Valley of Death & Zombies Read online

  Valley of Death, Zombie Trailer Park

  by William Bebb

  This novel is dedicated to all my friends and enemies who made me what I am today. With a special thanks to my ex-wife, who taught me the true meaning of horror.

  This novel is a Hands on Productions & Publications, copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Any distribution of this novel without the expressed written permission of the author is illegal and subject to U.S. And International laws. This novel is purely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents described are solely the result of the author's overactive imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual real companies, products, events or people; living, dead, or undead is a coincidence.

  Cover Design Artwork by Hadden Smith IV

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 An Unusual Monday Morning

  Chapter 2 Grandpa & Billy

  Chapter 3 Josey Meets Boris

  Chapter 4 Hopping Down the Bunny Trail

  Chapter 5 The Holy Rollers

  Chapter 6 The Power of Beer & Prayer

  Chapter 7 Maria the Mechanic & Billy's Mission

  Chapter 8 Charlie Farro & A Sign From God

  Chapter 9 Stoned Zombies & Suicide Is Painful

  Chapter 10 Night Moves & Caveat Emptor

  Chapter 11 Tug of War & Skynyrd

  Chapter 12 Captain Wyatt & Calvary Arrives

  Chapter 13 Cha-ka Attack & ICE Left Cold

  Chapter 14 A Dying Dog & Jeremiah's Exit

  Chapter 15 Home Again & To The Dump

  Chapter 16 Cops & Doughnuts

  Chapter 17 Hell's Water Balloon

  Chapter 18 Explanations & Summations

  Closing Thoughts & Thanks.

  A sneak peek of Zombies of All Hallows Evil.

  CHAPTER 1

  Unable to stop yawning Josey pulled his truck off Interstate 40 and drove north. Spitting out a piece of nicotine gum, he yawned again and looked at his steaming cup of coffee. The gum was better than nothing but he looked with true longing at the glove box as he drove in the early predawn darkness. Just gotta make it until noon, then I can have a real cigarette followed by some serious sleep. He thought.

  The next stop would be only the fourth pick up of the morning and yet he already felt exhausted. He reached for the coffee and just as the cup reached his lips a jackrabbit, using that small animal logic that led millions of its predecessors to their untimely end, jumped out of the darkness into the dusty road. It stopped in the right lane of the road and sat on its hind legs, staring in mild curiosity as it was spotlighted by the trucks headlights. In mid sip, Josey noticed the movement and turned the steering wheel sharply in an attempt to not hit the small animal. As the truck began to swerve it jerked and shuddered, causing some of the coffee to spill onto his lap.

  “Son of a bitch!” he yelped, as the coffee burned a tender area that no reasonable man would ever want scalded.

  The jackrabbit noted the bright lights and heard the squeal of the giant tires as the big thing racing toward it began to turn. Its whiskers twitched and its brown eyes widened a bit further but otherwise it remained still. Its only thought was, Should I stay or leap? It didn't use reason or logic, it simply went with instinct.

  Josey sucked through his clenched teeth as hot coffee soaked into his underwear like a sponge. The truck seemed destined to miss the long eared innocent bystander and he sighed in relief that he'd missed it. But the jackrabbit chose an extremely unfortunate moment to take instinct's tragic advice and leapt.

  The sheer size and weight of the truck made the bump almost imperceptible but Josey knew he'd hit it. A wave of nausea and memories overcame him as he hit the brakes and pulled to the side of the deserted road.

  He was standing at the bus stop, waiting to go to school, with his best friend and his dog, a puppy named Black Jack. They had been speculating about whether Sheila Cleveland was stuffing her bra or not when the bus started down the hill. Black Jack never walked them to the bus stop before and never would again, after that morning. The school bus was slowing to stop at the corner when Josey's friend yelled, “No! Black Jack, stop!”

  The puppy ran out in front of the bus, which like a yellow living nightmare on wheels ran over Black Jack. Had it instantly killed the poor dog, Josey would no doubt have less disturbed memories about the accident, but it didn't. The weight and size of the tire crushed the dog flat in the middle, while the head howled and the rear of the dog bled on the pavement. The dog's mid section was flattened and deep tire tread marks were clearly visible in spite of the bloody fur. It hadn't even been his dog yet Josey couldn't help throwing up, as his friend ran home screaming.

  The driver, obviously not hired for to his love of animals, shrugged as he opened the school bus door and said “Shit happens. Let's get going.”

  The feeling never changed with age. A fluttering swirly sickness filled his stomach and his throat felt like it was tightening. Josey Antonio Stack was not the most tenderhearted man but he knew he had to go back to see that it was dead and not laying there suffering in the road. He reached for his crowbar and climbed out of the truck cab. The heavy four foot long rusty rod of metal felt moist from the condensation in the early morning air. He walked back gripping it tightly in both hands feeling his throat constricting even tighter.

  The smell of the giant septic tank on the back of his truck wasn't as bad as it would be in a few hours, once the New Mexico sun began cooking its contents. The truck held a large silvery metal storage tank painted on both sides with a large cartoon skunk sniffing a bouquet of roses. Some people at the office referred to the giant septic tank draining trucks as 'honey wagons' but he never did. It was just a job. A job he didn't really mind doing usually and yet at times like this he wondered how his life ever came to this point.

  Standing in the middle of nowhere, on a deserted road listening to the septic tank contents sloshing around from the sudden unexpected stop, Josey just sighed. He didn't bother holding his breath as he walked to the rear of the truck. Of course, he rarely noticed the aroma anyway. His sense of smell was so bad he usually had to tell by other people’s expressions when he needed a shower. It was just another perk of having driven a septic tank truck for the last three years.

  In the pale predawn Josey saw the lump of fur just a few yards behind the truck. He swallowed hard and walked slowly closer. His hands shook as a part of his mind feared that it would leap up and bite him, giving him some nasty disease maybe even rabies. He held the cold crowbar in his hands but was ready to run back to the cab of his truck, should it attack. In the dim red glow of the taillights and the pale predawn it was hard for him to see the body very well.

  He reached out to poke the furry lump with his crowbar before remembering the small flashlight in his coveralls pocket. Backing up a step he pulled it out and clicked it on. The white light shined on the cold black asphalt as a small bright red stream of blood flowed away from the furry lump.

  But was it still alive? He wondered, aiming the light beam on a mass of pink intestines and fur. He felt his stomach bucking as his breakfast shot out his mouth. His whole body shuddered and shook as he vomited uncontrollably for several agonizing seconds. He turned off the flashlight while he continued to lose h
is breakfast. Some things, like vomiting, are best done in darkness. At least it's not as bad as throwing up drunk, he thought.

  While briefly attending a university before adopting his current profession, Josey knew well the unpleasantness associated with throwing up while drunk. A Toga party hosted by the football boosters was the first and last time he'd ever gotten seriously drunk. He'd spent the afternoon at practice and by the time the coach let the team go the party had already started. Most of the guys went straight to the festivities but the smart ones ate something before they began drinking. Josey wasn't one of the smart ones.

  Growing up in a strict Southern Baptist family he'd been denied an education in alcohol that most of his Methodist friends were privy to. A big time with alcohol when he had been growing up was found by drinking a mixture of cough syrup and ginger ale. It was a nasty excuse for a cocktail, but on the plus side he never minded being home sick with a cold when he was a kid.

  Wearing a large, mostly white, bed sheet with a few stains the origins of which were best not considered Josey made up for a wasted childhood and tried a little bit of everything. The football boosters had set up tables, covered in everything alcoholic he could imagine and not a single cough syrup bottle was in sight. A large glass of white wine, followed by a few shots of tequila, vodka, scotch, and gin, plus several plastic cups of beer from a keg were the last things he remembered about that night.

  Later, he realized drinking vast quantities of different types of alcohol on an empty stomach was not a particularly good idea. The next day, his friend Al showed him a video of his exploits from the night before that he had uploaded to the Internet. Josey didn't remember standing on a table shouting that he was Zeus but the video didn't lie. The color quality was quite impressive as it showed him projectile vomiting on various football booster businessmen who had also attended the toga party.

  Leaning against the rear of the truck, he finished losing his breakfast and wiped his face with a handkerchief. He used the long crowbar to push the dead animal off to the side of the road and walked unsteadily back to the truck cab. Breathing hard, he replaced the crowbar and climbed back inside. After swishing the remaining coffee around in his mouth he spit it back in the cup and poured it out the window. He restarted the engine and drove away trying to think of something, anything, other than the last few minutes.

  ”I tried to miss it. I really did.” He mumbled, as he drove past a closed store and turned off the empty country highway onto a dirt road. The truck rumbled past an old wooden sign rotted with decades of neglect. It had partly fallen over and had the words Albuquerque Springs Trailer Park painted on it. The words were almost impossible to read at a casual glance.

  In fact, it had taken Josey three attempts before he finally discovered that's where the trailer park road was the first time he came for a pickup.

  After two miles, he downshifted and began the steep run into the canyon. Some people referred to it as a valley but to him it always seemed more like a miniature Grand Canyon. From on top of the valley the first rays of the sun had started to peek over the landscape. The sunlight reflected off the trailers below as he wondered how the place managed to stay in business at all. There was room around the valley for maybe a few hundred mobile homes and probably used to be before the new interstate made the old highway nearly deserted. He tried to remember, were there ten or eleven trailers with residents left? Eight or nine trailers were full of illegal immigrants. They came from everywhere. There were people living here from all over South and Central America and Mexico of course. They lived together and saved money to send home to their families. One of the more artistic residents had even made a large sign, painted red, white, and green, then placed it on top of the first trailer. The sign read, Welcome to NEW New Mexico.

  Josey's throat tightened as he spotted another jackrabbit leaping across the steep road ahead and felt that deep heavy pain in his stomach again. Who else was still there? He wondered and reached for another piece of gum. He chewed at the bitter tasting gum wishing he could smoke, but knew it was dangerous in a truck carrying as much natural methane as his did. Glancing at the old tattered piece of paper someone had thoughtfully taped to the dashboard that had the words NO SMOKING he shot it the birdie finger and thought about who else still lived there.

  There was some old guy who was probably retired. He'd seen him using a cane walking a poodle near a bright silver 1960's era trailer with an American flag on a pole out front. The old man had seemed nice enough as they exchanged waves.

  And then there was Mrs. Remlap. He shuddered just thinking about her. She was old, mean, ugly, and just plain rude. She always had a snide comment or sarcastic backhanded compliment for him. He shuddered again remembering he had to see her this morning to pick up a payment for draining the park's septic tank.

  Her house was hard to miss. It sat on the far side of the valley- an ancient two story, termite infested, haunted kind of a house. It always reminded him of that movie with the Bates Motel and some weird guy who dressed like his dead mom. The house was on the other side of the trailer park sitting on a little bluff. Thirty or forty years ago it may have seemed like a mansion, lording over its mobile home residents, but today as he stared at the old house it was at best depressing at worst kind of frightening.

  For an empty trailer park it sure is full of junk, he thought, looking at piles of all kinds of things. There were shopping carts some full of bits of metal that had probably been salvaged, a stack of abandoned cinder blocks, bicycles, rusty barrels, an old Yugo car with a flame paint job running along its sides, and just plain trash scattered everywhere. There were more than a few abandoned trailers, rusting cars, or pieces of cars, and lots of broken appliances. In many ways the whole trailer park looked more like a junkyard than a place people actually lived.

  He noticed the birds while driving the last switch back on the steep road leading into the valley. Never before had he seen so many. The closest trailers, the ones the illegals used, were surrounded by hundreds maybe thousands of the birds. There are some big ones too, he thought.

  Slowing to enter the trailer park gate he saw two old cars nearly blocking the road ahead. He wondered briefly if someone had crashed them together. One was a dark green station wagon, the other a big cargo van and both were older cars with tequila bottles on the dashboard and scattered all around them. The van had part of a utility pole leaning on it's dented roof.

  He stepped on the gas pedal when a man started to get out of the station wagon. Josey didn't want to talk to a drunk first thing in the morning or any other time of the day for that matter. The truck had gone a few hundred yards when he glanced in the rear view mirror and saw behind him several other men standing around the wrecked cars. I hope they don't want a ride into town.

  After another minute, he pulled into the laundry buildings parking lot and flipped on the generator switch for the pumps. Climbing out, he reached for the thick smelly rubber hose and dragged it to the septic tank cap near the dilapidated building. The roof had fallen in from disrepair long ago and Josey only shook his head as he hooked up the hose connections.

  Sheets of paper fluttered in the wind on his clipboard while he looked at them. According to the invoice it'd been three months since the last pickup. After double checking the connections between the hose and truck he flipped on the pump. He'd learned the extremely messy way the need to always double check septic tank hoses. After his probationary period was up, a few years ago, he had felt cocky and confident when it came to his job. Until the Vaughn incident, that is.

  The Vaughn family had a custom built home, that was actually a mansion. It had cost almost a million dollars and everything about it screamed money. They had stables, horses, a pool, and almost twenty acres. The only thing they had gone cheap on was the septic tank system. It had backed up and they called for help. Josey was met by a valet who showed him a back road where his truck wouldn't be as noticeable by the wedding guests. As he climbed out of the truck, he h
eard music and laughter coming from the other side of a concrete wall which surrounded the pool. The Vaughn’s wedding reception was in full swing as Josey ran the hose to their septic tank plug. He heard someone giggle as he started to make the final connections and turned around.

  It was a pair of blonde girls about nineteen years old. They were wearing bikinis that left very little to the imagination and Josey smiled at them. His heart almost stopped when they both smiled back. They asked if he wanted anything to eat, and of course he said yes. Before following them to the pool he flipped the pump switch on.

  A minute later, he was filling a paper plate with food and dancing slightly to the music. Josey didn't immediately hear the screams that began growing in volume all around him. When he turned back to the pool, with a piece of fried chicken in his mouth, there was a spray of human bodily wastes splashing down from the sky. The dozens of guests, many in expensive clothing, were splattered with a foul smelly mixture of septic tank contents. It was a bad day.

  A faulty hose coupler was responsible for the fiasco. Luckily for Josey the owner of the company already hated Jasper Vaughn, head of the Vaughn household, for a variety of previous business disagreements- If not, Josey certainly would have found himself unemployed. As it was he was only lightly reprimanded by the owner who had a hard time keeping a straight face during his lecture.

  The chugging sound of the pumps made him feel strangely better as he closed his eyes and leaned against the big truck's storage tank. It was more than half full and the cool metal felt good on his back. He made a mental note to buy more nicotine gum and gasoline after he left the trailer park. Yawning hugely he thought about getting his lunch out of the truck, but decided to wait since his stomach was still queasy from the earlier rabbit experience. He checked his clipboard and saw he only had three more pickups to do. After that he could go home and sleep the day away. Josey had been draining tanks since a little after midnight that morning but didn’t mind since it was much cooler working at night than in the unrelenting heat of day. A few buzzing flies were attracted to the delicious aroma of the truck's contents and began congregating in greater numbers. He squinted and walked through the growing cloud of flies toward the roofless laundry building.