Kaitlin recalled her difficult days during the dead uprising in vivid detail. I empathized as she remembered her mother’s death. I earned the right to call the teen Kait. I didn’t mind entertaining young Kait. It wasn’t like Michelle was going to have anything to do with me. Our conversation pushed the day’s events into the back of my mind and for that I was grateful.
Kait fell asleep on the couch swaddled in her Hello Kitty blanket. I sat quietly leering at an old plastic circular wall clock that was nailed to the wall. The second hand was hypnotic but not enough to produce slumber.
Nick walked into the common area as he descended from the staircase. He came over to me and knelt. “Did anybody show you around the house?” He whispered. He didn’t want to wake Kait.
“No.”
Nick offered me his hand and I grabbed it. He pulled me up instantly. He was stronger than he looked and he looked really tough. “Follow me.” We went down the hall, He pointed to the closed door across from the kitchen. “This is where Malik hibernates.” We turned and retraced our steps. “The doctor sleeps in the living room, Joe has the dining room.”
We marched up the stairs. At the top off the landing a replica of a religious painting hung on the wall. The depiction appeared to be an angel pointing a spear at the spine of another angel. When I stepped closer I realized I had seen it before in The Louvre in Paris.
“You like?” Nick asked.
“I’m not sure what it is.” I lied. I had an artist ex-boyfriend.
“It’s the Archangel Michael slaying Satan by the Renaissance painter Raphael, just so you know, I’m not smart. Naveen told me. He’s Muslim but he knows a hell of a lot about Christianity. He is the resident nerd.” Nick turned back to the picture. “I think it’s weird.”
“I think it’s, well, I don’t know. Are we Satan and the deadies the angels? Maybe the dead were sent here to slay us.” That was my best summation.
“My best guess is that this zombie thing is some laboratory experiment that went bad. They probably injected some dead people with something trying to bring them back to life and it back fired. They have been freezing people for years so they can be revived when they find a cure for cancer or some nonsense scientist cooked up.”
“Cryogenics, maybe, it’s possible, Hope we live to find out.”
“Naveen thinks this epidemic is related to religion, the Doctor thinks it’s scientific, Joe thinks it’s an alien attack. I try not to think about it at all. As far as I’m concerned, they are here. We kill them. It’s survival of the fittest. I know for damn sure I’m way more fit than a dead man.”
I followed Nick a few paces down the hall.
“Here’s the bathroom.” He pointed out was apparently obvious.
The door was open and I peeked in. It was much cleaner than I would have imagined with six men in the house.
I followed Nick down the hall. He introduced me to the master bedroom. This is where Michelle and Kaitlin sleep.
Across the hall was another bedroom. He announced it as where Ray and Naveen slept.
“Where do you sleep?” I was curious.
“Up in the attic.” Nick pointed to the ceiling.
“Oh so you got your own place.” I teased.
“It’s the highest up and it has a window in front and one in back. I can see the freaks moving around outside.”
“Ooookkkkay.”
“Besides if they break in they’re going to eat everybody else in the house before they get to me.”
I chuckled before I realized he was deadly serious, absolutely no fiction in his statement. “So let’s see the attic.”
Nick didn’t speak he just lowered the attic’s staircase from the ceiling by a long leather cord. We walked up into the ceiling. The attic was large and mostly vacant, not at all like the attic’s I saw in movies. It was fairly spacious. We could walk around while standing upright. There was no old dusty antique furniture or molding clothes. There was an air mattress on the center of the floor alongside an oversized flashlight.
“I have first watch tonight. You probably want to get a good night’s rest. We have to go on a run tomorrow. The master bedroom is big so you should be okay in there. Kaitlin usually sleeps in the living room with her dad so you’ll have a lot of space with Michelle.”
I thought carefully before I spoke. I wanted to phrase my request in the best way possible. Putting my foot in my mouth was not an option. “Nick, do you think it would be okay if I bunked in the attic with you?”
His reaction was strange. He took two steps back away from me and kind of just stared. “I mean Michelle obviously doesn’t care for me. I could sleep on the floor. I feel better with you. I know my comfort level is not your concern but--”
“Fine, whatever,” Nick folded his arms over his chest.
I held in my glee. I was from the city and city folks weren’t too trusting. Nick had proven himself to be a standup guy. He wasn’t a rapist. He had the opportunity to do that when he picked me up in his Camaro. He wasn’t a killer of the innocent. He could’ve killed me on Interstate fifty-five or worse, he could’ve let the deadies eat me to death.
“So what do you do when you look out?” I asked.
“I sit in this chair at this window and watch them. I sometimes move to the other window and do the same.”
“I’ll keep you company.” I offered.
“Fine, go get a chair from the kitchen and bring it up.”
I left the attic and made my way to the second floor. I passed Michelle in the hall and she glared at me. She had bottled water in her hand and for a moment I thought she might bop me on the head with it. She went into the master bedroom and closed the door. Just as I thought, I wasn’t welcomed. I reached the stairs and literally ran into Joe the Marine. He had served time in Afghanistan. Kaitlin shared this tidbit when we talked earlier.
“Sorry.” I said as I smashed into him.
“You need to get some shut eye. You’re out and about tomorrow.”
Aye, Aye sir was my first response but I nixed that for an, “Okay.” Joe passed me and made his way up to the attic. I assume he had to confer with Nick. I still can’t figure out who the leader of this mish-mash clan was.
Downstairs was quiet. I grabbed a chair from the kitchen and made my way back upstairs and to the attic. Joe had left, I guess. Nick was alone sitting in the chair near the front window. I could barely see him. Only a faint light came from the full moon outside the window. I put my chair next to his but not in his personal space. The attic windows were some of the only open windows that weren’t boarded up. All the windows were boarded in the first and second levels.
Nick palmed a can of beer that sat in between his legs and I wondered where it came from. He lifted the can to his lips and took in one huge gulp. “They know we’re in here.” He whispered. “They hover around, pacing in front of this house, back and forth, back and forth. About a week ago some of them knocked the glass out the window in the kitchen. There are too many goddamn windows in this house.”
“Maybe we should leave and find somewhere else to live?” I added through whispers.
“Yeah we all talked about it but we have a find a good place to go. Moving all these people is dangerous. But it will happen.” Nick took his eyes off the window for a second to look at me. “You want a beer?”
“Yeah,” I said figuring Joe brought them to him and wondering where he had more stashed.
Nick reached under his chair and produced a fresh can of beer. He opened for me as quietly as he could and handed it over. I took a sip. I didn’t drink beer, only wine and champagne. It was hot tonight with only two cracked windows in the attic. This cold beer instantly relieved some of the heat I felt in my chest. “How long you been in this house?”
“Ray and Naveen were here first, then me and Joe. Malik, the doctor and his daughter came later with Michelle. I would say I’ve been here about three weeks.”
“Did you save anyone else from deadies like you saved me?
”
“No, you’re the only one.” He took another swig. We sat quietly for about fifteen minutes. I believe.
“So Jesse what’s your story? How did you first learn that zombies were real?”
I took a drink before I started my American horror story. “I didn’t find out like the rest of the world, you know online or on the TV. I was out of the country.”
“What did you do for work, before this?” Nick asked a question I didn’t want to answer. I realized I set myself up for the question.
“I’m, I mean I was in advertisement.” The truth was I was in Paris for fashion week. Undoubtedly it is the second most grueling week of the year for me, with New York’s fashion week being number one. I continued. “I flew back to Chicago on July sixth.”
“That’s the day all this crap started.”
“Yeah well I was exhausted from the flight and I had the entire week off so I went home, took some sleeping pills and got in bed. I work a lot and sometimes when I go on vacation I sleep the entire vacation away. I try to catch up on all the sleep I missed. I slept the day away on the seventh, eighth and ninth. I eat and read a couple of books but I didn’t turn on the TV, a computer or my cell. You know I just wanted rest and peace and quiet.”
Nick shook his head but I wasn’t sure he understood my level of fatigue. So I decided to just continue. “The morning of the tenth I was awaken but a knock on the door. It was more like a weird loud pounding. This was strange because I live in a security building with only four apartments. You have to be buzzed up and there are security cameras so you can see who has come calling. I drug myself out of bed and finally went to the door. I looked out the peephole and I could see my neighbor Laura leaving. I guess it took me so long to get to the door and she was like forget it.”
I become conscious of me reliving the day through hand gestures and stopped to hold on to the beer can. “So I opened the door and called out to her. She turned around and that’s when I saw her. She looked like one of those homeless crackheads you see downtown, pale, sunken eyes that bulged. She was filthy dirty without shoes. There was a big bloody hole on the side of her neck. There was blood all over the front of her clothes. I was frozen in the doorway. I had never seen anything like that before. She looked like she was on her death bed. She rushed me, ran right straight at me with her arms reaching out. I was in shock. I just stood there. She knocked me down and that’s when I noticed she didn’t have any hands. I mean like no hands at all, just these gross bloody stumps. She was trying to grab me but she didn’t have any hands.”
My entire body trembled as I remembered the morning that ended my old life and ushered in my new life. “She was on top of me snapping her teeth, trying to bite me. I held her neck to keep her away and my fingers sank into the gaping hole in her neck. The blood was seeping from her neck wound and dripping down my arm. I was yelling her name ‘Laura! Laura!’ but she was like a wild dog. I was able to roll her over on her back. I jumped up and ran to the kitchen. I had a block of knives near my sink. I grabbed the biggest one and when she rushed me I stabbed her in the chest. It slowed her down for like two seconds and she rushed me again. I ran from her. She was chasing me around the island in the kitchen with a huge butcher knife lodged in her chest. I grabbed another knife and stabbed her again in the chest. That time she didn’t even miss a step. I turned to run. I knocked the knife block over. I grabbed another knife. It was a little steak knife and I just turned around and stabbed her in her forehead. She fell.”
“That killed her?” He asked.
“Yeah, that finally killed her.”
“You have you separate their brains from their bodies or you have to injure the brain in some way.”
“I had to learn that for myself.” I took a drink from my beer can. Talking about my first encounter with a deadie made me hot with nervous perspiration.
“So what happened next?” Nick seemed intrigued with my story. I’m sure his first deadie encounter story was better than mine.
“I looked up and saw my front door was open. I dragged Laura’s body out my house and into the hall. Then I run back in and closed and locked the door. I put a chair under the door knob and I turned on the TV. The TV had only white noise on every channel. The voicemail on my cell was full. I couldn’t make a call. I couldn’t dial out. I couldn’t get on the internet and my landline was dead.”
“Everything went haywire the first few days when this shit started happening.” Nick explained.
“Nick, I never asked you why you were on the road today. Where were you going when you saw me running for my life?”
“I was just driving around. Sometimes I need a break from these people. You know I never realized how nice to was to be alone until this freak shit happened to the world.”
“So are you the leader of this group?”
Nick grabbed another beer from under his chair. He slowly opened it. “This group don’t got a leader.”
“It seems like everybody listens to you.” I truthfully observed from my limited time in the house.
“Maybe today, but believe me, tomorrow it could all go the other way. I’m not going to be responsible for everybody.”
“Looks to me like you’re looking out for the group.”
Nick leaned in close. He appeared from the darkness and the moonlight made his face appear crystal clear with a luminous glow. His eyes gleamed in the light with a seriousness that lured me in. “Listen, I know you may want to make me out to be some kind of hero. I’m no Clark Kent. I’m not afraid of death but I will fight the fuckin’ reaper tooth and nail. I look out for myself first and foremost. If any of you guys get bit I will put a bullet in your brain with no hesitation. Does that sound like the crap heroes are made of?”
I took it as a rhetorical question. I sat back and guzzled my beer down until there was just an empty can. I was exhausted. My eyes grew heavy as I watched Nick watch the deadies. I had seen enough of the walking dead for one day. There was no way I was looking out the window.
“Go on lay down on the mattress.” He commanded.
“I’m okay.” I lied. I was beat and that one can of beer knocked me on my ass.
“Go to sleep. That’s an order from your non-leader.”
I smiled in the dimness. I’m sure he couldn’t see my smile and that’s just how I wanted it. I got up and walked over to the center of the room and sat down on the air mattress. I removed my shoes and curled up on my side. I looked over at Nick. He was staring at me. I could see him due to the moonlight. I was shrouded in the darkness. I closed my eyes and succumbed to sleep. In a room with a strange man when we both had been drinking was not an ideal situation for me or any woman. Something, maybe intuition told me I would be safe, that Nick would not rape and murder me as I slept.
After a few hours I was awake. I stayed very still and pretended to be sleep. Nick was standing at the entrance the steps of the attic with Joe.
“It’s my turn. It’s midnight.” Joe whispered.
“Okay cool, see you in the morning.”
“So she’s sleeping with you.” The wooden stairs creaked under Joe’s movement.
“Jesse, she’s sleeping in the same room as me.” Nick clarified.
“You are the luckiest son of a bitch I ever seen. Who picks up a perfect ten on the side of the road? You know she’s too hot for you.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve seen a lot more of her than you and believe me when I tell you she’s too hot for ninety-nine percent of the male population when there was a male population.”
“I agree but that wouldn’t stop me from trying.” Joe snickered.
“I’m not you. Joe, I’m tired.”
“Fine, don’t forget to stop and get more guns and ammo tomorrow.”
“At the top of the list,” Nick assured him.
“How the hell you going to sleep next to her?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
I heard the sounds of Joe’s footsteps as they cautiously walked down th
e attic’s steps. Nick walked over to the mattress and kicked his boots off. He sat down and laid in the wide open space I left for him on the queen air mattress. He laid on his back and after what seemed like fifteen minutes he was sleep. His air snoring made that certain. After a few more minutes of listening to him release air from his lungs I had fallen asleep.
The sunlight came through the window and warmed my face. I found it strange that I was awake and Nick was still sleeping. He was on his side facing me. I couldn’t help but stare at him and trace the contours of his face with my mind. In addition to his eyes he has a perfect nose. I thought about my second real relationship, an Italian photographer twenty years my senior. He used to stare at me as a slept. I thought it was creepy then but now I am fascinated. Could be because I’m the peeper and not the peepee.
My mouth was dry and I’m sure my breath smelled like puke marinated in dirty bath water. I looked around the room for a bottle of water and there was none in sight. I thought of heading downstairs to get one. Nick wrestled around and I turned to see him coming out of his sleep.
Nick sat up and looked around. “I thought it would be hard sleeping next to you but that was the best sleep I had in months.” He groaned and stretched his arms out to the heavens. “Nothing beats proper rest.”
I was scared to talk for fear my dragon breath would jump out and singe his eyebrows.
Nick stood and walked over to a duffel bag that was on the floor in the corner. He reached in and produced a brand new toothbrush still in the plastic wrapper. He tossed it to me and I caught it.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You go to the bathroom first but we have rules. No showers or baths. There’s only so much hot water. We take turns showering. It’s not our turn. Just wash in the sink. There is a linen closet next to the bathroom. There are fresh towels in there.”
“Thanks,” I got up from the mattress and scurried down the attic steps. Nine people in a house with one shower, not a perfect living situation but better than anything I had thus far. The downstairs bathroom was a half bath so it only had a sink and a toilet.
Deadies: Run for Your Life Page 3