“The community center, then.”
“What?” Rob said.
“The community center. I bet hardly anyone was there when this all… You know. It’s not as big as the school, but it’s big enough for all of us.”
“So we sleep in a gym?” Rachel said.
“There’s more than just a gym there.” Will’s whole family had a season pass, and they’d gone there often, but Will didn’t want to think about that. “There’s conference rooms and a theater. There’s even a pool.”
“We could go swimming,” Kalli said.
“I don’t think so,” Kevin replied. “If the water is still there, it’d be nasty. And we don’t know if the place is empty.”
“I was joking,” Kalli said, not unkindly.
“The pool might actually be a good idea,” Hannah said. “Especially if it’s empty. Nothing could possibly find us, unless they were in there with us. We’d be underground, surrounded by concrete.”
“Sounds real comfortable,” Rachel said.
“They might find us if we’re loud, too,” Kevin said. Rachel hit his shoulder, but he laughed.
“So how do we get there?” Rob asked after a while.
“I can get us there,” Will said.
“Or you could just tell me how we get there.”
“Well, the fastest way would be through this field. We could cut across the track and hop the fence. There’s a little wooded area, but it’s only a few acres, and then we’ll be right on the street the community center is on.”
“Bad idea,” Rob said.
“What do you mean?” Jeremy asked.
“Someone could get hurt hopping the fence. Besides, the grass is really high. There might be zombies in there.”
“What is this, Jurassic Park?” Alex said.
“Dude,” Ed said, “they aren’t even smart enough to change their clothes, why would they be smart enough to hide in the grass?”
“God, Ed,” Rob said. “The zombies are still smarter than you. I didn’t say they’d be hiding, just that they might be there.”
“They’d have to be laying down.”
“They could be.”
“Hey guys, shut up,” Steven said. He stopped walking. The others did the same.
Ahead, under a street light, a group was slowly crossing the street.
“Think they’re zombies?” Rachel said. She still wasn’t much quieter than before.
“What are they doing?” Kalli asked.
The group made little noise. They were tugging and pulling at someone even quieter. The loose clothing suggested they were all zombies, even the one in the middle of the struggle. The middle one got pushed to the ground and made a feeble attempt to get up, failed, then just lay there.
“It looks tired, maybe sick,” Kevin said.
The others began to tear into the zombie on the ground, who let out a shriek that pierced the night. Even in the low light, the blood was unmistakable, as was a long string of entrails silhouetted against the streetlight beyond. Rachel put her hands over her mouth, and the others looked away.
“They eat their weak,” Rob said. “That explains why there are still so many around.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this on our outings,” Steven said.
“Yeah,” Kevin replied, “but we weren’t exactly looking.”
“I think crossing the field is probably the way to go,” Jeremy said.
“Yeah,” Rob said. “We should cross the field.”
“Uuuhhhh.”
Everyone turned. A zombie was approaching them from across the street. Whether it was with the group farther off (or if the zombies assigned themselves to groups at all) nobody could say.
“Careful, guys,” Steven said. “We need to take it out. And quietly. Stay back.” He raised his gun, then looked at it for a second. “Kevin, can you do it? They’ll hear the gun.”
“Yeah,” Kevin said. He readied his cleaver.
Will heard Steven shout “Rob, no!” and then things became a blur.
Rob lurched forward with the sword and plunged it into the zombie’s side. The zombie screamed, then ripped the sword from Rob’s grip. With the sword still in its side, it grabbed Rob. The zombies down the street heard the shriek and started toward them. One of the girls screamed, or maybe it was one of the boys, Will wasn’t sure.
Kevin jumped forward with his cleaver ready, but instead of attacking the zombie, he pulled Rob’s arm free, shoving him away from the zombie. Not one second later, the zombie lunged teeth-first and bit into Kevin’s shoulder, where Rob’s was a second before. Kevin screamed and Rachel screamed, and she was closest to the zombie, but hadn’t brought a weapon.
“Fuck!” Steven said. He fired at the oncoming zombies. Kevin was already hacking away at the zombie biting him, and after a moment it was dead, but he was bitten and bleeding. The other kids were readying their weapons, trying to figure out whether they should take the zombies on or run for the field.
“Rob, move!” Hannah said. Rob was standing in the middle of the road, right in the glow of a streetlight, wide-eyed, defenseless. The zombies were closing on him. There were tears in his eyes, and he couldn’t rip them away from Kevin, who collapsed.
Will moved, but it was more like his body was moving for him. He threw his butcher knife and it sank into a zombie’s chest, and that zombie fell to the ground. The zombie directly behind it tripped and fell as well. Will stopped at the first zombie’s corpse, reached down, and pulled on the hilt of Rob’s sword, but it was stuck. He put a foot on the zombie’s chest and pulled again, freeing the sword, then swung at the next zombie to arrive, striking the blade across the zombie’s face. It shrieked with what looked like two mouths and spun to the ground.
Sharon smashed a zombie’s head in with her shovel, Jeremy was realizing his pocket knife was nearly useless, Ed’s broom handle was stuck in a zombie’s neck and he was trying to get it out. Gladys was straddling a zombie, stabbing it with her knife over and over again, though Will couldn’t tell if the zombie was still alive.
“Guys, get out of here!” Kevin said. He was on his knees, panting. He noticed Will. “Willie, take this.” Kevin held out his cleaver.
The words rang in Will’s head, but they registered like a foreign language, and his mind was just catching up with the blood covering him and the screams and how dark it was, and for a second he stood there. Then he snapped out of it and took Kevin’s cleaver in one hand and held the sword in the other.
“Come on, guys!” Rob said. He darted into the field.
“I’m not going to leave you, man,” Steven said. He fired at another zombie.
“We both know you have to,” Kevin said. He struggled to his feet, then took a few steps away from the zombies. He stumbled, but got back up and started moving again. “Go, get out, I’ll distract them!”
Most of the zombies were rushing after Kevin, and then Will’s feet were moving toward the field. Almost everyone else was ahead of him, he could see their silhouettes against the deep purple sky, parting the grass like waves.
****
When Will reached the fence, there were two people over it and three on it. His side and legs pulsed with pain and his friends were just dark blobs, and no one was making any noise except for heavy breathing. Will stopped before the fence, wondering how in the world he was going to climb over with a cleaver and a sword. He didn’t want to leave either behind, since he wasn’t sure how many weapons or even people they’d lost before the field.
Kalli dropped to the ground ahead of him, on the other side of the fence. “Slide it under,” she said, like she had read his thoughts. Will bent down and poked the sword under the fence, and Kalli helped him slide it to the other side, followed by the cleaver. “Come on.”
Will started up the fence. Someone else had already landed and was heading through the woods, but Kalli waited for him, handed him his things as soon as he dropped, and then they started through the trees together.
They emerged below a bright white streetlight. The street was clean; it had been paved and almost never used afterward, and the sidewalks and roads were free of garbage. Will finally got a good look at the survivors.
Rachel was on the ground throwing up, with Gladys holding her hair out of the way. Steven sat on the curb, crying softly. Alex and Hannah were wrapped in each other’s arms, and Ed was trying to wipe the pointy end of his broom handle on the grass.
“Will!” Jeremy said. He gave Will a hug. “I thought we’d lost you back there.”
“Who all made it?” Will asked.
“Everyone but Kevin,” Alex said. He shook his head. “I dropped my rake back there. It was slowing me down. Sorry, guys.”
“It’s fine,” Steven said. “We’d rather have you than a rake.”
“We should see who still has their weapons,” Rob said. He looked dazed.
“I have these.” Will held up the sword and cleaver. Rob reached out, and Will offered him the sword, but he moved past it and took the cleaver.
“Keep it,” he said. “I don’t want that anymore.”
“I lost my knife,” Gladys said. Rachel was sitting now, crying and rubbing her arms. Gladys stood by her. “I think I left it in that zombie’s chest.”
“Did anyone else get bit?” Steven asked, standing up. Everyone shook their heads.
“Where’s this community center of yours?” Sharon said.
“It’s just down this street,” Will replied. He pointed to the dark road ahead of them.
“Let’s get moving,” Steven said.
They spoke in whispers if they spoke at all, and everyone looked around a lot as they walked.
“Hey,” Will said to Kalli. She looked back at him. “Thanks for helping me. With my stuff, I mean. I don’t know how I got so far behind.”
“You were busy killing zombies,” Kalli said. She smiled. “No problem. You’d have done the same for me, anyway.”
“I hope so.”
Kalli laughed. “I hope so, too.”
The community center had a large parking lot, and it was mostly empty. The building was three stories and had a lot of big glass windows, but the lights were all off inside.
“How could the power be out?” Ed asked. “The streetlights are all on.”
“The streetlights are all solar,” Will said.
“We should get our flashlights ready,” Jeremy said.
A few of them reached into their bags and got flashlights out. Jeremy’s was a manual light, and he shook it back and forth as he walked. Alex laughed at the motion.
“Shut up,” Jeremy said, but he was smiling, and Will smiled despite how hard he tried not to.
The community center was empty. There was a body in the lobby, but it was on the far end, and the group turned down the hall and headed toward the pool. They passed through a locker room with several rows of showers, and Rob stopped walking.
“What’s up?” Steven asked.
“Haven’t had a real shower in years,” Rob said. “Just boiled water and soap.”
“A place like this probably has a huge water tank,” Rachel said. “There might be some left over.”
“If there is, we should save it for drinking,” Ed said.
“We’re carrying all the water we can right now,” Sharon replied. “Whatever’s in that tank might last us a few days, then we’d have to move again anyway.”
“We don’t even know if they work,” Steven said. “We can try them in the morning. Come on, guys.”
They passed a kiddie pool that had no water in it and went through a door into the main pool room. The pool was empty, and there were no people or zombies or bodies around, just a huge pit of concrete that declined until it was several feet deep.
“Guess this is where we set up camp for the night,” Steven said.
“We should’ve brought our pillows,” Ed said.
“Use each other as much as you can,” Jeremy replied. “Or use clothes, or a bag.”
“Won’t be comfortable,” Steven said. He walked along the edge of the pool until it was a few feet deep, then hopped down into it and threw his bag on the ground. “But it’ll be safe enough.” He lay down with his head on his bag and closed his eyes, apparently done being the leader for the moment, and nobody blamed him.
The others started to lay out their things and lie down, a few people taking Jeremy’s advice and using each other as pillows. Hannah rested her head on Alex’s stomach, and Rachel rested her head on Gladys’s. Will set his bag down and put his head on it. It was uncomfortable, as was the concrete below. But they were surrounded by walls on all sides, and besides a few whispers, all was quiet. Will wondered how long it would take him to fall asleep, but he didn’t wonder for long.
24
In Another Person’s Skin
Randolph looked around. There were more people than he would have liked. They already outnumbered the Church.
They had gathered in a laundromat, since it was one of the few buildings within the barricades that could hold them all. The one they called Layne but Randolph knew as The Great Evil One stood on top of a washer-dryer set at the back of the room, and everyone was talking quietly. Layne was talking to someone on the floor just below him, but the meeting would begin soon.
“Hey,” someone said. “Randy, right?”
He was still trying to get used to that name. He turned and saw the shorter of the two girls who had let him in, the one with her hair just over a buzz cut.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, I forget your name.”
“Keely.”
“Of course.” Randy turned back toward the front of the room.
“Are you doing all right here so far? Finding everything you need?”
She sure was persistent. “Oh yes.” Randy stared at Layne, the Great Evil One, so very close now. “I think I’m finding everything just fine.”
“Good. Let us know if you need anything.”
Randy didn’t respond, and after a minute the girl finally left him alone.
The Great Evil One straightened himself and looked into the crowd. He didn’t even have to silence them, they just saw that he wanted to speak and became silent. How dangerous.
“First off, I’d like to welcome you all to New Los Angeles.”
A short round of applause rolled across the laundromat. Randy’s hands were still.
“I’m sure you’ve all noticed we’re getting a little full here. It’s probably time we start expanding. Anyone who can help, well, we’d really appreciate it. For the moment, we need people with certain skills, I think.”
The crowd murmured. Randy was paying close attention.
“Does anyone have any experience with heavy machinery? Like cranes, backhoes, bulldozers?”
“Right here,” someone said.
“Get his name,” Layne said to a black man standing at the front. “I think this is a bit of a stretch, but does anyone know how to work with concrete?”
“I do,” a man near Randy said. There were three children standing near him. “Name’s Robert.”
“Great, that’s good.”
Randy wondered what these people could possibly need concrete for.
“Any doctors?”
A woman raised her hand. “Doctor Jenny Hyde.”
The Great Evil One looked so pleased, it made Randy sick.
“This might seem like an odd question, but has anyone heard from a courier named Georgie? Our own guy says he was expected out in the Midwest but never showed up.”
Murmurs and whispers, but no answers. Layne looked sad. Good, Randy thought. Suffer.
The meeting went on for a while, and then most of the people were dismissed. The ones Layne had called out gathered near the front. As people filed out, Layne spoke up again.
“Oh, we also want anyone who’s willing to do some work. Heavy lifting, general defense, whatever you’re willing to contribute.”
Randy turned to leave with the others, but then he heard a voice. “Hey, do
you want to help?”
If he said ‘no’ it might look strange, and he couldn’t afford that. Adam had told him to become one of them, had told him some of the things they might require of him. In the face of some, doing a little bit of work was nothing. Randy turned around to face the shrinking group of people who remained in the laundromat. The one who had just spoken to him was the other woman who had let him in. She was standing there, smiling.
“Sure,” Randy said. “What do you need me to do?”
“There’s a construction site nearby. A few guys are going out with some fuel to bring the heavy machinery back. They need some people to help with defense.”
For a moment Randy’s whole world froze.
“You okay?”
“Of course,” Randy said. He followed her and joined the group.
“This is Randy. He’s willing to help with defense.”
“Great,” Layne said. “Thanks.” Randy forced a smile. “This is Robert. He’s going to be leading our construction operations. This is Garrett and this is Vince, they’ll be helping with driving.”
“A lot of these machines don’t go very fast,” Robert said. “We’ll want at least one passenger with a gun in each.”
Of all the jobs they could’ve given him… But maybe they wouldn’t run into any greater humans. Randy prayed they wouldn’t.
“We’ll want three or four drivers, so four passengers,” Garrett said. “Robert and Vincent and I can drive.”
“I can drive,” Randy said. It might get him out of killing greater humans.
“Katie should probably drive, actually,” Keely said.
“Why?”
“She’s pregnant. I’ll be her passenger.” Randy clenched his fists until his knuckles popped.
“You sure you don’t want to stay behind?” Layne asked.
“We’re sure,” Katie said.
“Are you going?” Randy asked Layne. He thought of how good it would be for the Great Evil One to suffer an accident on a mission.
“I’m going to be waiting at the barricade,” Layne replied. “For you guys and for other survivors. People are still showing up.”
“We have two more volunteers,” Vincent said. He looked at a notebook he was holding. “Dom and Harry.”
Zombiemandias (Book 2): In the Year of Our Death Page 12