by Steve Wands
“No…fuck you, I didn’t.”
“Fuck you. You did. I can see inside your head. You’re just like me.”
Sarah felt so small. She stood in the middle of two men that only wanted to use her for their own sick enjoyment. She had never wanted to die before. Now she prayed for it. She wanted so badly to be gone from this world. There was no deeper depth of despair in her mind.
“If you stick around, I’ll let you have sloppy seconds. How’s that sound? Better than jumping out a window, ain’t it?”
Jim thought about it. It was better. If he jumped he’d probably end up getting eaten down there. If he stayed, maybe he could befriend this abomination. Maybe he could make it out of this alive.
Sarah saw the look in his eyes. She knew what he was thinking. She could see it in his body language as he shifted his weight back into the room. Before Jim shifted his weight entirely off the windowsill Sarah charged him and smashed him in the side of the head with the frying pan. His head smacked against the top sash and cracked the window. She hit him again and then kicked him out the window. He screamed as he fell.
Sara was putting her foot out the window, ready to jump down after him, but Ben came up from behind her and pulled her back by her hair.
“Not this time, bitch.”
She screamed, making a hoarse noise that sounded more like an animals dying howl than anything remotely human.
He pulled her head back and smashed it into the window. Shattering the rest of the glass and cutting her face up in the same movement. Behind them the room filled with the dead that came into the home through the garage. They stayed back as if they were there only to bare witness.
“Let’s watch,” Ben said as he leaned out the window with Sarah, whom was now barely conscious.
The dead outside had gotten Jim when he fell to the ground. He landed on his leg, his femur rupturing the skin upon impact. His screams were drowned out as the dead things tore out his throat and his mouth filled with his own blood.
Ben watched eagerly as the dead things moved effectively over the body. Their bony fingers digging through the skin to get to the choice cuts. In minutes they had opened his stomach cavity and pulled out an endless buffet of intestines. The blood was so bright and his fatty tissue was a nasty yellow color that adorned many of the fingers of the dead as they pulled through it to get to his organs.
Several of the deaders worked on Jim’s head and face, pulling out his eyeballs and tongue. One ate his nose as another chewed off bits of his cheek. Some of them bit at his head as two others pulled small clumps of brain from his ocular cavities.
By the time Jim’s blood ran cold he had become one of the dead things. He was a ravaged mess of remains with no eyes. His guts poured out further once he sat up. The dead things moved away from him sensing he was now one of them. The lower part of his ribcage was visible and chunks of brain dropped out of his eye sockets. He shambled closer to what was his home and began to follow the dead as they sought a way in.
“Isn’t that beautiful?”
Sarah wept. She knew she was as good as dead. She willed herself to die right there. She tried to shut her mind off. No matter how hard she prayed. How much she cried. How desperately she wanted to die. How badly she wanted to lose her mind and not be aware of what was happening was of no consequence. She was there. Her sanity intact and the fear of the horrors that this sick bastard had in mind for her was burning like a torch in a catacomb.
25 ARE WE THERE YET?
(back to top)
Yussef began to whimper that he was hungry. Alexis urged him to hold on as long as he could.
“We need to get somewhere safer,” she insisted.
“There are some snacks in the back I believe,” Abdul said.
The other children then realized that they too were hungry, and in moments the SUV was full of crying hungry children.
“Stop crying!” Carrie yelled.
“Don’t yell at them like that,” Alexis scowled at her.
“Then keep those fucking brats quiet! It’s hard enough living like this without having to deal with them.”
“You’re way out of line, bitch, and if you keep it up you won’t have to worry about the friggin’ zombies because I’ll tear your throat out by myself.”
Chris started to cry again, and then so did Leela. The yelling scared them and confused them.
Carrie turned to her, “I’d like to see you try you skinny little--”
Abdul backhanded Carrie across the face, “That is enough. Shut up or get out. When we stop you can see about riding with the others.”
“Bastard,” she hissed, pressing a hand to her face, “how dare you.”
“Stop it!” Stacey yelled, almost at tears herself. She sounded as if she’d yelled at a man hitting a woman before.
He glared at her, “Shall I pull over?”
She said nothing more.
Alexis had never seen a woman get smacked by a man like that, at least not in real life, and it shocked her. Carrie deserved it, and if Abdul hadn’t done it Alexis was prepared to do worse. It must’ve shocked the children too; because they had quieted down a bit since it happened.
Stacey sat quietly, looking at Abdul in a different light. Her father and mother fought all the time. Her father had hit her mother a few times, her as well, but only when they fought. Most of the time they were happy. She missed her mother and father, even if her father was mean sometimes.
Alexis shifted the children aside and rummaged through the supplies in the back till she found some snacks for the kids to munch on. What she found was far from a meal, but it was enough to turn their crying into munching.
“Chew slowly and take your time eating, okay?”
They nodded in unison, but seemed to inhale the food.
“Think we’ll be stopping soon?”
“I doubt it. We’ve been moving too well to stop. I know it’s uncomfortable for all of us now, but the longer we can do this for, hopefully the better we’ll be in the long run.”
“Agreed, but try telling them that,” Alexis said.
“Just stay strong, we’re closing in on the state lines and night is drawing closer. They’ll want to stop and set up camp. I think we’d all agree it’s a bit too dangerous driving these roads at night with all the debris on it.”
“Too bad this truck doesn’t have a DVD player so I can keep them distracted. I think that would help a ton.”
“I bet it would. When we set up camp later maybe we can give them something to do. Collect sticks or something. A task could prove distracting.”
“That sounds like a blast.”
“It would get them moving, and give them something to do.”
“I know, just saying is all.”
***
“Jon, now that you’re up, let’s talk about how we’re going to cross the state line.”
“Well, Scott,” he scratched his head, “I didn’t think that far ahead, at least not with any specifics other than north.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me. That was the entirety of your plan? We went a long with this out of the hope you knew where you were going, that there was an idea, a destination, a fucking clue.”
“Easy man, I had some vague ideas, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t see any easy way. Or a clear way to get across considering how shitty the roads have been. I was thinking maybe we could take 287 into New York, or Connecticut, or maybe find a boat and cross the Hudson, you know, fucking whatever presented itself.”
“Than you should’ve said that. You got me worked up now. So you want to head into New York, or shoot for Connecticut? 287 can take us to either or, actually we have to go through New York either way, but who knows what the hell that mess will look like.”
“Don’t care. Eddie suggested northeast, trying to stick to the coast. I like the sound of it, but can we even do it?”
“That would mean going into Connecticut, which gives us fewer options. The most direct way I think is 28
7 and onto the Tappan Zee bridge, unless we can find a ferry or boat to cross the Hudson. I’d rather keep our vehicles, though, but taking the bridge just sounds like a nightmare. I doubt we’d even be able to get to it.”
“Let’s give it a shot at least. Even if we can’t do it we can still follow the Hudson up and go up and around. Head over to Palisades Park and take 87 into Albany.”
“Maybe we can camp out in the park for a day and rest up,” Judy suggested.
“I’m down for that. Might be a good place to scavenge for supplies. They have a boat dock there too, I think. It’s starting to sound better than the bridge now.”
“Yeah, but we should stay focused. We have a destination in mind, anything else is a distraction. The sooner we can get someplace safe, the sooner we can scavenge and stock up and fortify wherever we end up.”
“Then keep driving. Let’s see what the Tappan Zee has in store for us.”
“I hate bridges,” Judy said.
Dawn nodded in agreement, “yeah, me too.”
Janice thought about the bridge. She’d only been over it a handful of times and remembered how anxious she would get being on it. The lanes were narrow and everyone seemed to speed over it. She wondered if they would chance walking over it if they couldn’t get by in the vehicles. The bridge could be a good place to die.
She pictured herself walking over it, falling further behind from the others—she was older after all, who would think anything of it. The lanes were narrow and sure to be full of cars and trucks, maybe even debris. They would get close to the peak of the bridge. The group would splinter off. There would be too many distractions and everyone be looking forward rather than behind. Then maybe a deader would lurch out of a truck, or crawl from underneath one and grab her. She would scream, but she wouldn’t do anything to stop it, she wouldn’t even move. Just close her eyes and let the fucker have at her. Goodbye cruel world, hello paradise.
26 HEART OF THE MATTER
(back to top)
Sarah fought Ben with all she had, but what she had left wasn’t much. Ben didn’t so much as flinch with any of the blows Sarah was landing on his face. Her knuckles reddened, her wrist ached, and her strength waned. Ben laughed it off and threw her onto the bed with such force she smacked into the headboard.
The dead things stood in the room almost motionlessly, swaying in place gently.
Ben lunged on top of her and she screamed louder than she ever thought possible. It was useless, futile, and Ben knew it. He smiled a sickly grin. His lips were all ready chapping and shriveling. He was starting to look dead, which made any expression on his face infinitely more disturbing and unnatural.
“Come here sweetheart.”
“Fuck you!”
“How’s this sound. If you go along with this and act like you want it I’ll be kind and kill you quickly. If you want to fight me and buck me the whole time, I’m gonna take my time. I’ll kill you so slowly that you’ll wish you were never fuckin’ born.”
“I won’t give in to you.”
“That’s your choice, but know this: it doesn’t fuckin’ matter. I offered you mercy but if you want to suffer, then suffer you will.”
He grabbed her by the hair. And began to lick at her neck. His tongue was dry and felt like sandpaper. His breath smelled like rot and when he went in to kiss her she bit his lip and tore a chunk of it off.
Ben didn’t scream in pain. He only smiled. “I knew I liked you for a reason, girly.”
She chewed the lip; hoping whatever kept him alive would kill her before he did.
The realization hit him almost immediately.
“You cunt! Give me that back!”
He grabbed her face, prying open her mouth, but the bitch already swallowed the two-inch flap of his lip.
“Fuckin’ a girly. Guess you found a way of dying quicker, eh?”
Ben felt deflated, and Sarah almost triumphant.
“Still don’t mean shit. I’m gonna make it hurt till yer one of us.”
Then he punched her in the face, drawing blood and sending a jolt of pain across her teeth. He pulled out a knife and flipped it open. It was no bigger than the size of his palm, but it looked sharp, and when he held it up to his face and smiled it might as well have been a chainsaw.
He grabbed her by the throat and savagely cut her clothes off. Scraping, gouging, and slicing her with the knife as he did so. The more she fought the harder he hit her back. She was losing steam. The energy to fight back was depleting. Was it the dead flesh in her guts working it’s magic? She didn’t know, she didn’t really care. She just wanted it over, and maybe if he hit her enough times she’d black out. So, she kicked him and hit him again. Enraging him. He gave her what she wanted and punched her again. This time breaking her nose and making her two front teeth loose and numb.
She wanted to feel numb all over. She found the strength to fight more. Ben knocked her two front teeth down her throat and made her whole mouth numb. She gagged and screamed but she still didn’t pass out from the pain.
Ben began to pull his pants down. He willed himself to get hard, but failed miserably. He tried to push it in soft, but with the bitch squirming the way she was it would be impossible. He punched her several times. The face, the body, her thighs and her groin. His blows felt hard every time. Never softer, always the same intensity. He fought the urge to stab her and be done with it. He wanted to stretch it out. To really make it agonizing. Then he thought of something else he could do with the knife. He held it alongside his dead dick and began to ease it into her.
Her screams were unlike any he’d heard before. The pain took her breath away. Each thrust was a new hell and a new level of pain she’d never thought possible. It didn’t take long before she finally passed out from it, but when she awoke the pain began again.
The dead filled the room. Mumbling nothings, wanting to groan and grunt, to pull and prod at the wound that was Sarah’s womanhood. They wanted to rend her flesh and eat her innards. Pluck out her eyes and tear her throat out, but some force kept them at bay.
Ben ran the knife all along her body, wiping the vaginal blood all over her face. She whimpered, defeated, and dying slowly like a tiny white mouse in a snake’s cage.
The knife went in deep. Agony atop agony. The dead thing that was Ben only seemed to smile wider. He could feel her slipping away from him, though. Whatever dark shit was in his blood was in hers and it was starting to take shape. He could see it like an aura, smell it, and taste it in her blood.
She would be one of the dead, not like him though, like the others.
She felt it too. A burning inside that was different from the physical hell she’d been in. It felt like every nerve ending was on fire. Like her guts were turning inside out. She couldn’t wait to be done with all of this. There could be nothing worse, could there?
Ben straddled her. Sitting on her stomach. He lifted the small knife high. Sarah looked at him, barely able to focus, and didn’t seem to care anymore about the pain and the promise of more. It was almost done. All of it.
He brought the knife down into her chest—between her breasts. He began to cut the flesh out. Digging in deep with the knife, prying the muscle from the bone. Her screams were nothing more than a reaction, muddled, and distorted. Her lungs were filling with blood and he was stuffing the skin and sinew into her mouth. He violently began to stick her with the knife, making a hole in her chest. Her sternum was proving to be laborsome for the small knife but he almost had it. Then after several more relentless blows he pulled her heart out and shoved it into her mostly toothless mouth, but she was already too dead to notice.
Moments later her eyes opened, but Sarah was gone and whatever remained, started eating her heart.
27 JUST THE WIND
(back to top)
Full dark was quickly falling on New Haven and Walter, Jeff and Barbara were heading back home with a bed full of looted supplies. Walter was surprised by how much they were able to pull together. H
e also knew, and his children agreed, that there was a lot more that they could gather up if they picked up tomorrow where they left off today.
Jeff wanted to see how the day went, though. He didn’t want to be away for a full day again, but after they inventoried what they had found and calculated how long it would last he might think differently. He just hoped things had gone smoothly at home. They hadn’t seen many deaders in the neighborhood, but there were a few. They avoided confronting them when possible, but that had rarely worked. They always seemed to home in on them.
“Shit, I just remembered. We were going to burn the bodies tomorrow.”
“That we were. Shouldn’t take us all day though. Hopefully a few hours—gonna stink to high heavens.”
“I didn’t even think about the stink. I’m going to want to shower.”
“We might as well. Get everyone to shower up tomorrow. Then we can refill all the water supplies. Then rest up a bit I guess. My back will be useless come midday.”
“You still want to do the fence?” Barbara asked.
“Yeah, that I do, maybe we can do a small run day after tomorrow. Hit a few houses on the way to Gupp’s see if there’s anything left we can get from there. I doubt too many people were picking up fencing posts and all that, if they even carried it.”
“We can always rip off someone else’s fence too.”
“Yeah, but that would be a lot more work. Let’s just hope they stocked something we can use.”
They pulled up to the house, making sure not to run over the bodies strewn about the grounds, and from the outside all was dark. From a distance you could barely see it, only as you got closer and the moonlight highlighted the shape of the home did you know it was a home and not some abandoned house on an unkempt bit of property. It was disturbing how uninviting a home was without a porchlight on outside and some semblance of activity on the inside.