Jason Jones - Trailer Park Zombies

Wordlessly I pointed the flashlight at his car. I think the shock got to him because he didn’t react for a few seconds. Then with a cry he launched himself toward the car. It was my turn to hold him back. I grabbed his arm and wouldn’t let go. He fought to get free, putting pressure on my weak leg, but I wouldn’t let go.

Finally he stopped struggling and looked at me. “What? Let me go. I have to see what they did to my dad’s car. He’ll kill me.”

I shook my head at him. “Barrett, look . That’s blood all over the car.”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous, Duke.” He looked at the car as if to point out to me how it wasn’t blood but his voice just trailed off as I raked the flashlight over the car, lingering over some of the worst spots. It was very apparent that it was blood in the light of the flashlight.

“It looks like someone was trying to get into the car,” I whispered. “When they couldn’t get through the windows they went through the top.”

“But why? There’s nothing in there they’d want. And why would they be all bloody?” He whirled to face me. “Stupid trailer park. I should have known better than to come here. First you ki-,” he stopped, stuttered, then went on, “and now this. My dad will freaking kill me, Duke.”

I ignored his outburst, still staring at the car. “Barrett, we can worry about all that later.”

“Later? Seriously, Duke.”

“Seriously,” I said. “Maybe we should make sure there’s no one and nothing inside the car. Obviously someone was trying to get in and they managed to get in. Why? Are they in the car? Did they put something in the car?”

“Put something?” He looked at me, confused. This his face cleared. “Do you think someone saw? And they put him in the car?”

“I doubt that, Barrett. But we need to go look.”

He shook his head at me. I just stared at him. He’d already pulled the wussy card on me once tonight and look at what it cost us. I didn’t need to say anything, just continued staring. It wasn’t exactly a staring contest, but more of one of those silent communication things friends can do when they’ve known each for a while. I told him he owed me and that this was his car and his trouble and we needed to go see the damn thing and see what we were dealing with. He told me a big fat no and I told him to stop being a coward.

This went on for what seemed like eternity but was likely no more than a few seconds. Finally he just said, “Whatever,” and I knew that was good enough.

We skulked forward slowly to the car.

Lightning still flashed on and off in the distance, giving us that last creepy little bit of ambience that we needed to make the night feel just right. Blood on a car? Check. Power out? Check. Freakish storm? Check. Two idiots creeping forward to look at said bloody car with the power out and lightning breaking the sky? Check. If I was watching this in a movie I’d be the first one to scream at the idiots to not go check out the car and to run back inside.

And I knew that while I was going forward to the car. Reality is a big suck-ass sometimes.

Barrett hung a foot or so back and let me take the lead of course. If nothing else came of tonight it was nice to know that he was a big coward. I didn’t realize that, as my friend, when he told me he had my back he meant it literally. At least his girly screams would help if we got attacked.

The gravel crunched softly under our feet as we approached. I played the flashlight around the car but everything looked like it had from far away: filthy and torn and bloody. I shone the light in a wide radius around to see if there was anybody or anything weird around us, but I couldn’t make out anything that I hadn’t already expected to be there.

The rag top on the car was cut to ribbons. I couldn’t tell what tool had been used on it. Hell, it almost looked like someone had done it with their bare hands, which was just silly. It had been torn in such a way that you couldn’t see through the windows. All the torn flaps were dangling on the inside and were all you could see through the bloody smears.

There were only two ways to see inside the car. One was to stand on tiptoes and lean far over the top of the car and peek inside. I shivered at the sudden image of giant, bloody hands suddenly coming out through the hole and yanking me inside headfirst. And I could hear the splash of my blood hitting the leather seats and windows. Barrett would have a hell of a time cleaning the seats if that happened.

I decided that was maybe not the best idea.

The other option was to open the door, yank it as hard as we could and run back 20 steps and shine the flashlight through. That seemed like the puss way to do it but it certainly had its merits.

I told Barrett that’s what we were doing.

He was all for the puss/coward option. To no one’s surprise, least of all his own.

He started protesting when I told him that he was going to be the one to go open the door while I stood back with the flashlight. A hurried, whispered argument ensued where I told him he was going to do it because it was his car, he had the keys and I had the flashlight. His offer of the car for my 16 birthday present didn’t really make that big of an impression on me at that point. I told him if he didn’t do it that I was going back inside and going to bed and he could just drive home.

That pretty much put an end to it.

I had the flashlight trained on the front passenger door while he slowly leaned over as far as he could to open it. He was standing by the front tire so that nothing could come out and eat him. His hand shook in the light of the flashlight but I’ll give him credit for actually doing it. He put his hand on the door and looked at me. I nodded and he nodded back. Then he pulled the handle and yanked the door back as fast as he could and ran back to me in about a half second flat.

There was nothing in the front seat.

I muttered some choice profanity.

“Now what?” He looked at me blankly as he asked it.

I looked at him, “What do you think? Now you do the back door.”

“Crap.”

He scuttled back to the car, taking a wide path from where we were standing so that he could approach the car from the front. He closed the front door with a satisfying thud and then reached for the back door. With his hand on the release he looked at me again to make sure I was ready. I nodded and he yanked this one open as well, pulling it wide and doing the run back to me.

The hanging soft top was in the way.

“I can’t see anything, Barrett,” I said.

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

I looked at him in disgust. It was obvious he’d about reached the limits of what little courage he had. I strode forward purposefully and pulled the top out of the way so that I could see. A stench rolled out of the car at me and I jumped back so fast that I landed on my ass. The pain in my leg woke up and let it be known that it wasn’t happy about it.

“What happened, Duke? What’d you see?” Barrett called from ten feet back. He didn’t move an inch closer to help me.

I didn’t answer him. Didn’t even hear him, honestly. I got back to my knees, barely, wincing at the pain in my thigh. I had eyes only for what I’d seen in the car. I was still on my knees as I reached in, using the hand holding the flashlight to pull aside the flaps and the other to reach inside the darkness. I could hear Barrett behind me whimpering and whispering my name. It was like a small buzz at the back of my head.

My reaching hand slid across the wet seat, grasping for what I’d seen. It was getting wet and covered with the slime that was on the seat. Reaching inside that car, that maw of darkness, was like putting a hand into Hell itself. I kept expecting something to grab my hand and pull me in. I’d fight heroically but in the end it would get me and I’d disappear into the car and never be seen again. My fate would be whispered around the Acres in spooky little campfire tales.