by Steve Wands
Driving cautiously behind them was Abdul-Ba’ith whose face never seemed to change even in the slightest manor. He looked dead serious and tight-lipped with an unmoving pair of bushy eyebrows. He’d joined up with the convoy after a chance meeting at a gas station, which they left in flames. He drove with both hands on the wheel and though he must’ve been just as tired as the others he made a point to sit up straight and stay alert.
To his right was Carrie, who’d been hiding out at the gas station with Abdul Ba’ith and several others days ago, the ever anxious and always annoying chubby dyke who turned out not to be a dyke at all. She chewed on her knuckles and fingernails as if they were snacks and even caused a few of them to bleed.
Alexis in the backseat had fallen asleep with the children. She was a young woman who’d dreamed of being a mother one day, like so many others, and found herself with a nightmare version of that dream. The children had fallen asleep on the drive, and seeing no reason not too Alexis closed her eyes and joined them. Leela, Chris, Nick, Stacey, and Yussef all slept together with crisscrossing limbs that would shift every few minutes to try to get comfortable. Some had parents that were lost along the way, while others were saved during the convoy’s travels.
Holding the back of the line was Scott and Judy, a quirky married couple that owned and operated their own Funeral Home. They were used to dealing with dead people on a daily basis, but the living dead had proven to be a whole different beast altogether. They were talking about the good times: vacations, parties, and their honeymoon. Scott usually wasn’t much for taking trips down memory lane, but Judy loved it and it put a smile on her face and if that’s what it took for Scott to see that smile then that’s what he’d do. It was that smile of hers that kept him going.
“You think we’re doing the right thing?”
“I don’t know babe. Going North seems like a good move. The broadcast could be a false hope. We could get down there and find ourselves in a worse situation. Just think of how many people might be trying to get there.”
She thought about that for a moment…
What if everyone who’d heard the broadcast decided to try and get to West Virginia? It would just be chaos. She could picture the streets already clogged with abandoned vehicles and other obstacles, and now to picture them with other survivors trying to get to a safe haven. It would be just as bad as the first few days. The fights, the violence, only now it was harder to get anywhere because you had to go through all of the ruin that remained from those early days, and the dead. The first days were hard because of the living, now it was the living dead that complicated matters.
Scott turned the volume up on the broadcast.
--tent timeframe for which a hostile will reanimate. The only permanent way of dispatching the hostiles is by incineration, or the use of a chemical agent to dissolve the remains.
It is also safest to stay off the roads and out of heavily populated areas. If you have found a safe haven it is recommended you remain there. Specially equipped units of the military are in the process of reclaiming key strategic areas around the nation. Once we are able to reclaim those areas we will reinstate the Emergency Transportation System to aid survivors in getting to those locations.
We will continue repeating—
Then he abruptly turned it off. He was already sick of hearing it.
***
The blood from the dead man’s body emptied onto the cold tile floor. It was dark, almost muddy, and oozed like old motor oil from a lawnmower that should’ve been changed seasons ago. Danni couldn’t help but stare at it. Aside from the walls, and floor it was the next best thing to focus on. Everything else was too gruesome—too maddening—and just too damn hopeless to look at let alone think about.
Sherriff Bruce Davis, the man who was going to save New Haven by walling off the town, sat with his back against the wall and his eyes staring up at the ceiling. Though the town was probably dead, he was still thinking of a way out. He refused to resign himself to a fate so ironic—if only the dead grasping between the bars were people he himself had put away it would be almost poetic. Davis didn’t like poetry, irony, and he sure as shit didn’t like the idea of wasting away in a holding cell surrounded by the dead.
Clem on the other hand, looked ready for death. He had that far away look of resignation that Davis so adamantly refused to wear. It was written in his face. His eyes said ‘take me now’, and so did the crease in his forehead. He longed to be with his wife again. Back at their apartment before all this had happened. Before he found Danni on his rooftop. Before they tried to leave. Before he lost Lorraine. He stared at the dead things, all those thoughts running through his mind, looking at them with sad eyes and the taste of empathy in the back of his throat.
Topher, whom Davis and his men rescued while investigating the power station, was a sniveling mess. He kept murmuring to himself and wiping the tears from his eyes. He sat against the wall with his legs pulled in tight. He wanted to roll up into a ball and disappear. Sitting next to him, and just growing aggravated by Topher, was Keith. His face was stone and his knuckles were white. He wanted to beat Topher to death. All he could think about was Jones, his dead brother in blue, and knew that he was somewhere in the room beyond the bars and trying to get inside to eat him like all the other dead things were. The thought of it pissed him off big time.
“What the fuck are we going to do Bruce?”
“We’re not going to do anything. We’re going to sit and wait…and see what happens, unless you got a better idea.”
Keith did not, and that pissed him off more.
Outside the cell they couldn’t see anything other than the dead. They blocked out most of the light and filled the room with a putrid scent the likes of which none of them had ever smelled.
2 BARBIE THE ZOMBIE KILLER
(back to top)
Walter and Jeff Caulfield, father and son, huddled by the window once more to watch as the dead staggered about. New Haven had become infested with the dead. Walter wanted to know his enemy, so he tried to study them, but studying them hadn’t really given him any greater understanding of the creatures or any alleviation of the concerns he and his family had. Some would walk toward the house while others would walk in other directions. Some followed others and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason behind any of it. It left them both as confounded as ever.
“Should we go back out?”
“No, not yet. I’m not as young as you are Jeffy-boy. Takes me a bit longer to get my wind back.”
Jeff couldn’t help but smile at the words Jeffy-boy. He couldn’t recall the last time his father called him that. It had to be sometime in high school—maybe when Walter was teaching him how to drive around the parking lot. Yes, that seemed right. Walter handed him over the keys and the pimple-faced Jeff with three proud whiskers on his chin took them with vigor, and his father said, “Guess I can’t be calling you Jeffy-boy anymore, huh?” And that was it. Jeffy-boy turned into Jeff—all grown up in the blink of an eye.
They could hear Laura, Walter’s wife, Barbara, his daughter, and Maria, Jeff’s wife playing with the children in the basement. The sound was soft and barely audible upstairs, but the house was otherwise quiet. Their laughter and giggles seemed an odd contrast to what Walter and Jeff were seeing outside the windows, but a very pleasing one. It was the sounds of hope and love. The sounds any man really needs to hear to get off his ass and make a move for the future. Walter used Jeff’s shoulder to push himself up, and as his knees cricked and creaked and the pain burned deep in his back, he used the sounds of his grandchildren at play to push it away.
Jeff looked at his father approvingly and as Walter looked back at him all he could see was his little Jeffy-boy looking back. The skin around his eyes looked older, but the eyes themselves belonged to the little boy Walter would always see in them.
“Ready old-timer?”
“Nope. You?”
“I’ve been ready to fight zombies since I was Tomm
y’s age.”
“Heh. I guess all that garbage you used to watch might finally be worth a damn.”
“Let’s go find out.”
They went into the half-finished basement where everyone was playing. Laura turned instinctively and without a word knew they were going back outside. Her and Walter looked at each other. She nodded in that disapproving way that made Walter smile and lift his eyebrow up a notch, suggesting he knew better, but he just couldn’t help himself.
Jeff and Maria hadn’t quite developed the fluid and succinct nuance of expression to convey their feelings, so Maria just looked at Jeff with incredulous and accusing eyes. Then she said, “Are you kidding? You’re both going back out there?”
Jeff gave her a mean look, shifting his eyes to the kids, “We’re…just going to check things out is all. Relax, we’ll be right back, okay?”
“Whatever.”
“I’m coming too,” Barbara said.
“What? Why?”
“Why not dad? Is this boy stuff?”
“Boy stuff? Ha. Come on, now, it’s not like that. The kids need you in here. Have fun. Trust me, you’re better off.”
“Well, if you’re just going to check things out, then I’ll be fine, right?”
Jeff smiled at her, but it wasn’t a nice smile. It was the I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass-later smile. “She’s right dad, why not? Come on, Barbie.”
“You know I hate that.”
Walter turned around shaking his head. The kids went back to playing. Tommy looked after his father, wanting to go with him and Laura tried to pull his attention back.
“Barbie The Zombie Killer,” Jeff said as they went up the stairs.
“Don’t be a dick. Can you bait your own hook yet, or does Maria have to do that for now?”
“Funny.”
They walked toward the front door. The hall had a coatrack and bench in it with a small rug atop the hardwood floor. It wasn’t a big space but it essentially served them as a mudroom. Hanging on the coatrack were a long raincoat and a slick jacket that Walter had used to go fishing with for years. It was supposed to be black, but it looked like seaweed green.
Jeff opened the closet door across from the bench at rummaged around a moment. He eventually pulled out an old track jacket with a hood and tossed it at his sister.
“There’s a set of gloves in there,” he pointed, “but I think you’re on your own for boots.”
“My sneakers are fine. I don’t plan on getting myself all dirty. That’s not very lady like.”
“That’s my girl,” said Walter.
They opened the door and Walter grabbed the bloody shovel he left against the siding. Jeff took a step to the side and grabbed a baseball bat. He handed it to his little sister and she took it, finally showing a touch of fear on her face. Jeff grabbed the spade shovel that was next to Walter’s and they descended the steps.
The dead things were walking around, seemingly without direction or purpose. One noticed them, and then another, before they reached the first deader several had turned their attention and their bodies towards them. Moving, slowly, at the warm flesh that in turn was moving towards them.
“Maybe I should’ve stayed inside.”
“Next time, sweetheart, take my advice…for once, please.”
“They get scarier up close.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just look in their eyes. There’s nothing there. It’s like they’re hollow.”
“I don’t think I want to get that close.”
“Then stand back,” Walter said, as he approached the first deader in proximity.
Walter jabbed the dead thing just under the chin, but not quite in the throat. It moved back and tripped on its own feet. They were easily thrown off balance and to the ground but surprisingly quick to get back up. Once the dead thing hit the ground Walter stood on its chest and brought the shovel down violently into its face, smashing through the bridge of its nose and crushing in its orbital sockets. Walter pulled the shovel out and jabbed it two more times in quick succession before taking his foot off the dead things chest and looking at where the others were.
“Look, dad, it’s twitching.”
“Yeah, I’ve been noticing that. Saw one earlier that was pumping its hand into a fist, like it was trying to grab the air.”
“It’s creepy as hell,” Jeff noted.
“Sure is. All the more reason we need to keep watching them. Studying them. We need to know our enemy as best as possible.”
“Watch out, dad, I’ll take this one.”
Jeff swung his spade shovel like a sword, cracking a dead man who had to be about the same age as he. The impact was strong and sent the man to the ground. The blow must have dislocated the man’s jaw because it looked crooked and out of place. Jeff took the corner of the shovels head and slammed it into the deader’s temple—cracking open its skull on the first shot. Then he stood on the corner of the shovel and pushed it in as if he were digging a hole. He pulled it out and did it again. The second assault seemed to nullify the dead thing.
Barbara stepped closer to it and after seeing its head she vomited.
“It’s okay sweetheart. Jeff and I both puked earlier. No shame in it. Let’s call it a night and head back in okay?”
“No. No, it’s okay. I’m okay. I…I want to hit one.”
Walter was a bit taken aback. Barbara always felt she had to prove herself to her father. If Jeff could do something then she had to make sure she was just as capable. No matter how many times Walter told her she had nothing to prove he might as well have been talking to himself, or a wall. A wall, he figured, might have listened before his daughter.
Barbara started moving toward one of them. She held the baseball bat down low, moving it around. She was getting comfortable with its weight, and as she moved closer to the dead thing she could see what Jeff was talking about. She could see the emptiness in its eyes. The lack of expression on its face. It really was just a dead thing. The only thing human about it was its appearance.
She swung, and hit it in the head. It moved backward, stumbling, but didn’t fall. She swung again, this time putting her weight into it and knocked it over. She let out a small cry of disgust. What was she doing, she thought. She started to heave, and turned away with tear-filled eyes, “I can’t do it. I can’t look at it anymore.”
Jeff stepped in and bashed its head in. Walter wrapped his arm around his daughter and led her back home. Jeff was quickly behind them.
“That’s enough for now.”
“I’m sorry, daddy, I couldn’t—
“Shh, don’t worry sweetheart. It’s okay. I’m happy you couldn’t. I wish I couldn’t.”
“So much for Barbie The Zombie Killer.”
“You’re such an asshole!”
“Oh come on.”
“Can it. I swear the two of you will never grow up.”
3 ALL MESSED UP
(back to top)
He should’ve been dead days ago, if not from loss of blood then surely by dehydration, but death just wasn’t taking. He was in and out of consciousness; the only constant was the pain he felt throughout his body. He thought he had lost his mind. Surely he was dying, yet days had passed, or so he thought. He couldn’t say with any certainty. He began to hear voices and feel out of his body at times. Moments passed when he felt as if something were in him, not in a physical way, more like he was of two minds, but the other mind wasn’t his.
Then he felt it.
Ben sat up, no longer clutching the wound at his stomach.
“What are you?”
He received no answer, but felt an understanding ripple across his mind and with that he stood up. Ben stood tall and felt great, all things considered. He could feel a cold sensation throughout his body. He could also tell that he was dead. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. He checked for a pulse anyway, and not surprisingly, didn’t find one. He stuck his finger in the maggot filled bullet hole in his gut, swirling
it around. He felt no pain, and when he pulled his finger out it was covered in a dark brown blood that had been coagulated for days. Again, he felt a ripple of understanding surge through him.
“Damn, how the hell do you even know what I was going to ask?”
Ben spun around looking for something, or maybe someone, but he saw nothing. The sky held no answers for him, so he turned to look down at the ground, and in a way an answer was there. The dead had left. He could feel the understanding wash over him. He was one of them. He wasn’t hungry for flesh, but he wanted death. He still had all his senses, his ability to speak and think. Clinically he knew he was dead—he could feel it. He still didn’t really understand why, and whatever force, or entity, or whatever was in his mind didn’t have much of an answer. A few ripples surged through him, but nothing with the definitive quality as the ones before it. Ben got the impression that there was no real reason. It was part curiosity, part indifference, and oddly part entertainment. Whatever darkness was inside Ben wanted him to do what he’d always loved to do, and that was, quite simply, to kill.
Ben climbed down from the roof. He wanted to clean himself up and get a good look at himself in the mirror.
The school was empty, as were the grounds nearby. From what Ben could tell—and now feel, somehow—there were no deaders around. He made his way to the bathroom, turned the faucet on and cleaned his face and hands of all the dried blood and dirt that had become a second skin to him. He plucked the maggots off his body and flicked them into the sink. Then he patted his hair down and tried to comb it with his hands. He noticed a small clump came out as he wet it down and tried to fan it out. Flicking the clump of hair into the sink he looked at himself in the mirror angrily. The reflection showed his waning pallor and sunken eyes. Even his skin felt and looked to have a rougher quality too it.