Carver Pike - Scalp

“Come on, motherfuckers!” he yelled, ignoring Ma’s constant pleas to watch his language and be a respectable young man.

There was a time and place for respectable, and it wasn’t right now.

Thomas blew the horn again and stepped harder on the gas. He had no intention of slowing down. He wanted every bear, every wolf, every fox, every raccoon, every dog, and every other beast to step right up and see what he had to offer.

Let them come. Let them turn toward him and try chasing him back up onto that roof. No, he’d cowered enough for one day. Now, it was time to take action. He would get his revenge. As Pa always said, “It’s time to man-up and take what’s coming to you.” Pa always said it with his belt wrapped around his fist, but the words meant the same no matter what weapon you were wielding, and right now he was wielding a hammer on four wheels.

“Come on, baby,” Thomas said aloud as he grew closer and closer to the animals.

They didn’t move like he expected them to. They didn’t run when they heard the blaring of the horn. They didn’t flinch with the revving of the engine. They stood their ground, and Thomas smiled insanely in his adrenaline-induced heroism.

The campus was coming up quickly with its wrought-iron gate. Thomas had no intention of trying to drive through that thing. No, he’d stick with killing whatever person or animal was out here in the yard.

A yard he’d mowed and weed-whacked nearly every single day since he was ten years old. He remembered Pa finally letting him work the push mower while Pa sat on the riding one. The push mower was always good at getting the areas around the trees.

Two tears fell from Thomas’s eyes at the thought of never seeing that mean old bastard again. The old man might have handed out a good ass-whoopin’ from time to time, and he might have had very few kind words, but he was Thomas’s father, and he knew he’d miss him. Same with Ma.

Through clenched teeth, Thomas yelled, “Yes! Stay right there in front of me you sorry sacks of shit. Take what’s coming to you!”

It was an elk out front of the rest. Large and with big antlers, it stood its ground, puffing out its chest and glaring back at the headlights like it couldn’t believe Thomas had the balls to approach it head-on.

“You want some of this?” Thomas called out, noticing there was a skunk right behind the elk. He hated skunks.

The elk seemed to want some of this because it didn’t budge.

Thomas pointed the truck right at the long line of animals, gripped the steering wheel, and held on for dear life as he smashed the front grill right into the elk. The thud was loud, and Thomas jerked in his seat, but he didn’t take his foot off the gas. There were so many more animals to mow down.

The skunk was small, and Thomas wasn’t even sure if the truck hit it. The small black bear he definitely ran into. His truck was a bowling ball cracking pins as it drove through every animal in that line. He crushed skulls, penetrated bodies, and mowed down everything in his way. None of these four-legged creatures stood a chance against Thomas’s battle tank.

In his headlights, he saw each animal fly to the left, to the right, and right down the center, and he never stopped. He kept going. Until he reached the end of the animals and his headlights shone on the small group of people headed to the campus.

There, in front of him, was Pa and Ma, both mindless zombies looking back at him. He should have continued forward and taken them out, but he couldn’t. At the last second, he chickened out and jerked the wheel to the right. The truck was moving too fast, and that sudden turn caused it to hit clumps of dry grass. The vehicle skidded sideways until the tires caught the earth hard and the truck flipped over on its side.

Thomas bounced around the cab. Random items took flight with him. He saw an old cheeseburger wrapper, a ballpoint pen, a red lighter, and a cardboard cup used to catch his father’s tobacco spit. The cup hit the seat as the truck flipped and brown, wet, muddy filth coated the seat and Thomas’s arm and leg.

When the truck finally came to a rest, Thomas sat up and gagged. He fought the urge to vomit and climbed out of the cab. His head was pretty banged up. Blood trickled down from his forehead, ran over his cheek, and dripped on the grass.

“Hey, you all right?” came a loud, barking voice.

“Pa?” he asked.

Deep down, he knew it wasn’t his father’s voice, but it sure sounded like him. The disgruntled way he always spoke. Thomas stood there next to the truck and stared at the grassy lawn around him. Dead animals lay on the ground behind the truck. A few that weren’t dead were mewing and whining, dragging themselves across the ground.

It took him a second to remember what happened.

The sound of a gunshot brought him back to his senses. His ringing ears began to clear some and he heard random voices behind him. Thomas turned to see a big man with a rifle walking toward him with a group of teenagers right behind him.

“He looks stunned,” one of the teenagers said.

“I recognize him. He was with the caretaker.” This girl was bald. Her face seemed familiar.

“Hey,” the big man with the rifle said as he grabbed Thomas by both shoulders and shook him gently. “You need to snap out of it. Those things will be on us soon.”

“Ma?” Thomas asked. “Pa?”

He pushed past the big man and looked at the bodies lying on the ground behind the truck. His mother and father were both there. They were crushed and almost unrecognizable. When the truck flipped, it had whipped right over the crowd of infected people.

“Holy shit!” one of the teenage boys said. “He took out all the animals.”

“Not all of them,” the big man said, and finally Thomas felt his head clear completely. He remembered what he’d seen. What he’d done. This was his handy work. He’d taken out most of the animals, but some had gotten out of the way.

“Andre, we need to go,” one of the teenagers said to the big man.

Andre nodded and replied, “We need to get to my truck. It’s right over there.”

He pointed to a red pickup truck parked not far away.

“Go ahead,” Andre commanded. “I’ll stay here and watch your back. Take this guy with you.”

Thomas didn’t argue when Andre pointed at him. He didn’t have it in him to fight. His entire right side was drenched in his father’s tobacco spit and blood was dripping from other places. He’d snapped out of his haze, but he still didn’t feel entirely right.

“The gas can,” Thomas managed, talking to Andre.

“What?” Andre asked.

By now, infected teenagers were making their way through the heavy front gate at Stonewall Forge. They’d be on them soon.

Thomas looked at the contents that had fallen from the bed of the truck. The riding lawnmower lay on its side. The push mower had gotten flung pretty far away. It was a red metal gas can he was pointing at.

“Set them on fire,” Thomas said.

Andre smiled and nodded. “That’s a damn fine idea, ain’t it?”

Thomas returned his smile and followed the other teenagers while Andre slowly backed toward them, keeping his gun trained on the fallen pickup truck and its contents littered all over the ground. He kept his aim on that gas can and waited for the infected teenagers to stumble out of the Stonewall Forge gates and toward the truck.

Many of the animals were still making noises, still crying, still whining, and that was loud enough to draw the students from inside the campus. Soon, five, ten, twenty, thirty students were making their way to all that ruckus.

And Andre kept his aim on the gas can.

When it was clear no more students were going to leave the campus gates, Andre dropped to a knee, steadied his rifle, and pretended that gas can was the head of a deer. He relaxed and focused on his breathing like he always did on a hunt. After closing his eyes for only a few seconds to calm his nerves, Andre held his breath, and he pulled the trigger.