by Russ Watts
Erik laughed again, only this time it was deep and quiet. He took a step toward Jonas and raised his finger. “You’re right, this place is useless. There’s nothing upstairs, just some empty bedrooms, a bunch of kid’s toys and a closet full of mouldy clothes. But it was quiet, and far enough from the road that we could’ve stayed here a while. Maybe only a few hours, but it would’ve been enough for us to get some rest. What with you shooting your mouth off as much as your gun, they’ll be heading this way from miles around. Look, Hamsikker, from now on, I’m deciding what we do. We tried it your way, and it didn’t work. I can’t have Pippa and my children at risk, because of you. I don’t know what’s going through your head, but…”
Jonas charged at Erik and landed a punch on the side of the man’s head. Together they fell to the ground, grappling with one another, trying to land punches, only failing because there was no room to swing. Jonas managed to hit Erik in the kidneys, before Erik retaliated, forcing Jonas back with a succession of quick punches to the jaw. It only took a few seconds, before Erik was on top, and had Jonas pinned down. He forced Jonas onto his back, and held his arms, causing him to squeal in pain.
“Get the fuck off of me,” said Jonas through gritted teeth. “You’re not a cop anymore, Erik, so back off. This how you treat your friends, there’s no wonder you joined up. Typical cop, huh.”
“You say one more word, and I’ll break your arm,” said Erik.
Jonas stopped struggling. He knew Erik was stronger than he was. Erik knew how to deal with fights too, and Jonas knew there was no getting out of the arm lock that Erik had him in.
Panting heavily, Erik spoke through deep breaths. “You’re certifiable. You know that, Hamsikker?”
Erik paused for breath. He loosened his grip on Jonas slightly, enough to give him some freedom, but not enough to let him out just yet.
“I’m exhausted,” said Erik. “I’m too fucking tired to fight you. So here’s the deal. You want to stick with us, you stop going off gung-ho, trying to save the world with this macho bullshit, or whatever it is you think you’re doing. This last twenty four hours, since we left my house, you’re acting different. No, not since we left the house, since we left the garage. Whatever’s eating at you, deal with it, and quickly.”
Erik got off Jonas, and the two men sat up, looking at each other. They stayed in silence for a moment before Jonas offered an apology. He knew he had to, even though he didn’t feel like apologising.
“I’m sorry about the cop thing. I didn’t mean it. Look, don’t worry about me, Erik. I just need some time to adjust. I need the world to get better, to be someplace safe for Dakota, and… Hell, I don’t know. We’ll do things your way.”
There was a cough in the doorway, and both men looked up to see Dakota stood in the doorway. In the growing darkness, all Jonas could see was her red eyes. He wondered how long she had been standing there, and what she’d heard. When she spoke, her voice was sombre and quiet.
“When you two boys have finished playing, we need you to come help bury Tyler. He died a few minutes ago.”
CHAPTER TEN
The fields of dead sprang to life, and from far around they came. A few here, a few there, all in varying states of decay, but all with one common goal; the noise had been tremendous, and amidst the quiet fields of Kentucky, there was now only one point of interest for the hundreds of zombies that had left the city. A lone, white van, sitting upside down and idle, promised more than field-mice and solitude; noises like that suggested the living were present, and the living meant food. A farmhand, Darron, once a young boy with a promising future, was first on the scene. He had died early on in the outbreak, having been bitten by his employer, who had returned from Jeffersontown earlier in the day from getting supplies. The farmer had been bitten by a crazy man on the street, but instead of heading to hospital for help, decided to head home where he could fix himself up and not bother anyone. Unfortunately, over the course of the day, the man had succumbed to the infection, and when Darron eventually found him, the dead man took a chunk out of the boy’s neck. Darron had soon taken a chunk out of the next door neighbour’s dog, and not long after that, nobody took much notice of who was taking chunks out of whom anymore.
Darron approached the van steadily. His body was in poor shape, having spent so many of the summer months in the open air, and he walked with a limp, dragging his left foot behind him. If it weren’t for his broken ankle, he probably would’ve been able to achieve his goal, and would’ve found three warm, juicy bodies waiting for him. As it was, his foot scraping on the ground was enough to wake Rose, and he was to taste nothing more than the steel blade that entered through his jaw, and penetrated his brain.
“Fucking piece of shit,” said Rose as she dropped the dead boy. He fell at her feet, and she looked at where the zombie had come from. There were more of them, out in the fields, and nothing was going to stop them now.
Rose turned to the van, and her knees buckled. As she fell to the ground, she felt her head spin, and she placed her palms flat on the ground as she waited for the dizzy spell to pass. She knew she’d been lucky to wake up when she did, and even luckier to find her blade resting right on her lap. At first, she had shouted for Javier to wake up, but he was motionless, bent over next to her, blood dripping from a fresh cut to his head. There hadn’t been time to wake him up before she heard the first of the moans. Rose had pulled herself free of the passenger seat, fully aware that if she didn’t take care of the zombies, she and Javier were as good as dead.
She sucked in a mouthful of air, letting the oxygen renew her senses, and then spat out a mouthful of blood. She’d felt better, but nothing was broken, and a few cuts and bruises were the least of her worries. She heard another scraping sound from behind her, and turned to face her attacker.
A thin woman approached, long grey hair sweeping over bare shoulders, and sunburnt arms. The woman was dressed in a brown tunic, covered in dirt and grime, and her shoes made scratching sounds as she shuffled across the road towards Rose. Heaving her weary body to her feet, Rose grabbed her blade, and made the first move, swinging the knife at the zombie’s head. The blade struck bone and rebounded sharply, succeeding in only cutting a wedge of skin from the woman’s face. It hung down like a slice of pizza, and Rose swung again as the zombie groaned. The blade struck true this time, slicing through the dead brain, and Rose staggered back out of reach as the woman fell down dead, the knife lodged firmly into the woman’s skull.
There were more moaning sounds drifting over the breeze, and Rose realised she was going to have to work something out quickly. The sky was turning a deep blue, and the van was still smoking. They had to get away from the crash site, and find somewhere to stay the night. She didn’t even know if Javier could walk. Leaving him behind never crossed her mind, and she retrieved her knife from the dead woman’s skull. She looked around, and noticed the nearest zombie was a good two hundred yards away. Javier had not emerged from the van, so she was going to have to get him out. As she walked across the road, littered with glass, she heard a faint moaning coming from up ahead. She couldn’t see anything, but it was unmistakeable. It appeared to be coming from the ditch, and she couldn’t risk ignoring it. It was closer than the others were, much closer. She didn’t want to be surprised whilst she freed Javier from the van, so she wiped the blade on her jeans, and walked up the road ahead, looking for the source of the moaning sounds.
No more than fifty feet away, Rose found a hand lying in the road. It had been sliced off with a precision cut, as if it had been severed in a hurry. What puzzled Rose more was that, whilst the hand was missing an owner, it was in an otherwise perfect condition; the skin was clean, and the fingers were only slightly grazed. A tiny pool of blood had formed around the severed wrist, and Rose saw something shining in the blood. One decapitated finger still wore a gold ring, and Rose tugged it off, putting it on her hand.
“One day, Javier,” Rose said admiring the small diamond in the ce
ntre of the ring.
Rose looked to the side of the road for the hand’s owner. A body lay submerged in the undergrowth, and Rose would have passed it by except a leg lay protruding from a bush. The moaning sound came again, and Rose stepped carefully over the ditch, parting the thicket to find Cindy lying on the ground. Her legs were shattered, and her face looked like it had been put through a blender. One eye had burst, and tiny shards of glass stuck from her arms and legs, making her look like a human pin-cushion.
Rose smiled. “Hi, Cindy.”
A thin moan escaped Cindy’s lips, and her one working eye looked lazily up at Rose. She tried to speak, but only a trickle of blood came from her blue lips as she wheezed.
“Hurt much?” Rose knelt down on the ground beside Cindy. “Well, that’s not how I intended things to go for you, but I guess you never know what’s around the corner. Poor you.”
Rose stroked Cindy’s hair back from her face, and then brought her blade out, dangling it in front of Cindy’s eye. A lone tear fell from Cindy’s eye and turned to orange as it mixed with the dried blood on her cheek.
“Stick, or twist? Stick, or twist? It’s a little game I like to play, but then you know that already. Hmmm, stick, or twist?”
Cindy raised her arm to fend off Rose, but only had the energy to raise it a few inches off the ground before it fell back down again. Rose watched as Cindy’s good eye looked away.
“What, I’m not good enough for you? You can’t bear even to look at me? I’m helping you out here, Cindy. What do you say we go back to the van, and get Javier out together?”
Cindy didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, and Rose heard a faint moaning sound coming over the wind.
“I thought as much. Well, sadly, due to unforeseen circumstances and time constraints, I don’t have time to play today. It’s going to have to be stick.”
Rose plunged her blade into Cindy’s remaining eye, causing it to burst, and Cindy shuddered, letting out a squeal of pain like a stuck pig. Rose noticed Cindy didn’t move much, and wondered if her spine had been broken in the crash. Rose retracted the knife, having only stuck it in far enough to blind Cindy, not wanting to kill her. Cindy managed to get her hand up to her face, and put it over her eye. Blood and slime coated her fingers, and Rose laughed.
“Enjoy being dead, won’t you,” said Rose as she got to her feet. “I was going to kill you, but I figure I’d rather you were eaten alive. Javier wouldn’t have touched a gutless skank like you. I know your type. You’re just a common whore who got what was coming.” Rose spat on the ground. “Fucking bitch.”
Rose left Cindy in the ditch to await her fate. Javier was still in the van, and she was going to have to get him out by herself. She quickly jogged back to the van, and crawled in through the front window, ignoring the glass on the ground that was tearing into her legs. Javier was out cold, and Rose wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Slowly, she inched him out of the cab, and pulled him free. He had numerous cuts to his face, and a particularly nasty looking bump forming above his right eye, but other than that, Rose had no idea if he was seriously injured. She gently shook him, aware that the zombies were getting closer.
“Come on, honey, please wake up.”
There was no other vehicle on the road, other than the SUV they had smashed into, and it was now a useless heap of twisted metal. Wherever they were going, they were doing it on foot. Rose realised she might have to carry Javier if he didn’t wake up soon. She could get past the zombies on her own, but carrying someone at the same time might be too much. What if she encountered a runner? What if she stumbled across a group of them? She was going to need both hands to defend herself, and if she had to, Javier was going to have to fend for himself, unconscious or not.
“Fuck.” Rose sighed and stood up. She had her knife, but the gun was long gone. There might be something she could use in the van, but it was unlikely. It had seemed empty when they had climbed in back at the diner. She looked up and down the road, but there was nothing; there was literally nobody to help. To the east, across a field of rotting vegetables, was the fence she had seen earlier. It was intact as far as she could see, and stretched for quite some distance. Fences and walls were good. They kept the living from the dead, and whoever had erected it was probably still alive. It was her only chance. She stepped away from Javier and took a few steps into the field. Her feet sank into the soft earth, and she looked harder at the fence. Between it and the road, there were three or four zombies, but she was confident she could take them on. She could run to the fence, get over it, and hopefully get help for Javier. If he stayed unconscious, perhaps the dead would ignore him. She knew it was unlikely, but there didn’t seem to be much choice. They’d had a good run, and she hated leaving him, but what options did she have? Stand and fight until it got dark? For all she knew, Javier might never wake up. Damn, that Cindy had fucked it all up. Rose was glad she hadn’t killed her. Let her rot in peace.
“Right then,” said Rose, summoning up the courage to head across the open field for the fence.
“Rose?”
Startled, Rose turned around to see Javier standing before her.
“Where are you going?” Javier asked. He clutched his stomach, and bent over in pain.
“Oh my God, Javier!” Rose ran to Javier, and embraced him. He winced in pain as she grabbed him, but she didn’t care, he was alive, and that was all that mattered.
“What the hell happened?” Javier looked at Rose, studying the cuts on her face.
“We hit something in the road. Oh Javier, I’m so...so…”
Rose surprised herself when she started to cry. She held onto Javier, reluctant to let him go, squeezing his body and reassuring herself that she wasn’t imagining it. Her eagle was still here, still breathing. It was so much better than being alone.
“Shit,” said Javier looking at the van, “what a mess. Are you okay?”
Rose nodded. “I’m fine, but we need to get out of here. The dead are all over the place. Can you walk?”
Javier limped along painfully, but he reassured Rose he could walk. Rose helped him across the ditch into the vegetable field.
“That’s where we’re going,” she told him pointing at the fence. “It’s our best bet. Put a nice big barrier between them and us for the night. You need to rest up, honey, you don’t look too good,” said Rose.
“I’ve felt better,” said Javier as they began to trudge through the field. Beneath their feet were the remnants of cabbages. Their sad, yellow leaves had large holes in them where bugs had fed. “Wait,” said Javier stopping abruptly, “where’s Cindy?”
Rose pulled Javier along. “She didn’t make it,” said Rose bluntly. “I found her body up ahead. She got thrown out of the van when we crashed. A piece of glass sliced her throat, and she was dead before I got to her.”
“Dead, dead?” asked Javier as they continued walking. “You know, like normal dead, or like…”
“Don’t worry, she’s not coming after us,” said Rose. She tried to keep the satisfaction from her voice when she spoke. “Her head was crushed. Her brain was splattered all over the road. She won’t be going anywhere. She’s dead, dead.”
They walked on in silence across the field, dirt sucking at their ankles, and a cold breeze filling the evening air. Halfway across, Rose told Javier to sit and wait, and he did so without complaint. Up ahead were four zombies, close enough now to smell. Rose took them down one by one, slicing each one through the brain with her knife. Once they were down, she returned to Javier, and they carried on towards the fence, their path now clear.
“What do you think’s on the other side?” asked Rose. They stopped on a wide road that ran the length of the fence. Several large oak trees loomed over them, and she knew they needed to get in as quick as possible before the daylight evaporated entirely. “I mean, there could be literally anything on the other side, right?”
Javier shrugged, and clutched his stomach. “Search me.” He didn’t see t
he point in conjecture. It would be what it was, and he examined the fence. Getting over wouldn’t be easy. The fence was solid metal, and there were no gaps in it. On the top lay thick barbed wire. There were no doors or gates, and no signs marking an exit or entrance. “Come on. Let’s try our luck down this way.”
Javier took Rose’s hand and they started walking south, away from the van and the zombies, away from Jeffersontown, and hopefully away from any more trouble. Javier hadn’t felt this bad since he was fourteen. He had been sleeping rough behind the old downtown rail station in Austin, and woken up to find two men standing over him. They demanded that he go with them someplace warm, somewhere they could help him get off the street, but it was clear they weren’t looking out for his welfare. Living on the streets, he soon became used to being approached for sex by older men. He refused, and told them that he would call the cops if they didn’t leave him alone. One of them went to leave, but the other stayed, demanding Javier go with them. When he called the man a queer, he received a punch to the side of the head in reply. Before he could get on his feet, they laid into him, kicking and punching, until he passed out. He awoke the next day to find he was where they had left him, sheltering beneath an old arch, surrounded by rats and garbage. He took his beating, telling himself it was better than going along with what they really wanted to do with him, and it knocked him out for a week. Unable to scavenge, he lived on scraps of food, and waited for the bruising to fade before he could walk again. It was a wake-up call too though, and as painful as it was, it was a useful lesson. Since that day, he had taught himself how to defend himself properly, and he never backed down from a fight. Now he felt the same, as if his head had been used as a football, and his gut ached. The cuts would heal, but he had been stupid to let Cindy drive. He should’ve seen it coming, and known she wasn’t up to it; it had cost Cindy her life, and almost cost Javier and Rose theirs. He was thinking with his dick, not his brains, and the price was a hefty one for his misjudgement.