The Preventer: Williams AZ

I woke in Bakersfield at 0630 with a stiff neck. It’s not unusual for my neck to be stiff when I wake, it’s just part of the life – some motel beds are better than others. It’d been a late night, taking me well past the witching hour to complete my business at Willow Grove Cemetery. What a mess that was – three chompers taken out. They rose from the ground at the same time like all the others. I’m still not sure why they do that. It’s as if some hidden force calls to them and wakes them at the same time. They didn’t die at the same time, but just before midnight, they came tearing up through the freshly piled dirt mounds together, three mouths clacking open and closed like hungry hippos. I took all three of them down with my pistol – only the third one managed to crawl completely out of her grave. Her plot was at the other end of the cemetery, so by the time I reached her; she was half-way to me, arms extended and clawing at the air. I blessed her with a single, silenced shot to the center of her forehead. What a shame. She was kind of cute.

Another thing that still bugs me to this day is that I still can’t figure out how the disease spreads. The chompers that I put down are all young. There seems to be more males than females, but they are all in their late teens to late twenties for the most part. I’ve put down some that were in their thirties, but not many. Other than the one chomper in West Valley who recently returned from Singapore, before dying in his sleep the next day, there was nobody else in their forties and absolutely nobody older than that. There have been many theories of course, mostly among The Preventers, but nothing concrete. I asked Gus, my handler last week if he knew how the disease spreads and he looked at me like he wanted to pull my spine out through my mouth.

“You’re a Preventer,” he said. “Prevent.” Then, he handed me my monthly envelop with the cash. I like the envelope with the cash, so I try not to piss Gus off. Preventers don’t exactly get a salary. We get some cash once a month for small things that we can’t use the cards for. All of us have a credit card, complete with a fictional name. The cards never seem to run out of money. We use them for food, gas, and for uncomfortable motel beds. Some others may choose to live in less modest accommodations, but I try to keep a low profile.

Anyway, it wasn’t my alarm that woke me at 0630, it was my phone. By the time I finished reburying the bodies, I didn’t make it back to my room until after 0300. The call was from my mother in Williams. My sister, Georgia died in her sleep.

***

The last time saw my little sister, she was eight. I didn’t mean to stay away for the following eight years; it’s just that the job – the job keeps me moving. We don’t have a dispatch. Nobody calls and tells us, ‘go here’ or ‘go there.’ My method of deployment is usually the same method that landed me the job in the first place – my intuition. I drive. I drive and randomly stop in towns across the country and wherever I stop, the chompers appear. If I were a paranoid person, I would probably believe that I was the harbinger of the undead. I know better though. I have the sight, the feeling, the intuition. However it’s described, I have the right stuff for the job.

I hung up with my mother after a few minutes and hit the road. I didn’t see the point of trying to console her over the phone when I could be on my way to do it in person. For the entirety of the six hour drive from Bakersfield to Williams, I thought about Georgia. I thought about Georgia and smiled. I thought about Georgia and cried. I thought about how I wasn’t there for her and felt guilty. After eight years, I was returning home. It wasn’t the job. There was no intuition about it. I was taking a few days off to mourn my sister and comfort my mother. I called Gus on the way. He didn’t get all wishy-washy. He just said, “Roger” and hung up. Not a big people person, that guy.

I pulled into up to my mother’s house a little before one. She was standing on the wide, white-washed porch, wringing her hands and crying. A few seconds later, we were crying together, wrapped in a tight embrace. She led me into the old house that I would always think of as ‘home’ and poured us some coffee. Over the next few hours, we talked about what cities I had been to and sights that I’d seen. She asked if there were any women in my life. I lied and told her that there had been a few. She asked how my job was going, but didn’t linger on the subject. Selling insurance isn’t exactly a sexy topic. By the time six-o’clock rolled around, I’d drained my fourth cup of coffee and had excused myself to go to the bathroom. I walked away from the table classy enough, but after I stepped into the front-room, I picked up my pace – I had to go really bad.

When I came out the bathroom, I found Jake standing in the middle of the living-room with my mother. His eyes were red and puffy. I guess all of ours were. He was holding my mother’s hand and offering her his condolences when I walked in. When he saw me, he managed a smile.

“Brandon,” he said. “It’s been way too long.”

He shook my hand and appeared to be confused as to whether or not he should hug me as well, but thankfully decided against trying.

“I’m so sorry for you loss,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said. Staring into Jake’s tear-filled eyes made mine threaten to begin leaking again. “I need to run to the store for a few things,” I said to my mom. “You need anything?” She shook her head no. I didn’t really need anything from the store, f course. I just needed to get out of there for a bit and get myself together.

***

For the next couple of days, I slept in my old bedroom. I would love to say that my mother had kept it just the way I left it, but I’d be lying. It was her sewing-room now. There was a really comfortable sofa in there though, so it served. I couldn’t imagine sleeping in my sister’s bed.

During the day, I would help my mother coordinate with the funeral home and the coroner’s office. The Coroner released Georgia’s body to the Funeral Home with natural causes listed as the cause of death on the death certificate. There was still the toxicology report to be filed, but preliminary tests didn’t find any of the common drugs in her system. She simply went to bed one night and never woke up.

When Saturday rolled around, I drove my mother to the funeral home for the viewing. The service and burial was scheduled for the following morning. Saturday was for family and friends to come and see Georgia’s body and say their final goodbyes. We stayed for the majority of the day, welcoming people as they showed up at different times, paid their condolences, and then quickly left. When the sun went down, the viewing was over. I drove my mother home and put her to bed. She’d had a long day and looked as if a strong wind would blow her off of her feet. Feeling completely drained me; I curled up on living room couch, still in my clothes, and fell asleep.

The Chapel was packed for the funeral. It seemed as if the entire town had showed up. I sat in the reserved front row with my mother on one side of me and Jake on the other. The service was long-winded and uncomfortable. I hate to say it, but I was looking forward to the burial and having the day done. I hadn’t had one of my intuitions yet, telling me to get in my car and drive, but it would be coming soon. Of that, I had no doubt.

The burial was more of the same. The preacher said a few words, mostly reiterating what he’d said during the funeral service, and then Georgia’s coffin was lowered into the ground. When I put my exhausted mother to bed that night, I decided that I would head out of Williams the next day. Jake was still sitting on the couch when I returned to the living room. He tilted back his head and drained the rest of the reddish-brown beer bottle in his hand.

“I’m getting myself one of those,” I said. “You want another one?”

He nodded and I grabbed two from the kitchen. When I returned from the kitchen, I handed Jake one of the beers, sank into the sofa next to him, and twisted off the cap of my own. I pulled in a long swallow and stared at the powered-off television screen.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” I said, mostly to myself.

“I know, brother,” Jake said. It’s insane. I was just with her that night.”

That caught my attention. He took a long drink from his beer and then noticed me staring at him. He looked back me and then looked away quickly, a guilty expression on his face.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Look…Brandon,” he said “Georgia and I… Well, we were kinda…seeing each other.”

My first impulse was to grab him and throttle him until his legs stopped twitching. I probably would’ve done just that but when he looked at me, his eyes reflected how he felt about Georgia. There was real pain there. I took another drink of my beer, mostly to buy myself some calm-down time.

“You loved her.” I said. It wasn’t a question. The dam broke. Tears flooded down his face. He buried his face in his hands and began to weep. I put my hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

“Did she love you?” I asked.

He nodded.

“We…we…we… were going to g…g…get m…m…married,” he said.

“Did my mom know? You know, about you two being together?”

He nodded again.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“We just got back together after a few months,” he said. “She’d finally forgiven me for…” He didn’t finish.

“For what…?”

He looked down at the floor, his face turning red.

“I cheated on her with Rachael Goodman. She found out about it and left me.”

That feeling of wanting to throttle him began to rise inside me again.

“Rachael Goodman?” I said; “her best friend?”

“Yeah,” he said, still looking at the floor. “We were at the same party and I guess I drank too much and passed out or something. The next day Rachael told Georgia that we’d slept together. I don’t remember any of it, but I found her underwear in my truck, so I guess that we probably did. Rachael was pretty pissed. She broke up with me on the spot and told me that she never wanted to see me again. I gave her space, you know? I didn’t try and get her back. I knew I fucked up. But then, you know, after Rachael’s funeral, we sort of, you know, we sort of were there for each other. Things just sort of fell back into place.”

I looked at him, surprised.

“Wait, what?” I said “Rachael died too?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s really weird, you know? She died in her sleep too.”

I sprung up from the sofa, grabbed my jacket and hit the door. I could see Jake standing on my mother’s lawn, waving his arms as I sped off down the street. He didn’t want to be there, not for this.

***

The cemetery appeared like any other cemetery that I’d ever seen…in a horror film. There was a mist creeping up from the ground, giving off a sinister vibe. It was hard to watch where I was stepping as I made my way to Georgia’s grave. I was hoping that the funeral house had lazy employees and that the hole wasn’t filled in already. I wasn’t disappointed. When I reached the site, the small, yellow land-mover was still sitting ten yards away from the still open grave. I pulled my silenced pistol from the small of my back and waited.

A little before ten, I heard the familiar sounds that I hoped would not come. A scratching, coming from inside Georgia’s coffin began as a light scraping sound, and then graduated to a full on, hunger-driven clawing. I stood at the edge of the grave and pointed the pistol downward. The dead are strong. Don’t believe the movies or the books about the undead. Any creature who could punch through the lid of a coffin is nothing to try and wrestle with. In my experience, it’s better to shoot them in the head before they even come remotely close to me. As Georgia tore her way through the lid of her coffin, I aimed and waited. When she finally created a hole large enough for her to sit up, I fixed my aim to the center of her forehead.

“I love you, sis,” I said. In response, she let out a long, wet, gurgling, scream and reached out toward me. I pulled the trigger. A dime-sized hole appeared on her forehead and she fell backward. Another scream came from behind me and I turned, but I turned a bit too late. A creature that I assumed was Rachael grabbed me by my arm and threw me to the ground. For the first time ever, I lost my grip on my pistol. It landed in the tall grass less than a yard away from me. Rachael fell on top of me, growling low and snapping her choppers together repeatedly like a shark. I grabbed her by the throat and held her up from me. The gun, I thought. Where the fuck did it land? I held her away from me with one hand and frantically groped around in the tall grass with the other, searching for the pistol – but like I said, the undead are strong. A single bit didn’t scare me. I’d been bitten enough times to know that the bites don’t spread the disease. It was something in the blood, I figured. What did scare me was being eaten alive. That would definitely ruin my day. She pressed against me until her open mouth was a mere two inches away from my nose. I used my gun-searching hand to punch her twice in the face, but I may as well have been punching a tree for all of the good it did me. Her cold, dead fingers locked around the back of my head and I saw her mouth open wide. She’s going to bite my nose off, I thought. She reared her head back and then forward, going in for the bite – I closed my eyes and waited.

There was a loud, cracking sound and then the weight disappeared from on top of me. I opened my eyes and saw Jake looming over me with a bat. He reached down and helped me get to my feet. I quickly began to search around for the pistol while he stood there, gaping down at Rachael, who was beginning to get up herself.

“What the fuck is going on?” He said.

Rachael got to her feet and slowly began walking toward Jake. Jake began to walk backward, bat ready to swing again.

“Dude,” he said. “Is that Rachael? What the fuck, man?”

Rachael swiped at him and he answered with another swing to her head. She fell sideways onto the ground.

“She’s dead,” Jake said. “No…no…no… She’s fucking dead.”

Rachael sat up again and looked at him, hungrily. Jake pulled back the bat, ready to crack her in the head again, but I’d found my pistol and put a round in her brain. She fell backward. She didn’t get back up that time.

“What the hell’s goin on?’ Jake asked me as I began to roll Rachael’s body to the open grave.

“Just help me,” I grunted. He did. Once we got her into the grave with Georgia, we stood at the edge of the rectangular pit and caught our breath.

“Was she…umm… was she some kind of fucking zombie, or something?” Jake asked.

“Yeah…”

“And Georgia?”

“Yeah…”

“Holy shit, man.”

“Yeah,” I said and then shot him in the head.

***

It took me the better part of the next hour to fill in the grave with the three bodies in it and the one that Rachael crawled out from. Thankfully, I had the earth-mover at my disposal, or else it would’ve taken much longer. When I was finished, I said a silent prayer over Georgia et al’s grave and then went back to my mother’s house to get cleaned up. I was feeling a pull to go north, maybe Nebraska. I didn’t wake my mother up, she needed her rest. When I was finished cleaning up and loading my car, I left my mother a note and set out. Just outside of town, I called Gus and briefed him on the night’s events.

“Holy shit…” he said. “And you’re sure that they all slept together?”

“No, “I corrected him. “They didn’t all sleep together. Jake slept with both of them and God knows who else. I’m beginning to think that this disease is sexually transmitted.”

Gus was silent for a moment, the said, “That’s a new one. It makes sense though. I’ll send it up the chain and let them sort it out. Good containment with this Jake guy too! I’ll be sure to note that in your jacket. ” He hung up without saying goodbye, as usual.

When the sun began to peer over the horizon, I was less than a hundred miles from the New Mexican border. Lincoln Nebraska felt like the place to be. The pull was stronger than usual, I noticed. It may be calling to more Preventers than me. If so, it would be nice to touch base with my own kind again. I pressed down on the gas a little harder. Something was telling me to hurry.