessary.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep. I’m sure. You still got the bat?”

  “Yeah, but it’s hard for me to see. I’m scared of hitting you by mistake.”

  “Good,” he gasped. “You’re using your head. What I need you to do is lean the bat against the end of the shelves right there, and then step away.”

  “Right here?” She wondered what in the hell he could be planning.

  “Yes. Right there. Just lean it, handle up, against the end of the shelf. Then I want you to go back over to the door to the restaurant.”

  “Harley…”

  “I need you by the door,” The strain in his voice left no room for argument. “I’m going to try something but I’m going to need room to maneuver. And if it doesn’t work I’m going to need you holding the door for me.”

  “Got it,” she replied. She carefully leaned the bat where he said and took a step back. “Is that good?”

  “That’s fine. Now go ahead and get clear.”

  Marisa understood he was about to attempt something extremely risky. At the same time, she also knew he didn’t have a choice.

  When you had a tiger by the tail, the most dangerous part was letting go.

  “Harley, be careful.”

  There just wasn’t anything else left to say.

  The waitress turned and hobbled for the doorway as fast as she could. She figured it was just as well he sent her all the way to the door before doing whatever it was he was going to do. In her current shape, she wasn’t going to be outrunning anything. It only occurred to her as she reached for the handle that he had probably been thinking exactly along those lines.

  “Okay, I’m here,” She grasped the handle. “Whatever you’re goi…”

  There was a grunt and a crash from the darkened area.

  It was hard to tell what was happening, but she detected a flurry of motion on the floor. Then the awful figure of the walking corpse rose up against the window. Its ghastly head turned to focus on her, where she stood visible in the light from the parking lot. A split second later Harley came up out of the darkness at the end of the shelves where she had laid the bat.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  The weapon blurred in the dim light as the big man closed and attacked in one fast, viciously savage motion. The monster had just started its attack posture when the bat connected against the side of its head with a sickening crack. It staggered and fell back against the little counter behind the register. Harley didn’t wait to see if it would recover. He spun the bat and brought it straight down on the monster’s head in three powerful, consecutive swings.

  He hammered the thing to the floor…each impact marked by a sodden crunch that left little to the imagination. It was violent, brutish, and the last blow sounded with a meaty finality that convinced Marisa the monster would not be rising again.

  She gave silent thanks she hadn’t seen much but silhouettes.

  Harley’s figure stood there, breathing heavily, then stooped down into the darkness of the floor. A couple of seconds later a small flare of yellow light came to life. She realized he must have grabbed a loose cigarette lighter from the debris of the wrecked counter. Now he had bent down to examine the corpse.

  “Harley? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m a little scratched up, but I’ll be okay. You?”

  She had seen the blood on his shirt earlier, and knew the thing had at least clawed him pretty good a couple of times. Still, he didn’t seem very concerned about it so she figured that was between him and the doc.

  “I hurt my toe, but I’ll live. What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking at something,” he muttered, then spoke up. “Something weird.”

  “Something weird?” her laugh had no humor in it whatsoever. “What could possibly be weird on a night like this?”

  “Something you probably don’t want to see,” Harley replied in a bemused tone. “As a matter of fact, it’s something you definitely don’t want to see…but the doc definitely should.”

  ###

  Rising Waters - Holly

  Damn you, Gerald! Damn you! Damn you! And damn me too!

  They hadn’t thought of the fire alarm.

  Only two minutes earlier she had been sitting in an enclosed building with all the bad things that wanted to eat her outside.

  Only two minutes earlier she had been at least somewhat safe, comfortably dry, and of all the things she had been questioning…none of them had been her sanity.

  Only two minutes earlier.

  Then Gerald had raised his pale, blood smeared face from the table, and stood up in an effort to see the carnage outside. He squinted at the retreating figures in the storm, looked over at the small group of locals huddled under the tables near the doorway, then brought his now wide-eyed gaze back to her.

  His eyes locked with hers, yet he didn’t really seem to see her because the half grin that spread across his face was in response to some thought within. His hand emerged from beneath the table with his car keys. He pointed the electronic door opener at the window beside them and pushed the button.

  “Look, Holly.” He nodded out the window, and she followed his gesture to see the parking lights on his BMW flash in the rain. “The big yahoo was right. They’ve all run for the gas pumps.”

  “Gerald, what are you thinking?” She didn’t trust where this observation was leading. Gerald wasn’t exactly the risk taking sort, especially if discomfort or actual bodily harm was a potential outcome. But something was different here. She noticed something about his eyes were off.

  His pupils were contracted to pinpoints, and when he refocused on her she got the chilling suspicion that the Gerald she knew had taken a back seat to something else for the moment. This was Gerald “distilled.”

  “It’s a straight shot,” he smiled. “Nothing between it and us but rain.”

  Was he kidding? There were people dying out there.

  “Gerald,” she whispered, “that’s insane. Just drop it.”

  “No.” He didn’t even take umbrage at her disagreement. “It’s not. I knew parking away from these clod kickers was a good idea at the time, and now it just worked in our favor. The beamer is at an angle away from the gas pumps, so we wouldn’t be running straight at those monsters.”

  “Gerald, stop it.”

  He didn’t even slow down…just kept speaking in a low, intense monotone.

  “We can make it to the car in five seconds. And those things won’t even know we’re out there until we’re safe in the beamer. Then we can wave bye-bye to these filthy creatures and be back in Austin in three hours.”

  In a depressing flash of intuition, she understood that the “filthy creatures” he referred to weren’t just the ones out in the storm. She may not have been “small town” but she still came from way out on the country edge of South Houston. It made her wonder how much higher on the “evolutionary scale” she rated in his eyes. At least he was still talking in terms of “we” in his current state.”

  “Gerald, we can’t,” she pleaded. “It’s suicide. Besides, you’ll ruin your beret out there in the rain.”


  Holly knew how stupid that sounded, but it was exactly the kind of trivial thing that Gerald usually cared about when more important matters were at hand. It was a forlorn hope, but she prayed it might get through to him.

  It didn’t.

  “We can,” he continued in an eerily calm voice, “and I will. On the count of five, I’m getting out of here and going home. You are free to come with me. Five…”

  “Gerald, no!” she hissed. This was completely unlike him.

  “Four.”

  What the hell was she going to do? This was lunacy! Between the stress of being out of his element, the horror of the past few hours, and now the punch in the face from the smaller local boy, Gerald had apparently snapped.

  “Three.”

  She regarded him with despair.

  He meant it. He was going to do this, and now she had to make a choice. Either go with him, or get left behind.

  “Two”

  It was safe in here…but was it? Harley had said there wasn’t going to be any help coming, and if he was right, then sooner or later they were going to have to make a run for it anyway. Once daylight came, and the storm ended, the dead were going to be able to see inside…and then these windows would only last so long.

  “One”

  And she understood on a gut level that if she remained here, they were through. Gerald wouldn’t look back. He would take it as her choosing the people here over him and would wash his hands of her. That would have consequences of its own.

  “Go,” he stated in the same calm voice, stepped out of the booth, and rushed around the seat for the fire door.

  In the end, habit made her decision for her.

  Something inside, some lost voice, wailed for her stop as she found herself taking off after him. She shut it out, sick with the knowledge it was the fading voice of who she had been two years ago. The voice of the girl who had real friends, real passions, and real opinions…the girl who hadn’t met Gerald yet, and all the opportunities that came with him.

  Now was not the time to indulge in going over past choices, she told herself.

  Now it was time to run.

  Gerald hit the door ahead of her at full speed, and she followed right at his back. An ear splitting, electronic shriek assaulted her ears as the door flew open and she understood they had just made a critical mistake. They had forgotten that opening the fire door would set off an alarm. Now, instead of making their run for safety with the advantage of the monsters not knowing they were coming, they had just announced their presence outside to the entire countryside.

  As she staggered out into the blinding chaos of the downpour, she realized they were committed. Any attempt to stop and turn back would cost valuable seconds, allowing the zombies to react and attack. Besides, a flicker of motion to her right caused her to turn and see several wasted, loping figures coming from behind the truck stop towards her.

  The monsters had been closer than she realized! They must have been back there, out of sight of the action up front, and only now drawn around the building by the sound of the alarm. There were at least a good half dozen of them. Even worse, they had already spotted her and were well into the process of running them down. Lightning flared, bringing their gaping jaws into stark relief in the wild storm. Then something came around the building behind them…

  …something truly awful.

  C’mon, don’t look back, just run! Don’t look back, just run! Just run, just run, just run!

  Gerald began to widen the gap between them, and she had a sudden image of him leaping into the car and hitting the electronic lock switch as soon as he slammed the door, leaving her outside to be ripped to pieces. It wouldn’t be malicious on his part. He simply wouldn’t think to wait for her until it was too late.

  And she would be just as dead.

  Holly fled through the rain with desperate eyes fixed on the approaching car and a grinning pack of the living dead snapping at her heels. Ahead of her, the dark shape of Gerald ran into the hood of the car then fumbled his way around to the driver’s door. The sight of him grabbing for the handle prompted a burst of even greater speed.

  “Geralllldddd!” she wailed as he yanked the door open and jumped inside. “Waiiiittt!”

  The slam of his door shook the car as she grasped the handle of her own. She yanked on the handle with a ragged cry, ripping her own door open, and saw his finger punch the lock button at the very same instant.

  You son of a bitch! You would have actually done it!

  Holly didn’t have the breath to scream at him as she dove into the car and snatched the door shut behind her. She could wait till later. When they reached Austin, she fully intended to inform Mr. Gerald Plimpton that they were through…while he lay clutching his thrice kicked balls on the ground. But until that glorious moment, getting out of here would do.

  Holly made a silent promise to send help back to the Textro as she wrestled on her seat belt. At least she could do that much for them. She knew she had done it for all the wrong reasons, but maybe turning this last act of submission into something useful would help her face the girl in the mirror a little better. Assuming she made it out of here…

  The smack on the window caused her to look over and directly into the eyes of the nightmare only inches away.

  It must have once been somebody’s little girl.

  Like all the others, the face was now gone…but the pigtails still remained. The smallish claws slapping the glass had bone tipped fingers, and Holly realized that even this little thing had ripped its way up through wood and earth to the world above. Its child-sized skull was level with Holly’s own, and it snapped and scrabbled at the glass like a maddened animal.

  Other hands started smacking the windows around her.

  “Gerald! Get us the hell out of here!”

  Gerald finally managed to slam home the keys, and the engine roared to life. Holly gave silent thanks that he had just had the BMW overhauled. A second later he found the headlights and turned them on.

  She almost wished he hadn’t.

  “Holy shit! Look at that!” Gerald breathed and pointed out the windshield, “I was right! That ignorant yokel animal doctor had the nerve to lecture me and I was right! HE sure as hell didn’t come from no graveyard! I wonder what that backwoods bitch has to say about this!”

  His finger shook in triumphal justification as it pointed at the cause of his outburst.

  Outside, the enormous, ravaged corpse of Buddha Boy Norville stood bathed in the headlights.

  Unlike the other dead things roaming the parking lot this night, he still had most of his face. Only one section that included a cheek and part of his neck was missing, giving him a strangely bulldog-like appearance. But the damage didn’t stop there.

  Massive tears ran down the sides and front of his vast torso, giving his once great belly the appearance of pleated cloth. Large gobs of fat and meat protruded from the bottom of most of the ripped sections, and a two foot length of colon hung from his left side. His pleated flesh wobbled and swayed like a skirt as he lumbered around to the side of the car.

  “Gerallllld” Holly moaned. “Get us ooouuut of heeeerrrrree…”

  “Shhhhh….” Gerald’s head swiveled to track the huge monstrosity. “Just don’t move and let them settle down. Remember, they can’t really make sense of what they see through wet glass. Pretty quick they’ll lose track of us and go back over to where the action is.”

  “Goddammit, Gerald…”

  “Just hush!” He turned towards her with a finger to his lips. “And relax. This glass is a lot tougher than the stuff in those windows anyway. Now be still. Everything is okay.”

  “I don’t think so,” She frowned through the rain pebbled windshield. The pale monster swatted one of its skeletal companions out of the way as it reached the driver’s door. “I think this one is different. I’m serious! I think you need to hit the gas right now!”

  “I just had this thing refurbished. I’m not panicking a
nd plowing over a bunch of these things and wrecking the front end. Not when…”

  She saw the huge zombie lean down and peer through the glass at the back of Gerald’s head. The bloated white face almost filled the window. Its milky eyes zeroed straight in on the oblivious redhead, and Holly had no doubt it knew exactly what it was looking at.

  “Dammit, Gerald!” she shrieked. “Floor it! Now!”

  Too late.

  The man turned back to the window just as it exploded inwards in a shower of fractured glass. Holly screamed and threw up her hands to keep the flying fragments out of her face. A split second later Gerald’s flailing elbow caught her in the side of the head, causing her to see stars. She could feel him thrashing in the seat beside her, as she tried to clear her vision and get a grip on what was happening.

  Holly shook her throbbing head and looked over to see Gerald dying.

  The monster had driven its fist through the window and now it’s massive hand clenched most of her boyfriend’s face, with its fingers hooked under his jawline. She could hear the bones of Gerald’s face crack under the things grip, and knew the thrashing was due to him suffocating. It seemed to be trying to drag him headfirst out the window. Holly realized the only reason it hadn’t already succeeded was due to the seatbelt holding the man in.

  Not that it helped him much.

  He made a strangled gurgle behind the massive hand as it tightened further, causing more popping noises. Blood began to squeeze out between its thick fingers. Gerald flopped in the seat like a dying fish, the visible portions of his head now blue from oxygen deprivation. Holly knew he was going to die if she didn’t do something, and do it damn quick.

  The girl grabbed the gear shift and ground the transmission into gear. Then she unsnapped her seatbelt, threw her leg over the gear shift and stomped the gas pedal. Beside her, Gerald twitched and spasmed, his head now twisted up and back as the monster continued to pull. The engine roared and the tortured squeal of rubber on slick asphalt cut through the din of the storm.

  For a moment, the car didn’t move.

  Then the wheels found their purchase and the BMW leapt forward. Unfortunately, physics were not to be denied and that meant something had to give. In this case it was Gerald’s neck…