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

by Smith, T. W.

  The trance was broken when he saw Katie. She was in the rear, moving with jagged jerks like the Bride of Frankenstein herself, and when her head snapped his way, Will could have sworn their eyes locked. She joined the crowd moving toward him.

  He started the car again, and this time released the clutch a little slower, reacquainting himself with a stick shift. The car moved forward, and though it was tempting to plow through the creatures, he inched through the crowd slow, ignoring the bony fists thumping on his hood and side panels—one hitting hard enough to crack the passenger side window.

  Calm and cool wins the prize.

  He caught a glimpse of Katie again—emerging from the sea of faces, floating past, clinging, face pressed up against the glass. He resisted making eye contact with her, but in his periphery was aware of her passing and subsequent absorption into the crowd.

  When the Camry reached the street, Will had passed through most of the mob, which had divided and reconvened behind him. He turned left, accelerating a little to shed any nearby aggressors, then slowed again. In his rear-view mirror, he saw that many were leaving the burning car next door and following him. He had counted on that, intending to keep a steady pace and lead the burgeoning crowd toward the front of Lakeland. Once this Pied Piper routine had played out, he would exit through the front entrance, circle back via the main road to the rear entrance and return home—hopefully—leaving the hubbub half a neighborhood away.

  He began pressing the horn.

  He watched the crowd in the rearview mirror, now several steps behind him, their relentless pursuit predictable and oddly comforting.

  It’s working, just like I knew it would.

  There was still potential for danger—always was. He had not hiked the entire route, so he had no idea what blockage there may be in the two stretches of road ahead. But he was in a small car, and the ground was dry—surely he could maneuver around any potential obstacles. Worst-case scenario: He would have to abandon everything and head home on foot.

  But that’s not going to happen.

  As he drove through uncharted territory, he took a quick mental inventory of areas he had not seen since the outbreak. Trash and debris littered the street and he had to dodge the occasional unidentified mound. Some were rubbish; others were undulating horrors that Will purposely averted his eyes from.

  He stopped tapping the horn long enough to make a left on to Lakeland Drive, the main thoroughfare bisecting the front half of the subdivision. The first mailbox he saw had a deflated metallic balloon attached with blue ribbon. The writing was upside down and faded, but Will could read it clearly— It’s a Boy! The house it belonged to was filled with broken, ground-floor windows.

  He checked his mirror. The crowd behind him had swelled almost to the width of the road, and stragglers were joining as he passed, summoned from the mob noise as well as his horn. No telling how far the tail of this comet would extend, but as long as he was leading it, he didn’t care.

  The more, the merrier.

  He broached the crest of a hill, and saw the silhouette of a hulking monster and three others, coming from his right. Behind them, another home burned to the ground. He wondered what had happened there, and whether or not the events leading to it were as questionable as the burning of Ruth’s.

  Questions—everywhere, unanswered questions.

  He tried hard to remember what the house had looked like, but could not conjure the image. The truth was, the front half of the subdivision might as well have been a foreign country. He and Frank had maybe met a handful of its occupants, not known them—mostly from annual HOA meetings, parties, or neighborhood outings. Rarely had they used the community pool—Why would they? Judy’s pool was next door with an open invitation—and the rear entrance was closer to come and go by.

  He kept his pace, easing up on the horn.

  Other homes he had remembered were still there, devoid of life. He made a mental note of those with cars in driveways, scrutinizing whether or not a car explosion would lead the dead all the way from his side of the neighborhood.

  It’s too far, Will.

  Yeah.

  You were unaware of an entire home burning down.

  Yeah. Got it.

  He continued his ascent; another house had a sign hanging on the porch that read:

  Alive Inside! Please Help!

  The front door was wide open, and he saw no proof indicating that the message held true.

  He went through an intersection with a small cul-de-sac on the left. He could see most of the houses there, nothing unusual.

  A little farther, as he passed another intersection, Will saw something so disturbing he pulled over to the curb and stopped the car. It was the corner lot on the right, belonging to someone he remembered from a cookout the previous year—a chef at a local restaurant.

  His name was Chad.

  The front door was closed with a giant red X spray-painted on it. In the yard, tied to the trunks of separate trees, were four living skeletons, mostly bone, not at all unlike the Lonnie-thing. Two were of adult height, two smaller.

  Chad had two little boys.

  The bodies were mostly devoured, unrecognizable, picked over like road-kill by vultures, and still moving. Coils of rope held all at mid-section and—though they had little musculature remaining—they twitched upon his arrival.

  They were alive when this was done.

  One of the smaller figures was missing both legs below the waist, a mere torso bound to an oak trunk. Will wondered if the kid was conscious when they gnawed and yanked his legs off like the wishbone of a chicken.

  The kid’s remaining eye found him.

  He let his foot off the brake and began to roll again. He checked his rearview and saw that the pursuing mob had gained ground. He sped up and adjusted to a more comfortable distance.

  He no longer pressed the horn.

  Before he reached the main entrance, he passed two more houses with similar tableaus—one on the left, and another on the right, as if the perpetrators were zigzagging through the neighborhood, skipping every other home. Both had bright red X’s on their doors and cadavers bound to trees in the yard—the last one, the bodies were upside down.

  That was actually the first one. The task proved too difficult so they stopped—maybe not enough manpower to hold the bodies up while they secured them.

  He thought about the bearded guy—Brad—and the men on motorcycles.

  No. Not them. You saw them come from the rear entrance. And there were several of them, plenty if they needed manpower. They were scavengers—bad men, no doubt—but this is different. Darker.

  “It’s a signature—like a serial killer.”

  The words sounded foreign, cumbersome, spilling over dormant lips.

  You’re not alone here, Will.

  Whatever. The responsible party could have moved on. There weren’t many—if any—people left here. If so, they were like he was, hiding. Other than Katie and Hank, he had seen no one he knew alive—and his encounters with those two were distant memories.

  Maybe that’s what he looks for—people hiding.

  He had to clear his head. The obsession machine had booted and it was terrible timing. He was mobile, nowhere near his final destination, and traveling in uncharted territory—not the time to be distracted.

  Fine. We’ll think about it later.

  But the image of those twitching bodies was hard to shake.

  The houses ended as he neared the entrance, and he saw to his right that the wrought iron fence surrounding the pool and tennis courts was closed and locked. He had a key—every Lakeland resident did—somewhere in a drawer in his kitchen. He saw the meeting area through the black bars, open but covered, with tables, restrooms and storage—nothing of immediate importance.

  Toilet paper, citronella candles, a propane tank…

  Will pulled past the Lakeland sign—its hedges misshaped, the flowerbeds overgrown with choking weeds—and up to the stop sign. He looked b
oth ways and saw nothing—not unlike any of the other countless times he had done this. All was clear both ways.

  In his rearview, he could see the mob several hundred feet behind him. So many now, tripping over each other and the curbs—a huge, malignant mass moving through the aorta of his neighborhood. This is where they would part ways.

  He made a left onto the main road, increasing his speed. There was a blind rise, roughly a quarter mile away. He maintained his pace and broached the crest, breaking hard as he went over. Ahead, an overturned logging truck was stretched entirely across the road—stripped, thirty-foot long tree trunks still held tight by canvas straps and steel girders in its bed. Will came to a complete stop, assessing the situation.

  Neither grassy side was ideal for sedan travel. He chose the one less sloped, and carefully eased the Camry around the truck. As he passed the upside-down cab, he saw that the driver was trapped inside, trying to shimmy his way out of the broken driver’s side window. His eyes were wild with the sight of Will, but his abilities too limited to escape the constraints of a seatbelt. Will could hear its snarls through his closed windows as he passed.

  Back on the road he saw and an old Town and Country station wagon on the left, a faded Baby on Board sticker on its rear window—

  It’s like going back in time.

  There were bloody handprints on the side door panel, and the passenger side window was shattered. The vehicle was empty.

  He thought of Frank.

  Stay frosty, Will.

  Continuing past the wagon, he could see his turn up ahead, obstacle free, but he drove slow and steady anyway, uncertain if it was from nervousness, or that he was perhaps relieved to be outside and in a car—probably a little of both.

  As he approached Lakeland’s second entrance, he saw a few staggering shapes down the road, too far away to be of concern. He braked and turned, reentering the subdivision.

  He passed the Collins’ house first, remembering his long trek back from Hank and Betsy’s almost a month ago. When he reached the Inman’s house he stopped for a glance. In the side yard, he could still see the mound that was the corpse of the UPS man he’d put down.

  I wonder if Brokeback Rudy is still there, break-dancing on the patio.

  Brian groaned. Ugh. That’s terrible.

  Yeah? I thought it was pretty good.

  There was no sign of movement anywhere, not in the yards or in the street.

  So far, so good.

  When he drove past his and Katie’s homes, arriving at the intersection they shared with the burnt remnants of Ruth’s property, he stopped the car and opened his door. He rummaged through the satchel, removing a pack of AA batteries and his decoy—a Live Baby doll he had found on a previous outing, the red sales tag still tied to its wrist: As seen on TV! He found the battery panel beneath the diaper and inserted four batteries. With the last one, he almost dropped the damned thing as the doll began squirming in his hands with a loud motorized cranking sound. Will clipped the panel lid back in place and saw below that the ON switch had been already been activated, jostled in the bag during travel.

  Fucking bitch—scared the hell out of me.

  Good thing I told you to remove the batteries after testing it.

  He set the Live Baby on the pavement outside the car door. The doll crawled a few paces, stopped and cried “Ma-ma” in a loud, robotic voice. Will shut the car door.

  As he put the Camry in gear, turning the wheel, he caught movement coming from behind Katie’s house—seen in his periphery actually—and paid it no attention. He pressed the accelerator and steered the car onto his side street, leaving the baby doll in the center of the intersection. Around the bend, he saw another, at the end of the cul-de-sac. It stopped and turned, probably more from the sound of the vehicle than the toy.

  Approaching his driveway, he saw another—coming from Hank and Betsy’s side yard. This one was close, and Will just knew it was going to be that bitch Betsy herself, having freed herself from her basement prison. But it wasn’t; it was a man in tattered jeans and baseball cap—maybe even a teenager. Beyond that, there was no telling, as the Georgia summer had taken its toll, leaving another anonymous wraith—faceless and nameless, yet still roaming in relentless pursuit.

  Will turned into the driveway.

  He sped up to the gate fast, hopped out and opened it. He returned to the car, and ascended the remaining incline, driving past the camper and into the open garage. He then went back to the gate on foot, quickly closing it from the outside.

  He had known that it would be impossible to achieve this entire elaborate scheme without any zombies noticing his use of the secondary driveway, thus compromising his obscurity. His plan had been to use the decoys to reduce his visibility here at his final destination. The car-fire and explosion had started the ball rolling, hopefully attracting much of the neighborhood. The moving vehicle and the horn had contributed, helping to herd them away. The Live Baby was the smallest diversion, concentrated for what few remained near home. And now he stood outside his gate, waiting to dispatch any leftovers that managed to sift through the sieve, machete in hand.

  The foliage had not yet been taken by fall, encompassing the driveway like a living tunnel. There was no breeze, no movement—the only sound the distant, periodic bleat of the decoy: “Ma-ma!”

  Will heard the shuffling footsteps before he saw the creature. It appeared gradually, rising from the summit in the pavement head first, then shoulders. It was the teenage boy, trudging his way up the driveway and through the shadowy tunnel toward him. It was not in the least distracted by the baby’s cries down the street, as it had been in closer proximity to Will—seeing the car roll up the driveway, prioritizing its rudimentary instinct.

  As it moved closer, Will saw that it did have a face, but not one he recognized. Its slack expression was so far from animated that it reminded Will more of the mindless wanderers from foreign zombie movies of the eighties, than the original Romero film. But once the distance between them was closed, its eyes grew wider, its lumbered pace increased, and its mouth stretched open to voice bestial triumph.

  Will swung the machete two-handed, fast and smooth and with the all the finesse of a seasoned baseball player. The blade struck its neck square, removing the head in one powerful swoop. It toppled to the edge of the driveway, rolling down the slope, and disappearing into the woods.

  The torso remained standing for less time than Will imagined. When it crumpled to the concrete, he stepped over and left it there, blackish blood seeping from the stump. He crept a little further down the driveway toward the street. The baby’s “Ma-ma” cries were much louder than he had expected. But any small sound rang like church bells in this age of silence. He knelt behind a Leyland cypress, remaining in the shady coverage of the wooded part of the driveway—not a great view, but far enough down to see his handiwork

  The nearest creature—the one he’d seen from behind Katie’s house—reached the toy first. He could see it was a female. She picked up the toy and Will felt certain that she would try to take a bite out of it, or perhaps dismember it, destroying his temporary beacon of distraction. To his surprise, she cradled it—or at least attempted to. The baby’s crawl-function was still in operation and it tumbled from her grasp, landing on the street with a muffled “Ma-ma!”

  Will looked back to his right for the zombie he seen approaching from the cul-de-sac. He could see it through the foliage, but its pace had not quickened. He slipped back up the driveway a little, prepared to replay the same defense, should it turn.

  But there was no need.

  “Ma-ma!” announced the robot voice again, off to the left, and Will was close enough to witness the creature near him take heed. It moved faster now, past the paved entrance and toward the sound.

  It’s got something to do with audio and visual stimulation, volume and distance.

  Maybe if you were a scientist you could figure it out.

  He wasn’t a scientist, but he did
want to get a closer look at what was transpiring with the decoy at the intersection. He wouldn’t risk leaving the driveway and its predictable smooth surface though. Creeping into the woods right now was far too dangerous; any little snap could swiftly shift the scenario. He settled for the Leyland again.

  “Ma-ma!”

  Two more of the creatures were approaching the woman and her baby—three total, all men— the one that had just passed, and two more from who knew where. This did not surprise Will. He suspected that there would be some remaining in the area despite the explosion and horn-honking a quarter mile away.

  This is where that scientist degree would come in handy.

  He just kept quiet and continued to observe them as they studied the decoy.

  The woman picked it up again, holding it by the head this time, its little arms and legs squirming. One of the male zombies reached for it and the woman clutched it to her, growling.

  My baby! No!

  Will watched, fascinated. Two more were now approaching the quartet from the opposite direction.

  The woman with the decoy turned to go, leaving the rest at the intersection and heading back toward the woods behind Katie’s house.

  Does she live there?

  The group began following her.

  “Ma-ma!”

  Before they were completely out of his line of sight, Will counted nine of the creatures following the woman with the doll. This unexpected result far exceeded his original plan. He had pointed the baby down the opposite side street, relying that the creatures would just follow it like the Pied Piper—or a Camry. Of course, there was the inevitability that the toy would get snagged along the way, or veer off into a curb—but he was counting on the distraction to work long enough to remove focus from him. And it had—the female zombie had simply facilitated the process.