Torn Apart (Book 1): Terror In Texas (6 page)

“I hate to tell you this, but if they’re out there, they’re probably dead already.” John commented with a scowl.

“No!” Liz gasped.

Harry stepped up and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll figure something out in a little bit. If you die, you can’t help your young’uns.” When she didn’t answer, he let his arm drop and led Liz to a door marked private. “Let’s find you some clothes. You’re covered in Zombie shit and smell like puke.”

He turns to his companions. “Dave, watch the door and John, you stock up the bikes in case we have to leave in a hurry.”

Liz allowed herself to be led away unsure of what else to do. The blood from the infected was beginning to get tacky and dank on her skin. Not good, Liz thought. It smelled foul and toxic.

She looked around the room and realized they were in a run-down sports bar of some kind. The center of the back wall included a display of bottles behind a chipped and scarred bar-top. To the left of the alcohol display was a gas grill, a toaster, and chest freezer. On the opposite side sat two glass-fronted refrigerators sporting a collection of bottled beer, water, and soda. An old style television sat on top of the second refrigerator. At Liz’s raised brow, Harry shrugged.

“It’s a private club, sort of,” Harry commented at Liz’s look. “Don’t look so scared. The three of us are old toothless dogs.” He chuckled.

“Where are we going to find clothes?” Liz asked. “I don’t imagine you keep a collection of women’s clothes lying around.”

“Well, Lizzy, there’s a patio through that side door and it leads to the resale shop next door.”

Liz looked around and found they were leaving the bar and stepping out into an open courtyard. At the far end, a wrought iron gate with a smattering of ivy protected the open space from the street. Three small tables and a half dozen wrought iron chairs were arranged on a concrete patio. One of the tables included remnants of someone’s lunch. In a distant corner, something was covered with a blanket. It looked like a body.

Liz hesitated when she realized it could mean only one thing. “What?”

Harry sighed. “Edith.” He guided Liz toward a second door. “It’s her resale shop we’re going to. She called, said she wasn’t feeling well. We offered to drive her home, but she turned us down so we said we’d check on her later.”

“We kinda forgot about the call since we were watching all this crazy shit on the television and talking about what we’d do if we saw one of those crazies. We heard someone scratching and beating at the patio door.

“John opened the door and she fell into the bar and attacked John. I swear she was trying to eat his face. Anyway, Dave grabbed a crescent wrench on the bar and caved in her skull. After that, we couldn’t decide what to do with the body so we drug her outside and covered her up. Dave was pretty friendly with Edith, living in the apartment upstairs and all.”

Liz glanced at Harry. “I’m sorry. It sounds terrible.”

Harry just shrugged. They crossed the courtyard and Harry took out a set of keys from his pocket and opened a second door. He stepped inside a dark store room and crossed to an open door. He reached inside and a single dim light in a bathroom came on. He pushed the door closed leaving only a narrow beam of light.

Harry nodded toward the front of the store beyond a dark curtain stretched across the room. “We can’t turn on more lights or they’ll notice. When you’re out there, duck down and stay behind the racks. There’s glass across the front and we don’t want one of those crazies to look inside and see us.”

The store was a typical resale or second-hand store. Racks and rows of clothing filled the place. After a quick scan, she realized the children’s clothes were up front and women’s clothes hung on racks to the right of a main walkway.

Harry stood to the side with his arms folded across his chest. “Get a couple sets of whatever you need. There’s a shoe rack on the far side. Myself, I don’t much care for someone else’s toe jam in my shoes, but under the circumstances you can’t be too picky, I guess.”

Liz gave a quick nod and made her way to a rack of jeans. She pulled a pair of size six from the hanger, stepped out of her sandals and into a pair of pants. She decided they would do, buttoned the waist, and left them on. She pulled two more pairs from hangers. After a quick examination, to make sure they weren’t shredded on the legs she draped them over her arm and moved on to a rack of t-shirts.

She glanced over her shoulder toward Harry and saw he was watching the front window. She pulled four dark colored shirts from the rack then headed toward the front of the store where racks of new underwear and socks were displayed. As an afterthought, she grabbed a card of hair bands.

When Liz got close to the front window, she ducked below the checkout counter to make her way to the display. After a quick perusal, she found the right size socks, grabbed two packages from the shelf and retrieved a package of boy’s briefs when she didn’t find anything but frilly scraps of nylon for women. She stooped behind a row of racks displaying purses and bags. She grabbed a backpack from the display.

As she walked away, she stuffed clothes in the bag keeping one shirt out to put on after she got cleaned up. Her last stop was the shoe rack.

She found her size but saw nothing she thought would be practical so she moved down the aisle to the boys shoes. She found a pair of boy’s work boots with a steel toe. She picked up her foot and pressed the boot to the bottom of her bare foot. With a shrug, she settled on a stool and slipped on socks and the boots and tied the laces.

After her four-minute shopping spree, she made her way to the back of the store staying below the racks. She nodded toward the bathroom. “I need a minute?”

Harry shrugged. “Feel free. Try to be quick.”

Liz slipped inside leaving Harry in the dark. She looked in the mirror and realized how much blood covered her neck and shoulder. She jerked up the dress and turned the water on. She grabbed a clean handful of skirt soaked it in water and began scrubbing at the gore still clinging to her skin.  She scrubbed the wet cotton against a white bar of soap and cleaned her skin. When she was satisfied she no longer bore the remnants of carnage, she splashed water on her face then dried with paper towels. She pulled a white wife sleeveless wife-beater undershirt on, then a cotton t-shirt.

She finger combed her shoulder length hair and used one of the hairbands to pull it back from her face. She fought it, but tears glistened in her hazel eyes. Her oval face was void of makeup but still flushed from exertion.
Where was Brian? Where were her children? Were they safe? Please God.

“You about ready, Lizzy?” Harry whispered through the door. “The natives are getting restless out front and I don’t like being in here with all that glass.”

“Sure,” Liz answered. She slipped a t-shirt over her head and picked up the backpack. Being small busted made the lack of a bra a non-issue. She squared her shoulders and stepped into the gloom of the darkened store.

“You get everything you need?” Harry asked.

“I need my daughters,” Liz answered.

“I hear what you’re saying, but right now we can’t do anything. “It’s dark,” Harry answered as he locked Edith’s shop. “The streets are crawling with those fucks.”

When they stepped into the bar, Liz could smell cooking meat.

“Hey. Are you two hungry?” John asked from behind the bar. He held up a beer and nodded toward Liz.

Liz sighed. “Water, please.” She dropped the backpack at her feet.

Harry settled on the bar stool next to Liz with a deep sigh. He unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled up the cuff twice. He stared into the mirror behind the bar while he clutched the opened bottle in front of him. Finally, he took a long swig of beer.

“Beer tastes like shit with the smell from outside creeping in here,” Harry complained.

Liz glanced at him then turned back to study the pictures taped to the cracked mirror. She saw images of young soldiers that included Harry and his two companions. Despite the picture being at least 35 years old, she could recognize the three younger versions of the men.

John laughed. “Far as I’m concerned, beer has always tasted like cow piss. Only now you can smell it, too.”

Liz continued her musing while they discussed beer. She imagined the trio was Viet Nam Vets so Harry and his friends had to be at least sixty years plus in age. All three wore jeans, heavy chambray shirts and leather vests with an emblem with a caricature of an angry rat holding a machine gun. The two-word moniker, River Rats, was embroidered in gold and black thread. The angry rodent was surrounded by a medallion edge of bamboo.

Harry chuckled. “So you’ve been drinking a lot of cow piss so you’d know what it tastes like?”

John coughed. “Fuck you. Harry, you’re a disgusting fuck.”

Harry just grinned back and raised a hand with the middle finger extended.

Liz felt the corner of her mouth raise at the good-humored ribbing and continued her assessment. John was a man of medium build with dark hair thinning at the top. His eyes sported a fan of lines at the side and she imagined the hazel color sparkling when he laughed. The laugh lines at the sides of his mouth were hidden by more than a five o’clock shadow hinting at the number of days spent away from home.

Dave was the smallest of the trio. He was a nervous man that seemed to be more distressed by their confinement than the other two men. He would pace from side to side then suddenly stop in front of the door, open the peephole then peered through the opening at the streets beyond. After several minutes of watching, he would close the opening and begin pacing again.

Dave’s dark blonde hair was thinning and looked as if it had not been washed in days. A strong jaw hinted at having been a good looking man at one time, but now his mouth seemed to be in a perpetual frown. When he reached up to smooth back his hair his hand trembled.

Harry glanced over his shoulder. “Dave, come on over and have something to eat. We got a mission.”

Dave glanced toward the peephole in the door then turned back to cross the room to the bar. “Mission?” He mumbled. “Right. Good to go.”

Harry sighed. “When things calm down, we have to help Lizzy here find her kids.”

“It’s almost full dark. Maybe we can get out tonight.” John commented.

Laughing without humor Dave answered. “Haven’t you watched any of those Zombie movies? Those bastards don’t sleep.”

“Enough.” Harry walked to the peephole and looked outside. “If we can’t make it any sooner, we’ll wait until morning. The crazies are chasing anything moving right now. Good chance they’ll wander off when there’s no one to chase.”

Liz sighed. She closed her eyes and prayed softly. “Please God, send angels to watch over and protect my daughters.”

“Amen,” Harry whispered behind her. “We’ll do what we can, Lizzy. I promise.”

The evening was filled with terror. Screams continued to shatter the stillness as the night grew dark. Safe inside the bar, Harry, John and Dave took turns watching through the peephole in the heavy wood door. Liz took comfort in not hearing the scream of a child.

The infected moved up and down the street until they would suddenly congregate in front of a window or door. They would pound and push until the barrier gave way or glass shattered then they would stumble inside. Those who ran for their vehicles were quickly surrounded. They would try to dodge and weave around the bloodied bodies only to be pulled to the ground and devoured. Their terrified screams echoed through the night until they fell silent, time and again.

One such attack happened right in front of the bar door. They hid behind the door, but no one made a move to open it. They knew it would be a fatal mistake. The victim’s screams finally stopped. Liz stood by with tears sliding down her face.

Harry took a deep breath then whispered. “Let’s go upstairs and get some rest. Dave, can we use your place to crash tonight?”

Dave looked as if he would protest then shrugged and turned toward a side door. “Sure.”

When Liz followed them up the side stairs she realized Dave had lived above the small bar in the apartment for several years. The one bedroom apartment included worn remnants of carpeting and the barest of furnishings. He had a few pieces of living room furniture, a dinette table, and two chairs while the bedroom held a battered dresser and a neatly made double bed. A couple cots and sleeping bags had been stacked in the corner.

Dave offered the bed to Liz, but she insisted she wouldn’t sleep so she could rest on the couch. As it was, none of them got much rest, the rest of the night was filled with the screams of those unfortunate enough to be found by the infected. As soon as it got quiet, another unfortunate soul would be torn from their hiding place and the terrified screams would begin again.

The men took turns watching the street from the second story windows while Liz curled up on the couch to worry if her children were warm and safe. As the night wore on, tears slipped from her eyes until finally exhaustion pulled her into a fitful sleep where she dreamed of Brian.

Her husband’s arms held Liz close. “If anything ever happens, head to your dad’s cabin. The General and I have plenty of supplies stocked up. It’s important you don’t wait for me. Get in the car and get there. I’ll find you.”

“We can’t leave you.” Liz sighed as she stroked his face.