Revenence (Novella 2): Dead Tired Read online

  Adrian lay back on the floor, his head resting on his backpack, as the gentle, moody music lilted from the radio at his side.

  "Tulsa," he uttered softly, his eyes unfocused as he rubbed the stubble lining his jaw absently. He thought back to the last road sign he had seen on the highway regarding the city. He estimated Tulsa and the sadists now purportedly inhabiting it to be around 100 miles to the southwest of his present location.

  He lifted his radio again, scanning the privacy codes of the frequency now carrying Peggy Lee's sultry vocals over the radio waves. Though the action he was about to commit was highly illegal in the old world, restricted by the FCC, Adrian no longer lived in the old world, and there was no one left to care about his illegal use of privacy codes. Having gained access to the frequency, Adrian cleared his throat, then hit the talk button on his radio to address the old man on the other end.

  "Evening, sir," Adrian said. "I had a question about that group in Tulsa. I was wondering if you could help me."

  After a moment, the other man responded, his words now slurred to the fringes of intelligibility. "You're witha group in Tulsa?" The words came out loud and fuzzy, as if he were shouting into the mouthpiece.

  Adrian sighed, rubbing his face. He wasn't sure how much of the gentleman's incoherence was due to the alcohol, and how much of it was actually hearing loss. "No," he said. "I was wondering if you knew what direction they had come from."

  "You--wait," the old replied, groaning and hiccuping as he continued," you want to join up with them, don't you?"

  "No," Adrian said through gritted teeth, "I want to know where they came from."

  "Ya sure? Ya ain't one of them antisocial maniacs?"

  "No," Adrian blurted, raising his voice, "I'm a different kind of maniac, the kind that wants to murder the ever-loving shit out of guys like them! They may have my daughter, old man, and I need to know what direction they came from."

  "Well, by jeebus, shoulda said so," the other man replied, hiccuping. "Came from th'east, M'ssouri, far's I h'rd. Now I'll be damned if yer not ruin'n muh buzz. Piss off. Let th's ol' man 'njoy is drunk."

  Adrian set the radio down on the floor beside him. He settled back onto his duffelbag, his hands folded behind his head as he gazed up at the ceiling. Don't know how much sleep I'll get, he thought, but I'm gonna try. His eyes glaring wide, his heart pounding, he decided that he wouldn't be waiting until daylight to get back on the road.

  It rained on and off the next morning as Adrian continued down the highway toward Tulsa. He traveled beneath a flat, gray quilted cloud structure that stretched for as far as he could see, in all directions. He could feel the constant pressure of the billowy blanket, and fledgling funnel clouds struggled to form, pointing their swirling appendages toward the ground. Most, however, failed to develop fully before being re-absorbed by the enormous cloud structure. He was certain, though, that he saw a funnel touch down far in the distance, to the south.

  Although he didn't get up close and personal with any tornadoes, there was quite a bit of lightning activity all around him. He saw the flash of a bolt slightly ahead, in the direction of a small grove. It was accompanied by booming thunder, and a loud cracking sound that left a smoldering, severed tree limb lying in the ditch beside the road.

  He had been traveling since around four in the morning, when there had been a pause in the torrential storm that had been raging since just after midnight. Nonetheless, he had been thoroughly soaked before daybreak, and even by mid-morning, with the sun at a forty-five degree angle in the sky, there was little warming radiation offered to allow him to dry. The thick, wet denim of his jacket hung stiffly around him, his skin damp and chilled inside.

  He winced as he rounded a curve, the wind propelling the raindrops directly into his face like tiny, watery needles. He sighed, conceding to himself that it was time to get off the road and warm up.

  After a few minutes, he spotted a rest area with a picnicking pavilion. As he rode closer, he saw that there were several barbecue grills beneath the shelter of the roof. He slowed as he approached, walking the idling bike into the pavilion.

  He looked around, noting some dead brush near a small creek running behind the pavilion. He took a machete from his backpack and made his way to the brush, slicing a couple of large, tumbleweed-sized plants at their bases. He walked back to the pavilion, shaking out the excess water, and placed one of the plants on a barbecue grill, then crouched to rummage through his pack until he found a handful of wrapped steel wool scouring pads. Opening two of the packages, he arranged them in the grill beneath the dead brush. He searched his backpack once again, producing an 9-volt battery. He touched it gently to the steel wool, watching as the material immediately ignited, expediting the drying process of the brush above.

  He returned to the creek, lifting the end of a dead oak limb and dragging it back to the pavilion, where the fire was beginning to devour the brush. He disrobed, hung his clothing from a rafter near the fire, and sat nearby. Trying to avoid breathing the smoke, he took a sharp folding knife from the pocket of his pants and sat running the knife along the tree limb to discard the wet outer bark.

  As he worked, his thoughts slipped back to early summer, when he and his daughter were still together at a small settlement of survivors in Kentucky.

  "Dad," Celia had told him one afternoon while she helped him tune up his bike, "I want you to know I'm stronger than mom."

  He had been entirely unprepared for the statement, glancing up from the chain he had been cleaning. "I always counted you as a strong girl, Celia," he said.

  "I'm just saying," she said, drying the chain as he cleaned it. She consciously steeled her expression as she continued, the face of a twelve-year-old girl wearing the countenance of one far beyond her years. "I know mom's not alive."

  Adrian tried to interject. "Maybe--"

  "No," Celia said, shaking her head. Her dark eyes--eyes very much like those of her father--showed sadness, but also acceptance. "She could hardly handle normal life. But I want you to know that I'm not like her. I love her, but I'm not like her. I know you've always worried about that, and you don't have to. I'm glad you're my dad, and if I was gonna be left with just one parent, I'm glad it was you."

  Adrian finished debarking the limb, then hacked it into smaller pieces with the machete. He piled the pieces on top of what was left of the burning brush.

  He stood near the fire, naked with his arms crossed in front of his chest, until he and his clothes were dry, then dressed and waited out the storm.

  Run, he thought, watching as the dark clouds overhead continued to race above the flat landscape. Run on ahead. But you won't get far enough.

  Although Adrian covered as much ground as possible the following morning, the combination of the storm and the wrecks cluttering the stretch of highway leading to Tulsa slowed his progress. He had been traveling since before sunrise, but by nightfall, he was forced to retire for the evening about thirty miles outside of Tulsa.

  As he pulled into the truck stop, he knew immediately that a large group had been there not long ago. There were dozens of deep grooves in the muddy drive, indicating what appeared to have been large numbers of motorcycles and dirtbikes. Adrian's gaze scanned the area, which was deserted. The mud ruts led from the parking lot outside of the diner back out to the highway.

  Adrian's heart pounded within his rib cage.

  "How fresh?" he muttered aloud. "How fresh are those tracks?" He breathed in deeply, taking in the fresh, cool, wet air. For a moment, he imagined that he could smell them. The stench of the shitmongers, he thought. They're close. For a brief instant, he imagined that he could smell his daughter. He had to remind himself not to get excited, that he had no way to be sure that it was Celia's trail upon which he had stumbled.

  Against his better judgment, he made a 180-degree turn, then turned right onto the highway. Although he knew that he should sleep, he felt recharged after his discovery. As he rode southwest, his subliminal th
oughts were of baby blankets and gunpowder.

  Adrian sat at the top of a rusting metal water tower, cleaning his shotgun. He had gotten about ten miles from the truck stop before realizing that continuing in the dark would be impossible. The wrecks cluttering the highway had increased in frequency the closer he got to Tulsa, and around ten o'clock he had reluctantly pulled off of the highway once again.

  He sat on the narrow walkway wrapping the tower, tending to his gun. The weapon, like his motorcycle, had belonged to his father.

  "Take damn good care of 'em," he had told Adrian on his death bed, "so they can be passed down to Celia after you."

  Adrian wiped the well-polished stock of the shotgun, shining in the light of the waxing gibbous moon. The stock, along with the barrel, had been shortened four years previously by Adrian's friend, Gage, to an illegal barrel length of sixteen inches.

  Being an heirloom dating back to the youth of Adrian's grandfather, the shotgun had suffered a split in its lower barrel after decades of use. Adrian had decided to simply remedy the split by retiring the shotgun, placing it on his mantle with the crack in the barrel facing the wall.

  "It's a shame, lettin' a fine gun like that go unused," Gage had often remarked upon entering Adrian's living room. "I'm telling you, I could shorten that barrel and that split won't matter."

  Adrian had always responded the same way. "It's an heirloom. If I have to make it unrecognizable to use it, then it'll sit tight on my mantle."

  Adrian had come home one day to find the mantle empty. It was when he and Rachel were in one of several on-again phases of their relationship.

  "Rachel," he said, "did you let Gage into the house?"

  Rachel had looked up from her phone, and Adrian could tell from the vaguely guilty expression on her face that she would give an affirmative response.

  "Yeah," she said, her pale green irises rising upward and to the left to regard the ceiling. "Is that bad? He said you had one of his tools he needed back."

  Adrian had gotten back into his truck, speeding down the rural road to his friend's house. Upon his arrival, he exited the truck and proceeded to pound on the front door. After a moment, he heard Gage's jovial voice from inside.

  "What's all the racket, man?"

  "I think you got somethin' belongs to me," Adrian thundered from the porch.

  Gage laughed from the other side of the door.

  "If I open this thing," he said, "do you promise not to shoot me?"

  "Gage," Adrian said as his friend swung open the door, "what all did you do to my gun?"

  "Come see for yourself," Gage said, exiting the house and leading Adrian to his workshop.

  As they entered, Adrian saw his shotgun lying on an island counter in the middle of the room. He approached the counter, exhaling a heavy sigh that was a mixture of regret upon seeing the mutilated body of his gun, and anticipation to try it out.

  "Stubby little fucker," Gage said, his rosy, pudgy face lit up with a wide grin. He rubbed the wooden stock, admiring his handiwork. "Even cleaned up the stock for you. Varnish might be a little wet yet."

  "Pigfucker," Adrian muttered, slapping the other man lightly upside the back of the head. "I told you to let it alone." He sighed again, his gaze locking onto the weapon on the counter. "On the other hand, it's been more than six long years since I've fired this bad boy. And I have to admit, it does look pretty sweet, illegal though it may be."

  "Hey!" Gage said suddenly, his grin stretched even wider than before. "You wanna christen it, do a little blow off the barrel?"

  Adrian shook his head. "Nah, I already told you. I left all that shit behind when I left the Middle East."

  Adrian leaned back against the cool metal tower, using his hand to shield his eyes from the glaring light of the moon that was ascending up past the rooftops to the east. As his night vision developed, he began to take in a rather troubling sight. Standing water could be seen glowing silver with the reflecting moon light, partially covering the flat terrain. It was still around a hundred yards from the highway, but visibly encroaching from both sides. Although the rain had stopped, the abundant downpour of the previous day had apparently inundated the area, flooding the rivers and creeks until they morphed into improvised ponds and lakes. Adrian spent the rest of the night on the latticed metal walkway while his gaze vigilantly scanned the landscape, wishing that dawn could come sooner.

  In his fitful dreaming state, Adrian made his way to the water tower, pushing and fighting through a legion of Taliban foes. They snarled slurs in Arabic as they charged him, one after another. Adrian surveyed the crowd of enemies, all of whom were roughly the same height as he himself. Although he was certain that he would die, outnumbered as he was, he continued nonetheless toward the nearby tower, lifting them above his head with little effort and tossing them back over his head without a second glance. He felt no fear, no sense of urgency, as he progressed. Reaching the tower, he quickly ascended the ladder, kicking down the adversaries who attempted to pursue him. They cursed him as they fell backward into the crowd gathered below.

  Reaching the top, Adrian hurried to look over the side and glanced down at the road below, taking in the size of the crowd some fifty feet below. He began to get slightly more emotional as he realized that they stretched into the distance, as far as his eye could see.

  "That's too many!" he cried, his voice cracking. As he looked more closely, he realized that none of them were Taliban anymore--indeed, none of them were human. The crowd had changed while he climbed up the tower, and he was now gazing at a sea of undead that stretched to the horizon.

  He stalked around the platform that wrapped its way around the tower, continuing until he had gotten a 360-degree view. They covered the streets and ground in every direction. Adrian studied a strip mall across the street, noting that the buildings were filled to capacity with undead, as well, their decomposed faced smashed into the glass doors.

  Adrian looked up and down the nearby street, whimpering. His low moans and blubbers rose gradually, until he was roaring at the top of his lungs, his eyes closed. He continued until his screams died down to howls, then quiet sobbing. As he opened his eyes, he found that the streets were now empty, with no two-legged creatures to be found.

  Adrian stood at the top of the tower the following morning, gazing through his binoculars. Although the sun itself was not yet visible, the terrain was sufficiently illuminated to allow visibility. Much of the highway was dry into the distance, but there were a few brief stretches that were impassable, submerged in flood water. His eyes traced the path of the high ground, noting the places where he would be forced to go off of the road. If he waited any longer, he feared, there would be places that were not passable without a boat.

  Having plotted his course, he climbed down from the water tower, approaching and straddling his motorcycle. He wove through a small handful of crippled zombies scattered in the road as he continued toward Tulsa. Once he was outside the border of the small village, the road was remarkably clear, and he set his cruise control at sixty miles per hour.

  His thoughts scattered, and after a moment, he struck upon a memory. It was mostly forgotten, but the circumstances led him to recall it, immediately and vividly.

  Celia had been two years old, and it was Halloween. She had declared, months before, that she wanted nothing more than to be a flower for trick-or-treating. Unlike most toddlers, she remembered and held to the decision. Fortunately, craft and costume-making was one of the few areas in which Rachel truly shined as a parent. She and Celia had worked from August to October on the intricate costume, fashioned from cardboard and decorated with paint, sequins, beads and various small household items that could be strung onto thread and sewn through the cardboard.

  October 31st came, and Celia ceremoniously dressed herself in all green to resemble a stem. The cardboard petals framed her face, which was the flower's center.

  "Am I a pretty flower, daddy?" Celia asked as she stood before a full-length mirro
r, twirling to fan out her pleated lime-green skirt.

  "Prettiest that ever was," Adrian replied from the doorway, gazing in awe at his offspring. Celia was a two-year-old who knew what she wanted and stuck to it. He hoped it was a trait that she would retain, and that it would get her far in life.

  They had taken Celia trick-or-treating in the neighborhood where Rachel's parents lived. It was an upper-middle class neighborhood where many homeowners would give out full-sized candy bars, and it was in Rachel's nature to encourage her daughter to squeeze as much material gain from life as possible.

  "You gotta go where the good things in life are at," she said as they disembarked from her childhood home, her parents joining the group as they started down the street. Adrian turned his head to his left, away from Rachel and her parents, so that no one would see him roll his eyes. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the instinct to go where the good stuff is. It was just that Rachel was so utterly and hopelessly materialistic, and devoid of self-reflection or awareness of the words that came out of her mouth. She had uttered the exact same sentence, on the exact same stretch of sidewalk, the previous two Halloweens. Material possessions seemed to be the only subject upon which his wife had any interest, or any nuggets of wisdom.

  Another recurring event from years before was the delay at one of the houses down the street, as Rachel and her mother chatted with the lady of the house. Adrian stood with his hands in his pockets, trying to politely ignore the wait and the chill beginning to bite in, wishing that they were moving. He watched Celia hop up and down the front walk, pausing to crouch in front of different sets of flowers lining either side. She was seeing where she best fit in with the various colors of mums and marigolds.