by Misti Vanhoy
I rolled over to face the door to the balcony and conjured up images of the end of the apocalypse before sleep. I found pure solace in the idea that I might live to see the end of it all. I thought about how I would go to the park to see the trees and the flowers in the spring with Samantha next year. The colors of the flowers would range from yellow to red to purple and line the gates within the park. Even though the grass would be overgrown, it would still be a breath-taking sight. I dreamt of how I would hunt through the city for some bicycles that weren’t chained up to ride with my family through the streets on sunny days. I imagined being able to enjoy the fall leaves gently falling down all around me once again as I walked through the park and finally tasting a fire-cooked pizza that I longed for as much as a hot shower. I would find some gas somewhere and hotwire a boat once I learned how; just so I could go deep sea fishing or swimming in the channel. I smiled as I thought about sunbathing on the bow of a boat in the harbor wearing the first bathing suit I could find in a store that would fit me. The final thought that flashed through my mind before I welcomed the dark folds of sleep was Reagan sunbathing beside me in the most flattering bathing suit that looked like it was a size too small. Resting on her elbows with her head tilted back and one knee bent up to the sky, she glowed under the sunlight like a blooming lily caught in the first morning sunrise after a long, hard winter.
Chapter 6
I rose early the next morning to gather in the living room with the others. We had noticed two days ago that our fortress of bodies was starting to lose its defenses to the elements and the accelerated decay that the virus caused once the host died for the final time. We needed to send out a party to gather up more corpses to add to the pile outside. Only thing was we had to travel a little ways off so we didn’t draw the attention of the dead back here to the hotel.
The others, with the exception of Sammy, were sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. No one spoke until I was seated at my usual spot. It was time to start the counsel now that I was settled in. A plan needed to be formed and those that would need to go had to be picked. I wasted no time in volunteering. “I’m going on this mission today,” I stated. I looked at each of them daring them to contest it. For once my dad didn’t deny me the right to go. I was surprised, but hid it from them all behind a mask of impassiveness.
“Same here,” Reagan added, giving me a little smile. I rolled my eyes after realizing that she didn’t plan on giving me any peace today. She was convinced that we should be together and that we would some day rule a city. It was a foolish notion; one that warranted harsh words and name calling every time she mentioned it to me. A Christian by birth, devout in my beliefs, I would have to be desperate to give into my desires for human contact even if it meant it was with her. What would actually happen if we were brought somewhere and left alone for a few hours, I wasn’t sure. I liked to think that I would hold my ground against her advances, but I knew that a few more months or years of this would probably push me to do it. My barriers couldn’t withstand it forever.
“I want to stay here. I’ll take care of Samantha,” Brantley whispered, gazing at the door to the bedroom where she liked to play. Disgust and hatred instantly filled every inch of my body.
“No!” my dad and I yelled in unison. He jumped slightly, taken back by the sharpness in our voices.
“Over my dead body, you will,” I added as I stared him down. He knew my disdain for him and it made him uncomfortable deep down. I could see it often when I’d catch him looking at me. He had a nasty habit of glaring at people when their backs were turned, but with me, he acted different. It was almost as though he was afraid of me. He had every reason to be, in my opinion.
“I’m staying with Sammy. You’re going with the girls to help drag the bodies to the parameters. And I mean you better help or you’ll be looking for somewhere else to stay,” my dad threatened the slightly frightened man sitting across from me. I smirked at him. It was always a pleasure to bust his balls and force him into things that he didn’t want to do.
He grimaced and turned back to the bedroom door. Blood slowly lit up his face in a red fury as he thought about how we always stood between him and his wants. “Fine. Not like I care what I do,” he replied as he turned to stare down my dad. He must have felt the need to reassert his manhood with glaring. Petty and childish was how I described him. And pure evil.
“With that out of the way, let’s get down to business. I motion we go toward the northern part of the state, maybe an hour out from here. There should be fresh pickings out that way,” Reagan interrupted. My dad snorted. I braced myself for the squabble that always followed her ideas.
“That’s preposterous! How many times do we have to discuss the fact that you’re no longer allowed to make plans. I’ll be damned if you take Morgan down with your stupidity,” he retorted, growing slightly red in the face. Catching movement out of the corner of my eye, I looked down to find her clenching and unclenching her fists on top of the table. They were fixing to have another go around, as if we really wanted to deal with that already this morning. I stretched my arms high overhead as I settled in for the inevitable.
“You got something so say, Reagan? Go ahead and be an adult about it,” my dad pushed her a little further. He smiled, showing his teeth to compliment his amusement. His jibbing hit home and sparked the fire slowly building within her core. Igniting an explosion in her heart, she attacked his remarks furiously with her own.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are talking to me like that! I’ll have you know I have saved this group on more than one occasion with my ideas and plans. What have you done?! Nothing but make us sit on our hands and wait for salvation!” she yelled, slamming her fists on the table for emphasis. “You’re the worst leader in all of history. Vlad the Impaler would do better than you right now!” she continued as she stood up, pushing her chair back hard enough to knock it to the floor. It hit with a bang and bounced a few times before finally resting against the laminate.
The room took on a different atmosphere in that moment. Brantley kept his gaze down on his hands that lay on top of the table with the fingers entwined together. It was easy to tell that he wished he was elsewhere. For once I agreed with him. I would rather be anywhere else than here with them bickering. I would take a room full of zombies over this. I glanced at the bedroom door just so I could be looking anywhere else and found Samantha peeking through a crack in the door. She locked her gaze with mine for a few seconds before shutting the door back. I felt ashamed that this was the example we were setting for her. It shouldn’t be this way.
Movement at the table caught my eye once more. I turned my attention back to the others in time to see my dad rise slowly from his seat. He was flush in the face and quiet; two dangerous things for him to be. A hand went slowly down to his side where he always kept his gun, poised and ready to fight back if the need should arise. “You’re overstepping your boundaries again. Do you want to do this now or live to see another day? I’m fine with either choice,” he calmly asked as he kept his sights on her movements. She stood as still as her muscles would allow her to be. She barely breathed as she stood her ground in front of our terrifying leader.
Moments ticked by into minutes and precious daylight was being lost while they stood at a stand still. Their eyes never left one another’s as they waited for something to happen. After what seemed like hours, Reagan finally broke. She bent down slowly and picked her chair up from where it lay. Just as slowly, she sat down in surrender. She looked away from him as he resumed his spot at the table. I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly turned the conversation around.
“I’ve got an idea of where to go. It’s not all that far and it may prove fruitful in more than one aspect. There should be food and zombies there,” I said as I stood up to leave. “If you’re going with me, let’s go now. Get to the truck.”
“Where are you going?” my dad asked, concern staining his voice.
“It’s
fine, dad. You know you don’t have to worry about me,” I replied as I ran for the door. I could hear Brantley and Reagan coming behind me. The best thing we could’ve done was leave without him knowing where we were headed. Peace awaited us in the truck that was parked outside.
No matter how I felt about these two people, I enjoyed going on missions with them more than anyone else. We had a rhythm that worked well with our environment. Zombies stood no chance against us at all. When we left these doors, it was like we were completely different people. We didn’t argue and barely spoke if it wasn’t necessary. We had become accustomed to each other’s movements and body language. We moved fluidly as one unit, completely in-tuned and nearly invincible. Today was no different. We jumped the truck off in no time and sped away to the northeast in search of a good spot to hunt.
We didn’t get too far. I had Brantley stop the truck about twenty minutes from the hotel. It was farther than my dad wanted us to go, but the best place to get a good load of zombies. The road was blocked here more than the rest of the city from where the office workers in the buildings had scrambled to flee, only to cause a gigantic traffic jam. It made it easier to kill them and load them into the bed of the truck when they had to come at us one at a time. The vehicles abandoned there made it hard to maneuver. They were packed together like sardines with barely enough space for us to walk through without turning to the side.
The plus side to being here was the fact that on the other side of those cars from us was a congregation of the undead. An enormous mass of unfortunates that had fallen victim toward the beginning and were trapped because they never had a reason to leave. Signs warned oncoming passersby of the danger that resided here. We had placed them a few blocks away from the epicenter here down every alleyway we could get to. As far as we knew, no one had ventured down here since then.
Brantley shoved the gear into park and sighed. “I really don’t think we need to do this here. There are more damned zombies elsewhere that are a lot safer to get,” he said as I continued to stare forward at the massive blob behind the wall of vehicles. His face gave away his feelings for the mission and this place. He seemed sad almost. It was like he was preparing himself for death, for his final goodbye.
“We won’t need to be here long if we go about this the right way. You see there?” I asked as I pointed at a few stragglers coming our way between the barricades. He nodded as I continued. “We won’t need to do anything risky. They’re already making their way to the sound of our truck.”
“He’s just a big pussy afraid of getting hurt or having to work hard for once,” Reagan taunted him as she shoved the back of his seat and hopped out her door. Frustrated by her jaunts, he slapped the dash and flung his door open. He slammed it behind him and jerked his shotgun out of the bed with emphasis. Shaking my head, I climbed out after them, grabbing my gun from beneath my seat as I did so. This was where the talking and bullshit was left behind and the teamwork began.
We formed a straight line in front of the oncoming zombies. Waiting was the hard part. They were agonizingly slow. A baby probably could have crawled faster than they were moving. They were clumsy and repeatedly tripped over themselves as they tried to shimmy between tight places. I held back my laughter as best I could as I waited for them to reach us. They reminded me of rubber chickens being shaken by the neck.
Over the hum of the engine that was still running, there came an all too familiar sound to my ears. I looked over my shoulder and found a small group heading our way from behind. Their weird growling-hissing noise carried itself over the sound of everything else, bringing with it the sense of dread. We were in a pickle. I shouldn’t have brought us out here…
“Brantley, Reagan, behind us! Grab them first and get them into the bed!” I screamed as I broke into a run for the back of the truck. My voice alerted the much larger group to our presences, which caused an even bigger problem for us. Now they were headed our way as well. Some between the cars and others found a way to half-run on top of them.
Brantley and Reagan turned on their heels to pursue me. We had no time to hesitate. While Brantley flung the tailgate down, Reagan and I grabbed hold of the two corpses closest to us. We pierced their brains with the silver tips of our knives and hoisted them as best we could onto the tailgate. He took hold of their shirts and pulled them up as we turned to get the other three.
I heard the metallic sound of the shocks underneath the truck recoil and let loose their tension. In an instant, Brantley was beside of me grabbing hold of the nearest zombie he could reach. In unison, the three of us jammed our knives deep into the skulls of the undead and, as one, hoisted them up onto the tailgate to join the others. Brantley made quick work to jump back into the bed and pull them all the way in. I stepped to the side of the bed for a quick breather.
From behind, a hand grabbed my hair and pulled me backward, yanking some follicles from the scalp as it did so. I called out in pain, screaming for Reagan’s help. As I was being knocked off balance and drug to the ground, I craned my neck back to see what used to be a teenage boy coming in for a bite of my head. I threw my hand back and grabbed a handful of the thing’s hair and threw my other hand upward. My knife made contact with his forehead, bringing his lifeless corpse down onto my face and body.
I felt like I was suffocating from the weight of the dead flesh crushing me into the concrete. I could hear screaming for me as I fought to get back up on my feet. I felt hands grab onto the arms and torso of the corpse, scratching my body in the process. I didn’t mind it if it meant I was going to be free from this death trap.
Sunlight blinded me temporarily as the body was thrown up onto the truck bed and someone grabbed my arm. I was yanked up to my feet as I screamed out in pain again. I felt the pop and pull of my shoulder dislocating. It hung limply as I stood there staring Brantley and Reagan down, barely moving to avoid further pain. I gritted my teeth and flung myself around to face the barricades. They were all about five car lengths away now and time was quickly running out.
I rushed back to the bed of the truck and signaled for Reagan to follow. Brantley came around the backside and, in his hurry to reach the driver’s side door, tripped over his own feet as we jumped into the bed. I stood up straight as everything seemed to slow down. I took it all in at once: the horde bearing down on us, Brantley on the ground in pain, his apparently broken wrist from breaking his fall, and Reagan yelling for me to get in the driver’s seat and leave him behind. And just as quickly, everything returned to normal speed again. I kicked it into high gear to fix the problem. No one would be left behind on my watch.
I jumped out of the truck and hit the pavement running, completely ignoring the pain radiating through my shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?! Are you insane?!” she yelled after me as she glanced at the undead that had almost reached us. I bent down at Brantley and pulled him to his feet. Shoving him to the cab of the truck, I ran to get back to safety with Reagan. He needed to get his ass in gear.
With the slam of the door and the bounce of the shocks as I hopped back into the bed, we were spinning tires and turning around. The zombies grasped at all they could find: the wheel, the bed rail, the still open tailgate, and the corners of the bumper. “Grab all you can!” I called out to Reagan as I pulled a female zombie into the bed with me and ended her miserable life quickly. Reagan followed suit and we quickly racked up bodies to take home.
We pulled off down the side streets with the pedal to the floor. We needed to get as far from the mass of zombies as we could so they didn’t catch us at the hotel. Looking down at our catch, I was ashamed. We always brought back more than this. It was getting too tough for us to protect ourselves now. We needed to move or something. This place was getting harder to upkeep. We would die here in the next year before salvation even came for us. I shook my head to clear it of all thought. That was a fight for another day. Now wasn’t the time.
“Is this enough?” Reagan broke through my thoughts. She gestured to the
eight or so bodies lying at our feet. I shrugged and turned my attention to the buildings as we passed. Something wasn’t right. Where were all the zombies that usually inhabited the area? Nothing walked by the windows, nothing was on the streets save a few bodies. We needed more bodies, but not if there weren’t any zombies around. I scratched my head and glanced at her. She was watching me, puzzled, as I took in a deep, shaky breath. She nodded and I knew she understood what I had been thinking. She knew what I knew, noticed what I did. She had realized that their behavior had become more and more erratic. The only thing we could do for now, though, was set these babies up and see if they would hold for a few more days at least. We could sort out our situation by then. For now, we needed to tend to my dislocated shoulder and Brantley’s broken wrist.
Chapter 7
I was roused from my sleep by someone yelling. As I lay there thinking I was still dreaming, there came the sound of a car turning over followed by the loud popping and humming from the muffler. I was baffled. It was still dark outside. Why would anyone be out yelling and driving right now? Had the past four years been a really bad dream, or was this?
I sat up slowly as the engine came roaring closer, rubbing my eyes to try to focus. The first thing I saw looking out over that balcony was the silhouette of a smoke cloud against the blue night sky. The second thing I saw was the black Grand Marquis rolling on thirty-five inch tires with guys hanging out of the windows. They all had baseball bats, swinging them at every zombie that came within reach of the car. They were yelling something in Spanish over the thumping of the bass in their car. It was a stereotypical movie scene featuring a bunch of Hispanic gang members. Only this wasn’t a movie and the danger was real.
I ducked down out of their sight as much as I possibly could up on the balcony. One thing we no longer did was inform others of our whereabouts. In all retrospect, if they were paying attention, the wall of corpses around this hotel would give us away. Most of those we’ve ran into in the past have been plunderers, murderers, and thieves who have always survived under pressure. We’ve lost a couple safe houses to zombie hordes for fighting to keep what was rightfully ours. Even Samantha was almost killed during the worst fight we’ve had so we changed our habits. We learned from our mistakes quickly and I wasn’t about to let this group of roughians know I was up here.