Existing Dead

by Lyle Perez-Tinics

  “Okay good, then tell her you need to go and that will buy you some time to go check on Angel.”

  “Fine,” Victor said. “But I don’t like this sneaking around stuff. I kinda like Susie, even though she did throw a bomb at us, and pushed a zombie off the roof on top of me.”

  “That’s exactly my point. She’s not really stable. Just go now, before we waste more time.”

  Victor nodded. Kyle stayed in the dining room and listened carefully.

  “Miss Susie,” Victor said. “I really need to go number two. Is it okay if I use your restroom? I promise I won’t totally blow it up.”

  “Yes, Victor, that’s fine,” she said, chuckling. “Just remember that there is no running water. Make sure you take some water out of the tub to fill the toilet up with water. Don’t use too much water, just enough to make the toilet flush.”

  Victor nodded. “Where is the bathroom?”

  “Just go up the hall and it’s the second door on the right.”

  “Thanks,” Victor said as he took off up the hallway.

  “So how much time before dinner?” Kyle said, walking into the room.

  “It’ll be another ten or so minutes.”

  “Okay, great. I’m starving and it smells divine,” Kyle said, rubbing his belly.

  “Yeah, I always remember you eating a lot during the potluck parties.”

  Kyle smiled. “Yeah that was me. I’m a growing boy who needs food to keep me strong.”

  Susie laughed. “Sure, growing boy. You’re what twenty-nine? Thirty?”

  “I’m thirty-five actually. But, I know, this baby face will help keep me looking like a youngster.”

  “I’m sorry about earlier,” Susie said. “I didn’t mean to throw the dynamite at you guys. It was more of a reflex.”

  “Where did you get that, anyway?”

  “Franklin was a chemist. He made them from stuff that was lying around the house and other things he had in the car.”

  “Well, that explains it.”

  “Listen, I know this might be something hard for you to talk about, but …” she paused to check something on the grill.

  “But …” Kyle said, eager to move along the conversation.

  “What happened between you and Mary? You guys looked so happy together.”

  “She just wasn’t the one. I mean we looked happy to other people, but once we were alone things went downhill. The only reason we got married was because of our son, Eddie. I didn’t want him to grow up without me.”

  “So you just hid all your feelings and married Mary to be with Eddie?” Susie said, continuing to check the food on the grill.

  “Yeah, that’s what it was. I thought I could just hide the fact that I wasn’t in love with Mary, but still play the part. I never told anyone this, but I was involved with another girl before Mary and I got married. Her name was Jasmine and, I know this is going to sound like a cliché, but she was the perfect woman. We had so much in common that it felt like she was my soul mate. We never fought, we never wanted to be apart, we felt like a couple of school kids. And the sex was fantastic.

  “This was about two months after Mary told me that she never wanted to see me again and that I should find someone else. About a month into our relationship, the calls started. Mary would call me every couple of minutes, crying and telling me that she wanted me back. I hid all that from Jasmine. I called Mary back a few times to tell her to leave me alone. Finally she told me that she was pregnant. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like a dead beat who was leaving his child to be with a mistress. But Jasmine was much more than that. I made up my mind and broke it off with Jasmine. It hurt her just as much as it hurt me. There was always a part of me that felt that Eddie ruined our relationship, but I quickly learned that it was all Mary’s fault.”

  Susie stared at Kyle as a tear fell down his face. “Then what happened? Why did she kill Eddie?”

  “This morning I decided to leave and go find Jasmine. I needed to make sure that she was fine and if she wasn’t, then I had to make her safe. Before the dead came back to life I filed for divorce.”

  “So you were already planning on leaving Mary?” Susie chimed in.

  “Yeah, I was. I couldn’t take it anymore. I kept thinking about Jasmine and how different my life with her would have been. I needed to go find her.”

  “And when the dead rose it made it difficult to leave?”

  “Yes, very. I told Mary that she and Eddie would be safe in the basement while I went to go find Jasmine. I should have known that by me leaving it would have made Mary go crazy.”

  “It’s not entirely your fault, Kyle,” Susie said. “We’re all human and we need that comfort.” Susie checked the food one last time. “Okay everything is ready. Can you help grab some of the dishes and take them to the table?”

  Kyle nodded and walked to the grill. He grabbed the dishes and walked behind Susie. He sat the food on the table and took a seat across from her.

  “Should we wait for Victor?” Susie said.

  “No that kid probably hasn’t pooped in days. Let him sit on the can for a while.”

  “Thanks for sharing that,” Susie said as she dug into the food.

  *

  Victor sat on the lavatory, looking through a magazine that was tucked into a corner. It was hard for him to see anything with only one scented candle lighting up the room. He put it down and flushed the toilet. A can of air freshener sat on the counter by the sink. He grabbed it and began spraying. The windows were boarded closed, so the only thing he could do about the smell was to mask it. There was a bucket next to the sink with soapy water. He figured it was to wash his hands. Victor rinsed his hands and dried them on a towel.

  He slowly opened the door and looked around. He could hear Kyle and Susie talking, as well as silverware tapping plates. He slowly walked across to the door in front of him. He opened it and looked inside. The room was pitch black. He couldn’t see anything. Victor turned back around and grabbed the lit candle in the bathroom. He slowly walked back into the dark room with the candle and looked around. The room had a large bed in it; a dresser was nestled into a corner with hair products across the top. There was a large pile of dirty clothes in a corner. He looked, but there was no sign of Angel.

  Victor quietly left the room and walked across to the door next to the bathroom. He opened the door and a disgusting odor seeped through the small cracks. Victor quickly held his breath and opened the door. The room was pitch black as well. He shone the light into the room and looked around. This was definitely a little girl’s room. There was a twin bed with what looked like piles of blankets on top of it. Next to it was a dresser with dolls and plush animals spread across the top. An eerie Barbie table was directly in front of the closet. There were many small dishes with rotted food on the table. Victor couldn’t hold his breath anymore and exhaled. When he inhaled he nearly passed out from the smell. He quickly searched the room, but no one was there. He looked closely at the pile of blankets. Sticking out of the top was a little girl’s head.

  I found her, he thought.

  “Hello? Angel,” he said softly. “Wake up.”

  The girl didn’t respond. Victor reached in to tap the top of her head. He felt something squishy and quickly pulled back. He shone the light closer to the girl, revealing a small open hole on the top of her head. Victor gagged as he backed away. He quickly ran out of the door and closed it behind him.

  His face was as white as a ghost. The little girl was dead and judging by the smell, she had been rotting for days. Victor tried to compose himself. He breathed calmly and slowly. He had to tell Kyle what he had seen without Susie knowing. Victor walked into the bathroom and put the candle back. He turned, dunked his goo-filled hand into the bucket of soapy water, and began walking back toward the dining room. He grabbed Kyle’s shotgun as he walked.

  *

  Susie and Kyle were sitting at the table enjoying their meal. Victor came walking into the room. He did a grea
t job hiding his terror.

  “That smells great,” he said sitting the gun down next to the table. “Much better than what I just smelled.”

  Susie stared at him questioningly for a second.

  “It smelled like something crawled up my butt and died.”

  Kyle began to laugh hysterically with food in his mouth. Susie looked at him and squinted.

  Kyle stopped laughing and said, “That was rude, Victor. Now apologize to Susie and sit down.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Susie,” Victor said as he sat down.

  “It’s okay, Victor,” she said. “Boys will be boys. Some never grow up.” She looked at Kyle, who was stuffing his face again.

  Victor sat on the table, not touching any of the food.

  “What’s wrong? I thought you were hungry?” Kyle asked Victor.

  The boy looked back at him and gave him a stare as if mentally trying to tell him something was amiss. Kyle swiftly nodded and that was that.

  Dinner continued. Susie was already stuffed and began clearing the table. Victor finally got a little bit of his appetite back. Susie grabbed the dirty plates and walked into the kitchen.

  “So what happened?” Kyle asked quietly and quickly.

  “I’ll have to tell you later when I’m not eating,” Victor said as Susie walked in.

  “Tell you what?” Susie said.

  “Oh, just telling me where his mother’s house is,” Kyle said quickly. That was the only thing that came to his mind.

  “Okay then,” Susie said gathering some food on a small plate. “I’m going to take this to Angel.”

  “Victor and I are going to go to the roof and see how bad the streets are. I never had much time to observe the dead.”

  “That’s fine,” Susie said. I’m going to spend some time with Angel in her room. You guys can go up to the roof through the hole in the garage. Just do me a favor and don’t rile them up. I don’t feel like listening to banging and moaning the entire night.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kyle said. “Thanks again for dinner it was fantastic.” He smiled to show his appreciation.

  Susie smiled and walked out of sight. Kyle stood up and headed toward Victor. He was stuffing his face with mashed potatoes.

  “Come on,” he said, nearly lifting Victor out of his seat.

  “Let me eat first, dude,” Victor replied.

  “Eat later, come on,” he said as he grabbed his shotgun.

  Victor stood to his feet and grabbed more food. He ate as they walked into the garage. There was a ladder leaning up against a wall and above that, was a hole big enough to fit two people through. Kyle held on to the shotgun as he climbed. Victor followed after Kyle was already on the roof. Victor made it through and was instantly bombarded by questions.

  “What did you see? Was the little girl an Existing Dead chained up to a wall?”

  “No,” Victor answered. “She’s dead. At first I thought that she was a bunch of blankets, but when I looked closer she had a hole on the top of her head.” Victor motioned to his head where the hole was.

  “Fuck,” Kyle muttered. “I knew something was up.”

  “What are we going to do?” Victor said.

  “We’re going to keep playing along.”

  “Play along?” Victor said, scared. “I’m not going to go back in there and pretend that Susie’s daughter is alive and well when I know she’s not.”

  “We have no choice. Look,” Kyle said, pointing out onto the streets.

  Susie was right. The streets were covered with Existing Dead. Just in Kyle’s field of vision there were a hundred of them. They shambled around without a care, totally ignoring the other dead around them. Every so often, one of them would moan, causing a chain reaction of endless groans.

  “We can’t leave right now. We have to stay the night. At least now we know what’s going on, so we have to play along. I don’t want to do it any more than you do, but we have to.”

  “No we don’t,” Victor said with a sinister look on his face. “We can kill her.”

  “What?”

  “We can just kill her and then we don’t have to worry about it.”

  “We are not killing her, Victor. I don’t ever want to hear that type of language coming out of your mouth again. Do you understand me?”

  “Fine,” Victor said. “Can we at least sleep up here? I’d feel safer if we did.”

  “It’s fucking twenty degrees out here. We’ll freeze, even with a shit load of blankets. Just listen to me, we’ll be fine. I’ll stay up and keep a look out. If Susie begins to go nutty I’ll take care of her. Okay?”

  “Fine dude,” Victor said, looking out onto the streets. “But if I die in my sleep, I’m going to come back and bite your ass.”

  Kyle smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said.

  Victor and Kyle stayed on the roof for another ten minutes staring at the scene of the dead below. The moonlight shone brightly in the sky, causing an eerie glow.

  “Do you see that?” Kyle asked, staring out into the distance.

  “Are those airplanes?” Victor said as he gazed up at five lights in the sky flying in a V-shaped formation.

  Chapter Seven

  “Go call Susie, quick,” Kyle told Victor.

  “Fuck that, I’m not talking to the crazy lady. You go get her,” he replied.

  “Fine, then scream through the hole and maybe she’ll hear you.”

  Victor stuck his head through the hole and began yelling as loud as he could. “Ms. Susie! Come quick.” He repeated himself several times.

  Kyle continued staring up at the lights, then quickly glanced at the dead. They were being drawn to the house by Victor’s yells. “That’s enough, Victor. I’m sure she heard you,” he said.

  The door opened and Susie popped her head out. “Shhh,” she said. “Angel is still sleeping. You’ll wake her.”

  Victor’s stomach cringed. “Come here,” he managed to say.

  “What is it?” she replied, but Victor had already stuck his head out of the hole.

  “Susie,” Victor cried out. “Something’s going on out here. Come up and look.”

  Susie walked up to the ladder and began climbing. Victor walked as far away from the hole as possible. She made it to the top and poked her head out.

  “Look at that,” Kyle said, pointing into the sky.

  Susie looked puzzled for a moment. “Are those airplanes?”

  “I think so,” Kyle answered as he helped Susie onto the roof.

  The dead below began banging on the garage door. Their moaning grew louder and more frequent. Many of them began to congregate around the house.

  “Are you sure this many can’t get in?” Kyle asked, trying to reassure himself.

  “Yes, they can’t get in,” Susie said as she continued to stare up at the lights.

  Kyle was still not sure that the doors would be able to withstand this many Existing Dead banging on it. He held on to his shotgun closely. He stared at Victor, who was sitting in the middle of the roof. “Where’s your gun?”

  “I don’t know. Last time I remember having it, a body fell on me.”

  Kyle turned and carefully walked toward the front of the roof. He peered down to the driveway. In-between a few of them he could see the gun. It was on the ground, only a few inches away from where Victor lay earlier.

  “I see it. We won’t be able to get it until the streets clear up,” Kyle said.

  “Look,” Susie said, almost yelling. “One of the lights broke off from the others.”

  Kyle stared as a light broke loose from the rest and descended toward them. The light began to align itself with the street. Kyle got a strange feeling and said, “We should get inside now.”

  Susie was the first one to run to the hole and climb down. Kyle hustled to the hole and yelled to Victor, “Come on, let’s get inside!”

  Victor stood up and continued looking at the light, which was now moving at an alarming speed.

  “C
ome on,” Kyle yelled.

  “It looks like a missile,” Victor said as he hurried toward the hole. He began climbing down as Kyle glanced behind him.

  At first he heard a sonic boom followed by machine-gun fire.

  “Get in, hurry!” he yelled at Victor who was halfway down.

  Kyle got onto the ladder and climbed down. “It’s a jet!”

  The jet flew by at high speed, firing its machine gun at the mass of undead. Their bodies fell into a mangled mess as the hollow points pierced their bodies. Most of them on the street were instantly brought down as bullets tarred through their bodies, immobilizing them. The machine-gun fire continued as the jet flew by and headed up the street.

  Kyle ran inside the house and went into the living room. Victor and Susie were both standing there, not saying a word.

  “It was a jet,” Kyle said, breaking the silence.

  “A jet?” Susie asked. “What the hell was it doing here?”

  “It might be the military starting to clean up the mess. But I heard on the radio that the military was on the northeastern part of the U.S.,” Kyle answered.

  They heard another jet approaching, then more gun fire. Kyle prayed that the bullets didn’t hit his truck. He needed that vehicle to get out of town and find Jasmine. Not to mention his promise to Victor to take him home.

  “Where are we going to go?” Victor asked. “I don’t want to get shot.”

  “There’s not much we can do. Does this place have a basement?”

  Susie shook her head. “No basement.”

  “Damn,” Kyle said. “We’re going to just have to wait and hope nothing hits us. It sounds like they aren’t hitting houses, only the streets.”

  “Yeah that makes me feel better,” Victor added. He walked to a corner and curled up into a ball.

  “Maybe because there are a hundred of them surrounding the house, the pilot might know that there are survivors inside,” Kyle said.

  “Let’s hope you’re right. I’m going to go check on Angel,” Susie said as she walked out of sight.

  “Victor,” Kyle said. “Stay here. I’m going to go see what’s happening.”

  Victor didn’t say anything. He stayed in the corner and put his head between his legs. Kyle turned and headed back up to the roof. He stared out onto the streets. They were littered with slain Existing Dead. Some crawled in any direction they could with half their bodies missing or dragging behind them. Others lay motionless. The dead that were pressed up against the garage door remained untouched. They growled and tried to scratch their way onto the roof. Kyle looked away and searched the sky for the jet. It was gone. The other lights were gone as well.