The thing that had been Eddie Garcia fell to its knees, grabbed her by the arms and pinned her to the floor,
“Papi! You’re hurting me!” she cried, as he opened his mouth and bared his teeth.
It wasn’t just the firm grip that hurt, or the sharp fingernails digging into her flesh - it was the cold; Papi’s hands were so cold.
It was then, as his dank, rotten breath blew into her face, as drool ran from his mouth and trickled down her arm; that Vickie realised Papi wasn’t very well, wasn’t very well, at all. Vickie wasn’t sure it was her Papi anymore; maybe just a nasty, cold, man, with pale, blue eyes, who happened to look like him.
The movement of light and shadow that Vickie caught in her peripheral vision was as fast as an eagle sailing past the sun.
The loud, metallic, ‘THUD!’ made her jump, as her Papi’s head snapped to an unnatural angle. His grip released and he fell to one side.
“Mommy! MOMMY!” shouted Vickie reaching out with both hands.
Dawn stood over the dead man. She shook violently, barely able to keep a hold of the shovel she’d used to smash it across the head. Throwing away the shovel, she grabbed her crying daughter in both hands and hugged her close,
“It’s okay Baby, everything is going to be okay.”
“But,” sniff, “Papi was mean. He hurt me and scared me.”
The bastard! Thought Dawn, remembering how he had hurt her when he was alive.
The night I killed you, I promised myself you’d never hurt me or Vickie again. Whatever’s happened, whatever you are - that pledge still stands and I will kill you a thousand times over if I have to.
“That’s not Papi. Papi got sick, remember when you got sick with chickenpox? Well now Papi’s caught something – and remember too how you took medicine to make you all better? Well there’s no medicine that can make Papi better. I’m sorry, Honey.”
Vickie cried harder, mourning a father that would never return.
“Now I need you to be very brave for me Sweetie, can you do that?”
“Yes, Mamma.”
“Good girl,” soothed Dawn, “let’s get back inside.”
As Vickie sat at the kitchen table enjoying cookies and milk and drawing with crayons, Dawn fortified the house.
Locking every door and window, she reinforced them all with barriers of furniture.
When satisfied that the house was safe, Dawn turned on the television. All that was showing on every channel was black and white fuzz. The radio then. She turned the dial through several music stations until she got a news broadcast:
“…have risen. I repeat, the dead have risen. This is not a hoax or prank. The first sighting was reported this morning in New York; we join our New York correspondent, Merv Gaines:”
“This is Merv Gaines in New York City - although, it is not a New York that I, the inhabitants of the great city or any tourist who might be familiar with the Big Apple, would recognise. As I speak, legions of the undead, a stumbling, shambling, sea of rotten humanity-that-is-not-humanity, rule the streets. These…monsters, have been observed to be carnivores, devouring anything living to feed their ghastly hunger, and by that, yes – I mean the living… human beings…”
Dawn shuddered as she remember Mrs Lopez devouring Hector, and realised how close Eddie had got to feasting on Vickie,
“…the creatures seem to be indestructible. They rise from gunshots to the body and head, from stabbings to vital organs and even from electrocution. The only time we have witnessed one re-dying, was when it caught on fire and eventually burned away to ash. People are advised to stay indoors; to secure their property and if possible, to get, ‘upstairs’, as it appears the creatures limited motor skills and motor control - attributed to problems with their brains, skeletons, joints and nervous systems - means that they cannot climb stairs…”
Grabbing the radio, Dawn turned to her daughter,
“Get your crayons and pad Hun, we’re gonna go up and play in your bedroom, since all your toys are there.”
“Okay Mamma. Can Pedro come?”
Dawn smiled at her daughter, “of course he can. Maybe we can have a tea party?”
Vicky stood and clapped excitedly, grabbed her drawing pad and crayons and raced upstairs.
The scream that split the air from upstairs turned Dawn’s blood cold.
Dawn sprinted to the stairs and bounded up them two at a time. Her initial reaction was relief; Vickie was fine, there were none of the undead up here, no group of monsters tearing and devouring her daughter alive. Then Dawn’s relief changed to panic. She had been so concerned, so focused on Vickie, that she hadn’t noticed that it was dark.
Dark? But it’s only- she checked her watch and received another shock – 11.20, is that all? she marvelled; waking-up had felt like hours ago. So how’s it light downstairs, but dark up here -
Then the darkness moved slightly and an ebb of sunlight cut through into Vickie’s bedroom. Stepping nearer tentatively, she realised what it was.
A fog of blackbirds.
They hovered in front of the window, all peering in with beady, jet coloured pearl like eyes. Now came a tapping, then another; a third.
They were pecking at the windows, trying to get in.
One bird smashed into the window. The glass did not smash, but a long, splintering crack fractured through it. The forking crack bled red from the dead, kamikaze bird’s blood.
“They’ve been feeding on those things,” she thought out loud, “whatever it is that’s made the dead come back to life, the birds have caught it and now they want warm flesh and fresh meat. They’re contaminated.”
Grabbing her daughter, Dawn carried her to the stairs. Another loud snap popped behind them. Then several at the same time. Soon the windows would give and they’d be at the peril of those spoilt birds.
The mattress! thought Dawn suddenly. She remembered the fun she and Eddie had had trying to get it upstairs. It had wedged neatly in the stairwell; they had laughed and laughed about that. It had taken them over an hour to finally get it up the stairs and into the bedroom. They’d made love on it, to celebrate.
It was now, with that memory, that Dawn mourned Eddie. Not the Eddie who she had murdered on Thursday night, not the angry, violent and aggressive Eddie. She mourned for the man Eddie had been; the Eddie she had in fact lost many years ago.
The MATTRESS! her concentration screamed at her. The smashes were coming in waves now. The windows wouldn’t last much longer.
“Quick Honey, run downstairs. I’ll be right there.”
“No, please don’t leave me Mommy.”
“Go on now, I’ve just got to do something. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Vickie walked downstairs as Dawn ran into the master bedroom. She almost burst into a hysterical fit of laughter as she found the bed was on wheels. Grabbing it at the headboard, she dragged the bed behind her. At the stairwell, she lined up the bed, gripped hard on the bottom of the mattress and dragged with all her might.
The mattress bounced up and along with an ease, but weight that surprised her and Dawn fell backwards and landed hard on the floor. Winded but uninjured, she looked up and again joy filled her heart. The mattress was stuck neatly in the rectangular stairwell. The plush wedge would allow none of the monster birds to fly downstairs.
Her victory was short lived.
“Momma!” screamed Vickie, Dawn was on her feet and back in the kitchen. She skidded to a stop and slid a little on the kitchen tiles, but retained her balance and stopped dead, staring in rage at the scene before her.
Eddie was home.
He had managed to break open the door and push aside the barricading furniture.
So much for the siege thought Dawn.
He was a man ablaze in black feathers, a flock of the birds tore at him and ate greedily, flames of jet/blue down roared crazily, engulfing him. He walked forward towards them. It was the birds that gave
Dawn the idea.
“Want some tequila, huh Eddie?” she screamed at him, stepping in front of her daughter and retreating away from him. He made no noise, simply shambled towards them slowly.
Circling the kitchen table, Dawn took every bottle of tequila from the hiding places Eddie had hidden them. As she passed the cooker, she took the long box of cooker matches. Having passed through one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, they were now in opposite positions; Dawn and Vickie at the smashed-in door, the dead Eddie at the other side of the room.
“Have a drink on me.” said Dawn, and then proceeded to throw every bottle at Eddie. The birds exploded into individuals and retreated outside as the bottles smashed and soaked his clothes through with tequila.
Dawn lit a match.
Tossed it.
The thing that had been Eddie Garcia didn’t scream as its body was engulfed in flames. It simply continued wandering around the table, shuffling and dragging its feet.
Dawn didn’t stay around to see what would happen.
Scooping her little Vickie into her arms, she ran outside to the car, got inside and just drove away. The tank was full, but that still might not be enough because she didn’t know where she was going - or going to do.
Ideas spun through her head a million at a time. She listened to the car radio and discovered that if the creatures did not eat the living alive, their bite infected and turned another to their macabre tribe. “A fate worse than death.” One analyst described it as.
Dawn knew of a fate worse than death - it was life. Life with Eddie Garcia.
She decided then that she would kill Vickie and herself before letting them be eaten alive or turned into one of them. She only prayed it would never come to that.
But what now? The constant, nagging question pestered and persisted.
And then it came to her like an epiphany.
A single, one word answer.
She would have to do what she did best. Dawn would have to care for Vickie and herself, keep them safe from harm - and alive.
She had to do the one thing she had been doing for the last ten years – the same as she had done during her fight against the hard, fast, punishing hands of Eddie Garcia.
Yes, she knew what she had to do now. It was simple.
Survive.
The End
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Dawn and the Dead Page 2