“It’s not bad, but there is a nice lump back there. I can feel it,” said Matt, reaching back to feel his head.
Reaching back his fingers could feel the odd shape protruding from his head’s natural surface. He also could feel the sticky dried blood in his hair around his contusion. Using his finger to push the hair that was stuck together out of his way, he found where the blood came from. With a yip he pulled his hand out and away from his injured head and looked up at Frank.
Frank stopped what he was doing and leaned over Matt’s head and looked at his lump. It had been dark when they made it to the truck-trailer, and just getting there was busy enough for him. He didn’t have time to look at the bang on the head Matt received from dodging the zom-dog’s lunge.
But even with time and his Mickey Mouse light, he was still unable to get a real good look at it in the dark toy truck. So returning back to his rope lock on the door, he finally untied it and slid it open just a hair, and the gust of wind rushed inside and hit them both fully.
The air was cool, not hot from the sun just yet. Frank dropped to the ground but left his hand on the door in case he had to pull it closed fast. Looking through the hairline crack between the base of the door and the floor, he was able to see the goings-on outside a bit. There appeared to be no crowd of hungry undead zombie waiting for the lunch truck to open. It was kind of clear and calm out there. If it wasn’t for the cars all about with their doors open and some with broken glass from side doors being smashed, either by the undead or looters, it would look like an early morning day without the undead.
Frank took one more deep breath and went to stand back up when his nose caught the scent of death. Frank froze and waited for the smell to come closer to identify its location. Scanning the area he couldn’t find the smell’s exact point of origin. Crawling on the floor, he slid his hand along the door’s edge the whole way not letting his only safe door slip from his grip, just in case.
Frank had slid as far as he could, and now he was along the wall and the smell was so strong. He felt nauseated. Frank made a gagging sound, and Matt looked over at him after getting bored or watching him play bloodhound and went back to his head wound.
“What is it? Do you see something?” the questions rang from Matt like water pouring from a tipped-over cup.
Frank looked back and gave him the hush sign with his free hand he used to help slide on the floor. Looking back through the crack, he came face-to-face, well more like eye-to-eye, with one of the undead. The eye that was looking back at him was bloodshot and dead looking. The pupil was all black. The veins in the eyes were all bright red and looked to have popped almost all over making the eye look all red with a black center. Frank froze only for a second and slung his head back just in time to see a rotten hand shoot toward his face. With all his might Frank slammed the door closed. Sound of crushing bones rang out inside the trailer, which in turn brought Matt to his feet quick.
Matt didn’t need to be told what the sound was because as soon as the door was sealed, the loud pounding just on the other side started up.
“We have to do something, Frank!” yelled Matt over the pounding and scratching on the other side of the door.
Frank knew this already and was working on a plan of action. He knew if he didn’t do something fast, the pounding would bring others, and soon they would be trapped for good within a death toy box.
“I have an idea. Grab some boxes and stack them up here,” said Frank pointing at the spot he was standing at.
Matt did what his friend had said and stacked boxes till Frank waved him to stop. Matt walked back and moved the Mickey Mouse light toward Frank to see him a little better and saw that he was still holding onto the door so it wouldn’t open. But at the same time he was climbing the boxes and trying not to crush them with each step he took. Once he was up high enough, Matt watched him lift the door up some, and Matt’s eyes immediately went to the opening toward the zombie world.
The zombie was shocked Matt guessed when the door opened without too much of a fight. It stood there with its arms raised. One arm still had a hand on it, while the other was sporting a jagged bone from where Frank cut off its hand when he closed the door.
The zombie’s initial shock must have worn off because he was trying to climb in now. Matt kept watching Frank standing up there waiting. What was he waiting for? Was he waiting for the zombie to start on him so he could make a run for it? Matt knew he could be a burden sometimes and maybe even a jerk, but to feed him to a zombie was just cruel. Maybe Frank looked at his head wound and knew it was over for him already and it’s better to just lose the dead weight now instead of dragging out the inevitable. So feeling his time was up, Matt closed his eyes and spread his arms apart as if to hug a friend goodbye.
Eyes shut he heard the slamming of the door again. He opened one eye and saw the door was closed somewhat and something was standing just ahead of him. So it was true Frank jumped out and left him alone inside the truck to be eaten. It wasn’t long before the slamming sound came again and again till he heard a slurping sound and a pop. And the door opened back up, and the cool air hit him in the face.
Matt opened both eyes and gave them a rub for the sun outside was sure to blind him for staying in the dark for so long. Frank was standing there in the doorway with his hand still on the bottom of the door, just in case. Matt looked at him and then felt dumb to think his friend would ever leave him behind after all they went through together. Then Matt noticed from the stare of Frank that he still had his arm spread apart looking goofy as hell. So Matt played it off and started stretching. He moved his arms from side to side twisting his body as he did so.
“So what’s to eat?” asked Matt, still acting like all was normal.
Frank smiled and jumped out and onto the pavement with a thud sound as both feet hit at the same time. Matt started walking to the exit when he heard a smacking sound. It sounded like someone was eating something but not chewing with their mouth closed. Looking down he could see the blood smear all over the floor, and close to it was a decapitated head.
Frank it seemed had used the door as a guillotine and looped off the zombie’s head to stop it from banging on the door and attracting others to its location.
The head, even without a body, was still alive. The head was on its side looking up at Matt with desire in its eyes for walking food. Matt leaned down, and the closer he leaned to it, the more it tried to chomp at him with the intent of eating him whole, even without a belly to store its meal. Matt smiled and spit on its face and used his foot to scoot it out the door, and it hit the ground with a splat!
Matt was about to do the same as Frank did and just jump out, but even at this height his head started spinning from his earlier injury. So leaning down he set on his butt and slipped the rest of the way out and into the open air. Frank waited till Matt was clear and pulled the door shut behind them. Flipping the latch gave the door a tug to make sure it was locked and good to go.
Standing there Matt looked around his surrounding and squinted from the rising sun’s position. There was light breeze blowing, and the air felt crisp and calm. But he could also feel a little heat from the sun and knew it might end up getting a little uncomfortable later. Standing there also Matt heard a dragging sound coming from behind him, and he turned to see what the hell Frank was now up to.
The sound was the dragging of the headless zombie to the back of the truck. Once Frank had the headless zombie in a sitting position, he grabbed its arm, laid it up on the locking latch, and wedged it to not fall back down.
“What on God’s green earth are you doing?” asked Matt.
“I’m setting this body here to keep it safeguarded, just in case we come back and we need a safe warm place to stay the night,” replied Frank. Looking at Matt he could tell his slow mind was still not grasping the concept. “If the body is still here when we come back in need of a safe place and hasn’t been touched, the truck is safe to just enter. But if the body is falle
n or even open, well, we will need to be careful inside and all night in case someone makes it their home and wants their bed back.”
Matt thought this was a wonderful idea and was mad he didn’t think of it first. But with his head hurting still, he could see why it didn’t come to him yet. Well that’s what he kept telling himself as they gathered their stuff up. Before they started to walk away, Matt stopped dead in his spot.
“Wait. I forgot something.” Turning around he made his way to the truck’s back to the head still chomping away at the air or Matt’s shadow. “I almost forgot about you, buddy.” Reaching down he picked it up and placed it on the ground with its severed neck and took a step back. Looking back behind him and left to right, he took a couple steps and kicked the head hard as his painful head would allow him.
The head took off in the air but didn’t go far and rolled once it hit the ground and continued to roll till it made it to the tall grass and disappeared within it somewhere. Matt smiled and walked back to Frank smiling as well, thinking if they did come back, he would make sure he checked on the head to see if it learned to crawl or something.
The world was gone and belonged to the dead now. It took a matter of seconds, and 90 percent of the world was either killed or turned. The ones who survived thought they were lucky but soon found out they would have had better chances at tossing themselves off a building than trying to make it out in the world nowadays.
The food was gone. Lights, running water, communications, and everything we held dear was now gone. Some people who depended on electricity couldn’t handle it and just shut down and lost their minds. Some needed the power to survive, like the ones in the hospital or the home care people. Their bodies were the ones that shut down and passed away, but their souls carried on to leave their hungry shells behind to eat those who were still alive.
People panicked and ran to their loved ones and tried to barricade themselves in their homes only to run out of food and have to leave what they thought safety environment, while others took to the streets to either kill those attacking or just find a safe place they could trust. What they didn’t know was there was no safe place from the undead. They would find you. They were hungry and would never tire.
The wind blew in warm weather warning that the cold air was on its way. The sky was bright blue, and the clouds were starting to turn a little gray. Matt and Frank had walked for about two hours now, and Matt’s head was feeling a little better, but he was starting to get really hungry.
It must have been days since their last good meal, so he knew Frank was just as hungry as him. But he knew Frank would never say anything out loud so as not to look weak to his friend. Frank’s father beat that into him as he grew up in life.
Matt occasionally reached up to check his head when he lost his train of thought. His goose egg was still large, and it hurt like the dickens every time he did touch it. Frank did take the opportunity to have a look at it and said they needed to clean it as soon as they could or Matt could risk infection.
Great! Matt thought. Something else to worry about with the world that has gone to shit. Leaving the truck seemed a good plan to them at the time, but now Matt was not being 100 percent certain. He was having second thoughts. But he knew to get better he would have to leave. They had to find medicine and find it fast and quick, since most pharmacies were wiped out during the first hours to days of the outbreak. Going into a city was a big no. Going back into the town they had just left didn’t intrigue them either, seeing what happened the last time they went in for supply.
They walked on a road just outside of town with a store on their right and acres of woods on their left. They could see walkers in the woods all the time, but they just kept to themselves or they were too slow to catch them. The stores they passed were abandoned with windows broken and most having the doors ripped off. If there were the undead inside, they didn’t see, with most stores being mom-and-pop stores to tire stores. Why check them anyway?
It was till they saw something shiny through the woods that made Frank stop and Matt, looking around feeling his head like he had been doing every fifty seconds, run flat into Frank and almost knock them both down.
“Damn, man!” Matt yipped, catching his balance. “You can warn people you’re going to stop dead like that.”
“Sorry,” replied Frank, staring off into the upcoming bend in the road. “The road bends to the left up there, and do you see what I see?”
Matt moved up beside him and had a look himself. Just past the huge pine tree and through all the others was what looked like a shiny chrome building. Matt looked over, and Frank was still looking and then gave a look around.
“What is that? Some kind of muffler place or something?” asked Matt.
Frank shook his head and started walking toward the bend and the building.
“You’re supposed to be the smart one here, and since the knock on the head, you seem to have knocked the stupid into yourself,” said Frank, not looking back to even see if Matt was following him or not.
Matt was speechless but knew he was right this time. It was his job to come up with plans and find the things they needed, and Frank’s job was to whine about them and tell him what could go wrong. Since the town they passed in, their roles seemed to have been reversed. Matt decided to keep it to himself and blame it all on his head trauma.
As they reached the bend in the road, the building came into sight, and Matt knew what it was right then and there. “Finally, a diner,” he said out loud but mostly to himself. Still behind Frank, he never even saw him smile when he said it.
The diner looked just as beat up as the rest of the places they passed on the road out of town. As they approached the window, blinds were drawn down and the door was slightly opened, but they could not see why. There was a couple of cars parked outside that blocked the grounds real well. They could not see the whole thing till they got much closer.
In the woods the walkers seemed to have vanished some. Matt could see shadows of them moving around, but they were real far out there. That is a good thing to me, he thought. That would leave them loads of time to get in and get out with food hopefully. At the first car now, they split up, and each went around a different direction. Peeking around the car’s ends, they saw nothing, so they moved onward. Matt got an uneven feeling in his stomach and wanted to voice it out, but he figured it could be because he was so hungry.
The second car wasn’t that far from the first, so using the same plan they circled around it to peek once again to find blood smears this time leading toward the diner. Frank looked up at Matt. Matt pointed to his belly to show him he had a funny feeling about this. But did Frank take it that way? Or would he take it that Matt was just bitching about food again?
Around the second car now, they could see the door, and it was opened. A dead body was wedged in between the door and the frame. It wasn’t moving, and it stunk to the high heaven. Frank slowly approached it and held the bat he carried now at the ready. Frank was so close now he had to hold his free hand to his face to block some of the smell. Maggots were crawling in and out of a nice-sized hole in the back of the dead man’s head. The rest of the body looked to have been gnawed upon, and the flesh was coated with flies and bugs. Using his bat Frank poked at the head, and the head popped off with a cracking sound and rolled down under the second car and out of sight. Frank looked up at the sky and took a couple of deep breaths trying to lose his cookies all over the place, which he knew wouldn’t be much as he didn’t eat anything in a while.
Matt reached into his bag and pulled out a couple of bandanas and handed one to Frank. Frank nodded his thanks and wrapped his face with it and tied it as tight as he could. It didn’t block the smell totally, but it helped out a great deal. Frank knowing Matt’s head injury would slow down his reflexes decided to be the one to look inside first. Stepping close to the headless body, Frank leaned in closely and slid his eye around the edge of the frame. There were bodies all over the place. Some were
draped over the counter; others were on the floor. But he couldn’t see the booths to his left unless he looked further inside. Taking a step further inside, Frank went to stick his head in between the door and the frame. Squake! A bird flew past his face and out into the afternoon air and away into the woods. Frank tried to jump back and ended up stepping on the mess underneath him and slipping a bit till his right knee landed on the shoulder of the body there. A cracking sound came out as its shoulder blade crunched under his weight and the body’s decaying flesh melted around Frank’s knee.
That was it. Frank couldn’t take it anymore. He rushed over to the car, went around to the other side, and lifted the bandana and threw up all over the place there. Matt was glad his face was covered because he didn’t want to have his friend seeing him smile at his recent adventure into the blood and gore.
Matt decided it was his turn to give a look and see and creep in close. But instead of looking inside a little, he just stuck his head in. Using his machete he placed the blade on the ground and slowly scrapped it back and forth. While he did so he watched the bodies all over for any movement. Nothing came. They all remained motionless. Looking back at Frank he could see he was done and his face cover was back in place. Giving him a wave Matt walked inside to the room of death. Matt was glad he had his cover on because the smell he was getting now must be five times worse without it. As Matt passed each body, he used his machete to stab into their heads to be on the safe side. Frank brought up the rear and made sure Matt didn’t miss on as he went.
As they approached the serving area, Matt heard something and stopped. It sounded like pots knocking into each other. From the front counter, you could see it all through the glassless window into the kitchen. There hanging were pots and pans. Two of them off to the right were swinging slightly. Looking back Frank gave a nod and moved up closer to him and went around Matt to get a better look and see everything.
The kitchen was dark and very spotty. Some spots were inside the room itself. Scanning the room from his viewpoint, he could see the swinging of the pots hanging from the ceiling above the kitchen’s table inside.
Z Notes | Book 1 | Z Notes Page 6