Miss Fox screams, and Abby’s voice follows, but I can’t make out what she says.
“All right, Pat. Time to end this,” I say. “I’m going to need that ladder.” I round the van, seeing a twitching hand under the back tires. The man with the hanging mouth has a lot more to worry about than a dislocated jaw.
Pat pushes off of the back of the van sluggishly. He raises his arms out in front of him as if he’s going to hug me instead of tear me apart.
I waste no time.
The hammer is old and used, but like I said, it does the trick. I hit him square in the top of the head, right where it had already split open and exposed red, goopy brains. I don’t hit him with the head of the hammer. No, I hit him with the claw. The points squelch into the soft mess, sending sprays of scarlet mist into my eyes. I do my best to ignore this disgusting side-effect of re-murdering this asshole and nearly pull my arm out of its socket as I try to free up the hammer for another hit.
But I don’t need another hit.
The yellow in his eyes goes a few shades paler, like the last embers of a dying fire.
He drops to his knees with the tool stuck in his head, fresh blood pouring over his face. His throat makes a wet click, and then he falls over on his side, twitching.
I can’t help the sick smile on my face.
The gun goes off once more — a thunder-crack over the blaring alarms.
“Jack!” Abby screams. “Jack!”
Despite falling two stories and almost dying, my body buzzes with adrenaline. I grip the end of the ladder and yank it free from the back, leaning it up against the van, then I climb up to the roof of it. A couple more of the dead have taken an interest in the noises coming from this side of the parking lot.
“Abby, c’mon!” I shout and as I yell — an attempt to broadcast my voice over the sound of the alarm — the Cadillac shuts off. The dead and infected stop their snarls. I look to see them all turn their heads to the sound of my booming voice.
Uh-oh.
Then the gun explodes again, I see the flash from the muzzle, Abby’s shaky arm holding it. A woman falls from the roof, splats about two feet from the hood of the van. Every last one of them (which has to be close to a hundred zombies) looks up at me.
Shit, I think, if that lady landed on the engine, I’d be walking back to Darlene. Gotta hurry up. Gotta save them and go.
If I stand around looking like the world’s biggest idiot, I’ll have bigger problems than a broken car.
The metal of the roof whines as I pull the ladder up to my position. Black paint curls off, revealing bright silver streaks. I stand the ladder up. It doesn’t reach all the way to the top of the building, but it’s only short a couple feet.
“Now!” I shout.
The two women linger for a moment, then kick into gear. Most of the herd atop of the roof turn their attention to Abby, but there are about fifteen feet of space between the nearest one and her — at least as far as I can see.
“Hurry!” I shout. Fifteen feet isn’t much when it comes to a horde of the dead.
I see her tuck the gun into her back pocket, and she goes from her knees to her stomach, then she sticks a foot out to find the first rung. The ladder won’t stand on the metal on its own so I have to hold it, and as I stand here holding it, more dead swarm around the van. Their violent thrusts rock me. The ladder’s bottom screeches against the metal, like nails on a chalkboard.
They moan. They snarl. They reach out to me.
One taps the heel of my shoe, causing me to jump and the ladder to shake.
“Hey, asshole!” Abby screams. “Hold it steady!”
“I’m trying.”
She’s halfway down when Miss Fox follows. I can hear her whimpers over the crowd of the dead. Her foot struggles to find purchase for a second, and I think she might fall. But she doesn’t.
“That’s it!” I say. “Just like that, I got you!”
Abby skips the last three steps and lands on the roof with a hollow thunk. She aims the pistol at a couple of the closest zombies and fires a quick succession of two or three shots — I’m not sure because the noise is so loud right next to me, my brains scramble. I’m too focused on Miss Fox to really notice much of anything else.
“Keep going!” I yell.
Her whimpers turn into a fit of laughter, and the laughter bleeds back into a shriek. I see a pale hand reach out and grab at her salt-and-pepper hair.
“No!” I scream.
But it is too late.
She totters, making the ladder whine even as I hold it, and I can’t be up there holding her hands and down here holding the ladder at the same time.
Miss Fox falls, hitching in mid-air for a split second as the dead man tries to hold on to his potential meal by a fistful of hair.
I hear it rip cleanly from her scalp. It sounds like velcro.
Her fall seems to last forever. During it, I swear she does the sign of the cross. Her body splats on the concrete. A thin mist of blood escapes the bald patch on her head.
She’s not dead, the fall didn’t kill her. I watch her squirm on the ground for a moment. Her leg is bent at an angle that it shouldn’t be bent at. There’s a glitter of white shards in a growing pool of blood around her mouth that can’t be anything but teeth. But, damn it, she’s alive.
I lurch forward to try to save her, not thinking clearly. I’ll do anything to keep her alive.
Thank God for Abby.
She grabs me by the arm with hands that feel like claws.
“No,” she says. “We have to go. It’s too late.” There are tears in her eyes, fresh tears. The look tells me what happens to Miss Fox is not our fault, but I just can’t accept that.
I lunge again, her fingernails digging into me.
“No! Let’s go. We have a car, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“How?” I shout, sweeping my arms over the crowd of the dead. They stare up at us with their hungry yellow eyes, some with fresh blood around their mouths and hands, moaning, groaning.
She aims the gun at the windshield. As Miss Fox’s screams ring the night air. She yells for God. For Jesus to save her. These unanswered prayers amplify as the zombies tear her apart.
I can’t look.
A bullet hammers the glass, starring it. It’s weak enough for me to stomp down, deftly avoiding a few dead hands. It buckles in the middle.
I can’t save Miss Fox because I have to save Darlene. It’s that simple.
The windshield pops out enough for me to wiggle a couple of fingers in between and pry it up. Then it’s completely clear and mostly still intact. I pick it up; it’s heavy, but I’m running on straight adrenaline, I barely notice the straining in my lower back or the fresh cuts and pieces of glass embedded into my skin.
“Go!” I yell. “Get the van moving.”
Abby freezes. “I-I can’t,” she says.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Yes, you can. You have to. I’ll fend them off as best as I can. They won’t even get near you.”
Dead hands beat on the roof like dying fish on a boat.
“You can do it!” I say.
The look on her face turns into a snarl, then she plunges into the van’s open windshield.
I raise the fractured glass and swing it with all my might over her as she slides into the vehicle. A couple of the dead take the hit straight in the face, mutilating any semblance of who they used to be. They’re scalped, basically, and they fall like downed bowling pins.
The next thing I grab is the ladder. I take out about five more with the ladder, though only momentarily.
The gears of the van grind. The jerky movement almost throws me off, and I have to crouch just to keep my balance. Now I’m almost eye level with a man wearing the clothes of a priest. The white collar showing around his neck is dotted with blood. He’s frumpy, too. And maybe a few hours ago, I would’ve recognized him as the one who’d helped lay my mother to rest, but now he’s unrecognizable. His bloody fingernails dig into
the metal of the van like a can opener. I kick him square in the face, and he falls off.
“Sorry,” I say. “No hard feelings.”
The van bumps over a few of the dead, slowing us down. Abby steps on the gas. I lurch forward with the motion, still barely keeping my balance.
“Go! Go!” I shout.
And we do. The van’s headlight — one must have broke as I parked it against the brick front of the building — sweeps over a sea of shambling dead and infected citizens, and we head up the small hill toward the street and the town square beyond.
Twenty-Nine
We break through the pack pretty easily. The van chugs along until we are on the dark road. Trees surround us on one side, the rec center and the high school on the other side.
When the last zombie is well behind us, I tap the roof three times and shout, “Stop!” over the whipping wind.
Abby hears me and slows the van to a crawl. I come through the open windshield, not wanting to risk one of those things grabbing me from the woods, and I’m careful not to slice myself, although my hands are cut pretty deep and have since started to sting like I have a couple of bad paper cuts. I grab my balled-up shirt, shake bits of glass free from the fabric, then put it on.
Abby stares forward at the dark road.
“You okay?” I ask her, and she doesn’t answer immediately. I nudge her with my elbow. There’s blood on her face. I don’t think it’s hers. She looks like she’s been through hell and back, but so do I.
“Yeah,” she says. Her voice is small. “Now what?”
“I save my fiancé,” I answer. That’s all that matters now. Not Pat, Not Ryan. Not Kevin, Isaiah, Earl, or Miss Fox. It’s behind me, now.
We switch spots. I’m in the driver’s seat.
Abby looks at me, tears brimming in her eyes. A series of shuddering sobs shakes her entire body, practically the entire van.
I’ve done it. There I go not caring about anyone else’s feelings, as Darlene has put it so bluntly. Abby has loved ones, too. We’re in this together.
Hesitantly, I stick my hand out to pat her on the back. I’ve never been good at this kind of thing, comforting people. It’s awkward, and really, how can I make her feel comfortable in this mess?
“Abby, what about you? Your mom and dad? I don’t want to just leave — ”
She cuts me off, her voice shaking. “There’s nothing for me here. My mom doesn’t love me. Dad left — ” She looks up at me. “You know, I’ve only met him two times, and the last time I saw him he barely even talked to me. I was eight and his idea of fun was to take me to Home Depot. Me, an eight-year-old girl to the freaking hardware store. Not to Build-A-Bear, not to get ice-cream, or anything fun like that. He gave me fifty cents and said, ‘Go buy yourself some bubblegum, kid. I’ll be by the power tools.’ What kind of asshole does that?”
I just shake my head even though I know exactly the type of asshole who would do it. It’s the type of father Woodhaven is so fond of, the Pat Hubers, the Mr. Cages, the long-lost Ben Jupiter. I don’t say this, there’s no need. “I don’t know,” I say instead. Now’s not the time to have a therapy session, not in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. “What about your mom? Was she sick? Do you think she…turned?”
Abby closes her eyes, a tear rolls down her face. “When I left for work today she wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean anything. She smokes like a chimney, always looks pale and sounds like she’s battling bronchitis. I know she wanted to go to the festival, or at least watch the fireworks from the backyard.” Abby snorts back a burst of laughter. “As if she doesn’t see enough of those when she pops her Vicodin. So, Jack, her current state of health beats me. I’d bet money she’s dead, just as I’d bet money your Darlene is dead, too. Nothing personal, that’s just the way it is.”
I don’t know what to say, and I just stare at her with my mouth slightly open. My heart breaks slowly. I can feel every crack and fracture from its starting point to its end point. That thought was always in the back of my mind. Hell, I saw enough death and chaos at the gym to realize Darlene wouldn’t have a chance on her own. But I’m not going to give up. I love her, damn it. I have to know.
Abby swipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry, it’s just — ”
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“We have a gun. It’s my dad’s old hunting rifle,” she says. And these words are better than any apology. I won’t be able to save Darlene if I’m unarmed. If the motel is anything like the rec center was, then I’ll need a rocket launcher, but a hunting rifle…well, it’s better than nothing.
“Where do you live?”
“Dimlight,” Abby answers.
Perfect. Right on the way to the square.
I shift the van into gear, hearing the steady hum of the engine, its vibrations through the steering wheel, and I drive toward certain death.
Thirty
It’s a straight shot to the town’s square once I turn down East Avenue — maybe about half a mile away. The smartest choice would be for me to go the long way, but the van has started to cough when I drive over thirty miles per hour, and I don’t think it’ll last much longer.
So straight shot it is.
The street is lined with abandoned cars. They’re parked off to the side, two tires on the road, two tires in the ditch. Nice cars, too. The festival brings a lot of out-of-towners in, people who are better off than the fast food and steel mill workers who inhabit Woodhaven. Maybe one of these cars would be a better option, maybe they would run long enough for me to get halfway across the country. Problem is their keys are probably in some dead person’s cargo shorts, and we don’t have time to search for them, nor do I want to.
I’ll keep the van for now.
Abby hasn’t spoken in a few minutes, though I’ll hear her shudder from time to time.
A shadowy figure stumbles onto the road, moving like the ones at the gym.
I slow the car to a crawl. Does this ever end?
The shadowy figure pulls up on our right. It’s a dead man, wearing a “Beat Woodhaven” shirt. There are claw marks across his chest, loose flesh dangling from his chin.
“Even in death,” I say, “Northington people are still assholes.”
This makes Abby chuckle, then she double-takes. “Whoa, I think I know that guy,” she says.
My mouth turns to a thin line. “Where we are going, we’re going to know a lot…of people.” Except they’re not people anymore, no matter how much they may look like it.
Small American flags are stuck in the grass on each side of the street, intermittently hidden between the cars. Their red, white, and blue colors sing in the night.
I stop the van at the crest of the hill that leads directly into the heart of the town.
We stare at the chaos through the wide-open windshield. All of the businesses have their lights on: a Speedway gas station, McDonald’s, a Mexican restaurant whose name I could never pronounce. There’s a handful of fair vendors, too, with signs like: BEST DANG FUNNEL CAKES THIS SIDE OF THE MISSISSIPPI, HOT FRIES!, FRESH-SQUEEZED LEMONADE! There’s even a petting zoo in the middle of the street; the fence keeping in the small animals — goats, mules, pigs, llamas, and more — has long since been destroyed. Some of the animals lie in a pool of red, picked clean, nothing but furry husks of bone. It’s easy to see the crowd of people shambling about, the ones who’ve exhausted all sources of food but are too stupid to move with the rest of the herd that fell upon the recreation center. And believe me, there’s a lot of stupid. This crowd makes the crowd at the gym look like Rhode Island next to Texas. Some of them hunch over the last remnants of their meals, hands digging greedily into some faceless stranger or the remains of an animal. I can’t help but think one of those people is Darlene or my brother. The thought stings, causing me to almost pull over. I can’t, though. I’ve come this far, have to keep going.
“It’s hell,” Abby says. “Hell on earth.”
I can’t hel
p but agree, not saying anything, but nodding. At the end of all of this chaos, shining like a beacon of hope is the Woodhaven Motel sign.
Yeah, we’ll really need Abby’s gun.
“Stop!” Abby says. “There, turn there.”
It’s been so long since my high school bus went this route, I almost forgot where the turn to Abby’s neighborhood was.
The van barks and wheezes with the turn. “You wouldn’t happen to have a better car?”
“Better than this piece of shit?” Abby laughs. “It’s sad, but no, we don’t.”
We laugh together, the thin understanding that nice cars in Woodhaven are like a Leprechaun’s pot o’gold at the end of a rainbow.
I turn down her street, and the smell that wafts through the windows — of burning trash, and factory pollution — assures me I’ve not taken a wrong turn.
Welcome to Dimlight Village.
About two minutes later, I park the van in front of a metal box that dares call itself a trailer. It’s covered in rust and overgrown lichen. A large tree stands to its left, branches hang out over it like suicidal people over a bridge. From a nearby nest on one of the branches, birds sit in a row of three, two of them unload white surprises on the trailer’s facade. It’s so quiet, I can hear the dinging of each one of their droppings like some sort of trailer park theme song. Abby doesn’t notice this, and why should she? She’s probably put up with it for many years. It’s desensitization. But for me, this is a shock. Woodhaven is not the prettiest of places, not rich, not a vacation spot, but I grew up on the other side of the tracks — again, not rich, but better than this. Compared to where I live in Chicago, the trailer park is even more shocking. I’ve forgotten what my hometown was truly like once you take off its cheap makeup and reveal its blemishes.
“Stay here, keep the engine running. I’ll get the gun,” she says.
“You gonna be okay?”
She snorts. “I’m not a child.”
She gets out and bounds up to the trailer door. Like most places around this part of town, the door is locked. I hear her sharp knocks.
The Dead Collection Box Set #1: Jack Zombie Books 1-4 Page 15