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Meg and Greg by David N. Brown Mesa Arizona

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David Brown

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Jan 15, 2013, 1:32:09 AM1/15/13

Previously published at
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8899597/1/Meg-And-Greg
http://davidnbrownaz.blogspot.com/2013/01/meg-and-greg-by-david-n-brown-mesa.html

Meghan lived in the suburbs of a modest city in the desert. Her friends called her Meg, and she lived with Greg. She rose from the couch in the morning, as she had for the last five mornings, and confirmed that the light switch still did not work. She emerged from the den into the living room and went to the kitchen, where she discovered that the faucet did not work either. That was new. She went upstairs, past the photo of Greg, Greg at the office party, Greg at the wheel of his new Audi Quatro, Greg shooting his .454 magnum, and Greg with his big muscular arm thrown lazily around her neck, almost eclipsing her almost-new Chevette behind them.
Meg rapped on Greg's bedroom door. "Greg," she called out, "the water's out." She opened it. Greg was gone. She glanced at the dresser, and confirmed that the keys to the Audi were there. She stepped back into the hall, and saw that the door to the bathroom was closed. "Greg, I said, the water's out." She turned the knob; the door was latched. That was when she heard the thumping.
It was strikingly regular, one thump, a pause, and another thump, repeated, over and over. Meg pressed her ear to the door, and listened. Now, she could hear an unmistakeable swishing between thumps, and a hint of momentary scuffling: "Thump- swish- scuff- swish- thump..." She thought of a pendulum, and at that very moment, she heard the creaking, a sound just like some metal fixture, bending under considerable weight. "Greg," she said flatly, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead against the door.
Meg's eyes opened at a change in the rhythm of the sounds: "Thump- swiishh- thump- swish- thump- swish- rrriiiiippp..." She lurched back at the crash and jingle of the shower curtains being torn down. The creaking grew louder, and then there was a tearing screech exactly like the shower head being wrenched right out of the wall and a crash exactly like a body falling into the tub. For a moment, she stood completely still. Then she backed up to the bedroom.
She found the magnum and two boxes of ammunition, exactly where she knew they would be. She scooped them all into her old overnight bag, shoved out of sight in the closet. On a whim, she grabbed the key to the Audi. She was gathering things in the den when she heard another crash. She scurried back into the living room and looked up the stairs.
The bathroom door had been knocked open with single blow, forceful enough to splinter the wood and lodge the knob in the plaster. At the top of the stairs stood Greg, in his business suit, with the shower head hanging from Meg's nylons around his neck. His face was almost black, and his head lolled like a badly stuffed scarecrow's. Yet, his gaze seemed to turn directly toward Meg, and with strides as stiff and even as a windup tow, he began to descend the stairs. She drew the magnum as she backed up to the door, and took aim, no doubt badly, at Greg's face as she reached the bottom. She held her aim, as best she could with a gun whose weight alone was enough to strain her wrist, while Greg turned ponderously toward her. He stood there, seeming to stare, with his head lifted just a little higher and straighter. Finally, Meg put the gun back in the bag. "Okay," she said, "you can keep the Audi." She cast the keys at his feet, and as she made her exit, she saw him bend over to pick them up.
Meg had to cover some distance to reach the carport where the Chevette was parked, past two cul de sacs of identical two-story, two-unit townhomes and through a little park. On the way, she saw three wrecked cars and a dozen shuffling figures, one of which definitely turned in her direction before she went around a corner and out of sight. She used a shortcut that required vaulting over a low wall and dropping another foot to the asphalt. The only car in sight besides her little reddish-orange hatchback was a station wagon with a crumpled, blood-stained hood and the driver's-side door torn halfway off its hinges. No bodies were in sight.
Meg dropped her keys trying to unlock her car, at the unset of sudden shakes. Her hands steadied as she put the key in the ignition, but began to tremble worse as she turned the key again, and again, and again. The first time, nothing happened. The second produced an abortive rattle. At the third try, the engine gave an apologetic cough before falling silent. Meg's hands were shaking hard enough to make the key rattle in the ignition as she turned it yet again. The engine rumbled to life but then died with a protracted wheezing. She looked out the window, at the station wagon, The window frame of the door was bent. Her hand went still. She turned the key, and kept her hand on the ignition as the engine started, began to cough, and then worked back up to a steady rumble.
Meg made a tight U-turn in reverse, scraping the station wagon in the process and bumping into a support beam. Then she accelerated, approaching top (though still modest) speed as she peeled out of the parking lot and around a corner onto the street. She swerved to avoid a shuffling figure, only a child, but there was no taking chances with such a small car. As the car rounded another corner, the child turned belatedly and reached out for where the car had been. Its head lifted, as if staring, but any observer who met its eyes would have seen clouded lenses in no shape to see much of anything.
The Chevette was closing on 80 miles per hour as it roared toward the gates of the townhome complex. It braked and finally swerved for Greg, who stood in the middle. The showerhead was gone, but the torn nylons were still around his neck. His darkened face had lightened to a reddish purple, enough to make his features readily discernible. As Meg gazed out, her hands began to shake. It seemed to her that what she saw was indeed the Greg she knew. It occurred to her that his expression, especially, was the same he had worn on the night she made a discrete trip to the emergency room. As Greg reached for the door handle, the window went down, and a perfectly level gun barrel slid out. "Selfish ass," Meg said. She had no awareness of firing the gun. She only felt the wrenching ache of recoil, and saw Greg drop with a half-inch red spot on his forehead and a substantial hole in the back of his scalp. As he struck the asphalt, the keys to the Audi tumbled from his hand.
After a moment's pause, Meg opened the door and scooped up the keys.

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David Brown

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Jan 20, 2013, 8:53:14 PM1/20/13

Previously published at
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8899597/2/Meg-And-Greg

Meg saw the smoke rising from the gas station from miles away. She groaned and looked at the fuel gauge of the Audi Quattro. "Should have kept the Chevette," she muttered.

When Meg saw the solid mass of dark, shuffling shapes spread across the highway in the distance, she knew that the gas station would have done her no good even if it had been operational. She turned around, and after a short distance, turned east, onto a two-lane back road that had seen better days when the last Democrat was elected president. She had heard that campers, prospectors, and off-roading daredevils frequented the general area. That would explain the sign, which said, TO NOWHERE FAST.

She looked at the fuel gauge again. The Quattro had decent gas mileage, and it had a generous 20-gallon fuel tank. But it had been less than half-full when she had driven it out of her ex's garage, and the circling, idling and multiple four-wheel-drive detours getting out of the city had drained it fast. Even travel on the open roads was slow, and the car was giving far less than its theoretical 20 mpg. The gauge was down to the last gallon or so, and dropping.

She swerved to avoid a shuffling shape in the road, not soon enough. The collision crumpled the bumper and damaged a headlight. The shuffler went under the wheels, and she heard scraping on the undercarriage. Then the shuffler was receding in the rear view mirror. She looked away when the twisted shape raised an arm. Then she saw another line of shufflers across the road ahead, not close but not far. She took the next turn-off, onto gravel. Her eyes lingered on the sign: SERVICE STATION 5 MILES. The 3 MILE sign marked a turnoff onto a dirt road. Her gas lasted just long enough for the car to die within sight of the sign that said 1 MILE.

At the turnoff from the road, twenty-one shufflers from a passing mob turned aside down the gravel track. Seven of them broke away to explore the dirt road. Within half an hour, they passed the Audi. Four moved on, but three lingered, examining the car with vague interest. One pulled the door handle. Another picked up a rock and swung. The rock bounced right out of the zombie's hand, leaving an inch-wide spiderweb in the glass and setting off an alarm that was audible back at the turnoff. Back at the gravel track, eight shufflers turned back toward the dirt road. Closer at hand, the third shuffler at the car looked up. Down the road came a looming shape. It was big and boxy and half-shrouded by dust, which did not obscure the bright gleam of something like a giant silver Cheshire Cat grin.

A piercing cry, something between a wail and a whistle, carried even further and clearer than the car alarm.

There was one last turnoff, a dirt path of about ten yards, to reach the service station. A weathered green sign showed `Pete's' in bleached white cursive. Beneath it was a newer but still visibly faded circular sign for GULF oil. As Meg trudged into the station, she stepped over a body in a station attendant's uniform, sprawled face down next to a New Mexico Highway Patrol car. A crow squawked at her, before returning to feeding on the exposed brains of the deceased.

Scanning about for any sign of gas, Meg stepped right between two strange creations that looked like oversized antique gumball machines, each topped with a circular sign with the "Pete's" legend. She whirled about at a strange screech, to see the crow flapping away. Then she looked at the objects at either hand, and recognition dawned. Even so, she wasn't sure until she saw the hoses. Mom had told her, once, about visible gas pumps. Her mother had seen them on a trip down a country background, and thought the sight passingly strange and quaint. The trip had been her honeymoon.

Meg found a pump handle and gave it a try. There was a wrenching scrawnk that made her jump back. She tried again, and the noise was not repeated. She continued to pump, watching gas well up into the big glass cylinder on top. She was up to the five gallon mark before it occurred to her that she would need to find a can.

Meg went to the station's narrow main building, and looked in the door. There was a single room, with a lobby area for people to sit, a counter with a meager selection of candy and post cards, and an antiquated Pepsi-Cola machine shaped like a baby blue headstone. At the back was an office with the door ajar, and a short passage to an exit in the back. She noted a sign that said, "Toilet in back. Ask attendant for key." She averted her eyes from a mass of crimson that had been a woman sprawled on the checkered linoleum of the lobby. Then she jumped back as a shuffler slammed against the glass. It was a man in grungy clothes, with numerous lacerations and a bloody head wound. The shuffler slammed against the door again, making it rattle in the frame. Meg started to tremble, until she looked at the handle on her side. Large bas relief letters read, PUSH.

Meg made her way to the garage entrance, past a VW Baja Bug parked with one wheel halfway onto the paved walk. She paused to look back at the parking lot, and tensed. She could see past the patrol car, where the body had been... but the body was gone. What was more, three more shufflers were making their way up the path, while a fourth shuffled on by. She drew the magnum, and fired at the nearest. Her shot missed the target completely, but felled the shuffler still on the road. She took aim more carefully, lining up the sighting piece as best she could on the shuffler's constantly lolling head. Just when she felt ready to fire, something plowed right into her. Her shot went wild, and she let out a scream as she recoiled. But the shuffler that collided with her was not pressing the attack, but flailing strangely on the ground. It was clearly the same `body' that had been lying on the car. A green badge bore the name "Art" in the same cursive script as the station signs. It looked very much as if the shuffler was still trying to walk upright.

That was when Meg noticed the smell. She looked to the pump, and swore. Her shot had clearly grazed the glass tank, probably glancing off a bent support rod. The tank was essentially intact, but it had sprung a slow and steady leak.

The garage had bay doors on both ends, both open. Its two births were occupied by a stripped-down '32 Ford and an early-'60's Dodge pickup on a raised hydraulic lift. On the far side of the garage, an engine hung suspended on chains. Meg stayed on the near side, ducking as she passed a door that led to the main building. With hurried rummaging, Meg found a steel jerry can at the back. She noticed a clipboard hanging from a nail with a semi-legible scrawl: "Jon- Borgwar (scribble) Gal(smudge) Co. no good. Call Mo(scribble). Phil." Finally, she paused to pick up a hefty old monkey wrench that looked promising, when she heard footsteps around the back.

There was no question in Meg's mind that it was not one of the shufflers she had seen so far. Indeed, the sound was not shuffling at all, but long and measured strides. For a moment, she began to hope that it was human, though she knew better even before she peeked out the doorway. This one wore a police uniform, and walked with stiff goose steps. The motion was radically different from the shufflers' dragging perambulations, but just as rhythmic and even less human. She drew the magnum, but pressed back to the corner and waited, watching the strider jerk out of sight and then listening as its footsteps receded into the yard behind the station. She was just exhaling in relief, when she felt something slam against the wall behind her. She lurched back, as two even more powerful thuds came through the wall. Tools rattled, a thin cloud of dust puffed from the wall, and the clipboard clattered to the floor.

Meg knew it could be only one thing: Somehow, a shuffler in the main building on the other side of the wall knew she was there, and it was trying to come through the wall. For a moment she wondered if it might succeed, but that fear eased: The wall might be thin, but it was solid concrete. But then, the real problem was if the shuffler finally used a door. She holstered the magnum, picked up the wrench and the can and ran.

Art was still on his back, but his writhings were more purposeful, like an upside-down turtle trying to right itself. Meg jumped over the loathsome thing. Behind her, there was the sound of the rear door of the main building opening and slamming shut. The first of the newcomers stood in front of the pumps; a single blow of the wrench took care of it. She hefted the wrench as another shuffler approached, moving a bit faster than usual straight at her- until it turned right and shuffled past the garage. She dropped to her knees in front of the pump, trying to stay clear of the growing pool of gas. The fuel made a pattering sound as it poured into the can. Some splashed out, and she set down the wrench to steady the nozzle. She heard the sound of a shuffler, going around the main building, and looked over her shoulder to watch the corner. She was still looking when a leathery hand touched hers.

Meg stared into the ruined face of the shuffler she had bludgeoned. It stared back with one remaining eye that seemed, for once, functional and focused. Meg's eyes flicked to the tank; it was down to the last gallon. The lifeless hand gripped her wrist, and began to squeeze. At last, she could bear it no more. With her free hand, she snatched up the wrench and struck. The blow landed across the back of the shuffler's head, with a crunch of fractured bone accompanied by the popping of dislocated vertebrae. The shuffler stiffened and rolled over, clearly and truly lifeless, yet its mouth opened in the contortions of a death rictus, and an eerie, bloodcurdling, ear-splitting and bowel-wrenching cry came forth. Then, as it pitched to the asphalt, Meg was jerked forward in its death grip. The pump nozzle dropped from her hand, and the can fell over, spilling more gas to mix with the shuffler's blood. The shuffler's wail ended in a rasping wheeze, but from every direction, identical cries rose to answer it.

David Brown

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Jan 22, 2013, 2:20:23 AM1/22/13

3. "Where's Phil?"
Previously published at
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8899597/3/Meg-And-Greg

Meg hastily snatched up the gas gas can, saving the greater part of the gas- probably about a gallon. She then retreated to the front of the main building. The shuffler that had passed her by was coming back, in a kind of jog like a toddler trying to run, and the one around the corner was coming faster. Even Art managed to roll over and begin to crawl. She crouched at the corner, using the opportunity to screw the cap on the can. Then, just before the shuffler came into view, she shot upright and swung the wrench. The blow caught the shuffler across the jaw, and it went sprawling on its side. Meg was surprised to see that the shuffler was not the one she had seen inside, but another in the uniform of a service station attendant. It came as a further surprise when she looked at the badge and read the name "Dwayne". Then, before she could do anything decisive to the fallen shuffler, the one she had been expecting came straight through a window behind her. She pulled her self free, leaving the shuffler straining against the steel window frame. But she left the can behind, and she had a number of cuts on her arm. As she inspected her wounds, she saw a shallow but unmistakeable bite mark. With strange detachment, she drew the magnum, and looked down the barrel

"That'd be a bit premature, Colleen," a voice spoke in a heavy cockney accent. She looked back to the corner, and saw what in that moment was a more startling sight than any shuffler: A black man, with hair starting to go to gray, dressed in the regalia of a geologist or prospector, complete with a French Foreign Legion-style hat and a large rock hammer in his hands. "For un thing, that's a bit big for close-in work, innit?"

The black man glanced at Dwayne, who was up on hands and knees, Art, who had made his way to the asphalt, and the one-time daredevil still straining against the window, but he turned his attention first to the shuffler from the desert. As he strode to meet the shuffler, Meg got a better look at him in profile, and saw that, apart from the color of his skin, he did not look much like any black man she had ever seen. His nose especially had a hooked shape that made her embarrassed to think immediately of a Jew. He wore a light shirt that covered his arms, but the wide-open front and sleeveless undershirt beneath left no doubt that he had plenty of muscle to go with his wiry frame. He had not one but two shotguns slung across his back, but he made no move for either as he sized up the shuffler, a man in exactly the kind of shorts and tank-top that marked a 30-something yuppie trying to go back to nature. "Roighta," he said. "So you tried out the aerobics and whatnot. I s'pose you kept in decent shape. But you still go ta the same place." Then his shirt and the headdress of his cap swirled as he swung, and swung again.

Meg edged to the black man's side as he jerked the point of the hammer out of the base of the shuffler's skull. "What's your name?" she asked in a stage-whisper voice.

"Carlos," he said. He wiped the hammer with a rag he tossed aside and finished, "Wrzniewski."

"Ah," said Meg. "Ahh... where are you from?"

"Little bit o' everywhere," Carlos answered. He twirled the hammer. "I just got here. As a rule, I'da taken more time 'fore comin' out like this, but you just made an exception."

"Well, I suppose I should be glad you did."

"Aye. There's plenty o' people who wouldn'ta. Now what can you tell me 'bout them?"

"There's one in the back, a cop. I suppose you saw him." Carlos nodded. "All the rest that I've seen are the ones you see here. Except... There were four that wandered in behind me. I shot one over there on the road, and I... I don't know where the other went."

"Aye. Nobody can ever keep track of all of them. Any sign of others? It coulda been a sound, or something disturbed... or just something lying around that didn't look like it belonged to the others."

"I've been looking at the names on the uniforms," Meg said. She pointed to Dwayne, who was back on his feet and looking toward them. "That's Dwayne, evidently, and the other one's Art. I saw two more names on a clipboard in the garage- Jon and Phil."

Carlos looked at the pumps. "Roight, an' if Pete's the one who put those in, he's prob'ly long gone. But, you never know. First things first..." He hefted the hammer and grinned at the approaching shuffler. "Howdy, Duh-wayne. What's up?" He gestured profanely downward. "Not you, anymore." Dwayne stretched out his arms. "That a soft spot, aye?" said Carlos. "What are you gonna do 'bout it, boit me?" He eyed a jaw that looked like a sack of bricks. "Oh, roight- ya can't!"

Dwayne made a short lunge, his hands going straight for Carlos's throat. The black man- or whatever he was- backed up, toward the garage. Meg raised the wrench, but he waved her back. Then she called out in alarm: Carlos's strategic retreat had taken him in reach of Art, who came plowing across the gravel driveway with an oddly effective porpoise-like undulation. Carlos flashed Meg a grin as he sidestepped Art's lunge and in the same motion came at Dwayne from the side. The blunt end of the hammer caught him across the ear with an audible crunch. The shuffler fell straight back, striking the back of its head on the corner of the concrete island for the pumps with an even louder crunch. Carlos had already sprung for his other foe. Dropping to one knee, he pinned the crawler and drove the point of the hammer into the joining of brain and spine. Art convulsed and wheezed out an abortive "EEE" when Carlos pulled the hammer back out. "Nay worries," he said as he wiped the hammer on Art's coveralls. That was when the shooting started.

Carlos instinctively dived for the nearest cover, which was the intact pump. Then he ran like hell, straight through a volley of shots that ended in a click as he dived out of sight on the far side of the garage. Inside the garage, the striding cop goosestepped forward, continuing to pull the trigger of a big Colt 1911 pistol. He finally halted in his path, directly beneath the hydraulic lift, and after little tentative probing managed to eject the magazine. With a little patting at his hip, the strider took out another one and tried to put it in, backwards. The magazine slipped from stiff fingers, and the strider promptly bent down to pick it up. Carlos peered around the edge of the door as he unfolded the stock of a compact 20-gauge military shotgun. The cop was still bent over, fumbling with the gun and magazine. Then there was the unmistakeable click of the magazine sliding into place.

The strider straightened, or rather would have if not for descending hydraulic lift. Incredibly, the strider pushed back, like Big John shoring up the mine shaft. Even more incredibly, there was an audible whine and hiss of strain from the hydraulics, and it did seem that the descent of the lift slowed. A little. But clearly, the strength of the reanimated was not a match for massive hydraulics plus the sheer inertia of a truck on a platform big enough to support it. Carlos lowered the shotgun and watched the inevitable. The strider gave a final shriek, almost indistinguishable from the hydraulics, cut short by a grisly crunch. He looked across the garage and gave a respectful nod to Meg, who stood at the lift's simple control box.

Suddenly a scream came from the shadows, and a scuffle of feet. Carlos brought the shotgun to bear, but the suspended engine was in the way. Instead, he threw himself against the engine and shoved. The engine swung like a pendulum, and the shuffler speed-scuffed straight into it. Carlos stepped back and fired straight up, and the engine came straight down. He stepped closer and leaned forward to survey the damage to the shuffler pinned beneath, when the pickup door opened.

Carlos pivoted immediately and snapped off a slug at a figure in a station attendant's uniform. It was a clean miss that took out a chunk of the Ford's windshield frame, but still the attendant staggered and dropped, presumably wounded, stunned or simply thrown off-balance by shrapnel. They always were shaky on their feet, and sometimes they fell over for no reason at... Carlos pumped the shotgun and pivoted again at the crash of the engine hitting the garage wall. The pinned shuffler had all but thrown the engine aside, but it clearly was in no position to take advantage of its freedom. Hands scrabbled at the floor, but the legs only twitched feebly, and there was hardly enough left of its pelvis and abdomen to begin to sit up. In the second or so it took Carlos to size it up, the Ford suddenly rolled back as if in reverse. He turned yet again, and fired point-blank down the throat of the shuffler who had shoves the vehicle aside.

"This is Jon," he said after a glance at the name tag. "So where's Phil?"

Meg shrugged, and then started at yet another impact behind her. "What the hell," she said, not quite shouting, "do they see through walls? And why's it after me, anyway?"

"They do that, sometimes," Carlos said as he took his hammer to the cripple. He attended to Jon, too, taking no chances. "Whatever they've got for senses seem to work best on the living human. They can be literally blind- I'm pretty sure they all are- and not show even a blind man's skill navigating a room, and yet I've seen 'em go for straight for guys I didn't know were there. An' sometimes I see a bunch gang up on just one guy. A couple times, I saw 'em do it to the same guy. Then there's another thing...

He made his way to the door that joined the garage to the station. "Just about everybody still 'round has at least one story about one of those things that just homes in on one particular person and stays on the trail. Not just in a chase, not even just in one area, but over days or even weeks, and ranges of many miles. Me, I never seen it, least not that I could attest to m'self." He finished reloading his weapon, but then folded the stock and shouldered it. "But once, I'm with that guy I just told you 'bout, right after we first run into each other. We stop, an' I get out my binoculars an check on a bunch comin' up behind. Then without even looking, he describes one in particular, and he starts telling me details even before I can make 'em out. He's seen it before, no question. He says he's been seeing `her' behind him, now an' then but regular, over the last two weeks an' what he reckons to be more'n ten thousand miles. He's sure it was his kid. Most all of them say something like that. But then, how many people see a thing like that wi'out it stickin' in the mind?"

Meg shuddered, and not at the impact on the other side of the wall. Carlos took out his other gun, a 12-gauge double. "You get it, right? If it's onto you, then it's staying with you. So if you stay there, it stays right where I can get to it."

Meg nodded, then said, "Mr. Wrnz-ns- Carlos? Why are you doing this?"

He looked at her, and seemed to ponder. "I do it because they are not us, and I don't think they ever were. I do it because everyone thinks they're stronger than us, an' I know they aren't. I do it 'cause they always win, an' it's only because the best of us do nothin'." He hefted the double in one arm, and in the other hand, he twirled his hammer.

"Carlos?... What are you doing?"

He grinned. "Something." With two blows of the hammer and one swift kick, he knocked the door open and charged through, with the shotgun raised and hammer held high, point-first. Then things happened very fast.

The office door opened at the padding of a shuffler going into high gear, and the shotgun went off. Carlos swore loudly and foully, and followed up with a louder curse when the hammer lodged in bone without coming out. Then there was the heavier tramp of the enraged shuffler in full charge,. The double went off again, and Carlos let out a steady stream of semi-intelligible curses as he was slammed against the soda machine. He rallied with a grunt that announced a hard shove, and the shuffler went back far enough to catch the butt of the double before the weapon clattered on the floor. Carlos shouted exultantly and pumped his 20-gauge, but then a chair was swung or flung with a crash, and the backup weapon in turn went skittering out the door into the garage. With an unearthly screech, his adversary charged. There was a crash of bone against metal, and a jangle of coins. A thud, a groan of an opening door in the machine front, and another thud as the door slammed shut again. Glass bottles clonking, clattering and breaking, fluids sloshing, spilling and foaming. The beginning of another cry, cut short by a strange "schlonk". Then another metallic thud, and another, and another, louder and louder, and then- fizzing?

In an instant, Meg snatched up the shotgun and dashed for the door. Carlos stepped in her way, grinning. The only thing she could see behind him was a modest but steady geyser of foaming soda. "Want a Pepsi?" he said, holding up a bottle. "Because I sure wouldn't count on getting another one." Meg shook her head, and stepped back. Carlos came out, dragging the body of a final attendant with his hammer still lodged in its ear. With one motion, he extricated the hammer and flipped the body. "And, this would be-?"

"Pete... Junior," Meg read.

Carlos frowned. Meg pumped the shotgun, ejecting a shell already in the chamber, and scanned the shadows. "Okay, gi' me that," Carlos said. He followed, reaching for her, as she stalked into the garage. "C'mon, you ahn't even holdin' it right! Fo' Chrissake, at least let me show ya how t'do up the stock!"

She elbowed him back, scarcely giving him enough heed to be annoyed. An electric thrill of hypervigilance filled her, and she felt guided by some unguessed sense. Indeed, she was already traversing the shotgun when a shape in a pinstriped uniform suddenly stumbled right into her sights. She smiled as she pulled the trigger, at the very moment Carlos slammed her against the Dodge. The shot went wide, and the figure belatedly cried, "Don't shoot!"

Meg limply handed the gun off to Carlos, who looked plenty unhappy himself as he addressed the cringing newcomer: "Phil, I presume."

David Brown

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Jan 27, 2013, 11:59:04 PM1/27/13

On Monday, January 14, 2013 11:32:09 PM UTC-7, David Brown wrote:

Previously published at
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8899597/4/Meg-And-Greg
http://davidnbrown.blogspot.com/2013/01/meg-greg-pt-4-indian-joe-by-david-n.html

"Wow," said Phil, "I was starting to wonder if anybody was still out there. Hey, can I get you anything? I know where there's some food..."
"Where were you?" Carlos said sternly.
"There's storage sheds in back, an' old Pete's place," said Phil. "I've been keeping time in an old trailer, out in the junkyard. They don't come back there much, though there's this crazy cop comes by sometimes."
Carlos waved to the Dodge on the lift. "The cop isn't going anywhere any more. Hold on... you said crazy. Don't you know what's going on?"
"I heard some stories," Phil said guardedly. "I didn't know what to think. Nobody did. Then a couple weeks ago, that Bug drove in, a woman with a guy who was busted up, and the cop came when Junior called for help. I hardly saw anything. I was busy trying to handle this crazy back order... Somebody wanted a transmission part for this completely obscure European model, the company that made it hasn't existed for, like, thirty years ago. Obviously, the owners should have been scrapped years ago, but Jonny told me, it's not our job to tell the customers what to do... Anyway, I heard the screams. I was in here, and Jon came out, jumped in that truck and told me to raise the lift and get in. So I did, only Jonny wouldn't let me in. Then I saw Art run out of the garage for the cop's car, and the cop came out and just shot him. So I just ran like hell..."
"Probably the best thing you could have done," Carlos said. "Hold on. Trouble." Down the path came five more shufflers.
"What are they?" Meg asked. "I mean, really."
"Your guess is good as any," Carlos said. "But if you're asking for a name, `kudlak' is good as any. It's a word from Yugoslavia for what we would call a vampire. That's where all this started, or at least the first place where the rest of the world heard about it. The Yugoslavs gave two stories, one on top of the other. First they said that there were `panics' in isolated areas where people still believed in kudlaks: Bodies were bein' dug up an' destroyed, just like in the movies, only it was getting' out of hand. Then they announced that this time- and who knows 'bout the other times?- dead bodies really were getting up, walking around, and attacking the living. Not that anybody believed 'em, until bodies started walking out of the morgues in Budapest."
He paced to the left, drawing a kudlak after him. "The first reports said they could be killed by a shot to the head. They were wrong, and anybody who knew anything about the brain should have known better. The human brain is kinda like that VW. The steering- what you'd call human intelligence- is up front. But plain old regular people survive major trauma there all the time." He struck the kudlak across the temple. It fell face down, and after a short time, started to rise. "That's 'cause the power- balance, heart beat, reflexes- is all in back. Most every animal that's ever lived has got by on hardly nothin' else, an' so can they." He drove the point of the hammer into the base of the skull. "Bottom line, you hit them just anywhere in the head, then sure, they fall down. Hit 'em in the hind brain or the spinal cord, an' then they stay down."
Meg shuddered involuntarily. She suddenly experienced the most vivid recollection of a moment that had seemed blacked out of her consciousness: Aiming the magnum at Greg, pulling the trigger, seeing the spurt of blood... from his temple.
The rest of the shufflers went straight for Carlos. Meg reached for her magnum, but Carlos only grinned and twirled the hammer. As the nearest stretched out, a voice Meg had never heard before called out in words she had never heard before either. The shuffler turned its head, to a man of at least 50 with a face that could only belong to an Indian. The Indian spoke again, quieter but still loud and no less firm, repeating one sentence or so over and over again. Meg could not guess what language the words were from, let alone what they meant. She might have taken some comfort in knowing that the handful of ethnologists who had heard a few meager snatches of the same tongue had been equally at a loss to comprehend or even classify it.
The point of Carlos's hammer caught the shuffler in the ear. It dropped immediately. The rest shuffled indecisively, first toward the Indian and then toward Carlos, while the Indian went through more languages, including a snatch of one she thought she recognized (in fact, correctly) as Navajo. "If you don't get the brain stem or the spine, the ear's the next best thing. There's little bones in there, and they work like teeny little gyroscopes. Take out even one ear, and balance is shot." He drove the point of the hammer into the back of the skull. "That's what happened to the one that was crawling around. He did better than most; usually, they don't even make it upright again."
The Indian had got to Spanish: "Su es muerte! Vaya con los muertos!" Then English: "You dead! You belong dead! Go to the dead!"
Meg stared, and Carlos gave her an understanding look. "You think this is crazy?" he said. "I'll tell you what's really crazy: I've seen it work." He cheerfully struck down the hindmost, jerking it back with the point in its brain like a shepherd hooking a sheep. Meg sprinted to the Indian's side as he drew the shufflers down the path.
"You! Hey you!" she said. "Over here! I'm talking to you!"
The shufflers came faster. The Indian gave her a venomous glare. "Quiet! No talk to dead!" Then he thrust something into her hand and ordered, "Hold this." She was surprised enough to comply. It was a lighter.
The Indian took out a bow and an arrow. He thrust the arrow at her. "Light." The lighter was unfamiliar to her, a metal-shelled specimen from her grandfather's days. But it lit at the first try, and she touched the flame gingerly to a wad of rags around the arrow's tip. She had scarcely done that before the bowstring twanged and a shuffler went up like a water balloon filled with gasoline.
The burning shuffler froze in place, howling as it burned and finally collapsing. The last, already nearer, broke into a loping stride, straight for Meg. The Indian stepped right in front of her, shouting in the first language he had used, this time only a single phrase. The shuffler backed up a pace, and the Indian took back his lighter and waved it in its face. The lolling head went stiffly back and forth. Then the Indian stepped aside and dragged Med with him, just before the better part of the kudlak's head disappeared at the roar of the 12-gauge.
"You did no have to do that," the Indian said to Carlos, who crouched at the end of the path. "Make a lot of noise. Could bring more. Could hit us."
"Oi fired up, an' it was taller than you," Carlos said. He pointed to the other kudlak, still burning merrily. "'Sides, 'e didn't 'sactly go quietly, did he? Speakin' of..." Just down the road, three more shufflers had stopped, and two were turning around. Four more were approaching from the other direction. Then, from out of the bushes a few feet away, another rose. It had a large wound in its temple, from Meg's magnum. Carlos blew its head off with his remaining shell, and then retreated.
"What's your name?" Meg said to the Indian as they followed.
"Joe."
"Indian Joe?" She shook her head, trying to keep Mark Twain from her mind. "What's your last name?"
"Johnson."
Two kudlaks had reached the path. Carlos unlimbered his 20-gauge and fired at the nearest kudlak, still more than 60 feet away. The range was a bit long for a shotgun, but the load was a slug that carried far enough to wing a cactus 200 feet away. Carlos fired another shot, and the other kudlak staggered and fell with a round in the chest. He pumped the gun for another shot, but the shuffler's path had put the damaged pump in the line of fire. "That's it," he said. "Time for the cavalry!" He pulled out a radio and said, "George, we're ready, but come in hot!"
From back at the turn-off, there was a whine of an engine, and a great cloud of dust. Carlos took a shot and felled the nearest shuffler between the pumps. Three more were headed down the path, while the one he had shot was getting to its feet. Another stood at the mouth of the path, looking back. Then the whine of the engine grew louder, and an amazing vehicular apparition rolled into view.
It was a boxy but streamlined van, painted in shades of yellow with a reddish-orange roof and trim. It looked like a VW Bus except for a grill that clearly indicated a front-engine vehicle, and bore the shape of a silver smiley face, and a clearly-modified roof gave it a humpbacked look vaguely like a buffalo Carlos winced as the van mowed down the hindmost shuffler. "You can't get parts by mail order no more," he said to nobody in particular.
Three young men instantly piled out of the camper van. The first, lanky, shirtless and armed with an aluminum bat, bounded out of the rear door, while the other two hustled out of the double doors in the side, one armed with a pick axe and another with a shovel. The pair teamed up to dispatch the kudlak getting to its feet, while their companion sprinted forward. One shuffler turned a hollow clong, just in time to catch the bat across knee cap. An upward swing caught it in the ear as it fell. The shirtless young man whooped and laughed, then swore in surprise more than concern when the last shuffler pivoted and came at him straight over its fellow. The shuffler on its feet tripped over the other as it started to rise from the ground. The young man simply stepped back and struck, again and again. Behind him, the team were struggling to dislodge the pick axe from the skull of the first zombie he had felled. Meanwhile the other shuffler at his feet was its way out from under the one he was vigorously beating and back to its hands and knees. Then the duo caught up, and one blow each finished the shuffler.
Two young woman emerged from the camper, one tall and athletic and the other short and leaning toward pudgy. The shuffler struck by the Thing was nearly at their feet, its back clearly broken: Its hands clawed the ground furiously and clutched for the a shapely leg, but the rest of its body hardly budged. The pudgy one struck it with a snow shovel, and then gripped the spur-shaped end of the handle to drive the edge straight downward into its neck. One final shuffler, having held back through the melee, turned around and started shuffling the other way. That was when a bearded, balding, grandfatherly man stepped out of the cab, and pulled a very long-handled shovel with a narrow, spade-like blade from a rack on the side of the roof extension The shuffler sped up as the older man followed, and it looked as if it would outpace its pursuer. Then the old man put on a little more speed, and suddenly thrust the shovel like a polearm. For a moment, the shuffler's feet scuffed in place. Then the man jerked back the shovel, and the shuffler dropped with its head nearly severed.

David N. Brown
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David Brown

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Mar 19, 2013, 3:31:29 PM3/19/13

On Monday, January 14, 2013 11:32:09 PM UTC-7, David Brown wrote:

Previously published at
http://davidnbrown.blogspot.com/2013/03/meg-and-greg-part-5-davey-goliath.html
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8899597/5/Meg-And-Greg
"Roighta," Carlos said as the new arrivals fanned out, "time to get you what you need. Laramie, get me a first aid kit!" The shirtless young man strode over, while Carlos sat Meg down on the hood of the police car. Laramie stood by, looking non-chalantly masculine as he lit up a cigarette. Meg noticed that the brand was "Laramie".

Phil looked over his shoulder. "Hey... Hey, she's bit! She's gonna turn into one of them!"
"Don't be stupid," Carlos said, firmly enough for the mechanic to fall silent. "I won't pretend it ain't bad, but we can take care of it, an' it's not too late..."
"You mean they found a cure?" Phil said anxiously. "What is it?"

"Penicillin! What'd'ya think?" He pulled out a bottle from the kit and poured it on, then a little more after further cleansing. Soon, he had Meg bandaged up. "George, this place is secure as it gets. Send the signal for the others to come forward. Give 'er a spare bottle." The bald man handed over one of two refillable water bottles at his waist before returning to the van.
"Drink up, and come with me, long as you can," Carlos told Meg. "You too, Phil. What'd you do here, anyway?"

"I was junior assistant, pretty much," Phil said as they walked back to the garage. "Pete was in charge, but he left most of it to Art, and he left most of the real work to Dwayne, so he took it out on Dwayne and Jonny took it out on me. Right before, they were all riding me about was busy about this crazy back order... Somebody wanted a part for this completely obscure European thing..."

"Cry me a river," said Carlos. "I had an order that was supposed to be in. Think you'd know if it's in?"
Phil shrugged. "Shipping and receiving's Art's job, mostly," he said. "That's what I kept telling Jonny, he's the one who should be looking for that part..."

"Screw it," Carlos growled. "Where's the records?"
Meg's memory was jogged. "There was a clipboard... Over there!" She pointed where it had fallen off the wall.
"So anyway, let me tell you about this order," Phil said to Meg. "It's a transmission part, basically, 'cept it was kinda part of the steering too, 'cause the vehicle had front wheel drive. I didn't completely understand it myself, and they told me don't worry about it, just find the part. Only, the vehicle's, like, 30 years old, an' it turns out, the whole company went under more than 20 years ago. Obviously, whatever this piece o' crap is, it should have been junked years ago, but Jonny tells me, it's not our job to tell the customers what to do. So anyway, what we finally find out is that the only place in a thousand miles that has this part is in..."
"Moab?" Carlos roared explosively. He advanced on Phil, thrusting the clipboard in his face. "The part's in Moab?!"
"Oh my god," Phil said. "That's- it's- you're the guy with the Goliath?"
"Borgward Goliath Express 1100," Carlos said. "And you're gonna get real familiar with it!"

The front parking lot was filling up. The strange van had pulled up behind the Beetle, and the police car was being driven off to one side to make room for more. A VW Thing pulled in, drawing a distinctly ghoulish trailer made from the front of a Beetle, followed by a Bus, a Rabbit pickup and a gray GMC van. Styling indicated that the GMC was at least five years older than the Bus, but the latter was clearly in better shape by far. Pulling up the rear were a yellow Jeep Wagoneer with a geometric Indian-blanket pattern for trim and a vaguely whale-like white camper van.

Meg paused for a closer look at the van's smiley face, which bore the name "GOLIATH" in metal letters between the headlights and a semicircular plate with the legend "Express 1100" in a forlornly exciting lightning-bolt font. The lower body bulged outward, while the upper part tapered rather precipitously beneath the overhanging shell. The upper body was painted a peachy hue like desert sand, a middle section between the windshield and a line of trim over the headlights and grill was an earthy shade of yellow, and the lower part was a deep mustard gold.
"That's one weird roof extension," Phil said, examining the orange shell that protruded over the upper body. "It almost looks like an upside-down boat."

"Yeah, that is weird," Carlos said. "It's a boat. Ah, and it's backwards, too." Meg took a closer look, openly incredulous, but there could be no mistake. Even the oddities of its shape made sudden sense. It was a tub-like affair, with a scalloped bow and boxy stern that were not unlike a popsicle. The stepped sides that handily held tools and gear were gunwales and oarlocks, and a shelf-like projection that shaded the windshield was just right for a place to mount an engine.
"So what, somebody built a boat to fit on the roof?" Meg asked.

"Nay, the boat was probably built first, leastways the shell," Carlos said as he stepped inside. "And it's not on the roof. F'r all intents and purposes, it is the roof." It was easy to see what he meant. The inside had been reconfigured like a camper, with a counter and cabinets behind the cab and a three-seat dinette and couch set against the walls to the rear. The arrangement left an open passage where most of the original ceiling had been turned into an oversized sunroof. Benches on either side of the inverted boat were being used for overhead shelving and a bunk. Carlos opened a cabinet in the right rear corner and took out a well-worn and moderately stuffed binder. He sat down at a dinette seat whose back abutted the cabinet, and Phil sat across from him in a wider seat which faced sideways directly across from the left passenger door. Meg sat down at the far end of the couch, which was shaped to fill the space between the side doors and the left corner.

"I'm going to tell you a bit about myself, and the people with me," Carlos said. "Then I'm going to tell you a story. As you might guess, I'm a geologist, and I'm from Australia. I also served two tours in your last war, an' you know how that turned out. After that, I got my doctorate, came over here, and got a job as a professor. When all this started, Dr. Carradine- that's George- and I were taking twenty-some students out on a field trip. I heard about it sooner than most, an' I knew quite a bit already. So, we rounded up some extra people and a bit more gear, quiet-like, an' made it a long trip."

Meg curled up on the couch, idly listening as Carlos continued, "Our school's middlin', size-ways, but we make up for it a bit in reputation. We do mining and engineering, an' we do good work in applied research. Enough of the right people know it that sometimes, we get funding for a project that normally would be corporate or gov'ment. About ten years ago, we got one that was bigger than most. Not my department, literally, but the way I hear, it was major money, at least for a uni grant, and nobody really knew where it was coming from. The assignment was to test new automotive technologies in existing vehicles... technologies that could reduce the need for petroleum.

"However much money there was, wherever it came from, it sure didn't go into quality vehicles. Some were donated by students and faculty. The rest were all straight from the junkyards. There were four vehicles, that I know about, that succeeded and survived. There's Moby Ralph out there: It's an Ultra Van, a line of campers based on the Corvair. Good for 20 mpg, most fuel-efficient motorhome on the road till the bloody hippies killed it. The designers tried using the rear engine to heat the cabin, and the tech boys did one better and set it up for thermoelectric power generation. That pickup, we call it Thumper, came later, but it has the same modifications the team performed to make a 3-door diesel hatchback run off biofuel, which is kitchen grease. The original was Peter Rabbit; you'll see it, and others later.

"And, of course, we have this: Davey the Goliath. The mark was pretty big in Australia when it was a going concern; I owned one of their Isabella coupes, and even drove an Express delivery van for a job. So, right after I come over here, I see this thing for sale, and take a chance. It's good for walkabouts, and I take it on field trips now an' then, till the engine gives out. Right about then the call goes out, and when I talk to the tech boys about my troubles, they get real interested. Something about troubles fitting their engine in vehicles of the right power an' weight class, whereas the Goliath's built for an engine that's wider than most. Problem solved. I give them my van, and they agree that if it takes, they'll give it back to me. 'Bout a year and a half goes by, suddenly there's a big uproar over the project, something to do with where the money came from, or the results, or both. Everything's shut down, sudden, an' more'n a few people get canned. I get a call from one of them, sayin' to come and pick up my van, an' bring a few friends.

"I come, with Dr. Carradine, my grad student named Becky, a pipsqueak freshman who goes by Laramie, an' a friend of mine named Ted, who brings his lady friend Dianna. She's got 'is ring, but they don't really talk about where they're at, and quite a few people are keeping an eye on her waistline. We come out to a spot in the boonies that turns out to be a wrecking yard. There's at least fifty cars there, done out all kinds of ways. A lot of them look wrecked for real, but at least a dozen look more'n fit to run. The guy's waiting beside the Goliath, done up like this, and gives me the keys. Then he tells everyone else that they can take any car they like, and he will sign the title.

"Long story short, Dianna and Ted take Moby for a honeymoon lodge, Becky takes Peter, George picks a giant home-built motor home we call Monstro, and Laramie makes off with an old bus some crazy 'ippie turned into an RV. The next day, the guy's gone for good, completely drops off the map, and within a week, every vehicle in that yard is so much scrap. Within a year, more'n half the faculty involved aren't just out of the university, but no longer doing any significant work in their fields. We know that a few ended up dead. But there's a few left who give us help later.

"Most of the stuff the guys did was conceptually advanced, but off-the-shelf as far as technology and materials. That's probably how they got away with handing so much of their stuff over to us; nothing the sponsors could claim as proprietary. It also allowed us to replicate a lot of their work with other vehicles, like Thumper. In fact, we built ourselves a little fleet of Rabbits, and customized a couple RVs. We couldn't always do it as well, though. Peter, for example, can burn propane. We junked a Rabbit trying to replicate it, but we did it with the diesel on a Dodge Travco we call Flipper. We put in an hybrid electric transmission, copy of something the tech boys put in Monstro. Only there were some problems we couldn't fix in the suspension, there when we got it from what we know now, but our hot rod job prob'ly made things worse. So, long story short, when it's rollin', the 'ole bloody thing goes up an' down like Flipper... But this, this is a whole other can o' worms." He led Phil outside to the cab. Meg stretched out on the couch. At a firm push, an arm rest swung down, giving her room to stretch her legs.

The driver and passenger seats were a single piece, though the seat cushion was divided in two unequal parts. Carlos yanked back the larger cushion that covered the passenger seat and a central hump that split the cab. Beneath it was a cover for the engine compartment, clearly newer than the rest, with a hinge for convenient raising. Carlos opened it. Where the various parts of the engine would have been, there was something like an oversized film can, completely sealed against tampering or inspection.
Phil nodded. "I think I heard about something like this... It was supposed to be strictly theoretical. A rotary engine without moving parts, able to run on a range of fuels..."

Carlos nodded and chuckled. "Try anything remotely resemblin' fuel. Most of that binder is a record of testing what crazy crap this thing couldn't burn. Which wasn't much. Mileage isn't great, horsepower's downright weak... but it will run on most anything. Petrol. Diesel. Propane. Ethanol. Bloody alcoholic beverages."

He slammed the hatch and jammed the cushion into place. "You call this thing a piecea crap, I won't argue. It means something to me, but I'd junk it in a second. But this engine is priceless. As long as it keeps running, I can make it anywhere. As long as the bloody transmission don't tear itself apart before we replace the one gear that's wearing out. And you're gonna do your bloody best to keep it from happenin'. Not because I'm gonna bust your arse if ya don't, but because there's things behind us that aren't gonna stay where we been. An' you don't wanna be there when it all catches up."

"Hey doc!" Laramie called. "We searched the station, and we're ready to check out back. It looks like some nice stuff. I saw a couple Travcos..."
"We want 'em," Carlos said. "At least one. We want it if we have to tow it away."
Laramie smiled. "Can't resist two of something..."

Carlos grinned back. "If it's up to me, I get two of everything. Go check out the back. Take this guy with you. Stay business-like. Anyone who isn't part of the search is on duty for pumping gas. Check out that Dodge, too. If it can roll, it goes with us. And if people start running out of things to do, it's time to get ready to move on."
Laramie turned aside, swung open the doors, and paused. The extended couch was blocking half the doorway. It was filled quite comfortably by Meg, who was sound asleep.

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