Pandora (Book 5): Behold A Pale Horse Page 19

  “We didn’t want to lose you,” Erica said.

  “We had to do something,” Dwayne said. “We couldn’t let him do it again.”

  Absolutely stunned, Patrick looked at all of them and said, “How…how did it happen?”

  Dwayne explained last night’s discussion. He told his father of the walkie-talkies and disco light. He explained exactly how they set the entire trap up. When he got to the part of the Queen song Another One Bites the Dust, Patrick had to cover his mouth with his hand as he tried not to laugh.

  When they had finished explaining themselves, Patrick sat there for a minute. Nothing in the Parenting 101 manual remotely covered this scenario. It frightened him a little that they could have concocted this is coldly as they did. But as they said, it’s a different world and protecting yourself and your loved ones was going to require a completely revamped skill set. This apparently was the way was now. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

  §§§

  Carl Rabner and his family had just entered the ramp to the New York Thruway. The entire northbound roadway was littered with vehicles of all kinds as far as he could see. There had been numerous accidents along the way, several of which were still burning. Black, oily smoke plumed into the sky. Along the shoulders and amongst the cars zombies roamed. Carl tried to keep a steady speed as he veered around the abandoned cars; sometimes driving the shoulder to avoid multiple accidents. A goodly number of cars were filled with the undead. They snarled in muffled silence as he passed, blood smeared hands banging on the windows. The most terrifying and disturbing were the creatures that roamed the Thruway. A number of these had been mangled in accidents and would stumble along, throwing their twisted bodies at the Navigator as it passed. This brought Jason back his ride home from college. He had been through this before. But to his parents, this was a new and horrible nightmare landscape out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. It seemed unending.

  §§§

  The cell phone rang and Patrick picked it up. He looked at the number and answered.

  “Hello, Mike.”

  Without preamble, his brother said, “I can’t get a hold of mom.”

  “What?”

  “She’s not answering her phone. I’ve called at least a dozen times now. She’s not picking up,” Mike said, distraught.

  “Let me try,” Patrick said. “I’ll call you right back.”

  Hanging up, he dialed his mother’s number. Sure enough, it rang and rang until voicemail picked up. He tried again with the same result. Walking over to the hall table, Patrick opened the drawer. Rooting around among the spare keys and random papers, he found the note he was looking for. It was his mother’s next-door neighbor and best friend. Dialing her number he got a busy signal. Encouraged, he tried it seven more times over the next twenty minutes. Still getting a busy signal, he called the operator to cut in.

  I’m sorry, an electronic voice said, there is no one available to assist you right now. Please call back again later.

  He called his mother’s number back to leave another message, with his time her mailbox was full.

  “Shit,” he cursed. He was very worried. After the last conversation with her, he knew that this was trouble. He then called his brother back.

  “I can’t reach her either,” he said as his brother picked up. “Yesterday, she told me that the zombies had broken into their building. They had swarmed the lobby, but couldn’t get up any further because they had blocked the elevators.”

  “What about the stairs?” Mike asked. “Did they block those, also?”

  “I don’t know,” Patrick admitted. There was silence on both ends as they both tried to think.

  “This doesn’t look good,” Mike said. “With the building compromised, anything can happen.” Patrick stayed silent, unwilling to state the obvious.

  Then Mike told him, “Pat, I want you here.”

  “What?” Patrick said, “You want me to travel down to you?”

  “Yes,” Mike said, nodding, “into the fallout shelter I have. We can all wait it out down there.”

  “But –” started Patrick.

  “I have enough food and water for us all. Patrick, it’s the only way. Bring everybody here to us.”

  “Mike,” Patrick said, “do you know what the roads are like?”

  “Yeah, I do,” he answered. “And they’re only going to get worse. As people get more and more desperate, you are going to have a lot more to worry about than just the undead.”

  Patrick thought of what his brother was saying. As he did, he unconsciously touched his wound. He was standing in the living room and as he looked outside the window he could see the zombies wandering the street and lawns.

  “I don’t know, Mike,” he said hesitantly.

  Mike let out a breath in exasperation. “Listen,” he said in a final plea, “I know that we’re down to maybe three channels on television now, but listen to what they’re saying. The dead are multiplying. If they spot you, they’ll come at you in droves. Fires have been raging out of control. I’ll bet you already picked the neighborhood clean the food and water by now. Am I right? If you try sneaking over to the next block or the one after that – if you’re not spotted by the zombies and chased home, there’s probably going to be another guy there with the same idea. But he’ll put a bullet in you for that can of soup sitting there.”

  Patrick ran dozens of scenarios in his head, but they all came down to the same result. He knew Mike was right. Closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead with his free hand, Patrick said, “Let me talk it over with the kids, Mike. I’ll let you know. Okay?”

  “Don’t wait too long, Pat.”

  §§§

  The Lincoln Navigator idled in the middle of the highway. The three occupants were staring out the front windshield. A very large tractor-trailer had jackknifed across the lanes. It had been carrying a large load of construction supplies. These had broken loose as the trailer upended and now steel girders were strewn along the road. Several cars had crashed into the truck and a couple more had been crushed by the falling beams. The pungent odor of spilled gasoline filled the air.

  “We can’t get through this,” Carl said in defeat. There were guard rails on both sides of them so they couldn’t leave the highway.

  Jason had a thought. “Hey, Dad,” he said, “let’s go back to the last exit. We just passed it. We’ll get off and then get onto the southbound lanes and drive north on that. There are only a couple of cars there.”

  Carl looked over the divider. The amount of abandoned cars on that side was minimal and only a couple of cars had passed going south. They should make it if they kept in the slow lane and used the shoulder when a car approached.

  “Great idea, Jason,” he said.

  They turned back around and drove to the exit ramp. Swinging wide, they took that down and crossed under the highway. Getting onto the exit ramp there they wound up now going north once again.

  Things were going well for about an hour, until they came upon an airplane that had tried to make a crash landing on the throughway. It wasn’t a large airliner, but big enough. It hit a large, steel highway sign which ripped the wing off and sent the fuselage careening down the asphalt sideways as the wheels collapsed. It had then skidded off the roadway, tore through some brush and saplings and into a school that sat next to the highway, where it exploded. It must have been a raging inferno because the entire plane, building and roadway were nothing but charred metal and rubble that had melted into the asphalt. Leaking aviation fuel had caught fire in a long line of destruction that followed the airliner’s path. Blackened hulks of vehicles littered the sides of the road where the hurling plane threw them aside, leaving a wake of charred debris. The plane crash must have happened that first Saturday because the fires were completely out and no planes had flown afterwards.

  Not being able to continue any further, Carl turned off the road where the guard rail had been ripped out. He entered the blackened school parking lot, making a wide be
rth around the destruction there. He found himself on a local road. He planned to drive parallel to the highway so eventually he would be able to enter it again.

  But the road that he was on soon veered away from the highway and he quickly lost sight of it. Having to then take several detours because of accidents, zombies and in one case, a furiously burning building, Carl soon found himself driving in the middle of nowhere. The elevation started to rise as he drove up into the mountains.

  “Dad,” Jason said from the backseat, “maybe we should turn around. I think we’re getting farther and farther away from where we want to be.”

  “Okay,” Carl said, “the first spot I find, I’ll pull into, then turn around.”

  They drove for another mile on the curving back road. As they rounded a tight bend, they saw several cars pulled off to the side. A few had their doors open. A pickup truck was angled on the road. They slowed and Carl attempted to pull around the truck.

  Suddenly, two men stepped out into the gap. The man in front, tall and thin, was holding a handgun straight out in front of him pointed at the Lincoln’s windshield. Behind him, a large, muscular man was holding a baseball bat. Carl immediately stopped the SUV.

  “Get out of the car,” the man holding the gun shouted.

  “Go through them, Dad,” Jason whispered.

  Just then three other men appeared along the side of the road. All were armed with weapons of some kind. One man, scruffy with long hair, held a rifle on them.

  The first man walked over to the Lincoln, never letting the gun waiver.

  “I said, get out,” he repeated. All three passengers sat stunned.

  The tall man cocked the hammer on his revolver with his thumb. Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Don’t make me say it again.”

  Carl put the vehicle in park. He said softly, “Stay here.” Opening his door, he stood up. He had his hands spread and resting on top of the roof.

  “I’m not armed,” he said. “We don’t mean any harm and we don’t want any trouble. All we want to do is pass through.”

  The man walked over to the passenger side of the car. He still has gun pointed at Carl. Glancing down quickly, he put his hand on the door handle and pulled. It was locked. He looked down at Rachel Rabner and his face grew red and angry. She meekly unlocked the door. The man again pulled the handle and swung the door wide open.

  Carl started to say, “Please, just let us –” when the man reached in, grabbed a fistful of Rachel’s blouse and yanked her roughly out of the SUV. The three men on the side of the road moved in closer. One of them had a machete resting on his shoulder. They all smiled cruelly.

  As soon as Rachel stumbled to her feet, the man threw her into the arms of the three men now standing behind him.

  “What are you doing?” Carl shouted.

  “Here,” the tall man said to the three now dragging the screaming woman off the road. “Take her into the ravine there. In case another car comes, I don’t want to scare them off.”

  Seeing them start to drag his mother down the embankment, Jason swung open the back door and jumped out of the car.

  “Let go of my mother, you fucking –” he said as he rushed around the door.

  The tall man spun and swung the barrel of his revolver at Jason’s head. It caught the young man in the temple, opening a huge gash above his eye. He fell against the door and landed on his back in the road.

  “Stay down, asshole,” the man yelled.

  Carl had looked behind him as he ran around the door. In his peripheral vision he saw a half-dozen dead bodies piled down the embankment on his side. Some were half naked. Seeing his son fall, he ran around the front of the car when a baseball bat hit him in the hip. He fell against the grille, and then pulled himself back up.

  The tall man then turned, looking at him in disgust. “Oh, hell no,” he growled.

  Raising his gun, he fired, hitting Carl in the chest. He crumpled down the front of the Lincoln and fell into the road. The man looked at him for a second and then turned and started toward the screams coming from the ravine on the other side of the road. A movement caught his eye. He turned and saw Jason trying to pull himself up onto the door. Blood was pouring from the gash on his head. He looked dazed.

  The man stopped and said, “What are you deaf or just stupid? I told you to stay down.” Then, he shot Jason in the head and continued on his way.

  § § §

  “I think we should stay here,” Erica said.

  “I agree,” said Dwayne.

  Patrick looked at Greta and Billy.

  “Our votes count, too?” Greta said.

  “You’re part of the extended family now,” Patrick said.

  “I don’t know,” Greta said a bit uncomfortably. “Maybe we should go there. It could be a lot safer.”

  Billy bit his lip in thought. “A fallout shelter, huh? Could be cool. And you told us that he has a bunch of guns. We could probably use those.” He paused, and then said, “I’d hate leaving though. This town is home.”

  “Let’s give it a few more days,” said Patrick. “We’ll see how this plays out and make a definite decision.”

  OneWeek Later…

  “Hey, Mr. S,” Billy called. “Come here a second.” As Patrick walked over to the side window, Billy said, “It’s Mrs. Travertini.”

  Patrick looked out the side living room window. Across the way was the Travertini home. Mrs. Travertini sat at the window looking at them. She looked dreadful. Phyllis Travertini was always a very thin woman. But now she looked gaunt. Her large, sad eyes looked sunken in. She was an avid jogger, but Patrick had always thought she was too skinny. Now she sat in the window looking frail and lost. Phyllis reached down and held up a piece of cardboard. Written on it in magic marker were the words: I’M HUNGRY.

  “She looks like she’s starving,” Billy said.

  Patrick gave her a commiserating look and nodded. He knew that they had just enough food and water left with three more days. There was nothing he could do.

  She looked down again, and then held another piece of cardboard. This one said: YOU HAVE FOOD?

  Patrick winced and then shook his head no. She looked desperate. Billy looked at Patrick and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “There’s nothing we can give her?” he asked.

  Patrick looked at him and shook his head. “We only have enough left for three days,” he said.

  They both looked back at the woman. Patrick started to shrug, but the look on the woman’s face made him freeze. She saw only their gestures and misinterpreted their actions. Her eyes flared and she looked furious. She took the sign down and wrote something on it.

  When she held it up again, the question mark was crossed out. Now it read: YOU HAVE FOOD. She angrily leaned forward stabbing her finger at the words, and then pointing her finger, accusingly, at them. Her sunken eyes were glaring wildly as she pressed her thin lips together tightly. Patrick vigorously shook his head no and raised his palms up in a helpless shrug. This just seemed to infuriate her more. She started to curse. At least he thought so, as he couldn’t hear her. She threw the sign at the window as she jumped up. Raising her thin arm up, she stuck her middle finger up at them.

  “Oh, shit,” murmured Billy.

  She turned from the window, knocking the small table over. She spun back, pointed at them incriminatingly and then disappeared.

  “Jesus Christ,” Patrick said aloud. “She’s gone crazy.”

  Then they heard the sound of her front door being slammed open. Looking at each other fearfully, they ran to the living room window and peeked through the shades.

  Phyllis Travertini was on her front porch and running down the steps. As soon as the front door was flung open, every zombie nearby turned around as one. Immediately, they began to growl and moan loudly as they started to converge on the slight figure that had just appeared. She ran across her front yard and onto Patrick’s lawn, heading for his front door.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” he repe
ated in a rapidly rising voice. “What the hell are you doing?”

  As the other three came running into the living room, Erica yelled, “What’s going on?”

  Turning to them, Billy said frantically, “It’s the lady from next door. She’s coming here.”

  “What?” cried Dwayne.

  Phyllis ran across the Shannons’ lawn and up to their entrance. She started pounding and kicking at the front door.

  “Let me in,” she screamed, “let me in. You have food. I need to eat.” She was cursing and crying hysterically, continually beating on their wooden door. Zombies from the entire block stumbled toward the Shannon house, roused by the woman’s cries. Their snarls and groans filled the air.