Small Town Saturday Night: Part Four

Darkness. Comfort. Silence... Itching. Hurting. Hunger. Sounds. Open eyes.
The body that sat up now in the middle of an aisle of a supermarket had recently undergone a series of massive changes. The large, gaping chasms that riddled the trunk of the body let tattered flesh hang loose. There were blood stains on the clothes surrounding the wounds, but the actual bleeding had stopped. Arterial spray was splattered on cheap clothes and bits of gore and bone and tooth formed a sort of hellish halo around the silhouette of where the head of this thing had lain on the floor.
Saliva from several different infected still mingled with this one's own bodily fluids. It was through this saliva that the great catalyst of walking death was transferred to the body. The Campion Virus, as it was called, ravaged every inch of its host down to a molecular level. Blood pressure increased dramatically, and many of the veins and capillaries burst under the pressure, scarring the muscles and eyes. Involuntary rasps and groans escaped from between crusty lips as the disease continually bombarded the muscles and gastro-intestinal tracts of its victim. Twitches and jerks became constant. Unable to assert control over their CNS or musculo-skeletal systems, the newly-turned dead move with an awkward gait at best. The worst part is the maddening new hunger that burns inside their guts...
Marley pushed her way off the ground and stood up. Scanning the store with new eyes, she couldn't see anything that warranted her attention. She started walking forward, but found it difficult due to the missing chunks of muscle tissue in her legs. Her skin burned as if it were on fire, and her head felt like it was going to explode. Functioning on nothing above instinct now, she moved in the direction that her sense of smell took her, which was straight ahead, and to the right. Rounding the last rack of clothes, she came upon a recently downed human who was in the process of being devoured by another one of her kind. The scent of his flesh was intoxicating, and made it far too much for her to resist getting back down on all fours and latching onto the carcass. Maybe this would stop the pain...


When I woke up, it was still dark outside. Judging by the faint duskiness that still clung to scenery outside the window, it must have been just at the onset of night. Blinking and rubbing my eyes as I sat up in the bed, I looked around. From the looks of things, I was inside some sort of RV, and to the rear of it. An unused television sat on a stand at the foot of the bed. Pill bottles and a glass of water stood at the ready on a nightstand by the bed. The curtains and blinds were pulled, and I felt safe enough to stand up and move around without the fear of being detected from the outside.
Not hearing any sounds coming from beyond my little enclave, I decided that I was alone inside the vehicle and set about addressing some needs. My throat burned viciously, and I reached for the water and drank half of the glass without a breath. I picked up the pill bottles and looked at them: Xanax and Percocet. One for the pain and one to sleep. Nice. I opened the one on the left and shelled out a handful of the little oblong yellow pills, and placed them in my pocket. I was sure my benefactor wouldn't have a problem with a newly-formed drug addict indulging a bit at his expense. The fact that I had to shoot my wife and brother-in-law and watch my mother get eaten alive doesn't really lay a solid foundation for making correct moral decisions all the time. Oh well.
I made my way down the hallway and into the kitchen area of the RV. Papers and manilla folders lay strewn about a small table that was set into an 'L' shaped bench. I rifled through the ones on top, discarding them quickly and moving on to the ones underneath. It was then that I came upon a folder with a key scotch-taped to the inside flap, and papers that had an all-too-familiar name written and/or signed on all of them, my father's name. What the hell was this guy doing with my Dad's shit? Titles to cars, signed affidavits, pictures; what the hell is going on here? It suddenly became clear to me that this was not the place that I needed to stay and recuperate in. If that smiley bastard that helped me out at the department store had anything to do with some of the things it looked like he was, I was going to find out.
My shotgun was nowhere to be seen, but I did feel the reassurance of my machete strapped to my right leg. I moved to the front door, and opened it up as quietly as I could. Sticking my head outside, I seen something that I hadn't seen in a long time: nothing at all. No shambling corpses, no twitching runners, nothing. I eased out of the door, and closed it behind me. There were several vehicles in the makeshift driveway to the camp site. Going around to each one of them, I looked inside to try and spot some keys. It wasn't until I came to the last one in the back of the line, an extended cab full-size pickup truck, that I hit pay dirt.
I hadn't heard him at all, and damn he was quick. Cold steel pressed itself into the back of my head...