Joseph Talluto - Taking It Back

I tapped on the back window to get Tommy’s attention. “Scope out what you can see, I’ve got an uneasy feeling about this place.” I did, too. Something was making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I had learned not to ignore the feeling.

Tommy stood up in the truck bed and used the scope on his rifle to look a little further into the town. From where I sat, I could see a number of small, ranch-style homes indicative of most of the small towns in Illinois. Here and there were older, more stately homes, and they tended to have the larger, older trees in their yards. The homes were neat and tidy, a few having some expected debris in the yards, but in general seemed to be in good shape. One house in view had several children’s toys still scattered about the back yard.

Tommy tapped the roof and I stuck my head out. “What’s up? See anything?”

Tommy looked down at me with a puzzled expression. “I don’t see anyone, living or dead. I did see a lot of white flags on mailboxes, though.”

I could feel my gut tighten instinctively at those words. The infection had made it here, then. So much for being far enough out to avoid contamination. We needed to be careful. “Keep an eye out, we’re heading through,” I said to both Charlie and Tommy.

“You want to head down Main Street or stick to the rails?” Charlie asked.

“Let’s stick to the rails, but if we see something worth looking at, we’ll take a peek.”

“Will do,” Charlie said as he put the truck in gear and pulled forward. Tommy stayed upright, and scanning the town, looking for any sign of life. I noticed a couple of cats running from house to house, but that was the extent of the activity. I began to get the hunch we weren’t going to see anyone at all, that this whole town had up and disappeared. That hunch gave rise to the question of Where? Did the people go to the state center? Did they head to a larger town like Coal City? The empty houses and abandoned swing sets mocked us with their eerie silence.

Charlie stopped the truck on a railroad crossing near the edge of town. We could see down a main thoroughfare which I guessed was the business district. Several stores and shops were there, a couple of restaurants, a fast-food place, one gas station, and two banks. ‘Earl’s Rail Stop’ was just across the street from us, advertising chicken dinners for under five bucks.

Everything seemed normal except there was no one around. No living, no dead, nothing. As far as I could see, the town had not been hit by looters or anyone.

“This is just weird,” Tommy said from his perch, scanning the street. “I don’t see anything out of place. There’s not a single piece of debris, no broken glass, no sign of violence. No bodies, no blood, nothing.”

“Just ghosts,” Charlie said suddenly, causing me to jump.

“Don’t be foolish. There nothing here for ghosts, either.” I snapped, much harsher than I intended. This abandoned town was creeping me out. I looked over at Charlie. “Sorry, man. This place is just wrong.”

“No prob. What’s that?” Charlie pointed to an area on the outskirts of town. “That looks like smoke.”

Sure enough, there was what seemed to be a cloud of smoke hovering over the far edge of Mazon. “Let’s go look, maybe they’re survivors who could tell us what happened here,” I said, hopeful.

We stayed on the rails, the tracks taking us towards the smoke. The fire seemed to be on the other side of a small grove of trees and the vegetation was dense enough to not allow us to see through.

As we got closer, Tommy thumped on the roof. “That’s not smoke,” he called out. I strained to see and as we went farther, we cleared the trees and could see.

Tommy was right. It wasn’t smoke. It was thousands upon thousands of flies, hovering over a massive pile of corpses. Charlie stopped the truck and I got out, covering my face with my balaclava and goggles in an attempt to keep the flies away. I crossed over the greening grass and stood at the edge of the carnage. The people had been worked over by the flies and many of the faces were gruesome to look at, especially the children. I didn’t see any signs of violence or any indication of how they died. Charlie and Tommy spread out on either side, looking for clues.

The bodies were clustered in small groups and as I looked around, I began to realize that the majority of the people died as families. What in the world could possibly have happened? Were they all infected and decided to save the rest of the community by coming here to die? I didn’t have any answers. One thing was curious, though. In every single group, one of the dead was clutching a small wooden cross. I started to circle the small clearing, mentally counting the number of bodies. After I reached six hundred, I gave up, figuring the entire town was here. The flies’ buzzing was extremely loud, nearly masking all other sound. Maggots were everywhere, writhing underneath clothing, causing me to swing up my rifle more than once when I thought I saw movement.

I reached the other side where Charlie and Tommy were standing. “Anything?” I asked looking at another pile s of bodies. This group, about thirty of them, was not as orderly as the others. In fact, they seemed to have been left where they fell.

“I think these were zombies,” Charlie said, indicating with the barrel of his rifle a neat hole in the forehead of the nearest corpse. There were similar wounds in the rest of the corpses that I could see, evidence that these people were infected and put down. But if they put down the Z’s, why would they leave their town and come to this area to die? It made no sense whatsoever.

I started back towards the truck, signaling the other two to follow. We wouldn’t get any answers from this place and like Charlie had said, this town was full of ghosts.

Just as we passed the trees, a small figure stepped out into the open. Three rifles trained on the small man as he stood there, staring at the bodies. Flies landed on his face and clothes, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was dressed in casual clothes, jeans and a flannel shirt. I noticed the bulge of a holster under his shirt and signaled to Charlie the man had a weapon. He looked to be around seventy, but was probably younger. He didn’t seem to notice us, his haunted eyes were fixed on the death in front of him.

I moved closer, lowering my rifle, knowing that Charlie and Tommy had moved to the sides and still covered the old man. “Sir?” I asked, “Are you from around here? Do you know what happened here? Sir?”

“He lied to them,” the old man said, his voice barely carrying over the din of the flies. “He lied to them and led them here and watched as they died for him.”

Confused, I pressed for answers. “Who lied?”

The old man glanced my way, his piercingly blue eyes barely acknowledging my existence. “This town had a preacher, who told the people the dead rising was a sign of the end of the world. He told them there was no hope, that after the dead had finished, the world would be consumed by fire and cleansed by God, who was angry at the world. He lied when he said everyone was dead, that this town was the last one on Earth. He told them he had visions from God, telling him what the townspeople had to do to be saved.”

I just scowled, remembering preachers and pastors from my own past who were little better than charlatans, claiming a connection to God that was more false than their claims of salvation. But I also remembered how persuasive these men were and how with just a few words they could whip a crowd up to rapturous frenzy. Opportunists, every one, and the Upheaval brought more opportunity than most dared dream.

“He had the people bring out their sick relatives, then made them watch as they turned into those nightmares. He said it was God’s curse on the land and the only way to heaven was on his path.