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Zombiemandias (Book 2): In the Year of Our Death

Page 26

by David J. Lovato


  The greater humans stormed the city. First they fell upon Adam’s church members, biting into them, the lesser humans screaming out and trying to shove them off. Adam didn’t turn to see if they followed the creed until the end; gunshots still rang out, but Adam stared at the sky.

  One by one they rushed past him, until no more were coming. Adam let his gaze fall to the empty city street ahead. Had they not seen him? Was he not good enough for them? Or maybe this was his punishment for being wrong.

  Adam stood, took one look back at the city, then ran out through the gate into the night.

  41

  Surrounded by Zombies

  “Where did they all come from?” Will asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Annie replied. “Jeremy was up first, he heard them.”

  “And if we can hear them, they can hear us,” Jeremy said. “So keep it down.”

  They had moved to the master bedroom. It was a bright day, but Will’s hands still shook whenever he peeled the curtain back to check and see if the zombies were still out there.

  “There’s maybe thirty of them,” he said. “They’re just standing there.”

  “It’s like they know something’s up,” Annie said. “But they don’t know where.”

  “They aren’t that smart. It’s gotta be a coincidence. They have to move on sometime.”

  “I guess this means we should head around the city after all,” Jeremy said.

  Will shook his head. “We weren’t expecting there to be no zombies. Besides, we don’t know where this group even came from. We should just wait for them to leave, then continue with the plan.”

  An hour passed and the crowd of zombies barely looked thinner. The three sat around on the bed, afraid to talk or move around much. Annie walked to the window and peeked out, then closed the curtain and frowned.

  “Guess I’ll go eat lunch,” Jeremy said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Will said. “You coming?”

  “Not hungry yet,” Annie said. Will and Jeremy headed downstairs.

  When they finished eating they checked outside again, but the zombies were still there. Most had moved to the yards a few houses up, but that was all the progress they’d made.

  Will and Jeremy returned to the master bedroom to find Annie softly playing her guitar. It wasn’t plugged in.

  “Think that’s safe?” Jeremy said.

  “You guys didn’t hear it, did you?”

  “Touché.”

  Will watched out the window as the zombies wandered aimlessly. They looked as weak and tired and bored as he was. Annie played a rhythm that had a back-and-forth sound to it, at the end of which it would escalate temporarily and then repeat.

  “I recognize that,” Will said. “I don’t remember what it’s called, though.”

  “‘Fairmount’ by La Dispute. I have my MP3 player, you know.”

  “Don’t want to risk having headphones in with zombies around.”

  Jeremy shuffled through a drawer and found a checkers set. It was missing a few pieces, but he and Will played anyway. That got boring quickly, and when Will checked the window, the sun was starting to slide down the sky.

  “We’re losing too much time.”

  “Think we can sneak out?” Jeremy asked.

  “No,” Will replied. “I don’t.”

  “At this rate they’ll leave without us,” Annie said. She was lying on the bed next to her guitar, with her feet dangling over the edge.

  “If they do, we can find them. It might take a while, but we have a lot of time.”

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said. “I just hope we aren’t here much longer. We only have enough water for a few days.”

  “If they’re still here when the sun is gone, we should try sneaking out.”

  “Cool. Any ideas on what we can do in the meantime?”

  “Circle jerk?” Annie said.

  Jeremy glared at her. “Can you ever be serious?”

  “I’d be far less entertaining if I was.”

  “Calm down, guys,” Will said. He left the window and sat on the bed, and Jeremy joined him.

  Sometime later, Will looked out the window and could see only a few zombies. The next time he looked, it was too dark to see anything. “I guess now is as good as ever,” he said.

  The three of them gathered their things and headed for the back door. Will looked out through the window. The sky was a quickly deepening blue, and the world was mostly dark shapes, but none of them were moving. He opened the door and stepped out, then looked both ways. The yard was empty.

  “Watch out for the door and the step.” Will walked around the screen door and stepped off of the porch, then headed for the side of the house. He looked around the corner, saw a zombie standing at the end of the side yard, and ducked back in. Jeremy and Annie were staring at him. He nodded and held up one finger, then pointed toward the other side of the house. The three of them headed that way, and Jeremy peeked around the corner, then turned to the others and shook his head.

  They rounded the corner, but up ahead a zombie emerged from around a row of bushes. Everyone ducked near the wall and held still. The zombie looked in their direction, but only stood there. After a while it finally went on. The trio waited for what seemed like a long time, and then Jeremy headed to the end of the side yard, looked out in front of the house, then crossed the small patch of yard and looked beyond the bushes. He motioned for the others to follow.

  Annie went ahead of Will. When he reached the end of the side yard, he looked toward the street. Most of the zombies were gone, but he could see at least one, and some shapes that might have been others. He returned his gaze ahead of him, where Jeremy was hugging the bushes, until he slipped around the row and disappeared. Annie went to do the same, but something caught her guitar bag and tore it open. Her amp clattered to the ground, and the thick bush tugged so hard that Annie fell down. Will winced and looked around. The shape he knew was a zombie was shambling toward the noise it had heard.

  Will helped Annie up. The guitar bag was still around her back, and she couldn’t get it off or get it out of the bushes. Annie pulled out her pocket knife and cut the strap, and then the zombie was on them.

  Will grabbed his sword, but barely had time to turn. He forced himself to keep his mouth shut as the zombie tackled him into the bush. Will dropped his sword, and he and the zombie bounced off and rolled along the side of the hedge, thorns scraping at them as they went.

  The zombie snapped at Will’s face, but he had it firmly by the shoulders. A second zombie was running along the front yard toward the commotion, while Jeremy was coming back around the bushes to help.

  Annie jammed her pocket knife through the back of the zombie’s head. It stopped biting at Will and fell, taking the knife with it. A third zombie emerged from behind the bushes and tackled Jeremy, and they both went down.

  The yard zombie panted in shrill grunts as it came, and Will struggled to get the dead one off of him or get his sword or do anything at all. Annie stood up, ripped her guitar free of its bag, and swung. It hit the approaching zombie in the face with a loud blaaaang, and the body of the guitar was ripped from the neck. The zombie might have shrieked had the guitar not hit its mouth, and when it opened it, blood and bits of teeth cascaded down its chin. Annie jammed the splintered neck of the guitar into the zombie’s throat. Blood sprayed out, and the zombie clutched at its neck and fell down. Annie let the guitar go.

  Will had made it to his feet and picked up his sword. He carried it to where the zombie was biting at Jeremy and swung it downward, stabbing through the zombie’s chest. The zombie screamed, and Will noticed how quiet the whole ordeal had been until then. He wrenched the sword free, Jeremy stood up, and the trio crept around the bushes and into the next house’s back yard.

  They crossed the grass not knowing if anything else had heard them. The next back yard had a fence, and they helped each other over it, and over the fence on the other side. Three yards in they decided to w
ait and see if anything had heard them, but the night was calm and quiet.

  “I think we’re okay,” Jeremy said. “Anyone get bitten?”

  “No,” Will said. “You?”

  “No.”

  “Annie?”

  Will could barely see, but he could tell she was crying. His heart sank into his chest, and she looked at him.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t get bitten, but—” She sobbed, then covered her mouth to keep it from happening again.

  “Your guitar,” Will said. Annie nodded and rubbed her eyes. Will held his arms open and she hugged him, and he hugged her back, though it still hurt to raise his arm. “It’ll be all right. We’re okay.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. It’s okay.”

  They took a few seconds to collect themselves, then headed through a gate and back into the front yards. They kept close to the houses, but they didn’t see any more zombies. Soon they felt comfortable enough to walk in the road.

  After a while Jeremy said, “Maybe we should rest for the night.”

  “We’ve lost so much time,” Annie replied.

  “But if we don’t stop we’ll wear ourselves out.”

  “We should travel at night from here on,” Will said. “We’ll be harder to spot.”

  “So will zombies. Plus, we won’t know how many are in the city if we can’t see them.”

  “Good point. I guess we should sleep at night and check the area by day, and sneak around whenever we get a chance.”

  “It’s taking too long,” Annie said. “They’ll leave without us. They might wait a day or two, but then they’ll go on.”

  “Right now let’s go a little farther. If we see zombies again in the morning we’ll know the city’s no good, and we can head straight for the intersection.”

  The street they were on came to the top of a hill overlooking the city. It was strange to see it pitch black, with black shapes blotting out a blacker sky. One in particular stood out, an amorphous pointed thing nearer to them than the horizon, but Will couldn’t make out what it was. He pushed it from his mind.

  “This house,” Will said. It was right at the top of the hill, and come morning would be the perfect vantage point. It didn’t take long for the three teens to check the house, set up their beds, and fall asleep.

  ****

  “I wonder how Will and the others are doing,” Kalli said.

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” Hannah replied.

  “Keep it down, guys,” Steven said. “I can hear you from over here.”

  “Sorry.”

  They had taken shelter in what used to be a restaurant. The food was long gone, along with the window whoever took it had shattered, but they hung a tarp over it to keep from being seen.

  Kalli, Hannah, Alex, and Gladys had settled on the ground near the corner booth. Alex had fallen asleep first, but the girls were awake. Rob had chosen to stay by Steven, Rachel, Ed, and Sharon behind the service bar. No noise came from over there, so they were probably all sleeping, or trying to.

  “It’s hard not to worry,” Kalli said. “He lied, you know. He was terrified, and he knows he’s in way more danger than we are.”

  “You keep saying ‘he’,” Hannah said. She smiled. “You know two other people left, right?”

  Kallie blushed. It was too dark to see.

  “I’m worried about him too,” Gladys said. “Them.”

  “You both,” Hannah said, and giggled. “I’m sure they’re fine. We’ll find out tomorrow when we get to the intersection.”

  “Not if they don’t show up,” Gladys said.

  “How long do we wait if they don’t?” Kalli asked.

  “If worse comes to worse, you could always stay behind and keep waiting,” Hannah said. “I mean, if we find a safe enough place to wait. But only as a last resort. We’ll all wait as long as we can.”

  “Yeah,” Kalli said. Something made of glass broke far away, on the streets, and that was their cue to go to sleep.

  ****

  “You slept in,” Annie said.

  Will hadn’t even realized he was awake. He sat up. “What time is it?”

  “Early enough,” Jeremy said. “Come look at this.”

  Will joined Jeremy and Annie at the window. The bedroom was on the top floor, and a window looked over the city. It was early, but Will could see the shape they had spotted the night before. The sun reflected off of a cone on top of a cylinder, which suggested the thing was made of metal. It was far away, but discernible, so it must’ve been the size of a car.

  “It’s a water tower,” Will said.

  Jeremy laughed. “It is. It’s a fucking water tower.”

  “Think it works?”

  “Look around,” Jeremy said. “You see any on any other buildings?”

  Will glanced at the surrounding buildings. He couldn’t make out much, but he definitely didn’t see anything like the water tower.

  “And look how clean it is,” Annie said. She pointed and made sure Will followed her gaze. “Look right there, that big satellite dish on the building next to it? It’s bent over. You can actually see the water tower bent too, but it’s been reinforced, see it?”

  “Yeah,” Will said. “Someone’s taking care of this thing.”

  “Or was,” Jeremy said. “They might still be there, they might not.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Will said. “How long do you think it’ll take to get there, a day?”

  Annie gently tilted Will’s head down, toward the yard. At least three zombies were visible, and as soon as one left his line of sight, another two entered. Will sighed.

  “We can’t keep waiting,” Jeremy said.

  “Not this again,” Annie replied. “You think we can take them all? There are three of us.”

  “There’ll be more when we reach the intersection.”

  “You think we can sprint all the way to the intersection? And what if the others aren’t there yet? Then what?”

  Jeremy sighed. “I don’t know. But I know they won’t be there if we wait another day.”

  “If only there was some way to signal the others,” Will said. “Have them come to us.”

  “Think they would?” Jeremy asked. “I mean, we might find some road flares, but even if they saw it, would they assume it’s us?”

  “I think they would,” Will said. “I’m not sure they could see it from wherever they are, though.”

  “Then let’s make sure they do,” Annie said. She stood up and left the room, and will and Jeremy looked at each other before joining her. They found her in the garage, opening a can of gas. She smelled it, winced, and screwed the lid back on. “Think there’s enough here?”

  “To do what?”

  “To burn the house down.”

  “Whoa,” Will said. “That’s awesome.”

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Yeah, that’ll work. This hill is probably visible for miles. If nothing else, all the zombies will see it and run to the fire.”

  “We douse the whole place,” Annie said. “Then we go somewhere else, next door or across the street or out in a car maybe. Then we chuck a match into the house and wait for the zombies to pass us by.”

  “We should’ve done it at night,” Will said. “Will this even work now?”

  “We can’t wait for tonight,” Jeremy said. “We’ll have to hope it does.”

  “There are two more gas cans,” Annie said. “If there’s anything in them, we’ll have enough to put a few cocktails together. If we run into trouble, we can just toss some fire and lure the zombies away.”

  “I think this’ll work,” Will said. Annie smiled.

  “Then grab a can and get to work.”

  ****

  They doused the upper and lower floors of the house, emptied the third gas can into five bottles, then stuffed them with rags. The three teens crouched by the front door.

  “There are seven out there, from what I can see,” Jeremy said. “A
s dangerous as it sounds, I think we should light the house now, the upper floors, then run out to that car, the one with the window rolled down.”

  Will looked out the window. Other cars were closer, but they had their windows up and might be locked.

  “Yeah, that’ll save us a Molotov for later anyway,” Annie said. “Good thinking, Jer.”

  Jeremy took a box of matches from his backpack. “Who’s fastest?”

  “I am,” Will said. He took the box from Jeremy and pulled a match from it. “As soon as I drop this, head for the car.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait for it to catch a little?” Annie asked.

  Will shook his head. “It’ll go up fast. Last thing we need is the house caving on us. Everyone ready?”

  The others nodded. Will stood by the stairs, looked up them at the morning light sliding across the upstairs hallway, and struck his match. He looked at his friends, and they nodded. Jeremy cracked the door open. Will dropped the match on the stairs, and the gasoline lit up. Fire rushed up the stairs and the lower walls, and some chased him as he headed for the front door, still open from Jeremy and Annie leaving.

  The light blinded him for a second, and then he saw a dark shape right by him. Will heard the zombie grunt, and he dove to the side, but the zombie ran right past him. It had seen the fire through the open door. Another followed soon after. Ahead, Annie dove in through the car’s window, unlocked the door, and opened it for Jeremy.

  Will climbed into the car right after. He shut the door, and the three of them climbed into the back seat. The window was electric and couldn’t be rolled up, so they were silent except for their breaths and beating hearts.

  The house went up quickly, and zombie after zombie dove into it. When the stream died down, the three teens climbed out of the car and started down the hill.

  “Turn up here,” Will said after a while. The hill gave them speed, but it also made them tired. “Then we go straight until we can’t anymore, turn righ—”

  “Gyahh!” something shouted as it dove out of an alley and onto Annie. Jeremy plunged his pocket knife into the back of the zombie’s head, and he and Will helped Annie up.

 

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