State of (Book 1): State of Decay

by Martinez, P. S.

  We redoubled our efforts and moved in unison toward the break in bodies. Once I made it there, I started running, sure Ghost was right behind me, that he was going to make it.

  I ran in between buses, banging and pushing on the doors of a few, looking for one that was open. Surely one of them had to be open. I only stopped when a zombie stumbled into my path and only long enough to drive my knife into its skull and then kept moving.

  When I got halfway down the line of buses, I banged on another door, feeling like it was all quite hopeless. The door gave beneath my pounding and I fell onto the stairs of the bus. I pulled myself off of the steps with a gasp and stumbled up and onto the empty bus.

  I ran to the third seat and slammed a window down before pulling my gun off of my back and propping it up on the window frame. My hands were shaking by the time I spotted Ghost and started popping off the zombies that were hot on his tail.

  When he saw me in the window, he ran for all that he was worth until he reached the bus, slamming the door shut behind him. I thinned the crowd of zombies that were closing in around the side of the bus, my shots never slowing.

  “At this rate, I’ll run out of bullets without making a dent in their numbers!” I shouted over the cacophony.

  Ghost was sitting in the driver’s seat, staring at the zombies banging their fists and gnashing their teeth on the bus door.

  “Ghost?” His eyes met mine and he smiled.

  “I’m dead, Melody,” he said calmly.

  I shook my head and slammed the window up into place. “No. There has to be something we can do.”

  Ghost chuckled under his breath and smiled at me sadly. “Not this time, beautiful girl,” he answered matter-of-factly.

  Tears ran down my face unashamedly.

  No. This couldn’t be how things were supposed to be.

  I walked over to the first seat on the bus, close to Ghost, and sat down heavily.

  The force of the zombies’ bodies against the bus rocked it a bit.

  Holy hell.

  There had to be hundreds of them surrounding us. As long as they were aware, we were in the bus, they wouldn’t quit. Even if we started the bus, we wouldn’t be able to run over this many. We would never be able to get out of this mess.

  I closed my eyes and sank back into my seat. Jude’s face flashed across my mind and I was . . . sorry. Oddly enough, I was very sorry I would never get to see him again.

  Maybe it was just the fact that we’d bonded a bit and mutually respected each other. Maybe it was that I didn’t like the thought of disappointing him. Or maybe it was something . . . more. I didn’t know what more could be, but whatever it was, I had a pain in my chest knowing I’d never get to figure it out.

  I heard Ghost ripping something and my eyes sprang open.

  He had ripped the hem of his shirt off. I walked over to him and took the fabric from his long, shaking fingers, and wrapped it around the gaping wound on his upper arm.

  I took a bottle of water out of my pack, ignoring the frantic zombies on the other side of the glass door, and handed it to Ghost. He took it and downed a swig before handing it back to me.

  “Put that back in your pack. You’re going to need it,” he said gently.

  I did what he said. He pulled his small pack out of his pocket and started working on the panel beneath the steering wheel.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “We won’t be able to move, not with this many zombies surrounding us. We’re going to die here.”

  “You’re right, Melody. One of us will die tonight, but not both of us,” he said through a grunt of pain as he jerked a large piece of metal off from beneath the steering wheel.

  “What do you mean, Ghost?” I asked. “If you think for one second, I’m going to leave you here, you got another thing coming.”

  Ghost yanked a bunch of wires out of the front of the bus. He didn’t even look at me, but I could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “No, you won’t be leaving. I’ll be leaving and taking a bunch of these undead bastards with me,” he said like we were discussing whose turn it was to take out the garbage.

  “I don’t fucking think so,” I growled.

  Zombies were throwing themselves against the door even harder now and I flinched at the sound. I wondered how long the doors would hold before they broke through.

  Ghost stood up from the driver’s seat and swayed as he did. I put a hand out but he waved me away.

  “Sit down, Melody. I want to show you something.”

  I did as I was told, too tired to question him.

  “You see these two wires?” he asked. He pointed out two different colored wires—one red and one blue—he’d separated from the others. I nodded.

  “Tomorrow morning, when you think it is safe, I want you to rub those two wires together lightly. It won’t take much for the bus to start up.” I frowned down at the wires.

  “Do you understand?” he asked, his voice sounding more tired than before.

  “Yes, but . . .”

  Ghost knelt down beside me on the bus floor until our faces were even. His normally espresso-colored skin was ashen and a fine mist of sweat dotted his brow.

  “I’m going to die tonight, Melody,” he stated. “The only way I can make it mean anything is to do it my own way.”

  I knew then that he had a plan, and that it was going to involve him sacrificing himself for me. I tried to jump from the seat, to talk some sense into him, but his hand landed on my shoulder and his eyes caught mine, begging me to understand. I wasn’t sure I could. I’d come to love Ghost like a brother. I found myself looking for his smile in the group as we’d traveled and cleared out zombies together.

  I couldn’t let him do this.

  “Please, Ghost. Don’t.” My voice could barely be heard over the noise that the zombies were making.

  Ghost smiled and brought a shaking hand to my face, tipping my chin up.

  “Ah, this won’t be so bad. Dying for those I love. Plus, I’d hate to think of Jude being left all alone. Who’d watch his back and save his ass if both of us were dead?” He asked.

  A tiny burst of laughter left my lips.

  “That’s better. Just don’t forget me, Melody.”

  “I’ll never forget you,” I said truthfully, tears slowly tracking down my cheeks.

  Ghost grinned, his white teeth shining in the final light of the day. “What else can a man ask for when he faces death?” He asked seriously.

  My tears kept flowing while he outlined his plan. It was crazy. It was brilliant.

  It was my only hope.

  In the end, I didn’t beg him to reconsider. I didn’t make a huge scene or blubber all over him. I wanted him to have his final moments of glory, wanted him to know how much I respected and loved him. I wanted him to know how much I owed to him for everything he was about to do. In the end, his death would be a death of honor for those he loved, and who was I to diminish his legacy?

  Ghost got down on his hands and knees and made his way to the back of the bus where it seemed the least amount of zombies were. I crawled behind him, and when we got the back door, Ghost looked at me one final time.

  “Until we meet again a very, very long time from now, Melody Carter.”

  He kissed me on my forehead and then launched the back door open. I took out a dozen zombies with my rifle to give him a little more time before pulling the door shut behind him, locking it, and flattening myself against the floor as Ghost had instructed me.

  From where I lay, I could see him take out quite a few zombies at the back of the bus before he pushed through to the side of the bus with a war cry.

  Even though I couldn’t see what happened, I could imagine it all as I heard him.

  He screamed his anger into the night and took shots as he went, taking down more zombies than could be counted.

  When the pounding on the bus stopped, I knew he’d been right. The zombies had forgotten all about me, focusing in on him and the noise he was ma
king. He bellowed his rage, yelling obscenities while he went, his voice growing more distant as he drew the zombie horde further away from the bus. My tears poured down my face and made a small pool on the floor where I laid impossibly still.

  And then, when he thought he’d led them far enough away and when he had them clawing at him and biting into his flesh, he dropped his gun and released two pins that he’d pulled from the grenades that he’d had strapped to his vest.

  The explosions rocked the city street, destroying the zombies closest to him and drawing the rest of the zombies to that spot.

  Ghost’s sacrifice would never be forgotten so long as I lived.

  I did what Ghost told me to. I was to wait until morning to start the bus. That way I wouldn’t draw the attention of the horde that was still too close for comfort. The horde would, hopefully, have shuffled on, assuming the pattern we’d observed held true the next morning.

  I stayed on the floor, crying until I could cry no more. Still, I lay there until exhaustion swept over me and I slept.

  We All Live in a Yellow Submarine

  I didn’t sleep long. Even with exhaustion plaguing my heart and body, I still had a job to do. I had to get the bus to the school.

  I moved from the floor to my knees and stretched until I could peer over the seats and out into the parking lot. The day was clear, the sun was already rising, and the area was relatively clear of the zombie multitudes that had been surrounding the bus the night before.

  I moved quickly, not wanting to take a chance that I would lose too much time and the undead would take over the area again.

  I threw my bag on the floor near the front of the bus and plopped down into the driver’s seat. The bus was freaking huge and I’d never driven anything larger than an SUV.

  I gulped back my fears and picked up the two wires Ghost had pointed out. The spark surprised me, but the bus didn’t start right away. With a sinking feeling, I spoke to the bus in hushed tones, coaxing it like a lover would to make it turn on. I touched the wires together a third, fourth, fifth time, and finally on the sixth, the bus roared to life.

  My relief bowed my shoulders.

  With a shaking hand, I put the bus in gear, pushed the gas gently, and pulled out into the parking lot. The dozen or so zombies in the area had already taken note of the moving bus.

  Time to get the hell out of dodge.

  I was pretty proud of myself when I got closer to the school. I’d run over a few zombies, pushed a smaller car out of my way, and had done minimal damage to the ginormous, yellow school bus. Very proud indeed.

  I circled the school two times, to make sure someone would see me, before driving to the loading area. Someone would be looking out for me—of that I was positive.

  When I pulled up to the gates, several people were there to take out the zombies milling about while Manuel and Jude opened the gates wide for me to enter.

  I parked as close to the school as I dared. Someone else could back it up to be loaded—I would have probably taken out a building if I’d tried. I opened the door to the bus and jumped out with my pack.

  When Jude, Manuel, and the others ran up, their eyes searching the bus behind me for the others, the night before rose up again to slap me in the face.

  “Ghost?” Jude queried, his face haggard and as sleep deprived as my own. A sob escaped my lips as I launched myself in his arms. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. He just held me in his arms, shushing me and murmuring nonsense.

  It was okay. Everything was going to be okay.

  I buried my face into Jude’s chest and let myself have a moment.

  A few minutes later, I’d sucked up my tears and washed my face.

  Manuel took the lead and immediately supplies began coming out in a steady stream. We had no time left to lose. We’d already spent longer than we wanted in town. We all kicked into high gear. We had a little girl back home depending on us.

  I decided to scout the rest of the school for anything else we could possibly use back at the base. The group had the supply packing under control. They were handing boxes down a line of people, careful not to drop anything and talking in hushed whispers.

  We were well aware that with the way the zombies were acting, the knowledge there was likely another large group in the area, and the fact that we were on a deadline to help little Ava we weren’t exactly in control of the situation.

  I didn’t find much in the classrooms or offices, but I did find a snack machine in the gym and considered shooting it to get the candy out. I was pretty sure that would have been a stupid idea though.

  If only Ghost were here to pick the lock, I thought.

  My heart squeezed and I grabbed my chest to try and lessen the pain. It didn’t help.

  With a deep sigh, I headed back to join the rest of the group. They were probably close to being finished and I was more than ready to get going.

  I was looking at the ground while I walked when heard something that made me stop in my tracks. The sound of metal being crushed, and then a gunshot. My first instinct was to run toward the sound and see what was going on so I could help the group, but then I heard the shouting.

  I pulled my rifle off my back and ran full out. A minute later I was behind a huge cement pillar that blocked me from the view of the bus area.

  “You stupid son of a—” I heard shouting again and then another shot.

  With my heart pounding, I knelt down and peeked from behind the pillar.

  An armed group of about eighteen men and women had the rest of my group at gunpoint and were herding them towards the school and away from the bus. They pushed them to their knees in front of the doors leading into the school. I clenched my teeth.

  From where I stood, I could see Jude’s face and he was more pissed than I’d ever seen him. I never wanted to be on the receiving end of the glare he was giving their leader.

  The group, made up of the most ragtag bunch of people I’d ever seen, was a sight to behold.

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought they’d stepped right off of Mad Max film set. Women wore dreads or had shorn hair, hacked in chunks. Most of the men sported shaved heads or had long, greasy hair. And all of them, no one excluded, wore layers upon layers of varying shades of brown. Their clothing, ripped rags for belts, shoes, and hats.

  It was like someone had taken them out of a sepia filtered alternate reality and transplanted them in ours.

  Their huge trucks had torn down the back gates of the school. I scanned the group and found Manuel alive—and looking angry as hell as he knelt before the group. Big Ben was also on his knees, his hands behind his head, while the man who appeared to be the leader of the group shouted a bunch of questions at them.

  The man’s bald head glinted in the sunlight.

  He had an impressive goatee, that, I shit you not, was braided and at least four inches long. His face was rough and scared from I imagined severe acne or chickenpox from his childhood or teen years. He was missing a front tooth and moved all twitchy-like.

  He was either coming off or high on some kind of drugs.

  I took a moment to breathe and to try and figure out what I could do to get us out of the situation without losing more people or having to kill a lot of the living.

  I glanced back around the pillar and searched the group that had broken into the school, quickly realizing that only a couple of them were military or had probably ever used a gun before the outbreak. Several of them couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen.

  Shit.

  I couldn’t kill a bunch of kids.

  I was just starting to run through my options when the decision was taken out of my hands. Someone screamed and a few shots sounded, echoing in the area. The zombies would be coming after all that noise. I set my jaw.

  Cursing beneath my breath, I stood up, pointing my gun at the head of the guy who had been doing the talking. No one noticed me at first—the morons had been making too much noise and had shattered
an opening in our fence, letting dozens of the undead shuffle into the schoolyard.

  “Hey, Jackass!” I shouted over the melee.

  Jude swung his gaze to me along with the man in charge, his little braid swinging with the movement of his head. I grimaced but held up my left hand in hopes he would see that I really didn’t want to harm anyone.

  My scope, however, remained trained on his head.

  His gun swung in my direction. “Stop fucking moving right now!”

  I clenched my jaw. “How did you survive this long?” I asked loudly.

  His eyes narrowed.

  “I mean, how fucking stupid can you be?” I continued, fully aware he could pull the trigger at any moment, or maybe one of his teenage soldiers’ shaking fingers could slip and I’d be a goner.

  “You not only let the zombies in, but you even ring the dinner bell for them? Bravo!”

  “You better watch your smart-ass mouth, bitch!” he shouted, his face turning a very unattractive shade of mottled red.

  Bullets were flying behind me; several of his soldiers were trying to keep the zombies from ruining his little raid, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before we were overrun.

  And then we would all be dead.

  Without moving my gun, I jerked my head at the petite woman who looked to be of Korean descent between me and the scary goateed dude.

  Her large, brown eyes looked much more sane than his.

  “You okay with him killing a bunch of survivors just to take their supplies?”

  Her heart shaped face was full of doubt as she glanced between me, him, and our group on their knees.

  “He didn’t say we were going to kill anyone. We just need the supplies,” she said, indecision coloring her accented voice. She searched his face and I hoped she saw what I saw.

  He was planning on killing everyone. Even if we did give him our supplies. We were all dead to him.

  “Shut your mouth, Sun,” he practically growled. Sun took a step back.

  He had followers because he’d probably helped them survive, but it was clear he abused the power he’d taken. None of them were following him because of his sterling personality and morals.