Insurance (3rd installment)

Neal wasn’t sure what to do. The other two men had taken on a sinister demeanor and the gorgeous lady doctor had been electrocuted. Shocked unconscious at least. Al held a great advantage in his hand and his own pink defense was still lying on the floor. It occurred to him that he was not the hero type at all, and it made him a little sad and more than a little self-conscious.
He bent down to help Gautier with the unconscious woman when two of the local crazies burst through the door. One was waving what appeared to be a chair leg. He was covered in blood. The other one had a fork sticking out of his forehead and was wearing only one shoe. They both seemed to have had their fair share of violent encounters this morning but were still hankering for at least one more. Neal instinctively drew the derringer but a glance at Al who had traded the Taser for a hand cannon and he went for the pink gun on the floor.
“You have to shoot them in the head,” he informed the policeman.
“Why?” asked the chief. He shot Mr. Chair-leg in the chest and Mr. Fork-in-the-head in the neck. They both fell, squirmed and writhed in agony, then bled out on the floor. “They are not zombies,” he said. He also could speak with a great deal of derision.
“Well then, just what the fuck are they?’ Neal demanded. Just how much of this insanity a person could take was worrying him. He was sure something like this would lead to multiple sessions with a shrink. Some kind of support group certainly. Maybe even a trip to the loony bin.
“They are victims. There was a terrible accident at the lab and they are the victims of that accident.” Gautier’s explanation sounded more like he was practicing his testimony for someone far more important than Neal. “It was an industrial accident. A valve stuck and the chemical agents were released into the air. It was the cloud, the brouillard bleu, the blue fog that covered the village this morning.” It was like he was reading off of a cue card.
“That’s what she was carrying on about,” Neal exclaimed, pointing at the prostrate doctor. “She said something about fog babies or fog children.” Fog children made little sense but more sense than scrambled ones.
Al waved his gun hand dismissively. “She is disturbed. This has been too much for her. She has lost touch with reality. She believes the fog is alive and choosing its victims. But that is ridiculous,” Neal thought about how the blue fog looked to be searching this morning when he had seen it out his window.
“Then how come we are OK?” asked Maggie. “What about others?” She was holding on to Al again, so tightly her nails began to draw blood.
“It affects about ninety percent of the population. Destroys some brain function. Drives them mad as you have seen.” The man who seemed at first to be a security guard sure had a lot of information Neal thought.
“And its original use was to control the deer population?” Neal was more than skeptical. Gautier just shrugged. He wasn’t even trying to be convincing at this point. “Is there a cure? So what do we do now? We can’t call out.”
“Nothing. Just sit and wait. The proper authorities have been notified. They have terminated communications to stop a widespread panic. The National Guard or the county sheriff will set up a perimeter and contain the situation. The CDC has been notified. Nothing to do but sit and wait.” Everything that Chief Al Bukowski said sounded very well-rehearsed. Terminated communications? Really Al, Neal thought. No one mentioned a cure, and it was forgotten.
“I can’t just wait here, Al. I have to go and check on my parents. Tell them that Richard is dead. Oh shit, I have to tell my sister.” He then recounted the morning’s events, along with Maggie’s input, to the two men in the police station. Dr. DeForest had been taken to AL’s office and was still unconscious on his couch.
They discussed their present situation, with Neal being the only one not content to sit and wait. He spent considerable time in the bathroom cleaning off bits of other people. He returned the pink gun to Maggie in exchange for Damian Sartre’s police issue Beretta. Al gave him three extra magazines and a handful of .45s for the derringer. “For insurance,” he said with a wry smile. He also let him know that as the chief of police, it was his official position that Neal should stay in the police station. However, since it may very well be the apocalypse, he would allow him to leave.
Neal bristled a little at being ‘allowed’ to leave but he kept his mouth shut. He knew very well how small town cops could get when their authority was called into question. Besides, when it came right down to it, Al probably had the right and maybe even the responsibility to make him sit and wait. With martial law and emergency procedures and all that jazz, Neal could see how letting a civilian run around shooting your constituency, crazy though they may be, was not the best idea. Someone would show up shortly to shut this party down, Neal just couldn’t wait any longer. He had to check on his mom and dad and his widowed sister. He thought about retrieving Richard’s body, but, no. that wasn’t going to happen. Just grab a car and go.
Maggie’s car was too small for any type of rescue mission that may arise. Inexplicably, there wasn’t a single police cruiser around. Al had driven his personal car in. One look at the ten-year-old SUV, and the arm dangling from somewhere underneath, and Neal knew Al had taken the scenic route into work today. Strangely, the little yellow Fiat in the front and the worst for wear Buick in the back were the only vehicles to be seen. How the two French members of this little soiree got here was a mystery. Perhaps they were dropped off. Neal thought better of asking Gautier for any additional info. He really did not like that man. Besides, he was sure both Gautier and Al were full of shit.
He thought about asking Al for an idea on transportation but dismissed it as well. He had a creepy feeling that Maggie’s loving husband was somehow complicit in whatever was going on. He didn’t know how or why just that something wasn’t right. Something besides 1500 homicidal maniacs running amok in Kermit, that was. He couldn’t walk the ten miles or so to his parent’s subdivision but stealing a car was probably not too hard considering the way things were. Also, getting murdered was very high on the current probability list.
His own car was a consideration, but being right in the center of Crazy Town made it somewhat of a less than appealing choice. A few blocks over stood the firehouse. Even though Kermit had an all-volunteer fire department, certainly someone would have been on duty this morning. Then again, something about Al not mentioning them at all when he talked about ‘protocol’ made Neal a little worried. As he mentally made the walk from the police station to fire station he passed the village’s maintenance department. They had several pickup trucks, a dump truck, and other various vehicles always sitting in the parking lot, albeit behind an eight-foot chain link fence. He had worked a summer there and was sure he could get in and out without too much trouble. Hell, he thought, those lazy asses probably haven’t even shown up for work yet.
Neal considered telling everyone his plans but decided on not even letting them know when he left. He waited until they were gathered around Dr. DeForest, who was slowly regaining consciousness, to slip out the back door. He decided against locking the door in case he had to make a hasty return, and felt a little guilty for leaving them potentially open to an attack. Well, maybe they should be keeping a lookout rather than electrocuting beautiful French doctors, Neal told himself.
Outside the rear parking lot and the street that ran alongside it were empty. He could hear yells and occasional gunfire in the distance. It really wasn’t all that different from any other summer morning in Kermit. Kids could be heard from the nearby Horne Park playing basketball most mornings and afternoons or maybe Smear the Queer and since Kermit was located in a heavily wooded rural setting, hunters or gun enthusiasts were often heard shooting at something. He told himself it wasn’t really much different, but creeping down Water Street holding a dead cop’s 9mm Beretta made it very different. And it didn’t help that he had blown the dead cop’s head all over the place. A regular Dirty Harry, he thought with a small grim laugh.
When he had finally made his way to the village’s maintenance building, his heart sank. Sank to his feet someone might have said. This felt more like it sank straight through to China. Actually, the Indian Ocean to be precise. The fenced in area was crawling with what had yesterday been townspeople. He recognized a few of them as village employees. Shit. There were more of them inside the offices. He could see them, hear them, pounding on the glass, growling at him, snapping their frothing jaws. A few were banging their bloody heads on the glass, leaving smudges and streaks of translucent crimson. It was kind of a pretty color, he thought, with the morning sun shining on the glass.
Suddenly there was a loud crack, loud enough to make Neal jump. Then the sound of the big front window exploding outward from the force of a dozen ferocious and furiously clawing villagers, pushing their way through the opening. The glittering glass seemed to be suspended in the air for a moment. It too seemed strangely beautiful, like tinsel on a Christmas tree. The fenced in contingent went wild, screaming and shaking the chain link, trying to climb, trying to recall recently forgotten motor skills.
“Fuck,” Neal shouted. He started right, then left, then right again, like a spastic running back looking for a hole in the defense. If this were a movie, they would never catch him. Not with their lumbering gait and stiff-jointed movements. But he recalled how quickly Dorian Sartre had snatched him up by his scrawny neck and shouted “Fuck” once more. “Time’s awastin’ boy,” he heard his long dead grandpa say. It was a favorite of his.
Neal’s feet became unstuck to the asphalt parking lot and he ran as fast as he could down Water Street. There wasn’t any point in looking behind him, common sense told him that they were hot on his trail. Then, in the back yard of a crappy old house that had been turned into a duplex, there sat his salvation. It was a Hummer, and an H1, not the cheesy civilian soccer mom bullshit version either. “Christ on a cracker,” Neal yelled. It was another of Grandpa Dougherty’s favorite exclamations.
Neal knew this car well. It belonged to that dick that was the latest dick that was dating the girl that he had had a crush on since the ninth grade. He liked Noel Farkas before that, but the summer vacation between eighth and ninth grades the boob fairy had come to visit. They were friends but after fourteen years of trying, he had never got in her size one, two hundred dollar, Rag and Bone skinny jeans. No, he hadn’t, but that colossal penis Adrian Brimmer had. And Neal was his insurance agent. Oh, how very droll. The Hummer was still running, so Neal hopped in, slammed the door, and threw it into reverse. Spinning tires and slinging mud, he tore out of the dirt patch of a yard and backed down Water Street. He ran over three of his fastest pursuers, but at seeing the horde still running toward him, he changed his mind and gears and sped away.
He glanced quickly over at the two-story shack from where he had just acquired his ride and seeing no one objecting to his taking of the Hummer, he floored it. He laughed a little. For the first time since things had gone to Hell, he thought that everything might still work out. Then he smashed into gimpy Marta Houtman, still with her dress over her head. The poor spindly spinster librarian literally exploded on impact. He slammed on the brakes and the old gal flew into a rose bush on the side of the road. There wasn't anything more to her than a head on a bloody dish rag. She gnashed her teeth once more and he slammed down the accelerator. Tough old bird.
He bounced down the side streets of Kermit, headed for Oak Crest subdivision. He barely noticed anything going on to the left or right of him. He paid no attention to the people walking aimless around in yards or parking lots and certainly not the wisps of blue still lingering in the low areas and ditch lines. The Hummer sputtered. Damn, he thought. It sputtered again. He looked wildly around the vehicle, everything was suspect, and then his eyes settled on the gauges. Maybe some of old Marta got stuck in the engine compartment. It coughed and jerked. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” he cried. It was out of gas. That massive douchebag Brimmer couldn’t even fill his tank up. Too busy porking Noel, a mean little voice inside him said. The Hummer wheezed its last and died. He pounded on the steering wheel, as if that would bring it back to life. “Shit!” he exclaimed, then added a whole string of little shits to it, as he coasted down the street still doing fifty miles an hour.
Suddenly, two townspeople appeared in front of the rolling Hummer, complete with bulging eyes and frothing mouths. He struck them head on, but with not enough force to throw them as he had done with Marta. They managed to hang on somehow and he thought that they were actually climbing onto the hood. He swerved crazily in an attempt to dislodge his new passengers, but they seemed un-moveable. He was beginning to slow at a frightening pace, they would soon be on top of him, trapping him in the dead car. In desperation, he turned into a driveway and rolled without braking into a parked van. He didn’t hear them scream, in fact, their expressions were more of rage than pain. After a few feeble attempts at extricating themselves from the wreckage, they slumped onto the Hummer’s hood, blood trailing from their mouths to join the large splatters that had been thrown everywhere from the force of the crash.
Neal had put his seat belt on unconsciously right before impact. He was slowly becoming aware of the pain that the belt had caused him when it had tightened on him. The corpses lying limp on the hood held him mesmerized. He had never seen so much blood, even by today’s standards. He wondered if he would get over today. Would things simply return to normal? The insurance agent in him wondered about financial responsibility. Who would pay for all of this-this mayhem? His dad’s company may go bankrupt.
Neal had to turn sideways in the seat and use his legs to kick the door open. Once out, he checked himself rather absently mindedly for injuries. He still kept a watchful eye on the still figures trapped between the Hummer and now what he knew to be a bus belonging to the First Baptist Church. Their name was emblazoned on the side of the smashed up van. He was ostensibly in the pastor’s driveway, the church proper was next door. He had been here once, when he was a child, but for the life of him, he could not remember the circumstance.
No one came rushing out of either building, and for that he was grateful. He could not imagine having to deal with a member of the clergy, especially if they had turned into whatever these people were turning into. Would you still go to Hell if you had to kill a preacher? A crazy, lunatic, psychopathic preacher? Probably. How many people had he killed today? Would God understand? Would He care? Probably not. Maybe this was His way of taking care of things. Maybe this was the next flood. Could the Zombie Apocalypse be God’s wrath? Would it spare the pious, the good people? Neal didn’t have an answer for that, but he knew Insurance policies never covered acts of God. His dad’s company would be alright after all. Hell, they might even start selling zombie insurance, the kind on paper, not the kind that goes bang.
There wasn’t any time for philosophizing. He had to find a new ride. He had to get to his parent’s home and make sure that they were OK. He was a dutiful son, God would appreciate that. And, as if a nod from the Big Guy Himself, Neal spied a car sitting in the open garage of the pastor of the First Baptist Church. Not just a car. A 1967 Corvette Stingray.
“Holy shit,” Neal muttered, appropriately he thought. He approached the car as if it were a wild stallion that may buck and bolt at any moment. The keys were in it. He felt a chill of excitement. Funny, he thought, how a car could completely supersede the horror of the situation. Well, he had always loved the Corvette Stingray. It roared to life without any hesitation and the rumble and vibration of the engine renewed his confidence. It gave him confidence rather. He put it in reverse and pressed down on the accelerator. He laid rubber on the cement floor as he shot from the sanctuary of the garage. He never saw the overweight and slightly balding man until it was too late.
He was there, then he wasn’t. Neal knew he was somewhere under the car, at least partially. He slammed it into first and slung grass and mud as he tore through the yard. Luckily, he saw that it was one of the affected and not some innocent bystander. It was flailing around and growling, unable to stand on its crushed legs. Neal waved as he ripped through the yard and into the church parking lot. He watched the thrashing figure in his rear view mirror. He had seen him somewhere before. Neal felt a little sick. He knew it was the former leader of the flock of the First Baptist Church.
Neal smiled, probably for the first time today. The gas gauge said full and the car ran like a dream. Like a scalded ape, his dad would say. It was all back roads now. All the way to the Oak Crest subdivision. Neal doubted he would pass anybody on the way. If he did, it wouldn’t be many and they wouldn’t have the roads blocked. Smooth sailing. He turned on the radio. There was nothing, no sound, not even static. Eerie quiet on every station. But he never thought anything of it. The sky was blue, the sun was bright, and the wind in his face felt good. He pressed the pedal a little more and the speedometer neared a hundred. He would arrive at his parent’s home in less than ten minutes.
There was a sound now, something odd but something familiar. He glanced around for some cause, but it was emanating from outside the automobile. Then he seen them. Black helicopters, flying low, just above the tree tops it looked, but they were at least a mile away. They were spreading out, cutting across each other’s paths. They looked to be searching for something. Some began to disappear below the tree line. Those were landing, Neal knew. They were cutting off all roads that led out of town. The escape routes. Keeping everyone corralled in the village limits. Trapping them. That’s what Al meant by “protocol.”
Neal knew that they would be landing at the intersection a few miles up the road. He guessed that the road that led to 27, the county’s main artery, would also be cut off. They probably had County Road 9 blocked as well even though it was much less travelled. But he didn’t need to escape the area, he just needed to get to his parent’s subdivision. It was only a mile or two now, but seemed like a hundred. He slowed to under fifty, trying to give himself time to think before he ran smack into the “authorities”.
Briar Ridge Road. The name popped into his head a second before the road sign came into view. A tangle of vines and branches obscured the sign so that if one didn’t know where it was, it was easily overlooked. Neal knew it well. It had long been a popular party spot for teenagers. Kids would park at one of the old tobacco barns or the old abandoned farm house that made up the only structures on the narrow gravel road. Police seldom patrolled it, villagers preferred the kids drinking and carousing out there as opposed to in town. And best of all, it came out just a stone’s throw from the back entrance to his parents subdivision and only locals would know this road.
He was now several miles out of town, actually quite close to the Orlov-LeClair facility, now that he thought about it. This was a rural area, dotted with farms and the occasional mobile home. But it was still well inside the boundaries set up by the circling helicopters. There seemed to be more of them now, somehow. Where were they all coming from? He turned into Briar Ridge still moving at over forty miles an hour. Gravel peppered the bushes like bird-shot. A cloud of dust enveloped the ‘vette and Neal wondered if it would be visible from the air.
He let his speed creep a little higher in spite that this could be a dangerous road. Trees a bushes grew right alongside the gravel, obscuring any view of what may be around or coming at you. In some spots the trees covered the road, their branches and leaves making a roof so that it seemed you were in a tunnel. The gravel was loose and treacherous. A piece of slow moving farm equipment would stop him in his tracks if not cause a wreck, and tractors were common out here in the boondocks. Still, his concern for his parents outweighed the risks and spurred him on down the narrow dusty lane.
He reached the end without trouble, hitting his brakes and taking at least twenty feet to slide to a stop, inches from the stop sign. This road dead-ended into Oak Crest and his parent’s neighborhood was only a few yards to the right. He nosed the car slowly into the other road, craning his neck to be able to look right and left for any oncoming traffic. To the left Oak Crest Road stretched out as far as he could see, barren of any vehicles. To the right, it was different. There was a black helicopter hovering over what Neal knew was an empty field, north of the subdivision. It was still waiting to be developed. On the road near it was what looked like military vehicles, but these too were that same ominous black color. He couldn’t tell how many but he thought it was at least two Humvee types and maybe a big truck. There were a few people milling around, also dressed in black uniforms.
The Corvette was loud, but not nearly as loud as the helicopter still floating over the field. Neal peeled out, tires screeching when they hit the asphalt. He hoped to reach the back entrance before anyone saw him. He knew that they wouldn’t be able to reach him in time, not in those Humvees. But that helicopter would easily. He was only in second gear when he made a sharp left into Oak Crest. The houses on this end weren’t nearly as nice as his parent’s home. They were a bit older and a few needed some updating. These had been the first ones built, back before it became a statement to live out here and not in town. He wished the circumstances were different. How he longed to drive through this neighborhood in a car like this. He would burn rubber in front of quite a few houses, he thought with a smile, including the Dougherty’s.
It was eerily quiet, although it was often just as quiet in reality. Neal thought he saw some of that blue wispy fog, but it vanished before he could get a good look. It seemed to be hiding almost, retreating behind or under something whenever he tried to catch a glimpse. There was no sign of life anywhere. Devoid was the word. Not even a barking dog or scampering squirrel. Ecureuil. That was what she had said. Squirrels.
Then he was there, pulling into the driveway, thinking about squirrels. For a moment it seemed like an ordinary day. The house looked empty as the rest. He turned off the motor and for a second sat there confused by the sound of an engine. It wasn’t the car, it was the black helicopter. The authorities. They had seen him after all and were now skimming the roof tops, searching the streets for him. He thought about blowing the horn but decided against it. Hopefully the door was unlocked and he could get inside before they spied him. He knew where the spare key was, but it was in the back and that meant scaling the privacy fence that his dad had recently put up to keep his neighbors from watching him swim in the nude.
The helicopter was only a block away now. He thought that they could probably see him from that distance. He started to make a run for the front door, when his mother suddenly appeared at the window. She was waving. He waved back. She was pointing and waving madly. Poor woman, she must be scared out of her wits. Worried about her boy. The thought made him feel warm inside. Things would be OK now. She was mouthing something. Waving, pointing and trying to say something in an exaggerated way, the way someone would so you could read their lips. What was it?
“I love you,” he thought. She was pointing to him and saying I love you.
“I love you too.” He mouthed the words and waved back.
The helicopter was very close now. He saw leaves blow by.
His mother smacked the window hard. Again she mouthed the words and poked the window with her finger. Yes, he knew that there was a helicopter behind him. Was that what she was saying? Not ‘I love you’, but ‘Behind you’?
Her eyes were wide now, wide with fear. Neal stopped. He had never seen her like this. His hand fell idly to the Beretta tucked into his waist band. “Insurance,” he remembered Al saying. He chuckled to himself. He hadn’t needed any insurance.
Neal never saw his father coming up behind him.