The Walker Family Vacation (Episode 1)

by McRory, Shane

  8

  Troy

  “Just stay here,” he said, then looking once over his shoulder, seeing the three of them still struggling in the street, he said, “If it … gets crazy, climb back through the window …”

  “No,” she said, her eyebrows tenting in the middle, but letting him go reluctantly. Flip-flops back on, wishing he wore lace-ups, he slipped down onto the concrete of the alley and made his way to the street. He winced hearing the man’s screams which grew high and excited. His shirt front had gone completely red. Other voices were apparent now, more people could be heard around the corner and to the left. The fourth man, the one in the striped Polo had got to his hands and knees, and as he got closer, he could see the man’s right hand was wet with blood.

  Now he was at the white-painted bannister of the patio, under the overhang of the second floor’s balcony. He could see down the street, see a small frightened crowd gathered a hundred feet away, bunched up along the main thoroughfare where yesterday his family disembarked from the ferry, came up the steps from the port and found the restaurant.

  The Rebellion’s patio was empty and tables had been left in a hurry; purses hanging over the backs of chairs, plates of uneaten food, glasses of unfinished beer. Between The Rebellion and the silently aghast crowd he could see two motionless bodies laying in the street.

  “What the fuck is happening?” he whispered.

  The old man’s scream grew shrill and desperate and now everything he’d intended to do—march down here and kick the two attackers in the face and generally be the hero—seemed dashed by horror. The man with the backpack had sunk his teeth into the old man’s forearm and blood flooded from the wound as he pulled his head away and removed a mouthful of flesh, tugging a long segment of muscle out as well, and it tore the skin all the way to the elbow before it snapped free and wriggled while it was then chomped.

  His knees went to rubber, and his stomach fluttered with butterflies. He held a hand to the bannister to steady himself. Then the Spanish omelette that Brit comped him while he chit-chatted at the diner counter leapt out of him and splashed on the sidewalk. He gulped and belched, pressed the back of his fist to his mouth while his mind reeled. The old man succumbed, his screaming waned as the Pakistani man took his throat with his teeth now. The scream was replaced with gurgling and raspy wet breathing.

  “Troy!”

  His name was screamed, and he looked around to see who’d done it.

  “Troy!” again, and this time he looked back, realizing it was of course Brit, her voice high and frightened.

  She stood on the dumpster still, screaming at him, and even from this distance he could see her face was red. She waved her arms, yelled, “Behind you!”

  As she jumped down and he wanted to yell to her not to do that, someone grabbed his arm. Not out of it enough to be a chump, he turned and threw a fist. The one with the Polo shirt had stumbled to him while he was in shock over what he witnessed, but his punch got the guy right straight in the nose and it gave off a good crunch that shot him with adrenalin.

  “Troy!” Brit again, and now he was walking backward, keeping his eye on Polo shirt whose face gushed blood. Undeterred, he lurched forward in an unsteady gait, coming after him.

  “Fuck you, man,” he said, but he felt the fear having this thing’s eyes on him, wanting to sink his teeth in him. He sped up, skipping backward, hyperventilating, taking in that the old man with the goatee was now being consumed by his two attackers, both of them on their knees around his body and pulling his flesh away with their teeth.

  Brit’s hands grabbed at him, pulling on his shirt. She yelled, “Why did you go down there?” her voice on the verge of crying. She led him back to the dumpster, scrambled up and the guy in the Polo walked purposefully toward them.

  “The picket fence, Brit,” he yelled to her, indicating to jump the fence, but now she was on the dumpster there was a three foot space she would have to clear. So he scrambled up to join her, throwing a leg up and letting her help him, grabbing his arm to hoist him right up.

  When he stood, he saw they wouldn’t be safe from Polo shirt, that he could grab at their ankles. Brit poked her head into the window, jumping up and holding onto the lip, but he pulled her back down. “Don’t, Brit—we’ll be trapped …”

  She let herself back down, eyes peering into the ladies room where just ten minutes ago their day had so much promise and things had been looking really good.

  “Can you make the jump?” he asked her, putting his back to the wall and looking down to their right, into the yard of the next door neighbor’s house.

  “Yeah,” she said, sounding sure. But he had bad pictures: Brit landing wrong, snapping her ankle, a massive compound fracture, him dragging her but these guys catching up and eating her, or worse, not making the jump, landing on the pickets and having their arrow points slam up her crotch …

  “Are you sure?” he pleaded.

  Now striped-Polo had made it, bumping into the dumpster and trying to reach out to grab their legs, his hands in claws, one of them already covered in blood.

  “I’m sure, Troy, I am,” she said, looking into his eyes with those shocking grey-blues of hers.

  “You go first,” he said, putting himself between the man and her, letting her inch along the wall to the edge of the dumpster. If he went first and then she lost the courage, what would he do? So he steadied her, put a hand on her shoulder, tried not to freak her out, but said anyway, “Don’t get hurt, Brit, be careful …”

  Fingernails grazed the skin just above his ankles and it gave him goosebumps. He stroked her arm for good luck, then tried stomping the man’s reaching hands, getting a good hit and banging a heel into his fingers. It didn’t stop him.

  Brit dipped at the knees and leaped across the gap, making it easily to the other side, landing without falling or even breaking any bones, thank fucking God. She landed, ran two steps and turned, shouted, “C’mon, Troy, hurry!” waving her hands to come and join her.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, but feeling a good amount of anger now, getting closer to the edge of the dumpster and lining up a good stomp to Polo shirt’s face—a satisfying direct hit, catching him in that broken nose again and knocking his head back on his neck …

  “Don’t!” Brit yelled.

  While it was a good strike, the guy had somehow put a hand up as he was knocked back and got his fingers around his ankle, gripping him. “Let go,” he yelled, engaging in a tug-of-war, trying to get his foot back.

  9

  Troy

  Next to him, on the other side of the fence, Brit was in a panic, trying to reach over and pull the guy’s shirt, and now he yelled to her: “Don’t! Don’t do that—get back!”

  She scrambled away from the fence just as he got his foot out of the man’s hand and rose again, then without hesitation, leaped off the dumpster, crossing the gap and landing on the driveway next to Brit, the thong of his flip-flop wedging painfully between the right big toe and the next.

  “Shit,” he yelled and hopped away.

  Brit was in motion, moving in the manicured dooryard out back of the house next to the tavern. People down the street, out of view once more, rose their voices again in a sudden chorus of terror. Outside the home’s back door, two bicycles stood on kickstands and the sun winked off the chrome. In the handlebar basket of one she pulled out a bright red U-shaped lock with a key and ring dangling from the cylinder. Her back heaved with rapid breath.

  “You okay?” he asked her, and when she turned he saw she wasn’t. Her eyes were wide and dilated; looking like she might be in shock. The expression on her face became one of anger, her pretty pouted lips turning to a thin firm line, her brow lowering; she gripped the U-lock so tight he heard it squeak in her hand. “Brit?” he said.

  She turned on her heel and marched the four steps to take her to face the man in the striped Polo. They were separated by the chest-high picket fence and the man leaned against it, his arms reaching out to g
rasp her but she stayed out of his range. He came to join her, the two of them shoulder to shoulder as this creature struggled to reach them, too mindless to understand it couldn’t, but driven probably by a hunger that wouldn’t let it stop.

  “We should go,” he said quietly.

  “You’re seeing what I’m seeing, right?” she asked him.

  He stared at the man’s face, saw his eyes dead and milky, the pupil wide and black, the color gone from the iris. His teeth gnashed and clacked as he bit the air in their direction.

  “I think so,” he told her.

  The man strained hard to reach her, one arm outstretched, bloody hand writhing, fingers clawing the air inches from her face.

  “He’s … he’s dead, Troy.”

  “I know,” he agreed. It was clear—the thing was mindless, absent … gone.

  “A zombie …” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  Behind the man and down to the right, they saw the one with the backpack rise to stand, done feasting on the old man with the goatee. Slowly he turned, face and chest smeared with blood; he regarded them, then shambled along the alley to join his compatriot.

  “Seriously, Brit, we need to go.”

  Then with no warning, she put a foot and arm back, lunged forward bringing the heavy lock in a zipping overhead arc and smashing the zombie on the top of the head just below his hairline. The sound was sick and hollow, one of destruction, and had this been a living man he would be unconscious from it or even dead. Its head snapped downward, chin hitting his chest, teeth clacking, eyes rolling in their sockets.

  Brit sobbed, then covered her mouth and watched.

  It took a step back, stunned. A wound on its forehead appeared, a deep crescent where the broadside cylinder of the lock had struck. It filled with black blood but didn’t spill over.

  Another stumbling step backward, lurching sideways drunkenly, then it returned, arms out and reaching over the picket fence to try to grasp them. A tear spilled from her lower lid, splashed on her cheek and as she stepped away, hurling her arm back, holding the cylinder of the lock like a hammer now, he stopped her. He put himself between them, his back to the zombie, holding her, and walking her away. “Don’t, Brit …”

  “It’s dead … it’s fucking dead,” she cried, looking over his shoulder with dismay.

  “We need to go,” he said. And it was true. The one with the backpack had caught up with Polo-shirt, the two of them leaning on the fence. Backpack kept lifting his leg like he might try to climb over, though it looked like he lacked the dexterity.

  “Shit, oh no, Troy,” she whispered, and he followed her gaze to see the Pakistani man, his once white shirt now almost completely red, stumbling along the sidewalk, passing the picket fence and standing at the foot of the home’s driveway, his path to reach them completely unobstructed. The mid-day sun shone almost straight down on them and his bloody shirt shimmered wetly.

  10

  Troy

  Brit transformed herself right before his eyes. Shook her head, eyes going narrow and serious, like she was shaking away whatever strange malaise had just consumed her. “Let’s go. Right now,” she said and she strode to the house’s back door and threw her U-lock into the bike’s basket, kicking the stand to fold up at the same time. “You coming?” she said.

  He was—for the moment—a little frozen, still standing and watching the Pakistani man wander up the driveway with his arms out; a real live zombie. Or dead. But definitely one-hundred percent real, as unfathomable as that was.

  “I just can’t believe it,” he said, but his feet were moving, getting himself to the other bike and taking hold of its handlebars, wheeling the bike along behind Brit who trundled hers under a low apple tree and across the grass, heading for the other side of the house. She moved warily, peeking around the corner first, taking a wide berth, then seeing the way was clear, hopping up to put both her feet on the pedals and pumping the bike across the grass and to the sidewalk, head moving left and right, then staying to the left. She waited for him.

  He rode up behind her, getting the wheels on the hard concrete sidewalk, then putting a foot down. To the left, past the house they just circled, out front of The Rebellion, more zombies wandered. The old man lay dead on the street, four more bodies as well, further down. They were on a short side street, Michimac’s main thoroughfare a few hundred feet down from The Rebellion, running at a T to them. People ran back and forth, left and right, there were screams of terror now, too, echoing up from the tall Victorian buildings and up to the azure sky. To the right, heading uphill, the road came to another T, a bed-and-breakfast looming above the road on a hill with switchback steps. There were people gathered on the porch, pointing and watching down the street, trying to make sense of what they saw happening. Behind them now, the Pakistani zombie had followed them around the house, emerging from underneath the low canopy of the apple tree. It growled.

  “Up the hill,” she said, making the decision. He’d follow—she knew the town.

  They both got their bikes into the middle of the empty road and pumped their legs, working up the hill while the crowd on the patio pointed behind them still. As they approached the intersection, the patio crowd’s attention shifted and they all looked down the street to the left, and a hushed roar came from them. The loud sound of horse hoofs clopping on asphalt came, and he and Brit paused, putting a foot down and witnessing the spectacle.

  The island, without cars, had horse-drawn carriages serving as a taxi service. Barreling along the street, a two-horse team wildly led their carriage. The horse’s eyes were wide and scared, one frothed at the mouth, foam dripping around the bit. Their buckles jangled, their leather harnesses creaked. All heard below the sound of a man screaming. The red metal carriage had a long canvas canopy that covered the whole coach, and underneath its shade, seen in the quick moment as the carriage raced from left to right across their front bicycle wheels, they saw the driver, an old man with a white beard and a straw hat, being pulled backward over his bench seat by a heavyset fifty-year-old married couple. They had their fingers dug into him, his face already streaked with blood. He gave up the reins to fight back, but it was too late. They clawed at him, the husband sunk his teeth into his cheek, right below his eyeball. As the horses panicked, the carriage bumped the curb and blood sloshed over the carriage’s lip, and something tumbled out of the far side and slid on the pavement. They watched in awe as the horses continued down the street, the carriage swaying left to right, the driver’s screams growing frail.

  Brit looked behind them and she cursed. Eyes darting over his shoulder too, he saw the Pakistani zombie still in pursuit, out in the middle of the street, lurching their way, coming uphill for them. Mayhem had spread down Main Street, spilling up their direction, out front of The Rebellion.

  The crowd on the patio had seen enough and now consumed by terror, ran off in their own independent directions. Brit jumped on her pedals and he did as well, turning left and heading further uphill, going the direction the carriage just came from. Pedaling was tough, and his heart pounded as he fought to get some speed to his wheels.

  “Troy!”

  He shot around, saw Brit had turned right, heading to follow the carriage’s path downhill.

  He shouted, “This way!” the bicycle wandering without enough forward momentum.

  “I have to go home!”

  “I have to go to the hotel,” he shouted back.

  “Come with me—please, don’t leave me …”

  “My family, Brit …”

  “My family,” she said, and the Pakistani man tumbled into the intersection, speeding up now that he was closer to her, getting desperate.”

  She yelped, and Troy saw the fear in her face. She stomped on her pedals and headed downhill.

  “Brit,” he yelled, but she couldn’t answer, hitting her pedals hard and getting some distance as the zombie stumbled awkwardly behind her.

  Troy yelled, “Fuck!” and
wheeled his bike around. Going uphill was going to make him vulnerable, anyway.

  Now he bombed downhill, wanting to ram right into the man, knock him on his ass, but didn’t want to risk damaging the bike, maybe falling and hitting his head and never waking up, so he pumped his legs, took a wide berth to the right, passed the zombie, passed the object that had fallen out of the carriage, saw that it was a bloody, torn away arm.

  “Hurry,” Brit yelled, slowing for him. Ahead another zombie stumbled out into the middle of the street, not looking their way.

  Troy looked back, saw the Pakistani man had dropped to his knees and took up the severed arm, had sunk his teeth into it. The way ahead was clear and it was all downhill as far as he could see. They zipped on either side of the zombie and they startled him, making him fall to the street.

  “My parents, Brit,” he yelled as they got side by side again, the wind buffeting their hair. He saw Brit was crying.

  “I’ll help you, Troy, I’ll help you,” she said through the tears, eyes squinting as the wind whipped at the wet. She pushed the back of her wrist into her sockets, said, “Please, I have to go home … I have to …”

  They’d reached top speed now, their pedaling not eking out any more velocity, so they coasted and he watched her face, saw the sadness, saw the determination.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said. He’d figure it out. While cars weren’t on the island, they did have them. Not many, but a few. He’d find one, take it, get back to the hotel, get his family and Brit would help guide them off the island. His iPhone was in the side pocket of his cargo shorts and when he wasn’t going breakneck speed downhill on a cruiser bike, he’d call his Dad and they’d make it okay somehow. They’d get everyone safe …