by T. W. Brown
A noise like a strangled cry sounded from down the hall.
In a flash, Heather was on her feet. She didn’t know what was wrong in the other bedroom, but she did know she needed to get away from Kevin right this very second. She dashed out the door, hearing her name called, hearing Kevin’s confusion and distress. Still, she had to get away from him. She reached the doorway and halted.
The smell.
It hit her like a wall. The stench of death was in that room, filling it to overflowing and rolling out into the hall through the open door she stood in. Stumbling in her direction, but looking across the bed was what, at least by the shadow’s outline, was Mike. She heard, then felt Kevin come up behind her, still unsteady on his feet as he collided with her back, causing her to trip forward a step. The figure stopped and turned towards her and Kevin. It was Mike…only…not.
“Stay back!” Cary warned.
“What happened?” Heather fought back the urge to cry.
“He must’ve been bitten and not told us,” Cary answered.
The zombie stopped moving, its head bobbing and going slowly back and forth between the two. It opened its mouth and made a gurgling, mewling noise that sounded nothing like Mike.
“How is this possible?” Kevin slurred, shaking his head and trying desperately to clear it.
The Mike-zombie’s head focused on Kevin, apparently looking over Heather. It began to stumble towards the doorway. Its arms came up, reaching for its intended prey. The two backed out of the entry and into the dark hallway. A pale glow was just starting to paint the room in shades of gray as the sun was struggling to burn through the lingering clouds from the previous night’s storm as it rose.
“Heather,” Kevin eased the girl to his left, then guided her back so he could put himself between her and the hideous caricature of his long-time friend, “give me one of your blades.”
“Huh?” she breathed, unable to take her eyes off somebody she’d been talking to a few hours ago.
“A blade,” Kevin insisted.
“Oh…yeah,” she said as her hand went to her hip. She drew a large, black-handled, stainless steel blade from its leather sheath and handed it to Kevin.
He tested the weight in his hand and looked into the terrible, unblinking eyes of somebody he’d know for as long as he could really remember. In the blink of an eye, the entire scene with Cary back at the truckstop replayed in his mind. This time, he thought, it’s different. He’s very clearly one of the walking dead.
“Rest in peace, Mike,” Kevin said as the thing stepped into the hallway. He brought the heavy blade up, driving it through the bottom of it chin, punching through the roof of the mouth, and up into the skull.
The creature dropped, Kevin let go of the knife handle as the zombie collapsed at his feet. Cary stepped into the doorway just as the body landed with a thud.
“How could he not tell us?” Cary spat.
“He never got bit.” Heather knelt beside Mike’s body.
“Of course he did,” Kevin insisted.
“I was right beside him the whole time.”
“Then he got scratched,” Cary offered.
“Nope,” Heather shook her head. “He had all his gear on. None of those things got to him.”
“Well he didn’t just turn for no reason,” Kevin insisted.
The trio sat in silence as the sun continued to make headway in its battle to burn through the clouds. A pale, pinkish-yellow glow began to fill the room. Without a word, Cary knelt beside Mike and began removing his clothes. Kevin removed the shoes, then the socks. In moments, Mike’s nude, greyish-blue corpse lay stretched out before them. Heather walked to a nearby window and stared out at what was promising to be a beautiful morning, weatherwise at least. Her mind rewound to yesterday, trying to see events as they occurred. Behind her, the two men were going over every inch of skin.
“Nothing,” Cary conceeded.
“It doesn’t make sense.” Kevin pushed himself away after draping a shirt over Mike’s exposed middle. “He couldn’t have turned for no reason…without some sort of...of…of catalyst.”
“That piece of the zombie that fell on his face!” Heather spun, the image crystal clear in her head. She could see the greyish piece of insides that had landed on Mike’s forehead. She could even see the dark juices that trickled from it. And when Mike had slapped it away and finally gotten back to his feet, there’d been that dark, greasy smear on his face, all down one side of his nose.
As best she could, she related all she’d seen to Cary and Kevin. The two listened, nodding on occasion as she described what she could remember.
“Well,” Cary said after a brief silence following Heather’s recount, “this is a rather unsettling revelation.”
9
“I love you…”
“Steve?” Jack Williams climbed up on the hood of the Hummer and unshouldered his rifle. Jack, Sunshine, and Chloe Weeks—the cute, blonde, deaf girl with the supposed crush on me—had decided to join our group. Jack seems sorta eager to earn his place. He’s always helping somebody, like he’s afraid the moment he isn’t useful, we’ll dump him. He’d been in college on a basketball scholarship with no delusions of going pro. His love, before it became completely irrelevant, was economics.
“There’s a three-truck military convoy down there on that highway. Looks like they stopped to help deal with that multi-car wreck.” I pointed down the slope. You could just make out the olive-drab vehicles in the pre-dawn glow. “I say we go down and see if there’s anything worth taking.”
“You don’t think it’s been stripped already?” Jack brought up his binoculars.
“I’m as certain as I can get.” I tried not to smile.
“Why’s that?”
“That Crystal Springs truck is still loaded full of five-gallon water bottles for one.” I reached over and steered his binoculars to the right a few degrees.
“There’s a trail leading down about thirty yards that way,” Aaron announced as he jogged up, Jamie lagging a few yards behind him.
“Everybody listen up,” I spoke loud enough to be heard without actually raising my voice. Heads turned my way and all the quiet chatter died down. “Jack, Jamie, and Aaron are coming with me down to that highway below. There are a trio of military trucks, not to mention a truck loaded with water, we’re gonna see what we can find. I want everybody else to double back to that Ranger station we passed about two miles back. Ensure the building is clear.”
“We staying put for a while?” Randi asked.
“That building sits in a nice clearing. I think it was a campground or something. Whatever, we have plenty of open space while still being out in the sticks. There is a creek down in that ravine a few hundred yards away. I think it has some potential.”
I noticed some heads nodding. Good, everybody else is just as tired of running as I am. We’d been on the move the past week since leaving that fire-watch tower. It had been hairy a few times when we’d been forced to find fuel. Jack had made one of his first big contributions in that area. He came up with the surprisingly obvious way of getting gas from the abundance of abandoned vehicles. We drive up and two people move fast to the target car or truck with a spike, a three-pound sledge, and a couple of our gas cans. One person punches a hole in the gas tank and the other moves the can in position, swapping them as need be. Still, every time we’d had to pull off an operation like that, we put our asses on the line more than normal.
The plan, as I saw it, was to try and find a place we could settle down for a while at. This wasn’t gonna be permanent, but it would give us a base to search from until a suitable spot was found. The ideal location needed to be away from populated areas, but still allow us to be within a few hours of some potential sites. I needed to have us entrenched before the end of summer. That gave me about three months.
“We’ll be back before sunset,” I said.
“Papi!” Thalia came running up to the group of adults, Emily right on her h
eels.
I hopped off the hood and knelt to catch her in my arms. I looked up and made an exaggerated gesture of opening my arms even wider, nodding to Emily as I did. Both girls each found her own cheek to kiss.
“ Ewww,” Emily pulled back and glared at me with her dark, almond-shaped eyes, “you’re all scratchy.”
I wrapped an arm around her waist tight and did what any dad or father-type figure would do in a “normal” world, I gave her a good cheek-to-cheek rubbin’. There was a good amount of squealing, and in moments I had both Emily and Thalia in a bit of a frenzy. When I finally stopped and the three of us looked up at the semi-circle of onlookers, I half expected stern faces, frowns of disapproval, and perhaps some worried looks due to the noise. What I saw were smiles. I became instantly self-conscious of all our laughter and felt just a bit guilty. Laughter was a rare event these days, and the three of us had just used up a month’s worth. Of course I’m being just a bit facetious, but it certainly feels that way.
“Okay,” I stood, allowing both girls to give me one last hug, “it’s time to get moving. I’ll see everybody before dinner.”
Thalia tugged on the pouch holding my spare magazines causing me to look down. She curled her index finger in the “come here” gesture so I bent down expecting one more kiss on the cheek.
“I love you, Papi,” she said.
A lump bloomed in my throat, and my vision got all blurry. “I love you, too, Thalia,” I managed…barely.
“That was the first time, wasn’t it?” Aaron stepped over an old log and held a branch out of the way so I could move past him. Jack and Jamie were about twenty yards ahead of us.
“Yeah.” I wasn’t gonna get all misty again. Seriously. It’s not gonna happen
“Doesn’t that make things harder?” Aaron asked.
“How so?”
“Well…” Aaron paused and I could tell he was trying to say something right without making me mad.
“Because I’m not really her dad,” I offered. “So if something bad were to happen, I’d be sad, but not as invested in it personally?”
“Something like that.”
“Maybe, but I honestly don’t know because this is a lot of uncharted territory.”
“I’m not sayin’ you ain’t takin’ care of her,” Aaron said. “Only how can you let yourself get close to anybody these days? Like Jamie and Teresa…”
There it is, I thought. This isn’t so much about me and Thalia, it’s about all of us, any of us. How do we care about each other now with death so prevalent? The world has turned upside down, and now another of his best friends has vanished. Every day somebody seems to die. And if they don’t, there’s no shortage of walking dead stumbling around. Still, some of us have found a purpose, or better yet, a person.
“You have a problem with Jamie hooking up with Teresa?” I asked.
“What? Uh, no!” Aaron slid on his hip down a particularly steep slope. “I’m happy for them. But when something happens to one or the other, we’ll have more to deal with than just another death.”
Wow, I thought, very impressed with this young man’s flow of logic. “Like you and Jamie with Billy’s—”
“There’s no proof that he’s dead!” Aaron cut me off.
“Okay,” I nodded, “but he’s still missing. And in many ways, that’s worse.”
Aaron was silent for a moment as I got up from sliding down the slope and dusted myself off. Looking ahead, we’d lagged behind to the point of losing sight of Jack and Jamie. I took the lead and picked up our pace a bit.
“You think he’s dead, don’t you?” Aaron finally asked.
“I’m not trying to change the subject,” I said, “but Ian was in the group, too.”
“Did you grow up with Ian?” Aaron shot back. “I’m not saying that him missing, or any of the other soldiers in that group are more or less important. What I’m trying to say is that making close attachments only seems like a way to set yourself up to get hurt.”
I didn’t have an argument for him. I wasn’t in agreement with his outlook, but I saw what he was trying to say.
“Hey!” Jack came hurrying back up the trail, saving me from having to say anything. “We got a bit of work to do. Jamie told me to ask you guys if you’d mind hurrying up a bit.”
The three of us moved as quickly, but as quietly as we could, through the woods and thick undergrowth. We came to a stop beside Jamie who was crouched down behind a car that was literally on its side in the deep ditch that ran alongside this stretch of road. It still had a piece of metal barrier caught in its bumper. The body inside, sprawled awkwardly against the windshield was honestly and truly dead. From the angle the head sat, I could guess the cause.
“I heard voices,” Jamie whispered so quietly I wasn’t sure I heard him as much as read his lips.
“Any guess on numbers?” I mouth-whispered back, unshouldering my shotgun. Jamie held up one hand and swapped back and forth between three and five fingers while shrugging.
I pointed to Jack and gestured down the ditch we were using as cover one way and for Aaron to go the other. I indicated Jamie to stay put, then peeked around the front of the car to the road. I couldn’t see anything moving. Not even a zombie.
Scrambling up the embankment, I looked both ways, confirming the coast was clear, and scurried to the next closest vehicle, a rusted out, non-descript sedan. All four of its doors were gone. That’s kinda weird, I thought. Looking inside, I saw plenty of very old, dried blood. I climbed in back staying prone on the long bench-style seat. I lay still and listened. I could hear the tall, brown grass along the side of the road rustling in the gentle breeze.
Crunch.
The distinct sound of gravel underfoot tickled my senses. Somebody made a “shushing” sound, but only after smacking something, most likely the offender. It was silent for several heartbeats, then, I heard a whispering voice. It wasn’t clear enough to decipher, but there was an unmistakable urgency. Seconds later, I heard, then felt, something come into contact with the car I was hiding in.
I was in a bad position. Currently on my stomach with my head inches away from the opening where the back door on the driver’s side used to be, the same side whomever was outside the car was on. Then it got worse. I felt somebody slide up against the other side.
Hmmm. Whoever was out there couldn’t know about us. One of them was ‘hiding’ right where Jamie could pick them off. No, they were watching for or hiding from something farther up the road.
“Ricky!” the voice closest to my head hissed.
“Yeah?” a very young sounding voice answered.
“You see where Toad and Princess went?”
“They ran for that water truck.”
“Well I didn’t hear anything,” the voice sounded angry. “I think they made that up so we’d all hide and them two could go someplace and fuck again.”
“Yeah,” Ricky sighed. “Well I say we leave ‘em. I can’t take much more of those two hangin’ all over each other every minute of every day.”
“It’s kept Princess off your back.”
“Good point,” Ricky said with an odd grimness.
I reached down slowly and flipped open my leather holster. Very carefully, I drew my .45 and waited for the next verbal exchange to ease off the safety.
“Should we go check on them?” Ricky finally broke the silence and provided me with my opportunity.
“Nah,” the other voice grumbled. I heard a shifting and sliding sound. He’d obviously slid down and was now likely leaning against the rear quarter panel of my hideout.
“You got any of them berries left?” Ricky asked, sounding like a child in the backseat on a roadtrip with his parents.
“You already ate all yours?”
“C’mon, Pete,” Ricky was practically whining, “I ain’t had nothin’ but that nasty soup for two days now.”
“Whatcha got for trades?” Pete sounded kinda sleazy.
“I go
t that pack of socks.”
“For berries? No trade.”
There was a long silence. I lay there, sweat starting to trickle down my spine to the small of my back. I was struck by this conversation. Certainly it couldn’t be that bad for folks. It’d only been a few months. Sure, a lot has happened, but so far, finding food hadn’t been that big of a problem.
“I’ll take your turn with Princess,” Ricky blurted, actually startling me just a bit.
“Two.”
A long pause, then, “Fine.”
I heard some rustling sounds, then a slight shudder of the vehicle.
“Thanks,” Ricky said.
“See if you feel that way tomorrow,” Pete chuckled. I didn’t much care for Pete.
There was another long silence. I began to wonder what Jamie, Aaron, and Jack were up to. I knew that Jamie was in a position where he could see Ricky at least. And he’d definitely seen me duck into this car. But it was, for all intents and purposes, silent out there. I tried to breathe as quietly as possible and keep the pistol ready. As cruel as it might sound, I knew I would shoot the first person to pass in front of either opening. I wouldn’t be waiting to figure out if they were gonna be friendly or not. Then I heard approaching footsteps from the front.
“Pete?” a new voice called. “Where’s Ricky?”
“Here,” Ricky answered and I could hear him getting to his feet. Whoever was approaching came to a stop and I heard Pete climb to his feet as well. I took in a slow, deep breath and held it, ready to shoot.