A scream ripped through the air from the north side of the building, and the thunder of M16s firing on full auto nearly shattered the foursome’s eardrums. The mix of sounds was joined by the screams of the group outside as they discovered the unwanted attention they had gained. George counted at least forty shapes closing in on the parking lot.
He motioned for his group to move south along the building, toward the larger student parking lot situated to their left and away from the other refugees. He put his finger to his lips, and the others nodded, petrified. George was just as terrified as Al, Jennifer, and Jason, but he knew that unless he found a way to fight through his fear, he would never see his wife and daughters again.
Even as they kept moving, it was hard not to watch the larger group of refugees as they were slowly surrounded. Most of them were hysterical with fear, but they continued to search the vehicles in the lot. The first of the shambling monsters reached the edge of the parking lot with five others right behind it. They stumbled along, but did not falter as they stayed locked on the live targets in the lot.
A young man thought it would be a good idea to climb on top of one of the cars to get a better view of the lot. He then proceeded to leap from one car to the next, glancing down through each windshield as he did so. He moved so quickly that George wondered if he would be able to tell which car might have keys in the ignition, assuming that was his intent. It was too dark for him to have much luck, even as bright flashes lit up the sky every few seconds. After about a minute of this futile exercise, he had gained the attention of several of the rotting figures. If he noticed, he didn’t seem to care as he continued his jumps, each ending with a loud whump as he crashed into the hood of the next car in line. He’d gotten halfway through one row of vehicles when he noticed a hand reaching up for him. He was out of its grasp, but he panicked and twisted his body away from the clutching claws and slipped, flying headlong into the next car. A sickening thud accompanied the fall as his skull connected with a Taurus’s front quarter panel. George watched in horrified anticipation as several fiends closed on the young man’s position. A shaky hand grasped the hood of the sedan, and the refugee woozily got to his feet. He steadied himself just in time for the first ghoul to arrive. A scream burst from his lips as another came from behind and, together, they dragged him back to the ground. George tried to ignore the sounds that followed, which could only be described as cannibalistic euphoria. He looked away and fought the urge to retch.
All of them saw what had happened to the car jumper, but there were other things occurring at the same time. Several people tried to outsmart the stiffs by weaving and darting around the parked cars, but still found themselves trapped between vehicles. One or two put up a valiant struggle, but others appeared to give up almost immediately as they were surrounded by ravenous fiends.
A young woman, possibly in her mid-twenties or maybe younger, had a small girl in tow as they made their way through the lot, focused on testing every door handle they passed. On the third try, the woman struck pay dirt: a Mercedes station wagon was unlocked. The woman tossed the little girl into the passenger seat and climbed in after her. Looking around frantically, she found the automatic door lock and pressed it before searching for the keys. An elderly man in their group who was nearby witnessed the young woman’s success and moved in her direction. He jiggled the handle and knocking on the window, pleading with her to let him in. After a few moments, he pounded frantically on the window with the flat of his hand, his voice rising several octaves as his frail arms smacked against the glass.
The quartet all watched as a teenager moved up behind the old man. For a moment, it appeared as if he were going to help him with the car door, working to convince the woman to let them join her inside. The kid wore a yellow t-shirt, and as the light brightened and another explosion rattled everyone’s eardrums, George could see words tattooed across it: Bravo Echo Echo Romeo. When the young man gripped the old man’s hair and pulled his head back to take a huge bite out of his nose, George’s little group knew the truth. The bite sent a geyser of blood across the window of the Mercedes, but even before the blood had stop spewing from the wound, the monster had removed his hand from the septuagenarian’s hair and wrapped his arm around the old man’s body. The ghoul’s mouth never let loose its prize as the two crashed to the ground. The old man’s bellows of rage at being locked out of the car turned into honking squeaks of terror, then gurgling noises as he died on the pavement. Two other rotters joined in the feast, but were thankfully hidden from view behind the cars.
The woman and child who had barricaded themselves inside the German luxury car were locked in a silent scream as they witnessed everything. The woman covered the child’s eyes as the horror grew on her face. Perhaps, George guessed, the man had been someone she knew, maybe even a family member. She was unwilling to unlock the door for him and, as punishment, she had to bear witness to the complete desecration of his body.
George knew that it was time for them to get the hell out of there. There was nothing they could do for any of the other refugees.
With a muffled command, George looked away and gestured for the others to pick up the pace. They had to get as far away from the asphalt surface of the parking lot and the few remaining refugees there who were getting torn to pieces.
But when Jennifer screamed out Al’s name, George was forced to turn and see what was happening.
“Al! What the hell are you doing?” he yelled after the younger man, who had broken ranks and was running toward the Mercedes. That was when George was sure they were all going to die.
His gut clenched, and he turned to Jennifer, who was about to take off after her husband. “Stay here with Jason. I’ll get him back.” He grasped her shoulders firmly, giving them a quick squeeze, and was off. He didn’t look back, hoping that his false bravado would be enough to keep Jennifer from making the situation go from bad to worse.
It was the little girl. That was the only reason Al would do something so unbelievably stupid. Maybe he could bear to watch an old man and a few other unfortunates get ripped apart without losing his mind, but a little girl? It had been too much for Al to take.
George took off after his friend, but Al had at least a twenty-foot head start and was already closing in on the car and the three ghouls that had wrestled the old man to the ground. George clenched his fists in anticipation of a battle he dreaded but knew was unavoidable.
As he ran, that sound was back in his ears—the buzzing noise that kept getting louder. They weren’t just close to the hornet’s nest, they were inside it. It tickled George’s eardrums and made him want to cram his fingers in his ears to block it out. It felt as if it were vibrating his entire body and set his teeth to chattering.
He looked ahead and saw the three shapes shifting and twisting together on top of the corpse they had ripped open next to the Mercedes. He could also smell them as he got closer: sickly sweet, like rotten fruit splattered on the ground, the juice thick and sticky.
Out of the corner of his eye, George saw even more of the damned souls approaching the parking lot. Others moved past the flat asphalt square, on their way to where the soldiers were firing their weapons continuously in front of the school.
Al moved into the group of stiffs on top of the old man. He nearly slipped in the wide pool of blood beneath them, but regained his footing. George watched as he planted his foot and kicked at the head of the first monster—the teen who had pulled the old man down. He connected, his tennis shoe landing with an audible thud as the monster’s head rocketed backwards. George covered the short distance and stomped on the arm of another ghoul that was reaching out to grab Al’s leg, snapping the bone and forcing its head to the asphalt. Its skin ripped, and black ooze squirted out onto George’s shoe, but he ignored it as he sent his fist slamming into the side of the third one’s face.
They were far too late to save the old man, and George doubted that Al had even considered that. But in just a few seconds
of furious violence, they’d pulped the three rotters that had torn the senior citizen to pieces.
Later George would spend a great deal of time thinking about what he had done that night. He had never killed anything before. He hadn’t even clipped a squirrel or a dog with his car. He had never been a hunter and tended to prefer words over fists, though he had gotten into a few unavoidable scrums in his time. He had never enjoyed the sight of someone else’s blood. But as he sent the heel of his dress shoe into the temple of the last of the flesh-eating lunatics, his only thought was better him than me.
Al reacted more quickly than George, not giving a second thought to their grisly handiwork as he banged on the window of the Mercedes and attempted to open the car door. He pleaded over and over again for the woman to open up and let them help her and the little girl.
George knew it was a lost cause when he saw that the woman could not differentiate between Al and the creatures he’d just pummeled in front of her. Streaks of blood and darker substances were spattered on his face and arms. He looked half crazed as he hammered on the window glass. She seemed to be sliding into shock, and the little girl lay curled up in a tight ball next to her. The woman kept shaking her head, but it was hard to believe it was in acknowledgement of anything Al was saying. It was an empty gesture, a denial of everything left in the world.
The buzzing in George’s ears was overwhelming. No other sounds could fight their way past it, not even Al’s frantic pleading. It felt like the sound was consuming him. It went beyond an auditory signal—it was inside him, in his skin and deep within his bones.
That was when he finally knew what it was.
It was the cries of the dead—thousands of them. They were everywhere. It was their moans of agony and delight as they cried out for living flesh. They had not only surrounded his little group, but everyone who remained—the soldiers, the diminished group in the lot, and everyone huddled inside the schools.
They had to leave. They had to leave right that minute.
George grabbed Al, who continued to bang desperately on the door. The wiry young man wriggled out of his grasp and screamed incoherently at the woman who was, for all intents and purposes, already dead. George spied Jennifer running toward them, unable to follow his command as her husband came undone. Jason trailed her, looking as frightened and confused as George felt.
It was all going to be over soon. George made a quick decision. He gave up on Al and rushed to intercept Jennifer before she could get to him. George was not going to wrestle a grown man, but knew he could handle a woman half his size. He would try to get her and Jason out of harm’s way. Perhaps her screams as George carted her back toward the wall would be like a splash of cold water to Al. He’ll follow us; he’ll have to. It’s his only choice.
He wrapped his arms around Jennifer and dragged her back toward the wall. She screamed for her husband and thrashed in George’s grasp, but he wouldn’t let go. He tried to calm her down, but she was hysterical. When he heard Al scream once again, not in frustration, but in pain, George did not let her go. He was still trying to calm her down when the reality of what had happened sank in.
He swung around with Jennifer in his arms and saw Al bent over, leaning against the car and beating at something that George could not see. The old man. It hit George like a bullet. He had turned. They had forgotten him. It was so stupid. Everyone turned.
George could only say “oomph!” as Jennifer aimed a knee at his groin. He dropped her and sank to the ground. Jason ran past him, and George weakly reached out to grab at his leg. He missed and fell over on his face. He crawled back to his hands and knees and tried to see what was happening. The sea of cars in front of him blocked his vision. He saw Jennifer’s head moving, and Jason was right behind her, looking as if he were trying to pull her away from something. George spared a glance to his left and saw several more undead closing on their position.
There’s no time left.
He winced as he got to his feet and stumbled over to the others. As he rounded one car and leaned on the hood of another, he knew he was too late.
Al had finished off the old man, but his right hand looked mangled and broken. The hand was covered in so much blood that it was hard to tell how much damage there was, but at least one finger bone had pierced the skin. The old man’s head was nothing more than a pile of mush below him. Al was screaming in pain, and Jennifer had her arms wrapped around him, her scream a sharp counterpoint to her husband’s. George realized that the hand was not the worst of it when he saw Al’s leg. A huge chunk of flesh and muscle had been torn away. The blood squirting from the wound created a river beneath him. Jason was screaming at Jennifer, close to crying. He was screaming for her to leave. The only one who wasn’t screaming was George.
Al began going into shock and vomited on himself. He slumped down next to all the people he and George had killed—if that was what you called putting something that was already dead down again. Blood was everywhere. Al trembled, staring straight ahead. He had stopped screaming. The woman and the little girl in the car were forgotten, and so was everything else. Jennifer pounded on her husband’s chest, pleading with him to get up.
George felt dizzy, and the buzzing noise drowned out everything else. This plague of the undead would sweep them all away; it would take each and every one of them away from all of this.
Would that be so bad?
It would be easy. Let things just happen and they would be free of all the screams and all the fear.
No.
George grabbed Jason and pulled him away from Jennifer. The boy resisted at first but then settled as he saw the dead moving toward them. The buzzing, the cacophony of moans, was reaching a crescendo. They would be here soon. George touched Jennifer on the shoulder. She had quieted some, and she had her arms wrapped around her husband, holding him as if he were a life preserver—the only thing left to her. She looked away from Al for a moment and stared up at George.
He saw only despair in her eyes.
He extended his hand to her and willed her to take it, to lift herself up and come with him and Jason. He had one of his arms wrapped protectively around the boy, who stared at Jennifer, tears blurring his vision. Suddenly, it seemed like the buzzing stopped, and all he could hear were Jennifer’s words as she looked at the boy one last time.
“Go with George, Jason. He’ll take care of you.”
It was the last thing she ever said. She turned away from them and buried her face against Al’s cheek. She closed her eyes and held him close. Al never stopped staring directly ahead as she pulled him in tight and kissed him on the cheek.
George whispered her name once, pleading, but she would not turn away from her husband. He stared at the newlyweds for a moment longer and then glanced inside the car. The woman continued shaking her head back and forth, denying that any of this was happening. She and the little girl were intertwined, the child’s head resting on the woman’s shoulder. George was tempted to bang on the glass, but Al was dying because of his attempt to save those two lost souls … Al and Jennifer both.
The buzzing came back to George’s ears, louder than ever. The moving corpses were closing in, and it would be only moments before George and Jason would lose even their miniscule chance at escape.
Jason did not struggle as George turned, dragging him away from the one person left on earth whom he trusted. They didn’t look back as the dead closed in on their friends. George couldn’t bear to think of what was going to happen to them in just a few more moments.
As he and Jason rounded the corner of the building, they heard no screams, no cries for help from Al or Jennifer.
George and Jason, Part 3
George thumbed through a paperback romance novel he had commandeered from one of the preschool teachers’ desks. Wretched was the only word he could use to describe it. But it passed the time. He would not have been caught dead with such a book previously, but now, with only Jason left to pass judgment, he couldn’t care less.
He thought about the boy and what was to become of him.
Jason would be a tall teen. He was gawky, scrawny perhaps, but he had the bone structure that indicated that he would easily break six feet as an adult. The boy was the whole reason they were holed up in this church instead of dead out on the road somewhere. George wanted nothing more than to take his chances and leave this place behind for good. He would take any risk that he could in order to return to his family. They needed him.
But so did Jason.
Jennifer had coaxed some information out of the shy boy in the few days they were stuck at the high school. It was far more than George had been able to get out of Jason since then. His father lived up near Detroit and was not on speaking terms with his mother. She made the decision a year ago to move to Ohio for a fresh start. She got a job as a nurse and promised Jason a house to live in, so they moved to Gallatin where they could afford a cottage in the little town.
The move was a shock to Jason’s system. He did well in school, but being uprooted and losing all his friends had been tough. His mother was happy here so, for her sake, he didn’t complain.
The boy had lost touch with his father long ago. He barely knew the man and hadn’t said much about him unless prodded. Jennifer guessed that even though Jason acted like none of it mattered, he still missed his father a great deal.
Jason lost his mother not too long before he had gotten to the shelter. It did not take much to figure that out, since he had come to the place alone. He would not talk about it, and all Jennifer could gather was that the National Guard had picked him up, perhaps in his house or off the street, and dumped him in the shelter.
So Jason had lost his mother and then the one person he had latched onto when things had gone from bad to worse. George guessed that Jason felt that Jennifer had betrayed him when she had chosen to stay with her dying husband rather than escape with him from the parking lot.
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