by J. B. Havens
We were in the hallway almost to the bathroom door. I could hear the kids in there and if I could, then I knew Kelle definitely could as well. Erik stepped in front of Kelle, jerking the bathroom door out of its frame, he tossed it down the hallway like a matchstick.
The gunshot was incredibly loud in the small space, Dalia’s scream followed seconds after.
The back of Erik’s head now painted the wall behind him. Blood and brains dripped down the surface in a thick, wet stream. His body fell the ground, limp and dead for good. Kelle howled in rage. Running to his body, she crouched next to him as if she needed confirmation that he was dead.
She glared up at Tristen, who still held the pistol. I saw that he was visibly shaking in fear. “You’re dead, boy!” Kelle screeched. “I’m going to feed on you until nothing but your bones remain. Then I’m going to turn your little sister. She’ll be my new pet. Forever.”
Kelle’s rage enveloped her. It held her so tightly that she didn’t notice me coming up behind her. I could see Tristen clearly now, he was white with fear. He’d probably killed dozens of zombies, but he’d never seen anything like Kelle. She was horror itself. I was about to give her a run for her money.
Moving with all the speed afforded to me with my powers, I grabbed her shoulder tightly with one hand and punched my other through her back at the same time. My fist emerged from her stomach, covered in blood and clutching her intestines in my fist. “Not bloody likely, bitch.”
Her spine was hard against my arm, the bones strange feeling against my skin. I pulled my hand out of her, taking the handful of guts with me. She collapsed to the ground on her side, her hands desperately shoving her insides back into her body. It was useless since half of them were hanging out of her back.
“Tristen, shoot her in the head.” I ordered calmly.
“I-I can’t. I’m out of bullets.”
I left her bleeding and gasping on the carpet and walked back to the living room find the machete on the floor where I’d dropped it. The handle was slippery under my bloody hand and I had to fight to keep a firm grip on it as I slowly walked back down the hallway. I could kill her right now, cut off her fucking head and end this for good. But as she lay there, bleeding and helpless, I couldn’t do it.
The evil had left her face and all that was left was the young girl whose family had died and left her alone. The same girl who couldn’t bear to kill her family once they turned, and instead locked them away. I didn’t want to be the monster I was becoming, there was a small slice of my humanity left and I was clinging to it like a drowning man in the ocean gripping a life preserver. It was all that was keeping me from turning into her. If our positions were reversed, I would be dead already and she would be feeding on the kids even now. Was I better than this? Than her? Killing her would rid the world of one of the evils that saturated its surface, but at what cost to my battered soul?
“It doesn’t have to be this way, Kelle. You can feed on animals, like I do. Trading a small part of your strength for the sake of your own humanity is worth it. Change, and live. Don’t, and you’ll die. Maybe I won’t kill you, but someone will. The world doesn’t need more monsters, Kelle, it needs more heroes.”
I helped the kids step over her body, making sure she didn’t grab at them. One bite is all it would take. She didn’t move though, she was curled up around herself, trying to stuff herself back together. It was as if we didn’t exist for her right now, and who knows? Maybe we didn’t. I needed to get the kids as far away from her as possible and that was exactly what I was going to do.
Chapter Eleven
Kelle lay on the carpet in a pool of her own blood. Erik’s dead face inches from her own. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been laying here, days probably. She was weaker than she’d ever been, even as a human. She’d screamed her way through putting her intestines back inside herself. She was pale from blood loss and hunger. With no horde to protect her and Erik dead, there was no way for her to feed and restore herself. Her only option was calling for zombies mentally, but in her weakened state unless they were right outside the apartment they’d never hear her. She was terrified she was going to lay here and starve to death. Or worse—not. Not heal. Not feed. Not die. Forever. Erik would decay to bones, her own flesh would shrink tightly around her skeleton but she’d remain alive, locked inside a useless body.
Desperate and running out of hope, with the little strength she had left, she reached out with her mind, searching for a zombie. It was ironic what had turned her into this in the first place was now her only option for salvation.
Luck was on her side. The ping of an answering zombie rang in her head like a bell.
Come inside, she commanded. She was tapped mentally, she needed the zombie in front of her so she could speak. Using her mental abilities took too much of her precious energy.
Shuffling footsteps came into the house, the zombie bumped into walls and stumbled around. The closer he got to her, the more coordinated it became, until when he reached her, he was walking as normal as any human. His grey hair was coming out in patches and there was a large bite on his cheek. The skin around it had rotted enough that it had torn clean through, showing his black teeth underneath. The stench coming off him was extreme, so intense it burned her eyes.
“I need you to go get me some food.” She couldn’t explain how she knew he understood her but he did. Something clicked within him at her order. He had a purpose and he would fulfill it.
Making a one-eighty he left her there. Judging by the light coming from the bathroom window, it was still the middle of the night. Maybe he’d get back and she could get out of there before dawn. She was so weak right now that she didn’t think she could tolerate the sun at all. Once she got up off this fucking floor, she was going to find some real food. She doubted the zombie was going to bring her a kicking and screaming human, more like a dog or cat or something. Just enough to help her finish healing and stand.
Maybe an hour passed until her new friend returned. He dragged something behind him, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
“What did you bring?” Dropping his prize and stepping to the side, she saw he’d brought half a deer. The top half was gone but judging by his bulging stomach, she could guess where. She almost got mad, but he was just a mindless sack of rotting flesh, he killed the deer and in doing so, fed. He didn’t know any better.
Tugging the carcass closer to herself, she didn’t waste any time. The meat was only a little cold, fresh enough to taste good. Her stomach and back burned like fire as they began to heal. This meal would get her back on her feet but it would in no way slake her hunger. She would need to hunt and kill and regain her real strength. Then, she would find Molly. Pulling her meal closer to her face, she held it tight and pulled long stripes of flesh from the bones, just as she was going to do to Molly. She was going to skin her alive, let her heal, then do it again. Over and over, forever. Immortality had its perks…and its downsides.
****
My shoulder ached from the gunshot and my head was pounding. My stomach cramped in hunger. Travelling with the kids was torture in itself, resisting the temptation of their flesh was a monumental feat. Dalia clung to her brother’s hand, the backpack I’d given her was too big, bumping against her legs as she walked. Tristen was numb. He hadn’t spoken to me since we’d left the apartment. He’d seen me punch my hand through Kelle’s body and rip her intestines out through her back, I couldn’t blame the kid one bit. He hitched the bags of food higher onto his shoulder. The same bags I’d dropped outside when Kelle showed up. I’d gotten them a decent haul, canned goods and bottled water, plus what I’d had in my pack at the apartment.
“I should go back. Go back and kill her,” I muttered, not expecting a response and not getting one. Regret weighed heavily on every step I took. I wanted to believe that if we got far enough away, she wouldn’t find us. She would be weak for quite a while, if she somehow managed to feed. I wanted to believe that she would heed m
y warning to feed on animals and change for the better. We all told ourselves pretty lies to get through the day anymore. It was the only way to keep going.
“It’s going to be light soon. We should stop. We’re all exhausted and I need to hunt.” I looked back and Tristen nodded, keeping his eyes on his feet.
After we left Binders Hollow, I kept us heading south, following the highway. At some point, I thought of turning west. Once we got a little further out of town, I was going to get a vehicle. I thought back to my own Toyota in my garage at the apartment. We’d been in such a hurry to leave, I hadn’t considered it. Cars were not an ideal mode of transportation anymore. They were too loud, too conspicuous, and too cumbersome. Then there was the issue of acquiring fuel for them. In the early days of the outbreak, people had made a run on gas stations. Fueling up their vehicles and canister after canister. Most stations were empty before the infected even rose. Siphoning out of other cars was the only way anymore. Right now though, it was worth the risk of driving. I needed to put as much distance between us and Kelle as possible.
We were walking along the road, all of us too tired to care that we were exposed. I would hear someone coming in any case. The only sounds were the scuffing of our shoes on the pavement. We passed cars left sitting with their doors hanging open and blood stains on the seats that trailed out onto the road.
We came upon a red Volkswagen, bones and unrecognizable half-decayed remains were in a pile near the rear of the car. Both the driver’s side and back passenger doors hung open and when I peeked inside, I saw bloody rags in the back, and empty packages from bandages and gauze. A large stain had dried to a sheen on the leather seats. You could almost see the outline of a body lying there. The remains here told a story and I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to understand it. Person in the back was bitten, turned and attacked the driver. Both exited the vehicle and the passenger ate the driver in the middle of the road. They were killed by someone they knew, someone they trusted. The kids’ had gotten a little ahead of me and I jogged to catch up. The car could keep the rest of its secrets. That story had already been told a thousand times over.
There was a turnoff ahead, a dirt road by the looks of it. Pointing to a mailbox with its little red flag still standing, waiting for the mailman that would never come, I said, “Let’s try down here. We can rest up and then find a vehicle tomorrow.” Out of curiosity, I opened the mailbox. A couple of bills waiting to be mailed sat inside, one to the light company, another to the cable company. Oh, how I missed the monotony of everyday life. Go to work, pay your bills, buy food at the well-stocked and air-conditioned supermarket, help your kid with their Algebra, make love to your spouse, et cetera. Normalcy was dead. The American dream died along with the country’s population. If only it would reanimate as easily. Sighing, I flipped the mailbox closed, pushing down the red flag.
Without comment, the kids followed me down the road. Cornfields stretched along either side of the lane, their dry, yellow stalks bent over with the weight of their not yet rotten crop. They rustled in the slight breeze, the whisper of their leaves creepy in the darkness. Pushing aside thoughts of an old horror movie I’d seen and the creature that walked between the rows, I tried to pay attention to my footing instead, sidestepping rocks that I could see and I knew that the kids couldn’t. “Watch out, there are a lot of loose rocks here.”
“Yeah, we’re not idiots. It’s a dirt road,” Tristen griped at me.
Rolling my eyes, I let it go. We walked for maybe ten minutes before we arrived at the end of the lane. A large house stood sentinel over us. Silent, it loomed out of the dark and seemed to be alive and watching. It was an old Victorian with lots of windows, and even had a widow’s walk. Of course, I thought it would be a great lookout for security purposes. I wasn’t wrong, there was someone up there.
“Get down!” I ordered the kids, they dropped down behind me, making themselves as small as possible. I didn’t think the lookout had spotted us. The figure was still walking back and forth and didn’t appear to be alerted at all.
“Molly…” Dalia began, tugging on my shirt. I shushed her, hearing something just as a rifle barrel pressed to the side of my head. The person on the other end had been hiding in the cornfield beside the road. Even with its dead, unharvested stalks, it provided enough cover to hide someone. I had relied on my hearing and failed. Again.
“We don’t want any trouble, just get up and be on your way,” a woman spoke softly. Yelling wasn’t necessary, her rifle got her point across well enough.
I put my hands up level with my shoulders, “We’re just looking to get off the road and rest somewhere for a day or so. The kids need a break is all.” I was grateful for the darkness, she hadn’t noticed my strange appearance. Looking up toward the house, I saw the figure on the widow’s walk had stopped and was observing us now, raising his hand to his mouth, I heard the answering crackle from the radio on her belt.
“What ya got there, Marge?”
She didn’t respond, just dug the barrel a little harder into my temple.
Dalia’s soft voice broke the tension. “Please, ma’am, we just want to get off the road for a bit. Please let us stay.” She was sweet and young. Her innocence in counterpart to the horrors of the world, it was as refreshing as a rain shower on a summer day. The barrel lifted off my head, but moved to my back.
“Get up,” Marge ordered. I had yet to see her, but she seemed to be used to expressing authority in her voice. A mother, maybe?
I stood, keeping quiet and thinking furiously. If they saw me clearly, I was probably dead. But if these people were legit and not hillbilly psychos, it might be a good place for the kids. It wasn’t like I could keep them with me forever. I was a zombie for fucks sake, not exactly an ideal role model.
Tristen spoke, surprising me, “Listen, Marge is it? This is Molly, please don’t hurt her, okay? She saved our lives. We’d be dead now if it wasn’t for her.”
I didn’t dare glance back at him, but I needed to thank him as soon as it was safe to talk.
“That’s sweet, kid, but I don’t give a crap. I’m taking you to the house and letting Betty decide what to do. If it weren’t for you two being young’uns you’d be beating feet back to the road right now or worse, I’d be digging a hole in the field somewhere.”
She marched us up to the house with speed and efficiency. Light was appearing on the eastern sky, each time I blinked, it was a little brighter. My eyes would start burning soon and the second they got a good look at me, I was sure I’d be feeling a bullet tear through my body.
Chapter Twelve
The front door closed and locked behind us. Dalia and Tristen stood beside me, huddling close together. They knew as well as I did that people were more dangerous than the zombies these days.
A kerosene lantern sat on the entryway table, softly illuminating the foyer that we stood in. Ahead was a long, dark hallway with several closed doors on either side. Coming down the hallway was a woman holding a candle, reminding me of the classic Charles Dickens’ story. I half-expected her to be in a nightgown and cap; instead, she wore jeans and a baggy grey sweater like anyone else. Something about her threw me off, but I wasn’t sure what it was. My instincts were telling me that the woman was more than she appeared to be.
“Marge, what’s this?” she asked in a voice like thick honey. Her southern accent was rich and nearly touchable.
“I found them outside, they were walking down our lane, Betty.” Marge shoved me forward, deeper into the light. Dalia grabbed my hand, trying to pull me back into the shadows.
“Easy child, you don’t need to be afraid for her. I can see well enough to know what she is. She won’t be harmed as long she doesn’t attempt to do harm first.” Meeting my eye, she raised an eyebrow in question. “Isn’t that right, dear?”
“Yes,” I replied. I could hear her heart beating ever so slowly, and her skin, papery thin with age, was grey. It hit me what she was even before she lifted the candle
higher, revealing her blue lips and red-rimmed eyes. “Holy shit.”
“Molly, she looks like you,” Dalia stated, tugging on my hand again.
“She sure does.” Catching Tristen’s eye, he looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. I’m sure he was confused, defending me one moment, and refusing to acknowledge me the next. He needed time, I knew that, but time was fleeting. All at once there was not enough of it and too much. The days stretched on forever in the same unending routine, while they were also precious and too short, so easily taken away. “Dalia, go over with your brother, stay together. I need to talk to our hostess. You have food in the pack, get something to eat.”
Turning my head to look at Marge, I said, “They will not be harmed. Understood?” I put all the threat necessary into my tone. If she knew what I was, she knew what I was capable of. Even weak, I would overpower her.
“They’ll be safe. We don’t hurt innocent children here.” She huffed and walked back out the front door, shutting it behind her.
Dalia and Tristen went to the living room, laying out a meal and tucking in. They were ravenous, we hadn’t been able to stop, our need to get away from what was left of Kelle had been too great. I fully expected to find them sound asleep as soon as they finished eating.
“Come with me, they’ll be safe here. You have my word.” Betty led the way into the kitchen, another kerosene lantern sat in the middle of the farmhouse kitchen table. Its scarred surface caught the light and reflected it back.
She pulled out a chair, taking a seat like we were neighbors, catching up over a cup of tea. I sat too, somehow her patient stare made me feel like an asshole for standing. A zombie grandmother, just when I thought I’d seen it all.
“Tell me, why are you here?” Folding her hands together on the tabletop in front of her, she smiled softly, no doubt attempting to reassure me that she wasn’t about to butcher and eat the kids in front of me. Her kind manner coupled with her matronly appearance clashed with the grey skin, blue lips and nails, and red rimmed eyes. She was freaking me the fuck out.