Darkness and The Grave: A Zombie Novel

by John Tolliver

  "Answer my question," he said, leveling his shotgun.

  "Oh, you're not smiling," she said. "Well, my cousins lived nearby and when I reached their house, it had, shall we say, burned down. I was being chased by zombies when I saw this house and managed to duck in here and hide. I realized this was where Randy’s brother lived."

  “Randy’s brother?” Phil asked. “You mean Todd?”

  “I guess. They were going to try to make it here when I left them over on the west side of Chicago. I don’t know if they made it here or not. By the time I made it here, the house was empty.”

  "How long have you been here?" Phil asked.

  "Three days."

  Phil turned to Jim. “You think Vicki is still alive?”

  “Maybe. But who knows where they are now? If this vagrant has been here for three days, then they’ve been gone for at least three days.”

  “Hey!” Penny protested. “I’m not a vagrant!”

  Phil tilted his head. “You’ve been here for three days you said?”

  “Yes.”

  "Okay, there's still a good four hours of daylight. Better get walking," he said and walked away.

  She looked at Jim. "You guys want me to leave?"

  "Really?" Vik asked. "Are you that dense? Really? We don't know you, you don't know us. You're trespassing! These men are the next of kin of the former owners, thus this house is theirs to do what they want! And, you held both myself and Jim at gun point!"

  "Crossbow point," Jim corrected him.

  "Alright, alright," she replied, a hurt expression on her face. "I can take a hint." She stood. "I guess you'll put a little lady out in the cold, huh? Good thing there's still a few hours of daylight, maybe I can find an overpass to sleep under and a metal barrel to start a fire in. At least I was able to take a shower here before you all showed up."

  "What do you want?" Jim asked.

  "Well, let me stay here a few more days. Where are you guys headed?"

  "Well I guess the plan is to keep heading west."

  "Really? I'm heading that way too!" she said enthusiastically.

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah! We could travel together!"

  "Uh, we probably need to talk about that," Jim said.

  "We are talking about it!" she laughed.

  "No, I mean me, Vik, and my brother will have to talk it over."

  "Talk what over?" Phil asked as he walked back into the room. "Hey, I thought I told you to scoot?!"

  "Well, you did, but James here said I could travel with you guys as far as Sioux Falls, right?" She grinned.

  "Uh what? I said no such thing!" Jim said angrily. "I said we would have to talk it over!"

  She winked at Phil.

  Phil glared at Jim.

  "Phil! I didn't invite her to stay here!" Jim said defensively.

  "I know that! Come here, let's discuss this privately."

  Jim stood and followed his brother downstairs to the kitchen.

  "What on earth? What happened?" Phil asked.

  "I told her to get out. Vik told her to get out, then she suggested that she travel with us!" Jim replied.

  "Really? It happened like that?"

  "Well, she made a good point. She asked how we could send her out on the streets. It is getting to be winter."

  Phil threw up his arms. "She's got you entranced I guess!"

  "No she hasn’t! She's annoying!" Jim protested.

  "Well, I guess we could let her stay here a few nights while we prepare for the next step of our journey," Phil said.

  "What?"

  He shrugged. "We still have consciences, right?"

  Jim sighed. "Yeah, I guess."

  "Okay. What's her name?"

  "Penny," he replied.

  Phil laughed. "Okay, let's go tell Penny she can stay here for a few nights while we sort everything out."

  "Okay," Jim said.

  They walked back upstairs. She was talking to Vik. Phil cleared his throat.

  "Okay, Penny, we decided you can stay here for a couple of nights while we figure out our next move. You have to respect our space though. And please, no pointing crossbows at any of us."

  "Really? I can stay here?" She seemed surprised.

  He sighed. "For a few nights."

  She jumped up and hugged him. His eyes widened.

  "Where can I sleep?" she asked.

  "The little kids' bedroom," Vik said testily.

  "Okay, I can do that," she said. "I like girly stuff." She grabbed her crossbow and walked to the other bedroom.

  Jim, Phil and Vik looked at each other, wondering at the strange events that had just transpired.

  This will be interesting, Jim thought.

  That evening Penny left for a little while and returned to the house holding several dead squirrels by their tails.

  "Where did you get those?" Vik asked, alarmed.

  "I shot them with my crossbow in the cemetery just down the street!" she said happily. "Wait, you're Indian, does that mean you don't eat meat?"

  "Uh, well my parents were Hindu but I'm not, so I have no problem eating meat. Are those on the menu tonight?" he asked nervously.

  "Well yeah, assuming we have the means to roast them!" she said.

  "There's a gas grill out back. Get the meat prepared and we can grill them," Jim said.

  "Ever had squirrel?" she asked.

  He shook his head.

  "You're in for a treat! I survived on these things on the way here from Arizona! Well, come on! You can get the grill lit while I field dress the squirrels!" She walked out the backdoor. Jim followed her with a lighter in hand.

  The silver grill sat on a wooden deck elevated about two feet above the tiny backyard. Dead ivy covered the privacy fence at the rear of the property and a large oak tree towered over the house. The wrought iron frame of elevated railroad tracks curved over the back quarter of the yard.

  Jim walked over to the grill and opened the hood. It was nearly spotless inside. He reached underneath the grill and twisted the knob on the propane tank. He heard the hiss of flowing gas and pressed the ignite button. The gas lit in the grill burner and produced a satisfying blue flame. He closed the hood and turned to see Penny standing on a squirrel's tail.

  She grabbed the hind legs of the dead rodent and pulled upwards. As she did so, the squirrel's hide separated from its body, exposing its red and pink flesh. Jim watched with a mixture of awe and horror at seeing the creature get flayed.

  She laughed. "So, after you get it skinned, you have to remove its head. Then you crack it open and remove its entrails,” she paused. “I can tell I'm making you a bit uncomfortable."

  "Well, it's funny," he said. "I've killed dozens of zombies upto this point. I watched my brother amputate one of our friend's legs with my axe and I've seen more gore than years of watching slasher movies prepared me for. So, I guess I'd expect to be a little desensitized to this. And I am, to be clear. I guess I've just never seen an animal get field dressed."

  She laughed. "My dad took me hunting all the time. He was a big game hunter, but he always told me that if I found myself in a survival situation, I should catch small game."

  "Why is that?" Jim asked. "Wouldn't it be better to catch big game? More meat!"

  She shook her head. "How many buffaloes have you seen on your journey here?"

  He was silent.

  "Exactly. Squirrels and rabbits are everywhere. I'd even consider a coyote to be small game. These little critters are all muscle too, so there's a lot of good protein in them," she said as she eviscerated the small creature. "Here, now one thing you want to look at when you're eating squirrel is its liver. Is the liver a deep healthy solid red? Or is it off-color or spotted? You always want a rich, deep red liver. Any other color or pattern indicates the squirrel might be diseased or otherwise unhealthy."

  "I see."

  "So, I'll bet your sister and her husband hated living practically underneath an El-Train line, huh?" she asked.

 
Jim turned and looked up at the hulking iron trestle. "I guess. She never really complained about it. She was a trauma nurse at one of the local hospitals, so I guess she was busy worrying about other stuff."

  "What did Todd do?"

  "He was the owner of some microbrewery."

  "That's neat."

  "Sure.”

  "How close were you to them?"

  "I guess we were close when we were younger. She hated our stepdad though, so she skipped out of the Big Apple as soon as she finished high school. She moved out here for school and never came back. The distance kind of caused us all to grow apart."

  "I see. You guys grew up in New York City?" Penny asked.

  "Yeah, kind of. Baltimore really but we moved to New York when I was eight."

  "That's cool. Is that where you guys were when the zombies arrived?"

  Jim shook his head as she snapped the feet off a squirrel. "No, we were in Buffalo when it all started. We were all students at the University at Buffalo."

  She laughed. "No way! My cousin was going there! His family were actually the people I came here searching for! I mean, his parents lived in D.C., but his dad's brother lived here. Oh, it's complicated."

  "Really? What was his name?"

  "Joel, Joel Ryan."

  Jim scratched his head. The name sounded familiar.

  "You know him?" she asked.

  Jim shook his head. "He may have been a friend of a friend. I'm sorry."

  She shrugged. "It's okay. I mean, my family is probably dead anyway. I think I just concluded that everyone I knew and loved is either dead or a zombie now."

  "How did you reach that conclusion?" he asked.

  She shrugged as she skinned the final squirrel. "Well, my boyfriend became a zombie and ate his whole family. My parents became zombies. I found them one morning after I woke up. Of course, when everyone in your town becomes a zombie and when pretty much the only uninfected people you encounter on your trek north across the Great Plains are either dead or scum, you lose faith in humanity pretty quickly."

  "Huh," Jim said. "You're the first living, uninfected person we've run into since leaving Buffalo."

  "Really?" she asked, a surprised look on her face. "What way did you guys come? Did you just canoe across the Great Lakes?"

  He laughed. "No, we drove to Detroit first then we came here."

  "What was in Detroit?"

  "Mine and Phil's dad."

  "Oh," she said.

  "At least he wasn't a zombie," Jim said.

  Penny walked over and hugged him. He grimaced as her hands were covered with squirrel blood. She stepped back and saw his expression and looked down at her hands.

  "Oh my! I'm sorry!" she exclaimed.

  "It's okay, I've gotten zombie blood on other clothes. I'll manage," Jim said. "Those squirrels ready to grill?"

  She nodded. She placed them on the grill and waited to turn them.

  “So you ran into Randy?” he asked.

  “I did. He and some of his friends saved me from a horde of zombies down in central Illinois.”

  “That’s good. That sounds like something he’d do.”

  “Were you guys close?”

  “Not really. I mean, I saw him occasionally, but I wasn’t close to him.”

  She nodded. “Good people. I hope they made it.”

  “Where were they headed?”

  “Here.”

  Jim furrowed his brow. “I guess they didn’t make it.”

  “Or they did, and you just missed them.”

  Jim frowned. He didn’t like the sound of that.

  "You said you had to chop someone's leg off on your way here; what happened?" she asked.

  "Well," Jim took a deep breath. "One of our group, Phil's girlfriend actually, was out walking around when we were in Detroit and she got bitten on her ankle by a zombie."

  "Oh no!" she gasped.

  "Yeah. We heard her screaming so we ran outside and saw her. Phil took my axe from me and cut her leg off below the knee hoping we could save her," he said, trailing off.

  "She didn't make it, did she?"

  He shook his head.

  "I'm sorry James! It sounds like you guys had a rough journey here!"

  He shrugged. "That’s life I guess. I guess the current situation of the world has just accelerated what has happened naturally for millennia. You either die before your friends and family do, or you are the last one standing at the end, left alone."

  She grimaced. "Yeah, I suppose that's one way to look at it. It's probably time to turn the meat."

  Jim opened the hood and turned the squirrels with some metal tongs. Then he closed the hood. "I'm going to go grab a tray to put these on when they're done."

  "Okay!" she said.

  He ran inside and grabbed a large metal tray from one of the cabinets. He saw Vik and Phil sitting in the living room playing chess. He laughed quietly and went back outside.

  "So what's your Indian friend's story?" she asked as Jim sat the tray on the patio table.

  "My Indian friend has a name you know," he said.

  "Sorry! What's his name again?"

  "Vikram. He goes by Vik though."

  "Okay, so what's Vik's story?"

  "He's my roommate from college. He's also my friend. He's one of our group."

  "Why does he have a Southern accent?"

  "Because he grew up in Houston."

  "Oh. Was he one of those babies you see advertised on TV who got adopted by an American couple?"

  "Really?" Jim asked incredulously.

  "What?"

  "Do you hear yourself talking?"

  "What did I say?"

  He sighed. "Vik's parents immigrated to the United States when he was two. They settled in Houston."

  "Oh, did they own motels?"

  Jim glared at her. "You sure are familiar with stereotypes, aren't you? His dad was a neurosurgeon!"

  "Sorry!" she said. "I just went to high school with some Indian kid whose parents owned a chain of Best Westerns. I just assumed I guess."

  "You know what happens when you assume, right?"

  She laughed. "Sorry."

  "It's cool."

  "Smell that?" she asked, sniffing the air.

  "Yeah, it smells good."

  "It's probably done."

  Jim opened the hood and saw the meat's pinkness had faded to white. He lifted a squirrel off the grill and cut into the meat on its leg. It was all white. He placed the squirrel on the tray and then removed the other cooked rodents. He turned the propane off and closed the grill hood and they walked inside.

  "Gentlemen, dinner is served!" Penny announced, laughing.

  Jim noticed it felt much warmer than it had inside. He peered into the living room and saw that the fireplace had a fire burning in it. They all sat down at the dinner table to eat. The squirrel was actually pretty good. Jim could tell Vik and Phil were as surprised by it as he was.

  The survivors all went to bed after dinner. Jim laid down in the guest bedroom and stared up at the ceiling. He tried remembering what his brother-in-law looked like. He had only seen Todd a few times. He hadn’t seen his nieces in a few years. He wondered if his sister’s family was still alive. He wondered where they were if they were still alive. He fell asleep pondering such things.

  "Hey, I'm sorry about yesterday, with the whole sticking a crossbow in your face thing," Penny said the next morning.

  "It's okay," Jim said.

  "I'm going to go hunting. Anyone want to come with?" she asked, looking around the room.

  "I guess I'll go with you," Phil said. "I've been feeling a bit stir crazy."

  "Alright, I'll meet you outside," she said, walking out to the porch.

  "Phil, you sure you trust her to not put an arrow in your back?" Vik asked quietly as Phil put his coat on.

  "Yeah," he said. "She seems harmless." He grabbed his shotgun and walked outside, closing the door behind him.

  "Hey, Jim," Vik said, walking over.
"Let me show you something I found in the basement yesterday."

  "Okay, show me."

  He walked into the kitchen and to the basement door. Jim followed him. They descended into the darkened basement. Daylight shone in from a window near the ceiling, dimly illuminating the concrete-walled room.

  "Over here," Vik said, walking into a dark corner.

  "This isn't where you're going to secretly kill me, is it?" Jim asked, laughing.

  Vik turned and looked at him, partially illuminated by reflected light. "Why yes, I am. James, it is time to meet your maker." He stared at Jim for a moment and then started laughing.

  Jim punched him in the arm. "Funny man, real funny! Now what is it you found?"

  "Look at this!" he said, shining his light on an old wooden chest.

  "So what's in there?

  Vik opened the flat lid and shone his light in. Jim gasped. There, in the bottom of the chest, resting on red cloth, lay a stainless steel semiautomatic pistol with a black grip and an old rifle with a bayonet attached. There was a small notebook between the guns with boxes of bullets on each side. He picked the notebook up and read it aloud.

  "One M-Nineteen-Oh-Three Springfield thirty caliber rifle, circa Nineteen-Oh-Six. One box of thirty caliber Ball Cartridge. One M-Nineteen-Oh-Five Bayonet Blade, circa Nineteen-Oh-Six, sixteen inches long. One Beretta Nine-Two-FS Inox, nine millimeter, date unknown. One box of nine-millimeter rounds. Purchased from a neighbor in exchange for cash and fair consideration on July Third, Twenty-Fourteen." He lowered the notebook. "These could be useful."

  "They could indeed! Which gun do you want?" Vik asked.

  "I guess the pistol. But I like the bayonet. Hmm," Jim said, thinking.

  "Well, what if I take the rifle and you take the pistol and bayonet?"

  "That works." Jim picked up the rifle and removed the bayonet. He then handed the rifle to Vik and grabbed the pistol. "We can put the ammo in our bags before we leave. Go ahead and load the rifle though."

  "Good thinking," Vik said, picking up the box of bullets. "It looks like this box has a hundred rounds."

  "Have you ever fired a gun before Vik?" Jim asked.

  Vik stared at him. "What do you think? I grew up in Texas. Of course I have!" He laughed.

  "Okay, good."

  Jim sat the bayonet back in the chest and grabbed the box of 9mm bullets. He pulled the lever on the side of the pistol and ejected the clip; it was empty. He slid bullets into the metal clip one at a time. Then he slid the clip into the pistol and engaged the safety. He put the box of bullets back in the chest with the notebook, the other box of rifle rounds and the bayonet.