Dark Stories: Ray and Teddy, Part I

This is essentially a flashback for Ray and Teddy that I had originally put in Into The Dark as they waited for Jeff and George outside the convenience store.  Naturally, after realizing how big of a departure it was from the main story, I had to remove it, even thought it allowed these two characters, which up to that point had been extremely minor, to have more of a sense of existence to the reader.  I’ve broken it into two parts, and this one primarily deals with Ray, but also provides some more details on Teddy as well.  The second part focuses on Teddy and is a bit longer, and I plan on posting that in the next few days as well.

As always, I do my best to catch the glitches in editing, but I am sure there are some left behind here.

Ray and Teddy, Part I

The two boys took a little time making a connection after they met.  Certainly, there were some significant differences between them, but after a while, they took comfort in having each other to lean on.  Ray was a year older than Teddy, but given the fact that the other children in the group were significantly younger and the rest of the survivors were made up of adults, a minor difference in age and their distinctly different personalities didn’t seem to matter all that much to Ray and Teddy.

They were excited when Jason showed up, though the younger boy seemed to take more of a liking to Michael than them.  It only served to reinforce their belief that they were a team and they weren’t going to let anyone get in their way.

Ray was a self proclaimed computer nerd and was very proud of that fact.  His claims were, of course, untested since computers, like so many other things these days, were historical artifacts.  He jokingly introduced himself to Teddy as a “Nerd without a cause”.  Ray had been into video games and blogging, which was something that he had to explain to more than one person in their group.  He shook his head in amazement at the lack of awareness some people had of the wonders of the internet world.

He had felt strange and totally out of place within the group of survivors until Teddy showed up.  Even then, it took them a while to understand one another.  Ray wanted to talk about all the video games he missed and the website he had been creating with some online friends dedicated to Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show that had been off the air for years but lived on thanks to You Tube and Netflix.  Teddy, sadly, had never even heard of the show and sadder still, according to Ray, didn’t really care.  When Ray tried to explain the wonder of it all, Teddy interrupted him almost immediately with “It doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”

From that moment forward Ray decided he would never speak of the show or any other useless hobbies he had ever again.  He never told Teddy how much the deadpan comment hurt, and that was partially because he had to admit that what the other boy had said was true: none of that stuff did matter anymore.  Not in the world they lived in.  He tried to get angry about that fact, but failed.  Everyone Ray had known who loved MST3K was dead, and so were all the other geeks he linked up with on Xbox Live to play Halo.  His world of computer screens and game controllers was officially dead and buried.

Even with Teddy’s brush off, the two boys worked hard to find common ground, in particular after they witnessed the deaths of several members of the group and even more so when they had to flee the factory.  Teddy was somewhat reserved and aloof with Ray at first, but with nothing much else to do when the survivors weren’t running or hiding, he began sharing more and more about himself with Ray.

Teddy Schmidts was a small kid, a few inches above five foot tall and weighing in at 100 pounds.  He was a freshman in high school and remarkably, at least to Ray, he had been quite popular with his classmates despite his diminutive stature.  Teddy didn’t speak of his popularity as if he was bragging.  Like everything he said, the words sounded genuine and honest.  There was no embellishment in anything Teddy stated or did.  He played soccer and wrestled and was good at both.  Despite not having the size to play football or basketball, he was strong and fast, which landed him on the varsity wrestling squad.  He had a good chance to make varsity in soccer as well by his sophomore year, according to his coach, if he stayed focused and kept improving his footwork.

Teddy had energy to burn, but athletics calmed him down.  He told Ray that when he was little, doctors advised his parents to get him into sports year round to help with his focus and concentration.  He had been diagnosed hyperactive, but did well with a lot of exercise.  As he got older, the hyperactivity dissipated and his grades improved.  Ray had wondered why Teddy felt the need to run around all the time and do pushups and sit ups like his life depended on it.  He still didn’t understand after Teddy’s explanation, since Ray loathed physical activity, but shrugged it off.  If it made his newfound friend happy, it was cool with him.

When Ray had asked about the Springfield rifle that Teddy had with him when they first met, Teddy stated that his father had been a hunter, though he refused to say much else about either of his parents beyond that.  He did let it slip that this particular weapon had been his father’s favorite, and Ray suspected that was a pretty important detail about Teddy’s life, and a good reason why he wasn’t so chatty about his family.  No one had any pleasant stories to tell about what had happened to their loved ones, so if someone didn’t want to talk about them, they were left alone.

Ray, on the other hand, didn’t mind speaking about such things and Teddy was good enough to listen.

He was the youngest of three, and as his mother described it, he had been a happy “accident” when he had come along in her early forties.  Ray’s older sisters were well into their twenties and he didn’t see them all that often anymore-he had no idea what had happened to them when the world had fallen apart.  They both lived in other parts of the country.

His father was an electrical engineer and his mother a librarian.  “Thus, I got my card as a charter member of the nerd society while still in the womb.”  They raised him to be proficient on the computer and a voracious reader, but had not graced him with many social skills.  Outside of an almost obsessive focus on his grades, Herman and Bess Jordan had little interest in their son’s social development.

When the first reports came on the air about the dead beginning to walk, Ray’s parents, like so many other people, dismissed it as mass hysteria.  It was only when local reports about riots and attacks in the streets of Cincinnati started showing up on the TV that they showed even the most remote interest.  It still took them a couple days before they came to the conclusion that they should do more than quibble with each other and take some action.  They piled into their car with the idea of driving out to a campground they had spent a single weekend at several years earlier.  The idea of heading to one of the National Guard shelters or remaining at their house seemed foolish.  From the campground, they would figure out where they could best sit tight to wait out this whole ridiculous mess.

They did not even get five miles from their house.

Caught in one of the many never ending traffic jams on the interstate, they sat waiting, like everyone else.  About an hour after getting stuck and watching other motorists leave their cars, Ray’s parents bickered and debated yet again about what they should do.  Since Ray’s mother had severe rheumatoid arthritis and his father was not in tip top shape either, it didn’t seem like such a good idea for them to grab what they could and hoof it.  The mini-debate was settled twenty minutes later when they saw people running and screaming in both directions along the median and breakdown lanes of the highway.

Ray, who was a nervous wreck at that point, watched as his father got out of the car despite the fact that his mother was pleading for him not to.  He told them to wait for him, and that he would be right back.  Herman moved off from them and for the next five minutes the two people he had deserted in the Volvo Station Wagon sat and wept.  Ray tried to comfort his mother by putting his hand on her shoulder, but she swatted it away, crying and screaming unintelligibly at him.  After that he balled up in the back seat and whimpered, imagining what was happening to his father and wondering what he should be doing.  His mother was hysterical, which was something entirely new to Ray.  It felt like his world had collapsed.

Things got worse from there.  His father finally came back to the car and opened his door.  Bess Jordan pled with him to get in and lock the doors.  After nearly thirty seconds of screaming, her voice elevating higher and higher with panic, Herman pushed her frantic hands away, hard.  He leaned into the car and the look on his face was one Ray would never forget.

It must have had the same impact on his mother because she went silent.  The last words Ray recalled his father saying were so quiet he was not quite sure he heard them correctly, but what he believed they were remained etched in his mind.

“We have to leave.  If we stay here, we’ll die.”

His father grabbed his mother by the arm and pulled her out of the car.  She resisted at first, most likely thinking Herman mad.  The look on his face was like nothing Ray had ever seen before.  His father had always been steady, composed, and dispassionate.  Ray found it nearly impossible to describe what had become of his dad to Teddy, except to say it looked like someone had scraped all the color out of his skin and replaced it with the same texture and color as milk.  It was as if his father’s blood flow had stopped.  His eyes were wide and bulging and he looked like some sort of side show freak as he gaped at Ray and his mother.

It took a couple of minutes for Herman to finally pry Bess free of the car.  As Ray opened his door and stepped out, he tried asking his father if they should take anything with them.  His inquiry was ignored for the most part as his father dragged his mother down the road.

Less than a minute later Ray understood what had caused his father to act as he did.

Their car had been stuck on the inside lane of the highway.  The cars had been moving at first, slowly inching forward, but then came to a halt.  Besides having bumper to bumper traffic, the median was clogged with more cars trying to sneak past everyone.  Overpasses with huge cement pylons had served as blockades to traffic along the grassy center strip every few miles or so.

The Jordan’s ran forward, limping along with the scattered crowds of other desperate people.  The obstacle course of cars required them to adjust their path continuously as other people plowed past them, bumping and shoving them with an equal amount of desperation.

Ray remembered hearing a noise behind him mixed in with the screams.  At first it sounded like a swarm of locusts and he remembered that being odd because he recalled locust only came out once every few years.  Maybe cicadas?  He had no idea if there was any difference between cicadas and locusts and dismissed the line of thought as useless.

Only in hindsight did the sound have any real meaning.

The Jordan family were buffeted and pushed around by most everyone rushing past faster than Ray’s parents were capable of moving.  As hundreds of people streamed by, Ray spared a moment to look back in the direction they had come from.  They were on a straight ribbon of highway that stretched for several miles off into the distance, and he could see everything behind them very clearly.

What Ray saw, and later told Teddy about, confirmed everything the news reports had been saying that his parents had found so hard to believe.  The dead had come back to life and were attacking the living.  Ray had remembered all the postings on the net spewing out rumor after rumor, and dissecting every sordid detail being reported from around the globe.  Some were absolutely ridiculous while others, especially the ones displaying extremely graphic photographs or grainy cell phone videos, were hard to dismiss.  Now he was bearing witness to everything he’d laughed about as the random ravings of internet sensationalists just a day or two earlier.  Nothing even the most artful fear monger on the web had tried to relay to the rest of the world could compare to what Ray was seeing with his own eyes.

People were being pulled out of their cars by other human beings who weren’t even waiting for them to clear the shattered windows and windshields before tearing into exposed flesh.  Some ganged up on the people in particular vehicles while others stood alone, smashing their bloody fists against windshields.  It all looked like some slow motion movie being played out frame by bloody frame.

Ray stopped running and watched the unholy scene unfolding off in the distance.

It wasn’t just those stuck in their cars being attacked.  Everyone on the road was fair game.  The slowest and weakest were being dragged to the ground, along with anyone who had the misfortune of being trampled in the mad rush to escape the claws of the rotting army marching toward them.  The old, the infirm, and those carrying small children were the easiest for the horde to overwhelm, while a brave few who chose to fight wielding an assortment of weapons such as golf clubs and hand guns were obliterated just as quickly as the horde of maddened cannibals poured in around them.

Ray gauged the distance to the closest fighting at about a half a mile.  There the feeders were still sparse, a recon force leading the way for a much larger mass of infected out beyond the horizon.  Ray’s eyes scanned further back and saw that their numbers were endless; they were a great consuming machine destroying everything within their reach.

Ray had looked up at Teddy at that point in his story and gave him a meek smile.

“I remember sitting on my porch when I was a little kid, watching an ant hill off in the dirt in my front yard.  I was always fascinated by the worker ants, when they carried all those little pebbles of dirt and bits of leaves down into their underground bunker.  I must have watched that ant hill for thirty minutes one day,” he laughed as his eyes grew distant.

“But then something happened.  Another ant, obviously not from that colony, because it was larger and red, wandered by and was attacked by all those smaller black ants.  It didn’t have a prayer.  It must have taken just a few seconds for it to be swarmed over.  The black ant army came in huge numbers and annihilated their enemy, dragging its carcass off down that same hole they used to carry all those pebbles and leaves.  I’m not sure if they ate it, and I really didn’t want to know, but that’s what those dead people reminded me of: those black ants, climbing all over their enemies and tearing them to pieces within seconds.”

Ray swallowed hard and paused before continuing his story.

Like the ants, the undead attacked as a unit, swarming over their victims mercilessly.  Ray remembered that all the black ants looked just like the bigger red ant except for the color and size, but the black ants sure had recognized the difference in species.

He watched the ghouls attacking the living with that same sense of fascinated dread as he’d had watching that insignificant skirmish on his front lawn years earlier.

The tide of the undead plodded along, excited yet systematic in their assault.  Some would stop and focus on a car where they thought someone was hiding, while the rest forged ahead, pursing the huge crowd of the living that had gone mad with fear.  A great sea of humanity was being pushed and prodded toward where Ray stood.

He realized he’d seen enough and turned to follow his parents.  It was only then that he realized that they were already gone.  They had not waited for their son to figure out what was happening and had left him behind.  Ray ran forward a few car lengths and then reversed his course and went back to his family’s car to glance inside; irrationally believing his parents might have returned to wait for him there.  He climbed on the hood and screamed for them, scanning the highway to the south, away from the slowly encroaching doom.  He couldn’t pick them out amongst the hundreds, if not thousands, of people surging away from his position.

Ray screamed for his parents once again, although his voice was drowned out by the screams and the sound of locusts he’d heard before.

Much like what George had discovered a few days later when he fled the high school gymnasium with Jason, it dawned on Ray that it was the song of the dead he was hearing, not some harmless insects.  They were crying out to him and the desperate refugees trying to flee from their inevitable grasp.  From his vantage point he could see thousands of the dead marching forward.  Those not busy biting or tearing into those frantic souls in their path were moaning.  They were moaning and as the sound emanating from their ragged, rotten vocal chords joined together, it sounded like some sort of deranged chorus.  It was so loud that it vibrated the car roof beneath his feet.

Ray could feel his grip on reality slipping away, but was coherent enough to realize that the screams of the living weren’t just coming from behind the car.  He turned around again and made one last futile attempt at a search for his parents.  There were people being trampled everywhere and he feared that given their physical condition, his mother and father might be injured.  As he looked further in that direction, thoughts and concerns for his parents evaporated.

The dead were coming from the other end of the highway as well.

They were further off in the distance, but still surging toward the living caught in the middle of the two groups of surging corpses.  They moved with a purpose, opening their arms and mouths to the crowd that appeared oblivious to their existence as they ran from the threat coming at them from the opposite direction.

Ray glanced around the immediate area and noticed that while most people were following the path of the highway in some blind attempt at escape, more people were taking off toward the trees surrounding the areas on both sides of the road.  There were sound barriers off in the distance that helped shield the neighborhoods abutting the interstate from excessive noise, but in the immediate area, the woods provided a natural barricade, and a fortunate exit route for those stuck on the highway.

There was no hint that any ghouls were hiding in those woods, but it was almost impossible to tell from Ray’s current vantage point.

He stayed on top of the car for a few more moments and screamed as he did.  This time, it wasn’t for his parents, but for anyone who would be willing to help him, to tell him what to do, or to take him away from this place.  He shouted at the people running by, warning them of what was up ahead, but either they couldn’t hear him or more likely, chose to ignore the pimply faced kid raving like a lunatic from on top of the Volvo.

Even in his state of growing hysteria, Ray knew what he was doing was pointless.  Everyone around him was already dead.  They just didn’t realize it yet.

He wasn’t ashamed to admit to Teddy it was at that point where he broke down crying.  It was easy to tell the other boy because Teddy had wept openly more than once during their escape from the factory.  It was a heck of a lot easier to admit you cried these days and only Frank and Marcus seemed to get upset if you did.

Teddy listened, fascinated as Ray completed his tale.  After another bout of crippling fear, Ray was able to give up on the idea of ever finding his parents again.  There was poorly hidden guilt on his face as he talked about sliding off the roof of the Volvo and making for the woods to the east of the highway.  When Teddy patted Ray on the back and smiled at him, the older boy felt a tremendous relief, as if a great burden had been lifted from his soul by revealing what was his darkest secret.

Not long after that, Ray managed to make his way to where Michael and his band of survivors were hiding out.  It had been a harrowing adventure for him, but most of it had consisted of hiding in dark corners and staying as still as he possibly could as the song of the dead haunted his every waking moment for the next few days.

After his story was finished, Ray never brought up the subject of his parents again.  Teddy was smart enough not to ask anything further, knowing that the guilt his friend felt was probably mixed in with a sense of betrayal and confusion at what they had done to him.  They had left him behind and that was almost impossible for Teddy to imagine being forced to cope with.

January 26, 2011 | Categories: Dark Stories, Into The Dark, The Shorts | Tags: comes the dark, dark stories, horror, Into The Dark, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, writing, zombies | Leave a comment

Dark Stories: Michael and Cindy, Part II

This is the last of the Michael and Cindy Dark Stories, and this one takes place immediately after the argument that takes place between Michael, Jeff, and George about Jason leaving with them to go to Manchester to collect supplies.  I thought this one would give you one last look into the twisted relationship these two have, as well as Michael’s paranoia about those around him.

There are a few more stories to tell, including one about Ben, the teens, and even Sadie, the little girl in the camp.  So stay tuned for those.

Michael and Cindy Part II

“What a bunch of pathetic wussies.  They make me sick.”

“Tsk, tsk dear.  Such harsh language.”

Cindy shifted her gaze from the curtain and focused on Michael as he sat at the table reassembling the M16 he’d decided to clean yet again before going on the hunt.

“Ya know, you keep rubbing that gun like that and you’ll go blind.”  She slinked over to him, her body lithe and sinewy.  She was a predator, a jungle cat on the prowl.  She treated most men, including Michael, like prey.  They were either food or sex, nothing more.  That was why when most men caught Cindy’s attention they usually did their best to divert their eyes and look away.  They seemed to know that to her they were just meat, pure and simple.

“And if you keep wishing such ill will on others you won’t get into heaven.”

Cindy almost laughed, but instead continued creeping up on her boyfriend.  Michael was definitely sex to her, but also food.  She craved him like meat, like a meal that could never completely sate her hunger, so she had to continue to hunt and devour him, over and over again.  She slithered to the floor and moved her hand over his combat boot, sliding it underneath his camouflaged pants.  Blocked at the bend in the knee, her hand hovered just below it scratching at his calf with her ragged fingernails.

Michael ignored Cindy as he finished reassembling the weapon.  After a second he admired his work and nodded in satisfaction.  He was getting more proficient at taking care of the rifle.  He’d searched around and managed to find a manual covering the how-to’s of field stripping and maintaining it in a bookstore he’d come across during the group’s travels.

As much as he had every intention of keeping it operational, the fact that he’d acquired only two thirty round clips with it, one of which was only partially full, meant that he had very little desire to use the M16.  It was more a symbol of his authority than anything.

He’d squeezed off a few rounds in automatic mode a while back, just to convince himself that it did indeed work and when the time came he could put it to use.  Other than that all he did was keep it clean and ready to go.  There would be time to acquire more rounds.  After all, there had to be tons of munitions floating around these days, it was just a matter of venturing into an area where soldiers had been stationed that wasn’t currently overrun by the undead.  Until then, the rifle would continue to serve its purpose as his staff of office.

He grinned as he flashed back to how he had acquired it.  It had been a shame, a real shame, that the soldier had been unwilling to surrender the weapon.  The boy had been brave, but he was injured, and in a bit of a jam.  He had required a bit of extreme persuasion, as Michael liked to think of it, to finally relinquish his rifle and sidearm.  Desperate times called for desperate measures …

Michael’s daydream was shattered by the sensation of sharp fingernails digging into his lower leg and a warm trickle of blood running down his calf.

Cindy was looking up at him, her head leaning against his leg.  Michael glanced at her, but despite the pain she was inflicting, he continued smiling at the M16.  Yes, it had taken quite a bit to get the damn thing, but it had been worth it.

“If you don’t ravage me soon, I am going to take that thing away from you and use it to get off.”

“Well that would be something to see.  It’d be even better if you let me pull the trigger while you did it.”

Michael caught Cindy’s fist before it could connect with his crotch.  He had no doubt that she would have hit him so hard he wouldn’t be able to stand up straight for a week.  He twisted her wrist until she gasped in pain.  As usual, it sounded more like a moan of pleasure coming from her lips.

He gritted his teeth as she dug the nails even deeper into the meat of his lower leg.  Michael knew no matter how much he twisted Cindy’s wrist, she would keep digging, even if he went so far as to snap the slender bones in her arm.  It was a tempting proposition, but with no doctors around he couldn’t take things that that far.  Still, the idea of putting the certifiably insane girl out of commission for a while was tempting.

Standing up abruptly, Michael flung her arm away with a sharp kick of his leg.  Before she could react he brought his knee up and slammed it against Cindy’s chest, forcing her to the ground.

Gasping for air, her eyes widened in surprise.  When she was able to breathe again, a knowing smiled appeared on Cindy’s lips.

“Maybe now I’ll finally get some attention.”

Michael glared down at her, angry again.  After what had happened outside with George and Jeff, he needed an outlet for the rage building up inside of him.  How convenient for him that Cindy was always available, willing to scratch any itch he might have.

*

Perhaps what had happened outside should be considered a moral victory.  At least on the surface, it appeared that way.  Everyone had been watching as Jeff had gotten flustered when he couldn’t persuade Michael to let Jason stay in the camp.  He’d been forced to demand that the boy be left behind when they went into town, which would have ended very badly for Jeff if he had remained obstinate.  That is, if George hadn’t butted in.

The final result, though unexpected, was a pleasant surprise.  George had committed to staying with them, which wasn’t what Michael had expected to get out of him.  Not in a million years, and certainly not voluntarily.  The deal George offered was one Michael was more than willing to make.

The plan had been to dress down Jeff, make him sweat a bit, and make it abundantly clear who was in charge so there wouldn’t be any more opportunities for them to butt heads.  Jeff would know his place and would be content from then on in following orders.  Backing him into a corner should have been easy, with just a little bit of help from his friends.  Megan was never going to allow Jason to leave the camp and it was Jeff’s duty to enforce her wishes.  In the end, Jeff was backed into a corner, but George’s little outburst had pulled his bacon out of the fire.

Looking back on the spat was amusing.  Michael could care less about whether or not Jason went with them.  When the conversation first started even Frank seemed to question the value of having a twelve year old going out with them, but even someone as dense as that fat hick was able to pick up on what Michael was trying to do after a few minutes and kept his big yap shut, except to tease George and Megan.

Jason was just another pawn to Michael.  It appeared that Jeff was really the only other person who picked up on that little detail.  Perhaps George and Megan had suspected, but they let their emotions get in the way, which was exactly what Michael had hoped for.  The kid liked Michael, and that made him pretty damn easy to manipulate.  Since none of the adult newcomers seemed to have much fondness for the camp’s leader, resorting to using the kid was the natural choice for sorting things out and clearing the air as to who was in charge.

Jason would be useful again later on.  He was probably mad at everyone at the moment, including Michael, but he would get over it.  Kids were resilient like that.  All it would take would be a few more gentle reminders that he had to stand on his own two feet and needed to act like a man.  He couldn’t allow the adults in the group to coddle him like a little baby anymore.  With a few well placed words, Jason would ditch the others entirely and be as loyal to Michael as Frank and Marcus.

Jason’s destiny was to drive a wedge between Megan and the two other men.  The subject of the boy would be a hot topic amongst them from now on and sooner or later they would not see eye to eye on how to deal with the rebellious preteen.  As they argued, it would be easy to chip away at their loyalty to one another.  In time, one of them would decide they were better off offering up their loyalties to Michael, who was the one providing them with shelter and food, rather than the other two troublemakers, who were just stirring up shit and doing little else that was productive.  It was just a matter of letting them fall apart on their own, with a few well placed nudges, of course.

It would all work out, but there was still something that bothered Michael.  Something about what had happened outside that tasted foul on his tongue—like fruit that had started to ferment a little too quickly.  Something was not right.

George had shown some backbone, which was far more than Michael thought the dumb bastard was capable of.  George was supposed to be some miserable wimp pining away for his family, so it came as a big surprise when he agreed to stay at the camp to avoid putting Jason in any sort of danger.  Even more surprising were the threats he’d uttered.  Michael had to admit that it had unnerved him—not because George was so big and scary.  Michael had taken down bigger foes in the past.  Instead, it was what he had seen in the big man’s eyes: there was no bluffing there.  George had every intention of killing Michael if he continued pushing him.

Despite that, there was a simple answer to the George dilemma: he would have to be watched and watched carefully.  The old man would fly the coup if he was certain the boy was safe and secure here and the opportunity to escape presented itself.  But more important than making sure he stayed put was getting him to behave.  That might require poking and prodding him into a fight.  It would give Michael a chance to break the old man down and sap his will to rebel just a little bit.  And if that did not work, more drastic measures might be in order …

But as much as George might end up being a headache, he would be easy to deal with—he was a minor nuisance at most.  George was not the one bothering him.  Jeff was.

Michael had seen his type before: the reluctant leader.  Jeff did not crave power, at least not in the form of authority over others.  He was the type that preferred staying behind the scenes, doing his own thing, and would only step up when he was forced to.  He wasn’t fearless, but like so many other people, he had probably lost everything and figured he didn’t have any real reasons left to be afraid anymore.

So the trick, as Michael saw it, was to give Jeff a few reasons to be afraid once again.

Jason had told Michael a bit about the group.  About how he and George had spent most of their time stuck in some church, and then all the excitement that had occurred over the past couple of days, ever since Jeff and Megan had shown up in their minivan.  Michael had gotten a few juicy tidbits from the stories the boy had told, enough to use against Jeff and George when they’d argued earlier, but he needed more information on the newcomers.  Lydia was the one who’d spent the most amount of time with Megan and Jeff since they’d gotten here.  Michael would need to have a long discussion with her about what they’d shared with her after they returned from the supply run.  If anyone in the camp was non-threatening enough to open up to, it was Lydia.  She was good at keeping secrets, but with a little sweet talk there was no doubt she would reveal things to Michael about her new friends.

Getting to know Jeff better would allow Michael to know what made him tick.  There was no doubt he’d lost his family over the past few weeks.  The thousand-yard stare confirmed that much.  And when he’d stood up for himself outside, and given the ultimatum about Jason staying inside the camp … well, that had been a bit of surprise.

He would have never thought the other man had it in him.  Jeff was soft, not a brawler of any sort.  Unless he was hiding some sort of ex-military commando existence behind his bland exterior, Michael knew he could easily take Jeff down in a fight.  More importantly, Jeff knew that as well.  People like him avoided physical confrontations like the plague.  Jeff was just an average dude who had been a family man once upon a time.  Michael did his best to try to understand it.  Jeff had to know that Michael was younger, faster, and stronger than him, plus he had all the weapons.  So why risk getting his nuts squashed?  The whole idea went against the grain.  Jeff had probably lived his whole existence going with the flow, not rocking the boat.  He lived a dull, unexceptional life, kept his nose clean, and obeyed all the laws … just like 99.9% of the other slobs out there.

As Michael continued to mull Jeff over, another possibility occurred to him.  Maybe Jeff was willing to get a few teeth knocked in, just to show everyone he wasn’t a coward, and that Michael needed brute force to maintain control over the camp.  Jeff would have been beaten, but Michael would have lost the respect of some of the camp members.

Oh you son of a bitch.  You sly, sly son of a bitch.  You almost had me, you cock sucker.

There was a small sense of satisfaction at having rooted out the trickster’s plan, but it was surrounded by doubt.  Was that really Jeff’s intention?  Was he willing to get bloodied to prove a point?  George had stepped in and changed things with his declaration, which left Jeff’s real intention a mystery.  All Michael knew was that there was no way that motherfucker was going to undermine his authority.  No way in hell.  Others had tried before and he had dealt with them—it was one of those ugly responsibilities that came with the burden of leadership.  His father had taught him that.  “Make a good enough example out of a troublemaker and the others will think twice before they cross you.”

Jeff was just another liability that would be dealt with soon enough.  Michael just needed to get a better fix on him, so he could find out the best way to make him behave.

*

Perhaps if Michael had bothered looking out the window of the Winnebago at that moment, he would have seen Jeff and Megan consoling one another, which might have given him some ideas of how he could keep Jeff in line.  Instead, his thoughts shifted back to Cindy as he stared down at her, his knee still on her chest.  In that moment he felt the closest thing to love for her that he could possibly could.  She had allowed him to see things in ways he had never seen them before.  Everything was … easier now.

Without her he was a good leader, but with her he was a leader that understood that he always needed to be consolidating his power and eliminating elements that would seek to undermine him.  He knew the sensation he felt was not really love; it was more like gratitude.  An appreciation for the woman who had unearthed in him the feelings and passion that drove him.  He grew more excited as he continued gazing at her.

The resentment and regret that always seemed to creep up on him when he thought too much about her had dissipated, as it always did.  It seemed foolish not to embrace the power he felt because of what Cindy had done for him, what she had shown him.

He slapped her across her jaw as a grin surfaced on his face.  He watched as the side of his girlfriend’s face slammed into the carpeted floor of the RV.

Cindy felt dazed, but knew once again that Michael was just getting warmed up.  It made her shiver with excitement.  He was getting closer to losing control with the others like he did with her.  He’d nearly gotten into a fight with both George and Jeff instead of trying to be diplomatic, which was how he used to handle things like that.  Not anymore.  He’d used that brat Jason to get his way, and it had stirred up shit with that bitch Megan, as well Jeff and George.  What had happened outside was a tantalizing tease and there was a good chance that Michael would come to blows with one or both of the new men in the next couple of days.

The idea of it nearly sent Cindy over the edge with excitement.  She loved seeing the hate boil up behind her man’s eyes.  It wouldn’t be long before he stopped trying to restrain himself and let go.  It would be a beautiful sight to see when he did.

She licked at the small trickle of blood that came from her split lip and returned Michael’s smile.

January 17, 2011 | Categories: Dark Stories, Into The Dark, The Shorts | Tags: comes the dark, dark stories, horror, Into The Dark, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, writing, zombies | Leave a comment