3.2 As the World Dies Untold Tales Vol. 2 (7 page)

Ken nodded in agreement. “I don’t blame them for freaking out. What they said sounds crazy
,
but look at them! They’re freaking traumatized.”

Mr. Cloy frowned deeply, his hands in his jean pockets. “Say what you will, but this is the kinda thing that always turns out wrong. City people coming out here and making up their own rules and--”

“
Carlos, help me!” A woman’s shrill scream sent Lenore’s skin crawling. “Something is wrong with the kids!”

A man rushed to open the door of one of the cars and the gathering crowd surged forward to see what was wrong. Mr. Cloy pushed the door to the shop all the way open and the three of them took several steps out
side
to see what was going on.

The highway patrolmen hurried forward and told everyone to step back as the Sheriff helped the distressed parents lift one of their kids out of the back of the car. It was a teenage girl and she was having a
n
appalling seizure. Blood gushed from a wound in her neck. A second child stumbled out of the car, clutching at the older girl
. A
s everyone watched in terror, he leaned down and took a large bite of flesh from her forearm.

“
Ramon
, no!” His mother grabbed the boy and wrestled him from his sister.

“
Oh, shit!” Ken
seized
Lenore’s arm and squeezed. “Did that just happen? Did that just happen?”

Lenore felt queasy. “Uh huh, that baby just went crazy and tried to eat his sister.”

The highway patrolmen pushed the gawking spectators
back
, then turned their attention to the girl on the ground. Her father was cradling her in his arms and sobbing. Meanwhile, the little boy who had taken a hunk out of his sister was chewing as his mother and several other people tried to drag him a safe distance away.

“
Get it out of his mouth!” his mother screamed.

One of the people trying to help her reached toward the boy’s mouth.

“
This is gonna get bad fast,” Lenore said in a low voice.

“
Uh huh,” Ken agreed.

Together, they started backing toward the door to the beauty shop.

4.

Things Getting Worse Faster

Ken’s grip on Lenore’s hand tightened as they backed toward the open doorway of the beauty shop.

“
Hey, don’t touch that kid,” Mr. Cloy called out, stepping into the street.

The man reaching out to pull the chunk of flesh from the child’s bloodied mouth hesitated. The kid swallowed
what
he was
eating
and lunged forward. The man and the mother of the child
screamed
as the kid’s hard teeth c
l
amped on the fingers paused before his face.

At the same time, the teenage girl on the ground stopped convulsing and her father let out an anguished cry. He
attempted
to throw himself over her, but one of the highway patrolmen shoved him back.

“
Hold on! Let us work on her,” the patrolman said
in an authoritative tone
.

Screams and shouts filled the morning air as one group of people tried to wrestle the child off the screaming man while the other group gathered around the girl lying bloodied and dead on the road.

“
Get inside, get inside
!
” Ken whispered
urgently
to Lenore.

“
I ain’t arguing
.
”

They both slipped into the shop, shut the door, and
stared
through the thick glass.

Mr. Cloy hovered near the edge of the crowd watching with a shocked look on his face.

“
Why doesn’t that damn fool get inside?” Lenore muttered.

“
Why don’t any of them?” Ken clutched her arm tightly. “This is not good! So not good!”

A tug of war
continued
as the mother pulled on
her child
and two men pulled on his victim. The
boy’s hard little teeth
rent most of the
skin
off the two fingers as they were ripped from his mouth.

Clutching his bloodied hand, the man
howled
in pain. He ran along the street with several of his friends behind him.

“
Oh, crap,” Ken exclaimed as the kid wiggled around in his mother’s grasp and
tore
into her chest.

“
Okay, Damian needs to be put down,” Lenore decided firmly.

The boy’s seemingly
-
dead sister sat up and people
applauded
with relief even though ten feet away the other child was taking huge bites out of his mother. The insanity of the moment made Ken’s head hurt. People were just not getting what was going on. Hell, he wasn’t sure what was going on.

The highway patrolman motioned everyone back and turned to
the resurrected teenager
.
The father of the girl again tried to reach for her, but was pushed away.

“
Sir, just step back.
We got an ambulance on the way,”
he
told
the father
a soothing tone.
Kneeling down, he gazed into the blank face of the teenager. “Miss, you’re going to be all right.”

People
clapped
again as she gripped him
by the
neck. It was obvious they thought she was going to hug or kiss her rescuer. Lenore grabbed Ken’s arm as the girl opened her mouth wide and drove her teeth into t
he officer’s face.

“
And now we
’ve
got Carrie!”
Ken couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

At long last, the crowd of people, from both the cars and the town,
comprehended
the true danger of the situation
. The girl pinned the patrolman to the ground and
ripped
huge bit
e
s of
skin
from his face and neck. The second patrolman drew his gun, flicked off the safety and
pulled
the trigger. The bullets punched through the girl’s body and into the patrolman beneath her.

Her father wailed in despair as he spun around in a circle, becoming aware that all his family had become monsters. The older man grabbed the father’s arm and shoved him into a car.

“
We need to go!” the older man shouted.

Much to Ken’s relief, the woman with the baby crawled into the van as the rest of the highway refugees piled into their vehicles.

Nearby t
wo men managed to get the boy off his mother and she collapsed to the ground, her neck spurting long
fountains
of blood. The boy thrashed between the two men. The men seemed at a loss as to what to do now that they had him off the mother.

The dead girl sluggishly
stood up
and
lurched toward the remaining patrolman
. H
e finished reloading and began firing at her again.

“
Get out of here
!
” Sheriff Murphy shouted at the last of the shocked bystanders.

P
eople
sprinted away
as the cars
performed
a crazy dance
, attempting to maneuver out
from between the highway patrol cars and escape.

“
This can’t get worse,” Ken said in a soft voice.

Mr. Cloy finally seemed to register that he was in danger and
retreated
toward his store. A van, full of panicked people, crashed into the side of one of the patrol cars as it tried to
skirt
around it.

Sheriff Murphy ran toward the van,
attempting
to wave to the driver, but the vehicle reversed and lurched forward again. It struck the Sheriff. The older man’s body was thrown by the impact and skidded to a stop near Ken’s shop. The driver of the van didn’t even seem to realize what he had done as he crashed his vehicle into the patrol car again, finally
scooting
it out of the way.

“
Oh, no, honey. It’s worse,” Lenore said in a trembling voice.

The zombie girl leaped onto the
lawman
shooting at her. The patrolman she had been chewing
on minutes before
rose to his feet and let out an ungodly screech.

The two
townspeople
struggling with the little boy seemed to finally get a plan together and swung
him
back and fo
r
th between them,
gaining momentum
before releasing him. The kid arced through the air and s
mashed
into a departing car. The two men then turned to run. One of them let out a yelp as the boy’s mother dragged him down to the ground. She did not hesitate in biting into his arm.

The bloodied and torn
undead
patrolman let out another ungodly howl and ran after the last man trying to dodge the departing cars and escape. The van that had run down Sheriff Murphy disappeared from view and the
other cars
followed.

“
Where
’
s that demented little freak?” Lenore
asked
anxiously.

“
There.” Ken pointed to the boy
as he limped on
an broken leg toward Sheriff Murphy. A bone was
s
ticking out of his thigh, but the kid moved with determination toward the fallen lawman.

“
Do something!”

“
Like what? Go tell him he’s bad and put him in the corner?” Ken looked around at his shop
,
unable to even comprehend what he could use to stop the little boy.

Lenore grabbed the coat rack next to the door,
yanked
the door open
,
and charged out. Ken gasped
, but
shadowed after her. Lenore rushed to the Sheriff’s side and
swung the coat rack, knocking the zombie kid off his feet.
The kid hissed, trying to
get up
, but Lenore smacked him again.

“
You lil’ bastard, stay down!”

Ken
took
hold of the Sheriff’s arms and
started
to drag him back to the shop. It was
difficult
, but he was physically fit from his daily workout and managed to get the bigger man up over the curb.

Close by
,
the
teenage
girl was pulling the intestines out of the screaming patrolman while his former partner ran down the man who had tried to save the mother. The zombie tackled the man to the ground and
ripped
into him with his teeth. Meanwhile, the mother was still attacking the second man who
had
tried to help her.

Lenore smacked the kid off his feet again as she shifted backward toward the shop. “Get the Sheriff inside.”

“
Almost there,” Ken huffed, dragging the Sheriff into the entrance.

The kid climbed to his feet and charged Lenore. Again, she used the coat rack to knock him
on his ass
. This time
she continued to smack him with the rack, trying to keep him down.

Beyond Lenore, the mother was done eating. She
climbed
to her feet as her victim crawled to his knees behind her and let out a terrible moan of hunger.

“
Hurry up
, Lenore,” Ken shouted at her.
“I got him inside!”

Lenore gave the kid one more big push, then ran to the shop.

Ken felt his throat tighten as the two mangled adults and the demonic child charged after her.

“
Lenore, run! Run!”

Lenore was amazingly fast despite her size and hurled into the beauty shop. Ken slammed the door and moved to lock it.

“
The keys!”

Lenore looked at him quizzically
as she set the coatrack back in place
, then understood. “Oh!” She stumbled over the Sheriff as she moved to
snag
the keys from the cash register.

Ken looked up to see the three crazed cannibals rushing toward the door. He
quickly
pulled the shade down over the window.

“
Like that’ll work
,” he muttered, then looked toward Lenore. “Keys would be
,
like
,
so good right now.”