by Mark Clodi
In the back Dora got her garden hose out and washed all the blood and gore off of the patio and away from the pool. She turned the pools filtration system on manually and let it run while they checked the jerky and made dinner. The sun was near setting by the time they had dinner ready and were gathered around the picnic table to eat outside. They kept their conversation low and the television was muted, but on, providing a flickering light as the natural light faded.
"Do you think they are attracted to light?" asked Paige.
"We better not risk it. I think we should stay upstairs, we can tape paper or foil to the windows, to black them out completely, then barricade the hallway at the top of the stairs. I still don't think I am going to get a good night's sleep." said Dora.
"We still have electricity, that is a good sign right?" asked Mike.
"Probably, I mean if they are attracted to light maybe they will gather under the street lights?" said Paige.
"We should be so lucky!" said Dora.
"We were lucky." Mike said, raising his wine glass in a toast, "to us, new best friends."
The women clinked glasses with him and then drained the few ounces of wine out of them. Dora had opened a bottle of wine, some ice wine from an Iowa winery, as she expected, both of her young guests liked it well enough. She had told them they would only split the one bottle, which shouldn't be enough to do any of them any harm. She was surprised that she was feeling buzzed by the end of the meal.
The three of them cleaned up the dishes in silence and Dora shut off the patio television and came inside. She locked the door and braced a chair in front of it, wedged under the handle. They had already done the same thing to the front door and even to the door leading to the garage and basement. In the kitchen Dora gathered up her tin foil and some paper bags and the three of them headed upstairs with some duct tape from Roger's stash.
In the dying light from the master bedroom they looked outside at the street below, there were still a couple dozen zombies milling about out there. Dora sighed heavily and then put the foil over the window, Mike and Paige taped the ends up and then went down both edges, sealing the room against all light emissions. There were three windows in the master bedroom, two facing the street and one facing the side of the house. They sealed them all and even did the small window in the master bathroom. The three of them spent some time looking up at the sky light that provided extra light in the bathroom, but none of them could figure out a way to block it off; eventually they all conceded it probably didn't matter as it faced almost straight up and slanted towards the back of the house.
"We can open that you know." said Dora referring to the sky light. "Then we could get the ladder from the garage and get up onto the roof."
"How about tomorrow? I was up at five today to make my shift, I am dead tired." said Mike.
"Yeah tomorrow. Let's move the bed out of the other bedroom and set it up across the top of the stairs, then we can get some sleep." said Dora, the other two agreed and Paige was yawning by the time they found themselves back in the master bedroom.
"There's only one bed." Mike said.
"It's a king, it'll hold us." said Dora.
"Uh, I dunno.." began Mike.
"What? Still afraid of us women folk? We don't bite. Hard." teased Dora.
Mike's face took on a tone of uncertainty, his eyes shifted back and forth from Dora to Paige, taking in their bodies, until Dora let out a laugh. "Relax sweet pea, Paige here has convinced me to take the high ground. Not to sleep with anyone just because my worthless piece of shit husband did so."
"Don't you still love him anyway?" asked Paige.
Dora thought for a moment, Paige was not asking to poke fun at her, but earnestly trying to figure out how Dora felt.
"Paige…" she began, "Paige, in one day I have found out my husband was cheating on me with my old best friend, I've fought off a horde of zombies who just wanted to eat me and I've made the new best friends I have ever had in the world. Do I love Roger? I guess, underneath it all I do. But right now I am very, very angry with him and I really do not think I will ever forgive him. You know how many affairs I had when I was with him?" Dora paused as both of them shook their heads, she could see them mentally guessing numbers, "None, not one. I had opportunities too, but I never crossed that line. I thought about it, but I never would have. Paige, you stopped me from thinking of Mike as a piece of meat to get back at Roger with, that's good because that is all it would have been. I am emotionally drained right now, some sex would be an awesome tension reliever, but I think, maybe, it would be best if we just sleep tonight." She waited until they digested that then could not help but add, "The bed is big enough for all of us, the only rule I have is we all sleep nude."
Paige laughed, Mike looked perplexed, so she said, "She is joking Mike. Still you better sleep on the floor."
"Okay, fine. Can we still get downstairs? Roger the bastard has a camping mattress in the garage, right where he kept the paint ball stuff. I don't think he ever even used it." said Dora.
The three of them pulled the barricade out of the way and made one more trip downstairs to get the mattress. They also used the opportunity to check on the drying beef and to make sure there were no more zombies in the back yard. It was all clear and after ten minutes they were upstairs making Mike a place to sleep along one wall. Sitting on the bed and floor with flashlights, Dora held the light up to her face and in a spooky voice said, "Now we shall tell scary stories that keep us up all night. Who wants to go first?"
The other two laughed and shut off their lights, leaving only Dora's lit up. She stifled a yawn with one hand and pouted out, "Party poopers!"
"Dude." began Mike, "We were up at, like, dawn. I am crashing." Mike let out a yawn of his own and pulled a blanket up over his head. They had taken all the bedding and pillows off of the barricade mattress so he looked pretty comfortable in his 'Mike Nest'.
"Alright, to sleep we go." Dora stood up from the foot of the bed and made sure the stout wooden door was locked, then got the chair from her vanity and propped the back of it under the handle before returning to bed with Paige. Dora thought she would fall asleep instantly, however the events of the day kept replaying in her head over and over. Paige's soft snores reminded her of Roger, on the floor Mike moaned in his sleep, eventually the darkness closed over her. The digital clock on her nightstand still had power, when Dora fell asleep it was only two minutes past nine o'clock.
Halfway through the night Mike moved into bed with them, on Dora's side. It was with frantic passion that they kissed and began caressing other. It turned into a frenzied, yet gentle, pawing as they tried not to wake Paige. Mike shifted the nightshirt Dora was wearing up above her breasts and caressed them, hardly daring to lower his head until Dora grasped his hair in her hands and forced it to her breast. Once his mouth was busy his hands were free to travel down her stomach and between her legs, the thin fabric of her panties was already moist and his pressure against the outside of her panties combined with his suckling made Dora gasp.
She continued running her hands through his hair and spread her legs allowing Mike more direct access. One of her feet bumped against his groin and he ground against it. She used her toes and slipped down his boxers, he ground his pelvis against her foot, doing so in time with his hands against her groin. Eventually Dora could stand it no longer; she brought his head up to her face and shifted her legs to get Mike on top of her. Sliding her panties to one side she reached down for Mike, guiding him into her, she gasped and a wave of pleasure emanated throughout her body. Mike's frantic thrusts caused her more pleasure heightening it to levels she had never reached with Roger.
'Roger. What was that noise? Roger, why would I think of him at a time like this?' Her fire alarm was going off. 'The jerky! It was on fire! The house was burning! Dora pushed Mike off of her and sat up in the bed.'
Dora came awake slowly, Mike wasn't on top of her; he was still asleep on the mattress beside the bed. She had a tan
gle of sheets wrapped between her legs and a long, fluffy pillow clutched to her chest. As she came fully awake, Dora untangled herself from the sheets and tossed her pillow back to where it belonged. Paige moaned next to her.
'It was a dream.The house isn't on fire, the alarm isn't sounding off and her clothes were still on.' Sighing, she adjusted the blankets and fell backwards into her pillow. Softly she whispered, "Fuck." It was three fourteen in the morning.
A moment later she repeated the word with more force as the telephone rang. Getting out of bed she stumbled towards her vanity where the land line sat, the ringer was set to low and had not wakened Mike or Paige yet. Dora answered it on the third ring.
"Hello? Hello?" she said into the receiver.
"Dora? Oh, thank God! Why didn't you answer the first time I called? Are you alright? Dora, you gotta get out of the house!" it was Roger.
Chapter 15
"What? Roger, what are you talking about?" Dora replied.
"It's the zombies, they are coming from Denver, and there are too many here already, Kansas City is drowning in them! The National Guard can't hold them back. So our neighborhood is in the exclusion zone."
"Roger, slow down, hold on a minute." Dora glanced over and noticed that Paige and Mike were both awake and groggily propping themselves up on their elbows.
"It's on the news Dora, turn on the news! Our house was in the yellow zone until midnight, then they switched it to red, they can't protect you anymore."
"I'll go watch the news. I will turn it on and see what I have to do. Thanks for the warning, Roger." There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
"Dora." Roger began.
"Don't." she warned.
"I'm sorry Dora. I didn't…this wasn't what I had wanted."
Dora grew angry, "I said don't. As in, 'Do Not'. I am not ready to deal with you when I am having to deal with staying alive."
"I am sorry, Marge is sorry too, she, we, didn't mean to hurt you."
"Roger, you and Marge are only sorry you got caught! Fuck her, I mean that literally, go for it, I don't give a shit anymore."
"So…it's over then?"
Dora let out a short, machine gun type laugh, "Over? I am fucking killing zombies, fighting for my life and you think I want to take time out to deal with my husband banging my best friend? I have bigger shit, much bigger shit to deal with than your betrayal. If it makes you feel any better just think of me as dead."
"Dora…I…I am coming to get you. Now. I will fight my way over there and pull you out of there."
"What? You and what army? Have you been on the streets lately? Do you know how many zombies I killed today? Me? How many have you killed Roger or were you too busy killing the rabbit to get outside today?"
"You…you had to fight them?" His voice was barely a whisper.
"Hah! I knew it, you and Marge and Sylvia for all I know were lounging around in bed screwing all day while I was fighting to get home, to get back here and to save…" Dora began to cry, angry fat tears and she didn't trust her voice to say anymore.
"What do you mean you had to fight to get home? Why did you leave home? You really killed a zombie? We haven't seen any here. Sylvia left about eleven, told Marge to fuck off and walked out. Dora. I have other news. Jerry is dead."
This last prompted Dora to speak again, "What? How can you know that?" Jerry was Marge's husband, who had gone out of town on a business trip to California last week, he was not due to return until next week.
"He called us, well, um, Marge."
"So he called and was still alive, right?"
"No he was in his hotel, he, it was terrible, Marge's face went white, she put him on speaker phone. They, they were in the room with him, at the end. He…I've never hear a man scream like that. I've never heard a man die."
"Roger, I am sorry. Sorry for you, sorry for Marge. I don't really like either one of you right now and even with all this shit going on I don't want to see you either."
"What? What are you saying?"
"I am saying, evacuate, don't worry about me."
"I am worried about you."
Dora sighed, the timing was all wrong to be having this conversation. "What do you want to do, Roger, go into marriage counseling? Look, you were an asshole yesterday. Worse, an asshole that cheated on his wife with her best friend. Where have you been, Roger? I mean really, Marge lives two fucking miles from our house! And you're only calling me now? I think that shows, more than anything else, what your feelings are. You didn't even know I was gone. You know I crashed the car?"
"What? Is the car okay? Were you hurt?"
Thinking to herself Dora let out a soft chuckle, "'Is the car okay? Were you hurt?'" she mimicked his tone back at him, "The order of your questions indicates your priorities. I set you free, Roger. Don't come here. Leave me alone."
"I…Dora, I am sorry! I didn't mean it like that. I needed to know if you needed a ride or if the car was working."
"I am home, I can drive the suburban, if I have to."
"If you have to? What kind of statement is that? Of course you have to, we have to leave. Dora…how did you get home?"
"I ran into a couple of other people close to where I crashed. I got a ride from them. They are here with me now."
"Are they men? They are aren't they?!"
"Fuck you Roger. Is that all you can think about? If they are men, why not? First, it isn't like the sanctity of our marriage means anything to you, so why should I care? Second, why do you think people would think about sex at a time like this?" remembering her dream Dora smiled slightly.
"Are they men?"
"Roger, no, they are not men. One is a guy named Mike, he is seventeen, in case you are wondering. The other is named Paige, she is a girl, in case you didn't get that from her name. She has shown more balls today than I think you will ever have. I mean, at least she got out of the fucking house and killed a mob of zombies with me!"
"You killed a mob of zombies?" Roger started to laugh, "Tell me another lie you spoiled bitch! You really had me going there for a second. What did you do? Bitch at them until they died?"
"I would say 'Fuck you', but I think the better phrase is 'Go fuck yourself'. Just so you know I shot the zombies. With a gun."
"Gun? You don't even…you found my gun? No, no you couldn't have, I have the key on my key chain. Where would you get a gun? And how would you know how to load it, or shoot it? No this is just a lie, as usual from my nagging bitch of a wife."
Intrigued Dora thought for a second, 'Roger has a real gun in the house?' That was the most interesting thing she had heard in a long time, now how to get him to tell her where it was, "I suppose it could be true, you having a gun here. No, I didn't use your piece of shit gun. I went to the neighbor's place, you know, the guy across the street and down a little way." Dora looked to Mike and Paige, who were both awake and following her side of the conversation. Mike got up and went into the bathroom, flicking on the light as he did so. Paige yelped for him to shut off the light and Mike complied after a moment.
"For Christ sake, it's Jason! His name is Jason, I went paint balling with him, like eight times. He had dinner with us twice. Oh wait you were so drunk you probably don't remember that."
"Jason? Nope, not ringing a bell. We got his guns."
"Is he there with you too?"
"He is dead."
"What?"
"We found him in his basement, he was a zombie, it was the first one we killed. With a table leg and a pool cue. Oh, was your gun at Jason's? Then we probably have it. We cleaned his safe out, except for an old antique gun that Mike didn't know how to use."
"He is really dead? I thought, I thought he would be fine. I mean, he had all those guns…"
"He was trying to get to them, he had the key, otherwise we probably wouldn't have been able to get into the safe. So your gun was there then?"
"My gun is in the garage, why would I keep it at Jason's? Dora, I am coming home. If for nothing else th
an to get my stuff."
"It is not a good idea."
"Look I can be an adult about it, but I need clothing and wouldn't mind having a gun too."
"Do you have a gun now? Did Jerry have one in his house?"
"No. Well Marge hasn't said, but he doesn't seem the type."
"Neither do you. Why would you have a gun and not tell me?"
"It cost a lot of money."
"You make a lot of money."
"I…look do we have to get into this right now?"
"You shouldn't come here."
"Why?" Roger asked.
"Because we had a little incident today. And not all of the zombies are gone. We have a lot of them out in front of our house."
"Right. I am coming home."
"Now? Can't it wait for daylight?"
"Why? You going somewhere?"
"Well, back to sleep."
"You were sleeping? The world is fucking ending and you are sleeping?"
"Well, I want to be well rested for the end. Look, the world might be ending for you, in more ways than one, but it is not ending for me or for my friends. We are going to fight. And we are going to live."
Paige turned on the television, cable was out, but the local channels were still broadcasting, the evacuation areas were prominently displayed on the screen. Everything west of interstate seventy one was red, in the mandatory evacuation area. The sections between highways thirty five and seventy one were in the warning area. The map zoomed out and showed a large red blob moving slowly along interstate seventy heading east, right now it was close to Trenton, not that far from Kansas City at all, a larger blob was further west, trailing the first small group, close to Goodland. 'It's nice to know our ability to make pretty pictures is still around.' Thought Dora as she looked at the drawings on the screen.
"Isn't that where we are?" Asked Paige pointed to the map as it zoomed back in.
"Yes honey, it is, that is why Roger the Bastard called, to let us know."