On that note, a scuffling noise came through from one of the other rooms. Jace slumped hard into Ellie’s shoulder as she came to an abrupt stop.
“Wha-,” His eyes still struggled to focus.
He had yet to regain any of his depth perception. He might have been able to see movement ahead of him, but he definitely was not able to discern how far away it might have been. Certainly there was something moving down the hall. His sight was impaired failing to adjust to the light, but his hearing was immaculate. Down in the hole, he could discern the sounds of water droplets of sweat falling off of his forehead onto the concrete floor. He found the echoes of this his only entertainment, or at least perhaps the sounds that marked the passage of time that otherwise felt like it was standing still or on pause.
Someone or something was shifting in the dark. Ellie closed the door in front of them, but only far enough so that she could still see out of a tiny crack. The sound sounded like something scraping across the tiled floor, like plastic against a smooth surface. That something turned the corner. It materialized out of the dark under a flashing florescent light. A bloodstained lab coat clung over its one shoulder and covered his left arm. The other empty sleeve laid underfoot, its button scraping across the floor as the figure scooted on it, struggling to maintain its footing.
Ellie snapped the door shut as quietly as she could manage. She turned around to her brother and lifted his exhausted head so that she could meet his eyes. “We have to be very quiet. You understand. There is a killer out there. I managed to sneak past him on the way in here to get you, but he is just outside.” Jace nodded and his eyes started to roll away upward into his head. He wanted just to finish passing out again to fall into another passing dream. Pass away from this dark nightmare that was swirling around in his head. Killer did she say? This has got to be one of the scariest dreams I have ever had.
Jace was not even sure if he was dreaming or not. Certainly his sister sounded and felt real. He tried to answer her, but his last response to her calls tapped out the last reserves of vocal ability. He awoke to her tapping his face lightly.
“Stay with me Jace. I cannot just carry you out all by myself. I have a car outside. We just have to sneak past this, this thing again.” She was all huffy.
She counted herself fortunate that the doors were solid and thick. Voices had a hard time carrying through it. She prayed that her breathing was not loud enough to draw attention to them. She eyes the walls. Remembering how wide the side of the doorframe was, she realized this whole building was probably designed with soundproofing in mind. She figured it makes sense. All of those tortured souls, forced to drop their habits, either with the help of other drugs or just cold turkey. Whatever their methods were, she was sure they resigned to kicking, screaming and eventually breaking whatever they could get their hands on. Yes, each of these rooms were all probably customized with extra sound proofing barriers.
They both sat there, hunched against the door. The bad thing about thick walls and doors was that they couldn’t hear the walker from their perch. She had to crack the door open several times in the span of fifteen minutes, checking frantically to see if their wary monster had passed and made it further down the hall. This one had to be slower than some of the crawlers she had seen. Through the space between she could catch glimpses of the monster stopping and sniffing the air like a bloodhound or beagle. Her breath caught in her throat as she stopped to look Jace over. He had blood splotches from his scabbed over fingertips all over his clothes. She stiffened in horror as a single thought boiled up.
What if it can smell his wounds? His blood?
She had barely collected herself when a she heard a light scratching at the very door they both propped up against. They were piled up against it like dominoes and the noise forced Ellie to peel her ear off the barrier so quickly, her eardrum about popped. She gritted her teeth in pain, refusing to allow even the subtlest whimper to escape from her lips. For a moment, the scuffling sound ceased.
She pulled her brother and positioned him in front of her. They inched down the hallway. Ellie was sure they were as silent as they could possibly be. It was a pity that sound was not the sole sense they zombies remained dependent upon. Jace managed to edge by and turned the corner, his sister still clamping down on his hands. Weaponless and alone in the dark. The shades of grey played upon Jace’s mind. Then Deja-vu hit him and threw him into delirium.
He remembered the haunted house his school put on for his classmates. They had spent the day cleaning out an old storage room full of lawn equipment and stacks of used tires. He was only 8 years old, but volunteered to be one of the ‘tricks’ for the festivities. He donned a sheet with holes cut out in it, and the teacher had to pick him up and place him into a stack of 7 automobile tires. Jace remembered how fun it was, jumping out and scaring all of the victims. The scares ended up flipped onto him after it was all over, as the teachers had forgotten he was still in the tires. He remembered hearing the scuffling out of all the other boys and girls who had helped out, but no one came to pull him out of his tire-death trap. The lights remained off.
Then he remembered the screams. His own. The minutes ticked by like hours, and he slinked back down to the floor. Surrounded by his galvanized rubber coffin. He sobbed, screamed, and begged for forgiveness to anyone who would listen. Trapped he remained until his science teacher came to his rescue twenty minutes later. Rescued at last, but the damage had already been done. No number of nightlights could ever stave off the darkness enough for him to fall asleep.
This only magnified his horror as Ellie’s hand ripped away from his fingers.
She went down hard, her hands slapping the linoleum. He looked down, thinking maybe she tripped. His eyes widened in realization at what had jerked her away. It was the face of a demon, or at least what he had imagined demons to look like. Skin was paper thin, dried tight against the bones of its skull. In fact, that was what it looked like in the dark against the failing overhead lights. Flickers of skull. A moving skull!
It was lying on the floor. It released Ellie’s ankle, but only long enough to grope and climb further up her leg. The skull-faced thing used the material of her pants to propel itself upward and onto Ellie’s body. She freaked and drew up her free leg, kicking in at what remained of its face. It was purely instinct. Her attacks were weak however, as she had no weight to put behind it.
Jace freaked. He searched around for something, anything to strike at the fiend with before it decided to sink its teeth into his sister. He nabbed a heavy clipboard off the wall and went to wailing on the zombies head. With each blow its head twisted back up and hissed back at him like a snake. Jace in a panic not knowing what else to do, grabbed his sister from around her waist. He jerked her up from under the thing and tucked her in his arm. Embraced they limped away as it chased after them impotently, scraping itself across the floor.
All the passages were dimly lit. It was all Jace could do not to scream out from the vertigo he was feeling. They were running now, but it all felt like falling to him. Reality was warping even worse now in the subdued light than it was in his personal prison. He started to black out from the strain of carrying his sister through the halls. Dragging her through his own nightmare. Yes. That is what this was. Just a continuation of before. It was the same hell, just different scenery. At least in solitary he knew where he was and where he was not going. Now his trepidation was building up like a bonfire in his throat, not knowing what was going to jump out from behind the next corner. Or even when. Pins and needles.
They halted at the front offices. Most of the doors remained closed up and it was not merely by routine. Another walker slapped it face against and window shades, tearing them down in a fury of mottled hands and hunger. It was better lit through here, with a few rays of sunlight dancing through the top windows at the entrance. It was then Jace finally saw the eyes of what he was dealing with. They cracked with red lightning, milky white, split and swollen, and wholly unnatur
al. Green vicious fluid ran down both sides of its agape maw. Two more eased in behind and started hitting the window with bloodied fists. The first zombie pressed its one torn-away cheek against the glass, opening and closing its mouth like a dying goldfish. It turned and centered its eyes on Jace and then began the moans. It was raspy and deliberate. It was death on pause.
Jace shook his head in denial and started mumbling. This can’t be. No…No…No…
He cradled Ellie even closer to him and started to hyperventilate. They pushed forward through the doors away from the dark. The pair escaped away into the daylight. Ellie stopped long enough to shut the door securing behind them, but not quick enough to see Jace’s wobbling frame. His fingers slipped out of her hands as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he dropped like a rock.
“Jace,” she whispered. “Jace.” She dared not scream, but her voice came out hard and as sharp as shears. He convulsed hard into a heavy seizure.
Shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!
She recognized it immediately for what it was, one of the side effects of his habitual drug use. His Dee Tees were more than overloading to his brain. She looked around desperately for something, anything to keep him from biting his tongue off in his jittery throes. Ellie eyed some thrashed newspaper lying nearby and snatched it. She rolled it up frantically and brought it up to Jace’s face. His jaw was already clenching and unclenching in an uncontrollable frenzy, sending streams of froth bubbling out of the corners. She worked the paper quickly between his teeth, timing it between spasms. Practiced hands from many other seizures, she grabbed up his hands and held his arms tightly to her chest. This act kept him from flailing about and hurting himself any more than the seizure already had.
“Don’t you leave me Jace,” she whispered. “I just saved you dammit. You better not dare leave me.” His spasms racked her even harder with his body pressed so close to her. Then they stopped. The only sounds on the air were the sobs coming from Ellie. She stifled her cries in realization and looked up from Jace’s chest. The seizure had stopped for sure, however so had Jace’s breathing. The last rivulets of saliva ran down out of the corners of his mouth. His eyes were open, but empty, fixated on the sky above.
No…
She pulled the paper gently out of his mouth yet he did not react. She reached for his face and gently smacked him, yearning for a reaction out of her fallen brother. Nothing.
“No! I saved you dammit. Please! Don’t leave me alone again.” She dropped both of her fists as hard as she could muster down on his chest. She pummeled him repeatedly, even as the storm clouds that had gathered above them broke in to a gentle rain.
She threw herself over and embraced him. “You were supposed to get all better, so you could come back and take care of me. Take care of all of us. You promised!” She hit him again square in the chest, coinciding with the thunder that foretold the whole sky opening up.
Jace coughed and lurched up off his back. He hacked and choked, the air wet and salty in his lungs.
“You don’t have to hit me so hard sis, damn.”
Ellie barely could believe her eyes. “Oh dear God Jace.” She jumped on him, squeezing the air out of him, throwing him back into a coughing spasm. “I thought you were gone. You died!”
Jace took another breath and held it in, savoring it. “I think I just passed out sis.”
“No, Jace. You stopped breathing.”
The thunder bellowed around them again, shaking the buildings and rattling the windows. Ellie’s eyes widened in horror. She jumped to her feet and grabbed Jace by the arm.
“We gotta go. Now!”
“But…where?”
“Anywhere away from this storm. We gotta get out of here now.”
“What’s the rush?” Jace leaned on Ellie as she helped him up to his feet.
“These . . . things. They follow the storms. The noise attract them like a magnet. This place is gonna be crawling like ants and we are going to be the picnic food if we don’t get our asses out of here. “
Jace nodded, still only barely comprehending. He followed her lead to the car waiting just outside in the street.
Settled in, Ellie made sure her brother was belted in, and did a quick check to make sure he was still breathing. Her heart was still in her throat. She had no clue what she would do if she lost him. He did not know the awful truth of it all yet. There was no one left. If she lost him . . .
Jace perked up for a moment. “We need to try and find me something.”
Ellie throttled the car and pulled away. “Find you what?”
Jace rubbed at his chest, in mock pain. He had always faked injuries with his sister. It was his way of needling her. This time was different. His condition was more desperate than simple need for food and water.
“I need something to help with these withdrawals. They . . . are driving me inside. It is worse than being hungry. Ya know?”
Ellie did not know, nor did she ever find out. Watching her brother suffer the way that he did was enough to know she did not want any part of that kind of life. She never had even touched an ounce of alcohol.
“You know what you need?”
“Yes. I had a prescription once. I will know what to look for.” With that his words trailed off and he fell back into unconsciousness. Ellie was felt more shored up, noting the steady rise and fall of his chest. Eyes on the road, walkers whizzed by hardly paying mind to the lumbering machine passing them.
As Ellie and Jace left the town, the walkers gathered. All eyes reached skyward as the thunder boomed and the lights danced across the sky. They all piled in together, first ten, then twenty. Dozens more crept out of the alleys and out of any open door. Those who were trapped where they had transformed pressed against walls and windows, lacking the ability or concept of what conscious humans take for granted. The moans and breathy dins rose in a horrific cacophony that was both simple and sad to bear witness to.
The walkers moaned and screamed, reacting to the arcing bolts thrown against the sky. All of them reached up toward the lights. They clawed and grasped for the noise makers, claiming them with their bloody rotten fists, all of their motions in vain.
I used to wish for quiet.
Too many thoughts wrestle in the darkness of my mind.
Sleep still evades my restless form.
As I watch the shadows dance in the moonlight.
All the while the sun fights to rise from its grave.
~Fayte Reynolds 5-10-2015
The sun was high in the sky as the pig-tailed little girl dropped the now dried out gold Magnum Sharpie to the marker graveyard below. This particular one took everything she had. Her mark on this town was made, the breadcrumbs she dropped were high enough for all to see. She had decided a few towns back that if by chance anyone would be following her, that she needed to put her little messages higher up in a place that all could see. So here she stood atop some discarded scaffolding that its previous user left intact and butted up against the store’s two story glass entryway. Its height and position were perfect.
The building was almost entirely made out of glass, only its steel beams supporting its heavy roof and the window paned walls were visible to the outside world. Well that and her beacon now finished and ready to light her followers along the way.
Midday was almost over and soon her small army of walkers would soon be close enough to smell. She needed to continue on to the next town as this one held no promise of survivors, as if by judging by the massive bellow of smoke coming from the high school and the lingering smell of death was anything to go by. Whomever it was that still had a beating heart, was long gone by now. Hopefully she would catch up to someone soon because this game of solitaire was starting to become very, very disappointing.
The stuffed penguin she had set aside to stand guard was quickly picked up and placed back into the safety net made out of a catcher’s face mask that she had strapped to her chest with her father’s old work belt. Giving her best friend, her only fri
end, a front row seat to the apocalypse.
“It’s time to go Penny” she said as softly as she could. The fear of making too much noise commanded all of her actions. Fayte surveyed the parking lot in front of her while climbing down the rusted metal bars to the concrete beneath her. The scene before her looked like something out of one of her dads’ old movies. It was a world much like this one but sans the flesh eating corpuses. Max was the guy’s name and just like him she would have to roam the deserted highways in search of some type of salvation or maybe just maybe revenge against the reaper who not only stole her mother from them too soon but ripped her father from her life forever.
With one foot in front of the other, Fayte continued down the road as she began humming the words to her favorite song. Its beat echoing in her head while its lyrics wanted nothing more than to leap from her mouth. She gave in just this once as she whispered its chorus while looking back over her shoulder.
“I'll stop the whole world, I'll stop the whole world
From turning into a monster, eating us alive
Don't you ever wonder how we survive?
Now that you're gone, the world is ours.”
***
The little girl looked up to her empty canvas; a small sigh left her dry, chapped lips as she lifted her protective bandana up to cover her mouth once again. Using the tip of her fingernail, she cleaned the nozzle of buildup and reattached it to the can of blood-red spray paint. She shook the can to mix it, the clacking of the ball inside echoing off the walls. She tested the can with one quick line of spray of paint to the ground. Taking a breath, she quickly commenced on yet another one of her ‘works of art’.
Her hand stirred with quick and precise swirls here and there, shading parts to emphasize their meaning. Switching colors, she highlighted the words that she has left behind in hopes of being discovered by someone who will listen, who will follow, or maybe to find her.
Zombies Don't Ride Motorcycles Page 12