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

by Smith, T. W.

  How many of you are down there?

  He was in deep water, but still…

  He kept moving.

  To the best of his recollection, Linda’s cove should be two before Howard and Judy’s. The next one coming up would be the Henderson’s. He would recognize this one too because their Realtor had shown he and Frank this property before they had settled on their own. Nothing fancy, just another plank pier for fishing, with a bench and an ugly arbor where it met the land, some kind of creeping vine—Clematis maybe—had covered it.

  As he rounded the bend he saw it—the arbor was there, just as he had remembered. He continued rowing.

  When he paddled into the cove they had shared with the Drinnons, the sun was setting, but there was still a good hour or more of light left. He had expected to see more of the creatures on shoreline than he had—just the two with the deer at the beginning, and the woman at Linda’s. Maybe they sensed less opportunity for food near water, since humans lived on land. Maybe the decoys he’d used in previous outings had lasting effects—echoes continuing to lead the dead away, like lemmings.

  Maybe he just got lucky.

  He’d certainly been fortunate in finding the canoe. This way may have been less occupied, but by land he would have never made it back before dark.

  Will hopped out near the shore to keep from dragging the canoe against the rocky bottom. He waded in knee-deep water, pushing past Howard’s dock until he reached the beach where he continued pulling it up into high grass for cover. He placed the oars in it, and then stepped back to make sure it was camouflaged.

  You stay put. I’ll be using you again.

  He retrieved his backpack from where he’d tossed it and waited, surveying the landscape and listening for any hint of sound, any slight anomaly.

  Nothing.

  He waited an additional ten minutes to be absolutely sure that he had not been followed by anyone or anything. The whole time he sat there, clutching the backpack and its coveted contents, listening, staring out at the water, half expecting a wretched sea-hag to rise from the depths of the water and drag itself on shore.

  Will… why didn’t you wait for me? It’s so cold and dark down here.

  Once satisfied that nothing was coming, he went to the gate. Crickets had begun their song, and the sky had gone from azure to violet—but there was light, just enough to follow the trail home.

  And they were going to eat good tonight.

  Hank and Betsy Revisited

  Weeks earlier it would have been impossible to conceive that he would ever again return to the home of Hank and Betsy. But his findings at the Oberon’s—though plentiful as it was—had lacked the one thing he felt he would need more of for an extended road trip: guns. He had been forced to move fast when he was there, acquiring only a pistol, the silencer, and some ammo.

  But there had been more in that gun cabinet. And there was the pistol that Hank had dropped, somewhere.

  What about Betsy, Will?

  Shut up, Brian. She’s locked in the basement.

  Over the weeks, with the bearded Brad and his marauders, the ever-growing numbers of the dead, and especially with whatever sadistic freak was out there killing and painting red X’s on homes, Will’s pacifist mindset was fast migrating into guerrilla territory. He wanted more weapons, was convinced now that you could never have enough. And considering sources for known arsenals were limited, Hank and Betsy’s was the obvious choice.

  He had stopped crating the dogs on his excursions for fear that he might not return. They needed to have at least a shot at escape should the house be compromised. Instead, he confined them to the basement—making sure all the blinds were closed and that they had garage access for bodily necessities. It was really no more than a giant crate to house them in, but it made Will feel better about leaving them and that was all that mattered.

  Both watched him as he prepared to go—checking and rechecking the windows and doors—sensing his departure, apprehensiveness outweighing their curiosity. Will knew he was stalling, avoiding a return to the house he had almost perished in. But he no longer needed Brian to tell him that time was getting short. The luxury of lengthy planning for these excursions was gone. He needed to be on the road soon, as the numbers of the dead continued to rise.

  They had dined like kings last night thanks to Lyle, their stomachs sated and grateful. He was forgoing The Routine in favor of this weapons excursion. His daily ritual had been relinquished a lot, here of late. At first, its dismissal was unnerving—now, downgraded to mildly annoying. He told himself that he was evolving, growing accustomed to the fact that this would not be their home for very much longer.

  After their dinner, he had sent James a text of his progress:

  …One week out maybe. Things still OK?

  This morning, he had an answer:

  Yes. Please be careful, Will.

  He had considered making this run at night. Raids on homes so near—though easier in the beginning—were now much more complicated. The dead were everywhere. Will could not look out a window now without seeing movement in the streets—sometimes, so much it was overwhelming. Darkness would provide cover, but it would also hinder his vision and offer way too many places for things to lurk. Blind panic could easily send him running right into their cold, clutching grasp.

  He toyed with the idea of another decoy—actually had an ancient boombox (held together with duct tape) ready to go. There were batteries and an old Huey Lewis cassette he was reluctant, albeit willing to sacrifice. But he nixed the idea, fearing that a decoy near his home would just increase the population in his vicinity. He had seen evidence to support this at the locations of other past raids. The situation kept evolving, which meant his methods would need to as well.

  Since the house in question was across the side street from his own, he decided that he needed not only to be quick and efficient, but fearless. If things got out of hand, he would just have to run. Worse case scenario: he would take the old familiar roundabout, away from the house to the lake.

  He looked out his office window at Hank and Betsy’s house. The windows were dark, revealing nothing. The shattered bay window next to the front door was gaping like a gigantic mouth, shards of glass resembling teeth—the bottom ones black in front of the now exposed partial barricade. There was movement in the street in front of the house, more than one, staggering in different directions. He closed the blinds and left the room.

  Once the basement exterior door was secure, he went to the gate and opened it. The yard and driveway was always shady—sporadic streams of late-summer sunlight flitted through the branches, making things appear as if almost normal. The driveway was littered with twigs and pine debris that he used to remove weekly with a blower. In the fall it would be completely covered with leaves, the concrete never to be seen again.

  But he would be long gone then.

  He brought six screwdrivers—you can never be too careful—and the gun. In his backpack was a long canvas duffel bag, flattened and folded. He had left the machete, as he wanted to travel as light as possible. The return trip would be difficult enough with the shotguns he hoped to retrieve.

  He stopped at the edge of shade in the driveway, before stepping out of the wooded cover. There were two in his line of sight one—a woman—facing away in Hank’s front yard, another heading down the street directly in front of him. The foliage limited his peripheral vision.

  He ran toward the first zombie, a nondescript man, wearing torn jeans and a stained sweatshirt. It saw him coming, but before it could issue a sound Will plunged a screwdriver in its temple, slamming it hard. The man crumbled to the ground and Will kept a fast pace across the street and into Hank and Betsy’s front yard.

  He caught movement in the distance, to his right, but his main concern was the woman in the yard who had heard the scuffle and was heading his way. Aside from having been dead for some time, the woman looked familiar. She was wearing a Century 21 blazer and Will wondered if he had se
en her via some form of advertising, a flier maybe. He marched up and jabbed the screwdriver into her eye. She went down.

  The front yard was now clear, so he turned back to the street to see what had been attracted his way. There were three to his left now approaching the driveway, and one coming from the right, farther back, just entering the neighboring yard

  He sheathed the screwdriver and drew his pistol, allowing all of the creatures to come to him. A woman, in the lead, reached him first. He shot her in the forehead.

  Pfft!

  Then two men closely followed.

  Pfft! Pfft!

  They all went down. Will was using proximity to his advantage and not wasting blows or bullets. He was still a little nervous with the screwdriver, but was discovering that with enough force it would pierce a skull every time—especially, when the zombie in question was older and more decayed. He was also partial to the length and the way it felt in his hand.

  The remaining one—a boy—had been joined by a man. Will met the child at the edge of Hank’s property and put a bullet in his head. The man, a few steps behind, went down just as easily.

  Of course, the pistol has its advantages.

  He made a three-sixty, relieved to see that nothing else was coming.

  The broken bay window was his entrance. Tattered sheers hung out of the large black gap on one side, drifting lightly in the breeze. Will stepped between the hedges and moved the boxed hose cart beneath the window. The cart was thigh high, just enough to give him leverage for reentry. He climbed up on it, and carefully pulled himself between the jagged glass and into the house.

  The space was much better lit now—having been late-night last time he was here. He was standing in an average living room with modest furnishings. There were muddy footprints helter-skelter on the taupe-colored carpet. Otherwise, the room was neat, orderly—unlike the abattoir he remembered the kitchen to be.

  He checked his gun, reloaded, then stood there listening. Hank could still be somewhere in the house, shambling around with his pants around his ankles. And there could be more—at least the footprints suggested so. Only one that he knew of had come spilling out the window behind him that night, but there had been others. Would they have left… or would they linger?

  Would Hank stay because of the familiarity? Ben didn’t. He made a meal of Lonnie and hit the road, never to be seen again.

  He was scared, brain racing. He took a deep breath, cleared his mind, and stepped into the foyer.

  More signs of abnormality—an overturned hall tree, coats and umbrellas splayed on the floor by the boarded front door—and more muddy footprints.

  You need to be fast, Will. In-out. The back door is compromised. You need to secure it, get the shit and go.

  The shadow of a hand appeared on the glass sidelight between the boards. The window was obscured with tapered shears, but he could see the shadow clawing at the glass, back-lit by the sun. The doorknob rattled.

  He turned and went toward the kitchen.

  How could they be so fast? How could they know I’m in here?

  There was no time, nor answers, for these questions.

  The kitchen had remained a bloody mess, but at least it was bright enough for him to see where he was going. The odor of rot was thick in here. He saw the hunk of meat was still there on the cutting board, only now it looked more like charred wood.

  Will looked to his left, past the basement door, to where he had last left Hank on the floor by the gun cabinet. The body was gone. The back, exterior door was wide-open, Hank’s crossbar barricade having been removed. As he passed through the kitchen, instinctively stepping over the now dry maroon smear, he put his ear to the basement door. His fingers found the deadbolt switch, assuring him that it was indeed still locked.

  He decided to secure the back door—to lock it and replace the brace would slow them down, even though the windowpane above it was broken.

  Before doing so, he stepped out onto the deck. There was another door—a screened door—leading off to the side. He decided to secure that as well, anything that would buy him time.

  He heard something below, stepped quietly through the door and on to the unscreened portion of the deck. One more step led to the railing, where he looked down.

  Below, in the backyard—where had he the time, he could have located the tree he had fallen asleep under so long ago—were five of the creatures. One of them was Hank, pants still down, body broken in several places from tumbling off of the deck where Will stood. He was laying face up, tortured posture—like Saint Sebastian minus the arrows—legs pointed at impossible angles, crippled and immobile for eternity. He saw Will’s head peak over the deck rail and his eyes grew large with surprise, one arm lifting as his mouth opened and issued a raspy groan.

  The other four meandering creatures took notice of Hank’s utterance. Their gaze followed his gesturing arm and saw Will leaning over the deck. They growled, agitated, arms reaching up as if in worship.

  Will yanked his head back.

  Move!

  He went back through both doors securing them as he did. He wasn’t sure how long it would take them to figure out how to climb the steps ascending the deck, but he was sure they would do so. The front door was blocked and soon the back door would be. He needed to get the guns and go out via the garage. He could lift the door manually.

  He opened his backpack, removing the duffel.

  On his way to the gun cabinet, he saw reminders of his last time here. The candle he had blown out a hardened puddle of wax, the infrared goggles on the couch, Hank’s pistol on the floor by an overturned coffee table—Diamondback, law-enforcement issue—and blood, much dried blood. Hank had bled out in the very spot he was now standing.

  The cabinet was still open, in it three shotguns and two rifles. He got them and laid them long ways in the duffel.

  There was a sound, so startling in the silence that—not even realizing it—Will held his breath. The screened door on the porch was rattling violently in its frame.

  It won’t hold long.

  As the assumption concluded, he heard it slam open and multiple footsteps shuffling into the screened portion of the deck.

  In the bottom section of the cabinet, he found more pistol ammo, shotgun shells, cleaning supplies, oil, and some weaponry tools that he could not identify. He tossed everything into the duffel, zipping it closed.

  The back door was shaking now, grimy faces pressed against the glass. A hand reached in the broken pane, groping for the knob, fumbling with the brace.

  Will stood, snatching the goggles from the sofa and moving in the direction of the kitchen. When he looked up, he was shocked to see two of the creatures entering from the hall, just rounding the corner and blocking his exit to the garage.

  “Shit!”

  They were already in here, upstairs probably. You didn’t secure the house and it’s been wide open this whole time. You’re moving too fast, not thinking things through.

  The back door slammed open and three more tumbled in.

  He considered dropping the heavy duffel from his shoulder and drawing his pistol. But they were coming from different directions. He wasn’t confident that he could make every shot count.

  Impulsively, he reached for the one door that was not blocked—the basement door. He switched the bolt, flung the door open and took the first two steps. He couldn’t see a thing. He tossed the duffel down in the darkness, hoping to knock Betsy back down the stairs if she were near. It landed at the bottom. No Betsy.

  He closed the door, fumbling for a lock that he knew would not be there; it wasn’t.

  Deadbolt’s on the other side.

  He leaned back on the door, digging in his cargo pants pocket for a flashlight. He was still holding the goggles, but had no idea how they worked.

  Too risky. Use what you know right now.

  He found the smaller of two flashlights, turned it on, and shone it down the stairs. It was an unfinished basement—the steps plain
wood, no carpeting, and the floor at the bottom concrete. He could hear Betsy, her growls amplified with the closing of the door, but she was not near the stairs. All he saw was the gun-duffel tossed askew at the bottom. She was somewhere else, down there in the darkness.

  Great. Pissed off basement monster below, and a horde of hungry interlopers above.

  He could have remained there, forever frozen—the last thing he wanted to do was descend into an unlit basement to face Betsy. But the heavy treads of the others, invading and roaming the floorboards so near the flimsy door behind him forced him to move, eradicating any momentary paralysis.

  Got to take care of that bitch first.

  When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he grabbed the duffel and tossed it over against the wall. It was not completely dark down here and his eyes were adjusting.

  The windows.

  He had forgotten about the windows. They were boarded from the outside, but light still came in. He could make out shapes that were not in the path of the flashlight, but nothing defined. Betsy’s insistent snarls increased with his arrival. His eyes left the windows, scanning toward the sounds and landed on a moving shadow in the darkness a few feet away.

  He pointed the flashlight that way and found her. She was clutching for him with both hands, the chain holding her back like a tethered dog. Will shone the light behind her and saw that she had managed to wrap herself around one of the basement support columns—nothing more than an unfinished pole—shortening the chain that Hank had leashed her with. He stepped closer to her, and her growls grew more frenzied. The meat cleaver was still lodged diagonally across the bridge of her nose. She had seen better days.

  You’re back—my sweet! Meals on wheels, I couldn’t ask for more. Now come over here and let me have a little taste!

  Will raised the pistol and shot her in the face.

  She crumbled.

  More light filled the basement as the door at the top of the stairs slammed opened. It was difficult to see the creatures as they stumbled down the stairs because the bright daylight above rendered them silhouettes—but Will had a huge advantage now as the narrow staircase forced them down almost single file. He raised the pistol, aiming for dark shapes of their heads.