by Karen Carr
I sprung from the ground and lunged, like a torpedo, into the zombified woman that stood on my gun. She let out an exaggerated sigh when she hit the pavement. The sigh almost sounded human. I blinked, astonished by her noise, which gave her time to grab my throat. When I saw her hollow and vacant stare, I knew she was not human, not even an animal had dead eyes like hers.
Broder grabbed her hair and pulled back her head, giving me time to reach for my knife and slit her throat. Thick dark blood covered my lucky American Flag shirt—it was ruined forever. I retched from the stench exuding from her gaping wound and threw her body from mine. Broder helped me up, picked up his thrown water bottle and offered it to me again. This time I used the remaining liquid to rinse off my shirt. It didn’t help. Old glory was no longer red, white and blue, she was now light red, dark red, and black red.
Gun shots from the Walmart parking lot filled the air, making me drop the bottle and flinch. They must have started killing the zeroes Broder and I sent to them. I kicked the dead woman’s body over one more time to find my gun and picked it up. It was covered in goo, so I used my shirt to wipe it off and aimed it at two more zeroes who managed to struggle out of the gas station.
Broder grunted from behind me and I turned around to see that a zero had him in a choke hold. If I shot it, I would surely hit Broder. Broder twisted around and began choking the zero, but it didn’t do any good. The thing was still at him, opening and closing its mouth in vile persecution.
I felt a prick of pain on my calf and realized the woman, the zero whose throat I sliced open, had bitten me. The damn thing wasn’t dead. How stupid of me for not stewing her brain.
I looked at my calf. A small bit of blood seeped out of the wound. Nothing near the time when my next door neighbor bit me, but the burning pain still surged through my body. I felt like I was going to faint. Suddenly, the zero Broder was choking exploded all over his face. He flung the body to the ground in shocked surprise, and then wiped the guts on his shirt.
“I guess you choked its head off.” I managed a weak smile and hoped Broder wouldn’t notice the other ones in the station whose heads had surely exploded. “Let’s get back to the van. I want to check on Huck.”
Just as we were about to head down the road, another zero appeared and this one wasn’t dead from my virus. He was wearing military fatigues and looked like fresh meat, so he must have been bitten by the man I had turned into a zero with my bite. My life was getting too complicated.
Broder threw a knife into the zero’s head and it dropped to the ground. He then stepped over the body, picking out his knife in the process. The thwop, thwop, thwop sound of a helicopter taking off caused my heart to enter my stomach. By Broder’s wide eyes, his did too. Too much was happening at once, I didn’t know what to do. To add to the confusion, two dirt bikes raced out of the Walmart parking lot. We ducked for cover behind the gas tanks, a dumb move if anyone shot at us the gas tanks might explode.
As the bikes drove by, I saw four figures on them and realized at once it was Galen and Zora on one and Huck and Lily on the other. Galen drove the bike right into the bushes not far from us. Huck drove Lily, and they ditched their bike right next to Galen’s.
Broder and I ran to the ditched bikes and found no sign of our friends. All four of them had already taken off running. Broder pointed to the ground and ushered me to follow him. We followed their tracks, and heard them running in the distance like wild animals running away from their predator.
Flashes of Lily’s pale skin and Galen’s blue shirt appeared between the leaves. Huck was moving fast, even with his injury. It would take us five or ten minutes to get back to the van and I wanted to catch up to the others before that, especially since my virus had become useless because of the fast pace.
“The duck call,” I said to Broder.
Broder blew the whistle just as the helicopter appeared overhead, drowning out the sound. We froze in our tracks. Broder blew the whistle again, this time louder. The helicopter flew right over our location as we heard a return call from farther ahead. We crept along the tracks the others left in the woods as carefully as possible, due to the circling helicopter, until all signs of them vanished.
“Where’d they go?” I asked Broder.
“Right here,” Galen said. He stepped out from behind a large pine tree his arm in Huck’s, helping him walk.
Lily and Zora both appeared from behind a thick growth of bushes. Huck looked like he was about to fall over, so I went to his other side to stabilize him. He rested his arm around my shoulder.
“You ran pretty fast for an injured man,” I said, smiling up at him, hoping my teasing would bring him encouragement.
“How is your elbow?” He asked.
“Fine,” I said. I was getting really good at ignoring pain. My guess was that Huck was better at it than I was because his ankle sprain was much worse than my elbow injury. I was relieved that my blisters didn’t bother me anymore. “Where is Stan?” I asked.
“He wasn’t at the base of the ladder when we dismounted.” Zora wiped the sweat from her brow. “Neither was Miles.”
“He probably ran away at the first gunshot,” Galen said.
I bristled at that remark. Stan hadn’t been cowardly. I doubted that he would have run away. “He’s not a coward,” I said.
“I didn’t say Stan was,” Galen corrected me. “I meant Miles.”
“Galen’s right,” Huck said. “Miles took off running and Stan followed him. He said he’d try to get Miles and get to the van.”
“Let’s hope they make it,” I said, not wanting to lose Stan to the enemy again. “Where is Zeke?” I asked.
Lily’s face went ashen.
“Zeke?” Huck asked, conscious of Lily’s change in skin tone.
“He’s in the helicopter,” Lily said.
My heart skipped a beat. Huck’s fingers clawed into my shoulder. I read the pain in his face, but not from his injury, from hearing the news about Zeke. Suddenly the helicopter stopped and hovered right over us. Everyone froze and tried to blend into the woods. Zora cursed her vividly colored scarf and tried to cover it with her hair. The helicopter circled by one more time and went north toward Haverlyn Village.
“Let’s get out of here before that thing comes back,” Galen said.
We jogged through the woods, led by Broder, all the way back to the van. The tree branches slapped my face, waking me up out of my trance as I ran. With every slap, an image of Zeke appeared in my head. Zeke, captured. Stan and Miles missing. We arrived back at the van hidden in the carport with no farther incident.
Miles came rushing out from behind the van. “What took you so long?” he asked.
“How did you get here so fast and where is Stan?” I countered.
I helped Huck to the edge of the van, where he sat down and grabbed a bottle of water. Zora and Lily gathered around Miles while Galen checked on our supplies.
“I’m sorry,” Miles said. His lips trembled, his lead lowered and his elbows pressed to his side. “It wasn’t my fault. I ran. I got scared. There were too many of them. Zombies. I have never seen so many. They came around the back. It freaked me out and I ran.”
“And Stan ran after you,” Huck offered when Miles stopped talking.
“Yea, I guess he must have,” Miles said, turning bright crimson. “I heard shots, and a whizzing right by my ear. I turned around and saw Stan and some guys following him. He had blood on his shoulder, but I’m not sure if it was there before. I can’t remember if he was hurt before, or if it was zombie blood. The blood was real red. I think they shot him.”
I gasped. “We have to go back. We have to rescue him.”
Suddenly, Stan appeared out of the woods and marched toward the carport. His shirt was bloodied by his shoulder as Miles had reported. I rushed to him followed quickly by the others.
“They shot me,” Stan stammered. His eyes darted around to everyone’s until they found mine.
“Did you find ou
t anything?” Zora asked.
“Give him a chance,” I said. I pealed back his shirt to check on his shoulder, a superficial wound on the skin.
“No, it’s okay Hella,” Stan paused to catch his breath and push my hand away. “They’re holding Boa back in the village. In the movie theater, Hella. You know how there is that police substation? I heard them talking after they shot me. There were two of them, just talking about everything. I guess they didn’t think I would get away, or they thought I was a zombie or dead. I heard them talking about Trevan and Boa. I don’t know how I managed to escape, but I did.”
“We know where they are now.” I dusted my forehead. “It shouldn’t be that hard. We know how to get in the village without being spotted. We’ve done it before.”
“Let’s get going,” Zora said.
“Hang on,” Galen said. “We need to trade information first. We need to tell each other everything that happened.”
Galen told us his story first. Apparently Broder and I had done a better job hustling zeroes out of the woods than we expected to do. He said that a swarm of twenty to fifty zeroes had found their way out of the woods. Lily saw us running away, but she said that no one on the ground noticed us. Lucky for us.
Once the zeroes spotted all the men on the ground they went for them instead of chasing us. Zeke made it swiftly to the helicopter. Zora watched him through the binoculars. He blended in with the men, even having a conversation with a group of them that resulted in the group running toward the zeroes with their guns drawn.
Then it happened. Lily saw Trevan sitting in the helicopter. She dashed down the ladder down and was about to race across the parking lot to the helicopter when it took off. Galen and Zora both witnessed Zeke in the helicopter, but as far as they could tell he was not a hostage.
I told them about finding the electric car in the parking lot and that the keys were still in it, which I almost thought was pointless news until Galen pointed out that we would need to return the car to Willie. Zora pointed out that it might be useful to us in the escape back to Pittsboro.
“What do we do now?” Zora asked. “We need a plan.”
“We’re going to have to take the ATVs through the woods,” Huck said. “There’s no way we can roll in with the van.”
“We need to keep it to pick up Minnesota,” Galen added. “It is safer here.”
“That means we all can’t go,” I said.
“I’m going,” Huck said. “I have to go. Don’t make me sit here like a lame ass waiting for you. I have to help Zeke. My leg doesn’t hurt that much anymore.”
“We only have two ATVs. Only four of us can go,” Galen said. “Broder’s going, right?” Broder nodded. “He won’t let you take his ride.”
“I’ll go with Broder,” I said so that Huck wouldn’t make me stay back. Broder smiled. I think he liked having me on his team.
“We can get the dirt bikes we left behind in the woods,” Lily said, dangling some keys in front of us.
“Perfect,” Zora said. “Me and you, Lily.”
“I’ll take the other ATV,” Huck said.
“Wait a sec, now,” Galen said. “I’m taking the other ATV.”
Huck grimaced.
“There’s more around back,” Miles said. “I saw them when I was running up.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier, son?” Galen asked.
“Keys were in them.” Miles showed us several sets of keys, but snatched them away from Galen when he tried to grab them. “I’m not going to give you them unless you let me go.”
“Now, son. I can wrestle those right out of your hands.” Galen put his hand forward forcefully.
“Fine, here,” Miles said. He handed over the keys.
We went around back and found three more working dirt bikes. Huck tried them out and took the slower one, leaving the faster ones for Lily and Zora.
“You think you can drive?” I asked Huck. “You can go with Broder if you want.” Broder shot me a look that said, not on your life and Huck did the same.
“I was born on a dirt bike,” Huck said. “It’ll be easier than walking.”
Galen agreed to take Stan because of his lack of driving ability and his barely wounded shoulder. “You’re going to have to stay back with the van, Miles,” Galen said. Miles was visibly hurt.
“We can head up Old Listra and come in over the top of Haverlyn,” Stan said. “If we hurry, they’ll still be busy fighting the zombies in the parking lot for a while. We might have to wait for them to arrive with the helicopter.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
Broder mounted his 2-Up and I got on behind him. Zora, Huck and Lily mounted the dirt bikes and lined up behind us. Galen and Stan took the lead so that Stan could show us the way. Everyone carried what they could, Zora and Lily both had small packs, Broder’s saddle bags were chock full of stuff, and even Stan had been enlisted to carry some of the extra guns.
We headed out, following Galen and Stan. Broder smelled like camp fire. His body was large, a generous size, leaving me with a small portion of the ATV’s seat. I had to hold on to the straps of his coveralls to keep from sliding off the back. His hair was long and curly and dark black, pulled in a ponytail and tucked under a baseball cap. It smelled of campfire too.
Old Listra Road wound around tall trees and brick ranch houses and wooden farm houses along with a string of older houses tied together by private roads. We drove next to a farm with live chickens and cows still wandering around the fields. Lily pulled up next to me and pointed. We had wanted to find some cows and there they were, much closer and healthier than I thought possible.
Lily and Zora had captured chickens and brought them back to the green. Everyone was so excited to see them, especially Shelly Mac who wanted to turn them into a fried chicken dinner. That life seemed so long ago. Everything had changed again. We would never be able to go back to Haverlyn Village. We would never get a Shelly Mac cooked meal again.
CHAPTER 14
We continued on down the quiet country road, scaring up all sorts of wild life. Several times we had to maneuver around fallen trees and empty vehicles, with one pickup inhabited by a family of stray dogs who barked at us as we drove by.
The air became chilly and the wind picked up, rustling through the leaves in the trees and bending the tall slender pines. The sky showed an ominous dark from the south, signaling the incoming rain. Without radar, it was hard to predict how big the storm would be or how long it would last. I hoped that it was your average North Carolina rain shower lasting less than an hour.
We turned down Mount Carmel Church and soon would be crossing over the 15/501 to Haverlyn Village. A chill went through my body with a gust of wind and anticipating the return to my home. Haverlyn Village was broken up into three different subdivisions, the western portion with big houses and the club house, the center portion with the Oval and Green and shops and condominiums, and the northern portion where townhomes and tree lined streets centered on an old family cemetery in the middle. With the northern approach into the village, we reasoned that we would avoid contact with Enroy’s gang.
We turned the corner onto Purefoy Park, which lead past a fire station, across the 15/501 and into the village. Zora and Lily, who were in the lead, slowed down and stopped in front of the fire station. The rest of us, Huck on the other dirt bike, Galen and Stan, and me with Broder, stopped behind them. A loud clap of thunder ripped through the dark and foreboding sky, but rain had yet to start falling.
Zora regarded the sky. “We should send a scout across the 15/501 before the rest of us follow.”
“Good idea,” Galen said. “The thunder will cover our noise.”
The fire station’s garage doors were open revealing a baby blue fire truck next to a baby blue ambulance. As if on cue, a couple of figures staggered out of the fire engine’s bay.
“We better make it quick.” I pointed to the figures who were both wearing firemen suits, helmets and big boots. What I wouldn’
t give for a pair of their boots in my size.
“I’ll go,” Huck said. He raced ahead across the highway and into the main entrance to the village. Once he was across, he waved us on over.
The rest of us waited for another thunder clap, which didn’t take long. We took of across the highway to join Huck on the other side. I glanced south as we drove, seeing the black and gray clouds covering the sky in every direction. Enroy’s men must have been in the village preparing for the storm, because the road was quiet and empty.
The rain began to fall in large silent plops, refreshing me as it hit my skin. We drove through the subdivision down Purefoy Park road to the park. The big sycamore trees touched on either side of the road making a tunnel of trees for us to drive through. When we reached the park we stopped. Purefoy Park was a couple of acres of pine trees, sycamore trees, oak trees and other giant beauties that had been around since the 1700s, when the family cemetery had been built. The subdivision didn’t keep it up while everyone was living, so it was overgrown with bushes and brambles and hard to get through except for a walking path. The cemetery was in the center and only housed a dozen old-time graves.
“This is the perfect place to stash our bikes,” I said. “No one is going to be walking through this spooky old park, especially with the buried dead people inside.”
“Hiding in plain sight,” Huck said.
We rode our bikes into the park and stashed them next to the graves, covering them with leaves and twigs and branches just to be safe. I had forgotten it was almost Halloween when the apocalypse hit, and Purefoy Park still held remains of a haunted forest, with plastic skeletons and bats in the trees and fake coffins next to the real gravestones. Mixed in with the fake Halloween decorations were real bodies that had succumbed to my virus. I must have walked closer to this area than I remembered.
“Half a mile to the green,” I said, trying to distract Galen and Broder from the corpses.
“Look at all these bodies,” Galen whispered. He kicked one of them over revealing the tell-tale sign of exploded brains now being washed away by the light sprinkle of rain drops. Broder glared at me in a friendly, yet stern way like he was trying to read my mind. I watched Lily, Zora, Stan and Huck to get a signal as to what to do. Huck shook his head at the same time that Zora and Lily nodded. The girls were on my side. It was time to tell Broder and Galen about my virus and they wanted me to do it.