Willow told me to, “Lurch a mile in his shoes.”
I reminded her that she’d promised to change the subject.
She said, “I may have lied,” and batted her eyelashes at me coquettishly.
Then Joe asked the group, “Are we just gonna wait for them to break the doors down?”
With the passion of a televangelist Ruben declared, “It is written that the Antichrist’s army will burn in hell.”
One of the women said what I suspect we were all thinking. “You’re full of shit, Ruben.”
“His response, “We’ll lure them into the church and set fire to it,” was met with mumbled skepticism.
“Don’t you get it?” he said. “If it’s written in the bible that the Devil and his army burn in the fires of hell, then that’s what’s gotta happen.”
When a man in the back asked, “We’re not really gonna risk our lives doing what this nut job says, are we?” Willow told him, “I think Ruben may be on to something.”
When the cell phone girl’s mother told Willow, “You’re as crazy as he is,” Willow said, “Come on, you gotta admit, living in Sandy Creek can be hell.”
Ruben asked the group if anyone had a better idea. His question was met with silence, except for Joe who asked him, “And what happens to us when those things pile in here?”
Andre, the town councilman, proposed luring the creatures into the rows of pews. “It’ll slow them down. If we wait in the aisle on the other side of the room we should have time to get around them, and we could set fire to the place on our way out.”
Joe pointed out that if we set fire to the church we’d have nowhere left to hide.
Althea surprised everyone by taking Ruben’s side. “Sorry, Joe, but we’re running out of time, so unless you’ve got something better, I say we go with what Ruben and Andre suggested. And if no one objects, I think Andre should be in charge.”
Althea’s endorsement having settled the debate, Andre asked for volunteers. Someone asked him what they’d have to do.
“We’ll stay behind to get the bonfire in place and light it.”
Willow asked Andre what he wasn’t telling us.
“If people are slow getting out, we’ll have to hold those things back.”
A woman standing behind me muttered, “Only a fool would volunteer for something like that.”
So naturally, I raised my hand. As one of the few adult males in the group, I knew I’d be drafted if I didn’t volunteer. I figured I might as well be a hero if I had to do it anyway, and I thought it might earn me some points with Willow.
After telling me I was nuts, Willow asked, “Did you volunteer just to get away from me?”
When I shook my head, she raised her hand. That earned her some surprised looks but I think people were happy to have volunteers no matter who they were, because it let them off the hook. Andre asked for more volunteers. An awkward silence followed during which most of the people looked away, like high school kids who didn’t want to be called on by their teacher.
Ira Levinson, an early-twenty-something young man sporting an immaculately trimmed beard and a designer suit that showed off his very athletic-looking physique, was the only person to step forward. Including Andre, that made four fools.
Instead of insisting on more volunteers, which is what I would’ve done, Andre addressed the crowd. “If we’re going to hold those things back while you make your escape we’ll need weapons. We can use table legs for clubs, but they’ll be more effective if we make torches out of them. So we’ll need clothing for rags and something combustible to douse them with. So if you’ve got anything combustible, we need it. And we’ll need stuff for the bonfire too.”
Donations included a cigarette lighter and a pocket-sized can of lighter fluid, courtesy of Ruben, and such clothing as wasn’t needed for modesty.
In the midst of our search for stuff to burn, Willow, who had stuck with me like gum on a shoe, asked me a question, one that was an obvious setup. “What do you call a bunch of zombies at work?”
I asked her if she had ever sought professional help.
After blurting out, “A skeleton crew” she laughed uncontrollably.
I told her there were public assistance programs if she couldn’t afford the cost of a psychiatrist.
“Oh, eat me,” she said, then laughed so hard she had trouble getting her breath.
I told her she should whisper if she couldn’t control herself.
“You know,” she said, suddenly very serious, but still much too loud, “you’d be better at this whole Zombie thing if you boned up on them.”
Feigning exasperation, I rolled my eyes at her. Judging from the sounds she was making she was trying not to choke.
For the fire, we collected two long wooden tables, several dozen hymnals, the guest book, and leftover programs for Canfield’s funeral, and the family pictures Canfield’s wife had brought. To force the zombies into the pews, Andre had us overturn the tables and set them to the sides of the doorway before we piled the stuff on them. Later we’d slide them into place to block their exit. And all the while, we had listened to the incessant pounding and strange guttural noises made by the creatures trying to get in.
Working under the possibly erroneous assumption that fire would be an effective weapon against the zombies, Andre gave Ira, Willow, and me each a torch. Then we held a little torch lighting ceremony. Ira stood with Andre and Willow stood next to me, and we waited for everyone to get in place on the other side of the church. My stomach fluttering like a pennant in a windstorm as I wondered if those things would be able to smell us, or sense us, or detect us in some weird zombie sort of way as they stumbled past us.
Willow muttered, “My momma didn’t raise me just to be part of some boneyard banquet.”
Andre took a final look around then flipped the bolt latch that had been holding the doors closed. Taking my cue from him, I pulled our door open, swinging it around to hide Willow and me. Standing very close to Willow I was tempted to get fresh with her, but the guttural slobbering of several dozen zombies lumbering past us took the edge off my desire.
When the sounds of their shuffling feet had moved away from us, I took a chance and peered around the edge of the door. The dreadful things were swarming through the church like a crowd of stoned bargain hunters at a Black Friday sale. If one of them fell down, the ones behind it trampled its carcass. As the downed zombies struggled to get up, they got tangled up with the creatures stumbling over them, creating squirming piles of partially putrefied remains.
When the foul, snarling things were little more than a boney arm’s length away from the people cowering on the far side of the room Andre yelled, “Run.”
The dumb but deadly things attempted to turn around between the pews when they saw their dinners getting away, causing a large creature-jam.
I saw one of the things pull Ruben’s mother down. It ripped a chunk of her loose, chewing on the still partially attached piece of flesh while more of the things fell on her. Ruben shot four or five of them in the head before he ran out of ammunition. By then his mother had almost disappeared under a squirming mass of the things, like a mouse that had stumbled into a nest of snakes.
It was suicidal, but Ruben stayed and beat the things with his empty gun until the corpse of some kid’s grandmother sank its teeth into his arm. Ruben bashed the thing’s face in with his gun, but not before more creatures tore into him. He collapsed after one of them ripped his jugular open with its teeth. We could only watch as the fiends fed on him and the withered flesh of his mother.
The rest of the fleeing mourners made it to the exit. But they made a lot of noise, which got the attention of the zombies that weren’t feasting on Ruben and his mother, and the horde of unholy dead began lumbering toward the exit and us.
As the last mourners made their way out, Andre and Ira and Willow and I slid the two tables piled with flammable debris into a “V” and lit them. Too stupid to go around the fire, the partiall
y decomposed humans amassed on the other side of the pyre. As more of the things came for us, they pressed against the ones nearest the fire, pushing some of them into it, their corpses temporarily smothering the flames, creating paths of gore for the ones behind them. So, although our funeral pyre had become a wall of flames, snarling human remains began stumbling out of the smoke, kicking up sparks as they emerged, looking like Ruben’s Devil’s regiment.
A soldier will fall on barbed wire so his comrades can get over it before the enemy’s machine guns mow them down. The zombies exhibited no such altruism - the ones barbequed in our bonfire were simply pushed into it by the ravenous mob behind them. In fact, I might have had some compassion for the squirming-tangle of toasted carcasses if the foul things had considered me anything more than human sushi. The irony wasn’t lost on me – we’d were about to become raw dinners for well-done diners.
I downed my first zombie by stabbing it with my lit torch and shoving it back against the ones behind it. Dry spots on the shredded remnants of its decayed flesh and rotted clothes burst into flames leaving a slimy mass of molten zombie goo on my torch that looked like melted dark-brown plastic. The flailing, screaming thing stumbled, fell, and was immediately replaced by another.
When I dared glance away, I checked on my fellow volunteers. Willow was struggling but okay. I had stayed close to her so I could keep the toughest looking zombies away from her. As for Ira, fleeting glimpses of a bloody knit shirt were all I saw of him. I hoped he hadn’t suffered much. His demise left just Andre and Willow and I to hold back the swarm of bloodthirsty devils.
Because of the thick putrid smoke rising from the burning zombies, I could barely see Andre, who wasn’t more than ten feet from me. The next time I glanced his way I saw a creature leap on his back. Andre spun around but the dead thing held on, sinking its teeth into his shoulder like a wolf bringing down a deer. When I looked back moments later, two more creatures were on him. I needed to get Willow out of there.
I shoved the zombie impaled on my torch away with my foot. It stumbled backwards, the torch sliding out of its stomach with a sickly, slurping sound. It crashed into the one behind it and both of them staggered backwards into the fire. One burst into flames immediately. It wouldn’t be coming out. With a hungry predatory look on its blackened face, and smelling like burnt meat, the other one lunged at me. I held my torch out. The fiend impaled itself, pressing against the torch so hard I felt something in its stomach burst.
As we struggled, suspended in a terrifying embrace, it growled and gnashed its teeth and dribbled streams of bloody drool on me, and even with my torch embedded deep in its stomach the thing put up a fierce fight. Having a face inches from your own that’s nothing but bone and sinew and dried blood with a few shreds of skin and trying to bite you is terrifying.
When the fight finally went out of the thing and it crumpled like a broken Halloween toy I shoved a pathetic-looking creature away from Willow. I shoved her outside then yanked the door closed behind me.
The people milling about outside the church looked surprised to see us. They asked about Andre and Ira. The bad news started an intense argument among them over what our next move should be.
I took stock of our situation. My clothes were splattered with zombie guts and my hands were slick with the gruesome goo. Every part of my body ached. Worst of all, our comrades who’d died in the fight would soon join the ranks of the reanimated, and I didn’t relish staking them.
The way I saw it we only had two choices. We could stay in our cars and wait for help that might not come. And if we spent the night in our cars, we’d be trapped without food or water if more of those things showed up. Or we could walk the six miles back to town. No telling what we’d find there or how many of those things we’d encounter on the way. And while we walked, we’d have no place to hide or put up a defense.
But for me it was no-brainer because I wanted answers to some big questions, like: is God really at war with the devil, and if so, why here, for Christ’s sake? And what would I have to do to get back in his good graces? And why in hell did I have to meet the girl of my dreams at a time like this?
I knew I wouldn’t find the answers by hiding in my car so I voted for walking back to town. Most of the others wanted to know what was happening elsewhere in the world and voted with me. When they headed toward town, Willow and I walked together at the back of the group. I had hung back hoping it would give us a little privacy. I asked her how she was coping.
She said, “The world’s changed” then grinned and asked me, “You know how I can tell?”
I braced myself for something outlandish. “I give up, Willow. How can you tell the world has changed?”
“Because no one’s going to say ‘bite me’ or ‘eat me’ ever again.”
For the first time in my life, I was able to look a beautiful girl right in the eye, and without even a hint of embarrassment, tell her how I felt. “I really like you, Willow.”
I had walked several feet past her before I realized she’d stopped. When I turned around she was looking at her feet and her head was tipped as though she was lost in thought. Then with a shrug of her slender shoulders, she came, took my hand, and asked me, “What’s a zombie’s favorite rhythm?”
Before I could answer she said, “A deadbeat” then laughed.
Even though a lot of the stuff that had happened that day belonged in the column labeled “Horrible,” the day had ended up in the plus column because I’d met Willow, and as long as she was with me I didn’t much care what we found up ahead.
THE END.
THE LAST RUN by Matthew Howley
Jimmy could see the school down the street. It was dark and raining, but his eyes could picked the large building out easily enough. He jogged over and, half crouched behind a car abandoned in the street, looked between dark brown blood stains on the inside of the window; the occupant, a middle aged woman judging by her clothes, had decided that a bullet was more merciful than what the world had become 3 months ago.
He looked across her but her hand was empty, someone had taken the pistol months ago. Her handbag was upturned and the contents strewn in the footwell of the car, an empty tampon box casually thrown on the seat. Jimmy was still amazed at how the expensive became worthless and useful became priceless now that all anyone had was what they could find. Tampons would trade easily back in quarantine, whoever had gotten their hands on that box would eat well for a good few weeks. He looked down the line of buildings that ran up to the school. He was already late, but he never passed an opportunity to look for something that might be useful.
He ran in his half crouch across the road into a small gap between two buildings. One was a pharmacy, so knew it'd be a waste of time going in. Pharmacies and supermarkets weren't worth the time, they can't have lasted a week after Outbreak.
The other building was an artist studio. He peered in and could see various portraits scattered haphazardly, the easels they'd been propped on laid haphazard across the floor. Stepping through the window, he was careful not to catch himself on the broken shards and crunched glass under his boot whilst he stepped in. Three months ago, he would've been slower, careful to make no noise but there was no Infected here. And if there were? He'd killed enough Infected at this point to know that he could deal with anything that came his way.
The main studio was much as the window had been. Paintings and easels strewn across the floor. Someone had raided the till, unaware that now it was nothing more than paper.
In the back of the shop was a small kitchen, but all the drawers had been pulled out and cupboards were open. He almost missed the stairs leading up, a little 'STAFF ONLY' sign there to deter pre-apocalypse shoppers.
Walking up he could hear a gentle scratch scratch coming from above him. He slipped the shotgun from his shoulder and held it up before him, using the small torch gaffer taped to the barrel to cast a little light on the darkened stairs.
A solitary door stood at the top and as
Jimmy got closer the scratch scratch scratch came quicker. He approached the door, listening for the labored grunting of Infected but heard nothing, just the scratch scratch at the door.
He braced himself. His knuckles were white on the shotgun and his guts seemed to churn as the adrenaline was dumped into his system, mind focused on the door, on the scratching.
A hard kick, with all his bodyweight made the door swing violently on its hinges and bounce back from the wall. As it did, a tortoiseshell cat ran past him on the stairs, almost toppling him as he tried to train the shotgun on it before realising what it was.
“Jesus...” It came out as a whisper as he lowered the muzzle of the weapon and half crouched to catch his breath.
Looking through the door there was a landing and at the far end, he could see a door ajar leading into what looked like a bedroom. He walked the last few stairs, throwing the shotgun back on his shoulder. Another door on the landing led to a small bathroom. He went in and went immediately to the medicine cabinet. A few boxes of painkillers, half a box of amoxicillin. This was worth a small fortune behind the fence. Throwing them into his backpack he suppressed a small smile, a near heart attack was a small price to pay for knowing he'd be able to keep himself and his brother fed for at least a good month.
Nothing else in the bathroom, he left and made his way for the bedroom he'd seen. The door was ajar, but he could see that the bed was wedged against something behind it. He gave the door a gentle push, then pushed harder when it didn't move an inch. He slipped the backpack and shotgun off his shoulders and propped them up against the wall in the hallway.
Taking a tentative peek through the gap, he could see an old big TV face down on the floor. The bed was pushed up against the door but was in disarray, an old quilt thrown in the middle of it in a heap. An open window at the far side of the bedroom let the sounds of the rain wash in, heavier now than it had been. The wardrobe at the end of the room stood open, and Jimmy could make out what looked like an ammo box in the bottom. The smell was pungent and strong, the sweet scent of decay. Jimmy was used to it, everywhere smelled of death outside Quarantine.
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