Road Trip Read online

  “It’s true! He has a shotgun in that bag.”

  “I’m sure he does. It’s the most reliable weapon for zombie slaying.”

  “Choice of zombie-killers everywhere,” Mr. Parker said. “Let’s go Shan. Mr. Colbert’s a busy man and probably gots lots a work to do.”

  As they walked out of the Cascades Hotel, Colbert yelled “Have fun!” and waved. Shan flipped him the finger.

  * * *

  With the front passenger tire up on the curb and the opposite quarter panel sticking three feet out into traffic, the Cadillac rumbled and choked to a stop in front of a rotting apartment building. “This must be the place,” said Mr. Parker, squinting at the slip of paper under the glow of a streetlight. Shan tried to make out the missing letters of a pink neon sign that read: SO RDENS. The old man guided his walker around the hulking car, clutching the gym bag under one arm. “Maybe you should wait here.”

  “No chance,” Shan said.

  They entered the courtyard through a gate that wouldn’t lock because someone had wrapped duct tape over the latch. The whole place smelled of urine. It made Shan’s stomach turn. A transient lay huddled in a corner under an immense tan trenchcoat. Few of the doors still had numbers and Mr. Parker had to count down from fourteen to find room number nine. He unzipped the gym bag and removed the shotgun, holding it stiffly. Oh God, Shan thought, he’s really going to do it. Mr. Parker banged the twin barrels on the thin door. Please, please, don’t be home. From behind the door someone said, “Who is it.”

  “Pizza delivery,” said Mr. Parker.

  The rattling of chain locks being disconnected echoed. Mr. Parker held the gun up to the crack of the door at eye level. The door pulled open and the man said “I didn’t order—”

  “Step back,” Mr. Parker said calmly, “or I’ll blow your head off right now.”

  The man’s pudgy face shook with disbelief. His mouth quivered, forming grotesque shapes in the harsh light and tears started to roll down his cheeks. A robe wrapped his chunky body and fuzzy green slippers graced his feet. He staggered back a few steps and began to sob. “Jesus… don’t… just, don’t… Jesus…” Splayed fingers on shaking hands pushed at the empty air between he and the gun.

  Shan followed Mr. Parker as he pushed his way into the cramped studio apartment. It was sparsely decorated with matching wood bookshelves, table, and chairs and a small sofa that doubled as a bed. Only a stack of unwashed dishes in the kitchenette sink marred the orderly room.

  “Stinkin’ zombie!” Mr. Parker shouted.

  Shan tugged on Mr. Parker’s arm. “He doesn’t look like a zombie.”

  “I’m not a zombie,” said the chubby man in the robe.

  “Saw you on TV, you filthy liar. Said you was brought back from the dead.”

  “I’m an actor for God’s sake,” he sobbed. “I was just pretending. It’s not true. Nothing on those shows is true. Last month I was impotent and the month before that I was a transvestite. Please, don’t shoot me.”

  “See! See!” Shan said, jumping up and down. “He’s not really a zombie. Don’t shoot him.”

  “Got to admit, he don’t look much like a zombie.”

  “I’m not!”

  “He’s not!” Shan said.

  “All right, all right, maybe you ain’t a zombie. But I ought to shoot you anyways for being a filthy liar.”

  * * *

  Bright orbs of street lights flashed by overhead. Chill night air battered Shan’s thin body through the open top as the Caddy raced along some unknown freeway. He hadn’t brought a jacket and his teeth chattered when he said, “Thank you.”

  “For what?” Mr. Parker asked.

  “For not killing that guy.”

  “Oh, that. You ain’t gots to worry. I won’t kill nobody who ain’t no zombie. I ain’t crazy.”

  “Course you’re not,” Shan said hollowly.

  “This other one though; he’s a zombie for sure. We gots to kill him. Gots to.”

  Shan stared straight up at the night sky. Each streetlight would appear like a blazing sun without warning, blinding him momentarily, and vanishing in the glaring haze. Just as his vision started to adjust, the Cadillac passed under another. Mesmerized by the strobe, Shan thought. How did things get so out of control? It all seemed so fun, like some big adventure. Batman and Robin or Indiana Jones. And now he had come close to killing a person. Murdering a human being. Even if he wouldn’t be the one who pulled the trigger, he would be just as responsible. In the flashing lights he relived that pudgy man sobbing and begging for his life. He wanted desperately to be home. Not just go there, but be there. In his house, in his room, in his bed. Home.

  The car sputtered to a stop, jerking and rocking, caught in a beastlike death-rattle.

  “This is it. You ready?” Mr. Parker asked.

  Shan wiped away tears with the back of his hand. “No.”

  “What’s a matter, boy? You crying?”

  “No. My eyes were watering. I’m okay. Let’s get this over with.”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  They walked past boxy green hedges and into the pastel pink apartment building. Shan helped Mr. Parker struggle up a flight of stairs to the second floor. The narrow hall branched several times, a maze of identical white doors and corners marked by ashcans stuffed with cigarette butts. Mr. Parker hefted his shotgun and rapped it on a door that looked like every other. No answer. He knocked again, louder this time.

  “Zombie’s don’t hear so good sometimes,” he explained.

  Shan nodded.

  Still no answer. Then the adjacent door opened to a security chain crack, startling them both. A small face peered through the thin slot—a little girl.

  “Mr. Crebbs isn’t home,” she said.

  Shan stepped between she and Mr. Parker to block her view of the gun. “He’s not?”

  “Nuh-uh. My mom says he works at the Post Office at night-time.”

  “Figures,” Mr. Parker said.

  “Are you his friends?”

  “Yes,” Shan said.

  “Are you weird, too. Cause if you’re weird like Mr. Crebbs I’m not s’posed to talk to you.”

  “We’re not weird, honest.”

  “I have to go back to bed now. Could you be a little more quiet please.”

  “Sorry,” Shan said.

  The girl vanished behind the door and bolts slid into place.

  They waited for hours in a laundry room down the hall. Shan sat on top of a dryer and Mr. Parker fed change into an empty washer occasionally to avoid suspicion. A young Asian woman planned on doing a late load but turned around and scampered away when she saw them in the cramped room. They didn’t speak at all except once when Mr. Parker asked if Shan wanted a candy bar and he declined.

  Mr. Parker’s supply of change had dwindled to nearly nothing when the slow measured pace of footsteps and the jingling of keys echoed from the hall. It was him. He wore the cap, striped pants and jacket of a postal worker. Dark glasses and a turned-up collar disguised his face. His upper body rocked awkwardly with each plodding step as they discreetly tailed him. He stopped at the correct door and struggled to insert a key with palsied hands.

  “Hold it right there,” Mr. Parker said, aiming his shotgun with one hand. He leaned heavily on the aluminum framed walker with only one arm for support. Shan grabbed the old man to help steady him but the gun drifted wildly from its target. “Take off them glasses and puts your hands up.” The thing, Shan was sure that it was a thing now, dropped its keys and sunglasses and raises its hands as best it could. Its sickly arms were twisted like the knotty branches of a dead tree. It’s eyes looked in two completely different directions and its face resembled nothing so much as a rotting potato that Shan remembered finding behind the garbage can. It rocked autistically, and shivered.

  “Where’s the witch that was on the TV with you?” Mr Parker asked.

  “Gu-gu-g-g-gone,” it managed with its shriveled tongue and decaying vocal cor
ds. One bloodshot eye focused on Shan, the other stared at the ceiling, and Shan at once could sense the misery, the horrible loneliness that it must have endured.

  The poor thing’s face, like an infant’s, could not hold any one expression long enough to show anything but a miasma of conflicting emotion. “K-k-ki-kk-ku-k-,” it sputtered.

  “Don’t do it Mr. Parker,” Shan said.

  Mr. Parker’s finger started to squeeze the first of the dual triggers. “End—” Shotgun swayed from side to side. “Don’t!” Shan screamed. “—of—” Finger and cold metal trigger moved together. Barrels drifted right. Thing shivered, said, “Ku-k-kk-ki-ku—.” Left hammer rocked slowly back. “—the—” Barrels drifted too far left. “No!” Shan screamed. Trigger engaged. Left hammer released, flew forward. “—line.”

  Gun fired.

  * * *

  Shan opened his eyes. He lay in an unfamiliar hall and his head throbbed and at first he wasn’t sure where he was or how much time had passed. Needles jabbed when he gingerly touched the lump on his forehead. When he turned, it all came back to him—the gun firing and the recoil sending the stock smashing into his head. Mr. Parker, tangled in the metal frame of his walker, leaned clumsily, like a partially demolished building. Buckshot pock-marks littered one white wall. The thing stood unharmed, clicking, “K-k-ki-kkk-k—.”

  The shotgun lay on the floor. Mr. Parker reached for it but from inside his aluminum prison it was too far. His fingers brushed the wood stock.

  “Ki-k-k-k—,” the thing said.

  It shambled toward the gun.

  “Run, Shan. Run!” Mr. Parker said. He touched the handle and the shotgun spun a little further out of reach. Shan stood, wobbly, and shook his head, trying to clear it.

  “K-k-k—.”

  The thing picked up the shotgun.

  “K-ki-kill.”

  “For god’s sake, boy—run!”

  Mr. Parker’s leg was skewed at a horrible angle. Broken probably. How could this be happening? One of the thing’s eyes locked on Shan while the other roamed free. It took a step toward him, gun in hand. Mr. Parker clawed at it uselessly. Shan’s feet weren’t cooperating. “Ki-k-kill,” it said. He wanted, needed, to run, but they wouldn’t budge. Not an inch. He could almost see himself from the outside, standing there with his eyes bugging and his tongue hanging out like an idiot, as the thing closed in on him. Still he was frozen. The thing stopped in front of him and raised the shotgun…

  And offered it to Shan.

  “Ki-k-kill me.”

  “P-pu-please.”

  Shan took the gun. The thing moved the barrels squaring them on its own forehead. Shan looked up the angled barrel at the thing’s rotting face, its miserable rotting face.

  “P-pu-please.”

  “I’m sorry,” Shan said. “So sorry.”

  Shan squeezed the trigger.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  J. Tanner is a speculative fiction writer living in the suburban sprawl of the San Francisco bay area with no wife and no pets and no interesting personal connection to the odd little stories he makes up using some slightly off-kilter part of his brain. He also likes pie. Apple preferably.

  If you enjoyed this story you might also be interested in many other similar stories in the collection it came from: DEEP IN THE MOJO & OTHER STORIES

  Thanks for reading. Let me know what you thought here: authorjtanner.wordpress.com

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  ROAD TRIP

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR