The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious

by Sarah Lyons Fleming

  As I feared, her eyes dart to the door and then to me. I recognize the blue gaze that entreats me to do something. I always have in the past. I’ve painted the house, cleaned the bathroom or went to her parents’ social gatherings rather than do something infinitely more fun. I didn’t mind. She did the same for me many times. Maybe I have my own please-do-this-for-me expression.

  But this is too much. It isn’t a simple chore. And, even as I shake my head in refusal, my knife hand rises. I can’t leave him like that.

  “Don’t watch,” I say. My voice is gruff and sharp.

  Rachel steps down the hall, out of sight. I make my way up once more. His shadow is by the door. Listening. He might groan, but the sound is drowned out by my racing thoughts.

  I grasp the doorknob. The door opens inward. I’ll use it to push him down. It’ll be easy except for the fact that it’s Grant. If I could close my eyes and do it, I would. I throw my weight into the door. After the initial resistance, he drops to the refinished plank floor. I squeeze into the wide area of the hallway where he lies.

  Grant and Rachel share similar features: The dark blond hair and skin that tans golden. The perfect nose and blue eyes that mark them as WASPs—nice WASPs, but still WASPs. His golden skin has gone gray, rippling around his cheekbones and mouth. His gnashing white teeth remind me of an old man with too-large dentures. His eyes are yellowed, the blue colorless, with no hint of recognition.

  Because it’s only an arm bite, so far he lacks the ragged holes so many have in their faces. Eventually, I’m sure, his skin would tear and rot somewhat. But for now he’s still Grant, and that makes it worse.

  He catches my leg with a hiss. I pull myself free and kneel. His arms wind around my thigh to drag himself closer. I want no room for hesitation, no room to back out. I want to have to choose between my life and his undead one.

  I tell myself he isn’t human, isn’t Grant. He’s as faceless a monster as the ones outside. He’s nobody.

  I push my knife in just below his ear. A crunch followed by coarse vibration. His head drops with a soft thunk mid-hiss. I don’t want to pull out my knife, but it’s a good knife. A great knife. I need it. I close my eyes and yank out the steel, reliving the way in all over again.

  I take the steps slowly, feet heavy. It doesn’t matter: there’s no longer any reason to be silent. Rachel stares with bloodshot eyes and her hand covers her mouth. She uses the other to touch my sleeve as I brush past.

  The memory of the crunch, the vibration, makes me queasy. My mouth is so dry, but there’s no way my stomach will accept a drop of water. I entered a void when my knife hit Grant’s head, a black space where I had to retreat so as not to contemplate my actions. Now that I’m back, I can see how it would slowly erode one’s humanity to have to kill those you love. I might have to do it to someone else. To Rachel. To Cassie. Maybe I’ll meet other people, grow to love them, and have to do it over and over again. Until the black space becomes a crevasse so deep I can’t climb out.

  Chapter 20

  I fill our water bottles from the hot water heater. It looks as though Grant already tapped into it: a bowl is set at the low spigot. He laughed good-naturedly at my suggestion he store food and water, but he must have read the short handout I gave him. A government-sanctioned handout that recommended the bare minimum of three days. But, somewhere in its recommendations—in an aside I thought far too casual—it mentioned using hot water heaters as a source of emergency drinking water.

  He didn’t follow my suggestion of a gun, either. Rage boils up and I hurl the bowl to the floor, where it shatters into cobalt shards.

  If he’d had a gun, he could have blown off his own fucking head.

  Rachel makes a shocked noise. I’ve said it aloud. She stands by the basement steps, arms wrapped around her waist and face swollen, as gray as her brother in the sparse light of the basement window.

  I should apologize, but I can’t. Grant set me up and Rachel forced my hand. She won’t kill a regular zombie, much less a zombie brother. But Steadfast Eric will do her dirty work for her. Then he’ll bring her to her fucking boyfriend and feed them at his cabin. Maybe he’ll tuck them into bed at night, too.

  I stomp toward her, hating the way she shrinks from me. She’s already shrunk in the past days, is weakening before my very eyes. A shell of herself. But she doesn’t know what a fucking shell is. A fucking shell is what you are after you kill your almost brother-in-law.

  “You have to get your shit together, Rachel,” I say. “You’re not holding up your end. Do you want to get to Nathan?”

  She gives a slight nod, unsure.

  I mimic her nod in a cruel way and practically shout, “That is not an answer! Do you want to get to Nathan?”

  New tears spill. She nods again. This nod says anything to get away from you. I don’t care what her motivation is. I am not going to be put in a position where I have to drive a sharp object through her skull like I did Grant’s, even if hating me is what gets her ass in gear.

  “So let’s go.” I wave a hand at the stairs. “Ladies first.”

  I feel guilty by the time we reach the front door. I almost apologize, but her mouth is determined. Her eyes are narrowed. It’s how she should’ve been days ago, so I hold my tongue.

  Rachel marks the address on the map. It isn’t far, but we have to go further into the city. I don’t mention my unease, just shoulder my pack and get on my bike.

  The houses we pass grow increasingly damaged by looters. Glass covers the sidewalks. Doors are forced open. In most cases, we can whiz past the zombies, until we come upon a few streets so packed that we resort to the main avenues, which have zombies but more room for navigation. The short houses turn to apartment buildings, and then the office buildings of downtown loom ahead. We ride through small parks when we can, keeping out of sight as much as possible.

  I hope that in a city as spread out as Philly, we won’t run into much in the business areas. I want nothing to do with a city unless it’s New York, and, even then, I wouldn’t go within fifty miles of Brooklyn if I didn’t have to.

  We ride the circle around an uninhabited Logan Square. Cars sit abandoned and the usual suspects lurk, but it’s in good shape. A block later, on streets of apartment buildings, the apocalypse is in full force.

  The buildings that were once gray stone and glass are now blackened. Charred bodies lie in heaps at their bases—maybe jumpers from high apartments. A thick, fatty smell hangs in the air and coats my taste buds. At a third floor window, a figure with crackled dark skin watches us go by. The only thing not burnt are its teeth. I know Rachel hasn’t seen it since she rode past without a peep; it was almost enough to make me scream. Killing yourself with an intact brain doesn’t work; fire, unless burnt down to the brain, doesn’t work.

  Broad Street lives up to its name; the lanes and median allow us to move hither and thither to avoid the clumps of ragged people. Rachel slows when, a block ahead, police barriers cordon off a building with a circular glass roof. The performing arts center must’ve been a Safe Zone.

  It isn’t anymore. Hundreds of zombies surround emergency vehicles and a tank within the barriers. As soon as they spot us, they figure out a way under and around the wooden sawhorses printed with POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS. They’re crossing the line, all right.

  We head east down the closest alley and hang a right on the next residential block. Their moans follow us. Maybe their bodies do, too, but we don’t stick around to see. We dodge down narrow streets. Rachel pulls ahead. She knows where she’s going and I don’t, not without a stop to read the map.

  Rachel’s legs pump, her head down. Without using our agreed upon turn signal, she whips around the corner onto a narrow street. I sail past and turn my bike with a curse. We have rules for a fucking reason.

  A scream echoes. My heart skips. We’ve heard screams in the past week. Terrible screams. Some distant, some not. We made our way to several only to find we were too late—the screamer was on the
ground, surrounded by a crowd of kneeling, eating zombies. I pray that won’t be the case this time.

  The street is more of an alley the width of one car, lined with old brick rowhomes and tall trees whose leaves are concentrated at the very top. Behind a tree down the block is a group of about ten, all intent on a house. Rachel screams again, and I speed toward the sound. I still can’t see her.

  I slow at the final tree and let out a breath. The last house of the alley sits behind the backyards of the perpendicular street. Its attached one-story carriage house has been turned into more living space, with a deck built on the roof. Rachel has abandoned her bike, climbed the paned window and now hangs from the deck rail. It’s better than I thought, although one has her by the boot.

  I drop my bike and run. My vision shakes with every blow of boots on concrete. She screams as it tugs, and I push the others out of the way to get that one first. They haven’t seen me coming and go down without the arm wrestling they usually try. The one holding Rachel’s boot turns with a hiss. If I drag him away, she might fall. I drive my knife into his eye, wait for his hand to release, and push him into three more. Rachel’s feet find purchase on the brick and she scrambles onto the deck.

  I spin to deal with the others. I don’t want to use my gun, but they’re too many and too close for my knife. I slip my 9mm from its holster and fire at one after the other. I’m splattered with chunks of brown gelatin, cloaked in the scent of rotten brain and blood, but getting a headshot is child’s play.

  The three I knocked down are up again. I turn to them, but two get a bullet in the head before I can fire, and the last is floored by a chest hit. I use my knife to finish it off. Rachel stands at the edge of the deck with her .22 pistol. She hasn’t used it once since we left our house, but she’s always been a good shot.

  “Thanks.” I glance up and down the alley. All clear, but not for long. “We’d better get out of here before more come.”

  She shakes her head, and I give a short laugh. God, she chooses now to joke. It’s only a matter of minutes before the gunshots draw everything our way.

  Rachel sets her gun on the rail of the deck. “His house is just around the corner. I’ll go through the yards. Why don’t you leave before we’re surrounded? I’ll be fine. I’ll have Nathan.”

  Her inflectionless voice and distant eyes trigger a tingling in my chest. “Rachel,” I say in a voice that holds no trace of my distress, “you’re both coming with me. That was the deal. So let’s find him and get out of here. Please.”

  I reach for her, high above my head, and she ignores me—a fucked up version of Romeo and Juliet.

  “The deal’s off. I can hear them coming. Can you hear them coming?” Her head tilts. I hear the approaching sounds of who knows how many. “Go find Cassie. I don’t need you.” She disappears from view. My jaw drops. She’s lost her mind. Lost. Her. Mind.

  My childish instinct is to storm to my bike and pedal out of the city, away from Rachel’s words and the coming group. Instead, I plant a foot on the window and grasp the deck rails, then heave myself up and over. A planter falls and spills its dirt on the decking. For a second I think she’s gone, but then I spot her behind a deck chair with her head on her knees.

  We can find more bikes. We have our packs and can make our way along the roofs to escape. Let the zombies gather below and yowl all they want. I drop my pack and lower myself beside her.

  “Rach, please.” I hesitate before I touch her back. She’s shied away from me all day, but to my surprise, she leans in. “Let’s see if Nathan’s there. I won’t leave unless I see for myself that he’s okay, you know that.”

  She nods, head down.

  “But I will leave after that, if you really want me to.” I hug her to my side. “Now, can we go before we’re turned into zombies? It wouldn’t be a good look for you.” I flash to Grant’s face and flinch at my joke.

  Rachel raises her head. She’s going to do it. I nod encouragingly, as if we have all the time in the world and the feet shuffling closer on the asphalt don’t exist. Her eyes are sad, worse than when she heard about my parents or read her brother’s note. She shifts to show me her right side. The arm of her jacket and shirt are ripped through, and bright red blood seeps into the fabric from her bicep.

  Chapter 21

  I can’t stop shaking my head. Shake-shake-shake. The wound is a scratch, a tear—not a bite. It can’t be. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

  “One of them bit me,” she says softly.

  “No,” I manage.

  She covers the torn spot with her left hand and nods. Calm. Where the hell was this composure when we hiked for miles, when we fought over stupid insignificant shit, when she turned the corner on her bike with no fucking hand signal and rode straight into zombies?

  Shake-shake-shake.

  “You have to go,” she says.

  I don’t reply. Footsteps close in. A grunt here and there. They’ve lost the scent. I stand and peer off the back of the deck. Yards sit to the right and, just below, a door into the house that belongs to this deck, with a brick patio just outside.

  “Where’s his house?” I ask.

  Rachel points to a yard five houses down the perpendicular block. Our deck has a door into the second floor of the main house. I use my knife handle to break the glass, reach through to turn the lock and enter a bedroom. I take the stairs down and through a small dining room, then into the room under the deck. The carriage house is now a living room, with a couch and chairs, a TV in an armoire, and various antiques.

  I unlock the door to the patio and crash through ivy vines as quietly as possible. These are barely yards, and only a couple are fenced. I stop at Nathan’s back door. Wrought iron covers every inch of glass, bolted tight to keep out the criminal element. I knock like a vacuum salesman on a weekday morning. Just a friendly visit to see if you’re alive and let you know your girlfriend is becoming a zombie.

  Through the door glass is a kitchen table laden with newspapers and manila folders. A sink full of dishes, one of Rachel’s biggest pet peeves. I knock louder. The zombies are on the street, but they can’t see me.

  Nathan isn’t home. It’s just as well. I wouldn’t hand Rachel off to him and leave her to her fate. Back at the deck, I stand over her, hand extended. She doesn’t ask about Nathan, only nods and pulls herself to her feet. I figured I’d set her up on the bed, but she continues down the narrow stairs into the living room and sinks to the couch.

  I hand her a water bottle. She sits with it in her lap and watches me dig through our packs for food. I’m not hungry, but I pull out our tiny stove and a bag of dehydrated food to have something to do. A project. If she’s hungry, I can fix that. Besides, so far she’s okay. Too okay.

  The white curtains on the two street-facing windows are drawn and every so often a shadow passes by. Rachel’s eyes flick that way every time one does. Finally, she whispers, “Please go.”

  I take a deep breath. “You might not be infected.”

  “Eric…” Rachel looks as if she pities me. “I knew it would happen. I did. I half-wanted it to, I was tired of waiting for it.”

  That’s her calm. The worst has finally happened. I rip open the bag of pasta and try not to choke on the lump in my throat. How can you want to die, no matter how bad it is? I never want to reach that point. Don’t think it’s possible.

  “Hey,” she whispers, “look at me.” She wears a gentle smile. The one from years ago. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright. “I don’t want to live like this. My brother, my parents, Nath—I don’t want it.”

  A band works its way around my chest, tightening and tightening until I gasp for oxygen. Rachel stands and leads me to sit on the couch. Her arm snakes around my waist, her head on my chest jostled by my short sobs. It’s impossible that she’s given up. That being one of them is preferable to the promise of life. Of something.

  We hold each other as the street becomes shadowed, the air grows chilled, and Rachel grows w
armer. “Eric?” she whispers. I make a noise and she continues, “I don’t want you to do it. To me. I’ll do it.”

  As much as I don’t want to consider it, I’ve done nothing but that for the past hours. Waiting until she dies, if she dies, is the only way. Maybe there’s a moment between death and rebirth. I’ll wait. If not, I’ll take care of her after she turns.

  She winces when I shift. She removed her coat as the fever rose and, when I check, even the dim light is enough to see the dark purple skin around the wound.

  “Before I’m too weak,” she says.

  “No, I will, when…” I say, and search for words that say she’s dying without actually admitting it. There are none. I’m not protecting her from anything she doesn’t know, but I still can’t make it real.

  She tenses but says, “Okay.”

  ***

  I keep an ear on her breathing as the night passes, my hand on her side to feel the expansion of her ribs. She’s so hot. Burning up and letting out a soft moan from time to time. It seems painful but also peaceful, at least this way.

  Eventually, morning light fills the room. I ease out from under her, and she opens her eyes. “Bathroom,” I say.

  She nods and pulls herself to sitting with an effort. Sweat has darkened her hair to brown. “Hand me my bag?”

  I place it by her on the couch. “Are you okay for a minute?”

  “Of course,” she whispers.

  When I reach the door, she whispers my name. Her eyes are shockingly blue from the blush of her face. “Remember how I said you were amazing and loyal?” she asks. I shrug. “Well, I said some other stuff, too, and I’m sorry for that. Don’t ever change, no matter what. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever known, Prat.”

  I choke at the nickname. It’s a thank you for Grant. She closes her eyes. “Go, before you pee your pants.”