Brian's fingers fell slack as he realized that he and Jess were not alone and the pudding cup fell to the polished floor. A shadow hiding in the corner--black on black--shifted and then two forms came forward. A squat, scruffy man sporting a grease-stained T-shirt stretched over an expansive gut moved into the light. Knives were held to his jeans with electrical tape and he had used the drawstrings of an apron to form a makeshift holster that hung diagonally under his armpit. In it hung a small, hand-held propane torch that looked like it was no stranger to flame. Its small, lethal-looking metal head was blackened from use.
"If you're gonna go through the trouble of taking a man's food, kid, the least you could do is not waste it."
Brian stared at the newcomer for an instant, the words taking a moment to sink in. In a flash, he realized what the fat man's intent was and he bent down to scoop up the pudding off the floor.
Brian shot a glance at Jess and decided to say something. "Sorry, Mister, we didn't mean to steal your food. I mean--"
A flash of silver sliced through the air and embedded itself in the wall behind Brian. "Get out. Now."
Jess spoke up. "Now, wait just a second, guy, there ain't exactly a welcoming committee out there. We need a place to hide out for a bit--"
"This ain't the place. Is it, Jules?"
A tall, thin reed of a man stepped out of the shadows, chewing tobacco. He spat a stream of juice through his teeth that made a sharp splat as it hit the floor.
Two belts criss-crossed his shoulders like bandoleers keeping various pieces of silverware ready for action and where they linked in the back, a tire iron hung. Jules smiled, revealing a jack o'lantern grin.
"Nope," was all he said and shifted a lump of chaw from one side of his mouth to the other.
"Look, guys, zombies are out there--" Jess shot a finger at the door--"and at any point they could be in here. The best thing right now is for all of us to shut up and figure out what the hell is going on around here."
The fat man strode across the darkened room and got up in Jess' face. His grimy finger waved frantically in front of Jess' nose.
"Look, son, I don't give a shit what's goin' on outside that door. Jules an' me's got ourselves a nice little hidey hole--an outta the way-type place, you might say. And while it's fine for Jules and me to hide out in, there ain't no room for visitors."
Jules spat on the floor again. "'specially no fuckin' Yanks."
Jess had come across Jules' type before--good ol' boys who waved the Confederate Flag and pissed on anything that was made above the Mason-Dixon line. There was a bad streak running through him and a simmering rage left just to boil under his skin. He was going to be trouble if and when Jess convinced the pair to let him and Brian stay, which looked like less and less of a certainty with each passing moment.
"Look, like I said, we're not looking for trouble. But there's a couple of hundred zombies headed this--"
The door burst open and zombies flooded into the room.
Jess took a second to count how many undead were stumbling over--stopped when he hit ten--and darted over to where Brian still sat on the counter. "Come on, kid, time to move."
Within an instant, the kitchen had become overrun with the dead and Jess knew that he and Brian had to split. But all of a sudden, time seemed to slow down and one single idea crystalized in his mind and a plan came together and gelled.
Jess dove onto the counter, reached behind the oven and, with a quick yank, pulled the gas line free. Immediately, a quiet hiss arose and the faint tang of gas hit Jess' nose. Brian knew what Jess was going for and headed for the door on the far side of the room.
"What the hellya doin'?" screamed the fat man, as Jess darted over to him and grabbed the propane tank hanging off his makeshift holster.
Jules had run over to the waves of the undead and started to swing the tire iron against them to little avail. Jess pushed Brian through the door into the next room. The fat man started hacking away at the dead with the knives in his bandoleers and flesh and blood started flying through the air as the two young men darted through the doorway.
The most unsettling thing Jess noticed was the utter silence in the room. The only sounds were the grunted workings of the two rednecks.
"Guys, unless you've got asbestos underwear, I'd be hustling to get out of there," he called through the doorway.
The gas had filled the entire room quickly; the industrial sized oven had had a larger hose than a standard oven. Jess could smell the strong odor of gas, even in the next room.
Jules and his companion flew through the doorway like bats out of hell and shut the door behind them. Pounding on the big wooden door ensued as Jess lit the propane burner on the end of its long neck. The dead wanted food. Jess was gonna cook for them. The fat man and Jules leaned against the door, holding it closed before the onslaught of the dead.
Jess nodded at the fat man and said, "Now."
The door was opened a scant few inches and Jess tossed the propane tank high over the zombies' heads. "Down!" he screamed.
The earth shook as the room next door went up in a giant ball of flame. The wooden door the zombies had been trying to get through mere seconds before blew out and dissolved into a cloud of splinters. The fireball from the explosion swept into the room and reached across the ceiling.
Jess tapped Brian on the shoulder and motioned for the exit door. The pair got up immediately and darted out of the building and into the night.
Around the corner, Jess could see the army of the dead milling about the main pathway. In moments, the dead could be upon them. He scanned the nearby buildings and realized that they were behind the attractions, where the employees all moved from attraction to attraction during their shift, keeping them away from the eyes of vacationing tourists.
"Where to now?" asked Brian.
Jess shook his head. He had no idea. He just wanted to get out of the damned park. Find Sheila. Go home.
"There." He pointed to a doorway across the pathway. "Let's head in there. Maybe we'll be able to find ourselves some weapons like Jules and his buddy did."
Brian nodded and took off. The pair slipped through the door and stood silent inside the building, just listening for a moment for any indication that the dead were among them. They found themselves in a long, carpeted hallway that ran on for a hundred yards in either direction. Small lights dotted the hallway. After a minute or two with no sound, they moved forward.
"This looks familiar, man," Brian said.
Jess shrugged. "I've been in too many places over the past few days for me to recognize it."
"Not me. I've been down this hallway a couple hundred times. This is the walkway up to 'Renegades of the Islands'."
"Ok, so what do we do? Head to the ride or head toward the exit?"
It was Brian's turn to shrug. "Let's head toward the ride, maybe there are a few more survivors who are more ... normal."
"Or we could run into Jules' cousins. Let's go."
They made their way down the empty hallway in silence, making sure to check all the narrow alcoves for anyone hiding from the monsters.
They came to the loading dock for the pirate ships that took riders into another world, a world of Caribbean plunder and wonder. Standing on the dock, Jess tried to see up through a window into the control booth. Maybe some of the employees were hiding up there.
"Hello!" he called.
And the lights went out, sending the two of them into complete darkness.
Jess called out again, "Hello!"
"What's that?" Brian whispered.
"What? I don't hear anything."
A low rumbling--so deep that Jess felt it in his toes-- vibrated the floorboards. All of a sudden, one of the attractions' pirate ships flew down the final drop and landed in the waterway beside the track. The resulting wave knocked Jess off the dock and into the water. "Shit," he sputtered in the darkness. "Brian, I could use a hand here."
The kid did not respond.
"Brian!" He called into the darkness.
Nothing.
In the darkness, Jess crouched low in the water and scanned the black void before him.
"Brian!" he called again.
And again, there was no response. Jess began to realize just how alone in this new world he could be.
No comments:
Post a Comment