Will To Live (Book 1): The Dead Next Door

by Smith, T. W.

  He knows… and he’s coming.

  Even at the distance, Will could see intent blazing in the man’s glare, his eyes black and hard as onyx. Behind him, chaos ensued, forty or fifty of the creatures were feeding on the remnants of his party—stragglers still coming, some even heading his way. Yet those fixed, cold eyes never wavered as he crossed the street and stepped over the curb into Will’s front yard.

  He had seconds to make a decision. His first thought was to unlock the door. When the man entered, he would shoot him from the adjacent living room. He knew he could do this—kill another human being—especially if his home were being invaded. He’d just killed those other men, hadn’t he? He’d signed their death certificates with the push of a button.

  But not only was the door locked, it was boarded. No time for changing that. He could still make a quick run out back to the lake; the dogs were harnessed and ready to go. But that would leave this man alone in his home, with his supplies. What if he decided to stay for a while? How would he know when to return?

  What’s worse than finding a snake?

  He stepped away from the sidelight and went into the living room. From his peephole there, he watched the man approach with determined strides, swaggering with confidence as he scaled the incline of the yard. When he reached the foot of the steps he slowed, easing through the rose bed until his boots rested on the concrete walkway. He remained there, sizing up the door, eyes drifting to the windows on either side. Will was again struck by how handsome the man was… in his tight navy t-shirt, worn and faded jeans, scuffed boots. He felt movement below his belt that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Really, Will? REALLY?

  The man disappeared from view as he climbed the steps to the front door. Will gingerly stepped back into the foyer, gun-raised, heart pounding. All that stood between them was a boarded, black door, made more prominent from the blinding glow of the sun-drenched, sidelights surrounding it.

  Remember, Will. He doesn’t know where you are.

  “You’re behind that door. I know it,” said the man, his voice deep and gruff, unwelcome. “You killed my boy.”

  Will took a deep breath and exhaled slow.

  The front door knob jiggled and the boards creaked just a bit from the pressure.

  “Bet you’re all comfy-cozy in there. How about you let me in and we find a way to help each other out?”

  Will considered it for a second—not for practical reasons, but because he was horny—and the man fired a shot into the door, inches away from where his head was pressed. He fell away, ears ringing. From the basement, Rocko barked once loudly—a deep, hound’s bellow—followed by a yelp of pain.

  Zapped.

  “Is that a dog?” the man said, his voice now muffled and distant, surreal. “I haven’t had meat in almost a week.”

  Will scurried away from the door into the living room.

  “I see you,” sang the man. He was using the bullet hole for access.

  Will wiggled his index fingers in his ears, trying to subdue the bells. What had he been thinking? He’d nearly had his face blown off. This man was much worse than a snake. This man was a killer—good-looking maybe, and smart—but unpredictable, dangerous. He could not let this man leave. To be uncertain of his whereabouts would be…

  Move fast, Will.

  He swallowed and spoke: “What happens if I do let you in?” His words hollow echoes, as if spoken in a cavern.

  The man said nothing. Will visualized him grinning, leaning with his hand high on the door. He was getting hard again, but for altogether different reasons.

  When the man spoke again, his voice changed, became chummier: “I could help you reinforce this place. We could survive… together…”

  You just accused me of killing your kid and now you want to be buddies? Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought.

  “We’re stronger in numbers…”

  You want to eat my dog.

  “You’re lonely…”

  So what?

  “It’s hard…”

  More than you know.

  “We need each other.”

  Will spoke: “How do I know you won’t shoot me when I un-board the door?”

  The man paused again.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll put my gun down on your walkway where you can see it. But we need to hurry. Company’s coming.”

  The man stepped away from the door and Will watched him from the living room window. He shot two zombies approaching from the street and then laid the pistol on the cement. “There’s more coming,” he said. “We’ve got to hurry, man.”

  Will went back into the foyer and stepped up to the door, using the bullet hole for sight. He made banging noises on the door with one hand to simulate activity, and with the other he held his pistol up, shoulder-high. The man was smirking as he returned, pausing briefly mid-steps to remove another pistol from his raised right boot. He concealed it and continued up the steps to the door.

  Will saw this through the bullet hole, continuing to press and pull to maintain the illusion of his un-boarding it. When the man reached the door, Will stepped back enough to extend his arms—his left hand fumbling with the deadbolt, and his right now aiming the pistol. He took a deep breath, speaking as he exhaled: “What’s your name?”

  The man answered: “Brad. What’s yours?”

  “Will.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Will. About got that door open?”

  “Almost.”

  “Hurry. Those things are coming.”

  “Hey, Brad. One question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why’d you have to be so hot?”

  The bearded man stood on the landing outside the front door, his expression morphing from quizzical surprise, to realization, to rage. Will pulled the trigger and the gun fired. Rocko barked and yelped again.

  Crazy dog never learns.

  The bullet pierced the door and hit above Brad’s chest, in his neck. He groped at his throat with both hands, bright red blood gushing through his fingers. He stumbled one step backwards, and then another.

  Will watched this from his newest peephole in the door, Brad’s huge white eyes suspended above red, much red. His third step found nothing but air and he toppled backward, spilling down to the walkway. He rolled to his back, still clutching at the seeping wound, and managed to sit up, but one of the creatures came at him from the side, forcing him back down—almost gently, like a father tucking in his child at night. It had been an elderly man before the change, but now attacked with renewed strength and vigor. It bit through Brad’s jeans and into the meaty part of his inner thigh. Brad screamed silently, his larynx having been obliterated by Will’s bullet, red spittle flecking his face. His hands left his bleeding neck and began pushing at the old man but the thing was tenacious, gnawing on his leg with determined bites, deeper and deeper. Will saw it all in close-up, silent-movie horror—Brad reaching for the front door, bloody fingers outstretched, mouth twisted open in a tortured, voiceless plea.

  Two more zombies came, selecting their own appendages for dining. Will ran to the nearest bathroom and shut the door. His heart was racing, its beats joining the resonant ring in his ears in staccato harmony. He was dizzy and nauseous, felt like he might pass out. He splashed water from the tub into his face, sat on the toilet, and waited.

  When his heart had slowed, and he felt composed enough not to faint, he went back to foyer. He stepped up to the front door and looked through one of the holes, expecting to find something even more ghastly than before. Instead, he found a hazy eye looking back at him. He jerked back. There was a groan and the doorknob began to twitch. A single thump hit the wood, then another—sporadic now, but soon to be a steady pounding.

  Shit. They know.

  Will raised the key fob.

  Please, one last time…

  He pressed the red button.

  There was nothing. Icy drops surfaced from every pore in his body as the door be
gan to tremble in its frame beneath the boards. Will ran into the dining room, to the unobstructed window nearest the Mercedes across the street. He pressed the button again and the alarm began blaring.

  The pounding dwindled and tapered off. The doorknob stopped twitching. Will crossed back into the foyer, risking another glance through the hole. There had been four of them, and they were now descending his steps in pursuit of the sound. The others that had been feeding on the corpse of Brad were standing up, also moving toward Lonnie’s and the source of the noise.

  As the zombies moved away, his view was less obstructed and Will saw that others from greater distances were still coming, drawn not only from the gang’s initial arrival, but now from the sing-song of the siren. Hundreds. He would need to let the alarm play out for a while—maybe until it died—just to be sure there was no longer any interest in his own house—his base, as Brian would have said. But he wasn’t sure if it would work.

  What else can I do?

  The handsome, bearded Brad was not looking so good. There were large chunks of his flesh missing all over, an eye had been gouged-out, fingers were absent, and there was a gaping hole in his stomach where the highlight of the buffet had been.

  Not to mention my blowing his throat open.

  Will went to the kitchen and got some painters tape to cover up the holes in the door.

  He’s going to come back, Will. He’s going to come back and remember you’re in here. And he’s going huff, and puff, and blow your house down. He’ll attract others, Will. You need to go out there and run a screwdriver into his skull. Don’t let him come back. Do it NOW.

  But there were still all those across the street—a huge mass, like a freaking outdoor concert. What if one took notice and decided the alarm was no longer interesting? If a crowd that size diverted to his house… well, he didn’t want to think about it.

  No. I need to wait. Calm down. Use this situation to my advantage.

  He went downstairs and got Rocko and Lola, both antsy from all the commotion. He took them outside in the backyard and removed their leashes. The alarm was still loud out back, but the sound of so many dead gathered had increased almost enough to encompass it. The dogs barely took notice of either noise at first. Lola rolled in the grass, belly up to the sun. Rocko headed straight for the woods to take care of business in private. They had not been outside in more than three weeks—since that day he’d talked to Judy after bringing the RV in.

  The RV!

  Will looked at the camper. It sat where he had left it that day, backed up to the garage door.

  The dogs sniffed around for a good while, relieving themselves in short squirts, following each other’s scents systematically. Will was nervous—his gaze often darting to the perimeter fence at the side, or the back’s bordering hostas. He did indulge a few lingering observations of the dogs though, comforted in their joy of being outside, relishing a simple pleasure he’d thought long lost.

  But the noise from across the street could not be ignored. The dogs were naturally curious and—despite his constant snaps and silent commands—they continued drifting past the camper into the side yard, nearer the vinyl gate. Before they could wander past the extent of the shielding cosmetic fence to the perforated chain link, Will re-leashed them and took them back inside. He grabbed the keys to the camper.

  The engine started on the second crank. He sat there in it, watching the back driveway for activity. He let the vehicle run for one full minute.

  After shutting it off, he got out, and closed the door. He made sure that the chucks were still in place, before scouting the perimeter.

  From the front he saw the swelling mob in Lonnie’s front yard. The shrill blasts of the alarm were underscored with the murmurings of the dead, discordant and unnerving. From this vantage, Will could see how effective the alarm and its magnetism were. The yard was literally filling up with the creatures, expanding into Katie’s. And they continued to come.

  He didn’t linger. He felt uneasy knowing that Brad’s eviscerated body was just beyond sight, around the hedges to his left—a nagging question unanswered.

  In the side street, he saw a few shambling shapes through the foliage, but like the others, they were all headed to the Big Show at Lonnie’s. None had taken notice of the RV’s motor.

  Certain that all was secure, Will went back inside.

  OK. Now what are you going to do? You still have that guy out front. Hot Brad—remember?

  “Shut up.”

  He had sifted through ideas while he’d sat in the camper—the easiest and obvious resolution being to puncture Brad’s brain before he turned. But doing this, risked any in the horde across the street taking notice. He thought about dragging the body into the house first, but that invited not only the same risk, but also the additional threat of a potential zombie in his house. He had the pistol with the silencer, but he wasn’t confident enough to make the shot to the head from that distance.

  And, Brian added, you would have to un-board the door for any of these options.

  Wait a minute. No I don’t.

  He grabbed the pistol from the kitchen counter and hustled back down the basement steps through the offices, the dogs chasing after him. When he reached the boat garage, he grabbed a large Phillips-head screwdriver hanging from above his old workbench and returned to the backyard.

  The vinyl gate had always stuck, but he forced it open, the slight squeak of its hinges absorbed in the swelling cacophony across the street. He was now out front, in the woods north of the house. He left the gate open and crept up the slope of stepping-stones in front of the tall holly hedges below his living room window. He stayed low, between the holly and the roses that bordered the path to the walkway. Through the roses he caught glimpses of the pulsating cell across the street, the wailing Mercedes its nucleus.

  Ignore it. You have to concentrate. Do this fast.

  Before the ground leveled and the concrete began, Will stopped short and held his breath.

  Brad was sitting up, looking around, groggy.

  Will stayed low, sidestepping into the hollies as far as he could. From this angle, he could only see from the chest up.

  The bearded man stood, his balance off kilter, rising more into Will’s frame of sight. There were sickening splats as pieces disengaged and fell from the cavity in his stomach to the walkway. Will was struck with déjà vu of the night he saw the live feed of the man eating the woman in Peru. It was equally disturbing to see one turn, as if intruding on something as intimate and private as childbirth; only he was witnessing another kind of birth, an aberration, hideous and displaced, teetering as any newborn and hungry for something more than mother’s milk.

  Once steady, the creature stood looking at Will’s front door. Then, his head twisted around and sought the source of distraction across the street, body swaying with the movement. Then it turned back toward the door. Once again, his head swiveled toward the sound of the siren. Then back to the door.

  Will was transfixed, watching the creature weigh options.

  Hmm. I seem to remember something I wanted behind that front door, but there is so much going on across the street that maybe I should check it out. But the front door is so much closer. But the noise is so inviting. Which way do I go?

  It moved forward, raising a shaky foot to the first of the brick steps leading up to the door. Will was not expecting this. The other zombie—the one who had seen him in the peephole—was lured away by the alarm. He was hoping that the ruckus would draw this one as well. Something was going on in Brad’s brain, pulling him back to Will’s house.

  Scary. Other than instinct, were they capable of basic memory too?

  It took the next step.

  Maybe they hold grudges.

  And another.

  “Pssst!” Will hissed. “Pssst!”

  The bearded man stopped midway on the steps, head wrenching toward Will. His face was blank, bloody saliva oozed from the lips of his open mouth, glazing the dark
bristles at its chin.

  “Come on,” Will whispered, gesturing with all fingers. “You want some of this? Come and get it.”

  Will’s presence trumped any other stimuli. The creature voiced a raspy moan, its remaining eye now focused with purpose as it stumbled down the steps in pursuit. Will backed down the path slow, steady, staying low until he was again in the woods near the fence gate. He had planned on using the screwdriver if it was still down, but now he drew the pistol.

  The zombie barely resembled the handsome killer he’d seen less than an hour ago. It continued lurching toward him, its determined, jerky strides relieving it of even more internal oddities, which slid from the gaping hole in its stomach like remnants from a fleshy slot machine. Will lured it closer to him, taking careful steps backward toward the gate. When he felt the hard surface of the vinyl fence behind him, he stopped, allowing the distance to be closed. He raised the gun, and switched the safety off. What was once the bearded Brad didn’t stop, and when it was a little more than arm’s length away, Will pointed the tip of the silencer at its face and squeezed the trigger. The gun made a breathy sound and jerked in his hand. A hole appeared above Brad’s empty eye socket and he went down for a second time.

  Will lowered the gun and exhaled.

  He stepped around the corpse and crept back up the path to make sure nothing from across the street had taken notice. Nothing had—just the same giant, billowing mosh pit, undulating to the groovy new sounds of Car Alarm. At this point, crowd-surfing zombies would have not surprised him.

  He scurried further up the path and found the pistol Brad had left on the walkway and the one he had dropped when shot. He returned through the gate and laid all three firearms in the mulch just inside. Next, he grabbed both hands of the corpse and began dragging it into the back yard.

  I’ll bury it tomorrow. I’ve done enough today.

  Just inside the gate, the corpse caught on something and he could move it no further. He rolled the body over to find that the rim of torn flesh surrounding the gap in its abdomen had snagged on a Maple root beneath the pine straw, stretching taught like a giant rubber band. Will steeled himself, refusing to let the exposed mysteries of human anatomy send him running for a bucket to throw up in. Instead he concentrated on Brad’s face, surprised to see that he was somewhat handsome again. Gaping wounds, bite-marks, missing eye and fingers aside, he looked at peace and human again.