by Levi Doone
I hold mine in my fist, blade pointing up.
Rudy cracks a half smile. “That’s good for dicing some tomatoes, but this ain’t cooking class.” He shows me to hold it blade down opposite my thumb. He then pulls another knife from his belt and walks up to a Zeb, sticking the knife deep into its eye socket. The entire blade sinks in the thing’s skull. “You gotta kill the brain. Make sure you jam it deep enough.” He then yanks out the blade in one quick jerk. “Lea, give it a try.”
Oh man, I don’t want to do this. I walk to the next corpse and raise the bayonet to the dead thing’s left eyeball and stare at it. “Come on, stupid. Do it,” I say to myself. This is humiliating. I once again freeze in place, petrified by looking at a harmless undead that’s dead.
“Lea, it won’t hurt you. Just stick him.” Rudy sounds annoyed.
“I can’t do it. It’s just gross.” I lower my arm. “I’d not be right in the head if this stuff didn’t bother me. Just two days ago, I was texting my friends and watching TV, and just like that, I’m supposed to become this great threat to zombie-kind?”
“You only have two choices now: live or die.”
I take a deep breath. “I know you’re right. It’s just hard for me.” I raise my blade again and shove it toward the eyeball but stop an inch or so from my target. I hold it there for a moment, when the blade shoots into the eye. My hand holds it, but I didn’t do it. Rudy stands behind. He hit the handle of the bayonet as I hesitated. The noise it made was like a foot sticking in mud. Gross. I let go of the blade and back into Rudy.
“Don’t stop now! Get up there and pull it out! Finish the job!”
My teeth clench and my head heats like a kettle ready to burst steam. I feel like punching Rudy in the head. This I know I could do without any problem so long as he keeps yelling at me.
I think he reads the anger on my face and knows I’ve had it. He reaches over me and grabs the bayonet to pull it out. It makes an awful sucking sound. That along with the orangey congealed blood and a dead corpse missing most of both eyes makes my stomach turn, and I begin to feel not so great. Like lightheaded not so great.
Rudy’s talking to me, explaining something about the training exercise, when the ground starts to move and I collapse at Rudy’s boots, releasing my fruity breakfast all over them. If I didn’t feel so sick, I’d laugh. Wish I can see his face. I’m impressed he doesn’t move away, kicking puke off his boots. He just stays there like nothing happened.
After breakfast exits my gut and I heave a few more times, Rudy says, “If you’re done, get up and try it again.”
I clench my fists, pulling dust and dirt into them. All right, now he’s going to get it. Who the heck does he think he is anyway? I don’t remember signing up for any of this!
I slowly rise from the ground, thinking of how I’m going to rip into this guy. When I stand, I put my face into his… and see a look of concern. It just defuses my entire mood.
“Look, Lea, I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you. It’s not for me because I’ve been hunting, skinning, and eating animals for years with my dad. Taking out a Zeb is easy for me. You just have to find it in yourself to do these things. I want you to survive this crap.”
“I know. Luke used to kill spiders for me back home. Killing things isn’t something I really do, at all.”
“It shouldn’t be anybody’s thing. It’s just a task that needs to be learned. You need to become desensitized from Zebs, and then you’ll be able to do it all. I’m sure of it.” He then looks toward Maria and Guille. “You guys ready to give this a try?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think I can reach the eyes,” Maria says.
“That’s where Guille comes in. The two of you need to work together to be able to take one of these things down. For example, Maria gets the Zebs attention and Guille whacks its legs out from under him. When it gets to the ground, Maria stabs him.
“For now, I just want Maria to know she can do it.” Rudy walks to the patio and picks up a lawn chair, placing it in front of a fresh zombie. “All right, step on up and give it a try.”
Maria holds her knife the way she was taught, walks up, climbs on the chair, and stabs the Ka-BAR straight into the right eyeball socket without any hesitation whatsoever. The knife is in halfway.
“Excellent! Now get down and, Guille, batter up!” Rudy pulls the chair out of the way once Maria’s on solid ground. I feel about the size of a mouse.
Guille walks up with the bat, and Rudy instructs, “Smack that Ka-BAR in the rest of the way.”
“No problem.” Guille goes to town on the corpse’s head. He hammers in the knife with about every other swing. When he misses, he hits the jaw or forehead and the nose once, until the knife is in all the way.
“Okay, okay, great job!” Rudy has to put a hand on Guille’s shoulder to stop him. Great, now I feel like an ant. The kids pass with flying colors, and I yacked on Rudy’s boots.
Maria comes over to me. “It’s like when you dissect frogs and things at school, just something you have to do.”
That doesn’t make me feel any better, especially seeing as how I dissected a virtual frog on the computer and it still made me sick. I turn and start to walk back to the house. I need to get away from here.
“Hey!” I turn to see Rudy running toward me. “Lea, forget about this. We all have different talents here, and when the time comes, I’m sure you’ll impress us all.”
“Yeah right.” The truth is I don’t want to ever have to kill or fight anything alive or undead. I may be afraid of zombies, but I don’t feel hatred toward them. I can’t even feel anger or malice. All I feel is fear. Besides, what if I break that barrier that keeps me from killing? What will I become? What’s the difference between killing a zombie and killing a human? We’ve lost so much already. I’d like to keep who I am, but if I refuse to kill or I’m simply unable to and that gets someone else killed, how could I ever live with myself?
So here’s Rudy in front of me. Someone I need to get me to my brother. He’s also someone I like a lot, and he’s also someone I want respect from. What should I say to him to make him want to help me? If I were him, I’d dump me and go find others to survive with. “Rudy, I’m sorry, and I don’t blame you if you want to leave me and go make a better group for surviving this hell.”
He looks at me with eyes that show a caring I haven’t seen in him before. “Lea, you and Guille and Maria are my group, and I’m not going anywhere. You need to understand loyalty to each other is all we have now, and that’s worth more than gold in this new world. People are the new commodity.”
He breaks eye contact as sadness fills them. “As crazy as my dad was, that’s the one thing he taught me as the most important survival skill. No one can do this alone and everybody you find has a talent. The most important thing, regardless of talent, is trust. We’ve just met, and I trust you with my life.”
He looks back at me and now there’s something else in those beautiful eyes. Now you can call this wishful thinking, but I swear I see that look in my brother’s eyes when he’s with Chloe. “We all stay together and we all survive together. You’ll do what it takes for the group even though you don’t think you will, and we’ll find your brother with his girlfriend, and we’ll go to my house where we can live and take in other survivors. Where we can grow as a new community with others we can trust.”
Maria and Guille stand beside Rudy now, and Maria says, “Yes, we’re family now no matter what.”
My eyes get a little blurry, and all I can say without blubbering is, “Thanks, guys.”
Chapter Fourteen
I rummage through the master bedroom closet, searching for shoes. I’m sick of being barefoot. My feet are sore and cut up. Before we start on our journey, I need to have them covered. All the shoes are two sizes two big and inappropriate. I mean, heels aren’t going to cut it. I do find an old pair of women’s winter boots, so I lace them up and decide these are my best bet for now.
I go downstai
rs and out the door to meet up with everyone else waiting for me in the driveway. Rudy sees me coming, so he pulls on his backpack and says, “Nice boots. Expecting snow?”
“Funny. They’ll probably help with all the slippery dust.”
“Where’s the bayonet?”
“Back pocket.” I swing my butt around to show him the blade in its sheath. “The belts upstairs are all way too big.”
“All right, just don’t lose it. You’re gonna need it. Let’s go.” Rudy turns to the woods and starts walking, Bruno running ahead. I follow close to Rudy, feeling safer next to him. Maria’s beside me, holding her knife in its sheath, and Guille brings up the rear, the bat resting on his shoulder.
We walk through the brush, leaves, and dust. The boots are loose, but feel better than nothing.
We’re quiet in the forest. All of us keeping a lookout for anything dead. It’s a beautiful, hot, clear autumn day, perfect for being hunted by the undead.
No one talks as we walk, and the unusual silence in the woods starts to creep me out. “Pretty still out here, huh?”
Rudy scans the area while walking, “Yeah, be thankful for that. Zebs are probably busy going after other prey. Hopefully we don’t wander into a large group of them.”
It only takes a few minutes to shatter my hopes of a zombie-free hike when Guille yells, “Right side!” There are five Zebs stumbling toward us, making their hissing and moaning sounds. My gut jumps into my throat. Bruno growls.
“‘Kay, guys,” Rudy squats and drops his pack, “I’ll hit them straight on. Lea, run out and arc around to their left and take out the first one you come to. Maria and Guille, run the opposite way and attack on the right. Maria, remember to get their attention for Guille to knock them down. Go!” Rudy draws his sword and runs for the undead group with Bruno close behind and barking.
Feeling numb with worry, I do what Rudy ordered. I don’t run very fast. A hesitated trot would best describe my pathetic execution. I look and see that Rudy hits the first zombie with his sword and takes its head clean off.
I slide out my bayonet and find the Zeb I need to handle. It was a small girl. Probably around ten years old. I pick up a little speed, trying not to think, just do what I need to do. I’m about ten feet from it when the thing turns and gives me that horrifying dead stare. I slow drastically as my stomach sinks and give it a pitiful slash across its forehead. I then slide and fall backward on my butt. I scamper back until my neck and shoulders hit a tree.
The little zombie stays on me, falls to its knees, and grabs my foot. I kick franticly, but it has a solid grip. I feel the undead creature’s hand tighten on my ankle. Its mouth opens as it prepares to take a bite out of my leg. I close my eyes and ready myself for the pain.
A second goes by and I don’t feel anything. I open one eye and see the beast has a blade protruding from its forehead. The zombie drops, and I see Rudy.
He pulls his sword out of the creature’s head, wipes it clean on the zombie’s blouse, and puts it back into its scabbard. He then squats beside me and holds my hand that still clings to the bayonet. “You see, lea. You’re improving already. You didn’t drop your weapon, and it looks like you got a piece of ‘em.”
“What about Maria and Guille? Go help them!”
Rudy laughs, “Help them? They don’t need any help. They took apart that Zeb.”
Great, looks like once again I’m the only pathetic one who needs help. I can’t even hold my own against a child Zeb.
Rudy must read the expression on my face and says, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get it. Hey, you didn’t freeze this time. You reacted. Besides, I don’t think Maria knows how to be afraid.”
“Yeah.” I’m a looser.
Rudy helps me up, checking me out to make sure I’m not hurt. On wobbly legs, I check on the younger ones. Maria’s wheezing a little, but she insists she’s fine.
So we continue.
Chapter Fifteen
We haven’t walked long when we start to see houses. We’ve tried to avoid neighborhoods until it became impossible to do so.
Rudy crouches beside a large tree and motions for us to gather in close. We huddle around him. “Okay, guys, I’m thinking we need to get a car. It’ll be safer if we get attacked, and we’ll get to Luke a lot quicker. I’m going into this house. I’ll handle any Zeb inhabitants, and you guys look for keys.”
Rudy slides his sword out of its sheath as he walks to the back door of a two-story house. We follow close behind. He checks the doorknob and it’s locked. He takes a step back and kicks it in. The loud splintering smash jolts me and probably any undead creatures within earshot.
We run into the house and quickly find the car keys on the kitchen counter. I hear Bruno barking in the living room, so I go to check out what he may have found. Bruno’s on a chair, barking at something outside.
“Shh, quiet down.” I look out the front window and see just what I fear. Zombies on the lawn and many more in the street, all coming for the house we’re in. There must be a hundred at least. I yell, “We gotta go quick, but not out the front! They’re everywhere out here!”
I hear the sound of a car starting and revving. It comes from an open door in the kitchen that leads to a garage. “Come on!” Rudy yells from inside an SUV.
We all pile in, and Rudy says, “Hang on!” He hits the gas pedal and the SUV shoots through the garage door, carrying it halfway down the driveway before it falls off the car. Zombies are all around us, and I’m glad to be in a vehicle rather than out there unprotected.
Rudy tries to avoid hitting them, but that’s impossible. The car jerks with every thump of a Zeb body. The kids and I are being flung around inside the SUV like rag dolls. I try to manage a seatbelt around my waist, when Rudy says, “Don’t! We may have to ditch this quick! You don’t want to be trapped in this hunk of metal! Just do your best to hold on!”
We make it to the main road. This street is familiar to me. It leads to Chloe’s street. Even more Zebs and abandoned cars make it near impossible to maneuver around, but Rudy’s doing well. He hits a few cars and many more zombies. It seems he’s stopped trying to avoid them and concentrates on the vehicles strewn about.
We inch our way up the road. Rudy drives onto the sidewalk, then into a front yard, then back on the road. As we slowly drive onward, the street becomes more cluttered with the undead. If we stop now, we’ll be lunch. I try not to freak out, and being next to Rudy makes me feel better.
I can tell we’re getting closer to Chloe’s house. The homes are becoming smaller and closer together, and the zombies grow in numbers. We drive up onto a few of them and the tire spins out. Rudy switches to four-wheel drive and we continue.
“Rudy, we’re getting close. The street should be on the left.” A Zeb flings onto the hood of the car and its head smashes the windshield, leaving a spider web crack in the center of the glass. The zombie then slides off the car.
Rudy takes a sharp turn to avoid a truck and gets the car stuck on a short but wide cement wall. He revs the engine with the front tires off the ground. The hood points upward, and gets higher with the back tires pushing us forward. “Not good, not good.” Rudy speaks in a low tone; I guess not to upset the rest of us. Nice try. My nails dig into the leather upholstery.
The car front falls onto a pack of undead. The tires in the front spin in place, spitting up the dead’s goo, and the tires in the rear are now off the ground. We’re wedged between a house’s front porch on the passenger’s side and the truck Rudy tried to avoid on the driver’s side. Zebs crowd the front and back of the vehicle, struggling to get to us. My heart skips a beat while I turn to Rudy. The look on his face isn’t very reassuring. We’re screwed.
I scan around outside the car and notice the porch we’re up against is zombie free. I lower the window with everyone in the car yelling at me. I shout back, “The porch is empty!”
Rudy looks over and says, “Good call. Everybody get out of the car on Lea’s side now!”
/> Rudy climbs over me to get out. I’m fine with that, seeing as he can take care of anything that may make its way onto the porch. I help Maria out, then Guille. I look in the back and see Bruno in the cargo space, standing with his front paws on the headrest of the backseat. I interpret his expression to mean, no freaking way.
I climb to the backseat to pick him up when the car begins to rock back and forth. My forward hand slips on the leather and my face falls into the seat nose first. Ouch! I get myself up and look outside. The press of zombies causes the SUV to rock slowly like a seesaw. I grab Bruno while he growls in protest and stretch myself out the window. I feel fingers franticly grabbing and clawing me. A hand grabs under my shoulders and pulls me out of the car and onto the porch.
“Thanks,” I say to Rudy. The front door’s already been kicked in. I scramble up and run inside. Once in, Rudy closes the door and drags a couch in front of it.
Guille walks back into the room. “Kitchen’s clear. Back window is broke, but the backyard is clear too.”
Rudy paces from window to window nervously trying to get a grasp on our situation. “How far are we from Luke’s girlfriend’s house?”
I look out the front window and a zombie stares right back at me. “Ah!” I jump back, uncharacteristically collect myself, and move back to the window. “The street is across from here. Her house is fourth or fifth on your left.”
The zombie starts to pound on the window.
“Good job, Lea.” I appreciate Rudy’s complement, as it was a giant leap for me.
Rudy huddles us together. “Okay, guys, here’s the plan. We go out the back. Lea, you lead, then Maria, Guille, and me, in that exact order. Don’t look back and keep going straight to the house. Don’t stop for anything or you’ll get swarmed. If you see I’m not there, don’t worry. I might need to make a distraction. You can’t stop ‘til you get where we need to be.”
I pull out my bayonet and head for the kitchen. A crashing sound comes from the living room—that Zeb is coming through the window. I try to keep moving before I can really think. We’re lined up in order with Bruno by Rudy’s side. I open the door and take off at a jog. Reaching the side of the house, I hear an awful moaning sound. The mass of zombies has noticed. They’re spaced apart just enough to make me think we can make a dash across the street.