by A. P. Fuchs
“Come on,” she said. “Are you serious?”
She moved through the house and went back in the kitchen, noticed the note on the table.
“Oh no, he didn’t.” She went over to it and pulled it out from under the cleaver.
Tracy,
Sorry for running out, but have to look into something. To be honest, I was too scared to tell you. I know you’ll be super mad at me for this, but it has to be done. I’ll explain if I see you again. Stay here. I left a couple weapons. I also found the SUV those keys belonged to, so the vehicle’s in the driveway, half a tank of gas.
She picked up the keys, then went back to the note.
About our fight, I’m still sorry even though I know I’m causing another one by doing the same thing that started the first.
You’ll be safe in this house. Don’t try looking for me. Just stay here, keep making sure the doors and windows are secure, stay out of sight. For food . . . I’ll leave that to you. If you can tough it a day or two without it, I’ll bring something with me when I come back.
Hope you’re not too mad, and if it’s any consolation, I will miss you.
Joe
“Oh no, I’m not mad,” she said, “I’m furious!” How dare he do exactly what he said he wouldn’t? What could possibly be so important he not only decided not to include her in this little walkabout of his, but didn’t even tell her what it was about?
“I swear, once I get my hands you, I’ll tear you to pieces.” She crumpled up the note. “Hope the undead get you first.”
Her heart ached. She didn’t mean it.
Why did you do it? I don’t want you to get hurt. “I never want you to get hurt.”
Tracy sat at the kitchen table for over twenty minutes, lost in disbelief at his abandonment. Someone of his skill and experience should know how stupid a move it was.
There was no way she was going to stay put for a day or two while he sorted out whatever it was he needed to deal with.
“But I don’t want to go out there, either,” she said. She wasn’t scared, but after having Joe by her side for a while now, going it alone didn’t feel natural anymore.
She supposed, though, that that’s the way it had to be: always alone. No one to trust. No one to help.
Only herself.
* * * *
Joe kept to the side of the road, dodging in and around cars both parked and crashed. Some of the undead were completely oblivious to his presence. A couple of others saw him, but their stride was so slow he easily outran them. Only thus far one had attacked him, a blonde with half her hair torn out, ripped lips and an absent nose. Joe had taken the paring knife and jabbed it in her eye, hitting the brain, making short work of her.
His stomach sat in unease as he traveled toward April’s apartment, upset at how easily and callously he was able to take down the undead, often forgetting they were once humans with lives, dreams, families, hopes.
It took nearly four hours to get there, to April’s street back in the city. The dust from the other day still hung in the air and Joe was finally able to see from what: a building that had been torn down by one of the giant undead. Sadly, the giant creatures were still out there, their heavy footfalls shaking the ground every time they took a step. Once in a while they’d let out a foul call, harsh and primal, like a yelping injured bear.
Legs sore and thirsty as all get out, Joe finally turned onto Broadway. April’s place wasn’t far from here and, thanks to the throng of jammed cars long-since abandoned and the rubble, Broadway was the perfect avenue to worm his way through, concealed from any undead soul looking for him.
Each car he passed told a different story, their crunched shells and chipped paint statements of violent accidents by panicked drivers. Blood spatter decorated many of the windshields, the majority of them cracked or even missing huge chunks of glass. Flat tires, open gas tanks from syphoning thieves, absent doors and broken mirrors all told of the day chaos ruled the street. Most of the vehicles were stained gray from the Rain. Others weren’t as bad, probably having been in a garage then used right after the fact once it was noted people weren’t people anymore and many had become the walking dead.
A child’s backpack sat beside a red-blotched-gray Toyota, the Barbie backpack propped up against the rear passenger door of the four-door vehicle as a lonely memorial to a little girl lost. Halfway down the street, on the hood of one of the cars was a diaper bag with a bloody infant car seat on one side, a red-stained change mat on the other.
The torn limbs and rotting flesh littering the ground gave Joe comfort in that if those chunks of decomposing meat-on-bone were lying there untouched, then most likely the undead had moved on from this area. Either that, or this open feast of leftover body parts had yet to be discovered.
You’d think they would have found it by now, though, he thought.
He kept on, staying out of sight. A dozen or so undead stumbled up and down the dead lawn outside the Legislative Building, most with their eyes to the ground as if scouring for lost change.
In the distance, a giant zombie bellowed. Joe hoped they couldn’t see him moving in and around the crashed vehicles from their vantage point.
As he crossed the street by the Art Gallery, he stopped by a lamppost with a flyer taped to it. Most of the paper was covered in gray streaks from the rain, but he was still able to make out the image of Spider-Man fighting the Lizard, the flyer from over a year back stating an exhibit at the Art Gallery showcasing comic art from the likes of John Romita Jr., Jim Lee and a few others. It immediately took him back to his comic book days and his heart yearned for that simpler time. It was almost fitting he saw this nostalgic flyer on his way to April’s. He had been at what he thought was the height of his career when he met her. Made sense he’d be at the lowest point of his life as he made his way to her place on a quest to say goodbye, if the worst had happened.
A U-Haul trailer was on its side over to the left, the truck pulling it still upright, the hitch twisted as the trailer hung on despite falling over. From around the back of the trailer, a handful of zombies emerged.
* * * *
The dead silence of the house weighed upon Tracy as she sat on the couch in the living room, the one where Joe slept. She’d done as she was told, but was hating every minute of it.
“This sucks,” she said, and groaned. “I’m so bored.”
She knew Joe was right about staying here, but she also knew that just sitting around wasn’t going to cut it. There was no radio, no TV, no Internet, not even any toys to occupy her mind.
Don’t try looking for me, the note had said, but, she decided, that’s exactly what she was going to do.
Just need a plan, she thought. He could be going anywhere and it’s been hours since he left. Based on average foot speed, he could be anywhere within a fifteen-to-twenty kilometer radius.
It was going to be harder than she thought. She had to narrow it down. What would Joe need to take care of that would be so pressing he’d leave her here and head off on his own?
“Is he just going out there to blow off some steam, kill some zombies? But he also said he’d be back in a day or two. That’d be a crazy amount of steam if it takes him that long to chill out. His family is dead and so is his ex-girlfriend, or that girl that really did a number on him. Not sure about his other friends, though it didn’t sound like he really had many.” Talking it out helped paint a clearer picture of what needed to be done. “He also said that his world was different than mine, that this one isn’t the one he remembered. Maybe he’s off to confirm that’s the case?” The muscles in her face relaxed. “Maybe he’s off to see if he can find himself, an actual himself, a Joe that lives in this world?” Doubt it. Never seen anyone look like him at the Hub. Never encountered a look-alike on the streets. “Unless the Joe of this world lives somewhere else. He didn’t say there was a Hub in his world either, so who knows what the differences could be?”
Her heart sank at the prospect it was a lost
cause. She could guess all she wanted and pursue a dozen avenues, but specifically nailing down his whereabouts would be impossible.
“Crap,” she said, and struck the cushion beside her. “You’re an idiot, Joe, you know that?”
She lied back on the couch, put her hands behind her head, one knee up, the other leg folded across it, and considered just staying put.
“Who am I kidding?” she said. “I know exactly what I’m going to do.”
* * * *
The undead moved swiftly, all six of them having all their body parts from what Joe could see. They were all male, all seeming to be a similar age, too. Quickly, Joe jumped up onto the hood of a van, then got on its roof. The undead crowded in around it, arms up, palms slapping the van’s sides, trying to reach him. One of the dead began to crawl up the hood.
Okay, dumb idea, he thought. He must be more tired than he realized because he actually thought he’d be safe up here off street level.
Two of the other zombies followed their companion’s example and started to climb the van, too. The moment the first reached onto the roof and started to hoist itself up, Joe kicked it in the head, sending it toppling over the side and onto the pavement. The next was immediately behind it, face in a twist, lips snarling, mouth wide with rotten teeth. In one fluid motion, Joe took the steak knife from his belt, shoved it deep into the zombie’s mouth at an angle, delivering the blade upward through the roof of the mouth and into the creature’s brain. He yanked the blade free. The zombie fell over. Joe jumped down onto the hood, did the same to the third just as the first started climbing back up onto the hood again. Joe kicked it down once more as the others started to horde in. Back on the van’s roof, Joe waited for the three to get their balance, then let the first come forward. The two behind tried to climb onto the roof at the same time, crowded each other, and one fell off.
On the roof, an undead man in a ratty purple T-shirt reached out. Joe took the knife to its neck and sliced across, severing the flesh and trachea in one powerful sweep. He twisted the blade over in his hand and came back across the neck, this time taking the flesh all the way to the back against the vertebrae. With a hard kick to the thing’s head, he knocked its skull from its body.
Three down. Three to go.
The next undead was already upon him, came in low, and grabbed Joe’s legs out from under him. Joe hit the roof, a jolt of pain striking his shoulder blades from the impact. He also felt a pronounced pain in his lower back, but it faded. He hoped he hadn’t put anything out. He kicked at the zombie, who started climbing up his body, teeth snapping, eyes wide with a feral need for human flesh. The moment the zombie’s head was close enough, Joe drove the steak knife into the thing’s temple, wedged it in, and the creature stopped moving. Unable to get his knife out and not wanting to waste any time, he kicked the dead man off him and rolled off the roof, landing on his feet beside the van.
Both the remaining two creatures had been on the van and they quickly stepped off and came toward him. Joe grabbed the first by the arm, spun him around and threw him into his bloodthirsty comrade. He took both paring knives from his belt, one in each hand, and got ready for them to come forward again. The first did and he plunged the blade deep into the creature’s gut, then ripped the knife across its belly, its rotten flesh easily giving way to the blade. Its guts spilled out, slopping around the zombie’s feet. It slipped on them and fell, giving Joe enough time to move away and drive both paring knives into the eyes of the other. He swiftly withdrew the blades, then slammed them back in the eye sockets for good measure. The creature dropped.
The last undead tried to get up, its feet still slipping on its own intestines like someone trying to stand on freshly-cleaned ice. Joe came in from behind it, rammed one paring knife into the base of its skull, skewing the blade upward to the brain, and came in with the other from the side via the zombie’s ear, just in case. The creature’s legs slipped out from under it; it fell and didn’t move.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Joe looked at the bodies and found the one that still had the steak knife in it. He went over to it, reached down, and put a boot on the side of the gutmuncher’s head while pulling the blade out at the same time. It came free after a violent jerk.
All three blades were coated in the dead’s slimy black blood and Joe didn’t want to replace them in his belt until he had a chance to clean them off. He assumed he’d find something sooner or later so, blades in hand, he continued his trek down the street in search of April’s apartment.
* * * *
10
Grassy Hills, Evil Beasts
“Okay, I’m a little weirded out,” Billie said.
Nathaniel had opened a portal between realms and brought her back into the world she left after drowning in the lake. She had asked him if she was returning as a ghost.
“No, no, of course not,” he said. “I’d never see you become that which we fight against. You are going back risen from the dead, complete and whole. I have a special job for you and you must complete it.” He handed her a bracelet. It was a simple gold band with a clear stone in the center.
“When it lights white, you know you are near. The moment you are, you will retrieve it.”
She assented and now he brought her here to the top of a huge hill overlooking many others, all covered in dead, dry grass. The sky above was still gray and brown out here in the countryside.
Billie turned to talk to the angel, but he wasn’t there.
“Hello?” she called into the air. “You can’t just drop someone off in the middle of nowhere and expect them to do a job especially since you said what I should do involves people.” No reply, not that she expected one. “I thought angels were supposed to be nice.”
She proceeded down the hill, admiring the beauty despite all the dry, yellow grass and the various shrubs which looked more like masses of twisted coat hangers than vegetation. After the ravages of Hell, it was strangely beautiful. Had life gone on normally, maybe one day she’d wind up in a place like this—far away, secluded, a chance to breathe and just take in the Earth as God made it before Man screwed it up.
Keeping a sharp eye out for any creatures, she was relieved that, so far as she could tell, she was out here alone. Not a single soul dotted the landscape. The only thing that gave her a sense of direction right now was a cottage way in the distance, the only structure out here that was a place to go to. She headed that way, keeping an eye on the bracelet for the stone to glow white. What she was supposed to find with it, she didn’t know. The angel didn’t say.
The air was stale and the freshness one would expect to experience out here was nowhere to be found, yet to breathe the air of the Earth . . .
As she walked, she thought about where she just was and even though it was over and now locked in her memory, the mere thought of the agony of those flames still caused her to tense up and be sick to her stomach with regret. She couldn’t believe that such an awful place could exist and that people went there. Couldn’t believe the evil creatures that lived there had found a way to infiltrate the land of the living and violate human beings by possessing them, their body no more than a shell-like vehicle to be driven around, used and abused.
Even here on these fields, the spiritual side to all this really bothered her and it was certainly not what she had expected nor hoped for even when the world died and the dead began to rise. But it was reality now and she had to resolve to just accept it and move on.
She rounded a hill and found a path of worn grass mixed with a little bit of dirt. The ground was extremely dry, no rain having come down since a year ago. Nothing but death.
A low moan rose on the air, coming from beside her. She stopped in her tracks, and slowly turned her head to the side, seeing nothing but a hill that rose several feet above her head.
That didn’t sound human either, she thought. Not “dead human,” anyway. Too low, full.
Cautiously, she slowly walked forward, keeping one eye on the cottage f
ar ahead, the other on the hill next to her, anxious for something to come at her.
“Why’d you leave me out here, Nathaniel?” she sang quietly through gritted teeth.
After around twenty more paces, the low moan returned, a long one drawn out followed by a series of short ones, some loud, some quieter. It didn’t sound like they all came from the same source.
Billie picked up her pace. Great. Now there’s a whole shwack of them after me and I’m completely unarmed.
She kept moving, checking over her shoulder, listening as the moans grew louder, closer. The foul stench of rot and carcass hit her hard; she had to pinch her nose and breathe through a palm over her mouth to block out the smell.
The hill beside her began to taper off, its crest getting lower until it matched her height then her waist then knees before leveling off.
The moans continued.
Billie turned.
A herd of cattle—at least twenty-five of them, if not more—was slowly moving toward her as a group. Each cow had clouded, milky-white eyes, all fixed on her. She noticed their normally brown and black hides were drawn taut across their frames like cracked leather, the hair rubbed off in large random patches. A few of them were missing a limb or two. One didn’t have hind legs and was dragging itself along the grass.
The low moans rose in volume the closer they neared, as if plainly telling her they saw her and she’d be their next meal.
Billie knew the Rain had affected all things living, but to see such enormous beasts like this coming toward her really hammered home the foul deathly taint that was on all that lived. Seemed everything good this world once had to offer had completely fallen by the wayside.