Hell Breaks Loose: Episode 10 - The UNwelcoming Committee

Hell Breaks Loose : Episode 10 - The UNwelcoming Committee

Mitch watched the pair of beaming headlights veer along the country road, turning onto the farmhouse's drive, taking the turn at, what he guessed had to be, fifty miles an hour.  The bed of the truck fishtailed, sliding into the wooden, split-rail fencing that lined the left side of the gravel driveway.  The fence shattered from the speed and a few sections flopped to the ground.
  "Holy shit!" Mitch shouted.  He ran around the kitchen table, through the entry way, and threw open the front door.  He stood, staring through the top half of the screen door, squinting against the harsh light shining on him from the, now, stopped truck.
  A cloud of dust settled by its huge, manhole sized tires, and the driver's door opened.  Out stepped a scrawny, silhouetted man, pulling on something Mitch couldn't see.  The figure stood there, holding the outside handle of the door.  Mitch wasn't sure, but he'd be damned if the man wasn't staring at him.
  The man walked in front of the headlights, leaving the driver's door open, and there stood a balding man wearing aviator-style prescription glasses, sporting a poor comb over.
  "And who might you be?" the man asked, clipping the left bib of his overalls.
  Mitch licked his lips, sizing the man up, unsure if he should even answer that question at all.
  "Think I'd like to know who's asking before I say anything more," Mitch said, locking the latch to the screen door.
  The man shook his head and laughed.
  "It's been a while since I's seen a kid, even longer since I seen one with a tough pair like you," he said.  "This ain't your house, kid.  Where's Lyle?"
  "You deaf, or just dumb?  I ain't sayin' one more word 'till I get your name, stranger," Mitch said.
  "How's about I give you my name, once your lying, flat on your ass with one hell of a shiner on them narrow cheeks 'a yours?  We ain't got time for this you little shit!" the man said, walking back and turning the truck off, setting the house and front porch in a cold darkness.
  Mitch heard the man's steps, heard the gravel crunching under his boots as he walked up the drive, then saw the man again when he stepped into the light coming from inside the house, onto the front porch.
   "Now, I can't be sure, but there may or may NOT be a coupla' dozen of them dead fuckers following my scent out here.  The sooner I can get in and talk to Lyle, the better.  You can take my word on it, kid, you won't wanna' keep me out here much longer, and that's for damn sure," the man said, pulling a handkerchief from his front pocket and dabbing his dirtied face.  "You've got about five seconds before the lid on my temper'll be irreplaceable."
  "The shit is going on down there?" Lyle shouted from the top of the stairs.
  The man took a step forward, trying to get a view of the stairs through the screen door.
  "Lyle, that you ya' old buzzard!" the man shouted.
  Mitch stepped back from the door, giving Lyle room as he walked down the stairs.
  "Bill!" Lyle smiled.  He unlatched the screen door, grabbed the front of Bill's overalls, and pulled him in for a tight hug, patting Bill on his back.  "Bill frickin' Denningham, thought I'd never see your scrawny ass again!"
  "This is really nice'n'all, but I'd be so stinkin' grateful if we could move this inside!" Bill said, spinning Lyle around, pushing him inside.  He glared at Mitch as he passed.
  Mitch clenched his jaw and closed the door behind them then locked it tight.  He followed them through the kitchen and into the living room, where Bill flopped onto the couch and rested his elbows on his knees, running his hands over the few strands of hair on his head.  He massaged his temples while Lyle eased himself into an armchair, across from the couch.
  Mitch stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed.
  "Jesus, Bill, I thought you was dead.  Two weeks, nothing, not a word!  What the hell happened out there?" Lyle asked, adjusting his pajama bottoms.
  "You ain't bit, are you?" Mitch asked, tilting up his nose, inquisitive.
  "Shit," Bill laughed.  He leaned back into the couch and swatted his knee.  "Bitten?  It ain't got nothing to do with a bite, turning into one of them."
  "If that was the case, you wouldn't be standing there, Mitch," Lyle said.
  Bill smiled, amused.
  "This ain't no disease, no fuckin' virus.  You ain't there when you turn," Bill said, palming the side of his head.  "No, sir-ee, you're long gone by then, DOA, toe-tagged, whatever.  There's something else happenin'."
  "It's gotta be a sickness of some kind.  Maybe I beat it, by sleeping or something?" Mitch said.
  "Can't be.  Reggie would have turned then, when he was bitten, and as I recall, he'd been bitten more than once," Lyle said.
  "No, you're not listenin'," Bill said, gesturing with his hands.  "You can't explain this shit with science, okay.  It don't work like that, not any more.  Whatever is going on...it's like something from the good book, ya' know?  Look here," he said, standing up and pacing beside the coffee table, separating him and Lyle.  "I went to the Walmart, that Sunday, lookin' for food for us, just like I's says I's going to.  That much went just as planned.  I got us some canned goods, the few that weren't picked over.  Could tell the place was sacked, prolly pretty early on too.  Weren't nothing good but some beans and some canned spinach, but something is better than nothin'.  I was comin' out when I seen it, on the side of the building.  I don't know how I missed it when I went it, but I sure as shit saw it on the way out.  Was one of them penta-thingies, the ones they use when doing that damned devil worship, ya' know, sacrificing virgins, raping goats, and all that gussy stuff.  Was the size of a tractor tire, it was.  Even had some words written inside.  No idea what they were, weren't English or any language I'd recognized."
  He walked to the window on the far wall and stared into the pitch black night, folding his hands behind his back.  He sighed and dropped his head, leaning it against the glass.
  "This is beyond us, Lyle.  This is it," Bill said.  He turned, fear in his eyes.  "What I seen, the past two weeks...things are never gonna' go back to the way they were.  It's not just the zombies, not anymore.  It's the people too."
  "I can vouch for that," Mitch said, raising his hand, thinking about the mad butcher, remembering the look in his eyes when he died.  A shiver ran up his spine and goosepimples speckled his arms.
  "I..." Bill said, finding it hard to tell his story.  He gulped and looked around the room, trying to find the strength to tell it.  "I seen a group, living, armed men and women, and even some teens; saw 'em take a baby from a woman begging for food, just crying for anything.  They took her baby, sliced its throat, and drank its blood, then they raped and killed the mom and dragged their bodies, threw them into their truck and drove away."
  "Dear God," Lyle said, covering his mouth with his hand.
  "I had to sit there, listening to a gargled, dying baby, listen to the cries of this woman while they took turns with her; helpless," Bill said, tears forming in his eyes.  He ran his hand along his chin, deep in thought, back in time.  He covered his face with his hands, cried, then wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.  "Where's Reggie?  I just...I need to talk to him."
  Lyle looked at the floor, beginning to choke up.  He shook his head 'no'.
  "Where's Reggie!?" Bill shouted, standing up.
  "These kids were in trouble, needed our help," Lyle said, pointing his thumb at Mitch.  "Reggie did what he felt he had to do."
  "What happened?" Bill asked, stern and quiet, squeezing his fists taut.
  "Zombies got 'em, Bill," Lyle said, soft.  "Weren't nothin' anyone coulda' done."
  "Well who the hell sent you out there for these kids," Bill shouted, pointing his finger like a knife at Mitch who stood, petrified.
  For the second time in this conversation, Mitch was reminded of someone, this time his mother.  We help others, by helping ourselves.  Goin' out there, that's a fools game, that's what she had said after all, before he'd left the house, the thing that started all of this, set it in motion.  There must have been some truth in that, Mitch thought.  She'd be alive if he hadn't left, but, Pheobe might have been dead.  Was it a good tradeoff?  Maybe, maybe not.  Time would have to let Mitch know.  Either way, what's done was done, can't change that.
  "I should kill you where you sit, Lyle, for doing something so fuckin' stupid!  Nothin' here belongs to them!  They ain't got no right to any of our stuff!" Bill screamed.
  "As I recall, ain't none of it yours neither, Bill," Lyle said, pushing himself onto his feet with a grunt.  "I hired your ass and the way I sees' it, I can fire your ass too."  He pulled a revolver out of his pocket and pointed it in between Bill's eyes then cocked back the hammer.  "You ain't got no more right to anything in this house than these little ones.  I can ask ya' to beg, but I won't do no such 'thang.  We's equals here.  Nothing more to it."
  Bill stared down the barrel, his breathing quickening, sweat dripping down his forehead and cheeks.
  "Get that thing out of my face," Bill whispered.  He stood as Lyle backed down, clicking the hammer back into place.  "Enjoy your stay," Bill said, walking past Mitch.
  "Girls in your bed," Lyle said.  "You can take Reggie's room."
  Bill stopped and turned, facing Mitch and Lyle.
  "Not sure if I was followed.  If you two wanna' wake up with all your limbs 'counted for, should prolly get someone up in the attic keeping watch," Bill said, turning and heading upstairs.  "Least that's what Reggie would have suggested," he hollered from the top of the stairs.
  Lyle walked around the coffee table, putting the revolver back into his pocket.
  "Knew this thing would come in handy for something.  Don't ever sleep without it anymore," he laughed.  He touched Mitch's shoulder.  "Hate to say it, but he's right.  Should prolly get-"
  "No worries, Mr. Lyle," Mitch said, cutting him off, knowing what he was going to ask.  "I got this."
  Lyle patted Mitch's shoulder and smiled.
  "There's a rifle up there already, scope attached.  There's some night vision binoculars up there too, should come in handy I'd say.  You need anything, spot anything, you make sure to holler like the dicken's, okay?"
  Mitch nodded and took a deep breath.
  Lyle turned Mitch around and walked him up the stairs, to the upstairs hallway.  They stopped, about halfway to the end of the hall, and Lyle reached up, grabbing hold of a string weighted with a quarter tied to the end.
  "Attics up this way," Lyle said, pulling it down.
  Mitch hopped in, grabbing the string from Lyle when he saw he was struggling with it.
  A built-in step ladder unfolded before them and Lyle patted Mitch on the shoulder one last time.
  "Like I said, anything, you holler, ya' hear?" Lyle said then yawned.
  "Yes, sir," Mitch said, climbing onto the lower rungs.  "Get some sleep."
  "You get tired, you'll let me know?"
  "I've been sleeping for two weeks.  If there's one thing I don't feel like doing, it's sleeping."
  Lyle snickered and walked down the hall to his bedroom, shuffling his feet.
  Mitch sighed when Lyle was in his room with the door closed, then started climbing up into the dusty attic.  It smelled like old clothes and stale oil.  The attic was dark and cramped with a low, steeple ceiling.  Mitch had to hunch over as he planned out each step to the other side, maneuvering around boxes and random stacks of old, coverless books, lamps without hoods, and piles of clothing.
  Mitch's eyes started stinging from the dust flickering in the air and when he closed them they burned worse and almost lost his balance, nearly falling through a section of insulation.  He caught himself on a rafter and finished making it to the window on the other side of the attic.  The rifle was exactly where Lyle said it would be, propped up beside the window sill, beside a pair of binoculars.
  Mitch picked it up and felt the gun's weight in his hands.  It was lighter than he expected.  He propped the butt of the gun against his shoulder and looked down the scope, out the half-open window, testing it.
  He hunkered down on his knees in front of the window, which was still low enough to perch the gun on for stability, and grabbed the binoculars.  He held them up to his eyes, scanning the front lawn of the farmhouse, admiring the dark greens and blacks of the night vision.  So, he sat, for hours and hours, watching the night.
  He saw a rabbit around midnight munching on what looked like a cabbage.  A few hours later, a pair of dear ran across the lawn to the road, disappearing into the field on the other side.
  It was around four in the morning when Mitch finally dozed off, without even realizing he was tired.  If he'd just managed to stay awake a few minutes longer, just a few, he'd of seen them coming; would have seen the packs, the burning red eyes.  He would have smelled the blood and the decay in the early morning breeze.  But, he didn't.  He didn't see or smell a thing, because he was off, dreaming about when his daddy taught him baseball.  If only...

Hell Breaks Loose: Episode 8 "Home on the Range"

Hell Breaks Loose - Episode 8 - "Home on the Range"

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Mitch stared at his dead mother, smiling like a kid about to dig into a Big Mac.  She stood, bathed in creamy moonlight, holding a gas pump gun in her hand, still dressed in her nightgown though now it was quite a bit more bloodied and soaked with her own phlegm-colored fluids.  Her eyes sunk deep into her head, cheeks sagging from the bone.  The hair on her head was thinning, gone in patches.  She cocked back the nozzle and swatted it against the empty garbage can beside the pump, producing the clanging noise he’d heard.  She did it again, and again.

  Mitch looked over his shoulder at Phoebe who was still sound asleep, undisturbed.  He closed his eyes, clearing away the tears, and hoisted himself to his feet.

  His footsteps seemed louder, like they bounced off the walls at ten times the normal volume.  His hear beat pounded behind his eyes, blood running cold.  He walked around the counter and put his hand on the pushbar of one of the front doors.

  She slammed it into the garbage can faster, harder, then slowed again, like a fit of anger swept over her.

  Can they get angry?  Can they feel emotion?  Can SHE feel anything anymore?

  The door groaned as he pushed it open and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the gas station.  The gun hung at his side, finger hovering over the trigger.

  His mother dropped the pump, mission accomplished.  A sickly, yellow and rotted smile peeled back over purple bloated gums.  A maggot slithered over her tongue and disappeared down her throat, leaving a clear trail of goop behind it.

  Mitch’s lips nervously pouted, uncontrollably so as his eyes teared up.  His arms and legs went stiff, joints hard as rock.  He stepped off the sidewalk, down onto the pavement, moonlight washing over his trembling frame.  He was face to face with the corpse of his mother.

  The truck was still parked in the same spot he’d left it, just off to his left now. 

  His mother wobbled back and forth, struggling to balance herself up with a dead equilibrium, but still her smile persisted, eyes glued to Mitch. 

  Mitch let out a deep breath and gritted his teeth, shaking his head in denial.

  “Get out of here,” Mitch said, to himself, knowing she wouldn't understand him.  “Go on.  Get!”

  A childish, yet evil coo shoved its way through his mother’s gritted smile.  Her lips shifted from a smile to a snarl as she took a few steps forward, sliding her hand over the top of the pump.  A stringy tendril of glistening spit flopped from her bloody maw, soaking into the collar of her nightgown.

 His mother took another fleshy footstep closer and Mitch took aim, raising the gun from his side, aiming right between her peepers.

  “Don’t!” he shrieked, spitting saliva, squeezing tears from his eyes.  “Don’t come any closer!” 

  Her smile widened, amused, and her head jerked at odd angles, shoulders bobbing along with it.  She took another step.

  “You’re stupid!  So fucking stupid!  Stop!  Not one more step!”

  She contorted her fingers into a fist, popping her knuckles like bubble wrap, then took yet another step.

  Mitch closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.  The gunshot rang in his ears, deafening all other noise.

  The ground in front his mother’s foot burst into a plume of dust and pavement crumbs.  She stared down at it for a moment, then smiled and looked back at Mitch.

  “Why didn’t you listen to me!?  We wouldn’t be here!  We’d be home…together.  I wouldn’t have left.  All you had to do was fucking eat something!”

  Mitch rubbed away his tears with the back of his hand, finally understanding he couldn’t blame her for what he did.

  “Just go away, Mom!  I don’t wanna shoot you!  It shouldn’t be this way, but I did this.  I did this to you.  I can’t fix it.”

  Then it hit him, like a freight train hauling the maturity he didn’t have before.  Inside, Phoebe slept, and if she was hungry, he didn’t know why, but he would give her his food if it came down to that.  He would give her his water.  He didn’t know where it came from, whether it rubbed off on him from his mother, or it was an inherent human condition to care for a child, though it wasn’t yours, it was there.  He got it, like some great cosmic joke, by George he got it.  But when it was all stripped away, he still forgot to lock the backdoor, and now here he stood, face to face with his mom.  This was the great puzzle being put together, and Mitch still wasn’t ready to decide where he wanted to die.

  But still, his mother took another barefooted, feet-slapping step forward, reeling back to start into a run.

  Then Mitch saw them, hiding out in the ditch by the road.  The moonlight shimmered against the fluids on their faces, the blood sparkling in the white light.  He saw their blinking eyes, glossy and reflecting.  There were dozen’s of them, watching, observing, testing him.  The dead had set up a trap. 

  This was bait?  What the fuck? 

  The door behind Mitch whined, then slammed shut.

  Phoebe!  Oh God!

  Mitch peeked over his shoulder and there stood Phoebe, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and clutching her stuffed animal against her chest. 

  “Get back inside, Phoebe!  Now!” Mitch barked.

  He looked back at his mother, who was jumping into a sprint, her mouth and teeth ready to rip through flesh. 

  “Mom, no!” Mitch screamed.

  Mitch popped off a shot.  Phoebe covered her ears with her hands and screamed.

  The bullet whizzed through his mother’s cheek and erupted like a geyser through the back of her ear in a trail of red mist and stringy muscles, smashing into the gas pump behind her.

  She spun with the bullet and lost her footing, crashing into the pavement face first.  Her teeth snapped and skittered over the ground.  Rocks and gravel dug into the soggy skin of her face and gums. 

  A spark ignited, like a fiery flower blooming, jumping from the gas pump.

Mitch grabbed Phoebes arm and hoisted her up, opening the gas station’s door and leaping inside.

  A wall of heat scorched the back of Mitch’s shirt, ruffling through his hair like piping hot tornado winds, bursting with a heavy WHUMP!

  Then Mitch’s sight and hearing lapsed as the gas pump detonated in a black and orange fireball, blasting off the roof that covered all the pumps from downpours, rocking it forward and free of the struts that held it up, shaking the ground.

  The entire window display that made up the front of the gas station shattered inward, showering Mitch and Phoebe, who huddled into one another, with glass shard.

  The pillar of fire rose into the night, churning smoke and flame.

  Mitch shook free the glass covering both him and Phoebe and looked through the gaping windows.

  The ditch by the road lit up, like a flare burned above it.  There must have been fifty zombies hunkered in the trench, waiting to see how the whole thing played out, testing whatever defenses the gas station proved to have.

  His mother pushed herself onto her knees with her arms then leveled the flats of her feet to the pavement, rising and smiling, ready for the kill.  Blood ran down her chin, gums split open.

  The roof over the gas pumps crashed into the ground, squashing her into a wet pulp of rotted flesh and shattered bone.  The tin of the roof curled into itself, under its own weight, burying her from sight.  

  Mitch wanted to cry as he watched her crushed to death under the debris, but he knew she’d already been in a better place before that.  She’d died yesterday.  What she was now, it wasn’t his mother.  But, what was it.  What was inside of her?  What was smiling at him?

  He tightened his jaw, knowing it was for the best and fought back the pointless tears.

  Mitch stood up and pulled Phoebe to her feet.  

  "Don't open your eyes yet, Phoebe," Mitch warned.

  He swatted the glass from her hair and clothes, taking care around her eyes, then looked back to the ditch.

  "Okay, you can open 'em now."

  The dead were shambling their way up the divot, sprinting across the parking lot, fumbling and hopping over the debris from the explosion.  Flaming balls of shrapnel and chunks of metal showered the parking lot and pump area, slicing down zombies by the handful, only to be replaced by hungrier zombies scrambling down and out of the ditch. 

  Phoebe screamed and Mitch shoved her through the door into the backroom.  He turned and pulled off a few shots at the closest zombies.

  One took a bullet through the nose and slammed into the sidewalk, skidding across into the building.  Another bullet zipped through a zombie’s neck, throwing off his  rhythm, crashing him to the ground in a roll. 

  Mitch aimed at a female zombie climbing through the shards of the broken window and fired, blasting off the top of her head, spraying brain bits onto the zombie behind her. 

  When the gun clicked dry, he ran into the backroom and locked the deadbolt behind him.

  Got it this time.

  Phoebe cuddled in the fetal position by the enormous industrial sink, squeezing the bear tight, bulging out the stuffing inside.  Her eyes were glassy and she shivered like she’d just come in from a harshly cold January evening.  She squeezed the bear tighter and clenched her eyes shut, propelling tears down the rounds of her rosy cheeks.

  The fire in the pump area glowed through the window in the office, casting it into an intense and bouncing orange. 

  “I’m scared,” she whispered to her bear.  “Mitch?”

  Mitch leaned his back against the door, staring into the darkness of the ceiling, but not all together there.  His mind was still watching his mother, that sickening smile plastered to her decaying lips, and the zombies that watched and waited for the right time to attack. 

  What were they doing?  Was I baited?

  He bounced his head against the door, listening to the hinges rattle.  Any moment, the fists would punch, palms slap against it, wanting to get through.  There were still at least two dozen left, the ones who made it through the shower of flames and passed Mitch’s gunfire.

  There were enough of them to break down the door.  It was sturdy and thick, and the dead bolt was strong, but all it would take was time.

  He heard the flames roaring on the other side of the door, licking the crisp night air as it cackled.  Glass crunched under dozens of running dead feet.  Hungry grunts and sighs seeped through the cracks of the door.

  The door rumbled, shoving Mitch forward and spinning around.  He backed away, watching the door tremble in its frame under a barrage of fists and shoulder ramming.  The dead bolt rattled in sync with the thuds of attack. 

  Then Mitch saw it, the creamy moonlit outline of a roof hatch above a steel ladder bolted to the wall. 

  “Phoebe, stop crying.”

  She ignored him, continuing to sob quietly. 

  “They’re gonna get in,” she said.  “They’re gonna kill us.”  She looked up at him.    

  “We're gonna' be fine.  They're not gonna' get us,” Mitch said, turning to face her.  “We’re goin up there!”  Mitch pointed at the roof hatch.

  The door went quiet, finally resting still.  They both paused and stared at it, expecting something big to burst in at any moment.  Nothing happened.  No more fists, no more kicking, prodding or ramming.  The grunts and sighs disappeared, leaving silence.    

  “Why did they stop?” Phoebe asked, almost afraid to make a sound.  It scared her that they had stopped.  It meant they were planning something else, something they couldn’t see.    

  “Looking for another way in I guess.  They’re smart, and I think they’re getting smarter everyday,” Mitch said, thinking about the window in the office, not five feet from where they were.  If they were looking for another way in, and Mitch was sure by now that they were, it wouldn’t take them long to find that window.  When they poured through, it would be over. 

  “Come on!” Mitch held out his hand.  “Stop crying, because you’re not dying.  I’m watching out for you.  I'm...” he stopped.  He looked at her tear-soaked face, those tiny eyes that aren't okay, not alone.  "I'm gonna' take care of you."

  Phoebe placed her tiny hand in Mitch’s and he pulled her to her feet with a grunt.

  "You're going first," Mitch said.

  “I’m not afraid of heights,” Phoebe said.  Mitch lifted her up by the waist, raising her higher up the ladder.  “Just wanted you to know that.  So don’t think I’m a little ‘fraidy cat.”

  “I don’t think you’re a ‘fraidy cat at all.  You’re a very brave little girl.”

  Phoebe climbed up the ladder to the roof hatch, feet clanging on the steel rungs, vibrating the ladder.  She reached up with one hand to push the latch up.  It moved a few inches then stopped, caught by a safety lock.

  “You’ll have to free the lock, then open it,” Mitch said from the base of the ladder.        “It should be right above the ladder, on the edge there.  You just twist it.”

  She looked around the edges of the hatch, locking her eyes just above her head.

  “I see it!”

  Phoebe played with the safety lock, struggling to turn it free.  Rust flakes fell into her eyes and mouth as she fought it, twisting with her thumb and forefinger with as much might as her tiny fingers would allow.  It slid with the unease of an old man into a hot bathtub. 

  Mitch watched, swiping his hand through the air at any stray flakes that fell past Phoebe.

  The glass of the window in the office drummed, a wet hand slapping then sliding against it.

  “Ugh, Phoebe?  Maybe you could go a little faster?”

  Shadows began blotting out the orange glow in the office, rising a deep darkness across the backroom. 

  “It’s not as easy as it looks.  This thing doesn’t wanna move!”

  She rose her foot, hooking her legs around the ladder rungs, freeing up her other hand.  With both sets of fingers, the latch gave faster, but still fought every step of the way.

  “Are you twisting it!?” Mitch yelped.  Frustration kept him edging from one heel to the next.  It was up to her.

  The grunts of the dead grew louder, echoing throughout the office, shadows flickering back and forth.  Then a fist exploded through the window, spraying glass across the office floor.  Dozens of grubby and mutilated hands followed, shoving their way through. 

  “Phoebe!  For Christ’s sake!” Mitch shouted, voice bouncing with fear of time that was running out, quickly.  “Twist!” 

  She’d been so focused on the latch, she hadn’t heard the window shatter.

  The latch clicked free of its safety bolt and Phoebe lost her balance.  As she fell backward, legs still hooked around the wrungs, she caught herself. 

  “Got it!” she shouted, catching her breath and hoisting herself upright.

  “Go!” Mitch barked, already starting to climb up.  “Climb, climb, climb!”

  Zombies spilled into the office, shredding their rotted flesh on the broken window, tripping their way over the sill.  They fumbled to their feet, using each other as leverage as more fell inside, mouths gaping and growling with drool.

  Phoebe opened the hatch, pushing it up and back, and scurried out onto the gravel roof.  She squatted on her hands and knees, peeking back down the ladder while Mitch scrambled his way up.

  “They’re coming, Mitch!” she shouted.  “Climb!”

  She watched as zombies tore from the office and latched onto Mitch’s legs.  One wearing a mechanic’s uniform sprinted into a leap, stomach landing on the shoulders and heads of other zombies, and wrapped his bony arms around Mitch’s lower back.

Mitch strained to keep his grip on the ladder under the weight of their pulling and the zombie on his back.  He felt the tendons in his neck bulging, ready to snap free the tension that was mounting, stiffening them.  The muscles in his arms stretched and burned.  Blood swelled in his fingers hooked around the steel wrungs, throbbing and whining for him to give up.  His ankles racked, thighs pulling from their sockets.

His pants slid down, constricting around his waist and his torso went hot.  The gun fell from his waistband, crashing into the upper lip of a zombie about to gnaw into the back of Mitch’s ankle.  The zombie disappeared below a mass of bloodied and rotted hands. 

  “Mitch!  No!” Phoebe cried.  It sounded almost like a warning, Mitch thought.

  He looked up at her silhouetted by moonlight, hair dangling down.  Her eyes scrunched in and she turned away.  She was seeing something he wasn’t.

  The zombie, wrapped around his lower back, sank its teeth into the soft tissue of his side, below the ribs.

  Mitch screamed out, arching back while one of his hands slipped, dropping him an inch lower, but it was more than enough for more zombies to get their hands on his legs. 

  It felt like the worst blood squeezing, baseball sized, pinch that only grew bone grindingly worse.  He gritted his teeth, trying to subside the pain, or at least divert it, but even they felt like they were going shatter.  His soiled shirt mingled with the zombie’s teeth and the exposed sinewy muscle it clamped into.  The canines of the zombie’s jaw dug deeper, like knives carving out a plump thanksgiving turkey, slicing through muscle. 

  Mitch swung his elbow back, crushing the zombie’s nose.  It held strong like a dog on an intruder.  He slammed his elbow again, this time punching through one of the zombie’s eyes, spilling yellowy eye goop that stuck to his elbow like melted cake frosting.

  The zombie let go with a painful shriek that could crack glass.  It fell like a cement block, taking the crowd around Mitch’s feet with it as it slammed to the concrete floor. 

Mitch screamed again as he lifted his leg up a wrung.  The pain stiffened his leg and back, flickering like lightening bolts up his shoulders and neck.  His side burned, shirt clinging to the wound like a wet sock.  The breeze bursting through the broken office window lapped over the wound, tingling and cooling it, though it still felt like a burning coal.  He fought through the pulsing pain, through the rigidness that was strangling his joints.    

  “I got you!” Phoebe assured, grabbing handfuls of Mitch’s shirt to help pull him up. 

  Below, the zombies were already back on their feet, scaling the ladder with fierce agility. 

  Mitch lifted himself up and through the hatch, collapsing onto the gravel roof, face up.  His breathing was hard, rough, and he couldn’t get enough air.  His vision faded, stars sparkling in his peripherals.  Phoebe’s voice was muffled and he couldn’t make out what she was saying, something about the hatch.  All he knew was that his side was on fire, and not moving seemed to be the best relief. 

  “Phoebe…” Mitch said, drifting in and out.

  He rolled onto his side, grinding gravel beneath him, smearing dirt on his t-shirt.

Phoebe sat on the closed roof hatch, bouncing up and down while zombies underneath her tried shoving their way up.  Her mouth moved, but no sound came out, at least none that Mitch’s distant ears could perceive, then he realized he was going to pass out.

  “If you’re gonna pass out, Mitch, do it on this hatch!”  Phoebe screamed.

Mitch crawled over, laid on the hatch, and started surrendering to the cold that was crawling through his body.

  Phoebe paced back and forth beside him while the orange flames of the pumps continued their roaring behind her.  Smoke billowed into the air like black pillows, churning up into the night with an oily burning stench. 

  Another pump ignited, shaking the building’s foundations, and brightening the roof in a warm glow.  A wall of heat spread like a tidal wave while a fiery plume clawed at the sky. 

  Phoebe curled up next to Mitch as tiny crumbs of debris rained over them, like fiery hail. 

  Mitch’s eyes grew heavier, even as the zombies pounded the hatch beneath him.  He knew when they closed, there would be no waking him up, not this time.  He thought about death, being with his parents, up in the sky, and decided it wouldn’t be so bad.  Phoebe was safe, for the time being.  His dead body would ensure they wouldn’t get up onto the roof.  He felt warmth spilling from his side wound, a clammy wetness puddling around him. 

  As his final sleep raced through his limbs, begging him to close his eyes, a blaring horn pried them open.

  He looked over, no energy to speak of, and saw Phoebe staring at something out in the field behind the gas station, something shining an intense light, brighter and whiter than the raging fire of the pumps.

  Mitch lifted himself upright, flexing his abs to ease the pain of the chunk missing in his side.  He shivered, losing body heat and quite a bit of blood.  The world was blurry, sound distant like it was being whispered into his ear through a funnel. 

  Phoebe jumped up and down, waving her hands, screaming.

  The white light edged to the side of the building, coming free of the cornfield, rolling around to the side of the roof closest to Phoebe.

  “Phoebe, get away from there!”  Mitch shouted, but it came out a whisper. 

  The bouncing hatch below Mitch stopped and then he heard the sound accompanying the light.  It was the huff and puff of a diesel engine, chugging and belching exhaust.

  The light darted to the parking lot, illuminating dozens of sagging faces and their yellowing clothes.

  “You guys stay put!” a voice shouted over a loud speaker, coming from behind the spot light.

  Phoebe ran to Mitch, crunching gravel beneath her sneakers.

  “It’s a tractor, Mitch!  There’s two guys!” she said, shaking him, unaware that he was bleeding out.  “Mitch, what’s wrong?”  Her eyes wandered down his side to the dark red stain, now the size of a dinner plate and still growing.

  “Oh…”  She said, sitting back.  “Oh, no.”

  “It’s ok,” Mitch wheezed.  He grabbed her small hand and squeezed it tight.  “It doesn’t even hurt…” he said, trailing off.

  Gunshots echoed from the far side of the roof, and Mitch heard the bodies of the dead flopping onto the pavement. 

  Phoebe put both of her hands over the wound and shoved against it, and didn’t stop.  She squished in her face and grit her teeth, straining to keep her strength against the wound.

  Mitch screamed as pain spider webbed around his back, curling up the back of his head.

  “Why…” a cough tackled its way up Mitch’s throat.  “Why are you doing that?”

  “Saw it on TV.”

  Mitch slammed his head into the hatch, diverting the pain.

  "If I turn into one of those things..." Mitch said, gulping a wad of blood and spit.

  Phoebe lifted his head and looked into his pained eyes.

  "You're not turnin' into one of them, I won't let you," she said, squishing in her lip.

  She looked over her shoulder at the light, at the men.

  “They’ve got guns,”  Phoebe said.  “We’re gonna be ok.  You’re gonna be ok.”

  Mitch couldn't heard Phoebe saying any more, he was already settling into the darkness.  He’d passed out.

                            

Hell Breaks Loose - Episode 7 - "20 On Pump 6"

Hell Breaks Loose - Episode 7 - "20 on Pump 6"

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“So, why were you hitting your head on the wheel?” Phoebe asked Mitch as they neared the outskirts of Clifton.  The question seemingly bore no real interest to her, merely appearing to be a child’s attempt to ease the silence from the truck.  She sat, indian style, dancing the bear in her lap by tugging both of its fuzzy paws into the air.

  Mitch checked the rear view mirror.  The dead had either lost their scent or had found a more interesting one to ravage, either way, they were gone, at least for now.  He saw only the string of bars on Main Street disappearing behind a low grade hill.

  “We lost em!” Mitch said, glancing over at Phoebe.  He watched as her head bobbed left and right, playing a tune in her head that the bear danced to.  Must be catchy, Mitch thought.  

  Gravel ground underneath the passenger side front tire, vibrating the truck as it skidded along the shoulder.

  Mitch hurried his eyes back to the road and corrected the truck back to the pavement.

  “Eyes on the road, please,” Phoebe said, smiling, focusing on and setting the bear upright in her lap.

  Mitch smiled and squinted his brow.

  “Your dad taught you a lot about driving, huh?”

  “No,” she said.  “Well, yeah, but no.  This one time, he let me drive on his lap and it was so fun!”  Phoebe said, twisting her whole body to face him, keeping her legs criss-crossed.  "He told me," she stopped, losing her nerve, "eyes on the road, sprout.  Keep 'em always forward, always looking, always watching, and you'll do alright."

  Mitch looked over to her, catching her stare, then looked back at the road. 

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Mitch said, utterly bewildered. 

  Phoebe reached up and patted Mitch's forehead.  Her fingers came away salty with sweat and she rubbed it on her jeans.  “I asked you something, Mitch.  Two times.  Why were you hitting your head?”

  “I didn’t hear you the first time.”  Mitch lied.  Who is this girl, Mitch asked himself again.  His eyes danced around the road, hoping she would leave it at that.

  “Ok,” she said, turning herself back to face forward.  “But I know you heard me that time.  You don’t wanna talk about it, that’s fine, but...” she crossed her arms, squeezing the bear tight.

  Mitch steered the truck left, following the bend of the road.  They sped along the southernmost tip of Clifton, which was made up of dozens of fenced in backyards that ran east and west.

  “You have to go faster!” Phoebe demanded, perching up onto her knees, gripping the door handle with her tiny fingers.  She bit down on her lower lip and scanned the countryside.  “I’m not gonna make it.  Pull over.  I can pee in the ditch.”

  “You’re not peeing in a ditch!  We don’t know how many of them could be out there.  They could snatch you up when you’re wiping.  We’re almost there, I promise.  Just hang on a few more minutes.  Okay?”

  “We don’t know how many are at the gas station either.  Could be a big Ole death trap!” Phoebe said.  "I...have...to...pee!"

  “I’m not pulling over.  Forget it, it ain’t happenin.”  

  On his right, the gas station slowly came into view.  It sat by itself, a hop away from highway 57, surrounded on three sides by golden cornfields aching to be harvested.  Its red roof gleamed darker in the dying sunlight.  The front of it, made up entirely of windows with two glass doors smack dab in the center, reflected creamy orange light in thick square blotches.  The gas pumps lined the front drive, covered in grime and muck.  Mitch caught a whiff of the corn stalks, an earthy sun-baked sweetness.

  “Told you.  There it is,” Mitch pointed.

  “You think they still have ice cream?  I want a dilly bar!”

  Mitch’s stomach bubbled with hunger.

  “Oh!  You know what I could really toss back?  A peanut butter blizzard!”

  “My dad used to bring me out here after my soccer games, even if we lost.  He said I deserved it for just getting out on the green.  Unless we won!  Then he would get me a dilly bar for every goal I scored.”

  “What’s the most you ever got?”

  “Three.”

  “Three whole dilly bars!  Wow!”  Mitch said in innocent admiration.  “That’s pretty impressive.”

  “Yeah.  We didn’t win that game, though.  But I had ice cream coming out of my ears by bed-time,” she said with a fading smile, “with a heck of a tummy ache.  Mom wasn’t happy about that but dad, he read me an extra bed-time story until I fell asleep.” 

  Phoebe all of a sudden became very quiet.   

  Mitch looked over at her.  She stared at the gas station, lost in the memories with her father.  He figured he should say something.

  “You miss him, huh?”

  Phoebe nodded her head in agreement, keeping her focus on the gas station.

  “Do you miss your dad, Mitch?” 

  His father’s last phone call rang in Mitch’s mind.  Don't be dumb, Mitch.  Take care of your mother.  

  Sorry, dad, Mitch apologized in his head.  I hope you’re up in heaven together.  I’ll prolly be there soon.

  He wiped away a single tear swelling in his eye.

  “He never took me to get ice cream or anything like that.  My mom was always the one that uh…”

  A laugh of realization escaped from his gut.  Why did I even fucking leave her alone, after everything she’d done for me.

  “She always did the fun stuff with me.  I remember her being the one to always take me to the movies, or to fourth of July fireworks.  She used to clean houses when the family was a little tight on money.  Sometimes she’d let me come with, prolly cuz I was too young to be home alone.”

  Mitch turned the truck into the gas station’s entrance.  He circled around the parking lot and the gas pumps, checking to see if any of the dead would spring from the shadows and attack.  If so, he’d take the truck out and away, maybe even let Phoebe pee down the road.

  As they circled, Mitch said, “Anyways, she let me watch movies on their big screen TV’s, play with their children’s toys.  One time, she even let me take one home.  I didn’t know it back then, but that’s stealing,” Mitch laughed.  "My mom let me steal!"

  He circled the parking lot three times, ready to slam the gas if a sloppy faced zombie came, but none did. 

  Through the windows of the gas station, it looked empty.  No dark shadows passed, darting about from within.  The ceiling lights inside were off, but the soda and water coolers still buzzed with fluorescent bulbs. 

  Mitch parked the truck along the front door.

  “My dad never took me to work with him.  Not once.  He loved me, I know he did, but in a different way I guess.  Musta thought all that stuff was in mom’s job description.  I miss him, just not the way you miss your dad.”

  He missed him mom, terribly, though that was only just an hour ago.  He squeezed the steering wheel with his palms, fingers curling around it harder.

  “Can I go pee now?” Phoebe asked, bouncing up and down in her seat.

  Mitch let the thoughts of his mother drift away as he released the steering wheel.

  “Absolutely.”

  Phoebe pulled on the door’s handle and pushed with her shoulder, opening it a bit.

  “Listen,” Mitch said, reaching out to halt her dismount.  “If I say run, you book it back to the truck and lock the doors.  Got it?” he said, lowering his head and stretching up his eyebrows.

  “Got it, Mitch!” she said, scurrying out of the truck, teddy bear in hand.  Her tone was one of compliance and not understanding, like most children who have something on their mind.

  “You better get it!” Mitch said, exiting the truck and rounding the front to meet her at the gas station’s double doors.  The cool evening air licked at Mitch’s cheeks.  It carried with it the same tangy spice of coming rain Mitch sniffed earlier.  He looked up to the sky.  The rolling purple thunderheads were closer, lightning bolts dancing and flickering within their bellies. 

  He tugged the 9mm from his waistband and flicked off the safety, giving the gun a once over.  The weight felt good in his hands.  It helped ease the tiny shred of fear percolating in the back of his head. 

  The front door, in need of a good oiling, groaned as Mitch pushed it open, holding the gun out in front.  The droning of the air conditioner and the coolers drowned out their footsteps and panted breathing.

  The building was mostly dark against the setting sun.  Soft white light flickered, humming from the drink coolers on the far wall, opposite Mitch and Phoebe.  In the center sat a horse shoe shaped counter, lined with candy and lighter displays, topped with registers and a cigarette case, mostly empty.

  “Smells clean,” Mitch smiled, surprised.

  Phoebe danced in place, holding her stomach. 

  “Bathrooms over there,” Mitch pointed, past the register counter, in the corner where the hall branched off.

  She was on the verge of exploding.  Phoebe sprinted for the hallway, disappearing around its corner.

  “Wait for me!” Mitch shouted.  He dipped his head low and looked around.

  He jogged to the hallway and peeked down at the bathrooms.  The women’s door slid shut, Phoebe already through.  He dug his free hand into his pant’s pocket and decided to wait, leave her in some privacy.  If the dead were in here, they would’ve already shown themselves.

  It was surreal, being in there.  He felt that at any moment, the clerk would emerge from the backroom, boxes of candy bars ready to be stocked in hand.

  The toilet flushed inside the women’s restroom after a quiet moment, filling the empty hall with whooshing echoes.  He felt a smile coming on, having missed the sound of a flushing toilet.  Strange.

  Phoebe shrieked, pushed open the restroom door, and rammed into Mitch’s side, clinging to it like a rubber tourniquet, sobbing.  Maybe they wouldn’t have shown themselves.  Somehow, he couldn’t explain it, they seemed smarter than movies and books portrayed them.  They’d shown they could problem solve.  A shudder ran down Mitch’s spine, letting go the repercussions of such a thought.

  He aimed the 9mm at the bathroom door, shifting his feet to steady his weight.  Any second, he thought, it’ll burst through, mouth frothy with blood and teeth ready to rip into flesh, rend muscle from bone.  Squinting his eyes, he prepared for the wall of rotted stenches to blast into his face.  But it didn’t.

  A minute went by, then another.  His pits were soaked, beads of sweat dribbling down his sides.

  He took one hand from the gun and clutched her back.

  “It’s ok.”

  Mitch peeled his eyes from the bathroom door, glancing down at Phoebe.  Her face was flush, eyes sparkling with tears. 

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Phoebe sniffled and said, “I was washing my hands and…”  she sniffled again.  “A spider crawled down the mirror.”

  Mitch let his nerves unwind and slowed his breathing. 

  “A spider?  That’s why you screamed?” Mitch asked.

  She rubbed her eyes with her hands and nodded.  Her face had returned to its peach rouge, eyes still glossy but drying.

  He crouched down beside her, face level.

  “If that spider comes out here, I’ll squish it!” Mitch said, scrunching in his eyes and nose.  Phoebe smiled and nodded again.  “I hate spiders too.  They’re gross and crawly, and hairy.”

  “Ok!” she said. 

  “Feel better now?”

  Phoebe smiled wider.

  “You hungry?” Mitch asked, standing up and lending her his hand to grasp.

  Phoebe took his hand and squeezed, pulling him from the hall and down an aisle. 

  “Guess that’s a yes.” 

  Mitch’s stomach gurgled, crying for a decent meal, and as he looked around he knew he was in the wrong place for that. 

  Displays were packed with chips, beef jerky, and salsas.  Others were stuffed with candy bars and trail mixes.  It would satisfy his sweet tooth, if he had one.  He craved a turkey loaf, slow roasted and drowning in chicken gravy, surrounded by mounds of mashed potatoes spewing even more gravy from their summits.  To smooth it down, a tall glass of chocolate milk, dark brown with extra sweet syrup lining the bottom.

  Instead, he sighed, grabbing a red handbasket with black folding handles and began slinging in packets of wrapped sausage sticks and spicy cheese puffs.

  Together, they went up and down each aisle, throwing in whatever they thought would soothe their stomachs.  Piles of bags of chips crinkled, growing higher and higher in Mitch’s basket. 

  Phoebe wildly grabbed from boxes and peg hooks, dashing by anything that was a health bar or had nuts in it. 

  Mitch shook his head with a smile from cheek to cheek when he realized it.  This was what kids her age dreamed about.  She was a kid in a candy store, and he wasn’t parent enough to tell her when enough was enough.  So, she went on, and even when the basket overflowed with junk, she made space for more still.

  He handed her the basket, letting go of it when he was sure she could bear the weight, and told her to hide behind the register counter, out of sight of the windows. 

  “I’ll be back in a sec,” he said.  “Just eat and try to be quiet.  Okay?”

  She didn’t answer.  Phoebe had already torn open a bag of chips and began shoveling ruffled and fried potatoes into her cheeks, only chewing when there wasn’t any room left in her cheeks.  Mitch wondered how long she’d been hiding in the truck, how long it’d been since she’d eaten. 

  He watched her eating for a moment as the sun finally fell beyond the horizon, leaving them in nothing but the fluorescent light from the coolers.  

  Mitch walked, gun on point, into the backroom.  The generators pumping power and cool air into the coolers hummed like a choir of burly men, droning on endlessly. 

  The refreshing air was welcomed, that’s for sure, but the light would attract the dead if they ever caught wind of it.  He didn’t have enough bullets, and he thought about scrounging around for some, but he didn’t think it was that kind of gas station.  You’d have to go great a deal farther south to find one like that. 

  He squinted in the darkness, searching for a breaker box.  In the dark, he made out a cleaning station with hoses dangling like limp snakes, a deep industrial sink, deep enough to bathe in, with mildewy buildup around the rim, and to his right an office through another doorway.

  His foot nudged loose a broom stick leaning against the wall as he stepped forward, thwacking it against the gritty floor.

  Mitch shouted, blindly backing into the wall behind him, clutching his chest as it heaved with fright.  The nudge was so soft, so subtle, he didn’t know he did it. 

  Shit, Mitch!  You gotta take it down a notch.

  He shoved the cold steeled barrel of the 9mm, down to the hand grip, into the back of his pants, having almost fired a shot on accident.

  “You’re good, Mitch.  Just take it easy,” he said, controlling his breathing. 

  Once he’d calmed himself down, he crept past the office’s doorway.  A single window on the left dimmed the room with a milky moonlit glow.  The silvery, glossy sheen of the breaker box glimmered on the wall in front of him.  A desk and filing cabinet clung to the wall, beneath the window.  The room was tiny, like a bigger than average closet that’d been converted to an office. 

  Mitch crossed the room, ramming the meat of his thigh against the edge of the desk and stumbled to the grey box.

  “Son of a bitch!” he grumbled.  His thigh throbbed as the muscles became knotted under his flesh.  He rubbed it for a moment, spreading the pain, and started with the box.  The latch came free with a metal clink, screeching while Mitch opened it fully.

He wished he brought a flashlight, but in the seeping moonlight he saw there were no labels next to any of the black switches, so it didn’t matter.  He’d have to do this blind, and hope, and pray he didn’t turn on any of the immensely bright pump lights.  On a clear night, the white glare they cast could be spotted from at least three miles away. 

His finger flowed over the two rows of switches, strumming like a guitar while he contemplated which one to start with.  It stopped in the middle of the second row.

  Mitch took a deep breath and clenched his eyes shut tight.  He opened them a sliver and flipped the switch to the right. 

  Please, God.  Don’t let the sign outside burst to life.

  The lights above his head and in the backroom flickered to life with tiny clicks.  Static filled the room, white noise scratching the air from a portable radio on the desk beside him.

  “God!” Mitch squealed, grasping his ears to shut out the noise.  Then he flipped the switch back to the left, coating the room in silence and dark again.

  He went down two switches and snapped that one alive.

  The ground around the window outside went white, glistening the grass blades from a light source above the building, or from the other side.  The intense brightness spanned the back lawn, spreading up and along the first row of towering corn stalks bordering the far side. 

  The pumps!    

  He saw it in his head, every zombie in a three mile radius, dropping the arm or the leg they were chewing on, turning toward the bright glow hanging in the distance.

Mitch turned off the switch then started flipping through the rest, deciding to finish it quick, like a band-aid.

  Then it hit him.  The cooler was already running.  The switch would already be on.       He thumbed through the others for no reason. 

  He pinpointed the only one that was switched in the on position, and turned it off while shaking his head, pissed at himself. 

  The droning of the generators slowed to a grinding halt, and almost instantly the cool breeze died, giving way to a humid cloud sweeping through the backroom and office.

Phoebe sat amidst a crowd of empty chip bags and peeled candy wrappers.  Her fingers were powdery with dry cheddar flakes, chocolate streaks circled her lips like a terrible attempt at putting on lipstick.  She leaned against the counter behind her, patting her belly. 

  “Why did you turn that off?” she asked, sitting herself forward.

  Mitch grabbed a candy bar from the basket and squatted beside her.

  “You know how moths are attracted to light?” he asked, ripping open his candy bar.

Phoebe cocked her head to the right and squished in her nose.  Mitch recognized it as her thinking face.

  “Well they are,” he said, taking a bite and chewing.  “It’s a mating thing.”  A tiny peanut crumb launched from his mouth from talking with his mouth full.

  “Mating?” Phoebe asked.

  He’d clearly lost her.

  “Well if the light’s on, the gooey men will think we’re here, and we don’t want that.  So, it’s best we just leave it off.”

  “Then why did you turn on the big light, then turn it back off?”

  “That was an accident.  Didn’t mean to do that one.  Let’s just hope no one saw it, cuz we’d need more than just this little thing,” Mitch said, pulling out the gun from behind and setting it on the floor beside him.  He finished off the candy bar and tossed the wrapper into Phoebe’s leftovers. 

  Phoebe rested her head in her hand and yawned.

  “You look tired,” Mitch pointed out, yawning himself.

  “So do you.”

  Mitch thought about the last two days, the butcher, his mom.  He reminded himself that he’d smashed his grandmother’s mirror into mother’s head.  When they locked eyes, as Mitch drove by the house, he stared into something that was no longer his mother.  He vaguely remembered it smiling at him, whatever it was inside his mother’s body. 

  A shiver shimmied through his spine, sending goosebumps pimpling his neck and arms. 

  Mom…

  He sifted his hands through the basket, washing his hand through the crinkling chip bags, and snatched out another candy bar.  Tears began swelling in his eyes.  He looked at Phoebe, checking to see if she’d catch the watery buildup.

  She lay on her side, using her stuffed animal as a pillow, fast asleep.  He wondered what she’d been through, where her parents were, if they were alive or walking dead.

What am I supposed to do, mom?  Take care of this girl?  I thought we help others by helping ourselves.  That’s what you said.

  “That’s what you said,” Mitch whispered to himself.  He wiped away a trickling tear from his cheek with his thumb and tore open the candy bar. 

  He thought about leaving, getting in the truck and just driving.  To where?  He didn’t know.  He supposed it would be the same anywhere.  Hiding, running, dying.  It didn’t make a difference.  It boiled down to where you wanted to die, where you chose to give up. 

  He couldn’t leave her.  Even in this world, the world they found themselves in where rules didn’t matter, where even if you were dead you could still stumble around feeding off of the living.  It was wrong, leaving her.

  If anything, this little girl that had hidden in the back of Rickerson’s truck for God knows how long, she gave him a reason to procrastinate, to leave the decision up in the air about where he wanted to die.  He wasn’t ready to answer that question, and he was certain it hadn’t even crossed this little girl’s mind.

  Mitch didn’t feel tired as he munched on a delicious combination of caramel and chocolate, but his eyes felt like dumbbells.  He didn’t even realize he’d drifted to sleep until he heard metal clattering together outside.

  Mitch awoke with a gasp, scrambling for the gun on the floor at his side, feeling like he’d only closed his eyes for a second.  He’d almost fired off a frenzied shot when he realized the hollow clanging was coming from outside.

  He shuffled to his knees and pulled himself up to peek over the register counter.  What he saw through the front windows shoveled a lump into his throat.  He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.  The tears were back, and with full force, readying themselves to stream down his cheeks.
  His rotted mother, stringy hair covering the sides of her putrid face, stood beside a gas pump, head cocked and smiling. 
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Join us again next Saturday for the next episode in Mitch's Story - Episode 8 - "Home on the Range"