by Smith, T. W.
This time, he made it to his feet. His hands were burning, wet with blood. The girl was coming at him again, fast.
Fuck this.
He struck her hard in the face with his fist. The effect was abrupt, forcing her back a few steps. She swayed, nose trickling blood, staring at him incredulously. Then her eyes rolled up and she crumbled, releasing the knife from her grip.
Will studied the body on the floor. Like most children when they sleep, she seemed innocent—eyes closed, lips pouting, cherubic—but not entirely. She was filthy, bleeding, her clothing tattered and worn, like one of those ragamuffins from Oliver Twist. And she was wild, feral, like an animal.
She’s alone, Will. Scared.
He felt dizzy, lightheaded. Had he really just been attacked and wounded by an eight-year-old?
Did I really just punch her in the face?
There were blood drops on the carpet beneath him. His hands were throbbing. He raised them and saw that one had a slice across the lowest pads of three fingers. On the other, the palm was cut from the center to the outer edge, deep. There was so much blood, and his head was pounding.
Then he realized that it wasn’t just his head pounding.
The shadow in the room.
Whatever was in that room was now pounding on the door, growling. He remembered the shoddy lock, knew it wouldn’t hold for long. He reached for the knife next to the unconscious girl. He’d seen it before. It was the same as the one in the man’s head downstairs.
So many questions…
He went to the closet and used the knife to strip material from a shirt to bandage his hands. He bound them tightly, wincing at the pain, all the while concentrating on the pounding down the hall, hoping it continued. Once done, he sheathed the knife in his belt and turned back to the girl. She was still on the floor out cold. Her nose had begun to swell.
You can’t leave her here.
Of this he was certain. She may have tried to kill him, but there was no way he could leave her to die in a burning house…or face whatever was in that room.
He lifted her, balancing her over his left shoulder like a forty-pound bag of dog food. She really didn’t weigh that much more, just skin and bones.
She’s lighter than a bag of guns.
In the hallway the sound of the pounding amplified, the growls grew more frenetic, as if it knew he was coming. When he passed the door, he could see it rattling in its frame, strips of sunlight flashing brighter around its edges with each thrust. The padlock was loosening, as he had expected. Only two of the four screws still held, the others stripped from what was really no more than paneling.
He made it past the balcony and took the stairs slowly, using his free hand on the railing.
Slow and steady. Slow and steady.
Before he reached the bottom, he heard the door upstairs burst open and the growling stopped. Will completed the remaining steps to the foyer, put the girl down, and drew his pistol. He looked up to the second floor balcony, past the dusty crystals of a brass chandelier, and waited.
He saw her hands first, floating gray and skeletal over the banister. Then her face drifted in—dark sunken eyes, skin stretched taught over sharp cheekbones, lips drawn back over impossibly large teeth. When her gaze found them, she reached, past the banister, toppling over the balcony. Her twisting body grazed the chandelier on the way down, making it tinkle softly, and then she hit the parquet floor several feet in front of him.
She landed face down, her body broken and splayed at odd angles. She wore what had once been snug blue jeans but now Will could see multiple breaks in her bony legs within the denim. One of her arms was horribly bent behind her back, the other stretched toward him, a bone protruding from the lower flesh of the forearm. Its nails clawed at the wood floor as she tried to pull closer to him.
Will circled the zombie with his gun raised, gripping the pistol tight despite the pain beneath the bandages. She lifted her head—one of her cheekbones had been crushed, her face now drooping on one side like putty, eye rolled back and completely white. Her tongue, torn by her own teeth, issued a raspy hiss as he passed.
He continued the circle toward the hall that led to the kitchen and den, collecting the gas jug he’d left behind. Her hand grabbed as he past, but the debilitation of her crippled body was beyond evident. She was going nowhere ever again—and the image of her attempts would be a hard one to erase.
In the den he splashed gas on the carpet and furniture. He did this fast, sacrificing a jug in order to have a free hand to carry the girl. He knew if she woke she would run and hide again and he couldn’t burn the house down with her in it. Humanity had not completely abandoned him.
Once outside, he was aware that the noise from the streets had increased, the groans from mobs of the dead now surpassing the sound of crackling flames. The air smelled strongly of smoke, and was visible in wisps above. Will crossed the patio, past the grill, taking the girl far into the backyard to avoid the blast.
He laid her in the overgrown grass. Her eyes rolled beneath their lids and she mumbled something as he put her down. He marveled at the sight of her—another living being. How long had he been without any human contact? Two months? Three? A tuft of hair peeked from beneath her cap, resting on the soft white skin of her forehead. Her cheeks were flush, lips pursed—angelic, were it not for the blackened eye and swollen nose now crusting with blood.
Tears welled in his eyes and he fought them. He reached into his backpack and found a grenade.
Half of the French doors remained open, like a mouth awaiting a pill. He pulled the key and tossed the hard, rigid lemon into it. There was very little waiting for this one. He had run only three steps before he heard the blast and felt the heat. He turned back and saw that one of the doors had been obliterated, the other hanging by a hinge. Flames were glowing inside the Spiderhouse living room and smoke was billowing from the new, enlarged opening. As the crackling flames spread, the noise mingled with the cacophony of his earlier trail, and then surpassed it—the fresh pyric pops consuming not only sight, but sound.
“MAMA!”
Had he imagined it—the roar from the burning house was encompassing, dismissing the surrounding chaos.
“MAMA!”
He turned and saw the girl was not only standing, but running at him—past him, and toward the flaming structure. He reached as if in slow motion, leaping actually, his fingers grazing her ponytail, her gray t-shirt, a belt-loop, a pocket, before finally grasping the cuff of her jeans as he slammed into the ground. She toppled forward and he quickly crawled on top of her.
There was no fight really, her struggle being more with the ground as she tried to wriggle from beneath him.
“You can’t go in there,” he heard himself say.
“Mama,” the girl cried one last time, collapsing into tears.
“It’s all right,” Will said. “I got you.”
And he held her there, as the fire took the house—its roaring waves of heat descending on them like a warm blanket, enshrouding them in comfort and drowning out the remaining world.
Operation Oberon
When her cries succumbed to whimpers, he looked up and saw the first zombie. It was coming from the east side of the house, facing toward the other flaming homes.
He stood and the girl did not run away. Good thing, because if she had he would have let her go. He was uncertain how much time this little digression had cost him, but now he had to make up for it.
She rose to her feet slowly, entranced by the flames. The heat was a force and blockade—holding them at bay. Sweat bedewed their lips and foreheads.
The creature, a man, had come shambling around the corner. It saw them, and its pace quickened as another appeared behind it. The heat had no restraining effect on them. They simply trudged through the shimmering waves toward them.
“We have to go,” Will said, but the girl was immobile, her eyes glued to the burning house.
He moved from behind her and into he
r periphery.
“We have to go,” he repeated. “They’re coming.”
She remained transfixed, unaware.
She’s in shock, Will. You have to snap her out of it.
He remembered his dream of the Spiderhouse—the Hawthorn hedges out front, the moth, the spider…
Something. There has to be something.
In his mind’s eye. He was seeing the house from the front—the red brick, the dark windows, the bicycle, the open mailbox…
Wait.
The bicycle.
“Molly?” he said. She blinked and he said it gain, a harsh whisper— “Molly.”
She looked at him, perplexed.
“We have to leave.”
The zombie voiced a harsh snarl, loud enough to pull her glance. Her feet began moving toward Will.
“Come on. I have a place we can go.”
Will ran to the west side of the house, looking back only once to make sure she was behind him. She was. He stopped for a peek at the corner before entering the front yard. He could see the crest of the Oberon driveway far away, across the extended cul-de-sac. Between was a small cluster of zombies, moving toward his second fire—a family of sorts—man, woman, and child. They were not directly a threat, but close enough that they would need to be disposed of to prevent tailing. Will looked far right. The Miller and Espinoza homes were completely ablaze now—enormous, bright orange bonfires spaced evenly up the street.
There were stragglers way in the distance—just stick figures from his perspective—merging with the masses at the first two homes, and a new mob forming, headed his way, toward the most recent explosion. The only ones in immediate proximity were the two in the backyard, and this new group in their path.
He turned to the girl, placing a screwdriver into her hands.
“I’m going to take care of those,” he said, pointing at the three. “Wait here and yell when those in the back show up.”
The girl looked down at the screwdriver.
Will removed another screwdriver and crossed the front yard toward the trio. The woman was first, lower jaw completely gone, one gold loop earring swinging from her darkened lobe. She raised her arms when she saw him coming. But the man was stronger, shoving the woman down and unexpectedly lunging. Will stabbed out and missed—the thing tackling low. Both went down.
The man was large, wedging him to the ground. Will tried to roll over on top but the zombie was strong, had better leverage. His arm with the screwdriver was pinned between them, and he was using his wounded left hand to hold the thing by the neck as it lowered toward his face, the bandage making for an awkward grip. Its mouth was snapping so close that Will could smell the putrid odor emanating from the orifice, see its muscles twitching beneath the stubble on its jaw.
He expected to hear the girl scream at any moment. This was not how it ends, can’t be—he wouldn’t let it. He swiveled his hips as best he could and pressed hard with his hand on the thing’s throat—the pain in his palm shooting all the way up to his shoulder—managing to squirm just a little, and wriggling his other hand free. He stabbed wildly from the side, the screwdriver hitting the zombie’s skull and deflecting off.
Slow and steady, Will.
The girl was running fast to his right—a blur almost.
His left arm was burning, throbbing, but he held the creature firmly, guiding the screwdriver into its left ear opening. He pushed it in to the hilt and the thing was instantly dead weight on top of him.
As he lay there, his eyes found the girl. She was straddling the child-zombie, wildly stabbing it in the face with the screwdriver.
Jesus Christ.
Something had his foot. He pushed the corpse off only to find the female zombie down low. She had crawled up during his struggle—both hands securing his pant leg, the tip of his boot in her mouth. She could not bite though, not without a lower jaw—she was just a monster with a ridiculous overbite attempting to go down on his boot like the star of some horror-porn movie. Angry, Will yanked his leg back and kicked her hard in the face. She released her grip and he shimmied up, removing another screwdriver from his belt. Almost all of her teeth were gone now, broken from the force of his boot—yet still she came at him, eerily silent with no tongue. Will lashed forward, jabbing her in the eye with the tool.
Also silent was the girl with the child zombie. She was repeatedly stabbing the immobile creature—its face barely recognizable now, eyes mutilated and with an obscenely large grin where the flathead screwdriver had torn its lips away. Will grabbed her hand, and her head jerked toward him as if being awakened from a trance.
“It’s OK. You did good.”
He expected a nod or, perhaps, a smile of camaraderie, but received neither. She stood and held the screwdriver out to him. He took it, wiping its shaft in the grass to remove the blood, and gave it back to her.
A window in the Spiderhouse shattered, fire crackling inside. The flames had spread fast consuming the inner structure, filling all the brick-framed windows with bright orange light. The creatures from the back yard were in sight now, oblivious to the burning building they had circled with Will and the girl now in their sight.
Damn. It never ends.
He squatted, looking her in the eyes, and pointed down the cul-de-sac to the Oberon driveway. “Go that way and wait on me. We can’t be seen or they’ll just keep following us.”
She looked at him, uncertain.
Another window exploded.
Will gestured forcefully with his finger, pointing toward the wooded driveway.
“Go.”
She backed slowly, eyes on him.
“Just get down the driveway a little. I won’t be long.”
He didn’t wait to see if she had listened.
Only the two had rounded the house, no surprises. The first was the man they had first seen in back. The closer Will got, the more exaggerated its steps became—eyes crazed and wildly animated. Will met him fast and slammed the screwdriver into its brain.
Behind was the antithesis—a woman moving very slowly, body swaying with every step. Her hair had been singed into a helmet encapsulating her head. She appeared as if elderly, but it was impossible to tell. Will put her down.
He stole a quick peak behind the house. Clear.
Back in the front, the group from down the street had gotten closer. Despite the remaining distance, they would see him as he made his return dash down the cul-de-sac to the Oberon house.
I need another diversion.
The heat from the Spiderhouse radiated, pulsing at him with palpable force. From this angle he could see that the flames were now not only illuminating the windows of the red brick, but reaching out of the broken ones as well. The heat he felt was from a one very close, between him and the front door.
Will dug into his backpack and grabbed a grenade. He pulled the key and lobbed it over the hedge and into the flames of the nearest window. As he ran toward the street, the approaching mob took notice, increasing their pace, and becoming more vocal. He kept going, no hesitation. If some followed him to the Oberon’s he would have to deal with them there and then.
Closing the distance between ends of the extended cul-de-sac took little time. With each step he anticipated the blast, but none came. He had hoped that somehow the sound of his pounding heart had masked it, the grenade predictably exploding behind him as if he were the hero in an action movie. But no, nothing. There would be no diverting this new group of zombies. He would be forced into Plan B.
If there was a plan B.
He reached the Oberon driveway, and kept running another ten steps or so, descending into the woods, below line-of-sight from the street. He stopped, hunched over, hands on knees, breathing hard.
Where’s the girl?
He looked around. No sign.
Maybe she went down to the house.
Before he could speculate further, she stepped out from behind a tree. She was clutching the screwdriver tight, both worry and relief in her dark
ened, puffy eyes.
Will gave her a little grin, attempting to allay her fears. Fate had dealt him a hell of a hand this time. Poor thing. What had she been through? How had she survived?
He gestured for her to come, crouching down and returning to the crest of the driveway. He could see the burning Spiderhouse and the dead now filling that end of the cul-de-sac. The group had divided, the majority going toward the fire, but at least a dozen or so stragglers were headed their way, some several feet ahead of others.
No, no, this won’t work. It’s too many.
The girl joined him, and when she saw what was headed their way, she pulled at his shirt, grunting like a feral animal.
Another window shattered in the burning Spiderhouse, followed by tinkling glass.
The girl stopped pulling, and they both watched as two of the rear zombies halted, turned, and headed back toward the fire.
Still too many.
He considered taking his last grenade and rolling it at them like a bowling ball, similar to what he had done with the first in Hank’s driveway. But an explosion this close to the Oberon home would jeopardize the entire excursion. The same reason he had not been using his pistol. Noise would just draw more.
Fuck! I wish I had my silencer.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other…
Will rose, preparing to confront the mob halfway. The girl, realizing his intention, grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. She pointed toward the Oberon house.
“No,” he whispered. “They’ll know we’re in there. We’ll be trapped. More will come.”
They watched the group, approaching slow and stealthily—the flaming backdrop of the Spiderhouse behind them creepily atmospheric.
Creeping death… relentless, and never far enough behind you.
Another thought came. It wasn’t a great idea, but it would buy them some time, maybe switch their play to offense instead of defense.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing the girl’s hand and going back down the driveway. When they reached the first tree big enough to hide behind, he veered off the concrete and guided her toward it. She pulled back, shaking her head vehemently.