Zero Nine Eight One F Thirty

  Contents

  Free Download

  Credits

  Dedication

  Flood

  Whiskey

  Heaven

  Company

  Hell

  Daylight

  Shotgun

  Omaha

  Home

  Free Download

  Meet The Authors

  Thank You

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  ZERO NINE EIGHT ONE F THIRTY

  © 2018 Dan Marder & Jose Flores. All rights reserved.

  Edited by Beth at BZHercules.com. Cover Design by Germancreative.

  Published by Hidden Fox Fiction.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental. Reproduction of this publication, in whole or in part, without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  © 2018 Hidden Fox Fiction. All Rights Reserved.

  For anyone trying make sense of things.

  FLOOD

  It was a bitter-cold Tuesday night in December when it happened. There had been rumors, conspiracy theories, and odd coincidences surfacing globally over the past year. Unexplainable deaths. No violence. No disease. No virus. Just ordinary people who fell asleep and never woke up.

  The world waited for answers. None came. Each breaking story created more mystery than fact. An estimated nine thousand people had experienced “natural cause” deaths during the calendar year. Six percent were over seventy years old; other than that, all correlation was lost. Teenagers. Mothers. Babies. Grandparents. Healthy. Unhealthy. No connecting links. Nine thousand.

  And then on that bitter-cold Tuesday night— millions.

  WHISKEY

  Gaits hated Omaha, especially in winter. Subzero temps and darkness brought on the kind of wretched wind that made your skin freeze on contact. Sales sent him out four times a year and put him up at a sleazy motel at the far end of town. The scent of burnt rubber and cow slaughter from the industry nearby greeted him every time he checked into his room, and the faded stains on the walls suggested a history that had fought off constant aggressive attempts to erase it. At least the dive bar was within stumbling distance of his bed.

  Gaits was a quiet man, at least quieter than he’d once been. He was meek in spite of his burly stature, and he ordered his whiskey so softly that the bartender had to lean in and ask him to repeat himself. “Whiskey,” Gaits said again. “Neat. Bottom shelf.” Gaits swirled the caramel liquid a few times around the glass and drank it down. His senses dulled a bit further as he warmed up and forgot Omaha.

  He had been up since sunrise, sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee and chowing down a large piece of raspberry coffee cake. He reached for the pastry box to grab another piece and his fingers caught on a curled-up green sticker labeled Aunte Helen’s Bakery, the words worn and deformed. Hannah was here, Gaits thought with a smile.

  He gathered his belongings before stepping into the bedroom to tell Hannah he was heading out. She was still asleep, and Gaits stared at a photograph on the nightstand, a shot of the two of them smiling together somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. They'd trekked deep into the woods for two weeks, escaping into the solitude and forgetting the business of everyday life. It had been years since they'd gone on such an adventure.

  “You spend so much time inside that head of yours,” Hannah whispered. He smiled, leaned over the bed, and kissed her softly on the forehead. It was easier than speaking. Hannah sank gently into the blankets and faded off again. He’d be gone for two days, then he’d return and maybe they’d find a spark.

  Gaits came out of the daydream and noticed he was the last remaining soul in the bar. He made small talk with the bartender for a while. Nice guy running the place. Gaits supposed sales could send him back to this part of town if they had to. “I’ll take another," Gaits said.

  A news flash interrupted the calmness of the bar. The bartender hushed Gaits and turned up the volume on the television. Millions dying in New York City streets – Chicago – San Francisco...Cities across the globe confirming similar reports. Deaths rising at exponential rates.

  Gaits had avoided the fear-mongering as much as he could, the panicked warnings from worried souls who claimed a tipping point was inevitable. The media exploited a frightened public, churning out catch phrases to sell ad space and drive grocery sales. Everything about it made Gaits sick, but watching the new alerts, he couldn’t ignore it any longer. He stared at the screen in silence for the next hour, unable to remember a word that had been said. The footage kept rolling in. Bodies every five feet. Screams. Panic. Pedestrians dropping without warning, their faces smashing into the cement.

  Fires had broken out across London, the bright orange-red flames shooting out of buildings and sending plumes of dark smoke into the sky. Panicked masses of people trampled over one another and screamed as they pushed their way to nowhere in particular, instinctually knowing it was time to run, but not knowing where or what they ran towards. The world was being torn apart by one familiar, terrifying thread——death was coming, with no reason, no purpose. And no one could make it stop.

  The violence approached Omaha like a reckless summer storm, triggering a wave of emergency sirens which filled the air with their wails. The deafening noise took over Gaits’ senses until a car slammed into another, the drone of its horn posing a more immediate threat. Gaits tightened his grip on his whiskey glass and scanned his surroundings, his arm half-cocked and ready to strike. A roaring explosion shook the foundations of the bar, shattering several windows and plunging the place into darkness. Gaits dropped his glass and dove under a table as screams echoed in from outside. Maybe it’s zombies, he thought. At least that would make some kind of damn sense.

  The bartender poked his head out from behind the bar. “I got a shotgun!” he yelled. “Get behind me!”

  Gaits crawled towards the bar, picking his way through the shattered pieces of glass on the floor. A sudden wind rushed through the room, tossing around a small bell that had been hung from the door and sending a shrill chime ringing into Gaits’ ears. A chill ran down his spine. Hannah.

  Gaits bolted upright and sprinted out of the bar, the destruction somehow more violent than it had sounded from inside. His eyes darted from overturned cars to collapsed bodies to the convenience mart next door, where looters were busy throwing trash cans through windows and ransacking shelves. Gaits ran across the street to the motel, his feet slipping on the icy sidewalk. He reached his car and hopped into the driver’s seat, locking the door and turning the ignition so hard that he nearly snapped the key. The headlights illuminated the door to his room, and Gaits briefly considered running in to grab his belongings. The thought vanished when a man crashed into the driver’s side window, screaming nonsense. Gaits put the car in reverse, the wheels spinning in the snow and finally gaining traction as the man continued to run alongside, pounding at the window and trying to open the door. Gaits fishtailed around the parking lot and shifted into drive. He caught one last glimpse of the man in the rear view, still sprinting behind him before suddenly collapsing down to the street.

  "Shit, oh good God——shit," Gaits cursed in a scattered ramble as he wound through a few city streets before finding the highway. He flipped through radio stations, finding nothing but static and Emergency Broadcast System defaults. Gaits held the accelerator down to the floor; it wouldn’t take more than a stray patch of ice to run him off the road. He pulled his cell from his coat pocket and dialed Hannah. No answer. Over and over again he tried. Nothing. God, you let me see her.
br />   Gaits sped into Ebbotsville three hours later; the drive normally took four. He skidded through Main street, expecting to see the chaos of Omaha, but it was quiet like on any other winter night. Gaits slowed the car as he turned onto Terrance Road. Maybe it’s only the cities.

  Gaits pulled up to his house. The light was on outside and a car he’d never seen before sat in the drive. He sprinted up to the open door and rushed inside.

  “Hannah! Hannah…” Gaits yelled with decreasing confidence. He stepped slowly through the living room; the TV was still on and the coffee table was knocked over. Gaits heard the sink running in the kitchen. He followed the sound and found water flooding the floor. He watched it run along the tile to the back door, the clear liquid shifting in hue to a pale red. Gaits stepped outside and found a trail of red drops spilt across the white landscape. He followed it, shielding his eyes from the falling snow and rushing past a worn out ’76 Ford and into the cornfields.

  Then he saw her.

  For the briefest of moments, he froze still; for the briefest of moments, he had hope. Gaits approached the body; the snowfall had started to bury her, but he could still see the bullet wounds scattered across her stomach and legs. Gaits knelt beside her as he cried out and cursed all at once. He picked her up and carried her to the ‘76 Ford, clutching her to his chest and pleading for her to breathe.

  HEAVEN

  The sun hit Gaits first, and he squinted one eye to see the horizon turned on its hip. Ice plastered his skin. It was bright. It was over. His focus shifted to a liquor bottle not far from where he lay. Behind the bottle lay his shotgun, still pointed at his head.

  Gaits rolled over, knocked the bottle out of the way, and grabbed the gun. He pushed himself off the bed that he’d made out of flattened corn stalks and a rolled up coat, and whacked away at it with the shotgun to dislodge the frozen mass of dirt and ice that clung to it. He stood, off kilter, and calibrated.

  Gaits waded through endless rows of dying stalks, the leaves cracking at the slightest touch. There was an ebb and flow to the brisk whistling wind that gave Gaits an elusive sense of life buried beneath the covered fields. He high-stepped through the final row of stalks and rammed his knee into the rusted out ’76 Ford. “Shit.” He felt just enough of the pain to know it would destroy him later.

  Gaits investigated the old truck’s remains. A variety of hand tools lay scattered about, weathered and beyond repair, amidst a few old crushed cans of beer. Dirt was caked in the truck bed and in the hubcap insets, and the door sidings were rusted where the blue paint had stripped away, the metal skin left to burn in the sun and decay from the storms. The winter had preserved the truck in such a state thus far, but another brutal summer might destroy the thing for good.

  The sunlight pinched at Gaits’ irises, and the faded white blindness pushed him indoors, where he stood in the living room waiting for his eyes to recover. A clock’s tick echoed throughout the house, and the ancient wood creaked as it ached in the wind. The chimes twanged quietly out front. Hannah insisted on keeping them up year-round.

  The two had acquired the farmhouse after the Normans had passed. Gaits bought the home, Hannah made it a home. The wind chimes, the furniture, the silverware, and the colors that flowed seamlessly from room to room——she did it all.

  The wind died and the chimes fell into silence. Gaits’ eyes traced up the windowsill and out into the yard, where the wretched Ford still stood, staring at him.

  He had bought it in ’87, used, a fixer upper, but the mileage was okay and it would last if he worked on it. That was his sixteenth summer, fixing cars in his father’s garage and chasing girls on the open plains, but hoping Hannah would be the one in the passenger seat beside him.

  A week after they’d moved in, it had refused to start. They’d bought a second car at the time so he could travel for work. “I’ll fix it when I get the chance,” he told Hannah.

  I’ll fix it when I get the chance. Gaits’ voice echoed in his mind. How many times had he said it? He turned away from the truck and stepped out the front door, ignoring the answer to his own question.

  The fog filtered out of Gaits’ head as he drove into town, one hand on the wheel, the other on the shotgun as it rested on the passenger seat. Bodies were strewn about on either side of the road, ravaged and decrepit. A few random scavengers were walking around, pulling their carts full of food, wallets, and keys to unknown automobiles. The Nebraska winter smirked upon the survivors, a playful torture as it laughed and danced around the dead. So many dead.

  It had been six weeks since the flood of the first night peaked near dawn, slowing to a crawl as the days passed. Gaits had spent his days mourning Hannah and his nights fearing death. Now he wondered what he’d been afraid of.

  Gaits turned onto Terrance Road, which at the start had been a temporary burial ground, a place for the grieving to say their goodbyes. It would be full of mourners in the daytime, and in the night a crew of able-bodied volunteers would sweep through like thieves to haul away the dead. They used old waste management trucks, dumping the bodies inside like daily suburban trash.

  In the beginning, the roads would be cleared by dawn. Soon after, a few bodies would always be left behind. Then more. More bodies, fewer arms to carry them. Maybe I’ll take the long way out on Macklin Road, Gaits thought. He reconsidered. They’ve filled that route by now as well.

  Main Street was silent. A dog picked away at trash scattered along the road. A few travelers slept under the front overhang of Aunte Helen’s Bakery, where the door had been kicked in, the wood splintered at the base. Gaits wondered if Helen was still around. Maybe it was best not to know.

  Since The Flood happened, Ebbotsville had become a sanctuary for survivors. People fled the big cities in increasing numbers as the days went on and the fear peaked. Urban centers had gone to hell and the closest thing to heaven for those seeking it were the farm towns of times long since forgotten. People had been hoping to find peace, but they rushed in like a ravaging virus, a plague of vicious self-preservation that turned towns like Ebbotsville into slums of panic and madness. They hadn’t run from hell; they’d brought it with them in a fury.

  Gaits pulled up to Wes’ Tavern, grabbed his shotgun, and went inside.

  “You’re back,” Wes said.

  “For a day,” Gaits replied.

  It had become a tradition between them, a morbid inside joke to gloss over the fact that one day Gaits wouldn’t return. He dropped the shotgun on top of the bar with a thud. Every single day, he’d lay that gun on the bar top, drink, and wait. A declaration, a kickoff to the day of drinking and hoping that this would be the day he’d pull the trigger.

  It had been a long time since any trouble had come around. The radial shockwaves of refugees fleeing the cities had faded away; the ravaging crowds had become occasional beggars asking for food.

  Gaits’ hope of finding the man who’d killed Hannah had worn thin, but every day, he dreamed about it. The man would sit down to order a drink, not knowing who he sat beside. Gaits would relish the power of the moment, blow him right off the stool, and walk out the front door telling Wes that he’d clean it up tomorrow. A cowboy.

  “Do you believe in hell?” Gaits asked.

  Wes looked up from where he was delicately working an old-fashioned, mashing the sugar cube, pouring the whiskey, and peeling a fresh orange rind to top it off. He slid the drink in front of Gaits and studied his eyes. They were dying. The pain had always been apparent, but the death, the essence of losing the fight, was taking over. Gaits slapped down some cash and faked a smile for his old friend. Wes left it at that.

  "I think I’ll have one as well." Wes said. "Old-fashioneds all around. We drink ‘em down ’til we run out."

  "Who's gonna cover the tab?" Gaits asked.

  Wes snorted and it made Gaits chuckle until the two rolled into a full-on laughing fit. Boisterous laughter from the depths of a man’s soul. The world no longer had a place for it. The laughter went o
n, a reminiscence of days long gone, of childhood tomfoolery, of pranks and first loves and schoolyard fights. The day descended into darkness and the debauchery continued as the two men pieced together memories of their youth and laughed at the ambition of that age. For those final hours, Wes and Gaits talked about the future that had vanished without permission, the forgotten world now real and the real world now forgotten.

  And it was a hell of time.

  COMPANY

  Hannah ran through the cornfields with a playful smile on her face. She disappeared and Gaits got up and chased after her, hearing her giggles as he threatened capture. The summer heat dimmed like a flickering lamp and the sun set as they ran, the buzz of crickets and softly clanging wind chimes filling the air as Hannah and Gaits ran past the untarnished ’76 Ford toward the side of the farmhouse.

  That was where he caught her and pressed her against the wall, Hannah laughing and breathing on his neck. There was innocence in her smile, always, and Gaits never got over it. For all they’d learned about the world, that innocence never left her. Warm. Pure. Perfect. He leaned in and the wind flowed through her dress, the sounds of the old wind chime rising. “Only us, always us,” they whispered to one another. They kissed and the world began to glow around them.

  The clang of the wind chimes rose into a deafening siren and the earth shuttered into darkness. Streaks of red fractured the sky, the farmhouse flew upwards, and Hannah vanished. Gaits started running, sprinting endlessly without knowing where or why, reaching out in the heavy crimson light and screaming for Hannah, the sky collapsing above him as her face flashed and vanished once more——

  "Hannah!" Gaits’ eyes ripped open; sweating, panting, rediscovering reality. Wes was nowhere to be found. Gaits figured he must have left hours ago.