“This story was one of the best zombie stories I have read, awesome storyline and well worth reading, hard to put down!!!”
an excerpt from
Hurrican Dan
by Bret Wellman
Copyright © 2014 by Bret Wellman and published here with his permission
Chapter 1
Four months without paying a single bill. Gas, electric, rent, Dan Kelly had gotten fed up and said fuck it all. Rather, the drunk version of Dan Kelly said fuck it all. Now it was time for sober Dan to face the consequences.
One suitcase, it was all Dan had to bring as the two police officers escorted him out to the street.
“This place was a shit hole anyways!” Dan yelled back at his neighbors, a mob of people all peering at him. They hid behind their front doors like they were shields that would save them if he decided to go crazy.
“Come on, keep moving.” one of the cops said, jabbing Dan out the front door of the apartment complex.
The streets of Manhattan were bustling with life. People ran back and forth, carrying shopping bags and brief cases. Horns were going off everywhere, anyone not from the city might think a bomb had just gone off and people were fleeing for their lives, but that was just the way it was. New York is home to some of the most aggressive drivers on earth, blaring the horn is just a way of life for them. All of this activity loomed in the shadow of sky scrapers that towered into the sky and cast shadows across the city. They went on and on forever, neatly lined up in rows against the street curb.
“There is a shelter down on thirty first and third,” one of the cops said, climbing into the driver’s seat of his squad car. “They will take you in and help get you back up on your feet. I don’t want to see you around this neighborhood until then.”
“Thank you officer, but you know what? I think there is a donut shop just down the road, on the corner of suck my dick and fuck off.” Dan said, flicking the cop the bird.
The police officer stood back up out of the car and acted as if he were going to go after Dan but thought better of it. “I mean it Dan, move along.”
Dan would have gladly gone a few rounds with the cop, socked him one good right in the nose, but who wants to be stuck in a smelly old jail cell for the next two years? In the end he decided to suck up his pride and walk away.
So that is just what he did, Dan began to walk. He walked to the end of the block, then to the next, and the one after that. Dan walked until the sun began to sink and his legs started to ache. He walked passed street bands as they played jazz and acoustic melodies, past models and businessmen, people from all over the world. Before long it was dark and the bars were full.
Oh how Dan wanted to go to the bar, to throw his money down on the table and get a glass of that sweet nectar that would make him the life of the party.
But Dan had no money, his last paycheck had come four months earlier when he had quit his job. Since then he had drank away that, plus everything his credit card could hold.
As he got closer and closer to the bar, Dan could smell beer, hear laughter, and sense sweet release in the air. He watched for a while from outside, walking back and forth on the curb looking for change. He was on the verge of having a break down when an idea crept into his mind.
For Dan, it took no courage, he was a man far beyond the ledge, risk was nothing to him, peoples opinions were even less. He leaned his suitcase against a building on the opposite side of the street and marched across, to the bar.
There was a bouncer standing at the door but he paid Dan no mind as he walked inside. The music was loud and the lights were dim, people were packed in tight. It was the ideal environment for what Dan planned to do next.
Not wanting to look suspicious, Dan walked over and leaned against a window sill, from there he had a good look at everything.
There was a dance floor to the left of the front door, it was mostly women dancing with a guy or two thrown in here and there. The bar itself ran the length of the place with three young brunette bartenders, working with their backs against a brick wall. The floor was wood and so were all the tables, spread out, taking up a majority of the space. All and all it was a small bar, longer than it was wide.
Dan spotted what he was looking for, a girl grabbed what looked like her boyfriend and dragged him out to the dance floor, he had left his beer behind.
Looking as nonchalant as he could, Dan walked over and swiped the beer from the table. Nobody seemed to notice and he was back against the window before anybody could be the wiser.
The first sip was heaven, it always was. His mouth began to tingle and his stomach filled with butterflies, he was like a kid getting pushed on a swing at the playground. Before he could bring the bottle down to his side, he was already lifting it for another sip. His troubles were getting farther away and his body was growing lighter. It was not long before the bottle was gone and Dan was back on the hunt.
His second bottle was from a girl who had left it to go to the bathroom. It was only half full and went down fast. After his third he was beginning to feel tipsy, he wanted to find a fourth to make sure the feeling didn’t go away. On his seventh he went out to the dance floor and danced with a pretty blonde who had been eyeing him. It was not until his eleventh beer that he got caught.
Dan walked up to a table that was full of people and grabbed a beer that belonged to a guy who was still sitting there.
“It’s just a sip, it’s just a sip.” Dan tried to explain through slurred words as he was confronted.
When the owner reached out like he wanted his beer back, Dan stepped away and took a big chug. The guy responded by grabbing a fist full of Dans shirt. The bouncer was soon on top of them.
“What’s going on here?”
The guy let go of Dan and took a step back. “This guy walked up and stole my beer.”
Dan held the beer low so as to hide it from site, “this fucker doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he said sounding as completely drunk as he was.
“I saw it too, he walked right up and took it.” A chubby brown haired girl said from the table.
Dan gasped as though he had just been betrayed by a dear loved one, “What? Sir, that woman is a bitch!”
“I think he has been stealing beer all night,” said another man from a few tables over, “I had one go missing earlier and so did my friend.”
“Fuck you!” Dan blurted.
“Alright that’s it, you’re out of here.” said the bouncer, grabbing Dan by the arm and dragging him towards the door.
Dan chugged the beer as fast as he could before being shoved out into the street. As he stumbled, the beer fell from his hand and shatered on the pavement. Luckily he had sucked down every last drop before he had dropped it.
Reflecting back, his beer stealing operation had turned out pretty good.
He was in a bubbly haze as he walked back across the street. His briefcase had been knocked over and opened but that was okey, he just tucked his second pair of blue jeans back inside and moved on.
Where to sleep? It was the only question he had on his mind. What a liberating experience, could this be the way to become a kid again? He began to laugh and jump around, twirling his briefcase as he went down the street.
He looked into the black window of a mirror as he passed, seeing himself in the reflection. He was just below six foot tall, with dark black hair that was streaked with gray near his sideburns. Gray! He was only twenty six years old, gray hair shouldn’t be popping out at that age.
He wore a white, button up shirt with a loosened up tie and over coat. Anybody passing him on the street would think he had just come from a long days work.
“The big apple baby!” He yelled, picking up a rock from the ground.
He turned back to the window, throwing the rock at his own image. Nothing happened, the rock just bounced off.
Dan stood there for a moment, waiting to see if the glass would break… Nothing.
“Well fuck you too then!” he said before walking on.
By the end of the next hour Dan had found himself wandering through central park. It seemed like the best place to lay down and go to sleep, so that’s where he went. With every step he took away from the buildings it grew darker and more quite until he could hardly see where he was going. Dead leaves crackled under his feet and the wind bit at his ears but he didn’t care. This was his party and nothing was going to ruin it.
There was a cluster of trees next to a bridge made of stone. Dan wound his way into the trees, finding the softest spot he could and laying down. He turned his over coat into a blanket and the pants inside the briefcase into a pillow. His last thought was of fun and freedom.
Life was good.
Chapter 2
Life was bad.
It was late October and the winter months were right around the corner. Most nights the temperature got below freezing.
Dan rolled over to his back in the fetal position. He felt as though there was no blood in his body, only ice. He was shivering uncontrollably and his breath would catch in his throat every couple of minutes. If he did not do something, he would wind up freezing to death.
Dan stood up and looked around, a cold wind bit at his numb face. He zipped up his coat with his arms on the inside and began to walk towards the buildings.
It was hard to do more than a shuffle. Anything that wasn’t numb ached, including his knees. It felt like his feet were two bricks of ice, if he wasn’t careful they would catch on the sidewalk and send him tumbling to the ground.
Somehow, during his slumber, the park had managed to grow dramatically. What was only a short trip going in seemed like miles coming out. An all consuming silence blossomed in the air, it was the dead voice of the barren trees.
A bird chirped to Dan’s right, an involuntary scream escaped his shivering lips. If it weren’t so cold, he would have taken off running. For better or for worse, there was nobody around to hear his scream.
By the time he reached the city Dan felt so drained that it almost overpowered the pain of the cold. He debated laying down right there on the sidewalk and taking a quick nap. He would worry about the cold when he was a little more rested. Lucky for Dan, he chose to keep going.
There were a few people out, most were wrapped up tight and quick to go from one building to the next. Nobody paid any attention to him.
Dan was just passing the second sky scraper when he came upon the entrance to the subway. Right away he could feel a warm wind wafting up the steps and caressing his body. With each step deeper Dan began to reanimate. He was still tired but it was not nearly as bad. By the time he reached the bottom of the steps he was already regaining feeling.
Everything burned, especially his hands, they felt as though they had been set on fire. The pain grew, spreading through his body. The small flames inside of him were fast becoming a wild fire. He couldn’t stand it, it was making him unaware of what he was doing. It was like a tooth ache, except his entire body was the tooth. Just when Dan thought he could not take it any more, the pain began to subside and he was able to relax.
For the first time, Dan was aware of the rancid smell of piss. The entire place reeked of it, it was as if hundreds of people had decided to simply drop their drawers and urinate all over the ground.
The walls seemed damp, the tiling, once white, had become yellow over time. That must have been because of all the people pissing everywhere Dan figured.
There were ten different turnstyles at the bottom of the steps, nine were full body and one was the old fashioned kind with one bar that you pushed with your waist. There didn’t seem to be anybody standing guard so Dan hopped the one turnstyle and jogged around the corner before somebody tried to stop him, not that there was anyone there in the first place.
The subway station was plain, a pit along the far wall for the train to go through, benches along the other wall for people waiting, pillars lined sporadically to keep the city from crashing down. At the far end of the benches, laying on a dirty pile of cardboard, was the shaggiest man Dan had ever seen. His beard looked like a gray lion’s mane wrapping his entire head and hiding the vast majority of his scuffed up face. His toes were visible through a giant hole in the end of his clown shoes and it appeared his clothes had not been washed in the better part of a decade.
Dan laid down on the bench and stared up at the yellow tiles. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing but it was warm and did not take long for him to start dozing off.
He felt himself begin to soar, leaving his body to fly amongst the sky scrapers. He zoomed over the people, laughing at their petty lives. They went back and forth like ants, scrambling for useless products that kept them chained to the ground. Not Dan, he was free to fly wherever he wanted, he was no longer chained by consumerism. That would have made him the happiest man in the world except for one thing, a nagging sensation in the back of his mind. “Turn back now,” it said.
Soaring through the sky, Dan looked to his left. He was greeted by a swirling mass of cloud, churning wind, lightning, thunder. There was a storm on the horizon.
Clomp, clomp, clomp, the sound buzzed in his ears, causing him to lose altitude. Clomp, clomp, clomp, with every thump he fell faster and faster. Clomp, clomp, the pavement rushed up at him, he closed his eyes and braced.
Dan sat up straight, he was back in the subway. Clomp, clomp, it was the sound of the homeless man’s clown shoes, the guy was walking towards Dan.
“you got any flippity flop?” the man yelled when he was close. He swayed back and forth drunkenly.
Dan suddenly understood why the place smelled so bad, it was all wafting off of this one man. He cringed and tried to lean away but the man was so close and just standing there.
“I says, you like, oh got the flippy flop!” Dan suspected the man meant to talk normal but every word came out loud, as if the homeless man were speaking to a crowd.
“What?” Dan asked.
“What you mean, what? I got to know bout da flippy flop. Some need it some want it, is ah fact oh flyin high and riden low. Where flippy flop is, is where I go.”
“If you’re looking for money or booze, I don’t have any, sorry.” Dan said.
The homeless man looked flustered. “well den I guess you no good to me. I go on and get the flippy floppy somewhere else then, goodbye.” he started to walk away but stopped. He looked as though he had just had an epiphany. “You newly homeless ain’t you’s?”
Dan sat up, “yea, I suppose I am.” he ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the grease that had formed as a result of not taking a shower. “But I’m nothing like you.” he adjusted his tie and brushed his hand over a stain on his button up shirt, to prove the point.
“yea, that’s what they all says. Ain’t not one of um held out fo’ long, pull of the flippity flop too strong.” said the homeless man, “I tell you what, being homeless ain’t so bad you see. We gots ourselves a little commune. Let me take you there, show you what they do. Do, do, do, waka chew waka chew.”
“No thank you.” said Dan, trying to think of a polite way out of the conversation. “I’ll be fine on my own, leave me be.”
Before the homeless man could respond, two police officers came through the turnstyles.
“Alright Barns, it’s nine in the morning, you know I have to kick you out,” one of the officers said.
The homeless man, Barns, started nodding his head franticly. “yes sirs thank ya sirs. Good night of sleep it was. Now I bee on my way.”
“Who’s your friend?” the second cop asked, turning on his flashlight and shooting the beam right into Dan’s eyes. “he looks awfully clean. You been doing drugs have you?”
“No sir, he ain’t been doin no drugs. Just down on his lucks is all.” said Barns.
The cop clicked the flashlight off and put it away. “Right, well either way it is time for you two to move on for the day. You know the rules, we will let you come back down here after midnight if you can’t find another place to go.”
“yes sirs, thank you sirs.” Barns began nodding his head again. It looked mildly odd, with all his facial hair bobbing up and down the way it was.
The two police officers stood there and waited, following both Dan and Barns up the steps to make sure they were really leaving.
The air outside of the subway station was still pretty cold, though not as bad as the night before. At least it smelled fresh Dan figured. It wasn’t long before there was another smell that caught his attention and sent a spike of pain through his body, food. His stomach began to growl.
“Woo diggity, I got my self the ding dong king!”
Dan turned to see Barns, head first and waist deep in a garbage can.
“Come on stranger, I know you wants some of this here vidles.” he said, coming out holding two half eaten hotdogs. “One fo’ me and one fo’ you.”
“Pass.” said Dan, although his grumbling stomach said otherwise. He had no cash, there was no telling when he would find food next. What would it cost him if he were to skip this meal, he wondered. Could he starve?
“you know what is worse than being one of the homeless kind? Being the dead kind. Eat this now and then I take you to the commune. Get ya back on ya feet, then we go find the flippy flop together.”
Dan stood there, not willing to commit, yet afraid of what would happen if he didn’t. Finally, he reached out and took one of the hotdogs from Barns. “Ah, what the hell.” he said and took a bite.
Chapter 3
It took an hour and a half to walk, Barns leading the whole way. When he finally stopped walking they were at the Manhattan bridge. At first everything seemed normal, just an average bridge with cars flying every which way. This proved not to be the case, for when Barns brought them around, underneath, nothing seemed normal at all.
The first word that came to Dan’s mind was Hooverville. An whole village had been erected, spanning the entire shadow at this end of the bridge. Each hut, standing at the most, ten feet tall, was made entirely of garbage. At any given moment Dan assumed he had a thousand brand logos, staring out at him from the walls of the huts. It actually made the place quite colorful, although a lot of the color was now faded from the weather. There was no uniformity to the place, the huts had been thrown up seemingly at random making it feel crowded. Add the homeless people lounging around everywhere and it became so stinky and so dirty that Dan refused to touch anything.
Most of the homeless were gathered in the open areas where garbage cans had been set up with burning fires.
Barns and Dan made their way through the town, Barns seemed to know exactly where they were going.
“Who got the flippy flop?” Barns said as they approached one of the flaming garbage cans.
“Bones!” one of the men heating himself cheered. The guy looked cleaner than the rest, still scrubby but cleaner. It apeared to Dan that this guy must have had a home to go back to at the end of the day.
“fo’ da last time, my name is Barns. I don’t even know no Bones.” Barns said.
“you come looking for a good time? I got some new shit that will send you to the moon Bones.”
Barns shook his head. “Just thought you might got some flippy flop.”
The man pointed to a crate on the ground. It was packed with dirty old milk bottles that were filled with murky water. “Yea, I got what you’re looking for, mixed it up this morning. Today it cost one dollar per jar.”
Barns pulled a crumpled dollar from his pocket and handed it over. The man at the fire bent down and retrieved one of the milk jars. Just when he was beginning to reach out, Barns snatched it from his hands and cradled it to his chest. He immediately twisted the cap off and took a swig.
“eeww that good, that good!” he said.
“And what about you?” asked the man, looking at Dan.
Dan looked down at the crate and wondered what filthy materials that crap had been made out of. There was probably enough toxins in there to kill a small villege. “I think I will pass.”
“Tough costumer, you must be new. Let me guess, just lost everything because of the hard stuff?” he reached into his long trench coat and pulled out a syringe. The liquid inside was green and a red biohazard symbol had been painted into the glass. “this more your style? One dolor and it’s all yours.”
Dan stared at the syringe, wonder what in the hell it was. “Is that some form of acid?”
The man began to laugh, “acid? You think this is acid? Hell no, this is some new shit. I pulled all my strings for a case of this. It came straight from a laboratory. The only reason I’m willing to sell it to you for so cheap is because I don’t know what it does and I want to find out.”
“So you came all the way down here to test it on a homeless person?” Dan asked, “sick fuck.”
“I had to come by here anyway, these people beg all day long so they can have money to buy drugs. Who else is going to sell to them? I provide a public service. Is it a crime that in return I get to test my new products out on them?”
“Yes,” Dan said “there is nothing about what you just said that is not a crime.”
The man by the fire turned away as if he were done talking to Dan. “High and mighty homeless punk, let’s see how you feel after another two weeks on the street. You’ll be begging me to sell to you.”
“I’ll never buy from you, prick.” Dan said.
The man ignored him, instead he looked over at a crowd of homeless people huddling up under a dirty blanket. “First person to stand up gets to go on the trip of a life time.”
The blanket fell to the ground as five people struggled to their feet. They all looked frail and brittle, there was no meat on their bones. The first to make it to his feet was an old man with no hair and no teeth. He was old and wrinkly, wheezing from the effort of standing so fast.
“Come here.” said the drug dealer, pulling the green syringe from his coat.
The toothless man stumbled over, licking his lips and making a wet smacking sound. Dan noted that there was a piss stain on his pants. When he reached the dealer he held out his arm, there was a rubber band that looked to be permanently tied to his bicept. He was covered in tracks, as if he had stuck his arm into a bee hive.
The dealer placed one hand on his elbow and injected the green syringe with the other. “Now sit right here, I want to watch.”
The toothless man did as he was told and sat down Indian style next to the burning garbage can. He sat there for a couple of seconds before laying down and closing his eyes.
“The hurricane is going to hit by tomorrow,” a woman said, coming into the clearing. “I was just in the city and saw it on a television. Reporter said it was a bad one.”
“That not good,” said Barns, pulling the jar away from his mouth and gasping for air. “The commune don’t do so good in no storm dat big. All da buildings fall down.”
“Where are we going to go?” Dan asked.
Barns thought about it for a moment. “Well, I says we go back to the train tunnel. It gots a good roof and it’s warm.”
“Okay, well we should probably head back soon if we want to make it by a decent time.” Dan said.
Before Barns could say anything the drug dealer began to scream. Dan looked over in time to see the toothless man with his mouth on the drug dealers calf. He must have had a tooth in there somewhere because when the drug dealer pulled away there was a huge tare in his pants. Blood poured from the wound.
The drugged man got up to his feet much faster than he had the first time, he also didn’t look winded like he was before. He turned and locked eyes with Dan. Or at least that was what Dan assumed, he couldn’t tell because only the whites of the mans eyes were showing. He looked dead, Dan was so caught up in staring that he was caught off gourd when the man took two steps and tackled him to the ground.
The drugged man bit down onto his shoulder. Dan winced but felt no pain. Where was the blood? A glance into the mans mouth showed one rotten tooth on the far side. As luck would have it, the drugged mans head had been turned at the right angle so Dan received nothing but gum.
Before the drugged man could try again he was ripped off by Barns who shoved him back towards the drug dealer.
“It be time for us to go,” Barns said, helping Dan up. “Let the commune take care of that one.”
Dan didn’t argue, as soon as he got to his feet they were moving, trying to put as much distance between them and the drugged man as possible. For a moment the drugged man seemed to try and follow them, he lost interest quickly and went for somebody else.
By the time they got out of the homeless community they were both breathing decently hard. It had been a long time sense Dan had exercised and he doubted Barns was any better.
They made their way up a steep hill and were met with a heavy wind when they reached the top. Looking up into the swirling dark clouds, the same clouds that had seemed to glare at him from the drugged man’s eyes, Dan knew they had to get to shelter. A storm was coming.
Chapter 4
The wind failed to let up the entire walk back to the city. It took them so much longer to walk back that the sun had gone down and the city lights had begun to spark to life.
Dan was more miserable than he had ever been before. He was cold, his muscles were tired from the effort of walking into the wind, and he was hungry because he had been working his muscles so hard.
If Barns felt the same he did not let on. He just hummed along, muttering an incoherent phrase and taking a swig of his “flippy flop” every so often.
It wasn’t until they entered the city limits that they found any relief. Though it wasn’t much, the buildings blocked a bit of the wind.
“It is so cold, I can’t feel my face.” Dan said when they were a ways into the city.
Barns smiled, showing his dirty teeth. “I can’t feel my face either but it ain’t cause uh no cold,” he said and took another swig.
They were only a few blocks away from where they had slept the night before when barns stopped to check a garbage can.
It wasn’t long before he was waist deep and singing, “one for me, one for you, one for me, one for you, two for me, one for you!”
He came out holding two handfuls of peanut shells. “The left hand is fo’ Dan!”
Dan looked at the nasty handful of dirty, empty, peanut shells, “Oh no the left hand is not for Dan.”
When Barns realized Dan wasn’t going to take the nuts his eyes lit up and he shoved both handfuls in his mouth.
Dan still knew he had to eat something so he checked every garbage can on the way to the subway. In the first garbage can he found a half empty bottle of water. In the second to last can, he found a slice of pizza inside of a closed to-go box.
The pizza was the greatest tasting thing to touch his tongue in what felt like years. Dan savored the taste all the way until they were back down in the piss smelling subway station.
Barns walked over to his bench at the far end of the room and sat down, Dan followed.
“You know something Barns, this wasn’t that bad of a day,” he said.
“Nope, not a bad one to be in at all.”
Dan watched a subway train stop and let off a single passenger before speeding away. The passenger avoided looking in their direction as he scurried along on his way.
“What a pathetic waste of life,” Dan said, “all that time spent working. I mean, come on! They make you slave away all month long and for what? So they can take everything back when the bills come.”
“Who are they?” Barns asked.
Dan shook his head. “I don’t know, society. It’s the whole system Barns. They want you to pay a million dollars to go to a school so you can get a job that requires that education but doesn’t need it. You could be the most qualified person in the world but if you don’t have a degree, you will never get the work. And if you don’t have a degree there is no option for you. The only job you can find is just enough to not get by. The whole thing is insane… hey, can I get a swig of that?”
Barn’s hesitantly handed over the bottle, “Dan, meet the flip flop. It make you see that things ain’t so bad.”
Dan took a swig, it tasted like straight gasoline, he fought the urge to cough it back up. “How did you end up like this Barns, sick of the system like me?”
Barns’s eyes grew wide and he snatched the bottle back. “I was a fire fighter… but da wife killed da kids, said a ghost told her to. I found da bodies and her wid da knife” He turned away and slammed the rest of the bottle.
“Oh,” was all Dan could think to say.
Barns wasn’t much for conversation after that. At first he was just distant, eventually chugging whatever was in the bottle must have caught up with him, because he grew incoherent. Dan decided to let him be and went to his own bench to fall asleep.
Was this better? He asked himself, as he laid there. Hell no, was the answer but what other option did he have? He would not go back into a system that rejected him. He would do something, maybe talk to the drug dealer. No, that was stupid, he would come up with something better in the morning.
His mind was racing, fighting to come up with an explanation of what he would do next. At first it kept him awake, it was entertaining, but eventually he fell asleep anyways.
I didn’t dream at all, he thought when he woke up, that or I am dreaming right now.
In the span of however many hours he had been asleep the entire subway tracks had transformed into a raging river. The rushing water was only inches from the platform where people would wait to get on the train.
“Barns!” He yelled.
Barns snapped awake and stared at the rushing river only thirty feet away. “What in da hale, it’s the Mississippi. Dan, it be time to go!”
He didn’t have to ask Dan twice, they were soon both up and heading for the exit.
When they reached the stairs they were met with more water rushing at them. It was high enough to cover their ankles and forced them to use the railing in order to pull themselves up. Dan went first with Barns close behind, screaming and laughing the whole way up.
“We got ah built in water park Dan! Dan, we gots ah built in water park!”
As soon as Dan reached the top, he was hit with a gust of wind that sent him face first into the pavement. He was momentarily submerged under water, fighting the current as it tried to suck him back into the subway. Barns caught him before he could get washed back down and pulled him to the railing.
“We got to get tah higher ground!” he yelled, trying to be heard against the wind and rain.
Dan nodded in agreement, coughing up the water he had just inhaled.
The rain was coming down sideways, consuming everything in its path. Dan could barely keep his eyes open because the water stung so much. It was cold too, they had only been wet for a few seconds and Dan was already completely numb.
“Stay close!” he yelled as they began slowly moving up the sidewalk.
It was hard work, they had to use the buildings to leverage themselves forward. The wind kept knocking them down, but without the subway creating a current, they were able to get back up and keep going.
They used each other to keep moving, placing one foot in front of the other, Barns in the lead. The rain hit them so fast and hard that it felt like pellets. It cut through them like a knife, soaking them to the bone.
After fighting their way for three blocks Dan was full of despair. As far as he could tell, they were the only two people within sight. There was no one opening doors to let them in, nobody cared about a couple of homeless guys stuck outside. No, it was just them and all the garbage, scattering their way through a hurricane.
Dan stopped when they had reached the fourth block. He had had enough, there was no more playing games, he would not die out in the storm.
He walked up to the entrance of the nearest building. The door and surrounding walls were made out of glass so you could see inside. It was dry in there, and nobody seemed to be at the front desk. When Dan tried to turn the large revolving door it did not budge.
“They don’t want us in there,” yelled Barns, over the storm.
Dan looked around, trying to find something hard. There was a football sized chunk of cement that looked as though it had broken off the curb not to far away, he picked it up. “I don’t really give a fuck what they want Barns,” he said and hurled the chunk of cement into the large window.
In an instant, the world outside and the world inside became one. The window morphed into a maze of crack that buckled under its own weight. The pressure difference from the storm pushed the shards inward so it showered the brown marble floor of the lobby.
What was only seconds ago a scene of peace and serenity, a brown tinted lobby with a flower on the desk, leather sofas and waiting elevators, was no more. Now everything was covered in glass, the flowers were knocked over by the wind and the the sofas soaked by the rain. The storm wasted no time in its efforts to touched everything.
“Come on,” Dan said, stepping through the broken window.
Warm air from the lobby rushed passed them, draining quickly outside.
“We in fo’ a whole heap ah trouble if we stick round here,” said Barns.
Dan had no intentions of turning around now. “Come on.” He walked up to the elevator and pressed the up arrow.
The doors parted. Dan wasn’t sure if there would have been power or not, he was relieved to find out there still was.
The rich atmosphere was beginning to comfort him. He could still feel cold wind from the storm and the noise was defining, but warmer air and music brushed across him from the elevator.
He stepped inside and Barns reluctantly followed. They watched as the doors closed and the sight of chaos was replaced by their own reflections and the music. It was a soft melody, the kind you would here when placed on hold during a phone conversation.
“What floor you plan on goin’?” asked Barns.
“Where else, the pent house,” Dan said and clicked the highest number.
Staring at his own reflection, Dan was surprised to see how tired he looked. He had dark bags under his eyes, his tie hung loose and wet around his neck. The fact that his clothes were sticking to him made his body look frail and weak. Barns on the other hand looked as if he had just emerged from a jungle after being raised by animals his whole life. His eyes were quick and shifty, as if the elevator reminded him too much of a cage. For the first time Dan noticed their height difference, Barns stood a whole head’s length taller.
The elevator chimed and the doors parted, they found themselves staring down a dark hallway. It was not dark from a lack of light, but rather everything was painted black. It was only twenty feet to the end of the hall, where there stood a door with no numbers on it.
Dan walked over to the door and tried to turn the handle, it was locked. There was a rectangle of smoky glass that ran the length of the door, Dan wondered if they couldn’t use that to break their way in.
As he stood there thinking about it, Barns walked up and put his foot through the glass.
“If we gone do it, we might as well do it all da way,” he said, reaching around and unlocking the door from the other side.
“Not bad,” Dan said and gestured him to walk inside. “Not bad at all.”
Chapter 5
“You have got to be shitting me,” Dan said as he saw what was inside.
The place had a one hundred and eighty degree view of the city, with the Empire State building at one end and Rockefeller Center at the other. The entire place revolved around its sunken living room, which sat a foot below the rest of the apartment. If you looked at the place as a whole it was shaped a lot like a mini baseball field, with the sunken living room where the infield would be and the rest of the place, the out field. In the living room everything was white, the carpet, the couches, lamps, even the two hundred inch flat screen TV. The rest of the apartment was wood, the floor, redwood, and the walls, rich mahogany. A step above and overlooking the whole place, the spot where Barns was now standing and glaring like a kid at a candy stood, was the bar. The thing was twenty feet long and every inch of it was covered in alcohol and knick-knacks. It shined in the glow of blue LED lighting.
“It’s… It’s ah miracle!” Barns cheered, “There be enough flippy flop to get us through da rest of our lives.” And with that he dove in, going straight for an expensive bottle of whiskey.
Dan walked over and took a beer out of a small fridge. He popped the cap and soon felt the bliss of sweet release rushing down his throat.
“Ooh! They got pool Dan,” Barns said, rushing over to a pool table at the far end of the room.
Dan followed him, noting that there was also a pin ball machine and dart board at that end of the room. As soon as he got over there Barns shoved a pool stick into his hands.
“I rack, you get first.”
Dan eyed the table, he hadn’t played pool sense he was a kid in his uncles basement. Even so, it was probably like riding a bicycle, you never really forgot. He pulled an expensive looking stick off a rack on the wall and used a small blue square to chalk the tip.
Barns lined up the balls using a triangle shape peace of plastic. He stepped back when he was finished with his work, taking a swig of vodka out of the bottle and looking exited.
Dan lined up the shot, when the cue ball hit at the other end, a stripe went in. Dan made his next shot, but missed the one after that. As it turns out, stripes weren’t working out well for Dan, because the next time it was his turn there was nothing but stripes left on the table. He made only one more shot before Barns sank the eight ball and won.
Dan had the sudden feeling that he had just been hustled.
“Da boys baught one oh deese tables fo’ da whole latter, back in the day,” said Barns.
Before Dan could turn away he was already setting up for another game. This was a challenge that Dan accepted.
Twelve hours, thirty games and twenty beers later, they were both sprawled out on the couches in a drunken daze. Music blared from speakers wired throughout the apartment and an action movie played on the TV.
Dan rolled his head to the side, there was a small jar sitting on the glass coffee table. He reached out, it took two tries before he could successfully grab it. He brought it close and lifted the lid, there was a bunch of white powder inside. A shock ran through Dan’s body as he realized what it was, cocaine…
The surprise had knocked him slightly out of his stupor, he sat up straight. Looking over at Barns he could see the man lying there, drawing invisible pictures with his finger in the air.
Ever so carefully, Dan poured a small line out onto the table, brought his head down and took a large sniff.
The sensation that shot up his nose and through his body, made him fell like a live wire. He fell backwards onto the couch and stretched out, extending his arms and legs as far as they would go. The colors flashing by on the TV, the sound waves bumping through the air, it was all a part of him now.
Dan jumped up and grabbed the darts from the dart board, he threw one and then turned to the pinball machine. Looking back and forth rapidly, he did his best to play them both at the same time, a few darts ended up in the pool table.
He sat down at the pin ball machine when all the darts were gone, watching the ball bounce back and forth, back and forth, and swirling, and swirling.
Everything started to swim together, the spinning clock meant nothing. The sound mixed with the smells, the smells with what he was seeing. He had never done coke before, and it was a pleasure to meet coke’s acquaintance.
When Dan opened his eyes it felt like they were made of sand paper, his mouth was so dry, it was as if he had never touched water in his life.
He was on the couch and looking outside, the storm had passed. The TV was black, except for a few bits of fuzz where the leg of a chair stuck out from the screen. The couch Barns was on the night before had been flipped and Barns was nowhere in sight. There were feathers on everything, it looked as though somebody had ripped apart a pillow.
“Barns,” he called. When he sat up on the couch the room started to spin.
Dan couldn’t hold it, he leaned over and threw up on the carpet.
“What we do?” Barns said, emerging from a back room. “I don’t think that drug was a good idea.”
“You did it to?”
“I did it too? Why you da one who made me do it! I got all happy wid da flip flop and den we do dat and everythang got all crazy like.”
“I did more?” Dan asked.
This made Barns whistle. “Do more? Hell I thought you gone die!” He walked over and grabbed a bottle from the bar, which was now in shambles.
Dan sat there with his head on the couch and closed his eyes, he needed food and beer, that would make him feel better.
“Whew! What id that nasty smell? I think you took a poo in da sink.” Barns said.
When Dan finally got up, he realized he was now in a business suite. It was something expensive too. Without much of a second thought, he loosened his tie and went over to the fridge that was already wide open from the night before.
He pulled out some eggs, cracked a beer and began to cook the best breakfast either of them had had in a long time. Not that it was a great breakfast, anything is better than fishing through a garbage can.
“What we gone do now?” Barns asked as he finished up the last of his plate.
Dan thought for a moment, “well we can’t stay here. The storm is over, people will be coming back.”
“You think the water be gone from the subway?”
Dan highly doubted they could clear all that water so fast. “Not yet, maybe we should go check on the community.”
Barns perked up, “The commune? Yea, we could go share some dis flippy flop with da others!”
There was a box of garbage bags laying in a pile of bottles that had been ripped out from under the sink. Dan picked them up and tossed them to Barns. “Fill one up and we will bring it with us.”
Barns began gathering bottles but not before taking a swig from each to make sure they tasted right.
Dan cracked another beer and went over to the window while he waited. The city looked uncharacteristically calm, it seemed like people had yet to come out from hiding. There was a heavy fog eclipsing the streets. It felt as though the city itself were asleep.
As Dan sipped his beer he wondered where his place was. Right now he was homeless, a vagabond, but it wouldn’t be like that forever. He needed to find his niche, something that could earn an income that he wouldn’t completely despise. He would either find it or die, he thought as he downed the rest of the beer.
By the time Barns was ready to go, the entire garbage bag was jam packed with booze. Dan watched in amazement as the man slung it over his shoulder like some kind of homeless Santa Clause. He fit the part well.
“Okay, I be ready to go.”
Dan was the first to spot it as they started to leave, there was a briefcase propped up against the door. It was your average, everyday working man’s briefcase, made from leather and completed with gold clips. He slid it out of the way with his foot.
“I wouldn’t do dat if I was you,” said Barns.
“And why is that?”
Barns shrugged, “because you said last night, dat dat was da key to all your troubles goin’ away.”
Dan was intrigued, he bent down and unclipped the gold hatch, slamming it back shut once he saw what was inside. When he opened it back up it was all still there, stacks and stacks of hundred dolled bills, all lined up neatly to fill the entire thing.
“There has to be over a million dollars in here, where did this come from?”
“Well,” Barns said, “you was doin’ some snoopin and came out from a room wid it. You was so happy dat you broke da TV wid a chair.”
“Oh,” Dan said, snapping the briefcase shut and standing up. “Right, well what say we haul ass out of here before anybody can stop us?”
“On to da commune!”
Dan found a sudden sense of urgency creeping in. That briefcase held everything he could ever dream of and he wasn’t about to let it get taken away.
Barns lagged behind him as he hurried down the hall and called the elevator. He couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take the city to awaken from the storm. Not yet, he thought, please not yet.
It felt like it took hours for the elevator to get to their floor, though in total it was just over a minute.
Starring at his reflection in the mirror on the way down, he noted how much of a businessman he looked like. The pinstripe suite and shiny shoes, sure his tie was a little loose, it still worked.
What would he do with all that money? The government would surely ask how he got it. Maybe he could keep it under a mattress and only pull it out when he needed it. Small doses, that’s what he would do.
The doors parted to reveal four cops standing around the broken lobby window. They all turned their heads and Dan knew exactly what they saw. A business man and his homeless friend, holding a briefcase and a garbage bag full of stolen liquor.
Chapter 6
“Move out of the elevator and lay on the ground with your hands behind your head!” one of the cops demanded.
Dan and Barns stepped out together, went to their knees and placed their hands behind their heads. Dan placed the briefcase under his chest in an attempt to keep it guarded.
One thought kept running repeatedly through his mind, fuck fuck fuck fuck!
The cops were soon on top of them, kneeling on their backs and putting on handcuffs.
“That sure is tight boy!” Barns said.
Dan watched helplessly as he was picked up and walked farther and farther from the briefcase. He barely heard his miranda rights being read to him, all thoughts were on the police officer picking it up. So far it was safe, the cop carried it along without a second thought.
There were bystanders in the street, taking videos with their phones. Dan tried to keep his head down, to avoid being caught on video. He was partly relieved when the police escorted him into the back of a squad car, he didn’t want to wind up on the news.
He had to keep his head down and shimmy in order to slide in next to barns. Behind them, the cop with the briefcase popped the trunk and put the briefcase in. Dan was mildly comforted knowing it would be riding along in the same car.
“Put it in there,” he murmured, not realizing he had said it out loud.
With Barns and Dan locked in the back, the cops took their time discussing with each. They stood on the glass and roped off the area with yellow tape. They looked tired, as if most of them had been running all morning. Maybe the storm had kept them from sleeping.
Eventually two cops got in the squad car. The car’s radio had been going crazy the whole time they sat there. Men and women shouted numbers back and forth at each other, Dan didn’t know what any of it meant, he assumed there was a fire somewhere.
“Hey, I have to go to the bathroom,” Dan said as they started to pull away from the curb.
The cop in the passenger seat turned his head sideways so he had one eye on them. “The station is five minutes away, you will be able to go to the bathroom there.”
“Thanks.” Dan expected the cop to turn forward, instead he kept staring.
“Did you two think you could get away with this? I mean I have seen a lot of stupid crimes in my day but this one takes the cake.”
Dan felt blood rush to his face, “We were stuck out in the storm. Why should I have any respect for the people who would just as soon let me die?”
This made the cop laugh. “What do you think the shelter is for?”
“We couldn’t get there!”
“That’s why you go before the storm hits, son.”
“Easy to say that now, we thought we would be safe down in a subway station,” Dan said.
“You were down in the subway?” the cop asked, “then you are lucky to be alive, the entire system ended up under water.”
“That’s the whole reason we ended up in the storm,” Dan said.
He was about to suggest that they hadn’t really done anything wrong when the driver slammed on the brakes. “Dispatch, we got a four two four down on the corner of thirty third and ninth. Requesting immediate back up.” His gun was already out of its holster as he got out of the car.
“Hell of a morning so far,” said the passenger cop before following his partner.
Dan stretched out as far as he could, trying to get a look over the hood. From his perspective it looked like a woman was getting a piggyback by a man in the street. Dan didn’t know what a four two four was, but it looked to him like it must be impeding the flow of traffic. That was when the man spun, revealing the other side of his body. There was a huge chunk missing from his neck, blood squirted from the wound and drenched that side of his body. The woman was white as a ghost, blood ringed her lips and seeped from her mouth. She was fighting like a wild animal to get another bite.
The first cop tackled the lady to the ground and wrestled to hold her down. The second cop spoke into a small black object on his shoulder, Dan thought it looked like a Nextel. “We need an ambulance down here!” His voice came jumping through the radio.
The man with the wound staggered, dragging his feet for a moment before collapsing to the ground. The second cop jumped on him and began an attempt to stop the bleeding with his hands. It wasn’t working very well and he was soon up to his elbows in blood.
“Oh, that lady sure is mad,” said Barns.
Dan’s adrenaline was flowing like crazy; sitting still was making him feel itchy. “I wish we could help, I think that guy could die if he doesn’t get to a hospital soon.”
The first cop lost his grip for a second, that was all it took for the lady to sink her teeth into his hand. He cursed as he struggled to keep the woman down and ignore the wound that was now gushing blood.
Both cops were giving their all to keep control of the situation. It didn’t look good, the lady was slowly tiring the first cop out and the injured man had stopped moving.
When the ambulance came whipping around the corner it was like the cavalry in an old war movie. The EMTs poured out of the ambulance, taking over for the second cop so he could help the first.
With two cops, they could get the lady into handcuffs. The second cop had no trouble holding the cuffed lady down allowing the first cop to get his hand wrapped by one of the EMTs.
A second and third police cruiser showed up less than a minute later to help take control of the situation. With the new reinforcements, cop one was able to climb into the ambulance and be whisked away with the injured man.
Even with the handcuffs on, it took two cops to haul the lady into one of the other cruisers. She thrashed, kicked, and chomped at the air like a rabid dog. Dan was thankful they had shoved her in a separate cruiser from his. He didn’t think he could keep from being bitten, being in handcuffs himself.
By the time the cops got back to their cruisers, a good ten minutes had passed. Their cop sat in the driver’s seat, his hands shaking on the steering wheel. The original victim’s blood had been wiped off for the most part, though Dan could still see a red tint in the webbing between his fingers.
Neither Barns nor Dan could think of anything to say so they kept quite. The cop didn’t acknowledge them as he started the car and began to drive. All the while, cops yelled back and forth at each other on the radio.
Dan kept shooting glances to Barns, who kept lifting his eyebrows in response. They were both not used to seeing such violence and it looked like the cop wasn’t either.
The entire drive was disheartening, before it had seemed more lighthearted, now it seemed sullen. When they finally reached their destination, Dan was surprised to see that they were in front of a hospital and not the police station.
The hospital blended in with the rest of the towering buildings that lined the roads. If it weren’t for the giant awning with the words “Emergency” Dan wouldn’t have known it was a hospital at all.
“I’m going to let you two go,” the cop said in a flat voice. “That was not the first attack today, in fact it was only one of many in the past few hours. We have so many of these crazies in custody that the chief wants me to cut you two loose.”
Dan couldn’t believe his luck, he was about to receive a get out of jail free card.
“How many attacks was there?” Barns asked.
The cop sighed, “There was a few here and there all morning. It has gotten worse since people have begun to come out of hiding from the storm, way worse. There has been two hundred recorded attacks since we picked you two up.”
“Two hundred!” Dan said, completely taken back. “Is that bad?”
“Yea, these kinds of attacks are usually not seen, and so brutal. Every attack has involved some form of cannibalism.” He rubbed his eyes and shut off the car. “It sounds like there are more and more attacks being reported every minute, riot patrol is going to have to take control of the situation. You guys watch yourselves today.” he got out of the car and shut the door behind him.
It was then that the window exploded next to Dan. Two bloody hands reached in and grabbed him by the hair, yanking, trying to pull him out. He could feel Barns take hold of his feet, trying to keep him in the car. Dan was in the middle of a vicious game of tug of war, it felt like his ribs were going to split apart.
For a moment Dan saw what was pulling on him, a corpse. It’s skin was pale white and there was a hole in its stomach that you could see clear through. It’s eyes, they were the eyes of the drugged, toothless man at the homeless community.
It was coming in, about to take a chunk out of Dan, like had been done to all those other people.
That drug, Dan thought, this is all because of that drug! The thought only had a moment to sink in before the side of the man’s head exploded.
It’s hands fell away with the body and Barns successfully yanked him to the far side of the car. Dan looked at the cop in time to see him holstering his pistol.
“I got a man down in front of the hospital,” he said to the Nextel on his shoulder.
“Copy that, we are going to need you to hold out there until we can get somebody,” a lady on the radio said.
“Shit!” said the cop. He contemplated for only a moment before coming around and unhandcuffing Dan and Barns.
Dan had to step wide to avoid touching the still body on the ground, brains seemed to be sprayed everywhere.
“Where are you going,” asked Dan when the cop started to walk away.
“I’m going to get my partner.”
Dan took a deep breath, suddenly he felt like he needed to be close to a gun. “We are coming with you.”
Chapter 7
The hospital was in shambles, it was as if they had stepped off of the street and right into a fun house. The first thing they saw when they came through the doors were two nurses and a doctor, trying to tighten the ropes that held a thrashing man to his chair. The man coughed, spit and wheezed as he struggled to free himself.
The place was packed, everybody seemed to have some sort of bite wound or another. They all swayed drunkenly and hunched over in their seats, nobody spoke. An orderly walked into the room, she was pale white and shook like she was frightened for her life.
“Three more bite wounds?” She asked, her voice breaking on the last word.
“No, I am here looking for my partner,” said the cop.
The woman sighed in relief, “his name?”
“Jim Kacewell.”
She thumbed through a clipboard she was holding. When she looked up her eyes were watery. “Fourth floor containment, room four fifty.”
The cop thanked the lady and headed for the elevator, Dan and Barns followed. Looking back, Dan could see a couple EMTs pushing in a uncontrollable girl on a stretcher. She kicked and fought, the strings holding her down were beginning to draw blood. She turned her head towards Dan and snapped her mouth in the air, her grey eyes hungered for him.
“You coming?” asked the cop.
They were in the elevator already, Dan had to hustle to get in before the doors closed.
“Dis ain’t no good,” said Barns as the elevator began to rise. “It look like the hospital be losing control uh da building!”
The cop slammed his hand against the wall, “what the fuck is happening! It’s got to be some form of rabies, or maybe bath salts.”
“You think?” Dan asked, “two hundred attacks seems pretty horrific for a rabies outbreak and I don’t think you can get someone
