by Dana Fredsti
We continued down the alley, our feet crunching on broken glass and other debris. The moon had come out from behind the clouds, making it easier to see.
One of the restaurants we passed, Baxter’s Brewery, had a light on inside, the glow filtering out through a filthy window overlooking the street. We paused, and heard shuffling and moans coming from within. The light was probably attracting more zombies to the restaurant, a sort of “dinner is served” sign.
Lil smacked my arm.
“We’re almost there.” She kept her voice to a whisper. “It’s the next block up. We just have to cross Aspen Street.” Although not as busy as Maple Street, Aspen was home to several restaurants, a trendy boutique, and an Albertson’s grocery.
At least a dozen zombies shambled, staggered or lurched up and down in either direction. One of them, a female dressed in ragged layers that may or may not have been filthy before its reanimation, pushed an empty shopping cart. Bag Lady Zombie.
Lil and I ducked back and hugged the wall of the alley next to a white panel van, the kind serial killers used. I poked my head out and looked both ways. A pretty much sparse but steady trickle of zombies wandered in either direction.
I ducked back.
“We’re going to have to run for it,” I said. “I think we can make it to the shop, but unless we get lucky they’ll know we’re in there. That’ll make getting out again a real bitch. So we’ll have to be fast.”
Lil nodded.
“I’ve got a cat carrier inside,” she said. “We’ll grab Binkey and Doodle and run for it.”
“Can you handle the carrier and your pickaxe?”
Lil hesitated, then nodded again.
“Whatever it takes.”
I sucked in a deep breath.
“Okay. Let’s do this.” I slapped her shoulder just as a rotting hand shot out of the driver’s side window of the van and sunk into Lil’s shoulder. She gave a startled shriek as a zombie, a gaping hole where its nose used to be, began pulling itself out of the window, using Lil as leverage.
My sword was already out. I used it to slice through the zombie’s wrist and free Lil. She smacked the hand still clutching her shoulder, knocking it to the ground.
“Go!” I gritted. We took off across Aspen Street, dodging several zombies that immediately started moaning and clutching at us. We knocked them aside and dashed into the alley on the other side of the street. Bag Lady Zombie turned her shopping cart around and slowly wheeled it after us as we sprinted for the back of Betty’s Bead Emporium.
“Here!” Lil slammed to a halt in front of a nondescript metal door situated between two dumpsters. I barely stopped myself from running headlong into her.
“That’s my mom’s car!” Lil stared at a green Mini Cooper parked haphazardly next to the front dumpster.
“That’s great,” I said as I unholstered my M-4. “Maybe she’s inside. Let’s get in there and find out, okay?”
“Sure, yeah... of course.” Lil set her pickaxe down and fumbled with the keys. The moon went behind a patch of clouds, and the light in the alley was almost non-existent.
“You got it?” There was a rattling behind us, and I took off Bag Lady Zombie’s head with one solid stroke of my blade, then sent the point through the brainpan. The body slid slowly to the ground, releasing its hold on the shopping cart. The weight sent the cart rolling away as Lil finally managed to slide a key into the lock.
The tumblers clicked as she twisted.
“Got it!”
Acting on impulse, I grabbed the cart and hauled it up to the door as Lil pulled it open. She raised an eyebrow as I muscled the cart over the doorjamb and into a dark hallway.
“Considering we have two cats and probably some supplies to haul back to campus,” I explained, “it seems like a set of wheels might come in handy.”
She nodded and shut the door. I pulled out a flashlight and shone it around. The hall led past a stairway that headed upstairs.
“Apartment’s up here.” Lil bounded up the stairs. I left the cart and hurried after her.
“Lil, wait a sec, okay?” If her mom’s car was there, then mom might indeed be upstairs, but not necessarily alive. I didn’t know if Lil was ready or able to cope with that.
I caught up with her just as she reached the door to the apartment, grabbing her wrist before she turned the key in the lock.
“Go slow, okay?”
She glared at me, like a sweet cuddly kitten suddenly gone feral.
“Why?” she hissed.
“Because you don’t know who... or what might be in there.”
She started to answer, then stopped as it dawned on her what I meant. Her eyes went wide, the whites startling in the flashlight’s glare.
“It’s... you mean, my mom?”
“Probably not,” I said quickly. “But we have to be careful.”
Lil took a deep breath.
“Yeah.” And then another. “Yeah...”
She turned the key, then deliberately tucked it back into her pocket before cracking the door about an inch.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
“Mom...? Mom, are you there?”
“Prroww?”
Lil’s face lit up.
“Doodle!” She ran into the apartment, caution thrown out the window at the sound of a cat’s meow. I followed, sword and flashlight at the ready, and did a quick sweep of the place.
The apartment was small, but cute, decorated with Maxfield Parrish prints on the walls, eclectic secondhand furnishings, and enough toys to entertain an entire colony of cats. It definitely smelled of cats, but not as bad as I’d have expected.
Two doors stood open down a little hall. One was a bedroom, the other a bathroom. I looked. The toilet seat had indeed been left up.
Thank goodness men are pigs.
A partially shredded jumbo-sized bag of dry food sat in a corner of the little kitchenette, kibble spilling out onto the floor. There didn’t seem to be anyone else there and, thankfully, no bloodshed and no body parts.
There were, however, two extremely fat felines, one a brindle-colored fluff ball with long fur, the other a shorthaired and absolutely huge black cat. Both sat with Lil smack in the middle of the overstuffed couch, purring loudly and staring at us expectantly.
The black one meowed again and Lil started crying.
“Oh, Doodle... you’re okay!” She scooped both cats up against her. They looked confused, but tolerated the embrace. They did not, however, look as if they’d missed any meals.
“Damn, they’re fat.” I shook my head, thinking of the poundage we were going to be hauling back to Big Red. “Will they both fit in one carrier?”
Lil nodded.
“It’s kinda big, and they like being together.”
“Good.” Because at least one of us would have to have both hands free as we headed back through Zombie Town. “Let’s get everything together and get out of here.”
Lil hesitated.
“But my mom...”
Isn’t here, I almost said. But I didn’t. Instead I put a hand on Lil’s shoulder.
“I’ve done a sweep of the apartment,” I said as reassuringly as I could. “There’s no sign of violence.”
“The shop,” Lil said firmly. “She could be hiding in the shop.”
The logical place for her mom to hole up would be the apartment, with access to food and water. But I didn’t say so. If it were my mom, I’d be grasping at straws, too.
“Let’s get the supplies ready and the cats into the carrier and then we’ll check the store,” I said. “That way if anything... well, if anything goes wrong, we’ll be ready to run for it.”
Lil took another deep breath.
“Yeah, okay.”
She retrieved a decent size carrier from the back of a closet and unceremoniously stuffed both cats inside, one after the other. The offended howls began immediately.
“I know, babies,” she murmured, latching the carrier gate securely. �
��But you’ll thank me for it later.”
“Or they’ll pee on your bed,” I commented. “What else do we need?”
“Food and litter.”
We grabbed everything we could find with military efficiency. When we were done, I turned to her.
“You ready to go?”
Lil started to nod, then stopped.
“Two more things.” She dashed off down the hallway into the bathroom, reappeared and then vanished into the front bedroom, re-emerging seconds later with a stuffed lamb that was distinctly worse for the wear. What had once been plush fur was now threadbare and nappy.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“It’s Lambiepie,” she said defensively. “He was my very first toy.”
“Just don’t let Tony see it,” I warned her. “You’ll get a new nickname.”
Lil stuffed the lamb in the waistband of her pants and pulled her shirt down over it, looking like she’d suddenly grown an oddly shaped tumor.
“Now I’m ready,” she announced.
Sheathing my sword, I grabbed the bag of food and the litter while Lil got the litter box and hefted the carrier. She listed to one side with the weight of the carrier.
“You two have got to go on a diet.”
Mournful howls answered her.
“They’re worse than hungry zombies,” I said. And then looked at her. “The howling... it’s going to attract some attention, you know.”
“Maybe they won’t pay attention because it’s not people?” But she didn’t sound like she believed it, any more than I did.
“Will they stop after a while?”
“Last time I took them to the vet’s, they cried all the way there and all the way home.”
I nodded. So much for stealth.
“Okay then,” I said. “Let’s just worry about getting back in one piece.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
Back downstairs, we put the carrier and its unhappy cargo—still howling—into the shopping cart, then packed litter and food around it. No way it was going to be a smooth ride back up to Big Red.
Then it was time to check the shop. I wasn’t religious, but I pretty much prayed that we didn’t find Lil’s mom. Better for Lil to have some hope.
“You got the key?” I asked, but Lil already had it out. She inserted it into the deadbolt, which unlocked with a definitive clunk.
She slowly cracked the door open an inch.
“Mom...?”
We both listened carefully. The cats even paused their non-stop howling.
“Mom?” A little louder this time. And still no answer. Lil glanced back at me, hefting her pickaxe with one hand, flashlight with the other. I nodded and unsheathed my blade as she opened the door all the way, then stepped inside. I followed close behind.
The shop looked as if it had remained undisturbed during the outbreak. Zombies milled about in the courtyard, visible through two picture windows on either side of the wooden front door.
Lil shone her flashlight around the store. Rows and rows of bins held beads separated by shape, size and color, a magpie’s paradise, all bright and shiny under the LCD beam.
Pretty.
“This is cool,” I whispered.
“Yeah, it’s a great place to work,” Lil whispered back. “Mom used her divorce settlement to start the shop when we moved here.” She shone her light around. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been around at all since I closed it the night before, well, before Casey got eaten. I guess Annie didn’t make it in to open the store.”
She looked around the room again, eyes bright with unshed tears, and an expression that was way too bleak.
“Ashley, do you think my mom is dead?”
“I...” I stopped, unsure of what to say. The odds were pretty good that she was, but there was still a chance. I didn’t want to raise her hopes, but I also didn’t want to dash them. I finally went middle of the road.
“She probably went looking when she didn’t find you here,” I said, trying to sound sincere. “She might have holed up with another survivor. Your best bet is to hope for the best.” I paused for a moment, then continued.
“We should get back to Big Red. The sooner they send us here to clear out the town, the sooner we might—holy crap!”
A loud thump from the front of the store made us both jump. A female zombie pressed up against the picture window to the right side of the front door. Long, black hair worn in a single braid, flowing, gauzy ethnic skirt and top in purples and browns. Dead white pupils stared in at us with unnatural hunger.
Lil gasped.
Oh, shit.
“Oh, no.” Horror and sorrow mixed equally in her voice. “Annie.”
I don’t know if it could hear us or it was just coincidence, but it looked up when she said its name, smacking the window with its hands as it moaned its hunger. Its hands left dark smears on the glass. Within a few seconds it was joined by another zombie, and then another.
“We’ve got to get out of here now,” I said urgently. Lil’s expression went blank, as if she’d shut off her emotions. She shut of her flashlight, as well, and moved toward the back door.
“Give it a minute,” I suggested. “If their attention is here at the front, we’ll have an easier time sneaking out the back without being spotted.”
“Should we make some noise?” Lil asked.
“Couldn’t hurt. The old okie-doke?”
She gave a ghost of a smile. “The old okie-doke.”
I rapped on the window and shouted.
“Hey, you!”
“In here!” Lil joined me and banged on the front door. We watched as zombies peeled off from the steady stream wandering past and staggered to join the ever-increasing crowd in front of the store. I glanced at Lil, and could tell from her set expression that she was scanning the crowd for a familiar face.
One I hoped she didn’t see.
“Maybe we should—” I stopped short as the zombie that used to be Annie suddenly let go of the gate and veered off to its left, pushing through the crowd with what almost seemed like a sense of purpose.
“Okay, now that’s just weird.”
“Do you think she remembers the back door?”
A chill ran up my spine.
“We’d better get out of here now.” Lil looked worried, and I added, “Yeah. It looks like some of the others are following her.”
We hightailed it to the back of the building where Binkey and Doodle started howling again in their carrier, paws emerging through the mesh. All they needed were tin cups and a sign reading “dirty screws!”
“Shush, babies,” Lil crooned. “We need you to be quiet now.”
I snorted. Like logic ever worked on a cat. Then I put my left hand on the doorknob, the right holding my sword.
“You handle the cart and I’ll handle the zoms, okay? If we both need to fight, we’ll make sure the cart is between us so they can’t get to the cats.
“Ready?”
Lil nodded, gripping the cart with both hands.
I shoved the door open hard and felt it connect with something on the other side. Whatever it was hit the ground. The smell and accompanying moan told me that at least one zom had figured out there were snacks behind Door Number One.
The moon had come out from behind the cloud cover again, giving me enough light to see several figures already approaching where we stood, with more rounding the mouth of the alley. The smell of putrefying flesh was just nasty.
The zombie I’d knocked down reached around and grabbed at my ankle. I jerked away from its clawed fingers, stepped past the door and plunged the end of the katana into the back of its skull.
Sploosh. Dead zombie.
The moans to our left grew louder and the smell grew worse as at least a dozen zombies staggered toward us. One of them was Annie. More filled the mouth of the alley.
I glanced to the right. That end was still zombie free, and I didn’t see any movement on the street beyond i
t.
“Go right,” I said, “then left out of the alley. Double back a few blocks down.”
The first few zombies reached us, clutching at Lil as she pushed the cart through the doorway. I kicked the closest one, a good ol’ boy who’d drunk a few too many beers when he was alive. My foot sank into its substantial gut. The impact caused a farting sound as gas escaped through God knows where. The accompanying smell was horrific, but the kick knocked it back into two other zombies, bowling them over like nine-pins.
That bought us some space.
“Get the cats out of here,” I yelled, caution scattered to the wind. “I’ll cover you.” Lil sprinted toward the other end of the alley, the rattle of the wheels painfully loud. No way we were sneaking onto campus with that thing.
Some of the fresher zombies moved faster than the others—not running, but their shamble still covered more ground than I liked. Trading my blade for the M-4, I took aim for the closest one and fired. My shot grazed the zombie’s ear, but didn’t take it out.
Damn. I wasn’t nearly as good as Gabriel, and right about now we needed his precision.
Well, it wasn’t gonna happen.
Fuck it.
I switched over to semi-auto and sent a spray of bullets at their legs, aiming for the knees. They fell in a writhing mass.
More zombies appeared at the mouth, blocking my view of Aspen Street beyond. Luckily for us they all still seemed to be coming from that direction. I sent another spray into the oncoming crowd to create a temporary roadblock for those behind them, then took off after Lil, who had reached Beech Street.
As she pushed the cart out of the alley, hands reached for her from the right. She yelled in surprise as a skinny male zom wrapped his arms around her shoulders, yanking her off balance. The cart wobbled as she lost her grip on it, but stayed upright. I hauled ass the remaining distance, shoving my forearm under the thing’s chin and slamming its jaw shut before it could take a bite out of Lil’s neck.
She wriggled out of its grasp, grabbed her pickaxe from the cart, and sent the business end into the zom’s skull, splattering me with all sorts of nasty brain goo.