Colton didn’t buy it. There had to be more: for the survivors, and for the walking dead. Otherwise, there was no hope.
*
Chalice sat up straighter. They hadn’t seen a shuffling zombie for over two miles and none at the bait shop they’d stopped at. Others had been there before them, though, leaving nothing behind. It had been a wasted trip.
No zombies could be a good sign for her grandmother. A location with little population would have less dead wandering around. Dusk was just beginning to set when she saw the entrance to her grandmother’s road. “Turn left down that road.”
Soon, she laid eyes on the familiar white clapboard house. Ten stairs led to the porch that stretched the entire front of the house.
“Hold it right there.” A voice warned from behind a rusty screen door. “You’d best back on out of here if you value your life.”
Chalice opened her door, pausing when Colton laid a hand on her arm. “She won’t shoot me once I call out.” She shook him away. “Grandma! It’s me, Chalice.”
The door banged open. Grandma rushed out and leaned her rifle against the porch railing. “George, get out here, the kids have come.” She held her arms wide.
Chalice, followed closely by Mychal and Hanna, dashed to greet her. Tears poured down Chalice’s face. “You’re safe.”
“It does me good to see you three.” Grandma peered over their shoulders. “Your mother?”
“She died when the meteors hit.” Chalice choked back a sob, and rolled up her sleeve. “She caught fire saving me. I have her finger marks here.”
“Oh, Lordy.” Grandma’s eyes widened. “Let’s get everyone in the house. Looks like you’ve got quite a crowd here, and I’d rather not have anyone out after dark. Especially with her wandering around. Close the porch gate and keep the dogs outside. They’ll make a great warning system.”
“Who’s her, Grandma?” Mychal asked.
Grandma shook her head. “Never mind right now. Grab whatever you want to bring inside and hurry.”
Soon, they’d collected blankets, sleeping bags, and their weapons, dropping them in a pile in the middle of Grandma’s living room floor. She grinned at them. “Y’all hungry? George!”
Chalice glanced around her. “Who’s George?”
“Oh, some old mangy hound dog, I picked up.” She winked.
“I’m a mangy dog, huh?” A tall, thin, gray-haired man laid a kiss on Grandma’s neck. “Nice to meet you kids. I’ve heard tons about you.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Hanna plopped in the middle of the sleeping bags. “What about Grandpa?”
“Honey, he’s been dead for ten years.” Grandma bent and cupped her face. “George saved my bacon once about a week after the meteors hit. I had to go to the feed store. Needed some antibiotics for one of the cows. One of those undead people tried to take a bite out of me. We’ve been keeping company ever since. It doesn’t do a person much good to be alone nowadays.” She laid a kiss on Hanna’s forehead then moved to the kitchen. “Strength in numbers, you know.”
Hanna frowned and laid back. “Nothing stays the same. Ever.”
Chalice sighed. Of course it didn’t. Hanna needed to grow up. Childish things were no more. Chalice nudged her with her foot. “Go help Grandma with the food while I make up some beds.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
Mychal smacked Hanna in the back of the head. “Get up and do as you’re told. Everyone has to work.”
“Whatever.” Hanna got up and flounced into the kitchen. “There’s two more kids in here hiding under the table!”
Chalice met Mychal’s gaze and shrugged. They had more important things to worry about than a twelve-year-old girl’s temper tantrums. Chalice turned to Grandma. “Who are they?”
“Faith and Caleb. I found them hiding in the barn a couple of days ago. They’ll come out from under the table once they find out y’all aren’t going to kill them or try to eat them.” Grandma planted her fists on her hips. “We’ve got quite the crowd here.”
“Unfortunately, the kids outnumber the adults,” Chalice stated. How were they going to take care of two more? She didn’t really count herself and Colton as kids anymore, nor Mychal really. But there was Eddy and his two sisters, Junior and Sissy, Hanna, and now two more. Eight kids and six adults, counting Grandma and George. Not nearly good enough in Chalice’s mind.
The dogs started barking, drawing Chalice and Colton to the front window. The moon shined through the branches of the huge oak tree in the front yard, the shadows and light playing tricks and making what Chalice always thought looked like a coffin on the ground. She continued to study outside, until the form of a woman stepped into the light.
The woman was badly burned over more than half her body. Chalice stumbled back, almost falling until Colton caught her.
Grandma peeked out the curtains. “Yep, that’s the dead woman that’s been hanging around for the last couple of days. Gives me the creeps. She never tries to attack, just stands and stares. Even when I go outside.”
4
“That’s Mom.” Chalice almost threw up. It wasn’t possible. They’d left their mother’s body back at home buried under a pile of ash, hadn’t they? But what about the woman she’d spotted through the car’s rearview mirror?
“Mom?” Hanna whipped open the front door and dashed onto the porch before anyone could stop her. “She’s alive!”
“Whoa, little lady.” George wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground. “If that’s your momma, she isn’t alive. Not anymore.”
Zombie Mom moved closer to the porch, her hands outstretched as if wanting to hug her children. A few more of the undead shuffled from the trees across the road and stood on the edge of the property.
Colton released Chalice. “Why are they just standing there?”
She swiped the sleeve of her shirt across her streaming eyes. “How did she find us?” Maybe it isn’t her. What’s the likelihood of a zombie ending up where their previous family did? She peered harder through the window. Her mother had caught fire and fallen before the zombie outbreak. It couldn’t be her. Others were probably burned, too, wandering the earth like the lost souls they were.
Were they resurrected by the zombie virus? Were the world’s graves slowly emptying of bodies?
“Want me to shoot her?” Bill asked, raising his gun.
“No!” The Hart family yelled in unison.
Grandma sniffled. “If it is her, I can’t stand back and allow my baby to be shot. Maybe we could lock her in the barn? There isn’t room for her in that cage out there. Why do you have a zombie child in a cage, anyway?”
“An experiment,” Colton explained, blocking the door.
“What about all the others?” George had released Hanna and now stood guard with his rifle beside Bill. “And why are they all just standing there?”
“I have an idea.” Colton opened the door and stepped onto the porch. The zombies took a few steps forward. Colton moved back into the house and closed the door. The zombies stopped. “They won’t move forward unless they see or smell us. Maybe we should move the dogs in off the porch, though.”
“Maybe so,” Chalice said, still not over the fact that a zombie that closely resembled her mother stared without blinking at the house. “But we can’t leave that horde out there. And we can’t shoot until we find out if that woman is really our mother.”
“We could shoot her in the leg to slow her down, then the rest of you cover me while I go check.” Grandma took a deep breath. “If it is Marilyn, she’s already dead, so a bullet to the kneecap shouldn’t hurt her too much.”
“You’d cripple your own daughter?” Mychal fell backward onto the sofa, hard enough to make the furniture bang into the wall. “That’s our mother you’re talking about.”
“If it means protecting the rest of you, I would.” Grandma reached for the other rifle leaning against the wall. “But, I’m not as young as I used to be. Don’t let
those things get close to me. I can’t outrun them.”
“I’ll do it.” Chalice squared her shoulders. “I’m fast and a good shot.” Could she shoot the zombie if it was her mother and tried to bite her? She glanced at the faces around her. Yes, she could, if it meant saving the living.
“I’ll cover her from the porch,” Colton said.
“Me, too.” Mychal stepped beside him. “We can set up a line of defense while my sister goes to check.”
“What if it is, Mom?” Chalice studied each of their faces. “What do I do then? Knocking out her knee doesn’t take care of the teeth.”
Colton frowned. “Just verify whether it is her or not for now. We’ll worry about the other part later.”
“Ok. Keep the dogs inside. I don’t want them in my way.” Ice water rushed through her veins as she clutched her weapon and took her first step off the porch. The line of zombies immediately started shuffling forward, including Zombie Mom. Chalice’s heart beat hard enough to cause an ache in her chest. What was she thinking? Sheer stupidity. Only an idiot walks out to meet one of the flesh eaters.
Holy Crap, the smell! If she didn’t need both of her hands free, she’d pull her tee-shirt over her nose. Would she ever get used to the rotting smell of the walking dead?
Zombie Mom moaned and shuffled forward. Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Chalice shot the woman in the right knee. She went down and immediately got up, dragging the injured limb. “That idea didn’t work very well!”
“Shoot her in the other leg,” Colton yelled.
“Then she can’t walk at all.” If it was her mother, and they were going to lock her in the barn, they definitely wouldn’t want to carry her.
Chalice studied the zombie as it moaned and limp closer. She couldn’t tell if it was her mother or not, and tried to remember what color dress her mother had worn that last day. She thought it was blue. The zombie wore what might have once been yellow but was now scorched and blood stained. Burned holes showed patches of oozing skin, peeling away like ribbons.
Mere seconds passed before gunshots echoed over Chalice’s head. Zombies fell on the asphalt like tumbling pavers, yet Zombie Mom kept coming.
Chalice couldn’t tell whether it was her mother or not. Using the rifle butt, she jabbed sharply at the zombie’s mouth, knocking out its front teeth. Another whack to the side of its face knocked out a few more. Zombie Mom grabbed the hem of Chalice’s shirt and pulled, ripping the fabric.
Surely if the burned horror in front of her was Chalice’s mother, there’d be some tiny remnant of remembrance on the sagging, decaying face. Some spark in the yellow, blood-shot eyes.
The zombie’s mouth opened, revealing dark teeth. Strips of something Chalice prayed wasn’t flesh hung like ribbons. Her rancid breath washed over Chalice’s face.
Chalice backed up and fell. The zombie landed on top of her. Using her gun as a shield, Chalice pressed upward under the zombie’s chin, forcing the head up and away.
“I’m shooting her!” Colton charged down the steps. The frantic barking of the dogs from inside the house followed him. The zombies in the road surged forward.
“No.” Chalice grunted. “Just knock her off me.”
“Is it your mother or not?” He grabbed the back of the zombie’s collar and yanked. The zombie whirled, growled, and lunged for him.
Chalice struggled to her feet, firing over Colton’s head. “We need to go, Colton.”
“I’m a little busy, right now.” He bashed Zombie mom in the head with the butt of his rifle, caving in the side of her temple. “Tell me now if she’s your mother. Make a guess.”
What if she was wrong? What if she allowed him to kill her mother? She was already dead. Chalice was being ridiculous. “Shoot it. That’s not my mom.”
As soon as Colton’s shot rang out, Hanna screamed from inside the house. Chalice prayed she’d made the right decision. She turned to face the herd coming toward her, the closest only five feet away. She fired shots as she backed toward the porch. “We could use some backup,” she called.
An arrow whizzed past her head, followed by the boom of a very large gun. The nearest zombie’s head exploded like a watermelon, covering Chalice in guts and blood. A bit got in her mouth and she spit it out, vomit following. She couldn’t turn her head fast enough, instead adding the contents of her breakfast to the carnage.
“Get in the house.” Colton shoved her. “We can’t stay out here. Not if we want to live to see tomorrow.”
Chalice increased her pace, thankful for the bullets speeding into the closest zombies. If not for those shooting from the porch, her and Colton would have been zombie food in seconds.
Reaching the steps, she tapped Colton on the shoulder, signaling he could climb to safety. They raced up the steps and turned.
The zombies converged at the bottom, obviously having lost their ability to climb stairs. Chalice collapsed on the top step and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her shirt. Please, God, say she couldn’t turn into a zombie by getting some of their brain in her mouth. “Somebody get me some peroxide!”
Undead pressed against each other, trampling those in front of them. Soon, they stepped over the fallen and made it to the first stair.
Chalice bolted to her feet. “Uh, they’re using their own dead to get closer.”
“Get back in the house.” George ushered them all inside.
They watched through the windows as the zombies, at least twenty of them, stopped pressing forward, instead going back to milling around the yard in a macabre game of ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’. They seemed to have no feelings for the undead lying in the yard.
“You killed Mom!” Hanna slapped Chalice.
Putting a hand to her stinging cheek, Chalice stepped back. “It wasn’t her. Mom wore a blue dress. This one wore yellow.”
Hanna covered her face with her hands. “Then maybe she’ll come. She’s still alive.”
“I doubt it.” Mychal pushed past her into the kitchen. “There’s no way a zombie can follow one of us across the country. Their brains are as dead as the rest of them. Too bad those mush brains can’t tell the bodies to die.”
Grandma handed Chalice a towel and a bottle of peroxide. “You stink. I’ll have supper ready by the time you get out of the shower.”
“Thanks.” Chalice clomped across the mud porch, more aware of the zombies outside the door than she wanted to be. No stairs kept them from shuffling right past the door, the sound of their feet grating on the flag stone and ever-present reminder of their unwanted company.
She stopped and stared through the storm door. A thin sheet of glass was the only thing between her and the hungry undead. Windows lined the walls on each side of the door. One of the zombies lifted its face and sniffed the air like a dog would hunting its prey.
Without moving to the bathroom, Chalice backed into the kitchen. “If we plan on using the bathroom, we need to board up the mud porch.” She poured peroxide into her mouth, swished and spit. Then again and again until the bottle was half empty.
Glass shattered.
5
“Damn.” George charged in the direction of the mudroom. “There’s plywood on the front porch. Hammer and nails under the sink.” He pointed at Eddy. “You get them. We’ll hold them off the best we can. Once I have the supplies, I’ll cover the door and windows.”
Bill, Sarah, Mychal, Chalice, and Colton went with George while Grandma pulled down the attic ladder and sent the younger kids up. The two newest ones seemed reluctant to climb up into the dark, but Hanna shoved against them until they had no choice. Chalice shook her head. At least her sister’s occasional selfishness was good for something.
In the short time it took for them to all reach the mud porch, three zombies had broken through the glass with more trying to squeeze through the hole in the door. The dogs launched themselves at the zombies trying to gain entry. Instead of helping, they were in the way.
Mychal let fly with his arrows while the
others, instead of shooting and wasting bullets, chose instead to use their weapons as heavy hammers and crush zombie skulls. Shooting would also make it more likely one of them would miss and hit one of the dogs or each other.
A blood bath ensued, coating both survivors and the undead in blood and gore. Chalice’s arms ached from lifting, bashing, and repeating.
“A sword!” Mychal pulled a shiny Katana sword from a scabbard hanging on a zombie’s back. “He must have taken sick before using it.” Mychal dropped his bow and slashed away, decapitating and dropping zombie body parts like flies after a can of Raid.
Chalice grinned, amazed that she could find anything to smile about, and resumed the battle until every zombie laid in a pool of their own blood. It would take three days to clean up after the fight.
Eddy had propped the supplies against the wall and joined in the fight, using a handle and a crowbar as weapons. With one clutched in each hand, he’d made short work of any zombie within his arm’s reach, and Chalice had been glad of the help. She no longer held him in the rank of one of the kids, but instead, she counted him an adult. Those capable of fighting grew by another number, making her feel a little more safe.
Breathing hard, George hefted the first slab of wood and set it across the door. While he held it in place, Bill hammered nails around the edge. Finished, the men moved to a window, until the entire porch became shrouded in darkness.
“I’ve got the shower first.” Chalice grabbed the towel she’d draped over a chair and stepped into the closet of a bathroom. She turned the water as hot as she could stand it, then stood under the flow fully dressed. There was no way she wanted to pull a shirt over her head that was covered in zombie intestines, and she didn’t think she’d ever get the smell out of her nose.
She stood in the shower, face raised toward the spray, and let the hot water wash away the filth of the day. She’d almost cried when Colton fired a bullet into Zombie Mom’s temple. She probably would have if she hadn’t been busy fighting for her life. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself, she still wasn’t certain she hadn’t ordered him to kill her mother, or at least what was left of her mother.
The Zombie Awakening (Complete 6 Volume Series, plus prologue) Page 11