The corpses were fifteen seconds away. Aaron got a up-close look at a walking dead for the very first time. Maggots falling off their flesh; rags instead of clothes; flesh decayed so much that bones were exposed. They moved with that slow, unsteady gait.
Aaron grabbed the gun from his father’s hand.
“Aaron? What are you—”
He fired at the corpses. The gun felt heavy in his hand, and his aim was terrible. He fired until the clip was empty, and didn’t kill a single corpse. It wouldn’t have mattered if he did. The store was full of them.
“Get out of here,” Frank said weakly. Blood poured from his stomach and formed a pool under them.
Ten seconds.
“No,” Denise said. “We’re not leaving.”
Joe grabbed her hand. “Denise,” he begged. “Please, take Aaron and get out of here.”
“She said we’re staying, Dad,” Aaron said.
He felt hopelessness for the first time, something his father and family had shielded him from his entire life. The corpses marched toward them, and nothing was going to stop them until they had their warm meal.
Five seconds.
“Come on,” Denise said, determined not to give up. “We’ll drag you out of here.”
She grabbed Joe’s arm. He pulled her in close, so only she could hear.
“I love you.”
She smiled, despite the fact that death was on top of them. “I love you too.”
She grabbed one arm while Aaron grabbed the other. Margie grabbed Frank’s wrists. Before they could start pulling, the undead attacked. They nearly stumbled over Frank, and two of them took a bite out of his thigh. He screamed in pain and managed to shoot the closest one in the head, covering himself with gore and thick blood.
Their time had run out. Margie tossed herself at the undead mob, trying to get them off of Frank. They swallowed her up and pinned her down. Three of them fell on top of Denise, biting her face as her head slammed to the ground. Aaron jumped on his father to protect him.
Aaron cried as he heard his family slowly dying around him. Their screams all mixed with his own. He felt his body being shifted around, and realized he was no longer on top of his father. He curled into a fetal position and covered his face. He heard Margie’s cries of pain slowly die down until there was nothing. Frank died while cursing at the undead. Joe was next, screaming his son’s name, followed by Denise, who had somehow managed to grab Joe’s hand while dying.
Aaron didn’t know that he was fourteen years old. His family, his life at the cabin, was all he’d ever known. It took two minutes to destroy everything.
He kept quiet, waiting his turn. He felt the corpses moving and shuffling around him. He heard the sickening sound of skin being pulled from bone. He felt something on his face, and realized he was lying in a pool of his family’s blood.
But there was something he didn’t feel.
Pain.
He didn’t know how long he lay there before he risked opening an eye. Five, maybe ten minutes.
There were corpses everywhere. They stumbled and fell over each other trying to get to the warm flesh. Aaron looked at the lifeless face of his father, right before a corpse reached in and pulled out Joe’s tongue.
Tears fell from his eyes. He slowly pulled himself into a sitting position, not caring that he was sitting in what was left of his family.
He couldn’t think. He just stared straight ahead, not quite seeing the corpses shuffle around him anymore. This was the moment Frank used to tell him could happen at any time, but deep down, Aaron didn’t honestly think he’d see.
He was alone.
The fact that he shouldn’t be alive finally crept into his mind. He looked at the corpses around him. They continued to feast on his family, just a few feet away. Others wandered around the store, tripping over each other and fallen shelves.
Aaron climbed to his feet, almost slipping in the pool of blood. He tried to piece together what was happening in his mind, but he just couldn’t figure it out. The walking corpses simply ignored him, as if he wasn’t there. For a moment, Aaron thought that maybe they couldn’t see him for some reason. Then he noticed some did look at him.
They just didn’t want to eat him.
A new low moan caught his attention behind him. He spun around, and his shoulders slumped as he started to cry all over again.
The undead hadn’t left enough of Frank, Denise, or Margie to reanimate. That wasn’t the case with Joe. Aaron’s father pulled his hand away from Denise. He slowly stood up, almost losing his balance a few times. His eyes were white marbles, and there was a hole in his mouth where his tongue used to be.
He looked at his former son, not a single glimmer of recognition in his eyes. Then he looked at his surroundings with only one goal. Fresh meat.
The rest of the undead no longer enjoyed the taste of cold flesh. They wandered off, not caring that Aaron was right there.
Aaron grabbed Frank’s gun from his severed hand. With tears clouding his vision, he leveled the gun right at Joe’s head.
As luck would have it, the first corpse Aaron would ever kill with a gun would be his own father.
“I love you, Dad.”
He fired a single time. After his father died for the second time, Aaron leaned over and vomited.
He looked at the undead around him. He was not happy he was alive. “Why don’t you kill me?”
He waved his hand in their faces and jumped up and down. Some looked at him, even gave him what might have been a look of confusion. But they didn’t attack him.
As the walking corpses milled about, Aaron looked again at Frank’s gun. He thought about putting the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
None of it was fair at all. Frank and Margie had finally opened up about their relationship. Joe and Denise were about to do the same. Aaron felt it. He wanted to be with them, wherever they were. He didn’t want to be without his family in the world of the dead.
But he couldn’t do it.
His father wouldn’t want Aaron to kill himself. Joe had taught Aaron how to do everything, including how to take care of himself. He wanted his son to have a long life.
So that’s what Aaron would do.
He left the clothing store, pushing a corpse to the ground as he did so. “Fuck you all.”
Aaron looked at the streets of Walton one last time before he left, half expecting the undead to pounce on him at any second, right as he started to relax.
That would never happen.
Chapter 5
“Samantha? Hey, Samantha? You in there?”
Samantha woke up on her mattress in the corner of what used to be a high school English classroom. She didn’t know how much sleep she’d gotten, but she knew it couldn’t have been much by how tired she was. She looked at the dark curtains she had hung to cover the classroom windows. It was the only way she could block out the light so she could sleep. She saw a silhouette just outside.
“Yeah. What do you want?”
“It’s Larry. Are you decent?”
“No. Give me a second.”
Samantha always slept naked when it was hot. She slipped on a pair of panties, black shorts, and a tee shirt with a few holes in the back. A sports bra would have to wait.
She stumbled to the window and shoved the curtain aside and bright sunlight poured in. She glanced outside and saw that the people of Lexington High School were going about their lives. Michael Walker was moving some barrels of water collected from last night’s rain. Susan Lively tended to the huge vegetable garden in the old football field. Paul Sorenson was chasing a chicken, with a few of the kids laughing at him. The chicken coops were on the other side of the high school, which meant that Paul must have been having a lousy morning. If she weren’t so tired and grumpy, Samantha might have laughed too.
Of course, many of the people at Lexington would say Samantha was always grumpy. She wasn’t the most popular person. Most people helped out because they want
ed to. Richardson, the man responsible for turning Lexington High School into a shelter, led by example. He was always working to make the place better, and most everyone followed his lead. Samantha had only found Lexington a few years ago, and she only worked out of boredom, or because there was something to gain.
Samantha caught Larry looking her up and down. She knew some men looked at her; she didn’t care. She’d spent most of her life alone surviving out in the world, only running with people when she needed to, until she’d stumbled upon Lexington. She had no desire for companionship or friends. She learned the hard way that friends were your friends as long as it was easy and convenient. When the walking corpses showed up, friendships ended very fast.
She could handle acquaintances just fine. Friends, not so much.
“Larry, I had fence duty last night. Richardson stuck me with Troy.” Larry winced at the name. Troy’s feelings for Samantha were well known. “So I spent every dark hour circling the fence with a man telling me how beautiful I am. I’m tired. Please tell me it’s important.”
“Just wanted to give you a heads up. Richardson’s been looking for you.”
Samantha shook her head. That meant he had another task for her. Usually when Richardson sought her out, it was to do something no one else wanted to. Samantha always would, for the right price.
“Thanks, Larry.” He turned to walk away. Samantha stopped him. “Oh, hey.”
He spun back around. She flashed a tiny smile. “You and your gal pal aren’t as quiet as you think,” she said. She and Troy had seen them while watching the fences, under the old bleachers near the smokehouse, which didn’t see much use these days. “You might want to find a new spot.”
His face turned red, but he managed a smile. “Uh, thanks.”
Samantha closed the curtains and finished getting dressed. She couldn’t decide on wearing her last semi-clean pair of socks, or wearing sandals. She settled on sandals, and grabbed her old brush and mirror from the desk she used to hold the few things she had.
Like most everyone at Lexington, Samantha didn’t know how old she was. She was born after the world died, which Richardson said was twenty-three years ago. So she guessed she was a few years younger than that. She had brown eyes and dark straight hair that came down to her shoulders, with curly bangs. Her hair was starting to get long. She’d have to bug Mary Taylor for a trim. She had dark skin, but didn’t know what her heritage was. She had no way of knowing that her parents had been from Pakistan, not that it mattered. Most people didn’t care about race when walking corpses ruled the world.
She left the English classroom that had become her room, her sanctuary. Her room was simple enough: mattress in the corner; clothes folded neatly in stacks on the floor; a box of candles under the window; old world hygiene items on a tiny table near her mattress. There was plenty of room for her to stretch out and relax. Her room also had windows. Not everyone could say that.
It was amazing what Richardson had done with the old school. Most of the classrooms had become personal spaces, some more valued over others. The old gymnasium was their storeroom, full of clothing, guns, ammunition, candles, everything they could find. The cafeteria didn’t serve much of a purpose besides a place for everyone to gather and spend time together during the winter. Sometimes Richardson would get out his guitar and play for everyone. The library was destroyed for the most part, holding nothing but trash, broken desks, chairs, and old books no one was interested in.
The halls were mostly empty. It was getting hot quickly, and most of the inner rooms were too stuffy during the day. She nodded a few greetings at the people she passed, then finally went outside through the gymnasium. She gave Helen a wave. Helen had storeroom duty, keeping track of everything people took. Samantha felt bad for her. She wouldn’t want that chore. Of course, Richardson would never give her that task, since she couldn’t read.
Samantha stretched her arms as she stepped into the sun. Lexington currently housed nearly sixty people. She watched them as they went about their daily routine and hoped the people appreciated what they had. She’d seen places in her life far worse.
Lexington High was located in a very unique spot in the suburbs, in the middle of a three mile stretch of road. Houses long abandoned surrounded them, as well as thick woods behind them. But that was it. There were no corpses. If they went to the end of the road in either direction, they would run into thousands of undead. But the undead didn’t wander the distance it would take to find Lexington High. Occasionally small groups of them found their way, but that was why Richardson insisted on active fence duty every night. Teams of two walked the perimeter of the fence around the school, looking for corpses.
Before Samantha found Lexington, life hadn’t been pleasant. Lexington had its problems, but it was better than surviving out in the wild.
She saw Richardson near the spring-house, not too far from the soccer field. They had discovered a long time ago that water flowed under them, most likely to the river deep in the woods. They’d dug up the ground and built a cinder block shack over the stream. It provided fresh water and basic refrigeration. The kids loved playing in it when it got hot.
Richardson had his notebook with him, like always. He took notes on chores, improvements to be made, everything he could think of. When he wasn’t taking notes, he did whatever needed to be done. He was an older black man in his fifties, and had a way about him that kept everyone calm. He was everyone’s source of strength, no question about it.
Samantha debated on approaching him. If whatever he wanted was so important, he could find her later. But he noticed her, and motioned for her to come.
Shit, what now? she thought. Isn’t a night with that horndog Troy bad enough?
“Good morning,” he said when she was close enough. “How did last night go?”
She shook her head. “Next time you draft me for fence duty, could you stick me with someone besides Troy?”
He laughed. Richardson had a warm, genuine laugh. “He put the moves on you all night?”
“I almost punched him five times.”
“Well, he finds you attractive. I’m sure some of the others do too.”
“The others stay to themselves.”
Richardson smirked. Everyone knew that Samantha didn’t go out of her way to make friends, and kept to herself. “I already talked to Susan. Just go see her, she’ll slip you a few extra veggies.”
Samantha nodded. That was how she worked. She would help out, if she had to. But the tedious work, the fence duty in particular, that required extra. Payment in the form of food, items, return favors, they were as good as gold was in the old world.
“Okay, so what did you want to see me about?”
Richardson looked around. The young twins, Kyle and Kari, chased each other across the soccer field, crossing Richardson’s path. He waited until they were further away before speaking. He had no doubt what he was about to tell Samantha would be public by the end of the day. It was hard to keep a secret at Lexington. But he wanted to keep this news as quiet as possible.
“Lisa and Robert had their baby last night.”
“Oh wow. That’s good, right?”
Richardson swallowed hard. Samantha was surprised. It took a lot to get to him.
“It was stillborn. The child was born…already dead. It was already a baby corpse.”
“Holy shit.”
Richardson had been there, as well as Mary Taylor, Lisa’s good friend. It was something he would never forget. The baby actually tried to bite Mary on the arm as she held it. Lisa had wanted to hold it, and Mary didn’t have the heart to tell her it was undead.
“Yeah, well, Rob snapped. You know how he always carries that six shot with him?”
Samantha frowned. “Oh no.”
He nodded. “He shot the baby, while Mary was still holding it. Then Lisa. I thought he was gonna shoot Mary and me as well, but he killed himself.”
“Is Mary okay?”
“Physically
, yes. But she hasn’t been outside all day.”
She was horrified. Everyone had been excited about Lisa and Rob’s baby. The last birth they had was quite a while ago. It gave everybody something to bond over. But she was confused.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Rob was on Garrett’s supply team. They’re heading out today. You’re the only one with experience getting supplies. Hell, half the people here haven’t even killed a walker. So I’m hoping you’ll take his place.”
She gave him a blank look. Garrett was an asshole, but he was good at what he did. They had two old U-Haul moving trucks still in working condition, and once a month they would go out and get supplies. Of course, that was much more dangerous than watching the fence at night.
“I’m not trying to be a bitch, Richardson, but that’s gonna be a little pricey.”
He sighed, knowing that was the response he’d get. He was still disappointed. Samantha wasn’t a bad person. In fact, he trusted her with things he wouldn’t trust with anyone else. But she was still something of an outsider at Lexington. She’d lived there since she was a teenager, but kept to herself. She actively refused to make friends. She had a price for everything, wouldn’t do anything simply because it was the right thing.
Richardson hoped she wasn’t an example of what the world was becoming.
“Okay,” he said. “What do you want?”
She thought a moment. He was asking her to really risk her life. She knew she didn’t have a great life, but she did want to live a while longer. The last time she went with Garrett for supplies were for her own reasons. She went looking for as many makeup kits as she could find. A ridiculous reason, but they had been for Mary Taylor, and she’d paid with a good supply of peppers and beans she grew herself.
“How many people know?”
“Just the two of us and Mary.”
“They had that nice teacher’s lounge on the back side of the school, right? I’ll take that.”
Dead Living Page 6