Caught in the Web Read online

  Her eyes were wide, and he had a sense that he recognized her, although he couldn’t remember from where. She was an older woman, thin, wearing a white blouse tucked into a pair of jeans. She had an attractiveness to her, even though her eyes were open wide with shock. It didn’t take long before the look was gone and she was glaring at him. Why was she glaring at him? She was the one that had come out of nowhere. If anyone should be upset, he should be getting out of the car, walking back to her and yelling.

  He was reaching for his door, pulling hard on the handle. He was halfway out of the car when the first shot went off. He wasn’t sure what instinct kicked in, but he quickly found himself lying on the asphalt, his mouth stinging from hitting the ground. His teeth felt like he had knocked a few loose and his jaw felt like it rubbed the rough surface. He had to spit out the dirt.

  He couldn’t be certain it was a gunshot. No, it was probably just a car backfiring. Or, since it was July, just some firecrackers. Never mind the fact that he was parked by police cars, without any of the police officers around. It couldn’t be gunfire.

  Another shot rang out. It was muffled, but he heard glass shattering and guessed it was coming from the store. Then another shot not muffled by the glass doors. That was clearly gunfire. Someone in the store was shooting.

  He looked over at the woman he had almost hit. She was crouched low. She hadn’t been an idiot like him and dove down. She had the sense to just crouch down behind the cars. She had her hand out, using one of the squad cars to support her. He watched as she pushed herself up a little to peek over the car’s hood.

  Feeling like an idiot, he reached out, his palms on fire from the little scrapes he had gotten from the rose bush and the asphalt. If he survived today, he was going to look like he had his ass handed to him. He pushed against the ground, doing the best version of a push up that he could with his legs still tangled in his car. He pulled one leg free and heard it crunch on some gravel, causing the woman’s head to quickly snap around to glare at him. She didn’t have to motion for him to be quiet. He understood just by the heat of her eyes that she felt he was making too much noise. Even though he doubted anyone in the building could hear them, he understood that she was terrified. She may not have been showing it, and she sure as hell had a better head on her shoulders than he did.

  As quietly as he could and staying low, which wasn’t easy as his back was stiffening up and it was hard for him to stay slouched, he eased his other leg out. He actually found it easier, though it hurt more, to just stay on his knees and crawl over to her.

  It felt like he was in a damned action film as he moved closer to her. However, he didn’t get too close. He was curious about her, but her intensity scared him. He eased himself close before rising up and peeking over the trunk of the squad car.

  The first thing he saw was all the blood. There were puddles of it in different spots, two large ones just in front of the cars. Those two puddles went into rugged patterns of lines that crisscrossed…some long and thick, while others were thin. It looked like there had been a massacre, then someone had dragged all the bodies inside. He followed where all the lines lead, which was to the shattered door; however, it didn’t look like it had been shot out. It looked like something had been pushed through it. There were bullet holes, but most of those were on the outer panes around the door, and they were just spider webs of broken glass. It was amazing the glass hadn’t shattered out with what little of it remained intact.

  Then he looked at the broken door. There was a shape there, standing just beyond what he could see. With the sun peeking over the building, shining right into his eyes, it was hard to see anything. He heard it, though…the crunch of broken glass as the shape moved closer to them.

  “We need to go,” he heard a sniffling voice say, and his attention was pulled back to the woman crouched just a few feet away from him. She had taken an unsteady step back away from the car, no longer using it to steady herself. She was already turning to rise, moving towards his car.

  They couldn’t go, though. He still needed to get help for his sister. If he left, where would he go? He could go to the doctor’s office in town, but hadn’t they sent her sister away this morning?

  Why had they sent his sister away? The doctor must have seen her getting sick. He should have known something was wrong. If Jason took her back there, would it do any good? The doctor obviously didn’t know what he was doing. He wouldn’t be any help.

  He would have to drive to the hospital to get her help. Well, that wasn’t going to do any good, either. If he took her to the hospital, that would be one thing, but to go there and come back with an ambulance? That was even if they would come with him. There was sure to be questions. Why hadn’t he just brought her with him? How would he explain she had tried to attack him, and that his baby sister scared him? What rational man would believe him? They would think he was just pulling some prank.

  He needed to find the cops. They had to help him.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I need their help.”

  “Help?” The woman stopped going towards his car and turned to look at him. She was obviously confused, and he could imagine why. He wasn’t sure what her deal was, and if people were shooting at him, he was probably about to do something really dumb, but there had to be someone there he could talk to. Besides, it had to be safe in there because there weren’t any cops outside to keep him out. The situation inside had to be under control.

  The woman was reaching for him, but he was able to keep away from her as he sidestepped, then he started moving around the back of the car. She followed him, but he wasn’t sure why. As he had an itch pulling at his spine with everything that was happening, he was happy she did.

  “You’re not going to find help there. We need to go,” she said to him in a loud whisper. It sounded like she was trying to keep quiet, but was still speaking loud enough that he could hear her.

  He was getting closer to the shape. The shape was small, but not as small as a child. It had to be a short woman.

  “Hey!” he quietly called out to it.

  He noticed the shape stumble to the side, like hearing him yell at it had caught it off-guard. Then it started moving forward again, noticeably faster this time. It emerged from the shadow of the building, and he could see he was right. It was a woman.

  Or she had been a woman. He wasn’t sure that was the right thing to say about her now. Now, it was just like his sister. Gashes covered her arms. Her clothes, once black slacks and some red-colored uniform shirt, were now in tatters. Pale skin was torn, exposing muscle fragments that were dangling from her.

  Jason stopped. He couldn’t move. He was watching as she was coming closer to him, but while his mind was screaming that he needed to run, he just watched. His body seemed like it was on a separate frequency and that what his mind was telling him he needed to do, he just couldn’t bring himself to obey.

  She stumbled closer, her pace quickening, though she was still staggering horribly. Her face was somewhat familiar. He wasn’t sure if he actually knew her, or if it was just because he saw her around somewhere. Becky? Wait. Where had that name came from? Maybe he had gone to school with her?

  “Come on!” he heard, and realized the voice was not inside his own head. Someone was actually yelling at him. Why was she yelling at him? Didn’t she know that they needed to help this woman? She obviously needed medical help. His sister needed medical help. They had to find help!

  He turned and looked at the woman standing by him. She was holding her hand out, reaching for him.

  “We can’t. We need to find the cops. My sister needs help.” He heard the deadness in his voice. He should be panicked. Why was he talking so calmly?

  “They’re all dead,” she said with exasperation. Her lips trembled and he saw that her cheeks were red, like she had been crying. She was pointing to where she had been coming from when he had almost hit her. “One of them is over there. W
e need to go. If you want to stay alive, we need to get out of here. Now!”

  She reached forward and grabbed his arm. He tried to stay there, but was surprised at how much strength she had. He staggered forward, then was half-running behind her.

  “Get outta here!” yelled a voice. Jason looked over his shoulder as a man emerged from inside the store. He was holding a shotgun and limping heavily. Even though he was far away, Jason could see the line of blood that was flowing down the man’s leg. The man was aiming his gun at the thing that was staggering towards Jason.

  It must have heard him yelling because it stopped and looked back at the man as he was working his way around it. He kept his distance, staggering to keep away while shuffling towards them.

  Jason recognized the man. Dog. While large men with huge gun collections was not that uncommon there, you could always tell Dog by his hat. It was one of those that Jason thought of as a fisherman’s hat. The center was straight, but not quite rigid, and the sides were uneven. It had been Dog’s look, and with everyone knowing just how unstable Dog could be at times, no one ever thought to joke about it.

  The man was scary. He was a common fixture at the bar, and Jason’s mom had warned him about the man. Dog was known for trying to scam drinks out of the bartenders, paying for them two at a time so he could try to get a third one free, saying he already paid. Jason had never told his mom just how much Dog intimidated the hell out of him, so there had been many times he had gotten that third and sometimes fourth drink free.

  Dog didn’t look that scary right now, though. He looked panicked. He was gesturing with the shotgun in a “shooing” fashion, like he could physically push Jason away.

  “Get the fuck outta here!” he yelled again. Dog was trying to move quickly, but the limp was bad. Jason could tell he was in a lot of pain. It was obvious that the leg was slowing him down more than he could handle. Behind Dog, Jason could see another shape as it was making its way into the store.

  Jason turned to look back at the woman. She had stopped pulling on his arm and was also staring. She was watching Dog coming towards them. Her eyes were big, the whites visible as she watched him. He wondered if she was going to go after Dog instead. He was still bleeding, so they could help him, get him out there.

  The thing turned towards Dog.

  “We have to go,” the woman whispered close to his ear. He turned to look at her. Her voice was trembling, her lip quivering. “There is no help here, and we can’t help him. We need to go.”

  Jason took a step away from her and turned back towards Dog.

  “No, no, no!” screamed Dog.

  Jason heard more glass breaking. Dog had stopped hurrying towards them and had turned to look back at the front of the store. What had been one shape coming out of the store was now three, including that fat asshole, Tom. It didn’t feel like any skin off his back seeing that son of a bitch, still as fat as the days when Jason used to work for him in high school, limping heavily on one side. Jason could see that, like many of them, Tom’s shirt was covered in drying blood. Behind him, he could see the chief, in his torn uniform, shuffling behind the large bulk of his former boss.

  Dog’s shotgun must have been out of shells because instead of firing at the things coming towards him, he grabbed it by the barrel and brought it up like a baseball bat. He was turned towards the things that were coming towards him, but was still backing away.

  The woman pulled at Jason’s hand again, then stopped and let his arm go. When he turned, he saw that she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was looking past him, and he watched as something changed in her. The arm that had grabbed him let go and pulled back to her chest. There were fresh tears in her eyes and she looked like she wanted to scream. No, that wasn’t it. He recognized that look. He had seen it just hours before. He had seen that look from his aunt as she had been falling apart.

  “Thomas. Oh no, Thomas,” she said, backing away from him, never taking her eyes away from the group coming out of the store.

  There was a shuffling, and Jason looked up to see another shape moving from in between the squad cars. He started over to them, but she was back by his side again, grabbing at his arm and pulling.

  “You can’t. Don’t get too close to them.”

  “What?” He looked at her, confusion showing on his face. What was she talking about? Why couldn’t he get close? What if the guy needed his help?

  “Come on. There’s nothing we can do. We need to get out of here. Come on!” She tugged at him.

  He heard a grunt, and something slammed nearby. He looked and saw that the person getting up from in between the cars had fallen back into the car for support. Looking closely, he could see why. The guy was big, looked like maybe he had once played football. He thought he recognized the guy as being another one of the local cops. This was the guy who’d often be called out to the bars to break up the fights, which would usually result in one or both of the fighters going home with probably more bruises than if the cops hadn’t been called in the first place.

  The guy was moving slow, and it was obvious as to why. There was a large part of his right leg missing! Just past the man’s knee, a few sharp pieces of bone stuck out. Dragging behind him and hanging off of a few strands of what was maybe muscle and skin was the rest of the man’s leg. The man should be dead, or lying on the ground in pain. Instead, he seemed to stumble, hop, and lean his way against the parked cars, moving towards them.

  Yeah, there wasn’t anything Jason was going to be able to do to help this poor son of a bitch out. The thought of running over to the man and giving him a nice right hook to the jaw did appeal to him. Not that Jason had much reason to. It had never directly been him that he had harassed, but the idea of hitting a cop just felt like it would be something he would enjoy.

  A sharp tug from the woman quickly erased the fantasy, and he stumbled back, quickly following as she ran to the open driver’s door of his car and climbed in.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asked as he hurried over to her.

  She looked up at him, then looked away. He was struck again at how familiar she looked. He didn’t think he really knew her, but he knew he had seen her around town. Not that it was a big town. It was always easy to see everyone, but impossible to meet everyone. He didn’t know how small of a town you had to live in before you had that unbearable knowledge.

  He tried to place her, but it didn’t really matter. She was in his car, and he sure as hell needed her out of it.

  “Come on, get out,” he said to her as he grabbed the door and put his body in the way, preventing her from closing it, but she wasn’t looking at him. She still had her head turned and was watching Dog through the passenger door.

  Jason looked over the top of his car and watched as the group of the five things neared the large man. He hit the first one that came close to him, causing it to stagger away. It was odd to watch how it moved. Jason was actually surprised the thing didn’t fall. Instead, it just continued to stumble away from the rest of the pack until it evened itself out. Then it stopped, turned to look back at Dog, and started to stagger towards him again.

  Dog smacked a few more of them and, each time, they would stagger away to catch their balance, then come back after him.

  “Oh shit!” Jason heard Dog scream out in a voice that was much higher than he thought the man could produce. He dropped the shotgun to stare at his arms. “Get them off of me!” he screamed as he started to swipe at his arms, growing more frantic. Then he started to scratch and tear at his skin. “The spiders! Get them off of me. They’re in my skin. Get them the fuck off of me.” Watching him, Jason cringed, then the things were on top of him.

  “We need to go.”

  Jason looked down at the forceful voice he suddenly heard from below him. The woman was looking up at him, the tears wiped away so she no longer looked like the devastated woman he had seen.

  “I said we need to go.”

  Jason nodded. “Yeah. Get over in the
passenger seat. I’m driving.”

  She hurried out and he sat, closing his door. It didn’t take her long until she was seated beside him. He didn’t wait for her door to close as he slammed the car into drive and was flying towards the exit of the Rowplex.

  * * * *

  “Where are you going? We need to get out of town,” the woman was saying as she struggled to get on her seat belt. She kept pulling on the strap, and it would start to come out to wrap around her, then stop until she tried pushing in and pulling out again. He was torn between wanting to tell her it was broken and enjoying watching her fight with it.

  Who the hell was she, and why did he even pick her up? Why had she wanted to come with him?

  “I’m going back to my mom’s bar,” he said. His aunt, his sister… No, he couldn’t leave yet.

  “No, no! We have to get out of town.”

  “My sister is sick, and my aunt needs me. I’m not leaving until I get help.”

  “There are more of those things. We need to go.”

  “More?”

  “More! I don’t know what the hell they are, but we need to get out of here. No heart beat or blood flowing. By all accounts, they shouldn’t be up and walking around. I don’t know what to call them. It’s not-”

  She didn’t know what they were, but he did. “They’re zombies,” he said, finally admitting it to himself. He had been trying to ignore the thought, even though the realization had been building up since he had left his house. He had known it, but hadn’t wanted to believe it. Even though there were many people out there that lived each day preparing themselves for the possibility of a zombie outbreak, he and Sullivan jokingly being two of them, they never really thought it would ever happen. It wasn’t real. It was fiction. Zombies…were…fictional.