by R. M. Smith
I wondered what was going through his mind. I couldn’t tell. Was he contemplating killing us? Would he take the food we gathered and then shoot us and take it for his own?
I didn’t feel sorry for him. I didn’t forgive him for the things he had said. He knew what he was doing even though he acted like he didn’t.
He was an asshole.
“Come join us, Jon,” Wendy said. She and Doc were standing next to one of the stainless steel tables in the kitchen. They had an open loaf of bread. Jars of jelly, peanut butter and honey sat next to it with plastic gallons of milk and orange juice.
“It’s not much, but it’s enough for now,” Doc said. “Eat up you two.”
Wendy asked, “Ben? You want to eat?”
He turned toward us. “No. You go ahead. I’ll eat when you’re done.”
Doc said, “Ben, get in here. You need to get your strength back. We’re alright now. Come on in here.”
Obediently he came in. He shoved his shotgun behind his backpack. “Thanks.”
I slid the jar of peanut butter over to him without saying a word. He opened the bread and pulled out three slices.
He slid the jar back over to me after slapping a large glob of peanut butter down on his bread. “I don’t need any jelly.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Ok look,” Doc said, pouring orange juice into a plastic cup for himself. “Like I said, we’re all going to have to get along here. I know some bad things were said. Secrets were told. But we need to get past it. There are more dangerous things outside to worry about.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I said.
“Ok, you cared for the girl,” Doc said lifting his cup to his mouth. “We understand this. But she’s dead, Jon. We’re alive and we need to stay that way.”
That stung. Now Doc was pushing me to forget Rainey. She wasn’t that easy to forget! I loved her! I grabbed a couple pieces of bread out of the bag. I spread some peanut butter across them. I said, “Pass the milk.”
Wendy slid it to me.
Doc said to Ben and me, “You guys need to bury the hatchet.”
With tears stinging my eyes I said, “Ok.”
“Yeah alright,” Ben consented.
Wendy said, “Ben you need to apologize to Jon.”
He stood tall looking past me at the wall behind me. He said, “Jon. I’m sorry for…you know.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“That’s not a very good apology,” Wendy said with a sip of orange juice.
Doc took a drink of his.
With a rejected sigh Ben asked, “So what’s the plan?”
“We’re going back to the Jeep,” I said. “We’re going to turn it over and head up to the lake.”
“Alright,” Ben said. “But did you forget that we needed gas? That’s why we stopped here in the first place.”
I said, “Yes, I remember. We can fill up at Doyle’s.”
Ben asked, “Who’s got the key?”
“To Doyle’s?” I asked.
“No dummy,” Ben said. “To Lisa’s Jeep.”
I looked at Wendy. “Did she give them to you?”
“No,” she said slowly.
Stunned I said, “Oh fuck. Lisa still has the keys?”
Wendy shrugged.
“Great!” Ben said slamming his hands down on the table. “That means we’ll need to get them off her fucking corpse.”
“Shit,” Doc said quietly.
“No. I don’t want to,” Wendy said putting her head down. “I don’t want to see her like that.”
Doc said quietly, “The zombies may have moved her body.”
“Oh God. I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Wendy said. She went into the walk-in closet and closed the door.
“We have to look for the keys,” Doc said solemnly.
“Yea. We won’t be able to start the Jeep without them,” I said.
“I’ll stay here with Wendy,” Ben suggested. “That way she won’t need to see her sister...like that.”
“And neither will you,” I added smartly. “You two were close.”
Ben said, “Jon, don’t be an ass.”
“Oh, so it’s ok for you to be an ass and talk shit about me and Rainey, but if someone talks crap about some girl you knew who died, then you turn into…”
“Enough,” Doc said. “Just stop, alright? Jon, you and I will go after the keys.”
Ben thumped his fists down on the table.
“Alright, fine,” I said. “But you better protect Wendy. Don’t fucking leave her here. Don’t take advantage of her. You understand?”
He snapped, “And why would I do that? Huh?”
“Because you’re fucking careless and you’ve lost it,” I said.
Ben’s face turned red. “Then why don’t you stay here with her? I’ll go with Doc.”
“No,” Doc said. “I need someone level headed to go with me.”
Ben acted like he wanted to say something derogatory but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Fine. Go.”
“Well we need a plan first,” Doc said. “I don’t want to run off all half-cocked.”
Ben asked, “Ok, so what we doing?”
“I don’t know. Let me think.”
Wendy pushed the door open from inside. “No one needs to stay here with me. I’m good. Just go get my sister’s keys please. I’m ready to get out of this hell hole and go find my fricking parents.”
Cautiously, Doc, Ben and I set out of the kitchen. Outside the cafeteria door, Doc slammed the zombie’s head against the wall with his crowbar. Ben moved up beside him, unloading his shotgun at the other zombie and the zombies further down the hall.
I expected Ben to turn on me and Doc and shoot us dead in the empty cold hall, but he didn’t.
Outside, fresh footprints broke the snow cover at the emergency room entrance. We stood in the open doors, our breath pluming out in front of us. It was fucking cold! Ice pellets had formed on the snow cover. Trees creaked in the icy breeze. Overhead broken clouds quickly slipped past.
To our left, the church stood, the snow between here and there untouched. To the right, a few stores with frosted over windows lined the quiet street. A post office. A drug store. A hardware store. Buildings I hadn’t noticed in the dark.
Doc took in a deep breath. He coughed. “Alright guys, let’s make this quick. Let’s go back the same way we came: through the church.”
At waist level, Ben lowered his shotgun toward the church. He led, Doc following, his crowbar at the ready. I took up the tail.
The snow was deeper. We struggled through it. Sections were nearly waist deep. Ben held his shotgun above his head like a soldier wading through a murky swamp.
The back door of the church stood open. Going in, darkness met us. Ben clicked on his flashlight. Our footsteps echoed.
A zombie leapt out of the darkness. It landed on top of Ben, knocking him over. He shot blindly in the dark.
Doc quickly pulled the zombie off and smashed its head in. The bones in its skull crackled.
“Jesus,” Ben whispered. “That scared the fuck out of me.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Doc said offering him a hand.
Teeth chattering began to fill the air around us. It encircled us. It sounded like hundreds of zombies were hiding in the darkness.
“Back out,” I said quietly. “Let’s back out of here.”
“No, run!” Ben yelled. He nearly ran over me.
Doc turned, his eyes wide. “Go!”
I ran out of the church. Where to go? I headed toward the line of shops.
Ben yelled, “Run! Oh God, run!”
Over the sounds of our struggling through the deep snow, I heard other sounds. A clacking of teeth. A swish of an arm reaching and missing.
The clacking grew louder, echoing, bouncing off the buildings walls. More clacking joined in. More zombies were coming.
The snow was too deep! It was slowing us down too much.
Heavi
ng for breath, the icy coldness freezing my lungs, I slammed through the door of the first shop. A hardware store. Dim light came through frosted over front store windows. Inside, the shelves had been knocked over. Dead bodies leaned against walls. Frozen blood puddled on the floor. Behind a counter in the back, hammers and small hand drills lined a pegboard.
“Get your gun out Jon, goddammit,” Doc yelled. “They’re coming.”
Faces of the undead began to slam against the outside of the frosted glass. Several beat the glass with bare frozen frostbitten hands, the skin chipping from their arms. Teeth chattered.
Standing right inside the door, our weapons held tight, we waited for the glass to implode down on us. Then the rush of undead climbing through the door, cutting their legs on the shattered glass, ripping their clothes.
But the undead wouldn’t care.
They were after us.
They wanted us.
Nothing was going to stop them from catching us, making us fall to our knees, eating our skin away. We were three dead men in this room. Nothing could save us. We weren’t going to be able to surrender, walk away unscathed, throw up a white flag.
This was it.
Ben, Doc and I were going to die here. We might put up a good fight and take some of them with us, but in the end we would be dead. The zombies would win. There was no denying it. Their strength was too much.
And then a gunshot from behind the writhing army of the dead. A single gunshot to get the zombies attention.
Wendy!?
Oh God, no.
The group turned toward the sound.
Who was it? Who shot the gun? We couldn’t see! The zombies ran toward the sound, their teeth chattering.
Taking our chance, we ran back out of the store toward the church. The whole time, every step, I said under my breath, “No, no, no.” I didn’t want it to be Wendy!
“Who shot the gun?” Ben asked, huffing. “I couldn’t see anything.”
“It wasn’t Wendy was it?” I asked.
We had to see.
We stopped at the door of the church. Back by the hospital, the zombies were devouring a body.
“God, I hope it wasn’t Wendy…” I whispered.
Doc slid his crowbar down into the loop of his pants. “No,” he said sighing heavily. “It wasn’t.”
Ben’s flashlight ran along the chipped floor in front of us through the dark church. Back at the front doors we pushed the bookcases out of the way and opened the doors. Daylight poured in revealing dead bodies sitting in the church pews behind us, their bodies mangled.
I asked, “What the hell is going on?”
Doc stood facing toward the pews. “Let’s go,” he mumbled.
We crossed the street outside and headed toward Wendy’s Dad’s shop through the deep snow. Nothing had changed when we got there except for more snow covering the floor. The garage door hung open.
Ben said, “They pulled her under the door, remember? She wouldn’t be in here.”
“Damn. You’re right,” Doc said. We left the shop, made our way through the snow and to the back side of the store. The snow had drifted against the partly open garage.
“She’s got to be under this drift,” Ben said.
Doc dropped to his knees. “Start digging.”
I knelt down too. I started to dig through the snow.
Ben stood behind us his gun at the ready.
Pawing through the snow, feeling for anything, a leg, an arm.
Doc huffed pulling up bunches of snow. His beard covered in snowflakes, his stocking cap dusted with snow, he said, “Nothing. She’s not here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s gone.”
“We need the fucking key,” Ben yelled quietly through clenched teeth. “We need to find her body!”
“Keep it down!” Doc said. “I know! But she isn’t here.”
Ben asked, “Did the zombies drag her off? Is her body in the church?”
“There’s no telling where she is,” Doc said.
I yelled, “We need to find her!”
“She’s gone, alright?” Doc said. “We need a different plan.”
Ben shoved the butt of his shotgun deep into the snow right next to him, standing the shotgun straight up in the snow. He took off his gloves, one finger at a time. He had an obnoxious grin on his face.
I asked, “What are you doing?”
He shoved his hand deep into his pocket and pulled out a key ring with several keys on it.
I quietly yelled, “What the hell are those?”
He said, “Lisa’s keys.” He pulled the shotgun out of the snow again.
I asked, “Where did you get those?”
He put his gloves back on. “I’ve had them the whole time.”
Doc asked, “Why the hell didn’t you tell us? Why make us dig through all this shit?”
“Payback,” he said. “For keeping me out in the fucking cold. You left my ass out in the cold hall all by myself while you three warmed up in your hospital beds.”
“You’re a rotten son of a bitch,” I said through clenched teeth. I jumped toward him, body tackling him in the snow. He dropped his flashlight.
We went down. I threw a punch into his face. It connected with his cheek bone. I felt like I hit a rock.
He shoved me off.
Doc pulled Ben’s shotgun out of the snow drift and shot it into the air.
We both stopped struggling.
Why the hell would he shoot a gun out here especially with all of the zombie’s right around the corner? I couldn’t believe it!
“The hell are you doing?” I yelled standing up.
Doc asked calmly, “Do you want to live or die?”
We both asked, “What?”
“We need to move. You can keep fighting here and get ripped apart by zombies or we can run to the Jeep. Make your choice.”
Ben reached his hand out to me.
I pulled him to his feet.
Doc gave him his gun.
We ran for the Jeep.
With a throng of zombies on our tail, we sprinted through the deep snow. It had to be the adrenaline giving us the strength to plow through the snow like we did. We were sprinting.
The Jeep sat exactly the way we had left it: on its side, the back hatch standing open.
Ben banged against the Jeep with his shoulder. He pushed it as hard as he could. Doc hit next. The Jeep creaked but didn’t budge. “It’s frozen to the ground,” Doc grunted.
I hit it next. The ground was slippery under the snow.
Black ice.
Doc yelled, “On three! One. Two. Three!”
The Jeep rolled over onto all fours. The hatch slammed shut. I ran around to the passenger side. The door opened with a loud ice shattering creak. Doc got into the seat behind me.
Ben ran around to the driver’s side. The door was frozen shut.
A zombie raced past my window. Then another. More followed.
“Oh shit,” I whispered.
Doc said, breathless, “He’s trapped out there.”
“Fuck. Dammit Ben!”
More zombies scampered past the driver’s side. Ben started yelling, shooting the shotgun.
“Get down,” Doc said. “Get down low in your seat.”
I yelled, “But we got to save him.”
“He’s gone.”
“No,” I breathed.
Doc yelled, “Jon! Hunker down.”
I slid down in my seat. Doc did the same.
Ben’s gun went off two times.
Then it was quiet other than the horrible sounds of Ben’s dying screams.
We stayed hunkered down in the Jeep until the zombies wandered back toward the church.
The cold settled in. My legs shivered uncontrollably. My teeth chattered. Sitting in the cold with no heat was unbearable. I felt like I was going to freeze to death.
When the zombies finally disappeared Doc said, “I know where the key is. I’ll get it.”
I closed m
y eyes. I didn’t want to watch.
Doc retrieved it and came back to the Jeep. He kicked the driver’s side door until the ice broke free. He opened the door, shoved his crowbar down next to the seat on the door side, and got in. He adjusted the seat, shoved the key into the ignition and turned over the engine. It sputtered then came to life. “Not much gas,” he said.
I couldn’t speak.
He got back out, went to the rear of the Jeep, opened the hatch and scooped up all of the scattered ammo into his pockets. He slammed the hatch shut and got back in the Jeep. His gloves were covered in blood. He said, “Let’s get Wendy.”
“She got eaten,” I said.
“No she didn’t,” he said turning the Jeep around. “It was Gretchen.”
I asked, “Gretchen? Who the hell is Gretchen?”
“My wife.”
Confused, I asked, “What? Your wife’s been out here the whole time and you didn’t say anything about it? Why didn’t we try to find her, Doc?”
“We split up at Doyle’s shortly before I met you guys.”
“But why didn’t you try to find her?”
“I have my reasons,” he said, driving toward the hospital. “I’m going back to get Wendy. When we get there, stay in here. Hunker down again.” He turned on the heater.
“Doc? Your wife.”
Turning toward me he said, “Please let it go. She’s dead. It’s what she wanted. She said she wanted to be alone.”
“Yeah but she saved our lives!”
“Yes. She did.”
I was stupefied. Why would Doc separate from his wife in the middle of all of this? “Damn, Doc,” I said. “I can’t…”
“Say no more,” he said. “Like I said, it was what she wanted. I wasn’t going to give into her. I told her it was stupid of us to separate but she insisted. I didn’t stand in her way.”
I wondered what had gone so wrong between them that she didn’t want to be with him any longer. Maybe it stemmed from something that had happened earlier in their marriage.
Dismayed, I honored Doc’s wishes. If he didn’t want to talk about it anymore then I wouldn’t say another word.
Doc said, “I’m taking us to the delivery entrance.”
I asked, “But won’t the zombies still be around?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.”
Sitting behind the hospital with the Jeep running, warm air from the heater blowing around my feet and into my face caused goose bumps to crawl along my flesh. It felt so good.