Dry Rot: A Zombie Novel Read online

  The flat edge of the tray crashed against the side of Jell-O’s head, knocking him to the floor.

  The other inmates were out of their seats in a matter of seconds. Their bodies created a wall around Frank and Jell-O, keeping the guards out. The shouting buried all commands to stop or get down. Soon one of the guards on the catwalk would fire a warning shot from the beanbag gun, but for now it was a free for all. Things happened at two speeds around here – painfully slow or incredibly fast.

  “Eat the apple,” Frank shouted. “Eat it!”

  Jell-O looked up at the tray and saw the rage in Frank’s eyes. His trembling hand reached out and grabbed a fistful of the pulpy apple mush from the floor.

  “Eat it!” Frank said again. Jell-O took a few bites before Frank slammed the tray down on his head. The thick plastic tray snapped as Jell-O’s head bounced off the floor. He went limp. A sweet mush of partially chewed apple hung from his mouth in thick ropes. Frank turned to me and smiled. “I don’t think that’ll keep the doctor away today.”

  The echo of the shotgun was deafening. All the inmates dropped to the floor and put their hands on top of their heads. Frank and I lay beside an unconscious Jell-O.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” I said. My face was pressed to the floor, but I could still see Frank smiling. “I didn’t give a shit about that.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said, “but you’re going home. I’m still gonna be here tomorrow and then it would be my turn. You looking weak would make me look bad. Besides, look there.” Frank motioned towards Jell-O. I couldn’t see what Frank was trying to show me.

  “Thanks,” I said before a guard dropped his knee between my shoulder blades. Beyond reputation, I don’t know what caused Frank to attack Jell-O, but I still felt the need to thank him. He didn’t have to get involved.

  “No problem,” Frank coughed as a second guard dropped a knee on his back and slid plastic cuffs around his wrists. “Go see your family.” Two guards pulled Frank from the floor and out of the mess hall.

  Two more came through the doors with a stretcher to take Jell-O to the infirmary. They strapped him to the stretcher and checked him. I stared at the makeshift knife one of the guards removed from Jell-O’s jumpsuit. Frank had seen it. I hadn’t. Missing details like that was the difference between life and death.

  Frank saved my life. That was the last time I saw him.

  -5-

  “One cell phone. One brown wallet with forty-three dollars and a Subway coupon - expired. One lock-blade knife. One watch, broken. One set of keys on a Sponge Bob keychain.” The contents of my life spilled out of a large manila envelope onto the counter. The officer in charge of my release showed little reaction or concern for the things that had once been so important to me. I grabbed my stuff, took my bus fare and signed out without so much as a word. I think someone wished me good luck as I walked outside to wait for the bus, but I couldn’t tell if it was sarcastic or not. I didn’t really care either way.

  Once I was outside, I checked my phone. The battery was dead. I knew that it would be, but old habits died hard and the first thing I would do after leaving somewhere was check my phone. The screen was black and a few spider cracks crept from the left corner. I didn’t remember those being there. Maybe the phone had been damaged when I got arrested. I just hoped that it still worked.

  The bus stop near the prison was a mess. The bench had most of its planks missing or broken. The Plexiglas walls were shattered or gone. Graffiti covered every open inch of space. Most of it was from former inmates waiting just like I was after their release.

  Back on the streets 4 life – Francisco caught my eye.

  I knew about eight guys named Francisco inside and any of them could have written it, because every one of them was a repeat offender. That was just how it worked. Prison only made you meaner and less capable of being part of society. Most guys ended up back inside because it was the only place they ever felt like they belonged. But not me. I wasn’t going back. I wasn’t going to leave some proclamation or prophecy scrawled on a bus stop bench. I was going home.

  The bus pulled up. The glass doors slid open and the overpowering reek of urine washed down the steps. Why do buses always smell like piss? But as I got on I saw why.

  A homeless man, who easily could have been mistaken for a pile of rags and trash, sat in the back of the bus. It looked like he was arguing with himself or with the bottle that stuck out from the top of a creased brown paper bag.

  I paid my bus fare and took a seat near the front. Only a few other people were on the bus. I guess most people find ways to avoid the line that stops near the prison. I couldn’t really blame them.

  The bus lurched forward and we were moving. It felt good to be outside, but it was strange. I kept looking around, waiting for something to happen. Maybe the homeless guy was making me nervous, but we had more than our share of crazy inside, so I didn’t think it was that. Maybe it was just being outside?

  I spent the last three years having someone else tell me what to do and when to do it and suddenly making a decision as simple as where to sit on the bus felt overwhelming. I took a couple deep breaths to try and calm myself and immediately regretted it as my throat, nose and eyes were assaulted with the acrid tang of old piss.

  The driver fumbled with the knob of the radio. I caught a glimpse of his profile. He looked worried. The bus came to a stop and the driver grabbed the radio.

  “Dispatch, this is Green Six,” the driver said. Must have been his bus number and the color of this route. At least it wasn’t gray or orange. The irony might have been too much to stomach.

  “Go ahead, Green Six,” the radio answered.

  “Is there something going on? I’m getting a lot of static on the radio and everything but the local stations just went dead,” the driver said.

  “Green Six,” the dispatcher said, “are you pulled over?”

  “Yes.”

  “There appears to have been some kind of accident or attack,” the dispatcher continued. “Most radio and television stations in or near cities have gone silent. All we’re getting is local and it’s not telling us much.”

  “Any word on what happened?” the driver asked. I leaned forward in my seat to try and hear more of the conversation. The driver was trying to keep it hushed, probably not wanting to panic the passengers, but he was doing a pretty poor job of it. I looked around the bus and everyone was either silent or checking their cell phones for information.

  “None yet, Green Six,” the dispatcher answered. “Finish your route and then check back in.”

  I hadn’t really noticed the sun before. Inside, I tried not to focus on something that was free when I wasn’t. But now I saw clouds pass over the sun. Large, greasy raindrops splattered against the windshield of the bus.

  “Dispatch,” the driver said into the radio. “Any word on this freak storm? I didn’t hear anything about rain today.”

  “It’s springtime, Green Six,” the dispatcher said. “It’s going to rain from time to time.”

  The driver hung up and put the receiver back in its cradle and pulled the bus away from the curb.

  I tried not to let the feelings of unease grow larger, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen. Maybe it was because the sky had turned gray? I hated that color and thought I was escaping it.

  I was wrong.

  -6-

  The bus continued on at a snail’s pace. The streets were flooded with rainwater. At one stoplight, I watched a gutter overflow and wondered what else was escaping besides the storm water. I guess it probably didn’t matter much. These streets were drowning in proverbial shit long before this storm.

  The bus driver kept twisting the knob on the radio one direction and then the other. Occasionally, there’d be a break in the static, but never long enough for us to figure out what was going on. People on the bus whispered about terrorist attacks and doomsday cults. I stayed quiet and watched the storm. Something about it bo
thered me. Then again I found that most things were bothering me today.

  “Looks like the storm is letting up,” the driver said. He turned to smile at me while we waited at a light. I didn’t know what kind of response he was looking for, so I just nodded and went back to staring out the window. The driver began to hum and slide his window open to let air into the bus. It did little to combat the smell.

  It did look like the rain was stopping. Maybe it was just a freak spring storm? The clouds thinned and I watched a jagged line of blue cut across the metallic sky. It was nice to see a color other than gray.

  The bus pulled up to the next stop. It was still two stops away from mine, but the smell of urine and a break in the rain made me anxious to get off the bus. I grabbed the metal rail and pulled myself out of my seat. The driver said something cheery that I ignored and answered only with a wave. People wasted words out here. In prison, you say the wrong thing or too much of the right and you were likely to find something sharp stuck in your gut. I would have to work on my people skills, I guess.

  No other riders got off at the stop. It was calming to be alone on the sidewalk. I spent three years with no time to myself. Hell, I even had to use the toilet with another guy in the room.

  The rain had driven most people inside, so even as I walked further along there were few people. The blue in the sky continued to break through and few errant rays of sunshine trickled through the clouds. As I waited to cross at the corner, I found my attention drawn upwards. I hadn’t seen a free sky in a long time.

  A long line of black twisted through the sky like a scrap of ribbon lost to the wind. It twirled and changed directions, but still headed towards me. For a moment, I thought it might be a flock of birds, but as it got closer I watched a large, powdery flake flutter to the ground in front of me.

  “What the fuck?” I asked no one as I used the toe of my boot to prod the flake. It crumbled and fell apart like ash. More began to drift down from above.

  Clouds, darker than any I had ever seen, moved across the sky. I worried about rain, but as more of the ashy flakes fell from the sky, I knew that fear was misplaced. Something very bad was happening.

  I pulled off my sweatshirt and wrapped it around my face and mouth. I didn’t know what was falling from the sky, but I sure as hell was in no rush to breathe it in. The sweatshirt wasn’t perfect, but would keep some of that crap out of my lungs.

  I looked for somewhere to duck into, somewhere to protect me from the ash that spilled from the clouds. This section of town had been run down and near abandoned before I went away and three years had only made it worse. The old storefronts were shuttered or covered with plywood. There was no way I was getting into any of these spots. My best bet was to haul ass and try to catch up to the bus at the next stop. The bus wasn’t the best place to take shelter, but it would be safer than standing on the sidewalk.

  I pulled my sweatshirt tighter and ran. The screech of tires and shattering of glass echoed down the street. I had a feeling the bus was going to be out of the question.

  -7-

  The ash fell to the wet ground and turned into a thick paste. The sidewalks looked like tubes of black toothpaste had exploded across them. My boots sucked and pulled with each step. I kept one hand over my face, holding the sweatshirt in place, and the other I used to dust the flakes from my clothes as I ran.

  There were no sirens. I expected to hear police cars or ambulances at any moment, but there was only the sound of my boots and breathing. The blood in my head was throbbing in my ears and making my head light. I hoped that it was just the insanity of my day and not some early sign of sickness from whatever this shit was.

  The next bus stop stood on the corner at the end of the block. I could see the walls and roof of the small structure tilting to the far left. Jagged shards of broken glass shone on the black sidewalk like scattered diamonds. The bus was there. It was also crashed into the side of the bus stop.

  I slowed to a walk and moved around the side of the bus. The twisted remains of the bus stop blocked the front door. Steam from the broken radiator gushed from the front of the bus and obscured the view. It didn’t look like anyone was inside. I didn’t see the driver or any of the passengers, not even the homeless guy. They could have left after the crash. Maybe the ash blocked the driver’s view and caused the accident? For some reason, I felt the urge to look inside.

  Bodies lined the floor. I could see the driver and a few of the passengers sprawled out towards the front of the bus. The homeless guy was still missing.

  Using my sleeve to wipe away some of the ash on the window, I pressed my face closer. A loud thump caused me to jump back and trip over some of the wrecked bus stop.

  The homeless guy beat two bloodied fists against the window. His eyes were glassy and red. Strings of chunky vomit clung to his scraggly beard and danced lightly as he screamed at me from inside the bus.

  “Go to the back door,” I said through my sweatshirt. I pointed to the rear of the bus. “Go there.”

  I watched the homeless man shuffle to the back door. He stumbled and fell a few times and struggled to pull himself up from the floor. His bloody hands slipped on the plastic seats, but he continued forward. The short distance to the rear door seemed like an impossible task. He eventually got to the doors.

  Standing at the bottom of the stairs, I waved for the homeless guy to hurry up. I didn’t want to leave him on the bus if he was hurt, but I didn’t want to stand around in the ash and slop either. He teetered at the top of the stairs and then pitched forward, slamming his head against the double doors. A patch of hair caught between the rubber that lined both doors.

  “Holy shit,” I said and pushed my fingers between the doors to pry them open. The homeless guy groaned and tried to push himself up from the floor. The tangled knot of hair that was between the doors sloughed off as he stood up, exposing a large section of bloody scalp. He pawed at his head, pulling away more hair and scalp with each pass. I saw his fingers poking through the tips of his gloves and could see the skin looked bubbled and raw.

  I yanked the doors open. The smell of vomit, urine and death spilled out of the bus. My eyes watered, even though I still had my sweatshirt tied in place.

  “Get out of there,” I said and waved. The homeless guy turned towards me. Blood ran from his eyes like tears. I could see it dripping from his ears and nose. He opened his mouth to mumble something. Maybe to ask for help? But all that came out was a thick stream of vomit. It splashed on the rubber floor of the bus and trickled down the stairs in a revolting waterfall.

  The homeless guy collapsed, hitting his face on a nearby seat and then tumbled down the stairs. I moved to catch him, but only managed to slip a few ratty dreadlocks between my fingers. They pulled off and he continued onto the sidewalk. I gagged looking at the knotted lengths of hair in my hand. They ended in frayed bits of red skin and meat. Panic surged in my gut.

  I rolled the homeless guy over to check him, but he was gone. Poking my head into the bus it looked like the other people had suffered similar deaths. Wads of hair and skin littered the floor. Greasy smears of blood and skin streaked across the windows. I turned to run, not knowing what was going on, but knowing that I had to get as far from this bus as possible.

  I had to leave. I had to get home. I had to see Lisa and Kara.

  -8-

  The ash stopped falling by the time I made it to my old neighborhood. The trees were coated in black and gray. The sun tried in vain to break through the clouds and succeeded in only casting a handful of sickly orange rays. I felt like I had never been set free this morning. I hated how the world looked almost as much as I just wanted to go home.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was still surprised to see my house. After three years, it had become little more than a memory and the reality of putting my foot on the first step made me dizzy.

  Closing my eyes, I could almost imagine Kara flying down the steps and into my arms. She would greet me every da
y I came home from work, everyday before I went to jail.

  The truth was that I knew Lisa and Kara weren’t going to greet me as I walked through the front door. Lisa and Kara left me before I went to prison, three years wasn’t going to change that. It also didn’t mean I wanted to see them again any less. Working menial jobs had left me with little money in the bank, but I had come into some money before prison and used it to set up a trust that kept my house out of foreclosure. I couldn’t stand the idea of someone else living in my house. It was mine and the memories between those walls were priceless. I would have burned it to the ground before I let some stranger intrude on the place I remembered being the happiest.

  A picture of Kara and Lisa hung in the front hallway. I never could bring myself to take it down. They had been so happy that day, we all had. It had been one of those impromptu weekend trips to nowhere and we had spent the day picnicking and hiking in the woods. I loved the way the sun framed the two of them in this picture. It looked like auras or halos. They never should have left. We should have stayed like that forever.

  The house smelled stale. Motes of dust drifted in the air as I moved from one room to the next. The furniture was covered in plastic and bed sheets. I had done my best to close up the house before I went away. I wanted everything to be how it had been before everything fell apart. I knew it was stupid, but I guess I hoped that if I kept the house the same that Lisa and Kara would come back.

  Knee-high drifts of ash blew along the wooden fence in my backyard. Seeing the black, powdery piles that had fallen from the sky shook me from memories of Lisa and Kara. I couldn’t keep walking around with a sweatshirt wrapped around my face. I don’t know what killed those people on the bus, but it had to have something to do with the ash.