The Failed Coward

by Chris Philbrook

  Amy forced a scared smile as the parents who had greeted their children wept for joy. She watched the agonized faces of the parents that hadn’t gotten their kids yet too. They stood still, pleading eyes fixated on the distant glass double doors of the three story brick classroom building, waiting for their beloved kids to come running through it at any time. Amy suddenly felt like an enormous piece of shit for making fun of them all these years. Experiencing their pain step by step made them seem awfully human.

  Just as one of the fathers began to sob, fearing the worst, the front doors of the building burst open and several more of the kids stumbled through, obviously injured. Together they supported each other as they hobbled the hundred or so yards to the admissions lawn. The parents were frozen with worry for the longest time, but one by one the remaining family members burst out of the admissions lobby and ran to their children, grabbing them and offering what aid they could.

  One of the young girls being carried by her father was hurt badly, and Amy knew she’d die. Amy motioned to a clean spot in the grass and the father rested his bloody, frail girl down. She was porcelain skinned, and the tiny wounds from the shotgun pellets she’d been peppered by stood out powerfully. They oozed her dark red life in a dozen streaks all over. Her blouse had been ripped asunder by the shockwave of the blast, and her developing teen breasts had caught the worst of it. Her heart was directly in the path of at least five of the small wounds.

  Her father spoke to her in a panic, lifting her limp head to face him. “Isabel, Isabella baby, don’t go, don’t go to sleep, daddy is here now, and we’re gonna go see mommy at home in a bit. You just gotta stay here with daddy a little longer okay baby?” The father’s voice trailed off as his daughter’s eyes glazed over, and all the life drained from her body. Her head slumped into his hands, utterly devoid of the spark of life. The father was silent for a time, and then issued a scream that nearly broke all the glass on the shattered campus.

  Everyone, Amy included couldn’t help but join in his tears. The tiny girl’s death hit home for all of them after the anxiety of waiting so long for their own children. Amy wiped her eyes clear of the tears and in a moment of typical Amy selfishness, she made sure little Isabelle, or Isabella hadn’t been bitten. She saw no bite wounds on her body, and breathed a silent sigh of relief. The father doubled over on top of his baby girl and let his tears flow into her barely covered, destroyed chest.

  One by one the parents fell to the ground hugging their kids. The outpouring of relief and emotion was raw, tangible. Amy picked out bits from their conversations and tried to piece together what happened in the classroom.

  “Dad that guy shot the teacher, and his own kid. Dale was a fucking zombie dad.” A young boy.

  “Mom I’m shot in the leg, I got hit, geez it feels like bee stings.” A girl, a senior from the sounds of it.

  “Are we going to the summer house on the lake or what? Mom, Dad, it’s an island, we can be safe there I think.” Another boy, maybe a junior Amy thought.

  “Mom, I was bitten up there by that fucking jock asshole Dale. Why the fuck would he bite me?” A young boy-

  Amy snapped to reality when she heard that. Her head twisted to the side to find the face of the young boy who’d just said that. He was off to the side and sitting cross legged, holding out his arm to show his worried mother the handful of large round bite wounds on his arms and shoulder. Amy opened her mouth to yell out a warning, but she was interrupted by a chirp from the grieving father.

  “OW! Isabel!?” The father sat back on his haunches and looked down at his previously dead daughter. She was stirring, and now Amy could see her mouth was covered with blood. She’d bitten her father on the shoulder as he wept on her chest. She turned her head on the grass with predatory menace and stared up at him. Her eyes were white and glassy, and they regarded the bitten father with a vaguely confused expression.

  “Isabe-“ The father exclaimed with joy, but was cut off as his beloved little girl snatched at him, and yanked his neck straight to her perfect, dentist corrected, snapping teeth. Amy watched in the faint orange street light haze as a stream of dark red blood shot out onto the grass. In the light it looked like oil. The father choked out a gagging wet plea for her to stop, but his weight went limp, and he came down fully onto the little girl that had just snuffed his life. In his final moment of strength, he managed to roll off her, setting her free. With the same evil, predatory grace, she slowly rose to standing, and regarded the rest of them with the same confused, white eyed glare.

  The parents and children fell backwards, crawling away from the monster that had just slain its own parent. Blurts of dismay and fear wracked the parents as little innocent and dead Isabella stepped calmly over her father’s body. Amy shuffled away on her back, trying to get towards the heavy door of admissions that represented safety. Her elbows moved off the soft green grass and scraped across the brick walkway leading up to the door, and Isabella turned her head as fast as the crack of a whip to her. Isabella’s lips trembled almost in feral joy, and she pounced on top of Amy.

  Amy pressed upwards with all her might, grabbing the thin shoulders of the dead teenager. The corpse’s strength was diminished from life, but her whole mass was on top of her. Amy grabbed fistfuls of the torn blouse to have to something to hold on to, anything made for a better grip. After a few seconds of struggling, keeping the girl’s mouth far from anything she could bite, Amy decided to roll savagely to toss the girl aside and make her break for it.

  She was interrupted by a sharp stabbing pain on her shin. Amy let loose a bloodcurdling scream as she felt each individual tooth sink into the thin layer of flesh on her leg. A burst of adrenaline surged through her suddenly, and with tremendous effort, she heaved the girl to the side.

  She was betrayed by the blouse. The thin fabric couldn’t deal with the adrenaline pumping in her veins, and when she ripped the shirt aside to toss poor, dead Isabella, the fabric ripped apart, letting the little girl fall directly on her.

  Amy didn’t have the time to scream. She watched Isabella’s mouth open with a dim realization she was about be murdered.

  Amy’s mind slowed as the little girl’s blood covered mouth descended with unholy accuracy right for her exposed throat. The pain in her leg had gone, despite the fact that she could still feel a distant tugging and ripping on the meat there. Amy’s mind put two and two together and realized it was likely Isabella’s father. He too was dead, just like the daughter that had killed him. And now, just like Dan Haggerty had said just a bit ago, those dead people were eating her too.

  Isabella’s mouth hit her with a vaguely sexual wet slap, and Amy felt the hard surface of her teeth clamp down like a vice on the soft skin near her trachea. The pain was a white hot flare that ran deep into her skull and blinded her. With detached emotion she felt her heart flutter in her breast. Out of the edge of her eye and the corner of Isabella’s mouth she watched a dark, oily jet of her own blood fly up into the night. It came down on top of the both of them, hitting her fully in the face. It didn’t feel like oil on her skin.

  Through red tinted eyes she watched what she could see of Isabella’s face gnaw at her neck. Amy wondered as life slipped from her if all those phone calls she ignored earlier was Jason trying to get in touch with her. To tell her he loved her one last time. Maybe to tell her he was on his way to rescue her.

  Her knight sewn of unbreakable cloth.

  Darkness wrapped around her.

  There was no tunnel, and no white light.

  Just darling Amy, sweetest Amy, afraid, and all alone in the void.

  March 8th

  Today is a better day. It wouldn’t have taken much to improve over the past few days though. I guess saying today is a better day is a lot like saying I wiped most of the dogshit I stepped in yesterday off my shoe. Just most.

  I dunno. Today is actually a much better day I suppose. Mike and company finished up our trade today before they left for home, and we started talking
about something that intrigues me a great deal. I’m sort of shocked I hadn’t thought of this in depth more as well. It pays to talk to friends about stuff. Amazingly, they have useful input. Hooray for not thinking in a vacuum.

  So after everyone woke up and became largely coherent, we had a small breakfast. Gilbert showed up early, and we had enough supplies to make more pancakes for everyone. Mike actually dug into the trade shit he brought over strictly to help feed everyone. He didn’t ask for anything in return either. Nice guy.

  After we ate, Mike sent Gavin and LaFrenz out to patrol the campus to make sure there weren’t more wandering undead moving about. While they were gone, we finished up our trade.

  We refilled all their empty water jugs, as well as ten more gallon jugs they had gotten during the time since our last trade. Mike asked for dish detergent, some laundry detergent, and wanted some canned fruit for the kids. He also mentioned that they would be needing baby food soon, and I dug out the stuff I’d amassed as well. He was very pleased to get what I had. He also mentioned that they would require formula and such as well, so if we could get more of that for them, that’d be great.

  So I ponied up all that crap, and in return, he gave us three bottles of milk, one dead chicken, a dozen eggs, five gallons of gasoline, five boxes of milspec 9mm (250 rounds), and a spare IOTV they had from the guard base. I guess they have more vests back at the school, and Mike said he’d be willing to hook us all up with vests over time.

  Once we completed the trade and talked about trying to find a more substantial way to transport lots of water as well as retrieve gas from another gas station, Mike made his first diplomatic gesture to us from their new leader Lisa Goldman.

  Lisa and Mike both thought that we should abandon campus, and relocate to the Westfield school. After hearing their well thought out sales pitch, and taking a few breaks to run to the windows after hearing gunshots, I politely told him I wasn’t interested in moving, and Gilbert said the same. After a quick exchange, Patty and Abby both said they had no interest in going anywhere as well.

  I then started to send a sales pitch Mike’s way to have them come here. As great a place as the school they’re in now is, I think ALPA is better. I gave him the pros and cons, and just like me, he politely declined. He also pointed out that he wasn’t the leader, and no matter what, he’d have to go back to Lisa to get a more official decision.

  That’s when Abby spoke up. She suggested that we maintain and occupy both places, because they both had value. They were safe, defended, and far enough apart that it was highly unlikely that both places would fall should something happen. She made a good case for both locations, but made a strong point in that populations were vastly different, and that because ALPA was a much larger place, with plenty of open housing, we should have more people here.

  Peeling off a handful of people from Westfield would lower their burden there both on food, electricity, and water. We have plenty of electricity and water, as well as a fair amount of food. Once spring hits, we can start our crops here on the athletic fields, and she suggested that Lenny could give us or trade to us enough chickens to start our own mini-farm, that way instead of relying on a single location for milk, eggs and poultry, we had two. It wasn’t about trade, it was about survival. I mean shit, this is a literal moment of having all our eggs in one basket.

  She went on and on and even came to the enlightened conclusion that we could easily take on as much as another six people here with no problem. She’d done the math on her own apparently, and she was convinced we had enough food to make it to fall with no problem. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made to me. We could use extra hands to get things done here, and I’m sure there are Westfield people itching to get the fuck out of that high school. Who the hell wants to go back to high school?

  Mike had to agree with her at least on some levels, and he conceded that he’d bring the idea to Lisa. Mike was certain that there would be some people that would want to get out of there, but we needed to move slowly on this for plenty of good reasons. Look at what happened the last time a place took new folks in. Ka-boom.

  Gavin and LaFrenz returned shortly after that and said they’d killed two more undead wandering near the bridge. The weather the past few days has been cold and raw. The two guys were shivering their nads off as they told us the story. It was cute when Abby leapt to Gavin’s rescue with a warm towel and a hot chocolate. Those two are adorable together. I actually watched Patty’s face intently as the two youngins did their little dance of romance. Patty actually looked happy as Abby attended to him. I think she might finally be seeing this less as Abby being taken advantage of, and more of Abby being happy. It’s been a long time since that girl was genuinely happy.

  I can virtually guarantee you who the first person to sign up to move here is. I’m no Nostradamus, but the writing is on the fucking wall about those two.

  Plans moving forward. If campus and Auburn Lake Road remain reasonably silent in terms of zombie movement, we’ve got a lot to do. We need to get gasoline pretty ricky tick here. We’re not out, but our barrel reserves here are low enough to make my asshole itch. I’m uncomfortable about it to say the least.

  Tomorrow morning if all is well, Patty and I are going down to the nearest gas station heading towards town. It’s right near the spot in the road where Brian and I had our meeting and he flipped out over the fire trucks. Maybe two miles from the gas station Sean torched. We are going there to assess a few things.

  Is the gas station surrounded by undead? If it’s swamped, we’ll make a hearty pass at clearing it out as safely as we can. Are the pumps manually operated? The station nearby had old pumps that you could use a crank on, but I don’t know if the new gas pumps have that option. And lastly, we need to see how much gas is actually left in the tanks. I’m hoping there is a thousand gallons or so. If we find more than that, fantastic for us.

  If possible, I’d also like to find and procure a decent diesel truck as well. As awesome as the Tundra has been, it’s gas operated, and we really need to conserve all gasoline for our generators for electricity. As I said before Mr. Journal, there is a plethora of diesel around, but gas is going to get hard to find shortly.

  So that’s my agenda. Patty and I to the gas station tomorrow morning. Hopefully all goes well for the campus tonight and into tomorrow so that’s an option. After that, we’ll just have to see how that goes.

  We made final arrangements that they would come back here on the 14th for our next trade meeting, and that I’d try and track down more of the random crap they needed in the meantime. Mike and crew made their departure at about noon. Abby and Gavin said their longing goodbyes off to the side, and they had that awesome moment where you could see they wanted to maybe kiss each other, but with witnesses nearby, and nerves, they just had an awkward moment of silence looking at each other. I’m starting to root for those two. I’m being romantic vicariously though them.

  Oh. Almost forgot to mention the best part. When I went out to send them off, Mike sat down in the passenger seat of his humvee and saw something on the dash. He smiled slowly, and grabbed whatever it was he saw, and hopped out again. He said, “These are for you. I made sure business was taken care of.” He handed me what he found and they drove off.

  A dark crimson streak of blood ran across one round lens.

  He’d handed me Sean’s glasses.

  -Adrian

  March 9th

  Mr. Journal I feel like I got ran over by a truck today. Ironically, that’s not far from the truth. Earlier today Patty and I made our first off campus trip in days. We went down Route 18 towards downtown to check out the closest gas station.

  I think I woke up around 8am after having yet another night of fitful sleep. No exceptionally strange dreams, or waking up screaming, or worst of all, ugly dreams about Cassie. I think I woke up three times to take a piss, which is unusual for me. I wonder now if I will sleep like shit from now on because I am more afraid of dreaming
than I am of dealing with the real world.

  Damning revelation if there ever was one.

  Patty was up shortly after I was, and we packed a day’s load to head down to the gas station. The weather the past few days has been chilly but not frigid, and there has been a lot of rain. We’ve seen the lake ice crack in places, and the river is high and moving right along. We opted to use the plow to head downtown with. Patty moved with her pistol and the Tac .22, and I went with the Glock, and the M15.

  Abby held down the fort while we were away, and Gilbert kept in radio contact. When we loaded the truck we were extra super careful to watch for more roving zombies, but we saw none. On our way out I took a few minutes to check our pyre, which had more or less burnt out in the rain. The smell was righteously fucking nauseating, and we made a pact to return tomorrow to try and get the fire going again to destroy the rest of the bodies.

  After that, we made our way down Auburn Lake Road, and turned onto Route 18. The road almost the entire way was clear of zombies. Neither of us spotted anything moving until we were in eyeshot of the gas station, and we were driving very slowly because the road was pretty slick. The recent rain has obliterated the snow where we’ve been plowing, and with the temperature dips at night, the remaining moisture was fairly icy.

  Patty spotted the first undead asshole walking through the front yard of a small house. The freak had somehow gotten tangled in a clothesline, and was spinning around and falling down trying to get himself free. I didn’t stop to deal with him, I just wanted to get our mission accomplished.

  The gas station belonged to a small chain local to here called Moe’s. Moe’s has maybe twenty places across ten towns in the area. All the stations are the same. Large bays where there are about eight pumps arranged in single file, and a single brick convenience store structure with large glass windows set behind the bay. They are well known with the drinking crowd for having an exceedingly well stocked beer supply. Moe’s sits on a street corner facing Main Street.