by TW Brown
The body collapsed to the floor and I took a step back so as not to get tangled in its sprawled-out legs. Sure, they were kinda stubby, but in a confined space, tripping was a much easier possibility to have happen.
I barely had time to congratulate myself when the door the zombie had been pawing at flew open. I recognized Mr. Firecracker instantly. His gut was even more pronounced up close and without the rail of a balcony to conceal it. His shirt was perhaps two sizes too small, so I could see bare belly drooping down and folding the tops of his jeans over.
I could also see the big, scary machete he held in one hand. My gaze flicked from that weapon to the ugly bite on his left arm. He’d wrapped the wound in what looked like a gray tee-shirt but the amount of seeping blood oozing from the saturated cloth along with the fresh smear that had been dripping around the mouth area of the rotund female Hispanic zombie added up to that being a new bite.
When the man stepped towards me, I guess I half-expected a word of thanks. Maybe even an invite to stay which I would politely decline considering my current infected condition. What I did not expect was to have to dance back and away from that damn machete as it came slicing through the air in my direction.
“What the—” was all I managed to say as I scuttled away from a blade that missed me by what I was certain had to be less than a centimeter.
A stream of profanity came at me in Spanish. I knew it for what it was from working construction. Plenty of my co-workers were Hispanic. Most of them were great guys. After a while, you pick up a few things.
“Whoa!” I yelled, putting my hands up for a split second and then yanking them away just in time to avoid having them hacked off by that nasty machete.
The man swung wildly a few more times, but it was clear that he lacked the energy to continue the assault as he staggered a few steps and then sank to his knees. He buried his face in his hands and I could hear him sob. I wasn’t fool enough to go forward and try to offer any form of consolation. I stood where I’d retreated to, which happened to be a few steps away from the spiral staircase I’d used to get up here. If I had to, I could plunge down that rabbit hole and be gone.
“I-I-I’m sorry,” I finally stammered. “But you have to know what she was…you said it yourself out there about los muertos.”
When the man looked up at me, I almost ended up falling down those stairs. His eyes were laced with blackness. He was infected. He must’ve understood my reaction because he moaned and smacked his fist against his leg.
I didn’t have time to process what was unfolding in front of me before another sound caused me to look back up the hallway. A small figure was emerging from the open door where the man had come. It paused at the figure on the floor. I was willing to bet that I’d not just killed this guy’s wife, but the child’s mother.
I was starting to feel bad. Not physically; no, it was my in soul. It was almost as if I could feel it dripping with the tainted blood of the woman I’d just killed.
She wasn’t a woman, I reminded myself. You know that. She was a zombie just like all the others you have put down.
But that was a lie. She was nothing like any of the others I’d killed. This one had a family. I’d killed the matriarch of this little clan, and now they were being forced to accept what they apparently could not until I stuck my big foot in the middle of this crap-fest.
The small figure stepped all the way out into the hallway and I felt my mouth go dry and my heart drop through my stomach. As that shadowy shape took one unsteady step and then another, I didn’t need it to reach the light to confirm what I already knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.
What I wasn’t quite prepared for was the whole visual package. If I had to guess, I would put this little girl at seven or eight years old. She was not chunky like her parents. This child was rail thin. Her long black hair was pulled back into a braid that was too fresh and lacking signs of coming undone for it to have been done while she had been one of the living.
The wounds on her shoulder and the nasty rip in her throat were old and dried out. I’m no medical expert, but I was certain that the wounds on the child were several days old.
All of that was bad, but if you added in the thick leather strap tied around her head and wedged into her mouth, the scene went up another few notches in the “Disturbing sights” category. It wasn’t a stretch to figure out what was going on here.
I looked over at the man and saw that he was watching the little girl make her way down the hall. His face said it all. I could see the love, the fear, the heartbreak, and the sense of failure. All of those emotions were etched clearly on his face. Then he started and his gaze returned to me. His eyes flicked to my Glock and then back to the little girl.
“Please,” the man whispered.
The thing is, I wasn’t entirely certain what he was asking. Was he asking me to spare her? Or did he want me to do what he obviously could not? I was going to go with the latter. The thing was, his fate showed in his eyes; he was just as dead as the girl. The only difference was that he was still breathing, but that didn’t make him alive.
I considered ending the man first and then the child, then it hit me. Who was I to make that kind of decision? If I was so intent on putting infected people down, why hadn’t I taken my own life yet?
I turned my attention back to the little girl. She was now at the end of the hall and had stopped her advance. Her head cocked first one way, then the other as she regarded me, then her father.
“Venir a mí, hija,” the man whispered, his arms going wide to accept her in his embrace.
The girl shifted her body and turned to the man. My mind raced back to when Stephanie had first opened her eyes. I could have saved myself from all of this by just giving myself to her then, but something had triggered my desire to survive.
Or maybe I’d just been afraid.
This man had obviously been keeping his daughter long after she’d turned. He had no fear of her as she took one slow and unsteady step after another. At last, she stood right before the man.
She stopped and regarded him. Her head making an occasional twitch or jerk, but her feet had stopped moving. Again, I was witnessing behavior that reinforced my theory that the child versions of the undead were just a bit different.
Why wasn’t she attacking?
Of course, with that strap in her mouth, she would not be able to inflict much damage. Then the man leaned forward and released whatever was holding the gag in place. It slid away to the floor, a thick strand of milky goo stretched out and eventually broke, leaving a wet trail down her chin. But still the girl did not move.
The man looked at me, tears streaming down his face. I saw something in his eyes, but didn’t know what it was until he reached down to his boot and drew a knife.
As soon as he did, the girl switched into just another zombie. Her hands came out and she dove at the man. I was frozen in place as I watched her lunge in and bury her face in the man’s throat.
He cried out in pain, and his cry quickly ramped up to that same scream I’d heard so many times. The merciful thing was how short it lasted before becoming a gurgling sound.
At last, whatever spell had kept me rooted to the spot melted away. I moved in with my axe and drove it into his temple with all the force I could muster. Before the girl could react, I yanked my weapon free and brought it down on the crown of her skull. Surprisingly, it took me three swings to put her down for good. I staggered back from the carnage and collapsed on one of the couches that ringed the room.
Time began to lose all sense of meaning. I could hear the moans of the dead, but I knew I had a fence between me and them, so my brain dismissed those noises and tried to find very secure corners to shove the memories of the past several minutes.
I have no idea how long I’d been sitting there with the soundtrack of zombie moans before I realized that one of those moans was coming from down that dark hallway. I ran my free hand down my face as if that might wash away the dread.
The door that the man and then his daughter had emerged from was wide open. There would be no suspense of a creaking hinge sounding. I looked into the room, my feet straddling the dead woman sprawled on the floor.
The figure that stared back at me from where it was lashed to a chair opened its mouth and made what was almost a snarl as its teeth chomped together with an audible click. Unlike the girl, this boy was a fresh turn. The blood drying on his shoulder was still damp and reddish. I was confident that I’d just discovered the source of the scream that had brought me here in the first place.
Another difference was the age. This boy was in his teens. He was just like every other zombie. There was no curious cock of the head as it studied me. It simply wanted to get its teeth into my flesh. The head lunged with each snap as I entered the room.
As I had with the rest of his family, I put my axe to use. I cleaved the boy’s head, wincing at the familiar tingle as my weapon bit into the skull. I had no idea what the hell had gone on here. It didn’t seem terribly nefarious, but it was certainly tragic and sad.
An idea struck me.
Twenty minutes or so later, the mother, father, and both children were laid beside each other in the king-sized bed that dominated the room I’d found the boy in. I even found fresh linens in the closet that was at the very end of the dark hallway. I draped a large, red comforter over the family and then bowed my head for a moment of silence.
With that done, I started searching the residence for anything substantial. Apparently the former residents were neither hunters nor fishermen; if they were, they’d cleaned out every single scrap of gear. They liked to ski, though. Their garage had three empty bays, and it looked as if these people had taken quite a bit of stuff when they’d departed. Something told me they didn’t head to a FEMA station.
I was still able to find a case of sports drinks and a few canned goods in the cupboards. I moved the supplies to the front door and then ventured outside. Even before I reached the truck that was parked just inside the gate, I could hear a few moans and even a baby cry from the street.
I reached the gate and was greeted by about a dozen undead that had gathered and were all reaching through the bars in a futile attempt to get at me. For the first time, I noticed the decal plastered to the side of the truck: Jose Reyes and Family Gardening Services.
Well, now at least I had a name to go with the people I’d put to rest upstairs in the house. That also explained all the yard tools in the back of the truck. Heck, they probably worked for the family that used to live here. I bet they ran here thinking that this would be their sanctuary. I had to wonder if maybe the little girl had been bitten before they arrived and everything just went to hell from there. I imagined that there were probably plenty of stories that ended this way. Heck, we’d simply gotten lucky. At least that had been the case until I’d gotten scratched or whatever by one of those things when Carl and I had been making our escape after killing that bastard Brandon Cook.
The sounds of the zombies just a few feet away brought me back to the present. I needed to get moving. There was no telling how long I had. I’d just seen one person show the telltale symptoms of the black tracers in his eyes probably minutes after being bitten. I did my best to ignore the little flock of undead as I looked inside the pickup truck’s cab.
Keys dangled from the ignition!
“Maybe my luck is starting to turn,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the zombies. “Shall we see if there is any gas in this baby?”
One of the zombies made a mewl and smacked its lips. I was going to take that as a yes. I opened the door and turned the key just enough to activate all the gauges.
“Woo hoo! I yelped.
My little zombie audience increased the intensity of their moans and other assorted noises, obviously sharing in my good fortune. A half of a tank of gas would be more than enough to get me to that vet’s office and then back to where Carl and the others were holed up.
Just to make sure I wasn’t putting the cart before the horse, I climbed in and turned the key. The engine turned over on the first try.
“Hot damn!” I smacked the steering wheel, feeling better than I had in quite some time.
I looked up, my gaze skimming the rearview mirror. I froze, every bit of that happiness evaporating in an instant. It had only been the briefest of glimpses, but I was pretty certain that I knew what I’d seen.
Steadying myself, I took a few deep breaths. I closed my eyes and tilted my head up, turning just enough to where I thought my gaze would meet that of my reflection’s. I stared into the eyes that stared back at me. I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
I let out the breath I’d held in anticipation of the terrible eventuality becoming real. I smiled, then I started laughing. Tears filled my eyes and I leaned back in the seat of the pickup.
I didn’t know whether to feel relief, sadness, anger, or any mixture of all of the above. I wiped my eyes and leaned forward again. This time, I used my fingers to pry my eyes open as far as possible.
“Still nothing,” I chuckled.
What I’d been sure was that first black tracer was nothing more than a small crack in the rearview mirror. The eyes that looked back at me were, in truth, a bit bloodshot. I hadn’t managed to get much quality rest since the night or early morning that I’d left my fellow survivors behind and struck off to die in relative solitude. The capillaries were very visible against the whites of my eyes, but the color remained a healthy red.
I think it was the first time in my life that I celebrated bloodshot eyes. That thought made me chuckle again as I hopped out of the truck.
“You guys are gonna have to wait a little longer,” I said to the zombies gathered outside the gate.
I turned back to the house and stopped only a few steps away from the truck. I returned to the group gathered outside and pursed my lips.
“…seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one,” I finished counting out loud.
I was certain that the number had grown just in the short amount of time I’d been out here. If too many more stacked up outside, my chances of escape would be greatly reduced. As it was, I had to wonder if there were already too many.
I’d been the passenger in a car that had hit a person who crossed the street. They hadn’t been in a crosswalk. The speed limit on that stretch of road was thirty-five miles per hour. Granted, we’d been in a little Ford Escort wagon, but the damage to the car had been massive. I also recalled kneeling in the street, holding this guy’s hand as the light in his eyes dimmed. While I was in no way concerned about the damage I could do to the undead gathered out front, I was still very concerned about the possibility that it would incapacitate the truck. There I would sit, trapped in the cab of the pickup with a bunch of those things outside, banging on the glass and wanting to get in at me. I’d end up having to blow my brains out in the cab of that truck.
I applauded myself for thinking the situation through. It would be a big pain in the ass to have to search yet again for a vehicle and the keys to start it, but I’d waited this long. My eyes were still clear. No sense in acting desperate until the situation became as such.
I jumped out, grabbed my gear and headed back inside. It took me the better part of an hour to whittle everything down again to what I could carry in my pack. A few times, as I sat in the sumptuous living room and watched my discard pile grow, I considered just ending my days here.
If not for Chewie, I probably would have given up. My idea of cruising up to Mount Hood to off myself was a touch on the overdramatic side. It would be a pretty picture. The beautiful mountain scenery.
Maybe the sun setting and just starting to paint the face of the snow-covered mountain in soft pinks and purples as I leaned back against a tree. I would stick the Glock in my mouth just as the last sliver of that giant yellow orb slipped below the horizon. There would be a muffled ‘pop’ and a flock of birds would take flight.
“Roll credits,” I scoffed.
Yeah, I needed to get over myself. Being a drama queen was just not my style.
Once I had what I would be able to carry without too much trouble loaded back into my pack, I went around to the back of the house. I’d taken the time while I was inside to climb to the third floor and get a better look around. The backyard was this massive expanse of manicured lawn that was bordered on three sides by lush pines.
I could slip into the woods and eventually emerge in yet another neighborhood. From there, I would again try to locate a car and make my way to the vet’s. Only once had I paused and asked myself if maybe I was fixating too much on that idea.
I decided that I didn’t care. Plus, it wasn’t like I had anything else to do.
4
Sunday Driver
It was a strange walk through the woods. I’d gone to my share of haunted houses over the years. In fact, Halloween was almost as big of a deal in my house as Christmas was for most people.
I can’t recall having ever been so jumpy in my life…so afraid of every little sound. As I made my way through this fairly dense little patch of woods, I got turned around more than once. In fact, at one point, I ended up back outside the rear of the property I’d recently escaped.
Sense of direction was never my strong suit. I was the last person that you would ask for directions. I had friends that you could drop off in the middle of nowhere, or in a strange neighborhood. They had the innate ability to just figure out where they were and how to get back to their location of choice.
By the time I did emerge from the woods, I was sweating like crazy and feeling feverish. I was desperate for something to look into because I was almost certain that the infection must’ve finally taken hold.