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  Part Two: Cursed at Birth

  The rest of the town wasn’t as dark as the main road. There were houses here and there with lights on inside, but the police station and the bar across from it had the most activity. The station looked like it had barely been touched in half a century. Trevor was escorted through the front entrance where Skinner greeted a scrawny cop behind a desk. The place had an antique smell to it. The walls were covered in wood paneling with comical and religious sayings taped throughout on computer paper. The tiled floors had dingy brown flower designs. The cracks and chips revealed decayed wood underneath.

  “Damn, Sherriff,” the cop said from the desk. “Your shift just started and you’re already dragging criminals in. Are you trying to make the rest of us look bad?”

  “That’s the idea, Francis,” Skinner said. “Book him for me, will ya? Do the attempted robbery and at least the murder of Frank. I’m not sure about Mr. Jones yet. After the earlier accident, he may have just wandered in the bathroom and died before this fella went to work on him with a tire iron.”

  The officer rose from his seat and led Trevor to a small room to take his photograph and get his fingerprints.

  “So your name is Francis.” Trevor smirked. He was trying to keep his mouth shut, but felt the overwhelming desire to break up the stiff, macho aura the officer attempted to portray.

  “That’s Officer Parks to you. Say cheese.” After booking him, he phoned the county jailhouse and was told they’d have to hold him overnight. Someone would pick him up in the morning. The front door opened and Trevor jumped, halfway expecting another zombie to come strolling in. Instead, an attractive female officer with short black hair entered the station.

  “Amy! Why ain’t you home?”

  “Shoot, Francis, this is the first murder Blue Creek Springs has had in ages. Do you think I’d take the night off with all that going on? Don’t worry, I’m here on my own time. Where’s Skinner?”

  Francis pointed south. “He’s documenting the crime scene. Jim Davis is meeting him there, too, for all the coroner stuff.”

  Amy looked Trevor up and down and grinned. “Why do all the cute ones have to be bad?” He liked the way the edges of her mouth curled.

  “Give Curtis a holler, will ya?” Francis said to her. “While you’re here, you may as well make yourself useful.” Amy rolled her eyes and obeyed. Curtis was the jail guard. He was a tall, broad-chested man that didn’t talk much, even with Amy’s flirting. He glared at Trevor and led him down a short hallway to the cells.

  “The jail’s getting some crazies, tonight.” The bass of Curtis’s voice bounced off a heavy door as he jiggled his keys in the lock and opened it. “Must be the full moon.”

  The next room consisted of two cells set against concrete walls, and a metal desk in the corner that looked like it had been dragged down the street behind a pickup truck. The door to one cell had a busted lock and hinge, so it was useless. The other was occupied by a man wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, curled up on the bunk and muttering to himself.

  The guard turned to Trevor. “Can I trust you in there with him?”

  He nodded and was put inside with a warning that he was in enough shit as it was, so he’d best behave. Otherwise, he’d be handcuffed to the bars in the broken cell all night.

  Trevor waited for the guard to leave before loosening his gritted teeth. Then a series of expletives spewed from his lips about his situation and the badass wannabe pigs he was at the mercy of. Once finished, he glanced at the other man, who had stopped muttering but wouldn’t look at him. After Trevor’s breathing had settled, he eyed the small metal toilet in the corner of the cell. The unfinished bowel movement squirmed in his gut, and since he didn’t get the chance to clean himself earlier, his ass felt slimy when he moved. He was uncomfortable dropping his pants in front of someone, but he could say with confidence that he’d been in worse places to relieve himself. He situated his cheeks on the cold seat and pushed out a loud blast.

  The man on the bunk caught a whiff of the fumes. “Oh my God.”

  “I’m sorry.” Trevor blushed. “I think I had some bad Chinese food earlier today. Plus my nerves are wrecked.”

  The man turned to face him. He didn’t appear much older than Trevor, with light brown hair and a five o’clock shadow. A breeze came through the cell window and stirred the stench. The other man winced. “Geez, you smell worse than those zombies out there.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Then Trevor’s jaw dropped. “What? Y-You saw one, too? It really was a zombie? I mean, it looked like a zombie, but I didn’t think it was possible. I… I…” His excited state caused his stomach to cramp. He stopped talking, hugged himself, and pushed out a series of hard squirts. These burned his anus a bit - must have been the spicy pepper chicken.

  The other man moved closer to the barred window for fresh air. “That’s why I’m in here. I was trying to warn everybody and this is all the good it did.” He gave Trevor a thoughtful look. “The zombie that you saw, what did it look like?” After hearing the description, the man nodded. “Ah, that was my father. Did you see where he went? I take it he’s the reason you’re here.”

  Since it was a relative, Trevor was reluctant to tell him how he’d bashed its head in with a tire iron. “He killed the gas station manager - I think the name was Frank. Then he tried to kill me, but I stopped him… and got the blame for it all.”

  “I see.” The man lowered his head. Trevor assumed it was remorse for his father until he looked up. “Well, he deserved whatever you did to him. I’ve wanted to kill him many times, even before he became one of those… things. I’m sorry he - or should I say ‘it?’ - got you involved.”

  Surprised, Trevor was unsure of how to respond. “Well lucky for me, they’re easy to take out. It only took a couple blows and it was dead, again.”

  The man introduced himself as Josh Jones but didn’t offer to shake hands. “Actually, they’re pretty tough. Before it reached you, I had already caved the back of its skull in with an aluminum bat and hit it with a truck.” He rolled his eyes toward the cell door. “I guess that’s the technical reason I’m in jail. Earlier today, I ran the thing over in front of everyone. They kind of freaked out and were so busy dragging me out of the truck, they didn’t notice it getting up and walking away.”

  Trevor was finished at last. He wiped, flushed, and sat next to Josh, exhausted. “So, what do you suppose will happen next?” A woman’s scream made him jump up and look out the window. “What the hell was that?”

  Josh also looked. “That’s the bar across the street. It’s a total dive, but it’s the only nightlife in town.”

  The street was lined with the type of buildings that most Midwestern towns had. They were brick and wood structures, all connected, with flat tops and a narrow alleyway in the rear. The dark windows added to the dreariness of the block except for Ebb’s Saloon. It had a neon beer sign over a door that looked ready to fall onto the sidewalk, and a dingy front window offered a glimpse inside.

  A drunken blond woman danced in front of the entrance using a parking meter as a partner. When she realized she had an audience from the jail, she lifted her shirt and wiggled her large breasts until her boyfriend returned from his truck with a pack of cigarettes. She screamed as he threw her over his shoulder and carried her back inside.

  Josh recognized the music drifting from the open door. “It must be 80s night. There’s nothing scarier than a bunch of hicks line-dancing to The Culture Club.”

  “That’s the least of our worries. Won’t zombies be showing up there? I take it there’s more than just your father?”

  “Oh yeah, there’s more.” Josh stared outside. “It’s been quiet for a while, but I’m sure they’re up to something. My guess is they’re killing their way through the homes first. There’s less chance of causing alarm if they go house to house while folks are asleep. It’s only a matter of time before we’re surrounded.”

  “You seem awfully calm about th
is.”

  “No, I’m just tired. I’ve been screaming my head off at these guys for hours! They just laugh at me.” He sighed. “I’ve run out of options. I don’t know what else to do.”

  Trevor glanced around the cell and back out to the streets. Josh was right. If no one would listen, what else could they do? “Great. So how did all this come about?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “It seems I have the time.”

  “Okay.” Josh took a deep breath. “When I was ten, we lived not far from here, just down a dirt road. We were in one of those two-story houses that you could tell was built a long time ago. It had small rooms, high ceilings, a narrow staircase, and all the electrical outlets ran along the baseboards. It had a homey feel, though - comfortable.

  “It was me, my folks, and my sixteen-year-old sister, Josie. Our folks were super strict and religious. I imagine you know the type, but they were fanatical about it. The only thing we had to read in the house was the Bible and newspapers. We had no television, no toys, nothing that could distract us from concentrating on the Lord’s work. We didn’t even get to leave the house except for working outside and church.”

  “You didn’t go to school?”

  “We were home-schooled. It was that and chores all day. They were all for that ‘Idle hands are the Devil’s playthings’ crap.”

  Trevor would have thought Josh was exaggerating if he didn’t seem so serious about it. “Generally, the stricter you are with your kids, the worse they’ll rebel.”

  Josh laughed. “And my sister proved this. One night, she took longer than usual getting firewood for the heater. When she returned, there was a spot of blood on the front of her dress. Our folks asked her about it, and Josie said she’d tripped and fell against the woodpile. She figured her knees were scraped or something and it was nothing to worry about. I’m sure the incident would have been forgotten if she wasn’t so flushed in the face. A girl doesn’t normally glow like that after getting wood, or at least not that kind of wood. Mother checked under her dress and didn’t find any scrapes or cuts, but there was blood between her legs, and it wasn’t her period.”

  “She had sex?”

  “Yep, she had just lost her virginity over by the woodshed. She argued it the best she could with tears streaming down her face, but there was no changing their minds. When she caved in to their accusations, she cringed like a prisoner awaiting the shots of a firing squad. Of course, Josie was so afraid of our father’s wrath, she claimed it was rape. Then she began weeping hard, this time as a victim instead of a sinner.

  “She told me later that she’d been seeing a guy from the woods for quite a while before that night and had decided to give herself to him. She said he wasn’t much older than her, was really handsome, and had this unique outlook on life. I’m telling you, she was love struck.”

  Trevor seemed unconvinced. “She just up and told you that, her little brother? Wasn’t she afraid you’d rat her out?”

  “Oh no, we confided in each other about everything. We were the only friends we had. On nights that our father gave me a belt whipping for not doing the chores right or whatever, she’d sneak into my bedroom and sing to me. She didn’t want me to cry myself to sleep alone. The bond we had was the only real family relationship in that household.”

  “Okay, I get it. Back to the rape thing.”

  “Well, Father grabbed his gun with fire in his eyes and searched the forest all night for the man who deflowered his daughter.”

  “Did he find him?”

  “No, all he found was the Witch Bitch.”

  “Witch Bitch?”

  “Yeah, she’s a hermit lady who lives in a cottage out there. No one knows her name and because she’s so spooky and unsociable, people call her ‘Witch Bitch.’ Josie and I saw her place once. We went hiking through the woods on one of the few times our folks left us home alone. We didn’t dare go near it, though; we thought she might cook us up in a stew. Anyway, she didn’t know about anyone roaming the woods and raping women. She even remarked that she wouldn’t mind being raped a time or two (I overheard him telling that to Mother). So he was out of luck.

  “Then Josie ended up pregnant and all Hell broke loose at the house. Father didn’t want our family to be disgraced by having a bastard child, and he couldn’t have her get an abortion, because he thought it was murder. Besides, if she had that done, someone would hear about it and the consequences - in their minds - would be even worse. He never bought the idea of her being raped, so he was stuck between two sins with his daughter: premarital sex and killing an unborn child. After much discussion with Mother, they couldn’t decide which was the lesser evil, and they were too ashamed to ask the church preacher for advice.”

  “Wait a minute. They couldn’t figure that killing a baby was a little worse than having sex out of wedlock?”

  “No, because the baby was conceived out of wedlock and was therefore ungodly. At least, that was their way of thinking.”

  “Damn. What did he do?” Trevor was almost afraid to know.

  “He told the townsfolk she went to stay with relatives. That alone aroused some gossip, because it wasn’t uncommon to send a daughter elsewhere when they got knocked up. The thing is, she didn’t go anywhere. They locked her in the basement throughout the pregnancy.”

  Josh paused when Trevor gasped, allowing the image to sink in and to muster the strength to continue discussing such a traumatic time of his life.

  “It was torture to hear my sister screaming and crying every night. They wouldn’t allow me to see her, so I sat in front of the basement door and sang to her, just as she did for me. I think it helped a little, but not in the long run. By the end of the nine months, she had gone completely insane. I couldn’t even recognize her voice anymore when it echoed through the house. She sounded more like an animal. That’s what she became, after all: a caged animal.

  “When the time came, Mother delivered the baby and before Josie had the chance to look at it, Father snatched it up and carried it outside while yelling, ‘This bastard child’s conception is of the Devil! It won’t be allowed in my house! It may be a sin to kill it, but there’s nothing saying I have to tend to it!’ He was going to take it out to the woods and leave it for the Devil or whatever God had planned for it.”

  “Holy shit,” Trevor said. “Your old man was a psycho!”

  “Ya think?”

  The slam of a car door caught their attention and they looked outside. A strong breeze blew in that felt nice and cleared the air in the cell. More patrons were arriving at Ebb’s Saloon. The place was getting busier.

  They returned to the bench so Josh could continue. “It gets worse than that. When he went outside, there was a young man waiting. I watched from a nearby window, but it was too dark to tell what he looked like. The old window had bad tracks so it was hard to lift, but I was able to raise it enough to hear most of the conversation. It was the baby’s father offering to take the child away, which seemed to be a reasonable request. The baby would have a home and no one would ever know what happened, but my father was enraged by the sight of him.”

  “He didn’t give him the baby?”

  “Well, yes, he gave it to him. Then the man asked to see my sister, to know that she was okay. My heart sank because she was so far from okay, and who knows what the man would do if he saw her in that state? I was hopeful, though, that he might take her away from us. Perhaps he could have given her a normal life and she might have gotten better. I didn’t think Father would agree to bring her out but he did. He stepped in the house and called for Mother to fetch her. But then, all the bitterness of what his family had been through for the past nine months welled up inside and he stopped her. Even though the damage stemmed from his own ego and beliefs, it was more convenient to put the blame on the strange man from the woods.

  “He left Josie inside, returned with his gun, and shot the man. The poor guy didn’t even know what hit him. His face was all lit up, thinking
my sister was on her way out. I could see his smile by the brief flash of the gun. The baby was screaming after the blast. He held the infant tight as he fell to his knees and then over on his back. My little nephew continued to cry over the man’s dying words, so it was difficult to hear from the window, but I could tell he was cursing my father and our family.”

  “What, he was cussing you all out?” Trevor wouldn’t blame him.

  “No, they were actual curses. Father told the man he had to shoot him for what he did to his daughter and for the shame the town would have on them if anyone learned of it. So in his last breath, the man cursed the town as well.”

  Tears welled up in Josh’s eyes. “Father shot him again to finish him off, and I don’t know if it was blind rage, bad aim, or intentional, but he hit the baby as well, right in the forehead.”

  “Oh my God!” Trevor wished he’d clobbered the old man harder.

  “He buried the baby with the body.” Josh suppressed a sob as the images rushed to his mind afresh. “And a few months later, the child was crying at our doorstep.” He regarded Trevor’s facial response before continuing. “It had crawled out of the earth and come home. The bullet hole was still in its forehead, but that didn’t seem to affect it. Father wrapped it in a blanket and buried it again, in a different place. It came crawling back, though, so he put it in a wooden chest and buried it deeper.

  “A few years went by, and my folks tried to carry on like nothing happened, which is ridiculous when you think about it. After all, Josie remained locked in the basement the entire time. Her mind was gone with no sign of coming back, and having her committed would be too embarrassing. I fell asleep hearing her screams every night, calling for Zachary. I’m guessing that was the man’s name. She had named the baby after him, as well. She’d call for him to save her, and sometimes ask to see her baby Zachary. On quiet nights, I thought I could hear the child screaming in the ground outside, answering her cries. I had so many nightmares back then. I’d dream the baby was right outside my window, cursing me for not letting it in. Zachary became the monster under my bed and in the closet.