Flash Flood

The Sky is bright and full of sunlight but scattered with clouds so deep and angry that their bottoms are dark and purple. They move with customary grace and uncustomary speed as the people below them light their barbecue grills and children ride their bicycles beyond range of their parent’s protective gaze. Octogenarians go for Sunday drives in paid off Cadillacs and smiling businessmen in polo shirts and cargo shorts enjoy golfing on “members only” fairways.
Above them, the sun stretches it’s arms through the sky in a warm embrace even as the clouds grow steadily into a barrier through which the light can only pass as a dim reflection of itself.
The first drops of rain are nearly unnoticed. People look up having heard the fat spatter of them only to see a rapidly evaporating mark on the warm pavement or sucked into the dry soil or grass of their lawn. Men in “I am a BBQ Master” grilling aprons look up at the sky and wonder absentmindedly whether or not their meat will have time to cook and hiding their downturned mouths after finding that their wives vegetarian burgers are already done. The bicycles come to a sudden stop as the rain droplets, heavier now, splatter off their protective helmets, cold water trickles down beneath their elbow pads and the safety of home suddenly seems impossibly far away.
Without warning the sunlight vanishes behind the darkening clouds and thunder booms over the valleys and neighborhoods. It is dark, so dark that streetlights spring to sudden life. The smell of rain permeates the air, driven down from above and suddenly water fills the air in a torrent. Grills are abandoned and the people flee their backyards to the protection of their roofs. Children peddle their bikes, standing up, rain blurring their vision as the drops pelt them with surprising force. The Cadillacs are pulled over to the side of the road and the streets run ankle deep in water that seems suddenly red and thick.
The houses wash away and the children return to empty lots screaming for their parents and staring at the blood filled holes which is all that remains of their safety and comfort. The Cadillacs become tombs that jostle about in the sudden flood, the occupants crying for the life they spent so much time to find…

Josh awakens with a scream fighting to escape and he narrowly manages to swallow it back down. Gabrielle wakes with a start as well, reaching for the gun she keeps near her at all times.
“What?” she asks, suddenly alert in the darkness “What is it Josh?” He listens to her voice, so steady, so full of resolution.
“Nothing Gab, just a nightmare.” In the darkness he hears the sound of the gun being safetied, the scrape of metal on leather as it is slid back into it’s holster. “Sorry,”
“It’s okay Josh…it’s alright, let’s get some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep Gab…” he says, reaching a hand out in the darkness to cup her face, that adorable apple face that he had grown to love so dearly. Her hand envelops his and she kisses his palm tenderly. As they make love she stifles the moans and bites off her scream as they climax together.

The sunlight that surrounds them in the morning makes Josh smile a bit, not a cloud in the sky. He remembers the dream in perfect clarity, its disturbing scenes running through his mind over and over. He kisses Gabrielle good-bye before she winds her way off to the other end of the long High School corridors and he slings his hunting rifle and climbs to the roof.
“Morning Josh,” Frank says, greeting him. “Sleep well?”
“Nah, I slept like shit last night.”
“Way I heard it, you and Gabrielle both didn’t get much sleep,” Frank replies with a chuckle once more reminding Josh of how small their community was.
“Dirty old man...” Josh stares at him for a moment until they both smile and laugh a little, unslinging his rifle when they do. “Anything to report?”
“All men is dirty,” Frank retorts, “but not too many of us left is that old,” looking back over his shoulder at the bare hills in the distance. “Nob’dy had anything ta report last night, the radio was quiet except for a few dirty jokes…”
“Any word from Johnson or Hewes?” Josh asks, already knowing the answer.
“Nah, told you Josh, give up on ‘em…nobody gone this long is okay…nobody.”
“Yeah, I know Frank,” Josh states, clearing his throat. Will Johnson and Jacob Hewes had been with him from near the beginning, after the riots had begun and when they found out that the virus had begun to…change people.
“What about Preacher? He awake yet?” Josh asks Frank as the man slings his own rifle preparing for his descent down the ladder.
“Josh, Preacher don’t sleep, what’s with you and all the stupid questions?”
“I don’t know Frank, small talk maybe? I’ll seeya later” Josh replies and then turns his back on Frank who stands poised over the ladder and lifts his binoculars to the fields before the school, waiting for the walking dead to arrive and find him waiting.

“I was a school teacher before the end came,” The man known as Preacher states before his assembled flock, “A science teacher!” his voice echoes off the walls of the dark gymnasium and his audience whimpers a bit. “When the hordes of the dead STOOD UP! And walked into the world with groping HANDS! and hungry TEETH! I knew that the science I stood for was GONE!! GONE FOR GOOD!!” Hearing this an old man stands up and walks forward…drops to the hard wood of the basketball court before the Preacher’s raised hands and begins crying…
“I was dead…” the old man whispers, his voice quavering slightly. The Preacher looks down to him, notices the spot on the back of his head where his white hair has thinned and places a hand there.
“He was DEAD” Preacher shouts to the congregation.
“HE WAS DEAD” they shout back.
“NOW HE HAS RETURNED TO US!!”
“NOW HE HAS RETURNED!!”
Preacher lifts his head from the man’s head, kisses his own palm and plants it back in the same spot. “STAND! And live again!!!”.
The man stands on shaky legs, his waterless baptism complete. He turns and takes his seat, the metal legs of the brown folding chair grating on the gym floor.
“BROTHERS AND SISTERS!” Shouts the Preacher, “We have not seen the demon hordes in weeks and I TELL YOU THAT GOD’S PUNISHMENT HAS BEEN METED OUT!!!”
“PRAISE THE CREATOR! OUR TRIBULATION IS OVER!!”

Softly as if whispering, the Preacher speaks “The time to hide is over, we must go forth and prosper among the Earth that the Creator has ceded back to his chosen creation.” He hangs his head then, almost sorrowfully and raises his arms. The congregation stands. He can feel their fear like electricity in the air and he breathes it in like ambrosia. As his sheep make their way out of the gymnasium to perform their days chores, the Preacher stands unmoving until the last departs. The morning light, so bright through the high, dusty gymnasium windows has grown gloomy. The shadows cast off by the few candle lanterns around him dance on the walls. He lowers his arms and exhales.

From her position on the roof of the gymnasium Gabrielle can hear the sermon and watch the fields to the east and north. Every now and then she turns toward where Josh is and can see him scanning the horizon for any sign of the reanimated corpses. He had been sleeping less and less lately. Since Will and Jacob had gone scouting for other survivors to join the Preacher’s flock and not come back. She knows he is having nightmares but he refuses to talk about them and she does not want to push. Putting her mind back to her work she turns the binoculars away from Josh and back to the area she is supposed to be monitoring. There is nothing. There has been nothing for several weeks now. The last ghoul they had seen had rotted beyond belief. When it had appeared, a small dark shape against the crest of the hill, it had been too far off to recognize as living or undead and so they had waited until they were certain that there were no others coming close behind it and went out to meet the thing in the tall grass where they put it down for good. The damn thing had literally come apart when it fell. Not much more than bones and stringy muscle. Worms crawled through it’s decaying flesh and flies buzzed around it. The smell was terrible.
Below her, the Preacher went on about the sins of those that brought evil into the world, the evils of those who depended upon science to save them and the cleansing of God’s earth. Meanwhile, with the hammering thump of the Preacher’s sermon stinging her ears, she continues scanning the horizon, unconcerned about the gathering clouds.

Jacob had never felt such pain in all his life. His abdomen ached and the fever made him feel like he was burning and freezing all at once. Pulling the sleeping bag tighter around him he tosses fitfully as the fever consumes him. He gags hard and then reaches for the plastic trash can he had placed near the mouth of his tent and wretches into it, tossing up the last remaining scraps of the rabbit he had eaten for dinner. For a moment, Jacob thinks to call for Will before he remembers that Will is dead, or as dead as he is like to get in these troubled times. He knows that he needs to get back, needs to warn them that it’s not over, that the storm has not subsided. The Preacher is wrong…they were all wrong.
He and Will had found a city full of them, full of the walking dead. They meandered around in lazy circles, tripped over sidewalk abutments and stared at nothing with lifeless eyes. It had startled both of them badly to see it. They had both wanted so badly to believe Preacher when he said that the dead no longer held the world. After they had found the last ghoul to approach the school, had seen how rotted it was, Preacher had declared that the Creator was sending them a sign; that the world was theirs again…that the walking dead no longer threatened the existence of man. They would find all the dead sleeping peacefully once again and that man would re-establish his dominion over the earth. That was not what they had found at all. They had found that the dead still walked and in numbers more vast than could be counted less than ten miles from the School.
Jacob had gotten Will killed. Both had ventured too close to the city, they wanted to see if they could find anything of value to return with but that had been a mistake. The city was owned by the dead. Once even a few of them had seen him and Will, the moans that echoed through the empty streets of the dead city had alerted them all. Will had run off in another direction, sure that they would follow him and allow Jacob who was the strongest out of the two of them to get safely back to the refuge and warn the others. Will had left him no choice, screaming and hollering as he ran in the other direction and Jacob had run back the way they had come as fast as he was able.
The return trip had been a harried one and circuitous as well. They had no cars any longer, the gas having long since turned to turpentine. The commune had three horses one of whom they sometimes used for travel due to her age the others were used as plow horses. “Cattie” they had called her since she had become competitive with the other two which were also females. In short, there was no transportation for him other than his bike.
He is startled when the tent fly, picked up in a sudden breeze, slaps him in the face. It is cold and wet with the overnight rain and for a moment he is sure that it is Will. He is sure the dead have finally caught up with him and he rolls onto his back, fumbling his pistol out and pointing it upward, squeezing the trigger and hearing the loud *CRACK* as the pistol spends it’s cartridge and tears a 9mm hole through the nylon. The ejected brass casing hits the side of the tent, bounces onto his face and then plops into the mud. In the distance he hears moaning and despite his illness and exhaustion, springs to his feet and pedals like hell for home.

The Kitchen is abuzz with activity as several of the Preacher’s “parishioners” go about the activities of daily survival that they have all grown accustomed to. It is a good system in everyone’s estimation, ensuring that all of them understand how to do all different types of jobs. Robb is the kitchen man. He prepares the meals and menus for all 32 of them that currently reside in the compound. Before the “Great Rebirth” as Preacher had come to call it, Robb had flipped burgers at a fast food restaurant, an existence that seemed meaningless and paltry to him now even though he had been happy at the time. Now Robb was the head “Chef” as Preacher liked to call him and he wore his job as a badge of honor.
Preacher was great at helping people find their “Calling” among the group and every person was happy with the jobs they were assigned. On top of that, they all cross trained on the basic chores so that if someone got sick or died, other people could perform the basic duties until a replacement was found. It was a good system and it ensured that everyone had a purpose and a task to perform.
Today, for the first time since any of them had come here, they would eat beyond the fence. Preacher said it was to re-establish man’s dominion over the earth. There would be a special blessing and Robb himself had men butchering a cow right now for meat. Hopefully the rain would hold off long enough for them to eat.

Josh is looking anxiously at the sky…what he sees there is eerily similar to the dream that had woken him this morning. He shakes this thought from his mind…it was a dream about rain, nothing more. Frank, the old fuddy-duddy has decided to take “Cattie” their old plow horse, out for a trot with his afternoon of freedom.
“As spry as I might seem to be Son,” he had told Josh, “sometimes you just wanna park ‘yer ass in a seat to ride and Cattie is about as close as I’m like to get to a Cadillac these days.” The comment had caused Josh’s stomach to tie in knots and he had begged Frank not to go, but could not bring himself to say why.
“Ahhh, don’t worry bout me young fella’ I’ve got a few years left a livin’ ta do, believe me.” Frank had said in response to Josh’s protest and had climbed back downt he ladder as Josh watched.
Josh picks the rifle up and sets it to his shoulder scanning the horizon for any movement. He can hear the deep rumble of thunder over the sounds of people below talking excitedly as they picnic in the open field before the school. The smell of cooking meat assaults him and his stomach growls, a sound near as fierce as the thunder in the distance. From here, he can see the rain in the distance as well, coming down in sheets. He feels the first few droplets and puts the .270 back in it’s waterproof case to protect it. Then, he picks up his binoculars and opens the umbrella, continuing to scan back and forth.
He hears the startled chatter of the Picnic goers as they crowd themselves beneath the pavilions that have been erected in case the rain tried to ruin their celebration. With sudden violence the rain arrives, water pours down on them in fat, heavy drops that roar as they strike everything around him. He watches the panicked picnickers as they huddle closer to avoid the sheeting rain which, driven by the wind makes their pavilion nearly useless.
The roar of the rain and thunder subsides for only the briefest of moments as the wind shifts and for that moment he hears the shrill sound of a whistle to his left, from where Gabrielle plays lookout. He turns the goggles towards her and sees that she is excitedly pointing to the north, past the point where he can see, but he knows what she means. He picks up the radio by his side and turns it on, she wants to talk. They often turn the radios off to conserve batteries. Most of the solar panels had failed and keeping the radio batteries charged was a difficult task.
He switches the radio on and hears Gab’s terrified voice over the channel.
“—dead, from the north…h-h-undred’s, thousands!” He can tell how scared she is, He picks up his own whistle and begins blowing but the wind is back up and the pavilions flap in the rain. Suddenly, without warning, they begin to run back towards the safety of their home, the shelter of a roof that will protect them. Josh smiles. Even if there are thousands they had dealt with large numbers before. It was a bother, nothing more. He turned back towards Gab and looked at her through the binoculars, she was no longer in sight. Clearly there was something amiss. He grabbed the gun case and the radio and ran across the roof top to fid her.

Gabrielle is looking through her rifle scope and squeezes off a shot. The rain throws the bullet off trajectory and a dead man’s chest absorbs the round, knocking him off balance and into the mud. There are more than hundred’s she thinks, more than thousands. There may be tens of thousands, maybe more…for the first time in a year or more, she realizes how foolish she had been to think herself safe. She pulls the bolt back and a spent cartridge zips out of the chamber and on the rain slicked roof with a barely audible hiss. She slams the bolt forward chambering another cartridge, zeros the target one more time and squeezes. In the distance a woman’s head explodes and what’s left of her topples backward then surges forward as the tide of the undead pushes her mortal remains ahead of them. Two or three trip over the carcass and the others flow over them like a flash flood in a sudden storm. They are packed so tightly that the main advance seems more like a wall than a group of individuals. Behind her she hears Josh running across the gym roof to her side, he takes out his rifle and then sprawls beside her in the gathering puddles. As they fire, thunder rolls over them in a low steady rumble and the flood of dead men breaks around the walls of their refuge enveloping it.

Frank likes the way Cattie walks. He’s had arthritis in his hip for years now but her gently swinging flanks have always seemed to dull the pain for reasons he cannot even begin to imagine.
The clouds in the sky are getting darker and he can smell rain in the rising wind but there was never anything wrong with rain. He closes his eyes and thinks how he had spent much of his life trying to get out from underneath some type of rain or another and he was too old to run from it now. Despite the horror of the last few years, he was happy with how his life had turned out overall, a respected member of a community like theirs. Nobody ever tried to put him in a nursing home…
The first rain drop hits him in the forehead so hard that it stings him and for a moment he thinks that he has hit a bumblebee while 60 miles per hour on a motorcycle. That happened to him once back in ’72 and he had wrecked. He’d spent 2 weeks in the hospital and never ridden again. It is so shocking that when he opens his eyes to react he barely has time to register what is in front of him.

Jacob believes strongly that he is nearing the School now. He began recognizing landmarks an hour ago and by his estimation he circled to the east of the school hoping to lead the army of the undead at his back away from his fellow survivors long enough to warn them. The rain, a sudden torrential downpour which had started an hour ago and drenched his clothes threatened to claim the last of his strength as well. His illness had gotten far worse in this last bit of travel and he nearly felt like one of THEM, barely able to walk let alone stand. He puts his feet to the pedals of his bike and begins peddling down the cracked and muddied roadway through the sudden storm.

Robb thinks about the mess they will need to clean up once the rain subsides. Outside he can see the tables and chairs they had set up now blown over and soaked. The pavilions had torn loose of their moorings and were cart-wheeling across the open yard. He could still hear measured bursts of thunder that seem odd to him but he is more concerned with his wonderful setup which is now scattered about the old recreational fields and caught in the fencing around what the gardeners referred to as the “Produce Aisle”. Catching movement coming from his right, his first thought is that someone was left out in the rain but then he hears the moaning, so many strained voices and knows that they are in serious trouble. Robb rushes forward to close the gated entrance, the one they had left open in their haste to get inside but it is far too late when he gets there. He is unable to even warn the others before he is drowned in a flash flood of the undead. In his last moments, as he feels the rotted teeth biting into his flesh, he hears a rumble of thunder and realizes that the thunder before had been gunshots and then he realizes nothing ever again.

Josh and Gabrielle climb from the roof and run as fast as they can into the building. They can hear screams and people begging for mercy as they enter through the causeway next to gym. As they enter the building the smell hits them, the smell of putrefying flesh and they turn sharply and return to the causeway. Soon enough they dead will be on them and Josh takes Gabrielle by the hand and leads her once again to the roof.

Frank knows he is done, and Cattie is no runner. The number of the dead that lay beyond the crest of the hill are as uncountable as the stars and with them is a hard rain that stings him with each icy drop. He hangs his head and crosses himself. He’d never been much of a religious man, but now is a better time than never to make peace with your maker. He slips the revolver from its holster on his hip. It is a western style holster, the type he likes to carry when he rides on ‘ol Cattie so he can feel like a Cowboy. A single tear mixes with the rain on his face before he sticks the .357 in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

The flood of the undead washes through the hallways of the old high school turning them into rivers of blood and rot. Five survivors hole up in the kitchen for several hours before the weight of the bodies on the other side of the door weaken it to the point it crashes in. Robb had managed to get the stoves working on natural gas and the survivors knowing that their end was assured had leaked the gas out into the room where it collected for an hour before the door caved in. As soon as that happened, one of them flicked a lighter and the kitchen exploded into fireball that could be seen for miles.

Josh and Gabrielle sat on the roof in a puddle and held each other as they listened to their friends die in wailing agony. When the screaming had stopped, they held each other more tightly and made love in the cold rain for the last time.

Jacob watched as the tide of reanimated corpses streamed through the hallways and meandered around the grounds of the school from the other end of his high power binoculars. He scanned the grounds and then lifted the binoculars to the roof and his heart leaped. He could see Josh and Gab on the roof, holding each other. Without warning thunder rolled across the hills and orange yellow light exploded in his vision. He scanned back and saw that the part of the building that housed the kitchen was a charred hole in the building and debris scattered through the air in smoking arcs. Again without warning, the gym began to crumble inward, the force of the explosion having damaged it’s infrastructure and in moments Josh and Gabrielle slid into a pool of the living dead.

On a hillside, not too far from the School, Preacher sits and lets the rain cover him like a baptism. He had come here to seek some solace in an old hobby from another. In his left hand, he holds a small white ball and in his right a golf club. Digging into his pocket he hears the screams as people run in from the downpour, looks out over the field and sees the Creator's army as it washes down over the northern hill towards the School. He hears the gunshots, even over the torrent of rain and wind. Setting the ball down on the Tee he has already placed in the damp earth, he lines up his shot and swings the club first back, then forward. There is a satisfying "Ping" as the clubface makes contact with the Golf Ball and it sails off towards the school in an arc that brings it satisfyingly close to the gated entrance of the building. Easily a 350 yard drive. He smiles as he watches the sudden river of walking dead pouring in through the open entrance. They had sinned against the Creator he felt, and not listened to his teachings. Now they would pay the price and he would find another flock to teach. The Creator had saved him again. Without undo haste he collects his few belongings; a wide brimmed hat, a cane, a few cans of food, a bottle of water and a fresh change of clothes. He offers his thanks to the One who created him and walked out to the east of the High School Campus.

Jacob can see him walking towards him. "Preacher" he thinks to himself although the fever made him think he must be delusional. The man wore a wide brimmed hat and made a straight line of travel towards him as soon as he had noticed Jacob lying in the rain, dying in the rain. He leans down over Jacob and peels back Jacobs sleeve to see the festering bite wound there. It is too late for the Preacher to recoil, by then the man that Jacob had been is dead. Preacher's last thought as the teeth sink into him is only that he doesn't understand as gnashing teeth swallow him, bite by bite.