“She can almost reach me!” Dan cries. “Get me out of here, Thomas! Help me! Make her go away!”
“All right. Don’t worry, Dan, I’ll—”
“Help me! Get me out!”
Thomas studies the window. It’s about four inches too narrow for Dan to squeeze through. The wall around it is brick. Even if he was able to find a hammer and a chisel, it would take him forever to make the hole wider.
Instead, he looks around for something else to use. The woman had a large vegetable garden, and a few garden tools are lying around. Thomas jumps to his feet and goes to grab a rake.
“Help me, Thomas!” Dan cries and grabs him as he returns. “She’s got my foot!”
“Move aside,” Thomas says, forcing the rake past Dan. “And let go of my arm.”
Dan lets go and moves sideways slightly.
Jennie has got a hold of the laces of Dan’s left shoe and is tugging at them. Thomas places the head of the rake against her throat and pushes her backwards. She is forced to let go of Dan’s shoe. She growls, makes no attempt to remove the rake, only groping for Dan’s legs, but now they’re out of reach.
“She … she tipped over a box,” Dan says, breathing fast. “That’s what she’s standing on. I don’t … I don’t think she did it on purpose, it was just luck. Please get me out of here, Thomas.”
“I’m trying,” Thomas says, concentrating on the rake, as Jennie moves from side to side, trying to find a way to reach Dan. “But you’ll have to go the same way as I did: up through the hatch.”
Dan stares out at him. “What about the other zombie? The kid?”
“She’s somewhere in the house, and there are two more. But I don’t think any of them will be in the room with the hatch.”
Jennie jerks sideways, and the rake slips off her neck.
Dan screams as she tips forward, almost grabbing his foot by surprise.
Thomas pulls back the rake, plants it in Jennie’s chest this time, and pushes her back once more. “You need to go for it,” he hisses. “I can’t hold her forever.”
“O … okay.”
“On the count of three, I’ll shove her back so she falls down. You’ll have to jump down and get past her before she can get back up. You ready?”
Dan looks terrified, but Thomas can tell how he mans up. “I’m ready,” he whispers.
“One … two … three!” Thomas thrusts the rake as hard as he can.
Jennie is shoved backwards and falls over. She drags a box of old junk down with her.
“Now, Dan!”
Dan has already crawled to the edge of the closet. He jumps down, and Thomas hears him land on the concrete floor. He gives off a loud, short shriek of pain. Thomas feels his own heart turn to ice.
She got him …
A few seconds of commotion. Jennie snarls. Then Dan appears, making his way through the room towards the hole in the wall. He’s limping on one leg.
“Did she bite you?” Thomas yells.
Dan doesn’t hear him. He’s obviously focused on one thing only: getting out of the room.
Behind him, Jennie appears, as she gets to her feet.
“Hey!” Thomas shouts, banging the top of the closet with the rake. “Hey, Jennie! I’m right here! Look at me!”
Jennie doesn’t even seem to register his voice. She just staggers after Dan, who slips through the wall.
Thomas leaves the rake and gets to his feet. He runs along the outer wall, reaching the window with the red drapes. He knocks on the glass.
A moment later, the drapes are flung aside. Dan fumbles with the hasp. Behind him, the hatch is closed.
“Did she get you?” Thomas yells.
Dan shakes his head, not looking up, sweat pouring down his face. “No, it’s my ankle. I hurt it when I landed.”
Thomas feels a surge of deep relief. For a moment, he sees everything. How they’ll make it. Dan opens the window and climbs out. They shut the window and trap all four zombies in the house. Then they go to the woman in the car and bring her along as they walk up to the highway. They flag down the first passerby and hitch a ride to the police station. That’s how this nightmare will end.
Dan shouts from the other side of the glass: “How do I get this stupid thing open!?”
From the courtyard on the other side of the house comes a shrill scream. Thomas turns his head for a moment, thinking: That was her. I hope she didn’t open the front door.
At that moment, he sees a movement through the window. Behind Dan, the door to the room is pushed open. The small girl with the broken arm, now all covered in blood, comes staggering into the room.
Dan hasn’t noticed her. He’s struggling with the window hasp.
Thomas looks down. “It’s the old-fashioned kind. You have to hold it out and then push.”
Dan seems to sense something behind him. He turns around and screams. The girl is slowly making her way around the bed. Her pale, fishlike eyes are fixed on Dan.
“Come on!” Thomas shouts and slaps a hand on the glass. “Concentrate!”
Dan wrenches his eyes off the girl and turns his attention towards the window. This time, he does it right, and the window opens. Thomas pulls it and lifts it up all the way. “Get out! Quick!”
Dan throws himself out the window. The girl is only a few steps away when he lands on the grass. Thomas lets go of the window, and it slams shut. The girl presses her face up against the glass, instantly covering it in sticky red blood.
Thomas steps back. He can’t lock the window from this side, but the window is quite heavy, and the girl isn’t strong enough to push it open.
He gives off a sigh of relief. “I think we’re good. She can’t get out this way.”
He turns to look at Dan, who has crawled to a safe distance from the window. Now he’s sitting on the grass, looking around in disbelief. “I’m out … I’m out!”
“You all right?” Thomas asks. “Sure Jennie didn’t scratch you?”
Dan checks both his legs. Then he shakes his head. “I’m good. But my ankle—”
He is interrupted by a second scream from the courtyard.
THIRTEEN
Dan looks up at him in alarm. “Who’s that?”
Thomas wastes no time explaining. “Stay here. Keep an eye on the window.” He spins around and runs back around the house. As he gets to the courtyard, he stops. It takes him a moment to understand what’s going on and how it happened.
The dark man must have gotten the front door open somehow, because he’s making his way across the courtyard. The redheaded woman has left the car—probably in order to try and talk to her husband. If that was her reason, though, she seems to have gotten second thoughts, because she’s backing away from him, an expression of pure terror painted on her face, her eyes wide and her lips moving. The whispering words reach Thomas’s ears.
“It’s me, Janjak … It’s me, babe …”
Her late husband is staggering towards her, arms outstretched, eager at the sight of its first, easy meal almost within reach. The woman bumps into the hood of the car. Instead of stepping sideways, she just stops and stares.
“It’s me, Janjak … Don’t you recognize me?”
“He doesn’t understand you!” Thomas roars. “Get out of the fucking way!”
The woman only reacts by blinking fast twice. She doesn’t move and she doesn’t take her eyes off the zombie, which is only a few paces away now.
Thomas has no other choice. He runs straight at the zombie and hits it with a perfect shoulder tackle. The dark man tumbles over and rolls around in the gravel.
The woman is finally able to take her eyes off her husband and instead looks at Thomas like a sleepwalker who just woke up. “He was … he was …”
“That’s right, he was going to fucking eat you! Glad you finally caught on!” Thomas grabs her by the arm and pulls her to the passenger site. “Get in! Hurry! And lock the damn door.”
She follows his order with dreamy movements. Just as s
he manages to hit the lock, the zombie gets back on its feet. Most of its guts seem to have spilled out of the hole in its stomach as it went sprawling, and are now dragging behind it like a bunch of bloody ropes, the gravel sticking to them.
Thomas feels the nausea rising to his throat, but he manages to force it back down. He backs away from the car. The zombie reaches out its arms, moans, then steps in its own intestines, trips and falls onto the hood of the car.
Inside, the woman screams.
The zombie gracefully slides off the car and dives back down into the gravel.
That gives Thomas a few seconds to think.
Gotta get him back into the house somehow. Can’t risk him getting away.
He goes around the car and positions himself between the front door and the zombie struggling to get back up for the second time. As soon as it succeeds, it sees him and comes at him with a hungry growl.
Thomas backs up towards the house. The zombie follows along.
“That’s right,” he mutters. “Come on.”
His plan is simple. As soon as he’s back inside the house with the zombie, he’ll lure it out into the kitchen. There he can run around the table and get back out to the front door, closing it behind himself and trapping the zombie in the house.
They’re almost at the door now. “Come with me,” Thomas whispers. “There’s a good boy.”
From the car, the woman screams again. She also bangs the windows and waves frantically.
“What?” Thomas yells.
Then he picks up the sound of gravel crunching right behind him. He whirls around and is face to face with the old woman just as she lunges at him. Thomas catches her arms clumsily, stumbles backwards, slips in the gravel and almost falls down. Her nails are clawing the air right above his face. He narrowly avoids her mouth as she snaps at his chin. He regains his balance and shoves her backwards, causing her to fall over, just as another hand grabs his shoulder and someone hisses right into his ear. Thomas turns his head just in time to see the open mouth. Less than a split second before the dark man bites his neck open, Thomas throws himself to the side. But the zombie has a firm grip on his shirt, so it follows along, trips him and lands on top of him. Thomas kicks wildly to get it off, feeling the dark hands groping eagerly all over his shirt, trying to rip through the fabric, searching for the skin.
Thomas goes into blind panic. He kicks, punches and writhes uncontrollably. In a stroke of luck, he manages to throw off the black guy. He crawls backwards, panting, the zombie immediately crawling after, reaching for him.
A movement next to him. The woman is back on her feet. She’s bending down to grab him, mouth open wide, her frame blocking out the sun.
Thomas screams.
Then, the zombie lady is abruptly jerked backwards.
Thomas catches a glimpse of Dan tugging at the woman’s ponytail. He gives her another hard yank which sends her sprawling to the gravel.
Dan yells something, but all Thomas can hear is his own throbbing pulse. He gets up. Both zombies are also getting to their feet. Out from the doorway Thomas sees another figure coming. It’s the girl who finally found her way out of the house.
It’s too late, he thinks, his thoughts sounding oddly distant. There are too many. We can’t get them back in the house.
Dan is still shouting. Thomas looks at him, dazed. A word makes it through.
“… car! …”
Thomas staggers towards the car, Dan on his tail, jumping on one leg. The boys open the doors on either side and crawl in. Thomas hits the central locking.
The sound of the lock snapping somehow brings back Thomas’s hearing. His own wheezing breath, Dan’s gasping sobs, the growling of the zombies outside.
“Holy fuck,” Thomas mutters. “I really thought I was done.”
Dan looks at him. “Are you unharmed?”
Thomas lifts up his T-shirt. “You tell me.”
“I don’t see any scratches.”
“I guess I’ll live then.”
A thud, as the black man bumps against the window next to Thomas. The girl staggers to Dan’s side. The zombies start making futile attempts to push through the windows.
“Shouldn’t we get out of here?” Dan asks.
“We can’t. Car’s out of gas. And she doesn’t have a key.” He looks to the car with the redheaded woman, where the zombie lady is standing.
Dan gives off an exhausted noise. “You’re kidding me! So we’re still trapped?”
Thomas nods grimly. “Looks like it.”
FOURTEEN
The clock in the car tells them it’s almost nine. Thomas can’t believe they’ve been here for nine whole hours.
The zombies are waiting patiently right outside. Snarling, snapping their teeth and groping the windows. Thomas tries not to look at them, but it’s hard, considering how their empty eyes seem to devour him alive.
At least the sun has disappeared behind the house, leaving the courtyard in a pleasantly cool shade. Yet the inside of the car is still warm, and Thomas is sweating.
Dan has pulled off his sock, revealing a swollen ankle.
“How’s it doing?” Thomas says, pointing.
“It’s sprained,” Dan mutters. “I did it once before, when I was skiing.”
“So you can’t walk?”
Dan shakes his head.
Thomas glances out at the nearest zombie. “I guess I’m the lucky one who gets to go for help, then.”
“You think that’s a good idea? Wouldn’t it be better to wait for someone to come along?”
“It could be days.”
Dan shrugs. “Someone’s got to be wondering where we are!”
“Who would that be? I haven’t spoken to my dad for months. And your parents are on holiday.”
“Yeah, but Mom will probably call me or Jennie tonight; she usually does.”
“And what then? I mean, when you don’t pick up? You figure she’ll go straight to the police?”
Dan hesitates. “Probably not. She’ll probably try to call us again tomorrow.”
“And when she does, and she still can’t reach you, then she just might call the police, and that’s great. Except the police have no idea where we are. If they come looking for us, they might find my car missing. And even if someone tells them about the paper route, this house was one of the last stops, which means they’ll have to make a lot of house calls before reaching this place.” Thomas shakes his head. “By that time we’ll be long dead from thirst. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I don’t see any other way; I need to make a run for it.”
“I guess you’re right.” Dan squints his eyes. “I’m so thirsty. I feel dizzy. You sure you don’t have anything to drink?”
“Nah, I already told you—” Thomas suddenly lights up. “Holy shit, wait a minute … I just might …” He turns around and crawls to the backseat, checking the trunk. His heart leaps at the sight of the canned sodas. Out of the entire box, only three of them are missing. He grabs one and hands it to Dan. “Here you go. Sorry it’s not cold.”
Dan takes the can as though it is life itself. He opens it and drinks greedily.
Thomas grabs another three cans and crawls back over behind the wheel.
Dan burps and drops the empty can to the floor. “Another one,” he groans.
“I think you’d better pace yourself,” Thomas says, handing him another can nonetheless. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to drink too much too fast when you’ve been thirsting for …”
But Dan has already opened the can and is pouring the Coke down his throat. And Thomas can’t blame him. His own hands are shaking as he opens the can. He closes his eyes and lets the sweet, warm liquid flow down his throat. It prickles wonderfully. He sighs deeply. “That’s got to be the best Coke I’ve ever had.”
Dan burps wetly and laughs. Thomas can’t tell if the tears in Dan’s eyes are caused by relief or carbon dioxide.
“How many you got back there?”
“Almo
st an entire box.”
“That means we can survive for days. You don’t need to go out there anyway!”
Thomas becomes conscious of the zombies once again. Not that he ever forgot about them. But their moaning, hungry noises suddenly seize his attention. He looks out, past the black guy, over at the other car. There are about ten feet between the cars. He can’t see the woman inside, which means she’s probably lying down. The zombie woman is faithfully standing guard by the rear door.
“She’s probably thirsty,” Dan says, guessing what Thomas is thinking.
“I’ll try and call her.” He puts his hands to the window and shouts: “Hey!”
The red hair of the woman appears. She looks over at them.
Thomas holds up a can.
The woman shows him a large bottle of water.
He sends her a thumbs-up. “She’ll be all right. Good thing, ’cause I don’t really see how we would get a soda over there anyway.”
“Who is she?”
“She didn’t tell me her name, but she was married to that guy.” Thomas taps the window, and the black guy attempts to bite his finger, but manages only to drench the glass in saliva. “The old hack was her mother-in-law. Oh, and she’s not a witch, by the way. The old woman, I mean.”
“No?”
“Nope, she was into voodoo.”
Dan gazes out the front window, looking thoughtful. “Well, that makes sense.”
“What?”
“Voodoo originated in Haiti. We learned about it in school. That’s where the zombie myth came from. Did you know that?”
“I had no idea.”
“There have been several accounts of voodoo priests waking up dead people.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s only rumors, of course. But the voodoo people believe something about the human soul being split in two. One part keeps the body alive, and the other one is our personality and thoughts and stuff like that. So, in theory, the body can live on, even if the other part of the soul dies. You’re just …” Dan searches for the right word.
“Braindead?” Thomas suggests.
“No, not quite. You’re a body completely without a brain. Without anything of that which made you a human.” Dan sips his Coke. “It can’t happen naturally; it requires someone to mess with the forces of nature.”
Dead Meat (Book 1): Dead Meat [Day 1] Page 5