by TW Brown
Jo twirled her baseball bat like a majorette’s baton, then she brought it down on the zombie’s head with a crack. The zombie moaned, drooled, and crumpled slowly to the ground.
“If it were fresher I would eat it, but it looks like it might have already gone bad,” Thomas said, smirking. He knelt down beside the lone zombie and prodded it.
Somewhere in its decrepit, bat-squished brain, the zombie thought about trying to swat him away, but what came out was a moan and a twitch of his middle finger. The two young Americans, although not related, and not really “together,” looked remarkably similar, which probably had more to do with the matching, all-over black leather than anything else. It looked cliché, but it would delay a zombie gnawing at their arms. At least that was the theory.
“That’s sick,” Jo said. “It’s cannibalism and—”
Thomas held up a finger. Jo paused, and Thomas took his axe in hand and with one controlled swing, parted the zombie’s head from its body.
“It’s only cannibalism if they’re human, which they are not. They are zombies. It’s totally different,” Thomas said primly as he began searching what was left of the pockets in the zombie’s ragged, hole-ridden pants.
“Tell me, if you are a cannibal, what do you eat?” Jo asked expectantly.
Thomas looked at her as though she were stupid; the result was that they were giving each other nearly identical looks that said, Think, you dipshit.
“You eat humans,” Thomas said. “Duh.” He flipped the zombie over and checked the front pockets.
“Yes,” continued Jo. “But what kind of humans?”
“Uh, dead ones?”
“Very good,” Jo continued in her best kindergarten teacher voice. “And zombies are…?”
Thomas stopped searching the zombie’s pockets. “Ah, you may have a point there.”
Jo gave him a smile and nodded. After a moment of half-hearted introspection, Thomas continued searching the zombie’s pockets. He always did when they downed one, but what he was looking for he was never quite sure. Sometimes they found a lighter or cigarettes or bullets, all of which Thomas accepted into his arsenal. Jo didn’t like touching them. They seemed taboo, tainted somehow; a little like grave-robbing, but also more sinister and almost cursed. Sometimes, if they were unlucky, they came across a wallet. Money wasn’t worth much, and ID cards were just depressing.
Thomas stopped searching again and sighed. “What?” Jo asked.
He turned to look at her, sincere, which was rare for him. “You know I’d never really eat a zombie, right?”
Jo smiled. “Yeah, I know.”
“Good, I’m just making sure. Sometimes you take things so seriously that I can’t tell if you know I’m joking.”
“I know,” Jo said. “I just don’t think you’re funny.”
Thomas smiled and chuckled to himself. He looked down at the zombie. “He’s clean.”
***
Jo and Thomas had both been abroad in Rome when the epidemic struck. It was a week before the riots started. Suddenly, people were scrambling to get to airports and train stations that weren’t letting them go anywhere. Then the looting started. People who figured they’d been forgotten by the world and left to survive on their own started hoarding canned goods and frozen dinners. When scientists started hypothesizing that the epidemic or virus or whatever it was might be spreading through water, people died trying to get their hands on the bottled stuff.
Three people to be exact.
The two American co-eds had met when Thomas had tried to break into the convenience store in which Jo had barricaded herself; food-stuffs, energy drinks, loaded Colt .45, and all. She’d almost shot him when she thought he might be a zombie, and then again when she’d found out he was just an idiot and not the ridiculously intelligent and yet impossibly sexy Italian man she’d expected to come rescue her.
***
They’d been walking all day through the Italian countryside, each carrying a heavy hiking backpack, heading for Torino. At first they had been traveling by car—a little red Volkswagen that looked like shit and ran like shit—and when it broke down in the middle of the road, they decided to walk until they could find another, better car to steal. That had been nearly two hours of uninterrupted walking ago. They’d thought that it would be easy to find the car of a zombie who no longer had a use for it now; but it turned out that people had deserted their homes not because of their newfound craving for flesh, but to escape.
But Thomas wasn’t complaining; the fresh air and the sun felt good on his arms after being wrapped up like emo sausages in the black leather jacket, which was now tied around his waist. Jo had refused to take hers off (just in case) and had consequently been baking under the Italian summer sun all day.
“We should probably stop before dark and find someplace safe to stay,” Thomas said, pausing to turn and look at Jo, who was a few yards behind him. The sun was still relatively bright, and he had to squint at her to see her properly. He shaded his face with one dirty hand and smiled at her. He knew he was trying a little too hard; it occurred to him that he was a little like an over-eager puppy wagging his tail and waiting for her to throw him a bone.
“We don’t need a place to stay. We shouldn’t stay anywhere, because nowhere is safe. We should find another car, and then we should take turns sleeping and driving all night,” Jo snapped. She was tired, her feet were sore, and she couldn’t help but feel as though all of this were Thomas’s fault. He had insisted the red Volkswagen was “quaint.” Sure, quaint…and ever so defunct. She marched past him, boots crunching on the gravel road.
“Well,” Thomas said, concerned, “I think you need rest, real rest, like in a bed.”
“Please,” Jo said, “you couldn’t get me in bed if you were the last man on Earth.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Thomas frowned.
Jo snorted. “Right, sure. Anyways, don’t tempt me, I want nothing more than to get inside someone’s cozy Italian house and sleep in someone’s still unmade bed, but we can’t. First of all, that’s even more valuable time, and we’ve already wasted enough by walking today; and second…are you at all familiar with horror movies?”
“I watch horror movies, if that’s what you mean.” Thomas shrugged.
“Yeah, well, you know the clichés: if you have sex, you’re dead; if you go to investigate a sound, you’re dead; and if you fall asleep next to the window of a deserted Italian villa, inevitably the zombies come through the window and eat you. We can’t afford to be stupid, and we can’t afford to relax.” With those words, Jo collapsed. It was as if she tripped and then her legs just crumpled under her body weight. Almost as if they felt the momentary pause of her stumble and wanted more.
“Jo, oh my God,” Thomas said, sprinting to catch up to her. “Are you okay?” He crouched down beside her.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I just tripped or something.” Her face was pale, and she was sweating. Thomas put a hand to her forehead (something he’d always wanted to do to someone). It was clammy, the sweat cold.
“I think you’re dehydrated, and I’m not surprised. You spent the whole day crackling inside that jacket. Can you stand?” he asked, and held out a hand to help her up if she chose to take it. Uncharacteristically, she didn’t argue.
“‘Dehydrated, that’s a big word for you,” Jo joked weakly.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let it go to my head,” Thomas said with a chuckle and, taking the hand she’d put in his and pulling it over his shoulder and wrapping his other arm confidently around her waist, pulled her to her feet.
***
No one was quite sure where the epidemic had started. Most people blamed France—because it’s always France’s fault—but it had spread to most of Europe without much resistance. Amongst the panic there had been reports that the United Kingdom was still, as of yet, untouched and safe. The United Nations was willing to relocate native Europeans to temporary homes in other countries and transport tou
rists home using the U.K. as a portal and screening zone. Trains had stopped running, and nearly every airport in the world had closed down faster than they could say “chemical warfare.” So everyone still in his or her right mind had immediately jumped in their cars and headed for the coast of France, risking infection to get to England.
Jo knew it wasn’t like in the horror movies, no matter how much it seemed like it. The zombies were slow, shuffling, and easily outrun and they traveled one by one, maybe in pairs, but never in the hordes of Hollywood. They could be slowed with a gun, stopped with a baseball bat, and killed with an axe. They were dead, and the only way to ensure that they stayed down was to cut the head off. It looked gruesome and badass in the movies. In real life—looking into a face that was still mostly human—it was just heart-wrenching.
***
Thomas glanced up at the gas station he’d spotted a minute ago and had set as their destination, and then turned his eyes back to the ground, determined. He hiked Jo up on his back. He was wearing his backpack on his front to accommodate her. She was hanging on to him, still conscious, but her grip around his neck was loose. Her head was nestled in the hollow of his neck and she, for her part, focused on holding on and the smell of his skin. She tried not to think about how thirsty she was or how stomach-rolling nauseous she was.
“Hang on, we’re close. When we reach that gas station we’re going to get you some bottled water and a package of Bugles,” he said.
She mumbled something about Italians not having Bugles.
“Whatever, we’ll get you the Italian equivalent to Bugles then.”
Thomas struggled along, sweating profusely, for another five minutes until they reached the gas station. He lowered Jo gently onto a bench in the shade of the gas station’s overhang.
“Stay here, I’m going to get you some water,” he said, holding her hand tightly for just a second, simply to reassure her.
“Ha, hurry back, I have somewhere I need to be,” she said quietly.
“Ah, I knew you had a sense of humor in there somewhere,” he said. They smiled at each other and Thomas turned to go. Jo’s fingers slid from his. She watched it happen in slow motion, as if it was someone else’s hand. Jo heard the crash of glass as Thomas used his axe to “unlock” the door to the convenience store. There was another sound from around the back of the convenience store, but it was so far away in Jo’s mind that it might as well have been made on the moon.
***
Thomas stepped through the broken door of the convenience store and looked left and right. It looked as though it had been looted pretty thoroughly before the owners had gotten a chance to lock up. Wrappers and crumbs were strewn about the place, some of the shelves were turned over, and every surface seemed shockingly empty and skeletal.
There didn’t seem to be anything useful left in the front room, but he hit a veritable treasure trove in the small office in the back. He found a few trampled looking energy bars, a squished looking box of pastries, and, much to his surprise, three oranges that previous looters had apparently thought themselves too good for.
“Arrrgh, scurvy averted, matey,” he said, smiling to himself and tossing the oranges into his bag.
He searched the office a little more, praying that he’d find bottled water, but knowing the chances were slim. He knew that was the first thing the looters would have grabbed. There was none in the refrigerator in the office, not a single bottle. Thomas cursed and slammed the refrigerator door shut. As he made his way back out to the front of the convenience store Thomas felt as though there was an increasing weight burrowing itself in his chest. He held his breath as he approached the nearly empty coolers and the weight increased.
“Please, please, please…” he muttered under his breath. After all they’d been through, Thomas wasn’t sure if he believed in God anymore, but he hoped that someone was listening, if only for Jo’s sake.
Thomas opened the cooler, hoping that, maybe upon closer inspection, they would prove to be less barren than they appeared. There were a few sugary energy drinks stuck farther back in the chute. They wouldn’t do much for Jo’s dehydration, but Thomas took them anyway. Other than that, the coolers were empty. Thomas crouched low to the ground, just to be sure. He didn’t see anything. Then, just as he was about to rise, he caught a distinct, bottle-shaped distortion of light in the far corner, right at the very bottom of the neighboring cooler.
Thomas crawled over on his knees and, reaching the last few feet, wrenched the glass door of the cooler open. He threw his hand into the far recesses of cooler and pulled out the full bottle of water. He looked at it triumphantly and kissed the side of it, victorious. Then he heard Jo scream and her gun bark.
***
Jo had closed her eyes for just a second. She was so tired, and the shade was cool and welcoming. It had taken her a moment to realize that the dull, rhythmic sound she was hearing was the sound of dragging footsteps. Her eyes snapped open, and she sat up; both actions brought on a horrible wave of nausea. The zombie had managed to close the gap between them to a measly ten feet without her even registering it. So close to it that she could see the blood and mucus coating its mouth and chin, and could smell the dirt and decay rising off of its festering body. Worst of all, she could see under and between the patches of matted hair and into its cold, ravenous eyes.
She’d screamed incoherently and pulled her .45. A quick push with her index finger, and she flipped the safety off. Jo wasn’t a very good shot with the handgun; it bucked every time she pulled the trigger, and she couldn’t keep it steady. But she didn’t need to aim at such a close range; she just needed to delay the creature until Thomas got there. If he gets here, she thought. The thought panicked her a little more, but the adrenaline cleared her vision, and she saw the world in high-definition, every minute detail. She pulled the trigger at even intervals, attempting to hit the zombie’s bloody shoulders and torso. A few of the bullets that found their mark jerked the zombie backwards, tripping it up a little. But for every one step it took backwards to steady itself, it took two more towards her.
In what felt like no time at all, the magazine was empty and the zombie was still advancing. Jo did the only thing she could think of; she threw the gun at the zombie’s head and slumped back on the bench. She reached a weak hand out and grasped the handle of her baseball bat loosely, but she knew she didn’t have the strength left to lift it.
***
It was as if time slowed down and Thomas sped up at the same time. He dropped the bottle of water he was holding, left his backpack on the floor, and snatched up his axe. He ran down the end aisle, the one unobstructed by debris, and, taking a running start, jumped through the broken glass door. He ducked his head and tucked his knees to his chest like a jump-roper doing ‘criss-cross applesauce’ as he hurtled through the jagged hole. He landed, and continued running without pausing for a second.
He saw Jo pull the trigger and the gun click empty. She looked at the gun, and then, without much hesitation, hurled it at the zombie’s head. With disconcerting speed, the zombie jerked its head out of the gun’s path. His eyes were almost completely white except for tiny, black, pinprick pupils, but they looked at Jo with a dark hunger…with triumph.
It was no more than a yard away from her now; had Jo and the zombie wanted to, they could have reached out and shaken hands. Thomas ran full-tilt at the zombie, and with a slurch, embedded the axe in its abdomen. Its skeletal jaw dropped open, and it let out a screech that sounded like metal grating against bone. Thomas didn’t give it time to do more than that before he pushed all of his weight behind the axe and, like a defensive lineman, ran the zombie away from Jo. Thomas wrenched the axe from the zombie’s stomach and swung it down towards the zombie’s head with every intention of cleaving him in two, from crown to sternum. But all he got was an arm.
The zombie’s whole arm falling violently to the ground was still impressive, but Thomas was horrified. The zombie had sidestepped him, not fast enough
to get away unscathed, but fast enough to survive. The zombie gave Thomas what he assumed was meant to be a smile, as if it were taunting him. Then it lurched forward with that same surprising speed and made a grab for Thomas’s bare arm with its remaining hand. Thomas dodged the zombie, hacking at its side like he would have a tree trunk, and the other arm fell. The armless zombie roared in aggravation and spun to face Thomas. The axe whirled to meet him, and this time his head popped off his body.
Thomas turned to look at Jo, panting. She was shaking, and dry sobs rasped out of her.
“Did you see that?” Thomas asked her, wide-eyed. She nodded. Thomas turned back to look at the zombie lying decapitated before him. “They’re getting faster.”
Jo sobbed again, bringing Thomas back from his thoughts. He dropped his axe next to the zombie and strode to her side. He pulled her close, and she rested her head under his chin. They sat like that for several minutes, just breathing.
***
Jo had called her mother once since the epidemic started. Her cell phone still worked, but finding a place to charge it was not high on her list of priorities. Her dad and her sister hadn’t been home, and she didn’t have time to wait for them to return. When her mother had asked if she was all right, Jo had said yes, and had told her that she was traveling with another American student. She complained that he hadn’t been much help, and that he wasn’t taking the crisis very seriously. She said that he was just a jock, a meathead. Jo’s mother was silently thankful that her daughter had someone strong and athletic looking out for her.
***
The sun was setting, and the tired and worried pair had found a house in which to stay the night. They’d broken in (more carefully than they had at the gas station) and then, once inside, barricaded the door. Afterwards, they’d picked one bedroom with an adjoining bathroom on the second floor (Jo reminded Thomas that zombies could break into a first-story window, grab you, and wrench you out into the night…or at least get one good bite in) and then barricaded themselves inside that room as well. Jo sat curled cat-like on the bed as Thomas buzzed around.