End of the Road Page 6

  You know how they say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes? Don’t believe it. It isn’t true. It doesn’t happen on its own. You have to work at it.

  I think back and try to see my earliest memory. I was a child, no more than three. My father carried me, wrapped in a blanket to our car. I can’t see the car, nor can I remember where we were going, but I can feel the warmth of his body as he holds me close, protecting me from the cold. …I never saw him again.

  I think about my grandfather, the noble, yet humble man who raised me and taught me the most important lessons in life: nothing makes a man feel more like a man than an honest day’s work; always give more than you take: and most important, always be honest with those you love, especially yourself.

  He taught me to fish and how to play checkers and how to snap green beans from the garden. He taught me to ride a horse and milk a cow. He taught me to be the man that people could respect.

  I think about the night he died. I was seventeen and I am not ashamed to say that I cried.

  I think about my grandmother, the sweetest angel God ever put on the earth and how she lost part of herself that night. Her partner of fifty-six years, the only life she had ever known was gone. She was afraid. How I wished I could take her pain.

  My life, like every other, has had its ups and downs, joy and pain, failure and triumph. I look back and smile, seeing my little boy hook his first fish, squealing with excitement when it wiggled on the end of his line as he tried to free it from the hook. I see him cry at the sight of a dead squirrel on the side of the road. I see him beaming with pride as he walks across the stage to take his high school diploma.

  I look back and my eyes fill with tears as I remember our last moment together.

  “Be careful and keep an eye on the fuel gauge. It can be a long way between stations,” I said. “And, no texting. Wait ‘till you stop.”

  “I’ll be careful Dad. You taught me well.”

  He backed out of the drive and disappeared down the street, on his way to make his own life.

  The campus was only three hours from home, but… I only wish I would have told him I loved him.

  That’s all I can do now, relive the memories from a life that will soon be all but forgotten by the rest of the world; all except for what I did.

  I try to make peace with all of my choices and can only hope that in the end, when my life is measured in the balance, the good will out-weigh the bad, and that the lives I saved will somehow makeup for the one I took.

  *******

  Jacob was my son, our miracle baby. He was born with a severe heart defect in which the left ventricle, the main pumping chamber, failed to develop. Through some divine intervention, a child was born on the same day, in the same hospital with a profound defect where his brain and spinal cord were essentially missing. His heart and lungs were healthy. His parents decided to donate his viable organs. My son received them.

  I remember the day he came home from the hospital, five months old, covered in hair and overweight; side effects from the steroids and anti-rejection medications, but he was a happy, healthy boy.

  His medical bill was a staggering $2.3 million, but the hospital wrote it off in exchange for the right to use his case in a public relations campaign. The story made national headlines and was great publicity for them.

  We had weekly follow ups with his cardiologist for the next couple of months, then bi-weekly. Eventually we took him in only once every two months, with annual tissue biopsies from the heart to look for signs of rejection. By the time he was six he was a healthy, active boy playing T-ball and soccer. And, he excelled academically, taking advance courses in high school.

  I remember the first time he borrowed the car to take Michelle Harris on their first date. He drove in our driveway at 10:13, just enough time to drive home from Michelle’s after dropping her at 10:00.

  He was a responsible and respectful young man, the way we taught him to be.

  He had an interest in medicine, and received a full scholarship to the University of Texas for his undergrad work where he made the Dean’s list with a 4.0 all the way through his first two years. In the middle of his junior year, he was accepted to UT Southwestern’s medical school.

  The hospital that performed his first miracle as a baby offered another: to pay his tuition and provide a residency in pediatric cardiology under their sponsorship: another great PR move for them.

  It was late July when he was leaving home, after a long summer visit, to begin his senior year at UT that he crossed paths with Johnny Walker.

  Johnny was a twenty-eight-year-old loser, a local kid who had a long-standing relationship with local law enforcement. I had arrested him twice for possession of marijuana. When he was twenty-two, he killed four teens on their way home from a night on the town when he crossed the center line and hit their car head-on.

  What they say about drunks never being the ones hurt is true. His only injuries were a broken nose from striking the steering wheel and a cut on the top of his head from hitting the roof of his truck. There was a broken bottle of vodka with no cap, what remained of its contents soaking the floorboard.

  I placed him under arrest in the emergency room for driving while intoxicated when the doctors released him. I held in my hand a warrant for a legal blood alcohol test.

  When he went to trial seven months later, his lawyer claimed that the lab that processed the blood specimen had made errors and offered proof of shoddy work in the form of citations by the state concerning improper documentation of quality control measures.

  The judge agreed. He threw out the drunk driving charge and found him guilty of four counts of vehicular man-slaughter for failure to maintain control of a vehicle. Since the alcohol could not be considered, he was sentenced to thirteen years. He was released on parole after serving five.

  A year after his release, he was arrested for drunk driving again and since this was his first offense in the eyes of the law, he was placed on probation.

  On a Sunday morning in July Johnny awoke in the cab of his truck in a ditch. That was as far as he made it after a night of heavy drinking.

  If only he had slept for five more minutes, Jacob would be alive and I would not be telling you this story today.

  They called me to the scene and Jonny Walker sat unharmed, in the back seat of a state trooper’s car.

  I suppose there is no need to go into detail. I’m sure you can imagine what happened that day: the day Jacob was robbed of his future and the world was robbed of the lives he would have saved…mine, for one.

  Only minutes now before I reach the end of my road, take my last breath. You’d think I would be praying, but now I think about the future and wonder what my final thought will be.

  The preacher talked to me and he smiled

  Said, come walk with me, come and walk one more mile…

  Back to Top

  Dale Roberts is the author of three crime thrillers

  IRREFUTABLE

  The FOLLOWING

  SEPARATE LIVES

  Chapter 8

  The Zombie Pestilence

  By Randall Morris

  It started with a cold. A little girl in London got the sniffles. When it got worse, her parents took her to the doctor and they sent her home with a prescription for bed rest and chicken noodle soup. This cold, however, was special. It was touched by the hand of Satan. It became something so much worse when the fever hit. The little girl suffered through ridiculous, uncontrollable temperatures until she finally died. That would be a horrible story… if it were the end. That’s the beginning of my story.

  The little girl came back. Within a few hours of her death, she was up and walking around again. Her parents were overjoyed right up to the moment that she bit them. Mom took a bite to the hip and Dad to the arm when he tried to pull her off. Maybe they would have caught the zombie bug without the bite by just being around their little girl so much but the bite sealed their fate. As with most p
roblems, the apocalypse started out small and governments and doctors only started paying attention when it started to spread.

  It’s 2023. Over 90% of the Earth’s population is dead. I was an exterminator before all of this happened. That doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters right now is that I’m alive and so is… most of my family.

  My wife and Melody, my sixteen-year-old daughter, went for a food run in the family car one day. It shouldn’t have been a problem. Everyone in our family had raided the local stores over and over again. They had guns, ammo, and knives with them in the car. My son and I covered them with rifles as they left.

  When they were on their way back, my daughter was playing with her iPhone. She was a sixteen year old girl and that’s what girls do, even when they are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. They play Angry Birds. They text. I’m not sure how in the hell she still knew people to text since just about everyone I knew outside of my family was dead, but she somehow still had people to text. She didn’t think it would be a problem because we didn’t see any undead around the house.

  It caused a serious problem because the phone buzzed and startled her. When she bent down to pick it up, a hand reached out of the bushes and grabbed her arm. I don’t know how we missed that zombie in the bushes. Maybe we had gotten lazy patrolling. This was supposed to be a simple food run, but it ended up costing me my wife.

  Melissa, my beautiful wife, had the maternal instincts that all great mothers possess. She defended her child at the cost of her own life. I ran out to help, but I was too late. I heard the screams but I never actually saw her get bit. I made it in time to decapitate the son of a bitch that bit my wife, but it didn’t matter anymore. My angel would pass through the stages of hell on her way to death and then, eventually, to undeath. I was with her when she died and I told her how much I loved her. When she came back, I held her down as she tried to bite me and muttered a final “I’m sorry.” After I had my children leave the room, I put a bullet in Melissa’s skull.

  That day took the last of my strength. I was pretty much useless for the next few days. I couldn’t cope with the fact that I had to shoot the woman I had loved since the moment I saw her. Melody needed a strong father to tell her that it wasn’t her fault and help her deal with her pain. My son, Jake, needed someone to show him how a man keeps things together in impossible situations. I failed at both roles. That pretty much brings you up to speed on our situation.

  “Dad, I’m making a run. We’re low on food.”

  “Take your sister and make sure you pack enough weapons.”

  “Melody hasn’t said anything since she threw her phone at the wall three days ago. I don’t think she’ll go on a food run right now. I’ll be fine by myself.”

  “Take Lucian then. He’s been getting pretty wound up.”

  Lucian was the family dog. He was an Australian Shepherd that we got as a puppy from a ranch a few years ago. He was a perfect guard dog because he would bark out warnings if he saw zombies approaching and attack if he saw anything on its way to threaten my family. The dog just got so hyperactive when we had to stay inside for long periods of time. I was tired of him running around the house.

  Jake put Lucian on his leash and got in the family’s Ford Taurus with a bat, a machete, a Glock, and enough ammo to put down an entire block’s worth of zombies. I felt bad sending my son out there alone, but the outside world just hurt too damn much for me to do anything about it. After I heard Jake pull out of the driveway and head towards the local Wal-Mart, I decided it was time to go talk to Melody. I ate a quick lunch and then prepared myself. I didn’t expect much; I just hoped I could get her talking again.

  “Melody?”

  No answer. I opened the door and let myself in. Melody was quietly sobbing on her bed with her arms hugging her knees. I saw her iPhone in several pieces in the corner of the room. It looked like she threw it against the wall and then proceeded to beat the hell out of the thing.

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  No response. I sat on the end of her bed.

  “Look, honey. It wasn’t your fault. What happened to your mom is on me. I should have scouted the area better. I’ll be more careful in the future and we…”

  Words can be such bastards sometimes. Sometimes if you just start talking, emotion will hit you and the words just freeze up. Not this time. I needed to be a father.

  “…We won’t lose anyone again. I’ll keep you and Jake safe even if I have to go down fighting.”

  I was looking at the floor so I didn’t see when she looked up. She put her arms around my neck.

  “Dad, I can’t lose you too. Not after…”

  She broke down and started crying. I returned the hug.

  “It’s ok sweetie. Everything is going to be…”

  My sentence was cut short by a loud barking from outside. Lucian was warning me that something bad was about to happen. I grabbed a baseball bat on the way down the stairs and then ran out the front door. Jake was on the ground next to several bags of spilled groceries. A zombie had grabbed on to his shoes and was trying to reach up for the bite. Jake’s frantic kicking kept the gnashing mouth at bay, but his gun was a few inches out of the reach of his hand. I ran to him and kicked the zombie square in the jaw and followed it up with a crushing blow from the baseball bat. Brains splattered everywhere and the zombie finally loosened his grip on my son’s shoes.

  “Jake, are you alright? Did he bite you?”

  “No. I’m fine, Dad. He just… caught me off guard. It won’t happen again.”

  I saw that the zombies had heard the noise we made in the streets and they were all slowly making their way towards us.

  “Get the groceries and get in the house.”

  Jake looked at me like I was insane.

  “You’re coming too, right?”

  It was time to be a father.

  “Do what I said. Get in the house and lock the door. I’m going to clean up this mess.”

  “Dad, you’re being insane. You’re an exterminator, not a ninja.”

  I grinned at him.

  “Well I don’t really care at this point. Pests. Pestilence. What’s the difference really?”

  Jake gathered up the groceries and, for once in his life, did what I asked. Shortly after he made it inside, I saw my sniper rifle peek out of a gap in the boards on the front window. Jake was going to have my back and, from the noise I heard coming from my dog, so was Lucian. I had just been promoted to zombie exterminator and it was time to punch in. I could already feel my adrenaline pumping.

  The first zombie to make it to our driveway was our old mailman. He was still in uniform and everything. A machete stab through his face was my way of saying “Return to Sender.” The next one to make it to my yard was my old neighbor, Bill. Before all of this, we constantly fought over the property line. I guess nothing had really changed because he was still willing to kill me in my front yard. Lucian bit his leg. I sheathed my machete in my belt and took a wild swing with the baseball bat at this head. I hate to admit it, but the crunching noise was pretty satisfying. I followed it up with a powerful swing that sent his head sailing into the air.

  I pulled the Glock from my belt and started firing off rounds into the approaching horde. Neighbors, acquaintances, and people I had never met before. All went down with a bullet to the brain. Jake shot a few of the stragglers as I dealt with the approaching main group. Once we had thinned out the herd, I grabbed my machete and went in swinging and chopping like a maniac.

  After about half an hour, the street went silent. I had won. I had reclaimed my neighborhood for my family. I turned and waved at the window with a triumphant grin. It was then that I felt teeth tearing into my ankle. I let out a horrible scream and tried to grab for my gun, but I couldn’t function under the pain. The zombie followed it up with a second bite to my calf. I was ready to give up and die but the zombie fell over on the ground and started leaking blood through a hole that appeared right between his eyes. The
door flew open and Jake and Melody ran to me. Melody was crying hysterically.

  “That was some nice shooting, Jake.”

  “We need to chop off your leg, Dad. Now. We can still get you through this.”

  “Couple of problems with that, son. We only have machetes and they won’t get through the bone. If you did, somehow, get my leg off in time, I would die from the blood loss.”

  “What do I do then?”

  Jake was trying his best to hold back his tears. My son, an eighteen-year old kid trying to be a man for his dad and his sister. I can’t even begin to describe how proud I was that he was my son.

  “Well maybe you could help me figure something out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I know it wasn’t a home run, but did Bill’s head fly far enough for at least a ground rule double?”

  Jake smirked and tried to hold back his laughter. Melody’s eyebrows arched down in a frown.

  “Baseball jokes, Dad? Not funny. We need to figure out how to make you better.”

  “Jake needs to shoot me in the head.”

  “Not gonna happen, Dad.”

  “It’s the only option at this point. I can feel the disease spreading up my leg. It won’t be long. I have some things to say to both of you before all that though.”

  Jake looked like he had wanted this talk from me for a long time. He was ready to step up and be the man. Melody still looked pissed off, but watching her be angry at me was so much easier than watching her cry.

  “Jake, your shooting just now was amazing. Some of the best sniping I’ve ever seen. You took out dozens of zombies. I need you to keep Lucian with you whenever you make runs. He’s the most useful dog this apocalypse has ever seen. Keep your sister safe.”

  I thought for a moment longer while Jake gave me a serious nod.