We have seen a few stragglers as we’ve walked. But before they notice us, we turn the other way or hide behind a stalled car. Mainly, these stragglers walk where they couldn’t seven months ago, where the traffic would’ve flattened them to pancakes in the middle of the road, or where they would’ve at least pissed a lot of people off.
Billy doesn’t see the straggler I see now. He is lost in a pain-induced haze, though he’ll never admit it. I can see it written on his face. It sucks, I know. But he can’t mourn now. One slip up, one second spent looking at your feet, and the next thing you know you’re looking at the turquoise sky while a group of pus-bags rip open your chest and chew on your lungs.
He almost breaks free from the cover of the street corner I am stopped at, but my hand is lightning quick. It grips him on the arm and yanks him back to the shadows. His mouth opens to protest, but I raise a fist like I’m about to strike him. When it comes down to it, Bill is a bully, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time fighting bullies, especially lately. I think he senses this. Sees it in my eyes.
I point to our right with my thumb and with my other hand — no longer holding Billy’s arm — I wiggle my index and middle fingers as if I’m signaling walking. He understands immediately and peeks around the corner.
He opens his mouth and pushes his tongue out as if the air tastes bad. And it kind of does.
“Put this one out of its misery,” he whispers.
“No,” I whisper back. “No sounds, just walk quietly and fast.”
Billy grimaces. He hates listening to me, but I think he knows he has to.
There is a yellow cab parked in the crosswalk, resting on a steady decline with more cars beyond that. In order to get to the next street and to be able to see the gleaming blue sign of Mercy Globe Hospital, we have to get around it. Problem is there’s shards of glass glittering all over the blacktop. Each window of almost every car seems to be punched out. Up ahead, there’s a van on its side, halfway pushed into a storefront, a traffic light lying on top. This particular area of Washington D.C. looks as if it experienced Armageddon in all its glory, but part of me thinks everywhere else is just as bad.
“Mind the glass,” I whisper. “And be quiet.”
Billy rolls his eyes again. “What do you take me for?” he seethes.
Unstable, I want to say but don’t.
So he walks forward, crouched low. He gets to the taxi without causing a sound. I peek around the corner, hearing my pulse in my ears. The zombie stands at the far end of the street in front of a building that looks like it was once an Italian bakery, the bricks charred and covered in soot. I follow after Billy.
“Get down!” he whispers. His voice is rushed.
I spin around to see a group of more dead shambling toward us at the intersection. I don’t think they’ve seen us yet, but they’re closer than I’d like them to be. Billy, now hiding behind the bent door of the cab has nowhere to go. I think about running, just turning tail and taking out the straggler at the end of this street. But I don’t because it wouldn’t get us any closer to the hospital — it would take us out of the way. I dart to the open door.
“C’mon,” Billy whispers.
He crawls into the front seat of the cab, very carefully, and keeps going over the middle console toward the passenger’s side door.
Except he isn’t nimble. One look at this guy and you’d know that. His hip bumps into the car horn. Time freezes as I prepare for the blast, the sound that will ultimately notify the group and the straggler where we are.
Nothing comes.
I exhale a deep breath. Thank God for dead batteries, though where was this luck when we were rappelling down the overpass and the alarm went off?
As the great Kurt Vonnegut once said, “So it goes.”
Billy puts his hand on the passenger’s side doorknob. I stop him, and shake my head. From my vantage point in the driver’s seat, I can see the zombies walking.
I point down. We have to hide in case they see us, and right now this old taxi would be the worst place to die. It still smells like a mixture of rotten sub sandwiches and farts forever trapped in the seat cushions. I don’t want to die here. Hell, I don’t want to die anywhere, but definitely not in this cab. We both scramble down to the floor. We are much too big to be hiding here. My back jingles the keys still in the ignition and I’m careful not to move again as my hands settle into caked dirt and old candy wrappers scattered on the rubber floor mat. The plastic makes an electric crackle.
They move by the open door — not as open as when I crawled in — without ever turning their heads. Through the crack, I watch them, and something strikes me as odd. They don’t walk like any zombies I’ve ever seen. No limping, no gait, no gut-dragging, no gnarled look about them. Sure, they’re covered in blood and dirt, their clothes are raggedy and grungy, hair frazzled and chunky with bits of mud, but they move just like you and me. Smoothly.
Billy must see this, too, because he pokes his head up higher to get a better look out of the dusty back windshield.
Then, as one of the zombies leans in and says something that isn’t a death rattle or a guttural grunt to one of the other zombies, both Billy and I look up, and I all I can think is What the fuck?
Thirty-Seven
Now, we glance at each other.
The zombie who was talking whistles toward the straggler at the end of the road by the ruined bakery. This one puts their hands up and says, “Thought you were never gonna make it!” It’s a female’s voice.
I am totally lost.
“Find out who was making all that noise?” one of the (not) zombies closest to us asks.
The woman by the bakery shakes her head.
“Aw, they’ll show up. But the dumbass blocked the highway with a damn horde.”
They talk in regular voices. Seriously, what the fuck? The sounds carry through the dead streets, echoing off empty buildings and hollow cars.
Billy tries to lean over the backseat, pressing his face up against the smudged partition, and as he does, his boots kick backward. One almost hits me in the face and I hiss, “Watch it.”
He doesn’t apologize, just keeps trying to get closer to see what the hell is going on. I don’t blame him.
The other boot kicks out. This time, not hitting me, but hitting the gearshift. The cab lurches.
Oh, shit. I spin around to try to put it back in park, but it’s too late. We are rolling down the steady decline of the hill. The feeling of weightlessness I never wanted to feel again in my life invades my body.
A red Accord gets larger as we barrel into it. This is not a terrible crash by any means, just busted glass and crunching metal. No flames. No airbags. Nothing like that. Just failure.
We don’t need to put the car in park now. Billy looks at me, his face pale under his red beard.
“Idiot,” I whisper and grab the SIG from its holster.
No sound drifts in from the outside, and neither of us will stick our heads up to see how the people react. It takes what feels like an eternity until they finally say something.
“The fuck was that?” a gruff male voice.
Soles crunching glass, footsteps echoing off the bricks.
“It’s a Ford,” another voice says. “You know how they are, always breaking and shit.”
“Naw, naw, someone’s in there.”
Double shit.
“Food?” the female asks. “Is it food?”
I hope she thinks we’re stray animals or something, and not human. I can’t say she does with much certainty.
“Could be,” the gruff voice says.
Billy and I are hardly breathing.
Outside, a gun cocks. Metallic click-click. That’s okay, we have weapons, too.
The girl starts chanting. It’s almost tribal, and it brings goosebumps up my arms. “Fresh…meat! Fresh…meat! Fresh…meat!”
“Quit it, you’re gonna scare them,” a man says.
Billy looks at me then looks at the door. W
e got to get out of here. I know that, but I don’t want to waste ammo on these people. I have a feeling we’re going to use up plenty of ammo when we get to the hospital.
Here goes my mind thinking toxic thoughts again. A voice whispers in my head and says, If you get to the hospital, Jack.
Billy hits me with what seems to be charade sign language. You know, fingers pointed to the eyes, a tug on the earlobe, two fingers tapping the wrist, and I’m thinking, Sounds like? Two syllables? What the hell? What’s with this universal language I don’t get? Him and Norm would get along well. They could even speak in their indecipherable charade talk.
Get out, he mouths.
No shit, I mouth back, then nod my head to the passenger’s door. If there’s going to be shooting, I’d want the cab between us and them.
Billy rolls over the seat, not gracefully and pops open the door. The hinges squeak out bloody murder and my heart does that weird little thing where it feels like it’s exploding and dropping at the same time.
Doesn’t matter. The cab is crashed, the guns are cocked, and the damage is done.
I climb over the seat just as a shot rips through the air. More glass shatters. I feel the wind whip at my leg. The bullet slams into the car seat, puffs of stuffing and hot leather wheeze out.
“Don’t run, we want to talk to you,” the gruff voice says.
“Fresh…meat! Fresh…meat!”
I get out of the door, leaving the stale air of the cab behind and take in a lungful of death. Billy aims at the man coming toward us, the man with the smoking pistol in his hand. He screams as he pulls the trigger. The shot takes the man in the chest, knocking him down to the ground.
“Fresh — ” another shot cuts her off.
She pulls her own gun free. Her hair is blonde beneath the muck, I don’t know why I notice this, but I do. It makes me think of Darlene, then my mind connects the dots and as I stand there like an idiot just waiting to be shot, I think of dying and how that would kill Darlene.
“Get down!” Billy shouts.
As a bullet whines off the roof of the cab, I do and it misses me, but I’m showered in metal shavings, hot metal shavings.
A barrage of shots hammer into the cab’s body. I’m breathing hard. My body feels iced over. I speak and it doesn’t sound like me. “We gotta run,” I say.
“No shit,” Billy says. “Just let me drop a few more of them.”
“No! We gotta go now.” It’s only a matter of time before the zombies — the real zombies — follow the sounds of the firefight. Then what? Our escape routes will be few and far between.
Billy stands up as more shots sound from the group. He busts off three more. I hear a man scream and as I look up, I see a spray of blood from his arm. Three more people dressed like the dead eye us from the cover of an alleyway.
Now’s a good a time as any. I grab Billy before he can squeeze off another shot and drag him. This time, he goes willingly enough. Because there’s no brother for him to save. There’s only death and destruction and despite the horribly raw look on his face, I think we are both sick of those two things.
Thirty-Eight
We run through another empty street. The quiet is so constant, I can hear their shoes slapping the pavement as they chase us. It’s only a matter of time before they start shooting again. God, save me.
“The alley,” I say, pointing ahead. A crevice between a book store and a five and dime clothing place overflows with garbage. The stench is rotten, almost fresh-rotten, but what choice do we have?
Billy breaks left, me not far behind him and we dive into a pile of papers and wet cardboard boxes.
“Wait ’til they pass,” I say.
“You mean get the jump on them and bury a clip in their spinal cords, right?”
I narrow my eyes at him. Not quite. We can get out of this without killing people. He must see me weighing my options because he says, after a moment, “They shot at us, man. Kill or be killed.” He sounds like Norm.
“Save your ammo for the hospital,” I say.
Billy shakes his head.
The pounding of their shoes grow closer. “Fresh…red…meat, fresh…red…meat, fresh…” the woman chants. Her voice is chilling, almost spooky. Part of me wishes she was a zombie. It would make putting a bullet in her head a lot easier.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” a man says.
Billy’s knuckles are showing bone-white through his flesh as he grips his pistol. I see his finger twitching. He is on the edge, on that last frayed rope of sanity. If the rope snaps, he’s not only going to kill them, but get us killed in the process. I put my hand on his arm. Fire radiates off of him. He’s like a personal human space heater. He spares me one look then looks back ahead at the mouth of the alley.
“Fresh…white…meat, fresh…white…meat,” the girl continues.
Why the change in colors? I shake my head. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand my back against the wall, being cornered and trapped. As I turn around, I see a fire escape.
Billy follows my gaze and shakes his head. Fight, he mouths.
I know where fighting gets you. I would rather not fight if I don’t have to, and right now we have a way out.
“C’mon,” I whisper.
“Fresh…white…meat, fresh…red…meat…”
He’s shaking bad now. I got to get him out of here before he explodes. His face grows redder, beads of sweat dribble down his forehead.
I grit my teeth, the tension too much. Finally, I grab him and pull. We make a little noise, the rustling of old newspapers, the squeak of soles on concrete, but I don’t care. All I care about is getting out of this alley. The walls feel like they’re starting to close in on me, and there’s a group of fucked-up people walking around in zombie guts like it’s the go-to fashion of the apocalypse — we’ve got bigger problems than making too much noise. Yeah, I’ve seen some messed up things, but this is getting closer and closer to taking the cake.
The rungs of the fire escape ladder are not within reach. I have to jump up to grab it and pull it down. Seven months ago that would’ve been a problem. You’re talking to the guy who stands over six feet and couldn’t jump over a box of matches seven months ago. Now, life on the road has whipped me into shape…well, as good of shape as the lame genetics I got from a perpetually frumpy waitress and an absentee father can be in. I spring up. A jackrabbit, practically hearing the boing as my fast-twitch muscle fibers ignite, sending me up through the cold, garbage-filled air. And for a split second, as my breath whooshes from between gritted teeth and my hands close around the black, steel rungs, I am reminded of the last time I climbed a ladder. It was on top of a drug store in Woodhaven, where I discovered Freddy Huber chewing on his girlfriend, and I think it’s really fucking funny how I always end up in the same situations. Running for my life while I’m chased by zombies. Oh well, what can you do?
The fire escape whines as if it’s made completely out of rust. Yeah, I really don’t care about making noise. If things go any more south, we’ll end up making our own type of fireworks anyway, just like Woodhaven.
I scramble up the ladder, Billy quickly behind me. Just as we are crawling over the lip of the building’s roof, someone says, “There they are!” down below.
“Fresh red meat! Fresh red meat!” the woman shrieks.
Okay, that’s enough. Really.
I draw my M16, which has been banging me in the middle of the spine this whole time — if I survive this, then I’m not going to be able to sleep on my back for at least a couple of weeks. But that’s better than being dead.
Three-round burst, ready to fire, one eye closed, the other squinted and looking down the iron sight. I have a good view of all six of them, dressed in their raggedy clothes, the dried blood caked on their faces like some kind of demented mud-mask.
The ghost of Grady’s voice comes into my head from when he taught me about the variety of this weapon’s firing capability.
Use the burst to c
onserve ammo, or something like that. I don’t know, it seems like it happened ages ago.
Fuck that. My finger finds the metal tab and switches the arrow to AUTO just as a shot clips the concrete right in front of me. I don’t even flinch, but Billy is whimpering.
No time for that.
My finger brushes against the cold metal. I hate the tingle it sends through my body, that electric buzz of anticipation, but again, what choice do I have? I can’t roll over and let them kill me. I don’t intend them all to be headshots. My aim isn’t good enough to do that anyway.
Kill or be killed.
I suck in a great burst of breath, steadying my shaking arms. Billy whimpers again. “Jack,” he squeals.
I barely hear him. I’m too focused.
Something pokes into the back of my head. My finger drops from the trigger, the gun slowly follows. Damn it. It’s times like these that I wish I didn’t know what the barrel of a gun felt like against my skull.
We’ve lost.
I blink slowly, the cold wind stinging my eyes. Down below, the shabby group of zombie impersonators walk into the alley, their weapons raised.
“Fresh meat,” the girl squeals.
My stomach roils.
Thirty-Nine
“Move a muscle and your head is going to have a really big hole in it,” a woman says.
“Really? That’s what you came up with — a really big hole?” a man says. “Can’t you be a little more creative than that?”
“Shut up,” the woman says.
“Listen,” I say, “we don’t want any trouble.”
“You found it,” the man grumbles.
Good one. If the guy didn’t have a gun, I’d laugh my ass off at the cheesiness of that action-movie line.
Silence.
Then he continues, his voice a little more cheery. “See? That’s how you gotta do it.”
“Oh, please,” the woman says, “you stole that from a movie or something.”
Exactly, I think.
“Whatever,” the guy answers. The gun shoves into the back of my head, pushing me forward. I’m already off balance enough as it is, crouched like a frog about to jump, so I go over easily enough, the M16 with me.
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