by Smith, T. W.
Next, he went to the foyer, stepping left past the boarded front door and to the window in the dining room. He raised the blinds high and lifted both windows. A handful of zombies were in his front yard, crossing toward the gate. All halted, and turned at the sound. More were coming down the street, all from the same direction
“That’s right!” Will yelled out the window. “Come on, all of you! I know you’ve been following him. Well, he’s here. Come and get whatever the fuck it is you’re after!”
As he went back through the den, the cassette player hit a brief lull—Huey’s voice dropping more than an octave—and then zipped back up to normal speed. Will opened the deck door and crossed to its ledge. Frank’s body was directly below him, amongst a backyard brimming with movement. Heads turned up toward him and the sound of the music, the bloody faces of those feeding, staring with quizzical surprise—and others already moving toward the stairs and the voice of an aged pop star.
“Hey assholes! I’m up here! Come and get me!”
Many began moving toward the stairs leading up to the deck. Those feasting on the bodies of the two men stayed put.
“Screw all of you,” Will whispered to himself. “Screw you and whoever unleashed this hell.”
He scanned the yard. The two he had seen from his office had reached the front of the camper, one joining the nearest huddled mass, the other merging in with those headed toward the stairs. He couldn’t see beneath the deck, but he was certain they were gaining entry down there. He went back inside.
Huey’s voice dipped again, for a few seconds, slow and dragging—like a satanic prophet spewing garbled vowels in a horror film—then it sped back up.
In the hallway leading to the basement stairs, Will stopped. He went back into his kitchen for the last time, snatching the framed photo from the counter.
The basement was darker than before, his eyes having grown accustomed to the brightness upstairs. He drew his screwdriver, feeling his way down the darkened hall, past their old offices. He stopped at the entrance to the recreational room. The light in here was better with the windows, but still dark from the shade of the deck. Will saw that three of the windowpanes in the door were shattered, hands reaching in, vainly clawing at the doorknob and deadbolt. A little further, one of the windows was compromised as well, two of the creatures, spilling in over the sill and the jagged edges of the pane. One ahead of them had already cleared it—Will could see its silhouette a few feet before him.
“Lisa, I’m here,” he shouted. “Go ahead and open the door.”
The creature reached for his voice, stumbled over a coffee table and fell face first into the sofa. Will stepped around the sofa and into the small hallway leading to the garage.
She was there, door open, both dogs anxious to see him. He stepped through and closed the door.
“It doesn’t lock,” she said.
“I know.” Will said, already pushing the riding lawn mower in front of the door. “This won’t do much good because the door opens inward, but we’re not sticking around. Over here.”
Lisa and the dogs followed him toward the garage door. The doorknob to the interior door began to rattle.
Will spoke: “I’m going to open this garage and let you guys into the camper. Once you close and lock the door, you need to get up front and in the cab to open the driver’s side when I get there.”
The interior door opened and two zombies came out, stumbling into and crawling over the lawn mower.
“But—”
“I have to open the gate. Most of them are on the other side of the camper. Use your gun if you have to.”
He opened the garage door and saw the zombie he’d seen entering the yard from his upstairs office window. It turned and came back toward them. Will aimed X-man’s gun at the creature and pulled the trigger. All he heard was the click of an empty chamber.
“Son of a…”
He drew his own gun and shot it, turning to open the camper. Lisa was right behind him—the dogs were apprehensive, but excited. They had not forgotten what an open door to a vehicle meant.
When they were in the camper, he handed Lisa the framed photo.
“Lock it,” Will said. “Get up there and be ready to let me in.”
She nodded and closed the rear camper door.
The creatures in the garage were upright and headed his way, others behind them now crawling over the riding lawn mower. He ignored them and ran the twenty feet down the driveway to the gate.
He had toyed with the idea of just driving through the chain-link gate. But he’d worked too hard and risked too much to chance being stranded in his very own driveway.
He found the key on his ring and unlocked the padlock. He flung both sides of the gate open wide. When he turned to head back, he was stunned by what he saw.
What once was his and Frank’s peaceful oasis was now chaotic with activity. The zombies from the garage had emerged and were heading down the driveway toward him. Another had somehow managed to avoid the lure out front and was coming through the downed vinyl fence. Two more—bloody mouths and fingers—had left the mass feeding on Ivan, attracted by his movement at the gate. The camper blocked his sight of Frank’s body, as well as those dining on the X-man, but he could see their movement beneath and between its wheels. Beyond all of this, at least twenty or more of the creatures were on the steps leading to the deck, crowding and pushing to get up and into the house. There were several already in the screened area as well, moving about to the loud, warbling sounds of I Want a New Drug.
Frank always knew how to throw a great party.
He went back to the camper. Taking out one of the bloody zombies to his left and both of those from the garage. It took five shots.
I’m getting better.
Lisa opened the door and let him into the cab. He put the key into the ignition and turned. The switch clicked and the motor chugged but didn’t start.
“Come on,” he said, exhaling and turning the key again.
This time, when the switch clicked, it was slower, making a slight dragging sound like the music in the cassette player.
Rocko issued a small woof, as hands began to thump on the camper. Lola’s head jerked toward the sounds, attempting to determine whereabouts.
Lisa gasped as bloody hands slapped the window behind Will. She turned and a face appeared outside her own window, a fat woman with dark exaggerated features, maggots writhing in her matted muddy hair, her blackened, moldering teeth close enough for Lisa to see the bits of fresh flesh lodged between. She put both hands on the window and clawed downward, creating ten grimy red streaks.
Will turned the ignition again and, this time, when the chugging began to drag, something caught and the engine sputtered and cranked. He looked at Lisa who was rigid, both fists up and clamped tight. She relaxed a little and he winked at her.
“Let’s go,” Will said.
The camper was now surrounded with zombies. Lisa looked past the fat woman and saw that some were coming back down the deck stairs, the gunshots and engine having superseded the warbled music of the boombox.
Will switched the gearshift into drive and let off the break, pushing through the mass that were now in front, forcing them away. It was tempting to ram them, hurl their bodies through the air and into the trees, but he kept telling himself slow-and-steady wins the prize.
No unnecessary risks.
As he thought this, the camper stopped rolling. He gave it a little gas and it climbed upward a few inches, as if driving over a small curb, and then he remembered the crawling thing he’d shot beneath them.
As they rolled closer to the gate, the groping hands and bloody fingers began sliding away and soon disappeared all together. They were at the gate, and then through the gate, traveling down the small tunnel of trees toward the street. Lisa attempted a last look, but her window faced the woods now. Will looked forward, knowing what he left behind and ready to distance himself from it forever.
Take it, you b
astards. Have it all.
They went left at the street, Lisa seeing Hank and Betsy’s house for the first time. She knew nothing of what had happened there and Will would likely never tell her. That side of the street looked like a war zone and he wondered if she suspected that he was to blame. There were scattered corpses in the front yard and the enormous crater in Hank’s driveway was littered with debris and body parts. The porthole of the shattered bay window was dark, empty—the house now a mausoleum in a neighborhood that was a vast and endless cemetery.
Next they traveled past the burnt ruins of Ruth’s next door. If anything had his signature on it, it was a house burned down, yet he was in no way responsible for this one. The remains had long stopped smoldering, just a blackened skeleton, only vertical in a few places where the framework had somehow remained. Ruth’s beautiful landscaping was overgrown, but still intact in many areas, surrounding nothing but char and ashes.
At the intersection, he turned left, knowing the Oberon side of the neighborhood would still be aflutter with activity and not wanting to risk a blockade.
Now Katie’s house was outside Lisa’s window, a panoramic view of a different battle, complete with bodies, abandoned trucks and overturned motorcycles littering the street and lawn—and, of course, the open door.
He glanced left, to his own home, not surprised to see clusters of the creatures, clawing at the front door and garage windows.
Lisa had seen none of this before—only a piece of Hank and Betsy’s could be seen through the trees in Will’s side yard, and she had arrived by boat. This haunted landscape had been hidden from her with painted windows. Will watched her taking it all in and wondered again what she could be thinking. Perhaps her chauffeur is indeed a madman, burning her home and forcing her into the great unknown.
No. She’s saved your life. More than once.
Next, on Lisa’s side, was Lonnie and Ben’s, a little less war-torn, and not one but two open doors—the other belonging to the Mercedes in the driveway. To Will, this house kindled the worst memories. He had witnessed the brutal death of the hooded boy there, a death he would always feel responsible for. His body was gone, divided and devoured by the masses, but the body of the paperboy still lay rotting in the front yard, another memorial of sorts—to Will, at least. Also, upstairs, behind those dark windows, the skeletal Lonnie-thing still lay, waiting.
As they continued up the hill, there was a sparse flow of zombies heading their way—nowhere near as many as the original troupe Frank had led to the house, but enough that every twenty feet or so he was forced to zigzag the camper to avoided hitting them. If one blocked them directly, he would slow down to a crawl, pushing them until they rolled around the side of the vehicle, groping with slippery fingers and falling away with acceleration.
They were coming from the back entrance of Lakeland—in the street, on the lawns, and all headed the same way. It could have been an influx from that direction triggered by the fires and explosions he’d set days before, but he didn’t think so. He was convinced that Frank was somehow determined to come home—even as a zombie. There would never be a way of proving it, but that’s what Will believed, and with it came a welcome calm. Closure, was the psychological term—and he knew this—but that was not solely the reason. He had given Frank up for dead long ago. But several things—seeing him one last time, being the one to end his suffering, knowing he’d finally made it home where he belonged—gave Will peace and a renewed sense of purpose. He would never return to that place, but knowing Frank’s remains were there was enough. Graveyards unvisited are still necessary and appreciated.
I wish I could have buried him.
But the timing was off. If any lesson learned was paramount, it was the importance of timing. You can control it sometimes, even use it to your advantage, but often you were victim to its spontaneity.
And they had been ready, hadn’t they? He’d spent the majority his time these days doing nothing but planning escapes. He’d gotten greedy with the gas, but had he not those men might have surprised them and events could have turned out much differently.
Timing.
And he had left her the gun. Had he not done so…
You’re obsessing, said Frank.
Yes I am, damn it. And I’m alive because of it.
He reached the stop sign at the entrance. Left would take him northeast, in the direction of Frank’s abandoned Toyota Avalon and the interstate to South Carolina. Right would take him northwest, to the secondary roads leading to Tennessee.
He went right, and forward.
EPILOGUE
Que Será, Será
But first a detour was necessary. Shortly before the apocalypse—a term Will would never grow accustomed to—a new Super Publix grocery store had opened near them, forcing the abandonment and eventual closing of what he and Frank had affectionately dubbed as Ghetto Kroger.
Ghetto Kroger was victim of a volatile economy and shifting demographics—never their first choice to shop, but always decent for last-minute stops on the way home. It was located in a large, mostly empty strip center on Buford highway including GNC, Bravo Loco Mexican restaurant, and a Hallmark store. The K-mart there had closed years before—suffering earlier retail hardships—and Will’s Optometrist, Dr. Shapiro was the only other occupant.
“They’re just riding out their leases,” Frank often said. “They’ll be gone next year.”
“It’s on City Route 19,” Will would comment. “Their mail volume is so low it’s sad. Sometimes I pop in and say hi to doc though.”
In truth, the center was abandoned long before the end of the world—only four tiny businesses sprinkled between the two large empty anchors. And as Will and Lisa pulled the camper into the gigantic parking lot only one other car was there, way down on the opposite side, in front of Bravo Loco.
Nothing to loot here unless you need vitamins… or maybe contact lenses.
The only zombies in sight were far in the distance, one was headed their way from a Pizza Hut adjacent to the center, and others they had passed on Buford highway at a Texaco—currently not visible but a blip on Will’s radar nonetheless. At the speed the creatures were moving, Will and Lisa may be able to finish their business and be gone without ever encountering them. Best to get busy.
“You stay out here,” Will said, making sure Lisa’s gun was fully loaded. It was weird as hell putting a pistol into an eleven-year-old’s hand, but she had more than proved herself as far as he was concerned. She was too small to go hand-to-hand, or use a screwdriver—a pistol was the logical weapon for someone her size, in this environment anyway. He vowed to teach her respect for it though.
“Don’t use this unless it’s an emergency. Remember, sound attracts them.”
He pointed toward landmarks in both directions. “If they reach that shopping-cart island or that streetlight over there, knock on the glass or come in and get me. I won’t be long.”
She nodded, her face emotionless. Will felt she would open up with time, but for now he respected her silence. Whatever horrors she had experienced had molded her much the same as he. Above all, he was grateful to have her, and he suspected the feeling was mutual.
There was a sign on the door that read:
We are closed due to a family emergency.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Please consult our website for rescheduling appointments.
Sincerely, Dr. Shapiro and staff
He used a crowbar, not knowing the strength of the glass, nor wanting to make any more noise than necessary. Alarms were long gone, and with a little elbow grease, Will forced the doors apart, sliding the bolt from its chamber. He stepped inside and twisted the lock switch open, allowing the door to close naturally with its hydraulics.
They had a little over an hour of daylight left—the smallest monkey wrench thrown their way with an early departure, and one they could live with considering what they’d been through the past couple of hours. Had they left tomorrow
morning as planned they would have had the whole day to travel. Now they were going to have to find someplace safe to stay until daylight. He was not comfortable driving at night and he was dog-tired. He had planned on an additional night of rest to recoup from Operation Oberon.
Timing.
He turned on the flashlight and moved back toward the examination rooms and supply cabinets. There were additional trashcan liners beneath the clean ones in the wastebasket next to one of the lens fitting tables. Will grabbed the entire roll and opened one of the four cabinets. In it, were several tiny drawers of sample contact lenses. He knew what his prescription was but, to save time, simply emptied them all into the trash bag.
I can sort them later, and the others may come in handy for James, or someone else.
He repeated this with all of the cabinets and then gave a quick look to see if anything else may be of use. Over by the counter with the credit card terminal, was a spinner with sunglasses on it. He grabbed several pairs and tossed them into the bag. Behind the counter was a register. In it, he found one hundred fifty dollars in cash and some change. He looked at it for what seemed like a long time, and then quietly closed the drawer.
Next to the register was a fish bowl filled with miniature candy bars: Butterfingers, Milky Ways, Three Musketeers, Snickers, Twix, and Kit Kats. He dumped it all into the bag and then he spun it, looping the open end through to make a slack knot.
As he turned to go, he heard a sound come from the very back of the offices.
He stopped, adrenaline raising the hair on his forearms and sending a cool ripple down his back. This was an eye doctor for Christ’s sake; he hadn’t suspected to run into any trouble. The door had been locked with a sign.