Jason Campagna: White Ash on Bone: A Zombie Novel

Carson had used the truck a couple of times during the day and still had the keys. The hanger was empty, and he had no trouble moving it right up to the office door. He opened the rear cargo hatch and grabbed a military blanket that had been handed out to him and headed back into the office.

His wife lay motionless on the ground. He knelt down beside her and checked her pulse.

"She's still alive, Kim, find something to tie her hands and feet with." He laid the blanket down beside her and rolled her body over on it.

Kimberly dug through the office utility closet until she found a roll of duct tape.

"Carson, will this work?" Kimberly said.

He nodded his head, and she handed the roll over to him.

He spun the roll on his finger looking for the seam. He peeled several inches of the tape out and stuck it over Alison's mouth. He picked her head up off the ground and wrapped it around her head twice. Carson repeated the process with her hands and feet immobilizing his wife. He then wrapped her body up in the wool blanket completely covering her body. "Help me sit her up so we can wrap her body," Carson said.

Kimberly obeyed his command, but her hands were trembling. Carson watched her face for a moment and gave her his best smile. "It'll be ok, I promise," he said.

"Do you love me?" she asked.

"You know I do," he replied.

He opened the door to make sure the hanger was empty.

"It’s clear," he said. "Grab her feet, and I'll get the head. They carried her to the back of the truck and placed Alison inside.

"See honey," he said, "The tough part is over. Let’s get going." They got in the vehicle and drove off.

###

Rex dumped Mazie off with his wife at the truck. He spent several minutes making introductions and explaining to Ginger how he knew the girl. He cut the conversation off as soon as he could and headed off in the direction he last saw Alison.

A white SUV drove out of the open hanger door and passed in front of Rex a dozen yards away. Inside the vehicle, Rex caught a glimpse of a girl in the passenger seat with Doc Carson driving. The girl was clearly not Alison. Rex scanned the people in the immediate area. He didn’t see her anywhere.

"Alison," he shouted to the crowd, no one responded.

He hurried in the direction of the hanger and passed through the partially open bay door. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. "Alison, are you in here?" Rex said. He felt the hand of warning place its uneasy touch to his back. He ran to the office marked number seven and threw the door open. The office was dark. He reached out along the wall and flipped the light switch, but the office remained black.

Rex grabbed a small key-chain flashlight in his pocket. It clicked on and stabbed light into the darkness of the room. A silver glint by the wall caught the light and he recognized his grandfather's revolver the instant he zeroed the light on it. "Oh, shit."

He bent down and picked up his grandfather's gun. Turning toward the door, his flashlight revealed red spatter on the floor.

"That bastard," he said. Rex took off at a sprint bolting through the door. Outside of the hanger, he ran to the first vehicle he saw. It happened to be a red Polaris 550 with a teenager sitting on top of it. “Hey kid, did you happen to see which way that white SUV went?”

“Didn’t watch,” the kid responded. “But I know where he went. He saw my Polaris and asked me if I was from the area. Told him my father’s farm was just down the road. He told me he was a doctor and said that we needed a place close by outside the fence to dispose of any of the ghoul’s bodies. I told him just where to go.”

Rex grinned at the youth, “Show me.” The ATV's engine roared to life and its tires peeled out as it accelerated in the direction of the gate.

In the truck, Kimberly squeezed her hands forcing the blood out of her fingers. The growing numbness in her hands did little to keep Alison out of her mind. What am I doing she thought. Oh Daddy, I should have listened to you. Who am I kidding, I made my bed and now I have to sleep in it. It'll be ok, she thought, Carson will fix everything.

The two soldiers guarding the gate had waved the couple through easily enough. Carson had told them they were going to grab medicine from his house down the road and would be back shortly. The guards had warned them to be careful and that they would have to be inspected when they came back.

Carson drove them north down a back road that paralleled Route 8 a mile to the east. The scenery consisted of old farmhouses and wooded lots.

He slowed the vehicle down at the edge of a wooden lot and a cornfield. He turned down a small dirt road used by tractors and pulled the vehicle to a stop near three old bales of hay left over from last season. He reached up and pushed the transmission into park then dropped his head to the steering wheel.

"Carson, are you alright?" Kim said.

"My head hurts,” Carson said, “and I feel like I might be getting a fever."

In the back of the truck, Alison's mind woke from the edge of the abyss. Her head swam with nausea and pain. Her eyes cracked open revealing nothing, blackness encased her. Something was holding her, suffocating her as she tried to move.

Air, she thought. Her jaw ached, but when she tried to open her mouth she found it sealed shut. She felt the bonds of duct tape holding her tightly in its grip. The sticky substance pulled at her skin and hair if she tried to move. Each attempted movement brought a new wave of pain to her head. Her hands stung with numbness, and she realized she was laying facedown. She tried to open her hands, but they were folded together with the fingers interlaced, the tape was wrapped around them fusing them into a knot.

She breathed deeper through her nose for air, but a blanket wrapped around her kept her lungs pleading for more. She tried to kick out with her legs only to find them bound fast together.

A picture of a mummy thousands of years old formed her head. Its body wrapped tightly in bandages. Buried alive, she thought. Adrenaline dumped into her heart and panic ate like acid through her mind.

"We'll dump the body here," Carson said.

Carson, Alison thought. The name felt like someone squeezing her heart, but a part of her felt thankful to hear any voice. Any voice meant life and that held the monster of despair in its chains for the moment.

"You would never hurt me, would you?" Kimberly asked.

"Never," Carson said, "I need you so much. Now more than ever." Carson used the same voice on Alison when she had caught him cheating on her back in med school.

Alison heard the door to the truck open. "Come on let’s get this over with and move on with our lives," Carson said.

Panic filled Alison’s heart once again. Not like this, God, please not like this, she prayed. She felt a wetness filling her eyes in the dark. The back door opened and Alison felt heat from late summer air warm the blanket surrounding her.

Hands grabbed on to Alison's legs; she stiffened as she was pulled backwards.

"Did you see?" Kimberly said. "I think she's alive."

"Kim, we have to do this, now keep pulling."

"I can’t,” Kim said. “This isn’t right. If she’s alive we can’t do this. I can’t do this."

"What choice do we have, Kim?"

"We have to help her, she's hurt,” Kim said. “She's your wife, you can’t do this to her. Please, Carson. Help her, and we can run away. They won’t find us."

"Where are we going to run to?" Carson said. "Those things are everywhere eating everyone they can get their fucking hands on. What do you think is going to happen if we help her? You think they’re going to say, “Bad Doctor Carson and little Kim; let’s put them on trial.” You'll be lucky if they don’t rape you before they put a bullet in you."