CHAPTER 16: SCENE OF THE CRIME
September 5th
After waking up "before god turned the sun on", as Harlan put it, the group gathered themselves and continued the northward journey.
A large plume of black smoke rose from the far side of Fallas Lake, which was enveloped in a haze. An acrid, smokey stench assaulted Carr's nose.
"Christ alive," she pinched her nostrils shut.
"Oh my g-" Hilda gagged, then vomited on the street. Harlan and her son rushed over to check on her.
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning." Anthony took a whiff of air and made a sour face. "We shouldn't stick around her any longer than we have to."
"Thanks, Captain Obvious. I was about to invest in a timeshare." Harlan rubbed his sister's back, not that it appeared to do much good. His nephew hovered nearby. Carr slung her rifle off her back and into her hands as Hilda emptied the meager contents of her stomach.
"You said you two've been through here?"
"Yeah, not for a couple weeks though." Harlan replied. "But I don't see anyone. Or anything."
Hilda stood up and took several deep breaths. "We need to get out of here."
"We know a safe place to hole up." Anthony beckoned the group to follow him deeper into town towards the smoke. The absence of the undead was eerie, putting the whole group on edge. The farm supply shop was completely ransacked by the undead. Broken windows, doors off hinges, and black tire marks from their last adventure. They cut across the parking lot, down a side street, and came across the two-story house that provided them shelter all those weeks ago.
Harlan knocked on the door, nothing. He looked at Anthony, who readied his bat, and cracked the door open. Inside, the air was stale and oppressive. Despite the bright midday sun, inside was as dark as night from the sheets placed over every window and door the two could find.
"I don't think anyone's been in here since us. Good." Harlan didn't let his guard down though, swiftly clearing every room with Anthony as Carr kept an eye on Hilda and Junior out front. Once the all-clear was given, the group hurried inside.
Harlan pulled an atlas from his bag and laid it out on the kitchen table as the others explored the house. He was muttering to himself when Anthony laid an arm across his shoulders.
"Charting a course all by yourself, handsome?"
"I'm trying to, at least." He gently tugged at the corners of his mustache. "We need to find a car if we're gonna get anywhere. Especially with Hilda… in the condition she's in." He didn't want to think about it too hard.
Anthony removed his arm and pointed to a blank space on the map. "What about there?"
Harlan swatted his hand away.
"Is there any food?" Carr appeared behind the two.
"Let's see what's behind door number one!" Anthony swung open the fridge, smelled its contents, and slammed it shut. "Door number two!" The cabinets were empty. "Door number… three?" The pantry was also empty.
Carr frowned. "There's a gas station in town, maybe they have food?"
Harlan scoffed. "It blew up."
"It blew up?"
"We… uh, we actually blew it up." Anthony confessed, suddenly feeling the weight of their actions.
Carr's eyes went wide for a moment before narrowing to slits. "You blew it up?"
"It was a tactical decision, we needed to clear the town." Harlan pulled his eyes from the map. "A poor tactical decision, but one we made."
"Un-fucking-believable." Carr wasn't pleased. "Leave it to the men to blow up our only chance of a fucking bite to eat."
Harlan and Anthony shrugged at each other.
"There's uh…" Harlan's voice trailed as he took a closer look at the town. "A burger joint on the north side, but it's close to ground zero."
"Do you think they'd have anything that isn't rotten by now?"
"No, just an idea." Harlan took another look. "Farmer's market, restaurant, maybe some houses have some canned goods. We didn't look for any food last time we were in town." He stood up and stretched his arms. "I know there's some guns in the farm supply store, if you're looking for more ammo."
Carr pursed her lips as she inspected her rifle. "Janie's hungry too."
"Tony, can you stay here and watch my sister and her kid?"
"Why can't I come?"
"Because last time you were here I almost died."
"Ouch. Like, ouch." Anthony grabbed his chest. "You know that was an accident."
"I know, but, old habits die hard?" Harlan shrugged his shoulders as Anthony disappeared upstairs.
"I reckon you wanna see what I got?" Carr pulled the bolt back on... Janie.
"I reckon I know what you got." Harlan swung his axe off his back and into his hands. "Let's go shopping."
With that, they were out the door and back into the sunshine and back into the smog. Harlan quickly dipped back inside and fetched two rags that would help surpress the smell. The smoke plume rose high above them.
The two knocked over a few homes as they made their way back to the town's main strip, finding very little in the way of food. Harlan chanced upon a proper facemask, Carr tore up an old sweater to cover her face like some desert caravaneer. By the time they came across the farm supply shop, neither one had seen a single zombie.
Harlan lead Carr to the shop's rear. The door was missing, and inside was an inky black. He knocked on the wall next to the door frame and listened. Nothing.
He knocked a little harder. Still nothing.
"YO! FREE BRAINS OUT HERE!" He called inside. Carr wrinkled her nose.
Something rustled inside the store. There was a loud clang followed by gurgling. The two stood back, waiting for company, but it never arrived. The gurgling continued. Harlan held his axe high as he stepped through the doorway and into the storeroom. His flashlight illuminated the drab gray room, its walls were painted rusty brown with the blood of the undead.
Carr watched his back, opting for her machete in close quarters. He trained the beam of his flashlight through the door into the main store. The gurgling was louder, but it sounded like it was stationary. Harlan felt his heart beating in his throat, in his hands, all through his body.
He almost died. He was almost one of them. What would've happened to Tony?
Harlan pushed those thoughts out of his head and only the cold floor. He stepped closer to the doorframe and knocked on the wall. Still gurgling, but no rustling, no movement.
The two moved on to the store's main floor, it looked like a hurricane passed through. Shelves were on the ground, stands tipped over, clothes and tools scattered everywhere. Among the mess, trapped under a row of shelves, was a lone zombie. Its head and left arm were all that stuck out from underneath. It weakly waved its arm at the fresh meat that just walked in.
Carr grimaced. "Dead, and can't do a damn thing about it."
"Yeah." That could've been me. Harlan stepped over a bundle of rakes and stomped the poor thing's head in, putting it out of its misery. Looking out to main street, Harlan couldn't see much besides the smog that enveloped most of Fallas Lake. He heard Carr muttering behind him.
"Any way we cam jimmy this lock?" She motioned to the security gates around the guns and ammunition. "Or get around it maybe?"
"There's a door through the office, but I didn't have any luck last time."
"I assume this mess is yours, Mr. Delgado?"
"If I say yes, are you gonna give me detention?"
Carr chuckled. "Just you wait 'til O'Hanrahan comes down on your ass."
"I haven't thought about him in almost ten years." He was principal of Rosewood's small, small, very small all-grades school. An imposing man with slick red hair, he did not like Harlan very much.
Carr ducked into the rear office and took a look at the door for herself. She lined up her machete and popped the keypad out of its socket and started fiddling with the wires behind it. After a few moments, the security door swung open with a satisfying clunk.
Harlan brought a hand to his face. "I swung at that damned thing for ten minutes and got nowhere, and now you just pop it open."
"Kenny had the same lock on our shed." Carr stepped into the pristine firearms section with a satisfied smirk. She quickly got to work sorting through the bounty.
Harlan took a chance. "Kenny, that was Mr. Carr?"
"Yeah, sure was." She didn't sound like she wanted to talk about it, but Harlan figured it was now or never.
"Can I ask what happened?"
Carr sighed. Not a quick exhale, but a long, lingering breath. She explained without taking her eyes off her work. "Kenny wasn't a nice man. He wasn't a good man. But he had me fooled for a long, long time." Her voice grew more tense. "Once I found out what was in the shed, I couldn't let that man carry on. I did a few years in the pen. I got sympathy for being battered, but I would've gladly done a century in there just to know the world was rid of that sick fuck."
Harlan's mouth hung open for a moment before clapping shut.
"I… I am so sorry for asking. I didn't know- I didn't have any idea that-"
"Kid, it's in the past." Carr cut him off and looked over her shoulder. "He's in the ground and we're still vertical. For now, at least."
"Yeah, for now." Harlan wanted to crash out of this conversation as fast as possible. "Can I get a gun?"
"Do you shoot better than your sister?"
"I know not to aim for the living." He paused. "Unless I want to make them dead."
"Good enough for me." Carr slid a hand under the display case and produced a handgun. She held it out to Harlan, who gingerly picked it up and felt its weight in his hand. "This is a 1911, it takes .45 auto rounds, seven bullets in the mag. Do you know how to use it?"
"Point and shoot, right?"
"Let me see it." Carr ran Harlan through the firearm basics: trigger discipline, don't hold your breath, where the safety switch was and how to unload and reload the magazine. Once she felt he had a grip on things, the two loaded up what weapons and ammunition they could reasonably fit and returned to the storefront.
Harlan's stomach growled. "The restaurant across the street might have some canned… whatever. I'll suck down a tube of tomato paste at this point."
Carr, gracefully, said nothing. The two crouched as they crossed to their second point of interest. Through the windows they couldn't see much, but things looked oddly pristine. The door was unlocked, nothing reacted to their knocking, but the kitchen was picked clean of anything edible. All they found was a half-empty (or half-full, depending on who you asked) bottle of bourbon.
"Fucking hell." Harlan collapsed into a rickety dining chair.
"Hell would be a cakewalk compared to this." Carr sat next to him, dimly lit by sunlight streaking through the omnipresent haze in town. She poured two glasses, they clinked, and quickly threw the liquor back. "At least you don't need to eat in the afterlife."
"I'm sure Hell is a hell of its own. Not that I'd know. I haven't been to church in a long time."
"Well, before it all went to shit, they were still preaching about fire and brimstone and eternal damnation."
"I think there's a church in town. Maybe it's worth a look?"
"Are you suddenly a praying man, Harlan?" Carr smirked.
He rolled his eyes and waved his hand. "Like He'd listen after what I got up to in New York." He grimaced at his empty glass. "I'll take one more for the road."
Carr filled up their glasses once more, and the two emptied them into their gullets.
"This counts as calories, right?" Harlan studied the lowball. "Booze is processed wheat or whatever."
"Can't feed it to your nephew." The idea was humorous to Harlan, though.
"Yeah, and Tony hates dark liquor."
"Hilda's not doing too hot either."
"I noticed."
"Hard not to notice."
"Did she uh… ever get attacked by one of them?"
Carr sat up straight in her chair. Harlan looked her in the eyes. It was strange, the last time they saw each other was Graduation Day '83. They were two completely different people then compared to that moment in the restaurant. But that decade apart, and the shock of running into each other again after so much had changed, the two shared a quiet respect for each other. Harlan could see the weight she carried with her next word.
"Yes."
Harlan grabbed the lower part of his face and gritted his teeth, before tugging at the ends of his mustache. "How long ago?"
"Two days ago, the same day we ran into you. We heard the chopper and ran outside, but one of them snuck up on her and tore a gash in her leg."
"What about her son?"
"He's fine. Rattled by the whole thing, but fine."
"He told us, you know, that Hilda's sick."
"When?"
"The other night, poor kid was scared for her. For himself." Harlan pushed his empty glass away. "Did you do first aid on it? Disinfectant and all that?"
"Of course, cleaned and wrapped it." Carr eyed her empty glass, filling it with the rest of the bourbon and downing it quickly. "She's been hiding it, or trying to."
"Maybe it's a regular infection. It wasn't a bite, was it?"
"No, just a gash."
"A gash from the things nails? Or its teeth? Or-"
"I couldn't tell. Real life doesn't come with instant replay, Harlan. This isn't a basketball game."
Harlan felt hot, incredibly hot. He stood up and left Carr with her drink to go into the kitchen and out the back door. He stood in the hazy parking lot and screamed.
"FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!" He wound his foot back and kicked the dumpster hard enough to knock it back a few inches. He kicked it again and again before grabbing it and throwing himself back and forth. He staggered back, breathing heavily, and fell to the ground with a sob.
Carr stepped out of the kitchen door. Harlan was splayed out on the asphalt. He ran his hands through his hair as he fought back tears in a losing battle. She leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette.
"I'm sorry Harlan."
He didn't respond. He laid on the ground with his hands over his face, taking deep shuddering breaths. He didn't care about the smell at this point, or the lung cancer he'd get from breathing in the fumes, he just wanted to disappear.
After a few moments of steadying his breath, he spoke. "Can we stop by the church?"